{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/09",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/09",
  "publishedAt": "2022-04-19T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Premonitions of a storm haunt the three nymphs lost in northern\nWindhold. The sun, which had abandoned them after their defeat of\nUnodha, returns now fleetingly. Clouds amass from the horizon to the\ndome of the sky, and rays of light shine fadingly through till the east\nis but a blurred region of rosy light.\n\nEven that is muffled further by thin banks of fog, but the warming air\ngradually banishes them to mere humidity. By the time Awelah awakes, it\nis only vaguely misty and visibility is fair.\n\nThe pale nymph lifts violet antennae and looks around. Then she bolts\nup.\n\nShe immediately rouses Ooliri, her tone whispered and suspicious as her\neyes dart around their camp, a firepit ringed by hammocks suspended on\nthe fungal columns of a metataxite. There's her and the gray nymph. Her\nfolding spear is already in her tarsi and she levels it at a sudden\nmotion in a wall of ferns. It's nothing but the wind. She turns, and has\nto stifle a jump at the appearance of the red nymph. Makuja flits into\nthe camp with ghostly steps. She got this close, and Awelah hadn't heard\nher, hadn't seen her.\n\nThe pale nymph jabs the spear at her once, then scowls when the red\nnymph doesn't dignify her threat with concern. Makuja has gathered\nmaterials --- tubers and fruiting bodies --- and sets about making\nbreakfast. The nymph moves like she's used to waking at dawn, used to\nmaking meals.\n\nOoliri eyes everything she's gathered with extended antennae and bright\neyes. \"This was thoughtful, Makuja.\"\n\nAwelah frowns. \"We need some meat to go with it,\" she says. \"I can hunt\na longicorn.\" It's more impressive than the other nymph's\nweed-plucking, she thinks.\n\n\"You'd take too long. I gathered grubs.\" Makuja points at some slender\nforms pinned by needles. The chitin of her fingers is black, like\nnatural gloves. It's hard to see the hemolymph on them.\n\nAwelah gives something of a growl or grunt. \"Fine.\" There's not room for\narguing. The nymphs are ravenous hungry; even the pale mantis shakes\nfrom weakness. Ooliri tasks himself with taking down their hammocks,\nwhile Awelah stalks away from the camp. In this brief moment alone, we\nsee her start to practice her spear jabs.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTheir meal is served on flat rocks. Ooliri is poking skeptically at\nghastly black mushroom caps.\n\nAwelah's mandibles open in surprised recognition. \"Venjaspirals?\" When\nthe other nymph looks over curious, she continues. \"All the older nymphs\nstarted eating these as soon as they made wretch. My cousin, she hated\nthese.\" Then recognition on her face turns to numb shock, and then folds\ninto anger. A tarsus goes to grip her spear, but neither of the other\nnymphs were target of her offense --- or defense. She doesn't raise the\nspear, just holds it like a talisman.\n\nOoliri frowns, eyeing Awelah in sympathy --- but he never figures out\nwhat to say, and limply returns his gaze to the mushrooms. \"I was always\ntold to avoid these. That I might die... or at least it'd be painful.\"\n\n\"For the laity.\" Awelah's voice is flat, mistakable for frustration.\n\"They are poisonous. But that poison is enervate.\"\n\nAnd then Ooliri gets it. \"Which is unpalatable for most creatures, but\nnot a vesperbane with growing umbracoils.\" Ooliri sighs, and then looks\nup. \"We really are vesperbanes now, aren't we?\"\n\n\"It only took losing everything.\" Awelah says it, but the sentiment\ncould have come from any of them. The statement's punctuated by silence,\nmoments stretching until Ooliri clicks his mandibles.\n\n\"We should pay our respects to them, somehow.\"\n\n\"Bury them, you mean?\" Awelah chews on the thought for a moment, then.\n\"No. We need to keep moving.\"\n\n\"But---\" He gets interrupted, and not by the Asetari:\n\n\"No, we go back and we bury them. Not for sentiment, but for\npracticality. If the bodies are hidden, it's that much harder to piece\ntogether what happened, slowing down anyone else who comes after you.\"\n\n\"And my brother, my teacher, everyone... they were vesperbanes. They had\nsupplies that could help us.\"\n\n\"Fine, but we're not making a long ceremony of it. We go back, we get it\ndone, then we're back on the road.\"\n\nMakuja gives her a wide-antennaed look that's so innocently curious it\ncould only be an act. \"You don't care about the dead, Awelah?\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\"Something about this feels disrespectful,\" Ooliri murmurs.\n\nHe watches as Awelah puts on Firah's antennae-band. The cloth had\nhemolymph on it, along with bits of her shed setae.\n\n\"We'll raise less questions this way. Without antennae-bands, we look\nlike unsavory defects.\"\n\n\"We could always just pretend we're of the laity. Easier to go unnoticed\nthat way, even.\"\n\n\"If I have to kill someone, I shouldn't be tried like a common mantis.\"\nMakuja's voice came from farther away, as she left footprints in the ash\nof the scorched lakeside, picking through the half-exploded,\nhalf-disintegrated remains of the fiend mentor, Emusa.\n\n\"And I don't suppose I could offer not killing anyone as\nconsideration?\"\n\n\"The danger we're in is not up to us.\"\n\nThe scene has a dim buzzing ambience to it --- snailflies by the swarm\nhave found the bodies, and now stick to them, scraping at the meat with\nradulae. It won't be long till their slug children were oozing around\ninside as well. Maybe they already were. Crows had found the bodies too,\nbut had flown off when they arrived.\n\nMakuja finds the headband, and pads back to the two nymphs. She hands\nthe headband over.\n\n\"Wear it,\" Awelah says.\n\n\"I want to wear my master's.\"\n\n\"We'll raise less questions if we aren't two Windhold banes traveling\nwith a Bloodhold bane.\"\n\nMakuja bites her mandibles together, but she folds her antennae back and\ncomplies.\n\nOoliri wears Oocid's old headband. \"Now, I suppose, we get digging.\"\n\n\"Would be less work to put them in the lake.\"\n\nOoliri sighs. \"Sure.\" He gives the bodies another glance. \"There's\nspells for burying vesperbanes, for preserving and exhuming the vespers.\nNone of us know any, do we?\"\n\nA pair of shaken heads. \"Couldn't they do it for themselves? The\nvespers, I mean. They're the source of every spell, right? Shouldn't\nthey all know the burial rites or whatever they are?\"\n\n\"Maybe.\" It was noncommittal with the effect of a negative; if the\nvespers knew, they aren't telling.\n\nSwarms of snailflies burst away in a panic from the bodies while the\nliving bend down to grasp them. Some fly poorly, and crash into eyes or\nsoft chitin. Their sharp shell-wings come uncomfortably close to\ncutting.\n\nFor the older nymphs Oocid and Fihra, it takes Awelah and Makuja working\ntogether to carrying them to the lake. They put rocks on the bodies so\nthat they sink beneath. The pawns are next, and Ooliri is staring at the\nlake depths for a moment. \"My father... he was insistent there were no\ngods, no heaven, no metaphysics to this world beyond the vespers' will.\nHe did tell us about the empyrean, the welkin, the transmigration\ncycles, but wanted us to decide for ourselves. Oocid didn't believe\neither.\" He turns to Awelah, then Makuja. \"What about you two? Do you\nbelieve?\"\n\nAwelah shows her mandibles. \"There are no gods, because we killed them.\nMantids don't serve any higher power than ourselves and those we care\nabout. That was --- what my mom said. I... do believe in something after\nlife, I think. I have to.\" She's remembering her dream-like visit to the\nastral plane, and she's remembering the stories and legends and rumor of\nthat same place among her clanmates. \"Not for everyone, though.\" She's\nnot sure how much she should say, how much those outside the clan were\nallowed to know.\n\n\"It's not about gods, or heavens,\" Makuja murmurs. \"I don't remember any\nof that. Before I left, I knew about the fivefold natural order that\nunited everything. Mantids were separated from it, but we could become\none with it again, by living well.\" She has a knife in her hand, and\nit's not clear where she had hidden it. \"But being a vesperbane,\nkilling, is not how you do it.\" There's an odd cadence to her tone, when\nshe stops talking but sounds like she would continue. Makuja isn't one\nto sound unsure, and yet... At length, she concludes: \"I don't need an\nafter if I fulfill my purpose.\" Then, with a look to Ooliri: \"Your\nteammates died with purpose.\"\n\nOn the other side of her, Awelah is frowning. And she cuts in, \"Better\nto live.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Ooliri said.\n\nWithout rebuttal, Makuja turns from the lake.\n\nAwelah claps her hands. \"Anyway, we're done. Now let's---\"\n\n\"We're not done.\" Makuja is looking at Unodha's hounds, who were easily\nas big as a nymph.\n\n\"You're joking. They're dogs.\"\n\nOoliri is looking at the direhounds too, but for different reasons.\nEmusa's last technique had left their flesh charred. They wouldn't\nhave to burn the direbeasts themselves, then. He looks closer, counts\nthem. \"Hey, weren't there three hounds in the fight?\"\n\n\"Yeah so?\"\n\nBut Makuja is nodding. She glances to Awelah. \"Two bodies,\" she says\nslowly.\n\n\"It's odd,\" Ooliri adds as he crosses the weed-pocked sand behind\nMakuja, and starts tugging at one dog.\n\nAwelah opens her mouth, but thinks for a second, and decides it'd be\nfaster to just get this over with. It's more work than the nymphs had\nbeen.\n\n\"They were good dogs,\" Makuja says.\n\n\"They tried to kill us.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nAbove them, the sun is slipping by a crack in the cloud cover and a ray\nof light shines through, briefly. The crows have returned in small\nnumber, and watch them from the hilltops. Tiny bubbles rise to the\nsurface of the lake, air escaping the recently dead.\n\nAwelah has been ready to leave. She pokes the sand with her spear tip,\nglaring at Ooliri. Beside her, Makuja throws flat stones at the lake,\nmaking them bounce a few times.\n\nOoliri sits with all the bags they recovered from the vesperbanes, and\nall the odd burned remains around Emusa, and he pulls things out and\npushes things aside and he l",
  "title": "Lingering Clouds"
}