{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/20",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/20",
  "publishedAt": "2022-06-15T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Like the umbral filaments spilling from Tenebra, trail lines extend out\nfrom Wisterun, a small point whose influence magnified it. Around the\ntown farmland fans out, starting not far from its walls of mud, stone\nand wood. The farms are delineated and crossed by those trails. Not\nroads: they lacked the stiffness and symmetry of the roads a diamantid\nwould put down. No, the reason for these trails is only seen as Ooliri\nflies closer. Ants, dozens of them swaddled in colorful clothes, along\nthem marched in ranks or, here and there, wandered alone.\n\nAbove him the zipline buzzes as the wheels roll down the wire. Ooliri\nlistens to that sound waiting for a creak or snap. His eyes scan the\ncable. Can he see exposed strands and wear on the wires, or is it just\nanxious pareidolia? Quessa had gone down just fine. Yanseno had been\nconfident, and Ooliri is already halfway down now. Below him the\nmetataxite forests they'd traveled are thinning, giving way to\ncivilization.\n\nWait, had Yanseno been confident? \"Everything is unsafe,\" is what he\nsaid.\n\nStill, Ooliri's strapped to the thing now. If he put up his raptorials\nin front of his face, then maybe he won't have to repeatedly scrutinize\nthe cables for fault, and won't wonder just whether it'll hurt more to\nfall down on the conks of metataxites or onto a wheatfield. But if he\nlifts his raptorials, that means they won't be holding fast to his\nharness, and he likes having something to hold onto. Instead, he can\njust fold his antennae over his foveae...\n\n\"You did it!\" he hears Quessa chirp. \"I told you it'd be fine.\"\n\nOoliri moves his antennae from where they wrapped around his compound\neyes. The trolley stopped moments ago. He lowers his legs and they land\nsteady on the stone-cobbled platform. Roped fern-stalks fence off this\nplatform, and he turns his head a little to get Quessa's green face in\nhis sightlines.\n\n\"That was...\" Ooliri stops. He doesn't want to disappoint her, so he\nsearches for a way to put it. \"Better than running into another\nworld-scar in the wilds. Maybe---maybe I could get used to it.\"\n\nQuessa smiles, and then glances away. \"Boleheva might take some minutes\nto run here. Do you want to wait over by the gate? I think I know one of\nthe ants! But that one's not supposed to be on guard duty. Or was it\notherwise? Maybe that one was reassigned.\"\n\nOoliri glances up at the now-distant tower pointing up over the woods.\n\"Shouldn't we wait for Makuja?\"\n\n\"Should we? She...\" Quessa had a tendency to just stop, palps tapping\nher mandibles where another mantis might stutter or pad with 'ums' or\n'wells.' \"...seems scary.\"\n\n\"She is scary. But most of that --- most of that scariness is for our\nenemies. You saw her fight that anteater right? She saved our lives\nthere.\" Ooliri rubs his bandaged arm. \"Yanseno seems scary too. But, to\nyou, he's nice, isn't he?\"\n\n\"He is...\" Quessa extends an antennae over, which brushes quite close to\ntouching him. \"Do you have a father?\"\n\n\"Had one. He's---gone now.\"\n\n\"Oh. Do you miss him?\"\n\n\"Every time I go home.\" Which, Ooliri realizes with a start, he hasn't,\nnot for several shades. Would he be there right now, if this mission\nhadn't fallen apart? \"Oonserta taught me everything. I wouldn't be half\nthe vesperbane or have any idea what I'm doing without him.\"\n\nQuessa nods. \"Yanseno is just like that.\"\n\nOoliri wonders why she hadn't just said the maverick was like father to\nher. He thinks about asking, but decides not to. This silences the\nconversation for a moment.\n\n\"What were we talking about?\"\n\n\"You wanted to talk to one of the ants, I think? And avoid Makuja,\nbecause she's scary. But I explained how she's protective-scary, like\nYanseno.\"\n\nQuessa looks away, toward the ants milling around by the gate, and her\nantennae bounce up. \"Yeah, there! The One Who Bites Water. He showed me\nsome of the tunnels.\" Looking back to Ooliri, she says, \"I'd like to\nwait over there? At least until Yanseno gets back. There's something...\nI think I wanted to say to that one.\"\n\n\"Maybe. I'd like to meet an ant.\" Ooliri glances back at the tower, and\nsees a mantis riding down the zipline. Makuja?\n\nQuessa starts walking, and Ooliri plots out an approach. He could tell\nMakuja to wait here for Yanseno while he goes with Quessa, play it off\nas a way to make sure the maverick knows where to find them?\n\nThe gray nymph watches the image of Makuja smoothly getting larger and\nclearer, witnessing the descent from the other perspective. Where Ooliri\nhad fidgeted and covered his eyes, Makuja rides down with antennae\nwaving like short banners behind her.\n\nShe's not all still, though. About halfway down, she turns. Is she\nleaning to one side? Why?\n\nThe distance obscures it, but peering closer, Ooliri sees her center of\nmass is lower --- and there's not just antennae trailing behind her now.\nThose are the straps of the harness!\n\nSnapping one by one, Makuja holds onto the trolley as her support gives\nout --- but at this speed, with this suddenness (and, Ooliri thinks,\nwith that terrifying height beneath you), her grip cannot be steady.\n\nOoliri cries out in alarm, and it stops Quessa in her tracks. He turns\nto her with paling eyes. \"We have to do --- something, don't we?\"\n\n\"I think...\" Quessa looks up, antennae spiking as she sees what's only a\nblurry image in the fringe of his rear vision --- that dreaded\ninevitability. \"We need to wait for Yanseno. He'll do something.\"\n\nFar from Wisterun's gates, above the woods, Makuja falls.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nOoliri thinks I'm weak. Awelah watches the gray nymph slip on his\nharness as she steps down the steep stairs. Everything she'd done and\nendured, and one hit from Makuja makes them think she can't bear putting\non a starsdamned harness.\n\nHer smaller form slips past Boleheva on the stairs, making the big imago\nstop with a quiet \"Woah there.\" She takes the stairs two at a time, and\nwith the height of each step, she's vertical enough to nearly flip over.\n\nThe stairs are spiraled, winding inside the six pillars of the\nwatchtower, and when she reaches the spot above the landing, she jumps\noff the side, hitting the ground with sandals audibly squishing in the\nmud. Her legs bend enough till her abdomen smacks the ground and forced\na pained exhale. By the time she's recovered, Boleheva is stepping onto\nthe landing.\n\n\"Goin with all the hurry in the world, ain't ye?\"\n\nAwelah pats grime off of her, and with two false starts yanks her feet\nout of the mud. \"Let's go.\" She walks off.\n\n\"You leadin' the way, girl?\"\n\nAwelah points up to the zipline. \"Unless you lied about where that's\ngoing, I know which way it is.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\" Boleheva leans her thorax forward and trots up to the\npale nymph's side. \"Still, if you're so hasty, might as well climb on.\nI'll get us there fas'er than anything. Could even beat the maverick up\nthere, I bet.\"\n\nThe Asetari clicks her mandibles. \"I don't need to be carried like a\nhatchling.\"\n\n\"Look, no one said that.\"\n\n\"I have legs, that's my answer.\"\n\n\"Ye don't understand it. I'm a bloodbane. Compared to my myxothews, you\nain't got legs.\" She points back behind her. \"I could climb that tower\nwith one arm free and three grown imagos tied to my back, and still\nreach the top. I could run to Wisterun without stoppin for breath if I\nneed to.\"\n\nAwelah looks away, and she walks faster.\n\n\"Is this about yer pride?\" Boleheva asks, catching up with her one\nheartbeat later. \"You think you'll look like a baby if yer friends see\nyou carried around? Fine, maybe. Ye know 'em better than I. But what do\nyou reckon they'll think if they have to wait an hour for you to get\nthere?\"\n\nThe conversation halts there when a small startled longicorn leaps from\nthe ferns, darting across their path, long antennae frenzied in fear.\nAwelah, almost on instinct, turned to track it. But there's no use\nhunting; Boleheva had some ration bars they'd ate this morning, and she\nsurely had more.\n\nThe feet of many bugs had worn this trail, and that alone would have it\neasier to follow that the pathless wilderness on their way into this\nprefecture, but the metataxites and dewy ferns around them clear up\ntwist by turn. Somewhere out there, Awelah recalls, that direhound is\nstill creeping about. She isn't finished with it. Clenching her\nraptorials, she longs to continue that chase. Nothing she can do about\nit right now, but she resists taking her mind off it. Awelah would be\n--- is --- a hunter, and she wouldn't let her prey be forgotten, nor\nescape.\n\nAbove her lies a clear sight of the zipline throughout, and at some\nvantages could make out the distant raised roofs of the multistory\nWisterun homes.\n\nGlimpsing that distant settlement, a comment of Boleheva's returns to\nAwelah.\n\n\"You said there were Duskhold refugees in Wisterun?\"\n\n\"Ye.\"\n\n\"Are there any... are we --- am I the first Duskroot vesperbane you've\nseen? Since the attack?\"\n\n\"An attack? A bane force attack? Thought it was bad weather, or a\nworld-scar. But no, no vesperbanes seen till you three showed up. Maybe\none of the kids is a pawn, but I doubt it. Ask Yan, he'd've seened it.\"\n\n\"They attacked my clan, and all of Duskroot. I made it out alive but, I\ncan't be the only one.\"\n\n\"Every detail you let slip makes me want to hear the full story. Don't\nwant to hear it twice, but if you're not going to---\" The ranger stops.\n\nAbove them, Makuja descends the zipline. Awelah doesn't know why this\nmerits attention, until she looks up herself, and sees it.\n\n\"She's gonna fall. Bloody pits, and there's not a chance to catch her.\"\nBoleheva parts her eyes from the red nymph holding on to the zooming\ntrolley, and regards Awelah. \"Look, girl, there's no time for\nstubbornness now. Climb on, or I'm leaving you here.\"\n\nAwelah doesn't hope Makuja is injured. But if she is, and if Awelah were\nthere and the former mercenary needed her help...\n\nThe pale nymph doesn't wrap her forelegs around the yellow imago. Her\nlower four tarsi clutch the rope of Boleheva's outfit, and she folds up\nh",
  "title": "A Final Stretch"
}