{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/chimhop/14",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/chimhop/14",
  "publishedAt": "2022-05-12T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: section\nHeat from their fire and shelter from the old tree had kept it from\nthem, but after days now of unbroken sunless overcast, a chill is rising\nin the land, while drizzle and damp air is falling. As Awelah departs\ninto the woods, she wonders if the fog is gathered thickly enough for\nher spear to stab through it.\n\nProximity to the creek couldn't have helped, when it comes to how bad\nthe fog got. As she walks Awelah hears it rush over rocks and slam into\nmud. The waters are dark, and it isn't just shadows. The creekwater\nisn't safe to drink, not so soon after a wispfall. A wispfall in the\nmountains behind them, where all this water is runoff from? Still,\nenervate is sensitive to temperature --- it didn't get hot, not in the\nway matter does, but it nonetheless didn't stick around after boiling.\n\nOoliri had remarked that it's odd the water remained so enervated. Black\nnerve seeks denser matter, and sand is preferable to water. Emusa, it\nturns out, had noticed the same thing. She'd determined it was an\nexcess of water-affine enervate in the wisps. Something like that. It's\nfar beyond the lessons Awelah had thus far retained. Affinities were a\ndistraction, anyway. That much she knew --- the Asetari are above such\nthings. Were above such things. Will be above. Ugh.\n\nAwelah is reprieved from distracting thoughts soon after, when the\ntaxites clear and in their absence, moss thickly overtakes the ground.\nSoft and growing, it didn't keep tracks as well as mud, and she gives up\nfollowing through, and starts fanning out, checking the perimeter of the\nclearing, and then any mud patches within, for anything to follow. The\nhaphazard search pattern means that when she feels the relief of at last\nfinding more tracks, it's dashed seconds later as she realizes they are\nher own.\n\nDoesn't matter, she thinks, I don't need this to be so easy. She is\na hunter. The mantis uncurls her antennae, short things from which locks\nof gray-purple setae curl off. She runs dactyls through them, combing\naway dirt and dead hair.\n\nWhen she extends them again, she lets her eyes pale as she focuses on\nthe world in scent.\n\nDiamantids had eyes better than any other kind, so it's just efficient\nfor Awelah to focus on what she sees. But as a nymph, Awelah had spent\nso long playing with her family's roaches. There was a type of game\nplayed in basement rooms with none of the torches lit. Noble roaches had\nlonger, more sensitive antennae than diamantids, and even with all her\nexperience, Awelah had been a handicap on any team that had her. (Once,\nAwelah had asked her dad to have her antennae cut in a way to make them\nmore sensitive --- he had pat young Awelah and told her how pretty her\nantennae were, and how it'd be unbecoming for a bane line Asetari to\nlook like a roach on top of all the things the clan already says about\nus. She didn't get many chances to play with the roaches after that.)\n\nShe'd learned enough, though. To your antennae, everyone is a bright\nlamp, illuminating the world in 'light' that traveled like something\nthrown instead of instantly. Your antennae didn't have lenses like the\ndewdrops on mantid eyes, so everything was mixed together and unfocused.\nLingering, too --- as if everywhere you held your antennae, it gazed\nupon photographing chemicals that'd sat exposed for too long. You have\ntwo antennae, though, and so much length. It's like a string of these\nphotographs, each subtly different.\n\nThe image of scent had foremost the expected elements --- of wet\nvegetation and mosses crushed or split open by her steps, of trace\nenervate which seemed to sting even when so faint, and the pheromones of\nlesser insects --- but behind them all was the putrid, metallic,\nunnatural scent she seeks. She doesn't think anything could mask it\n--- direbeasts and bloodbanes didn't always stink so strongly, not when\nresting, but active ichor metabolism did. Those erotyles had fought\nback, it seems, and the dog had doubtless licked the blood in its\nwounds.\n\nAwelah waves her antennae through the air, and the world seems to gain\nnew a depth. She feels the diffusion of the oldest scents, and aligns\nher antennae right along that gradient. Her surety only grows in her\nnext steps. Her hopes were unfounded, and her fears hold true.\n\nHer prey is still here.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFar to the west, and earlier that day, Makuja leaves the camp in the\nopposite direction, and she too walks along the banks of the creek,\ndistracted in the depths of her thoughts.\n\nShe hears Awelah call out --- to Ooliri, perhaps, who trusted her more.\nAttention, not alarm, and what would Awelah want attention for? To brag\nabout another successful hunt?\n\nThere's a briskness to her pace, and a tension in her tightened\nraptorials. She doesn't want to go back to the camp, to talk to either\nof them. She's felt this before, when another pawn had done something to\nget a satisfied nod out of master and so she killed something or\ngathered some rare poisonous flower, and reminded her who the most\nuseful was.\n\nIn a practiced motion, the red nymph tosses up a stone, and casts it\ninto the dark waters of the creek with vespertine force. It feels like\nshe let out more than just the black nerve that fuels the spell. She\nwants to do it again, see the stone smash apart against the streambed.\n\nA technique she'd discovered --- not invented, such a simple permutation\nof signs had to be something well known for centuries. There's more to\ngetting it right than just the order of the signs, though. She'd spent\nhours to figure that out, getting it down to consistency, and then ---\n\n\"Why would I need to fling rocks? I have better techniques.\"\n\nAnd the Asetari did. Throwing rocks, and creating an autonomous\nprojection --- who would choose what Makuja could do? It's simply a\nworse tool.\n\nWhat did she have that could compare to what the Asetari could do? (She\nknows exactly what the answer is, and that makes it worse. \"Do you know\nthe tarsigns for the wretched raptorials?\" she'd asked Ooliri. And the\nboy had no idea.)\n\nThe creek isn't a straight thing. It curved when it ran into the old\ntree they camped in, and here, upstream of that, it's winding to the\nnorth. The metataxites have grown more numerous around the red nymph as\nshe walks on.\n\nMakuja is in the middle of imbuing the next stone to cast when she hears\nthe sound of branches bending, sees the movement in between thick\ntrunks.\n\nThe Asetari wasn't lying or embellishing, then.\n\nAhead of her stands a cicindela --- a wild tiger beetle.\n\nIf I can catch this...\n\nShe wants to see that look on the Asetari's face even more than she\nwants to see this rock crack open against the earth. A glance down finds\nthe near-forgotten thing already splitting and liqued from partial\nimbuement. Hmm.\n\nShe knows tarsigns aren't needed. Nervecasting with or without them is\nthe difference between digging with a shovel and clawing at the ground.\nShe doesn't want to do anything big, though, and doesn't know if\nthere's a sign for what she wants.\n\nWhatever discharged enervate into her palm... can it go the other way?\nCan she un-imbue?\n\nShe knows what it feels like for black nerve to flow into her tarsi.\nMaybe if she focuses on that sensation, or imagines some kind of pull.\n\nIt doesn't all come back, but she sees --- and feels --- the enervate\nescaping the rock, and new coldness seeping into her, slithering up her\nforelegs. She doesn't know the right word --- pulling, pumping --- but\nshe draws the stuff further up her arms, as if to return it all the way\nback to her abdominal core. But the farther it gets from her hands, the\nmore her control frays, and by the time it's descending her thorax,\nshe's not sure if gravity isn't doing most of the work. No matter ---\nperhaps this way, it'd be quicker to expel later.\n\nMakuja shakes her head and looks up. The cicindela is still there, long\nlegs lifting it up where it licks the algae from a metataxite's\nshelf-like limbs.\n\nMakuja is patient. She would watch, poised for the right moment to\nstrike.\n\nWhen the beetle's head turns, and its forward-facing compound eyes would\nno longer catch the red nymph, she slips into motion. Swiftly lunging\nacross the ground, she feels the returned enervate in her thorax. It\nfeels different from that which had not yet left her. Then, as if\ngravity continued its work, the enervate flows into her legs as they\nbend and straighten, and it settles there.\n\nMakuja stalks the cicindela as it trots directly away from the creek.\nShe is silent, unseen, and by all rights, the tiger beetle should be\nhers to capture.\n\nShe didn't do anything wrong. She's sure there could have been no\nerror on her part. And yet it all goes wrong anyway.\n\nThe tiger beetle spooks. Its antennae flare straight up, and then it\nbolts to the west.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nMaking tarsigns took time, Awelah is learning. The fight with Klepé had\nbeen sobering, in that regard. She'd applied the lesson in her next\nfight, but even though she'd won, she'd sat up reflecting, and decided\nshe had learned the wrong lesson. Making tarsigns took time, yes, and\nknowing that, you have to adapt your tactics to that momentary time\ncommitment --- or did you?\n\nUmbral body projection isn't like the other spells that they had in\ntheir arsenal. Why should Awelah take the time in a fight to cast her\nprojection --- why, when she could have it out before the fight even\nbegan?\n\nThe technique had many more tarsigns than bane blast or apparently the\nspell Makuja had invented. (Why is Makuja of all mantids inventing\nspells! Awelah had been a bane for longer --- hours longer, but still.\nIs she falling behind this soon? Why couldn't Awelah invent spells?\n\"Why aren't you as quick as your cousins, Awelah dear?\")\n\nShe felt the projection growing inside of her, the spellform taking\nshape and she reached the sign which seemed to push it further, making\nthat cold sensation envelop her body. She ",
  "title": "An Elusive Wolf, a Relentless Wolf"
}