When you next awake, you half-expect to have been nymph-napped to some dank attic, or be chained up in a villain's basement. But you're still wrapped in the softness of your blanket. Strange dreams, of heroes and candles and spiders, linger with you. When there's a tap on your thorax, you startle fast, swinging out a raptorial to smack against your assailant. And when you pull the blanket fully off your eyes, you see that it was your father. The pale red mantid just gives a quick laugh. "It's time to wake up, Eifre." Having succeeding in waking you up, he's climbing down from your room. This is your room in the sense the space is yours, but it's not really separate. Your house is a wide open space, an archipelago of platforms with little tarshold bridges between them. Most --- including yours -- have a guardrail you can easily climb onto, though your father says not to do that. When you look up, you can see your mother and father's room, its platform surrounded by a black curtain. You asked, and it's a special amalgam that's really good at blocking sound. There's a guest room on the same level, opposite, but no one's ever used it. Your platform is close enough to the ground that you won't break anything by falling, but you don't want to fall. And you don't want to climb down, either. So you walk onto to a small suspended platform. Three rods rise up from the edges, with rope going through loops at the top of each rod. All three meet in the middle to twist into a big rope. The big rope goes up into a box above that bites into the rope to keep the platform from fallling. You flip a switch on the box, and it stops biting. The platform falls freely, sending a thrill in your core. You brace after a moment, and the platform reaches the end of the rope with a taut sound, and the platform then bounces up and down for a bit. You're laughing. (The floors all have these hoists because, while tarsholds are great for climbing, you really don't want to try carrying tables or chests up them.) "If you keep doing that, you're going to break it," you hear your father call. "I let you sleep in, so you don't have time to play around." You turn to the sound of his voice, and start over toward the breakfast room. Father is sitting alone at the table, and there are only two perches prepped with plates and bowls. Only two. "Where --- where is mother?" "She wasn't here when I woke up," he says with a roll of his antennae. "But I don't right know where she is." "She's not here?" you ask. But really, he already answered; it's more of an exclamation. What could have happened? Could someone have hurt her? Maune had been mad when you left... and she knows secret ways into town. She wouldn't, right? Your mother doesn't seem to like this Dlenam mantis either -- could he have done something? Or maybe the termites? The weevils? "I have to find her," you say. "Now, now, Eifre. Your mother was very clear when she got home last night. I know you've had your adventure, but she wanted me to make sure you stayed here, ate breakfast, and went straight to prevespers. Now sit, and be sure to eat your miltgrain. It's good for you." Take a deep breath and think. Had she even made it back here? You hope, but you know it's a hope. If she had --- was it odd for your mother to have gone somewhere in the morning? No, not exactly. But the timing of it makes a difference. After everything that happened, it's hard not to feel she should have been here, to remind you everything is ok. Slowly, you walk over to take your place at the table, staring down at your breakfast: boiled lizards piled on soft honeyloaf crumbs, a bowl of miltgrain flakes, and, to drink, sweetened roach milk. On the lizards, you smell a kind of spice your father prefers; at first it stung your palps, but you can't taste it anymore. You stare, hesitating to touch the lizards. "Are you tired? Well, maybe this can be a lesson about staying up past midnight. Please do eat up, you'll be late for prevespers if you take too long." It's not like training is so scheduled you'd miss anything if you come a few minutes late. And if it were, it's doubly unlikely to be something new to you. You nod, and eat. "Oh and dear? If you see your mother, ask her about my quilting board. I haven't seen it in a few days --- she must have moved it to the cellar, but I can't find my key anywhere. I swear I left it on the table," the last sentence is more of a mumble. It's what he says as you're heading for the door --- bag slumped between your prothorax and abdomen, the fancy shirts your mother has you wear slipped on. (Your bowl of miltgrain, still half full.) "Maybe you moved it and forgot?" you reply. "You always forget stuff." "Easy for you not to forget things, not having a lifetime of other things to remember," is his rejoiner. "Take care, girl. Stay safe today, alright?" You wave as you make for the door. And you jolt when you see the front door's unlocked. Even sleepy, you know better than to leave the door unlocked. But it would track if someone had already left this morning. It's still just hope, but hope with wings. Outside, the sun already bears down on Shatalek. In the sky around it, black nerve is driven to the horizon by its radiance. You walk along the dirt roads of Shatalek. Empty space stretches far around your house, but buildings huddle closer together near the heart of town. Along your way, a big mantis lifts a midleg to wave. She's one of the guards, and right now pushes a wheelbarrow of dirt, raptorials occupied holding the grilles. Not a lot of bad stuff happened in Shatalek, so guards mainly hunt or stand around looking stern, or, like this, help out around town with odd jobs. Further along, you hear a peal of laughter above you, and glance to see nymphs running along the roofs of houses, playing vesperbane. In cities, things are packed tightly enough this is the faster way. Not in Shatalek, and it's only even possible if you're daring enough to lunge from one house to the nearest. Other nymphs can have fun doing this, but you don't really have the agility for it. So you settle for the next best: you cut diagonally across people's yards. While you doubt you'll miss much being late, the mentors give praise and pats if you aren't. (When cutting across yards, you spot a symbol woven into a curtain in a house's back window. An eight-pointed star surrounded with wings. A bad symbol, you remember. But the scriptorium won't let you check out the scrolls you could look up its meaning in, not until you're older. You quicken your pace out of this yard.) It stands not at the center of town, but close. A big, important building, with pillars and all. Most of the adults go here twice a month for big meetings. (With muttered complaints, in the case of your father.) Passing tangential to it, you almost miss them in your periphery. A redish yellow mantis, three legs on the ground, clad in baneleather. Tlista. "Mother! You're ok!" You're sprinting at her, stridulating as loud as your palps manage. "Hello again, dear. Of course I'm okay. Or, did you fear the worst when I wasn't there? Ah, I'm sorry to worry you." You run over to her and hug her leg. "Where were you?" "Out. With the way things are it --- I couldn't just stay lying down. And I slept awfully anyway --- waking from nightmares I don't need to return to. So I did a circuit around town, to make sure it was safe." You nod; Tlista is your town's protector. She said she didn't lead the guards, when you asked. But they all listen to her. "Good thing, it turns out." She glances behind her, at the important building. "Why's that?" "The banelings listened to me, unfortunately. Came back here, tried -- tried --- to explain things to the syndic advisor. It seems his majesty Dlenam never deigned to come by, so this was first she heard of it. The nymphs did so bad a job as messengers that they had the poor lady thinking the town was about to get eaten. She was packing bags when I got here." "Why would the town get eaten?" "I don't think the banelings understood what termites are or mean, and a syndic assigned to the far fringes of the Pantheca certainly doesn't. So you have two sets of misunderstandings to untangle, and I don't care to, now that I've set the record straight." "What would happen to this town, if the Stewarty doesn't save it?" "That's a different question than what's going to happen --- the Stewartry is competent, and any explanation should take that into account. But if you're asking for curiosity's sake, it depends on the exact class of mound emergence. Not all are the same." Her palps cross and uncross while she gets the words ready. "Rendering the landscape uninhabitable with umbral fallout is the most common outcome. Given our location, deforesting this segment of the ambrosia woods --- and with it, taking away Shatalek's main export --- is also likely. Things more specific, and less likely than that, I can't say. Termites are one of the topics where more information is restricted than accessible." "If I ever become overscourge, I'm getting rid of all restrictions!" "Some things are secret for a reason, little bug." Tlista pats you head. "Anyway, I think I'm not the one who should be lecturing you right now. You're on your way to prevesper training, aren't you?" That was why you left the house instead of staying asleep. "Then I shouldn't hold you up. I'm sure last night was exciting, but... Please don't run off unattended anymore. If it happens again I don't know if I can... I want to keep you safe, Eifre." "What if someone's in danger again?" "Then come to me. If you really want to help someone, then finding someone older, more capable than you is how you make that happen." Tlista looks away. "With that said, I think I'm going to walk you there, just to be sure." Your mother lowers a foreleg, and you grasp her much larger tarsus with your own. Together, the two of you start walking. W