{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/11",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/11",
  "publishedAt": "2021-06-12T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "When you next awake, you half-expect to have been nymph-napped to some\ndank attic, or be chained up in a villain's basement. But you're still\nwrapped in the softness of your blanket. Strange dreams, of heroes and\ncandles and spiders, linger with you.\n\nWhen there's a tap on your thorax, you startle fast, swinging out a\nraptorial to smack against your assailant.\n\nAnd when you pull the blanket fully off your eyes, you see that it was\nyour father. The pale red mantid just gives a quick laugh. \"It's time to\nwake up, Eifre.\" Having succeeding in waking you up, he's climbing down\nfrom your room.\n\nThis is your room in the sense the space is yours, but it's not really\nseparate. Your house is a wide open space, an archipelago of platforms\nwith little tarshold bridges between them. Most --- including yours --\nhave a guardrail you can easily climb onto, though your father says not\nto do that.\n\nWhen you look up, you can see your mother and father's room, its\nplatform surrounded by a black curtain. You asked, and it's a special\namalgam that's really good at blocking sound. There's a guest room on\nthe same level, opposite, but no one's ever used it.\n\nYour platform is close enough to the ground that you won't break\nanything by falling, but you don't want to fall.\n\nAnd you don't want to climb down, either.\n\nSo you walk onto to a small suspended platform. Three rods rise up from\nthe edges, with rope going through loops at the top of each rod. All\nthree meet in the middle to twist into a big rope. The big rope goes up\ninto a box above that bites into the rope to keep the platform from\nfallling.\n\nYou flip a switch on the box, and it stops biting.\n\nThe platform falls freely, sending a thrill in your core. You brace\nafter a moment, and the platform reaches the end of the rope with a taut\nsound, and the platform then bounces up and down for a bit. You're\nlaughing.\n\n(The floors all have these hoists because, while tarsholds are great for\nclimbing, you really don't want to try carrying tables or chests up\nthem.)\n\n\"If you keep doing that, you're going to break it,\" you hear your father\ncall. \"I let you sleep in, so you don't have time to play around.\"\n\nYou turn to the sound of his voice, and start over toward the breakfast\nroom. Father is sitting alone at the table, and there are only two\nperches prepped with plates and bowls.\n\nOnly two. \"Where --- where is mother?\"\n\n\"She wasn't here when I woke up,\" he says with a roll of his antennae.\n\"But I don't right know where she is.\"\n\n\"She's not here?\" you ask. But really, he already answered; it's more of\nan exclamation.\n\nWhat could have happened? Could someone have hurt her? Maune had been\nmad when you left... and she knows secret ways into town. She wouldn't,\nright? Your mother doesn't seem to like this Dlenam mantis either --\ncould he have done something? Or maybe the termites? The weevils?\n\n\"I have to find her,\" you say.\n\n\"Now, now, Eifre. Your mother was very clear when she got home last\nnight. I know you've had your adventure, but she wanted me to make\nsure you stayed here, ate breakfast, and went straight to prevespers.\nNow sit, and be sure to eat your miltgrain. It's good for you.\"\n\nTake a deep breath and think. Had she even made it back here? You hope,\nbut you know it's a hope. If she had --- was it odd for your mother to\nhave gone somewhere in the morning? No, not exactly. But the timing of\nit makes a difference. After everything that happened, it's hard not to\nfeel she should have been here, to remind you everything is ok.\n\nSlowly, you walk over to take your place at the table, staring down at\nyour breakfast: boiled lizards piled on soft honeyloaf crumbs, a bowl of\nmiltgrain flakes, and, to drink, sweetened roach milk. On the lizards,\nyou smell a kind of spice your father prefers; at first it stung your\npalps, but you can't taste it anymore.\n\nYou stare, hesitating to touch the lizards.\n\n\"Are you tired? Well, maybe this can be a lesson about staying up past\nmidnight. Please do eat up, you'll be late for prevespers if you take\ntoo long.\"\n\nIt's not like training is so scheduled you'd miss anything if you come\na few minutes late. And if it were, it's doubly unlikely to be something\nnew to you.\n\nYou nod, and eat.\n\n\"Oh and dear? If you see your mother, ask her about my quilting board. I\nhaven't seen it in a few days --- she must have moved it to the cellar,\nbut I can't find my key anywhere. I swear I left it on the table,\" the\nlast sentence is more of a mumble.\n\nIt's what he says as you're heading for the door --- bag slumped between\nyour prothorax and abdomen, the fancy shirts your mother has you wear\nslipped on. (Your bowl of miltgrain, still half full.)\n\n\"Maybe you moved it and forgot?\" you reply. \"You always forget stuff.\"\n\n\"Easy for you not to forget things, not having a lifetime of other\nthings to remember,\" is his rejoiner. \"Take care, girl. Stay safe today,\nalright?\"\n\nYou wave as you make for the door.\n\nAnd you jolt when you see the front door's unlocked. Even sleepy, you\nknow better than to leave the door unlocked. But it would track if\nsomeone had already left this morning. It's still just hope, but hope\nwith wings.\n\nOutside, the sun already bears down on Shatalek. In the sky around it,\nblack nerve is driven to the horizon by its radiance.\n\nYou walk along the dirt roads of Shatalek. Empty space stretches far\naround your house, but buildings huddle closer together near the heart\nof town.\n\nAlong your way, a big mantis lifts a midleg to wave. She's one of the\nguards, and right now pushes a wheelbarrow of dirt, raptorials occupied\nholding the grilles.\n\nNot a lot of bad stuff happened in Shatalek, so guards mainly hunt or\nstand around looking stern, or, like this, help out around town with odd\njobs.\n\nFurther along, you hear a peal of laughter above you, and glance to see\nnymphs running along the roofs of houses, playing vesperbane. In cities,\nthings are packed tightly enough this is the faster way. Not in\nShatalek, and it's only even possible if you're daring enough to lunge\nfrom one house to the nearest.\n\nOther nymphs can have fun doing this, but you don't really have the\nagility for it.\n\nSo you settle for the next best: you cut diagonally across people's\nyards. While you doubt you'll miss much being late, the mentors give\npraise and pats if you aren't.\n\n(When cutting across yards, you spot a symbol woven into a curtain in a\nhouse's back window. An eight-pointed star surrounded with wings. A bad\nsymbol, you remember. But the scriptorium won't let you check out the\nscrolls you could look up its meaning in, not until you're older. You\nquicken your pace out of this yard.)\n\nIt stands not at the center of town, but close. A big, important\nbuilding, with pillars and all. Most of the adults go here twice a month\nfor big meetings. (With muttered complaints, in the case of your\nfather.)\n\nPassing tangential to it, you almost miss them in your periphery. A\nredish yellow mantis, three legs on the ground, clad in baneleather.\n\nTlista.\n\n\"Mother! You're ok!\" You're sprinting at her, stridulating as loud as\nyour palps manage.\n\n\"Hello again, dear. Of course I'm okay. Or, did you fear the worst when\nI wasn't there? Ah, I'm sorry to worry you.\"\n\nYou run over to her and hug her leg. \"Where were you?\"\n\n\"Out. With the way things are it --- I couldn't just stay lying down. And\nI slept awfully anyway --- waking from nightmares I don't need to return\nto. So I did a circuit around town, to make sure it was safe.\" You nod;\nTlista is your town's protector. She said she didn't lead the guards,\nwhen you asked. But they all listen to her. \"Good thing, it turns out.\"\nShe glances behind her, at the important building.\n\n\"Why's that?\"\n\n\"The banelings listened to me, unfortunately. Came back here, tried --\ntried --- to explain things to the syndic advisor. It seems his majesty\nDlenam never deigned to come by, so this was first she heard of it. The\nnymphs did so bad a job as messengers that they had the poor lady\nthinking the town was about to get eaten. She was packing bags when I\ngot here.\"\n\n\"Why would the town get eaten?\"\n\n\"I don't think the banelings understood what termites are or mean, and a\nsyndic assigned to the far fringes of the Pantheca certainly doesn't. So\nyou have two sets of misunderstandings to untangle, and I don't care to,\nnow that I've set the record straight.\"\n\n\"What would happen to this town, if the Stewarty doesn't save it?\"\n\n\"That's a different question than what's going to happen --- the\nStewartry is competent, and any explanation should take that into\naccount. But if you're asking for curiosity's sake, it depends on the\nexact class of mound emergence. Not all are the same.\" Her palps cross\nand uncross while she gets the words ready. \"Rendering the landscape\nuninhabitable with umbral fallout is the most common outcome. Given our\nlocation, deforesting this segment of the ambrosia woods --- and with it,\ntaking away Shatalek's main export --- is also likely. Things more\nspecific, and less likely than that, I can't say. Termites are one of\nthe topics where more information is restricted than accessible.\"\n\n\"If I ever become overscourge, I'm getting rid of all restrictions!\"\n\n\"Some things are secret for a reason, little bug.\" Tlista pats you head.\n\"Anyway, I think I'm not the one who should be lecturing you right now.\nYou're on your way to prevesper training, aren't you?\"\n\nThat was why you left the house instead of staying asleep.\n\n\"Then I shouldn't hold you up. I'm sure last night was exciting, but...\nPlease don't run off unattended anymore. If it happens again I don't\nknow if I can... I want to keep you safe, Eifre.\"\n\n\"What if someone's in danger again?\"\n\n\"Then come to me. If you really want to help someone, then finding\nsomeone older, more capable than you is how you make that happen.\"\nTlista looks away. \"With that said, I think I'm going to walk you there,\njust to be sure.\"\n\nYour mother lowers a foreleg, and you grasp her much larger tarsus with\nyour own. Together, the two of you start walking. W"
}