{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/08",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/08",
  "publishedAt": "2020-04-21T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "The young vesperbanes watch the unconscious defector, mandibles\nprominent and sharp. You glance back at Maune and bite your maxillary\npalp.\n\nStill sitting on your mother's back, you grip her thorax, dactyls\nsqueezing against her chitin. You might've made a nervous squeak but\nyou aren't sure if anyone hears. Spiracles twitching, you wonder if you\nhave it in you speak right now, and say what you mean to say. To berate\nthe vesperbanes for their callousness, to demand that they spare Maune,\nto tell your mother to say the right words and fix it all, make things\nsimple and pleasant again.\n\nYou always had excellent composure, and this is what keeps you from\nloudly crying out and making it plain obvious just how young you are.\n\nStill, Tlista nods at your wordless squeeze. Does she understand how you\nfeel right now? Do you even understand?\n\n\"It's pitiful.\" The words strike out in the silence, and it's an\ninstant before you --- before anyone --- realizes who spoke. Tlista\ncontinues, \"A defect, a missing bane, and yet she's done your mission\nbetter than you children have.\"\n\n\"What?\" It's not a rebuttal, it's hardly even an inquiry: the words\nare pure shock, and at this the green vesperbane's antennae are frozen,\nsplayed in the air. Internally, you mirror the reaction. Praising\na defect? You haven't even had a vesperbane's education yet, and you\nunderstand how wrong that is.\n\n\"You mentioned your parameters earlier, didn't you?\" she asks,\ntossing her head in the direction of the bulky red mantis. \"That you\nare to render aid to Shatalek if needed? Have you? More to the point,\ndid you not all but state that pursuit of the ambrosia witch is entirely\nirrelevant to your orders?\"\n\nRed is stepping over, forcefully nudging green aside to stand before\nyour mother. \"With all due respect madame,\" she starts, \"you no\nauthorityn. You've been relieved of duty for years. We've humored you\nout of kindness, but you really are in no position to be---\"\n\nTlista's raptorial foreleg snaps out and smacks Red across her face. It\nwas a backlegged strike, so no spines impaled her.\n\nThe imago says, \"Have you wondered why it is that you were able to pin\ndown the witch, where so many before have failed?\"\n\nGreen is speaks while Red is rubbing her mandibles and backing away. The\nsmaller bane says, \"We assumed she simply wasn't a priority. There are\nfar too many defects in the heartlands --- it's natural for the weakest\nnot to warrant a waste of our scarce resources.\"\n\n\"She was coming to Shatalek, to warn us of the danger, inform us that\nthe stewartry would be sending teams to keep control on things.\"\n\nThe two vesperbanes glance back at the slumped mantis.\n\n\"Tell me, why did you take the time --- waste the time --- tracking\ndown this defect? Time that you could have spent ensuring the safety\nof my town?\"\n\n\"Ma'am,\" Green starts, \"are you acting to shelter this defect?\"\n\nIt's a high crime, you remember. One of the highest; unmitigated guilt\nof such entails execution.\n\n\"Do you think,\" Tlista's voice is tending low; rather than the highs\nof objective command, the tone of her words became something personal\nand inviting, \"it's a coincidence that I'm stationed in the village\nnearest to the witch? That she is acting in our interests? She is my\njurisdiction.\" You don't let your confusion march onto your face and\nruin her ploy.\n\n\"If that is the case,\" Green starts in a voice making a tangible\neffort not to call beetleshit, \"why would our master tell us of her\nbounty? Why, if the defect supposedly accounted for?\"\n\n\"There's another thing that doesn't add up,\" Tlista says. There's\nsomething --- confident about the way she flatly ignores questions,\nsetting her own pace for the conversation. \"You said this was a B-rank\nmission. For world-scar investigation, that part makes sense.\" Your\nmother leans forward, antennae extending out toward the banes. \"But\nyou're wretches. Barely even wretches, banelings. Yet B-rank missions\nrequire the presence of a fiend.\"\n\nAnd the banes fall in line with he course your mother sets, Green\ndropping her inquiry to instead respond, \"Our master is working with\nthe vindicators at the mound to secure it. He is an arch-fiend.\"\n\n\"And just who is your roach-brained master?\"\n\n\"Dlenam.\"\n\nFor once, your mother is thrown off balance; she jerks back at the name.\n\"Of course it'd be him.\" She gathers herself up, and sets her thorax\nerect. \"Tell your master to knock some sense into you next chance he\ngets, hear me? Before you fuck up another mission. But for now, go do\nyour jobs, and ensure the syndics of Shatalek are aware of what's\noccurring.\" A midleg is flung back behind her emphatically. It clips\nyou a little.\n\nThe vesperbanes stare at your mother for a beat, Green with wariness\nwritten into the angle of her legs, Red with open-mouthed,\nwide-mandibled indignance. But ultimately, she is right and they know\nit. Her correctness costs them several hundred claws.\n\nGreen is the one who starts walking away first. When she passes behind\nyour mother, she says, \"Your wisdom is quite appreciated, madam\nTlista.\"\n\nRed passes next, stomping, giving your mother a wide berth.\n\nLast is the quiet one, whom they called Shimare. She leaps from atop the\nroadside ridge, landing silently on the stone path, standing thin and\ntall. Her wings flare wetly open. Her forelegs and midlegs come together\nto form a sign, and then the skin inside of her wings begins to glow\nbrightly red. Why does a nymph have wings?\n\nShe begins to walk softly after her teamates, but Tlista extends her\nleft midleg, stopping her.\n\n\"Shimare... of clan Brismati?\"\n\nA nod.\n\n\"Tell me, do you know Alaremu? Has she moved on? Has she remarried?\"\n\nShimare stands still for several heartbeats, and then finally speaks.\n\"Aunt Alaremu is dead.\"\n\nAnd then it is Tlista who stands still while Shimare dashes away\ntoward her team. But mother gathers herself quickly, and she forms a\nsign with forelegs, and whispers something reverent you can't make\nout, even riding on her back.\n\nLooking up, she seems to remember what you're here for, and she\ncrouches in front of the catalyst of all this trouble, the ambrosia\nwitch.\n\n\"You owe me one Maune. You really do.\"\n\nA blue antennae shifts sluggishly. Is she awake?\n\n\"Mother,\" you say, \"those vesperbanes, they weren't very nice.\"\n\n\"No, of course they weren't,\" she says, and her next words are a\nmutter, seemingly to herself. \"Of course. Give a nymph power over\nmatter and mantis, pile on responsibilities that would crush an imago,\nand let the vespers have their way with them --- and then wonder why\nvesperbanes are the vile mantes bugs hate.\"\n\nA wet cough. \"It --- a nightmare, isn't it?\"\n\nThat sharpens mother's attention. She looks up. \"You're awake.\"\n\n\"You.. here. Tlist?\"\n\n\"It's me. C'mere.\"\n\nWhen she steps forward, a squawk cuts through the nighttime silence.\nFaster than an antennae can twitch, a black form is slicing through the\nair and lighting down between the veteran and the defector.\n\nExperimentally, you reach out and the bird rounds and squawks at you.\n\nIt's Reva, the witch's familiar.\n\n\"Calm it boy. They're- they're help.\"\n\nThe bird steps to the side, but remains staring between you and Tlista.\n\n\"My daughter said you think there is a way to save you.\"\n\n\"Two ways... But I have a preference.\"\n\nTlista waits. The witch's breath is slow, and you wonder if she's\nslipping in and out of awareness, or devoting all her energy to holding\non.\n\n\"Reva, show them.\"\n\nMother prods you until you get off her back. Off you go. You're\nreplaced by the much larger ambrosia witch, slung limp and gracelessly\nbut steadily enough that Tlista begins to walk after the bird.\n\nIt's a journey even deeper into the woods. The stone path turns to\ngravel and then mere trampled dirt. The soundscape turns to the aerial\nwinds, seeking purchase below the canopy, and sleepless chitterring\nthings.\n\nAs you wind deeper (and wind the path does), the trees grow bigger and\nstranger. Those artful, alien workings of the weevils on the branches of\nthe trees seem to teem and infest your surroundings the deeper in you\ngo.\n\n\"Mother?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Does that mean I'm going to become mean if I become a vesperbane?\"\n\nShe pauses for a moment, considering. \"No. You always have a choice,\nEifre, remember that. But, if you become a vesperbane, it will try you.\nYou'll be angry, you'll be tired, you'll be very confused, and most\nof all, you'll be hungry. It brings out the worst in someone.\" She\ntakes your tarsus again, and squeezes it. \"But your worst can still be\nwonderful. You really want to be a hero, don't you?\"\n\nYou smile, and say, \"Heroes get to read all the best scrolls!\"\n\nAnd your mother gives a single pulse of laughter, and that's enough.\n\nYou walk beside your mother on the left, and you notice the midleg which\nthe nerve-ooze had attacked is darkened and sluggish.\n\nThroughout the woods, there lingers a sweet, spiced smell you've always\nfaintly associated with the edge of the ambrosia, and now it grows until\nit becomes entrenched on your antennae.\n\nYou don't like the smell. It's not because it's unpleasant --- it's\nstrange, but almost enticing (as it naturally would be, having heard\nthe stories of ambrosia weevils).\n\nNo, it's that very promise the smell holds that embitters you. You\ncould ignore it while your mother carried you, but now as you're forced\nto walk on your weak nymph legs, you realize: you're hungry. You\nwould have long have eaten dinner on any other night. But today, you're\nforced to do more on even less.\n\nYou reach out and grasp your mother's tarsus, and she gives a squeeze.\nYou hold her hand as you follow the crow ever deeper.\n\nAnd you know before Reva slows down that you have arrived.\n\nThicker, taller, wilder --- the trees grow here. But that alone\nwouldn't account for this: before you rises a mass of branches and\nleaves taller than any building in Shatalek. Maybe it's a massive hill\nthat just happened to form here --- you can't tell, because the growth\nis so thick the plants are a shroud.\n\nThe bird leading you (leadi"
}