{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/07",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/07",
  "publishedAt": "2020-04-19T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Your mother stands between you and the ambrosia woods. She waits for you\nto spin cerci and leave, so she can brave whatever adventure still\nwaits in the woods, alone.\n\n\"No.\" You could do as she asks --- or seem to, and sneak out and\ncreep back into the woods. But why should you have to slink around, when\nyou ought to be deemed ready to become a vesperbane any month now?\n\nTlista turns round in a single fluid motion, her footing sure on the\nstone road. Behind her, her wings flex --- not in full threat\ndisplay, but lifted just a bit. Her antennae uncoil and her maxillae\nspread.\n\nYou understand, for perhaps the first time, why your mother has the\nreputation she does. She is the image of the dauntingly built vesperbane\nlady --- eight heads high with her prothorax upright --- which inspired\nthe cowardly mix of fear and respect the other villagers regarded her\nwith.\n\nBut you always had excellent composure.\n\nYou continue, \"Would you have appreciated it at my age, if you wanted\nto help, if you could help, but you were brushed aside just because\nyou're not old enough to respect? I know you were an early initiate.\nYou told me.\"\n\nYou have your raptorials fold closed, held low under your prothorax.\nYour antennae are held at an angle almost parallel to the ground: low,\nwhere your mother's are high. You don't go so far as to bow, but you\nhope this offsets your insolence.\n\nShe says, \"I was initiated during my fifth. I was not a vesperbane\nat your age.\" Her wings twitch in rhythm with her words. Her spiracles\nare squeezed tight, pitching her voice an irritatingly high tenor,\nrather than soothing bass.\n\n\"Oh...\" you say. Then, in that curious voice you've harrowed your\nfather with, you ask, \"Is it that non-vesperbanes have nothing to\ncontribute?\"\n\nYour mother flinches at that, her first reaction that lies entirely\noutside your model of the situation. Your antenna flicks in instinctive\nconfusion.\n\nMeanwhile, Tlista does not snap out a response. She is the sort to\nhonestly consider her response rather than leaping forth on the first\nimpulse, and she takes time to think. She's used to being given such\ntime.\n\nYou clench your raptorials, and try to resist your next action. It's a\ngamble, and could ruin your backup plan. But you have a head for\nsituations and it could work. Trust your instincts.\n\nSighing through your mouth, you then say, \"You know what? Nevermind.\nI'll just go home. And stay in my room. And do nothing else\ntonight.\"\n\nShe knew, you rationalize to yourself once the words leave your palps.\nYou're sure she knew what you were planning.\n\nDramatically, you turn around. You lift a midleg---\n\n\"Enough, Eifre. Come back here.\"\n\nIf it wasn't obvious manipulation before, the cocky grin, which you\ncan't get out of your palps now that you've won, would have revealed\nit all.\n\nYou dash over to your mother, and she embraces you, a foreleg falling\naround your prothorax but her right raptorial is open, spines on either\nside of your mesothorax, but no force behind them.\n\n\"You would have come back here either way, wouldn't you? This way I\ncan keep an eye on you.\"\n\nShe lifts you up, over her head, and you slide down into the valley\nbetween her thorax and her abdomen. Her legs hardly need to adjust to\nthe added weigh. You kick the bag slung around her abdomen, the bag she\nalways carries, and wonder if it weighs more than you do.\n\nShe says to you, \"Be useful and hold my torch, okay?\"\n\nFinally, carried by your mother, the two of you start back towards the\nambrosia woods.\n\n\"Why was the crow able to talk?\" you ask. \"It didn't even seem like\nit was only repeating sounds! It was almost, intelligent.\"\n\nYou feel a hitch in your mother's walking. It's slight, and she\ncontinues on only slightly slowed.\n\n\"Familiars,\" she says. \"The stewartry has experimented with using\nvesper magic to uplift and empower animals.\" A raptorial lifts to just\nbelow her face, a dactyl tapping on her labium. \"I believe it was\ntwenty, thirty years ago that they declared a moratorium? Citing the\ndanger, the suffering it causes, and concerns that it was or would\nbecome Exclusion-worthy.\"\n\n\"So it's a magic talking bird? That doesn't... How does it work?\"\n\n\"I don't know everything, dear,\" she says, and it sounds like it\nstings. \"Familiar theory is restricted, and far outside my specialty.\"\n\nYou sigh exaggeratedly, (since she can't see you pout). \"Fine.\"\n\nIf you had been a veteran vesperbane, you doubt you could have stopped\nyourself from delving into the topic. Moratoria and restrictions already\nsound like vexations.\n\nTlista's voice reaches again for that higher, unaffectionate tone.\n\"You realize this is what makes her dangerous, Eifre? That lady is a\ndefect. You don't know what she's capable of.\"\n\n\"I'd have a better idea if you answered my questions better! Surely\nyou know more than three sentences about familiars.\"\n\n\"It's been years, honey. Regarding a subject I was never that\ninterested in.\" You don't relent, not just yet, and your request\nlingers in the ensuing silence. \"Okay, okay,\" your mother continues,\nher tone unsteady, making your worry she's just making something up.\n\"It's a crow, right? Crows are cunning creatures. Remarkably so, even.\nWhatever techniques they use to create familiars, a target already\nintelligent must've have helped allow it to succeed. It's a not a\nsurprise she has a familiar. With the lack of morals or oversight\nintrinsic to being a defect, it must be something the lot of them\nexperiment with.\"\n\nYou hum at this longer response. You aren't satisfied, but you're\nclose enough.\n\nOnward she walks into the ambrosia woods. Quiet soon envelops the two of\nyou, perhaps owing to the irritation hinted in the clench of mother's\nmandibles.\n\nThe path deeper is familiar to you. The tall, stately trees line the\npits and mounds of the forests' expanse. Here and there in the trees\nyou can see the unattended, almost art-like workings of ambrosia\nweevils, as whorling branch-masses. They have a haunted, daemonic\nappearance in the darkness of early night.\n\nFamiliar too is the small ridge of dirt forming a wall to the right of\nthe muddy stone path. Ahead, you remember, the road forks in three.\nYou're near the witch.\n\nNor have you forgotten the crack, where you saw for a moment the strange\npuddle-shadow. You left it out of your retelling, unable to account for\nit. But now a worry crawls back to you.\n\nThe crack is in sight. You reach out to tap Tlista, tell her what you\nsaw. And then things go wrong.\n\nTlista's reflexes are such that you're reacting to her reaction before\nyou even apprehend what's happening. She is leaping back, and you're\njerked off her back. You would have been launched into the blackness of\nthe night forest, but mother's reflexes are exquisite, and her midleg\nand hindleg (!) grab onto you before you leave her reach.\n\nThen you're finally able to look. Tlista's current configuration is\nbest described as contorted. You're held in her right mid- and\nhindleg. She still stands on her left hindleg --- standing on it a alone\nfor one unbalanced moment, before she twists (lifting you up higher) and\nplanting her left foreleg down on her right side.\n\nAnd the reason for all of this? Her left midleg should be illuminated\nby the torch you carry. Instead, there is a black mass beyond her coxa,\nso dark it seems to lack form.\n\nThat instant of clarity passes, and time marches forward in confusion\nand chaos. Tlista is hopping to the side, a placing you safely atop the\nridge beside the road. You hear her hissing in pain. The black mass on\nher midleg writhes and pulsates. She's slapping the leg down on against\nthe stone. \"Get off,\" she scrapes, high like a bat.\n\nShe shakes her leg like one might to get a feral dog off. And the black\nmass seems to constrict, bunching together before it pours off her,\nplummeting with a viscous, soundless splash.\n\n\"Don't like the taste of me, huh?\"\n\nShe kicks the pile of black with a foot. But the mass ignores her now,\nand instead flows toward the ridge.\n\nToward you.\n\n\"No you don't. Not my daughter.\" She reaches into the bag slung\nagainst her abdomen and snatches out an oblong capsule bigger than her\ntarsi. It snaps open with a click, and inside ripples a wet metal.\nGingerly she presses the capsule toward the black mass (now starting to\nflow up the ridge; you back up, only half distracted watching Tlista).\n\nBut the black mass stops flowing. Mother pushes the capsule nearer.\n\nYou've played with magnets before.\n\nThe mass flows into the capsule with the liquid metal, and compresses\nto fit. Bubbles of air form and pop as its volume decreases. Sometimes\ninstead it's sickly fluid that bursts from films and spills out like\npustules.\n\nYou stare as your mother seals the capsule once more and places it in\nher back, and then she leaps toward you. Reaching out for your tarsus,\nsqueezing it, she helps you back onto her back, and you hold on tight.\n\n\"Wha... what happened, mom?\"\n\n\"That'll be the rule six or seven of enervate physics. Element\npreference. You'll learn it in the inculcatoria. The short of it is,\npure enervate is attracted to matter, but not equally; the denser the\nmaterial, the stronger the attraction. And my little bit of mercury is\nheavier than any biological element.\" She pats her back. \"That foul\ncreature was not pure enervate, but it wasn't sufficiently not enervate\nfor that to matter.\"\n\nYou squeeze around her prothorax, and she gives an affectionate hum.\n\n\"Why did it attack us? Why did it come for me?\"\n\nShe folds her antennae. \"Give me a moment to think?\" she asks. And you\ndo.\n\nShe walks on, maxillae twitching and antennae working. You two come to\nthe triple fork, and she pauses there. You point to the correct path.\nEventually:\n\n\"You said the witch mentioned exclusion? As in, a council exclusion?\"\n\nNod.\n\n\"Then here's my theory: the stewartry is already here. That creature I\ncaptured is a nerve-ooze. Oozes are... unfortunately easy to create,\nfor reasons I'll not get into. They have a pitiful bit of intelligence,\nbut it's a enough to train, a"
}