{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/06",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/eifre-quest/06",
  "publishedAt": "2020-03-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "\"Tophem,\" you try, holding your maxillary palps still to not give away\nthe lie.\n\nYou can't tell if the reply is a cough or a laugh. \"Like that\nchildren's story character? Are you fucking with me? If so, don't.\"\n\n\"Fine, fine. My name is...\" You consider giving another fake name,\nTikka maybe, but if she lives, she might find out. \"I'm Eifre.\"\n\n\"Eifre... Exotic. I wonder where she picked it up.\"\n\n\"I'll be...\" --- you glance back where you came --- \"going. You\nsaid you wanted me to tell my mom..?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, leave the vile defect to her fate. Go quickly now, if you\nthink being a vesperbane is about saving people... well, you will save\nsome tonight.\"\n\nYou turn away from the wounded, lymph-drenched mantis. You remember\neverything they've told you about defects. And yet, this mantis is\npresent before you in a way the facts, vividly remembered or not, are\njust echoed words in your head.\n\nShaking your head, you start down the path back to Shatalek. You want to\ngo the other way, follow the little bird to her cabin --- but she's a\ndefect, you can't help her, it's wrong. And you should tell your mom\nwhat she said.\n\nMaybe afterward, you can come back, and...\n\nYou decide to focus on the task before you, as little as there is to\nfocus on. You remember the way back, but anyone would; the path only\nforked once more after the first time, and it was sloughing off a tiny\ntrail of trampled leaves and snapped-off shrub-branches. You only\nnoticed it coming back.\n\nComing again by the crack where you had thought you saw the strange\nshadow, you walk a little ways off the path just to give the crack a\nwider berth --- as if something might have slideintothe crack. Maybe\nit's silly. But maybe you're allowed silly caution.\n\nYou hear an owl hoot somewhere in the branches above, and a legged snake\ndarting through the leaves. You shiver, and pick up your pace through\nthe late evening woods.\n\nIt's at the intersection that you pause again. There are many sounds in\nthe ambiance of the woods, but you almost swear you hear... voices? And\na skittering step.\n\nYou're on edge, you're introspective enough to notice as much, your\nraptorials still shaking. You realize this is really happening, actual\nmantids getting seriously hurt.\n\nAnd it might be you, next.You don't want to take any risks. The\nsound might have been coming from up the central path (the rightward\nonenow, as you're now returning down what formerly was the rightward\npath).\n\nYou're not sure you want to find out what other surprises the ambrosia\nwoods have for you.\n\nBy the time you're near in sight of the plains again, you're\npractically running to escape.\n\nAnd then a mantid figure comes into view.\n\nThey're coming around the bend, from the woods' opening, and they're\nwielding a torch in one raptorial. You throw yourself to a halt, almost\ntripping in your haste. The figure stops walking too, but with more\nsurety, like they'd already been on guard. Their antennae are flexed\ntall.\n\nThey lift a long thin object and point it at you. You can't see in the\ndarkness and the shadow, but you're sure it's a musket, a midleg\ntarsus holding it steady and a raptorial's dactyl on the trigger.\nYou're sure a kilogram of pressure could end your life right now.\n\nBut the mantis soon lowers the musket, and folds their antennae. They\naren't at ease, but there is less threat to them now. \"Eifre?\"\n\n\"It's me.\"\n\n\"Your mother was looking for you after you disappeared. Come here,\nwe'll keep you safe.\"\n\nThe guard --- she must be a guard --- slings the musket around their\nback, letting it rest it on their abdomen, and holds out their (folded)\nraptorials, as if to hug.\n\nYou run toward her, and decide to let her hug you. She squeezes you\ntight, and for a moment, you feel safe. And then she releases you, and\nwith a nudge, you're following them out of the woods, and down the path\nback home.\n\nAt this distance, you can see half a dozen mantises with torches ranging\nthe streets. Two are starting toward the roach farmlands, and one\nsearches the copse of trees where the nymphs sometimes play.\n\nAnd you can see a certain figure already stalking toward the ambrosia\nwoods, with that distinctive three-legged gait. Your mother comes toward\nthe woods, anxiously followed after by a guard. They're talking ---\narguing? --- but their voices carry only enough for you to determine\nthat much.\n\nThey're a little ways out of the village, and moving faster than you,\nso the two parties meet near the study rock where this all began. Close\nenough for you to see that your scrolls are gone, carried away\nsomewhere.\n\nNeither of you have even stopped moving before you hear your mother's\nsteely voice. \"You! We were looking all over for you. I knocked on the\ndoor of each one of your friends, I crawled in your little cave, and\nchecked all of your other hiding places. The guards told me they had\nseen you scamper off into the ambrosia woods, but Iknewmy daughter\nwasn't sostupidas to do such a thing.\" She paused, and looks you\nup and down, like she'd just met you. \"Clearly she was not. What\npossessed you to do such a thing?\"\n\n\"The ambrosia witch---\"\n\nAnd that's all it takes. Your mother interrupts suddenly, antennae\nsnapping up. \"Go.\" She's looking between the two guards. \"Thank you\nfor finding my daughter. I'm sorry for waking you up. You can get your\nsleep now, goodbye.\"\n\nThe guard following behind your mother slumps and starts to turn. The\none who'd found you looks confusedly between you and her for a moment,\nbut just nods and starts to leave also. Though before she leaves, she\nreaches out and pats you on the head.\n\nMother watches them go. Turning back to, she says, \"You met Maune?\nDescribe her.\"\n\nYou tell her of what the bird led you to, the sight you saw.\n\nShe sighs, reaching and pulling you closer in a one-foreleg hug. A\nmoment, and her embrace slackens enough to let you look up, and looking\ndown at you, say asks, \"What did she have to say?\"\n\nYou remember and divulge each relevant detail, including those cryptic\nlines which mean nothing to you.\n\nTlista recieves it all with a severe calmness. You always had excellent\ncomposure (the only flaw in it was it always cracked around your\nmother), and right now, it's clear where you got it from. But she's\nhad years to hone what is mere placidity in you into what she wields as\na formidable poise.\n\nShe nods when you finish. \"I see.\" And she mumbles to herself, you\nstill held close enough to hear, \"I hope this isn't just her paranoia\nagain. Not with my daughter.\" Your mother withdraws her foreleg.\n\"Regardless, go home, dear. Your dinner is cold but I left it on your\ndesk. Stay in your room and do nothing more tonight.\"\n\nYour mother steps past you, down the path back into the ambrosia woods.\nBut she stops after a few steps, and you know she's watching you from\nthe fringe of her compound eyes, waiting for you to obey and amble back\nhome.\n\nThere's not much you can do but go home. But will you return for\nlong-awaited dinner a much-needed (if sure to be troubled) night rest?\nOr will you return plotting something more tonight?\n\n::: afterword\nApocrypha Given {#ap-06}\n\n> tell mom we're old enough to come with her to help\n\nNote that your character is fourth instar, going on fifth. Heartlands\nMantids reach imagohood at their twelfth instar.\n\n> but were supposed to be taken somewhere on their third, so that little\n> adventure has to be an acceptable alternative\n\nYour mother had told you to stop getting your hopes up, and stop looking\nso drenched in disappointment every year. She told you that it's only\nthe geniuses and the exceptional that get picked as young as you are.\n(But were you not a genius? Were you not the village's exception?)\n\nIt's only by your sixth instar that you'll really be of use to them,\nshe said. And by then, you'll have nothing to worry about.\n\n:::: details\nSuggestions Received\n\n> try to sneak back out during the night\n\n- - -\n\n> tell mom we're old enough to come with her to help, how many times\n> were we overlooked by the vesperbane thing? and yet we did something\n> useful, we could do more if we'd be treated accordingly\n::::\n:::",
  "title": ""
}