Chapter Text
I just had to think it, didn’t I!?
We ducked low, feet pounding frosted grass, wings buzzing through air and grasping hands both.
The night had started off almost peaceful! Sky full of stars and lacking the smog and violence of the Bay, oh it was fantastic.
Air whistled, racing over my eight o'clock scout’s fuzz, and we had to dive. The arrow landed with a dull thunk! in an oak out of sight, and I sicced one of my newest companions on its shooter.
But then the groans had started, chests rattling with fetid breath as they crawled out of every crack and crevice in the land. The second shoe didn’t drop, it kicked me in the fucking chin.
But hey, at least I was right: the sheer blatancy in wanting me dead really was refreshing!
I skidded into a clearing, chest thumping steadily, white puffs dancing from wide lips. For once I was thankful for Sophia, if it weren’t for her siccing those cookie-cutter jocks on me back in Autumn I’d be a quick bite for my pursuers.
Turns out cardio routines really were lifesaving.
Air brushed over my twelve o’clock, just past the tree line, and I finally got to see my admirers properly.
The large figure lurched forward once. Twice. Wind howled past it, ruffling the forest’s vibrant leaves just enough to paint it in the moon’s cool glow.
They didn’t look any better in the light.
Perfect square angles wrapped in decayed clothing, their rotten, green skin stuck out almost as much as their stench: its sparse, blackened patches giving way to brown-green flesh beneath. It groaned, and the guttural sound echoed out.
It limply raised it arms, and turned oily, lifeless eyes on me. I wasn’t frightened by its bravado, even if it was over six feet tall. The corpse stepped closer, two more following behind it.
I’d say I was more annoyed, if anything. Maybe even angry.
Others not in its pack came, drawn by their mounting calls for dinner. One was solo, the others in pairs, at my three, five, and ten o’clock.
Yeah, you know what? I’d say I was pissed.
I mean, seriously? Sure, they were shambling dopes who would trip over their own feet given the chance, but really? I couldn’t catch a break, I just had to deal with zombies!?
No, I didn’t fucking think so.
The trees hissed with my wrath, and just as the first came in arm’s reach I sprang my trap, slipping out of the clearing as my newest minions fell upon them like a blanket of black chitin.
I kept the bond’s filters as tightly-knit as was safe, even as my— as their fangs sank deep into sickeningly sweet-and-sour rot, as each current of air felt like fingers crawling over their many limbs, as the urge to pounce-strike-feast-hunt pounded in my temples like war-drums.
My knights marched to the beat they were born to with unearthly coordination, and I made my get-away. The millenniums-long song was beautifully haunting, something rugged, prideful. Sharp. Perfectly befitting the forest’s apex predator, but uncoordinated, despite all the massive spiders’ substantial wit.
Which made them fantastic for me: harder to bring to heel, sure, but once the bond was solid they became something far greater than their sum.
They became my knights.
A smile curled at my lips’ corners at the thought as I jogged off. The new pack of five at my ten o’clock stumbled off, suddenly intrigued by a very insistent buzzing dozens of yards away.
My scouts were the next force under my control, and my buzzing friends were ever loyal in their duties. Flowing in loose concentric circles and waylaying any undead they found, my outermost bees were few, but far from ineffective for it, keeping me up to date of enemy movements and thoroughly scratching my paranoia’s ever-present itch. Lets see one of Emma’s cronies sneak up on me now, huh?
…God even running for my life I’m still thinking of her.
Was that sad? Pretty sure that was sad.
I shook my head; now wasn’t the time to get morose over my social-life. Or, unsocial-life. Whatever!
I sharply turned north, getting back on track as grass crunched underfoot. Their was a gap ahead big enough for the group and I, so I picked up the pace.
With my scouts to spot, track, and access threats, and my knights to pick off stubborn hanger-ons or shatter united fronts, I was thoroughly ready to handle threats before they ever saw me. Not that getting a hands-on view was bad, once in a while. ‘Know thy enemy,’ and all that.
So all that left was defence, and thus the highest privilege I could give to my minions: a position in my honour-guard!
…To be honest, I might have gotten carried away with my naming, but what girl hasn’t wanted to be a warrior-queen at least once growing up?
My heraldry was yellow/black, and my guards wore it with pride, a constant swirl of colour and noise and blissful warmth that left only slivers of me free to the world, all while inches of fuzz-covered chitin lay between any enterprising arrows and my scrawny self.
…I didn’t let them get hit needlessly, obviously, it just wasn’t sustainable; sure, I picked more up with every mile jogged, but gestation was a few days long at least, and that — from what little I could gleam — depended heavily on food-availability and the bee’s comfort, so I wasn’t getting biblical swarms any time soon.
And they were cute. Not cute enough to take an arrow for, but still.
Honestly, all I needed now was a castle-turned-greenhouse and I’d be set, but the odd hill we were heading to with every twist and turn would have to do. My path may have looked a fool’s from a bee’s eye view, but results begged to differ. We’d be there in the hour, less if there were no more surprises.
And for the first half hour there wasn’t, more zombies and those lurking, rattling archers, sure, but nothing else. Not that these dead shots weren’t enough of a hassle, god what I’d do just to fucking rest. Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty in the tank, especially for something that wanted my heart on a platter, but the more exhausted I got the sooner I’d make a mistake.
And when arrows were whizzing by your head every few minutes, you only needed to fuck up once.
And it was with that absolutely cheerful thought that I got my next surprise.
Pair of birches, thirty yards at two o’clock, three staggering silhouettes. Should be easy work.
Scout-11 flew low at my command, nearly brushing one and pulling the trio out of my path with a quick round of buzzing.
Occupied for the next half-minute, moving Scout-6 to 11’s place. Job done, moving onto—
—Flicker—
My view shifted, something jarring but very necessary if I wanted to keep my distaste for organ-meat by the end of the night. I fell into Scout-3’s body like one of those cheesy-sounding Aleph ‘anime’ imports Greg always talked about.
The fact I even knew the reference proved just how hard it was to ignore him.
Peaceful clearing, twenty yards at eleven o’clock, changing path, job done—
—Flicker—
Scout-31, three-hundred yards, leaving nest at one O’clock, hill roughly twenty minutes out from its location, moving ahead. Almost there, just stay steady Tayl— Contact!
Feet fumbled, almost throwing me off the ground as something lit up 31’s sight like a firecracker.
It stood like a far too colourful lighthouse at the base of a birch, tall and solitary, demanding attention in the swimming monochrome shadows of the forest. The half-moon’s poor light and my scouts’ diurnal eyes didn’t matter, I bet it could be in pitch black and I’d still see this…
Plant?
Ultraviolet like Photon-Mom herself had blasted it into existence, the possible ficus’s cubed top shifted idly in the breeze. My newest scout flew closer, getting a proper view of the…
It turned.
It definitely just turned.
My heart hammered, and slowly, every so slowly, the creature walked forward. Powdery almost-purple puffed off its angular form with every odd step, spreading like pollen over the grass and—
Wait, pollen? I almost felt like slapping myself, instead I just grit my teeth, kept the pounding of my feet close to my chest, and dived into the scout’s senses.
Sweet, but not right. A sharp discordant undertone, something foul and sour, traced with the instinct to keep my— to keep its distance. Like shattered webs, thick strands of powdery ultra-violet flowed up and around, crawling over every inch of the beast and giving me a perfect outline of its odd anatomy. It moved on four stubby legs, bore no arms, and swayed with every step.
The web seemed to sprout from its lower chest, where lines grew so thick the colour was solid.
That was the scent, the powder.
Whatever it was, it had 31 spooked to hell and back. And me. Slightly.
Listen, if a Brocktonite tells you to stay clear of the Docks, then you stay clear of the Docks. If a giant, cubed bee native to a planet you’re new to says to stay away from the waking plant-monster, you stay the fuck away from the plant-monster.
So I kept 31 on its tail, just a few yards behind the stranger as I fell back into my rhythm for the next few hundred yards. It didn’t do anything for a while, its head(?) shifting in the breeze as it ponderously wandered.
At least, until I got within forty yards of it.
I was about to break into a clearing, and we’d gotten close enough that it felt wise to keep some knights around it. Which left me feeling like I should find a way to kiss my past-self for the idea when the plant stopped dead in its tracks, turned its head, and starting sprinting.
Right for me.
How? I shivered, and not from the wind. It couldn’t see me, I’d made sure of it and— wait, the wind.
It raced across the nearly solid outer lair of fuzz on my scouts, across tiny sensory follicles of my knights, and carried the scent of rot, sure, but of someone who’d also been sweating all night.
And I had just ran upwind from it. Fuck.
Forty yards and closing, I mean sure I was hoping to get a view of the thing but not like this!
Two knights waylaid the beast, one above with the other below. They struck in unison, the first arachnid latching onto its back, its fist-sized fangs sinking deep into its strange not-flesh. It was hard to describe, even with touch being the simplest of senses to parse: almost like biting into dense, soaked and grainy sponge cake? That odd powder gleamed over its fangs and hung in its mouth, even as the other’s pulled fangs back from the far too short legs.
…How the hell was that reasonable evolution? How did it right itself if it fell? Just, how did it exist?
Questions of what mother-nature was on when designing this thing went up in smoke, though, when the knight latched to its back started heating up. Its chest and legs — still flush with the creature — went from warm to holy-shit-get-away in half a second.
What.
The beast swayed. Its ‘torso’ curled backward as time slowed, as flesh grew hot enough to burn.
What.
Scout 31 hung in the air, and both of us saw a faint, harsh light bloom among the trees.
What-the-hell-is-it-doing—!
BANG!
A star was born. There was no other way to describe it. Its blazing light branded the trees’ silhouettes in my eyes, and the wave of sound rocked me as hard as the tree it’d just launched into the air.
In less time than it took to blink, both the lives of my knights and scout-31 were snuffed out. It was as if they never existed.
I fell, the ground rumbled beneath me like it’d been smacked by Behemoth, and I slammed clammy hands over my ears.
Too little and too late. The sound had passed.
What—
The—
Fuck!
I pulled myself to my feet — hard to do with a bass-band playing in your fucking ears, and- and whatever the fuck it was I’d felt from my minions when they’d been goddamn atomized I’ll tell you, but still I managed.
My eyes were watering, rendered fucking useless from staring into a homemade sun after being out all night, so with a —flicker— I was able to see the devastation.
And devastation fit, oh how it fit. Where the creature once stood was now naught but soot, a blackened crater several yards across and still in that odd symmetrical pattern everything ran in, like cubes of dirt and stone had been plucked out, leaving something vaguely circular, some charred, loosely arachnid shaped corpses, and a choking plume of that ultraviolet powder, hanging like volcanic ash.
Oh, and it left everything in a square mile pissed to hell and back, because if I heard it? The undead that every fucking scout could see converging on me did too.
Shit shit shit! Recall the knights, pull in my scouts, hell I’d batten the hatches if I had any but nooo, Taylor just had to get kicked in the teeth, didn’t she? Screw it, this wasn’t the time to mope and complain, that was a privilege of the pretty with someone else to do their shit for them; I had to go, now!
I stopped pacing myself, grabbing the basket I’d dropped before breaking into a dead-sprint that left my battered legs aching as inch by inch I got closer to the strange hill.
The archers were the first to arrive, their new-found bravado and moonlight finally revealing what I’d known from my scouts to be skeletons. They surged out into the half-shadows, taking every potshot they could with worn bows. The rattling bastards even nailed three of my honour-guard before we were even half way to the actually-not-a-hill-but-close-enough-to-a-hill hill.
Zombies were quick work, dumber and slower both than their sharp-eyed comrades, while every spider found only added to my forces. Suffice to say, there weren't anymore surprises for my buzzing band in that last stretch.
At least, none that actively tried to kill me.
The minutes passed, and with it we found less and less resistance, packs of three or five turning to lone stragglers. Seems there was one plus side to that explosion, at least: everyone had gotten curious, and with me hauling ass my trail had long gone cold. Plus, I finally got my peace.
Hopefully it’d stay that way.
…God this place was fucking weird. Beautiful when it wasn’t trying to kill me, sure, but my point stood.
Case in point, our nearing destination.
My sprint had fumbled into a jog at some point, and that fell further into a walk that’d probably kill me if I was wearing heels — not that I’d know. We were only a few yards to the mound’s clearing now. The moonlight filtering through the last lines of oaks and birches grew brighter with every exhausted step.
And then, we were finally out.
I stumbled forward as we broke the tree-line, falling to my knees and sucking down lungfuls of bitingly crisp air. My honour-guard cleared enough to give me a view, and I greedily took in my refuge.
Hell, as weird as this world might be… it definitely wasn’t trying to kill me right now.
The largest clearing I’ve seen yet spread out before me, an almost perfect circle, with a thick, raised ring of flourishing grass and scattered stone that I was knelt atop of. I half-felt I’d practically stepped into Arcadia — and not the ostentatious school — when my eyes finally raked over the clearing’s centre-piece.
A small pond, sitting still and nearly undisturbed. Its unknown depths showed nothing but a perfectly reflected clearing, the rock it held, and a deep-violet sky, sprinkled in uncountable stars. Each breeze rippled its surface, sending stars and odd, reflective stone dancing with every breath.
The gargantuan boulder in the pond’s centre was just that, gargantuan, standing at easily over a dozen yards tall over the water alone and roughly spherical, but still made up of those odd, symmetrical blocks… and it probably wasn’t a boulder at all, now that I thought about it.
I mean, the lack of trees here, the raised ring of material around its crater, the dense, odd flecks of reflective beige-brown material in it? This was a meteor.
And, it seemed to have some kind of… metal in it?
I really wished I’d paid more attention to my science courses. Shit. Either way it was beautiful, and far more importantly, home.
Or, camp? I’d decide when I wasn’t so dead tired, because holy hell was I beat.
I sluggishly pulled myself to my feet, letting the softly flowing river hugging the clearing’s east side lull me to peace. It ran on my right, racing further forward as it headed north. The source of the water if I had to guess, just… seeping through the dirt, over time.
Blegh, stuff for awake Taylor to think about, unlike solving what was sure to be my greatest challenge tonight.
Figuring out how the hell I’m supposed to get to my new bed from outer-space.
Surely I’ll think of something.
Right?