After drinking my fill I felt my abdomen swell with cool sweet water. The refreshment soothed me and my new muscles as they ached from my flight from the home hill. Home hill. The mountain built upon generations, and from the thousands that I was descended from. All that remained from them were the memories from the song of the queen and those passed down in my blood. I felt my mind sinking into that grief again so again, to survive, I needed to flee. I had no other way. The sounds of the four limb screams still echoed in the distance and though. Sounds of opportunity.
I followed the noise, crouching deep within the underbrush and creeping on all six. Scents filled the air as my feelers twitched through the currents upon which they were carried. Under the cover of brush I came upon a ling narrow clearing, trail came to mind. But only more carnage was to greet me. I saw larger four limbs attacking or fighting others of their kind. The smell of burning wood and charred flesh carried through the air. I felt my mandibles dripping at the thought of tender meat. But there were many four limbs, perhaps an entire back. And I was only one. Patience may provide an opportunity for me, so I decided to bide my time, still and silent in the brush.
Most of the larger ones had killed or restrained the smaller. Through their scents I inferred this to be a pack of rogue males. Most likely using brute force to take what they needed from weaker packs. As I studied the corpses littering the ground amongst their burning piles of wood, they were mostly male corpses. Maybe some from the victims, maybe some from the rogue pack, I couldn't be certain. They chortled in their odd singsong sounds. Not unlike the warbling of the birds in the forest. But far sharper, and lower with intent. Old memories alighted and I gleaned a little meaning from the noises they made.
"Haul". "Loot". "Captive". "Toys". I caught a few of the words but couldn't grasp what they tried to communicate to one another. As I listened I watched one of the males from the rogue pack begin to drag a smaller four limb towards the tree line. Towards me. Rewards smile upon those who wait I suppose. The smaller was being dragged by those knots of silk four limbs usually had growing off their heads. The larger fumbled with his groin, tugging at his coverings. The smaller let out screams and wails as the larger loomed closer to my hiding spot. The larger blundered through the bushes, nearly stepping to close to me as he threw the smaller down at the base of a nearby tree.
His back was shone to me. Good things come to the patient. He did not hear me approach. Nor do I suspect he understood what had happened when my mandibles tore through his neck, slicing his soft skin and meat with ease. He gurgled and died twitching within seconds. With the main threat taken care of I turned my attention towards the smaller. From my memories I assumed this to be a female. Young too as her muscles seemed stretched across a lanky frame. She looked upon me with a stunned disbelief as I prodded the now cooling body. She could make noise. Alert the others. But It would be a waste to kill more than could be consumed. Rearing all the way up onto my hind legs I peered back at the pack of rogues from the shadows.
They had not been alerted, apparently distracted by other "toys" they had. Revulsion welled up as the meaning of that four limb word dawned on me in this situation. Forced mating upon those weaker. Disgusting low creatures some of them are. I looked back upon my situation. I had a young one silent with shock and plenty of food to sooth the hunger of my new form. A streak of a new emotion passed through the tense instincts humming within my head. Pity. The young one would have had quite the fate had this brute not sought privacy in the wrong place. Seeing little choice left to ease my budding conscious, I used by mandibles to neatly separate one of the legs from the corpse, snipping through meat and plucking the bone away from it's socket with a pop.
I made short work of it as the young one looked upon me in horror. Fortunately for me it seemed this situation had stunned her into silence. So, gripping my meal in my jaws, I scooped her shivering form into my forelimbs and tucked her in close to my thorax. Her exterior was soft like that of a larvae, and not long after the first contact protective instincts reinforced a decision I had made from new emotion. This one would not die. I held her as I crept away into the forest, meal clenched in jaws and shivering form held close. We stole into the night.
Comments (0)
See all