Sol, prince of the city of Gol, possessed many princely qualities. Most immediate of which was his shape and stature. He stood tall and straight on two legs, a handsome beetle in the basic shape of man. Really it was the Goddess’s shape that she had bestowed on her once beloved creation of humanity. In this way, those of the swarm of Gol were copies of copies. But Sol was not a human, that was plain to see. He was a shining specimen of the lone city, literally, sun beams dazzled off his thick shell in glittering emerald and ruby rays. Like a natural crown, his horn reached proudly toward the canopy, extending nearly the length of the rest of him up from his forehead. From an exoskeletal view, he was the perfect inheritor of the throne. But within, Sol was not so princely.

A city, the children of Thanatos had learned, was an orderly affair quite unlike the wild. A kingdom required an orderly mind, a mind of magnitude and grandeur. Only such minds were fit to rule in the absence of a God. Sol’s mother, the queen, had such a mind. But the lone prince of the lone city had not inherited her prowess for governance. Sol was a simple creature. Though born into the only city of the vast Evergrowth, and into nobility no less, he felt the wild within him. The soul of the forest breathed through his spiracles. It was in moments like this one, stepping out of the realm of Gol after a half-moon of tedious princely duties and returning to the vast and eternal wilderness of the Goddess, that he most knew himself. He was not destined to rule, he couldn’t be. He wanted too much to wander, to fight, to love. He wanted freedom and simplicity. So, whenever he could he shirked his royal duties and escaped to the forest beyond, where his greatest treasure lay hidden.

The Valley of Gol that surrounded the city proper was an excellent land for hiding things. It was distant enough to avoid the bustling swarm of curious eyes in Gol, but close enough that the other tribes of the verdant deep kept a respectful distance. Here in the shallows of the forest, above the fathomless valleys, trees were sparse enough to allow a line of sight for warning, but there were enough of them to provide plenty of hiding spaces. Sol approached one such hiding place now. A huddle of oak trunks, each thrice wider than his broad chest, stood with their roots intermingled like lovers. There was exactly one path through the tangle which was well-hidden and best navigated by memory. Sol had passed in and out of this secret place many times by now. He disappeared into the web of roots and emerged into the arboreal cove within. Here, at the center of the huddle was space enough for a small dome hut, a home decorated in delicate purple flowers. The trees diverged at the level of their branches and so allowed the sun to cascade through on a cloudless day like today. Sol sucked in the balsam perfumed air and let the royalty seep out and away through his joints. He may have been born in Gol, but this place was his home. Inside lay his treasure.

Aster danced like a dream in the kitchen. He was only preparing a gourd for roasting in their clay oven, but his every movement appeared as part of a beautiful never-ending dance in Sol’s eyes. What a hardship it was he must leave him spinning solo time and time again. But he would always return, and this time Aster was so intent on a stubborn bit of stem that he did not notice his lover until strong segmented fingers slid around his waist.

A short yelp of surprise escaped him, but he was too fond of that touch to mistake it for anyone else. “Sol!” The boy spun around, flinging the skirt of his lavender linen dress in a joyous hoop around him. His fawn fur hair, his crooked-tooth smile, his irises happy and yellow like the faces of his namesake flowers. Every bit of him as gentle as they day they’d met at the border. “You’re home early!”

“The wild called. As did the heart of my flower boy.”

Aster wore a wry grin, “You want the wild and yet you speak in poetry like a prince.”

Sol laughed, “Well I was born a prince. So were you, but as you can see, things change.” His finger’s slipped through his lover’s downy hair and caressed the back of his ear.

“So, you’re ready to run away with me then?”

“Not if you don’t want half the warriors of Gol after us. The kingdom demands its prince for now.”

Aster pouted.

“I’m close! I’m wearing her down, honest. She can keep me around a while, but she can’t make me rule.”

“Then… I can wait. Will you stay long this time?” Aster pressed his body into the beetle prince’s chest.

“Yes! The high brood is setting up a territory mission this moon. They’ll be so busy that the absentee prince won’t cross their minds for a while.”

“A while?”

“At least a moon. Maybe more. We’ll see.”

Aster’s smile drooped just a petal’s width.

Sol noticed. “Aster, I tell you every time. You know I want nothing more than to runaway with you… but we have to be careful. There are enough eyes on the prince and his mysterious hideaway already. We can’t rush this.”

“I know. I know. I’m just impatient is all. I’m so ready to start my life with you and I'm tired of waiting!”

“We already have a life together, flower boy.” With his hands still on Aster’s waist, Sol gently directed them to the spider silk hammock hanging in the corner. Aster was much calmer when off his feet and on Sol’s chest. They settled into the hammock together, carapace on flesh, limbs entangled like lovers. “We’ll get to the next stage soon, I promise.”

“I can wait to run away. But maybe while I’m waiting here… we could get started on a project for the future?” Aster's voice dropped to a whisper as his fingertips dragged down Sol’s jaw to his neck, shoulders, chest, and below.

“A project?”

Aster’s hands made a circle over his lower abdomen and his eyes pleaded with all the abundant charm of the third prince of the human kingdom.

Sol sighed. “Aster, please. We’ve talked about this.”

“I’m here all day, cooking for the boys, waiting on you. I have plenty of time for a baby. And I want one so badly, Sol. I’m ready to be a mother.”

“And I will be thrilled to be a father, when it is safe.”

“When will it be safe? When will we ever be truly safe, Sol?”

“When we aren’t right under the city’s antenna! When there aren’t humans out there still hunting for you and your brothers!”

“Its been fifteen years!” Aster lifted himself up on his arms, promptly tipping the balance of the hammock and throwing them both to the grassy floor. Sol caught himself just before he flattened Aster under him, his hands planted on either side of the boy’s head. The intimacy of their new position cooled the moment a bit.

“Look,” Sol said, “I know how much you want a baby. Don’t think I haven’t noticed all your hinting. But you should know how much I want, no, need to keep you safe. If anyone caught a glimpse of a human baby, every tribe in the Evergrowth would show up at our door. And if we plan on running away, trekking through the Evergrowth to find our new home, you really want to do that with a grub?”

“An infant.” Aster corrected.

“Well do you?”

Aster huffed, rolled onto his side, and hugged Sol’s arm. He’d known this was how the conversation would end before he’d even started it. “Fine. No baby.”

“Just for now. We’ve got time, flower boy.”

“I’ll just have to spend it picking out names.” He smiled, “I love you, sunshine. Welcome home.”

The couple picked themselves up off the floor. This time Aster gently led them both back to the kitchen, or at least the portion of the one room hut dedicated to his culinary work, both the regular duties and the experiments. It was a well-organized, well-used kitchen. Tied bundles of herbs hung from the ceiling. Aromatics and spices, nearly all gifts from Sol, sat in tidy little clay bowls atop the oven. A gourd lay half-peeled next to a modest sack of grain, a bundle of wild mint, and a steaming pot of tea made with foraged rose hips.

“I bet your hungry from the trip.”

“Always am. Is it just us tonight?”

“I told the boys to be back by sundown, I figure if their heads don’t remember their stomachs will.”

“They know not to go too-”

“Far? They don’t leave the surrounding groves and they know how to hide.”

“I just worry.”

“Well, you know I can’t keep them cooped up here. Not everyone’s as much of a house pet as I am.”

“Are they hunting again?”

“Cedar is hunting. Fern just tags along to see the rabbits.”

“You know one of these days he’s actually going to catch one.”

“That’ll be a long time coming. He's still drowning in that armor you gave him.”

“He’ll grow into it. And are you prepared for him to show up with an actual catch?”

“He knows the deal. I don’t do meat. If he wants rabbit for dinner, he can cook it himself.” There was a lull in their fond back and forth as Aster set a cup of tea and bowl of fresh herb salad down on the little table. 

"So... a territorial mission, huh?” Aster asked.

“You picked up on that. You’re as clever as you are pretty.”

“I like to be informed about the fate of my old home.”

They both liked to keep up with the happenings of the fallen kingdom, actually. It was only natural for Aster, but Sol had long been fascinated with the territory. The one land beyond the Goddess’s direct authority and the model for his own city. The denizens of Gol had long since discarded any admiration for humanity after their recent crimes against the Goddess. But they still owed a civilizational heritage to that once-beloved race, and so they bore less hate towards the kingdom than the rest of the Evergrowth. Even as a firstmolt, Sol had often escaped the high-tier to buzz around the edge of the borderlands and observe the strange mammals and their stone-hide kingdom. That was how he’d met his flower boy, after all. And with such a treasure like Aster, he could never see humanity as a scourge like the rest of the Goddess’s creatures. His mandibles twitched with anxiety when he thought of what fate would befall the race now, in the aftermath.

“I didn’t say anything about the kingdom.”

“You didn’t have to. So… will it be a slaughter?”

“I hope not. Its an exploratory mission, just to assess the situation there.”

“And once its assessed?”

“Then… I don’t know. I was against the whole thing, but my authority is mostly ceremonial. There’s wasn’t much I could do.”

Aster sighed as he chopped the onions. “I don’t expect you to protect what’s left of that place. I doubt there’s much anyone could do. Best with not to dwell on it. We have our own lives now.”

"But you're worried." Sol said, concern showing in his deep black eyes. 

"Like I said, there's nothing I can do. We escaped that place never to return. Now I have you and the boys and maybe a little one soon. I can't waste energy fretting over the past." He became fixated on his chopping, the knife slamming against the cutting board with each chop. Sol again embraced him from behind. 

"Oh flower boy, are you crying?" 

"Just the onions."

"Right." 

Sol held him while he cooked and the two enjoyed their silence together as much as they enjoyed their banter. They had each other, and it was all going to be okay.