i admire its purity.

she hisses again, but the sound is somehow softer. more contemplative. she lowers to all fours, creeping closer still. she stops right before the shorter being, a thing that reeks of flesh and sustenance.

and she is growing hungry.

however, there is a whisper in the back of her mind. something akin to the mental call of a queen caressing her consciousness and blessing her with a moment of wisdom and clarity. she has seen the stars that lie outside the hull of this ship.

she knows she is stranded--- but in that, she knows this one must have come in his own vessel to explore. a curiosity needed to be satiated. so if he can come, than she can leave.

and then she can feed freely. and she can spread. if she is truly blessed, perhaps she may molt into a queen herself. instead of resorting to base instinct and tearing into his insides, she raises one of her own clawed hands. the fused digits twitch, curling up and down, up and down.

a mimic of his wave.

then she turns sharply to the right and scales the wall, scurrying past him at frightening speeds towards the direction he came from. towards the ship he must have.

the only sounds that return his call are the faint dripping sounds of what must be water. the groaning of the ship's hull. a creak, a thud, a splat. nothing audibly intelligent seems to reply.

until she unfurls her body proper and drops to the floor with a thud. she lands on all fours with the grace of a feline. she has no eyes, no visible nose, but her senses are frighteningly advanced to the point that they would be useless even if she did possess them.

finally, he gets a reply in the form of a low, almost reptilian hiss.

she pivots and shifts, grasping the resin covered walls and scaling to the ceiling. then she makes her way towards the sound, the uncertain chime of hello. the air is rank with uncertainty, with fear and that spurs her on.

the shadows are her ally. she's above him now, the soft biped clad in armor-- an armor that can only protect him from the deadly void outside. a void she can survive with ease.

she drops down behind him, her tail coiling around her legs before she stands slowly, surely. she hisses again, rivulets of drool cascading down her chitinous chin, claws flexing at her sides. he is not like the ones she has been feeding from, the ones that birthed her. he came from outside.

The note reads:

‘So you have something to eat!

Sincerely,

Rittzi’

@rittzithexenomorph

there is commotion within the hive.

there is a new thing in the nest. a thing that reeks in the sweetest of ways. food. food. food. enough to feed the freshly born young. the warriors crawl from the resin encrusted walls, scenting the strange object. making sure it is safe. that is it not a threat.

then the drones are upon it, tearing away the comical outer layers to reveal the prize within.

they hiss softly, scooping up as much pork as they can. they hurry it back into the darker recesses of the hive, where the young ones are kept safe. where the queen lays her eggs.