BUG LORE

(EDIT: Check the tag #GODS INSIDE for the b u g l o r e now.)

Incredible fanart courtesy of @grubstrate !!!

The tag above should find all of the parts I've posted of an excerpt from a book I wrote. It's why I made this blog originally. Give it a read if you like the sound of the phrase "bug mythology." I don't know much about publishing, I don't know much about how "real" writers make their careers stick, but I worked really really hard on it and I want to share it.

I wrote a very heartfelt message just now about the book and accidentally lost it all in a tragic copy + paste blunder, so I'll make this the second, cooler draft. In 2020, I needed escapism from a family tragedy, and I ended reading a LOT about ants, and a LOT of mythology. The two of them ran together in my head, and here I am, with 441 pages of bug lore, the speculative myths of a society that has the eusociality dial cranked to 10 (ours is what, 6? 7 maybe?).

Eliott made a sound like a mixture of a grunt and a satisfied sigh as he pulled his chair back to sit.  It was important to make it clear to Death that he'd been busy today.  Death needed to hear that he was in that sweet spot between exhaustion and enthusiasm that meant that he was living.

"Eliott!  I figured we'd sit outside this time.  Is something the matter?"

"What?  No, of course not," he said.  "It's warm, that's all.  Haven't had my usual vigor."

"Uh oh," Death started, playful as ever, "you sure you want to tell me you're on the decline?"

"It's because of other stuff, not from coming here.  I'm always happy to see you."

"Of course you are, you love me," Death said, correct as usual in the worst way.

"You really aren't supposed to just drop that so flippantly," Eliott said through a tiny, bundled smile.  "It makes me uncomfortable."

"Look how happy you are, though." Death gestured at the sky, and the cars passing beside the outdoor seating.  "It's a beautiful day, just the right number of clouds, warm enough to justify doing less, all that stuff.  One of those days when it's good to be alive.  Why hide the fact that we love each other?"

"I'm not *hiding* it," Eliott said, looking away and concerning himself with a man walking a dog with a bright blue bandana around its neck.  "It's dishonest, I think.  I'm always happier after we meet, but only after."

"You seem happy to me."

"It's anticipation, probably.  That's how it works, I've read about it.  Something makes you feel good, and then you start keeping track of the steps leading up to it, until those steps are the part that makes you feel better than the thing they're leading to."

Death was quiet for a moment, expecting him to continue.  When Eliott didn't, it became obvious what to say.  "I'll bet it goes the other way, too."

"Probably.  It's not hard to imagine getting more upset by the signs of illness than when you are  stricken with it."

Death laughed.  That always sent a chill through Eliott.  "No, no, I meant the pleasure going the other way.  I imagine that if you step towards something for long enough without getting it, you stop enjoying the walk and start feeling good only when you get a sniff of the thing at the end."

Eliott's smile broke its constraints and he let free a single syllable of laughter.  "I see what you're saying.  It's always about you, isn't it?"

Death laughed too.  "It's why you love me."

Eliott's eyes went heavy when he heard that.  "That's not a good thing.  Loving Death isn't healthy, it's a sign of illness."

"Why?" Death asked, leaning into the simple question with what sounded like a genuine interest in the answer.

"Because we're supposed to avoid you."

"Why me?"

"Because you kill people."

"No I don't!"

It was very strange to hear Death offended.  Eliott raised a hand.  "Sorry, sorry.  But can you blame people for thinking so?"

The chatter from the other seats and benches asserted itself.  They were all talking about very normal things.  It was very difficult to parse any individual piece of the normalcy between it all.  A woman stood out from it--she was saying something about feeling lost, and about starting a new life after moving.  The woman across from her said something about needing to find what's important to her, and they were both swallowed up by the heavy comfort between the flowerbeds.

"Sorry," Eliott said after shifting in his seat.  "I do like meeting with you.  You know I'm not trying to imply--"

Death scoffed.  "Just say you love me back.  That's all you had to say from the start.  It's not complicated."

Eliott squirmed at the idea.  Death *did* love that, and waited for him to finish.  "I can't.  It's not a you thing--"

"I wish it were!  I love you, Eliott.  Why don't you love me?"

Eliott's brow tented.  "You know why, you want to make me say it."

"Say *what?*" Death asked, amused in that placid way that Eliott aspired to.

"Because you're Death!  You aren't a person!" He said it forcefully, but under his breath, which Death knew was a sign of progress.

"You talk to me like one.  What's so different about me from a person?  What is a person, anyway?"

Eliot rolled his eyes, but to his frustration, was still smiling.  "I'm not getting stuck doing philosophy with you."

"You're talking with Death.  That seems philosophical to me."

"I'm talking with you so that I *don't* run in circles extrapolating from speculation.  I'm not pontificating, this way."

"So you're trying to get something out of me?  I'm hurt, Eliott, I'm here to spend time with someone I love, and you're problem-solving instead."

Eliott pushed his chair back onto two legs, buzzing his lips until it came back down to rest as he drummed his fingers on the table.  "I do think about you a lot when we aren't together.  That's love, right?  Are you satisfied?"

"It isn't love, but I am satisfied.  I'm always satisfied.  It's why I can say I love you." Death paused.  "You had one of those nights again, didn't you?"

Eliott nodded and looked down in a way that makes it clear that he's not looking at anything.

"Bad one?"

Eliott nodded again.

"I love that about you.  You feel big feelings and get all burdened by them.  It's very artistic--the sad boy who feels too much for himself to handle."

"It's stupid."

"Ah, and there's the heart of why I love you, though, Eliott.  You cut through all the melodrama with that acerbic irreverence for your own feelings.  It makes you so clear-headed."

"I can have problems, you know!" he said sharply.  "I can be pathetic without it being poignant.  I get vey emotional over tiny, stupid things.  And then I don't even let myself process anything, I call it a farce and throw it all aside.  That's bad.  I'm being mean to myself."

"If you say so," said Death.  "I happen to love you for it."

"You shouldn't!  You should want me to be happy, if you love me."

"I'd love you if you were happy too, Eliott."

He sighed.  For once, it wasn't the kind of sigh that says anything.  Things were starting to make a  disturbing sort of sense, and that much industry made waste that needed to vent.  "Fuck, I'm lonely."

"I'm here."

"That's nice of you.  But I still feel lonely with you."

"And why should that be?"

"Do I have to spell it out?  I'm talking with Death.  Classic lonely guy behavior."

"Is it?"

Eliott looked up.  "Isn't it?"

"Look around.  All of them have talked to me.  And I do love every of them.  Some of them weren't lonely at all."

He did look around.  It was hard to picture the bright-faced woman with the big hair chatting with Death.  Actually, it wasn't.  "So why do I always come to talk to you after nights of profound loneliness?"

"You're asking me?"

Eliott scoffed.  He was disappointed with himself for asking that.  It really was something he was supposed to know.  But the embarrassment of it tugged at him.  It was like finally admitting that two added to two makes four.  "I guess it's because I know you still love me."

"I do, Eliott.  I do." The way Death said it seemed to be prompting him.

"Do you love yourself, Death?"

"No."

Eliot nodded.  "You think I should love myself?"

If you like this and want to read it in a better-organized format go here:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/105895/gods-inside

or here:

https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/63668572/

When Skith had left through the entrance hall of the Guest Colony that was once learned to be the Mountain Colony, she was still for a short time while her armor was chilled by the Wind God's grip. It reached to her insides, without hunger, to steal the warmth she had brought from the Guest Colony. But there was a comfort that Skith was gathering also, for she had returned to the Oustide, of which she had learned more precisely than any other familiar place.

Leading Golden Yiteka, Skith then lifted her feelers, and her head scraped her middlemost part in the effort of seeing upwards to where her labors would be ended, the sky-point atop the mountain. It was hidden in thick clouds, for there the Gods Outside were repelled.

“We will go now, to the mountain's secret place!” said Golden Yiteka, and Skith agreed. “Taste my eagerness, sister Skith, most skillful aid to my great labor!”

Skith did taste it, and it brought her own thoughts near in eager answer. And she learned then, with the sounds of water and wind and the giants that sang across the clear air, of the comfort that she felt Outside, and it seemed to her that no Colony would be hers except for this one that was widest and most dangerous. Then did she begin the final walking of her long climb that was her first-learned labor.

As she was leading, it seemed to her as if she was free of a stiff binding, and that she could have leaped to the places of the land-beast's span that was around her. Three times Skith stopped as she was leading, when the good scent of Golden Yiteka behind her became faint, and she waited for her sister to reach her in her following.

Golden Yiteka was not so comforted to be Outside, and each step seemed to be a trouble for her. She had not learned of the many shapes and strengths of the dirt beneath her, and so she had not learned where she could walk without struggle. She slipped often, stepping in cold pools, and stumbling on rocks that were slick with early day's wetness. But whenever Skith came to her, to bring comfort to a fearful sister, she found that in spite of her troubles, Golden Yiteka was not afraid. Skith became eager to learn of how her sister could be so far from familiar places and feel no fear, and she asked Yiteka, “What skill is this that you have gathered, to walk where danger may be waiting and to be unafraid?”

Golden Yiteka, clinging to the tough greenery that did not reach high into the cold air, said then, “I am unafraid, sister Skith, because my labor is that of a God Outside, and Gods Outside are not afraid, because none can bring threat to them that are without shape. You will walk near to me, and let your thoughts learn of the shape of mine, and you will be as fearless with me.”

Skith then agreed, and did not lead Golden Yiteka from afar. She drank the scent of her sister who met each trouble with managed thoughts, and she no longer watched the edges of her sight for danger, and this lifted many burdens from her that had seemed to be a part of walking labors. It seemed to her then that if she had had such a sister beside her in all the places she had walked in the days behind her, she would not have gathered so large a count of troubled thoughts and lived burdened.

For a time, while she had not reached the higher air that was colder than in all other places, the days behind her were quiet in her thoughts.

Together, with Skith walking only four steps before Golden Yiteka, they came to many obstacles. They came first to where there was much water before them, and when Skith began walking the long path around it, Golden Yiteka disagreed, and walked instead forward and into the water. But she was not troubled, and she did not sink, and Skith stood upon her good-smelling armor and was carried to the far side. The second of their obstacles was a giant, though one that was small enough to hide in the holes that it had left in the dirt. But when it came near to Golden Yiteka, the giant was repelled by the same scent that brought such comfort to Skith, and so they crossed its path untroubled. It seemed to Skith that with Golden Yiteka beside her, the mountain's dangers could not bring threat to her labor of climbing.

The third obstacle was a tall ridge of thick roots. Skith walked slowly here, for she had learned of the many dangers that trees could hide. But she found no great spiders in the hollows between the great roots, and she found no birds that were nesting. Skith learned then that the tree had a small center of green, and seemed otherwise to be all roots, and this was strange to her.

“An evil tree,” said Golden Yiteka. “It was birthed by the tree that troubled my sisters often. Learn that it is small and will not reach into the sky where it might find challenge, and so it reaches instead down to our tunnels. Learn that trees unmanaged will bring danger in their labors.”

Having passed these obstacles, Skith saw then where the land was all white and dry. She was afraid then, though she was calmed by the presence of Golden Yiteka who stood in the freezing cold without reluctance.

“You comfort my thoughts and stop my fleeing,” said Skith to her. “But here I must not walk, for I have not learned of how I might go into the cold and continue my labors. I have learned of warmth, and of the lands where beasts walk, where the God of Death and Eating does her labors. I would escape these places I have learned, and go there where even that hateful God Outside will not follow. But I have brought no new learning that might repel this cold, and so it seems to me that my labor of climbing will not continue.”

“You have brought no labors that will carry us across the cold, this I learned when first you cleaned my armor and sleep-traveled upon it,” said Golden Yiteka. “But you will learn also that you have brought my labor here, and in the greatness of its doing, we will have warmth.” Golden Yiteka then had a new scent about her, and her armor was quaking with a power that came from within it. And soon, there was warmth all around her, and the whiteness beneath her legs and Skith's turned then to wetness, and the dirt below it was revealed, unseen since the days before the Gods Outside when all were winged.

“You will follow me now, Skith, for I am given this warmth by the God Outside that is within me, to carry us to the completion of our great labor.”

Skith agreed, and she closely followed her golden sister who was repelling the cold, and she felt a rising lightness in her walking that she had felt before only in sleep-travel.

Skith reached her feelers behind her, to the places of which she had learned, so that her thoughts would bring them upward. She buried these things then, so that her walking would be lighter. The green of a Colony that was spread across the tops of four trees faded, to become to her a high place where she had sung with a Queen. The war-making sisters of those dry lands, with their tall mound, became a low place from which she had been followed by a wounded stranger.

When Golden Yiteka's warmth became distant from her, she learned that six eyes were watching her, hidden in the shadow of a giant's bones beside which the land was whiter.

“I have seen you, Sikas, god amongst the beasts. I will escape you, God of Death and Eating, and I will go to where I am hidden from your labor, where all my fear will be silent!”

The six-eyes asked only, “Will you stay there?”

Skith felt as though her legs were held then, and were it not for the cold that was closing around her as Golden Yiteka walked onward, she might have stayed for a time. Instead she clattered her feelers and went quickly to be close to her warm and golden sister instead.

Their climbing was a terrible struggle, though Skith felt no despair, for in the lightness of her walking she kept secret no effort for some later labor. It was not unlike her first climbing, and so there was a comfort in her struggling. Her steps then were a rhythm then for a song she was not singing, a song that has been found only by its scent that is left unburied on the dirt.

Land-beast—I am climbing.

Land-beast—I am leaving.

I rise from the valley

that is between the peaks.

All the span around me,

these things will be below.

I will reach the path's end,

away from crashing things.

There is an edge ahead.

Land-beast—I am climbing.

Land-beast—I am leaving.

Golden Yiteka was silent as they climbed, and when Skith saw only whiteness around her, Yiteka's jaws were drooping, and she shared nothing from them. She shared only her warmth that repelled the cold, and it was a warmth that was more potent with each step. She was not troubled by the steepness of their climb, even as Skith labored harshly to pull her weight up many ledges and over wide pits.

And when Skith's strength was failing, when even her jaws that had held her in her first climbing were hanging limply from her, the land was flat again, and the walking became a simple thing. They had come to the sky-point, where Golden Yiteka spoke her last words, and these were “We are here, at labor's ending.”

They walked then through sheets of whiteness that whipped at their feelers, until they came to the center of the sky-point, which was raised less than the height of a softling above the land around it.

With the last of her strength, Golden Yiteka moved Skith aside, and stood high upon her legs. Skith watched her, she was very eager.

“You will climb me,” said Golden Yiteka, and Skith did so, and there was no need for her to share her agreement. “You will stand upon my armor, and be where only the sky remains above you.”

Skith stood upon Golden Yiteka, and she raised herself as high as her legs could lift her. She had come here many times in sleep-travel, and she had seen the wide greenness to her leftward side, and she had seen the dryness far below that was rightward. She had seen how the edges of her sight turned all to blue, and she had seen the notches of many colors that were between.

But here, having traveled to the sky-point with walking, she saw none of these things, and it seemed to her that she had learned of the sky-point imprecisely. She saw only whiteness, and it was without shapes. There was texture only where the whiteness was heaped, and where it was stiff, and where thick clouds of it drifted.

“Help me!” cried Golden Yiteka then, and there was a drumming within her. Her legs shook, and yet were stiff and strong. And to Skith, her voice was hollow, like the armor of her sisters whose insides were taken by Death and Eating. “Help me, sister Skith! Tear open my armor, and this will complete this that is my greatest labor!”

“I cannot do this!” said Skith, and her venom was pressed deep beneath her jaws. “You will not need this from me!”

But Golden Yiteka did not disagree. She said only, “Help me!” and she said it again. “Help me!”

Skith smelled a terrible pain, and it was not only her sister's. She stared again into the emptiness that surrounded her, and she searched then for learning that would change the foul shape that her labor had taken.

“My sister, I am hurting!” said Golden Yiteka, though this name had become imprecise, for Yiteka's armor was all dark, and was darker even than a sister whose remaining days were few. And Yiteka was burning, her warmth having a terrible sharpness.

And so, having found nothing with sight or smell, Skith tended to her sister. She struck her jaws harshly into Yiteka's middlemost part, and found that it was soft, and parted easily beneath her jaws. Yiteka shook once more, and her rhythm increased, until she was stiff, and her jaws were hanging.

“I have done this,” said Skith. “You will follow me now, back to the lands below, and I will leave behind your labor that has become strange to me.”

But Yiteka was silent. Skith climbed from her, and she came before her feelers, and found that her sister who was once named Golden Yiteka was killed.

What then would Skith have done? She might have screamed, and yet there were no sisters to hear her. She might have fled then, but there was warmth only beside her sister who was not living. She saw nothing to interrupt the white on all sides, and so she could not gather learning.

And from Yiteka's armor, a soft thing came climbing out, and its clear eyes were upon the sky above it. It twisted like a wisp of vapor, and yet it glistened like freshly-pulled meat. Skith had no learning of this thing, and she watched it without eagerness.

With a soft voice, the thing that had come from her sister said, “I must climb.”

Skith said nothing, for the thing was not a sister. “I must climb,” the thing said again, and it sang a thing that was not a song, and it was not afraid as Skith was. It sang alone, and was not troubled, nor was it searching.

Skith was then reluctant to look upon the thing, for the sight of its untroubled softness, its unscented calm, was fearfully strange to her. She huddled beneath what remained of Yiteka's warmth, and felt it fading, and the thing said a third time, “I must climb.”

Skith stayed beneath Yiteka's empty armor then, and she struggled, to repel her thoughts, to escape to sleep-travel where there might be comfort. But she was made to stay there, a small dark piece in a great white span, beside a thing that was not a sister.

Then came the wind-walker, who could fly above the sky-point without trouble. It came to where Skith was hiding, and brought a long shadow over her. “I must climb,” the thing said a fourth time, and it brought eager movement from the wind-walker.

It bent low over the thing that had come from Yiteka's armor, and Skith heard the clapping of its jaws. And when the wind-walker was gone, stirring left a great freezing swell beneath its wings, Skith was then alone in the sky-point atop the mountain.

The Wind God stole away what Skith then said, and so there was no answer for her when the cold and the white buried her scent.

If you like this and want to read it in a better-organized format go here:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/105895/gods-inside

or here:

https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/63668572/

Skith, with her thoughts settled enough for the doing of small labors, stayed for a day in the Big Basin, for she had learned from Golden Yiteka what must be done in the Guest Colony to prepare for their leaving it. She lifted stones and began to pile them in the entrance chamber, so that when the wind's chill became hateful, it could be repelled from the tunnels. It was not a labor that should have been troublesome, but it seemed to Skith that there was always a weight upon her legs, and so the lifting of each stone was as difficult to her as the lifting of three stones. But the difficulty of this labor was a bitter comfort to her, and so she did it with a strange eagerness for struggle. Her thoughts became all gathered at her jaws and at her legs, such was the difficulty of her laboring, and so they did not dwell at the base of her feelers in that place where they find fear and disgust.

And when this small labor of filling the entrance hall with stones was nearly completed, Skith felt the fullness in her sharing-stomach, and so she made for the silent chamber where Golden Yiteka waited for the food she could share. Quickly after she had walked into the smooth tunnels that led upward, she met Golden Yiteka's wondrous scent, and Skith was made very eager to be with her in the Big Basin where she labored in bitter comfort below the sunless Inside sky.

“Sister Yiteka who is good and golden,” said Skith with darting feelers, “it is a good thing to find you here!”

Golden Yiteka met her feelers gently, walking carefully as she did upon her legs that had not carried her weight for many seasons, and she said to Skith, “You are freed of the foul scent that was upon you when last you came beside me. I learn now that you are a further aid to my great labor, for you have managed your thoughts that were cracking against mine in the manner of falling stones. You will lead me to the Big Basin, where I will gather food and strength for our great walking to the Sky Point.”

Skith agreed, and after tapping Yiteka many times, she turned back to lead her sister who seemed like a Queen down to where she had been laboring. And while she walked that short distance, it seemed that the weight upon her legs was lifting, and she rose and fell many times upon them in the manner of a sister who is freshly-hatched.

But while she walked, Golden Yiteka did not smell so eager to Skith, who asked, “What trouble has come to you, golden sister? I will lead you back to your chamber so that you will not suffer it.”

But Golden Yiteka disagreed. “I have made many plans, and the God Outside who I will birth at the completion of my labor has prepared me for the troubles that I will come to. It is a discomfort to see what has become of the great tunnels that I once walked often before the loss of all my sisters of the Mountain Colony that is now called the Guest Colony.”

“This is a trouble that is familiar to me,” said Skith, “and it has been troublesome to bury in my thoughts that time when I lost sisters to the labors of the Gods Outside.”

“It seems to me that this is why you are so skilled an aid to my labor,” said Golden Yiteka. “You have learned of many troubles that are familiar. I think there are few sisters who will so precisely and fully taste the joy of my great labor's completion as you and I will.”

With such a promise in her thoughts, Skith went quickly from Golden Yiteka into the Big Basin then. She searched for the last bits of venom's foul scent that she had left, and labored to clean them from the walls. When she smelled no more foulness, she labored to lead Stone-Armor Yik away to the edges of the room. Stone-Armor Yik did not agree, and was not moved, even when Golden Yiteka was near.

As Golden Yiteka entered the Big Basin, she said nothing to Skith, for her eyes and her feelers were upon the Inside sky.

“This is a strange thing to see,” said Golden Yiteka. “In all the times when my sisters walked these tunnels in closeness, there were no stars upon the roof as I now see. Perhaps it is their absence that has allowed for such a beautiful thing, for there should be no sky Inside, and we would have repelled so strange a thing. You will share with me your learning of the Outside sky, sister Skith, so that I will learn how these two glimmering spans are different.”

Skith agreed, though the sharing of her learning was slow to begin, for it was learning that she had not before folded together for sharing. She said to Golden Yiteka, “I have watched the sky for two seasons. The light of this Inside sky is where I find first difference, for the lights of the Outside sky are pale like a newly-hatched sister's armor, while the lights of this Inside sky are a blue-bright in the manner of the quick birds that hide in trees in the green lands that are rightwards of this mountain.”

Golden Yiteka asked, “Is it a good place, these lands that are rightwards of the Mountain Colony? It seems to me that they are if there are such good things to see there.”

“This I have not learned,” said Skith. “Each sight that seems good to you was a danger to me, and the God of Death and Eating took many shapes that were cloaked in blue and green, red and dirt, black and yellow. That is why this Inside sky is a good thing to me, for I have learned that there is a roof behind its lights, and so no danger hides there. And as I am beneath them, I can look upon all the lights of this Inside sky, and see where their span ends at the edges of my sight, and so no dangers can creep close from places unseen.”

“How troubled your labors have been!” said Golden Yiteka. She then stood high upon her legs, which creaked loudly from their first flexing after many seasons, and a great flood of scents that brought a terrible eagerness to Skith came from her. “You will now tell me, Skith who climbed, if my learning of you is precise. Your feelers gather of good and evil for the learning of them, in the manner of Iki-Ikas, who has learned most of Rest and Searching. I have learned that you, like me, and like all my sisters whose names I had once learned, would repel those things that are fearfuly strange.”

“This is precise,” said Skith, who shivered in the scent of her sister that would drive her to walk beyond the edges of all learned places.

“You have learned that I will birth a God Outside,” said Golden Yiteka.

Skith agreed.

“Learn that this God Outside that I will birth will have godly labors, and in the doing of these labors, it will go to its Colony in the Outside sky. Learn that this God Outside will have learned your name, and that you were an aid to its labors. Learn that at my great labor's completion, you will at last be able to walk there, behind the stars Outside, and have that place at your feelers to learn precisely of its goodness or its evil.”

Skith learned what Golden Yiteka shared then, and it was as if all the weight upon her legs was gone, never to return. She was eager, hotly so in the manner of the sun's watching, to go to where the Gods Outside labor, where she would at last have climbed to where all her fears would be silent. And so, she sang:

Hear me, I am eager

Hear now of my living!

Fear me, God of Eating!

Fear me, God of Death!

I escape your labor!

I will join greater things

High above the land-beast

Far from troubled Outside!

Climbing is my labor!

And soon I'll climb no more!

Skith sang this, and she said then to Golden Yiteka, “To the sky-point! I am eager, and I will lead you there!”

Golden Yiteka disagreed, but it was a gentle disagreement, for she was eager also. She said then, “We will go, when our stomachs are filled. Let your eagerness share to you on one last labor, of bringing food to me. I have walked toward the sky-point once, and I learned then that there is no food to be found on the path to it. Bring food, and we will fill ourselves.”

And so Skith sang loudly, so that her singing would reach faraway tunnels.

Swift Eke who eats foul food

Come now to your sisters

We are needful, Swift Eke

For one last great eating!

Her singing did reach Swift Eke, who came quickly into the Big Basin. Skith tended to Swift Eke then, tapping and stroking in the manner of a sister who tends to a sickened egg, and she shared much food with Golden Yiteka, and filled herself once more, all the while with her feelers wheeling and bouncing. But soon she smelled a small trouble from Swift Eke, who was followed by the smell of Beetle Ata.

“Why does the smell of our beetle Ata trouble you?” asked Golden Yiteka, her feelers probing towards the tunnels beyond.

“Because I have learned that she is an enemy to me,” said Skith, and she shared no more of that learning. She stood at the edge of the light from the Inside sky then, high upon her legs, and waited for Beetle Ata to come before her.

When Beetle Ata came into the Big Basin, Skith rattled her feelers viciously at her. But it was not Beetle Ata who lowered herself on her legs—it was Swift Eke and Golden Yiteka who were made pressed and afraid by her rattling.

Beetle Ata did not flee as she had done before. Within her small jaws, she gripped a bundle of dirty threads. Within the bundle there were pieces of armor taken from those sisters that had been killed by the Impostor Het is who is spider-shaped. And Skith saw something then that brought venom dripping from her jaws, for within that bundle were two feelers that were kinked and broken, with few hairs upon them.

They were the feelers that Skith had seen on Sett, the sister who she had led far away from her sisters in the dry lands that are leftwards of the mountain. She had learned their broken shape well, and so she thought that she would not only repel Beetle Ata, but she would deliver venom to her, and be free of the pain that was being brought to her.

Golden Yiteka was made terribly afraid. She could not stand so highly upon her legs as Skith, for her armor was burdened, and so she fled to the far side of the Big Basin. Her fear filled the chamber, and Skith was hateful of its distraction.

“Enemy!” said Beetle Ata then, and she threw down the bundle that she carried. “Spider Het follows me! There will be a killing!”

Beetle Ata fled then, as Skith had learned she would do, and she walked up the walls again into the Inside sky. Skith was then alone before the impostor Het, who rushed into the Big Basin with legs jabbing, seeking to reclaim the bundle of threads that contained Sett's feelers. Skith lifted the bundle then, and the impostor Het's fangs were bared, and they stank with a venom of their own.

“Skith!” said Golden Yiteka, “You will kill the spider! It has brought threat to me for many seasons! Always it has smelled me and hungered for me! It comes to kill me, to eat me, to bring an end to our great labor!”

Skith screamed loudly then, with four shafts opened, to clear the air of the fearful scent of her sister Yiteka. And with her screaming, all thoughts that were not her own were swept away, and there was a steadiness in her legs as she left the bundle of threads on the floor of the chamber.

“You will kill it! You will kill the spider!” said Golden Yiteka.

Skith, with her feelers forward, still as roots, stepped to her side, to circle Het the impostor. She would not risk wounding, and so she did not approach the spider's deadly fangs. Always, Het faced Skith, who had learned much of spiders. Before Skith could stop it, Het the impostor leapt away, and clung to the wall of the Big Basin. Skith sped after it, and once more she screamed to manage her thoughts that she feared would lose their preciseness. And when she followed Het, she went into the Inside Sky, and her struggle with the Spider-Shaped impostor who was named Het began in the blue-bright starlight.

The roof of the Big Basin was no trouble for her legs to grip and so she walked upon it as a floor beneath her. It seemed to her then that she had learned imprecisely of the lights of the Inside Sky. They had a light that was not the sun's, and not the moon's, but a light that was made at the insides of very strange beasts who were wet and armorless in the manner of softlings. And from these beasts hung long threads that stank with a terrible venom beside which Skith's own seemed small. Skith followed better threads, which were without venom's scent--these had been made by the Impostor Het to be its path between those beasts of light and danger. But Skith, having learned of spiders, did not walk upon these threads in her following, and stepped only on cool stone.

Skith could not walk swiftly in the Inside sky, for it was bright in many places. Her smallness could not hide her, because her armor was dark and would be glinting. Without size or speed for her labor, she brought instead her skills of sound to the Inside sky, and she screamed many times, and the soft beasts trembled and shook their pale lights. But she did not find the Impostor Het with her screaming, and many times her loud searching brought its jaws close to her.

Surrounded by the stink of venom and many places where she could not rest, Skith had only her sight to guide her. This was a struggle, because her skills in seeing had been buried by many days beneath the sun's watching. Her thoughts dug painfully and deep then, but they did find Sett and the strange method of her seeing, and so she moved as she had learned Sett could. Without skill, she did the seeing-step as she had learned Sett did, and she moved her eyes leftward and rightward in small ways. The impostor Het's threads then flashed in the pale light, and Skith gathered a learning for killing.

Slowly and precisely, Skith's thoughts rose from their digging and they gathered strangely in her legs. She plucked the threads of the Impostor Het. She learned from these threads, for if they rang smoothly, the impostor seemed far from her, and when they rang sharply, danger seemed very close.

And so did Skith join the stillness that around her, so that she was hidden to all things that see and hear, in the manner of a beast that is hunting. Sound seemed as sight to her, and the impostor's ringing threads became then harsh lights to her and her enemy both. Skith walked between the lights with a thunder-step, still beneath lights and swift between them, as she had learned to walk when the sky had brought down its fingers, and the storm had come to every dark place where she hid.

Skith's thoughts were then all gathered very tightly at the ends of her legs, and there was no space for fear between them. She plucked another thread, and she learned that Het was near to her. Before she could flee or to follow, she felt a vicious grip upon a hindmost leg. Beetle Ata was there, and Skith was not afraid, for her attacker had learned little of killing labors.

“Kill you!” the Beetle Ata who was Skith's enemy then said. “Skith! Evil Outside!”

Skith pulled her leg free, and she lunged at the Beetle Ata, who slipped free in her surprise, and fell towards the killing threads that hung from the lights of the Inside sky. Beetle Ata did not shriek then, for she was stiff as the armor of trees, and she was pulled into the dark behind the lights. There was then a great pressing behind her thoughts at her legs, for much evil had come to them to be managed, but there was no space between them and was repelled. The Beetle Ata was gone, and so Skith could continue her labor, so that she could remove the impostor's threat without the trouble of her attentions.

Skith plucked another thread, and found that the Impostor Het was very far away. Before she could search further, she heard Golden Yiteka below.

“You will move!” Yiteka was saying then to Stone-Armor Yik. who had crawled upon the bundle of threads that was left on the floor of the Big Basin. The Impostor Het was there, its legs high and hateful. It had fled from Skith when the Beetle Ata had followed. But Yik's armor was too strong even for the fangs of the Impostor Het who was spider-shaped, even as it drove against her its hatred that rose in clouds from all its shafts.

Skith then fell free of the roof of the Big Basin, and she left behind the lights there. She fell precisely and slowly, as she had learned from her sisters of the Four Tree Colony, and she screamed in falling as she had done in those good days when she had learned fewer names. All the hairs upon Het's spider-shape felt Skith's screaming, and its spider-shape stilled by the shock of it, until Skith had fallen upon it.

The armor of the Impostor Het was softer than it had seemed, and Skith's jaws went deeply into Het's middlemost part. The spider writhed, and her fangs spat their terrible venom into the Inside air. It jabbed its front-most legs against the floor, and around its armor, to catch the killer who had caught her. Skith tightened her jaws--there was a hot and stinging trouble in it, and her thoughts went to her jaws, learning of terrible pain beneath them that seemed evil. It was a slow killing, because she was small and Het was so large, and so Skith delivered her venom twice more. The spider, on legs that were no longer steady, despaired as it again drove its fangs against Stone-Armor Yik.

It seemed to her that Spider Het would not learn of death, and so Skith pulled her jaws free before biting more deeply than before. The spider was not stilled by pain or death, and its legs were still reaching as they folded against its armor.

Golden Yiteka then came close, and Skith saw her sister draw near to the spider's head, saying, “You have walked my tunnels for many seasons. You are killed now in the manner of beasts, with none beside you, and with no labors lost.” Her jaws did not clatter, her legs did not tremble, and there was no hatred to be smelled. “You will be now still, and learn that your evil is repelled.”

Skith climbed from the killed spider then, and there was a familiar disgust around her. She would have repelled all of her thoughts then, such was the storming inside her, but she had lost much venom and was burdened.

Stone-Armor Yik, her armor wet with the spider's venom that was spat upon it, stepped from the bundle of threads that she had claimed. Skith lifted the bundle, and felt Sett's lifeless feelers brush her own, and her disgust was made hot by it.

“You will send away this bundle,” said Golden Yiteka. “It brings a foul scent from you, and I am troubled by it.”

Skith tore the bundle open, and she did not find the rest of Sett's armor inside it, only her former sister's broken feelers. Many small spiders scattered from within the bundle, and Golden Yiteka retreated. The small spiders, the young that Spider Het had birthed, fled into the darkness in all directions. Golden Yiteka's feelers went still at this, and she said then, “We will leave,” she said to Skith. “I will not wait inside this place that will soon be filled with so many spiders. That is the Impostor Het's final curse, this I have learned.”

Skith agreed, for she was also eager to leave and escape the disgust that she had left hot and thick in the air of the Big Basin. Before she left, she cleaned the armor of Stone-Armor Yik, who had been an aid to her in the killing of Spider Het, who was an impostor.

If you like this and want to read it in a better-organized format go here:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/105895/gods-inside

or here:

https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/63668572/

This story was made in the Mountain Colony, in the time before it was named the Guest Colony. Even in that time, the Mountain Colony was older than any sister who labored in it, and its Queen was the daughter of many Queens that had lived before her. Her name was Ityata-Katas, a name that was once learned by many. She lived in the central chamber, and there she was not touched by the Wind God as all of her daughters were.

The Wind God came to the Mountain Colony often, and her visits were a secret pleasure. The Sun who aids the labors of the First Queen's daughters often repelled her, and so she followed the moon, and ran freely and swiftly in the dark. She crept in through the entrance hall, and would share things from Outside to those daughters who were too young to have taken up any labors beyond their first. The Wind God would slip past them also, to go downward to those sisters that struggled in the deeper dark. The Wind God would share to them the scents of the higher chambers, and so they were not separate from the labors of their sisters above.

One such sister who labored in the dark was named Kisa. Kisa was old, having learned the name of the Queen who came before Ityata-Katas, and she had suffered from many woundings in her dangerous deep-labors. But her worst woundings that had taken her left-middle and right-middle legs had not come from beasts or deep danger. When the time had come for a new Queen, there had been much war-making, and Kisa had joined this. But in that time it was Ityata-Katas, not Kisa, who had labored most eagerly to be carried to the central chambers above, and so had taken up birthing labors.

Since that time, Kisa had labored below because of the wounds on her armor and within it. She led no sisters, for she could not walk swiftly enough to share the paths that she had learned without difficulty for her followers. That is why Kisa brought no labors of her own, and would instead join her sisters'. Because of this, Four-Legged Kisa learned shallowly of many different labors, and her name was learned by many sisters from her joining. Slowly, Kisa found a labor that was her own, made from the pieces of the many that she joined, and their count was five.

Four-Legged Kisa came to where three sisters were struggling with a heavy load. She did not go beside them, so that she would not add to the burdens of their labor. She asked them, “What is your labor, my sisters who are struggling to carry such a heavy thing?”

“We killed a sting-beast in the caverns below,” they said to Four-Legged Kisa, and she gathered the hot and loud scents of hunting on them. “This beast that we have found holds much food beneath its armor, but it is too large for the three of us to carry. You will add yourself to our labor, so that we can bring this food to our sisters.”

Four-Legged Kisa disagreed then. “I have only four legs, and so I cannot stand steadily and aid your labor of lifting. I will take on a labor now, and this labor will be the bringing of a sister who is not so wounded to aid you.”

The three sisters who had killed the sting-beast agreed, and they said to her, “We have learned that you will bring to us a sister who is not wounded. We are skilled in butchery, and so when you have returned, we will have the first taste of the sting-beast's tail.”

Thinking eagerly of the rich sweetness of a sting-beast's tail, Four-Legged Kisa left then, and she went upwards to where her sisters were digging new tunnels into the mountain's softer parts. Those sisters who labored in digging had strong jaws, and strong legs to carry them, and so she had learned that they would be able to carry a heavy sting-beast without struggling.

When Four-Legged Kisa heard the cracking of stone and smelled the freshly-piled earth that was made from their labor, she learned that she was near to her sisters who labored to make new tunnels. This is the song that her sisters sang while they labored in digging.

Land-beast below, open!

Land-beast above, be stilled!

We are digging between,

Our jaws are stiff enough!

Four-Legged Kisa spoke when their song was quiet, and she said to them, “Sisters who are digging, I have taken on a labor that includes you. Three sisters below us have found a great sting-beast, and they struggle to lift it.”

Those sisters who were resting their jaws said to her, “We are strong enough to lift, this we have learned from our legs, which carry our jaws that can carry stone. We would join our sisters who struggle in lifting, had we a sister eager to go to them. The winter season will soon arrive, and we will need to labor without stopping if we are to have safe tunnels that are deep enough to escape the Wind God's touch. One of us could aid our struggling sisters below, if you will do her labor instead.”

Four-Legged Kisa disagreed. “I am wounded, and so I cannot do this labor, for without all of my legs I will not have the strength to carry stone and dirt. You will aid our sisters below, and so I will go above and bring a sister who can join your labor that I cannot.”

Her sisters who were digging agreed, and they said, “We have learned that you will lead to us a sister who is not wounded, and when you have returned, we will enjoy the comfort of a freshly-dug chamber.”

And, thinking eagerly of a freshly-dug chamber's clear smell, Four-Legged Kisa went upward to find a sister to aid those below who labored in digging, so that one among them could join her sisters beneath the rest who struggled with lifting. She had learned of those sisters who labored to cut away the roots of the Tree, which was always reaching into the tunnels. Their jaws were very sharp, for it was only with sharpness that a sister could cut a tree's roots, and so Kisa learned that these sisters would have jaws that could cut through the stone that her sisters below were digging into.

Four-Legged Kisa came to the wet chambers where her sisters labored in cutting, and this is the song that she heard them singing.

Keep close your eager roots!

Reach not to where we walk!

The living of a tree

Should not be so evil

Four-Legged Kisa came to where her sisters were cutting roots. She was careful not to walk too near to them, for their sharp jaws were flashing. She said to them, “Sisters who are cutting, I have taken up a labor that includes you. The sisters below who are digging are hurried, and they struggle to dig deeply enough to escape the Wind God's winter that is coming.”

The sisters who were cutting could speak with Kisa, because the manner of their labor was such that they were not all cutting together. They cut alongside the rhythm of their songs, so that they would not break their sharp jaws. They said to her, “Our jaws are sharp enough to cut stone, this we have learned, because root is stronger than stone, for stone does not struggle against its breaking in the manner of roots. We would aid our sisters below who are digging, but we are all joined tightly in our labor, for each of us shares the rhythm of our cutting-songs. One of us will aid our sisters below, and you will share the cutting-song in her place.”

Four-Legged Kisa disagreed, saying, “I am wounded, and so I cannot join your labor. I have only four legs, and so your songs will lose two parts of their six. You will join our sisters below in their labor of digging, and I will go above to bring a sister here that will carry your cutting-songs.”

Her sisters who were cutting agreed, and they said to her, “We have learned that you will lead to us a sister who is not wounded, and when you have returned, we will enjoy the sweet sap that drips from fresh-cut roots.”

Thinking eagerly of tree-root sap's sweetness, Four-Legged Kisa went to the chambers above to find a sister to join her sisters who struggled with cutting, so that they could join her sisters who struggled with digging, so that they could join her sisters who struggled with lifting. She had learned of her strong and wise sisters who labored to tend to Queen Ityata-Katas. They were skilled in all the ways of Kisa's sisters who were workers, for they were the nest-keepers who are the Queen's first daughters, and so Kisa learned that they would carry her sister's cutting-songs without trouble.

Kisa crept into the stilled tunnels that led to Queen Ityata-Katas, and she heard no songs there, because the nest-tenders managed all the smells and sounds and other things that would enter the Queen's chamber. The nest-tenders found her in the quiet, and they repelled her.

“You will not come into this chamber,” said the nest-keepers who met Kisa. “The Queen labors beyond here, and we would not have her troubled.”

Kisa agreed, and she said to them, “I will not walk there, wise nest-keepers. I have brought to you my labor that has three pieces. The sisters below, who are workers, struggle to keep the great tree's roots cut, and they struggle to keep their cutting-songs uninterrupted.”

The nest-keepers learned then of the struggles of their sisters below, and they said to Kisa, “We sing precisely, for we have managed many songs that drift up from the tunnels below that would disturb our Queen's rest and her labor. We would aid our sisters below who are cutting, but we are all laboring. We are struggling to manage the comfort of our Queen, because she sleep-travels into danger. This would not be a struggle for us, if one of our number had not walked Outside in some strange labor that she has not shared.”

“I cannot join your labor, because I am a worker, and not a nest-keeper,” Kisa said, and the nest-keepers agreed. “I will find your sister who has gone Outside, and return her to you, so that you can aid our sisters below in their labor of cutting.”

The nest-keepers agreed, and as they returned to the Queen's chamber, they said to Kisa, “We have learned that you will lead our missing sister to us, and so when the Queen's troubles are settled, all of the Mountain Colony will enjoy her pleasant scent that will fill the tunnels.”

Thinking joyfully of the scent of a comforted Queen, Kisa then walked stiffly into the cold wind that was coming from the entrance hall to find the missing nest-keeper, so that she could join her sisters who struggled with Queen tending, so that she could join her sisters who were cutting, so that she could join her sisters who were digging, so that she could join her sisters who struggled with lifting.

With the labor of finding the missing nest-keeper foremost in her thoughts, Four-Legged Kisa searched through the many scents that were coming and going through the entrance hall. There were scents there of which she had learned, and many that she had not, and many others that brought to her thoughts names that had buried beneath new ones in the Mountain Colony. Finding a sister in so many scents might have been a troubled labor, but she was searching for a nest-keeper, a sister of a kind who rarely ventured Outside. She found the special scent of nest-keeping quickly, because it was clearer and simpler than the many mixed scents in the entrance hall, and so she learned her labor's path Outside.

She followed to the sentry-stones, upon which her watching sisters stood in warmer days. She passed the faint smell of sisters who had foraged Outside before the beasts had fled from the cold. And when she passed even the furthest scents, which are left by those with troubled thoughts led away by labors unshared, Four-Legged Kisa found the nest-keeper she had followed.

On a tall stone, which had fallen from a high place to split a young tree, the nest-keeper stood with raised feelers. Kisa approached her, and she said, “Wise nest-keeper who is far from the Mountain Colony, and far from the Queen which she tends, my labor has been to find you.”

The nest-keeper did not lower her feelers to Kisa, and she said, “That is a strange labor, and it is stranger that you have taken it up while no sisters of mine have done so.”

Rather than disagreeing with a nest-keeper, Kisa instead shared more of her labors, and of the troubles they included. She said to the nest-keeper, “You are the fifth piece of my labor. I have come to find you, so that the nest-keepers will be untroubled in tending to Queen Ityata-Katas, so that they will settle the troubles of our sisters who are cutting, so that they will settle the troubles of our sisters who are digging, so that they will settle the troubles of our sisters who struggle with lifting in the lowest chambers.”

“Those are each small labors, though together they are great and troublesome,” said the wise nest-keeper. “You have struggled with the burden of it, this I have learned, and so I will not burden you further with the sharing of my troublesome thoughts that are reluctant to stay Inside. But you will learn that I am not eager to return to the Queen's chambers.”

“This I have learned,” said Four-Legged Kisa. “And you will learn that I am no so burdened, because it is shared by my sisters who are lifting, and digging, and cutting.”

The wise nest-keeper then lowered her feelers to Kisa's, for Kisa had climbed the stone on which she stood. “You are wounded, this I have learned. What wounding has left you without two of your legs?” she asked.

“I will share precisely, because I have learned that nest-keepers are wise, and it is a good thing to share to wise sisters. I did war-making, and it was against the Queen Ityata-Katas when she was small and eager.”

“I have learned that I am young beside you, because I see your armor that is far darker than mine,” said the nest-keeper. “I am a daughter of Queen Ityata-Katas, and it has troubled me.”

For a time, while the sun was red in the leftward sky, the troubled nest-keeper shared with Kisa the jagged shape of her thoughts. The nest-keeper shared of her first labor, which was the making of well-tended dirt and managed scents for her mother, when she had buried much evil and much foulness left from war-making in the tunnels into the central chamber. This labor had brought evil into her thoughts, and it had changed her earliest learnings into troubles for her. Since those days she had found little comfort among her nest-keeper sisters who were not so troubled, and who had been disturbed often by her own discomfort.

“I have come here to wait for a visit from the cradle god, Hiyiki-Haka, who is said to come in the early days of the winter season. I would have her share with me some learning of the birthing-labor that she has shared to Queen Ityata-Katas, who will not share this with me. It seems to me to be a labor that leaves much evil staining the floor in its doing, and this has made deep discomfort in my thoughts.”

Four-Legged Kisa then said to the wise nest-keeper, “My labor, in its five pieces, does not seem stained by evil to me. I seek its completion with eagerness, because I will enjoy the pleasant scent of a comforted Queen in the tunnels that I walk, and I will enjoy the sweet taste of the water from the roots that my sisters are cutting, and I will enjoy the freshness of a newly-dug chamber that my sisters are digging, and I will enjoy the meat from the sting-beast that my sisters are struggling to lift.”

“Those seem like joyful things to me also,” said the wise nest-keeper. “But I have taken up this labor to meet the Cradle God Hiyiki-Haka, and I would have this labor completed, because I have made plans for its doing.”

It was then that Four-Legged Kisa, whose skill was then learned to be in the carrying of eagerness, added a sixth piece to her labor. She said to the nest-keeper, “I will stand here, and I will meet the Cradle God Hiyiki-Haka, so that you may return to your sisters, and one of you will go to the cutters, and one of them will go to the diggers, and one of them will go to the lifters in the deepest chambers.”

The wise nest-keeper agreed then, and she said with eagerness, “You will do this, and I will bring to you the scent of Queen Ityata-Katas, and I will share with you the food and water from our sisters who are cutting the great tree's roots, and I will carry you to the chamber that will be freshly-dug at that time, and we will enjoy the sweetness of a sting-beast's tail there together.”

And so, Four-Legged Kisa waited Outside upon the tall stone that had split the young tree. The nest-keeper went then to Queen Ityata-Katas, who was comforted to have her first daughters all returned to her. And she went also to those sisters who were cutting roots, and carried their cutting-song with great skill, so that they could send a sister to cut rocks with her sharp jaws, so that they could send a strong sister to help those sisters who were lifting the sting-beast that they had killed. It seemed to her that Four-Legged Kisa's five-piece labor was completed, and the wise nest-keeper went eagerly after four days to bring all the good things that had come from its completion to Kisa.

But when the nest-keeper came to the stone that had split the young tree upon which she had been waiting, she did not find Four-Legged Kisa there. For a time she searched Outside in the last days before the cold would repel her from Outside for the rest of the winter season, but she did not find a path to where Four-Legged Kisa had gone. The wounding in her thoughts that had seemed so precisely tended pained her in that time. And so, to complete her own labor of bringing these things to her sister who was wounded, she returned to the Mountain Colony, and spent the winter not beside her Queen, but beside all her other sisters who were wounded as Kisa had been, and she shared with them all the things that she had labored to bring to Kisa. It was then a good winter season, because all of the sisters of the Mountain Colony tasted root-water, and fresh dirt, and sting-beast tail, and many other kinds of sweetness for a season.

* * *

When Stone-Armor Yik had shared her story to Skith who was buried beneath her, she walked from where she had been, and Skith was no longer buried. She shared no more, because the smell that had made her eager was gone, a smell that had been in the Big Basin many times in the uncountable days that she had been still among the daughters of Queens in the mountain.

Skith rose from where she had dug into the dirt beneath her. She came beside Stone-Armor Yik then, and she labored carefully to clean the beast's armor, because it seemed like cleaning a sister to her. And while she was cleaning Yik's armor that was like stone, Swift Eke arrived from her foraging in the cold Outside, filled with the sweet food that she had made from the many foul things that she had eaten. Skilled as she was in sharing with beasts, Skith had Stone-Armor Yik and Swift Eke beside her for a time, though the goodness of that time was quickly buried by her storming thoughts. Once she had filled her stomachs, she saw Swift Eke searching for Sett, because she had more food to share.

Skith shared to Swift Eke of how Sett had followed her into the deep tunnels, and that she had taken from Skith her labor to kill the Impostor Het, who was a spider that wore the shape of a sister. She did not share this precisely, fearing the pain that her thoughts would bring up if they gathered every piece.

“Sett found me in a place that she had labored to reach for many days. It was a labor that she had brought from the dry lands that are leftward of this mountain in which we stand in closeness. But I did not leave her there alone in such a dark and fearful place, for this would be an evil thing. When we parted, I heard the voice of the God Inside who is named Iki-Ikas, mother to all workers, who shares her learning of Rest and Searching to all her daughters. Sett reached the end of her labors, nestled deep within the land-beast from which all of us beast and sister were birthed when the God-Queen first came down from the sky.”

Swift Eke heard this, and she shared food with Stone-Armor Yik who gathers many stories, whose feelers had been raised for the first time in more than a season while Skith had shared of Sett. But Swift Eke was not entirely settled, for she had recently shared with Beetle Ata, who had been fleeing from Skith's harshness. Swift Eke then shared with Skith what she had learned from Beetle Ata, and it was that Skith was an enemy to her that had led wise Sett into danger to be killed.

When Skith heard this, she once more bit at her own feelers, and she said to Swift Eke, “I have learned that beasts have no labors, and yet this seems now to me to be an imprecise thing, because it seems that Beetle Ata labors to unsettle me, and to burden my own labor to reach the mountain's peak where I will be at last in a place where my fears are silent. You will learn now that I am an enemy to Beetle Ata, and that I will not share food with her.”

This was a strange thing for Swift Eke to learn, for it had seemed until then that Beetle Ata and Sister Skith had been a comfort to one another.

What was not then learned by either Skith or Swift Eke was that Beetle Ata was near to them, where she could not be seen or smelled, in the darkness between the stars of the Inside sky on the roof of the Big Basin. Beetle Ata learned of Skith's hatred of her then, and she was very troubled, because she was very hungry, and she would need to walk down to the floor of the Big Basin to have Swift Eke share food to her. Beetle Ata made a plan then, and it was an evil plan in the manner of those that are made among thoughts that are not reaching.

If you like this and want to read it in a better-organized format go here:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/105895/gods-inside

or here:

https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/63668572/

Skith did not struggle to walk the path in the tunnels that Sett had followed, for she was skilled in walking in dark places. But while she did not struggle, she was very troubled to return alone. In her walking, she smelled Sett's trail also. Skith's own thoughts savagely repelled it, for it would birth despair within her. She was pained by this repelling, and her insides were twisting from it.

For a third time, the longest time in all her days, Skith was screaming then. She shook the threads that she climbed imprecisely across. She sent her screaming over the Refuse Colony as she circled its tall chamber, and the spiders and the beetles that tended to their simple hunger atop it scattered in fear, and this brought an evil comfort to her. She was disgusted by their laborlessness. She was disgusted also by the uncleaned tunnels, and the sightless beasts that fled from her. The smell of their piled droppings was foul to her, and she did not discern its smell from others, until all that was around her seemed similarly fouled in her thoughts that were storming.

But as she left the Refuse Colony, her screaming soured, and brought no relief to her. The foulness that she hated had followed her, and crept inside her. She bent her feelers tightly back on her head, and she smelled the filth that was smeared across her armor with no sisters to clean it. She bit the tips of her feelers until she smelled venom, and she gnawed them until there was terrible pain to press her thoughts flat and silent.

The warmth and the light of the Mountain Colony reached her thoughts then that were hateful, for only those had survived her pain's terrible pressing, and so she became hateful of these things. She came into the Big Basin, and she was met by Beetle Ata there.

“Here! Skith!” said Beetle Ata, and she opened her jaws for a feeding. Skith did not come near to her, and her jaws were still on her feelers. When Beetle Ata said, “Where? Sett!” and came closer, Skith's jaws were open, and she stood high on her legs. Beetle Ata fled, her stomach left empty, and Skith did not follow.

Skith soon came to where Golden Yiteka was waiting in her central chamber. Her scent washed away the cloud of filth that was stuck to Skith's feelers then, and Skith made to climb her. But Golden Yiteka spoke harshly then, and said, “Keep away your troubles, sister Skith. They foul my air and disturb the God Outside that waits within me.”

Skith climbed imprecisely from Golden Yiteka then, and she fell to the dirt. She labored to silence her thoughts, but it was too difficult to do. She bit her feelers once more, and her thoughts screamed together with her as two hairs fell free from them.

Golden Yiteka's own feelers folded away from Skith's screaming, and she said, “You are unmanaged, Skith!”

“I am very troubled!” said Skith. “My thoughts are all stinking, and I fear that I will come to hate them, for they are struggling and I am not eager to calm them!”

“Why are you troubled?” asked Yiteka. “When you last left my chamber you were glimmering, and now you are foul-smelling.”

“My armor is all fouled from where I walked,” said Skith. “You will clean me and I will do the same for you.”

But Yiteka disagreed, and Skith's scent grew fouler. Yiteka's feelers leapt high and away, and she said, “It seems to me your armor is cleaned, and yet your scent is very harsh. You will leave, and settle your thoughts, so that the God Outside that is inside me will not suffer the stink from you.”

Skith agreed, but she was reluctant, and in spite of her efforts, she learned then that there was evil in Yiteka's chamber. Her thoughts were once more in tumult, and for a short moment, she clattered her jaws at Yiteka who had repelled Skith from her chamber.

Golden Yiteka lifted herself higher on her legs, but she could not stand on them highly, for her legs had lost their strength from many seasons of stillness. She stood no higher than Skith then, and the smell of fear was between them.

“Will you kill me?” asked Yiteka then, because she smelled also the venom on Skith's jaws.

At this question, Skith bit her feelers again, and she said, “No, I will not. I would not do this. It is an evil thing that you fear it from me.” She fled Yiteka's chamber then, and she did not stop her biting, and two more hairs were broken. When she felt again the sting of her own venom, a great hatred was birthed at its scent, and so it was a hatred that went as deeply as her venom within.

She fled back to the Big Basin then, and she squeezed much venom free, so that it beaded on her jaws and dripped to the untended floor. She labored to draw out all the venom that she could, to spill it to the ground so that it would all be gone from her insides. She left venom in stinking streaks across the walls as she dragged her jaws across them. She bit the earth, and she wished that the land-beast still lived so that it would feel her biting. And as she became burdened by this effort, she screamed again, and she dug deep into the floor of the Big Basin.

The storming in her thoughts fell still, not from calmness, but from the burdens of her emptied stomach, for she had walked quickly across many tunnels. The taste of the floor was pleasant, Skith learned then. She covered herself in it, so that the cold wind from Outside could not touch her armor. She nestled herself deeply, and folded her legs tightly, finding an old and deeply familiar comfort there that settled over her thoughts in the manner of fresh dirt. And with her thoughts stilled, Skith could search deep into what had been long-since settled beneath them. This comfort had always been near to her, but she was not eager for it. Beneath the floor, much was silent, and so her first-learned fear was louder.

She was small then, to avoid the eyes that watched her. She was quiet then, to escape those beasts that would hear her. And she was still then, so that she would not be followed. But there was one beast whose attention she had not avoided, and it was Stone-Armor Yik, who had been gripping the floor beside her. Stone-Amor Yik lifted herself then, and she stepped over where Skith was buried, with her smooth and round armor so tight against the floor that even the smallest beast could not have slipped beneath it.

But, unlike Sett, Skith had learned to share with such a beast without the need to unfold her thoughts. When Stone-Armor Yik was near, Skith said to her, “Do not stay near me, for I am eager to be still and silent. You will leave me untroubled by you.”

Stone-Armor Yik disagreed then, for Skith had spilled much foul-smelling venom in the Big Basin, and it had made her own place of comfort fouled. For the many seasons that she had lived in the Big Basin, before its emptiness and before its first Queen, Stone-Armor Yik had learned much of the sisters who had lived in the Mountain Colony. She had learned that she could not repel a sister such as Skith, but also she had learned of how her armor could repel Skith's jaws, and so she was unafraid. She stepped across where Skith had buried herself, and she became refastened to the floor so that Skith could not dig free.

If you like this and want to read it in a better-organized format go here:

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/105895/gods-inside

or here:

https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/63668572/

Without scent to follow, Sett's search for Skith in the dark and unclean tunnels of the Guest Colony was troublesome. She came to many splits in the tunnels, and in her thoughts her path became more burdensome with each that she passed. At each place between paths, she brought up all her learning of Skith, so that she might walk as Skith had walked and find her. She turned away from the paths that had comfort, for Sett had learned that Skith would go to places that repelled her. She dug new openings in tight passageways, because she had learned Skith could slip through them. She walked as lightly as she could, so that she could follow those paths that were more silent than the rest. This was an evil thing to her, for it seemed to her that she was hunting a sister, but it seemed also a greater evil that Skith should be alone with her troubles untended.

Sett came to a tunnel with a very low roof. She walked with her legs bent long, and her broken feelers brushed the roof. She walked in this low tunnel for five-and-two steps, and when she emerged into the wider chamber past it, she felt a grip on her middle-most part. She circled three times to see what was holding her, but it was holding where her eyes could not see. She could not reach where she was being held, and so she was afraid. She pressed her armor against the chamber walls, and dragged herself across it to break what was holding her. She rubbed her legs against her armor, and rattled it so that her frustration broke the silence in the dark, but the thing holding her was not pulled free.

Sett said then, “You will grip me no longer, beast!”

The thing that was holding her disagreed. “I will stay upon you until my labor is done,” it said to her.

“What is your labor?” asked Sett, and she was very afraid.

“My labor is of riding,” it said. “Learn that this labor will not trouble you, and do not fear it.”

“I am troubled!” said Rika harshly. “I have not learned of your labor. I fear you will burden me with it. I fear a sickness, or some long labor to wound me!”

“Manage this, or you will fear me,” said the Rider. “You will not remove me until my labor is done. You cannot break my grip.”

Sett tried many sudden movements, and she stretched every joint between her every part, and yet the Rider had spoken precisely, for it could not be removed. With each step she took, fear was tossed upward in her thoughts. She could not let her counting of steps and her paths be buried and lost in storming, and so her thoughts reached far to be away from fear. And when her thoughts came back to the Warm Shaft and the Big Basin where her guest-sisters lived, she made a small plan instead to carry the Rider to Beetle Ata and Yiteka, who it seemed to her could pull the Rider from her armor. She continued through the tunnels with the Rider upon her then, and she walked more quickly.

But from her storming, a small despair was made inside her. The burdens in her thoughts and on her legs seemed greater than when she had left. The novelty of so much strangeness had turned to struggle, and the last of that cold eagerness that is birthed from worry had begun to rot. It had been many days since she had walked through the tunnels of a Colony. Many of her thoughts of Our Mound had died, and more had been given to the God of Death and Eating. But when she came to the entrance of each chamber in the dark, she was still eager for the smells and bustle of sisters within.

She asked the Rider on her armor, “What have you learned of the sisters who once walked these tunnels?”

“I have not learned this,” said the Rider. “My molting was two days ago. I have learned only of the roof where I waited, and my eagerness to do my labor.”

Then Sett asked, “If you have learned so little, how have you come to your labor of riding?”

“It is my labor,” said the Rider. “I did not learn this.”

“Where will your labor of riding take you?” asked Sett. “Where must I walk, so that your labor will be complete, and you will no longer ride me?”

“I have not learned this,” said the Rider. “But I will ride you until I am there.”

“Your labor is very imprecise!” said Sett harshly. “You should learn that if I am wounded, if I am killed, it will not be completed!”

The Rider agreed, and said, “That would be an evil thing.” Sett felt its grip tighten, but not so much that it was painful to her, and the Rider asked, “Where am I riding to?”

“I have taken up a labor of searching,” said Sett. “My sister, Skith who climbed, has fled into these tunnels. I think that she is afraid, and I would comfort her.”

“Perhaps my labor will be completed when yours is also,” said the Rider. “Will you complete it soon?”

“It is a troublesome labor,” said Sett. “My feelers are broken, and so I cannot follow her scent, and so I can follow only my learning of her.”

“Your troubles are mine also,” said the Rider. “There is a scent here that is not yours. This scent must be that of this Skith, whose name I have learned. She passed me before you, but she was too quick for my riding.”

Sett became eager once more, and she said, “With your feelers that are not broken, you will aid my labor.” The Rider agreed.

When Sett then came to another split, with four tunnels before her, the Rider gripped tighter on her rightward side, and so Sett was guided to the right-most tunnel. When Sett came to what seemed to be a wall, the Rider urged her forward, and she dug through it, learning that it was piled stones. And when Sett walked on the roof a deep chasm, the Rider gripped her tightly, and Sett began to unfold the evil of the Rider's presence to find the good that was inside it.

As Sett walked deeper, the tunnels became smooth, and for a time it seemed to Sett that she had come back to the tunnels outside of Golden Yiteka's chamber. But she learned that, unlike where Golden Yiteka waited, these tunnels were filled with the sound of many legs brushing on stone, and she was walking steeply downward to where the air became warmer. Sett entered a chamber then that was taller and wider than any in which she had ever labored. It widened further as she descended, and it seemed to her that its floor far beneath her was not settled.

Sett did her seeing-step, and with the warmth of good strangeness shivering her legs, she learned that she was not seeing a floor. There were beetles beneath her, more than could be counted by even a great labor that was joined by many Logicians. They climbed across each other in an imprecise pile that was always unsettled, in the manner of the thoughts of a troubled Queen. They were covering a towering dark and glistening mound which was food to them. The long legs of tall spiders reached between the beetles below, and they did not cast their eyes above like the spiders that Sett had learned of Outside, such was their satisfaction to be surrounded by so many meals. Pale-armored hoppers leaped between bare spots. And while she watched, Sett saw the stripped bones of greater beasts emerging from the beetles before they were thrown down into white piles.

It seemed to Sett to be an evil place. There was much death here, and much eating. It was a place that had gone many seasons without being cleaned—a Refuse Colony, it seemed to Sett to be. And she learned then of a small good that was hidden inside the evil of her wounded feelers, for she could not smell it.

The Rider, however, could smell the Refuse Colony that Sett had found. Its grip fluttered eagerly, and it said to Sett, “I think that my labor will be completed here.”

This troubled Sett, since without the Rider she would have more difficulty in finding Skith. She said to the Rider, “I will not approach further. This place is filled with much evil, and I will not risk its staining me.”

“Perhaps my labor will not be completed, then,” said the Rider. “The scent that we are following does not lead further downward.”

Sett was eager to continue, but she felt that it was evil to keep a labor from being completed, and so she said to the Rider, “It seems that your first labor was to come here. I will return here when I have found my sister, and then you will no longer hold my armor.”

However, the Rider disagreed. “It seems to me that my labor is in Riding,” it said. Sett was eager to have kept the Rider's assistance, and yet she was troubled to hear of its incomplete labor. They circled the Refuse Colony's chamber then, and the sounds of the beetles below faded.

Sett learned from the Rider that Skith's scent was stronger, and this brought strength to her legs. Her troubles lessened then, for the path became straighter. Sett began to walk carefully, because there were threads under her legs. They were sparsely laid at first, and easily avoided. But when the threads grew thicker, she was afraid. Twice, Sett broke threads with her jaws to free her legs from them, and with each thread that she cut, her fears grew stronger. Having learned that a spider lived in that tunnel, she gathered all her remaining thoughts behind her eyes, so that there would be many to find any danger.

“Why do you walk slowly?” asked the Rider as Sett paused once more to do a seeing-step.

“There is danger here,” said Sett. “A spider has laid its threads in this tunnel, and with each step, I risk ambush.”

“What is the danger of a spider?” asked the Rider.

“A spider is a strong and clever beast,” said Sett. “Their eyes are many, and their legs number one-and-two. They are very old, from the beast-days before the Gods Inside were first birthed, when the land-beast was covered by many eggs. Few places are unreachable to a spider, and their ways of killing are many, for few beasts are not hunted by them.”

“My legs also number one-and-two,” said the Rider. “It seems that I am a spider.”

Sett disagreed, and she said “I have learned that you are doing a labor.”

“Am I doing a spider's labor?” asked the Rider then.

“Spiders are beasts, and have no labors,” Sett said. “They lay their threads without learning to do it. They, like all beasts, only eat, until they are eaten. It is an evil manner of living.”

The Rider held Sett's armor more tightly, and they walked deeper. The threads began to cover all the walls of the tunnel, and Sett could no longer avoid walking over them. She feared both for herself and for Skith, who must have been troubled indeed to have walked so far into such a dangerous place.

When Sett saw how the walls were covered in threads, her fears were met by Hiyiki-Haka, who called from the quiet chambers of her cradle. But Sett had learned that she was far from Our Mound, whose Queen had lived long ago, and so Hiyiki-Haka was still and buried.

Rakkitik, however, was not so weak in Sett's thoughts, and she forced a steadiness into her legs, even when she saw the walls from which hung the dried armor of many sisters. Sett would not look into their empty eyes, for her fears already matched Rakkitik's power to stop them, and she would not add to them. And that God Inside of Strength and Watching began to falter, for Sett had learned to quiet her soldier-voice within, because she would not repel her sister Skith who was strange and came from Outside where evil is birthed.

And that is when Iki-Ikas spoke softly, and all Sett's fears came beside her to listen. Being mother to all who are workers, Iki-Ikas did not send them away, but she spoke words of comfort to them, so that they would not make Sett's steps imprecise. Were it not for that God of Rest and Searching, Sett might have fled then, for the sound of a spider's one-and-two legs creaking deep within the tunnel was a sound that seemed more evil than any that she had learned of.

“Will you flee?” asked the Rider, who had learned that Sett was necessary to her labor.

Sett disagreed. “My thoughts are managed,” she said, and she let her fears spill, because she could not smell them. “I will find my sister Skith and make safety for her.”

As the sounds of the spider who waited within became loud enough that she could not hear her legs brushing against the threads, Sett did find Skith. She could not see her in that deep dark, but her legs touched her sister's, and she felt their unsteadiness.

“I am here, Skith,” Sett said. “I have found you.”

Skith did not move. She said, “I smelled you by your fear, which is familiar to me.”

Sett made to lift Skith then, but Skith disagreed. “The spider is watching,” she said. “If I move, I will be killed. Your warmth is a comfort to me, and so I am steady.”

Sett agreed, and she stood close behind Skith, and gathered all her thoughts behind her eyes to gather what the darkness would share. There was a glinting of fangs, less than three steps away in the dark, and so Sett learned then that the Impostor Het was very near.

“Joined in labor, we can kill the spider,” Sett said, but Skith disagreed.

“You will not speak,” said Skith. “The impostor hears you.”

It seemed to Sett that she held still for the time of a whole day. She was pained by the stillness of her waiting. Sett was eager for Skith to leap out, with screaming power and jaws wet for killing, but Skith would not. When Sett came near to danger, to move her head and ease her joints, she gathered fresh fear of the spider's fangs. The spider was still also, and did not seem so pained by it, in the manner of a stone that is too heavy for lifting. Sett's discomfort was held by the time of her waiting, and Sett feared its pressing quiet. She could not stay. She feared that the days that had come before this fearful waiting would drift away, and she became hateful of her waiting, where she was hidden from the days that would follow. There was nothing to learn in her waiting, and so there could be no sleeping.

Sett despaired that her waiting would become settled, and she would wait for all the days of her living.

“I will attack,” said Sett. Skith disagreed, and Sett disagreed also. “We will not not stay here waiting!”

“Attack, and you will be killed,” said Skith.

“I can wait no more!” said Sett, and it was a quiet screaming. Her armor shook from Rakkitik's drumming within her. She feared that her pieces would fall apart. She piled all of her thoughts onto Rakkitik to quiet her. And the comforts that these thoughts had carried were thrown aside, such was the labor of pressing a God Inside. Learning threatened to settle in her thoughts, evil learning that piled quickly, harsh learning that would bury much that had not yet been unfolded. She despaired, because it would be a second burial, and her first had left her feelers ruined and her sisters far away.

Sett then searched, and she did not gather. She drew out what comforts could be found in the evil surrounding her, and she lifted them against her thoughts that were carrying fear. She brought to them the warmth of the tunnel, which was unlike the cold Outside. She let the ends of her legs sink into the dirt beneath them that was moist and could be dug without trouble. She brought to her armor the strangeness of silence, of which she had learned Outside, where it seemed good to her. And she learned then that the place of her waiting was not so evil, and had seemed evil only from the living of the spider there. And when she had unfolded all the comfort around her, her thoughts were gathering freshly, and the tumult of Rakkitik's drumming had left many deep things unburied. She learned then that she had come to where the spider had made comfort, and she had brought threat to it, and so were her learnings of good and evil unfolded within her thoughts.

And the Rider, which had been silent upon Sett's armor, spoke to her thoughts too quietly for hearing.

Skith then brushed Sett with her feelers. “You are calmed,” said Skith. “I have never smelled such calmness from you.”

Sett agreed, saying to Skith, “I am calmed, because I feel that my labors are completing.” The joy of a labor's completion coiled outward, across her parts, and all of what was settled there was given wings to travel where it was eager to go. She said to Skith, “I will face the spider. I will stand here where you are trapped, and I will stand before the impostor with my skillful sight, and you will walk from here in safety.”

Skith disagreed fiercely. “I will not do this. I will not walk alone from this tunnel. I will not learn of how my sister Sett was killed in the dark by hunger or a spider's venom.”

Sett agreed, but she still smelled of a labor's completion, which only brought more trouble to Skith's thoughts. “You will not learn sister Sett's killing in a deep tunnel in the mountain. You will learn of how Sett's labors were completed in quiet and in comfort, nestled within the land-beast. You will learn of how Sett faced despair with a steady calm, and was freed of its burden.”

“This is imprecise,” said Skith, and she said it bitterly.

“Not all learning should be precise,” Sett said, and she stepped over Skith then, and stood between her and the impostor who was spider-shaped. “You will walk from here now, Skith who climbed, stranger Skith who tended to a sister's wounds, Skith who is storm-learned, Skith who sang for the beasts to hear. You will go to Yiteka, and you will climb to the sky-point with her, and no place will be Outside to you.”

Skith disagreed, but it was buried beneath the voice of Iki-Ikas, with which Sett was singing. This is the short song that Skith heard, a song from a voice that was too good and gentle for disagreement.

I smell now your comfort

I smell a good resting

We'll meet in sleep-travel