#klirro

They opened their eyes again.

They began walking to their daughters.

If only they could say goodbye to their other children…but there was no time. Almost two hundred sweeps, so suddenly cut short.

But wasn’t it that way for everyone, in the end?

They’d brought enough death. They ought to face theirs with dignity.

They poked their head into the dining room.

“Hello, my dears…I hate to interrupt, but Uunive, I need you. Something urgent’s come up.”

Their tone and expression must have made it clear how urgent it really was, despite their attempt to sound calm, because their older daughter got up and went with them, no hesitation whatsoever.

Quickly, they took her to another room and explained the situation.

“It will be very dangerous, and I may not return - ” (they internally winced at the half truth) “ - and…”

They trailed off as they noticed the limeblood wordlessly reach out to touch the cave wall, grab a chunk of it with only the strength of her hand, and then crumble it.

“I’m coming with.” Uunive said, in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

Despite everything, Tuuya couldn’t help a proud but nervous smile from stealing over their face. Their darling girl. So strong and grown-up now.

Grown-up, and about to be alone again.

No. No time for pain. They had to keep moving.

“All right.” They said with a nod. “If you could call Kamala for me, while I gather our weapons…someone has to watch Ailene.”

Their human daughter was still recovering from the loss of her arm. Fortunately, one of their moirails was a docterrorist.

Uunive nodded, and the worm swarm bustled away to review their stock and pack as quickly as possible.

Smoke bombs? Check.

Their laser pistols? Check.

Uunive’s knives? Check.

Superheated blades and a few other emergency items? Check.

They looked at their work outfit, slung on a hanger in their closet, the one they often wore when going on jobs for Chimer.

They’d already altered it once, to accommodate their current body type…and they would alter it one last time, because damn if they would go down without a fight.

As they rolled back their sleeves, white worm tendrils sprung from their arms to work in tandem with their hands, scissors, needles and thread.

A few minutes later, they nodded at the result, satisfied, and changed into it.

Normally they would decry this skimpier style as ridiculous and impractical. For them it was ideal to have more skin to let out tendrils from, and it still covered much of their skeleton and what few organs they had.

With a few swift scissor chops, they cut their hair. Less to get tangled by the other swarms or for them to grab onto.

They’d take along their fireproof armor too. It had certainly saved their skin enough times…and  they’d ask Uunive to use her luck psiionics to enhance their weapons too, just in case.

They could only hope they’d stay intact long enough to find and subdue Ozryel.

Hope, mused Tuuya as they went back to fetch Uunive and go, activating their small spaceship for the first time in ages.

Strange that they should have to give up hope that wasn’t even theirs.

That when they should despair, they instead felt calm.

What was there to worry about anymore?

—

Rivali pursed their lips as they saw a missed call from their old friend. Not an uncommon expression for the jade, but one currently laced with worry along with disapproval.

They tried to call Daudre, hanging up when it went directly to voicemail. Then they tried to call Vannyn.

“Rivali?” Said the worm swarm, surprised. “Ah - I’m a little busy right now, what’s -“

“Daudre called me, but left no message. Do you know anything?” They said curtly, cutting in.

Tuuya sucked in a hesitant breath. “Ozryel, Inshii, and Rhyssa invaded Hanhai cavern. Uunive and I are on our way.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I’m coming too.” Declared the komondor troll.

“Rivali! I know you’re skilled, but you could di -“

The jade hung up on the undead’s panicked plea.

No one invaded their old home without them doing something about it.

Despite the miseries they had suffered under those narrow-minded old wretches, they were far from the only trolls there.

Daudre, the only friend they’d ever had at home. Ashwat, their lineage-mate, kept away from them for fear they’d be a bad influence on her.

Even the stuffy, rigid matrons who disdained their identity did not deserve to die in such a way.

They had fought Ozryel when she’d been in Tuuya’s body, and they had won.

As they checked their weapons and sent a message to Temasek cavern’s matron superior excusing their sudden absence, Rivali found themself eager for a rematch.

—

A short time later, the ship hovered some distance above the desert cavern’s entrance. Tuuya’s dark gray fingers adjusting and focusing the ship’s sensors to see if the other swarms had been bright enough to leave constructs to guard the entrance.

The answer seemed to be no, the pale sand below undisturbed by anything but the wind.

Still, Tuuya took them down slowly, laser cannons primed to fire. They weren’t keen on doing more collateral damage than they had to, but they also weren’t going to give the other swarms even the smallest chance to get in close.

They were glad of it when a massive wasp construct shot out of the sand, buzzing angrily as it got riddled with melted gaps from a round of white beams. The rest of it dodged and reformed before streaming further upwards.

Tuuya pulled the ship back up, g-forces pressing on the worm swarm and their daughter. They cooled the cannons; now it was time to use nature to their advantage.

They slowed a little, a tactic that would make most opponents suspicious, but Rhyssa hadn’t the brains the mother grub gave an ant. It only made her bear down harder as the small ship drifted into a cloud.

The lingering heat from the cannons caused gentle steam to waft around the vessel, cloaking it even further.

As the construct barreled within range on vast wasp wings, multiple wicked pincers extending from it, Tuuya released a little something they’d had Thrixe make for them.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have much of it. This would use up their whole stock.

The construct began to skitter and scratch against the ship’s windows, causing small cracks to splinter across the glass…and then went limp, helpless, rendered impotent by the fungus specifically engineered to feed on undead biological matter spreading through its tissue.

Tuuya smirked as they slowly took the ship down again, watching the massive white insectoid thing fall to the sand and scatter into pieces, going still as it died.

They landed, and satisfied nothing else would jump out at them, strode past the wreckage and the corpse riddled with gray fungus; fortunately, the substance became inert after it did its work, so neither they or Uunive were at risk.

“I cannot wait for the rest of you to perish.” They said lovingly to the splotched, broken body as they went by, stepping over a large segmented leg.

“I do so hope I’m there to see it.”

—

Hirudo panted as she faced down a room full of white butterflies, even though she didn’t technically need to breathe. If she got out of this, she was swatting every single one she ever saw again.

The fuchsia was covered in cuts, her already ratty lolita dress now basically in shreds, and Joey and Neffie were faring even worse as they stood behind her. One of the rustblood’s pedipalps had partially broken off, and Neffie was limping heavily.

Klirro had never arrived. Who the fuck knew why.

She felt their eyes on her as she hefted her heat gun defensively (it was nearly out of charge), but the swirling swarm didn’t attack.

Instead, it spoke to her.

“It would be a waste to kill you.” said some butterflies, pressed together with rapid constructs to make a faceless voice, but it still didn’t quite sound like a troll speaking. It was rustling and oddly-toned, vibrating at random moments and making some vowels in drawn out or overly clipped ways.

“You proved yourself useful to Rhyssa. She would have you dead for your treachery, but I think otherwise.”

Hirudo laughed sharply and without humor, the sound echoing against the stony cavern walls.

“You think I believe that?” She snarled. “You might be elders, but you turned even on Tuuya when they didn’t do what you wanted. I know what our lives would be like under you; I won’t do that to my coven.”

As she spoke, the leech rainbowdrinker swapped her heat gun for a grenade she pulled the pin from and flung at the ceiling in seconds, then grabbed her coven members and made a break for it.

She knew, as the butterflies dove for her in a massive fluttering of wings, she probably wouldn’t make it.

Either the rocks would get her, or the bugs would.

Maybe she could at least throw the others clear of -

A giant rope - no - a white worm tendril - snaked around her and yanked her to safety with sickening speed, pulling her out of the room in barely more than a second.

Barely conscious from the debris that had pelted her body, the razor proboscises that had freshly cut her skin, Hirudo wiped her face clear of blood and dirt with a shaking head.

She gazed up blearily at her rescuer as she was gently set down, Neffie and Joey tumbling out of her arms onto the rocky floor. They groaned as they slid down, Neffie hissing in pain from her bad leg.

Crashing and crumbling noises came from behind them, and while she felt the breeze of a few butterflies escaping, she could tell many had been crushed. The very floor of the cavern shook from the impact, and she knew it would be felt throughout the whole place.

Tuuya smiled down at her with that needle-filled mouth of theirs, and gave her an ironic salute. Uunive stood next to them wearing a hardened expression, prongs on her horns now, and the seadweller could hardly believe it was the same girl she’d kidnapped mere perigees ago.

Beetles hovered around her, for some reason. What…?

“There are matrons’ bodies in a room not far from here, ones we found already dead.” Said Tuuya with sadness. “Make use of them. Heal. Find Rhyssa and kill her, Inshii too if you can manage it. If my contact has succeeded in rendering the other swarms able to die…we will soon know.”

“What about you?” managed the highblood, coughing between words.

“I?” They said, amused, looking back as they already began to walk away, ragged crimson coat waving as they strode side by side with their daughter.

“I’m here for Ozryel.”

—

After the cacophony of the explosion, it was almost eerily quiet in the cavern. Inshii had fled elsewhere, not hanging around to attack the worm swarm and the lime drinker.

Jade blood lay messily spattered across the ancient sandstone passages Tuuya and Uunive descended quickly, heading for the mother grub - and something of equal value.

“The matriorb…” Tuuya said, picking up a conversation they’d had on the ship. Uunive had mentioned feeling certain that the mother of swarms would try to use it for some terrible purpose.

“I can’t imagine why Ozryel would want it, but who knows? I remember when I got ahold of it…it seems so long ago. At first I worried I might be getting tricked, but no, it was a real one. Real enough to earn you a place here…”

They sighed, looking around at the ravaged cavern.

“I hope there are still jades to save. I hope it dearly.”

“There will be.” Uunive said firmly, her beetles fluttering around her.

“Tutu, think. She invaded this place to do something. Maybe it had to do with me, but that can’t be the only reason. She has to want at least some of them alive.”

Tuuya nodded. They had no idea if that was true, but there was no point in arguing, and all they could do was try.

A dying groan and wail came from the cavern ahead, and both undeads’ eyes widened as they sprinted toward it -

- in time to see Ozryel finish slitting the mother grub’s throat by dragging her claws across the exposed paleness, jade blood gushing out of the vast grayish white carapace. It pooled across the floor, flooding over toward the other two undead.

Tuuya wailed, a wretched noise more beastlike than troll, and Uunive yelled in rage.

Ozryel laughed as her strange wings lifted, bird-shaped yet diaphanous in nature. Of course the wretch had white hair as a troll, and pincers at the edges of her mouth. What a lovely family resemblance to her children.

Green eyes. Solid green, the same color as their own irises.

Tuuya’s hatred suffused their every worm as their insides writhed, the swarm eager to kill.

Not eager to die. Resigned nonetheless.

They lifted their laser pistols and began shooting at the ancient creature as she soared up and away, laughing mockingly as she dodged the daggers and laser fire.

–

Rivali had taken a juvenile roc lusus as transport, quickly rigging it with a saddle and throwing on a helmet paired with goggles.

Not strictly with cavern permission, but Hanhai desert was a suitable enough environment for one to spend some time in. It wasn’t big enough to do any major damage, and the local towns were scattered apart some distance from the cavern.

Besides, this was an emergency. They could apologize, do paperwork, and pay the fines later.

The real challenge had been getting the thing to put them down (mostly) safely, but a few bruises were an incredibly minor price to pay for the speed of travel; though at least Temasek wasn’t too far away.

They primly dusted themself off, the roc promptly ignoring them as it looked about for food.

Much as they longed to rush down into their old home, the komondor troll was wary as they entered the tunnels, ears pricked and eyes open for any wretched bloodsucking insects. At the slightest flash of white, they’d have their heat gun trained on it.

They hoped the creatures weren’t disguising themselves as trolls. They would be more difficult to identify quickly…but why would they bother? Much as Rivali hated to admit it, the lack of guards and no sight or sound of anyone so far probably meant the place was already in their grip.

They heard whimpering, and froze.

They peered around the stone corner.

A few jade wrigglers in gray and black uniforms huddled in a hall, and the oldest couldn’t be more than five sweeps, with the youngest perhaps three.

Above them hovered a small cloud of white wasps, making a low buzz.

Rivali waited, wondering why they hadn’t been attacked, then realized: insect eyes weren’t very good, and the light was low. The only illumination underground from the wasps’ own mild glow and the glass-encased torches on the walls, one of which had been smashed and damaged. They were already clad in their sleek white armor, lightweight to allow freedom of movement, but still offering some protection.

They couldn’t shoot at the swarm fragment right now, not with it so close to the girls.

So they picked up and threw a rock over it, the movement making the wrigglers jump and the wasps rise up in a small, angry funnel, zipping toward them.

Rivali fired.

The heat spread in a burst, melting most of the wasps into white drops dotting the tunnel floor. The few that escaped were dispatched by the flash of their blades, swiping the creatures apart and smearing the last one against the wall with a ringing clang.

The wrigglers huddled together, still scared, though the oldest held a knife in a shaky hand. She stood in front of the others to shield them.

“Wh-who are you?” She said.

“Rivali Tescin.” Said the older jade, not looking at her, already moving on. “Hide somewhere. This will take a bit.”

–

Outside the cavern entrance, one last being had come. Only to witness the curling strands of conflict, not to fight.

Still, she had promised her coven aid. This was not the time when they died.

There would only be two deaths today. She was fairly certain of it.

With red spiral eyes Klirro watched the solitary white butterfly that watched her in turn, and smiled with a mouth full of jagged teeth.

“Inshii.”

Others came to join it, making a throat and voice.

“Klirro.”

“You are not really in this with your whole feeling, are you?” She said gently, lovingly. “You spiral inwards and inwards, not even guarding your sister, letting my coven escape.”

“I assist my mother as she asks.” Said the butterflies in their flat, rustling voice.

“Only as she asks.” Murmured the horrorterror.

Spirals had already started to weave themselves through the tan grains, filling the sand with patterns between the tall, thin undead’s feet. Hot winds blew around and around her, stirring her short hair.

“I ask you, Inshii the butterfly: retreat.”

The butterflies stared at her with their myriad compound eyes, antennae twitching as their wings endlessly beat.

“If I refuse?”

Spirals of twisted, dried organs lashed out at the butterflies, holding them in the air, warping the air so it was solid, angled, like glass, then like liquid, pouring in on each other, physical laws breaking down with spirals of crimson energy.

Klirro laughed. A light, normal laugh, as she held out her open palms under the blaring light of the sun.

“Then you can never refuse a single soul again.”

Inshii, for the first time in millennia, felt fear.

The last of the DeVilles smiled wide, stretching the muscles and bones of the corpse she inhabited.

Yes, Ozryel might be an incarnation of death.

But the second worm had come, and death was due a reckoning.

FOREIGN UNDEAD INSECT TERMINATED, reported the security system over its speakers.

Good, the little laser drones were doing their jobs and all the tweaking of the bio-sensors had paid off. 

Ailene and Uunive knew the drill - they’d gone over it with them at least a dozen times. Where to hide, where to avoid, how to use the swarm-killing weapons they’d given them. Tuuya had perfect confidence in their daughters.

Even if they worried a little for the limeblood, after what had happened the other night. 

The cavern rumbled.

Tuuya hissed and grabbed a remote from their sylladex. Kaningård was partially built on rock, but they knew very well the swarms could find a way in by tunneling underground if they tried hard enough. 

They deployed the stronger laser field around the entrance, but would have no way of knowing how effective it’d been until they saw the footage -

- a terrible noise came, a distant high shriek that pierced their skull so harshly they clutched their ears and their head, unable to not wail in pain. The remote clattered to the ground, and they curled up in a ball.

Then it cut off. They scrabbled for the piece of tech, entire body writhing from the aftereffects, writhing without their will into…spirals. 

Their eyes widened. No, oh no, why was she here? Why was she here?

How dare she be here.

Fear and rage warred in the worm swarm as they grabbed the rectangular controller and pressed another button. Futile, probably futile, probably they were all dead already, but they had to try.

They ran wide-eyed and barely troll shaped, surging across the rocky floor trying to get to their daughters as acidic gas was deployed, the rest of the cavern beyond the entrance sealed off to prevent it from spreading - 

- CLANG. 

As they ran past one of said walls, it burst open in a spiral pattern, and they leapt high in the air to dodge the shrapnel, one or two pieces still slicing them open as they hissed in pain. Ears flattened against their skull, they looked at the two figures on the other side of the torn remains.

There she stood, that DeVille wretch who’d turned Uunive, tall and thin and grinning her jagged smile. Her horrible red spiral eyes sickened them to see, churning and twisting, as her long, sharp black claws crossed together. 

The gas would come in here. The gas might spread, might hurt Uunive and Ailene, and then everything was pointless.

“You.” They breathed, soft and utterly full of hate.

Next to her was Gallen, in troll form and all over the place, but they didn’t care about him right now. 

Tuuya whipped out their laser pistols to riddle her with -

With a surge of white and the sound of endless skittering legs on rock, isopods surrounded the worm swarm.

They knocked the gun out of their hand after merely one missed shot. Tuuya struggled and thrashed to get out of the crushing pressure, trying to abandon their troll form and clothes to escape.

It was no use. Gallen was too heavy, too numerous; they couldn’t slip through, not even as individual worms.

His troll form scratched his neck, looking slightly apologetic.

Tuuya spat at him with a distorted, writhing face, only barely held together after their escape attempts and from their rage, troll features warped and misshapen as they began to dissolve, acid drifting toward them now. 

Gallen winced, but didn’t seem as bothered, and Klirro didn’t appear affected at all. 

“You fffucking missscreants! I willl chhhew you to the baressst shhredsss -“

“You might have had the chance if fortune had not favored another path! We have not come to undo you, second worm, do not threaten to undo yourself.”

Klirro interrupted.

She quickly stepped in a spiral pattern, spinning, her long gold toga billowing out with her, and the gas spiraled into a funnel cloud and then dissipated into nothingness.

No more pain. 

Tuuya paused, now baffled as well as enraged. They wriggled their face back into realignment, shaking their head in utter confusion. 

“Why should I trust you bastards?” They said, voice hard and still rough. “I would love to see you both dead! Though I’m tragically aware that’s far easier said than done.”

Gallen took out his phone, tapped on it, and held it up to play his words.

“I know my mother is dying, no matter how much blood she gets. She’s been dying for a long time, losing herself, and none of us wanted to admit it. What she did to you…I’m sorry I stood by and let it happen. I’ve been a coward.”

He bowed his head, retracting himself to free the worm swarm, and Tuuya blinked, completely thrown. Glad to not be pressed down with that awful weight of armored segments as they wriggled themself back into all the right places and shapes on their skeleton, but even more suspicious of the man standing across from them. Their bright green eyes shone warily, their ears flicking slightly.

The rest of him slowly scuttled around their feet on the stony cavern floor, his many sets of mandibles drooping sadly. While the tailor knew it was absurd, they could have sworn the creatures looked just as apologetic as their troll face did.

Suspicion whispered it was a trap, a trick, but why would the pair need to bother? Klirro was clearly strong enough to break in without Gallen, and the two drinkers together were far more than a match for the worm swarm.

They fixed the horrorterror with a glare.

“All right, let’s say I believe Mr. Woebegone’s sob story. What’s yours, you absolute hag? Why did you kill my daughter?”

Klirro pressed her long, narrow hands together, looking intent as she explained in her singsong, up and down voice.

“The lime needed to be turned or else have been consumed by Ozryel, died entire but for her soul and her scraps left to linger! I was her luck that night! She will be ours in return.”

Tuuya seethed, rippling beneath their skin in rage.

“Uunive’s not doing a thing for you, you great bloody wretched - ”

“The lime is gone to do for herself first.” Interrupted Klirro again, cheerful and unusually calm. 

“She must settle the death of the old self before she can be truly reborn. So the beetle ascends her shell! So a fresh resurrection halts an ancient one! How Ozryel undoes herself with her own distant kin.”

“Shut up.” Growled Tuuya. “Uunive’s right here and she’s not going anywhere unless she wants to.”

A silence filled the cavern entryway. Tuuya’s ears twitched nervously. 

Why had they both gone so quiet? Even the isopods on the stone had become deathly still.

“Uunive’s right here.” Said Tuuya again. They tried to not let their voice crack.

Right here.

She was right here.

Their baby, their darling, their little girl -

“She has gone.” Said Klirro, so soft and gentle that Tuuya wanted to cry and rage at the same time because how dare she?

“No! Why - why would she - “

Yet they stopped, breathless, considering…remembering…Jaskir, the fight…Uunive had been so upset, running away to her room.

They hadn’t seen her since.

Not even to bake, or to wander the cavern.

“No.” Said Tuuya, trembling. “No.”

“Such a weight on the mind.” Murmured Klirro. “It is easy to run one’s thoughts in bitter spirals, until it all wears down to the quick.”

The worm swarm turned and ran to their older daughter’s room, practically leaping down the rocky passages, clinging tight to their bones in sheer fear. 

They didn’t know if the other drinkers followed them. They didn’t care.

Their rapid footsteps echoed in the quiet passages as they came to a halt in front of the limeblood’s quarters.

“Uunive!” Tuuya called with forced cheerfulness. “Uunive, is it all right if I come in?”

No coughing or shuffling. No stifled sigh of impatience. No rustling of sheets.

Tuuya shook again, knowing they were at risk of disassembling. They gulped in air, forced themself to coil together again, and stepped into the room.

Empty.

The room’s emptiness hurt like a physical thing, it was so reduced in possessions, it was so crushingly bare.

A hole of all things lay in the middle of the room. They ran over. 

A tunnel. A deep, dark, roughly dug tunnel wide enough to fit a troll stretching down into the earth. They were unable to see the bottom, even when they flared their glow as high as it would go.

A letter laid next to it. Tuuya snatched it up and read it, clear tears bubbling up in their eyes.

As they finished reading, it slid out of their slackened hands to land back on the soil below. Tuuya did not care to pick it up.

Tuuya did not care for much of anything at the moment.

Only one hazy thought penetrated their gloom.

Ailene.

Leadenly, they turned and faced the door of their missing daughter’s room. Stiffly, awkwardly, as if a puppet used by an unskilled conductor, they went to find their younger child.

She was safe. Hidden exactly where she should be, a sealed alcove almost impossible to see from most angles. They whispered words of encouragement, a quick update on the situation, and sealed her back behind her cover, a protective shield.

They turned and found themself staring into Klirro’s eyes mere feet away.

Tuuya lost what little composure they had left and launched themself at the horrorterror-possessed corpse.

“GET AWAY FROM HER! AWAY! AWAY! DIN ELÄNDIGA STACKARE! DU KOMMER INTE ATT TA HENNE OCKSÅ!”

They clawed at Klirro as a troll would, bit at her like one, their form stable even as they sobbed between their yelling, because she would not hurt this one -

They were plucked off with a strangled yelp and squeak, into strong, thick arms that held them so gently, terrifying in their tenderness.

They struggled for a moment, then stopped, sobbing more. 

“No…no…stay away…” Their throat choked up, their body shaking, feebly scrabbling at Gallen’s arms.

They looked up at him, angry, yet pleading. 

“Let me go.” They said, barely more than a whisper.

Gallen merely hummed and rocked them a bit, and they shakily wiped their face with their sleeve. A few isopods crawled on them, and a few worms crawled out to meet their fellow swarm units. The individual isopods were just as gentle as their troll form, stroking the worms protectively.

Tuuya hated that they felt calmer, but they did. They shook their head, worms retracting. The isopods scuttled off of them, and Gallen set them down gently. 

Klirro seemed utterly undisturbed by the attempted mauling. Even as they watched, the wounds they’d left sealed, and it was as if they’d done nothing at all. 

Silence filled the air for a minute.

“Where did she go?” They uttered, completely lost, ears drooping. “Where did my little girl go? What did you do to her?” Their voice almost rose to a wail at the last sentence.

Klirro tilted her head, for once not smiling in her usual way.

“You ask if I have changed her further? No, second worm, not I. The beetle must experience the alchemy of the self on her own terms. We must not interfere, not yet. She knows so little of herself, and she must find her heart while looking with her own eyes and no one else’s.”

Tuuya gritted their teeth, a bit of stability returning.

“Where. Is she.” They demanded, hoarse.

Klirro looked down, to where spirals slowly fanned out in the dirt beneath her.

“Where there is one Semreh, there must be another. Luck is a dual thing, of ebb and flow. Blood always returns to where it came from for shelter.”

The worm swarm frowned. 

“She has signmates?”

They said disbelievingly. 

Limebloods were rare enough, and for there to be more of a bloodline extant that the caverns hadn’t somehow caught? How could this be?

“The first, second worm, the first of them! Back in times you would feel were ancient, when he was not hunted.” She corrected cheerfully.

Tuuya’s overwhelmed brain slowly put together the pieces.

“Her ancestor?” They said wonderingly.

Klirro nodded.

“He does not breathe! His paper words speak, they are his body and memory now.”

The younger undead considered this, trying to wrest meaning from it.

They sighed.

“We’ll never find her, will we? Not when it would be bad luck for her if she did, the way she sees it…I hope wherever she’s going, to this ancestral place, that it’s safe.”

Klirro smiled again, if not as wide.

“You came back from the firebird. You ate her heart, and it grew again. The cycle plays out anew, for it runs in the bloodless bond of your line.”

Tuuya closed their eyes, finding little anger left in them at the moment.

“What are we going to do?” They said quietly, scuffing a shoe against the rocky floor.

“I will return to my coven.” Stated Klirro, positive and direct. “I will tell them the things to accomplish if they are to break Ozryel’s cycle. Gallen will tell you what the butterfly is trying to do. You’re not alone, second worm. You have never been alone.”

With that, the ancient rainbowdrinker swept away. Gallen stood a moment longer, nodding to the worm swarm, before he walked out of sight - he signed that it was to give them space.

Tuuya stared at the rocky cavern ceiling, then down at the dirt below.

Klirro was wrong.

They were alone. They were empty. They were meaningless.

He pulled his phone from his sylladex, staring at the ancient cracked screen. It was full of several unanswered texts from Inshii and a few from Rhyssa.

He would’ve answered his sister if he didn’t know perfectly well she’d tell their sibling. Not out of malice, but because Rhyssa was roughly as good at keeping secrets as a drunken maroon on drone day. She might’ve benefited more from being rendered mute, instead of him. 

Gallen put it away again, the wind tossing hot grains around him as he tried to decide what to do besides stall. He had never been much of a planner; he preferred to watch and let things happen.

Now he had little choice but to act.

“A young man stands and twists in upon himself, worry too plain on his handsome face.”

Gallen’s eyebrows raised at the sudden voice, the speaker unseen, but he did not turn around.

So that’s where you went, he mused to himself.

Another hot gust of wind spiraled by and the horrorterror stood in front of him, smiling. Curling patterns of lines formed in the sand beneath her, slowly extending outward. 

“Nowhere is somewhere I haven’t been.” Klirro said cheerfully, and he shifted in surprise - could she read his thoughts?

Her red spiral eyes made him dizzy if he looked into them too long, the pattern always turning, so he looked away. 

“Where do you want to go, isopod? Where would you have rather not walked that led you to this place?”

Gallen chewed the inside of his mouth, thinking.

He signed slowly, carefully: Go back to your coven, Klirro. They must miss you.

She put a thoughtful, bony finger to her pointy chin, her pointy ears flicking.

“Doing without me is brief even by their span and serves the future. You too may serve the future I wish.”

He made a low, snorting noise in his throat, slightly distorted by his lack of a tongue.

What do you want? He signed, skepticism clear. 

Klirro’s long toga billowed, the aged cream fabric gleaming in the sun. 

“I desire my coven to live as they wish, for we cannot go back along the curve of time, but we may wind free from the second death waiting for us in several futures. 

Your mother could untwist this piece of me to nothing, if certain lines intersected. Luck may be ours to thrive from if we make it serve us. There are methods to produce the events we both desire.” 

Gallen bit his lip. If Inshii found out he was allying with the DeVilles, even one of them, he was done for. They’d trap him in the cavern for at least a millennium with nothing to do and barely any blood.

But hesitant as he was to admit it, Klirro seemed to know more than he did, despite her questionable mental state…and she seemed to understand what he wanted, so why bother hiding it?  

The isopod swarm sighed, his many parts wriggling in uncertainty as he crossed his broad arms. 

All right, he signed. I admit, I haven’t exactly been trying my hardest to find Tuuya anyway. The second worm never did anything to us before Rhyssa told you to kidnap their charge. As for mother…

He shook his head, and his hands became unsteady.

I think it’s her time. He signed simply, face heavy with solemn resignation.

She’s not getting better, no matter how much blood she gets. I’m not sure what Inshii is doing will really help her. Killing the ten…she’s never been the same since, and Lleios’s death made it worse. 

I don’t want her to suffer. I don’t want to fight anyone. I just want it to be over.

He felt lighter after admitting it, lighter than he had in centuries. He still didn’t see a way out of the situation, but he felt less restless.

Klirro took his thick-fingered hands in her narrow ones, clammy dead flesh to his cool, dry skin. His palms wriggled at the sensation. 

He was a little taller than the possessed corpse, but she was so lean and angular that he felt shorter. He blinked, unsure why she’d done this.

“Devotion and judgment war in you, sliding over and under and through one another all trying to forge a path forward! I envy you such conflict.” She murmured. 

“The uncertainty! I will never know it. I have never been uncertain. I can only taste it in the blood of others.”

Gallen would have rolled his eyes, but he felt the other rainbow drinker was being sincere in her own odd way. 

It’s not all that fun, he thought. You’re not missing much.

She smiled at him with needle teeth just like his own.

“I like how it looks on your face.” She said. “You layer so nicely beneath! Such fine and durable segments! Your many eyes, so watchful!”

Gallen suddenly found the sand by his feet very interesting and found himself utterly lost for words. He crawled rapidly beneath said face, distorting his troll features.

Klirro let go of his hands and laughed softly.

“They always tell me I ‘come on too strong’.” said the horrorterror, mildly apologetic but with unmarred cheer. “Oops of daisies! Isn’t that how it’s said?”

He shook his head, not trusting his hands to sign anything that wasn’t an incomprehensible mess at the moment.

The isopod hadn’t been flirted with in…a long time.

“Aren’t you a lot older than me?” He finally managed. 

Klirro grinned.

“Older than the dust that was once this planet!” She confirmed.

Gallen shook his head in wonder and mild befuddlement.

So what’s your plan? He signed.

“We go see the two you seek and get their help to kill the usher of death, so she may finally rest and die entire. The beetle is the key, though both lock and key must be turned around each other.”

The taller undead frowned in confusion, and made a brief gesture.

The beetle?

“My sired girl.” Said the spiral fondly. “My most perfect creation. Uunive Semreh, daughter of the second worm, the beginning of Ozryel’s end.”

—

Ozryel slept, as she often did these nights. She had slumbered more and more often since she’d killed her ten children for trying to slay her. 

She would rather dream of them and of her lost favorite, her youngest, stolen away by some wretched troll. In her dreams everyone was alive, and everything was always the same. 

Then she dreamed back further, of those early nights right after she had fallen, when her children were just being hatched…

She dreamed of the woman who had escaped her, who’d led her cavern’s surviving jades away with the help of her canine lusus, whose very face set Ozryel abuzz with rage. 

How dare she have lived. 

She, who had shot Ozryel’s old form down from the sky, binding her to this heavy planet where the angel could no longer fly or fulfill her purpose. Where she was forced to rely on others to sustain herself. 

The corrupted mother grub had long since failed to recall the woman’s name. But she had never forgotten her features, and she realized she had seen them again recently, repeated in another troll.

The one who had fought her when she’d used the second worm’s body, slicing her to pieces.

The one whose cavern housed the descendants of those trolls who’d gotten away over four thousand sweeps ago, who still told that wretched woman’s story and celebrated her bloodlines.

Ozryel writhed in her sleep with hunger and resentment, screaming and lashing out with wing and leg alike.

For miles around, the earth trembled. Lowbloods in nearby towns covered their ears from the strange psychic noise.

The wasp swarm clicked her tongue as the parts of her that had been watching her hands so she could paint flew back into her body. Little ones! So helpless sometimes. 

They’d done well tracking down the lime Tuuya played lusus to, which still had her reeling from the wildness of it. What a pure strange thing to do! But it figured the coven could only get so far on their own. 

Still, she guessed it didn’t matter much. 

Either they succeeded, and she swooped in to play hero, offering Tuuya her help to get their lime back in exchange for their cooperation…or they failed, and she could still blackmail the worm, who would now be desperate to protect their pet grub. 

The plan would work either way.

Her sibling would have to come home.

SEVERAL MINUTES PRIOR

Hirudo yawned, but her body was tense, waiting for some sign of their expected visitor on the camera feed. She shouldn’t be worried - Rhyssa had advised them on the best choice of weapons, and Joey and Neffie were both fully prepped on how to handle Uunive if she tried anything - though she shouldn’t be able to, the lime was currently fully restrained.

The fuchsia was tired of grubsitting, though, and it had only been a few nights. She’d joked to her girlfriend that she should be enthusiastic, given her caste, but Neffie had only snorted.

Having Uunive around reminded them how inconvenient the needs of the living were, too. She wondered how Tuuya could have possibly put up with the tedium long enough to raise a wriggler. Why they ignored Rhyssa, she'd never know. The older swarm had explained how they had steadfastly rejected her or refused to engage even when she showed interest in their hobbies.

Why? Weren’t they lonely? Trolls only lasted so long, anyway.

Movement on the cameras.

She relaxed as she examined the glowing screens properly. The troll looked nothing like Tuuya. They were plainly dressed and milling about aimlessly, maybe lost or trying to figure out if the clinic was open - it wasn’t, of course. They weren’t risking any interruptions during the operation.

Wait - where were they going now? Around the back? Hirudo clicked her tongue in annoyance. The last thing they needed was some nosy idiot sniffing around when the worm swarm could show up any minute. 

So involved was the coven leader in looking at the annoying passerby that she didn’t notice the slight but distinct shifting in the soil around the clinic. 

—

Neffie and Joey played lusus passing while they guarded Uunive. The rustblood grumbled as his moirail bullied him into accepting a crafting recipe, the limeblood silent on the couch.

Both snapped to attention as their leader’s voice crackled through a walkie talkie.

“There’s some idiot on the cameras. Probably just an idiot trespasser, but stay sharp. I’m going to take care of them.”

“Did Tuuya send someone to distract us?” Neffie said disparagingly, rolling her eyes. “Like we're /that/ dumb. La-ame!”

The basement floor creaked slightly. Klirro sat up quickly in her long stone coffin, the red spirals in her eyes rotating quickly instead of their usual slow coil.

“They come. All of them is coming. This is the time; the whole is with us.”

Neffie squinted. “Klirro, you know we love your nonsense, but what the hell does that - ”

The floorboards snapped and cracked open in a wide circle, and the ancient rainbowdrinker was pulled beneath the earth, coffin and all. 

Neffie and Joey screeched, gaping at the mangled, broken floor, splintered wood lying everywhere at odd angles, the dust thrown up from the movement settling back down again. 

Uunive stared, silent. What had just happened? 

Did this have anything to do with her lusus?

TWO MINUTES PRIOR

The troll had started setting up something that the leech drinker knew could well be weaponry of some sort, but whatever it was she wanted it and them off her property. With an annoyed sigh she went outside to deal with them. If this was some lackey of Tuuya’s, they weren’t being very subtle. She was a bit disappointed. Weren’t they supposed to be old and cunning?

“Hey. If you don’t leave -“ she said, showing off her sharp sanguivore teeth “ - I’m going to make you.”

The troll - nondescript, with a plain face, gray eyes, and short straight hair - cocked their head and looked at her as if studying the sign in a shop window. 

“Why do you want me to go?” Their voice was strangely flat, and they were very still for someone who’d just been threatened. There was something off about them - about their smell - but she had a million other things to worry about right now. 

Odd. Usually trolls hit the bricks when they saw a towering fuchsia. “Uh, you’re in my territory? Don’t be stupid. You know what - you had your chance.”

She drew her glaive from her sylladex and ran them through with the speed and strength of her caste.

There was no blood on it. They hadn’t screamed or even moved at all. They merely looked at the weapon as if it were an amusing curiosity, then up at her as they gripped it with both hands and pulled hard.

The pole, custom made for seadweller strength - cracked, pushed out of the body into two pieces that fell on the ground with dull thuds. 

She looked at them, those impassive gray eyes, finding her entire body restrained by the dry coils of white worms flooding over her limbs, her torso, her mouth and her eyes as she tried to move.

They clung tight around her dead gills, nibbling at them gently with tiny razor teeth, and she shuddered.

—

CURRENTLY

Neffie had run upstairs to Hirudo’s computer, frantically messaging Rhyssa. All the doors and windows of the clinic were covered by bone and viscera and the camera feed wires had been chewed through, leaving the screens blank.

Where was her girlfriend? Where was Tuuya? How were they - it must be them - doing all this when she hadn’t even seen them? 

Why hadn’t Klirro come back?

—

Joey held a plasma gun as he bared his teeth and his pedipalps twitched, head darting this way and that as he looked out for further signs of the floor collapsing or other weird shit going down.

He hoped to hell Rhyssa would come and actually lend a hand. He hadn’t signed up for this bullshit. He’d called out for Klirro in the vain hope it would make her reappear, but of course nothing had happened.

At least the kid seemed as wigged out as he was. She kept looking at the ground too, as if expecting it to collapse even further.

There was a faint rustling, and Joey’s ears flicked, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

Multicolored silk and bones fell from the ceiling. 

He looked up to see Neffie’s cocoons gone, shredded, the bodies inside reduced to skeletons that he put his free arm over his head to protect himself from as they rained down. The limeblood had fled into the bathroom and shut the door and honestly he couldn’t be fucking bothered with her right now.

It wasn’t like she had anywhere to go. They were in a fucking basement, after all.

—

Uunive, whispered a voice as she sat huddled on the cold bathroom floor, and she startled. But it didn’t sound like the coven. 

No, it sounded like…like Tuuya.

“Where are you?” She asked in the same hushed tones, trying not to tip off Joey. 

Everywhere. I have a way out for you. Prepare for sudden movement. Please trust me.

The limeblood swallowed. She had to trust them. She didn’t have a choice. 

—

Klirro hummed as she was held in her coffin in the dark, quiet earth. It was peaceful; just like her nap had been, when she had been bound and put in her tomb. The worms shifted around her, keeping the lid shut, spiraling pleasingly as they curled and wriggled.

She could drift off again, maybe it was that timeline after all…

Klirro felt Hirudo’s suffering as it spiraled down to her. It twined with Neffie’s panic, Joey’s anger and frustration, Uunive’s worry and tiny, cautious spark of hope.

Most potent of all, the worm’s rage, fear, and love. 

No, it was not the moment to sleep. 

With a crunching of bones and squelching as she rearranged the troll corpse that held her, the horrorterror pushed the coffin lid off despite the worms that held it, unraveling the invertebrates into thin spirals of segments and teeth. 

She moved around and up toward the surface where Hirudo was through the dirt and touched the worms holding her, undoing these smaller ones as well.

The horrorterror held the fuchsia in her bony arms as she reformed her troll shape, patting her on the back.

Then Hirudo bared her fangs and snarled, taking a plasma gun from her sylladex.

“Rhyssa’s worthless. We’ll take them down ourselves.”

— 

Neffie had drawn her own gun, but where to shoot? She went back down to the basement, wanting to at least be near Joey. 

She stopped dead at the sight of the bones, at the ruined silk cocoons. The maroon looked at her with grim sympathy, his own gun in his arms, trying to avoid stepping on the tattered, colorful fragments strewn all over the remaining floorboards. 

“What happened?” The jade asked, her voice cracking. Her work! Her silk! All her bodies, and some of those colors had been rare! There wasn’t a spot of blood or viscera to be seen, meticulously cleaned from the bones in instants.

“They just…fell.” Her moirail said, shaking his head. “Don’t know what to tell you, Nef. I kept waiting, wonderin what’s gonna happen next. I hate this, it fuckin’ sucks worse than actually fighti - ”

The bones on the floor quivered. They rolled back and forth. 

They grew spikes and tines of bone, spiderwebbing together into a writhing mass that tried to overrun the room as the rainbowdrinkers blasted at it with plasma, hissing in fury. 

__

The floor fell apart below Uunive and she stifled a scream as she fell - but did not splatter. 

Gentle white tendrils curled around her and set her down in what was, from the smell of it, a freshly dug space several feet below the DeVille Clinic.

She looked up, but the hole was already being filled in, and she was in the dark - no, not quite, the tendrils were glowing, illuminating the hollowed out earth, now with a ceiling just barely big enough to allow her to stand. 

As the tendrils let her go and slid back into the earth, she saw they were segmented.

Feeling faint for a moment, the limeblood quickly brushed it off and smiled in a wobbly sort of way. 

What a lusus she had. 

—

Klirro, for once, closed her eyes. The spirals in them still turned, but she needed to look below. As above, so below, trolls sometimes said - looking for order. For synchronization. It was sweet.

Chaos was as much a perception as order was. Tiny facets of a vast, cut gem. 

As Hirudo joined her coven mates in destroying the assault of bone trying to skewer them, the ancient drinker spiraled. Everything turned back in on itself. Every loop that could never quite close. She wasn’t ready to see this spiral of her coven find its end quite yet.

She felt the limeblood deep within the earth. 

She still had to set the girl free. 

She had promised.

— 

Uunive couldn’t help screaming as suddenly - sickeningly - the world shifted around her and she was - she was -

Stone. Stone surrounded her, scraping at her skin. She couldn’t see, could barely breathe.

She heard the blast of weapons, cursing and yelling that went completely silent as the stone was moved aside by a pair of long, bony hands and a horribly familiar face with massive fangs and red spiral eyes looked down at her.

—

Neffie, Joey, and Hirudo could only stare. The bone web had stopped attacking, and they’d blasted a lot of it to dust with their weapons. Now Klirro strode over to her coffin, risen from the hole in the broken floor it had fallen through. She pushed aside the slab of stone with gentle care and looked down at the frazzled girl within. 

“Tuuya.” Said Klirro gently. “You will undo yourself into inversion. You have tried to undo my coven. Your daughter…”

She tilted her head, looking down at the smaller being. Swathed in protective psiionic power. Like a haze of lime and gold. Gripping the lime by the shoulders, she yanked her out of the coffin for all to see.

Out of the remaining bones, worms wriggled out and rapidly formed bones and skin into a troll shape, glaring at the horrorterror, a laser pistol in each hand. The anger in their gaze was only equaled by their desperation.

Klirro returned the look with one of faint sympathy.

“So many, to hold such tightly coiled loss, eating itself up.”

She leaned down and bit the limeblood in the throat, jagged fangs sinking directly into her veins. 

Tuuya unhinged their jaw and screamed.

From every construct hidden in the clinic that had watched and destroyed and wriggled, from their troll mouth and the other mouths grown on their body in distress, they screamed in an engulfing chorus as their daughter collapsed in a heap and the DeVilles fled upstairs from the terrible, piercing sound.

Klirro was last among them, giving one last look to the wailing swarm as she left. 

So it had to be. So it had always been.

Tuuya put their guns away and cradled their daughter’s corpse in their arms, their precious little girl, as they sobbed clear tears over her body, the stains mingling with the lime blood running from her mangled throat.

They lamented to such heights the coven heard it long after running from the clinic. It rang in their ears, hounding their rapid steps, a choir of loss and fury that promised them a terrible second death.

Not far away, Rhyssa listened as well. 

The small space had the dust of decades, if not centuries; clearly it had lain vacant for a long time. Rhyssa sniffed and coughed as she reformed her lungs, and Inshii looked desperately like they wanted to start vacuuming, but stayed focused.

“This place is as minimally defended as it seemed.” Said Inshii in a low voice. “If something goes wrong, mother, just message me or Rhyssa.”

Ozryel’s memory was starting to return, thanks to her new form, but it wasn’t perfect. Inshii had suggested she wait to invade until she had fully adjusted to her troll-like body, but their mother hadn’t wanted to hear it. 

She had glared at them, clicking her pincers, and Inshii had fallen silent. 

At least she had been more than willing to learn how to use a cellphone.

Rhyssa smiled, vicious and wide under the band covering her empty sockets.

“Found the mother grub and the orb. Shii, how’s-“

“Found that too.” Answered the false violet smoothly. 

Butterfly eyes weren’t as good as troll ones, but enough of them in one place were more than sufficient to locate the cavern’s bloodline record room.

They formed that part of themself into a crude pair of hands, enough to pull the proper filing cabinet open and flick through it to find proof of what mother had long suspected. Ever since she had been defeated by the jade who’d fought her while she’d possessed Tuuya. 

Here it was, written in faded black ink on dry, crackling paper. 

Rivali Tescin, descendant of Overseer Kotenkha. 

The troll that had shot Ozryel down. 

—

Uunive had come back. Ailene was recovering.

So, naturally, that was when Klirro had chosen to inform Tuuya of the literal worst news they’d ever gotten, ducking her head to enter the kitchen as they cooked dinner for their daughters.

Without so much as a hello she began to explain to them how Ozryel had been shot down by cavern jades, how the swarms had come to be from troll eggs…and how the worm was different from the others.

They stared at the spindly horrorterror, ears pinned back in disbelief.

“So all the swarms are…parts of her? Me most of all?”

Klirro nodded, unbothered as ever. 

“The worm is all that remains of her hope, after she became a being of rage…as long as you exist, she will as well, for you are intertwined as a whole. A swarm of minds.”

The kitchen filled with a heavy silence as Tuuya took the pan of chicken they’d been searing off its burner, the only noise the crackling of oil in the pan.

Ever since Gallen had gone silent a few nights ago, they’d assumed he’d been compromised, but nothing had happened since then. No attacks. Nothing. 

Tuuya had known it meant Ozryel was probably still alive. They just…hadn’t wanted to think about it.

“So I need to die, don’t I.” The worm swarm said, fists clenched. “This was always where it would lead?”

“It could have led in the shape of so many spirals.” Said Klirro softly. “I wish I could feel sorry for you…I know the sensation, but it isn’t within me.” 

“I wouldn’t want your pity anyway, you wretched hag.” Said Tuuya, hard and cutting. 

Then they closed their eyes a moment.

“I’ve wanted to die so many times. I know I deserve it. But my daughters…my daughters, Klirro. Not just Ailene and Uunive, either! Florah, Melina, Crimew…all my children, and I have to leave them behind? My quadrants too? All my friends? Why do I have to die when I finally want to live?”

Tuuya choked back a sob.

“But if there is no other way…if this is how we have to stop Ozryel…”

Klirro nodded.

“You have to find her, offer up her hope, so she can be whole again and ascend this planet. Ozryel will be glad to go, once she is made to. Only rage and vengeance has kept her soul anchored to Alternia. She has hated being solid flesh, heavy and complex.”

Tuuya was quiet as they served the chicken onto two separate plates, putting a lid over the remainder in the pan so it would stay warm if either girl wanted seconds.

“So did I, Klirro. So did I.”

—

Ashwat knelt by the little shrine she hadn’t touched in ages, one that had been a fixture in her room since she was young. 

Daudre had told her some time back that Uunive was alive, but she wasn’t coming home any time soon.

They’d said they couldn’t explain why, all fidgety and anxious. Said they’d felt bad.

She’d looked at them, not saying a thing. What sort of things could anyone say to cover the big old gap that had opened between them? When Daudre was holding back like this?

She wasn’t a wriggler anymore. She’d told them she’d care about Uni no matter what. Hadn’t they believed her?

So she’d left, silent, that silence following her through the halls as she’d walked away from her older friend, sinking into her skin and her bones. 

It stayed even now, her room quiet aside from her lusus’s soft snores.

Now she placed a few marbles and polished stones at the base of her small mother grub statue. She bowed her head, curly undercut shifting with the movement. 

She’d never been much of one for prayer. She was good at getting things done with her own two hands, yeah? She respected the mother goddess, but she’d rather rely on herself. 

She couldn’t now, not entirely. She needed help.

The sandstone statue gazed at her impassively as she murmured a few prayers.

A white butterfly - all pale, even its body - fluttered over to land on it. Ashwat blinked. Was it a sign?

The butterfly watched her, proboscis coiling and uncoiling, and she had the strangest sensation it could really see her, could understand she was a person.

How had a butterfly gotten in from the surface, anyway? They didn’t usually make it this far down.

Others appeared as well, a small cloud of them, and she blinked again, wondering if she should tell the matrons about this…

The bugs flew at her, and Ashwat yelled as they began to pierce her skin, sucking her blood.

With a bark and a snarl, her lusus leapt at the swarm, scattering them and snapping a few in two with her jaws. The surviving butterflies attacked the komodor instead, and Ashwat stood frozen for a moment, horrorstruck.

Then she ran out of her room. She had to warn the others.

If it wasn’t already too late.

—

Hirudo looked at the entrance to the desert cavern. Two troll guards? What a joke. They might as well have protected the place with scarecrows.

She and her coven made quick work of them, wiping off their mouths as they shared the blood between the three of them. Shame there hadn’t been more, really.

Shame Klirro wasn’t here yet either, but Hirudo knew she’d come.

“It’s so damn hot here.” Muttered Neffie between feeding, swatting a fly with her hand as Joey’s pedipalps twitched in slight amusement. 

“Can’t we go down already? I want to give that wasp bitch a piece of my mind.”

“It’s not just her.” The leech drinker reminded her friend. “The butterfly’s down there too, and according to Klirro, they’re a lot smarter than Rhyssa is. Not to mention Ozryel herself.”

“Whatever.” Muttered Joey. “I just want to get this over with.”

“We will. First we need to not get torn apart.”

Screams echoed up from the tunnels below, and all three undead stood up sharply, even Neffie as she finished her last swallow of blood from a guard’s corpse.

Hirudo gritted her teeth. She was hardly in a hurry to save some random jades, but given what Klirro had warned her about, if the swarms got too powerful from fresh blood, and if Ozryel made it to the mother grub before she was stopped…

She sighed. 

“We’re moving in.” Declared the fuchsia.

“Wh-what?” Stuttered Neffie. “Are you crazy? We fought Tuuya by ourselves and couldn’t win! You want to go up against two of them and their mom without backup?”

“We have the weapons Klirro gave us.” Said Hirudo in a voice of forced calm. “That’s going to have to be enough.”

Not waiting for any further protests, the coven leader began striding down into the caves.

—

Somehow, Ashwat had found Daudre amidst the bloody chaos now unfolding across the entire cavern. 

She’d run from wasps and butterflies, had to avert her eyes from trolls being eaten alive, had to beat back more insects with her taser strife and watched as they fell, smoking, as she bled from a hundred small wounds.

She didn’t know what had happened to her lusus. 

She didn’t want to think about it.

Now she and Daudre huddled in a locked room as screams still sounded outside, having nearly fallen to the wasps that had been hiding there. There had only been a few, but both of them were bloodied and weary. Neither jade was a fighter.

The genet troll, their lusus trembling at their feet, pulled out their phone to call Rivali.

It went to voicemail, and they groaned softly. They dialed a different number.

“Tuuya.” They said quickly and hoarsely as their call was answered. “We’ve been invaded. Ozryel and two of her children. I don’t know what they want, aside from killing us all, but we need help and I can’t reach Rivali. We need you and anyone else you can bring. I -“

Footsteps outside the door. Daudre cut their call short.

Ashwat and her friend breathed as softly as they could.

The door was wrenched open. 

A fuchsia of all people stood in front of it, and both jades’ mouths hung open in shock as they noticed the rust and - another jade, one neither of them knew - standing with her, all three looking grim and battered.

“You know Tuuya? Come with us.” Ordered the seadweller, and neither jade dared disobey as they scrambled to their feet.

—

The worm swarm held their phone in their hand dumbly after Daudre had cut out, realizing with a chill throughout their writhing insides what must be happening.

What Ozryel was doing at this very moment. 

Trembling, Tuuya dialed a number they had never had great enough need to call before.

They breathed a sigh of relief when they were answered by a familiar tone, gruff and suspicious as usual.

“Platar. I need a favor.”