#lleios

Life was so simple. They went out collecting, they came back and tended to their daughter. There was nothing else to worry about.

They sewed even if their hands seemed to resist the old motions, as if they were drawing their sewing machine through thick mud, patterns and stitches no longer lining up like they used to. New clothes would help their child feel better!

It was a pity her body was still solid flesh. She wasn’t truly free, and they ached for her. But she didn’t want to listen to their sympathy, and they had stopped giving it. 

Never mind. She’d come around, or they’d make her -

Make her -

A sharp bolt of pain shot through their head, and they put a hand to their skull.

They blinked, looking down at their other hand, dark gray and bony. Were their fingers supposed to be thin, their wrist bones pronounced under meager layers of worms? No, they’d always been small, right?

Being lean was good, it made them look like -

Look like -

They glanced in a mirror and saw a strange, angular face. They closed their eyes, the pain increasing again.

When they opened them, their constructs had assembled containers full of blood - high-tech things that chilled the liquid so it didn’t congeal into dry uselessness. The containers laid on the grass outside the hive.

A cool breeze tossed their wavy hair around, hair that was shorter now. When had they cut it? They couldn’t remember…they’d gotten forgetful, lately.

They looked at the blood, several different hues, but something held them back. They weren’t supposed to eat much. It wasn’t for them…it was for - family. Yes, family.

Family that wasn’t Uuni -

They screamed from pain, and this time, this time -

This time the drinker gasped as they woke up, surrounded up to their chest by massive green worms.

You struggle so, murmured a voice. You show such hate. You truly have forgotten me. 

The voice was heavy with sorrow.

The drinker tried to struggle, but the worms held them fast, slowly writhing around them. They couldn’t think. Nothing made sense. How had they gotten here?

Why was there no sky, instead only a rocky ceiling above them?

I haven’t seen the sky with my own eyes in four thousand sweeps, second worm.

Terrible loss. Mourning. Regret. 

Resentment. She looked bitterly at her children, who brought memories of the sky she could never see for herself, who felt the wind and moonlight of the surface with their own bodies instead of having to experience it through someone else.

The worm swarm shook their head. None of this meant anything. Pure nonsense. They hadn’t gotten a bad trip off some blood, had they? The last time they’d been high -

The last -

They blinked, and there were no worms, though they were in the cavern. There was only Ozryel, drinking quietly from the containers. Strange to see a creature so large hunched over them so, her long proboscis darting in and out of her vast mouth as her first pair of forelegs steadied her. She shook slightly, and her green eyes seemed almost…glazed. Bleary.

A small animal ran past their feet. How odd.

She looked at them without recognition.

Who are you? You are not the first worm.

They tilted their head.

They were…

Who were they, again?

“I don’t know.” They said, hesitant. “I’m…Uunive’s lusus?” 

Yes. They were Uunive’s lusus. Were they someone else’s too? They couldn’t remember. Where had they been, before? What was their name? They’d had more than one, hadn’t they? 

Too many questions. Their head hurt.

She drank more blood as they stood in silence, then shook her head, massive teeth stained multiple different colors before her proboscis curled around them, wiping them clean.

But there were still stains on her face, stains she couldn’t get to with how her legs were positioned. As they moved closer, glow brighter so they could see better, they saw the dried stains of many sweeps…centuries, maybe.

They saw scars. Deep, ridged scars in the carapace, rough and grayish jade in the off-white. They reached out a hand in concern, only to yelp and snatch it back as she snapped at them and missed by inches.

“I was only trying to help!” They squeaked. “Please - please don’t hurt me.”

I do not know you! Withdraw! You could be one of the ten, back to kill me!

“I don’t know who those are! I don’t remember anyone!” The worm swarm pleaded, bright green eyes wide as they raised their hands in surrender. “I don’t know anybody except you and Uunive, I swear, I promise.”

She paused.

Uunive?

“My daughter.” They said proudly. “My wonderful daughter, raised her myself from a grub! Oh, Anders will be so happy when I tell him how accomplished she is - “ They cut off, blinking. 

Anders…the name had come out of their mouth without even thinking about it.

They tried to focus on it, but any further scraps of memory scattered like dandelion seeds in a breeze. Had they made him up? Had they gotten Uunive’s egg themself? From where? Their cavern hadn’t had a mother grub in centuries…

No, that was silly, wasn’t it? They’d never been in another cavern except Ozryel’s. This was where they’d come from. Uunive must have come from here too.

Strange how they didn’t have a name, though. Maybe they didn’t need one? As long as they weren’t one of the ‘ten’, whoever those were.

Ozryel watched them, uncomprehending. 

Then her gaze sharpened, and their ears went back against their head. Somehow, that felt like trouble. Like they’d done something wrong.

She shifted, turning away from them, and their feelings lurched as they craved her approval, but then she beckoned them onward with a shaky gray side leg. Her long wings rustled against her sides, the feathers dull and ragged from long disuse. She smelled of dust and decay, a hint of putrid rot beneath it all.

“You haven’t seen the sky in so long…” They echoed, a vague memory finally surfacing. “Why? Why can’t you leave?”

Trolls. They shot me down once. They would finish me if they could. Unlike my children, I cannot change shape to hide. Not anymore.

The bitterness and grief tore through their mind, and they put a hand to their head. Oof.

“That’s why you need us, then.” They said in wonder, in comprehension. Some things began to fit together.

Us. Yes, they felt certain there was an ‘us’, even if they couldn’t recall the others.

She whipped her head around to snarl at them.

Don’t you gloat at me. You are merely a shadow of the first worm. If I could extract them from you, I would. 

Anger seared their thoughts, and they yelped. Ozryel paused, silent. Then she moved again.

Not knowing what else to do, they followed, ears still flattened. What had they done wrong? Why wouldn’t she tell them how to fix it?

Who was this first worm?

They hunched their shoulders and kept silent, not wanting to anger her further. After a minute or two of walking, they came upon…they weren’t sure what it was, actually.

Well, it was some sort of…hive? It was shaped like a beehive, big and carved from stone. Yet there were only a few scattered insects skittering about, centipedes and the like, and the cells were roughly the size of their head.

One of her arms extended slowly, carefully, to get out a very faded and threadbare green suit. Yet despite its woebegone state, it was of good make and had clearly been well maintained; their tailor’s eye knew the damage stemmed from age and frequent use, not carelessness.

Another went out to fetch a golden cane, scuffed but barely tarnished - they knew it must have a good deal of genuine gold in it. Worms of the same color spiraled around its length, except for the top. She laid these things on a rough stone table with surprising delicacy, its surface large enough for her to maneuver her limbs comfortably over it.

The last item she set down was a faded photograph, the glass over it cracked and the frame itself dull and worn. It had four trolls…were they trolls? Three sparked vague memories, and the fourth…

The fourth both was and wasn’t familiar.

The drinker was certain they’d never seen the angular face with spiky hair and a slightly mocking smile before. Yet it buzzed in their head as if they should know it, the knowledge fluttering just out of reach. Their ears flicked in frustration as they toyed with a strand of hair, chewing their lip slightly.

Ozryel watched them, then bowed her head, her great twisted horns dull orange-gray in their glow. Patches of lichen grew on them, trailing off into wisps of gray fungus.

You do not recall, do you. The wasp was right. The first worm is truly dead to us, and we do not even know why, after all this time.

I have seen memories of your former trollhood now, I accept you were telling the truth. It was the other one of your bloodline who had the worm…but they were mindless ones. My child would have never consented to be put in a flesh body that way. They would have fought. They would have eaten you. 

A vast, chittering sigh echoed from the wickedly sharp mandibles around the fanged mouth. It was a strangely weary, casual noise from so vast a creature. 

How, then, did my blood not kill you?

The worm swarm shook their head helplessly. They were getting a headache.

They closed their eyes only for a moment, but when they opened them again, someone else was there.

One of the faces from the photograph. A violet - no, a swarm. Butterfly. 

Too bad it wasn’t really a troll. Hunger gnawed at them, their insides writhing. 

They felt light - too light, in their body and their head. Un-anchored, drifting, as if they weren’t there at all. As if they were only watching themself stand there, clutching the table for support.

What are you doing here, butterfly? It isn’t your time to send blood.

Her tone was accusatory but not harsh as she loomed over the pair of them. Curiosity wove through her words as well. 

“We have a way to know the truth, mother. Right under our noses. We can access Lleios’s memory hives again.”

They looked directly at the worm swarm.

Lleios.

Lleios.

Yes, they knew that name.

They knew beyond a doubt it wasn’t theirs.

“I am not them!” They hissed. “I’ll never be them. I don’t know what you’ve done to me - why I can’t remember things - but I know I’m not Lleios.”

It was strangely comforting. This was something to start with, even if they couldn’t recall their own name. Something sure, something true.

Ozryel and the butterfly ignored their words, the butterfly picking them up with one hand by their neck. They struggled, but were far too small and weak to make any difference against the tall bulk and strong grip of the other swarm. After a few moments they went limp, exhausted even by that exertion.

The butterfly paused, then put them down again with surprising gentleness. The worm swarm wobbled as they stood, blinking. Their headache was worse, pounding in their skull.

“Mother. You haven’t been feeding them.”

They look better this way. More like the first worm.

“Don’t be impractical.” They said, a hint of irritation in their usually flat voice. “If they hibernate from starvation, then what will you do?”

Don’t you take that tone with me!

Ignoring her further protests and curses, the false seadweller took out a large canteen of blood from their sylladex and unscrewed the cap, offering it to the worm swarm.

They snatched it out of the other rainbow drinker’s hands and gulped it down before they even knew what they were doing. Tiny drops splattered on their clothes as their hands shook.

Inshii - yes, that was their name - raised an eyebrow, but took the chilled container back and put it away again. They desperately wished for another - for a dozen others - but they could tell from the other drinker’s unyielding expression this was all they were getting. They swallowed. At least they could stand on their own now.

“Come with me.” The butterfly said, and they followed, hating themself for being so meek, so obedient. 

But what else could they do? They were still quite weak, and it was better than being alone with Ozryel. They shivered at the thought.

They walked up, out of the vast cave into the rest of the cavern, skirting some fallen chunks of stone. Inshii looked at them with an unreadable expression, but kept moving. They passed murals, and Tuuya paused to look at a troll in one who seemed familiar, a canine lusus with ropelike fur by her side…but they couldn’t place her.

They passed another, depicting other, unknown swarms, and it tugged at something Ozryel had said.

“Inshii…who were the ten?”

The butterfly swarm stopped.

“Not now, Etuuya.” They muttered, before they kept moving. “Not when she might be listening.”

They nodded, mouth shut, but they couldn’t help smiling. Their name! They knew their name again. It was a bit of a mouthful, though. 

Tuuya, they thought. Tuuya sounded much friendlier. 

The two rainbow drinkers came to a beautifully carved stone case, several feet tall and across with mother-of-pearl and gold decorating its handles, swirling designs twining together almost like spirals…for some reason, it made Tuuya feel resentful. 

It was all so gaudy, too. It practically begged for attention.

“It’s very…bright.” They said, trying not to make their distaste too obvious as Inshii opened it to reveal…something. 

Spiderwebs? No, the white shapes were wrong for that, the structures more solid, with odd clusters in between the strands. 

The butterfly swarm snorted, their lips curling up slightly at the ends.

“My sibling didn’t have much in the way of taste.” They said dryly. “They were the youngest of us. Ozryel’s favorite. I am the oldest…not that it matters much, anymore.” 

They waited a few moments - for what, the worm swarm was unsure - then shook their head.

“Of course you won’t know how to work it. Still, if there was enough of Lleios in you to survive Ozryel’s blood, you can certainly manage this. Let a few of yourself out. Look back about two hundred and fifty sweeps. That’s when they died. See if you can tell who killed them and why.”

Hesitant, suddenly worried about what they’d see if they did this, Tuuya bit their lip. Yet they did let a few worms out of their hand, instinctively opened their small mouths to gently bite into the intricately woven white strands -

Back. Back so far the trees in the forest outside the cavern weren’t even saplings. Back so far they saw clothing that hadn’t been worn in over three thousand sweeps. 

Forward. They saw - Rhyssa, yes, that was her name, they saw Inshii, and Gallen - other swarms too, crab and flea and moth, several others -

They saw Ozryel, far more lively, her movements quick and darting despite her size. They saw her smile, spreading her feathered wings in a gesture of welcome to her children.

A rush of memories flooded past them, so many, so so many - they cried out, struggling, writhing, how could they do this? How could they find one point of time in this endless abyss of thoughts and feelings and recollections?

They felt a pressure, distantly. As if their shoulders were being covered with butterflies, wings slowly flapping and rustling. They breathed deeply. They could do this. They didn’t have a choice.

If they were honest, part of them wanted to know.

Slowly, they wiggled their way through the mass of information, searching for a time before they’d been hatched…but not too far back. Mere moments for Lleios, a decent chunk of life for them.

Sunlight. Beautiful green hills. 

A small hive with a jade microscopium symbol on the door.

Their breath caught.

Rhomox. Oh god, it was their ancestor, younger, with no gray in his hair, his horns shorter and with three spines like their own.

They were so shocked they withdrew, their perspective of the situation moving back, and thanked every divinity imaginable they did -

Because Lleios kissed him.

“Bleugh!” They said, jolting out of the memory in disgust, their worms recoiling and going back in their skin. “What - what the - what the HELL was that?!”

“What did you see?” Inshii asked. Their butterflies were no longer on Tuuya’s shoulders, a few flitting around the false violet’s troll body as their fins twitched.

“Your sibling KISSED my ancestor!” The worm swarm complained, hardly caring that they were being loud, arms curled around themself. Oh god. Horrible.

The other drinker looked slightly surprised, then shrugged.

“They were like that.” They deadpanned. “The amount of times I had to drag them away from bars before they tried to seduce half the trolls there…it was all a game to them. They were the only one of us like that. A side effect of their purpose, I suppose.”

Tuuya stared. What the hell did that mean? Was there an assigned job that turned you into a classless floozy? There was nothing wrong with sleeping around, but toying with people like that…how cruel and undignified.

Ozryel’s favorite child. Clearly the two had deserved each other.

“Go back in.” Said Inshii. “This is useful, but we need more information.”

The worm swarm folded their arms.

“If I have to see them kissing more, you are paying my therapy bills. Honestly, I’m just as shocked about Rhomox! The man never showed any interest in a single troll when I knew him, and I thought it was because he was too obsessed with his project.

Besides, he had all the appeal of rotten eggs. I’m disappointed in both of them, but on the other hand I suppose they were meant to be in their mutual horribleness.”

They paused.

“Oh god he WAS too obsessed with his project, oh god what - ”

“Go back in before you have a fit.” The false violet said, voice betraying a hint of impatience. 

Their mouth wobbled and stretched across their face, but they sighed, let themself back out again, and entered the memories where they left off.

This time they saw the two working together. Lleios offered their worms - offered? 

What? 

The first worm swarm had a wide, sharp smile on their face almost twin to Tuuya’s own (only lacking their buckteeth), handing themself over to the jadeblood willingly. They looked perfectly at ease, languid and confident as they laid back on a sofa in what they assumed was Rhomox’s hive.

He took them with a nod, and turned to a table full of scientific equipment they remembered from their youth. The surreal nature of it all made them dizzy.

Why? Why had Lleios done it? They’d always blamed Rhomox for his terrible, stupid idea…but it was this bastard’s fault too! How could they? Giving themself to a man like that? 

They flicked through other scenes - skipping past the intimate ones with disgust - but the two were just…a couple, even if a strange one. They went out together. Argued. Chased each other around their hives. Exchanged gifts.

Two sweeps. This had gone on for two whole sweeps.

Then…

A letter. Kaningård - the cavern Tuuya and Rhomox came from - threatened to cut off his funding. Despite everything, they wish they could have screamed a warning to the other drinker as they read it.

They knew all too well what that thoughtful, reserved look from their ancestor signified.

They slowed down the pace of the memories, all of them curled up and sluggish with dread, as it came to the inevitable conclusion.

Rhomox used some mist he sprayed to paralyze them. Lleios laid on the floor of their own hive, utterly still except for their mouth, yet…they weren’t angry. Their face only showed a sad sort of amusement. A kind of resignation in those ancient green eyes.

Their ancestor knelt down next to his partner. He stroked their face, their hair.

“I’m sorry.” He said, in a voice nearly empty of emotion, yet his brows knit together in the way they did when he was sincere, the rare times when he truly cared about what he was doing.

“I don’t have a choice. I need all of you, and I can’t risk you interfering. You could change your mind any time and choose to ruin me. I know how you feel about the caverns.”

“Ah, now why would I resent them so?” Murmured Lleios. “They sent me a way out.”

Rhomox paused, taking his hand back. His ears flicked in confusion as they continued.

“I’m tired, dear. Ozryel won’t let us go if we want to, did you know that? My siblings couldn’t have died any other way but by her own will. Maybe that’s what they really hoped for when they tried to kill her. Despite how I begged for their lives, perhaps they’re better off. I’m ready to see them again. This time I’ve spent with you…well, I do hope you don’t feel led on.” They said, cracking a half-hearted grin.

The jadeblood didn’t move. Lleios waited for a moment, then coughed.

“Rhomox…this only ends one way. Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet, now. Not a good look for you. Kill me like you mean it, you rotten robber baron. You know you want to. Get whatever glory you feel you were so cruelly denied by those stuffy old broads.”

Their expression turned smug.

“Besides, I am better than anything you could’ve come up with on your own.”

Hesitant, but resolute, their ancestor took out a syringe filled with a dangerous-looking cloudy liquid. Something in its gleam instinctively made Tuuya very, very afraid.

“Aah.” breathed the first worm swarm. “So you did succeed…I suspected so.” 

They shut their eyes.

“Good day, love.” They said sleepily. “Make something interesting of me.” 

The syringe went down.