"Nothing... Not safe. Not safe." I chitter, sensing around with the help of my staff. My cuirass of crushed helms rattles away with each shuffling step. The deep dark hiding so little secrets from my perfectly adept eyes. My jaw shifts about, chittering again as I look over what I have, again.
Not enough, barely enough. The queen is gone, the hive is gone. I failed. What eggs are left in my reserves are all we have. I alone carry the burden of our hive and we cannot risk running into another hive. Many retreated and fled when the Pestilence awoke, and... I can still sense it.
In the air, the rock and dirt. There's the Pestilence's place in the world, lingering on even after it went still. Dormant. And... It's familiar.
There's something familiar this way. A sensation that does not feel right. It should not be a part of my instincts but it's calling to me. To us, the hive. A clear power, a potent power.
One that can save the hive...
My left claw rises, a mental signal shocking its way through the drones. The last remaining royal soldier at my disposal comes up to me. His carapace still bearing the patterned marks of what he is. Patchy, patchy, patchy armour. Patchy coloured armour that makes his power known!
Another signal goes through my survivors, my refugees. They await me, and I set off with the last of the strong. He chitters alongside me, only doing what his base instincts tell him. Much as I know the way of the world, I can only wish more of us had my gift. This... Mortal understanding of the world. The ability to be more than just a part of the hive. But a leader of it!
The last leader... The only leader... Save the hive. Preserve the hive.
My fills out my free claw and I press it to the rock, my presence echoing through the stone. I see the world beyond the walls, a hollow world. One defined by prey... No, no prey. It's quiet. The last destruction of the earth has made more than my kind flee.
The rock parts aside, revealing a tunnel of fine make and tested durability. I step out onto it, , urging my royal soldier to follow so he can watch the other side. Though I can see the tunnel in all its glory, it doesn't hurt to have more eyes. Especially when I...
My chitters pick up furiously. A strange sensation to have. The one who got away... The one I failed to break and bring in line... How...? How does someone defy their calling? The calling of being one with the hive? How!?
"Impossible. It should be impossible. IMPOSSIBLE!" I build myself up into roaring, my staff slamming into the earth and spiking it for many strides. A shiver of fury goes through me and I flatten the earth back, eager to leave no trace of the hive. We need numbers and we cannot afford to have battle to find them.
Keep hidden, out of the way. No battle until we find a suitable place to rebuild our numbers. A place to fill out our hive. A place that is too far... Too far indeed...
"Come. Come..." I call out, gesturing for the royal soldier to follow as the stone continues to guide me. Many feet have walked the ground up ahead. We need only carry on for but a short time to find it.
It is empty, but, there should be clues as to where I can begin planning. That's all I need, it's all I need now and forever. The hive will live on so long as I have a plan. I just need the moment to have it.
My chitters pick up, carrying on in a song-like tune. The royal soldier mimics it, and he rushes off, orders in mind. All of his mind. I turn the direction of my one good eye, a thought musing away in my head.
Without the queen, I have no means to fill out my magic. She would gift me what was taken. And she is gone. It's all gone and I cannot even be sure that the eggs I do keep with me are the right ones.
So much is entrusted to me, but not everything. The world can only let my hive live if luck is by my side... A concept that is so strange for someone like me. Something like me.
Luck is not an idea that passes the hive, we aim to control what we can. Build through what we can. It's not something we think of, consider. Not at all.
And yet... Here we are. Depending on it. I am, the hive is, we all are. The Queen has no name, and her death makes it all the more meaningful. Mortality gives me much insight, and it gives me many problems that makes me yearn for the simplicity of a simple hive-minded soldier.
The Queen is gone and all it is, is a title... I have a title too, I am the hive's earth shaman. I am Earth Shaman. The same as the soldiers are what they are, the royal soldier is what he is.
But I'm not just an earth shaman. As the humans put it, I am Earth Shaman Alxxcron. Diaster walking. Eater of towns and besieger of fortresses. I'm powerful to the point I am named by the very people who fear me. I am more than just an osibindah, more than just an earth shaman.
They gave me a name... I must put it to use, prove its value as I do. What I wear is for my legend, for my hive. It's all for the hive and more.
"Within my eye." I remark upon, finding the corner that leads me to my find. My head frees itself of its woes and concerns and I keep on moving. My gifts focus and hone their edge on what is simply before me. A small building, unoccupied and abandoned. Recently.
I move towards the building, reaching out for it with my free claw. I feel the disturbances in the touched stone. That affliction which makes it difficult to do anything about it. I can work my way into it, but, at my strength, it is not worth it. Not worth it.
"What bounty do you offer me?" I ask, letting my mandibles chitter away curiously. I set aside my staff for a moment of blindness, but safety, too. For all my gifts, a fine touch is not one of them. I struggle to move in the way our prey does. Six digits is a brutal grip, but a finesse-lacking one.
I knock aside which has no value, indulging in what might offer me some power to satiate my form. Some catches on my cuirass, and I ruffle the rusting metal to offer it freedom off of my form. What does fall flutters elsewhere, or, I crush it underfoot. Useless things, so many useless things.
"A tablet... Carved tongue." I remark, picking up what I can only hope is a good read. I strike at the hardened clay, feeling for what I can and reading through it. Orders, written orders. It all speaks of something that needs to be protected. A mountain nearby that must be defended from all outside threats... Osibindah and the like.
I turn around and go back to my staff, taking it back up. My feet carry me across the tunnel's width and I come towards the rock. I reach out, putting my hand against it and pouring what little power I have into it. The rock parts, sliding away like shallow water before a cast stone.
It grows thick with contempt for me and I keep pushing, letting a bit sparkle before me. Black as night and starred with shards of blue. So eerily reminiscent of the Pestilence, yet defined not by him. I cannot touch this, mould it. I cannot be near such potent rock.
"N-No..." I go, stuttering as I feel it, a hole, a crack, a way in. I can feel the other side, a land that is weak and bountiful. Perfect land. Land suitable for what the hive needs, for what I want to achieve my purpose.
I step back once, then again and one more time. Turning towards the sensation of a future, down the dark tunnel. My eyes widen for all they're worth, both broken and working. My free claw comes up before me and then down to my side.
An order shoots through the hive remnants, and I call on all of them to join me. I must preserve my power, so I need to wait for the soldiers and workers. But the royal soldier is no long wait at all. He comes to me, howling like mad as his instincts assume danger by default.
Though, in his fervour, the irony of it is more likely to wound me than anything else. I raise a claw, putting him in his place and I gesture towards the building. His orders are to pillage it of everything of note so it can be shared and spread about. All in time for the rest of the hive to arrive.
I turn away from his efforts and focus on the tunnel, the dream it offers me. A renewed hive, a safe place free of all interference. Rock so strong not even someone as strong as... As the Valkinvar I once battled. Rock beyond even someone like them. Wait...
The feeling, what's been bothering me. It is in that design. The mountain holds what is calling to me. The familiar sensation that is calling to me is within the mountain...?
Strange, how strange? It shouldn't be calling to me, there's no way or why as to what it is. But it does, it does. It calls to me, asking something of me. Asking for me.
"Instinct or something else...?" I ponder in the open, minding the mess increasingly made by the royal soldier. It can't be instinct, nothing like this has ever happened in my life. Through all the trials brought before me and the hive, nothing like this has happened. The world doesn't just have things that call out to me-
No.
There's one thing in all of my life that has called out to me like this. The one who got away. He's always there, tickling my thoughts with his defiance. His name, I've forgotten it... No, maybe? No, I've forgotten all but his face. The last moments of his human face.
The process was so close to being what was good for the hive. But he resisted and fought back. It went out of control, turned into something that made us flee. It brought an army on us and forced the hive to flee.
I don't get it, the sensation went and came back. Like a blip. Then it stayed consistent, never going anywhere else. I moved the hive away from it and then the Pestilence awoke.
"An eye for a life..." I speak, chittering away as a hive-damning thought crosses my mind. I want revenge for the wounds the human brought upon me. I want to spite his flesh for all that he did. For the wounds he gave me, the trouble he brought me. I want revenge...!
And the hive comes first...
"RARRRRGH!" I snap, keeping my mind off of the hive's remnants so that my anger is of its own design. My claws flex, mortal emotion filling them out as much as heart-pumped blood is. My free one comes to my chest, clenching what it can as my heart beats with that goal in mind. That contradiction.
The hive comes first, but we risk so little of the hive remaining that there's no point. A rationale that can only come to an osibindah like me. Something that can only be understood by me. The hive will live, or it will die... And without plentiful luck and delusion, I can do nothing by it.
"No, no... Temper. Temper." I assure myself, reminding myself of that key process. I might exist outside of my instincts, unlike the rest of the drones and soldiers. But I still obey the wants of my instincts, my design. I am an earth shaman. Not a vengeful animal.
My time will come. It will come and I will delight in it. The feeling... His presence, the traitor's presence. He is not alright, he needs what I need. Power. He's lacking... The Pestilence touched him in the same way it touched my hive. How he's alive, I do not care...
"I can only offer an impossibly rare prayer for his continued life...!" I let out, smiling in delight as the truth settles in nice and firm.