Derin Edala

42: Thin river thinking

“Yes! Of course I am scared! The situation is scary! You should be scared of us, Tyk.”

“Well, I’m not. I think maybe you should be a little bit less scared of you.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed someday.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Out of the two of us, I’m the one that keeps making decisions that nearly get myself killed. Listen, out of the four sky people here, you’ve said that none of you are life lorekeepers, but if you think this is critically dangerous...

6: Repeat Offenders

“Kerlin, you’re not going to fucking believe this.”

Kerlin squinted at Yinna. Things had been quiet in the brief period since the aljik had left. She’d finally shed her last skin and started thinking about a place to lay her own core seed when the time came, which was great timing; with the nest gone and the empire’s forces departed from the sky, the drakes could focus entirely on colonising their planet.

At least, that was what Kerlin had assumed. Until right this momen...

Wandering Star 41: Some Reservations

Their conversation for the rest of the trip is fairly light, upbeat, and focused on the task at hand, careful not to mention death or grief or hives or burrows. When their hunger is sated and they turn back toward the burrow, collecting food for later on the return journey, Tyk finally asks something that she’s been wondering about for hours. (Well, something that she’s been wondering about since last night, but now, she’s pretty sure Sakeya won’t kill her for asking.)

“Hey, u...

5: A big enough arrow

Sil froze in panic as the emergency alerts blared, but it didn’t matter; his crew knew what to do. By the time he’d gotten his bearings and verified that being thrown into the wall by the impact hadn’t broken any limbs, all of the tahl on the bridge had left, atil swarming in to take their place at their consoles. The Red Four had two kel, who immediately fell into their tandem roles; Safin read damage reports from the bridge while Egil took some atil to handle critical repairs.

�...

Wandering Star 40: Sleepland Scavenging

Tyk, Tama, and Sakeya all step forward, but there’s not a lot that they can do without knowing what’s going on. They watch on helplessly as Kana falls to the ground and all the sky people start shouting at once. Dem steps forward as if to hit Smon; Yotoru steps between them, trying to calm them down; Kana gets back up and joins in the yelling. Whatever they’re arguing about has something to do with the reservoir, which they all keep gesturing at, but it’s impossible to make sense of t...

Wandering Star 39: Rest and Relaxation

The Hiveless think that Tyk is one of them. And for a moment, she considers the option of letting them continue to think that. They certainly seem inclined to help her, and that could change if they find out she has a hive.

But no; it’s too dangerous. If she tries to deceive them and gets found out, that’ll be much worse. Best to clear everything up immediately.

“I’m not Hiveless.”

“Of course not,” Saima says in the tone of somebody responding to a little kid i...

4: Yet more qu... look, there's a lot going on

The ship, fortunately, mostly ran itself. The nest… well, it was holding together for the moment, even with an incompetent Queen like myself. It was a job I still had no idea how to do, and the dohls’ explanations didn’t help at all. But it seemed like any problems likely to develop from my mismanagement would be cumulative, so I probably had time before anything broke.

Besides, most of a Queen’s more complicated duties seemed to come down to coordinating very large numbers of p...

Wandering Star 38: Surrounded

Before Tyk can respond to the threat, Smon is dashing out of the shelter, magic light pouring from her wrist, killing tool in hand. She raises the tool toward the Hiveless woman, who immediately steps back at the sight of it.

“Hey now, you don’t want to start trouble here,” she says, reasonably. She doesn’t sound all that frightened, and with good reason; Tyk knows Smon’s senses enough to know that Smon can’t see all that much besides Tyk and the woman caught in her pool of ...

3: Even more questions

Queen Tatik glared down at her sister, arms raised threateningly. The rogue Princess had clearly been through a lot, and the scuffs and scars on her body were unsettling. Several of her old gems were missing, one of her legs had a large knot where some sort of damage hadn’t been scabbed over evenly, and she was still shedding dead wing tissue from some recently healed event that Tatik didn’t want to know the details of.

Tatik herself hadn’t fought since the regency fight – Queen...

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Wandering Star 37: The Slog

At first, they try to push on, but as the rain gets heavier and heavier, they quickly realise that there’s nothing to do but rest. There’s no sense endangering themselves or the slapdash cart by pushing on through mud, and without knowing how long the rain will last, neither of them wants to be wetter than they absolutely need to be. Smon pulls out some of the waterproof covering over the farms to make a little shelter for them and gathers bunches if long grass while Tyk hurriedly assembl...

2: More questions

I gathered the War Council. Although without the captain, and with the fact that we probably weren’t at war for the moment since Tatik had what she wanted and had no reason to expect aggression from us, it probably didn’t count as a War Council any more. But whatever.

“Okay,” I said. “So what exactly is the problem that we need to save the Empire from?”

I spoke in English, leaving Glath to translate. I suspected that this conversation was going to involve a lot of stuf...

Wandering Star 36: Wheel Work

After a couple more days of travel, the river starts to bend East, and the pair are forced to finally leave it. They’re somewhat off the trade route now, which curves slightly West away from the river at the boat crossing, meaning that they’ll be dragging a cart through rough terrain with no ruts to follow, which isn’t ideal. Diverging from the river at the boat crossing had of course been out of the question – there was no way they could safely stop there, build a cart, and expect to...

1: Questions

Hello, Void.

My garden is so small now! I guess this is what happens when you don’t take care of them. I cannot fit inside their vessel this time; there wasn’t one big enough to give them. But that’s alright. I can observe from outside, and seeing the patterns will allows me to later fit into them more thoughtfully.

In the meantime, perhaps a period of adjustment is in order.

------------------------

“She did what?” I asked Glath. “Why? Why would she give h...

Wandering Star 35: The Price of Metal

The caution is probably unnecessary, but they wait until it’s well and truly dark before moving. The pair carefully forage what they think they can get away with, reinflate the farm’s balloons and fill it up, and continue on their way.

Usually, their pace is somewhat leisurely, with plenty of resting for Smon’s vulnerable feet and Tyk’s muscles unaccustomed to long periods of swimming. They slow when they get tired rather than stopping, and the few brief stops they are forced to...

21: Fair Trade

It still hurts to breathe, of course. I try to ignore that. But the only other thing to focus on is the inherent helplessness of being inside a spacecraft performing such a critical manoeuvre, and not being wired in. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been in a spaceship that I didn’t fly myself.

There’s a sort of helplessness to it. Whatever happens now, there’s almost nothing I can do about it directly. That hasn’t bothered me all that much in the past; as a child, I d...

Wandering Star 34: Chained and Unchained

It’s nearing morning on their second day of travel when they see the boat crossing in the distance, which leaves the pair with a difficult travel choice to make. Neither wants to hide out and fall asleep so close to the bridge, but attempting to race the sunrise passing it would be incredibly dangerous. The temptation is strong – once they’re past the crossing, their journey will be so much safer; it’ll just be a matter of putting as much distance as possible between them and the cros...

20: In Motion

I’d never been inside a spaceship that was actually in good condition before. It was a novel experience.

Admittedly the random corpses, splintered machinery and shreds of ketestri tentacle were a bit of a vibe killer, especially since some of the evidence of carnage suggested tentacle ingresses and movements that defied the laws of physics, but beggars can’t be choosers and I was begging for absolutely anything that could get me into space and somewhere where I might have a chance o...

Wandering Star 33: Dead Girl Walking

Tyk looks about for somewhere to hide, even though it’s far too late, but before she can do anything, he’s close enough for her to hear his very familiar wing hum. “Kesan!” she calls out in relief, and beside her, Smon relaxes.

Kesan drops onto Tyk’s horns, then her back, then starts inspecting her all over. “You’re alive! You’re okay! Oh dear, you’re pretty banged up.”

“Just scuffs and scratches,” she says, while he gets to work cleaning the river dirt off...

19: Pilot Program

“A trained engineer would be able to give a better assessment,” Kit explained, “but the Captain and some atil looked over the ship and it’s in remarkably good condition. It’s a – ” he gave some aljik word, some complicated series of clicks and whistles that I couldn’t begin to follow – “which are designed for rough landings and planetary takeoffs. And it has the fuel to get back into space.”

“Why did they even bring ships like that?” I asked. “Why not just bo...

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Wandering Star 32: The Value of Life

“We have that on pretty good record,” Tyk says, puzzled. “There were fourteen survivors, and if Myn and Haidn are dead…”

But Smon is shaking her head. “Fourteen of us were contacted by hives in this area. That does not mean fourteen survivors. In fact, those of us you know about need Rayjo Tau the least; we can already communicate through your hives once the wingsong stream is working again. But our javlyn went very fast over very big land, dropped boats all over. In the sle...

18: Investigation

The thing about humans is that they need to sleep a lot. That made it very easy to wait until Charlie was asleep and then, very carefully and quietly, head off to my mission.

There wasn’t really all that much need for secrecy – anybody who would see me exiting the nest would just assume I was on some sanctioned errand. They certainly wouldn’t assume that I was disobeying orders. That I was a traitor. They’d worked with me for a long time; they knew me better than that. But then,...

Wandering Star 31: River Run

Tyk doesn’t think. She just jumps into the water.

This is a mistake.

She’s significantly lighter than the object she’s looking for, and the current drags at her body, pulling her against the long sharp fronds growing up from the riverbed (pulling with the current, of course, so they don’t hurt her, but it would be dangerous to try to swim back). She fights against it as best she can as she dives down, down, hoping to… do something, if she can catch up with Smon. Cut her ...

17: A Game of Truth

I needed immediate medical attention. Our darling captain needed it more. But neither of us would be getting it right now, because first I had to convince everyone not to kill her, including herself.

This would be the hardest story I’d ever told in the Game of Lies, largely because it was all true. This wasn’t deception; this was the complete opposite.

I wasn’t sure how good I was at that.

“Once upon a time, in the out-Western aljik Empire, there were two Princesses....

Wandering Star 30: Frayed Trust

As soon as the puller yells the warning, the lurch stops. The boat still wavers a little on the rapid river water, but doesn’t tip or wash away – it seems that the tethers are holding. For a moment, everyone just sort of stands there, confused.

“I made some friends,” Ayan announces into the bewildered silence, “who showed me how the boat works. And when I was under there earlier, I saw that some of the tethers and things weren’t linked up right, so I fixed them.”

The...

16: Fight For Flight

Most of the nest had taken defensive positions underground, and the few atil that were aboveground were on lookout at the shore, hiding themselves under little mounds of sand with their eyes on the water awaiting the approaching army. Without the soldiers to spare for proper patrols, looking out for any roundabout approaches from other angles was left to me, with my ability to fly and easily hide. So I was of course the one to spot Charlie.

She was alone, approaching from the aljik fore...

Wandering Star 29: Crossing the River

Getting a caravan across the Redstone River is no easy feat. Even here, at one of the best crossing places, the river is wide and the waters near the middle are rapid and unreliable. Tyk will happily swim about near the shore, but crossing the river would be a dangerous task, and crossing it carrying a load would be impossible. Men can fly across, but with the need to bring heavy travel supplies, that’s not particularly useful.

Fortunately, there’s a workaround – this is, after al...

15: Time to Move

Careful to stay far away enough to avoid being bitten, I looked up at the fruits on Morlin’s tree. They were vaguely luminous in the rapidly fading daylight, casting a slight red glow through the bone-white branches and onto the black rotting plant material around the tree.

I had tried to calculate just how fast the drake population would grow, but the drakes were so vague and qualified their answers with so many ‘it depends’ caveats that even estimating is a fool’s errand. Kerl...

Wandering Star 28: A Map of a Prayer

Bette and her children spend their first night in the Green Hills Hive inside the hive itself, in one of the spare residential burrows, but the rest of the group decide to stay in the trader burrow, with their goods. Smon is reluctant to leave her little farm, her one way of making food, for longer than she has to, and Tyk wants to make the most of her remaining time with Smon. The others, she supposes, all have their own reasons – maybe they’re regretting all agreeing to stay to see Smon...