Chapter 35: Chapter 35: A HAVEN OF STRATEGIES
Buzz pressed himself further into the hollow, claws digging into damp soil, the burn of gold still crawling through his veins. Zza settled beside him, silk draped like a ragged cloak over her arms, frayed and sticky with ichor. Neither moved for a long moment, just listening.
The forest hummed quietly, almost polite. But Buzz could feel it—the pressure, like tiny hands pressing through his shell, searching, testing. Leaves trembled, branches sighed, and somewhere a distant insect shifted, but it wasn’t ordinary movement. It was deliberate, aware. Calculating.
Zza’s eyes flicked to a branch, then another. "It’s here," she whispered, silk trembling. "I don’t feel it, I *know* it."
Buzz’s mandibles clicked. He could taste the air, metallic and heavy. The gold in his blood pulsed faintly, alive with the memory of the Queen. The newborn’s presence wasn’t loud—it was subtle, a wave brushing against his shell, probing, curious, patient. He flexed his claws in the dirt, watching faint glimmers of light across the leaves. Gold. Every fleck a warning, a reminder.
"Every strike we made," he muttered, voice low, rough, almost swallowed by the silence, "every wound, every drop... it’s in there. It’s learning how we move, how we fight, what hurts us. And it’s waiting for the right moment to use it."
Zza’s silk twitched again, brushing his arm. "Then we don’t give it the right moment," she said, almost a hiss. Her eyes swept across the hollow, scanning cracks in the trees, patches of light, shapes in shadow. "We survive. That’s all we do for now. We retreat. We breathe. We heal."
Buzz leaned back against the mossy trunk, letting the rough bark press into his shell. His eyes didn’t close. He didn’t trust it to be calm. Not with the newborn out there. He could feel every heartbeat in the forest, every shift in the soil, every pulse of gold in his own blood.
Something moved then, faint and deliberate, deep in the shadows just outside the hollow. Buzz’s claws tensed, muscles coiling. A single wingbeat, almost imperceptible, echoed through the trees. The newborn, he realized, was far smarter than they expected. It wasn’t reckless. It didn’t need to be. It could wait. It could watch.
Zza pressed her forehead to his shoulder. "We’ll figure it out," she murmured. "We always do."
Buzz let out a short, bitter laugh. "Yeah... but I don’t like waiting. Every second it watches us, it’s learning more. And I swear, the moment it decides we’re ready... I don’t want to be here when that happens."
They stayed like that for a while, silent but alert. The hollow smelled of damp earth, broken leaves, and faint traces of ichor. It was safe, for now, but Buzz could feel the tension twisting in the forest, tightening like a coil ready to spring. Every faint rustle of a branch, every whisper of wind through leaves, carried a weight that made his shell crawl.
Then a soft shimmer appeared, flickering between the trees. Buzz tensed, claws digging deeper. Gold. It wasn’t the Queen’s flame; it was something colder, sharper. Awareness. Precision. The newborn’s presence sliding through the forest, testing, gauging.
Zza’s silk snapped across his arm, light but firm. "It’s testing the perimeter," she whispered. "It knows we’re here. It doesn’t have to attack to control us. It’s just... watching."
Buzz ground his claws into the soil, letting the gold burn faintly along his shell. He felt it, pulsing with each heartbeat, a rhythm that mirrored the newborn’s own. Calm. Cold. Patient. Watching. He gritted his mandibles.
"Good," he muttered. "Let it watch. Let it learn. We move when we’re ready. Not before."
Zza nodded, pressing closer. Her silk twitched in the faint wind, brushing against Buzz’s shell. "We survive, Buzz. That’s all. Live long enough to strike when it doesn’t expect us."
Buzz let himself sink a little deeper into the hollow, muscles coiling and relaxing, claws still flexing, eyes flicking to every shadow. The forest outside seemed to tense in response, the air heavy with anticipation.
And somewhere beyond the trees, gold flickered again. Waiting. Calculating. Patient.
Buzz gritted his teeth, mandibles clicking softly. "It’s not a Queen," he muttered. "It’s something worse."
Zza’s silk curled around his arm like a tether. "Then we survive," she said again. "We wait. We watch. We survive."
The hollow was still. For now.
But the forest wasn’t.
And neither was the newborn.
Buzz flexed his claws against the damp earth, gold streaks pulsing faintly, and let out a long, ragged breath. Every movement hurt—muscles screaming, shell cracked, blood still leaking—but he didn’t care. Right now, surviving wasn’t about glory. It was about staying alive long enough to strike back.
Zza worked quietly, inspecting her own frayed silk, pulling at knots, testing tension. Her claws brushed the edges of her wounds, careful, methodical. "We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with," she muttered. "Not guesses. Not hopes. Facts."
Buzz let his mandibles click softly, tasting the air. "The Queen... she was brute force. This..." He gestured vaguely toward the forest, toward the faint flickers of gold light just beyond their hollow. "...is patient. Calculated. It watches. It learns. Every move we make, every strike we threw at her, it remembers and adapts. One wrong step, one hesitation, and we’re dead."
Zza nodded, eyes narrowing. "We can’t fight it head-on. Not yet. We need a plan, weapons, something—anything—that gives us an advantage."
Buzz’s claws scraped the dirt as he thought. "We need to figure out how it reacts to attacks. Its patterns. Weak spots. Not just brute force... strategy. And timing. The right moment."
She pressed a claw to his arm, silk coiling around it lightly. "We also need to heal. You’re leaking gold, Buzz. That burn... it’s not just from the Queen. It’s her essence mixing with yours. You’re not fully in control of it."
Buzz growled softly, mandibles grinding. "I know. Every second it’s in me, it’s learning. Trying to twist me. I can feel it, threading into my blood. But it’s mine to fight—or die trying. And I’m not ready to die."
Zza’s silk twitched, brushing against his shell like a reminder. "Then we survive long enough to hit it on our terms. Observe, test, retreat. Don’t rush. Let it make mistakes, and we strike when it’s blind. Or overconfident. Or careless."
Buzz nodded slowly, feeling the rhythm of the forest, the pulse of gold still crawling through his veins. "Observation," he muttered. "Patience. Retreat. Strike. We survive first. Everything else comes after."
They stayed in the hollow, quiet now but alert. Buzz ran his claws through the soil, testing its consistency, the dampness, the shadows, imagining ways they could use the terrain, the forest itself, to their advantage. Zza pressed her silk against her claws, tightening knots, practicing control. Every minor movement, every test, was a rehearsal for the inevitable confrontation.
Outside, the forest pulsed faintly with gold, shimmered faintly as if watching. Buzz flexed his claws, tensing at the awareness brushing against his shell. "It’s already learning," he muttered. "Every moment we breathe, it’s figuring us out. If we make a mistake... it won’t hesitate."
Zza pressed her forehead briefly against his shoulder. "Then we don’t make mistakes. Not yet. We survive. We watch. We learn. And we strike when the time comes. On our terms."
Buzz gritted his mandibles, eyes flicking to the shadows beyond the hollow.
The forest remained quiet, but gold flickered faintly between the trees, a cold, patient shimmer that promised nothing good. Buzz flexed his claws again, feeling the burn of the Queen’s essence mixed with his own, and let the tension settle into focus.
They would wait. They would survive. And when the time came... they would strike.
But first, they needed to live.