Vigor Mortis

Chapter 58: Fragile

“Be careful with that flower, Lark,” the Claretta tells me. “If you squeeze it that hard, it’s going to die.”

I loosen my grip immediately, a growl of worry escaping from under my breath. Sure enough, the bright blue petals have crumpled under my grip. I try to smooth one out, only to end up ripping it off. Screeching in fury, I tear the flower to shreds.

“Lark! Lark, no! Don’t do that! We still could have saved it.”

“No want!” I snap at her. “Broken! Other flowers. Can get, carry better. Find one less weak!”

“You mean ‘I don’t want to,’” the Claretta corrects. “‘There are other flowers. I can get them and carry them better.’ And Lark, that’s no reason to rip apart the one you already have.”

“Pretty things too fragile,” I growl, glaring over at her.

I distinctly don’t glare over in the Fulvia’s direction. The creature I formerly just thought of as ‘the loud one’ has not been loud for quite some time. It went to sleep four sky-grounds ago (or “nights,” I suppose the term is) and hasn’t woken up since, its breathing shallow. The Claretta insists it will die if I continue feeding on it.

It and the Claretta are still both bound in my webs, stuck on their backs next to the lake I water them with. Steadily, the Claretta regrows both of their limbs, but I haven’t eaten either of them since. It’s stupid of me. I should at least be eating the Claretta. Yet whenever she goes to sleep, I start to worry… what if she doesn’t wake up again? She has been steadily teaching me more and more language, more songs, more everything. She speaks of other humans, their culture and their stories, their lives and their journeys. I don’t understand most of it, but her talks enrapture me all the same.

There is… nothing else like the Claretta. If she breaks, I won’t have any more. Not like this flower, not like the Fulvia or the other humans I’ve eaten. There is only one Claretta, and I will never let her go.

She’s asked about that before. Asked me to let her heal, to release her and her friend. I did not understand her words at first, and now I simply don’t understand why she’d ask. Of course not. Of course I won’t. Why would I ever do that? She’s special. And if she weren’t special, I’d content myself with the fact that she’s delicious.

I huff off and gather more flowers, carefully using my four arms to dig out the dirt around them. All of my chitin fell off weeks ago, and I can walk on two legs without trouble now. I even started growing the weird strands of soft stuff out of the top of my head, though unlike my meals’ mine is as pitch-black as the rest of my body. It keeps getting in front of my face and being annoying. The Claretta suggested cutting it, but I don’t at all like that idea. It’s part of my body! Why would I just remove it!?

“L-let me grow back my arms,” she had bargained. “I’ll teach you how to braid it. Then it will never get in your face again.”

I’d told her no, but the longer my hair gets the more it tempts me. I fuss with pushing it behind my ears with one arm as the other three carefully, gently, carry the flowers back to where I keep the Claretta. Setting them carefully in the holes I dug around her, I ignore the annoying, regretful feeling that wells up inside me whenever I look at the shredded remains of the flower I had before. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. These flowers are just as beautiful.

A nearby thread twitches and goes slack, stealing my attention. Hmm… that one is linked to the outside of my territory. Something just blundered in. I smile. If it moves, it’s food.

“Dinner time,” I announce happily.

“Ugh,” the Claretta groans. “I really wish you’d learn to cook. I’m not really made to eat raw meat all the time.”

I scoff. This again.

“You say make fire! Tried! Just burn and hurt! Why put food in?”

“You’re not supposed to touch the fire, Lark. You just cook the food with it.”

I shudder and shake my head. Fire is beautiful, yet it’s frightening and terrible as well. I didn’t realize beauty could hurt so much. The Claretta had warned me, she had told me it was dangerous, made me do all sorts of silly things like dig a pit and clear the surroundings before making one, warning me that stray flames could spread if I didn’t. When I first made a fire, I didn’t realize why it would be a problem. Then I tried to hold it, and now I definitely understand. I had to eat a lot to grow my skin back. Never again.

Having skin is weird. It’s terrible for fighting, and very often do I miss my chitin. What it’s good at, though, is feeling things. Textures, temperatures, pressures… everything I touch is so much more detailed now, so much more interesting. I keep trying to put my hands on everything, which often gets me into trouble. The fire is just a particularly bad example.

“Be shush. No fire. I go.”

“Goodbye, Lark.”

I turn back towards my favorite food, the corners of my mouth tugging upwards for some reason. I’m not sure what it means; I’ve never seen the Claretta make a similar expression.

“Goodbye, Claretta. See you soon.”

I shift down to all six limbs and prowl towards where the thread must have been broken. While I can walk on two legs and usually do, it just doesn’t feel natural for hunting. I’ve set up hundreds of thin lines around my territory, linking them back to where I keep the Claretta and Fulvia. I refuse to let any prey anywhere near them. They are mine. What I find when I approach the spot where my threads have broken, however, is not just any prey. It’s more humans.

“More and more nestweaver threads here. Way too many. If a low-combat team hit a broodmother, it’s no surprise they got wiped.”

The voice is soft and deep, almost too quiet for me to hear… and my hearing is very good. I halt moving immediately, sinking down in deep brush as I strain my ears to listen to what I now know to expect: a conversation.

“I don’t think it’s nestweavers,” another deep voice answers, more like the Ivan and Baldreg had sounded than the Fulvia or Claretta. “We had reports from the other egg sites about black-skinned hybrid creatures, yeah? And remember that pitch-dark thornhunter we had to put down? It’s the same shit here.”

“No broodmother,” a third voice whispers, this one lighter and softer. “But maybe something that ate a broodmother.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, yeah. Look, the body in these webs isn’t dissolved at all, it’s only been bit. A nestweaver didn’t kill this.”

These humans are smart! Hmm, should I just eat them entirely or capture them? I almost approach to see how they react, but then I remember: humans can hit things from far away. I’ll have to be a lot more careful. I’ll capture what I can, but I’ll just kill them if they’re too dangerous.

“Right. Well, let’s assume we’re up against something at least on the level of a broodmother and tread carefully. Be ready to burn webs at a moment’s notice, Mateo.”

“Can do. Nobody jostle me.”

Burn? As in what fire did? Okay, I’m probably just killing that one. Slowly, carefully, I creep forward, tracking my prey by the soft sound of their footfalls in the underbrush. Before I’m even close to them, though, they stop moving.

“Something’s approaching,” the first human says. “Mid-dangerous.”

Oh? Interesting. The last set of humans had called me mid-weak. I smirk a little at the change, though I’m not really happy about it. Pretending to be weak is a good hunting strategy to lure opportunistic prey. Perhaps more importantly, how are they determining how strong I am? I can usually determine strength by how tasty something smells. Stronger things taste better… except sometimes when they don’t, like the Fulvia and Claretta. They tasted super good, but were far from the hardest things to kill that I’ve eaten. Dangerous and powerful, certainly, but with too many apparent weak points. Just a single bite in the right spot would cripple them until the Claretta sang the wound away. For now, I’ll assume these humans will work the same way. Though as I start to creep forward, I have a rather silly thought.

These humans know I’m here. I know they know I’m here. Why am I sneaking? Why not just… go say hi? It’s not like it will make them any more likely to try and kill me.

I stand back up, walking on two legs as I approach the humans at a casual pace. They murmur a few things at each other, but before I get in sight I call out.

“Hello?”

“…The fuck?” a human whispers.

“That sounded like a girl,” another one agrees. “Mimicry-based monster?”

“I’m not monster,” I tell them. “I’m Lark!”

“…Lark?” the woman asks. “Is that your name?”

“Yep!” I confirm. “Is good name! What your names?”

There’s a brief pause as the humans struggle to decide on an answer.

“How about you come out where we can see you, Lark?” the one I think is ‘Mateo’ requests.

I giggle.

“Will later. Only three of you? Or are more, but quieter?”

I start weaving some thicker webs, then circle around planting strong strands around ankle-height, hidden in the brush.

“…What are you doing out here, Lark?” the nameless male asks.

“What mean?” I ask, a bit confused by the question. I’ve always been here, at least since I found the pond.

“It’s a dangerous place for a person to be,” he answers, an odd quirk to his tone that I don’t understand.

I finish setting another tripwire, peeking one eye out of the brush. I do see only three humans, two of them holding long, artificial weapons in what would otherwise be weak, clawless hands. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but perhaps I should do the same. …No, there’s no need. Unlike humans, I have my teeth.

“Yet you here,” I point out, licking my lips in anticipation. They immediately turn my way, but my perfectly black eye is not so easy to spot in the darkness of the thick brush. All three of them are on full guard, ready to attack or defend themselves in an instant. I can try to get behind them, but since they have a good idea of my position even when they can’t see me, I doubt circling around will let me attack by surprise.

“Yet we are here,” the same human agrees. “We are hunters. Do you know what hunters are?”

I grin.

“Yes! Hunters! Fight monsters, make forest safer for human! Good! Heroes! Like Claretta.”

That seems to surprise them, even relax them a little. Only a little.

“Alen, Claretta is one of the missing names,” the Mateo starts.

“Yes, I know,” the one I had been talking to agrees. The ‘Alen,’ apparently. “Do you know Claretta? Is she alive?”

“Yes!” I confirm happily. “Claretta is good! Beautiful one! Very alive.”

“When you saw her, was she with anyone? Do you know where they are now?”

“Yes and yes! Claretta, Fulvia, alive. Ivan, Baldreg, dead. Know where are.”

The humans’ eyes go wide, tracking my voice as I finish setting up my webs. They look happy about something, though still just as ready to fight if needed.

“Lark, will you take us to them?”

I stretch my starving body, stepping out from the brush.

“Yes,” I hiss, grinning with my full mouth of black, curved teeth. “You join them.”

Weapons point my way instantly, but I picked my spot carefully: the longest sightline between us, where even their extra-long pointy object would not come close to reaching. If they shoot a projectile from there, which they might, I’m confident I can dodge it.

“Holy fucking shit,” the Mateo hisses.

“It’s one of the things from Hiverock,” the Alen says immediately.

“It looks like a child,” the last, yet-unnamed human breathes. “She looks human.”

“If you don’t count the extra arms, yeah,” the Alen agrees. “Or the skin. Or the teeth. So why does it look human?”

That’s kind of a stupid question. I figured that out ages ago.

“Because I eat humans,” I explain.

Mateo’s hand shoots out to point at me and I think I know what to expect. A projectile, something to dodge. I’m not wrong, exactly, but rather than the arrow or pellet I assume I’m avoiding, a gout of fire bigger than I am incinerates everything in my vision as it blasts towards me at incredible speed. I’m already mid-motion to dodge, hurling myself into the brush on the right, but there’s just nothing I can do to avoid the blistering heat completely. The whole left side of my body nearly gets seared off, two of my arms boiling under the intense flames. Pain screams through me, but I’m hardly a stranger to it. I’ve been bitten worse minutes after being born.

Wasting no time, I turn and sprint away into cover, dashing as fast as I can deeper into the forest. These humans are no fools, though, and they do not rush after me into my prepared traps. Content to whittle me down, perhaps? I’ve certainly done something similar a few times. I grin, giddily hoping that’s their strategy as my tiny legs finally make enough distance between myself and the dangerous prey I’ve set my sights on. All around my territory, suspended in webs, are still-living victims of my numerous traps. I devour a few eagerly, relishing the joy of both the swallowed food and the burnt flesh sloughing off my arms, soon replaced by fresh, gleaming-black skin. I flex my newly-formed hands, testing my spinneret glands as I wrack my brain for a solution.

If that fire (I hate fire!) had hit me straight-on, I would certainly be dead. More annoyingly, it also burns right through my webs. It is a problem. The ‘Mateo’ human is not to be captured or savored. I’m killing it as soon as I’m able. Disappointing, but maybe I can still tie up the other two and take them to the Claretta for proper feasting.

The question is how. How do I get close enough to bite them without getting my teeth burned off? Hmm… maybe I don’t? Another smile tugs at my lips. I have a few plans, and ultimately as long as I keep them in my territory and away from the Claretta, I will eventually win.

…Or so I thought. Hours later, my frustration increasingly mounting, I realize my mistake. They’re all problems! I try to trick the fire one into burning webs that hold up heavy objects, and another one of them just blocks or smashes the stones. I try to trick one of them into a pit, and it just jumps out! All three of them are substantially more powerful than the four other humans I faced prior, and they all work together despite how different they are. Worst of all, they are slowly but surely making it towards my sanctuary. My flowers. My pond. My Claretta. I’m running out of stored food, and I’m running out of options. Really, I only have one option left that I think will work. I am frightened. But… beauty is fragile.

So she must be protected.

I skirt the edges of my foe’s perceptions, having learned the range of their ability to sense or hear. I pretend to construct a trap, heart pounding as I feel them get closer. When they are just barely closer than where I feel safe, I flee. I run away from my territory, heading outside my zone of safety. There, I start to prepare again, until the humans catch me once more. They move slow, oh so slow. They seem content hunting in safety, taking their time to methodically clear out their way before they advance. Like the last humans, they are cautious. Like the last humans, they will die not to my cleverness at all.

Only raw strength will defeat them.

Further and further, deeper and deeper, they follow me. I have been hounding them restlessly since the start of the day and they want me gone, but they are not fools. They will not follow me all the way where I lead. Yet they don’t need to. From far away, my nose picks up the most incredible, most exquisite meal imaginable, and I head towards it. My key. My prize. The great, impossible death awaiting my prey. I slink silently through the forest until I finally behold it. The greatest of my kin.

I and the others born from our dark eggs started small. I am still small, my full height not even reaching the waist of many humans. As a result, I hunt small things. I am no mindless slave to hunger like the others of my kind. I do not send myself slobbering in the direction of everything that smells of a meal, no matter the odds of success. I am patient. I am smart. I do not, to use an amusing phrase from the Claretta, ‘bite off more than I can chew.’ To do so would be to court death. Yet some of my kin… they have courted death. And they have won.

Before me is a black beast of unfathomable proportions. Slender and long, the incontestable god my sibling has become sports four lizard-like legs, each so large I could use one as a bed. Across its scaled body sprout whip-like tendrils, each tipped with a brutal hooked spine, serrated in a way to stab into a target and hold them inescapably as they are fed to the pointed, black-toothed maw. It nests in a pile of splintered trees, bowled over to make this clearing to rest in. I could bite this beast a thousand times and not even be close to ending its life.

My instincts scream at me to consume it anyway, completely uncaring of my inevitable death.

Rather than outright ignore them, I scream back. The truest of all deaths wakes. I turn and I run back towards the humans. They have avoided most of my traps, though far from all. They could turn and run away, likely outpacing me but losing the slow, careful caution that has been their best ally. They do not do this. As I hear them shout their warnings and prepare their weapons, they do not run.

I don’t even have to get close to the humans; as soon as my kin smells them, it changes course to eat them instead of me. I leap atop the tallest tree I can find, watching and waiting for the death of my prey.

“That’s a fuckin’ big one!” the Mateo hisses, his fingers moving in a blur. “Netta?”

“Yeah, I got the legs,” the soft-voiced human answers, drawing a bow not unlike the one the Claretta had used. The human takes a deep breath, the wind around me shifting towards her as she does. I cock my head to the side, watching with amusement. What does the human think a dinky arrow will do to—

A crack sounds out through the forest as the human releases the bowstring. Splatters of black blood eject from two of my kin’s legs at once, a hole bored in a straight line through each. My invincible kin stumbles and falls, but its tendrils strike like snakes towards the trio without hesitation. They’re dismembered in a flash, the pointed tips separated by the Alen’s blade.

“You got a time, Mateo?” the Alen snaps.

“Uh, like thirty seconds? Just don’t let it get up!”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Netta grumbles, knocking and drawing another arrow, air moving towards her again.

I don’t wait and watch to see what happens. Scampering down the tree, I run. I run as fast as I can, back to home, back to the Claretta. We have to leave. The humans are the death of death itself. Another crack sounds behind me as I flee, breath and muscles burning. How had I not already been killed? How am I even still alive? A wave of frigid cold and boiling heat bite into my skin one after the other, followed by a shockwave that nearly knocks me over from behind. I don’t stop to think about what that means. I need to get the Claretta.

“Lark?” the beautiful one asks, hearing me sprint into our clearing by the pond. I grab her, rolling her to the water.

“Drink! We go!”

I give her a few seconds to lap up water before pulling her out, up onto my back so I can drag her as fast as possible. I don’t know the next chance I’ll have to water her. I spare a longing glance at the Fulvia, hesitating only a moment before I dash away as fast as I’m able, heedless of anything in the way. That one is broken anyway. I handled it too firmly.

“Lark? Lark! What’s going on?”

“Death!” I hiss. “Humans of death!”

I curse myself for not biting off the Claretta’s regrowing limb-nubs earlier, every bit of extra weight making a difference here.

“Humans?” the Claretta asks.

“Yes! Bad! Too strong, no eat!”

The Claretta starts to scream, as loudly and as desperately as she can muster. I almost smack her in the head. I know the humans are frightening, but if she keeps that up she’s going to tell them exactly where we are! I pump my arms and legs harder, sprinting on four limbs as I use two to hold the beautiful one to my back. I don’t know how long it is before I finally collapse, exhausted and starving, in some foreign part of the forest I’ve never before seen. Anything could be here. Any danger. Yet at least it won’t be those horrifying humans. I can no longer smell them at all.

A day passes as I scout for water, set traps, begin carving out a safe territory for the Claretta and I to survive in. No humans come to us. Another day later, I carefully retrace my steps to where I left the Fulvia in desperation. My meal and prize is gone, no corpse or bones left. The humans took it. I grit my teeth in fury, hatred and fear twisting within me. What if they come back? What if they come for the Claretta next?

At least they left the flowers intact. I gingerly extract them from the ground, holding the clods of dirt in which their roots reside delicately as I return to my new home. What can I do? What can I do?

I think about it the entire trip back, and return home without a single answer.