Chapter 3: Chapter 3: What’s in a Name?

It was the best meal of her life. Of course, it was also the first the Hive Queen could remember, but it was still the best. She didn’t mind eating the meat raw, or cutting into the corpse. She just ate. She wasn’t quite what one would call lost in a feral haze, but her thoughts took a backseat while she enjoyed the deliciousness. Maybe like the food haze you got from eating your absolute favorite meal turned up to eleven.

When she regained full awareness of her surroundings, she stumbled back and looked around. She’d eaten a sizable chunk out of the monster. Bloody clumps of feathers and viscera lay strewn on the ground. Somehow, she’d actually managed to keep her mandibles and antennae clean, although she felt stickiness on her chin. She wiped it off on her arms, then grimaced and tried to wipe off her hands and arms on the bushes and grass as best she could. She was still naked, which didn’t even matter much, because she was alone.

Her hunger had been completely sated, and she felt full and satisfied. Despite the still less than ideal situation, it was hard to even get herself to care about the predators that might be drawn by the smell.

She stumbled off, shaking her head and stretching her arms and legs. I think I ate too much. Despite the satisfied feeling, there was a distinct pressure in her belly. As she walked, it only got stronger. She paused in another small clearing, then turned back in the direction of the rocky hills.

What she wouldn’t give for a companion, someone to have her back in this dangerous weirdness. Someone to help with all the things she’d have to do to get basic necessities, and more importantly, to help her defend herself against monsters.

She sighed. She had the feeling that duck had been a pretty weak one. Hopefully, she wouldn’t run into stronger monsters until she figured something out. She looked for something she might use as a weapon, but didn’t see anything better than the stones she’d picked up before.

She still felt that pressure. When she focused, she managed to locate the uncomfortable pressure in her abdomen, where she would expect menstrual cramps. Wait, is that a memory from my previous life? Great, the first thing I remember has to be that of all things. She shook her head. That would be the area of her uterus. She had a sneaking suspicion what that might mean.

She walked on, feeling pulled onward by more than her previous decision to try to avoid predators. The Hive Queen’s instincts were driving her. In the back of her mind, she was aware of that, but she didn’t really care. It wasn’t doing much of anything, anyway.

She reached the hills and climbed one of them until she got to a good spot. It was a little secluded, sheltered under a rock overhang, but not too far from the cover of the forest. She crouched down and started pushing away stones, then digging out a few handfuls of dirt until she made a small hollow.

She sat back, brushed off her hands and sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. The fight had been a whirlwind of adrenaline and danger. She must have taken longer than she thought, since it was already getting dark. The sun was setting somewhere beyond the forest, painting the western horizon orange, and the there was less and less light to see by. It had been a hell of a first day, even if it only lasted a few hours for her. But she wasn’t finished with it yet.

She could feel the pressure increasing. It was an uncomfortable sensation, though not as much as she might have thought. It wasn’t really painful, but a sensation of something gathering, preparing to come out.

And with it, she felt something else stirring. She realized she’d dimly sensed it before, but she’d been too preoccupied with other things to actually notice it. But it was there, like an energy spread all throughout her body, and it was gathering now, too, as she instinctively prepared it for something.

Then the pressure abruptly eased, like a bubble popping. She leaned back and propped herself up with one arm behind her as she instinctively reached forward with the other, just catching something in her hand. She even saw what almost looked like a faint sparkle around it, if it hadn’t been a trick of the light.

She held an egg, colored the same grayish brown as her own shell. She turned it over in her hands, checking it out. Then, she carefully put it down in the hollow she’d made, watching curiously. At first, it had been about the size of a chicken egg, but now it seemed to be growing, almost as if it had been compressed and was unfolding. In the end, it fit perfectly in the indentation, and she estimated it to be at least twenty centimeters tall. She had a feeling that wasn’t even its full size.

She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose and stood up. So. That happened.

Actually, the feeling of having made an egg wasn’t all that weird. Her human memories indicated she should probably freak out, but it felt perfectly natural. And she was a Hive Queen now. She probably should have expected something like this.

She eyed the egg suspiciously, then poked it. Its shell was pretty hard, and a little warm. She didn’t know what was going to come out of it. What if it was another monster that would be hostile? Some species didn’t exactly go in for family ties. Well, if that was the case, judging by the size at least it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to deal with.

Besides, it was probably fine. She was a Hive Queen; she should have a hive. Right? She would have preferred to just stumble on one, though. Or even better, be born in an established hive in safety and comfort.

By now, night was falling in earnest. She glanced around. This place was a little more sheltered than the top of the hills, but still pretty exposed. She didn’t like the thought of sleeping here, alone on the ground, where any monster could come at her.

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She needed to sleep, she couldn’t keep awake the whole night. This was a dangerous environment and she needed to stay sharp. Besides, she’d have to sleep sooner or later, or she’d literally kill herself. She was already exhausted. Her low-light vision appeared to be pretty good, probably better than the human norm, but she wasn’t confident that she could spot every monster or even just normal predatory animal that might be coming for her.

Her instincts wanted her to protect the egg, but she needed to protect herself, too, and that was more important.

With a last regretful look back, she turned and made her way back to the forest. She would choose a tree that was close by, where she could keep an eye on it. Luckily, the trees on the edge close to the rocky hills were still tall. She found one that looked promising, a big one with a thick trunk and some wide upper branches.

She climbed up carefully, then tried to make herself comfortable. The tree had a fork from its trunk that gave her a wide enough base, and thick enough branches she wasn’t afraid of them breaking under her weight. She would have preferred to tie herself to the trunk or something, but she didn’t see any more of the climbing vines, and she’d lost the one she had somewhere along the way. It wouldn’t have been much good, anyway. Too short.

There was a bit of a hole in the canopy above her, enough to let her see the night sky. She stared up at it for a long time, mesmerized by the stars.

There didn’t appear to be any moon. Sure, it could just be a new moon night. In fact, it probably was. But a part of her thought there genuinely might not be a moon here.

She hadn’t thought much about it, but by now she had to consider the possibility that she wasn’t in her own world anymore. If she’d ever actually been there in the first place. She was quite sure they didn’t have monsters like that there. Or the blue boxes that occasionally showed up. She really needed to figure out how to get more information from them.

Still, this place seemed to be, in general, friendly to civilization. There had to be humans around somewhere, too, right? Or at least some sapient species. Maybe elves or dwarves, who knew what sort of fantasy world she’d landed in? But she didn’t know how they would react to her. She looked like a monster. A humanoid one, but still.

She sighed and turned, trying to find a more comfortable position. It was getting colder, though the temperature wasn’t below what she couldn’t tolerate, so far.

“I need a name,” she said to herself.

Why hadn’t she thought of that before? She really should have a name, everyone did.

But what kind of name? Try as she might, she couldn’t remember what her name had been before. It was as if the information was simply purged from her memory, along with all other personal details. She had to have had one before, but she doubted she’d even recognize it if someone said it now.

Alright, then she just needed to give herself a new name. Easy enough. She sighed. Okay, let’s get started. What do I know about myself?

She was a new Hive Queen. That was pretty much all.

Maybe she should just call herself ‘Queen’? She frowned to herself. No, that’s far too simple. I’d be embarrassed trying to introduce myself.

Well, how about ‘Regina’? That should fit. It was actually a real name, that some people had, right? It was still a little on-the-nose, to be fair, but she liked the sound of it.

Regina smiled to herself as she turned again, then finally closed her eyes. She breathed deeply, snuggling into the hard surface of the tree, and let some of the tension drain out of her.

She expected sleep to be hard to find, but the day had exhausted her. She listened to the sounds of the forest for a while, gradually slipping into slumber.

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