Chapter 25: Chapter 25

The rain lessened over night, but it didn’t stop completely and the temperature rose back to normal. The moths hadn’t been active too or at least they hadn’t gone south this time. The rain was likely at fault here.

Kai stretched and yawned heavily. She looked out of the door of her room. The treetops were hidden by the low hanging clouds and it was a bit darker than usual. The rain or rather the spray was still going on happily and it didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon.

Kai grimaced. Her fur wouldn’t get as wet as if it rained fully, but it would get damp and she imagined that to feel rather cold. 

A shudder went up her spine. This weather was worse than rain and there was no way she would go outside if she didn’t have to. They would definitely go with meeting plan B.

Anna organized them something to eat and they had breakfast together. When they finished eating two of her daughters came by to take the egg with them so the meeting wouldn’t get disturbed should the worker hatch. Kai thought it was stupid to do this because she would pause the meeting for her daughter, but Anna was of the opinion that it was better that way wether Kai paused the meeting or not and she had oblidged her daughter, again. She really did that too often lately.

After they had finished eating, the others started to arrive one after another. Kai made sure to greet them all properly with a tight hug much to Anna’s and Artemis’ displeasure. Ember and Tiffany enjoyed it though so everything was alright. Sometimes she had to ignore the two cold iron rods.

With Erika the hug was altogether another matter. Like her other daughters the girl was not used to treating Kai like a mother or getting treated like a daughter by her. Kai could still smell that Erika liked it and saw it by the slight smile that appeared on her face too.

When everyone was present and seated, Kai sat down on her bed and decided to start this sitting. She had to smile at her little pun and everyone looked at her in anticipation.

Kai noticed the others' gazes and cleared her throat. “Right, I think we all know why we are here so there is no need to explain this again.”

She swallowed some saliva that was threatening to clog her throat. “ With this I institute the first-”

Oh shoot! She had forgotten the name she had thought of for this. Kai had to think of something cool fastly. 

Just as the pause was about to reach uncomfortable length, something good popped into her mind. “-I declare the first National Assembly for Defensive affairs opened!” Damn, the name was even better than her first one, but did she have to make it obvious that she had forgotten the name by changing what she had wanted to say mid sentence?

Her daughters smiled at her in amusement and Kai blushed underneath her fur, which increased the amusement of the others. Screw that emotional smelling!

At least she wouldn’t have the same problem with other species, hopefully… If they could then she wouldn’t be able to hide her feelings from them, though she had the best training partners to work on that problem she could wish for so it might not be all that bad in the end.

Kai clasped her hands together. “So, who wants to start?”

The others looked at each other, but nobody seemed to be keen on starting and if Anna had even thought of something Kai didn’t know in the first place. She was sure however that it would be something crazy just for her.

The awkward moment stretched on a bit longer so the queen decided that she would break the ice by starting this. “I will go first then.”

She scratched her head a bit in embarrassment, because the only thing she had thought of likely wouldn’t work. “I had thought about building some kind of wall, but I don’t think that’s a good idea anymore, because we would have to build some kind of drainage system.”

Tiffany nodded in agreement. “We had thought of that too, but as you said mom, that wouldn’t work. We need digging tools for that and then we would have to test out the best way to do this first.”

Erika looked thoughtfully at Tiffy. “What about trenches?”

Tiffany shook her head. “It, again, won't work.”

She looked at Erika. “While we can dig shallow trenches with our hands, small sticks and the help of the drones, we can’t go down for more than around 20cm. The layer of loose dirt ends there and we would need tools to continue.” 20 cm would allow for pretty good drainage normally, but considering the small waterfall that had come down the trunk of the tree yesterday, Kai had to agree that trenches wouldn’t work.

Erika frowned disappointedly. “That’s a shame.”

A few seconds of thoughtful silence set in and Kai decided to just direct the whole thing so it wouldn’t take them forever. “Does anyone else want to share something?”

Artemis raised her hand and Kai gestured for her to speak. “If we manage to get a long branch or something that is as thick as an arm I am pretty sure I could build a bow for myself.”

That intrigued Kai. She had always thought bows were difficult to craft and you needed something like hair for the bow string. “How would you build the string though?”

Artemis shrugged. “I think that dried sinew of dead animals would work perfectly, though it would have to be the back sinew and preferably from an animal the size of the ponies or bigger. Actually the tail hair of the ponies would be perfect.”

Using sinew was pretty disgusting, but Kai could see how that might work. She ignored her squeamishness about using inner parts of animals and looked at her hive map and searched around for a second. She had marked any notable resources the drones had found and there should have been a few larger bushes that might work for Artemis. She couldn’t do anything about the pony hairs for now.

Kai nodded when she found a suitable bush. “There are a few scarce bushes that have arm thick trunks. The closest would be to the south, but you wouldn’t get more than maybe a meter to work with.”

Artemis thought about it for a second. “It should still work, at least for a short bow. The bow wouldn’t be all that good of course and I will only know if the wood is good for a bow once I try crafting it.” 

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That was fine with Kai. She looked around at the others. “Does anyone have something more urgent that the wood is needed for? Otherwise I am going to share the locations of the bushes with Artemis so she can harvest them once we have an axe.”

The others all shook their heads and Kai sighed relieved. That was the first thing they had going for them. Bows would increase their danger level a lot even if they could only shoot effectively for like 20 meters. It was still better than having to fight against a hell moth or a different large creature with simple spears.

Ember was the next who spoke up and she did so in her usual excitement when she was talking about clothes. “If we could skin the dead animals that would be perfect! I can use the dried hides for clothes and armor and other things. We could even use larger ones as substitutes for doors!”

Kai had been convinced the moment Ember had mentioned armors. Having Artemis and others that went out hunting and fighting armored would do a lot to lessen her worries for them. “Done! You can start once we have a knife for that.”

Ember bumped her fist into the air. “Yes!”

Kai smiled at her little cloth freak. Ember could be really cute and out of all her daughters she behaved the most like a child.

Tiffany raised her hand and Kai pushed away that idle thought of hers before she nodded for Tiffy to start speaking. “Well, we actually did a little meeting ourselves yesterday and there was a lot that we are unable to do without metals and or stone.”

She smiled. “What we can do is start building the second hive floor however. That way the first floor underneath would get a lot safer in case of a moth attack. We also already planned ventilation and drainage so that shouldn’t be a problem.” 

Building was Tiffany’s passion, that was for sure. There was this little glint in her daughter's eyes though, that told Kai they had planned something unnecessary complicated. 

She eyed her daughter for a second to make sure that it was about building something incredible and not her before she smiled. “You are the building expert here, Tiffy, make your hive proud.”

Tiffany grinned at that. “Ohh we will mother, you can be sure of it.” Well, now the girl had raised expectations to live up to, though if Kai knew her well she would manage to break them somehow.

That seemed to be everything from Tiffy for now so Kai looked at Erika. “Do you have anything you want to share, Erika?”

The girl shyly fiddled around with her fur a bit. “Uhm. I am working on all matters of tools right now, but the rain set the whole project back, because everything got wet again.”

She scratched her head in an unsure manner. “I think I could use some of the animal innards for simple bags or containers for fluids once they are dry, but that doesn’t have to do anything with defense.” That wasn’t quite right.

Kai smiled kindly at Erika. “That is awesome Erika. They do have something to do with defense, just being able to carry more things and having water with you can help a lot so please do your best.”

Erika brightened up at the praise. “Okay, I will try, uhh- mother.” Then she hid her face behind her hands, but Kai could smell that Erika was excited about having called her mother.

The queen had to suppress a grin at her daughter's reaction and turned to her left. She kind of dreaded what would come next, but it had to be done.

Kai looked at Anna and directly into her eyes. “Do you have an idea you would like to share, Anna?” Please don’t!

Anna turned thoughtful and Kai already knew that she had lost. “Well, we could build bridges out of giant ropes made of our silk between the titan trees my lady. They would make good defense positions and retreat ropes.”

She cleared her throat. “I mean routes.”

Tiffany crossed her arms in front of her chest. “That would take at least a hundred workers and they would need more than a month for such a large amount of silk. Also how would we put the bridges up there? They would weigh too much to do it by hand.”

Kai cheered internally for Tiffany. She was doing a good job in preventing Anna from starting project forest fortress for Kai’s safety. Also known as project ff for their enemies.

Anna looked at her sister and raised an eyebrow. “You could connect the bridges to the different floors of the hive and start from there. Then you could build pillars between the trees to do the bridges section by section and when you are done you deconstruct the pillars again.”

A light lit up in Tiffany’s eyes. “That’s a genius idea Anna! I have to tell the others about it!”

Kai’s last defender had been lost to madness. She looked at Anna. “Do you have to do all that for me? Couldn’t you just go for something less incredible like walls instead?”

Anna smiled innocently. “I would do everything for you, my lady and do not fret, the walls will come.”

Kai didn’t like that answer, but what could she do against this devil?

It wasn’t like these things wouldn’t create more safety for the rest of her daughters too.

One thing was sure though they were done for with the first state assembly so she ended the meeting with a sigh.

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