Chapter 36: Chapter 36

Kai looked concerned to the north where she assumed the home of the moths to be. In her opinion this fight had only gone this well, because they had fought only a single moth. Now that the beasts knew where to go though, this was likely going to be the last time they came alone.

She looked at the corpse of the moth with a frown. With each fight they were also losing more of their fully grown drones. Sure, they could send the smaller ones into the fight too, but they weren’t quite as capable at evading attacks and dealing damage like the older drones.

Suddenly Anna stepped into Kai’s view and embraced her tightly before kissing her on the forehead. 

Kai blinked dumbfounded, not quite able to understand what was going one, but still able to notice her other daughters doing the same to each other. A slight smile crept onto her face. They weren’t really intending to use that as a victory pose every single time, were they?

Anna grabbed Kai’s shoulders and smiled into her face. “You know you can worry about the future after enjoying a victory, your majesty.”

Kai cocked her head. Her daughter was right. She could worry later, especially after they were done preparing for the next night.

She hugged Anna back and, before her daughter could do anything against it, lifted her into the air. Kai looked at all her daughters and took a deep breath, preparing a shout. “Chrrkriiik!”

That had admittedly not been what she wanted to say and she hadn’t even known she could make this sound, but in the spur of the moment it was what had come out of her mouth. 

Her daughters looked at her for a long moment, a very long one. Then as one they copied the cry of their queen. “Chrrkriiik!”

Kai sighed softly. The victory cry of her had obviously been intended and totally, completely planned. Anna eyed her from the side and Kai smiled weakly at her while pushing away the silly thoughts.

An excited Ember ran past the two towards the moth corps. “MORE SILK!”

Anna huffed a bit annoyed at the behavior of her sister and Kai couldn’t help herself but smile in amusement. She had no idea what exactly Ember needed the silk for as the girl already had tons of the stuff, but hey there was no such thing as having too much.

Kai looked at Anna and scratched her chin while she considered her last sentence. Maybe she should take back the last part of her thought.

Ember began to viciously saw into the back of the moth with a stone knife in an attempt to widen the hole the silk had come out last time and a much more composed Erika walked past Kai, only stopping for a quick bow, to join her sister in looting the hunt.

Right, if they wanted to get some sleep before the night they should start cleaning everything up.

Kai turned to face the rest of her family again. The drones had already started to drag away their fallen to somewhere she wouldn’t have to witness them eating the corpses. 

She clapped her hands together to get her daughter's attention. A rather useless action considering that they were always paying attention to her when she was around. “That has to be enough of a break or we won’t be able to rest in preparation for tonight.”

She looked around to make sure they knew she was talking to all of them. “If a few of you could help Erika and Ember with their work that would be great.”

She paused for a moment to think. “It might be best if you leave most of the moth cadaver where it is right now. It could serve as a distraction for the other moths tonight, one never knows.” Some animals did eat their own kind.

Kai got a resounding nod of agreement and some of her daughters broke out of the group to join the bloody harvest.

Speaking of blood, she vaguely gestured towards the mess left behind on the hive floor and some of the room walls. “If the rest of you would be so kind and clean the hive, that would be nice.”

Kai increased the volume of her voice so those that had already gone to do something would still be able to hear here. “Actually, all of you who can birth a drone should do that first and help with the rest afterwards.”

She clasped her hands together in front of her chest and smiled brightly. “Thanks for all your hard work!”

Her daughters all smiled happily at that and got to work.

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Kai poked a stone faced Anna in the side. “The thanks was for you too.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Yes, I am quite aware, your majesty.”

The queen pouted a bit. “You are no fun.”

Her daughter raised an eyebrow at that. “Weren’t you the one who was super worried a few minutes ago?”

Kai looked at Anna innocently and started to walk towards the corpse. “I don’t know what you are talking about, my dear daughter.”

Anna shook her head and followed Kai.

Kai wanted to ask Erika if she could make anything useful with the moth, hence her walking towards the gory scene of opened bloody flesh and skinned equally bloody hide her daughters were creating.

She found Erika sitting in front of the moth’s face, sucking on her thumb. It was something rather human like and reminded her of her own childhood. Kai looked at her daughter a bit concerned. “Are you okay Erika?”

Erika looked up, took her thump out of her mouth and nodded. “I am alright. It’s just-”

She gestured at the mandibles of the moth. “Those things are really sharp. Like really, really, really sharp.”

Kai raised an eyebrow. Surely they weren’t that sharp. She reached for one of the things out of curiosity, but Anna stopped her midway. “I don’t think that is a good idea, your majesty.”

Kai was about to retort, but decided to just huff instead. Her daughter wasn’t wrong. Kai was by no means more skilled than Erika when it came to harvesting body parts and if her daughter had already cut herself on the things it was likely for her to do the same.

Kai sighed and let go of her useless need to prove herself to her daughters right now. She looked at Erika once more. “Can you use them to craft something that could give us something more tonight?”

Her daughter sucked at her thumb absentmindedly while she thought about it before she nodded slowly. “With the bones of the moth I could craft some kind of slashing polearm. It will be useless for piercing though.”

She pointed to the side where a bone had been laid down. “The bones of this thing are hollow and are more likely to break than pierce anything.”

She looked at 6 different mandibles of the moth again. “With these sharp beauties though, we should still be able to harm a moth without applying too much pressure on the bone.”

Kai listened carefully and considered this before she nodded to Erika. “I think it would be good to have those as an option next to the javelins. If you could craft them before tonight that would be great. You can get yourself help if you need it.”

Erika inclined her head in agreement. “It will be done, your majesty.”

Kai smiled kindly. “Thanks Erika.”

Then she turned around and walked back to the hive. The others had already collected all the bone javelins and sorted them into broken ones and those that needed a bit sharpening. Now they were taking the bloody silk out of the hive floor and deposited it to the side. They would later just throw it into the river as Kai wasn’t comfortable leaving things near the hive that could possibly make some of them ill. She definitely had to work out something better in the regard of waste disposal.

Kai wandered over to her room and made herself comfortable next to her bed. She hadn’t washed herself yet and didn’t want to get it dirty, even though she was pretty sure her daughters were changing the silk every time she was training with Anna. It by no means meant she should make more of a mess.

Having settled down she prepared herself to lay two worker eggs. While the others were doing their job to help survive she would do her part as the queen. It definitely had nothing to do with egg laying feeling good.

Kai looked at a mischievous smiling Anna and blushed slightly underneath her fur. Would she ever be able to do this without being embarrassed?

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