Translator’s Note: some Naiad concepts, such as their definition of units of time, bear only a passing resemblance to those utilized by ‘deadtone’ species. To aid in readers’ understanding of certain passages, these expressions have been replaced by comparable organic terminology.
~
Aramburu asked, half-rolling from side to side. The gesture reflected his anxiety and confusion and the question tasted like collapsing probability waves. He asked the question of all his siblings, but it was truly directed at Bathory. Though she wasn’t the oldest among the quartet of young Naiads – indeed, Tamerlane had more than her by more than a decade – she’d become the de facto leader of their small group. She was the one that the Spears spoke to most often and the one who had been given the duty of travelling to the Silent Stars as a herald.
Bathory was quiet. She didn’t have an answer for her brother and for the first time in months she suddenly felt how truly small and inexperienced she was. She had expected her sisters’ arrival to be a moment of celebration and dark anticipation for the melodies that they and the Spears would weave and the fires that they’d unleash. Instead, everything had gone terribly wrong.
the young predator finally replied, her ablative hull plates shifting and a kaleidoscope of colours chasing each other around their seams. In front of her was the last thing she’d thought would happen, the very last thing she’d wanted and she didn’t know how to stop any of it.
In front of her senses, her family and the beings she’d come to respect were about to tear each other apart.