Undersoil · Play

From inside the nest

Dark soil, lit from the chambers. Raise daughters. Carry them through a year. The winged ones fly, or they do not.

What can arrive

Rain at the door. Strangers at the gate. Frost at night. Stores running thin. The queen speaks only then, and only to warn. Short. Calm. Never a joke.

“The rain is coming. Seal the door.” “Something hunts at the entrance.” “It is time. Let them fly.”

The nest at night: the same cross-section, the surface dark, chambers still visible in the soil.
The same colony after dark. Play lives down here.

The other door

If you want the daylight, the whole hill at once, and no warnings, that is Watch.

When Steam is up