Chapter 5: Chapter 4 - Cry of the Hunters

Arms continued their journey, trampling weeds and saplings under their enormous two great pillars of bone, shifting like pendulums in a gorilla-like walk, chest-mouth now continuously open as the beast got used to using their tongue as a grasping-organ, for the first time in their roughly 5 hours of living they experienced being outside of their forest environment. There was green-hair, what Leader had called grass here too, except that instead of green it was the colour of Wings’ spots, yellow-gold. The gold-grass was very tall and existed in a huge field before green began again, Arms approached the field, looking over where there were humans inside the goldgrass, wielding metal claws like Wings’ own, the humans were really weird looking- the same colour as trees, even darker, but they had feathers on their heads, long and stream-like, like skinny antennae, black as the back of an eyelid. The humans were about as tall as Arms’ elbows, although it’s true that those elbows were quite splayed out, so the humans nearly reached the shoulder, they’d be taller than Noisemaker and about as tall as Leader, probably as short as Wings’ hips. They were covered in fuzz but unlike their face-fuzz the body-fuzz was different colours, sometimes blue like Leader and sometimes red like fruits, some let their body-fluff slack, revealing that it could be peeled from the body in a much more convenient manner than a bird’s feathers. They looked juicier than a bird.

Humans were beginning to gather around their nests, staying a distance away from Arms, all watching with their very white eyes, it was very clear that they had noticed the bone-white beast t the edge of the forest, Arms watched to see what they would do, they chattered between themselves in little yelping sounds.

There were a lot of humans, only about 3 had metal claws, which was weird, those ones all stayed in the goldgrass. A lot of the humans didn’t have a coat on their body around the chest area either, letting it slack to their waist, some had two lumps on their trunk which waggled as they walked – those ones looked a bit different to the ones with smaller chests, perhaps a kind of ‘type’ system like the family had? Although the differences between Arms and, for example, Wings, were much more pronounced than mere fat nodules and a couple inches of height.

Arms saw that the rocks in front of its path were actually stacked together into a wall, like what Noisemaker was doing, a structure, except made of chunks of grey stone, Arms put a clawed hand onto the wall and tried to swing over it, though their body was huge they certainly had the strength to hold it up on one limb! The wall did not feature such strength.

Without warning, Arms rushed through the air, rotating and becoming backwards, then upside down, then planted on their back, rocking back and forth; with stubby feet waggling in the air, suddenly relieved of hundreds of kilograms that now weighed entirely on the protective plates of the back, obelisk arms swinging wildly halfway between an attempt to upright the body, and a kinaesthetic cry of pain.

Arms became deeply aware of the way its back looked for the first time, their spine was protected with two rows of plates crested up against eachother, now pushed up against the ground and digging deep into the soft tissues underneath. “OOOOOOOOooooooooooommmmmm” The beast softly moaned, struggling to upright causing bone to dig deeper into nerves. “OOOooooooom”

This really hurts, but not just in the body, also in the mind as they felt so so very helpless for the first time ever, and they realised that their tummy, soft-skinned, was now exposed to the cold cold air and whatever nasties were lurking where Arms could no longer see.

“Oooom.”

Clouds of ‘:[’ pheromones were collecting in the area.

To the humans, this was a smell like tangy oranges. The people murmured between themselves. Some laughed. Some winced. A woman with her hair in a knot, wearing blue pantaloons and not much else, began to say quite loudly “Let’s help it!”

Another woman with a sickle, wearing feathers in her leather headband to denote ownership of land, cried “Scare it off!”

The village chief pushed forwards, wearing shining godcoals in her turban to denote authority, and an auroch skull on her staff to denote wisdom. She said loudly, “Stay a safe distance, for now, we don’t know what the beast is or what it wants, gather your weapons, gather food as offering. Appeasement is wise, but not always possible.

Wings climbed on stilt-limbs, touching each tree with their claws, buzzing rhythmically for its own amusement. Arms must’ve been afraid of using pheromones to guide other family to their location but at least they left behind a comedic trail of destruction, footprints so deep they could rightfully be called holes.

When they exited from under the trees they could straighten out, like a watchtower of a fuzzy round body, its shell-face watching out at the crowds of humans observing Arms’ flailing. “What’ve you done now, oaf.” Wings did NOT like being watched by the humans.

‘:[[[[[[’ responded Arms. “Oom”-ing softly.

“Right, hold still - I said hold still!” Arms gave submission pheromones as Wings’ long arms wrapped around the hulk’s torso, grabbing onto the convenient cracks in the slate-like carapace.

Wings flapped its wings to assist in lift. “BZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” But to no avail. These freshly stretched flight-organs, now grown to about half the length of the rest of the body, were still not enough to lift the sheer density of Arms. Wings hoped that nobody else was watching.

‘Let me help.’ It was Leader following behind. There was a subtle difference in smell for their and Noisemaker’s pheromones which Wings had not yet picked up on.

Perhaps Leader possessed some sort of, as-of-yet-unseen, strength.

They did not.

“Oooom” Softly cried Arms. The orange-smell of ‘:[’ becoming quite noxious.

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The beast watched as Leader leaned to one side, impotently pulling its frail form in two, then they caught sight of the humans and quickly backed away, ‘uh oh.’

Arms felt a new pair of claws, a fleshy small hand that split into five fleshy tubules-claws, like Leader’s only fatter, then another came, and another. Arms looked to its side, a human was pushing along against the mass, while Wings buzzed and Leader paused their yanking to watch the humans, with suspicion.

Again, a pair of hands cautiously approached from the goldengrass, more and more, until forty or more humans sat, lifting, straining, they glistened with a secreted slime as they struggled in the hot weather, one or more took their clothes off to perhaps draw more moisture through their skin or something of the like, maybe they ate the sun with their skin too.

Larval humans began too, the act of assisting the creature appearing to remove their fear. What was initially viewed as a horrific beast had rapidly become a helpless one, and indeed the family began to feel helpless, Wings in particular was offering up much ‘fear’ into the air – they were all quite outnumbered, surrounded by a pack of what Leader had called a most dangerous enemy.

Arms waggled their foot and suddenly, amazingly, it touched the joyous and beautiful soil once again, huzzah! Triumphant pheromones were released! ‘Triumph! Triumph!’

The humans made smacking sounds with their hands, some jumped on the spot, many pulled back their mandible’s sheaths to reveal crushing and cutting teeth, forty eyes, bright white among the otherwise dark skin, all peering directly into the faces of the family, or at one-another, discussing, unfurling their teeth, some moving away, some stepping closer.

Wings began to exhale ‘fear’ as they would breathe air, taking a step back from the horde. The humans appeared to respect a safe distance, mostly remaining in range of Arms, sometimes touching the familiar boney plates, Arms did not appear to respond, staying deathly still.

Leader exuded smells, ‘Having watched long enough in this foolish endeavour I seek to remind the most of you that not only is fraternising with our foes highly irresponsible but that the all of you are behind schedule. You must begin.We must begin laying eggs, yes, Wings will be egglaying in the morning, I will in a few days yet, then Arms, I don’t know about you, though.’ The voices in the smells were mixing.

Noisemaker crept out of the trees, the interrupting speaker, steam rising from their pores that was, in fact, full of pheromones, command pheromones.

‘Do not interrupt me! How. How. My signals should take precedent!’ Leader waved their arms up aggressively, baffled, the humans were backing off, they were intimidated, though Leader looked quite similar to them at a glance and could easily be killed by just one member of the species.

Noisemaker waggled its tails ‘Keep away from the humans, you’re vulnerable, we aren’t.’

Leader emitted a thick cloud of command hormones ‘Do. Not. Command. Me.’ The clash of pheromones seemed nauseating.Noisemaker gave submission pheromones, less than usual.

Arms directed a question at Noisemaker. “Humans are nice, why do we have to kill them.”

Leader answered ‘THEY are not just some animals you can train and eat and play with THEY are builders. For every unit of humans you leave alive you can have twenty come back, with fire, with cannons, with delta-particle emitters, a human will wipe you to dust, will kill you just for fun, just because a few humans wanted to feel nice to be helping what they saw as a helpless animal, that doesn’t make them nice. They’re natural killers and the moment even their COMFORT is threatened by you. They’ll kill you, no matter how torturously. They do it to eachother.’

Wings’ wings were kept low, “why don’t we go back, it’s getting cold.” The temperature was comfortable.

Clumps of humans trailed into their nests and fields, the one with the long hair and two fat-sacks and pantaloons was sat, cross-legged, watching the creatures before her. She was making scritching noises on a little white parchment with a little brown claw.

Arms emitted clouds of ‘gratitude’ at the humans, hoping it meant something to them, before returning back in through the path it had carved in the underbrush. Wings bent down, their knees at eye-level as they walked under the short trees, sometimes walking as a tripod with one arm.

Noisemaker announced to Leader ‘She’s going to follow us.’

‘I know. How do you know it’s a ‘she’ ‘

‘I have memories from before I was born, they come in waves… What is a ‘she?’’

Leader paused for a moment, ‘I think it’s something to do with laying eggs? I’m not sure, but it seems right.’

‘Huh, but we’re supposed to lay eggs, are we ‘shes?’’

‘Logically, maybe, but I don’t think so, I think there’s more to it than just eggs.’ Leader looked up. ‘When she comes, and she will, we’re going to have to kill her.’

Noisemaker looked up at Arms and Wings, walking ahead, together, chittering between themselves, their familial pheromones trailing behind, ‘I think, I think I understand.

‘Do you?’ A thought entered the worm’s mind.

‘What’s a type 0.12 civilization?’

‘It means they can make fire and they can dig for rocks.

‘What’s fire? Wait, no, it’s coming to me now.’

Leader, who Noisemaker realised was the only family whose name was the same as what the memories called them, began walking after the other two, Noisemaker, who the memories called Engineer, lagged behind, ocular antennae pointed behind them.

They sighed.

Out of the silence, the family heard a noise of rustling plants near the entrance to the forest, now far behind them.

The girl had brought another human, they were dragging an entire Auroch behind themselves and they kneeled, waving up their hands, making space for the dead bull.

‘It’s for us.’

Arms emitted a pheromone ‘:]’ “Let’s not kill them yet please.”