The rules of insects

A day after the fight…

The soil crunches beneath Arthur’s boots as he marches through the glowing forest. Asa trails behind him in silence. Her clothes are scuffed from last night’s escape, and her hands occasionally glow as she brushes against a mushroom or reaches out to stabilize herself.

“You don’t have to come,” Arthur mutters, not turning around.

“I’m not just following you,” Asa says. “I’m tracking our friend, wether you admit it or not!”

“You don’t sound like yourself,” Arthur says. “Are you mimicking that monster?”

“Don’t call him a monster!” Asa shouts, runs forward to turn him around, just to see the tears that Arthur doesn’t even notice are falling from his eyes..

He shrugs her off. “Don’t bond with what you have to kill.”

The trees - if they can be called that - stretch high above, their fungal caps pulsing with a slow, continuously changing light. Around them, different insects roaming around. They still keep their distance from the outsiders, but their expressions are not that of enemy anymore.

Arthur clenches his fists. The forest feels…more gentle toward them than yesterday. He hates it. This place, a monsters’ territory, dare to spare the heroes of humans! Or is there something else…

He shakes his head vigorously as an act of refusal.

“What did the monsters do when I was unconscious?” Arthur asks.

“They’ve been feeding us,” Asa replies softly. “Some insects have left food just outside our tents thrice.”

Arthur scoffs, but his eyes can’t look straight. “Trying to bribe us with snacks doesn’t change what they are.”

“And what are they?” Asa asks, her tone is more aggressive. “And don’t just say ‘monsters’ like a stubborn racist.”

Arthur opens his mouth, then shuts it, pretending not to notice Asa’s words.

They walk in silence, until a soft shimmer of web glints ahead, barely visible beneath the morning glow.

It looks like…a gate.

It is not created from wood or stone like Tanerag’s, but from overlapping silk, woven between two enormous mushroom trunks. It looks fragile, but Arthur’s experience with Spidaract’s silk indicates otherwise.

Asa steps forward, squinting at the weave. There is nothing to lock the entrance, not even a door.

“This isn’t meant to stop intruders,” she says. “It’s more like a marker.”

“Should this be the arachnas’ village?” Arthur guesses.

“I think so.”

Arthur stares at the entrance but doesn’t step through. His voice drops lower.

“Then he is in there.”

Far deeper into the forest, past that gate and past the shimmering fungi, Spidaract walks between silent watchers.

They move like him and look like him. They are eight-legged creatures, their bodies are low to the ground, with twitching limbs and slick exoskeletons. They look like smaller and less intimidating versions of Spidaract.

There are at least a dozen of them: some carry herbs, some wrap bandages made from silk, some hold young insects from other species in their mouth - fireflies, ants, even a battered cicada.

This place operates like…a hospital? A village fully dedicated to healing.

Spidaract feels a sense of familiarity as if he has lived here for his entire life.

Around him are huts made from softened mushroom caps and web. Glowing moss illuminates the interiors and provides light for the whole village. The air smells of boiled roots and bitter resin.

One arachna brushes past him, then bows slightly, before returning to weaving a tight cocoon over a wounded cricket’s thorax.

An older and larger arachna emerges from a den of silk and gestures for Spidaract to follow.

They move in silence until they reach a hollowed-out chamber, where a fire burns blue-green and smoke climbs through a vent in the ceiling.

“I am grateful you are back, your majesty,” the old one says, voice rasping.

Spidaract looks around, just to find himself in a pond so pure that it makes a great mirror.

“Me?” He asks while tilting his head.

“You have always known that, right?” He says. “I mean, you’ve followed the rules of Velkath just the moment you come here.”

“I didn’t come for your throne,” Spidaract replies flatly.

“But it is yours and has always waited for you,” the elder says. “It has always been the plan, until the king of humans took you away.”

Spidaract stiffens. “What do you mean ‘the plan’?”

The elder Arachna gestures to the glowing roots embedded in the wall. Faint pulses run along them like a heartbeat.

“We fed your mother that to increase your growth and muscle density,” the elder says. “There used to be more, but you are a really costly boy.”

Spidaract lowers his voice.

“But I don’t have any memories here.”

The elder nods. “Humans took you away.”

“That’s…predictable.”

Back outside the gate, Arthur paces in circles.

“Waiting here is just wasting time!” he says, frustrated.

“You’re not ready to confront him again,” Asa flatly replies.

“I’ll decide that!”

“He could have killed you last time.”

Arthur stops.

Then his shoulders sag, and he leans against a tree.

“I just don’t get it,” he murmurs. “He used to follow my lead.”

“No,” Asa says gently. “He used to agree with your goals.”

Arthur shoots her a look.

“Not the same thing,” she adds.

A cricket hops past his their sight, pauses for a moment to watch them, then continues hopping to grab parts of the mushroom.

“Why aren’t they attacking us?” he asks while looking at the giant creature that can pose a serious threat.

“I think it’s because you’re not hurting anything,” Asa answers. “Maybe the way this forest operates is more complicated than we thought.”

Arthur breathes out slowly. The defiance still burns, but his head has cooled down, at least just for now.

In the village, Spidaract watches as a wounded centipede is wrapped in silk and fed crushed herbs. Its body releases a scent that can’t be described by humans’ language, but Spidaract understands that it indicates pain.

He crouches near it.

“Why save this one?” He asks.

“Would you do it?” The elder asks back.

“Yes, but logically, it would be a waste of time and effort,” Spidaract says.

“The forest works on instinct, not logic.”

Spidaract closes his eyes.

Then whispers, more to himself:

“So ones without the natives’ instinct…no wonder why Arthur fails here.”

Arthur sits by the gate, watching threads shimmer between trees. Behind him, Asa hums a soft tune - the same one she used to calm herself when she realized Arthur had hid her about the duel test.

“Should I come in to apologize to Spidaract?” He asks, not looking at Asa.

“You…that would be great, go ahead then,” she happily replies.

“Yes…that would be…” Arthur says with his eyes half closed and one of his daggers on the hip.