I’d love to say that my assumptions were correct however, with us currently marching towards another location, I fear we are moving dens again. It had only been a few days since we discovered that strange scent when Mother and Father woke us up and nudged us out of our new cosy den. A little bleary-eyed from having my sleeping schedule disturbed, I noticed the scent – which had been fading – had grown thicker once again.

Sibling No.5 yawned beside me as she groggily followed our parents on her unsteady paws. Not wanting her to trail behind the group, I made sure to nuzzle her every now and then to rouse her from her drowsiness. Siblings No.3 and 4 were busy chasing each other as we marched along, while sibling No.1 padded in front of us and kept pace with Mother and Father, “The sycophant!”

As we ventured towards our new den, I noticed the landscape gradually changing from a dry grassy environment – with some muddy patches here and there – to a more luscious area filled with crystalline structures jutting out of the ground. Other observations I made were of large jagged mounds towering into the sky a vast distance from us. “Mountains,” I thought, even though I don’t know how I knew that.

Quite a large pond – around twenty times larger than the one at our first den – could be seen, with a stretched pond moving from one direction to another into the larger one. “A lake and river…Huh?” Again, I seemed to recall words I’d never heard before when seeing those things – yet it felt like those names were correct. Since we’d been marching for several days and nights, we stopped by the lake and drank from it to quench our parched throats.

Once our thirst had been slaked, my siblings and I turned to our parents – curious about where we were going for our next leg of the journey. Father took the lead and guided us in a direction parallel to the mountains, and close to the boundaries of the lake. Mother changed her position in the group – taking on the rear-guard role – and kept a careful watch on the surroundings behind us. Luckily, we didn’t encounter anything dangerous along the rest of the way.

Eventually, we reached our new abode – freshly dug out by Mother and Father. The size seemed round about the same as our previous one, so I didn’t hold any complaints, but it appeared that my other siblings were a little unimpressed. Feeling shattered from all the marching we’d done, day and night, I slumped down and curled into a comfy ball.

Of course, sibling No.1 had to annoy me by biting my ears and trying to push me away from my spot. I snarled at him before nipping at his nose as I raised my fluffy hackles at him. My siblings noticed the situation but couldn’t be bothered getting involved due to lacking energy from the trip. Father’s ears twitched before he came over and separated us by picking me up in his mouth and carrying me to another spot. “No fair! That was my spot! I call sibling discrimination!”

Usurped from my comfy sleeping spot, sibling No.1 smugly took it over before sending me a gloating glance. Father licked behind my ears and nuzzled me a few times to placate me before giving sibling No.1 a stern look of warning to not cause trouble. With the small commotion over, we all settled down for the night and had our much-needed recuperation.

After waking up from a comfortable sleep, we all left the den and followed Mother and Father to what I assumed was the new foraging grounds for us. The moon was high in the sky, illuminating the land with a silver sheen. Some mosquitoes kept trying to bite me, so I repeatedly swished my fluffy tail around in an effort to force their retreat. It seemed that my siblings were also experiencing this problem as all around me I saw them jumping around and biting at the air or mirroring my own actions of tail swishing.

As for the foraging area, we saw it from quite a distance away before entering the vicinity. Ahead of us were tall, brown crystalline structures that looked just like termite mounds…only vastly superior in size. I gulped a little as we neared the closest one due to how small and insignificant it made me feel. I began to wonder if the termites would be larger than the previous area’s foraging grounds were – if we went by correlation between mound size to termite size.

Lowering my ears and tucking my tail between my legs in nervousness, I noticed siblings No.3 and 5 do the same – which made me not feel as bad about myself. However, siblings No.1 and 4 stood in front of us and exuded confidence with their tails wagging and ears pricked right up. Mother and Father cautiously moved to the mound and started digging near the base.

The material of the mound appeared to be quite dense and durable, since it took Mother and Father combined a very long time to dig a sizeable hole into it. Upon the opening becoming large enough to fit a snout in, large brown crystal pincers exited the hole and began snapping at Mother! Luckily Mother dodged the attack before taking in the shocking sight in front of her: the largest termite we had ever seen – easily reaching the size my siblings and I were when we were born. Its pincers snapped at Mother’s legs as the termite crawled forward at a brusque pace.

This scenario would have been fine, if it was an isolated incident, however more crystal termites crawled out of the hole and began targeting Mother. I imagine that – at that time – I looked pretty ridiculous as my mouth hung open at the scene of our usually easy-to-catch food attacking Mother. Sibling No.1 and 4 seemed to have misplaced their earlier bravado and quickly scampered towards myself and siblings No.3 and 5. “Heh, I knew you were bluffing, sibling No.1!”

With the crystal termites seemingly giving Mother their undivided attention, Father tried to close the hole again in order to stop more from coming out. Witnessing this, I observed how one of the termites noticed Father’s movements and began heading in his direction. “Father! Behind you!” I barked at him, in a bid to warn him of the impending danger. Father heard my bark and jumped out of the way, landing on top of the entrance to the mound – causing it to collapse from the impact.

Angry at having their allies blocked off, I noticed some of the crystal termites’ pincers beginning to glow brown. Recalling my dream of the crystal cobra and the beast called Bastien, I felt something bad was going to occur if those glowing termites weren’t stopped. Not thinking, I rushed out from my sibling group and attempted to tackle some of them. “I’m coming to help, Mother, Father!”

Seeing my almost suicidal charge towards the conflict, I vaguely noticed siblings No.1 and 4 bounding after me – no doubt to steal my glory. As we entered the melee, we somehow managed to scatter the small group of crystal termites. Mother had been swiping her claws at two close to her, while Father had already killed one with a bite behind its head. I went to help Mother, since she had acquired a leg injury from one of the crystal termites. Sibling No.4 went to help Father – although he didn’t really seem to need as much help as Mother had – while sibling No.1 went solo and attempted to take on two crystal termites on his own.

Unsure of what the glowing crystal termites were going to do, I tried to ensure that Mother and I kept a few steps away at all times. However, I did not expect to suddenly be vaulted into the air by a pillar of earth to my gut. “Ouch!” I whimpered a little from the pain of impact as I landed unceremoniously back on the ground. My family all froze for a brief second from shock, as we had never seen such a thing happen before, but soon resumed the fight against our stubborn food.

A little dazed from being hit and then landing from a height, I found myself a small distance from Mother and the crystal termites. It seemed like my parents and siblings were now a lot more wary of the ground when fighting, not wanting a repeat of what I experienced. “I’m glad I was of help in understanding their skill-set, family!...Skill-set?” Getting up and shaking my sore body, I ran back into the melee and pounced on a crystal termite biting Mother’s leg.

After a few minutes of us all scrambling to kill our food, we eventually came out as the victors – with a pile of about ten crystal termite corpses lying beside our collapsed and fatigued bodies. Once we caught our breaths, we all moved to examine our quarries to better understand our new source of food. At first, I was unsure on whether these things were safe to eat but then I realised that they were just a larger and more aggressive version of the termites from our last foraging ground, and immediately relaxed.

Once Mother and Father had determined these crystal termites to be edible, they bit off chunks of flesh and started masticating through their tough and crunchy meat. The chitinous cacophony of noises with every chew made mine and my siblings’ bodies shudder at the thought of our tender teeth having to bite through such food. Although, we didn’t have to be worried for long as Mother and Father regurgitated the softened meat for us to eat. “Ahh, such kind and loving parents!” Wagging our tails, we all rushed towards the prepared meal and began gnawing at it.

When we’d all finished our meals, Mother and Father guided us back to the lake for a drink before heading for the den. Once we’d entered the den, I padded over to an unassuming corner and sat down; scratching my side with a hind paw before laying down and yawning. Although the crystal termites gave me a tingling feeling a few minutes after, by the time we arrived home my hyper-sensitivity was no more and all I felt was full. Pondering over those termites, I began to wonder if this meant we’d have to change our way of foraging for food. “Looks like this will be how our lives will be from now on.” I thought to myself as I rested my head on my front paws and fell asleep.