Chapter 25 – Legato
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Chapter 25 - Legato

I didn't need to be told more than that, but Elbee lingered. Her stinger flared like it had a mind of its own. I didn't want to have to drag her away, but it had saved Tula. Putting myself in front of her was enough. She launched upwards with a sweep of air and a noisy buzz.

"On it!"

I did my part by making Lapis and Anise, wherever they were, proud of my speed.

Forests of flower stalks took more thought and planning than my blazing, looping circuits of undulating, uneven mud but in just a few days I had gone from a little larva lump dump struggling to mount Father for the honor of a grooming to escaping the most horrifying force my kind knew. Twice in one morning.

Since I couldn't trust the roar of flight from a bee versus a Vesperil, I kept an even, steady dome of sight tracking Elbee's clear, bright bushy golden tone. Sure, she shared the same patterns as Bellona, but if I discovered I'd been tagging along behind that monster, then it didn't matter.

The intensity of my dash allowed me clarity in other ways. I imagined how such a scene might seem to an outside, human observer. A sudden thunderstorm causes a bee and roach to huddle together before a noisy creature blares in their direction. Then a fluorescent, angry wasp or hornet or whatever those damn things are, settles down nearby and the noisy one lets out an intense note as the bee wobbles off and the roach rushes several inches.

That assumed any of this matched up to the world and scale I once knew. Soon, the tangle of stalks gave way to orb-like, low blooms of white weeds I remembered from elementary school. Instead of a shuffling slog around the perimeter of the fence as Coach glared with disappointment at his stop-watch, I spun my legs through the slippery beads of moisture.

No matter my thoughts about how exhausting or refreshing this all was, I didn't stop moving until I saw Elbee dip through a cluster of tall grasses ahead. Catching up to her in their depths, we sheltered close in silence with careful listening.

Receding echoes of the storm made me flinch at the faintest flutter and random drop rolling down a blade of grass. When it was just me, the house would pop and shudder like this, as though all the stray noises mother always held in check by intimidation burst free. Elbee furiously wiped at her stark, wide eyes while I held my breath.

As one moment collected into the next, like those little drops ceding to gravity, the hints of horrors remained mute. Surely, a single Vesperil couldn't be all that was out there. If others followed our trail then not even a deafening note could keep them all at bay. Riva had screamed to crush an army, but she had the benefit of a saturated cave, a blast of surprise, and a voice to challenge even this Legato.

"Are y-you alright?" Elbee whispered and inspected me first, as though she didn't fully trust whatever assurance I might give her.

Letting her inspect me with her limbs seemed to satisfy that something terrible hadn't happened to me in the last few moments. Stretching over some crumpled plant material, Elbee resolved, "So, those sounds were actually some means of defense. I understand now. Fascinating." Good enough, if it finally satiated her.

We both scoured the horizon for some familiar sign. The region, with a downward dip into a gradual valley, appeared ominously clear. Elbee asked the haze, "Where could it be?"

I inquired what she meant and she explained, "Legato of that strange name and sound." She started to move back. Begrudgingly, I crept with her. Answering a question I hadn't found the words to ask, Elbee announced, "I don't want them to be lost, hurt, or alone."

The same sentiment I'd expressed to her. But we'd known Leg less than I'd known Elbee. Still, it had helped us when it didn't need to. Bugs just don't hang together in different groups though. But I couldn't find a good reason why not to make sure it was okay, especially after just trying to make a case to Elbee about friendship. This world was cruel though and just hanging onto a kind bee felt like the most I could hope for.

Fortunately, Leg soon landed just over our heads with a firm grip on a daffodil. "Back on your feet and in the air. For that beast is still back there."

Elbee bolted behind Legato while I had the hardest time cutting my way through the brush. Ambling spiders that would've made me freak out before seemed more frightened of me. The sprint continued past towering trees and overwhelming bushes in the untamed wilderness until a crest of that valley led us into a dense combination of both. Beneath a low-dangling bush, we finally stopped to rest.

Legato flopped forward in the mud and stretched its carapace, announcing quietly, "I really dislike bounding for my life. Scouting eyes met quite a surprise in Arimiga when they found at least two kinds of Vesperil spreading peril in their path. I suggest waiting here only as long as you can. Then take whatever direction they do not."

Elbee and I had so many questions for Leg, but it backed away from us and urged "quiet". Carefully, we discovered it was a male, as he added, "I give my song for my lady love and more. The music is my life and so it will end when my harmony feeds my chosen companion and so do I."

I anticipated some disgust from Elbee, but she resolved this with the duty of her brothers to give their lives for Elpis life to continue. For me, I knew the familial romance of my Shashelm parents had to be the exception. Essential, psychological consumption of a male by a female was already something mother had hammered into my head.

Gradually, we also learned that this Arimiga was a place with many insects living in close proximity. As Leg characterized it, "Places like that are no safer than anywhere else, but the Formiga like order. You give what you got, and you get something for it. You take and anything can be taken from you. Even a busy lot like the Formiga can appreciate a nice melody. Arimiga was nice enough, before the Vesperil. But I was out of there at their first whisper. And I can still smell what's left of it on the breeze."

Arimiga. I'd never seen it and yet I could only wonder what a town of insects might be like. If that was even the right word. It was fascinating. For all the similarities I could feel, this world still held surprises for me.

Elbee pressed closer to Legato and asked, "So, you are a Cantery? Is that the name of your kind, your mother, or where you are from?" He settled on a bed of soggy leaves with his legs stretched out of the edge of the darkened bush. Quietly, he replied, "Just keeping an ear out for danger."

I thought, at first, he meant that metaphorically, but a quick check in the dark showed something on his front legs. Bug biology. I was probably full of plenty of unknown weird things just like that. Once he was comfortable and a fair distance from us, Legato explained, "Grochillan, if you go by the names the Formiga prefer. Cantore by family. Can as an affirmation of possibility. Tor-re as a part I never managed to learn properly. Just an egg sleep name from a family I had to survive."

That sounded familiar. Elbee did her best to restrain her nausea as Legato explained that he was one of the younger ones out of a mass of eggs. His older siblings "kept alive by eating the youngest". And he kept alive by being faster than their mouths.

As I listened to him, I started to resolve a sense and smell. His color and speed recalled my swift siblings, but it felt more like a natural woodwind blowing. Maybe reeds along the river or a banjo made of specially-polished materials. It smoldered though, in much the same way as Father's aroma had...did. He had the edges of a Mark Twain character. Maybe a scruffy, tangled beard which hadn't been fully groomed for a while, but he kept a single, special part of it clipped.

The antenna felt like a lengthy, handlebar mustache. Even in the dim light, his suit was somewhat showy, like something a carnival barker might wear. I had to ask, "Why did you come back to help us?"

Every so often, it appeared as though he instinctively wanted to rattle his wings and play a melody but he kept catching himself to remain quiet. After musing in silence for a spell, he finally declared, "I've known enough of death and loss to sing only elegies till my body gives out, and sleep is all that remains. Sometimes, you gotta cry out...that this is where it stops. No more. And my songs deserve to be for love and other beautiful things." He conceded only the faintest chirp of sound between checking around him.

Elbee and I had no trouble with adding our agreement to that sentiment, despite her mind still turning over the utility of his notions.

I also had no trouble settling down in the leaf-layered mud with the intention of a nap. This felt far later than I had ever been up. Even as a human, I'd shied away from the heat of the day. The passing of the storm left behind a muggy clinging warmth that what I had of a soul recoiled from, even as my bug body enjoyed it.

Legato was first to notice my droops and listless antennas. "One respite from Shashelm kind for me, you're just as gleaming sleepy. We sleep beneath the shine." Elbee cleaned her eyes as she remarked softly, "Sleep? When the gleaming light is the brightest? That feels like an anathema to everything Elpis. Although, I did sometimes take little naps. On rare occasions when I was younger. One Elpis told me about how she found the comfiest flower ever and curled her legs up underneath and rested for a....very short but refreshing time." Fragments of the rest of her account dribbled out before Elbee curled her soft but sleek nervous-intern body with her antennas swaddled by leaves.

I felt a small, second wind and made my way over to Legato. He kept his focus on me even as his weird ears scanned for noises. Whispering so faintly I had to focus to get every word, he told me, "I don't trust your kind, but I trust your word and your companion. At least as long as a nap in the shade. You've seen what I can do and I can do it without a head, as painfully as that."

I made hush but firm overtures to assure him I really wasn't the least bit hungry, especially to the point of eating him alive. My body could go for some grooming. but I knew Elbee would never make it far enough to touch me like that. The nebulous, terrifying notion of the Death still stayed with me, even after the starker menace of the Vesperil.

As though fiddling with a single string on a guitar, Legato began the softest murmur of a lullaby. It had no words I could understand but it led me to sleep as comfortably as any Silt or Sana embrace, real-mom milk, or tender support by Riva.

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