Celia had read some of the books her dead used to read about hiding bodies before. That had made her ready for the task at hand, she had thought. That prepared her for the logistics of carrying around what was essentially a corpse, she believed. That gave her an idea of where to hide it, she assumed. But reality had a way with turning expectations into disappointments she learned. A lesson that was being repeated to her now.
Dreg wasn’t heavy. Not at first anyway. But carrying him around for over two hours had begun to wear on her. A frustrated ache building up in her muscles. Strain finally beginning to outweigh her persistence. Enough to make her consider taking a break.
But she wouldn’t do that. Not when they were on a timer. A deadline of today to possibly tomorrow. Which, if this were a normal case of hide and seek - not that she ever even played it that much - would seem more than generous. Unfortunately this wasn’t a normal game of hide and seek where she was playing against children. No, she was playing against a potentially ancient "Hydra" that likely had too much experience playing this exact game. Which should’ve shocked her, or freaked her out, amongst other things.
But it didn’t because this was her life now and she was very much tired of actually caring about all these surprises. And it had only been like a week or two at most. A realization that made her realize she was probably going to age rapidly from all the stupid amounts of stress she was experiencing.
If she even aged like a normal person anymore.
Another moral quandary she put in the vault as she continued searching for a somewhere to hide Dreg. A task that this forest kept reminding her wasn’t nearly as easy as she was hoping it would be. As every place that she did find that seemed like a good fit seemed to already be taken, or just not as good as it looked at first.
Like that little hole in the wall she found earlier. A hole that was being lived in by a pair of canine like monsters with wings for arms. Canine like monsters that tasted better than they should have, and lived in a cave she couldn’t fit in. Both because she was a bit too tall, and a bit past being a little wide.
Which only served as another reminder of just how much "girl-ish" meat she had packed up behind her. Which was enough to serve as a sort of pseudo seat for Dreg's unconscious form and have a bit of extra room besides.
Her dad would’ve thrown a fit if he saw her like this. He had always been a healthy guy and expected her to maintain an at least decent level of health herself. Which Celia had always interpreted as relatively thin and below two hundred pounds. Though, her dad had also always tried to tell her that weight alone wasn’t a good indicator of health. So maybe he wouldn’t freak out that much at seeing her being so "wide".
He’d definitely freak out about all the other changes that had wracked her body though. And that was if he even recognized her.
Something she was having a bit of trouble doing herself these days.
But the time for self loathing was later and definitely not now. So Celia put a cap on such thoughts and got back to work. Using every ability in her growing arsenal to scan her surroundings for somewhere to hide. Work which mostly fell to her tremor sense. And it didn’t take long for it to pick something up.
The problem was, that it wasn’t picking up anything useful. No, if her tremor sense was a net, right now it was bad malfunctioning one that only caught rocks and sticks and other random things in the water. Like fights she didn’t want to be a part of, other Beyondlings who were looking for somewhere to hide same as she was, or even a few things she was pretty sure were traps.
Like a conveniently hidden tunnel that lead underground. One that everything in the nearby vicinity was staying very clear of. Which, should’ve spelled trap in big capital letters to her. But it didn’t.
Instead, there was a scent on her nose. Which was kinda like a gut feeling in a way, except it was a smell and didn’t really have anything to do with her gut. Well, nothing other than the fact that she was getting kinda hungry, and her nose had yet to steer wrong when it came to food so far.
And that was pretty much all the convincing Celia needed to go down the hole. A hole that was, very thankfully, more than wide enough to grant her rear end clearance.
Okay, well, not exactly more than wide enough. But it was certainly a far cry from a tight fit. Size of her rear end notwithstanding, it wasn’t long till she made it deeper into the tunnels and discovered exactly what it was. And what it was, was a nest. Or a hive. And underground hive that looked to be mostly abandoned. With little nesting areas and tunnels and alcoves all but collapsed on each other. And the only thing remaining in decent condition being the main - or at least as far as she could tell - path through the underground hive. A path that slowly got wider as she continued.
Her eyes wide with curiosity and wonder as she went. Constantly studying the area around her, all the way up until she made it to what she assumed was the main chamber. A very large main chamber. But more importantly, it was place of utter ruin.
Pillars lay in toppled heaps. Sections of the wall crumbled in. Rubble from the ceiling dribbling down in a stream of particles. And then there were the bodies. Chimeric wasps dead and littered about the ground. Each bearing what looked like self inflicted wounds, or perhaps marks of infighting. Whatever the case was, Celia wasn’t sure. What really held her attention, however, was at the very back of the chamber.
There, sitting atop a pile of rubble, dirt and clay, was what Celia assumed to be the queen of the eagle wasps.
She was big. Her back was a thing of royal regalia. Four eagle like wings pouring out like a cape behind her, with a single pair of more traditionally wasp like ones in front. On top of her head was a tuft of yellow and black fur surrounded by a scant few feathers, together forming into a vaguely crown like growth. Meanwhile, her legs were a mix of thin wasp legs and hardy eagle feet, talons ready and poised to kill. Each digit of a claw almost as long as one of her arms. And her thorax had a fan of tail feathers growing right out of it, hiding her significant stinger from above.
And upon seeing the corpse, one thought invaded Celia’s mind. And that thought was a simple truth.
She needed to eat it.
There was a pull between it and her. A connection her nose made, the scent calling to her like a remembered friend. A scent so strong that she almost dug into it right then and there. Only to stop herself at the last second. A single thought coming to mind as she did so.
Not an animal. Animals ate without cooking. Ate without control. Without any thought going through their mind about what they were eating, practically. And Celia could still do better than that. Well, better than at least two of those. And to that end, she went out of her way to find something she could use to set the queen's corpse aflame and waited for it to cook.
It was only after that, did she allow herself to begin indulging. Starting off with a small bite. Which was quickly followed by another and another. Careful bites turning to a full blown frenzy as she slowly and very gradually let the beast within her out. The leash on her hunger growing a bit more slack with every mouthful she ate of her meal.
Up until she seemed to completely lose herself to the frenzy. Returning only when her meal was done. And finding herself once again in that blissfully bloated state. A single hand rubbing rounds into her comically bloated middle. A very satisfied middle.
And in the midst of laying back on the pile where the queen used to lay, a few stray loose feathers behind her, she began to hear… buzzing.
Buzzing that slowly got louder. Till it was replaced by the sound of something rather large crawling it’s way into the tunnel she had entered in through not long ago. And it wasn’t long after that till she found herself staring across the grand chamber and at two half eagle, half wasp monstrosities.
Who were staring right back at her, gathered foodstuffs in their grasp. Foodstuffs that she immediately assumed was for their queen.
A queen Celia had just ate.
As if trying to remind her of that, Her stomach gurgled. And then growled, right as a burp tore its way through her throat.
And before she could do anything else, the two wasps charged.
