When Kai and Anna reached the tree, Kai sighed in relief. The tree actually had three main roots that were above ground for a few meters. These roots were easily 2 meters thick at their base and dwarfed the two girls. Kai didn’t care too much about that, it just meant they were less obvious for now.

They walked around the tree to get a view of their surroundings. The landscape got a lot more hilly in the direction they had traveled towards. From there a small river snaked through the land and curved away from the tree they were at right now. They would have to walk for maybe 10 minutes to reach the river, so water shouldn’t be a problem.

The rest of their surroundings didn’t have any noticeable features, just giant trees wherever you looked.

Kai walked to one of the rootes and sat down in exhaustion. A jolt of pain coursed through her arms because of the movement and made her wince. Anna noticed and immediately began to check Kai again worriedly. “Are you sure you are okay my lady?”

Kai would have waved her away, but moving her arms still hurt. “I’m okay Anna. My arms might hurt right now, but they're going to heal in no time.” They were bruised and not broken, so it would take a few days max.

Anna stopped fuzzing around her, but it was clear she was still worried so Kai tried to distract her. “Why don’t you start building? I neither know how to do it nor can help you with silk production so you will have to do it alone for now.” At least until Kai laid another egg.

Anna bowed to Kai. “Of course my lady.”

Then she walked along the trunk for a few minutes before she started to lay down a thick layer of silk on the ground. Kai was left watching her and wondering where all that silk came from.

It all was just so weird, at least from her point of view. Her body was especially a mystery to her. She seemed to be some kind of insect, but the short fight with the weird thing before had made her aware that she still had an endoskeleton.

Kai could accept that egg laying was pleasurable. It encouraged the queen to do exactly that, so nature might have made it that way, though she wasn’t exactly sure how much of her body was natural. There were a few things that didn’t quite match such as her being abducted by a wasp-like insect, but she being something more ant-like.

Then there was also her antenna. Kai gingerly touched them, but while they were sensitive it didn’t spark the same reaction of pleasure as before. She wasn’t quite sure what their use was, but ever since she had been around Anna she thought she could smell her emotions and it also smelled like family. They were likely able to smell pheromones of others of their species. 

Anna continued to create an even silk floor and Kai could tell that she was putting soft silk on hard silk. It would be like walking across a thick carpet, she guessed by the way Anna’s feed sank into the silk a bit.

To pass the time, Kai started to investigate the mana brain again. Anna seemed to use it continuously, but she wasn’t. It was something Kai had to work on or she would waste one of her biggest advantages.

She opened or rather stopped blocking her connection to the brain and looked around. Vague knowledge about some of the plants appeared, likely a result of Anna using her identify.

The moment Kai thought about identify the knowledge of how to actually do the skill without the system appeared in her mind and she was overwhelmed by the complexity of the spell. Whoever created that skill must have been a genius, because just a small part of the information caused Kai a headache.

She blocked the connection to the brain again. There had to be a way to use it without her brain melting. Kai thought about it for a second and then decided to try if the brain could show her everything as status screens.

She opened her connection again and thought about what she wanted and looked around again. This caused a myriad of screens similar to the systems screens to appear before her mindseye until she could only see white.

Kai dismissed them all and tried again. This time the screens appeared again, but the boxes stayed near the plant. Kai reduced the shown information to the name of something. She would now get more detail with a second thought, that would open an extra screen containing the information for her.

That down she mentally set back and relaxed, which immediately caused her to close the connection again. Kai sighed, she would have to train that until it came naturally.

She looked back to Anna and noticed that her daughter had yet to start building walls and was currently resting. She had covered a circular area of 10m² in the time Kai had thought about this and that, which really impressed the queen.

Anna looked towards Kai, who smiled and waved her antenna at her. Kai had no idea how exactly she had done the thing with the antenna, but didn’t dwell on it for too long.

Anna made a small bow towards her and Kai rolled her eyes. The girl could really stop doing that. Kai had roleplayed before so she could deal with it, but she still believed it was unnecessary.

Her daughter started her work again and began to build walls, at least it looked like that was what she was doing. Kai had never built something this large, but what Anna was doing looked more like building a sandcastle on a larger scale, so Kai could at least somewhat tell what her daughter was doing at the moment.

As she continued watching Kai slowly became bored. Her arms were hindering her so she couldn’t really do anything. Kai looked towards Anna to make sure she was occupied and decided to lay a second egg. Having a second helper would take some of the burden off of Anna’s shoulders.

Now that she had already done it once Kai knew what she had to do. She slowly moved her mana towards her tail and started to compress it to a sphere there. Kai made sure that she used as much mana as possible to conserve some of her energy reserves.

Pressure started to build up inside her tail again bringing with it a familiar pleasure. She knew how it sounded, but being filled up felt extremely good. Kai bit her lower lip and blushed. Her hands started to move by themselves and she couldn’t help it, but started to fondle her furred breasts. She ignored the pain the movement of her hands caused her in favor of the pleasure.

The pressure reached its peak and the pleasure of the egg being pushed out assaulted Kai. She let out a low suppressed moan and her left hand started to inch towards her other lower lips. To Kai’s great surprise they even found what they were looking for. She hadn’t been sure if she even had that part of her body anymore.

The rustle of leaves being crushed under feet made Kai look up and she realized that she wasn’t alone. Anna was standing not that far away from her with a smile on her face.

Kai stopped thinking and just stared back. While she was occupied with trying to cope with the situation her body continued laying the egg and another moan escaped her lips. The moan brought Kai back to reality and she was sure her facial fur was colored red from blushing now.

She opened her mouth trying to say something, but no sound came out. She tried again and a whisper sounded out. “Please kill me…”

Kai’s tail opened up with another push and the egg became visible. Anna cocked her head and looked a bit puzzled at her queen. “What is wrong with enjoying the pleasure of giving birth, my lady?”

Kai buried her face in her hands. Of course Anna wouldn’t understand, it was part of her species, but Kai hadn’t always been Antanoid and there was no way she could just switch over to other norms and morals.

A tear rolled into her fur. “Please leave me alone for a bit Anna.”

Kai was really about to cry and it took her everything to hold it back right now. “I- I need a bit of thinking time.”

The egg got pushed out of her tail and Kai shuddered at the sensation. Anna walked over towards the egg and carefully set it upright. “As you wish my lady.”

She turned towards Kai with a kind expression. “If you need someone to talk to , mother, I will always lend you my ears.”

Kai couldn’t hold it back any longer and tears began to flow accompanied by her sobbing. Anna hurriedly walked over to her and hugged her mother. Kai just hugged her back and cried into her daughter's chest.

All the feelings she had had buried before came back up, but the warmth of someone being there for you helped a lot.

After some time of crying Kai began to tell Anna all the worries and problems that plagued her mind in between her sobs. She told her how she missed her family, how anxious she was about failing those who relied on her and how she feared failing her children as an antanoid queen.

She switched to talking about earth and her childhood there a little later. Anna was there the whole time, hugging her and asking questions here and there. It was good for Kai to share these things with someone and she felt a lot better. She wouldn’t forget about what had happened earlier, but how to go about that she will have to think about later.

Completely exhausted in mind and body, Kai slowly drifted into sleep in her daughter's arms.