A few days later, Marisa was living in a cheap motel room thirty minutes west of Augustgrad.

She was only slightly miserable.

The ranch (and her house) had, in fact, completely burned down. At a certain point, the fire had grown so large that it was unstoppable, and even the fire department was unwilling to do anything about it. When Marisa had called, they referred her to the Greater Korhal Wildlife and Conservation Forestry, who told her that it was standard practice to let wildfires burn freely unless it threatened a suburban district. Given the remote location of her farm, it was not classified as a residential area.

The response was not surprising, and in fact, Marisa halfway expected it. However, it was truly a horrible feeling to realize that there was nothing you could do but watch as your entire life burned down.

Everything that Marisa owned was on that ranch.

Financially speaking, she was not in a great place. After five years of sweat and hard labor, Marisa managed to rebuild the physical aspects of the farm ever since the last catastrophic war, but the sales had not been very good. It was extremely hard to turn a profit and keep up with the mortgage payments on the heavy machinery that she purchased. It wasn’t that the farm was underproducing — in fact, Marisa generated plenty of vegetables and animal products every quarter, in large part thanks to the drones of Nafiori’s brood. Rather, the bigger problem was their reputation.

The Huynh Family Ranch was located in the Radiated Wastes.

It was a nuclear wasteland, and even twenty years after the Confederacy nuked the planet, there were still popular concerns that there could be lingering radiation in the soil. From an objective perspective, Marisa’s crops passed food inspection safety standards, but many people were skeptical of crops grown in a post-nuclear environment.

For understandable reasons, it was extremely hard to find buyers for Marisa’s produce. Augustgrad was a wealthy urban metropolitan area, and its grocery shoppers were highly conscientious, looking for free-range eggs, no antibiotics, and non-GMO organic vegetables. Obviously, groceries grown in the Radiated Wastes were a huge red flag for the bourgeois city clientele.

Marisa generally needed to sell her produce wholesale to cheap interstellar freighters who knew that Marisa didn’t have any other distributors to turn to. However, this also meant that Marisa tended to receive $0.20 for a potato when other farmers could get it for $0.80. She was basically selling perfectly good vegetables for pennies, which was a complete rip-off.

The 22-year-old did not have very much in savings.

Now that her farm had gone up in flames, she didn't have an income.

It wouldn’t be very long until she couldn’t even afford to stay in the cheapest motel anymore.

Briefly, Marisa had flirted with the idea of pulling a DuGalle (shooting herself in the head with a pistol), but she quickly tossed out the idea, knowing that she could never leave Lilian behind to fend for herself in this harsh world. Nafiori would watch over their daughter, but… Nafiori was Nafiori. The Primal Zerg mother was not especially affectionate, and her idea of good ‘parenting’ was to throw your baby into the ocean and hope that it somehow figured out how to swim back.

Lilian was still at least half human, and Marisa understood that the young hybrid needed love, caring, and emotional support. Perhaps those types of feelings were unnecessary for the Zerg, but Marisa was sensitive to her daughter’s emotional well-being.

On most days, Lilian was practically glued to her terran mother. However, Marisa was beginning to wonder if she was still capable of taking care of the young child if she was going to be thrown into the streets in the matter of weeks. It did not sound very attractive to be traveling from homeless shelters to soup kitchens with a hybrid zerg child clinging to her legs.

In fact, Marisa went and asked Nafiori about this directly:

“Maybe Lilian should go live with you for a while?”

Marisa knew that the primal zerg mother had some kind of underground nest that sprawled like ant tunnels throughout the desert wastelands. It was dark and stinky, so Marisa never ventured more than a few feet into the entrance that was previously located in Marisa’s basement, but it was undeniably the safest place on all of Korhal for a Terran-Zerg hybrid.

Perhaps it would be a good thing for Lilian to spend some time reconnecting with her Zerg heritage. 

However, Nafiori unexpectedly shut down the suggestion.

«Child too hard to raise. Better for Marisa keep Child.»

Nafiori’s frivolous and irresponsible response, of course, left Marisa utterly speechless.

The sheer audacity of that purple alien slug!!

Mind you, Lilian had hatched from Nafiori’s egg! Naturally, Queen Nafiori ought to be Lilian’s primary mother. Biologically speaking, Marisa felt that it was more accurate to describe herself as the father. Marisa had never been pregnant! How in the world did she end up with all the child-rearing responsibility?! It was deeply unfair!

«Marisa female. I am not female. Zerg unisexual.» Nafiori reminded her.

Absurd! That’s not an excuse!

The zerg didn’t have male and female sexes, but if anything that meant that all zerg were female(-ish) in a way. Nafiori’s cousin Dehaka, for instance, used male pronouns but could lay eggs. In fact, all primal zerg could lay eggs. Unlike Swarm Zerg, most primal zerg were not born from hatcheries and queens, but rather each strain maintained its own progeny through asexual reproduction.

Anyhow, this debate wasn’t going anywhere.

It was impossible to change Nafiori’s mind once she settled on something.

Marisa decided to change the angle of attack.

“If raising Lilian is the problem, how about I come along too? If both of us stay with you at your underground brood cluster, then I can keep Lilian out of trouble.”

Frankly, Marisa was just about ready to give up on terran civilization. Now that her farm was destroyed, she was essentially homeless, and the 22-year-old honestly couldn’t think of a way to continue with her life. Nafiori had essentially destroyed her (meager) source of income and all her assets, so by all rights, Marisa figured that the zerg mother ought to take responsibility.

It wasn’t… very attractive… to become the female version of Tarzan, but Marisa had a resilient mind! Tentacles, monsters, and revolting things didn’t bother her anymore! After spending all these years with Nafiori, Marisa was sure that she was immune to the reflexive disgust that most terrans had towards the zerg.

It couldn’t be that bad to live inside a zerg hive, right?

…It would probably be slimy and stinky and dark…

…And there wouldn’t be electricity, showers, or laundry machines…

…But the drones would probably(?) feed her?

Well, maybe Marisa wasn’t completely sold on the idea, but she really couldn’t see many options. It was either this, or she’d have to start calling homeless shelters to see if there were any occupancies in the Dominion public housing system. 

«Marisa would strongly dislike place.» Nafiori remarked objectively. «Do not advise.»

“Well…” Marisa ventured. “Maybe you could let me try it? We could decide afterwards.”

«Okay. Then Marisa try zerg lifestyle now.»

“???”

As if suddenly on cue, there was erratic clattering and banging in the walls. Something was scurrying through the motel’s ventilation system, and it was big. Absurdly, it sounded like it was slightly too thick to fit through the HVAC piping, so there was a section where it was stuck for a few seconds in the ventilation shaft. However, it seemed to extricate itself a few moments later, and it bounded all the way to the end of the pipe where it crashed uncontrollably through a metal vent.

A zergling fell out of the ceiling.

The metal grill landed on one of the motel beds, which startled Lilian out of her afternoon nap.

“Hwah?!” Lilian exclaimed in surprise.

“Hnyrahhhrggghhh!” The zergling snarl-growled cheerfully in response, baring its many rows of sharp fangs. The experience was a lot like staring right into the jaws of a great white shark, except zerglings were bigger than wolves and faster than sprinting cheetahs.

From a terran marine’s perspective, zerglings were terrifying monsters of war.

A light of recognition appeared in Lilian’s eyes.

“Oh! Ling-Ling is here!”

The small three-year-old hugged the zergling that fell from the ceiling.

“Hnyrahhrgh! Hnyraaahhrggggh!” The zergling responded happily, wagging its spiky tail.

Marisa’s pounding heartrate gradually returned to normal.

She felt a lot better knowing that it was a zergling that Lilian recognized. She wasn’t exactly sure how her daughter could tell them apart (apparently, there was “Ling-Ling”, “Zing-Zing”, and “Ding-Ding”), but zerglings were legitimately dangerous. Once, Marisa had tried to pet one, and she accidentally cut her hand because zerglings are covered in spikes. It always made Marisa nervous when Lilian ran around playing and cuddling with unfamiliar zerglings in Nafiori’s brood, because Marisa was afraid that Lilian would impale herself.

Moreover, primal zerglings were unpredictable. They did not have a psionic link with a higher authority, so Nafiori didn’t actually ‘control’ them in the way that a cerebrate might control the Zerg Swarm like a hive mind. Every primal zergling was an intelligent individual, and they generally only responded to Nafiori’s instructions because they respected her as their queen (and mother). It was always possible for any primal zerg to defy Nafiori’s orders, and the perpetual risk of defiance constantly made Marisa nervous.

If a zergling felt like it, it could totally take a bite out of Lilian and swallow her whole.

Ling-Ling, though, was a zergling that Lilian frequently played with.

For obvious reasons, it was a lot safer to play with a man-eating wolf that was your friend than to play with an unfamiliar man-eating wolf that was a complete stranger.

«Zergling has brought food.» Nafiori announced. «Marisa try eat too.»

Ling-Ling snarl-growled again, and Lilian clapped her hands excitedly. The three-year-old hybrid was practically salivating.

«It is Child’s favorite food. A delicious treat.»

Marisa tilted her head, very perplexed.

Lilian’s favorite food…

She didn’t know how Nafiori knew Lilian’s favorite food. Marisa spent many years struggling to get her daughter to eat, but Lilian was a nightmarishly picky eater. Over time, Marisa had gradually figured out that her daughter would eat pudding, jello, and yogurt, but Lilian didn’t like to eat vegetables, meat, grains, or fruits. For a while, Marisa was concerned there was something wrong with her daughter’s teeth, but Lilian was perfectly capable of chewing and biting other things.

“Oooh! Yay!! Liian happy!! Naffy Mommy amazing! Lilian love Ling-Ling!”

The zergling turned a small circle on the bed, as if to make a small bowl-like indentation on the sheets. Suddenly the creature started spasming, and it convulsed as if choking on a bone. In the fashion of a cat violently coughing up a giant hairball, Ling-Ling regurgitated a puddle of slimy goo right on the center of the mattress. A faint cloud of steam rose from the vomit, since it was still warm.

It was… um… hard to describe it nicely…

Marisa felt her stomach twist into a knot on the inside.

The purple goo had a very powerful odor.

She couldn’t watch this.

It was disgusting.

Marisa had never seen her daughter grinning with such a big smile at the dinner table before. The little girl looked as though Nafiori had presented a giant ice-cream sundae with twelve different flavors, six different toppings, and an enormous caramelized cherry on top. Lilian was mesmerized with the pile of goo like it was legitimately the best thing that she had seen in weeks.

The 22-year-old terran fled for the bathroom.

«Marisa won’t eat?» Nafiori asked innocently. «Child loves zerg food. Says Marisa food bland. Flavorless. Like eating gelatinized water.»

“...”

Marisa was on the verge of breaking down in tears.

She understood now! Lilian genuinely didn’t like her cooking! After thousands of hours struggling to come up with a recipe that her daughter would eat, the answer all along was that Lilian just wanted to eat zergling vomit.

This was emotional abuse! Psychological warfare! Nafiori didn’t need to rub it in!!

«Marisa still want to live with zerg?» Nafiori asked. «Most Zerg food like this.»

The homeless 22-year-old woman buried her face in her hands as she sat on the toilet lid.

She didn’t know if she could do it.

Marisa genuinely appreciated the fact that Nafiori had gone out of her way to make this demonstration, but she understood now that it would be extremely difficult for a terran to live like the zerg. It might be plausible if she could get running water and an electrical supply, but she would still end up smelling all day long from that overpowering zerg stench. Spiritually speaking, Marisa felt as though she had a long way to go before she was truly mentally prepared to dive into the stomach of a Nydus worm. 

«Think it better for Marisa live like terran.»

The young woman nodded very weakly.

«Would like Marisa teach Child to be like terran. Act like terran. Blend among terran. Devour terran from within. That is Child’s strength.»

The million-year-old zerg mother was patiently explaining her rationale. Her language was broken and grammatical gibberish, but she was taking her time to communicate her thoughts in detail.

From the very beginning, Lilian was intelligently designed. Nafiori painstakingly spun all the delicate fibers so that the hybrid could live in terran society undetected. Unlike changelings, which grew as fast as a tumor and expired within a few hours, Lilian was born as an experiment to test if she could overcome the shortcomings of her predecessors.

Nafiori understood that you couldn’t craft a creature born with the innate knowledge of being terran. Attempting something like this was utterly futile, and Nafiori believed it was also the reason why previous attempts to create hybrids had failed in the past. Terrans did not exit the womb knowing how to speak language, resist animalistic impulses, or craft missiles.

The essence of the terran race was different from other species in the galaxy.

Dehaka had grotesquely misunderstood terran essence. When he declared terran essence to be largely worthless after assessing the taste of terran DNA, he missed a critical truth. Terran essence came from the terran mothers, and the mothers of terran mothers. 200,000 years of parent-child transmission distilled terran essence in an intangible form not visible in the pure genetic sequence.

Nafiori was convinced that her cousin Dehaka was wrong about the fundamental theory.

Unlike the dozens of other crazy scientists of various races scattered throughout the Koprulu Sector, Nafiori had concluded that it was impossible to create a creature with meaningful terran essence without a terran mother.

She needed Marisa’s cooperation in order for this experiment to come to fruition.