:
great! Mummy got mad...  |
Yes, she's a mad mummy.
Well here's another chapter....Need sleep...
CHAPTER FOUR: THE QUEEN AND THE HYBRID
Kico was still scared, but now confused. What was this strange and scary creature? He tore his gaze from those dozen or more glowing red eyes and examined the creaking babies that all wriggled around her, looking up at her face. She gave a low growl like a purr and gazed down at them with her larger head and arms, picking up some and nuzzling them amongst her tentacles. She briefly looked at him before looking back at the babies that squeaked quietly in her arms. By now his eyes had adjusted more to the dark, and he could see them and her better.
“What do you mean by…Your babies?” He asked nervously. He knew the answer, but wanted to ask a lot of things he didn’t know how to go about saying. He waited in the dark as she held the babies in her arms. There were silent now and getting tired, their beady black eyes slowly closing. She looked down at them, before looking at Kico again. “I mean just what I said, they’re my babies…” She spoke in a soft hiss. “I’m a queen.” Kico stood there for a moment, thinking, trying to get his head around it.
“…Skillya?” She put down the already sleeping infants, and picked up some more who wanted her attention. They squeaked eagerly and looked up at her.
“No. Fluffy.”
For a moment he thought she was joking. He briefly laughed, but didn’t hear her laugh back.
“What?” “My name is Fluffy.” She said again. “I was serious. I’m a slig queen.” He stood there for a moment, still curious. Her dozen or more red glowing eyes and his white and black hybrid ones stared at each other through the dark.
“Oh…” He looked sheepishly at the floor, unable to tell where it was in the darkness if it wasn’t for his feet. He looked back at the creature he once thought of as a monster. Now it had a name, a gender, a family, intelligence.
“I thought there was only one queen per species?” He asked. Fluffy whispered to the babies that fell asleep quickly in her arms like the other ones had.
“Well apparently there isn’t…” She croaked. “I didn’t know that either.”
Kico watched as the next bunch of babies fell asleep, as she put them down and picked up more. They creaked and wriggled against her face happily, wanting their mother’s attention. He still had questions he wanted answered.
“So…Those are baby sligs?” He questioned again. Fluffy held the babies that were instantly sleeping silently in her large arms. She gave Kico a funny look.
“I’m a slig queen and I haven’t bred with a drone that isn’t a slig, if they weren’t, I’d be surprised.”
Feeling sheepish once again, he looked at the metal floor shyly and poked at it with a large toe. There was just the sound of creaking baby sligs when they didn’t speak.
“So…Why are you here?” He whispered, walking closer to Fluffy. He could see her outline more clearly now, her large egg sack that towered towards the ceiling he couldn’t see and the body on the front, a torso with a head and arms. Fluffy hummed softly to the baby sligs that slept, putting them down and gathering up more. At the mention of why she was there, she felt a little sad.
“The same reason Sam is…” She croaked. “I got kidnapped by industrialists, wanting more sligs…” She looked solemnly at the squeaking baby sligs in her long arms. “I don’t know what they do with them…” She spoke, close to tears. Kico walked carefully closer to the queen, trying not to trip or step on any baby sligs in the dark. Embarrassed, he tried to act like he didn’t notice her crying.
“How long have you been here for?” He asked. He wanted to change the subject, but realised he’d just delved deeper into it.
After some soft sobs, she croaked “About four years…” Fluffy carried on crying against the young in her arms that creaked in sympathy, gazing up at her face. He could see her face had a mask, a larger mask with more red eyes. Her long tentacles stroked at the babies that had no fear of her.
“Sorry…” He mumbled shyly, looking at the slimy offspring that wriggled in front of her. She put down the bundle in her arms that was half asleep and lifted up more.
“It’s not your fault…” She answered, whispering to the next bunch of babies in the dark breezeless room. “Now who are you and why are you here?”
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They had been sent to a place called the Slig Barracks. They could finally see the sky, cloudy and green with pollution, they worked on the dusty ground surrounded by stacked high tents, or the metal platforms that rose high up, with nothing to stop them taking a fatal fall. Lights and bent pipes rose up high against the sky, and the weather was usually cold. They would work day or night, and had to sleep when they weren’t being watched. Already all three of the friends had been beaten, over things they wouldn’t get beaten for in the nursery. There was no beds and they slept rough like a homeless person, on cold hard metal that bruised them when they woke up. Mudokon children they knew casually had fallen to their deaths, been beaten up, even shot at for being seen talking. They huddled together for warmth when they slept, talked when they were sure they weren’t being watched, but still spiralled into depression. They actually wanted to go back to the nursery. At least there they had a bed, food at reasonable times and weren’t hit as much, and not with guns.
The cloudy sky had gone dark blue and black in the darkness of the night, and whatever few breezes they were further chilled them. Mudokons were dying of hypothermia, getting thinner from starvation, but the boss, Natzo as they had heard, didn’t care. He just wanted profit. Even the sligs got bad treatment, but at least they had tents, a bed to sleep in that wouldn’t bruise them as bad.
Kico shivered on the platform with his two friends Lido and Tiro. They couldn’t from the cold, from fear of falling to their death in their sleep. Having enough, Kico got up slowly, looking around for any sligs on nightshift. Seeing none, he pulled the ropes with his small hands and wheeled the platform down slowly. Hearing the squeaking of the striped platform, his two friends woke up.
“Kico? I’m try’na sleep…” Lido moaned, turning his head and shutting his eyes again.
“Stop it…” Tiro mumbled in agitation. “What are you doing?”
He ignored his tired companions and continued to move the platform downwards.
“Trying to make sure we don’t fall and die in our sleep…” He whispered, his hands getting friction burns from the hard ropes.
Eventually he made it as near to the ground as possible. Taking his bucket and rag so he could make up an excuse if he got caught, he hopped off of the metal platform and walked around the alleyway. The tents were high and no sligs seemed to walk the dusty earth ground as Tiro and Lido followed him. Kico stumbled and fell as he tripped over a leg. Spitting out dust, he got up and froze as he heard the mudokon mutter and look at him.
The mudokon was older than him, a teen, and had his left eye stitched shut like a blind mudokon. He gawped in shock at his stitched eye as the teenage mudokon scowled at him.
“It’s rude to stare you know!” He snapped. Scared, he tried to run but tripped over another leg. Lying face first in the dust again, he got up weakly onto his feet to see another mudokon teenager, half-asleep and looking at him funny. “Riko? What time is it?” She mumbled sleepily, a female tone in her voice.
“How the heck should I know? The stupid scrub brat just woke me up and its dark!” The teenage half-blind mudokon scolded again. She gave him a look before getting up.
“Riko, he’s a kid, whatever it is, it’s probably a misunderstanding.” She smiled.
“Sorry about him, he’s been cranky ever since he went in the Eyestitch 2000.”
“Ever since I broke out of the stupid thing!” He snapped back. Frowning at him, she looked at the kids once again. The sky remained dark, the only light came from the lamps around the bottom of the barracks and they shivered in the cold.
“So what’s your names kids?”
“I’m Tiro, this is Lido and he’s Kico!” Tiro spoke up. She sniggered as Riko looked bemused. “I’m Mudancha, I’m a female mudokon.” They looked and felt surprised.
“A female? I thought mommy was the only female? How can you be a female and not be really big?” She laughed.
“I wonder that myself. At least I’m not the size of a building and laying eggs all of the time. I guess I’m just a sterile worker like everyone else.” She looked around the tents that surrounded them, fidgeting and shivering in the cold. “Right, Riko, I don’t know about you, but I can’t sleep in this Odd forsaken cold.” He glared at her with his only eye he could see with. “Got any better ideas, chump?”
The two began to bicker before Tiro peered inside a tent. A slig slept silently in it, not making a stir against his ragged blankets. Sneaking in as his two friends felt tense, he could see his right arm sticking out of the blankets, with a pale scar running down it. Shocked, Mudancha lifted him by the waist and yanked him out.
“Are you nuts?! If he wakes and sees us not working, he’ll beat us silly or shoot us!” She scolded quietly. He looked up at her, his face beaming.
“He’s got this scar down his arm!” He said happily. Upon hearing that, Riko crept in. He examined the sleeping slig’s right arm and had an idea.
“He won’t beat you. I’ve seen this guy before, he’s a right emo, he doesn’t hang around with any other sligs and this gang are always bugging him.”
Mudancha whacked him for negative use of the word, looking at his arm.
“And your idea is, genius?...”
He looked at the slig, and began raking under his blankets.
“Help me get his feet, I’ve got an idea…”
“A crazy idea?”
He gave her a dark look.
“You were the one whining about the cold and I’ve got an idea to help, so are you gonna help get him out of the tent or not?!”
Irritated, she helped drag him out as the three young mudokons watched. They giggled as the slig still slept and only stirred, before crawling into the tent. They felt excitement as they felt softer material to sleep on and not hard ground or metals and cuddled under the quilts, giggling. Concocting their plan, the two teenage mudokons went out to get more children, being careful for other sligs. The slig that had been moved out of his tent slept obliviously, shivering and curling up as he felt a cold breeze.
They brought back more mudokon children that more than happily climbed in. They all huddled together in the cold that drifted in, but slept happier and better. Mudancha or Riko would sleep while the other one went on guard duty, watching for any sligs that could pass by. He was happier that night. He had two more people in his family group, and somewhere better to sleep.