Her breathing is shallow and challenged; her limbs quake with small (now) tremors of exhaustion; she thinks sleep would be good, curative even. Now is not the time though —
His presence is too commanding, and she cannot take her eyes off him.
He looks over each one of them with a god’s disdain; perhaps sizing them up for the task at hand. Then he speaks of the Mountain, of the taking and hoarding of magic, of the land rebelling against its denizens like a hurt child. She can understand that, little more than a child herself. But he continues, and she rests the full weight of her attention on him again.
The Dark God is dramatic in his tale; more so, in his flash of simple but strong power as he pushes a hoof into the earth. The Mountain doesn’t like it, she can feel it in the strange hush of the air and the way the earth shudders beneath her. But it reacts to the Dark God no further, gives no more push back than that first tremor and stills. She tilts her head towards the hole, considering it as a thought pops into her brain —
Mountains and gods, can it know what is to pass, therefore it brooked no challenge with him doing this?
His voice draws her back in, talking of wonder and magic. It might be nice to know if magic does indeed lie at the center of the earth… if the Mountain’s heart is rife with it. She doesn’t even care about the rewards for doing so, the sheer prospect of finding out is enticement enough. Maybe even a small part of her seeks to please this errant unknown half of her parentage.
The Dark God says to dig and not stop until he says so. Her ears fall flat at his command but it is a gutless response, she knows she won’t balk or fight back. Thorax doesn’t wait to see what the others will do; she leaps into the hole and focuses on the dirt. Pawing at it only gets her so far. She realizes that will be slow going and far more taxing to paw first with one hoof than the next. It is a slight start, as she summons a surge of power and pushes out an elemental call to arms.
Her type of manipulation might be pheromonal in a sense; for the three types of insects she has summoned come to her in swarms and droves. From queens to lowliest workers, they answer her and form around her. They even crawl up her legs and alight upon various perches of ear, hip, and wither. It looks as if the ants, cicada killers, and mole crickets have consumed her until there is barely an inch of Thorax left visible.
She talks to them as if they are but another horse standing in front of her: “I need you to dig. I’ll help, but you must do most of the work.” Of course they make no protest - they cannot go against her command, nor would they try. But all three are diggers and burrows for one reason or another. Each assumes a position in front and to either side of her, gracious enough to still allow her room to paw at the earth too.
It is slow going for the ants, exhausting them faster than the other two insect kinds but more ants simply take their place. Perhaps after this, Beqanna will never see an ant again for she’ll have killed them all off during this one task. But ants are hardier than that, than even she gives them credit for. She cares for them on some level but there is a task at hand that is greater, that requires their sacrifice before her own.
The ants dig on.
She digs beside them. Her cloven hooves sometimes seem advantageous and other times, not so much. Progress is slow, but how can she truly tell when time seems suspended or slowed up here? Thorax isn’t sure if that is his doing or the Mountain’s and supposes that it makes no difference. She refocuses on the task, ever once looking away except to behold the cicada killers.
They are her second line of digging defense and their colors make her think of yellow jackets and hornets. But these are wasps, and the threat of their sting doesn’t scare her - they would never touch her like that, unless she told them to. But she’ll use them for her own purposes, nefarious or not, and she bids them to dig. They tunnel and burrow quicker and bigger than the ants do. Dirt begins to pile up around her as her section of the hole widens inch by precious inch.
She begins to move dirt by the mouthful, alternating between that and pawing. The insects do most of the work for her so that she is able to stand there and supervise, and conserve her strength. It takes little to manipulate their wills to hers. Such small flickerings of insectile self that she has bent to her command, and she’ll use them up long before she uses herself up.
Husks of wasp-corpse and ants mirror and mock the piles of dirt their brethren move. If she feels remorse at the loss of hundreds and thousands of bug lives, it is scant in comparison to the thrill of the hole widening to the size of her head. She smiles, and there is an edge to it that is knife-like and sharp. More cicada killers move in, as do the ants. The digging goes on.
Ants dig.
Cicada killers dig.
Thorax digs.
It is exhausting. Her constant manipulation of the bugs begins to take a toll on her, as much as her own digging by cloven hoof and mouth does. She tires, but refuses to give up. Is relentless. She’ll not yield until she breaks the earth’s crust. A thin trickle of blood spirals down and out of her left nostril. She ignores it, it tells only of the toll on her psyche and flesh but she’ll go on - it isn’t in her to give up.
The mole crickets stir to action at last. Gryllotalpa brachyptera. She thinks fondly of them, murmuring their scientific name to herself. It sounds a little like magic, like an incantation and the mole crickets scuttle forward to add to the digging action. The space enlarges; can fit more than just her head on there now.
All the insects know that she alone, out of them all, must fit through so burrow and scratch and crawl they do. Until the hole takes shape into a strange tunnel that accommodates her shoulders now if she wiggles just a little. It’s tight but promising. The trickle of blood outside her nostril widens too. No guts, no glory, she reminds herself. Maybe she’ll garner a fraction of his attention for this!
Thorax takes pride in her bugs’ work and feels a small thrill of satisfaction in knowing that she is succeeding in this endeavor. The ants and cicada killers renew their efforts too. The mole crickets blaze on. More insects crawl out of the woodwork to assist: solitary bees and white grubs. She favors the grubs the most because they naturally attract animals that dig after them like moles, skunks, and birds.
Thorax cannot summon or manipulate the latter, but they come drawn to the free meal she provides them as her grubs burrow deep and these animals seek them. Funny how they’ll feast too, as she feasts off the exploitation and knows that this is merely the circle of life and she has but to stand back and look on. The insects dig and die, others come to dig after them, drawn by their squirming attractiveness and she smiles.
Her hole grows, she can inch and wiggle through it. Enough to chip at a section of hardened soil that has a peculiar flavor to it. Is this magic then? Perhaps, and she withdraws to allow one last insectile advance and then —
Dirt crumbles, the tunnel quakes, and Thorax tumbles through a break in the hole. She’s falling and it simply feels like forever. Or dying, as twin rivers of blood carve their way down from her nostrils and blood-drops and mare tumble away, spinning like a leaf loosed from an autumn tree.
Thorax was free-falling.
(sorry, did you say write a novel? Lmfao)