Queen
One day you and your friend find yourselves talking a lot more than usual one day. Upon having the conversation you remember your main goal once again, of talking with the queen to figure out what you’re supposed to do here. You ask your friend,
“Hey, how can I get to the queen?” your voice sounds particularly inquisitive today.
“Oh you can do that by just being a transporter, you have to just talk to others and see if we’re short, then you can just take up that position!” They say happily as if they’ve done this a hundred thousand times before. Maybe they have?
You take it upon yourself to socialize today, talk to your fellow sisters between your normal work day of gluttonously swallowing down hefty chunks of flesh and expanding the capacity of your own body as if you were a glorified balloon. You converse as you make out with your sister ants all day long, refilling and emptying your own social stomach, depleting the degenerating pile of carrion.
The rat has been almost completely consumed compared to how it looked originally. You hadn’t anticipated it taking so few days to get through something that massive, though working as a unit you remember what this lifestyle has to truly offer. You use this as a conversational topic as you walk around chatting with your friends and family about the happenings around the colony, what’s needed, what’s short, and how you can help.
This whole experience has shown you a bit more about what it means to work as a part of a unit, the way you’ve participated in so much group work without even worrying about it. As if this body comes complete with the instincts that would allow for survival in this environment.
After a few hours, you find the information you need to be a proper transporter ant, and you recount with your friend. The two of you wait to receive another hefty load of food to transport over to the queen of the colony, then you two as friends make the path back.
“Now since this is your first time I’ll be showing you the path there-” Your friend begins. You attentively listen to every bit of information she spats at you during this trip, growing used to her excited talkative nature, and now using it as an advantage this round for you to figure out what’s next.
The throne room is a massively designed underground central hub connecting hundreds of other tunnels from elsewhere in the colony, a deep red mass sits dead center of the room, nearly taking up a large fraction of the space. It sways rhythmically as a large pulsating mass behind the creature throbs out egg after egg of a brood. An endless load of white granular eggs are removed and transported by an endless assembly line of worker ants.
“Aah my children.” the massive creature bellows at the two young worker ants. “Back again for another delivery I see.” she says kindly to her offspring, dwarfing them with her towering body.
“Actually a sister has a question.” the talkative ant steps aside to let you talk.
“Uh, I just want to know what my job is.” you ask, kind of dumbfounded and awkwardly, not preparing for your friend to put you on the spot like that.
“Oh, you could have figured that on your own, we need more workers with our young.” You become quite cross upon hearing this, though you know it’s best not to refuse the orders of the queen.
You say your partings with your friend and the queen before entering the antline leading to the nursery.
Written by Driftingdragon on 30 December 2019
