Blood Thicker Than Venom

by theOwtcast

Vigil

The drones arrived about a week later. The cold winds and blizzards had delayed them, but fortunately, they hadn’t encountered major trouble. A medic examined Carapace’s team and me, found our condition to be in line with what I’d reported over the communicator, suggested that we take it easy for a month or so, and agreed with my judgment that Vermin’s injuries were too serious to expect him to undertake any missions in the foreseeable future, which also made it unlikely he’d be joining us again unless the hunt got prolonged beyond anyling’s expectations and more drones got injured in the process. As I’d predicted, they were to take him to the hive where his condition could be monitored, but they opted to wait for nightfall lest any ponies see them. No disguise would be credible now that they had to transport a cocoon!

Vermin’s replacement, Wasp, had only recently completed her advanced training, but Psycho had insisted that she had excelled every test she’d been given and that she would fare no worse in the field despite my misgivings. According to him, just because this was her first mission didn’t mean she was destined to mess it up; though I agreed in principle, I would have still preferred an experienced drone, if for no other reason, then because they tended to be predictable. I couldn’t tell him that without revealing why predictability was so important all of a sudden, of course, so I pretended to be concerned about her lack of experience in a real situation as opposed to drills and battle simulations. Not that the discussion would have changed anything; though it had taken place before the drones had even left the hive, the decision to deploy Wasp had already been made and gotten Chrysalis’ approval, and Psycho had merely decided to inform me about the new hunter I was to work with.

Though I might have approved of Psycho’s choice in different circumstances, I took an immediate dislike of Wasp. Like most soldiers fresh out of training, she’d expressed her absolute and unreserved dedication to the mission - nothing wrong with that per se - but at the same time, she was unabashedly and overly eager to impress, acting so flawlessly by etiquette of changeling army that I found it more irritating than commendable, and holding herself like she intended to work double-time in order to compensate for her injured teammates’ hindered efficiency. Undoubtedly she had some fine qualities and good skills or Psycho wouldn’t have chosen her, but I got the impression that she would work too hard for her own good and stumble upon the one thing I didn’t want her to find!

Was that eagerness why Psycho had selected her? Had he deliberately looked to send a soldier with an overwhelming itch to prove his or her superiority, one who would work day and night in order to outperform his or her teammates, even at the price of collapsing with exhaustion at the worst possible time?

I’d have to keep a close eye on her, I realized. She had just the right attitude to go to that cave and dig up the rocks! Not only that, but her obvious need to excel might drive her to dig up those rocks even if she were, hypothetically, warned against the possible dangers within the cave or even given a direct order to stay away from it! In fact, such a warning or order could inspire to do the very thing she’d have been told not to do, even if she wouldn’t have cared to do it otherwise!

But how would I stop her? Carapace was the leader of her team, and she was thus going to follow primarily his orders! The most I could do was make suggestions to Carapace about what his orders should be! But that was potentially risky; what if he became suspicious about my intentions and decided to investigate?

If only I could rearrange the teams in such a way that Wasp ended up in my own where I could supervise her more easily and assign Grim or Brutus to Carapace’s team instead of her! But that couldn’t happen without Chrysalis’ permission, and she would expect a very good reason why I thought it necessary… and I couldn’t think of one that would be plausible in the long run, neither to her nor to the drones involved. Whether I liked it or not, I was stuck in a position where an over-eager soldier could derail my efforts!

I had already made a decision to maintain my habit of wandering at night so I could visit Thorax’s cave inconspicuously, but now it could prove vital! If the other team found Thorax again, they were bound to realize I’d lied to them, and then they might go straight to Chrysalis rather than confronting me first! I had to be able to stop them if that happened!

...or to be ready to run away if it turned out to be too late to stop them.

I’d never been one to run away from anything, and it surprised me that the idea to do so had come so easily now. But would it be an act of cowardice? No, I realized, I wouldn’t really run away… I would disappear only in a hope to find Thorax, or if they would have captured him, I’d keep close enough until I could get him out of their grasp, and then we’d leave together, me keeping him safe from what would be bound to come, because he would most definitely need it more than ever! It would be an absolute last resort, I wouldn’t undertake it lightly, and I hoped I’d never need to; a good part of me despised myself for this sacrilegious thought of leaving, and I searched every depth of my skills and cunning for a better solution, but if it came to that, I would have already been revealed as a traitor, I would have already lost every chance of returning to the hive as a free and respected soldier! I would be running away from my own punishment, yes, but only for the sake of protecting my brother!

I just hoped it wouldn’t be in vain… that there would still be something left to protect.

Such thoughts occupied my mind endlessly as the days and weeks passed, even after Wasp had proven herself capable of obedience despite her screaming desire to push herself to the limit and beyond, even if it had taken a few occurrences of losing her composure and stepping out of line against Carapace’s authority in the beginning to get there. How he’d gotten her to behave herself again without outright punishing her for her transgressions, I didn’t know, but it had worked, and by the time our wounds had almost healed, she had never once directly disobeyed an order or taken a matter into her own hooves! I was beginning to relax, but didn’t want to let my guard down completely. What if this was just a show? What if she was just waiting for me to slip up before she began with whatever she’d wanted to do since the first day? Could she have been instructed prior to deployment to try to flush out any secrets I may be keeping? Was this really her first mission like Psycho had claimed?

There was really only one thing I could do about it: to go about my business as usual and to give her no reason to change her behavior. So far, I’d been successful.

Reports to the hive, however, were getting harder every day. The teams were still largely reporting nothing of interest, as expected; only occasionally would one of them claim to follow a lead but invariably be disappointed a few days later, and one or two had experienced weather-related issues, but other than that, they were still failing to find Thorax, unaware of the fact that I was secretly watching over him as he slept in a healing cocoon, peaceful and safe at least for the time being, hidden from vengeful fangs’ reach. And, unsurprisingly, Chrysalis wasn’t getting any less intolerant of our failure to track down the traitor. Hoping to get her to call off the hunt eventually, I had become more daring in suggesting that he might have died, sometimes providing made-up suggestions of how it might have happened and trying to keep it at a realistic level and vague enough to avoid alerting her that I might know more than I was revealing, but whether or not she was taking any of my theories seriously, I couldn’t be sure.

My persuasiveness wasn’t the only issue, though: over time, Chrysalis had become... distant, somehow. I’d ignored it at first, thinking she simply didn’t have anything to tell me, but as time went on, there were days when she would just listen to my report and acknowledge it without any signs of interest, or refuse to answer something I wanted to know. By the end of winter, she didn’t even bother to receive my reports personally like she’d been doing at the beginning of my mission, sending Psycho to talk to me instead. He acted much the same; though I’d tried to get him to tell me if something was going on, the only things he would say amounted to ‘not your concern’ or ‘you’ll find out soon enough’. Had they stopped trusting me after I’d failed to drag Thorax back to the hive for so long? Were they suspecting I had something to do with it in a way I wasn’t supposed to?

Had they figured me out? Was I about to get captured and dragged to the hive as a traitor? Had Vermin woken up with memories unaffected by my venom and told them everything? Were they keeping me in the dark so I wouldn’t run away like Thorax had?

At first I was sure it had to be something of the kind, but as time passed and no one had come to arrest me or to capture me at some vulnerable, off-guard moment, I began to relax a little. But what if that had been the plan all along: to make me nervous, then give me all the time I needed to slip up and reveal myself before they took me? A ridiculous strategy in my own opinion, but I’d learned long ago that Chrysalis took great pleasure in tormenting others, even if it delayed what would be considered the real punishment. So why not torment me if I was already doomed?

Like with Wasp, there was only one way to go about this too: keep a cool head, stick to routine, and give them no reason to confirm any suspicions they might have formed.

So I kept taking reports from the other teams, relaying them to the hive, and wandering the forest at nights, visiting the area of Thorax’s cave as often as I dared without it being suspicious in case anyling was keeping track.

Every time, I found the cave exactly as I’d left it.

Until one night in early spring, when the entrance was open again.

A trap? Or had Thorax healed and gotten out?

I pretended to not care about the opened mouth of the cave and kept going until I got far enough away, then transformed into a bat and went back. If there was an ambush inside, a bat might arouse less suspicion than a changeling soldier!

But the cave was empty: no drones lying in wait, no unexplained objects that could be changelings in disguise, and Thorax’s cocoon was broken open again.

This still didn’t necessarily mean I was safe, so I left and went back to the camp as if nothing of interest had happened. If the other team found this, I was going to act upset and make a show of scolding both them and myself for having neglected to check the cave; if not, I would destroy the cocoon the first chance I got.

Over the next couple of days, none of the hunters had shown any signs of knowing about what had happened with the cave, not even a hint of trying to discreetly feel me out for any secrets I might have kept, and I was soon able to get rid of the evidence of Thorax’s presence in Foal Mountain undetected.

Comments

[Black--Soul]

Great chapter that fills some blanks of Thorax perspective and makes the overall view of things better. One reason why the same story can be told repeating itself but staying new and exciting by changing the view point on a story and/or character.

[Teraunce]

I really do like how you're showing that Blood really is thicker than venom/water.

[Green-Venom]

He’s incredibly loyal, but not towards the one you would at first expect…

That’s why I like Pharynx so much. He might not be open towards friendship, but hell does he care about family…