Q is for Questions

She’d always worked in the far fields, the hive a distant growth against the side of the mountain while she did her work near the slopes that dove down into the gorges.

She’d never really considered herself to be different from any of the other water sylphs who worked near her. She was nameless, she was busy, she was happy and contented. She was well fed and had friends she giggled and gossiped with. She knew her place in the word and enjoyed it.

He was a battle sylph, a guard placed to scout the end of the field and watch for predators. He was there to protect all of them and she certainly had no problem with that. Just knowing he was near kept her relaxed, not worrying about what might crawl up out of one of the cracks in the ground.

Perhaps that gratitude was what made her start talking to him. It certainly wasn’t forbidden, but it was unusual for a water sylph to have anything resembling a regular conversation with a battle sylph. The breeds mostly kept to their own. Still, he sometimes looked lonely as he floated along the edge of the crops she tended, gazing towards the hive that his duty kept him from.

“Hello,” she said to him one day. He was so surprised that it delighted her and she resolved to keep doing it. 

He didn’t react the second day she greeted him, or the third. He gave her the barest nod on the fourth. It wasn’t much of a reaction, but it pleased her and she kept doing it, greeting him in the most outlandishly silly ways she could think of. It gave her a bit of entertainment beyond endlessly tending the fields, but she didn’t think it had any effect on him until one day when he was floating past and she gave him a particularly high-pitched and cheerful hello. He stopped and rolled over in midair, regarding her with one ball lightning eye.

You’re silly, he told her.

Of course I am! she replied. He laughed.

From that moment, he would detour his route to make sure he passed her, even when she was far in the middle of the field, and it became a challenge to see which of them could call out their hello first. 

They kept that tradition for seasons, while the crops grew and were harvested, planted and grown again. Every day, until he was the first thing she looked for when the suns rose and she left the huddle where she waited out the most dangerous hours of the night with her sisters. 

On the latest morning of their tradition, she saw a black shape passing along the edge of the field, far away from her. She darted towards him, hoping to cut him off before he came looking for her, and crashed out of the rows of lush purple plants with her hello ready.

She was nearly obliterated by the battle sylph she startled. The strange battler. He reared back and yelled at her, calling her stupid.

She barely heard him. Where is he? she gasped.

What? Who?

The battle sylph who was here yesterday, she said frantically, and the day before. Where is he? Is he okay? A panic she’d never have expected filled her, confusing her. Why was she worried about a battle sylph? Battlers were fighters. Fighting and guarding was all they did. They didn’t need a single water sylph worrying about them.

The battle sylph obviously agreed as he looked at her as if he thought she were mad. He was sent with the gorge hunt teams, he admitted at last. 

Why? she thought in horror. Why him? Why now? 

Why did it matter?

He was a battle sylph. He fought and defended, he strove to be worthy of the Queen. She was a water elemental, passive and pacifistic. She took care of the growing crops the hive depended on. For all they lived in the same hive, they belonged to different worlds. So why did she feel as if the core of her had been torn out?

There were ten thousand sylphs in the hive, all speaking on the same hive line. There was so much noise that no one used it except when close together. There was no way that she could single out a single battle sylph, no matter how hard she tried.

What gorge? she wailed.

The battler was already turning to continue his rounds, uncaring of simple games and friendly hellos. The river drop, he said and was past her.

The river drop. Deep, twisting, dark. A channel down to the jungles below the mountain and a route for predators to climb up to the hive. She’d heard horror stories about it. There weren’t any fields nearby, even the Queen judging the risk too great for her sylphs. Battlers scoured it for danger constantly. 

Battlers died in it frequently.

She found herself racing across the ground before she even understood what she was doing. She couldn’t fly the way that air and fire sylphs could, or healers and battlers. She could change shape, though, and dropped her usual rather amorphous form for something with many legs that galloped her across the ground.

No one stopped her. No one had ever considered they’d need to stop a water sylph from going into a gorge. She reached it and forced herself down into the dim light, her feet scrabbling for purchase on the rough ground, the dirt dampening from her nervousness.

She kept thinking of his laugh, and his surprise, and the sound of his voice when he said hello. All the conversations they’d had about so many different things. Secrets she never felt like talking about with her sisters. He’d told her secrets as well, admitting that he trusted her more than anyone else.

Now he was here, in the dark. She kept going down, listening and straining to sense his pattern as the shadows closed in and the temperature dropped. The gorge was wet and narrow, small rocks and pebbles shaking loose with every step she took. 

She heard a hiss in the darkness and turned to see something segmented and luminous, long and skeletal, coming her way through a wide crack. It hissed with hunger, its pattern one of murder.

She squealed as it snarled and when it lunged for her, she leaped high into the air, over its head and down to the ground past it. She ran and heard it chasing, snarling and hungry. 

She was going to die down here. That thing would catch her and devour her energy until nothing was left and all she could think about was that she’d never see the battler again. It felt so monumentally unfair.

A blast of destructive energy hit the predator. It exploded and she was thrown forward, tumbling over and over until something warm and dark caught her, something that flickered with friendly, welcoming lightning.

She looked up into the swirling eyes of her battle sylph.

Hello, she whispered.

Hello, he said back, his tentacles wrapped around her, leaving her feeling safe. I missed you.

She sighed and nestled against him, not questioning it. She’d missed him too.

P is for Pissed Off!

They had his sisters!

The baby battler had returned to the fence after his latest attempt at finding food to discover everything he’d collected gone, along with his little sisters. He dropped the piglet he’d been carrying and the animal ran off, oinking, while he squealed and flailed and blew raspberries of pure hatred.

His sisters!

Furious, he reached through his pattern for them, and while he did find them, they were different somehow, changed. Their pattern was new and oddly unlike his. Something had been done to them.

Only he was allowed to do anything to them!

The baby turned with a squeaking roar and raced straight towards his sisters, flailing with the tentacles not jammed in his mouth and blowing raspberries as he went. He made no attempt at stealth but flew straight down the middle of the road, his aura arching out a whole foot around him while he thrashed around himself. He’d find them, he’d find who took them, he’d beat them all to death, and he’d save his sisters! Then he’d beat them for being so stupid as to get themselves caught when he wasn’t there to defend them!

He passed many of the two-legged animals as he went, blowing raspberries of warning at them as he passed. They respected the danger he represented, moving out of his path and making strange ha sounds that must have indicated fear. At the same time, they slapped their hands together to appease him or made high pitched squealing sounds. He kept going. He was a battle sylph. He was the most dangerous battle sylph in the world and there was nothing that would stop him now!

oOo

Dozens of feet above his head, fifty adult battlers floated together in a mass cloud and watched the baby racing to storm the palace.

There he goes, Dillon said. Does he really think he’s going to succeed? He’s a moron.

Well, technically, he is going to succeed, Heyou laughed, since we’re all under orders to let him.

He’s still an idiot.

Is he? said a larger battler floating above them all. How is he different from the rest of us? He’s attacking despite the unknowns of it, despite the odds and the danger. If it were us down there instead of him, would any of us act any different?

There was a moment of silence while the assembled battlers considered that and the squealing, tentacle sucking, raspberry blowing baby vanished inside the palace.

Finally, Blue sighed. Battle sylphs are stupid, he said.

oOo

The baby burst into a throne room, flailing and sucking in fury. The room was large and filled with echoes, bigger than even the egg chamber he’d hatched in. Ahead of him, he could see a single two-legger standing on a dais, other two-leggers off to either side, but at the single one’s feet was a basket that held his sisters.

Death! Destruction! Lots and lots of conquering! The baby uttered a shriek of challenge that turned into a raspberry and charged, racing straight up the runner to the dais, passing the pillars that held up the ceiling so far above. He’d kill her! He’d get his sisters back! Then he’d damn well get something to eat because he was hungry, and if his sisters didn’t like it, then tough!

He flew past a pillar and Autumn stepped out from behind it. She brushed her hand across his backside and immediately tied him into the hive line, just as she had his sisters.

Solie opened her arms and the stunned little battler crashed into them, mouth hanging open and tentacles dangling.

“Oh, you poor little baby!” she cooed, giving him a hug. “You’ve had just a horrible, horrible day, haven’t you?”

The baby blinked. Down in the basket, his sisters chirped greetings and the Queen smiled at him.

“Tthhpptt,” was all he managed to say before he fell asleep.

O is for Outrage

The two baby sylphs lay in Autumn’s arms, peeping happily while the healer gently fed them wisps of Solie’s energy, edible to them now that they’d been brought into the hive.

“They’re so cute!” Solie squealed, overcome by the adorableness of the two while a half dozen other women crowded them and cooed. “How did they get here?”

“Through the gate,” Autumn said. “I dread to think what much have happened to their home hive to let them wander around on their own.”

“But how is it no one noticed them?”

Autumn smiled down at the two, who burbled at her. “Baby sylphs don’t have much of an aura. They’re easy to overlook. We keep them in nurseries inside the hive until they’re much older, to keep them out of trouble.”

“Well, they’re safe now,” Solie smiled. She’d make sure of it. They’d have to be very careful indeed picking masters for these two.

That thought reminded her of something. “How did they even manage to be in this world without masters?”

Autumn looked at her evenly. “Because they hadn’t tried to take any of the energy of this world in, so they weren’t really part of it. If they’d eaten anything, they would have been poisoned and rejected back into their own world. They’re lucky they’re picky eaters.”

Solie smiled and bent over the two. “You’re so clever! Yes, you are! Yes, you are!” The two babies squealed in happiness and she wriggled her nose at them and turned to regard two battle sylphs cowering against each other nearby, both of them covered in dirt and pie filling.

“I can’t believe you were going to kill them!” she snapped. “Thank the stars that Casi was there!” Casi smirked and Blue and Dillon cowered some more.

The Widow reached down to stroke a gnarled finger along the edge of the two’s bodies, her expression soft. “It’s amazing how much they managed to steal.”

Autumn looked down at the two, communicating with them. “It wasn’t them,” she said at last. “A battle sylph came with them. He’s the one who’s been trying to steal food for them.”

Mace had been standing nearby. At Autumn’s words, the big battler stiffened.

Battlers! he sent along the hive line. There is a foreign battle sylph invading our hive!

Roars started up around the Valley, battle sylphs rising in the air to hunt and kill their enemy. Autumn looked at Mace, one eyebrow raised.

“He’s from the same hatching as them,” she said. “Are you seriously going to raise the entire flight to track down and kill a baby less than a day old?”

Mace looked at her and at the other women, all of them glaring at him with thunderous outrage.

Battlers! he sent. Never mind.

Quick notice

O will come tomorrow. It's been a long day. Sorry.

N is for Nag

(Oy, it was hard to find a word that fit with today. Bleck. I really should focus on something other than baby battler and his sisters, but I'm afraid that someone will hit me if i don't finish his story. :p 


Baby B isn't in this. However, his presence has been noticed at last.)

Blue walked desultorily down the road away from his master’s cottage, his hands shoved into the pockets of his pie-stained uniform. Sympathetic to his mission, his friend Dillon slouched beside him, looking more normal than usual, except for the collection of tails.

“Casi threw the pie at you, didn’t she?” Dillon asked.

Blue sighed. “It’s not my fault. She said ‘bring me my pies.’ Well, I found one of them right away, but was she happy? No.”

“Ah.” Dillon thought about Blue’s master. Given her temperament, he was just as glad that Moreena was his master. She was far more likely to cry than yell. He preferred the crying. Well, not really. There just seemed to be more hugging and less throwing involved with Moreena. “At least you were able to bring it back to her.”

“Yeah, but she wanted it in one piece. With less dirt.”

“Kind of picky, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Blue sighed. He should have known better, he supposed. He loved his Casi, but she was such a nag about some things. “I have to find the other pie. She said she wouldn’t sleep with me if I didn’t.”

Dillon shuddered in sympathetic horror. He couldn’t imagine a fate worse than that.  “Maybe someone’s seen it,” he suggested and called along the hive line to his brothers.

Hey, has anyone seen a pie?

What do you need a pie for? came an immediate response.

I don’t need it, Dillon clarified. Blue does. It’s Casi. It was stolen and she threatened not to sleep with him if he didn’t bring it back.

No!

That’s horrible!

I’m sorry to hear that.

I thought you were still cut off from last month.

Blue hunched into himself. No, she forgave me for the sheets.

Really? Even after what happened with the pink dye and the chicken feathers?

Can we get back to the stolen pie? Blue whined. Casi’s nagging me. I really need to find it.

You know, I’m looking for stolen goods too. A basket of yarn.

You too? I’m hunting for some missing toys.

A whole bunch of lefthand socks here.

I’m looking for a cow.

Suddenly, Mace’s voice silenced them all. How many people are looking for stolen items? he demanded.

A chorous of ‘me’ and ‘I am’ and ‘I wanna blow up a thief too!’ sounded. Dillon and Blue looked at each other. “It’s an epidemic.”

“Why would anyone want to steal socks and cows and toys?” Dillon wondered.

“I dunno. Humans are weird.”

Battle sylphs! Mace boomed. We have a thief in the Valley! We will find them and destroy them! 

Blue sighed as the cheering echoed. “Well, if it’s not just her, do you think Casi will be less angry?”

“It’s Casi. What do you think?”

“You’re right. I’m screwed.”

“I thought the whole threat was in how you weren’t going to be.”

They started trudging again, following the road as it curved around and away from Casi’s cottage. Blue glanced down at his feet and stopped. There was a pie sized drag mark in the dirt, a faint indentation that led away from the cottage, across the road, and away from the town.

Blue felt hope start to bloom in his chest. “Look! That’s got to be the pie!”

“Why would someone drag it?” Dillon wondered as his friend ran ahead, pumping his arms and jumping for joy as he shouted that he was going to get some. Finally, he shrugged. “Humans are weird,” he agreed and hurried after his friend.

oOo

Together, Blue and Dillon stared at the little patch of meadow that the town fence ran through. It was filled with spare socks, wood, toys, sacks of grain, manure, ladies undergarments, a bone comb, several stunned cats tangled in the yarn, and a cow.

They looked down at the sadly broken remains of what had once been a perfectly baked pie. The cow had stepped on it.

Um, Casi? Blue sent to his master. I found your pie.

oOo

Casi was unimpressed with their success.

“What’s wrong with you?” she screamed at Blue. “It’s a pie! How hard is it to keep someone from stealing a bloody pie?” 

Blue kept his head down, shoulders hunched and apologizing profusely to the love of his life. Dillon kept his own mouth shut and stood back against the fence, trying not to attract her attention.

Something tickled at his senses. There was something hidden in the fence that was trying very hard to avoid his notice. Dillon blinked and hunched down, peering in through a crack to see a small gap where two tiny elemental sylphs huddled, staring at him in silent terror. They weren’t of the hive. Dillon snarled and lifted a hand, his palm glowing with destructive energy.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Casi snapped, distracted from her nagging.

“Couple of baby sylphs in here,” Dillon said. “I’m going to kill them.”

If Dillon had thought to ask him first, Blue could have warned him that using such words as ‘baby’ and ‘kill’ in the same context near Casi was a mistake.

M is for Moo

The ungrateful little bitches still weren’t happy!

Half his tentacles shoved in his mouth and the other half flailing around him, the baby squealed in outrage at his sisters, both tucked in and comfortable in a gap inside a fence post. They squealed back at him, demanding he bring them something they could actually eat.

The baby screamed in absolute fury, beat at the outside of the fence post, and turned, racing away from the fence and, yet again, into that stinking, useless town. He’d destroy it. He’d raze it to the ground, burn it to ash, destroy it and everyone in it! Then he’d nap. Then he’d beat up his sisters.

Tired and hungry and frustrated, the baby went in another direction, ducking around and under things and going unnoticed by anyone other than the odd barking dog and a little girl standing beside her mother with her thumb in her mouth.

She sucked her thumb and stared at him.

He sucked his tentacles and stared at her. 

Both their eyes started to cross. Finally, she pulled her thumb out of her mouth and stuck her tongue out at him. Happy with his victory, the baby blew a raspberry at her and continued on his way.

His irregular route took him to a barn. He flitted inside and into the shadows and studied a man seated on a stool and milking a cow. Was that food? The cow chewed contentedly as the man kept milking her while a cat sat nearby, ears up and tail lashing. The baby tensed, ready for more fighting, but the cat ignored him, staring at the man, who pointed a teat at it and squeezed. A squirt of milk leaped out and the cat caught it in its mouth.

Food! Finally, food! He’d take it, he’d bring it to his sisters, he’d get them to shut the hell up for a while, and he’d take a well earned nap.  He was ready to attack, but before he could, the man stood and patted the cow’s side before walking out with the bucket. The cat followed him, hoping to get another taste.

Once they were gone, the baby lunged forward and up to the cow, which watched him with a placid expression. Eager, he grabbed one of its teats and yanked as hard as he could.

The cow, naturally, kicked him.

oOo

Bessy was a good cow. 

She was always calm and gentle, always gave milk, and didn’t panic when the battle sylphs did strange things that usually seemed to involve mass destruction or sex. Or both. They didn’t pay any attention to her anyway. Not until now.

Bessy was used to being led around, but not like this. Now she walked slowly at the end of her lead, the other end of which was held by a small black cloud with pinpricks of light flickering in it. It had most of its tentacles jammed into its mouth and was grumbling and blowing raspberries as it towed her along, floating a few feet above the ground.

Bessy really wasn’t sure about this. She was used to humans with warm hands, not whatever this was. Still, being out of the barn meant grass, and when she saw a heavy thatch of green on the side of the road, she tossed her head and trotted towards it.

The baby battler shrieked as he was suddenly thrown up in the air and back, the cow dragging him on the ground behind her as she trotted over to the greenery and happily began to eat.

Flat on the ground behind her, the baby still hung onto the tether with one tentacle, the rest jammed into his mouth, and groaned. This really, really wasn’t worth it.

While the cow ate, he took another nap.

L is for Lift

His sisters were impossible!

He’d brought them food. He had. He’d carried them blades of the green stuff that stuck out of the ground and the hard, splintery stuff that the whatever-they-weres with the two legs cut into pieces, and even the soft brown stuff that the four legged things dropped behind them. But no, none of that was good enough for his stuck up sisters.

Their indignant peeping chasing behind him, the baby battler headed back into the town. He hated this! He should be conquering the world right now! Hungry and frustrated, he shoved a half dozen tentacles into his mouth and sucked on them as he flitted around the cottages and between the slats of various fences. He’d find his sisters food, then he’d beat them to death with it for being annoying, then he’d take a nap, and then he’d take over the world.

His plan fully in mind, he was distracted by something large, black, and familiar appearing in the sky over him, headed rapidly towards the cottage he was approaching. A battle sylph! An enemy! 

The baby raced after him, intent upon battle.

oOo

Blue headed eagerly to his master’s cottage. It had been hours since he’d touched her and he could feel Casi’s desire. She lusted desperately for him.

Okay, maybe she didn’t lust desperately for him, but she was filled with desire for his presence.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t filled with desire for him, but it was the lure of her needs that drew him from his duty to be with her.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t filled with desire for him at just this second, but she was never loathe to have a mid afternoon tumble.

Okay, maybe she was loathe, but she’d give in to some heartfelt begging, wouldn’t she?  She had to. He hadn’t had sex since before breakfast!

He dove in through the open window of the kitchen, where she’d just set two pies on the windowsill to cool, and shifted shape to human. There he discovered to his delight that she was in fact willing to accept his advances.

Either that or she figured it was the quickest way to get rid of him for a while, but Blue wasn’t picky.

oOo

The baby battler followed Blue to the open window and rose up to peer between the two pies and see Blue and Casi doing something lewd right on top of the kitchen table. It seemed to involve a lot of writhing and moaning.

He had no idea what they were doing.

Well, he couldn’t attack now! Not when the other battler was already involved in combat. He blew a raspberry at them both that went ignored and let his attention drift to the two pies.

Food?

Was it food? It was smelly and hot and just the right size to whack a sister with! Ecstatic, the baby grabbed one of them with his tentacles - minus the ones he kept wedged in his mouth - and lifted it mightily off the windowsill.

He promptly plummeted pie first to the ground below.

A raspberry echoed up. Absorbed in each other, Blue and Casi didn’t notice.

Heavily pie stained, the baby floated back up, flaring his aura and sucking his tentacles. He glared at the second pie and braced himself better as he lifted it up and dropped down again. This time, however, he was ready and didn’t end up embedding himself in the middle of the thing. Blowing a raspberry in triumph, he sucked on his tentacles and started to drag the pie, tin and all, across the ground and back to his ungrateful sisters.

oOo

“That was wonderful,” Blue sighed, staring up at the ceiling.

“Easy for you to say,” Casi grumbled. “You don’t have a splinter in your butt.”

She didn’t sound mad, so Blue didn’t worry. His Casi was a woman of frequent moods after all. He continued to smile at the ceiling as she sat up on the table, grumbling, and looked towards her fresh baked pies.

Her scream nearly put him straight through the ceiling.

“My pies!” she shrieked. “Someone stole my pies!”

“Um,” Blue said, pretty sure this was about to become his fault.

Casi glared at him. “What kind of battle sylph are you? They stole my pies while you were five feet away!”

“I was distracted?”

Her face turned red with fury and then white in horror. He hadn’t realized a human could change colour that fast. “They...gods, what if they saw us? What if they saw me? I’m naked!”

“I’m sure they were overwhelmed by your beauty,” Blue assured her.

It was the wrong thing to say.  “Get my pies!” she screamed.

Today

There won't be any alphabet soup today as I'm too tired to put a good effort into it. It's been a long week. I've had a tire blow out on the highway, misplaced my wallet, and burned myself fumbling a cup of coffee. I am going to bed.

Tomorrow will be L for Lift and it will star everyone's apparently favourite baby battle sylph, who at least is having a worse day than I am. :p

BTW, I have an author account on Goodreads now. How the hell six sylph books got listed there I have no idea. The sixth one isn't even written!

I do desperately want a copy of the foreign language ones, even if the covers make no sense to me.

K is for Killer

I didn't actually expect to get back to this little idiot so soon, but the next few letters actually fit.... so here he is again! The Deadliest Battle Sylph of them all (tm) 

     His sisters were hungry. 

     Wedged inside a crack in a thick fence post, the two elemental sylphs peeped demandingly at their brother. The baby battler roared and flailed his tentacles at the outside of the post, but they were insistent. They wanted food. They had no idea what qualified as food, but they still expected him to provide it. He didn’t know what qualified as food. That didn’t seem to matter either. They’d decided it was his duty to feed them and they would be happy with nothing less.

     The baby battler blew a final raspberry at them both and turned, heading out on his quest for something edible. It was annoying. He was a battle sylph, he should be conquering this place, not acting as an errand sylph to a couple of whiners. The fact that he was hungry too was irrelevant. He was strong!

     The baby headed unnoticed along the fence line and into the town, gliding along just above the ground and glaring out of the shadows he passed through at the various humans and animals. Were they food? He passed behind two men labouring to load a cart with sacks of grain, went around a pile of firewood, and behind a heavy barrel.

     There, he came face to face with a beast of evil eye and sharp claw, easily as big as he was. For a second the baby froze, recognizing a fellow killer, and then with a roar of challenge, he hurled himself without hesitation into his very first combat.

     One of the carters lifted his head. “What’s that noise?” he asked.

     The other carter shrugged. “Cat fight.”

     “One of those cats sounds sick.” 

     They kept on loading the cart.

     He was triumphant! Victorious, the baby watched the tomcat leap up onto the barrel and proceed to lick itself as if it hadn’t just been defeated in glorious battle. The baby blew a raspberry at it and continued on his way, confident in his supremacy.

J is for Jeopardy

(This is what I meant to post yesterday. Sort of. I wrote a short story in the Sylph world that I always liked, but I couldn't really sell it because it had spoilers for absolutely everything. Then I thought "Hey, I could chop it up and put some bits in here, cause I'm lazy that way". So I decided to do that, and discovered last night that I can't find the original file. I am pissed. I am also stubborn, so this is a rewrite, because there are parts of this I like.
  If people like my *cough* hero and I find some more letters of the alphabet that are appropriate for his story, I'll put more snippets about him. If not, I'll just pretend today never happened....
 All spoilers have been either removed or obscured to the point that I doubt anyone is really going to go 'hey!')

     The hive was destroyed.

     The walls had been breeched, the defenders slaughtered, the Queen broken out of her chamber and devoured. Fires from the battlers that tried to save it and her burned everywhere, billowing smoke that obscured the ruins and the monsters still scavenging through them.

     Deep in the egg chamber, one sphere that had been overlooked by the hunters rocked back and forth. It wobbled out of the bed that held it and across the floor, fetching up against a rock before a black tentacle burst through the side with a spray of birthing fluid. It stretched out, triumphant and sure, and then flopped down as the owner took a nap.

     

     While he slept, two more eggs near to it hatched, dropping an infant earth and water sylph to the ground. They lay there, peeping for someone to come and care for them. The only one that heard was the baby battler and with a furious struggle, he forced his way out of his egg and hovered over the two of them as if he hadn’t been sleeping on the job.

     They peeped at him in hopeful hunger. 

     He blew a raspberry back at them.

     Now what? The battler wasn’t sure, being only minutes old and a bit wobbly, but instinct said someone should be here. That obviously wasn’t working out so well and after a minute of staring around at the ruins, he reached the decision that if they just stayed where they were, someone would show up.

     His sisters peeped at him again and shifted hungrily, blinking at their surroundings in growing fear. They started to back away towards a corridor that was less smoke filled and he flailed his tentacles at them, garbling in fury. He was the battler, he was the fearsome one. They would stay where they were because he was in charge.

     Behind him, something reached in through the obscuring smoke and swept up a score of unhatched eggs, pulling them away to be devoured.

     The two elemental sylphs shrieked and turned, fleeing up the corridor.

     The battler blinked and started flailing in outrage. Didn’t they listen? They were staying here! 

     The roof fell in.

     He blinked and turned around, looking at the carnage. He glared at it for a moment, then flailed his tentacles, blew a raspberry, and ran after his sisters.

     He caught up to his sisters halfway up the corridor. Both of them were tiring already and he flailed at their backsides, driving them up the corridor despite their peeping protests. The corridor led to one of the breaches in the side of the hive and out into the flat croplands in front, now burning and destroyed.  The flames were spreading out there and the smoke obscured everything, including the massive hunters that had conspired to bring down the hive.

     The battler was starting to get the idea there was something wrong here. That made him feel afraid, and feeling afraid made him angry. So he flailed and squeaked and broadcast his absolute hatred in a circle a whole foot wide around himself as he chased his sisters across the fields. They peeped in protest and that just made him chase them harder, shrieking as loud as he could. They seemed to want to know where he was taking them.

     How was he supposed to know? Wait, they weren’t supposed to question. He was the battler! He was meant to protect. He wasn’t supposed to get hung up on minor trivialities such as the fact that he couldn’t see anything through all the smoke and flame  except for a glowing circular thing that had no colour he could name, not that he had words for anything.

     There! They would go there! The battler hounded and beat his sisters towards the gate, squeaking and blowing raspberries, his tentacles flapping everywhere so hard that he nearly landed himself in the dirt.

     The hunters heard. Still hungry, they turned towards the sound, feeling blind through the smoke to try and find the morsels, and all unknowing, the three baby sylphs fled for the gate, escaping through it before the closest could get to them. That monster felt through the gate for them, lashing on the other side, and yanked its tentacle back as a blast wave of pure destruction came through and the gate closed.

     

     In the Summoning Chamber of Sylph Valley, while the humans ran around in a panic at what had almost come through their gate, the baby battler hid underneath a bench in the shadows, lying on top of his sisters, who were already asleep. He looked at  the big battle sylph who’d just poured enough energy through the gate to turn the ground underneath it into glass and blew a raspberry.

     He could take him, he thought.

     Then he took another nap.