Acheron and the Being stepped into the chamber of the Queen, and the Being looked upon the Mother. What she saw was not what she had expected. What it saw was not what it expected. It looked at a creature that was not a vast, unending wave of will, but a small creature whose presence was everywhere at once. The presence was not in size but in resonance, a pressure carried through the chamber, humming through the walls and into the marrow. The presence was the resolve, the certainty of rule. The mind of this creature was the right to command, and its will was accepted by all who lived beneath its pheromones.

The Queen rested on a mount upon the wall, her long frame relaxed and every tendon at ease. The perch itself seemed to grow from the living chamber, resinous and organic, yet upon it were intricate carvings that had been shaped with devotion. Those carvings spun the measure of their history, from the days when they were only creatures of instinct to the moment they became the people of wisdom. It was art not made for beauty alone but for remembrance, each line a song carved into form. As the Being looked upon the dais, it felt knowledge pour into its untested self, and by staring at the throne it knew more about its own place than any words could give.

The Queen's song trembled through the chamber, deep and resonant, calm but edged with authority. What is this you bring me? This child is barely a few minutes old, hardly out of its sleeping self, yet you bring it here to interrupt my work?

Acheron's reply rose like layered chords, earnest and unyielding. Mother, this daughter, look at her. She stands like us. She contemplates being. She is much more. I can feel it in my thorax, in the hum of my blood. The ancestors sing of a new rise, and I believe that you are the only one who can understand what she shall be. She is not of any caste I have ever seen. If anything, she is more like you.

The Queen's song softened, tones stretching into contemplative chords. Yes, I see that, my child. Let me take a closer look.

The Queen dislodged herself from her perch and descended, each movement deliberate, graceful, and carrying the weight of lineage. She moved toward the Being, her song weaving like silk and steel both. Child, you can feel my song, can you not?

The child nodded its head toward the Queen Mother, its antennae trembling to her harmonies.

Good. Do you know what you are? the Queen sang, her tones inquisitive, a vibration more felt than heard.

The Being nodded again.

Good, good. We are the people of wisdom. Vespula Sapientia.

The Being shook its head.

The Queen's song sharpened with surprise. No? What do you mean no? You are, you know what you are, and you are one of us.

The Being nodded its head in agreement.

But you say you are not one of us.

The Being shook its head once more, its own resonance unsure but insistent.

You are perplexing, child. What do you mean, you are one of us but not one of us?

The Being did not yet know how to sing in full, so its own tones faltered and broke apart. It thought for a moment, chittering quietly, and then sought another way. It lifted its front appendages, set one atop the other, and mimed the act of walking with its smaller tips, then pointed at the Queen. Then it motioned at itself, repeated the gesture of walking across its palm, and then hopped its fingers forward, showing the difference. The same, but also not the same.

The Queen's tones curled and shimmered with curiosity, filling the chamber with question and wonder. Different, I see. How so? Then her chords fell to a softer hum. I wish you could sing to me, daughter.

The Being forced a vibration from its thorax, not yet full song but close enough to strain the air. One word broke free in jagged tones. "Storm," it sang, raw and stilted, but undeniably clear.

The Queen released a pheromone that swirled with sudden understanding and excitement, her harmonies swelling to blend scent with sound. The Being looked up at her, its head tilted in wonder, as if asking what would come next.

The Queen's resonance deepened, expanding outward to fill the chamber like a tide. Acheron, you may leave us. I have many things to teach this little one myself, for I think this is a fortuitous occasion. The light of Neru touched our hive, and this little one awoke. Her final chords rolled like thunder beneath the hive walls, and the Being felt them settle into its new self, a song that would echo for all its days.

Daughter, you are the future. We will find the one who birthed you and we will make sure she is well cared for, for you are the new line of the people, the Queen sang, her voice filling every curve of the chamber.

Her tones deepened and broadened into a song that carried the weight of centuries, a chorus layered with the voices of countless mothers before her. The sound resonated through the resin walls, stirred the carved stories on the throne behind her, and set the air quivering with ancestral memory. I shall tell you the story of Neru, the hidden moon, the black light that reveals itself only when the world aligns. Neru is never seen in the wandering nights when Deyra watches, when Varros runs, or when Clyra sings her truth across the waters. Neru waits, unseen and patient. It hides its face until the fire rims its shadow and the sky becomes a crown of darkness and flame. Then it comes, and all the people gather, for its light is not light at all but a shadow edged in glory, a circle of fire around a heart of night, a song of absence turned to presence.

In the time before memory, we were crawling things, bound by hunger and cycle, knowing only the rhythm of need. The others lit our nights: Deyra steady and silver, guardian of oaths; Varros sudden and fiery, hunter of chance; Clyra pale and serene, mirror of truth. They were beautiful, but none gave us thought. It was under Neru's eclipse that the first of our mothers awoke with a mind, not instinct. The first Queen who sang with understanding. She was not larger than the others, not stronger, but touched by that black radiance, and from her the line of the people began. She sang us from chaos into order. She taught us to shape our resin, to carve our chambers with meaning, to lift song beyond command into memory, truth, and dream. She gave us words, gave us will, gave us story. Neru was her gift, and we have carried that gift in every brood since, each of us echoing her awakening in small ways.

We do not fully know what Neru is, daughter. Some say it is a hidden watcher that opens its gaze only when the world is ready to hear. Some say it is a veil stretched across the heavens, a reminder that shadow is as powerful as flame, that silence carries as much weight as thunder. Others whisper that Neru is the lover of the Great Mother herself, the world beneath our feet, a partner whose hidden face joins only in rare embrace when shadow and fire kiss. And though Neru hides, the Great Mother remembers, for every embrace births change. Whatever truth lies beyond our knowing, its blessing has always marked turning. Those born beneath its dark crown bring fortune, not only to themselves, but to all who can answer its call. To take Neru's touch is to carry destiny, whether that destiny brings joy, sorrow, upheaval, or triumph. Neru does not grant lightly, but when it does, the course of our people shifts like rivers remade in flood.

There are songs still sung of the first Neru-born Queen, of how her words bound whole swarms into unity, of how her song lifted us above beasts and gave us memory and will. Every Neru child since has carried something that reshaped us: one taught us to weave chambers with strength unknown before, another gave us ways to defend the brood against hungers we once could not withstand, another carried wisdom that built new cycles of balance. Each was marked, each remembered, each celebrated long after they left the hive. You are part of that line now, carried in their song. You are Neru's answer to us, a gift wrapped in shadow and crowned in fire.

I see it in the way you stand, in the way you think before your first songs have formed, in the way the air bends toward you though your voice is not yet whole. You are more like me than any other, for I too rose and walked as the people walk when I first broke from the pupil state. My name is Balthea. You will call me mother, and I shall call you my daughter, not a daughter, my daughter. You are a mind, and as such, you shall be a Queen. Therefore, you shall be named after the light of Neru that granted you such a gift. The storm is yours; the power of change is yours, but the name belongs to Neru. Mondenkind. You shall be known as Mondenkind, named for the first Mother born under the light of Neru, child of shadow and fire, daughter of storm and wisdom both. And as she carried us forward into a new age, so shall you carry us into another.

Mondenkind heard her name and felt the pull, an undeniable surge that tore at every fragment of her being. It began as a whisper tugging from beneath her shell, a delicate pressure like silk threads brushing against her essence, but quickly it swelled into a rending, a violent and unstoppable upward force that promised no return. She was dragged from the depths of the void, a storm given wings, rising through black silence that had always been her cradle. Around her, the dark churned like a sea without horizon, churning and folding with the weight of eons. She rose faster, faster, the pull accelerating her ascent until she passed a shadow in the depths, an ancient shape encasing a horrible being, vast and wrong, a thing of storm and hunger and horror. The memory of its presence carved itself into her core even as she fled. Still, she climbed past it, pulled toward a brighter terror above, a destiny she could not deny.

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And then she was Warren. Warren was Vaeliyan. Vaeliyan was Warren. Warren was Mondenkind. The lines blurred, identities colliding into one unbearable truth that could no longer be contained. They were separate, yet the same, each name bleeding into the other until the words themselves meant nothing and everything, until the very concept of self and soul twisted into a knot of storm and song. It was unity and dissolution, a revelation and a tearing apart, and no boundary held.

Vaeliyan screamed her name and the world shattered around him. The air cracked like glass struck by lightning. The sky broke under the weight of storm. Rain that had not been there a heartbeat before lashed downward in sheets, wind howled like a thousand blades scraping against bone, and thunder tore at the night as though it meant to split the heavens themselves. A sound poured out of his throat that no human voice was ever meant to form, insectoid and terrible, a song-not-song that seared the air with its alien weight, vibrating at pitches too high and too low for mortal ears, making the bones of those who heard it rattle in their chests. Each syllable dragged the world toward fracture, toward collapse, toward revelation.

The meadow buckled beneath the weight of it. Grass whipped flat, torn from the earth as if bowing to the sound. Trees around the clearing bent and cracked, their branches shaking as if winter storms had seized them. Chaos split the night open. Monitors connected to Vaeliyan shrieked in alarm, their warnings a shrill chorus that could not match the storm's true voice. The lights flickered as if the tempest had invaded the very veins of their equipment, filling wires and glass with rage. Lambert's hand froze over the safeguard, her finger trembling but steady in intent, ready to plunge, to end what she assumed was an abomination clawing its way into existence. In her eyes, it was not a boy or a cadet on the table anymore, but something monstrous rising where no monster should be, something born of storm and nightmare.

Then the first notification ripped through reality, glowing letters burning across sight and soul, undeniable in their proclamation:

The true name of Rain Dancer has been spoken. Rain Dancer has awakened.

The Veil writhed like a living shroud. Vaeliyan's form began to collapse inward, folding and buckling into Warren, the storm-self inside tearing at the walls of flesh, clawing to be free from the corpse-shell that bound it. His body shook violently, ribs straining against a force too vast to be held, his breath rattling as though the air itself was trying to escape. He looked moments away from being ripped apart by his own soul spilling into the world, his shell breaking to unleash what should never walk in flesh. For a moment, it seemed inevitable, unavoidable: Vaeliyan would be consumed, his identity torn away, Warren's storm standing in his place, and all that was Veil would be ash.

And then the second notification fell like a hammer, heavy and merciless, its words carrying the force of inevitability:

All Around You has been forced to awaken or perish. It has been given the name Byssus.

The weight of those words struck harder than thunder. They cut through the storm and pressed against the heart of the Veil itself. In that instant, the collapsing cover steadied. It expanded outward, reshaped, and hardened, a sheath reforged in the fire of necessity and sharpened by divine will. The storm strained, clawing for release, lightning breaking against the walls of soul and flesh, but it was caught, cradled, and contained. The collapse halted. The corpse-shell held firm. The Veil, did not shatter but bound itself tighter, woven like threads of will-forged gauze, strong enough to hold the impossible.

Vaeliyan's body arched against the table, every muscle trembling as though lightning itself had threaded through his veins. The restraints groaned under the strain, the surface beneath him quaking with each convulsion, but he did not rise and he did not fall. He remained pinned in place, breath tearing ragged from his lungs, his chest rising and falling in shuddering bursts that carried the taste of thunder. His eyes burned with understanding, but they were still his, still holding the glimmer of a boy fighting to endure. The storm pressed within, battering the shell that contained it, but it did not break free. The Veil had answered. The name had been spoken. And though the world trembled, the boy remained lying there, bound and alive, enduring the weight of gods and storms alike.

Imujin stormed over to Lambert. "What the hells was that?"

"I don't know," Lambert replied, breathless, eyes still on the monitors. "He's stable now. And it looks like, he's still himself. I think."

"What was that noise he made?" Imujin demanded, voice raw. "It... it actually made my ears bleed. Look at the cadets. They need medical attention."

One of the other instructors moved through the ring, checking pulses and pupils, calling triage. The clearing smelled of rain and fear.

"Vaeliyan, are you all right?" Imujin asked as he pulled the medical lines from his apprentice.

A thin, rasping breath. "I'm... we are... we are fine."

Imujin blinked. "What do you mean, we are fine? You were about to say I am fine, but you said we are fine."

Vaeliyan closed his eyes, trying to steady the storm in his chest. "I know... the name of my true... soul? I think her name is Mondenkind."

He tasted the syllables on his tongue without the insectoid song tearing from his lips. He said it flat, human: "Mondenkind. Mondenkind."

A shudder passed through him as understanding slid in, not in words, but as a memory settling into place: an ancestral echo that was not his own. It came like a scent of old resin and honeyed heat, like a ledger of lives pressed into song.

Yes, the answer came, ancient and immediate. Warren. You are descendant of our people. The people. The kind, caring ones who loved by instinct and chose to live on in you for the good of all. The vestige of Mondenkind is wrapped within you. The vestige of Mondenkind has guided you through your formation.

These were not words but understanding: images, rhythms, the steady weight of lineage. Mondenkind was Warren. Warren's soul had been a queen among wasps. Wrapped into an aberrant human shell, that queen's raw designs had been softening him. She took the killer's instinct and made it a man who could stand. And now, that vestige, her memory, her method, sat bound within him, an ancestral pattern he had no claim to.

Vaeliyan's hand trembled against the table. He felt the hive in the quiet places of his mind, a sutured thing that didn't belong to any one species. Around them, the cadets were still reeling, through the bond they could feel it in him, murmuring in shocked voices. Lambert crouched at his shoulder, eyes narrowed, thinking faster than she let on.

"You said the name," Imujin said slowly. "You said Mondenkind." He sounded like a man trying to make a superstition about to be a fact. "Do you understand what that means?"

Vaeliyan swallowed. "I... I think so. Not with words... with... with the shape of it. Something old is inside me. I didn't ask for it. It is there." He looked up at them, pale and honest. "It guided me. It taught me how to hold even when I wanted to break."

Lambert's jaw tightened. "We need records, bloodwork, everything. This... this is not a medical anomaly. This is something else."

Vaeliyan lay back against the table, the straps creaking as he relaxed into them. He felt the press of the world at the edges of his awareness and he also felt, in a corner of himself that was suddenly crowded and dizzy, the clear, cold line of intent: survive. Stand. Learn. Become. The vestige within him hummed like a thread pulled tight, and for the first time he recognized how small his ownership of himself had always been.

When Warren placed the chip into his own hollow form, Mondenkind had chosen to live again through him. She felt the hunger that gnawed at him, and she chose to guide it with her wisdom rather than let it consume. Yet she lost herself in him, forced to begin again from the first moment he set foot into her mind. She was wrapped in the shell of a killer, and she taught that killer to be a man. More than any human could have done for him, she shaped Warren into something that could stand among people. She taught him what family meant. She pressed Mara's lessons into his bones from the moment she joined him, she ground them deep where they could never be stolen. An insect was more human than the monster he was destined to become.

She chose him. She had been within a man who chose to be a monster and she had not wished to live, but when she found a hollow, hungry thing like a larva, something she knew she could teach to be more. More than a beast, more than a killer. She taught it what it should be, what Mara wanted it to be, what it still could be. She showed him the way the People once looked upon the world: with choice, with care, and with purpose.

There was still hunger, and she did not try to steal that from him, because that was part of him. That was part of her. She only taught him to control it in a way that was purposeful, grounded in the code that Mara had taught him. And as he lay there, he heard himself recite softly, almost like a prayer:

Take what works. Leave what matters. The dead have rights. Don't steal from the living. Scars are earned. So is gear. You inherit what is yours. Kill clean or don't kill. Violence is a tool. Keep it sharp. Respect the ruins. If you take, build. Names don't matter. Function does. Protect what's yours and the ones who can't fight back.

He had not spoken those words in far too long, and they resonated through his entire being. They thrummed in his bones thanks to her, thanks to both of them, the souls at his core, the ones who taught the monster to walk as a man.

He thought about the code over and over again, repeating the lines one by one and reshaping them to fit the man he had become. Take what is yours, and leave what matters. That made perfect sense. The dead have rights. Yes, the dead have rights, but enemies do not. Do not steal from the living, who need it. Some rules stayed untouched. Scars are earned, and so is gear. You inherit what is yours, that remained unchanged, a truth that could never be forgotten. Kill clean, or don't kill. That rule did not hold in this world. Sometimes you needed to kill dirty to make sure less killing was necessary. The rule that followed was its true reflection: Violence is a tool, keep it sharp. Those two belonged as one. Respect the ruins. But respect the ruins no longer. He would build the ruins into a future. They were to be understood, and yes, respected, but that respect had to become foundation. If you take, build, that rule did not change. Names do matter. Function does as well. Protect what's yours, and the ones who cannot fight back. He realized, with quiet clarity, that what was his was far larger than Mara could have imagined. The code itself had always been smaller than what he carried now.

He spoke his new code aloud, binding the words into himself as truths he would never lose again:

Take what is yours, and leave what matters. The dead have rights, but enemies do not. Do not steal from those who need it. Scars are earned, and so is gear. You inherit what is yours. Kill when you must. Kill clean when you can. Kill dirty when it saves more lives. Violence is a tool. Keep it sharp. Understand the ruins. Build upon them into a future. If you take, build. Names matter. So does function. Protect what is yours, and the ones who cannot fight back.

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