Apocrita:
Thisbe’s Portent

When others gave up everything
As hardship passed to fertile spring
His form he kept, and now we sing
All hail! All hail! The great Worm King!

His shell as white as fallen snow
We weaker ones who had to grow
Now carry him where he must go
To lead his men against the foe.

We fight with claw and jaw and sting
To make his word a happening
Our voices rise! The hilltops ring!
March forth, all, for the great Worm King!

Would any Queen we had before
Set sights on broadening our store
And bring this question to the fore:
Not if, but when we start our war?

But no, too wavering in mind
All enemies and ties that bind
Would be considered, each in kind,
Until some compromise she'd find.

"Not so!" says our Invicta strong,
"We'll show them who is in the wrong
With soldiers fierce and banners long
All march in time with battle song!"

Soon the tributes they will fling--
Not part of whole, but everything!
For what he's owed we all now sing!
We fall! We fall! For the great Worm King!

______

The end of the world began when King Invicta brought the great witch Thisbe before his throne in chains. Neither the tattered edge of her faded orange wings nor the shackles about her midnight blue plated limbs could detract from the witch’s imposing presence, a fact which caused Invicta to swell visibly in anger. His myriad attendants shrank quivering back between towering columns as her conquerors led their captive towards the throne.

General Polistes and General Vespa each kept hold of the bindings around the witch, their secondary limbs clutching the shafts of spears in their claws. Vespa alone did not flinch when Thisbe’s mandibles twitched derisively. The witch’s great height meant that even in his raised throne, Invicta could not look down upon her, and though her appearance showed the marks of her ill-treatment, the opulence and polished finery of the hall paled in comparison to Thisbe’s silhouette.

The worm king's pallid features twisted in his ire. “You will kneel in the presence of royalty, vermin.”

“I do kneel before royalty.” Thisbe’s knee remained unbent.

“He said down!” Polistes swept her spear’s butt end at the witch’s slender leg, and Thisbe fell in a heap upon the shining stone floor. Invicta’s rage cooled to its usual state of simmering dissatisfaction at the sight of his enemy brought low before him. The braver attendants in the great hall tittered uncomfortably at her humiliation from the pillared shadows where they had taken refuge. They were joined by a raspy chuckle from the witch, and the tittering stopped abruptly. Polistes felt a chill pierce her innards.

“Congratulations to the victors,” Thisbe purred. The dark face tilted up to meet the king’s gaze, every facet of her black eyes glinting with a cold disdain.“It seems that every time a solitary creature stands before the great tide of your civilization, you manage to swallow them up. Such thoroughness is no mean feat, I suppose.”

“Is it? I had no idea.” Invicta sneered down at her. “Now, Polistes. What charges do we have arrayed against this creature?”

His general’s thin black wings quivered though she kept her expression stoic through an effort of will. “Thisbe of the house of Pompilidae is brought before your court on charges of sedition, witchcraft, and murder, including myriad counts of infanticide. It is noted that similar charges have been brought against her kinfolk Ampulex, Hyposoter, and Chalybion among others. We have every reason to believe she is the mastermind behind their conspiracy.”

“Lies,” Thisbe intoned from the floor.

Vespa aimed a lazy kick at the prisoner's side, chitin clacking against chitin. Thisbe stiffened at the contact, but her focus did not waver from the king.

"Lies?" Invicta leaned forward with a wriggling motion until he almost fell from his seat. His tiny eyes bulged in their sockets. "Lies that you have refused to register as a citizen of Apocrita? Lies that you and your people have waylaid our recruiters on multiple occasions? Lies that wherever you hermit wretches wander, our young vanish?!" 

The silence broke in a wave of disgusted rumbling from the courtiers, and Invicta raised his voice for their benefit. "The Egg is sacred, and the Worm is sacred! It is only good-for-nothing, antisocial ingrates like you who refuse to acknowledge this!"

Musky aggression wafted out from Thisbe like invisible smoke, but she waited for the court to remember its fear before speaking again. Her curled antennae twitched irritably.

"Your… Highness," she hissed, sounding as though the word caused her pain. "You forget your forbearers' treaty with the house of Pompilidae. We have been granted the lands between your colonies as hunting grounds- though I'm sure Chalybion said as much before you handed her over to your pet in the church."

Invicta's expression hardened, his maggot-tail wriggling again. "You were granted that privilege under the queens of old, but that treatise is dissolved. We are the new order. We do not recognize you as a sovereign entity, and your people must register in one of the colonies, though I daresay it’s too late for you."

“Is that so?” Thisbe sneered. "I am surprised that you don't think you need our services anymore. It will be difficult for us to cull beasts from the confines of your hive-works."

"I doubt very much that we needed the help of murdering witches to begin with," the king spat.

"Murdering?" Thisbe pushed herself up from the floor. Vespa moved as though to knock the prisoner down again, but Polistes stopped her with a gesture. What did the witch have to say about the charges?

Thisbe threw her head back indignantly. "Chalybion shared my house, king, and we never touched a child of this kingdom. You know Pompilidae's prey intimately, as they were once called the scourge of all your precious Apocrita. Pompilidae is sworn to harm nothing else." 

The attendants shifted uncomfortably with a rustling of wings and tapping of chitin. She barked out a sardonic laugh, feelers twitching backward to brush the smooth chitin of her back. "But what short memories you good, civilized folk must have! Barely twelve seasons pass in relative peace, and you forget the days when Mygale's sons terrorized your borders. Should I regale your court with tales of monsters–?"

"Do not waste our time recalling vanquished enemies," Invicta snarled. His offwhite face flushed a green-grey in his anger. “Worry about your own shell, as it is your fate being decided, not theirs.”

Thisbe’s clicked her mandibles in agitation, but Invicta raised his voice again. “You speak of Chalybion, but do you deny the charges leveled against Ampulex and Hyposoter, witch? You know the evidence arrayed against them!” His tail pounded emphatically against the base of his throne.

Thisbe hesitated, and the strong scent of aggression wavered momentarily. “What about them? They were not of House Pompilidae.”

Polistes gave Vespa’s stoic yellow profile a sidelong glance. She had her own reasons to believe Invicta thought that all of those with the power for ensnaring minds and stilling movement were of the same house. The truth was not something she wished to come to light.

“Your highness,” she cut in smoothly, “please do not trouble yourself with the lies of a witch. We have her in our power. You need only say the word, and we shall carry out your judgment.”

The Worm King shot her a look that was almost perceptive before settling back in his chair, posture turning from anger to self-righteous disgust. “Yes… but I would have her placed in custody for now. I would not have a witch sentenced without the input of the church. Heirodula knows more about how to deal with such powers as this.”

Thisbe hissed angrily. Polistes glanced at Vespa, her claws tightening on the chain in case the witch was about to attempt a spell. Instead, Thisbe nodded, anger fading to a cold disdain.

“I do have power,” she said slowly. “That’s the real reason I’m here, and why the others have all passed before me. You do not wish any force so potent to exist beyond your control, so you kill the guilty and innocent alike. But it will not stop at witches.” Polistes flinched as the witch’s gaze flicked briefly to her own face. 

“You will stamp out anyone who isn’t like you in the end.”

Invicta exuded a wave of self-satisfaction, though underneath it Polistes could smell his suspicion. “If by ‘anyone who isn’t like me’ you mean seditionists, yes. Traitors get their wages."

Thisbe's orange wings flicked. "Very well. Take me to a cell to await the church's just condemnation, but first…" She scanned the darkened spaces between the pillars disdainfully. "Surely your court has lingered in hopes of a show?"

Vespa did not hesitate at the potential threat. She slammed her armored bulk on top of the witch's slender frame, pinning her to the polished floor. Polistes lowered her spear in a practiced movement so it hovered above the prisoner's neck. The court buzzed its alarm. 

In spite of them all, Thisbe's voice rang out as clearly as a chime. "I have seen your heart, Invicta! I know you wish for your kin to swarm over the world until nothing is untouched by your hand!"

Vespa's bulk rose and met Thisbe's back again with a crunch, but as the witch's voice rose to a wail Polistes's spear shook in her claws. The light of the fungal lamps flickered across Invicta's expression, frozen between rage and alarm. Polistes’s intelligence had stated a witch couldn’t perform magic while bound. If they were wrong...

"I have seen what you shall bring on your lands, o king!” A catch in Thisbe's voice punctuated her scream. She was laughing at him. “Everything you desire will come to pass as you proceed down this path, accompanied by everything you fear: the world will fall by your hand, and you along with it!”

Invicta recoiled so his face almost disappeared beneath his ruff and folds of finest silk. He didn’t succeed in masking his horror with the stench of disgust. “Get her out of my sight!” he shrieked.

Polistes and Vespa hauled the still laughing witch from the floor and dragged her out through a small doorway to the side. Courtiers peered with morbid curiosity as they passed, but all were quick to clear the way for the generals and their terrible charge. Soon enough they passed out of the polished beauty of the front hall and into the twisting earthen labyrinth that made up Invicta’s prison.

Polistes found herself lost in troubled thoughts as Thisbe’s laughter died away. Personally she had no love for Invicta. He was simply a leader, and a leader was needed to make uniform decisions in any kingdom. She had been only a larva herself when House Vespidae had consented to his rule with dreams of greater power in an empire’s military dancing in its queen’s mind. She and Vespa wouldn’t have nearly the prestige they enjoyed now if they had remained in their little nests apart from House Formicidae and its allies in the church, but all the same she couldn’t say that it felt… safe. Invicta was growing paranoid of the other families. Most of it had been directed outwardly to those whose habits didn’t conform to the gregarious mechanisms of the colonies he idolized, but Polistes saw in which direction the lumbering entity of Apocrita moved. She saw how Invicta’s eyes narrowed when he spoke with anyone not of his own house.

After winding through enough passages to confuse all but the most grounded of prisoners, Polistes and Vespa pulled up short beside a prepared cell. The jailer stood waiting for them in her plain, dirt spattered uniform.

“Eumenes,” Vespa grunted.

Eumenes nodded her dark head silently and gestured to the doorless cell. This was a procedure the three of them had participated in countless times. Vespa forced the witch over the threshold with a shove. Thisbe did not resist. She did, however, peer in apparent amusement at Eumenes.

“Aah, I can see that Invicta does not bear a grudge towards all of us.”

The jailer’s posture stiffened, black glossy fingers tightening around the handle of her spade. The witch sighed and leaned against the stone-lined wall of the little room when she realized she would not be receiving a response. 

Polistes had frozen in place. She watched the witch narrowly as her hearts pounded in aggravation. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s simply interesting that he would have someone of such talent employed as a jailer,” Thisbe intoned. “To me, anyways. To your Eumenes I’m sure it’s more than that.”

Eumenes shot her a filthy look, but Polistes shook her head with an attempt at dismissiveness. “She is a registered citizen like the rest of us.” She stepped into the cell and fastened Thisbe’s chains to rings set into the wall. 

The clack of the witch’s mandibles said that she was not fooled by the general’s forced demeanor. “Well, that is the most important aspect one could have in your king’s eyes, clearly.” Thisbe let out another soft laugh that set Polistes’s mouthparts on edge.

Vespa jerked her head back down the corridor. “She’s secure. Let’s go.”

The generals turned their backs to the scene, and Eumenes began to fill the doorway with carefully packed clay.

They walked in silence until several turns in the tunnels stood between themselves and the jailer. Polistes’s antennae twitched in agitation as anxious thoughts whirled in her head. The situation was clearly coming to a head, or would soon. Something had to be done about it. 

When she spoke, the lightness of her words did not match the tension in her frame. “Vespa, my oldest friend, can I trust you to be discrete?”

Vespa turned her black and yellow bulk towards the other general. The wings protruding from her broad shoulders twitched inquisitively.

“Naturally. Please continue.”

Polistes slipped ahead a step to survey the passage before them, then glanced behind. They were alone.

“I am concerned,” she began, slowly and deliberately, “that a recent mutual acquaintance of ours may have brought up a salient point, suspect though her intentions may be.”

“Suspect at best.” Vespa tilted her great yellow head. “You are, of course, referring to the matter of cousin Eumenes.”

“And how it relates to us? Yes.” Polistes’s slim reddish form sidled closer to Vespa’s bulk. She lowered her voice. “Eumenes is but a jailer, but she is our kin and she is here under the watchful eye of the government. That brings the words spoken by our mutual acquaintance into a somewhat alarming light, does it not?”

“Mmm…” Vespa’s antennae lowered over her bowed head. “It may, given the rumors swirling about our antisocial cousin. Nevertheless the current power structure has deemed fit to overlook such connections in those who have proven themselves reliable servants.”

“Has it? Or do you think our king has never looked quite closely enough until now?” Her voice lowered to a murmur. “What if, Morphos forbid, the ‘current power structure’ has been given a new reason to doubt his most trusted servants in this Thisbe’s ravings?"

Vespa considered before speaking, as she was wont to do. "Then… I would say the cousins of another potential witch would be in a precarious position indeed."

Polistes ran the tip of a claw absently down the shaft of her spear, chitin scraping quietly against its wood. "Vespidae is an old and venerable house, but every hive has an unhatched egg or two mouldering in the inner cells. Officers have been dismissed for much less."

"Are you suggesting the expungement of one such egg, cousin?" Doubt laced Vespa's words, and Polistes hastened to shake her head.

"I am not so foolish as to suggest we draw attention where we would have it diverted. There are more disgraces than one in our chambers; neutralizing a single family member would accomplish nothing. And anyways, one is as likely to be taken on an imagined charge as a real one in the current climate. If our most excellent ‘current power structure’ has any reason to doubt us as of now, he will write up warrants for our arrest before he has the charges arranged.” 

“Then what are you suggesting?”

The air hung thick and still between them as Polistes watched the other’s face intently.

“Tell me, how is the health of his highness, King Invicta?”

General Polistes felt the first pricklings of doubt as her cousin chuckled.

“Worse than he thinks, I’m sure.”