My slumber is cut short however. As I am dragged out of my pod by the soldiers. Jennifer stands worried with the human babe clutched to her thorax. I do not need to speak. She is confused, and worried. But I touch my antennae to hers, and she calms. She hands me the child. The soldiers lead me out of the nursery. And up, past the schooling hall where the older children are learning everything they need in life, but mundane and if they have the talent for it, the magical. Past the hall of worker-drones, where our tools, food, and resources are produced. Up, passing the smaller hall of art, where our most creative and dream-touched hive-members create new wonders that none could have ever dreamt of before we took in the children. The barracks-hall too, surprisingly, is passed, where the strongest and toughest of us train eternally in the art of war and tactics, forever ready to defend and die for the hive. I have not walked further up before, for I am not worthy. The walls grow more elaborate. The artwork more common. And the scents of royalty more and more enters my head. The pheromones make me terrified, speaks to an ancient and primal part of me, that I am beneath them. That I am not worthy. Only the child, charge to keep safe; warm against my body, dark eyes staring into my face, keeps me from begging for death for having even stepped into this part of the hive.

Finally, the soldiers stop, and usher me into a large room. Where she sits. Queen-of-Queens. Empress-In-Realms. Upon a throne made from the crystalized souls of enemy lords and dead gods, she sits. Nameless and ancient, the first and the last. And she beckons me to approach. It is not a spoken command. Nor one through the scent or the collective-thought. It is a command that comes from the sheer will of the commanding-queen. She wants me to come closer; thus, I have no choice but to approach. I stand close enough to study every inch of her chitin. To see every scar that was taken in battle. Every wound that she has earned in killing things from beyond the walls of time. I stare into her one good eye, and her dead eye stares into my very soul. ''Ma-En-Tal. When I ask the princesses which of our caretaker-directors who work hardest, and cares the most, their lies speak of their favorites, but when I drag out the truth from them they all name you. It is perhaps my old love and old enemy Fate, who has orchestrated this then. That you should be the one to bring that child here.'' She reaches out an ancient but unspeakably strong arm towards the infant. And I cannot resist it as she takes him from me. ''You can detect fates. Dooms. Even the elusive geas. You are good at what you do. But this is a child that goes beyond mere normal fate. This is a child that will become legend. This is an Arthur. A Caesar. A Genghis Khan. It might even be a Gilgamesh. This boy will last forever in the mind of the world in which he grows up. And he was placed here, in our world. You know the deal we made. We cannot give them back.''

I nodded, we cannot give back the child once it is given unto us. It is part of the deal, we must raise the given child. And once it is grown, it can enter the world it came from. Or it can stay, and join our kind. ''I should be angry with you. I should crush you where you stand. Perhaps I should even command you to destroy yourself.'' I do not flinch. I do not beg. I do not ask for mercy. She is everything. First and last. From her flows life. To her we go in death. Disobedience in this moment is not an option. ''Speak, Ma-En-Tal, speak to your Queen-of-Queens. Speak your own and true words to the one who blessed your egg and spoke lovingly with the princess who laid it. Defend your life, if it is what you value.'' I feel faint. And yet I must speak. I have been commanded to do so. ''What I value is the child, oh mistress of my death, and I beg that you spare it. Crush my thorax and rip my head from my body, but spare the child.'' She gently coos over the small boy. And then things change. ''Truly, child of my child. Chitin of my chitin. You are the best caretaker. Even now, given a chance to escape death, you care for the outworld-child.'' Light pours into the chamber. The oppressive feeling of dread fades. The fog in my mind punishing me for even having entered such hallowed chambers is lifted.

I blink, with confusion. ''Fate is what it always is, Ma-En-Tal, and it cannot be avoided. But it can be adapted to. Modified. I am the First and the Last. My will is the Hive. My mind is the Collective. My dreams is the afterlife of all my children and their children, naturally born or box-adopted. Powers that I cannot stop has sent us a child-to-be-king. And he will rule this world. It is inevitable. But how he will come to rule is a different matter entirely. Those who want me, and our kind, to leave all realms forever, think that they can hurt us with this boy.'' She carries the boy as a mother would. She looks down upon him with divine love. Such strength and purpose. Such power in her will. ''I will make him the first, and only, prince. You will help me in the raising of him, for in you there is the gentleness that an Empress cannot show. That is something he must learn, along with the power and ruthlessness that I can teach with ease. And upon the day when he is ready, I shall give unto him my mortal rule, and depart to become fully divine in the rest-halls of the Everafter. Thus, I defy my enemies one last time. Thus, Fate who's love I have tasted, and who's hate I have earned, is cheated one last time.''

She speaks more, through the Collective-voice. That is to the Hive. And we all listen. To me she speaks with the pheromones of a god-queen. And I know the role I will play. The part in this change I must embody. She is not angry with me. Change always comes. And I am a part of the world-to-come. As always, I will do what is best for the child. And I will do as I am bidden, by the queen. Even as she whispers into me from her antennae, that her end will come at my hands. She knows it will be a gentle end. An ending that she is happy to go into. Since her realm will be left in capable hands.

ApocalypseOwl