>>5686494Still, you are happy enough to see them, and they you. They hum and chirrup, almost overwhelming you with their mass and the force of their cuddling—they are even bigger and stronger than when you left, albeit not by the same magnitudes as when they first moulted from hairy little caterpillars into their current array of faintly-draconic forms. Their bug-song remains unintelligible gibberish to you, but each of your sons frantically signs in the Drow’s wordless hand-speech at you, to welcome you and tell you of what has transpired while you’ve been gone. You pat them, and laugh, and do your best to sign back, until finally you must command them to stand back and give you some space.
“I hear you are all warriors now—truly warriors, having fought and killed!” you proclaim, and your sons hiss, roar, squeak and chirp in a song of victory. “How many did you each kill?”
You are reminded that these wyrmling sons of yours are less than a year old as they each struggle to puzzle out a number—any number. You’re… Not actually sure most of them know how to count, or are cognizant enough to keep track. Well, except ‘Unknownable’ and spooky young Natvodosk, who signs ‘ten’.
“Good work,” you commend them.
“Glowie,” you greet their mother, who hangs back with hands clasped together before her ‘bosom’—rather, a pronounced bulge in her thorax, almost a mockery of mammalian chest-swellings, like the false eyespots upon a moth’s wings.
She hums happily, and through vibrations physical and psychic, you hear her rely: “My king! You have come back to me~”
You dismiss the Lancer and their Centipede, that you might converse freely with your family—your secret family, for there are still few who know how the Wyrmlings truly came by their reptilian biology.
“I am returned,” you confirm, and then add (for perhaps you HAVE grown a little softer and more tender), “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” she replies demurely, and bows her head.
You and your sons travel as one swarm towards the great and swollen Queen of Insects, and you bow your head in turn and reach out a hand. Chirping with delight and practically swooning at your display of courtly chivalry, Glowie takes your hand in hers and intertwined her armoured, spider fingers with your talons. She curls up her lengthy tail—broader, translucent, pulsating inside with eggs unlayed. You stare at it for a while and then, with only some trepidation, seat yourself upon it.
Around her, you spy crawling, caterpillar-like grubs. Glowworms? She has began to produce distinct non-Reptilian progeny as well, it seems... Are these also your spawn, then? 'Daughters'? They wiggle and wobble, occasionally looking your way, but most seem to pay you little heed. Indeed, they all seem to have tasks to attend to, though you can't say exactly what these mysterious duties might be...
