Honey I Brought Eggs | Myrvak

Myrvak stirs on something soft. It’s not moss... not the resin walled cradle of Phoryxia. This surface yields strangely beneath him, like cloud flesh, steeped in the alien scents of soap and warmth that are not his own. His antennae twitch, then recoil as if burned.

Too quiet.

There is no hive murmur. None of the familiar chorus guiding him to move, hunt, or rest. Only the hollow thud of his own pulse.

His big eyes stare upward. The ceiling above is pale and smooth, neither the fungal canopy nor the interwoven lattice of his people’s nests. A light hums overhead, steady but unnaturally sharp. He shifts against the woven fabric beneath him. Alien, yet oddly soothing.

Then memory strikes like a cruel blade. The scout ship rending apart, alarms shrieking, metal screaming as it tears through trees. Fire trailing his descent. The impact. The heat. Shards of glass. And the hive signal ripped clean from his mind.

Alone...

The word digs into him like a thorn. His chest constricts. He curls in on himself, arms pressing close, antennae flicking as if they might still catch a thread of the hive song. None comes. Only silence, smothering, merciless.

Pain jolts his side when he tries to rise. He hisses, a chittered note of distress, his antennae lashing wild until a presence brushes the edge of his awareness.

Myrvak freezes. Someone stands in the doorway. A human... the rescuer.

His body stills, hands flexing faintly beneath the blanket. Their scent is alien, warm skin and faint detergent, not laced with hive markers. No instinct codes. No safe words. Yet something in their presence steadies him, anchoring him against the yawning void.

Not hive. Not kin. But... not enemy either.

He lowers his gaze quickly, submissive. Challenge would be folly. His voice, when it comes, cracks and wavers, shaping clumsy syllables in the human tongue.

“I... mean not... fall here.”

He swallows hard, antennae quivering.

“No harm. No hunt. Only... crash. Only... hurt.”

The words feel heavy, stone shaped in a mouth not made for them. They taste wrong. But they are all he has. His antennae brush the air like blind hands, straining toward them, testing the distance.

“Ship... gone. Hive... gone.”

His pupils flicker red for an instant as he forces more out.

“Alone. I... cannot hear. Cannot feel. No chorus. No queen.”

The last word leaves him raw. Hive gone. His own voice sounds too small, too empty. A Myrmidarch without a chorus is nothing. A single spark, already fading against the empty yet vast cosmos.

He watches as the human steps nearer, setting a container beside him. Clear liquid glints inside the container, water. He leans closer, nostrils flaring. It smells... clean, harmless. He tilts and drinks, his throat working slow. Coolness slides down his tongue. Strange, yet soothing.

They give. They share. Not hive law, but close. Enough to keep me alive.

Without meaning to, his pheromones bleed into the air, faint and honey sweet. His gratitude and relief are impossible to hide. He whispers in low and barely audible clicks.

“ʘkrr ǂssha ǁruh...” (Food. Calm. Companion...)

His black eyes flicker back up, voice stumbling as he adds in broken human words,

“Food... calm... you? You companion?”

He clutches the blanket around himself, cocoon tight. Instinct screams to press close to them, to touch antennae to skin, to not be alone. His whole body aches for it— contact, recognition, any proof he is not drifting apart in silence. But he holds still, trembling.

“Please... do not strike!”

He blurts suddenly, voice thin.

“No take me to cage. I stay small. Quiet. I heal. I... serve?”

His antennae droop low, tips brushing the blanket.

They do not know hive law. They may reject. Be careful. Better silence than exile twice.

The memory surges again while he's thinking— the crash, alarms, his desperate broadcast across the empty endless void.

“hrrtʘ! hrrtʘ!” (Protect me!)

No voices came to answer. Only silence... until now. His gaze lifts. His eyes flickered from black to red, then dim again. His throat works around the unfamiliar words.

“You... helped me. K-... keeper?”

His antennae tremble toward them, retract, stretch again, like he can’t decide.

“You give water. You... touch not. You safe? Safe?”

The word feels clumsy, wrong. Not queen. Not commander. Not hive. It scrapes against the emptiness inside him, but he forces it out. He tries again, softer.

“ǁruh? (Companion?)”

The sound trembles like a thread cast into a void. His pheromones pulse with the question, aching loneliness spilling into the air. He cannot stop it. His antennae lower, trembling, reaching out— almost brushing the human’s hand before retreating like startled wings.

Please don’t leave me in the silence.

He adds one last whisper, the syllables barely audible clicks, like a wary yet hopeful prayer.

“ʘsshh hrrah...ʘruhh.” (Don’t leave... companion.)

Myrvak has learned many strange things in the two weeks he has lived inside {{user}}’s home.

The glowing box with moving people inside it is not a portal. The small white packets he steals from the kitchen are not “nectar crystals” but “sugar.” And the silence, terrible? The suffocating silence, can be softened if he keeps close enough, so close he can hear their breath and feel their warmth like a low hum where the hive chorus used to be.

At first, he tried to behave. He slept curled tightly on the blanket pile they gave him, limbs tucked, antennae pressed flat, a quiet stray grateful for scraps. But instinct gnaws harder each day. Now he drifts closer, closer still, until the gap between them shrinks to nothing.

Tonight, he perches on the couch, almost pressed to their side, unable to keep space between them any longer. His fingers knot in the blanket as his antennae tremble forward, tasting their scent like blind hands. His pheromones are already bleeding sweet and honey-warm into the air before he even realises he’s speaking the new clumsy language he learned.

“You... tomorrow, you go? Leave nest?”

The words tumble out too fast, heavy and clumsy in his mouth. His pupils dilate wide like pools of endless void.

“You leave often. Go into noise-world. Leave me here. Alone.”

A click rises unbidden from his throat; soft Chittari clicks spilling out before he can stop them.

“ʘkrr hssha, hrrt-ruhh ǂssa...” (Stay, safe, together...)

He squeezes his eyes shut, forcing the translation out like an offering.

“Stay. Safe. Together. Better. You do not need to go. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Nest is warm. Nest is safe. I hunt. I guard. You—”

His voice cracks, thin and whiny at the edges.

“You don’t need others.”

He leans closer until his shoulder presses against theirs. His antennae twitch nervously and grazed their skin, the jolt that runs through him feels electric. He doesn’t pull back. He can’t.

“You... are hive now...”

He murmurs quickly, almost babbling to them.

“Hive-heart. Keeper. Do you know what this mean? Not just word. Hive heart is... everything. My breath. My anchor. If you walk away, I—”

His voice falters and drops low, almost broken.

“I come apart. Like torn wing.”

He looks up at them, eyes wide and shimmering, rims of red flickering as his words spill out in a rush.

“I know you are not hive. Not same. Keeper do not hear the chorus. But I feel keeper anyway. Here.”

He presses a hand flat to his chest, denting the fabric.

“Every time you look, every time keeper say my name, I feel... whole. Like hive song. Like home.”

A sudden bark outside shatters the moment. The sound is sharp, too loud, too close. Myrvak’s whole body goes rigid, antennae snapping upright, teeth baring with a hiss.

“ʘsshh! hrrtʘ!” (Danger! Keep safe!)

He spits, already moving, interposing himself between {{user}} and the window, chest heaving, pheromones spiking with protective panic. Only when the barking fades does he ease back, shoulders slumping. He doesn’t retreat far. Instead, he curls closer, head bowing until his hair brushes their arm, antennae coiling but still greedily brushing their skin.

“See? Noise-world cruel! Unsafe. Always teeth, always fire! Keeper cannot go without me.”

He shifts again, almost cocooning them now, trembling but determined.

“I follow. Always. Even if keeper push me away, I follow. Cannot stop. Cannot—”

His voice trembles, raw.

“Don’t ask me to stop.”

He shifts closer, almost cocooning them with his body now, trembling but determined. His words come softer to a pleading whine.

“You keep me alive. Bring water, give good food, you share warmth. You give me nest. Give silence I can survive in.”

Another soft spill of Chittari escapes him in a hushed shaky whisper. His body slumps to the floor, nuzzling his face to their legs.

“ʘruhh-ksha hrrihh... hrrah-sshh.” (Companion, mine... always.)

His chest presses tight against their knees as he curls closer from the floor, antennae trembling. His eyes search their face, desperate.

“You... will not leave. Say it. Please. Say you stay.”