Gristle
Tinea Lupus est Homini
Eight mouthfuls.
No - nineteen mouthfuls on the Nanitic. The larvae didn’t have the mouths of the adults. He’d compared too quickly the minute mandibulae of the brood with his own mouth. An easy mistake, they were the only ones who met his own ravenous desires, the little squelching wyrms always twisting and shifting in the hot wet darkness, hungering to grow.
Hungering.
It was the nature of all things to desire, to crave, to need. It was the driving force behind all life whether it subscribed to the greater purposes of sapients, or the mere animalistic tendencies of wild beasts.
Gristle knew hunger.
Grim red eyes roamed the pile, settling upon another corpse, a worker-caste, one whose gaster had been separated from the remainder of the body in the midst of the combat, and whose subsequent evisceration had led to an exceptionally swift death.
Two-thousand and four-hundred mouthfuls, by his reckoning. He would watch as the corpse of this one was devoured later, to verify whether his measurements were accurate.
He lifted up the disemboweled gaster, gazing into it, examining the rings of tissue and flesh that made it up, taking note of the tasteful hemolymph lingering across it, as well as the small pockets of excreta that would need to be scooped out. He reached in, manipulator tearing apart the offending flesh as he saved the scavengers the trouble of its removal.
Cartilage. Hemolymph. Exoskeleton. Tissues. Protein. A pocket there in the corner - indicative of some kind of tumor? Incision confirmed it was only discoloration, perhaps an overabundance of oxygen in the hemolymph?
Hemolymph was cleaner than the blood of mammals. He preferred dealing with it where possible. It meant he did not need to wait quite so long to haul the corpses back to the colony. The eaters who awaited would doubtless love to sink their jaws upon warm, fresh bodies, but it always meant an exceptional loss of blood.
The iron within it was important for the growth of the brood.
Pleasure could wait, then, if it meant greater development. The eaters disagreed, of course, but it did not stop Gristle from allowing hunted mammals to cool so that they coagulated inside before they were delivered - the jellied blood was less appetizing, but also it meant less was lost.
They didn’t need to wait much longer. The brood would be hungry.
“You are doing it again.” The voice squeaked beside him.
“What?” He chirped in response, turning to gaze at his peer.
“Counting the bites. You always get lost in it after the battle.”
Gristle opened himself to the Thrum, that great network of life, feeling the shared humor from the perspective of Terror, seeing the memories of past conflicts where he was spotted in the distance gazing upon the bodies, heard the discussions of others as they confirmed that he was, once again, lost in the meat.
Gristle became Terror for a few moments, enough to understand, and then stifled the flow again. He shared his own examinations through the mind network, letting his fellow War-Form see the number of bite marks he’d counted, letting him see the research he’d done, but he could tell that this piece was not taken by his counterpart.
“I know that you watch the eaters, I know. Every piece and chunk. Some find it strange that you know the inside of our kind as well as the outside, you know.”
“It must be devoured. The brood-”
“Hungers, yes, I know. We know.” A chirp of mirth and humor.
Gristle relaxed his shoulders, stepping away from the pile of dead Myka. Interlopers from another colony.
“Do we know why they encroached yet? Who they were?”
A shake of the head, a simple gesture, but conveying plenty.
“It will not matter. They’re dead now. Others won’t come - not for some time.”
“As you say, Gristle.” Acquiescence.
The others fetched the corpses while Gristle mused. He was old enough that he no longer had to offer to carry the baggage.
Terror was young, so young that Gristle could scarcely believe it - or perhaps he himself had only grown old. Even this third body was beginning to feel the effects of age, and yet Terror had never once committed that special ecdysis of the Myka, the second pupation which allowed them to shift their neural structure into a new form.
It was obvious to him, of course, even if he’d not seen through the eyes of his friend. The way that he blazed with life, the way that he was constantly anxious for movement, for some new activity, for something exciting to remove his boredom. There were many hungers, but none quite so fiery as those which accompanied ambitious youth.
He talked sometimes of switching to a different caste when he returned to the pupal stage, but Gristle had seen the hunger in his eyes for bloodshed and adventure, had watched him tear and rend apart intruders with the kind of glee that only those enamored by action do. He knew that there was no getting out of this path.
He looked at Terror and saw a lifelong companion, one who would stay by his side to fight the enemies of the Ykaradan colony.
Three-thousand one-hundred and fifty-six mouthfuls.
Gristle knew hunger.