9 First meeting (2/3)

Jakob and Bea arrived at the meeting spot right when the sun hit the horizon. There were, including them, a total of 8 Insects present.

Jakob got closer to all of them with a greeting.

"Hello everyone, thank you for coming. I was thinking of a nice name for our gathering which we should do quite often in the upcoming days but I was out of ideas. Let´s start first with a round of introductions, since all of you know me but I am unsure if you all know each other as well." Jakob said nonchalant and sat down in the wet grass, since most of the others were sitting as well.

"Guess I start then", said Bea, since she was the most familiar with Jakob as well. "I am Bea and a Honeybee as you can tell. We decided to lay together us Honeybees and Butterlies, since most of our interests are the same and the little dispute we might have we can solve on our own.

We mostly collected food today, and will probably do so for the next few days as well. We stored it all at the same spot but we have nearly run out after everyone ate today." Bea concluded her report with a salute, showing clearly her familiarity with orders and a chain of command.

A big hulky Grasshopper stood up next. Grasshoppers had longer legs than most Insects and with the bulk of their muscles being on their thighs they could look quite intimidating.

"Hugo, Chief of Hoppers and Crickets. I made my boys mostly scout out the area in case we missed something. Will do so for the future days as well. I don´t really care about the Crickets but they did some casual hauling and music playing."

Hugo evidently wasn´t that big of a talker. With his deep voice and slow rhythm it would have also taken him quite some to if he wanted to say more.

"Anyway", thought Jakob, "this much is good enough, and I even said that we needed some scouts to... scout the area."

Ralph, the smaller of the Rhinobeetles stood up next. If one thought that Hugo was hulky then he would be shocked to see Ralph. Rhinobeetles had a thick chitin armor covering them basically from horn to feet. They were slow, but also strong.

"Hello Jakob. My brother said I should come because I am the smarter of the two of us. We plucked some trees."

Ralph sat down again, with a satisfied smile. Apparently he was quite pleased with himself.

An older Arachnoid woman stood up next. Despite her apparent old age she moved with grace and was a stunning beauty nonetheless. If you liked 4 pairs of eyes, that is.

"I am Anna and the Chief of the Arachnoids. As you are all aware we can spin spidersilk into thread, but our numbers are too little to get a lot of things done. We are only 5 after all. If we wanted to make liquid storage containers for everyone it would take us a few days, not to mention that we didn't make or do anything else in the meantime. We are unsure what to work on first, so after we made the first few liquid containers we decided it would be best to just let the silk be raw, so we can craft something else later out of it.

Also, I would greatly appreciate it if I and my sisters are among the first that can use some houses. Spinning silk usually is a very private matter and I don´t like being watched by some pervs while I do that."

With that Anna sat down again, graciously as she stood up, and closed her 8 eyes.

"Guess that means I can go next." Next to Anna stood a male Dragonfly up. Dragonflies were said to be direct relatives to the ancient fire breathing giants that once roamed the lands. But other than their name nothing of that remains, if it ever was the case.

"I am Dave by the way. We focused on clearing out the area and also collected some food. I also would like to start training at least a few soldiers. I was once taught by a wandering aquatic weapons master. If we weren´t so foolish and not use weapons we might not have lost our hives and would have even won the battle. I know it´s a disgrace for an animal to use weapons, but I think we don´t have a choice anymore."

Dave clenched his fists and sat down again. He hated how helpless he felt when their Hive was attacked. It is true that he got a glimpse of the weapon arts from his master, but since he never trained in them he couldn´t even defeat one Mammal, let alone a whole army.

"Foolish old Queen, not preparing better..." Dave muttered.

"Äh.. I guess it´s my turn now?" A shy, chubby looking Ladybug lady stood up. "We were mostly trying to help where we could. You know, Jack of all trades kind of deal. We aren´t very good crafter, or strong, or smart, so we couldn´t think of anything better. I am deeply sorry."

"You forgot to tell us your name, Lady", Jakob intervened. "Also, don´t worry about that. Most of us lost our trade back home. Some were artists, some were a loving mother or father, some were interior designers."

Jakob said while rubbing his chin. "Some of us were lucky, like the Mantis, or me personally. Point is, I never expected everyone to work 100% capacity right off the bat. Survival comes first, and I can see that you were trying as hard as you could."