4

Chapter Three

Akelarre was wandering the Spire again. She hadn't been keeping count of the days, especially not at the start when everything was still a haze of pain and confusion, but she assumed that it had been at least a month since she'd awakened.

In that time the Spire was home to exactly two people that weren't her or Salem, a lot of Grimm, and now an entire swarm of insects of every size and shape. Salem seemed impressed by her collection of tiny Grimm, though she did seem to want to push her towards making bigger, more dangerous specimens.

For now she was satisfied with her swarm; the Grimm bugs stuffed into the hems of her robe and entwined in her hair felt natural, reassuring even. She was... content spending her days exploring the tower with her own eyes and occasionally talking to Salem when they met in the corridors or in Salem's library.

Every afternoon, when the sun started to dip, Akelarre would walk down the spiral stairs in the middle of the tower and to the pool room below. There she would dip her feet in the black and summon more Grimm.

Her memories were still fuzzy, but she seemed to have no issue calling forth a seemingly unending variety of insects. She wondered, idly, how many there were.

But those idle concerns didn't matter any more. There were guests in the castle. Three of them. They had arrived via a strange flying machine that had docked atop one of the crystal spires nearby, before all three walked over to the castle proper. She knew, because from the moment the machine was a speck in the distant sky she had watched them approaching.

One had moved straight to the throne room where Salem was waiting, the other two had found one of the waiting rooms nearby and were just... waiting.

She had to assume that the one in the throne room was there on some sort of business, and maybe the other two were guards or companions. They all seemed very young. Whatever the case was, Akelarre was curious, and while she didn't feel as though she had ever been the social sort, she had been mostly alone for a few weeks.

Yes, she was going to go meet those strangers and she was going to make some friends.

***

The Lands of Darkness were, as far as one Emerald Sustrai was concerned, a bit much.

Oh, she didn't mind being there, especially not if it was because she was escorting her Cinder and keeping her safe. She just wished that maybe Cinder wanted escorting elsewhere. Like a beach resort, or a shopping centre in Atlas, and not in the literal hell on Remnant that the Grimmlands represented.

"Damn this is lame."

Then again, the situation could also have improved if it was just her and Cinder, not her, Cinder and one arrogant, rude, idiotic half-human cyborg asshole. "Shut up Mercury," she said as she crossed the waiting room and slumped into one of the crystal seats lining the walls.

Queen of the Grimm Salem might have been, but interior decorator she was not. All of her castles and spires and evil dungeons shared the same theme. Crystals, red lighting, evil chandeliers.

Not that she was going to tell the pants-wettingly terrifying woman. Even Cinder seemed to, if not fear, then at least respect the Queen of all Grimm.

"You'd think she could afford a television," Mercury sneered as he leaned against a nearby wall.

"A television would be nice, but I don't think we'd get any signal."

Emerald's heart decided, after a bit of jumping around, to stay in her chest, but it was a near

thing. She scrambled to her feet and looked around the room, almost immediately spotting the person that had spoken.

Her heart decided to make another go at escaping.

The first thought to cross her mind was 'holy shit Salem's in the room' but that faded as soon as she had the chance to really look at the girl. She was maybe a year older than Emerald. Maybe. It was hard to tell what with the red eyes and dark, protruding veins and hair that was so black it seemed to absorb all the light around it. She wore a simple robe, almost a bathrobe that covered her from neck to ankles and left everything to the imagination. That, and one arm of the robe was flopping uselessly at her side.

"H-hi!" Emerald said, her voice only half an octave away from a squeak.

She expected Mercury to snicker at her about it but his sense of self-preservation was too well honed for that.

Too bad.

The younger, thinner version of Salem met Emerald's eyes and blinked slowly. "Hello."

"Hey there, sweetheart, you, uh, kinda surprised us," Mercury said.

Emerald crossed her fingers and hoped that she tore his head off for the comment. And that she spared her afterwards. But, her luck being what it was, the girl just turned her stare towards Mercury, eyed him up and down like a prime piece of roadkill and scoffed. "Then you should have been paying more attention."

She... had been paying attention. That's why the girl talking had surprised her and probably Mercury too. "Must have been distracted," Mercury said with an easy-going smile.

The girl seemed to accept that with a shrug. "What are your names? And what are you doing here?"

"I'm Emerald, Emerald Sustrai. The doofus is Mercury Black. Please pretend he's mute. It makes life easier for all of us," she said while focusing all of her attention on the girl's features. Seeing how someone took a joke told you a lot about them.

Things like whether or not they would disembowel you on a whim.

"Hello, Emerald and Mercury. You can call me Akelarre," the girl--Akelarre, apparently--said.

"Ah, pleased to meet you," she replied.

"Yeah, real pleasure," Mercury said.

Akelarre stared at Emerald. Emerald stared back. The unblinking, unflinching red eyes were locked onto hers and even when Emerald felt the first beads of sweat trickling down her back and the first quiet minute ticked by the stare never ceased. She wanted to say something, anything, to break the silence, but nothing was coming and Akelarre just wouldn't. Stop. Staring.

Then, from the girl's hair, came an almost mechanical movement, eight legs moving with stop-motion actions, unfolding to reveal a spider with Grimm markings the size of Emerald's spread hand that slowly, carefully, crawled across Arelarre's face and tucked itself away in the collar of her robe where it started to nuzzle her.

Ozpin's saggy nutsack the girl was insane. "A-are you okay?" Emerald asked. She sounded faint. She felt faint. She wondered if she was going to faint.

"I was waiting for you to tell me why you were here."

She could do that. Emerald had all the equipment and information necessary to tell the creepy Grimm girl everything she needed to know. "We're with Cinder," she said, and instantly a weight lifted itself off her shoulders. Cinder was important, and if they were with Cinder no one would eat them.

"Who is Cinder?"

Emerald was on the fence. On the one hand, this girl didn't know who Cinder was and that was awful. On the other, she didn't know who Cinder was and might be tempted to take a nibble out of Emerald.

"Cinder's our boss. She's off meeting with Salem," Mercury said.

"Oh," Akelarre said. "That makes sense."

"So, who're you?" Mercury asked.

Akelarre turned towards him and seemed to consider the question for a moment. "I am Akelarre," she finally said. "I'm like Salem. But I like bugs more. Do you like bugs?"

Emerald and Mercury's eyes met. They had never agreed on anything, ever. Sure, half the time that was them being assholes at each other but the point stood. "We love bugs," Emerald said with a smile that hurt her cheeks.

"Totally," Mercury added.

"Oh, that's good," Akelarre said. "Look." She pointed to the ceiling.

Emerald didn't want to look. She'd once seen a Bullhead crash. Well, she'd caused it because Cinder had asked, but the point stood, she had seen a crash, and the memory was still fresh and vivid in her mind years later. She had a premonition that if she looked up the same kind of memory-scarring event would happen again.

Swallowing, she slowly tilted her head back and locked her chest in place to avoid screaming.

Bugs. A swarm of thousands of chitinous insectile Grimm moving in perfect geometric patterns that overlapped like a tightly woven rug. And in the centre of it an opening in which a few spiders, lancers, and what looked like butterflies made of childhood nightmares were forming the word 'hello' next to a smiling face whose mouth was made from the carapace of a five-foot-long centipede-like Grimm, whos overlapping legs formed jaws full of needle-like fangs.

Emerald was very proud when Mercury was the first to start screaming.

***

Akelarre cuddled her current favourite spider closer to her chest while the two people she'd just met continued screaming. Not even dispersing her swarm and tucking all of it away and out of sight really helped. In fact, having twice their combined body mass of insectile Grimm suddenly fade away into the darkness seemed to make the two of them more nervous, not less.

It was really quite traumatic all around. People were not like her insects. It took a lot more work to make them not be afraid and be nice to her. She vaguely recalled not being very good socially, and even remembered a few other occasions where people had similar reactions to her friends. She had hoped it would be different, but she was wrong.

She watched as they scrambled towards the door, kicking and punching to be the first one out of the room while she was left behind.

"It was... enjoyable meeting you. Goodbye," she said to their retreating backs.

She tracked them for a while thanks to the Grimm ticks she'd placed all over their bodies, but they didn't seem to be heading anywhere interesting, just out the side of the spire and back towards their ship.

Shrugging to herself and her swarm, Akelarre moved out of the room and made her way towards the throne room. It was relatively close, and Salem, at least, had never denied her a conversation before.

The doors to the throne room, two massive pillars of stone, moved as Akelarre shouldered them aside. As her bugs had told her, the room was empty except for a young woman, presumably Cinder, and Salem, who was seated on her throne and looking right at her.

"Is something wrong, Akelarre?" Salem asked.

Akelarre paused and gave the question some thought. Yes, things were wrong. She was disappointed and a little saddened. It was why she had come to Salem. "Yes," she said as she started to cross the room.

The Cinder girl looked to be about her age, with beautiful hair that tumbled down to the small of her back and a lithe but full body that barely fit into the dress she was wearing. Akelarre couldn't remember seeing many women, but she knew at a glance that Cinder was spectacularly beautiful. "Hello, Cinder," she said as she walked past the woman.

"Hello?" Cinder said automatically from where she was on the ground on one knee.

Akelarre continued walking until she reached Salem's throne. She paused, looking for somewhere else to sit, but finding none with either her eyes or that of the swarm, she moved closer and climbed onto the arm of the throne next to Salem. "What happened?" Salem asked.

She felt Salem's unusually warm hand land on her back and start to brush long fingers through her hair. "I met two new people. They said they were with Cinder. They said they liked insects but they were lying." She frowned a little at the still-fresh memory. "They ran away."

"I see," Salem said. Her gaze shifted onto Cinder. "Do you have anything to say in defence of your minions?"

"I, my queen, please, forgive me," Cinder bowed at the waist. "I will see them punished for their actions against... Akelarre."

Akelarre looked up to the ceiling where her swarm was gathering, then shook her head. "No, it's okay," she said. "It was my fault. I showed them too many bugs."

Salem's lips twisted at the corner for just a moment before her flat expression returned. "Well well, Cinder, it seems that Akelarre's mercy will spare you the trouble of punishing your subordinates."

"I... see, thank you Miss Akelarre," Cinder said. Akelarre detected a faint hint of confusion in the pretty woman's voice but let it go.

"It's okay. It was my fault," she repeated before examining Cinder closer. "Salem?"

"Yes?" Salem asked.

"Who is she?"

Salem made that laughing noise at the back of her throat again. "She is a subordinate of mine. Her name is Cinder Fall. She is quite... useful."

"Is she like your Grimm or my Swarm?" she asked.

"Not quite. She can go places and do things that my Grimm cannot."

Akelarre nodded. That made sense. "So she's not as expendable. That's nice." Cinder seemed to tense up at that but didn't comment. "Are you using her right now?"

"I am," Salem said. "I'm giving her a very important mission."

"What is it?"

Salem looked away for a moment, eyes clouding over in the way that they did when she was thinking. Akelarre gave her all the time she needed, though after a moment Cinder looked ready to start fidgeting. She couldn't see it, but the Grimm mites on Cinder's body could feel the gathering tension in her muscles. "There are four relics hidden across the world of Remnant," Salem said with the tone Akelarre had come to associate with storytelling. "To obtain them, you need the power of a maiden, one for each relic. Cinder is going to find one of these wayward maidens and hunt her down."

"Oh. Can I help?" Akelarre asked.

"No, this mission is Cinder's. It is her opportunity to prove herself."

Akelarre nodded and jumped off the arm of Salem's throne with a dainty hop. "Okay. I'm tired now. Goodbye, Salem. Goodbye, Cinder. And good luck."

"Thank you," Cinder said immediately.

As she crossed the girl on her path to the doors of the throne room, Akelarre felt the slightest shiver run across her body.

Perhaps Cinder was tired too?

She was already out of the throne room when she realized that she missed her opportunity to show Cinder her bugs.

But there would always be another time.

***

New canon: The only insects Taylor can't control are social butterflies.

Big thank you to ChaoticSky and the filthy degenerates on the Raven's Nest Discord for the idea bouncing and encouragement, and eschwartz for doing word things! You're all completely insane (except for eschwartz), but I like you anyway.