I don’t really dream while in torpor. Technically, torpor and sleep are different states, I get that, but still, not-dreaming is one of the few things that I haven’t really gotten used to in my new life.
This, though? This… listless… bodiless experience I’m having right now… it’s as close to dreaming as I’ve co since I was reborn on Pangera. If anything, it reminds of how I felt just before I hatched.
The major difference between now and then is that I have the collective Will of millions of individuals flowing through at any given mont. Mont to mont, my sense of self is frayed as I drift away in the stream of my family's consciousness.
I spend a day as a miner, chomping at the stone, sensing the rock with my antennae, slling the minerals and gems I’m hunting for. A deep sense of satisfaction fills as I push my cart, filled to the brim with the fruit of my labours, along the tracks and back to the outpost. From there, it will be added to the next shipnt, along with all of my sisters’ work, headed to the sorting facility.
Tomorrow, the mana filling the Dungeon will have refilled and regrown precious tals in another location, so the miner's work is never done. Such a deep sense of fulfillnt I feel with that knowledge.
Another day, I am a healer. Irritation fills from the mont I erge from torpor. Worried about my siblings, I rush out, barely giving myself enough ti to eat and groom in my haste to reach the hospitals. There has been an influx of cases from below, hundreds of soldiers suffering from severe mana poisoning. Though they are already through the worst of their ailnt, they still need around-the-clock care to ensure the toxins don’t spread throughout their systems again.
No sooner have I entered the chamber than I can sll the soldiers trying to persuade anyone who will listen that they are well enough to be released. When I step in, a soldier resting in a recuperation chamber calls out imdiately, demanding to be sent back to the front line.
Irritation explodes into anger and I thwack the soldier thoroughly with my antennae, assuring them that their stay in the hospital has just been extended by another week. If they want to complain about it, I’ll make it two weeks!
For the rest of the day, I march around the hospital, endlessly worried for my family mbers who seem so infuriatingly incapable of worrying about themselves. Finally, exhausted and drained, I return to the torpor chamber and collapse into sleep.
Another day, I am a Brood Tender, and I spend all of my ti feeding, grooming and tickling grubs. The fat little things wiggle happily as I tend to them, a pure and innocent existence, untainted by the world. Soothed and nourished by my aura and care, they grow rapidly, ready to beco the newest generation of the Colony.
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I even spend a day as a Queen, which is… interesting. Being fed an endless supply of Biomass and being nearly constantly grood is nice, and the tea parties are exquisite, but laying eggs is a rather uncomfortable experience.
It feels like I am everyone and everywhere. Hundreds of different experiences, if not thousands.
I fight as a general in the tunnels, coordinating my siblings as they battle alongside .
I work making carpets, weaving fine threads into intricate patterns that please the eye and will bring satisfaction and pleasure to the guests of the family.
Slting in the great foundries. I watch liquid steel flow like a river, so hot only my mutations allow to work in such a place without my insides boiling within my carapace.
Learning in the antcademies as a hatchling, I study the wisdom of my elders and listen intently to the teachings of my Brood Tender instructor. Soon, I will know everything I need to know in order to work and help my family, and I burn with eagerness for that work to begin.
Skulking in the shadows, I spend a day as one of the naless, stalking a scout who has dared to pull a double shift. Multiple tis, my target has the option of choosing rightly, going to torpor, but every chance for redemption is spurned. When I strike, I strike without rcy.
Before retiring for torpor, I see the scout receive the full treatnt, her carapace polished to a mirror shine, and feel satisfied that the wisdom of the Eldest has been fulfilled this day.
Wait, my wisdom? Since when was I wise?
A few fragnts of myself, shocked out of the flowing stream, pull together just long enough for to rember who I am, but they aren’t able to hold together long enough. Soon, I am fraying apart again, lost in the endless flow of Will.
More days, hundreds of them. I experience life all around the Colony, in every aspect. I fight, I dig, I build, I craft, I search, I nourish and I grow.
Every ti I experience another point of view, I feel myself vanish just that little bit more into the river, pulled a tiny bit deeper below the surface.
That’s fine. It’s so warm here. Even six legs aren’t enough to wrap around the love and care of my family. It’s all-encompassing and overflowing, running through the river like streaks of gold.
I am a scout. I run through the tunnels, hoping the hunters haven’t seen , but fearing that they have. Those fears are confird soon after as my antennae pick up the vibrations of feet on stone. It’s fine, I have evolved and mutated for speed, I can outpace them.
Except, I can’t? Warned at the last second, I dodge to the left and the net sweeps through where I’d been monts ago.
Another hundred tres, and I’m in the clear, I can see other ants in the distance, and the hunters can too. I sense the vibrations fading as they slow before turning around and heading back, waiting for another opportunity. Thankfully the patrols in those outer tunnels will cease after today. No ants have been captured, thank the Eldest.
…
…
EXCUSE ??!?!?!
My disparate strands of consciousness slam back together in an instant.
Anthony is back.
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