Ninmah, as usual, was happily scribbling his curt answers to her questions down in her notebook. They’d been doing this for over a month now. After dark, after dinner and finishing up their chores and the elders tucking all the children into their beds, only the two of them would retreat to the library to continue their individual studies side by side. Moonlight was their lantern, the books from the Attini Empire Front section were their material, and the snowboard was his writing practising tool—he didn’t exactly feel like he needed to know how to write as opposed to just being able to read and understand the words in his status interface, but Ninmah had insisted he learned the ‘full package’. He was skilled at teaching everyone the ways of bug-slaying, so, in return, she wanted to be the one teaching him the ways of the learned child instead.

  He didn’t mind putting in extra effort to learn how to write, of course. It’d surely be a skill he’d put to good use in the future. He’d simply been unable to fully concentrate or relax in the library—his new house where he laid to rest—ever since they left Elder Worm three days ago with M1N-K1 in their arms, who still showed no signs of awakening.

  With Utu and the others’ help, he’d moved his bed from his old house onto the second floor of the library, right next to the window, while Ninmah had been sleeping with the scout on the third floor right above him. It was so she could keep a closer eye on the scout, Ninmah had said. Her bed was a wide double bed that could accommodate three or even four people if they really squeezed, and as a Bullet Ant Soldier himself, Sparrow had shared narrow bunks with his comrades more than a few times when there wasn’t enough space to go around. Sharing a bed wasn’t an issue.

  Sharing it with a , though, was another matter altogether.

  Ninmah teased, catching him stealing glances up over the third floor railing. He looked back down at her just as she flicked his nose, groaning and sprawling her arms across the table as she did.

  Ninmah paused.

  After another second, her teasing smile turned pensive, and she rolled her face so she was staring down at the table.

  she muttered.

  he said plainly, leaning back in his chair.

  Ninmah’s shoulders shook as she chuckled.

  she said, turning so she was looking at him sadly Then she feigned a gasp, pulling a hand to her mouth.

  he said, shaking his head a few times.

  And that was the truth.

  He was… stuck.

  In the ‘In-Between’.

  He was still a Bullet Ant Soldier of the Attini Empire, and all he’d known his entire life was how to fight—but he felt like he was on the cusp of coming to another realisation, and he just… didn’t know what that was.

  Did he want to stay?

  Did he want to abandon his duties as a soldier of the empire?

  Ninmah said, humming softly.

  He couldn’t give her a resolute nod.

  She offered him four fingers pressed tightly together, like a handshake without the thumb extended, and his perplexed expression made her chuckle again.

  she teased, grabbing his hand and making him curl his four fingers around hers, bending only the first two joints to make a ‘locking’ gesture.

  So he let her toy with his hand, shaking it up and down before she finally decided to let go. Then she sat up straight in her chair and picked up her book, pointing at the next paragraph with a wide, shining smile on her face.

  she said, as he looked up at the third floor railings once more, half-distracted by the gentle snores overhead.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She whistled, shivering lightly.

  By the time Sparrow finished his early morning warp through the village the next day and returned to the library, a massive crowd of forty children had already formed outside the front door, staring up at the dome where sunlight reflected off the glass in blinding, striking rays.

  He had to squint and focus for a little bit, but very quickly he picked out the silhouettes standing at the very top of the dome and scowled. It was as he’d thought what would happen one of these days.

  Utu observed, the Worm Mages in no way panicking as the elders warped next to Sparrow, nodding in quiet understanding.

  Sparrow’s face stayed scrunched for a moment longer, and then he warped up to the ledge on the third floor window, climbing the rest of the way up to the dome. The second he pulled himself over the edge, the scout holding an obsidian-edged knife to Ninmah’s throat took a step back, bare feet almost slipping against the glass. The dome curved, after all—it was already a testament to her skill at traversal that she was not only maintaining her own balance, but Ninmah’s as well while her free arm held the village chief in a chokehold.

  Slowly, steadily, he pulled off his bayonet rifle and rolled it in his hands. The scout didn’t say anything, and it was all the better for him as he spied at her while pretending to inspect his weapon.

  Much like him, her short hair was wild and unkempt, and her skin was a whole palette darker than everyone else’s—that wasn’t saying much considering ‘everyone’ meant the incredibly pale Worm Mages—but half of it was streaked with silvery biometals that stood in stark contrast, and her face was significantly more weathered than his. The scars over her eyes and cheeks reminded him of Utu’s own scar. She was his exact build, if not a bit taller and more muscular around the thighs, but she also didn’t seem too bothered by the fact she was wearing the same thin white cloak as the Worm Mages. Being barefoot several thousands of metres above sea level meant nothing to her new half-inorganic body; judging by how tightly she held Ninmah in a chokehold, what little warmth she was getting from the village chief was enough to tide her through the early morning temperatures.

  For a second, he felt like clicking his tongue in irritation—he’d been here three months and sometimes still heard the call to put on some shoes—but then he gathered himself and shook his head, making a big show of lifting his rifle in the air.

  The scout glared at him with sunken, bluish-white eyes for a second longer, and then decided to nod. He tossed his rifle at her. She flicked her knife into her cloak and caught the rifle in the same instant, but instead of releasing her hostage, she merely raised the bayonet against Ninmahs’ throat and continued glaring at him.

  He would’ve done the same thing, so he didn’t feel irritated. Ninmah, on the other hand, chuckled softly as her eyes flitted back and forth between the two of them, likely wondering why neither one of them was saying anything.

  she said, keeping her voice low and controlled; Sparrow couldn’t help but get irritated at , because she most certainly didn’t do the same for him when he was in the scout’s position.

  “Let me descend and return to my battalion or I’ll kill the girl,” the scout snarled, sounding slightly feverish. Most likely, she was sick and still recovering from the half-inorganic operation. He understood the pain very well.

  So, he took a step up the dome, getting closer—the scout tensed visibly and pressed the edge of his bayonet deeper into Ninmah’s throat.

  “All of you stay where you are,” she growled, stealing glances at the crowd below as she did. “One more step and I’ll kill her. Let me descend, and once I am out of your line of sight, I will return your hostage. You have ten seconds to back up before she dies.”

  A well-delivered threat. He would’ve made the exact same demands, but back then, he’d gotten a very rude awakening call very, quickly.

  He tilted his head at Ninmah, staring at her in silence, and ever so slightly—her lips shifted into a faint, apologetic smile.

  She willingly leaned into the scout’s bayonet and opened an ultra-thin wormhole between her and the scout, warping behind Sparrow and waving at the crowd below to go away and get on with their morning chores. While the scout sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled a step back, he heard Utu and a few elders shouting up at them, asking if they needed help calming her down, but Ninmah simply told them to start hunting their daily Boreus—just the two of them were enough to handle the scout in all her befuddled disarray.

  For his part, while Ninmah continued shaking her fists and nagged the younger kids to stop staring, Sparrow walked up to the top of the dome and shared the relatively flat section with the scout. The scout didn’t back up any further. She was well-trained enough to know she couldn’t give up the high ground even if she the only one with a weapon.

  he said slowly, consciously trying to do what Ninmah did by suppressing his warping voice. The scout wasn’t wincing as she scowled at him, so he was probably doing a good job.

  To her credit, the scout’s defiant look never wavered as she swung her rifle in, pointing the barrel at his chest.

  “What will you do with me?”

  he replied, practised.

  Her eyes twitched. “You… gave me a new class?”

  “How?”

  “Poor explanation.”

  “I will not help you. Either return me to my battalion or execute me. I will not be a prisoner.”

  “... You are not one of them,” she said, biting her teeth after a moment of silence. “You are a soldier of the Attini Empire. What are you doing here?”

  “Are you disobeying your orders?”

  he said curtly.

  “I understand,” she replied brusquely. “But my orders are to determine the location of the Boreus brood nest and return to the border outpost immediately. I have determined the location, but you stand in my way of returning to the General. My mission-–”

  he interrupted.

  A fleeting expression washed over her face, brisk as the winds, and he felt it might have been ‘satisfaction’ from knowing her mission was most likely completed, or maybe simpler ‘relief’ from knowing some of her comrades made it down the mountains alive—but then she tightened her grip on her rifle and aimed down the iron sights, her stance unwavering.

  “All the more reason for me to return to the General,” she whispered. “I have no purpose. I require a new mission.”

  “On what authority?”

  “...”

  She pulled the trigger, but no bullet came flying out. The Worm Mages had picked up the rifles dropped by the Silver Ant Battalion four days ago, but he hadn’t had the time to reload his own yet—Ninmah whirled around after successfully telling everyone off, then, to see him cracking his neck, stretching his wormic bones for the second time this morning.

  M1N-K1 did the same, tossing his rifle back at him and pulling out her obsidian-edged knife as she did.

  Ninmah said nervously, tapping his shoulders from behind.

  “We are lowly weapons of the Attini Empire in humanity’s never-ending war against the Swarm,” K1 said, flipping her knife into a reverse-grip as she lowered her stance, bending her knees. “We are weapons created for war. We are weapons to be wielded by a soldier.”

  he finished.

  K1 nodded promptly. “Agreed.”

  Ninmah said, trying to worm around him to get between the two of them.

  He warped five paces forward, intending on driving a straight kick into K1’s stomach to knock her out.

  K1 warped six paces forward, dodging his kick while sending one back.

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