Due to the rain the heavy fog slowly dispersed and vanished completely after about half an hour. Without the fog around the glittering of the silk became less visible and noticeable, but still continued. Kai guessed that it had only been this bright during the fog because all the tiny water drops reflected and amplified the light in a unique way.
Sadly the rain continued for the rest of the day and forced Kai more or less to stay in her room. She could go out of course, but having wet fur was uncomfortable so she would rather not.
The drones didn’t seem to mind that however and went back to scouting and hunting during the rain. Kai made them prioritize the area to the west for the scouting, in the hope that they would find a forest there. They couldn’t press to the north and east because of the moths and the earth dragon thingy and she wasn’t fond of going to the south. That the moths went there every day made her wary of the place.
A few hours after the fog had cleared Anna had to go out once to get Kai and herself something to eat. This time Kai didn’t even try to argue that she should be the one to do that and was just thankful that Anna volunteered herself.
The rest of the day they enjoyed their time together and listened to the rain. Kai just hoped that Susi, the new hunter, had a good first day together with Artemis. That the girl had been born just before the fog was unlucky.
Kai also juggled ideas around with Anna about how to deal with naming her kids in the future. She would be the real mother of all sapient Antanoid, at least for the moment, but there would come a time when she couldn’t think of new names for them anymore.
They could do some kind of ceremony to introduce new hive members. The problem was that Kai didn’t like the idea of that. Some of her children would have to stay unnamed for some time until a ceremony was held, because doing one for every new Antanoid wasn’t feasible and she found that cruel.
Anna had suggested that they could invent a system where Antanoid could apply to become the foster mother of a newborn. That way others could have kids and Kai wouldn’t have to name them.
It would also solve Kai’s problem of not being able to be a proper mom for everyone. She was well aware that she was failing in that regard right now and that there was no way she would be able to build up a mother-daughter relationship with everyone. This was a small part of her reason for wanting to be treated like a mother and to treat her kids like a mother. Kai felt guilty that she couldn’t give them the experience of having a mother.
A system like that wouldn’t work well at the moment though, because they needed every new hand to help with the work that had to be done. It would work better in the future when they had established themselves. Then the newborn could also get a period of time to experience life and their society together with their mom before they would have to grow up and work. The better their technology level was the longer they could make this period.
The idea of a system like that was pretty good in her opinion and she would keep it in mind.
Some time later Tiffany came visiting them, mostly to ask if they would hold the meeting despite the rain. Kai had a bit of small talk with her daughter and decided that she would postpone the meeting until tomorrow. If it was still raining by then they would have to meet in her room.
Sadly, this way not everyone would be able to be a part of this meeting, because her room wasn’t large enough for 13 people to have a comfortable amount of space, especially since Kai herself already needed the space of at least three persons with that tail of hers.
Anna joked that it would be a meeting of the country's leadership in this case and she wasn’t too wrong about that, except that they were more of a tribe than a country at the moment.
Anyway, should it still rain tomorrow Tiffany, Ember, Erika and Artemis would take part in the meeting. There was no need to mention Anna. The girl would be near Kai regardless of the occasion.
For Tiffany it meant she would have to collect the ideas of the other builders. The rest of her daughters didn’t have to gather anything because they were working mostly alone for now.
Her second daughter should be able to remember the things, because there couldn’t be too much they were able to do without metal.
Kai couldn’t think of something too useful at least, but she was a city girl and had no idea about surviving in the wilderness. All the knowledge about physics and chemics only got you so far if you had no idea how to use it without modern tools.
The best she had come up with had been a wall, but she wasn’t so sure about that anymore. With the way water came down the tree trunk they would have to build some kind of drainage system or the water would be stuck inside the walls and Kai didn’t know how the others would manage to create something like that without the right digging tools.
She had never cared to learn survival skills, because she had thought the worst that could happen to her was her pc losing connection to the wifi. That had always been a pain for her and a very convenient method to threaten her into doing chores for her parents.
Kai sighed melancholically. She should have appreciated the luxury of modern technology more back then, it had been good times. The memory gave her a goal to work towards and maybe even a threshold to surpass too, so it was good in more than one way.
After they had planned plan B for the next day, Tiffany left to tell the others about it and likely to gather the ideas of her girls too. As far as Kai knew the current clouds were the kind that could rain for days without stopping so there was a fair chance for the downpour to continue overnight and the next few days.
In the evening of the day Kai decided to lay another egg to spend some of the stored energy she had. She chose to give birth to a worker, because they were more needed than the hunters right now.
Kai didn’t like to think of her daughters like this, but someone had to do that to ensure everyone else could live their best lives. Her new biology forced her into that position so there wasn’t really a choice for her and she would have to live with it.
Kai tried to ignore Anna during the laying process, but there was no way around her getting embarrassed when someone saw her in her current state. She just wasn’t used to sharing intimate moments like this with others.
When Kai was done Anna cleaned the egg with a lump of silk she had produced and carefully moved it out of the way. Then she built a small little silk nest around the egg while Kai lay exhausted in her bed and watched her.
They should have built nests for the eggs earlier than this in Kai’s opinion. She had never thought of this after the first two eggs not needing anything, but it made a lot of sense to do this retrospectively.
Here she was trying to be a good mother to all her kids, but didn’t even manage to care about her eggs.
Kai shook away the bad thoughts and settled in for the night.
Due to the rain the heavy fog slowly dispersed and vanished completely after about half an hour. Without the fog around the glittering of the silk became less visible and noticeable, but still continued. Kai guessed that it had only been this bright during the fog because all the tiny water drops reflected and amplified the light in a unique way.
Sadly the rain continued for the rest of the day and forced Kai more or less to stay in her room. She could go out of course, but having wet fur was uncomfortable so she would rather not.
The drones didn’t seem to mind that however and went back to scouting and hunting during the rain. Kai made them prioritize the area to the west for the scouting, in the hope that they would find a forest there. They couldn’t press to the north and east because of the moths and the earth dragon thingy and she wasn’t fond of going to the south. That the moths went there every day made her wary of the place.
A few hours after the fog had cleared Anna had to go out once to get Kai and herself something to eat. This time Kai didn’t even try to argue that she should be the one to do that and was just thankful that Anna volunteered herself.
The rest of the day they enjoyed their time together and listened to the rain. Kai just hoped that Susi, the new hunter, had a good first day together with Artemis. That the girl had been born just before the fog was unlucky.
Kai also juggled ideas around with Anna about how to deal with naming her kids in the future. She would be the real mother of all sapient Antanoid, at least for the moment, but there would come a time when she couldn’t think of new names for them anymore.
They could do some kind of ceremony to introduce new hive members. The problem was that Kai didn’t like the idea of that. Some of her children would have to stay unnamed for some time until a ceremony was held, because doing one for every new Antanoid wasn’t feasible and she found that cruel.
Anna had suggested that they could invent a system where Antanoid could apply to become the foster mother of a newborn. That way others could have kids and Kai wouldn’t have to name them.
It would also solve Kai’s problem of not being able to be a proper mom for everyone. She was well aware that she was failing in that regard right now and that there was no way she would be able to build up a mother-daughter relationship with everyone. This was a small part of her reason for wanting to be treated like a mother and to treat her kids like a mother. Kai felt guilty that she couldn’t give them the experience of having a mother.
A system like that wouldn’t work well at the moment though, because they needed every new hand to help with the work that had to be done. It would work better in the future when they had established themselves. Then the newborn could also get a period of time to experience life and their society together with their mom before they would have to grow up and work. The better their technology level was the longer they could make this period.
The idea of a system like that was pretty good in her opinion and she would keep it in mind.
Some time later Tiffany came visiting them, mostly to ask if they would hold the meeting despite the rain. Kai had a bit of small talk with her daughter and decided that she would postpone the meeting until tomorrow. If it was still raining by then they would have to meet in her room.
Sadly, this way not everyone would be able to be a part of this meeting, because her room wasn’t large enough for 13 people to have a comfortable amount of space, especially since Kai herself already needed the space of at least three persons with that tail of hers.
Anna joked that it would be a meeting of the country's leadership in this case and she wasn’t too wrong about that, except that they were more of a tribe than a country at the moment.
Anyway, should it still rain tomorrow Tiffany, Ember, Erika and Artemis would take part in the meeting. There was no need to mention Anna. The girl would be near Kai regardless of the occasion.
For Tiffany it meant she would have to collect the ideas of the other builders. The rest of her daughters didn’t have to gather anything because they were working mostly alone for now.
Her second daughter should be able to remember the things, because there couldn’t be too much they were able to do without metal.
Kai couldn’t think of something too useful at least, but she was a city girl and had no idea about surviving in the wilderness. All the knowledge about physics and chemics only got you so far if you had no idea how to use it without modern tools.
The best she had come up with had been a wall, but she wasn’t so sure about that anymore. With the way water came down the tree trunk they would have to build some kind of drainage system or the water would be stuck inside the walls and Kai didn’t know how the others would manage to create something like that without the right digging tools.
She had never cared to learn survival skills, because she had thought the worst that could happen to her was her pc losing connection to the wifi. That had always been a pain for her and a very convenient method to threaten her into doing chores for her parents.
Kai sighed melancholically. She should have appreciated the luxury of modern technology more back then, it had been good times. The memory gave her a goal to work towards and maybe even a threshold to surpass too, so it was good in more than one way.
After they had planned plan B for the next day, Tiffany left to tell the others about it and likely to gather the ideas of her girls too. As far as Kai knew the current clouds were the kind that could rain for days without stopping so there was a fair chance for the downpour to continue overnight and the next few days.
In the evening of the day Kai decided to lay another egg to spend some of the stored energy she had. She chose to give birth to a worker, because they were more needed than the hunters right now.
Kai didn’t like to think of her daughters like this, but someone had to do that to ensure everyone else could live their best lives. Her new biology forced her into that position so there wasn’t really a choice for her and she would have to live with it.
Kai tried to ignore Anna during the laying process, but there was no way around her getting embarrassed when someone saw her in her current state. She just wasn’t used to sharing intimate moments like this with others.
When Kai was done Anna cleaned the egg with a lump of silk she had produced and carefully moved it out of the way. Then she built a small little silk nest around the egg while Kai lay exhausted in her bed and watched her.
They should have built nests for the eggs earlier than this in Kai’s opinion. She had never thought of this after the first two eggs not needing anything, but it made a lot of sense to do this retrospectively.
Here she was trying to be a good mother to all her kids, but didn’t even manage to care about her eggs.
Kai shook away the bad thoughts and settled in for the night.
