Chapter Text
A memory that is forgotten, but exists nonetheless:
At a little less than one sweep old, Damara crawls through the grasslands. Her many tiny feet gently prod at the soggy blades. When one dewy drop of water splashes her on the head, she's thrown to the ground from the impact.
Life has been short but it is pleasant enough for her. Her lusus is off somewhere, probably kneading at the patches of grass that are the most verdant- that'll be Damara's bed for tonight. Damara has to change sleeping locations every night because her lusus is nomadic, always looking for better grass to feed on. It may be tiring, for such a young grub to walk that far each day. She wouldn't trade it for the world.
The water droplet encapsulates her entire head. Looking from inside the water droplet brings new sights- stars are further apart, closer together, tilted away and towards each other. Damara watches darkness swirl about in a milky portrait above.
That thought is interrupted by a horrifying shriek. Or rather, multiple ones. The vibrations inside the water droplet turn violent, turbulent, and Damara interprets the vibrations that are shoved at her in panicked alarm.
It takes her a few moments to shake off the water droplet, but she's already running towards the direction where she thinks her lusus is. Her mind is frantically screaming at her to find shelter under her lusus, to crawl into the warm wool and be comforted by its bleats.
To her horror, as she nears her lusus, the bleats get louder.
Something's wrong.
She stops only a few feet away. Attached to her lusus's neck is a screeching and hideous collection of teal, hairy limbs and sharp, darkened with blood fangs. Its tiny black fangs glimmer with the shine of what can only be numbing poison. The grub quickly scampers to one of the noticeable veins of the stressed animal and sinks its fangs in. An even louder bleat almost knocks Damara off of her feet. The blob of unruly hair on the grub's head digs itself into her lusus's wool, allowing the teal creature to continue to latch onto her poor lusus's throat and insert all of its poison.
Poison is running through her lusus's veins. Her lusus's pupils are dilating, its breathing heavy, and it wrecks its surrounding with the ferocity of a dying warrior.
The grub is slightly larger than she is and infinitely stronger, but Damara is agile. The other grub won't be able to notice her sneaking up, won't have enough time to stop her from digging her own fangs and horns into its exoskeleton, ripping out its mushy guts and snapping its hairy legs off one by one. Damara has large horns for a grub; they will be enough to stop this attacker.
The body of the other grub twitches in a pool of teal blood that grows darker every second. Its head is still attached to her lusus; the grip of its hair will not loosen. Damara rushes over to her lusus, still covered in teal guts.
Her bottom lip trembles, although she is too young to actually mourn. Any logical troll would say that at this age, grubs don't have the ability to understand death. They're right, of course; Damara cannot understand the ephemeral lifespan of lusi, cannot comprehend that her lusus will be gone forever.
But she does know pain.
She shuffles closer to her lusus, tries to headbutt it awake.
Her lusus does nothing, just lying there, with its eyes closed. She watches its eyes closely, headbutts it again. When she notices that its body is still moving up and down in breath, she relaxes a bit.
All of a sudden, she's kicked back. Damara lets out an ungodly shriek that only a distressed grub can emit as she's flung back several feet. The ground shakes urgently as Damara struggles to regain her footing. Then a large shadow looms over her and she just barely dodges a hoof.
Her lusus tries to step on her again, howling in pain and completely out of control. The grass that was supposed to be Damara's bed tonight gets trampled and Damara, not even one sweep old, scrambles to avoid the sudden and terrifying attacks that her guardian is doling out.
Damara screeches as she runs.
"Please, please, it's me, it's me, don't hurt me please-"
She trips over a small crack in the ground, her leg bent at an angle that the elbow joint there can't withstand. She trembles. Her lusus raises its leg and stomps down, crushing two of her legs.
Damara is scared immobile.
After what feels like a lifetime, and it may as well be one for such a young grub, her lusus moves away, content with the damage. Her lusus does not make a bed and instead trots off, too fast. It is clear that Damara is not to follow. At the tender age of a little less than one, Damara is abandoned by her guardian. She has no food. She can barely move. In a way, she is almost resigned enough to die. Looking over at the mangled corpse of the grub next to her, she has no choice.
Using her free legs, she rips off a section of the grub's still dripping guts, and devours it.
Eventually, however, she must move. She learns to walk with only four legs, manages to get herself to somewhere safe, in a forest, near a river. Near the river, she sees a still body, cold, rotting, festering. The poison got to it in the end. No matter how far it ran, it couldn't escape the parasite's attacks.
Damara, close to one sweep old, knows the rules of survival, know that she has to do everything to live, forcibly tells herself that she doesn't care.
Then, she starts digs her claws into the corpse's cheek, and starts carving off the wool. The hairs on her legs cling to the wool and it is a hard feat, separating them. But at last, Damara gets to the muscle, gets to what she needs to find. A starving grub needs to eat. She is famished, so eating the muscles on top of a corpse's two cheekbones is done in no time at all. The hollow bones are strange and unfamiliar, and that thought relaxes Damara more than anything else. It doesn't look like her lusus anymore. It just looks like food.
When day comes, she has to hide.
Her lusus used to make a home for her every day.
Damara clings to the trachea of her dead lusus until she's done cutting off meat and figures out how to save it. Then, she hides from the sun using a bone from her lusus's festering legs. Even if her lusus doesn't want her, it has to provide for her anyway. Life isn't forgiving. Damara doesn't need to be, either.
It is a small memory.