Viper 9000
Hearing mention of a scorpion woman, the bug girl's eyes glistened brightly and she looked at those gathered with expectation, forgetting she was momentarily trapped in the cave. "Scorpion girl? You've met her before! You know her? Her name is Nikola. She's in great danger. I know it has something to do with the three of you. But I can't do much about it now. I have to get the gem she asked me to bring to her. We both need it for s-something" stuttering to silence, the firefly touched her antennae, making it bob up and down, making patterns of afterimages from the glowing light.
She was hesitant to give away Nikola's plans, and her own information. Nikola was planning to use that gem and offer it in a trade to the Misfit's tribe, in exchange for their allegiance with the insects. Together, they would get rid of the current queen and change the laws of the insect tribe. They could only get rid of the monsters that kept sneaking into the underground and stalking around the rocky forested hills on the surface with help from another tribe. Their current queen was too proud and haughty to accept any help from outsiders. The monsters were too strong and there were too many of them. The insect tribe had numbers but they lacked the strength to and resources for beating such powerful foes on their own. And Nikola had other reasons to change the tribe laws too. Pyridae knew that the scorpion has been sneaking out to meet up with a certain person from the Chimera tribe in the west. And the firefly wanted to be able to see her brother again. He lived in the misfit's tribe. They were twins, but you'd never know it now. Not since the experiments warped them into their new beastly forms and separated them into different tribes.
"Oh there, I've probably gone and said too much. I don't know what to do. I told her I'm not good at this. She said I wouldn't run into anybody but then I lost the jewel and...and..." she sounded rather upset and her wings fizzed about in agitation while she wrung her hands together. "Please, don't kill me. I'll leave if you let me go. I'll find some other way to do what she asked". She hadn't expected to end up as a crunchy snack for two giant bears.
***
Bess looked from Midnight to Morning and back at Pyridae. "Nikola! She helped us escape from the insect tribe. Wow, she's getting around a lot lately, stirring up her tribe and planning something with the Misfits" she couldn't help smiling at the woman's audacity. Sounded more and more like Nikola was always up to something.
She studied the insect woman. "Well if she's a friend of yours, then you can't be that bad. I hope for your sake that you aren't lying. I don't know if we're able to help you but I can tell you where we're going. We're heading back to my home tribe after completing an errand for one of the tribe leaders there, the hoofed lands in this forest. All three of us" she nodded to her friends. "We have, um, a special arrangement, you might call it. But" and she turned and placed the jewel in Morning's paw. "I'm going to leave the decision to my friends here. You mentioned their home lands, and this jewel belongs to them, so I think they should decide what they want to do".
((Link to Hoofed Tribe: clicky))
