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ten-thousand-paper-wasps · 3 years

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Pars-Nip was cold. It wasn't a common problem, in his old home. Thri-kreen were built for deserts. His plated exoskeleton kept him cool under the merciless twin suns and his two hearts kept him warm and energized and thriving. Pars-Nip, in his old den with his old pack on his old planet, would never have had to deal with this.

But Pars-Nip was not there. Pars-Nip was not anywhere he was built to be. Instead he was on a derelict ghost ship in the middle of a radioactive asteroid belt in a forgotten pit of a solar system thirty krillion light-years from the places that raised him. Pars-Nip did not want to be here. He wanted to be home, even if home was another ship with no lizards to catch and a pack that merely tolerated him at best.

Pars-Nip was here, alone, at the behest of his pack. They needed any supplies that could be found. But their weak, fleshy bodies couldn't survive the trip. But Pars-Nip could.

Pars-Nip was strong, and quick, and clever. He could survive anything, probably. His pack was counting on him to survive anything.

It was so terribly, bitterly cold.

Pars-Nip could not even feel the ache of the blade that had cut through the thick armor of his arm. Nor the burn of the poison it had left behind. Pars-Nip could only feel the cold.

A figure drifted into the room behind him as Pars-Nip was emptying a cabinet into his bag. It moved in a way that was and was not natural. It wore a cloak made of countless shimmering needles and spoke with a voice that Pars-Nip could only half perceive.

"You won't make it, you know," it said. “They never wanted you to.”

Pars-Nip did not stop loading up his bag, but he did set one of his secondary hands on the blade at his hip in a clear threat.

The figure did not attack. Instead, it made a slow, telegraphed walk to a corner of the room Pars-Nip could see and sat down. "You don't have much time left to you. Why not take it easy?"

Pars-Nip did not answer. He was a warrior, and his pack could not hunt for themselves or defend their ship from pirates or even get themselves out of an air vent. They were all horrible at being thri-kreen, which was probably because none of them were thri-kreen. Pars-Nip could not afford to take it easy.

"I didn't mean to offend," it said, placatingly. Pars-Nip hadn't spoken aloud. Perhaps he didn't need to. That was always nice. There was only so much one could say with words. None of his pack spoke thri-kreen, and their own tongues were difficult on his mandibles.

"You needn't be so bothered," it said, as if it could hear him. "You're on your way out, anyway. You don't need to speak aloud with me."

Pars-Nip leveled the figure with a flat stare of open disinterest. He clicked his mandibles together. His long tongue eased out to lap at the blood leaking from the plates of his shoulder.

It was cold.

"What do you want?" Pars-Nip finally asked, his throat choking with effort. He wasn't built for the tongues he spoke most. But he had no other thri-kreen to speak to.

"For you to come with me," it answered. "It's over for you. Quickly, now. It's time to let go and move on to the next place."

The only place Pars-Nip was going, when he was done here, was back to his den on the ship. It lately had begun to stink of illness. He'd need to ensure it only smelled of Pars-Nip.

"You can't just go back," it spat incredulously. "Don't you get it? You're dead. Done. Over with. It's time to go. Now, before the portal closes!"

He twitched an antenna. Dead? Strange, then, that he was still moving. He was cold, too cold, and could not feel the endless, pounding beat of his hearts. But he moved. He breathed.

Pars-Nip simply could not be dead.

"Don't start with that," the figure warned. "You're tough." It was a compliment, he thinks. "And stubborn." But that wasn't.

Pars-Nip finished filling the bag and zipped it. He'd parked the speeder somewhere, once he found it he could get back to his pack. Dead. Pah! As if anything was going to kill Pars-Nip before he was good and ready. That was almost as impossible as finding another thri-kreen out in this endless star-specked abyss.

"Is that all it would take for you? To believe me?"

The figure unbuttoned its cloak. The spiny, sparkling fabric piled to the floor, and from its confines emerged a being.

She was the largest thri-kreen Pars-Nip had ever seen. Larger even than Mother, than Grandmother. Larger than Kaa-Rot, leader of his old pack. And Kaa-Rot had been massive.

The thri-kreen before him was covered in scars. Her chitin was cracked, deeply. Her thorax was missing chunks of spiny armor. She leaned heavily on a staff and held her leg in a way that spoke of pain.

Part of him wanted to launch himself at her. Someone so beaten, so weathered, had to be easy prey. She couldn't be faster than him.

The other part of him wanted to bare his neck. Thri-kreen that survived so well were beyond rare. It was an honor to be near her. She was clearly old, clearly weary. She needed a pack to protect her. Hunt for her. Learn what lessons she might teach.

"Do you believe me now, little one?" she asked.

Right. The dead thing. He had forgotten about that.

She smiled at him, thin and brittle, and Pars-Nip wasn't quite so cold as before.

He clicked his mandibles. He grunted and croaked. He struggled to pull from his haggard throat the language of his people, unheard these last eight years.

Pars-Nip is very strong. And quick. And clever. Pars-Nip would hunt for her, if this elder came to his pack.

She smiled again, fondly this time, and Pars-Nip felt one of his hearts stutter back to beating. You know that cannot be, she insists. That poison has killed you. You cannot hunt, for you are dead.

As if death could stop someone like Pars-Nip.

And she didn't.

It had been too long. The window had closed. Already Pars-Nip's body was warming. His hearts beat unevenly, but beat nonetheless. He felt his blood as it fell dripping out of his shoulder in rivulets.

Death had come for Pars-Nip, but she had not taken him in time, and Pars-Nip lived. He would eat, and he would molt, and he would hunt again.

He roamed from room to room until he found his speeder. Are you coming? he called back to the last thri-kreen he'd ever see.

She didn't answer.

He went back to find her in the first room, mute and angry. Defeated.

He picked up her cloak, lighter than it looked to be. He took one of her huge hands in two of his. Elder?

"You took too long," she snarled. She would say no more in his native tongue. "You took too long, so now you get to live. You even hold my cloak. Go," she growled. "I cannot take you now."

"Where is your ship?" he asked. One of the common trade languages. He reaches back into the cabinet and begins filling a second bag.

"Leave me," she spat back.

He still held her cloak. "Where is your ship?" he asked again. "Pars-Nip will take you there, if you will not come home with him."

"You can't get there from here," she said.

"Then come home with Pars-Nip."

She gave him a look, then. Rueful and bitter. "Fine, then." She sniffed, and he turned around to lead the way back to his speeder.

She climbs on behind him and he drives home. He does not look back at her. Her weight behind him is solid and comforting. He takes it slow for her. She does not speak.

His pack is shocked to see him return. He turns to introduce the Elder, but she is gone without a trace that she had ever existed. Her cloak hangs limply from his shoulder and it smells of old blood and pain and decay and a sense of home that sends Pars-Nip nearly to his knees.

He wraps himself in it when he returns to his quarters. He molts. He wishes he was capable of weeping.

Days later, he is run through by a pirate in a skirmish. He gets back up and ruthlessly protects his pack. He goes numb and cold and bleeds freely, and yet he does not die.

Pars-Nip does not die no matter how many times he is stabbed or shot or crushed or cleaved through. He gets up. He is cold. He hurts. And his hearts continue beating and his wounds knit together and Pars-Nip lives.

He lives far, far longer than any thri-kreen he’s ever met. Longer than his pack. Longer, perhaps, than stars. He does not see her again.

#the wasp writes #The Saga of Pars-Nip #he's a character from an old d&d campaign #and he takes dutiful protection Extremely seriously #he feels that because he is mighty and crafty and tanky and tougher than his companions #it is his responsibility to keep them safe and well-fed #he is never not scrabbling through the desert hunting for dinner #and he's also the most obnoxious stubborn shouty idiot who's ever lived #and his companions are stuck on a ship with him #so they trick him into going to this radioactive ghost ship in the hopes that it kills him and they'll be rid of him #he's already half-dead from poison so it Should do the trick #and Pars-Nip is so devoted to these assholes that he agrees because he thinks they're sending him somewhere they can't survive #on the assumption that he's tough enough to return with the supplies #his love for them is so tragic and he's Heartbroken that he outlives them #idk i played Pars-Nip for two years and i'm quite fond of him and this isn't the first fanfic of him i've done #but it's the first i've been okay with sharing #lemme know how y'all want me to tag this

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