Author's Note: This is an old story with some fresh paint. But more than that, it was a story left abandoned that I owe others to finish. And so... here I am.
It's an original story. It combines canon and fanon, blends, then serves. It might be funny. It might be something else. All I know is that it is, in some small way, special to me, and I would like to share it.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy.
She is woken by a hollow and echoing thud.
Feeling. She can feel. She can feel limbs: her arms, her face. Not much else, but her body all the same.
With feeling comes awareness. She isn't sure how she knows, but she is... trapped? No, pinned down.
Mandibles twitch. She feels singed inside and out. And there is a pressure, a strange and painful pressure that is becoming more and more unbearable the more aware she becomes.
Movement?
That noise again. A strange sound. Rhythmic, like heartbeats and breathing and war drums. She listens and tries to make sense of it.
Yes; definitely movement, and it isn't hers. The pressure increases and she hisses as something bubbles in her throat. It's a familiar taste: blood. Blood and bile. She swallows and it stings.
Her eyes are closed. They should be open.
They obey.
At first she sees nothing but non-colors and a grey mist. She nictates and the non-colors become real colors swathed in dark and ash. The grey mist in her vision lingers. It is unnatural... It isn't real.
The death mist, her mind supplies. I am dying.
There is a popping sound. Creaking. Breathing. It's alarming at first, but she calms. It is her; her breathing. Slowly the world is piecing together.
It hurts to breathe. Was breathing ever this difficult?
The weight pressing down on her lessens. That should be a good sign, but her hearts are heavy. Something - someone - shoves at the twisted mess on top of her. There is a strange pinching feeling in her stomach. Strange. But she is almost free.
An inner voice tells her to be prepared. It sounds familiar; like an old friend.
Yes, she had friends once. They were...They are...
There is a final heave and a bloodied cluster of alloy and rubble crashes to the ground. Something stands above her outlined by light and fresh air. Her wounds sing songs of pain and lost honor; the sour stench is her. Her blood. Her honor.
She wants to laugh. Her chest spasms instead.
"Still alive," the other says. The words are hard to hear over the muffled tha-dmph tha-dmph in her head. "What say you, filth? Will you recite a family stanza before I gut you?"
At first she is unsure if she can speak at all, but she manages, her voice hoarse.
"After life's fitful fever I will sleep well."
The reference is wasted on her audience. It snarls something and raises its weapon, unamused.
Not the most dignified way to die, her inner voice concedes. But it will do.
It will do.
Her eyes follow the glimmering edge of a bayonet as it comes arcing down, white silence through the air -