Updates take so long these days, sorry about that, guys. But this one is a bit longer than usual, so I hope that helps make it up.

Alluka's eyes won't stop flitting to my arm. The attention almost makes it hurt more, but the dust in the air definitely does make it hurt more. But putting my hand over the wound would only make me look weak.

"I hope it doesn't scar," she mumbles to herself.

"What does that mean?"

"Hm?" Her eyes finally rise to my face, blank.

"I said, what does that mean?" I swear, sometimes it's like humans don't have ears.

"You mean...scars? It means…" She pauses to think. "It means that when the wound heals, there's a mark left, and the mark never goes away."

I grimace. In that case, it'd better not scar. To think a pathetic weakling could permanently mar my skin, it's disdainful.

Seeing my mood, she changes the subject. "Do you think we'll be there soon? I wonder if Brother has already completed his mission. He's really strong, after all, and he even has Naii to help him. If he's done, that would be great! It'll be good when everyone can be at peace again."

"If he's already finished, what's the point of us coming out here? He better not have even started!"

She giggles.

We walk for a while in silence. Then Alluka pulls the band that's always around her hand off over her hair and turns to me with planted feet. Her dark hair looks messier without it. When I stop, too, she reaches for my arm. I let her take it, ready to pull away the second her hand gets close to the injury. She slips the loop around my wrist, twists and creates another loop, then pushes it up. I pull away.

"What're you doing?"

"Wrapping the wound," she states, mouth pressed in a determined line. She tries to stop me when I go to pull it off.

"Don't need it."

"No!"

Her little hands lock around my wrist, and despite their sweat, refuse to budge for me to remove the band. When I let go of it to instead pry off her hands, she gives me her puppy dog eyes and begs, "Please? It'll be better for the wound. I won't bother you again."

I think about it, then figure at least this way, the dust will stop bothering me so much. She acts like she's taking advantage of my pause to slip it up over the injury when I let her. The spot of pain makes me hiss, but when she lets go and leaves the constant pressure there, the feeling eases into a throbbing ache. Stepping back, she looks satisfied.

We haven't been walking much longer when a presence appears ahead of us on the road. I lift my head and lick my lips for a scent. Luckily, the barely existent wind blows towards us.

The scent is inhuman.

I wet my lips again, this time in anticipation and for more information. It's only one. That'll make it easier to take down.

I don't explain to Alluka despite how she apparently waits to hear my conclusions. She must be able to sense it, too, with Nen and all that. There's nowhere for us to hide and wait, so we continue on the blurry road.

Eventually a figure comes up a small hill far in front of us.

Their figure is human at a glance, but also hidden beneath a thick layer somewhere between orange and brown, something similar to what the humans in the town wore. Bare human feet shuffle lightly our way, one foot lifting the second the next one is set so there's never a time both are on the ground.

The human looking ant the man mentioned.

I can't help the smirk that comes to my face. If it really has feathers like he said, I look way more human than this thing. I wouldn't have had a chance at any sexual reciprocation if I'd inherited scales. That isn't to say I'd go hungry, just that because of my outward appearance, I get to enjoy humans trying to make me feel good, which I would never scorn.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK! I haven't mated in so fucking long! Why does the one human around that looks delicious have to be so damn strange?

"Who are you?"

The ant stops in front of us, and vaguely tilts its head to make visible a pale chin, and lips that seem to bleed where they meet, before they fade into the off color of its skin. I squint my eyes, but although its skin looks like a sick human tinted yellow, there...don't seem to be feathers. It also doesn't look much taller than me. I'd compare it to that nasty frog Killua seems to like. The voice is whispery, curiosity mixed with anxiety. The pitch leads me to decide its female.

As I eyeball the creature, her aura thickens imperceptibly for defense. Unless she's hiding the body of a chicken under that cloak, she probably doesn't have much meat, but with the rattlesnake and the rest of her nest to come, I probably won't have to eat at all for a few days.

This time Alluka doesn't step up with an introduction, so I stare hard at the darkness of the cloak shading the ant's head and say, "Well if we think about it, I would be your final dining partner." I crack open half of my lips when I smile to bare a fang. "Sad to say you won't be doing any of the eating. How unfortunate."

The thing doesn't react. My smile fades as I run my tongue over my fangs, annoyed, and ready to bite. Beside me, Alluka fumbles to find some words that's she's probably hoping will result in no one getting harmed.

After a minute of silence, the creature finally opens her mouth again, and it's to say,

"You're Sera?"

The question drops us back into silence. She waits for an answer, but knocked off my game, I'm not sure what I should answer. The only way I can think of that this thing would know my name is—

"And you're Alluka?"

Even when I've put two and two together, Alluka still asks, "How did you know? Who're you?"

A small clicking sound that Killua sometimes makes when he's irritated pricks like a thorn from the red-fade-yellow lips, then she goes silent again. And does nothing. I'm about ready to launch an attack regardless if she knows who we are or not when she starts to grouse.

"For the love of...fine! You two are company of those Hunters, right? And you're really a chimera ant? You don't just...I don't know, have weird eyes and file your teeth? Gah, forget it, no one would do that if they had even a wisp of sanity. So you're an ant. You guys heading to the oasis? Why didn't they just tell us you were coming?" Alluka opens her mouth to say something, but in the same inconsolable tone the ant continues, "Do I smell blood? Did the humans get to you? No, smells more like you got to them. Freaking deserved it. Whatever. Come on. I'll take you to the oasis."

The ant twists to head back where she came. After some hesitation, Alluka starts to follow. I snatch her arm and stop her.

"And why would we follow you?"

Her head turns as if to look over her shoulder, but the only way she could see us is if she can see through the cloth caving in around her face. "You are companions with the Hunters. We'd be fools to kill those who honestly offer a hand, given the circumstances."

Is that what's going on? Killua and Naii gave the ants some stupid story about us helping the ants? And they believed them? I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that the ants believe the story, or that Killua and Naii bothered with it in the first place. Why go through the trouble? Whatever's going on, the quickest way would be to get the gist of it from Killua, if not from his words then from his behavior.

Or it could be an ambush trap. The man said before that they'd used a human looking ant to draw in prey. But she knows us, and that means she has to have talked with Killua and Naii. They must have ran to the oasis to have talked this much, because we didn't leave long after. Maybe there was time to think of a plan like this, but execute it?

Alluka watches me again, like I have all the answers. That means I shouldn't have to hear her complaints no matter what I choose.

I choose to follow the ant.

She keeps a steady distance ahead of us the whole way. We descend the hill she appeared over, and at its bottom, to my surprise, are famished beginnings of green shrubbery. Green, not brown, and the more we walk, the greener it gets. The outcroppings rise higher around us, too, and the walls on both sides return me to my suspicion of ambush, even if something about that idea doesn't sit right with me.

The feeling of a gaze instead of aura or smell indicates the presence of a second ant. I eye the back of the one in front of us and prepare to pounce, but she suddenly says, "It's the two the Hunters mentioned."

Then the aura leaks out, and a pale purple, mammalian head pokes over the edge of one of the walls, still watching. A bushy tail twitches beside it. As we keep walking and the walls keep towering higher, the ant bounds alongside the top of the one to our right with us. It looks to be primarily squirrel, except for what looks like human hair on its head, and the fact it's entirely washed-out purple. But size doesn't always equate to strength for us. Case and point, me.

If this turns out to be a trap, what're they getting at? They could use us as leverage, or at least try to. Can't imagine I'd be much use like that, and I'd be the one of us to cause them trouble, but Alluka?

More than having a useful bargaining token, I feel like using Alluka to try to coerce Killua would be asking to be killed.

At least they won't try to eat me. Their taste buds would have to rot off before they chose ant meat over human of their own free will.

My ears perk at the faint sound of trickling just as we round a corner.

A small stream pours down out of a hole in the rocks, and falls into a pond thrice the size of the little hollow Alluka found. The scraggly green plants are densest in this bend of the path, though the largest are only medium sized bushes, but a few of the bushes bear little fruits. Unless you curled up inside one of the fuller bushes, there isn't really anywhere a creature of size could hide, so I don't really doubt it when I count only five ants in total.

In a shaded alcove dug into the wall on the far side of the pond, three shapes with aura sit in silence. One, as the man in town told us, does look like a six legged pig the size of a man, with tusks straight and sharp spearing far ahead of his mouth. The second of similar height takes the shape of an enormous praying mantis, its head tilted. Slightly smaller than them is something round. Its eyes reflect light from the back of the cave.

I refuse to get any closer.

It takes no time for the one leading us closer to realize and stop, and when she turns around, Alluka also stops and shuffles back to me, squaring her shoulders at my side. How unfortunate that no matter how hard she tries to look dominant, there's no hiding her place on the food chain.

Against five ants with Nen...I could escape if I need to, but with Alluka? Something tells me Killua'd have my head.

I guess I've never actually seen Alluka fight. Killua's exceptional, so having the same genes, maybe she is, to? As if, they have completely different airs. But Nen is weird, so maybe the odds are fifty-fifty that she'd be useful if it came to that. Those aren't the worst odds to play with. I also have to factor in the chance they won't attack us, which is maybe...judging by the humanoid and the little one on top of the wall, I'd say the odds are about sixty five that this isn't a trap. Fifty and sixty five. I can bet on hitting one of those, and one of those is all we'd need to boost the odds of both of us getting out of this alive. And hey, who knows, Killua could blow through and decimate these worms out of nowhere like he does.

Why the fuck do I keep ending up in these messes?

But fine, I can gamble. Even if it is my life on the line, at least this time chance is actually in my favor.

I can feel the female who lead us here assess us. Then she keeps walking towards the others, apparently unbothered we don't follow. Still sounding as someone else ate her kill, she snaps, "The human brat was telling the truth." She points at us, finger, arm and all, without bothering to look back. "A sister and Chimera Ant, just like he said. You were right, Tar. Happy?"

"Whoo?"

The voice is strangely both high pitched in deep, and I instantly dislike the sound.

Then the same voice that asked the question says, "Indeed. It means good news for us. You should be glad, Estelle. Though, there is still room to doubt." The sphere between the Mantis and the boar rustles, but settles back into the same position. "Were they not in the human colony? Why have they come?"

"Didn't ask," the ant still on our side of the pond grumbles. She half turns around. "Hey, why'd you come here?"

I lean against a hand on my hip, and glare at her over my nose. "You know, I don't really think I like you. I'll have you know I was considered the prince of my colony." The scoff that comes out of her sends my blood broiling.

"What value's a title like that? It's not like you were a king!"

"Stop hiding under that cloth like a slug and fight me, or I'll rip your slimy body out of that shell myself and tear you in half!"

"No, Sera, stop it!" Alluka huffs in frustration. "I think we should tell them. They haven't hurt us, so stop threatening them!"

"I don't really care what you think," I shoot back, pushing a finger against her forehead. "This worthless slimeball is insulting, so I'll just rip out its innards like it deserves!"

Immediately the ant throws off the part of the cloth that covered her face. "Who are you calling a slimeball, you conceited snake!"

After a second, I burst into laughter, because she's calling me a snake when it looks like she's got a whole nest of tawny ones dangling from her head! Her aura grows increasingly hostile, but even through my laughter, I have to admit she has reason to take offense. She really does look like a halfway pretty human, one with strange hair, if you disregard the variety of brown and white little feathers coating the upper half of her face and her a-bit-larger-than-normal black eyes.

Before either one of us can continue inciting the other, Alluka all but yells, "We're here because we followed my brother in secret!" When she gets everyone's attention, she brings her voice back to a regular level. "I was upset about always getting left behind, so we tried to follow him, but he's not even here anymore, and now Sera's getting into a fight." She clenches her fists in her skirt. Then, without warning, she bows, bending her body in half. "I'm sorry for causing you trouble!"

Recovering from my laughter, I grab the back of her collar and straighten her. "Why are you apologizing for no reason? And even if you had a reason it wouldn't be of any use. Have some pride, would you?" It makes me look weak if the one with me acts weak.

There's a flash of bright blue and a painful hit to my head.

I jerk away and twist with a hiss, which only cuts off because of surprise when I see Killua, standing with a hand on his hip, other fist raised, and with his eyes closed in a scowl. The cerulean electricity fades away. The second I've gotten over my shock, I hiss again, "What was that for!"

He lets out a long, exaggerated sigh, and lets his raised hand also fall to his hip. He doesn't open his eyes until Alluka rushes over, to which, much in contrast to his greeting to me, he pats her head.

"Whoo?" I cringe at the question. Why does it keep asking that? Who does it mean, who? "How did it go?"

"It was going fine." Oh sure, Killua answers that ant! "We just flashed the important people our Hunter's licenses, and I pointed out everything you told me to, but just when those old bags were starting to hesitate, some dude barged in through the door babbling on about how some ant had killed his friend outside of the oasis!" He glares at me. "Thanks to that, peace treaties are off the table!"