Before her parascixion, Seven was a warrior, loyal servant to a righteous cause: Llaru, a fremouse fighting for the liberation and spiritual awakening of his species. His clan was killed by chrylurks, orphaning him, and when he lay wounded after a battle, defeated and forgotten, a chrylurk came upon his form and infested him.

Yet they soon killed the maggot‍-​nurses that come to envenomate and siphon them, resulting in their brood developing along a feral pathway. They become parascix yet unbound to a hive. For about a year, she sates her hunger by picking off other maggot‍-​hosts, stealing the prey of other chrylurks, but she soon catches the attention of the hive’s nurses and hunters.

Culminant to this game of pursuit, she is captured and assimilated into the hive that infected her. Her integration ablates any memories that would cause her devotion to waver. As a result, she needs regular psychosurgery from the queen to maintain her sanity.

She has no name, only a designation. The name she was born to lies among the cast off memories that cannot be recovered without threatening her loyalty. (It would reveal whether and how she still identifies as or cares for her once‍-​mortal host; whether and how she assimilated or subverted them; whether and how she came to side with the hive…)

During a routine hunt, she discovers an important imperial agent who might be key to cracking this province, if transformed into a loyal chrylurk. Her mission is updated. This agent is just as loyal as she used to be, so breaking her won’t be easy

Worse, due to the risk the agent poses, she won’t have the resources of the hive to assist with this mission. She’s sent into the province to fend for herself: the queen says not to come back until a kingdom has been conquered in my name.

in the lowlands at the fringes of a prosperous province, Seven Squared hunts for her hive‍ ‍‍—‍ prey, mostly, but her specialty is catching mortals alive. but her favorite assignment is raiding‍ ‍‍—‍ she loves the slick thrill of infiltrating and escaping undetected, almost as much as she loves the blood and screams of a raid gone wrong.

until one day, Seven finally finds a proper imperial outpost, flush with cattle and tools to steal. the raid was going well, but one voice is more delicate than she’s used to, full of petulent command. a girl, sneering, screaming, delivers arrogant threats. “do you know who my father is?”

conferring with the hive queen confirms it: this is Pequilenna, daughter of the provice’s senator; if the hive tried to put her in a pod, vesselblades would find their nest and slaughter them all. the queen orders every chrylurk to kill themselves to avoid leaving a trail back to their hive; but Seven Squared refuses. instead, she proposes to subtly infest the daughter, enthrall her and use her to subvert the province. after an argument, the queen allows Seven to conduct this elaborate form of suicide.

although Seven could force parascixion on Pequilenna, assimilation requires Seven to persuade her prey: the brood can only access the human’s knowledge given submission to the process. thus, Seven must not only keep Pequil under her control‍ ‍‍—‍ for if she escapes, the human could find treatment for her infestation‍ ‍‍—‍ no, Seven must break her will, convince her that submission to the chrylurks is the only hope she has. of course, Pequilenna intends to fight her every step of the way.

but even when Pequilenna escapes Seven, by this point, she is ovirexian. her infestation has progressed past the point where almost anyone keep trying to saving her. they would think her lost to madness, but Pequil doesn’t give up hope. more importantly, in her brief escape she is able to uncover the truth of who Seven Square was before she was corrupted into a chrylurk‍ ‍‍—‍ a truth that could lead her to win this contest of wills.

unfortunately, Seven used to be a millitant member of the terrorist group seeking to depose her father, and Pequilenna must work with them or accept her death.

then, in pursuit of her escaped charge, Seven gets captured and experimented on by alchemists, hoping to find a weakness that might cure Pequillenna. Seven is only freed by the intervention of a princess of another hive, Azuli, whose seductive submission to her blinds Seven to any deeper manipulations. the princess soon discovers that Seven is not just any worker, but princess in her own right‍ ‍‍—‍ all part of her queen’s secret plot to control her most dangerous subject.

here, Pequilenna choses dishonor before death; Seven once again choses not to die for her hive. disclosing key information gives the terrorists new targets to attack and assassinate; revealing the lies about Seven’s past finally shatters her psyche, letting the princess reshape it as she sees fit. they spawn a new brood, allowing for the terrorist cell to be infested. and with the province cracking down on the parasite invasion, it becomes too dangerous to leave their safehouses; there’s no escape.

after what she did to Seven, after acting as an accomplice to the terrorists’ horrific radicalism, Pequillenna finally gives up; she doesn’t want to witness this tragedy any longer. she embraces assimilation, imagining it to be a dreamless sleep; yet she’s still forced to watch it all unfold.

the queen tries to reach out to Seven, offering condolences and congratulations for making this far, but Azuli has poisoned Seven’s feelings toward the hive queen, and Seven lashes out. yet she cries when the connection is cut, only able to dull the pain by losing herself in the high of fucking Azuli

end book one

in book two, pequilenna would return to her father to manipulate the province’s politics while Seven and Azuli grow their hive and take over the city, culminating in the assassination of the senator

in book three, the hive city endures a seige from the empire; the queen gambles her hive on saving her wayward daughter

‍-​# todo/notes

• terrorists are religious; this land used to belong to the rats, was a holy site, but the empire discovered ore deposits and built a big city here, now there’s been continuous regional tension for decades

• 7² disguises the chrylurk attack on the daughter as an act of the terrorists

• 7² gets a long distance hive call from the princess, princess demands to be saves, this is what lures seven in to be capture

• peq is kind of racist? disgusted by vermin?

• Llaru had the power to transmute ensouled flesh to ash, a divine transmutation so potent he was a bogeyman for all the knights tasked with combating the terrorists.

• Pequil’s divine transmutation allows her to create “lensplitting interfaces.” she transfigures mirror and uses divining to sense and contol what light reflections; it finds use both in communication and illusions

Arc precis:

1. seven and peq meetcute
2. seven travels with captive peq
3. negotiating with terrorists
4. attacks on the city; peq finds answers
5. seven imprisoned & tortured; peq helps blow it up
6. laying low, reunion
7. refusing, committal

Arc One

• prologue establishes that pequilenna is off to research and prepare her inmut, an ability that has the potential to coordinate knights across the provinces and revolutionize the counter‍-​terrorism strategy
• open on seven squared brutalizing mortals, taunting them with how her sisters are going lay eggs in everyone she’s captured.
• pequilenna detours to fight some bandits; she demands that her guards not kill them, because she believes in reform, the potential for anyone to redeem themselves
• seven relaxes in the hive with other chrylurks; there’s friction but they cuddle and chatter
• pequilenna discusses politics and plans with her team, characterizing them and giving the impression they’re set to have interesting arcs
• seven goes out on another mission, encounters pequilenna’s convoy and raids it
• peq helps defend against the assult; but it’s not just chrylurks ambushing them‍ ‍‍—‍ one of them is turning flesh to ash whenever she touches it. a corrupted transmutation!
• seven consults with her queen. they argue about what to do next. to the human’s horror, seven has slaughtered everyone except peq and kidnaps the lone survivor. the two scream at each other, and peq struggles. but despite being much smaller, seven is stronger. they’re stuck together

Arc Two

• seven makes a camp and waits for the queen to send a nurse after them

• peq struggles to escape; her first attempt is caught immediately, and she’s bound helpless as the chrylurk nurse injects a brood of eggs into her body

• over the next few days they journey through the wilderness, and seven keeps dosing peq with her venom to get her chemically dependent; peq grow sick as her immune system rebels against the parasites and viruses.

• seven taunts her with the fact that the parasites will soon be too entrenched to remove soon, and as long as seven is here, the chances that she’ll overcome infestation is zero

• peq has carved messages on the trees as they passed, letting vesselblades track them down. it’s not a true search party, just kindhearted knights errant, so seven still manages to overpower them, but fighting several incompleat alchemists means she can’t avoid being severely injured. seven leaves the alchemists battered in agony, forcing peq to watch them suffer or put them out of their misery.

• travel becomes almost untenable with seven injured and peq even more restrained by silk bindings. they hole up and seven gets a hive call from the queen, who demands that seven kill peq.

  “if you fail and she returns to the capital, we lose our secrecy. we’ll die.”

  seven demands one more chance. she can do this. queen has the power to compell her to obey, but choses not to.

  “i should have culled you,” the queen says.

  “yeah, i make a mess of things, don’t I?” seven replies. “but you didn’t. because the fact that i’m different, that i’m willing to take risks, is more valuable than mindless comformity to your will.”

  a psychic sigh. “make me proud, daughter.”

• seven makes one concession to her queen’s demands: she compells the worms nesting in peq’s body to constrict around her heart, forming a dead man’s switch. if seven doesn’t regularly inject peq with her venom, then the worms will devour her heart and end her. with this assurance, seven returns to travel, transmogrifying her exoderm to disguised herself as a fremouse. but before they can go much farther, they are ambushed‍ ‍‍—‍ by fremice terrorists

Arc Three

• seven has had a bit of infiltrator training, so she bluffs the fremice. she isn’t sure how, but she finds the words to effortlessly put them at ease. there’s no hiding peq’s disgust and discomfort; so they infer she’s a prisoner and offer to take her off seven’s hands. seven knows she can’t maintain the act and doesn’t want to be at their mercy, so she refuses. the fremice are acting as highway robbers, so they don’t take ’no’s easily, and when they discover the enchanted imperial pendant peq has, they insist.

• seven marches with the fremice to their secret hideout, and the fremice rant about how seven will be made a faithful soldier of the cause. at their hideout, she’s separated from peq, but she demands to visit peq. the rats accuse her of caring too much about an enemy of their kind, but seven argues she can be more useful alive‍ ‍‍—‍ and to stay alive seven needs to administer medical treatment.

• seven confers again with her queen via hive‍-​binding. at this point, seven is bristling with frustration from needing to bow and scrape and pretend instead of just ripping and tearing. petulantly she asks her queen, can we just wipe this terrorist cell out? but then someone else is added to the call‍ ‍‍—‍ an infiltrator under cover among them. “you’re asking that we wipe out the hive’s food, all for sake of a fraying thread that defies our queen’s will?”

  the queen explains how maintaining conflict in the region offers cover for the hive’s operation. the meeting concludes with the infiltrator declaring that if seven jeopardizes the hive‍ ‍‍—‍ if she causes the terrorists to suspect there are chrylurks among them‍ ‍‍—‍ then the infiltrator will just kill seven to maintain their cover.

• seven attends training and religious rituals among the terrorists, struggling to maintain her cover both as a fremice and a true believer. at the same time, she’s also getting instructed by the infiltrator on how to pass, and it’s all so exhausting. her frustrations boil over to the point that she’s venting to peq whenever she’s dosing the human with venom. and maybe it’s the chemical bliss finally eating away at her reservations, but it’s hard not to sympathize. peq hates the terrorists too. finally, they have common ground. they’re both trapped here.

• seven slips up enough that one of the terrorists starts to catch on, and she has to kill them. this is untenable. seven is panicking‍ ‍‍—‍ her hive is going to kill her, or the terrorists will, or both! this is where peq throws a lifeline. turns out, she’s been hiding her strength for another escape attempt. her transmutation could provide enough distraction and intelligence to get them out of here. (“how can you transmute? you haven’t been giving ambrosia. i would know.” / “the nectar you things drink isn’t that different, is it? i figured out how to use it.”)

• it works. though exhausted, they’re both thrilled to finally out of the hideout. part of the deal of peq helping seven escape is letting peq have more freedom. no more being tied up all the time. worse, peq’s sense of morals demands she find a way to report these terrorists. peq insists they flag down a vesselblade and tell them, but seven resists; this could never turn out well. the compromise is that peq transmits a message with her technique, outlining the situation. peq crafts an excuse for not returning, claiming that the terrorists have a targeted technique that could kill her unless she hides from it. now the city knows she’s alive out there.

Arc Four

• they make camp, and instead of recoiling or stiffening, peq cuddles up to seven. the chrylurk is confused, but peq tells her to shut up. “don’t make me think about this, can we just have a nice moment? it’s been so damn hard.” when they eat breakfast, peq is, as usual, disgusted by seven slurping sangimel. but when the matter of movements come up, she’s asking what we are doing next. she isn’t demanding to return, or be free. and it’s not quite defeatism. there’s a… no, it couldn’t be warmth.

  “it isn’t,” peq insists. “i still hate you and your kind. you’re the monster making my life hell. but… we went through all that together. and seeing myself change like this… i’m already becoming like you‍— no! i’ll never be like you! but you were like me, once, weren’t you? that’s what you things are. a cycle of horror begetting horror. you keep trying to convince me to accept it, the let you in, because that’s how you things actually reproduce, isn’t it? through us giving in. but i’ve seen how your hive treats you. you’re as much at their mercy as i am.”

  seven interrupts. “it’s not like that,” she says. “i can’t remember ever resisting. i love them, they love me.”

  “but that makes it worse. i hope i never love you.”

• seven had cut all her ties to the hive to facilitate her escape, and now she doesn’t know how she’s going to explain things when she finally reconnects. she can’t lie to them. peq suggest she just never reconnect.

  “i have to,” seven says, “i did this for them.”

  “why not try living for yourself?”

  “my self is the hive. i’m not complete without them. but i hurt them. if they try to kill me… i should die. if the terrorist cell gets caught, if we lose those thralls… i’m starving my own hive.”

  it’s here that, compelled by abrupt impulse, that peq kisses seven. “forget about the future. you said you were doing this for them‍ ‍‍—‍ at least finish what you started. if you give up now, it was for nothing, but if you finish my parascixion…”

  seven is stunned. “you’re… finally submitting?”

  “heavens no, i hate you and i hate this. but i hate seeing you want to kill yourself. you don’t deserve to die for wanting freedom.”

  “but if you still think what we’re doing is wrong, don’t i deserve to die?”

  “yes, but if the reasons are wrong, i can’t abide that.” then: “if it’ll make your loneliness better,” peq continues, “you could teach me how to speak to you with hivesilk. we could argue telepathically or whatever.”

• peq has a new plan. she’s taken initiative in directing their travels, because seven still doesn’t have her whole heart in it. she’s been trying to encourage the bug, and without a hive to talk with, they chatter all the time. it hurts that she’s still going to betray the thing, but peq still hates her. her plan has layers. the message she left for the vesselblades was, on top of everything, bait. she had a friend whose divine transmutation had medical applications and had included a code only she could decode.

  this will lure said alchemist to a spot where they can meet up‍ ‍‍—‍ and peq reveals this scheme to seven, as if feeling guilt over the treachery. they can capture and infest her together, with peq using her innate mutation to help restrain the alchemist. the medic chose not to come alone, which complicates this plan (and peq’s feelings on the morality of it).

  peq’s heart is pervaded by the depth of her betrayal as she holds her friend down so that seven can lays eggs in her.

  “what are you doing? why?” it’s a shrill cry of agony.

  peq ignores the question and explains to seven: “it was important that we infest her first. she was the greatest threat‍ ‍‍—‍ if any alchemist in the city could figure out how a new way to circumvent enthrallment, it’d be her.”

• seven is almost happy. she had made a breakthrough in peq’s parascixion, and now she had thralls of her own to sate her vampiric hunger. maybe she could salvage this, maybe her queen could be proud of her. they hole up underground, in an outlying village beyond the city. seven goes to sleep cuddled up with peq, finally able to relax after weeks on edge.

  that night, a chrylurk infiltrates their hideout. peq assumes it’s one of seven’s hive here to kill her, but she’s actually from a different hive‍ ‍‍—‍ and she wants to speak to peq. the other queen has inferred what’s going on‍ ‍‍—‍ that seven wants to bescix peq, but peq has manipulated her siphon into a disastrous position. (maybe this isn’t said outright). but the queen has inferred even more. there’s deeper mystery to seven squared.

  “you should investigate her. in fact, i’ll give you a hint. do you think you’re special, having figured out how to compleat your divine work with nectar? you might think you’re clever, having figured out how to steer seven around. but the two of you are so much same. she simply had the sense to submit to a higher power.”

  peq discerns what she’s really implying‍ ‍‍—‍ after all: seven has something all her sisters lack: a corrupted transmutation

• peq meets with her medic alone, but witnesses a more dramatic reaction than expected. the medic doesn’t want peq to touch her, doesn’t even want to talk to her.

  “you monster. you held me down while that thing raped me.”

  “it wasn’t rape,” peq insists. “an attack, yes, maybe even torture. she didn’t touch your womanhood, it wasn’t that.”

  “is that what you’ve been reduced to? playing word games to deny what you are, you rapist? you manipulated me, you made me part of its reproductive cycle. it violated me, it’s using me. but nobody jammed a dick in me, so it’s okay???”

  “it’s not okay, obviously, but‍—”

  “no fucking buts. it’s not okay, and it’s your fault. fuck you.”

  “this is unproductive. we’re in this together. help me.”

  “why? no, don’t answer. i figured it out. you really are just like her. you’re using me too. of fucking course.”

  peq says it’s not like that. “you can save me.”

  “i don’t want to save rapists. drown in hell.”

  “fine, forget about me. what about you? you’re going to end up just like me unless you find a way to save us. there’s only one way out.”

  “no, there’s no way out. show some mercy, and kill me now. i’m dead one way or another.”

  frustrated, peq forcefeeds the medic ambrosia, which allows her to burn out the larvae in her system. “i’m not a monster. i lied. you can still recover.”

  “i can’t circulate essence. what did you do to me?”

  “i saved you. now get out of here.”

  “just me? what about the others?”

  “we need‍—”

  “you’re monsters.”

  “it’s the only way we‍ ‍‍—‍ she can survive.” peq shakes her head and looks distraught. “why aren’t you thanking me? what am i supposed to do to make this right?”

  “you already fucked it up. killing yourself is the least you can do.”

• peq explains what happened when seven wakes up. her plan, and how it fell apart. no one will ever forgive her. but instead of being heartbroken, seven stirs into action. oh, the medic escaping is bad.

  “if she contacts the knights, we’re fucked.”

  “everything’s fucked,” peq says. “i can’t go back to the knights, you can’t go back to your hive. shouldn’t we just give up and die? we’re monsters.”

  seven holds her and hisses. “it’s not your choice, it’s mine. you’ll keep living because i demand it. you’re not a monster, i am. everything you did was for me. you had no choice. you do wrong because i corrupted you. i’m controlling you. got it? now let’s go hunt our escaped morsel.”

  together, they track down the medic. this time, the oviposition goes differently. seven holds the medic down, and tells peq to cut her open, to stroke the ovipositor and deposit the eggs inside their host while the medic screams and writhes. when seven calls peq a good thrall afterward, it feels so nice.

Arc Five

• peq paces around, scratching her arms. her blood is the wrong color. the medic’s voice chases her around her own head. a monster. a rapist. then she freezes. seven has woken up, and tugged on the serivane puppetstrings and peq goes still as if scruffed. she was a drone. a mindless, obedient drone. seven creeps up behind her, and hugs and bites her neck, dosing her with venom that soothes her thoughts, rinsing away her worries. now help me nurse the other thralls. submissive as you’ve gotten, you should be pupating soon. isn’t that exciting?

• Arc Six

• Arc Seven