Catalyst

Chapter 26: Building

Thane stood in the center of his clearing, gazing up at the night sky. His face pointed straight up, examining the night sky with an experienced eye. To someone who did not know him, the centaur elder appeared to be completely unaware of the world around him. Milano, however, knew better. Thane was perfectly aware of him, and when he wanted to talk to Milano, then he would let him know.

After a few minutes, Thane spoke, without looking away from the stars. "Are you going to continue to wait over there like a newborn foal, or are you going to ask whatever question is burning you up, Milano?"

Milano stepped forward. "Who says I have any questions for you, Thane? Perhaps I simply wish to enjoy the piece of the meadow?"

Thane snorted. "No one ever bothers me unless they want something. Nobody has any patience for me unless they have patience for my answers. Now stop being coy, and tell me what's burning you up so much," he said.

Milano took a deep breath. "What is that... thing leading the acromantulas?" he said after a moment of hesitation. "Have you ever heard of anything like it?"

"You were one of the ones sent to talk to them, weren't you," Thane said. It wasn't a question. "What do you think?"

"He...it, was dismissive," Milano said, thinking back to his brief encounter with the creature. "I felt as if was only just paying attention to us, just sizing us up for the kill."

"So it was an acromantula," Thane said impatiently. "What made this one so special?"

"Whatever that thing was, it wasn't an acromantula. It was different. It stood on two legs, and it talked without a rasp. In some ways, it looked more like an ant than a spider," Milano elaborated.

"By the sound of Pan's flute!" Thane exclaimed. "Albus Dumbledore must have been right about the acromantulas, then. Those ants have taken over the colony. That is unfortunate, but not unexpected. We should still be able to deal with them."

"I wish I could be so sure," Milano said. "That thing could have killed us. Everything I know about acromantulas told me it should. But it just let us go!"

Thane finally looked down towards Milano. His distress from just thinking about the creature was written plainly on his face. Thane sighed.

"I wish I could tell you there's nothing to worry about. But even the stars, from Alpha Centauri to Tarsonis, scream of nothing but spiders. There is something brewing here, that much is obvious," Thane said somberly. Seeing that Milano had panicked even more from this, he added. "But we will emerge victorious. As long as our gaze is to the stars, and we listen to what they say, the acromantulas have nothing we cannot know."

Unnoticed by either of them, an ant scurried away from the clearing, hidden by the blades of grass beneath their hooves.

(Transition)

Abathur no longer sat at the Slytherin table during meals. Instead he chose to sit with the human, who he had learned was called Luna, at the Ravenclaw table. It was much more efficient to take in biomass and discuss runes at the same time. Luna almost always had some idea, whether through familiarity with tradition, or her own, far more interesting innovations. Abathur nearly considered harvesting her essence; she clearly had some trait that gave her an advantage over the average human. It more than made up for her habit of spinning off on random tangents. Fortunately, today's discussion had been quite productive so far.

"Possible to add dubar to activation sequence?" Abathur pointed to a dense square of runes linked to a larger set lower on the food-stained paper.

"I guess that could work, but why would you do that?" Luna said as she peered at the rune scheme.