Chrysalis

The twenty young ants depart the chamber of the eldest in silence, allowing their Senior the rest and quiet that they seem to crave. They don't quite understand it, this desire for solitude and a reprieve from work, an unnatural concept for an ant, but due to the individual making the request, they respect it.

Without communicating they move as one, through the Queens chamber and towards the upper chambers. Now there are six hundred of their kind waiting to be born here, the Queen has been pushing herself towards full production as fast as possible and only yesterday another clutch was laid. It will be one day, maybe a little more, before the first wave of two hundred is born. There is much to do.

Filing into an unoccupied upper chamber, the twenty arranged themselves into a rough circle. They haven't planned or discussed this council, but by some instinct they knew it would occur. The mantle of leadership does not belong to any one ant, all members of the colony understand this, but the twenty, despite being so young, understood that after the eldest and the Senior known as Vibrant, they were the eldest of their race, thus they were expected to lead.

"Much to be done" the Carver known as Cobalt was the first speak.

"Indeed" several others answered.

The general Victor waved their antennae in a gesture of frustration. "The Eldest has many ideas, but the implementation has not been carried through."

"You speak of the farms?" Burke the scout asked.

Victor nodded. "I do. Their capacity is woefully inadequate."

can expect two hundred new hatchlings every few days. Currently, the colony is woefully underprepared to feed and groom

lowered their heads in contemplation. The eldest, the first and progenitor of their species, was something of a puzzle to them. As their Senior and indeed, the Eldest of their race, they revered and respected that individual as every member of the colony did, but they were frequently confused by them. Un antlike concepts and behaviour, such as the insistence on the nurture of each individual to the best of the

Juvenile Queen, Victoriant. "I believe we are all agreed that the farms must be dramatically expanded. At least double, perhaps as much as five times the size" she offered softly,

and cores they would need to fuel the rapid expansion of the colony. The workforce required to hunt and acquire such an amount of food under normal circumstances did not exist at the moment, so exploiting the current circumstances made

composition of the workforce moving forward"

insisted that each worker be allowed to choose their own path, which the twenty acknowledged, but again didn't quite understand. Of course, each individual ant would choose whatever it was that the colony needed. They themselves had been quite conflicted upon being told they would need to decide for themselves what to evolve into. Only after a lengthy discussion had they decided that what would best serve the colony

was the colony required, and would then

all know why you do not want to speak first" grunted Tungstant, "the colony needs soldiers more than anything else. We

"We also require more workers to tend to the brood. If we wish to ensure that the young are given the best start to life we can manage, security,

This was reasonable, and also ran into the other problem that the Eldest

not trust that source implicitly. Each

present. Not understanding, with exacting precision, their purpose in the colony was unnatural and intolerable to the ants. It was unlikely

a complete map of all skill options, fusions and mutations as

yet still managed to become the most powerful individual in the family, was faintly miraculous. The workers did not wish to take any chances, all