A wee tail with little moral

[CASPER]

Hyme had long heard the tales of those few who returned.
Tales of great reward & horrific dangers..
Cannibalistic rival clans, fields of poison & treacherous, ensnaring monsters.
Those were but a few of the hazards
Hyme would dare face as they quested to the Realm of Titans.

Hyme was afraid
but the colony was in desperate need,
it had been a harsh winter & the store rooms were near bare.
So when the Queen commanded, Hyme & his brothers answered the call..

They followed the trail cut by their ancestors,
feeling their way through the inky black passages.

Time & again they cleared piles of rubble, hard packed earth
& stones many times larger than the largest of their scouts..

All along the way they found grim signs of those, who had never returned
& yet Hyme & his brothers relentlessly drove on.

The damp passages soon gave way to cool musty caverns
where the eight legged beasts of poison fang
ruled with vile web & stealthy ambush..

Cautiously they scaled the stone cliffs higher & higher,
only to find out too late,
The trail of the ancestors had been seeded with poison
How many of his brothers died a twitching death ? Hyme could not say.
Hyme knew only this,
for the sake of his Queen, his colony & now his vary life..
Hyme had no choice but to find another way..

On ward, ever on ward, ever marking their route for others to follow,
Hyme boldly pushed on..

Eventually the cold towering cliffs gave way onto a warmer wood..
Hyme's journey had been long & wrought with sorrow
but the far away thump, Thump, thumping,
vibrating, rattling, resounding thumping,..
This noise as the shaking of his world, told Hyme,
he & his remaining brothers had entered the realm of Titans at last..

Hyme & his brothers kept to the shadows more often than less..
They scouted this way & that until at last they'd found it.

At long last Hyme found the markers his ancestors afore him had left..
He'd found his way around the poisoned fields
& reunified the supply route that would save his colony,
his Queen & his way of life...

Hyme passed through the ranks of his fellow brothers & scouts.
It was a day of hope & a mourning of great joy..

Hyme dispatched some few he could spare to send word home to the Queen.
They had dared the lost trails & now they would share every treasure from the realm of Titans.

Hunger & the quest for further expansion drove Hyme on,
Until at last they made those first tentative steps into the light.

Hyme & his lot scouted about the cold, bright, white plains ..
Silver mountains rose high above a shear deep basin.

Here deep with in the basin, all paused to drink of the crystal clear water..
Here the air was warm..
Here all was bright & open to breeze..
Here the world had a taste of flowers, sugar & spice..

Here they would meet their fate..
Again came the Thump, thump, thumping..
Blinding light shown down like a hailstorm of suns

Hyme & his brothers scattered for the distant basin's rim..
A lone Titan towered above.
Godz of all terrible nightmare had never prepared Hyme for such a sight..

The Titan loomed above them, frothing at the mouth..
Oh the madness of that moment as Hyme & his brothers ran !

Alas it was too late..

No matter how brave, regardless how bold,
Hymenopera Formicidae was but a pissant after all..

Like soo many afore him,
Hyme drowned in a riptide of minty cool fluoride, washed down the drain.






~* The End *~