The hungry nursemaid practically dragged Rythica along by her wrist as she ushered the small vex up to a set of rge, fancy doors. Julia barely waited for the girl to catch her bearings before pushing the doors open and gesturing around the massive, decorative room.

  As far as Rythica could tell, the room was quite rge but not massive, at least when compared to the foyer. Like most rooms in this hive, there were various paintings and shining art pieces adorning the walls, and carved marble pilrs, reflecting light in just the right way to set the atmosphere without drawing attention away from the centerpiece of the ample space; a truly enormous table, decorated with a finely woven tablecloth and incredibly detailed carvings along the many legs that supported it. Above the table hung a rge, oval-shaped chandelier that kept the table well lit. It fit the size and shape of the table so well that it was obvious that the two were made specifically to work with each other. Dozens of elegant chairs encircled the table, offering no shortage of areas to sit, with the chairs on the far ends clearly designed to draw the eye far more than the others.

  “This is the dining room. The noble section of it, anyway. This is where the nobles gather to eat, or when hosting guests.”

  Rythica sort of understood that terminology from her studies under Era, but was still left bewildered. And not just the part about hosting guests. She gnced around the room, baffled, not understanding why such a room would be needed. Couldn’t people just eat wherever they wanted? Why build a special pce for merely eating? She knew she would much rather eat in her own room. The observant vex had long since realized humans were obsessed with eating at tables for whatever reason, after watching Julia and Bel, so maybe there just weren’t many tables around the hive? Or was it because this table was special?

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why eat here?”

  “This room is close to the kitchen, where the meals are made. This means that the chefs can quickly make delicious meals and bring them out to people so they can eat here without tracking food all over the pce and leaving a mess. It also gives people a chance to socialize while they eat.”

  Well, if this room was close to where the food was made, that made some sense. But before Rythica could request further crification, the woman was moving once more towards a door on the side. The room this door opened into was far less fancy than the previous one and had many mundane tables and chairs scattered around it.

  “You’re still too young to eat in the nobles’ area, so you’ll be eating in here, the servants’ area, until you're old enough to eat without help.”

  Rythica scowled. She didn’t need help eating! She was very capable of doing that herself, thank you very much!

  “Yes, yes, I know you can eat by yourself,” Julia said, reading Rythica’s expression. “But you leave quite a mess. And you also still need to learn to eat with a fork instead of your hands.”

  A what?

  Once more, Julia was moving, and the diminutive child rushed to keep up with her much longer stride. The rapid pattering of chitinous talons on the tile floor echoed out in the empty space. Rythica mentally compined at the pace, but not too much. She was just as hungry as her excited tour guide, after all.

  Rythica grew confused as Julia once more crossed towards a door against the far wall. She looked back, a little confused. Didn’t Julia just say people eat in here? Rythica had imagined that meant sitting at the table and waiting for some drones to bring the food to them.

  Julia opened the door and peeked inside, looking both ways. She muttered something under her breath.

  “Damn, she already left.”

  Julia made a strange coughing sound and spoke at normal volume once more.

  “I said darn. Anyway, it seems the chef has already left. Stay with me, okay, Rythica? Don’t touch anything.”

  This third area was completely different from the previous two. There were no chairs or regur tables in this room, only long counters that stretched along the walls. There were tons of pieces of furniture that the young girl had no name for, and lots of shiny things that looked very interesting. On one nearby counter, there was an odd metal thing shaped like a pointy triangle, with a little piece of wood at the bottom. She made to reach for it, but failed as Julia pulled her along before she could get close.

  The drone that seemed to be making far too big of a deal about simply eating stopped before another counter in the middle of the broad space. It had two freshly prepared meals on it, and one of them sang the vex’s name. Rythica eagerly rushed forward to cim her prize, but Julia stopped her with a gentle hand before she could grab one of the meat sbs.

  "Not yet, sweetie. We’re going to take these ptes back to the dining room and eat there.”

  Rythica tilted her head in confusion. “Why?”

  If the whole purpose of eating in the dining room was because it was close to the kitchen, wouldn’t it make more sense to simply eat in the kitchen itself? That was clearly a lot closer to the food. It seemed more efficient in her opinion. There were even counters for her human servant to eat off of!

  “Move there is not fast. Why no eat here?”

  “Sorry, baby. I know it’s one of those confusing noble customs, but most people eat in the dining room. You are a growing girl, and that means you’re old enough to start learning to eat normally. It’s something that will make more sense as you get used to it.” She thought for a moment, scratching her chin. “In polite society, there are a lot of ‘hidden rules’ that are important for us to follow. This is one of those.”

  Julia was right. This was very confusing and made no sense. Noble customs? Polite society? Rythica didn’t particurly care about either of those things. She just wanted to eat. Nonetheless, she trailed along silently as Julia scooped the ptes up and juggled them back towards the door.

  A few moments ter, Julia carefully pced the wobbling dishes down on a nearby table. More than once, she had come precariously close to dropping everything, only managing to catch herself at the st second. It was a narrow thing, but Julia managed to unload her burden without spilling anything as far as Rythica could tell. Rythica was mildly disappointed. She didn’t mind eating off the floor and figured it would have been a good excuse to avoid all this unnecessary hassle.

  The ptes were pced in front of two neighboring chairs, and the two gsses of liquid that had been gingerly banced on top of the ptes were distributed. The one next to Rythica’s ptter of red, still-bloody meat was paired with water, and Julia’s meal of… odd circle things with sauce was paired with the sweet-smelling orange liquid.

  The very instant Julia’s hand left the table, Rythica reached for her precious meat, already getting of these stupid deys.

  “Don’t eat standing up.”

  The vex looked at the nanny incredulously. Julia promptly demonstrated her point by sitting at the table herself and indicating that the girl should follow suit. Letting out an exaggerated huff, she complied.

  She reached forward-

  “Not yet. First, I’m going to teach you how to use a fork.”

  Rythica’s antennae twitched.

  Julia pulled Rythica’s savory serving of red meat towards herself, btantly stealing it from the indignant vex queen.

  “You’re too young to use a knife, so I’ll cut these for you first.”

  Julia picked up a weird metal stick thing with three points on the top and stabbed it into the meat. With her other hand, she picked up another odd metal thing, this one shaped like a tall triangle, and used it to start slicing the meat that was held in pce.

  Rythica was mildly offended by that. Her mandibles were perfectly capable of chopping up meat! She didn’t need the annoying servant to do it for her. Seriously, just give her the meat. There was literally nothing complicated about eating. What was this whole ordeal even for?!

  “No cut! I am cut!” She pointed to her mandibles.

  Julia simply shook her head, not stopping. “No. You need to learn how to eat using utensils. No more eating with your cws and mandibles. You’re getting too old for such things.”

  By this point, Rythica was starting to get genuinely annoyed. She had been patient with the caretaker thus far, letting her guide Rythica along through this strange new environment beyond the walls of her nest, but this was seriously getting to be a bit much. She clenched her hands, the cws digging shallow grooves into the underside of the soft wooden table.

  “Why not eat normal?”

  “I’m sorry, dear, but this is the normal way to eat. I know it’s a lot, but it’s important you learn this.”

  Julia finished ruining the st bits of the Rythica’s food. “Here.” Julia finally pced the pte back in front of her and set the metal three-pointed stick on the other side.

  With a growing scowl, Rythica grabbed one of the meat cubes. Just like that, one of the best parts was ruthlessly swiped away from her, not letting her eat properly. Infuriating non-mandible-having drones simply didn’t understand how satisfying it felt to tear into a nice, bloody strip of meat. That pleasant crunch as she bit through bone.

  But even before she was able to enjoy this morsel of relief for her rumbling belly, the insufferable drone stopped her once more.

  “No, no. I said no more using your fingers.”

  By this point, Rythica was beyond caring and simply tossed the bite into her mouth without giving her a chance to finish. She did her best to savor this st bit of normalcy before even that was ruined.

  Julia sighed but put on an understanding look. “I know it’s strange for you, but you need to use a fork. Please work with me? I’m trying to help you, okay? I don’t want to make this difficult. Just try it. Hold your fork like this.” She pointed to the fork next to Rythica’s pte, then mimicked picking up her own fork and presented herself holding it.

  Her antennae twitched once more as she slowly grasped the fork with one hand in a tight fist. Julia gave her a reassuring nod, speaking in slow, calming tones to try to ease the vex’s mounting tension.

  “You’re doing so well! We’re almost there, okay? Now, hold it like this.” Julia indicated her hand again.

  Rythica studied Julia’s hand for a moment before looking at one of her own. She flexed her fingers, suddenly very aware of the distinct ck of joints on her cws as opposed to human hands. She could bend her fingers at the knuckles, and at one joint about halfway up the digit, but that was it. Her fingers simply didn’t have half the dexterity that human hands did. They were stiffer and had a far lower range of motion overall. She simply couldn’t bend her fingers in the right way to copy Julia. Her nanny seemed to realize the issue at the same time.

  “Oh, that might be an issue. Hmm.” She thought for a moment before trying to hold her fork in a slightly more rexed pose. “What about this?”

  That position was slightly better, and Rythica was able to copy it mostly, but it was still awkward. She looked up at Julia.

  “Why hold like?”

  Rythica underlined her point by gripping it in a fist; this pose was far more comfortable and had better control overall. The other way felt like the fork could fall out of her hands at any moment.

  “Is better.”

  Julia considered speaking up for a moment before finally sighing. “Fine, you can eat like that for now, as long as you’re using a fork to eat instead of your cws. Is that okay? We can work out something with how you hold it ter.”

  Rythica nodded stiffly, reluctantly agreeing to the drone’s impossible demands.

  “Good. Now, here’s how you use it.”

  Julia stabbed a bit of her disgusting-looking sticky circle food with the pointy bits of the fork, using the knife to cut the penetrated piece of sustenance off from the whole. She followed up by lifting the fork and taking a bite, showing the clean metal as she pulled it away from her mouth.

  Rythica had no idea what Julia was eating, but it didn’t look appetizing at all. Still, she understood the premise of Julia’s demonstration.

  “I already cut up your food, so you don’t have to worry about that. But the important part is you can use the fork to bring the food to your mouth without getting any juices on your hands.”

  Rythica could admit she could see some benefit in keeping her cws clean. It meant fewer baths. But then again, she could lick them clean anyway, so it didn’t really matter. Nonetheless, the incredibly impatient vex copied Julia, if for no other reason than to get her to stop expining already and let Rythica just get to the most important part.

  Rythica stabbed one of her meat cubes, squirting red juices of blood and fat onto the table as she did so. Julia made a discontented noise, but the hungry vex ignored her. She lifted the cube to her mouth and stuck out her tongue, grabbing the meat with it and pulling it off the metal.

  There, she did it. Her cws were clean, her mandibles unused. Could she just eat normally now?

  “Well… It’s progress, but you’ve done extremely well so far. I’m so, so proud of you, my smart little bug! Let’s try again, but this time, don’t use your tongue. Just pce the fork in your mouth and pull it out like this.” She illustrated once more.

  Gahhh!

  Externally, her face suddenly turned pcid, and she nodded in understanding. She eyed the gss of orange liquid next to Julia’s pte for the briefest instant. Julia hesitated as she noticed something shift, but shook it off and continued presenting an encouraging smile.

  “You’ve got this! You’re so close!”

  Once more, Rythica followed Julia’s instructions, pcing the next piece of meat into her mouth and biting down hard. Her brows furrowed as something changed. She pulled the fork back out, noticing it was completely bent out of shape.

  Both Rythica and Julia stared at it for a moment before Julia sighed. She handed her own fork over to the silently twitching vex.

  “That’s okay. Mistakes happen. It’s nothing to worry about; just don’t use your teeth until after the fork is out of your mouth. You want to scoop the food off the fork with your lips, then chew.”

  Rythica’s antennae twitched once more, and she had to force her wings to avoid buzzing, but she obeyed. She took a quick breath to center herself, attempting to remind herself that Julia didn’t mean any harm, that she was just too caught up in dumb hidden rules and thought she was helping somehow. Still, if Julia stopped her from eating again, she would absolutely snap.

  On her next attempt at using a fork, her repeated efforts were finally met with success, and she devoured the dish she had fought a legion of enemies for. She still didn’t understand all this complication, but she just had to hope it was all over, now.

  “That’s good! Yes!”

  Meanwhile, Julia looked down at her own pte, mildly annoyed. She looked to the kitchen door for a moment, then back to Rythica and sighed. She took the knife and began to slice up her meal, stabbing the pieces with it and using it in pce of her fork. Rythica idly noticed she was a lot more careful as she bit down on that utensil than she was with the fork.

  The partially mollified queen continued to chew, taking bite after bite, speeding up as she grew more accustomed to eating with a fork until she was nearly inhaling it. With each bite, she felt her nerves calm somewhat. Thankfully, the strict drone made no further efforts to impede her at this sacred task.

  “Don’t eat so fast. You’ll choke.”

  The queen gave her the benefit of the doubt and pretended not to hear the drone that continued dancing on thin ice. Besides, if Julia wanted her to eat with a fork so badly, why was she now compining about eating too well with the stupid thing? Was her whole goal to make eating as tedious as possible? Rythica was tempted to grab the bent fork in her other hand just to speed things up to a more comfortable eating pace.

  Rythica also ignored the bits of meat and juices that nded all over the table and her outfit. She couldn’t care less at the moment. Fat dripped down her chin as she chewed with an open mouth. Tiny sptters of blood sprayed across her dress and stained the tablecloth as she thrust the fork into the pte and flicked it up into her maw. She made entirely no effort to prevent it. On the contrary, she may even have been eating a bit more messily than normal.

  Pfft, and Julia said forks were supposed to be cleaner. Sure, she just needed to look at the evidence before her. Maybe then she would let Rythica eat like a regur person again.

  Before long, Rythica was done. After being fed, she was a bit calmer, but she was still beyond annoyed at being made to climb mountains and cross valleys for something so small. She dropped the fork onto the table and looked up at Julia.

  “When you’re done eating, it’s polite to pce your fork on the pte and push it away. That lets the staff know you’re done eating.” The caretaker smiled. ”Try not to pce your fork on the table as that just gets food everywhere.”

  Julia eyed the spectacle that the vex had made with her sloppy eating before turning back and taking another bite of her own meal.

  The vex that was pushed too far slowly nodded. With deliberate slowness, she pced the fork on her pte before quickly shoving it forward. By complete coincidence, the pte just happened to bump into Julia’s drink at just the right angle to tip it over, spilling it on Julia’s p. It was a thoroughly unforeseen outcome that could not be predicted whatsoever.

  Instantly, the table was soaked with a sticky, sugary juice. Half of Julia’s food was suddenly drenched, and the woman’s apron was now a faint orange color and completely soaked through. The faint tapping of juice off the wooden surface and dripping to the tile below was the only sound for a few long moments.

  The innocent child looked up at the neutral-faced servant with big, puppy eyes. Her antennae drooped behind her, almost lying ft, and her voice wavered as she spoke.

  “Sorry, Julia. Mistake.”

  The nanny closed her eyes and let out a long, deep sigh. “Okay, I think I see where things went wrong.”

  Despite that unavoidable accident, Rythica suddenly found herself feeling a lot better now, after all the stress of today’s breakfast.

  She picked her pte back up and started to lick it clean. It was a shame to waste food, after all.

  TheDudeFromCI