Chrysalis Chapter 1858 - Why Me?

"It seems as though Champions have nominated you as their caretaker," Theresant said while Demetant stiffened in shock.

"I'm sorry, what?" she said, cleaning her antennae. Surely she hadn't smelled that right.

"I think you heard me, you just don't believe it," Theresant said with a smile. "Don't worry, you'll have plenty of support. I'm well aware of how lacking in experience you are, but we think it's important that young Champions are given emotional stability as they develop. These two are far from the most disruptive Champions we've ever had, so I wouldn't worry too much."

"They aren't?" Demetant said weakly.

Well, of them was perfectly behaved. The other... not so much.

Theresant laughed.

"Oh no. The Eldest took care of Vibrant from the get-go but I don't want to imagine how hard that was. Brilliant was easily the worst. Why do you think we designed escape-proof brood chambers?"

"I thought that was to keep others ."

"It also keeps intrepid grubs ," Theresant said. "It's not that difficult of an assignment, really. You stay with the group you were assigned to, as you would have anyway, as they go through the antcademy, but you pay particular attention to the two Champions. For those two, the curriculum can be modified a little in order to lean towards their particular areas of interest, but not too much. Everyone has to learn the basics."

"Of course.”

“When you need advice, there will be a panel of experts at your beck and call for you to consult. Any information you need relating to their particular interests will be provided. If we don’t know it, we will learn it. No effort can be spared when educating the Champions. Am I understood?”

Despite trying to assure her that the task wasn’t that difficult, Demetant felt an enormous weight of pressure settling on her carapace. Was she really the right ant to deal with this? She’d only just started work as a Brood Tender and now she was responsible for educating not one but Champions?

“I understand completely.”

As part of her education and preparation, Demetant had been taught the entire antcademy curriculum and run through multiple mock classes. The first time she had a taken a pretend class through the entire curriculum had been a nightmare, but she had learned and improved. By the third mock class, she was able to smoothly teach all of the lessons that had troubled her so much the first time around. By the fifth run through, she was able to handle all of the extracurriculars needed to enrich the learning of her pupils. By the tenth, she was prepared even for the unexpected problems that her instructors and ‘students’ were able to throw at her.

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She thought she had been so prepared.

“Please get down from the roof,” she said wearily.

“I can learn from up here just fine.”

“Are you planning to learn from there, or are you planning to jump off and attempt to fly?”

“I’m… going to… learn?”

Demetant fixed the little Champion with a stern look from her many lenses. The hatchling deflated.

“I was going to jump.”

“I know. Now come down so we can begin the lesson. Your sisters have been waiting patiently but you are using up their time. Some might say you have been taking up their time.”

“I’m not selfish!” the hatchling squawked, scrabbling to get to the wall and come down.

“Moron,” the other Champion, a usually quiet hatchling, grumped to her sister before giving her a stern with her little antenna.

“Ouch!”

“Stop being stupid.”

“I’m not!”

“Silence now, little ones,” Demetant said, affecting a calm that she didn’t really feel. “Today we are talking about future pathways and what you might do going forward. There are obviously many different things you can become, and your first evolution is coming sooner than you think.”

“I want wings!” the first hatchling declared proudly, hopping on the spot.

She had to have purchased a jumping Skill. There was no way a hatchling could normally jump that high.

“We know,” Demetant said gently.

She hadn’t the heart to tell the little one that her first evolution wouldn’t have the spare energy necessary to purchase wings. As every other Champion before her, she would take the special evolution and remain a hatchling, delaying her choice of caste until she reached tier three.

“Now, we have pheromone slates all around the chamber that detail each of the castes and have testimonials from dozens of different members of the family. I want you to read each and every one of them and then we will talk about which ones you found interesting. Alright?”

Most of the hatchlings weren’t especially interested in this exercise. The answer to the question ‘what would you like to do when you graduate?’ was ‘whatever the family needs’ ninety-nine times out of a hundred when it came to hatchlings. Now that the Colony had grown to a certain size, the opportunity for the hatchlings to make a genuine choice and do whatever they wanted was greater than ever before, yet most weren’t fussed. They simply wanted to be useful.

“I want a role where I can fly as much as possible!” the first hatchling declared, hopping to the nearest slate and bouncing up and down as she ran her antennae along the lines.

In Demetant’s opinion, she was going to be a scout, almost guaranteed.

It was the second hatchling that she gravitated to now. Always the perfect student in every lesson, she was strangely reluctant to move right now, hesitating.

“Don’t you have any thoughts about what you might like to do once you graduate?” Demetant asked as she sidled up alongside the little one.

“I’m not sure…” the hatchling replied. Looking at her bouncy sister, she sighed. “That one knows what she wants.”

“You don’t have to make a decision right now,” Demetant assured her. “There have been Champions in the past who took a long time to make up their mind. Don’t feel pressured to pick anything unless you're sure.”

The little hatchling sighed once more, looking wise beyond her years.

“Well, I suppose someone needs to keep that one in one piece,” she said, pointing a leg at the first hatchling, still jumping for all she was worth. “We have healers, right?”