written by Mordran 

'We have killed a Ygs' spawn. There will be no peace for us in the beyond.'

'You want your son cured of the Mycenia's infection or not, Ezud?'

Jedd wiped away the sap from his ax. Just a four-legged Bush-shredder this time, with roots for jaws grown to dig up dead grass.

Ezud cloven hands clenched a bag surrounded by a white cloud, excreted by the reproductive gland Jedd had taken from the Bush-shredder.

An Instar would have never carried the gutted organ of a Sapfolk, but the life of her son was on the line.

Jedd, on the other hand, feared no repercussion from the beasts of Decidua.

Its swamps never offered Sapfolks dangerous enough for a Woodsman.

As all Ygs's races know, the more the human thrives, the more ferocious the Sapfolks become, and Decidua was too humid for the humans of the wandering moon.

Creatures like humans, Instars, and Merfolks were nothing more than bacteria on its skin. And the most dangerous of them were the humans, lost on their new strange world.

But for the Instars, Ygs wasn't so different from their old planet.

The wings on their backs flew among Ygs' branches just as they did in the canyons of their world.

Even Ygs' nights weren't a threat to them, able to breathe even in the cosmic void from where they had fallen.

They even fed upon the fruiting bodies of the demonic Mycenias, and Ygs was grateful for that. Enough to let them thrive without any Sapfolk attack.

And the Instars, as a sign of respect, would cover their pale skin with pollen dust and resin armors, unlike the leather and the metals the humans have learned to fabricate through Resin Atomization.

'Hope this slaughter was worth it,' Ezud said.

'It's the life of your son.'

Jedd followed Ezud beyond the muck of dead leaves rotting within the undergrowth of Decidua.

Beyond the gnarled branches withered by the stagnating waters digging throughout their pallid bark, a murky lake rested.

An expanse of viscous waters on a crater of fallen trees, where the precipitated sap dripping from Decidua's branches concentrated, giving life to waters that should bear none.

'Here we are: the kindergarten,' Ezud said, flapping her transparent wings towards the lake's shore.

The Woodsman had arrived at the shore by foot to witness an event only the six eyes of an Instars or the feelers of a Merfolk had the honor to.

From the amorphous darkness of the lake, a swarm of serpentine creatures of vaguely humanoid form approached the shore where Ezud had landed.

Surrounding the beasts were a pair of Merfolk women.

Jedd had already seen the Merfolk of Prima, similar to the carps his world had brought to Ygs.

These were more similar to crayfishes. Segmented beings of shells and antennae, six-limbed and webbed-handed, but with the most beautiful visages among the four lands of Ygs.

Their eyes focused on Jedd, pitying the man who would face Ygs' wrath alone.

'I've got the Bush-shredder's pollen, wet nurses,' Ezud said.

One of them dragged her writhing tail in the midst of the mud outside the waters.

The other plunged into the waters below, followed by the creatures.

Ezud handled the bag to the wet nurse, just as her sister returned from the depths of the lake, carrying one of those larval creatures in her arms.

She left it in shivers on the muck at Ezud's feet.

At first, hidden by the turbid waters of the lake, Jedd didn't notice how the creature's six eyes resembled that of Ezud.

Jedd knew about the Instars metamorphosis, but thinking that gray worm was Ezud's son was unbelievable.

The Wet-Nurse opened the bag, covering the Instar child with its white pollen.

As the pale cloud touched its wrinkled skin, the child's eyelids opened to the gray light of Decidua's shrouded sky. The child offered no response. Its mind still unformed, unlike Ezud's. The child slithered into the waters, followed by the Merfolk, reuniting with the other Instar larvas.

'The Mycenias won't let you leave Decidua, not after having killed their infection.'

He would have wanted to believe Ezud's fears were unfounded.

But Jedd was an experienced Woodsman.

As the fungal infection on Ezud's son was gone, Jedd's attention had fallen on his spasming left hand, where a black spot had spiraled on his skin.

The Mycenias had marked him, and the fungus would have followed him even beyond the rotting Decidua.