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“God, I hope not,” Farrow gulped, watching in horror as the mass swarmed forward.
But instead of striking out at us, the two groups merged and began to circle each other, swirling around one another as if performing some kind of orchestrated scorpion dance or something.
I blinked and then squinted at them, certain I was seeing things. “What the…?”
And suddenly, they stopped as if waiting for us to respond. Only then did I realize they’d formed letters in the sand with their bodies lined up against each other.
The letters spelled out the word stop.
Next to me, Farrow straightened and dropped his torch down to his side.
“Well, that’s new,” he said before glancing at me and arching an eyebrow as if silently inquiring if I’d ever seen anything like this before.
I shrugged, just as confused as he was.
More scorpions marched in and organized themselves until they added the word please under stop.
“Aww,” I couldn’t help but coo. “Such manners.” I grinned over at Farrow. “They’re nice scorpions.”
He lifted his eyebrow again, letting me know he didn’t necessarily agree.
I tugged at his hand. “Well, you heard them,” I ordered. “Put the fire out.”
“Like hell,” he answered.
“Farrow.” My voice grew a hair firmer. “They very politely asked you to stop.”
“Right.” The word was soft and slow and totally not compliant. “A million oversized ants with tails full of poison tell me to drop the only weapon we have to defend ourselves, and you expect me to actually listen to them?”
“We should at least hear—er, read—what they have to say first.” It seemed like the only reasonable next step to me.
I batted my lashes at Farrow. “Or you could keep thrusting your fire at them until you piss them off enough to make them strike out and sting us both to death instantly. Your choice.”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath but finally saw reason enough to shove the lit end of his torch into the sand and smother the flames. Then he pulled the fire striker from his belt and held it up for all to see as he spoke loud enough for the scorpions to hear. “But attack, and I’m firing this baby back up. You hear me?”
The scorpions moved then, as if they’d heard. Scuttling around on the sand, they kept their distance as they formed more letters.
The next word they wrote was greetings.
As they started on another word, Farrow groaned, and his head fell back. “Good Lord, this will take all day.”
“Shh,” I hissed, jabbing him in the side. “Scorpions are communicating with us. This is absolutely fascinating.”
“It’s definitely something,” he muttered unenthusiastically.
Once the first sentence was complete, I read it aloud.
“Greetings, princess and mate. Oh! See,” I crowed, snickering triumphantly at Farrow and poking him in the ribs yet again. “Even the scorpions know you belong to me.”
He sighed but otherwise didn’t reply, putting all his effort into scowling at the scorpions and distrustfully watching them form more letters.
The scorpion kween wishes—
“Uh, if you’re trying to spell queen, you’re wrong,” Farrow pointed out. “It’s q-u-e-e-n.”
“Farrow!” I cried in reprimand.
“What?” He waved a hand, motioning to the scorpions as they regrouped to spell queen right. “If I had made that error during my lessons, my tutors would’ve smacked my knuckles with bamboo sticks until they bled.”
