Never

Chapter 14: Torments and Pleasures

The drops continued to fall unstoppably on the city, and Orchid was beginning to feel impatient, the wonder of all this water had been pleasant at first, but she was already getting bored of the situation. Definitely, even with all its progress and magnificent constructions, she would not like to live there.

The mantis was concentrated in her musings, carefully comparing the realities of her tribe and this city, perhaps she could implement some improvements when she returned home. At the moment she had a lot to think and plan. However, her reverie was such that she did not see where she was walking and ended up tripping over a small bug making him fall to the ground.

When Orchid realized what happened, she noticed that the bug she had thrown was a weaver. The bug looked at her with some annoyance

"You should be more careful, you can cause an accident if you don't pay attention where you are going."

And after saying these words, he turned around and entered a building with many stores. The spider was never rude and he was right in what he had told Orchid, but she was not going to easily recognize it, mainly because he was a weaver, a member of the people with whom her tribe had been at war since Ancient times, and she was a lord. She could not ignore such disrespect! Therefore she followed him to the store where he had entered. Hollow was terrified when he saw her partner run towards a commercial building and he had no choice but to follow her.

The mantis entered the store, and she suddenly forgot her anger when she saw what they sold there, the place was full of fabrics and crafts made of yarn, the most beautiful she had ever seen. There were embroidered patterned sheets, curtains with intricate floral designs, tablecloths, capes, cushions, even rag toys. She knew weavers were dedicated to that, but she had never had a chance to look closely at her work. At that, another weaver came to attend to her.

"Good afternoon. Can I help you with something?"

"Uh... No... I just..." If the beauty of the fabrics surprised her, the fact that a weaver spoke so kindly to her even more.

"Just look? Okay, if you need anything, let me know" that being said, she withdrew.

It didn't take long for Hollow to arrive on the scene and was met with a stunned mantis looking at everything as if she couldn't believe it. He caught her attention by tapping his pencil against the magic board, immediately his partner turned to see him and exclaimed:

"Hollow!" A spider has spoken to me!"

"What's so strange about that?"

"A spider spoke to me! I am a mantis."

"If you are a customer, it doesn't matter if you are a mantis or a beetle, they will treat you the same, for them the important thing is to sell. Also, sometimes mantises come from outside Hallownest, and these mantises do not have conflicts with spiders."

"Is seriously?! Mantises that get along with spiders?"

Hollow sighed at such a display of ignorance and naivete, he had a lot to teach this poor mantis. He considered the situation a bit and thought that perhaps the first step in teaching Orchid to live in community was that she learn to appreciate other bugs.

"Why don't you take a look at the store? If you like something, let me know."

Hollow hoped that appreciating the work of the weavers she would begin to see them as good creatures and not as hindrances, which was the vision she seemed to have of any bug that was not a mantis.

Orchid walked around the store amazed by everything she saw, she never saw such beautiful fabrics, not even the actual cloaks they wore had such quality... Although they were actually quite old, perhaps when it were new it looked better, although... Where did these come from? The mantises did not weave, they had no way of obtaining thread, would they have obtained the fabric from the weavers themselves? When did that happen? Perhaps there was even the possibility that in the distant past both races had had a good relationship. Again she felt insecure and stunned, again her beliefs and customs were threatened by foreign ideas that seemed to make much more sense than her own.