“Don’t fall asleep,” Clark told Arthur.

“Huh?” Despite being with the cricket for the entire time he could remember, Arthur wasn’t entirely used to his mind reading ability yet.

“If something happens, I can’t really fight. I can jump, and sure that’s fun, but that doesn’t help you at all.”

“Right, thanks.” They settled into a sort of silence after that; Clark was fiddling with a stick while Arthur tried to stay awake.

Losing focus and without much else to talk about, Arthur asked the cricket “so, if this area is so bad, why do you live close to it?” Even lost in his own thoughts earlier, Arthur had noticed the two locations weren’t significantly far away from each other.

“Oh, it’s not like Irris; back home, the Queen keeps us safe.”

“The Queen?”

Clark started drawing a little map with the stick in the dirt. “See, where we are now is by the river, which is the border.” Saying this, he pointed to a loose approximation of the spot they were at. “Later, we’ll go up the river and cross the bridge; then we’ll be on the road near Irris where the caravan will be.” After that, he drew a little arrow in the dirt to illustrate what he just said. “Everything beyond the river is human land. Where we are is bug land, and this land is safe for all of insectkind because of the queen. See, above ground is where people like me, the butterflies, and so on live. Below,” he continued as he poked the dirt with the stick, “is where the queen and her kind live. Tons of ants, all in service to Her Majesty. If there’s trouble up here, they’d help us, and vice versa. And that’s why I can live in Fletcherville; lots of humans might hate us, but in a group, they fear us even more. More importantly, there’s good people there.” This last, the cricket said with his usual enthusiasm.

Arthur smiled and was about to acknowledge that point, but he heard something in the distance. It was...