Mab whips her steed with a jagged cricket’s leg and it buzzes into a long vertical loop (the g-force is negligible at their size). Her pack circles in apparently random paths which, if watched long enough, resolve a fractal coverage pattern.

They catch the aromatic trail at last and lunge after it: the perfect philotic communion of the insect hunt. “Tally-ho!” Mab screams, eyes alight. “When we catch the little bastard, we’ll show him what nightmares are made OH SH–”

Monique hacks and spits and slows down to try and scrape them out of her throat. Goddammit. Fucking gnats.