By and far the most bizarre part about integrating with the human world was the clothing. Camixi had grown up knowing about it, wearing it, but it didn't make it any less weird. For one, the humans frowned upon the fact that she preferred to not wear shoes. Ever. Why would you want to ever wear shoes? Shoes meant that you were not as agile and you were completely out of touch with the world around you. Someone with long hair and flowers sewn on their vest had called her a 'hippie' but she still didn't entirely understand what that was. Or even if it was a bad thing.

Truthfully, even though it was something that she had been raised alongside, she never really felt comfortable with this modernization. Nine had hugged her and said that she had an old soul that clung to the traditions of the past clans and Ven had agreed with a sigh and some scorn for her youngest child. She was not a woman who eschewed progress but they had yet to create a child that followed in her footsteps. There had been such high hopes for Camixi but she was, in all things, a traditionalist.

Given the choice she would have gladly spent all her time in the sands among the swarms, learning what she could from the Elders, becoming more and more a sage. Interacting with the humans was not her calling. What point was there in pretending to be them? In pretending to like them? They squashed her precious darlings! None of them understood the intricacies of insect life. Certainly none of them knew of the hivemind or how comforting it was.

Yet here she was yet again under the watchful eye of Crane, wearing a confining sweater that hid far too much of her young skin, trying to talk someone out of their money. Losing her patience with the carping and whining of the latest skinflint she slammed her hands down on her desk. "Fine! If you won't pay up I will just feed your bodies to the worms!" And, without warning, used a tiny bit of Fear to summon a few maggots to drip on the middle-aged woman.

It was not a surprise that she got sent home. Nor was she upset about it. Hitting the sands she stripped off her clothing, stretched her wings, and stood wearing little more than a shift in the middle of the Oasis. "Mmmm. No place like home!"