Instar Aeterna
"Youth eternal: a practice of select hibernating Hymendia. Evidence of the ritual reaches even to their questionably sapient ancestors."
Instar Aeterna is a burial ritual for a Hymendia queen and her drones, usually only performed in some societies of hibernating, flightless Formica. Its name outlines the meaning of the ritual, referring to eternal youth in the form of an ever-lived instar (an "instar" being the term for a Hymendia juvenile's earliest stages of development). Performed shortly before a Birdtower migration and Winter's imminent arrival, Instar Aeterna sees the recently passed (or otherwise put to rest) queen entombed in a stone sarcophagus sculpted in the visage of a large, freestanding Formican larvae. A hole is typically left where the head is exposed to the elements, though the exoskeleton means that her face may remain recognizable for centuries if kept in proper conditions. Any empty space is filled with liquid resin in the manner of their fossilized (and much smaller) cousins. The process for burying the queen is performed on her drones as well, most of which are forcibly put to rest so their souls will be bound with their matriarch in the afterlife. As hibernating species usually intend to remain in the same location when Summer returns, the resting place of dozens of queens can be found, reaching back millennia. Unfortunately, unless the resting place is well hidden, these statues may be destroyed, infested, or otherwise relocated by outsiders.Excerpt from Queen Myrinae's Lament
"In dedication to our obsequious queens and their flanks of ephemeral drones, we lay the royalty to rest as Instar Aeterna: forever young in the age of innocence, such that they may be judged with light souls upon leaving Dandoleon. Entombed at Winter's encroachment, the whispers within their resting place guide the colony when it thaws for Summer; it seems her royal youth maintains even through centuries of frozen rime"
Origin
While several different Formican colonies perform the Instar Aeterna ritual, various findings indicate that their unintelligent ancestors may have performed similar death rights. Some alleged tombs even date before The Breaking of Dandoleon had concluded with the Inidictment of Chaimut, implying that these ancient colonies didn't hibernate, as seasons were perpetual before the indictment.
Four separate stone casings have been discovered by the Disciples of Thanatorum, each of which has the same cylindrical shape as modern sarcophagi. While all other fine details have eroded, there appears to be a vacant cavity for a head's insertion: behind it is any number of natural preservatives (with amber among them). None of the casings have been opened due to fear of damaging their contents, but the Disciples theorize that these ancestral Formica were more intelligent than originally assumed and that the head protruding from the encasing has fully decayed.
The casings have sprung creative mythologies about their ancestors, yet most scientific insights into the subject have been kept behind the walls of the Birdtowers, where the Disciples of Thanatorum plan to eternally safeguard the information.
by Studio3.2D
Implications
As implied earlier, many queens and drones have been forcibly put to rest. Some Formican queens can live for centuries depending on their species, leaving just one queen per Summer cycle. Others live similar lifespans to humans, seeing long lines of familial descent every Summer. Regardless of their lifespan, however, most queens of hibernating species grow weary until death when winter is imminent. Their fertilized eggs are capable of remaining in stasis for an indeterminate amount of time, and the hatchlings within them will come to rule the colony when Summer returns.
The queen's biological drive toward death may be to prevent competition with her children but to ensure the sacred process occurs, the colony will execute their queen if her natural death doesn't come once Winter arrives. The queen rarely resists the execution, as forgoing her purpose would threaten her afterlife. The common belief is that a queen who fights against her demise when Winter arrives will be reborn as an emaciated and maimed Formica in the life beyond, separated from her drones
and eternally damned to a life of suffering. Of course, that's only if her people choose to entomb the queen after threatening the colony's integrity.
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