"You can talk?" I asked, without lowering my guard.
The thing creaked forward slightly, mantis-arms twitching. The green in its eyes pulsed once, then dimmed.
"Y-yes..." it said again, more clearly this time. "B-but h-a-rdd..."
The voice was glitching, like something translating itself on the fly.
I didn't relax. It had already tried to tear my arm off. The talking didn't mean it wouldn't do it again. If anything, it just made it worse.
"That your language?" I asked, watching its body for tension. "Or are you borrowing mine?"
It tilted its head again, then scraped one of its arms against its chest plate, a sound like bone dragging over steel.
"N-no... not... b-borrow. S-stretched."
Stretched.
Whatever that meant, it sounded like the words weren't coming from a place of knowledge. More like instinct. Muscle memory. Like language was being filtered through raw perception.
I started circling slowly, just a half step to my right. It didn't move to follow. But its gaze did.
