"Wait wait!" Radivus pleaded. "Why are you trying to kill him?"

The screeching lessened but didn't stop. "Because he is part of the three that betrayed us."

"Be...trayed?" Stelimus struggled to repeat.

"Yeeeessss. You betrayed us, god-king. I don't remember which one of you it was. All five of you looked the same."

"F-five?"

"Yes. Then you went to four, and then to three. You refused to aid us when we were being attacked when we aided you during the Early Hatching."

"Wait," Yolumay started. "You think he's our father? Ha!"

The colossi turned to face the -proportionally- itty bitty reindeer in unison. "Father?" the head crusher repeated. "Not king?"

"Well, he is the king, now, but he's not his father."

The colossi chittered together, speaking in a language only they understood.

"Doesn't matter. All deer are the same. Traitors to our people and long alliance and not aiding us during our own losses."

"Who even are you?" Radivus asked.

"The Gitz-Gitz-Guak of the Adwanee Sands."

"Adwanee?"

"I thought these were the Anyubinite's sands," Yolumay blurted.

A deafening volume of buzzing echoed throughout the chambers at the mention of the anyubinites.

"Owowow!" Stelimus shouted.

"Anyubinites! They steal from us! They remove us from our homes. These are OUR sands! OUR hives!" The colossus threw Stelimus hard against the water-wall, somehow not breaking it. "It's YOUR people that have allowed this!" the colossus accused. "I have no obligation to keep you alive after invading my home unannounced!"

"We weren't invading!"

"No? We saw you coming into the deserts with the pointy eared ones and talk with the small horse to come and spy on us."

"You saw us? We didn't even see you!" Yolumay shouted. "Why do you even HAVE green bodies?"

"Green?" the colossus repeated with confusion. The others looked at each other and at themselves. "We aren't green," it continued calmly.

"Then what are your 'not-green' bodies colored?"

"Bishuac."

"...What?"

"You only see green because your eyes are unevolved. You only see three spectrums. We see nine. It's why you never notice us when we're standing right next to you."

"Interesting." Yolumay smirked. "It can't even tell that I'm making it give me information."

The colossus pointed at the princess. "I bet you're thinking that you're making me tell you information about my people." Yolumay paled. "Stupid reindeer. We didn't survive this long because of our strength and bodies."

"Before you kill me," Radivus interjected. "Can you tell him to let me go?"

The colossus stared at the tiny reindeer for a moment before responding. "That's a female."

"Wait what?"

"You can't even tell the difference between males and females," the giant lamented.

"Uhhh, that's kind of difficult, considering we're MAMMALS and you're BUGS!" Yolumay shouted.

"EXCUSE ME!" Copper interjected as loudly as she could.

Everyone turned to face her and the silence died down. It turned out that she was trying to garner everyone's attention but, through fear and nervousness, she wasn't capable of forcing her volume up more than minus-one. Now she did it, and she was forced to go through with it despite the weight in her chest growing and her body starting to feel like a portable sauna.

"Ah...You're mad at the deer because they betrayed you?"

"YES!" the hive echoed.

Copper's ears folded against her head and she braced for the impact. "Well, what is it more specifically that they did to, well, anger you so?"

"You don't know? You don't remember?"

"Average deer don't live ten-thousand years," Stelimus grumbled whilst struggling to get back to his hooves.

"We don't either. We live around fifty."

The deer king blinked. "Then why do you say that you can 'remember'?"

"Memories are passed down from generation to generation. Each individual is granted the memories of their progenitor, and through actions of their own and the lessons given by these memories, become their own Gitz-Gitz-Guac, and then the cycle continues."

"It's like rebirth," Stelimus realized in aww.

"If we can get back on track," Copper growled. "What is it specifically that the deer did?"

"When they were threatened in the north, they traveled for help, finding us. Not having known any other race, we were excited and went with them as we too required proving of ourselves. The deserts are lonely and we had a chance to see something other than this vast brown." It growled. "Even after all that effort to destroy the black giant, their 'leaders' betrayed us to our fate when we dared clamor for their aid against the many-deaths."

"You mean the anyubinites?"

"Yes." It aggressively pointed to Copper. "Don't think your kind is innocent either. We still fought alongside the ponies and they still betrayed us as well. We thought we established friendly relations with them, then all communication ceased."

"W-well, we were a very different people back then. We have Princesses Celestia and Luna that have been helping us better ourselves. I'm certain if we tried to talk again, we could reestablish good relations." She looked at Stelimus. "Even my husband has been trying to improve his people." She looked down in sadness. "Even though it's been very hard right now."

"Husband?" The colossus lifted his head whilst the hive chittered. "A reindeer with a non-reindeer? Unheard of. You were very too busy lifting your noses so much that your heads would bend to your rears."

"We're not that flexible, but I don't think I'm doing my job very well anyways..."

The colossus clicked. "Just one uncharacteristic act won't have us see you with a different compound eye."

"Then how do we get out of this alive or change your perceptions of my group and I?"

"Help us get our lands back."

"More war?!" Yolumay shouted. Even she was getting tired of all the ideas of war.

"I can't do that," Stelimus averted his eyes.

The colossus chittered. "And why not?"

"Because only the zaoris of the anyubinites can tell me the source of the black snow, and it's the only way I'll be able to stop it and any future deaths."

There was a moment of silence before the colossus spoke again. "You speak as though you lived through the fight with the colossus."

"We did!" Copper shouted. She started to cry as bad memories resurfaced. "It was...awful. My mother was killed, his father as well. And so many ponies and deer lost their lives...Now my father is a shell of his former self, rarely ever doing anything himself and needing a group of ponies to run the country with the help of Equestria's guidance."

Stelimus stared at her, wide-eyed. "What? You didn't tell me this."

"I didn't want to..."

The insects in the chamber converged to one spot and started discussing what to do. The council didn't take long as the head crusher informed them of their plans: The 'guests' would remain in the chamber under the watchful of the others until the gits gits guak decided upon what to do with them. Many centuries of ancestral grudges were difficult to clean out.

"One thing I must point out, mammals," the head crusher started. "The anyubinites will never tell you the source of the black snow, let alone tell you the truth." It made a repeating, high-pitched noise reminiscent of laughter. "They don't know anything about the black snow!" it 'laughed'.

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