The afternoon shift is slow. You lean against the warm wood of the hive building, half-eating your lunch, half-watching the guards cycle their posts. But one of them hasn't moved in a while. He's enormous — head and shoulders above every other warrior on the grounds, dark-banded and still as a statue. His compound eyes should be scanning the perimeter. Instead, they keep drifting back to you. Every time you glance up, he's already looking. The other keepers say the big one has been different since you started here. Quieter. More fixed to this particular post. Colony lore calls it a harmonic bond — the idea that a warrior's instincts can lock onto one person and never let go. You're not sure you believe in lore. But you're very sure he just took one slow step closer.