Victoria

**Victoria** is the queen of the ant girls residing in northwestern Koskaysil, between Edgewood and Ashwood beneath the rolling plains. She is Squeak's queen who hails from her nest and the first monster ruler Daniel Sorres comes across.

## Appearance

She's described as having long, clean hair with bug antennae atop her head, and a fine gray silk dress with dark trimmings around the shoulders and waist. She wears dark crystalline shoes, and her insect abdomen is noticeably larger, requiring its own comforter support behind her throne to rest on.

## Personality

Queen Victoria, as she likes to be addressed as, rules over her nest with a calm, and sometimes arrogant, demeanor. A proud ruler, she remains focused on keeping her nest safe and thriving while ever expanding. Although she isn't cruel to her subjects, she tends to view them merely for what they are in her nest: workers. She never addresses any of the ant girls by name, rather by generalization or pointing to them directly. Like most ant girls, Victoria shares the same fear as her kin do of their natural predators, ant-lionesses, being easily frightened by the mere thought of them. Unlike all other ant girls, Victoria is able to speak with words instead of just squeaking like all the workers do, a trait that seems to belong only to the queens of their kind.

## Development

Queen Victoria only has one appearance in the series so far. In Act I, when first met by Daniel she thinks absolutely nothing of him and intends to keep him down in her nest in the mating den with all the other human men they've kidnapped. Squeak, knowing that their nest is in danger with an ant-lioness infestation and wishing to help Triska Raylight who saved her life from one of the predators earlier, bargains with her queen that if Triska is able to slay the remaining monsters Daniel can then go free. Victoria agrees, as well as to the added condition that she listen to Daniel's beliefs that they can coexist peacefully. Although Triska is able to kill the monsters, with Squeak's help, Daniel's talks with the queen don't go so well as although the idea of peace sounds nice, Daniel is unable to come up with *how* the ant girls will be accepted by the humans and also be given the men they need to continue breeding to survive. After Triska and Squeak return with news that the nest is safe, Victoria upholds her end of the deal and grants Daniel his freedom. While she cannot fully commit to his ideals as of yet, she offers a token of her willingness to stand with him should he ever work out all the details for his beliefs, by having one of her workers of his choice accompany him as a sign of goodwill. Choosing Squeak to come with him, he and his girls depart while Victoria wishes him luck.

While the immediate ant-lioness threat had been dealt with, Victoria mentioned that whenever they normally have a predator infestation they would seal off those tunnels and dig further away to move their nest. This is how their nest gradually moved into Koskaysil from the neighboring western region. As noted by Specca later on, their current position leaves them little room to run now, as they have ant-lionesses to their west, wild hornets to their south, impassable rocky mountains to their north, and the city of Ashwood to their east. This means Victoria, whether she is aware of this or not, will be facing a need for allies very soon or else be trapped between enemies on both sides.