OUT-70: Casia

Casia is a special kind of changeling. She a young queen. Queens are the only changelings that lay eggs in the swarm, and therefore they are the mothers of every changeling. Young Queens are future queens that have not yet reached maturity and can't reproduce yet. During Queen Chrysalis's reign, she would imprison the young queens so that they could not reproduce or leave the hive, therefore keeping them as mere emergency solutions if something were to happen to herself. If Queen Chrysalis were to die without any spare queens, the changeling race would come to an end.

During Thorax's reign, the queens became merely a different kind of changeling. Being set free, they made many queens and they became more common. Still, they were the only kind of changeling that could produce eggs.

After the great cataclysm, things changed. The big population of the hive could not be maintained, and yet they freaked out and decided that all queens must be protected. Laying queen eggs seemed to be draining for queens, and leave them unable to lay other eggs for long period of times, so they agreed that queens would only be allowed to lay queen eggs when they wanted to retire.

Now, there are just 4 queens left in the hive. They are highly protected. When one decides to retire, she must at all costs lay a queen egg, for a new queen to take her place. They do not hold much power, the name of "queen" is merely honorary. The lifespan of a queen is much longer than that of a regular changeling. They only fall in love once in their lifetime, and they will produce hundreds of eggs throughout their life.

The hive is mostly made up of the children of just four queens. Rarely, regular changelings are able to lay a 1 to 3 eggs but those have a much lower chance of survival and hatching successfully.

Casia is a young queen, so she is very important for the hive, and she has been constantly protected since birth. She is the sister of Khisha and Cinder Moth. They have many siblings, but their eggs were laid on the same day so the three are quite close. Cinder was always the bigger, stronger one, and their caretakers would often tell her to stop playing with Casia so she wouldn't accidentally harm her. Casia could see as they grew up that Cinder grew quite frustrated with her, and she hated to see it. She would try following her around, trying to play with her in order to make up for what the adults were telling her. After Cinder moved away from her and Khisha, Casia became consumed by sorrow. She hated how she was sheltered and denied access to the liberty that the other changelings had. It would have taken around 50 years for her to even become able to reproduce, and she didn't want to waste all that time, to lose every beautiful moment with her sister, so she refused to live by their rules anymore. She became a healer and joined her siblings in mercenary operations, traveling the swamps of the Everfree and even going on some expeditions outside.

Their relationship was fine, it was mostly teenage rebellion and frustration that ripped them apart, but their sibling bond was stronger than that. They are now a very strong team for the mercenary group.

Casia has small mandibles that make her have diction problems (lisp). She is also afraid of spiders, but she does not say this to anyone. Despite what the other see as her "rebellion phase" where she decided to become a healer and put herself in danger, she actually really looks forward to becoming a queen. She just want to make the best of her time as a young queen.