Honeybees

Honeybees

By Cerulean Fantasy

Awake. I am awake.

I struggle to push that thought through my head as my eyes open. There is darkness and I am in a sealed, waxen compartment. It is a hexagonal prism, with rounded edges and corners. There is warmth and I am no longer a larva.

I smile and blink my blue eyes that brighten to white at the middle for the first time.

Shifting, I can't feel which way is up. But there is someone very close on the side that I am meant to break out through. I can feel them and their encouragement. They must be giving me this basic understanding, this small amount of knowledge.

I press at the seal with my hooves, then stab through it with my horn. I use my fangs as well, tearing away what blocks me from my brothers and sisters.

Finally I have torn it thin enough. I lean back and, resting my left hoof next to the weak spot, drive my right hoof through.

Oh, joy! I press on my other hoof and I rip it further. Light and joy! I see the face of a worker, the one who was there to orient me, and we are smiling so that our fangs look larger. I wriggle up and out.

"Hello," she has said, in our language that is hisses and emotions and basic thoughts, all of which my ears hear. I say it back, testing my young-sounding voice.

The cell I am climbing out of is one in a wall of them. Our hooves grip the wax easily and there is another identical wall of hexagons opposite mine.

I feel the worker think of other hatchlings that need help and I tell her thank you. She smiles and her wings buzz as she moves away. When I look around, I see that I am in a cluster of about one hundred or so eggs that were laid one after the other. I count five others who have just burst out like me.

I look around some more and see that the space between the walls is a narrow chamber made of black wax. No doubt I am in one of many hatching chambers, where there are two-sided walls that hold no love-nectar, only eggs and larvae.

As I see this, some who I sense as builders gather the broken seal and fly away. So many of us are climbing or flying around. This place, this Hive, this home, is full of us.

I am smiling again.

There is a chirrup, a call, to go and learn what could not be told to me through the thoughts and magic of the worker. I stay on the black waxen wall as I crawl and I get a better look at my cluster-sisters.

We are small. Small compared to older ones around us, but not nearly as small as a pony-foal. Only a couple of inches shorter and a little thinner than the others. The holes in our legs are smaller, too – I could only just poke the tip of my horn in them – our chitin sleeker and glossier, our black fins small. No holes are in our wings yet. They feel too flimsy to bear the wind resistance until the holes open out and our wings grow harder.

I somehow know the way through the catacomb-like tunnels. Or at least, I know the way to where we are going. We leave the hatching chambers and are climbing through the network of black wax. It is too dark to see well, so I close my eyes and orient myself to the positions of others. I see them much clearer like this.

Then we are in a small alcove and I open my eyes. There is an old drone in a translucent, glowing chrysalis. They have volunteered to be there so us hatchlings can share their knowledge, and so they can serve the Colony even in their weakened state.

At the base is where I should put my horn, and I do. I know that my eyes and horn have lit green.

And then, I know. I know about Queen Antennae, the old Queen, and about another Queen of another colony, called Queen Chrysalis. I know that she invaded the pony-folk and failed. I know that her Swarm is scattered and that some, with their slightly darker blue eyes that don't light up green and the way they are better fighters than gatherers, are coming to our Hive.

I know all about the pony-folk. How they act, how they think, and all about their country. Them with their potent love are best to live near.

I know all about Gatherers and Builders and Guards and Brewers and Young-Raisers. I even know of the ones there are fewer of – Healers and Generals and Drones and Elders and the Master workers who are in charge of their own group, excluding Generals and Drones and Elders.

I know how names are important and how their length and syllables and vowels and consonants are important. I know that my name must mean me; it must describe and be me. I decide then that I will earn a name and it will be Eq.

I draw my horn away and another of my cluster takes my place around the chrysalis.

I look up and close my eyes. I can feel all of the 51,900-odd changelings around me. I can feel the intricate design of the sections of the Hive. I can feel my brothers and sisters, my colony.

I smile.