Chapter Ninety-Three - Buzzy Bee Boogie

“We could go around them,” Amaryllis said. “Awen, what do you know about large bees?”

“Awa, they’re not usually a problem. Um. They’ll fight if you approach their hive, but they usually mind their own business.”

“Do they talk?” I asked.

The bee people... Beeple, were big ladies. They stood on four legs, their big bee behind sticking out behind them under a pair of translucent wings. Their faces were a little creepy, with big old mandibles and big black eyes that bulged out a bit, but they seemed nice.

Their body was covered in fine, fuzzy fur-like stuff, all in black and bright yellows. And they were more... inoffensively fat than scarily big. Like a favourite auntie instead of a bodybuilder.

All three of them were bending over little patches of flowers, poking at them with something that I couldn’t see from afar, and then dropping stuff into the satchels hanging by their sides.

“Awa, no, I don’t think so.”

“Right, we’ll just circle around desert-wise. I don’t think the environment there would be hospitable to them,” Amaryllis said.

“I’m going to go say hi,” I said as I started walking.

“You moron!” Amaryllis said. She jogged to catch up to me. “What if they turn hostile?”

“Then we run,” I said. “But I’m sure we can... beecome friends.”

“... I hate you,” Amaryllis said.

I laughed and started skipping. Skipping was the best way to tell someone just by walking that you didn’t intend any harm. “No you don’t!” I sing-songed.

Looking ahead, I saw the beeple look up and then stare at each other. They started to approach us, their little wings beating at the air and completely failing to do much more than raise their butts a little.

“Insight,” I said as I hopped to a stop some two dozen meters away.

A busy big bee Worker Bee, level 10.

I could see level tens now! Neat! My Insight skill must have been relying on my actual level to some degree. All three of the bees gave me the same result when I checked them out with Insight. Maybe that was normal for bees. They were meant to be a sort of hive people from what I could remember.

The bee in the lead stepped up in front of her sister bees. She shook her bottom, slid into a quick Lindy Hop to one side, then fox trotted back to the middle, her four legs swinging this way and that. “Hey there loves, what are you doing in this neck of the woods?” she boogied.

I opened my mouth to reply, then choked. I... I wasn’t meant to talk to the bees. Something told me that I had to... move? It was weird, a sort of knowledge on how to shake and sing and disco what I wanted to say.

“Watch over my backpack,” I said to the girls as I took off my pack. I gave it to Awen, then poured Orange out of my bandoleer and handed the kitty to Amaryllis.

“What are you doing?” Amaryllis said.

“I’m going to talk to the nice bee people,” I said.

I took two quick steps towards the bee girls, then stopped when I saw them flinching back a little. I smiled on account of smiling never being a bad thing, then I let the weird instinct guide me.

“Hello bee people,” I bunny hopped. “My name is Broccoli Bunch,” I charlestoned to the side. “Let’s be friends,” I ended with some disco flair.

The bees stared.

My friends stared.

Orange tucked herself into Amaryllis chest and went to sleep.

“Awa, what are you doing?” Awen asked.

“They talk by moving,” I said. “It’s really neat!”

The bee in the lead buzzed her wings, then started to waggle talk in what looked to me like a real excited voice. She hopped forwards on all four legs, her little arms waving around into a tight mambo step that turned into a butt-wiggling salsa.

“Girl, you have got one weird accent. Pleasure to meet you though. Most two legged folk don’t bother to even waggle hello these days. I swear. I’m Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two. These are my sisters, Daisy Six-of-Twelve and Marguerite Five-of-Thirty.”

I clapped my hands, a huge grin spreading across my face before I translated for the others in a hurry.

My reply came in the form of a bit of krumping that turned into a robot dance midway through.

“Pleased to meet you all! I’m Broccoli, these are my best friends, Amaryllis and Awen and Orange!”

Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two Harlem shook a reply. “So what are you fine folk doing out in these fields over here? And are you the Broccoli that’s got all those dryads up in a tizzy?”

“We’re just crossing over to a place called Rosenbell,” I jitterbugged. “And you heard about me? From some dryads?”

“We sure have.”

“The only dryad I ever met was Oak in the Darkwoods.”

“That’s the one, girl,” Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two jived. “If you’re heading over to that human place, then we can show you a faster way than walking.”

“Oh?” I flexed. “How? That would be really nice.”

Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two square-danced my comment away. “Nice girl like you. No one will mind if you use the hiveways just for a bit. We can talk pollen on the way.”

“I don’t know much about pollen,” I twisted back. “But I do love flowers!”

“What in the world are you doing?” Amaryllis asked, her patience finally at an end.

I stood a little taller, panting just a bit from all the weird contortions and bouncing I had to do. “Talking to Henrilock and her sisters here. They have a way to get to Rosenbell faster than by walking,” I said. I had never really appreciated being able to just... talk before. It was way less tiring.

“That... would be acceptable. Depending on what this method is.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Something about a hiveway? It’s kind of hard to understand everything with the whole dancing language.”

Amaryllis shook her head. “I don’t know if I trust them,” she said.

I looked over to the big bee girls and tilted my head. “They seem friendly enough. Let me ask them something real quick.”

The bee girls didn’t seem to mind me talking to my friends at all. In fact, I had the impression that few things really bothered them.

“Hey, I was wondering, would you like to be friends?” I cha cha’d real smooth.

Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two

Desired Quality: Friendly, likes flowers and honey

Dream: To find lots of pollen for the hive

“Girl, you should know that we’re always down for being friends,” Henrihock danced.

I smiled and turned to my friends. “They seem really nice,” I said. “I’d follow them.”

“Awa, we can try?” Awen said.

Amaryllis shook her head and buried it in her talons. “Fine. But if this turns into some sort of disaster, I’m blaming you, Broccoli.”

I turned to the bees and waggled our approval, and how grateful we were.

A moment later I was distracted when a screen popped up before me.

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Dance skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!

Rank E is a free rank!

Grinning, I accepted the rank up and then jumped when I saw the bee girls moving off ahead of us.

I took my backpack back from Awen and ran after the bees, the girls following after me with only a few complaints from Amaryllis.

The bee girls lead us across open plains and down a few valleys, sometimes dance-walking to compliment a particularly flowery bush, or to warn of a bad scent in the air. I skipped ahead of them and sniffed at some of the flowers that looked extra sniffable, but I mostly stayed close.

The sun was still only approaching its zenith when the bee girls pointed ahead to a sort of little hillock with a big old hexagonal hole cut into its side. Another big bee was standing there, wearing beige-yellow armour around her fuzzy body and carrying a long spear by her side.

The girls accompanying us and the guard danced back and forth a little, the moves so fast and fluid that I had a hard time following.

“What’s going on?” Amaryllis asked.

“They’re asking for permission to let us in, I think,” I said.

Amaryllis relaxed a little. “Good.”

“Good?” I repeated.

“Yes. If we had been let in easily, then the likelihood that it was a trap would increase. It being difficult means that they don’t usually have guests. Or it could be a double bluff to lure us into a false sense of security.”

I looked at the conversation and then shrugged. “I think the guard is mostly worried we might bring bugs in with us.”

Soon we were let into the tunnel, and I found myself gasping as I looked out and down a passageway that seemed to stretch on forever.

“What is this place?” I turkey trotted with some difficulty. The tighter corridor made swinging my legs just-so a bit hard.

Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two wiggled in laughter. “This is the hiveway. We’re big girls, if you know what I mean. Can’t be picking pollen from the same flowers all day or we’ll go hungry. So we spread out across the whole valley.”

“Awesome,” I whispered.

The bee girls led us into the passage a little ways until we arrived in a sort of little hangar with some carts off to the side. There were two tracks running down into the depths of the tunnel, both illuminated by glowing honeycomb-like things hanging from the rocky ceiling.

Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two ushered us into a little cart, then she and her sisters started to beat their wings so hard that I squeaked and had to slap my hat back on.

Wings too weak to lift the big bees off the ground, were more than enough to give the cart some serious thrust.

Soon we were barrelling down the tunnel so fast that the lights above flashed by faster than I could blink and cast us all in glowing oranges that waxed and waned along with my drumming heartbeat.

“Awa!” Awen cheered. “We’re so fast!”

Ahead of us, the tunnel opened up a bit to one side, and I gripped the edge of the cart so that I could see what was coming better.

Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two stopped beating her wings and turned to face us. The electric boogaloo she danced was a bit tight, but I understood it all the same.

“We’re gonna cross one of the artisanal halls where our sisters make things. Wiggle your hellos!” she said.

I gasped as the tunnel opened up and we started to cross a long bridge over a sea of little stations, each one manned by a busy bee fast at work making all sorts of things. More than one looked up in curiosity as we rocketted past.

“Say hi!” I told the girls.

“H-how?” Awen asked.

“Like this,” I said as I stood up and wiggled my booty over the edge of the cart for a friendly hello.

“Awa, I think, I think I’ll just wave,” Awen said.

I stared down at all the workers and noticed that they were all making neat things, but instead of working like in a factory, each one was working on an entire piece individually. Each one was working in their own little hexagonal cubicle (was it a cubicle if it wasn’t cube-shaped?) and seemed focused on the task before them.

I saw pouches being made, and jars being glazed in little kilns and all sorts of weapons being lovingly crafted by a hive of workers.

“So cool,” I said.

I danced a bit with Henrihock Four-of-Seventy-Two, asking her why they didn’t just use an assembly line for most things. Then we had a marvelous conversation about what an assembly line is.

It passed the time until we arrived at our destination.

***