GODDESS OF BEES, THE ETERNAL BENEFACTOR OF THE BEE-KIND, ONE THAT CAME BEFORE BEGINNING OF TIME AND WILL LEAVE AFTER THE END OF IT, SEES THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF THE NIGHT AND THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE DAY.
At the moment, though, she was watching through the paleness of the morning. Not that it made any difference.
Humans were ugly creatures in any light and in any world. No matter what color their skin was, or what shape their fingers took, their nature made them the most disgusting creatures of them all.
The Goddess of Bees watched three of them, hunters of their kind, pack their night camp and walk through the range of living mountains. An old Rath, the teacher; a young Jit, the student; and the middle-aged Vit, here to do most of the work. Three generations of Yash family.
For their kind, the hunters moved smoothly over the rocky ground, rarely stomping over the sparse trees with their leather boots. Their bags barely held any prey at the moment, but their eyes watched out for tracks with experience.
Not their most successful trip. The big prey was still eluding the hunters.
They ventured farther away from home, knowing that they can’t return without more supplies.
"Oh, Dad, Grandpa, you see this?" Jit asked, squinting into the distance. "Looks like a burrow."
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There, in a cave inside a small hill, was standing Camp Rich.
Unknown to the hunters, several scouting Commando Bees have noticed their approach several hours ago, and have reported it to all they could.
After hearing those reports, the temporary leader of the Camp Rich, Chief Foreman Hammerwork, followed the standard procedure established by Nectus (who was a coward, but even Goddess of Bees had to admit that this cowardice helped him to live until now)
The bees went into hiding!
Overnight, the entire area, usually bustling with bees, became empty. Everyone had returned to Camp Rich to wait for the danger to walk past them, for reinforcements to come, and if necessary, to fight in their own territory.
"A burrow?" Vit looked there, too. "Let’s look closer. There might be some game inside."
Rath nodded in silent agreement, and the three of them quietly moved forward.
Using only gestures for communication, they split into three and readied their slings and their hunting knives. If a scared beast tried to run from the burrow, the hunters would intercept and catch it.
However, upon getting close, they paused.
"A beehive? In the ground? This is unusual," Vit said, looking at the buzzing burrow.
From up here, he could see the Warrior Bees posted as the front guards, but could not make out their clothes and weapons. They were all just a mass of insects to him.
After a moment, Vit shrugged and moved back.
"Nothing interesting. Let’s keep moving."
"But Dad, remember? It’s the wild honey season! Let’s try smoking them? You promised to show me," Jit whined.
He got closer to the hive, too, and looked closer inside.
He was even dumber than his father and recklessly stuck his head almost right into the hive.
Close enough to see that these bees were unusual ones!
More than that, in this moment, a ray of sunlight hit the place just at the right angle to hit the piles of gold ore lying near the entrance.
Those were mined yesterday together with coal, which was also there, but didn’t glint so attractively for greedy human eyes.
The gold ore should’ve been sent to Hive Supremo by now, but because of the lockdown, it wasn’t even packed.
"Boy, don’t stick your head so close to bees if you don’t want to get stung," Roth said.
"Those aren’t just bees! Look, they have tiny hammers! Like forest spirits in fairytales! And they guard gold, too!" Jit moved away from the burrow and beamed. "Dad, Grandpa, we found a door to the secret forest kingdom! We are going to be rich! Or we can kidnap their princess so their king does our wishes!"
Even creatures as stupid as humans knew that chances of finding secret forest kingdoms on a hunting trip were abysmal.
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"Jit, a hunt isn’t the time for fairytales," Rath said sternly.
But Vit was curious enough to take another, closer look at the hive and see the same things Jit did.
"Father… Father, I think Jit is right," he said breathlessly. "I dunno about the forest spirits, but this looks like gold. Hey, Father, didn’t you say that people used to pan for gold in the nearby mountain rivers?"
"Nobody saw any gold panned here since my grandfather’s father! And I won’t stick my head into a beehive to look," Rath grumbled.
However, Vit was already possessed by greed. His mind was clouded with visions of riches.
"Hey, Jit. You wanted to see how to smoke bees? I will show you. First, we need some nice, juicy tree branches. These will do…"
A lot of the trees around Camp Rich were already taken down, but there was still enough left for Vit to tear out, often together with their roots.
From inside the camp, bees watched in helpless terror as the giants tore massive trunks as effortlessly as if they were blades of grass.
Soon, Vit and Jit had a good amount, which they set on fire with a flint and steel. It didn’t burn easily, but eventually, a thick column of smoke rose in the air.
"Careful here, don’t set anything extra on fire. Isn’t there some coal in the ground?" Rath grumbled some more.
"We will be careful, Grandpa!" Jit assured.
Both he and Vit were made even more reckless by their greed than usual. Goddess of Bees didn’t need to read the threads of possible futures to know that if they continued, they *will* start a fire in Camp Rich. Which, for a large part, was built upon the plywood-like base left by hornets.
"So *this* is the strangeness I sensed? Bees?"
The words were heard only by the Goddess of Bees, spoken by another divine presence that appeared right next to her.
Goddess of Bees froze for a fraction of a nanosecond. Since she was in her ethereal form, she didn’t have a body to flinch with. If she had, she wouldn’t have flinched anyway, because she was above it.
Instead, she acted as if nothing happened.
"Goddess of Hornets. Why are you pestering me?"