Her appendages slam down on the table as she stares down at its surface, a scale model of the mile and a half wide park laid out on its surface. Once, many cycles ago it had been been dotted by the honeycomb symbols of her sisters hives, all of the co-existing peacefully with one another. There always enough flowers and plants to pollinate and all was ✌️. That was until the Wasps, a small contingent and minor nuisance in the park, recruited hornet mercenaries. It all changed as they started to systematically eradicate hives. They were bigger, faster and stronger than either bees or wasps and it was something that had been shown time and time again. It had started with the outer hives, the ones that would stay in contact only intermittently. At one point there reports and taxes just ceased to arrive.

Messengers and scouts were dispatched but, as time told, they weren’t ready. None of them came back and soon the issue became apparently clear. On the 35th ☀️ of the active months, a hornet made its way to the main hive, my hive. It carried a 📦 with it and the blood dripping from the bag stopped each of my guards cold, the poor men following with pikes drawn and stingers at the ready. They 👀 as he made his way to my chamber, dropping the 📦 off and saying “A delivery, from our wasp benefactors, my liege!” He said, rolling the last word so it was as sarcastic as could be. The dripping had stopped as it splattered on the table, the container unfolding itself open and the head of a 👑, rolling slowly across the table, its mandibles open with shock. The court erupted and my drones all rushed forwards, their pikes only centimeters from his thorax. His cackle sent shivers down my vertebrae as he swung his stinger around, catching two of my drones in the chest before he lunged at me, my remaining drones pushing their piles through him so that his 😂 visage was staring at me, so close to me I could reach out and touch him. My hearts were pumping and I shouted for him to be removed along with the head. There was much to ponder. And if this pattern showed anything, there was little time to act on it.


Out on the outer fringes of the park they were still mobilizing their forces after their last offensive on the Xeta Hive, having taken it down with a swift and terrible offensive, the hornet vanguard smashing through the swarm that the 🐝’s had created around the main entrances to the hive in order for the wasps to come rushing in and take the hive from the inside out. Once the 👑 was taken hostage it took very little effort in order to quell the rest of the 🐝’s, all of them cowed at the thought of their 👑 in danger. The young 👑 to be had been whisked out front he hive a good deal earlier and so it wasn’t a full victory but the capture of a full hive’s worth of workers was good enough. The main attack commander strode along the base of the hive, supervising the execution of the drones in the hive, making sure they were in full veiw of the rest of the workers. They shook and trembled as the males who were tasked with defending them were slaughtered one by one. The hornet Maximus 😂 as he strode along, switching from the stoic faces of the drones to be executed and the terrified faces of the workers, some of them visually trembling and shaking where they knelt. He knew that this was an important step in the cowing of the 🐝’s, to make sure they stayed obidient and knew their place