The First of the Fifth’s Second through Fifth Daughters were currently pacing about in a group within their joint hive. They knew that their queen mother was working on a new honey type, but they had not expected her to suddenly evolve. Now, with hardly any warning, their queen mother was sealed up in a cell, possibly for days given the example of other queen evolutions. For the moment, there were no problems, the hive was functioning well as the First of the Fifth’s workers handled their task with the immaculate precision and efficiency their queen mother prized.

    But the daughters knew all that could change very rapidly, and none of them understood the full picture of the hives’ efforts. Not to mention that the First of the Fifth performed a lot of duties outside of the hive. Who among them was going to receive the scout reports on the state of all the other hives in the Tower? Who among them was supposed to determine how much honey to deliver to each of the other hives? Who among them should manage cross-pollination of new flowers? Each of them could perhaps to one of those jobs, but none had the comprehensive view of their own joint hive, much less the entire hive of hives, necessary to make decisions with confidence.

    “Hi, queen mother evolving already?”

    But then, new mana and a new dance joined the debate. All the daughters turned to find another of their number arriving, one they had not considered. The First of the Fifth’s First Daughter had heard her mother’s message as well and returned to her home hive with a full squad of communers and drones. The daughters quickly began laying out the situation to her.

    The First Daughter wasted no time and immediately began dancing to her communers.

    “Coordinate with shortcut guards, ask hive of hives to report status and honey needs there. Bind sister queens mana together, make sure all can see what others doing. Cross-pollination can wait, gardeners working with dangerous one on King’s task anyways. Just report if new flowers spotted.”

    The Second through Fifth Daughters stopped their own dances and stared as the First Daughter took command of the situation...and was apparently already aware of wider hive of hive’s circumstances. The First Daughter then turned to them.

    “Ok if help coordinate? Helped Fourth of the Seventh’s hive, helped hive of hives with shortcuts, so can help while queen mother evolving?”

    The First Daughter was a bit surprised when her siblings burst out into rapid and relieved dances for help. She had thought they’d be better positioned to manage things given they lived in the queen mother’s hive and she did not, but apparently all of them were specialized in specific tasks. But that was no problem for the First Daughter.

    After all, she had plenty of experience helping hives with absent queens keep their affairs organized and efficient. And now, she could help her sisters and her queen mother in the same way the Fourth of the Seventh had helped her.

    Juosiutik double-checked the stone experimentation room. Nothing especially valuable or flammable was left in the area and the only bee present was a communer from the First of the Fifth’s Third Daughter standing on her shoulder. An emergency water stone was lodged safely in the roof where any burst of mana would cause it to shower the room, the big chimney overhead was clean and clear to let out any fumes, and she had healing and antidote potions in a pouch on her belt. She took a deep breath. All the safety precautions were in order.

    Juosiutik herself stood in a corner of the room by an open door where she could easily flee...or be blown outside instead of against a wall should any sort of blast impact her. One of Toivenaq’s iron shields was set up there to block most of the corner from the rest of the room. Kneeling behind it, she held out her hand over a small bowl and stirred up her mana. A honeycomb of light appeared and shifted to a brighter yellow that emitted small, crackling sparks. Crackling yellow honey dripped from it and began to join the pool already in the bowl. With this, she should finally have enough.

    Juosiutik had learned from the Tower Keeper that she could learn to produce specialized honey types with her blessing and the bee magic it taught her, though she had to consume the honey in question first. The Fourth of the Eight had recently donated enough shocking honey for her to add it to her repertoire. It had been a trial that left her body twitching and her tongue and throat numb, but she managed to pull it off. Now, she had finally gathered enough to experiment with. The mana required to create persistent magical honey was no joke, but she couldn’t ask the bees for their honey until she had solidified a useful recipe for it.

    “Flowers growing strong. Shouldn’t grow this close, but Tower’s mana helping, so do. All blooming now.”

    Juosiutik smiled.

    “So, we’re ready now?”

    Frelis replied with a question dance of her own.

    “If dangerous one’s flowers ready?”

    Juosiutik winced again at the bees’ name for her. Unfortunately, her recent string of experiments with explosives had not helped. She shook it off and nodded, however. In the end, there were worst names. Being dangerous wasn’t so bad...when it was intentional. R?Α??o??Еs

    “Yes, I was going to pick some for the Tower Keeper now. If that’s enough for him to absorb the base variant, then it’ll be ok to start cross-pollinating them.”

    Frelis danced the salute and then began to beat her wings.

    “Then, can tell King room is ready for flower one! Will go with you!”

    The rose monster responded by wrapping its vines around Frelis, who stopped beating her wings.

    “We can go with, together?”

    The rose monster pulled its roots out of the ground and slithered over to Juosiutik. She couldn’t help a smile. She was now creating magical honey out of thin air, talking with monster bees and monster flowers, and tending a garden full of mystical flowers they were about to share with a fey disciple of the God of Flowers. She could only wonder what her mother would have said if she could have seen all this...