The next morning, Finnakynne awoke wrapped in bumblebee fuzz. She stretched and yawn, then shook her head. A smile broke out on her face.

“Ok, ready to forage some flowers, girls?”

Finnakynne laughed as the bumblebee workers woke up and began running laps of the nest in response. The bumblebee queen herself crawled over and nuzzled the pixie and Finnakynne replied with many pets.

However, a moment later Finnakynne was furrowing her brow. There was a distinct lack of being tackled by bumblebee soldiers this morning.

“Bumbly? Where are you?”

Finnakynne called out to the bumblebee soldier she most often rode on as she flew out of the nest. Once out in the sun, her eyes widened. All of the bumblebee soldiers were gathered in the air, the buzzing of their wings kicking up a gust below.

“Bumbly? What’s going on?”

One of the soldiers turned and dropped out of the formation. The big bee flew down to her and buzzed, extending her stinger. Finnakynne gasped.

“Are you…going to fight something?”

Bumbly nuzzled her one and then took off to rejoin the formation. Finnakynne’s eyes quivered and she bit her lip. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then took off herself, chasing after the bumblebees.

The bumblebees led her through a shortcut into the Orchard room. Finnakynne halted for a moment to take in the sight in front of her. The bee army gathered in force before her, countless soldier bees and their evolved forms assembling into formations at the guidance of the battle meadow queens. The karnuq marched into the room wearing newly forged metal armor now of distinctly black elf design, Tamosmed’s doing no doubt. Wardmaster Varilold marched in front of a battle warden contingent, fair folk of all types dressed in armor and robes covered in ward symbols.

And finally, the group most surprising of all to the princess. She flew forward to meet them.

“Karpy? What are you doing here?”

Captain Karpakynne saluted.

“Ah, Your Highness! I’m glad we located you. The Royal Pixie Guard shall join the fray at the command of Her Majesty! I must advise you to evacuate back to the court, or at least to the rear areas so we may protect you. We will shield you with our very bodies!”

Finnakynne rolled her eyes.

“Karpy, your body won’t stop anything bigger than a worker bee and you know Daddy will revive me if anything happens.”

She then frowned.

“Now, tell me…who is Beely going to fight?”

Captain Karpakynne sighed.

“Your Highness, what’s the point of a royal guard if we don’t make heroic last stands while our charges escape? Don’t tell me you want to do it the boring way too!”

Finnakynne just gave Captain Karpyakynne a look and the captain groaned.

“Ugh, fiiinnneee...well, in any case we are assisting Tower Keeper Belissar in an expansion purification, so we’ll be taking orders from him, unless you wish to take command. Sadly, he has also decided to do things the boring way. Humans.”

Finnakynne let out a sigh of relief while the captain shook her head and muttered about boring humans. So, Belissar would be fighting shades today.

She turned around and found the bumblebee soldiers integrating into the bee army. So, Bumbly and the others would be fighting shades today.

Finnakynne took a deep breath and clenched her fists. She knew she could handle shades…at least with all the traps and tricks in her dungeon. She didn’t have any of those now and wasn’t sure how many of them she wanted to use…but if Bumbly and her sisters would be in harm’s way, could she stand idly by?

She narrowed her eyes and made her decision.

Belissar finished up his morning routine and then headed straight to Orchard. The bee army had mustered and his allies had arrived. Princess Finnakynne had apparently come out as well and was currently speaking with the other pixies. Belissar decided to give them a moment and greeted Wardmaster Varilold first. The pixies joined them by the time he had finished, Captain Karpakynne and Finnakynne now leading a whole group of pixies. The Royal Pixie Guard…apparently dressed however they wanted. Some wore armor like the captain, but others wore robes and clothes of every size, shape, and color. One even wore a big puffy gown that seemed entirely impractical for fighting.

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Finnakynne flying ahead of them and approached him first.

“Beely…you’re about to fight shades, right?”

Belissar nodded.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Finnakynne took a deep breath and then adopted a serious expression and locked eyes with him.

“In that case…can I fight with the bumblebees? I…don’t know if I want to try any tricks or traps, but I want to protect the bumbles…if I can…”

Belissar smiled.

“That would be great, thank you!”

Finnakynne blinked and then shook her head.

“No, thank you, Beely.”

After Finnakynne had hovered back, Captain Karpakynne flew up to him and saluted.

“Captain Karpakynne of the Royal Pixie Guard, reporting for action, Tower Keeper Belissar! Let us prepare to impale the enemy with sword and stinger alongside our bee sisters-in-arms!”

Belissar chuckled.

“That’s the plan. So…did you bring the armor?”

Captain Karpakynne reached to a little pouch at her side.

“I sure did!”

She flipped the pouch upside down and began shaking it. A huge pile of clothes and jewelry appeared midair and clattered to the ground. Belissar grinned as he waved the bees over to come and check it out. He then took a closer look himself as the Firstborn and the other battle meadow queens joined him.

“Hm? What’s that one?”

He pointed to a little suit of black and yellow armor. It appeared to made from a combination of metal and chitin…and featured a helmet shaped to look like a bee head. It sat next to a black lance decorated with a striped black and yellow bulge near its handle. Captain Karpakynne grinned.

“You have a good eye! That there is the arms and armor of the Order of the Hive and Stinger! They once rode upon the backs of giant bees, both mount and rider diving in and stinging the enemy directly! Those were some real pixie warriors, used actual pointy things in battle and perished heroically and everything! We still have a bunch of their armor…but we lost contact with the giant bees we used to ride…”

Belissar frowned at that last part…the idea that a species of bee had been lost entirely made his chest constrict. But he had a job to do to protect the bees he did have…and perhaps he could try to find out more about those bees in the future. For now, he set his mind back on task and rubbed his chin.

“You used to ride bees, huh?”

He looked over to the Firstborn.

“What do you think?”

Fortunately, it turned out the pixies could use the same translation magic in their contracts for verbal, or in this case dance, language too, so the fair folk and the bees could speak directly. The Firstborn was thus able to dance her reply right away.

“Can try! Bumblebees already carry hive of fallen.”

Captain Karpakynne shot into the air.

“YES! DIBS ON THE BIG ONE…”

And was promptly yanked back by Finnakynne grabbing her wings.

“Oh no you don’t, if anyone’s going with Bumbly it’s going to be me. You can go with her sisters or one of the other bee types.”

Captain Karpakynne frowned and puffed her cheeks…until she glanced over at the Firstborn.

“How about you? Are there more bees like you?”

The Firstborn danced the negative.

“Am only chivalric queen. Have knights and lancers though, could try?”

Captain Karpakynne’s eyes sparkled.

“Knight bees?! Lancer bees?! I want to ride one! I can ride one, right?!”

The other Royal Pixie Guards perked up too.

“Wait, we can ride the bees?!”

“I volunteer!”

“No, pick me instead! She doesn’t even know how to wear armor!”

Belissar and the Firstborn soon found themselves swarmed by excited pixies. And here he had thought Tarwantrad got excited over the bees…

After every Royal Pixie Guard had ridden a diving lancer at least once, Captain Karpakynne finally returned to Belissar and the other leaders, now wearing the armor of hive and stinger and sitting on top of one the Firstborn’s monster bee knights.

“Now then, Tower Keeper, let’s armor the bees!”

Belissar smiled at that, even despite the delay.

“Yes, let’s.”

Captain Karpakynne dove off the knight and into the pile of clothing and accessories, tossing things out of the pile until she found what she was looking for.

“Here we go! I can’t believe I forgot to put this on her first!”

She pulled out a harness with a saddle. She started putting the harness on the knight even as she explained.

“Pixie armor, and pixie bee armor, consists of two main components. The first line of defense is a piece of clothing, or something like it, enchanted with a general magic barrier. It’s strength is limited by the quality of the material and the enchantment, as well as the amount of mana it has remaining, but it can be reused as long as the user or the rider recharges it.”

After strapping on the harness, Captain Karpakynne reached into bags built into the saddle. She pulled out metal adornments, mostly in the shapes of bees and honeycomb, and showed how they’d hook onto parts of the harness.

“The other is what we call miracle bargains. We use blood bargains with an item as the second party, offering some random service in exchange for its ‘life.’ Whenever a big blow gets past the first magic barrier, the item takes the damage in our place!”

Belissar’s eyes widened.

“That…sounds amazing. So these will save your life from a fatal blow?”

Captain Karpakynne nodded.

“Exactly! Well, blood bargains with inanimate objects aren’t very powerful, they’ll break after a single hit no matter how weak, so we rely on the barrier mostly and try to save these for emergencies. Still, the best part is they don’t have to be hit directly to work, you just have to keep them close enough, so they’re perfect as armor for bees and other animals! No need to fit armor around your wings! Now, come here, my loyal steed! We need a bit of blood on this and some sort of service, normally polishing or something…”

Belissar grinned as more of the Royal Pixie Guards began leading bees to the pile and then started searching for harnesses or other items that would fit on the bees. This was exactly what he was hoping for. If all went well, they’d be cleaning up broken accessories instead of fallen bees.

He decided that he was very much grateful to that Order of Hive and Stinger and would gladly let the pixies ride bees into battle once more.