When they walked out of the inn, Grehn was surprised to see a group of people waiting for them. There was Muweh Sawah and Lahim, along with the other official whose name they still didn’t know, as well as the pair of burly men that had assisted them with the crowd yesterday.
Greyan was waiting amongst them, and when he saw the trio approaching, a pulse of mind washed through the air. His transforming armor rippled over his crisp officer’s uniform, covering him from shoulder to toe. It was nearly instant, a far cry from the showy display he had put on yesterday for the crowd, and he clapped his metallic gloves together when it was finished.
“Now that we’re all ready, shall we go? Lead the way, Muweh.”
Muweh Sawah didn’t respond to the Greyan’s lack of honorific, only nodding. Her face looked haggard, and her movements sluggish. Greyan gently hooked his arm around hers and helped her along, walking slowly so as not to rush her.
The rest followed without a word. Even Jey’s attempts at conversation found little traction. The image of the widowed Muweh Sawah was a grim reminder that, beyond all the intrigue and tension, a life had suddenly been lost, and people were suffering.
“Man, that armor is just way too cool.”
Ben’s jovial thoughts plowed through the dismal air like a runaway train, dispersing any of the quiet, mournful atmosphere that had been present only moments before. At least, it did for two people.
“It’s certainly something,” Grehn thought, looking to take his thoughts off the sadness in the air. He had encountered plenty of death in his life, and didn’t want to dwell on the idea of it for long.
“I bet it’s quite protective, but it works even better as a tool of intimidation. There’s a reason he waited for us three to come outside before he activated it.”
“I think it’s the burst of Mind he does when it opens up,” Vlugh thought. “The armor is just cool. If I was just seeing it, I think I’d like his autograph. But seeing him get encased in a metal shell right as he uses Mind really makes me not want to fight him.”
Elofan glanced at Grehn and Vlugh, one of her fluffy eyebrows raising. Grehn found himself feeling self-conscious, as if he had been caught in the act of chatting during a funeral. Which, to be fair, was almost exactly what he was doing. It was more disturbing to him that Elofan seemed to know that Grehn and Vlugh were talking with their Minds. Had she already spent enough time with them to understand them that well? Or was it something else?
Grehn turned his attention back to the Knights, thinking to the bees. “So you two saw a masked figure, that is definitely not one of the Knights, dropping off the slab of wood in front of the inn last night, correct?”
“Yup,” Beelzebub said.
“So, the question I think we’re all wondering is who that was. The only options are someone from Lemonholm or someone hiding in Lemonholm.”
“You think someone from the outside is hiding in town? I haven’t looked at anyone who looks like they don’t belong,” Ben said.
“No,” Grehn said quickly, “I actually think that’s not the case at all. It would be next to impossible for someone to blend into any small town without people noticing, let alone this particular town. If the masked person was absolutely not one of the Knights, they must have been a Lemonholmian. Which begs the question: was that note left by the killer? If it was, why would they risk exposing themselves? There are two parties here under suspicion, and the evidence is more strongly geared towards one of us outsiders being guilty. So, then, was the note left by someone who isn’t the killer? If so, who and why?”
Beelzebub and Ben were silent for a moment. The group was nearly arriving at the town hall before Beelzebub spoke again. “That’s the same stuff Gora started asking last night. Like, almost exactly the same. Are you super smart or something, Grehn?”
Grehn nearly stopped walking, only for an instant. Enough for Elofan to glance in his direction and Greyan’s finger to twitch. He didn’t think it was strange to be thinking of so many possibilities, considering the seriousness of the situation. But Beelzebub’s comment instantly planted a seed of doubt. Were those thoughts even his own? Was Belphegora subtly influencing his Mind somehow, enough that he didn’t even notice it? He knew what it felt like to have his Mind tampered with, whether it was from the imposing rigidity of Beatrice or the unsubtle manhandling of the Mother, but he had never considered anything like this. If Belphegora was actually influencing his thoughts, it was in such a subtle way that he truly believed them to be his own.
I guess this is the sort of thing that would happen to somebody constantly plotting revenge, he thought. Fuck.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Lemonholm looked just as ugly during the day as it did during the night, at least to a pair of bees. The lemon orchards were a different story. The lush green leaves of the trees were absurdly beautiful, rivaled only by the flowers of Yiwi. As if they weren’t beautiful enough, the way they were spotted with little yellow dots gave them a sense of character that the dried out, burned forest couldn’t even hope to compete with. Hopefully, Mom’s plans to restore the forest and help from the fernen would result in a world as beautiful as Lemonholm’s lemon groves.
Beelzebub and Ben were bored out of the Minds, which was probably why the both of them - even Beelzebub, who didn’t care for how things looked - were staring at lemon trees.
The humans had been interrogating people in the town hall for hours, which was nearly as boring as watching the humans sleep, though in the case of these interrogations there were at least some highlight moments.
There was one case where they talked to a man with a ruddy face and tired eyes. Apparently, he had been one of the people that walked by the Lord’s house while the mercenaries were waiting for him to appear. This man often seemed confused and answered with short, clipped sentences, until they asked him a question about where he was going on that day.
His eyes popped and his jaw clenched. “You weirdies are annoyin’. Shut it.”
That was all he said before sticking his tongue out, wiggling his hands by his head and blowing a raspberry. Beelzebub nearly cried with laughter. Ben thought Greyan’s face of bewilderment was way funnier. Unfortunately, after that little incident, the Knights became more forceful with their questioning and the mercenaries puffed their chests to act more intimidating. As indignant as the man was, it was clear he couldn’t handle the stressful situation. Or maybe he just freaked out when Elofan made a sudden whooping noise, though all she said was ‘humans are way more hilarious than I thought.’
Other highlights included Betty, a woman who always lost a yearly Lemonholmian tradition called the ‘Lemon Rodeo’ to the Lord. The idea of humans looking at lemons and deciding someone deserved an award for growing the best one was both incomprehensible and hilarious to the bees. There was also a man who straight up fell asleep in his chair and didn’t wake up until someone mentioned lunch.
However, those were three examples of fun moments. There were about ten people who got interrogated before they took a break to eat, and another 20 people after that. It all devolved into a slog, and it was still ongoing. All the interrogators save for the annoying official, whose name was finally revealed to be Sarah, as well as Greyan. Even the other Knights’ eyes were wandering around the small, dark room they kept funneling townspeople into. At some point, the bees stopped paying attention entirely.
“Bub,” Ben said after staring at the lemon trees for a while, “do you think we’ll ever be able to see the world?”
“Hm? Whaddaya mean?”
“Like, I wanna stay with mamaroonie and everyone else. But I’ve seen so many cool things outside of the forest! Yiwi and the flowers, the fernen guys, and now these lemon trees. There’s so many cool things out there!”
Beelzebub turned to Ben. “So, what? You wanna leave the hive?”
“No way! Eh, not forever. So, yes I guess? I wanna leave the forest, not leave the family.”
Beelzebub wasn’t sure what to make of that. In a way, she felt exactly the same. The forest had nothing interesting to fight, so maybe the rest of the world could be more interesting. But, something inside her told her she would hate it. Probably because she would leave the hive without its strongest, most powerful and menacing protector. Obviously, that was Beelzebub.
“There’s only one thing,” he said.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“I can’t fight! And apparently fighting is like the most important thing ever. If you can fight good, nobody can do anything to you. And if I could fight, I could go around the world and nobody back home would have to worry about me. All you guys are already worried about me, and I’m barely even out of the forest!”
Several buzzes arose in the back of their Minds. Nobody wanted Ben to get hurt. Even Beatrice buzzed for a fraction of a second.
Beelzebub grumped, crossing her arms. “You tried getting Bedivere to teach you to fight, and you got distracted. Then you immediately left to go see the fernen. And now you came here. No duh you can’t fight. I mean, you’re not hopeless, but you’ll probably never be super strong like me.”
The little bee himself just sort of smiled and bounced around, unaffected, but the rest of the hive wasn’t so calm. The buzzing became furious, several bees telling Beelzebub off for being mean to Ben. Beck’s melodic tone sped up, turning into a diss of Beelzebub’s small body and equally small brain.
“Shut up!” Beelzebub said with a pout. “I’m serious! You can probably learn to fight good, Ben, but you’re not built for fighting. You’re fast and small, like me. But you can’t get much power behind you. Basically, you’re weak. But that’s alright. Just keep out of the way with your speed and look for small openings with your looking. It’ll take a bunch of practice and training, but it can work.”
“Huh. Hey Bub, you should train me!”
“Sure. Wait, what?”
“Both of you, quiet down for a moment and listen.” Before Beelzebub could make sense of what Ben said, Belphegora’s voice cut through the buzzing crescendo of laughter and jeers of the hive.
“Mom has figured out a possible solution to the code in the message. Which is… amazing. I clearly have much to learn. Anyways, the message they are trying to send might be something along the lines of ‘store of shoe.’”
“What, that’s it? We gotta look at the shoe store or something?” Ben asked.
“Well, according to the method she used, apparently it could either be that or ‘rose of ethos,’ which doesn’t have any relevant meaning. Apparently, she took the first letter of every emphasized word and mixed them around to arrive at that conclusion. How she figured that out so quickly is beyond me.”
“So that’s the whole point of the message?” Ben asked, still confused.
“Well, it’s a decent solution. We’re still working on it, just in case. But it’s a start. I’d like Ben to stake out the shoe store, at least until we come up with a more definitive answer.”