A scream. A shout. A loud clanging. As Bella continued imagining what a honey-making Ability could do to improve the hive’s life, some commotion within Yiwi’s walls shook her from her thoughts.
What the heck? Ah, it's probably a human thing. I can probably ignore it then, she thought with a shrug. She slumped in boredom even as Mesne dashed towards the gate. She was a human, after all, and one with a bit of a better attitude than some. She decided to keep an eye on the situation, just to make sure Mesne didn’t do anything stupid.
“Stop right there, thief! That food isn’t yours!” Bella heard from Mesne’s perspective. A man wearing light metal armor was sprinting towards a shady-looking guy who was clutching a piece of bread.
Bella felt a throb from Mesne’s Mind, followed by a sudden rushing sensation. With a boost from Mind, Mesne shot post the peace keeper and barreled into the thief, pinning him to the ground.
“Enough of that. Your family may be hungry, but think of the ones you just stole that from,” she said to the man groaning under her. She leaned in and spoke at a whisper, “Quickly. Tell me your name and where you live. I will ensure your family is fed.”
“How do you…” the thief managed to groan before looking up and blanching at the sight of Mesne’s face. Bella was thoroughly entertained; the face being made by the nervous merchant woman was just too horrible! Without another second of hesitation, the man told Mesne what she wanted to hear, and she rose, freeing him. Before he stood, Mesne snatched the bread from his hands and picked him up, pushing him away.
“Wow! That was intense! Are you some sort of racer?” Bella laughed into Mesne’s head, which the merchant ignored. Internally, though, Bella was deep in thought. The words Mesne spoke to the would-be-thief weren’t her own. Although Bella didn’t know her very well, she knew that Mesne was far more unsure of herself when speaking. Her emotions also felt dulled during the encounter. Which meant that she had activated her Ability. So she can use it like this? Maybe Mesne is interesting rather than intriguing after all.
By the time the peacekeeper managed to arrive, the thief had already gone, stumbling into a nearby alley.
“Person damn you woman, you let him get away! We don’t have enough-“
“Stop,” Mesne said firmly. She tossed the loaf to the man, who fumbled with it. “Give that back to the person it was stolen from. I’m keeping an eye on you, so don’t even think of trying anything.”
The man looked like he wanted to argue, but realization suddenly dawned on his face. He seemed to recognize Mesne and awkwardly nodded his head, jogging back to the woman who was crying at this point.
While all that was happening, Bella watched as a team of bees crested the wall. Besides loaves of bread they clutched in their little bee arms, a pair together carried a particularly large fried druid.
“Hoho! While the humans squabble so desperately, we squeeze them for everything they’ve got! And it’s all thanks to you, Merchant Queen Mesne!”
“…Hm.”
“Is ‘hm’ all you can muster? I thought that was a pretty good jab. Well, forget it. I know from your profile that you practiced so-called ‘martial thoughts’ and have some degree of skill in light combat. But not much. An experienced mercenary like Toh can easily overwhelm you. So you’re not a great fighter, just an okay one. Maybe slightly above average. But you’re not a great merchant either. You just inherited your parents’ company and rode their coattails. So… You suck.”
Simple, yet effective. The declaration broke Mesne from her funk, causing her to spin around and draw a few prying eyes.
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“Why you- You fucking bastard Bella, I oughta- Well I can’t really… Person! Why is this all falling on me?!”
“That’s what I’m asking, babe,” Bella said with a huff. “I’m saying you’re pretty mediocre, with a few interesting traits. So why is Mom giving you so much power?”
Mesne calmed down and stared at the wall, where she assumed Bella was. For fun, Bella moved so Mesne’s line of sight would actually fall on her.
“Do you know? Why our Queen is doing this to me?” She looked so earnest while saying that, Bella couldn’t help but almost feel bad.
“Nope! Her Mind works in mysterious ways. And since Trice holds so much power, I’m not privy to her thoughts either. So who knows? Maybe Trice is actually the one who decided to give you all this power, and Mom is just following along.”
The pair stewed in silence for a moment before Mesne began walking back outside of the wall. She didn’t actually need to be there, but apparently there was some compulsion humans had about speaking ‘face-to-face’. None of the bees really understood it, including Bella.
Actually, now that Bella thought about it, Mom did seem to have a similar habit. She liked to float around the hive, going to inspect the bees’ work herself. She also organized those family dinners. Not that Bella minded either, of course. In fact, she found them quite fun. But it was odd that Mom had similar ideas and habits to the humans.
“Do you hate mistress Beatrice? To be frank, she seems to possess an incredible amount of power over the hive and its operations. You’re pretty ambitious yourself, I’ve noticed. So I’m wondering if some resentment has built up,” Mesne said as she approached the gate. A simple wave was all it took for a guard to begin opening the massive metal doors.
She’s gathered that much about us in such a short time, huh? I know I call her merchant skills lacking, but she’s not completely incompetent, I guess. It does make sense. I suppose her business would sink otherwise.
“Hate her? Impossible. I admire her more than anyone. Some of the others think she has an unfair advantage just ‘cause she was born first, but they can be dumb sometimes. She has an unfair advantage by being Beatrice. Simple as,” Bella responded dismissively.
“Even so,” Mesne pressed. “My observation about her abundance of power isn’t wrong. I’ve only talked to a few important bees, but every single one makes it clear how important her word is above nearly all others. Sometimes she even seems more important than the Que-“
“Don’t finish that thought. Don’t ever,” Bella said. Mesne felt a faint pressure on the back of her neck as Bella’s eyes bore a hole in her. She could even feel the gazes of the drones in the distance, feel the weight of the glares of drones scattered across Yiwi.
“Anyways, it's good that Trice is so involved. She’s way smart, you know,” Bella said with a smile. All at once, the pressure and gazes disappeared, and Mesne was left with sweat lining her brow, and nothing more.
“And all of that isn’t important. I’m more concerned about your little decision to feed that dude’s family.”
“Ah,” Mesne said. She shuddered remembering what had just happened, but tried to push it to the back of her mind. “I apologize. Something like that is important, isn’t it? I should’ve run it by you.”
“Yup. But I guess this just goes to show what I was talking about earlier. About you being a sucky merchant AND a sucky fighter. Guess it’s all about talent these days.”
“These days…?”
“Oh…? Talent, huh? But wait a second,” Bella said, suddenly buzzing around Mesne’s head. She might’ve thought the bee was quite cute doing that, if it weren’t for the fact that Bella was larger than her entire head.
Oh, and Bella’s personality was awful.
“Now that I think about it, saying you’re not talented is weird, right? Despite the fact that you don’t even want to be a merchant, you’ve successfully maintained your parents’ business all this time. If I remember…” Bella said while definitely not remembering. Instead, she searched Mesne’s profile.
“Right there. I was right; you never really wanted to be a merchant at all. How exciting! You wanted to be a pro martial thoughtist! Grew up in southern Somuia… skirmishes in the southeast… inventor… supplier… boring. Aha! Your parents di- Er, once your parents were gone, you valiantly took up the mantle of merchant and inherited their business, giving up on your dreams.”
She paused. Mesne had grown pale, but she wasn’t saying a word. Just as well. Bella might have gone too far too. Mesne’s parents met such a fate, one Bella would rather not imagine.
“Ahem. In any case, what this shows me is that you have two things you care about in life: martial thoughts and business. But you don’t actually want to do business stuff, you feel compelled to continue your parents’ work. What you really want to be doing is martial thoughts. However… your talent and dreams don’t align at all. Contrary to what I thought before, you do have talent for being a merchant. Which is weird, because your own Ability says you suck… But anyways, you have some degree of talent for being a merchant, and yet you’re not very good because your heart's not in it. On the other hand, you want to do martial thoughts, but you need to work extra hard to be good, meaning no talent. And you can’t because you’ve dedicated yourself to your business.”
Yes, Bella was getting a full picture of Mesne’s true essence. She was a true dichotomy of dreams and reality. Someone without talent for one thing, but talented in another. She was sort of like one of the bees, in a way. Specialized. But unlike the bees, she didn’t have passion for her specialization. Why?
Simple. Mesne is a stinky human. How could she be compared to bees?
Bella suddenly perked up. Perhaps this was actually a great chance!
“Actually, I give you full permission to go and feed that dude’s family. In fact, I give you permission to donate food to as many people as you want! With a few conditions, of course.”
Conditions I won’t be discussing with Trice. Of course, Mom will know. So Mom, could you please not tell Trice about this plan? I want you to really notice me. Just an Ability isn’t good enough; I’m putting everything I’ve got into it!
“Oh sure, sounds good.”
“Gah! Mom?!”