From there, Belissar visited each of the Apiary queens without beehouses one by one, figuring after the first one he should give them a heads-up before transforming their hives. He could help but grin as he remembered all of their happy dances. He may not have been happy with the basic beehive, but it seemed the queens absolutely were.

He was giving them the basics for now, as the upgrade to his version would be much cheaper if he did it himself. Plus…he liked the idea of building the beehouses by his own hand, and now that he had access to dry wood he could improve upon the design currently in use. That would have to wait though, as he wanted to keep working on the Flower Meadow beehouse first.

Speaking of which, he wondered what he was going to do for them, since he was building a much different beehouse than the usual. He hoped that he would get another potential upgrade for the beehives when he finished, but he couldn’t be sure. Well, if it came to it, he could always build a normal beehouse inside of the rooms of the bigger one, so he’d continue on as planned and see what happened.

Though, that brought him to the next question. He turned his attention to the Orchard queens…and found they had joined their hive together into one big hive. Multiple queens in a single hive…Belissar had seen it once or twice but it was rare and never lasted long. But well, the monster bee queens proved far more adaptive than his old bees had been, so he guessed they had figured something out.

The problem was that the beehive was currently turning red on moving over the hives. Maybe because they were too big? Or maybe because the hives were currently built in the branches of the groves, high above the ground? Belissar wasn’t sure.

He returned from his Tower sight to his body and rubbed his chin. It looked like he’d have to figure something out for them as well. Maybe if he build a bigger beehouse in the trees? Well, he’d set that as his next project after finishing the Flower Meadow beehouse.

Speaking of which, with the new beehives placed, it was time to resume work on that. He walked down to the Orchard and through to the Flower Meadow and did just that. He had the basic foundation set up, so now it was time to begin working on the frame.

Eventually, he got some grooves cut in an appropriate beam. He struggled to stand it upright and slot it into the corresponding groove on a floor beam. He took a step back, but was ready to stabilize it if it fell.

The beam remained upright, but it seemed a little unstable for his liking. He frowned and looked at the groove. It fit together, but the cut wasn’t a perfect fit since he had to be able to slot them in. He crossed his arms and thought.

If he had some nails…but he didn’t. The bear people had some metal implements but Chief Rohsuak said they didn’t have any nails when he asked and that it would be some time before they started making any. If he had some glue, clay, or mortar maybe he could stabilize it a bit more…

He then glanced over at the beehives…and remembered when Niobee had used some wax to reinforce his first rickety frames. He then stared at his hand.

“I wonder…I can make honey, right? What about wax?”

He crouched down and held his hand towards the groove. He stirred up his mana and formed the honeycomb pattern in the air…and then honey dripped onto the wood. He frowned.

This time he tried again, and really focused on wax. He imagined the mana solidifying into wax instead, thought of bees building their comb. A mana pattern began to form once more, but this one was different. Whereas the normal pattern featured bright lines in a hexagonal shape that filled in by a dimmer glow, this time only the hexagonal lines formed, creating an empty honeycomb pattern. It then condensed down into a glowing ball of light that covered a bit of the space between the two pieces of wood.

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Belissar grunted. His head started to pound and his arm start to burn, but he kept at it. Soon, the light died down. Belissar grinned.

In its place was a piece of wax. He tried to push on it with a finger and found it was now sealed to both pieces of wood. He then took a deep breath and attempted to repeat the process. It took a lot of pain and focus but he then extended the wax by another piece. And another. And then another. He was sweating and had a massive headache, but with each attempt the pain grew just a little less.

“Niobee help!”

Niobee then landed on him and he could feel the warm flow of mana pass through his body from her. He grinned.

“Thanks, let’s work together?”

“Yes!”

The two then kept at it until a seal formed over the intersection of the two beams and the upright beam was acceptably stable.

***

The wounded soldier, once again, attempting to form her lightning magic into an actual shape. Her progress had slowed after her initial successes, unfortunately. She could now curve the stream into a loop…but bending it any further cause it to break, looped parts interfering with each other and causing the whole thing to disperse.

She could tell at this point that the method wasn’t working and a little loop of lightning was a far cry from the massive waves the enemy had used. At the same time, though, she wasn’t sure what else she could try. If she just needed more practice with this method she’d practice as much as she needed to, but if she had hit the limit then she needed to try something else. Even mundane bees adapted that much.

It was then that the King arrived in the Flower Meadow. The wounded soldier dropped her practice to dance her salute as he passed by. He then began his work on the grand palace he was building for the Flower Meadow queens near the Memorial. She watched him for a bit before returning to her own efforts.

It was later in the day when she felt the pull of the mana of the realm. She turned to face the direction of its flow. She saw there the King kneeling by a large pillar of wood. The Conduit was dancing on his back and pulling the mana all around her into the King. The King then formed a honeycomb pattern out of mana before wax appeared out of thin air.

The soldier had seen the honeycomb pattern before, it was what she was attempting to mimic in the first place. Instead, she focused on the Conduit and her movements.

Her wings buzzed. She had an idea.

She stirred up her mana and began beating her wings, the lightning wings included. She formed another arc of lightning between her physical wings and her lightning ones. She then rose to her feet…and started to dance.

If the mana would not leave her body to form a pattern, then why not use her body to form the pattern? Instead of trying to curve and twist the arc of lightning, she tried to extend it, leaving a trail behind her as she danced. She danced in a little hexagon before arriving back at her start. The trail vanished quickly, however, and so had faded by the time she arrived.

So, she tried again. She danced faster. She beat her wings harder, increasing the intensity of the lightning arc between them and causing the trail to remain just a bit longer. She pushed the arc further, extending the trail by just a bit more.

She danced and danced, speeding up as fast as she could go and then willed herself to go even faster. She pushed the lighting arc as far as it could go, and beat her wings to build up as much lightning as she possibly could. The lightning crackled and lit up her surroundings as she zipped about.

And then, finally, the trail extended far enough and lasted long enough that she could catch it, and connected it back to the original arc between her wings.

The lightning crackled and began to glow even brighter. She stepped away…and found that the lighting remained, crackling in the shape of the hexagon she had danced. The crackling grew louder and the light brighter as the little hexagon began to shrink down until it formed a brightly little speck of light. The wounded soldier couldn’t tear her eyes away even though it began to hurt.

And then, the light receded. There, on the surface of the Memorial Beehouse, was a tiny drop of honey. A faint bit of tiny-lightning zipped across its surface. The wounded soldier looked at it before breaking out into a dance of celebration.

She had done it. She, a crippled soldier, had made honey, a feat no soldier should have been capable of. And she had done so by replicating the very magic of the King himself.

A tiny drop of honey wasn’t exactly a lot, but it was a step. A small, but successful step. And now that she knew the path to take, the wounded soldier could begin stepping again and again until, one day, she could contribute to the hive as she once had.

And one by one, wounded soldiers around the Memorial came to see what was happening, and joined her in the celebratory dance…