Bodyguard, or Boddy to his friends and the other Bodyguards, was having the worst day. It had started with the human he was supposed to protect inviting an all-but-complete stranger along for the walk. From there it had progressed to a trip through an Alley, which was never fun. After that he had barely had a moment to recuperate before one of his oldest friends stole his revolver and held him at gunpoint. Now, his human acquaintance--who it was also his mission to protect--had decided that Boddy’s employer was undermining the very nature of his House. What was worse, the human--Daniel--had a fair amount of evidence to support it.

The only consolation was that when he and Daniel had fled to the realis, it had been basically impossible to accurately follow them. Maps would probably catch up at some point. But for now, they were safe.

Or as safe as they could be. Unlike Driver and Sterns, Boddy had never been comfortable with human automobiles. Sterns kept telling him it was because he never took human shape; that humans were perfectly suited for automobile transportation. Boddy had tried it. It hadn’t worked. At least bees didn’t experience nausea the same way.

Daniel had called his own personal driver, whose name was not Driver, but instead was Carl. Carl appeared to be significantly older than Daniel, and had not even bothered to get out of the vehicle to open the door for Daniel. As they drove, Carl made conversation with Daniel. Boddy tried to follow it but gave up partway through; he was well accustomed to interpreting human speech while in bee or ant shape, but he simply couldn’t grasp the context of their conversation. Something to do with streams, but he didn’t hear anything about boats or fishing or even swimming, so he was at a loss.

Instead, Boddy focused himself on trying not to feel every motion of the car. It was somewhat difficult, because he was running out of other senses to focus on. The conversation was gibberish, the car’s scent was constant and unchanging, and all he could feel was Daniel’s voice vibrating when he talked. At Daniel’s insistence, Boddy had hidden under the flap of his jacket. Humans were unaccustomed to seeing a bee ride around on someone’s shoulder, apparently.

That left sight, which was as useless as feel. Well, and irrealis, but out here in the physical world irrealis was all but nonexistent. He got faint emanations from each human. Slightly stronger from Daniel, now that he had visited the irrealis. If he was actively engaging in thought construction, Boddy would sense stronger still emanations, but apparently Daniel was content to focus on the conversation at hand.

It was a relief when Driver Carl finally reached their destination. Daniel exited the car, promising to give Carl “five stars”, though Boddy was uncertain of what that meant out here. Surely humans didn’t have the ability to actually catch stars. Daniel was walking again, which was significantly better than the car. He went through a sudden burst of warmth and came out in a place that smelled…well it smelled like a lot of humans spent as little time there as possible. There were other smells, that Boddy’s bee brain warned him about. Caustic scents that could kill the whole hive. Boddy recognized that response as being about human chemicals used for cleaning. As long as he didn’t immerse himself in it, he would be okay.

Daniel moved up to somewhere and Boddy heard the ring of a small chime. He was also suddenly and acutely aware of flowers nearby. That impulse was written deeply into the bee’s identity, but Boddy had plenty of experience with it.

There was another conversation with yet another human. Daniel introduced himself, but the other human did not. Boddy risked glancing out from under Daniel’s jacket to get a good look at the other human. It was a woman. She lacked the frailty of old age but other than that Boddy couldn’t guess how old she was. Her clothing was plain but clean, like laborers on a feast day. Or, Boddy supposed, in modern parlance, businesslike. He’d heard Sterns use the expression once. He rather liked it. Business was better than idleness, after all. A small rectangular badge on the woman’s shirt bore some lettering, but Boddy’s eyes were ill-suited for reading, and he ignored it. There was nothing threatening about the woman’s bearing. She likely had never trained for combat, in fact. Her stance was too precarious, and she was all too willing to turn her back on a total stranger.

No threat here, Boddy decided. He crawled back into his hiding space and tried to follow the conversation. It turned out to be transactional; the woman was some kind of innkeeper. Daniel purchased a room for the night. A few minutes later, he finally spoke.

“Alright Boddy, we’re alone now. Come on out.”

Boddy emerged and took in the room. He knew that modern lodgings-houses--there was a modern word for them too, which Boddy could not recall at the moment--were more spacious than those he recalled from Carver’s youth, but this was large enough to constitute a whole guest room. To his shock, there was an entire bed, and even a private washroom. He had been concerned about Daniel having room to focus; but now he realized that Daniel could comfortably stay alone in this room all night.

He buzzed over to a small table. “Lodgings are nicer than I remember.”

Daniel turned to look at him, a giant from Boddy’s current perspective. Or his native one, for that matter. Humans were fairly large. “Carver didn’t stay in hotels that often, I suppose?”

Hotels. That was the word. “Access to the House is never that far away. Once Mister Carver even stopped to purchase a simple wrought iron gate solely so he could prop it up in an empty field and return home.”

“How’d that happen? He had to have come through a gate originally, right?”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“He had. A tree fell on it.”

Daniel paused. He did that sometimes, as if trying to understand the meaning of things that were perfectly clear. Boddy had thought it odd at first, but now he realized that Daniel was likely--and possibly unknowingly--practicing that unusual skill unique to humans. After a moment, Daniel answered, “Huh.” There was no further clarification.

“Well Boddy, I think this is as good a place as any. You said Maps won’t know where we went until he can get back to his old job. Rookie can’t leave the irrealis, right? I used my phone and my credit card, which every movie I’ve ever seen says is a good way to get caught, but for once I suspect that those are probably safe.”

Daniel sat on the edge of the mattress and sighed heavily, resting his face in his hands for a moment before looking up and meeting Boddy’s gaze. “I’m ready. Teach me how to construct.”

Boddy buzzed in amusement. “What?” he inquired.

“I need training. Fast. Field course. Teach me how thought construction works.”

“Daniel…I don’t know how thought construction works. At least not in a practical sense for teaching you.”

“Wait, I thought you did. You seemed so confident about it.”

“I know plenty about it, but only as an outsider. I don’t have the foggiest idea how it’s done, just what it can do.”

“Well crap.” Daniel said, then put his face back in his hands. “And we don’t know anyone else who knows it, other than maybe--”

“Master Carver is not a thought constructor.”

“”Right, so nobody at all. Unless you keep a registry of freelancers in your honeycomb.”

Bee puns. Of course Daniel would resort to bee puns. Boddy stretched his wings twice, slowly, forcing himself to calm down. He wasn’t even really a bee. Why did that bother him?

“No. Freelancers work mostly by word of mouth. There isn’t an agency or guild or anything like that.”

“Figured.”

“There is one other possibility, though.”

Daniel lifted his head again, though he stayed leaning forward. “Oh?”

“Well, that House of Curiosities woman. The naiad. The one you were enamored with.”

“Just because she looks like a hot naked woman doesn’t mean I’m enamored,” Daniel said.

“I was referring to her gift. Everyone else received something secondhand. You commissioned something new for her. I assumed it was a sign of flirtation.”

“I just wanted something she could wear without locking up from conflict of self-identity. I was giving myself neck strain trying to be polite about her nudity. Plus, I kinda felt bad for her since Lady Liu didn’t consider what type of garment she gave.”

“What was wrong with her nudity?” Boddy asked, then remembered. Ah, yes. Daniel had mentioned something. Human taboos. “Wait, I remember. You told me already.” Being nude around others was considered extremely personal. Which meant… “The gift was almost the opposite of courtship, then? You wanted her to be clothed, which meant you wanted her to be less personal with you?”

“I guess yeah, after a fashion. I mean, I’m not against being her friend or anything, but mostly I just wanted to be able to walk around without worrying there’d be a naked person in eyeline every second.”

“You did say she was attractive, though.”

“Lots of people are attractive. Doesn’t mean I’m flirting,” Daniel shook his head. “Plus, it’d be weird since she’s from irrealis and I’m not. But we’ve kind of left the topic behind. You think Wanda might be able to help me learn how to control this?”

“Her or someone else from her House. Most of the Houses and Unaffiliated Tribes don’t concern themselves with how thought construction works as long as it’s either leaving us alone or doing what we paid for, as appropriate. But the House of Curiosity concerns itself with everything. They have to. It’s essential to their being.”

“Getting there means going back to the irrealis, though.”

“Yes.”

“And we don’t know what type of door to use to get to Curiosity?”

“And we, or at least, I, am not invited even if we did.”

“What about Lady Liu’s House? We’re both welcome there and we know what type of door we need.”

“I don’t know how to get from there to Curiosity, unfortunately. Maps was in charge of navigation.”

“And on the Lane it isn’t like we can just ask for directions…” Daniel trailed off, as if in thought. “Alright, I’ll try to figure out as much as I can here, on my own. I already made the sleep demon. Rookie might not have been mine, but…I think I made one before him, until he took its place. Maybe I can do it again. Then, once I know how to make them up here,” Daniel tapped his head, “We can visit Lady Liu and I can practice manifesting. I owe here a manifestation in exchange for her hospitality anyway.”

Boddy considered it. Daniel’s plan was at least something. Boddy usually liked not taking action. Not having to take action, at least. Now, action was necessary. He assessed the safety of Daniel’s room. It would do for an hour or two. Especially since Maps had to figure out what city they were in before he could do anything to Daniel.

“Alright. I’ll go find us a suitable door nearby. Leave the window open just a crack. If any bee comes in here that isn’t me, stomp on it.”

“Why bees?” Daniel asked, as he lifted the window for Boddy.

“House of Community, right?” Boddy answered. He flew out into the night in search of a white picket fence.