Chapter 74 Lyn’s Story part 2
Lyn was super happy, they had finally arrived at the campsite and she was let out to explore her surroundings. The sights, sounds, smells and so much more were intoxicating to her. For It felt like home.
Thanks to that Ren character, she was able to pass the time quickly and even pick up a few things along the way. But now that she was here, she was going to push him out of her mind and enjoy the time she had away from the stone hive, what she now knows was called a castle.
Quickly saying her goodbyes, Lyn wasted no time jumping into the forest to sightsee and take on her own form of training. Challenging any bugs that might get in her way and hunting large game, which admittedly was only large to her, and bringing them back as trophies!
There was so much to do, and so little time to do it. So she flew as fast as her wings could carry her and told Van and his father that she might be away for a few days at a time so as not to worry them.
Van didn’t seem too happy at first about that, but she assured him that she would be back to check on his safety periodically so that he doesn’t have too much to fear without her being around to protect him. And if he was afraid or lonely then he only had to call her back with their special connection for her to fly back to him at top speeds.
For some reason though, after she said that he was more than willing for her to go. Which made her very happy, for it meant that she was right that he was just afraid for his safety, and the knowledge that Lyn will come right back to protect him should he be in trouble, made him feel safe enough to allow her to go as she pleased.
So in high spirits, she went deep into the woods without a care. Getting back into that old feeling of wanderlust and explorers high that she used to. Excited to explore a section of the forest that was new and deeper than her old home.
Danger lurked around every corner, but Lyn was so much more powerful than she was before. Old foes that would normally prove a challenge now were noted only as a novelty, as she moved on through their territory like the wind through grass. Without a care, and more a force of nature to the lowly bugs beneath her.
She flew for hours on end, time losing meaning for her as she soaked in all the sights and sounds of the forest. That was of course until she found a few burnt dots on the bark of a tree.
This made her stop in her tracks. So hard it felt like the wind screeched like a car hitting the brakes while pulling the emergency brakes at the same time from a speed that was three times over the speed limit. She was going so fast that normally such images would be nothing but blurs to her.
But they were not blurs to her, despite her speed, her mind had also evolved and sped up to keep track of things even as fast as she was going. Not to mention she could never forget something that was so ingrained into her entire being, something that was a part of her from birth.
For those burnt dots, were the dots signifying the territory of a zapper colony, to ward off and warn others of what belonged to them. Zappers would go and take different positions on a tree, then zap so hard that they leave a mark, then they would scent the burnt area making sure the message was clear. Each zapper colony had its own unique burn mark pattern and scent, to help differentiate one colony from another. For bee’s, it was something else entirely.
But while a zapper colony's marking was enough for her to slow down, it wasn’t enough for her to stop like she did. No, what made her stop was the fact that this particular pattern and scent was very familiar. It was the scent of home... Her old zapper colony…
Lyn froze in place. Her mind going a million miles a second as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing before her. She knew that her old colony was intending to go deeper into the woods and that it had been a while since they last parted ways. But what were the chances that she would see markings of them in the middle of nowhere?
Unless of course… she was far closer to fairy territory than she first thought…
Lyn shook her head, that had nothing to do with her anymore. She split ways with them and that was that. She was going one direction, and the markings clearly indicated that she was well far enough for them to not even notice her. So she could leave and they wouldn’t ever be the wiser.
And that was what she was planning to do. But… for every inch she moved forward, she couldn’t help but pause and look back. She hesitated over and over again. Concern, worry, and a myriad of confusing emotions plagued her heart. In the end, she gave into them. “I’ll just check the periphery… just to see if there are any dangers, and if they're doing alright, after that I’ll leave.”
With that excuse in mind, Lyn slowly, at a snail's pace, in fact, moved around what she sensed was her old colony’s new territory. Moving slowly deeper and deeper, her arms hugged her body and scrunched upon herself, as if afraid that she might get in trouble if caught.
But after about twenty minutes of this, there didn't seem to be any of her sisters patrolling to catch her in the act, or for that matter did anything seem out of place. Which helped her relax a little. “Well, I checked. And everything seems fine. So I guess I'll just go on my way.” she thought to herself, just happy to get out of there.
She was concerned that there were no patrols, but that was hardly a bad sign, it could just mean that they were stretched thin or had other concerns that drew the focus of the colony’s attention. That was of course until the wind blew her way. Lyn froze once more, but this time, for an entirely different reason.
The smell of death wafted into her nostrils. The smell… of dead zappers…
Lyn was racked with indecision, one part of her wanted to run right now and check if anyone was okay. Another part wondered if she did go, would she be considered getting in the way of a colony she held no connections to anymore.
Back and forth the debate went with no clear winner in sight until she couldn’t take it anymore and her curiosity and concern got the better of her.
Flying over as fast as she could she stopped in her tracks once more upon the sight she saw in the clearing before her.
It was a field of corpses.
Dozens upon dozens of zappers and bees lay dead on the ground. In total together, more than two hundred dead. The scene shocked Lyn. she heard of a few skirmishes with other colonies, but never a full-on battle! Especially ending with the deaths of so many of their kind.
Getting a closer look, she was horrified to see some of her sisters lying dead on the field. Without carrying anymore if she was caught, she zipped down to them, checking for a pulse, finding none.
She wanted to cry but forced herself from doing so. She needed answers, and so took a step back and truly looked at the horrid scene before her. Studying it for any signs of clues that would explain what happened here and why.
Taking flight and surveying the scene of battle, she came to a startling realization. Most of the corpses on the ground were made up of lesser zappers and bees. More than that, they were all very young. This meant that not only was the bee colony that her old colony was fighting in a very desperate situation, but her old colony was as well.
Which was crazy to think about, her old colony may not have been the biggest, but certainly not the smallest either. So to go so far as to use young zappers that weren’t even average zappers. This meant that her colony was doing very poorly right now, and very well could be in a life or death struggle against another colony that was also doing really bad right now.
Making both sides feel desperate, which made them do desperate gambits, which when it turned into a bloodbath like it did before her eyes, made them even more desperate. Continuing the cycle of self-destruction until one finally fell or they both did.
“This isn’t right! Mother wouldn’t ever let it come to this! Something really bad must have happened…” Lyn thought with panic and worry. She then realized what she must do. She must quickly find her old hive and demand answers and help in any way she could! If they would let her…
But pushing that last thought out, she quickly started to fly all over the place. Picking trails and clues of her old colony's paths and where they were last. Slowly making her way towards what she might suspect was the direction of her colony's nest, while ignoring any of the obvious misdirections that were placed in case of intruders.
The further in she went, the more and more she became worried as not a single zapper crossed her path, even though she should have seen one by now… by the time she finally looked upon the tree that should hold her colony’s new nest. Her heart was already in full-blown panic mode at the lack of zapper sightings.
At first sight, the new tree that her colony must have taken root in, didn’t look lived in at all. It was nice and large, yes, and also seemed to be a lightning tree like her old home that just needed some renovations. But it completely lacked any signs of life.
Taking a deep breath trying not to let her fear of what that might mean get to her head. She closed her eyes and did her best to spread her awareness in the hopes of picking up anything. And much to her relief, she did. They were inside the tree after all, but she didn’t like the lack of life force she detected…
Flying towards and landing on what she presumed was the branch that led into the nest proper. Lyn took another deep breath and straightened her back, holding her head high and doing her best to calm her jittery nerves that made her feel like she would shake uncontrollably if she wasn’t too careful.
But even after a full minute had passed, she still couldn’t bring herself to enter. Too many emotions were running havoc inside her mind and body.
She forced herself to calm, remembering the wise words of another world's great philosopher that she heard about from Ren. taking a deep breath, she gently spoke them out loud under her breath. “...yolo…”
And boldly moved forward inside.
No-one stopped her. For there was hardly anyone to do so. She entered the large wooden cavern unopposed. She walked all the way to the end until she finally stopped at what was considered the throne room, her younger sister sitting on a poorly made makeshift throne. Her mother was nowhere in sight.
Lyn looked towards the left, and the right. Noticing how meager the honey and nectar stores were. Counting the few zappers left, their number barely reached sixty, most of which seemed wounded and too tired to even take notice of her. Looking up back at her sister, she found that she too, looked far worse for wear, eyes half glazed and staring into nothing as she massaged her scalp with one hand and the other tapping on her throne insensately like a tic that she couldn’t stop.
It took a while to even realize that someone just walked into the middle of the room. At first not sure of what she was even seeing, once her brain finally started to pick up speed and it clicked that someone really did in fact waltz right into the middle of the hive, she began to panic.
She was just about to scream for her zappers into action only for such an order to get stuck in her throat as her eyes widened in shock.
“...big… sister?” she asked in disbelief, unsure and scared.
Lyn nodded gently with a kind but sad smile.
Tears slowly fell down the little sister's cheeks as she was unable to control herself, got up and rushed towards Lyn, stopping just shy of hugging her. “Is it really you?” she couldn’t help but ask, hope and fear in her voice.
“It is…” Lyn said
This time she didn’t stop herself, and hugged Lyn and cried into her. This woke up the few zappers that were left. Slowly they started to panic as they saw the stranger in their midst but paused when they realized that their queen was crying on that person's shoulder, leaving them confused and unable to figure out what to do.
Gently, Lyn pried her little sister off of her and looked her in the eye. “Sister, what happened? Where is mother?”
Her little sister looked like she was going to cry all over again, but held it in, but still couldn’t help but look away in shame for what she was about to say next. “She… she’s dead… she died in defense of the hive, fighting off and killing a greater insect-kin of the rival colony we have been facing.” She then turned to look her older sister in the eyes. “I… am queen now…”
Lyn felt like someone just twisted a dagger in her heart. She couldn’t believe what she heard. Her mother might not have the strongest, or a greater insect-kin herself, but she certainly wasn’t weak. Even fighting off against a greater insect-kin, it didn’t feel real that she would die, for any reason.
She wanted to ask how, wanted to demand evidence, the weres, the whys, and more. But she swallowed them inside and only gently brought her younger sister in for another hug so that they can share their pain together.
After a few more moments they parted once more, Lyn shedding a single tear for her dear mother. But she had to know, and so she asked. “How did it come to this…”
The little sister- no- the queen slowly looked down, her body language showing signs that she wasn’t feeling just physically defeated, but spiritually as well. Despite the joy of meeting her sister once more, and her clearly being so much more powerful than anyone she had ever met. She was still banished which meant that she owed them nothing, not to mention, what good would it do anyway. So in a defeated tone of voice, she started to explain everything.
“It happened when we first moved here. We had some problems finding a place to nest, finding a lightning tree was no easy task, especially one that could hold our size and the potential of future growth. But find one we did, with a few choice places for nectar and pollen collection. At that time, another colony had also made its move nearby, and like us, were testing out their new borders.”
“At first nothing happened. We were the two new people in the area, and we didn’t want to fight, especially the bee colony. It seemed they had bad experiences with fighting other colonies already and were just happy enough to share what little there was. But slowly that changed…”
“At first they were very cordial with us, but slowly they were spreading out their patrols farther and farther, and sometimes our patrols clashed with theirs. It would happen rarely, but far more frequently as time went by. To make matters worse, webbing has been found on several of the flowers in the places we normally would collect pollen and nectar from.”
“Resources started to get tight, and before we could negotiate and calmly talk out a solution with our new neighbors, more fights broke out leading to the deaths on both sides. Soon, it became apparent that both sides were having resource problems, as more flowers were found to have webbing.”
“Finally, true war broke out as both sides became desperate over the few resources left. And many of our sisters started to die, mother had to take the lead in battle because she was the only other insect-kin in the hive. It didn’t help that the trader fairies that we originally came here for weren’t around this season, or that we ate through most of our stored honey and nectar just to get by, so we couldn't trade for sperm to make insect-kin warriors even if we wanted to.”
“Battle after battle, for months on end, losing more and more of our kin, until finally, our mother lost her life in battle killing another insect-kin. Leaving me in charge… and from there, it just continued to spiral ever downward.”
The queen turned her hands into fists, her whole body shaking as a wave of emotion took her. It looked for all the world like she was going to cry again. But she had enough of that and instead just looked at her sister, truly looking at her.
“It’s so good to see you are doing okay,” she said with a sad but gentle smile. “I was so worried when mother banished you… she regretted you know. Sent over a hundred sisters to look for you barely ten minutes after you left. We were worried sick. But it’s good to see you are doing fine. I’m just so happy to see you alive.”
Lyn stayed quiet for a while, unsure of what to say, but definitely sure of what she was going to do next. “I’m… also happy to see you are doing okay, glad that I still have you… I wouldn’t know what to do if you were gone. But now that I know you are okay… there is something I have to do…”
Lyn then grabbed hold of her sister. “Sister… will you accept my protection?”
The queen looked confused, brow furrowed. “I… don’t understand.”
Lyn squeezed harder making the queen wince. “Do you accept my protection… I need you to say yes.” Lyn said harder.
The queen tried to look into her sister’s eyes, trying to figure out where she was going with this. Hesitantly and with worry in her voice, she agreed. “Yes…”
“That’s all I needed to hear…” Lyn said, then turned to leave.
The queen looked confused for a second, only for that confusion to turn into fear as she looked at Lyn. “No! You can’t be thinking-!?” she exclaimed as Lyn turned to leave. “You only just got here! Even if you're stronger now you can’t take on an entire hive! You can’t just leave like this! Don’t leave me! Sister!”
But Lyn walked anyway, only turning her head to address the queen one last time. “Don’t worry queen, I will be back, I promise you… after all... my name is… Lyn,” she said, before leaving the hive and a shocked queen in her wake.