Hive Versus Hive

by Impossible Numbers

Vox Tailblade: The Speech

Under cover of the tiny trees, Tailblade pulled on the bindweed and winced. Below her, the Flutter Pony guard writhed and flexed against his bonds. He glared up at her.

Quickly, she ducked down and rubbed her forelegs over his face. Tying her own mane back and snipping the ends was all very well, but Flutter Ponies ran a lot of their lives in a world of smell. Someone else’s pheromones would at least buy her some time. She rubbed it over herself vigorously, crinkling her wings as she worked down her own back.

The Breezie – stringing together the syllables she’d heard, Tailblade had figured out her name was “Zephyrine” – crumpled her own gigantic wings into a tight ball, wincing as she did so. Tailblade remembered the talks from her old master, of how the Breezies had wings so sensitive they could feel a dust mote from a hundred yards away. To see one crunch its own wings like this made her wince in turn.

Gently, she reached across and patted the creature on the shoulder. It flinched, caught her eye, and then relaxed and let her carry on.

“I don’t think you can understand me,” she said in Flutter Pony, “but if you can, then please know I am grateful for what you’re doing.”

The Breezie – Zephyrine, she corrected herself – just gave a wan smile that could’ve meant anything. Tailblade moved forwards with the bindweed and wrapped the ball of gossamer wings until not a speck could be seen.

Lying beside them, two bundles of wrapped grass shivered and giggled. Quickly, she shushed them and tapped each one to stop it squirming. One obeyed immediately, but the other began to moan and sniffle.

“Uh oh,” she said, as the Breezie rounded on her. She backed off, forelimbs in the air like a shield. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything! I swear!”

Zephyrine kneeled down and whispered, and soon the bundle was calming down and falling quiet. Unheard by anyone, Tailblade let out a sigh of relief.

This is insane, she thought. We’re going to get caught, or worse. This can’t possibly work. Nervously, she rubbed some more pheromone onto herself and went to the edge of the perimeter to watch. By now, the crowd of species had gathered in the centre of the Faire, and she could see Dragon Lily rising onto a makeshift podium of stacked pebbles.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. Dragon Lily. I can’t believe it. You little thief.

Even from all the way out here, the voice of the new Vox was clear and unmistakeable. Translators echoed in their own tongues around her, but still her voice broke through the hubbub.

“My fellows and fey spirits! Honoured guests of the Flutter Ponies! Great powers… of the court. We come in many guises, as spirits… as guardians… as creatures of the earth… as avatars of the divine! My intentions these past few days have been questioned! But there is, ultimately, no need for concern!”

Zephyrine threw a patch of moss over her own back. Hastily, the Breezie tucked her own antennae out of sight beneath a cap of green, and Tailblade leaned in. As carefully as she could, and horribly aware of how close she was to the breaths of the creature’s small mouth, the Flutter Pony snipped. Zephyrine blinked instinctively. All the eyelashes fell to the ground, completing the disguise.

“I am not a conqueror for the Flutter Pony tribe. I am a servant of the fey, of all of you! I am descended from the same Fey Ponies you are, I enjoy the same enchanted fruits, and I sing as merely one of many in the grand chorus of our world!”

Both of them slipped the bundles over their backs – and under the moss, in Zephyrine’s case – nodded, and flexed their limbs.

They slipped along the perimeter until only the Flutter Pony guards hovering overhead could’ve seen them, and then stepped out. For appearances’ sake, Tailblade prodded the Breezie in the rump, forcing her to go a little faster.

The guards, simply seeing one of their own chastise an errant fey, turned back to the speech.

“Poetry,” yelled Dragon Lily, “the creation of the dancing stones, the playing of the panpipes… our tribes rely on the life and strength of these forces no less than we rely on magic. Without them, we would grow sick and old. So tell me, my fellows; how can we best feed and nurture this spirit? By hiding from inspiration? By pretending there’s nothing new? By denying those frontiers that already give us so much to be thankful for?”

Anger flared through Tailblade as she approached the back of the crowd. Nearby, a Viler Spirit broke out of its trance for a moment to peer at her curiously.

Denial, she says. We don’t need another world for that. There’s a Ringfort right there, brimming with art, and no one but the Breezies sees it. If we don’t care for what we have anyway, then getting more isn’t going to help.

Even as she thought it, though, a dribble of guilt pooled under the flames and smothered the base, leaving her cold. Around her, most of the crowd nodded in agreement, though the Charity Ponies folded their front two limbs and continued glaring.

On the podium, Dragon Lily threw a leg up, punching the air. “The longer we stagnate, the sicker our world becomes. This is no longer about denying ourselves a better future, with more joy and more discovery and more potential to help and to be helped. This is about having a future.”

Those pictures in the darkness, thought Tailblade. Old Lightningfish used to talk about the Fey Ponies. There had been tales about the Grey, which of course no one had believed and which she herself used to think of as amusing just-so stories.

But seeing the armour, and the paintings, and the way that old Breezie had spoken about them with the light dancing in his eyes… It reminded her. Of her old excitement, when she’d been but a grub. When she’d first heard another tribe’s tales for the first time, and realized there were other ways of looking and thinking and even of living. When the idea had popped into her head like a disgraceful childhood dream, the idea of being a hero. Not part of a heroic tribe, but of being one hero.

On her back, the larva shifted slightly. Zephyrine nudged her and they both slipped through the crowd.

“Long ago,” continued Dragon Lily, “the Breezies began the tradition of the Forage. They told us the Big World was a dangerous place, even for them. But they had a chance. Their magic would guide them. Their giant allies would guide them. Their learning and instinct and magical talents would guide them. No one else could be trusted with the task of gathering all the ingredients for our world and sanctifying them. Well, I am here to tell you they were wrong!”

They knocked a Brown Foal, who rounded on them, growling. Zephyrine opened her mouth to apologize, but barely had the first Breezie syllable escaped her lips when Tailblade smacked her across the shoulder.

“Clumsy oaf,” she said, ignoring the glare this earned her. To the Brown Foal, she said in a softer voice, “My apologies. I will keep an eye on this fool.”

Grumbling, the creature turned back to hear more of the speech.

They both wiped their brows and stepped forwards. A glance told them that this was the ideal spot: right in the centre of the crowd. To Tailblade’s left, another Flutter Pony yawned and covered his mouth with a clawed leg.

“Get to the good stuff,” he murmured, and he gave a sniff.

Trying to deepen her voice, she whispered, “Relax. It’s just to soften them up for it.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re right. Just wish it didn’t take so long to do.”

She hummed in agreement, and then met Zephyrine’s eye. Her own fear reflected back at her.

“It’s about time we knew the truth!” On her podium, Dragon Lily’s wings flared in outrage. “And how can we do that when the Breezies are too proud and too idle and too stupid to try anything different? It’s time we found out for ourselves! I did not wish to take down the Breezies! I wished to stop arrogant fools from ignoring us and letting us slide to our doom! If they will not talk to us, we cannot talk back! We must show them that we have drive!” She glanced at a headdress on the front row, and continued. “And we have courage, and we do not give in to easy answers and self-interested lies! We must humble ourselves enough to let the truth talk to us, even if we have to venture into the unknown realm to do it!”

Both Tailblade and Zephyrine reached back for their bundles. Zephyrine’s leg was shaking. Tailblade spared one of her own to steady it. The shaking stopped.

I know. These are young lives. But right now, do you trust yourself? Do you trust the others? Do you trust me?

“So let us not cower and hide and look for props to keep us upright, like foolhardy Breezies! Let us stand tall and face the world! Let us walk into the Big World and find out what happens when we are not held back by ignorance. Let us discover the world! Let us express ourselves to it. I will take my punishment as the court sees fit, but let it not be forgotten what that punishment represents, and what I risked it for!”

Both bundles came out. Tailblade sighed. It had been so long since she’d been in a mission like this one. Her active life had ended the day she’d faced Burningrose and risen to the title of “Vox”. Right now, she felt so alive.

A slip and a drop of the fabric, and the pair stepped back and waited. It didn’t take long: seconds later, one of the Chaneques looked down and pointed.

“Breezie!” it garbled in its oddly babyish voice.

Murmurs and mutterings spread out from the middle, and bodies drew back or drifted up and out of range. Gambolling between the legs, Saltshaker and the larva gabbled and giggled and occasionally bounced off someone.

Flutter Ponies rose up in a buzzing wave. The one next to Tailblade almost knocked her back under the turbulence, and she reluctantly patted Zephyrine on the shoulder and flew up too, blending in.

On the podium, she could see Dragon Lily’s body stiffening. Burningrose cracked his leg like a whip.

“Seize it!” he cried out. “It’s a saboteur!”

The guards drifted closer, but she could see the nearest ones exchanging glances. The translator's cry had expected a Breezie launching an attack, but their eyes were seeing a Breezie playing with a larva, and the latter was exuding tons of happiness and excitement. Two pathways collided in their heads. They were hesitant.

“It’s a baby!” she cried out, remembering too late to modulate her voice.

All around, the murmurs and mutterings took on an edge. Ordering an attack on a baby was Just Not Done. There was no way Burningrose could’ve known from that range, and some of the brighter fey had worked out the error and given him sympathetic looks, but they were the exceptions. Most fey acted on impulse.

“We do not attack babies,” said a Nymph, and Tailblade immediately recognized Bromeliad, who was twisting her own locks of hair through sheer nerves.

“Is this how the Flutter Pony tribe operates?” shouted Lady Guardia, towering over their heads effortlessly. “Attacking the young on a whim? You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!”

“Please, please!” Dragon Lily waved a leg airily. “This is simply a misunderstanding! Of course we do not attack young. Burningrose here simply has the safety of the fey foremost on his mind.”

“Then how could he have known it was a saboteur? I heard him say so!”

“Not all the Breezies were captured when we took control of the Fairy Ring. I assure you this was nothing more than a momentary error, easily corrected –”

Smooth as it was, Tailblade smirked at the slight edge to the new Vox’s tone. They’re going to force her into allowing it. And once you allow one Breezie in, the question turns to: What about the others?

“As I was saying!” Dragon Lily snapped her tusks, and the guards settled back down. Tailblade sank into the crowd, apologizing to a Charity Pony she bumped, who graciously stepped aside to allow her some room.

Three… two… one… She craned her head around, peering over her shoulder. The horizon glowed orange, but was disquietingly empty.

“Come on…” she murmured.

“I’m sorry?” A Flutter Pony neighbour faced her.

“With the speech,” she continued hurriedly. “I want to get to the good stuff.”

To her horror, the guard peered closer at her face. “You smell strange. Like Matchstick, but pungent. What’s your name?”

“Don’t you recognize me?” she bluffed, trying not to sweat as she scanned the horizon. Still nothing. They should’ve made a move by now.

“That’s the thing.” A flicker of black: the stinger unsheathed itself from the abdomen. The Flutter Pony curled around and aimed at her face. “I have the funniest feeling I do.”

“A friend?” she ventured, starting to back away.

“No.” The guard crouched low, cracked the joints in its legs. “An enemy…”

For a brief, wonderful moment, she spotted Zephyrine’s face in the crowd and made eye contact. The Breezie nodded, and disappeared.

Seconds later, the Breezie darted forwards, throwing off her moss and the bindweed. Both settled on the face of a Viler Spirit, which giggled at something radical going on in its head and so didn’t notice.

Before even the closest creatures had opened their mouths, Zephyrine gasped as hard as she could and shouted something in her own tongue. It echoed across the clearing and cut through a gap in the Vox’s speech.

With the patient dutifulness of a dullard, one of the translators switched track and shouted: “My baby!”

Once again, the crowd parted, this time accompanied by angry yells and frightened screams. Several flashes indicated where the Nymphs switched to pebbles and flowers and pieces of bark. Chaneques threw stones up in the air, and Brown Foals ducked and ploughed through the crowds, knocking over anyone too slow to dodge or sidestep their charging bodies.

“A Breezie!” shouted one of the Enchanters. “It’s one of those saboteurs!”

The guard, distracted, turned away from Tailblade. She zipped around it and quickly lost herself to the crowd, jumped over a passing Brown Foal, and almost nicked herself on the spear of an Alux.

Burningrose glanced up, but this time the Vox wasn’t interested.

Instead, Dragon Lily yelled, “Guards! Arrest the intruder!”

“It’s the baby’s mother!” Tailblade shouted. She ducked under a floating One and cupped her front legs to her mouth. This time, she deepened her voice and shouted: “Yeah! It’s a mother!”

“A mother?”

“What’s she doing way out here?”

“The Breezies might be pulling a trick.”

“What? Just the one?”

“Look, she’s picking up that baby!”

Tailblade didn’t try and look; she’d seen enough to catch the shine of Zephyrine’s eyes. Those tears weren’t entirely fake.

At least I have the other Flutter Ponies to keep an eye on the little larva, she thought, and the guilt bit into her. Carefully, she ducked under another hovering guard, who dropped back down without waiting for an order, or even for the chatter to die down.

“Why,” said Lady Guardia, and even at this distance and over this noise, her voice was clear as a bell, “are we only hearing the Flutter Pony side of the story, anyway? Why shouldn’t we have Breezies here? Don’t the Breezies have a say?”

This was met with grumblings. Shamefully, a part of Tailblade didn’t blame them. Breezies had avoided sullying themselves with the court for a long time. No one shy of a generous Charity Pony was about to hand them a free pass.

“The Breezies waived their right to a say on the court the moment they stopped attending to it!” said Dragon Lily, and instantly the crowd broke out into squabbles.

“That was never actually official.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean we should snub them back.”

“Oh, shouldn't we? Is that a fact?”

“Maybe there’s more to this. Maybe they had a point.”

“But she’s a mother –”

“Order! Order, please!” Dragon Lily flared her wings, but she was losing to the roar of sound. She might as well have shouted at crashing waves on a beach.

Tailblade jumped up and joined the hovering guards in their circle. All of them watched as Zephyrine stood, alone and defiant, in the middle of a ring with her baby in her limbs, clutching it as though it were a lifebelt. Beside her, the larva was headbutting any part it could reach, and more larvae and wingless Flutter Ponies crawled or slithered into the gap, sniffing and clicking their tusks. After all, one of their own was radiating pleasure, and the smell was the nasal equivalent of a beacon.

Finally, on the horizon, a pair of silhouettes gleamed against the orange light.

Three… two… one… Tailblade turned back to the crowd, deepened her voice, and screamed as loudly and theatrically as she dared. All eyes fell upon her. At once, she pointed.

Now the crowd erupted. Noise and flashes and the crisscrossing of bodies fighting to get in each other’s way blinded her and struck her senses until she almost fell.

The figures stood to attention, one dressed in gleaming white armour, the other dressed in black. One of them waved cheerfully.

The Fey Ponies.

No one would dare put on such armour. It was what the plan hinged on. Fortunately, this mental block was fully at work, by the sounds of things. She could hear them whispering below her.

“The Fey Ponies! Light and Dark!”

“They’re here! They’re watching us!”

“It’s a judgement! It’s a sign! The Fey Ponies are furious! We’ve disturbed their enchanted ground!”

“Nonsense! It’s their, uh, their endorsement, of course!” tried one of the Enchanters, and he cringed as the others began to shout him down.

“Endorsement? You mean like last time this happened? Against all our knowledge and wisdom of what this means?”

“Now who's speaking nonsense!?”

Unfortunately, Dragon Lily was quicker off the mark. Her leg pointed like an arrow.

“Guards! Investigate!” She turned back to the crowd as the droning disappeared. “My fellow fey! There is no cause for alarm!”

“No cause!?” roared the Empress of Alux. “Do you realize what entities, what power, has been summoned here tonight? You can see for yourself! The starlit gleam of the white, the light-eating power of the black, is known to all of us. None would dare to move the cursed armour. This is outrageous!”

Now there was sweat glistening on Dragon Lily’s brow. Aha, thought Tailblade. She’s one of your strongest supporters, isn’t she? If you lose her, you slowly lose everything –

“Perhaps it’s an enchantment,” lied another one of the Enchanters, but he was fooling nobody. Every species knew about the armour of the Fey Ponies. Even to attempt a magical copy was to court an early death. More of the fey were sinking into a sullen silence. Down below, Zephyrine merged with the rest of the crowd, half-buried under a dogpile of young Flutter Ponies, and forgotten by even the neighbouring fey.

And then, right into Tailblade’s ear, one of the guards murmured, “Hello, Vox.”

She barely had time for shock when the ball of stripes and legs crunched into her. Dozens of Flutter Ponies swarmed her and filled her vision.

Every guard knew the hot ball trick. She’d passed it on herself from Old Lightningfish. Stifling heat rushed into her. Dozens of wings beat and bodies shook and, bit by bit, her outsides cooked, and just when it crossed a threshold and she opened her mouth to scream, the ball broke away and the guards scattered.

Tailblade fell, and someone’s clawed legs snagged under her forelimbs. Her body radiated heat. Every bit felt sore and shaken. No muscles responded, in spite of the frantic signals coming from the back of her mind.

Dimly, she was aware of voices and of the air flowing past her. Struggling, her eyes opened wider. Dragon Lily’s sneering grin greeted her. Then, she was turned around to face the rest of the fey.

“Behold the renegade!” Dragon Lily shouted, and a few faces turned away from the distant silhouettes to refocus. “My predecessor kept us mired for years and years, plodding through the same unthinking tedium…”

Tailblade forced herself to straighten up, but the heat fought back and she slumped again in the stranger’s grip. Once more, she felt a larva-like desire to curl up somewhere and hide. Eventually, Dragon Lily switched tracks, and new life entered the new Vox's voice.

“We Flutter Ponies,” she began, “are united under a single identity. We wish to go through the Ring Portal together, with you all! But this whelp? She represents the dark extreme on the other side, the one who wants the glory and the pleasures all to herself. In her own way, she is worse than the Breezies!”

It was as if she had no wings, no armour, not even any legs. Tailblade simply dangled, still not entirely sure she was herself, and winced under each blow. The distant figures closed in around the Fey Pony armour, which turned each head up to watch them. From the depths of her despair, a hope rose up that the last two Breezies would make it out in one piece.

“She is, in short, a snob, a charge that has been levelled against my kind and which I now level against Breeziedom!”

The distant figures of the investigating guards hovered around the armour, obstructing her view of the same. Feebly, she forced her mouth to open, but the word lodged in her throat. Snob?

At the back of her mind, the ghost of Old Lightningfish shook its head at her. She glanced down to Burningrose, but his wings flushed red with embarrassment, and he had his back turned to her… or to Dragon Lily. They were both behind him now. In either case, he was not translating with the gestures and firm voice he’d been using some time ago.

In the crowd, though, Zephyrine’s face stood out, a drop of water on barren ground. Perhaps the Breezie knew what she really was. That wide-eyed, focused look could have meant anything, though.

At the front, the Viler Spirit ambassador – she recognized her as “Jelly Salve Jar”, or something similar – woke with a snort and struggled to raise a hoof. Initially, Dragon Lily droned on and over her, but soon the other fey were noticing and raising their own forelegs.

One of the distant investigators flung itself around and began growing; she knew the guard must be hurrying back.

“Yes?” said Dragon Lily, finally unable to ignore the raised limbs any longer.

“I think…” murmured Jelly Salve Jar, focusing blearily on Tailblade, “the old Vox wants to say something.”

“Yes,” Tailblade said, cutting across Dragon Lily. “I’d like to speak too.”

A flurry of interest rushed through the crowd. Coughing slightly, and ignoring the drone of the Flutter Pony holding her up, she glanced across at the stiffly inattentive Burningrose, and parted her lips.

“I think I understand where my friend is coming from,” she said, and paused to take a deep breath. “It is true. Everything about me. Listening to Dragon Lily, I realize now that I am not fit to be a Vox. I came here to sneak through the portal, for no better reason than to be the first to do so. I abandoned my hive for nothing more than a selfish, personal glory, and those who act for themselves bring shame upon themselves.”

Dragon Lily smirked and nodded graciously. A rush of venom coursed through Tailblade’s head, and she slapped away the clawed legs holding her up. With a smack, her clawed feet hit the ground next to the podium.

“I am no friend of the Breezies,” she continued. Before her, the translators gabbled on, and glancing over the crowd, she thought the face of Zephyrine appeared through the mass of ears and eyes and mouths. “And it is true about them too. They are cowardly and have held us back. That is why I was so determined to defy them.”

And that’s why both my hive and me are wrong. We never tried talking to them because we didn’t think they’d listen. We didn’t think they’d changed too. WE were just as guilty of being snobs as they were.

Tailblade thought she saw, at the back of her mind, Old Lightningfish nod with approval. Certainly, in the crowd, the Flutter Pony supporters were fighting their way through to get to her. Old Lightningfish always said that was a sign that she was doing something right.

“That’s why I’d like us to try again. Let us talk to the Breezies. I saw one play Hive Versus Hive with a Flutter Pony, and” – Forfeit, she thought insistently – “play in a way I never thought possible. Think in a way I never thought possible. They have the capacity to change. They are individuals, and yet part of a group too. They deserve to have their say. Whatever our grievances against them, they are fey, just like us. Maybe they have seen the error of their ways, as I have done.”

There were murmurings in the crowd, but at least some of the faces were twisted in contemplation. Angry faces turned to the nearest Flutter Pony guards, who blinked in surprise and stared up at her pleadingly.

She looked up in time to see the approaching investigator zoom up and whisper something to Dragon Lily. The Vox’s face turned white.

“What do you mean there’s no one inside them?” she said, and realized too late how loud her voice was.

Stunned silence fell across the clearing as several worst fears were confirmed. Wide eyes focused. Then, with typical bad timing, a Chaneque chose that moment to throw a stone.

---