Hive Versus Hive

by Impossible Numbers

Guardians of the Gate

In the still air, Seabreeze winced and forced himself not to shiver. He could almost feel the tendrils of magic crackling behind him, and imagine the pink sparks scraping through the air towards his flowing mane.

It hadn’t been a good game. His mind was in another world, and his heart had been somewhere around his hooves. In any case, Zephyrine was no pushover.

To his surprise, he didn’t care. Hive Versus Hive was just a silly way to pass the time.

Overhead, the sky was midnight blue. In the Big World, it would’ve had a bulbous moon casting a silver sheen over everything, and it would’ve made him feel like he was being watched. Here, there were reassuring pinks and purples where the nebulae shined with stars. No moons on this side of the world divide.

Only the silhouettes of the toadstools and the palace broke the shining sky. Below, the pond reflected the stars as perfectly as a mirror, in spite of the inches-tall waterfall trickling into the small ripples of one end.

His mouth felt sticky. Seabreeze scanned the village again, and he caught sight of Saltshaker’s bedroom window, the glass gleaming slightly under the starlight. It was going to be his son’s first World Harvest.

A growl cut into his concentration. He patted his stomach and fished out a few grains of pollen from the basket by his hip. They were a bit crunchy, but he could feel the tingle of magic on his tongue, and when he swallowed, his insides fizzed and bubbled. From his tail to his head, he shivered with delight.

Something dark flitted across the purple. Above and below him, the other Breezies chattered and pointed. Why did they not just check?

“Nothing to be afraid of,” he said, squinting. “It is only a ladybug.”

Beside him, a flame flickered into life and the orange-tinged glare of Jingo Belle emerged from the darkness. “It could’ve been a Metal Beetle,” she said, pupils darting back and forth. “There was one up here last year. It was around this time too!”

“Do not waste the fire!” hissed Seabreeze. “We barely gathered enough from the Badlands. Make it last. And I know my ladybugs from my Metal Beetles, thank you.”

Jingo Belle shot a glare at him, but she did put the flame out. Seabreeze returned the glare, safe in the knowledge that the returning darkness obscured it, and then he turned back. He would never forget all the times Jingo Belle’s shrieking had scattered swarm after swarm. At least the Breezie had been banned from any more Forages; a swarm scattering out in the Big World was committing suicide.

They didn’t need light, anyway. Seabreeze concentrated, and his sensitive face and twitching antennae filled in the world around him as though it were under sunlight.

Dozens of Breezies hovered all around him; he could feel the slight curls through the air as they disturbed it just by being there. Cheeps and chirps slid easily through his mind while it scanned each note as clearly as if it were a solo among silence. Scents and perfumes that would pass by a bigger nose bumped and punched and caressed and tapped his smaller one. All his other senses were sucking in the world around him, taking it apart, and gorging on it. Nothing would escape his attention.

Zephyrine should be going to sleep soon, he thought. I wish I was too. I hate being stuck out here in the cold. Not that I am going to tell her that.

As though waiting for that thought, the door to his own toadstool house creaked open and he saw her slip an upturned thimble outside. A blush went to his blue cheeks. She was putting out the milk again. Or rather, she was performing the Putting Out Of The Milk. The way she went about it, it earned the capital letters.

Part of him really, really wanted to argue with her again for old times’ sake, but another and much louder part of him gave the first one a clip round the ear. So what if he thought it was a ritual past its prime? It made her happy, did it not? And if she wanted to hang little wooden horseshoes around the house, that was her business.

Besides, it used to mean something once. Across the years, he could still hear the stories his mother and father used to tell him, usually in a doomed effort to make him go to sleep. Breezies used to live in the Big World once, they said. Not like ponies did, out and about and proud and unafraid, but in the corners and under the floorboards where they would be safe. The Breezies used to make the horseshoes for the ponies, since their small hooves could work into even the tiniest scratch or around the finest nail, and in return the ponies fed them with milk.

Seabreeze never found out why, ask though he did. In his older years, he assumed the two species had struck a bargain at some point. It wasn’t like Breezies were totally helpless, and ponies did have soft hearts.

No, stop drifting off! The nagging voice was back. Pay attention, you no-good daydreamer, before you embarrass yourself! It is not as if it could be true, anyway. Breezies cannot touch horseshoes. They are made of iron, stupid.

For some reason, iron made the antennae go crazy. He’d once met a griffon with an iron talon to replace her real one, which had been lost in a fight. Seabreeze and Zephyrine had gathered so much water from the spring that day that his balloons had almost burst. At one point, he’d drifted out of the breeze he was supposed to be following, and the griffon had caught him and accidentally brushed him with the iron talon.

Seabreeze felt his mouth go dry, and he wiped his forehead. It had taken hours before he’d stopped seeing everything and nothing at once. That was years ago, before the Big World types had made things safer, but in the present moment his memory suddenly turned away with a shiver.

Focus! His thoughts hit him until he straightened up. These jokers might miss something.

The slam of his own front door almost covered up the squelch.

Someone must have stepped on one of the moss patches, but he couldn’t sense anything else. No strange scents, no slight movement under the glowing nebulae, no further noises.

Do not start losing it. He shook his head and glowered at the nearest toadstools. It is going to be a boring night. It always is. If fools like Jingo Belle should not squeal at shadows, then YOU of all Breezies should NEVER squeal at shadows.

Another squelch broke through his mind. Seabreeze lit his antennae up instantly; if nothing else, it might scare away a creeping insect. Others around him lit up too. Squeaky voices groaned and whispered to each other.

“Go away!” he yelled out, while in his chest his heart threatened to pop through sheer terror. “We are the Guardians of the World Portal! No one else is allowed here!”

Seabreeze waited. When no one else moved, he growled and drifted forwards, feeling the tendrils of magic drop away from his back. The slice of sky that was the reflective pond passed below him. Both his ears were stiff like thorns.

Maybe it is just a Bull Roach, he thought desperately as the glittering moss patch began filling his view. Maybe it is only a bug looking for green things to munch. Maybe it is friendly.

The unseen creature buzzed.

Intruding insects always had a tell-tale buzz. Flies were sharp and short. Damselflies made a sound that was like being patted gently on the ear. Honeybees droned from all angles and seemed loud even yards away. This one didn’t bother with many acoustics, but was simply a bolt of shock and fear that struck through the head and stabbed into the spine. Seabreeze knew that sound.

He yelped as the silhouette darted out at him. Six clawed feet jabbed into his chest, sending him spinning backwards. Sky, darkness, pond, darkness, sky… as he tumbled over, he saw the silhouette zip over and imprint itself on his mind like a kick.

“Wasp!” he yelled, legs writhing in an attempt to stop the spinning. “Wasp!”

The swarm closed in, or rather drifted in – under each one’s light, their faces seemed to be trying to back away from the shadow – and as one of the antennae passed, he spotted his mistake at once. Not a wasp; wasps didn’t have irises or pupils, and they didn’t have snouts and jaws with bared teeth, and they didn’t have manes like ribbons slicing through the air.

The nearest Breezie squeaked. Both of his antennae snapped together as though suddenly bound. A second later, the poor victim swung through the air, batting away a whole row of his fellows before being flung after them.

Above all, wasps didn’t have tusks. These ones were mobile; they flexed and snipped as effectively as pincers. Every Breezie backed off an inch.

Seabreeze groaned. He was going to have to play hero again. Why was it always up to him? Those cowards and dummies could’ve mobbed the Flutter Pony by now.

He saw its gaze snap to the pink rim of the portal.

“Oh no! Quickly!” he shouted, and his four legs braced for a scuttle and a leap. “Grab its legs! Quickly!”

The wall of Breezies became a hemisphere. One or two obediently snatched at its legs, but the Flutter Pony shot out of reach. The shudder went through the ranks. Any second now, the thing would bypass the lot and head straight for the Big World.

Seabreeze shrieked through the air and tackled it. He didn’t dare open his eyes. Under his grip, it thrashed and flexed its limbs so vigorously he could feel the counter-flex through its body. Its skin crackled as joints moved against chitinous armour. Then, it bucked and threw him over its shoulder.

Never attack one from the front, he remembered. That was where they could get you.

And then he heard the one sound he’d been dreading all along, the one that he’d only been told about as a yearling and which had still seen him struggle to go to sleep every other night. He could even feel the creature’s abdomen quake with the effort. The sound went: shhhhhrrrrrrck.

The creature whirled him round and he opened his eyes in time to see the stinger thrust at his face.

Sheer terror propelled him through the dive. Everything went to the left, and the turbulence bumped against his neck. It had been millimetres.

Then the Breezies piled on top, and the writhing creature was lost to an avalanche of colours and gossamer. Seabreeze could still hear it buzzing and see the lower Breezies shuddering with the effort of holding it, and then both stopped at once.

He was standing on the edge of the pond, and the pile of Breezies grumbled and babbled and squealed between him and the pink circle of the portal. His frantic heart began to settle. His wide eyes narrowed.

You nasty little creepy-crawly! How dare you try to scare the daylights out of me!

Try? said the hectoring voice in his head.

---

Comments

[Kitcat36]

I want to really like this story, but I'm getting quite confused by now. Last chapter some points were unclear--I'd have to go back and skim through it to list them, sadly, since my memory is lousy--but I hoped they'd be cleared up by now; instead I'm only getting more confused. SeaBreeze is clearly on the Breezie side of the portal--he's observing the Breezie sky which he prefers--but something is coming and they're still in that world and trying to stop the something from getting through the portal. Why on earth? I can't tell if he's right at the portal, away from it, in the air above the middle of the Breezie-side pond and watching from there, or what. I'm hoping you answer things like "what are flutter ponies" and "why do they need to be stopped from going through the portal" in the next chapter, because right now I'm quite, quite lost.