Honeybee | Wanda Maximoff {AU}

Chapter Six: Nearctica

Music is "Magic" by Sia.

Picture is Claudia Doumit as Sarai.

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Apis Nearctica

Now an extinct species of honeybee, Apis Nearctica existed in what is now the United States during the middle Miocene period. It is the first fossil honeybee described from the New World.

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Chapter Six: Nearctica

No, no, no. This can't be happening. I can't be hearing a fucking bee. They can't talk. They're bees. What the hell is going on?

"Do not be afraid, Your Majesty!" the little worker bee chimes. "I am not here to hurt you, Your Majesty."

My chest heaves up and down with my labored breath. I turn slowly to look at the bee on my shoulder. It's tiny, but even a tiny bee can be deadly to someone as allergic as I am. I've never been stung before, and I don't intend for the first time to be today.

"To bees, you are not allergic, Your Majesty," the honeybee replies to my hurried thoughts. "The opposite is true! You are our Queen!" The bee buzzes excitedly. "That I found you, I can not believe, Your Majesty! We bees have been looking for you for a very long time. I was the one to find you, I can not believe it!"

I shake my head and pull myself to my feet. They start moving towards the dorm, but I still feel the bee on my shoulder. I pick up the pace and run through the corridors and up the stairs. I'm definitely going crazy. Bees don't speak. I'm not their Queen. I'm just an orphaned girl without her parents or adoptive father-figure. I'm a student at a shitty school in a shitty city, just trying to start her life over again for the third time.

I'm no one, especially not a Queen.

"But...you...are!" the bee exclaims as she holds on to the collar of my jacket. "You are our Queen, just like your grandest mother before you."

I brush past a couple other students in the hallway and find my way to my dorm. Once inside, I hear the bee buzz and fly around to face me. Her wings move faster than I can see, and she hovers a foot from my face. I back against the door and shake my head. My mother's mother was a seamstress, and my father's mother died before I was born. I never knew her.

"Your father's mother was a keeper of bees," the honeybee responds. "She was very kind to us bees, even as our Queen."

My mind goes crazy with internal dialogue. How can this bee hear what I'm thinking? I haven't said a word aloud, not one.

"I can hear your thoughts, Your Majesty. It is one of the many gifts you carry as our Queen."

"Stop calling me that," I think, as if I'd said it out in the open.

"But this is your title!" The bee stumbles in the air, wings faltering for a moment. "I am sorry, Your Majesty. A long way have I flown to find you. I must...I must..."

The bee stops flying for a moment longer than the last, and I catch her in my hands before she falls to the ground. She coughs softly, and I instantly go into caregiver mode. I move her over to the moss bed Wanda keeps on the windowsill. After placing the honeybee there, I grab the sugar next to our coffee pot and half-cup of water. I quickly make a sugary syrup, scoop a spoonful onto a bottle cap, and bring it over to the bee.

"Here," I think, hoping she can still hear my thoughts. "Sugar water will give you your energy back."

The bee crawls over to the bottle cap and begins to drink from it. For a few minutes, the room is silent as she regains her strength. When she finishes, she steps back from the cap but still remains on the moss bed.