A City Abuzz

by **Ambrosia Alar** on August 24th, 2017, 2:16 am

A City Abuzz

89th of Summer, 517 AV

Ambrosia didn’t like it. Ever since she had left her house, the air had been alive with some foreign hum that she had never heard before. So subtle that it lay just in one’s notice but never identifiable, the hum seemed to permeate everything while coming from nowhere. Or everywhere. Ambrosia couldn’t tell which, and that made it all the more disconcerting. The sound was so disembodied and so omnipresent that Ambrosia wasn’t certain if it was coming from somewhere else at all or if it was coming from somewhere within her. She didn’t like it, but the noise wasn’t the worst part.

The worst, most terrifying thing about it, the part that made it most ominous, was the fact that the streets were empty. Ever since she stepped through the front door of her home, the air had been void of all the usual noises- the bustle of activity, the chatter of people, the creak of carts in the streets. There was nothing subtle about the silence, the absence of almost everything. The nothingness was pervasive. All encompassing.

Ambrosia wanted company. She wanted someone to break this eerie monotony. Anyone would do. She was actually on her way to the Stallion’s Rear for work, but the streets weren’t being kind. Usually they led her wherever she needed to go with little detouring. Usually. Ionu or Alvadas or whoever, whatever, was in charge was in a funny mood. If she got to where she was heading, she could shake this haunting feeling of- She wasn’t sure what of. It was difficult to put into words. Of what? Of…

Loneliness.

Ambrosia hadn’t realized how much she needed people until she didn’t have them. The oddest part was that they didn’t even have to be interacting with her. All she needed from them was their presence. What she wouldn’t have given for a friend right then.

A different buzz began, and this one had a direction. It was somewhere off to her left, but when she turned, it was to her left again. Three more times, she searched for the source of the new noise and found herself facing in the same direction and with no more answers than she had started with. Calming her fraying nerves, she waited for the buzz to come again. Once more, the new hum came, but this time, her pocket vibrated when it did.

Reaching into her pocket, she felt the prickling sensation of insect legs crawling on to her finger. When she pulled out the hand, she saw a familiar black and yellow body. “You cheeky, little-”

Holding the small creature close up to her face, she was certain it was the one she had saved several times from drowning in a cup of wine nearly half the season ago. His drunken stumble was familiar enough and said he was still nursing a little something from last night.

“How long have you been getting drunk for free?”

The little bee buzzed his wings contentedly, took one step forward, and fell on to his side, tumbling down into her palm.

by **Ambrosia Alar** on November 26th, 2017, 4:08 am

“Well, aren’t you just the most useless thing ever?” Curling her fingers around him to keep him from falling out of her grasp, she sighed and tried to make her way to the Rear. “Come on. Let’s get you somewhere you can get properly smashed.”

The creature in her hand buzzed angrily until she opened her hand. When she did, she could swear the little bee was glaring at her.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she defended herself loudly, before realizing she was talking to a bee. She dropped her voice before going on. “I meant smashed as in drunk.”

Buzzing its wings contentedly once more, the bee tipped back over on to its side. Once more, Ambrosia curled a loose fist around him to keep him safe. Usually, the path to work was practically laid out for her, but today, it wasn’t just the hum that was odd. The illusions themselves seemed foreign, like they belonged to a city that wasn’t Alvadas. Nothing led to where it was supposed to. Already, she had followed a rolling keg of beer down one road halfway across the city, only to have it move a street over and head in the opposite direction. Beer suds began to fizz up out of chimneys a little way down the road, and Ambrosia followed that obvious illusion. Twenty chimes later, she was still walking, and the familiar murmur of the inhabitants of the Rear couldn’t be heard.

One thing could be heard though. That hum. And it had changed. While it still came from everywhere, it was growing from a certain direction, from behind her. That alone was disconcerting enough, but she found it to be even more so that it followed her when the illusions began to lead her down a different road. As she traveled another few chimes, the hum became more distinct which, in the back of her mind, Ambrosia knew meant it was getting closer. The nearer it came, the more the hum changed. First, it became a buzz, and then, individual clicks could be heard.

As curious as Ambrosia always was, this was one mystery she didn’t want an answer to. Still, she turned to face the noise, and what she found confused her at first. A cloud was building and darkening in the sky, but it didn’t move with the breeze. When she finally realized what it was, she tensed, and the bee in her fist began to buzz incessantly. Insects. The cloud coming toward her was made of insects, and it seemed to have taken a particular interest in her.

Turning to the nearest door, she pounded on it with her empty fist. “Let me in.”

Her shouts went unheard or ignored; she couldn’t tell which with the silence that responded. There was no shifting beyond it. As quickly as she could, Ambrosia tried the next three doors, all with the same result. Nothing. No one answered her plea for help. The cloud moved with astonishing speed, and it was getting too close for comfort.

Abandoning any hope that may have lied beyond those doorways, Ambrosia’s feet hit the street running. Most days, she had no cause to run, every day, in fact. She had the will to run and the will to survive, but her body didn’t have the strength or the know-how. Not even twenty houses down the road, her lungs began to burn. Her legs, which had already felt clumsy under her before, felt suddenly burdened, as if she was wading through water. Another four times that distance, and the muscles in her legs began to burn, too. Still, she didn’t stop. Ambrosia fought through the burn and kept on, but when she looked behind her, she saw all her running had been for nothing. Clicking, buzzing, and humming, the cloud was almost upon her, and Ambrosia could pick out individual insects among the mass.

Knowing she wasn’t going to outrun them, she ran into a sheltered doorway, thinking she might somehow be able to defend herself if the swarm only came at her from one direction. In her hand, the bee buzzed angrily again, trying to escape.

Holding her hand to her face, Ambrosia hissed at him. “If I let you go, they’ll kill you.”

Pain, sharp and sudden and fierce like the cut of broken glass, shot across her palm.

“Shit.” She opened her hand and sucked at the stinger in the center of her hand.

Drifting lazily toward the swarm, the little bee in its stupor seemed to forget where it was going and turned back toward Ambrosia. One of the front flyers of the swarm sped its way toward Ambrosia, but at the last moment, the bee darted into its path. Chitin struck chitin with a crack that could be heard above the general hubbub of the cloud, and the insect fell to the ground in front of Ambrosia, its head half-dissevered. Just to be certain, Ambrosia crushed the insect with palm of her good hand.

The little bee floated between her and the swarm, listing like the drunk he was.

WC=851

by **Ambrosia Alar** on February 5th, 2018, 4:59 am

Buzzing and humming, the cloud hovered, looking for an opening to get around the little, illusory bee. The insects seemed to act as one cloud that sent out little projections of itself to test Ambrosia’s wicked protector. The bee, for its part, only moved when necessary. Perhaps it was the fact that the little bee was an illusion and that everything about him was a falsity, but he never once fell for any motion that was nothing but a feint. Whenever the swarm sent an actual attack, the bee darted into its path, and multiple dead insects fell to the ground.

Ambrosia was beginning to feel safe behind the seemingly unsurpassable, one-bee wall, but as she watched, she began to see the methods of the swarm change. A disturbing thought burgeoned. The swarm had a mind to it. There was no individual within the cloud. There was just a single hive mind with a singular purpose, and that was to feed on Ambrosia. And the mind was at work. She could watch it work. Each test of her protector came with more purpose; each motion, more cunning. A moment before it came, Ambrosia saw it.

The swarm had finally realized that her little bee could only be in a single place at one. Placing her back to the door, she readied herself for what she knew was coming. In a burst that showed the genius behind its simplicity, the cloud erupted into three separate streams that flooded toward her at once. Brave and determined, the black and yellow critter flew with a speed not usually afforded to his species, holding two of the groups narrowly at bay, but the last group charged her unimpeded. Flailing arms met the cloud, sending insects tumbling either with the force of the blow of her hands or the currents her motions created, but not every insect was affected. Some made it past her haphazard swipes and landed on her. The smaller ones crawled across her clothes in search of bare skin to feast on while the larger ones just bit through whatever was in their way until they drew blood.

Whenever she felt the sharp sting of their chitinous jaws on her skin, Ambrosia brought the flat of her hand smashing down wherever she had been bit. First, it was the back of her neck, and when her hand smacked her neck, it almost hurt worse than the bite. A moment later, it was arm, and she had to smack with the opposite hand. Every slap seemed futile as a moment later another bite sent a sharp shot of pain up elsewhere. In ticks, her hands were covered in the guts of little insects while her arms and neck and other parts of her body were smattered with pinprick bites. The encounter lasted less than half a chime. Then, the bee was back in the midst of the swarm around Ambrosia, illusion colliding with reality to drive its stinger into them. In another few ticks, the swarm dispersed diminished to go find easier prey.

Muscles shaking from the adrenaline that coursed through her, Ambrosia took stock of herself. She was alive, and none of the bites were bad, though most of them had drawn a little blood. Little dots of scarlet were spread across her arms. Her bee buzzed over and lit on the open palm she offered him.

“Thanks, little love.”

Buzzing, the bee tipped on to its side again. Peering as closely as she could at the little creature’s exoskeleton, she scanned it for any signs of injury and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw none. When the bee went motionless, Ambrosia shook her hand until he stirred. It looked like the insect was glaring at her.

“Sorry. Just making sure you were still alive.” She smiled and closed her hand around him before putting him in her pocket. “You deserve a drink on me.”

A buzz from her pocket said he agreed. The hum in the air was quieter now.