“Oh no you don’t!” the Interim Keeper snaps spotting the recycled chianti bottle she’s pushed across the counter. Its basketed bottom is repaired with a wildflower chain she’d collected and woven herself. She is not fucking around.

“It’s premium stuff and there’s more where it came from. Please may I have an audience with the Queen?”

They rolled their eyes. She pulls a jar from her bag and the faint hum filling the flower shop crescendos.

“Is that …?”

“Yep. Also homemade like the sugar syrup. Pure. None of that hydrogenated oil stuff,” she says quickly spinning the lid off to a wave of buzzing excitement. “Only the finest pourable fondant.” She quickly twists it back tight fearing a swarm.

“Her Majesty will see you.”

Following the Keeper through the stock room of empty vases out the back door to the courtyard greenhouse, she holds the bag of gifts, careful not to crack them together and incite a riot from the inverted shadow following above.

The hive is one of the oldest things in the city. Florist Row was built to protect it during the earliest of city planning efforts; the Keepers embedded even before the city was a farm.

She’d asked the Interim Keeper how long they’d been in the position once. “I’ve never not been but this is the first time in many skeps I’ve been engaged in small talk,” they’d said explaining nothing while also everything. This revelation had kept her sleepless until she hired a cricket consort.

Today the hive is rivaled in size only by the underground Mischief. The visible portion draped in a lace of honeysuckle is protected by the glass of its formal receiving area. The combs and various residential and utility cells of their community continue through the neighboring walls filling the entirety of the row save the shops that provide a front for this hidden kingdom, managed by apprentice Keepers.

At the heart of the block-sized bole, she greets the Queen with a bow. The Interim Keeper apologizes for the intrusion on her behalf as she cannot dance the language of bees.

“Majesty, thank you for seeing me. I’ve come to ask if you might consider ending the collection early this year as part of a relief effort for the wider community in these exceedingly hot days.” She paused and the Interim Keeper circled her clockwise one more time, ending with a quick vibration and a sharp head-cock.

“As you know, many outside the hive cannot regulate their temperatures with such skill, especially the very young. The South Colony and the Western Pack are both mourning the deaths of several litters. The washer bears and night beasts, thorn pigs and I’d suspect the same is true for the Scurry too. And I’m sure you’ve gotten reports the wilds are rustling prematurely.”

She waited for the Interim Keeper’s arms to extend, quivering upward before continuing. “With your support—by ending the pollen rituals earlier, even by a week—I am sure we can calm the Sun.”

When the Keeper stops circling and returns their clasped hands to their heart, they begin to translate the Queen’s rapid wing beats. “The combs are softening and the nectar grows scarce in the wilds beyond the gardens. We share the sadness of our neighbors and can end the collection by the New Moon. Tuor’s student, I ask you a favor of equal importance to the hive.”

Queen and Keeper begin to talk around her, in steps too fast-paced to follow. “Can you spot a mouse when you see one?” they ask mid wide-sweeping movements.

“Are you worried you’ve got mice, Majesty? Here in the castle?”

The Keeper stops sharp, snapping, “That is not the concern. Could you courier to an elder mouse?”

“Aye, this student of Tuor can track even an elder mouse, and I would greatly like to continue improving my relations with them. In deep appreciation for your accepting my request, I will unburden you of this difficult delivery. May I enlist a strategic hand, or is the matter confidential?”

“Her Majesty cautions it is sensitive but trusts your judgment as one granted Tuor’s confidence.”

She bows deeply, the black tips of her banded hair falling forward brushing the stone pavers, before following the Interim Keeper into the storeroom for instructions, leaving the frenzy of the poured syrup behind.