The Sting of Living

Mist hung over the village of Athgreany in the far distance, muffling the sound of the waking morn. The town's people would soon be up and about but Agatha had already been awake for hours, hard at work alongside her grandmother, to whom she was apprenticed.

She breached the top of the hill with a breath of content exertion and set about to find what her grandmother had requested, a small pail of honey and comb for one of her many, ' elixirs of health' she would offer any villager desperate enough to seek them out. She passed the dancing stones, placed upon those grounds by the druids and shaman of the old folk. Her kind had existed upon the hills overlooking the village for centuries. Once seen as protectors, they were now outcasts, believed to be witches merely because they had survived every plague, famine, and calamity which had befallen the town, none thinking their survival was due to the great distance from the village and the plants on which they supped. 

As Agatha approached the hive skeps she could hear the active buzzing of the bees. She only needed a fist full of comb and honey at most, but she also knew these bees, they had a wild spirit as any fiery Irish lass, as much fight as a warrior. They would require appeasement, pacification.

She reached into the folds of her hooded shawl, pulling out an herbal bundle of white sage, rosemary, lavender, course tobacco, and pine before lighting a chunk of peat she also carried, safe from the moisture of the morn. The peat flared after a few moments of her striking at it and during this time, the bees had already been made aware of her presence, dancing in anxious circles all across the skeps.

"Easy, little ones. You are virtuous in your fealty to your queen, but I am no threat," Agatha whispered, pulling the hood over her head as she approached, a waxed canvas mask of her own making offering both protection for her, and familiarity with the insects she was charged with keeping. She swung the herbal bundle like the incense which threatened to smoke out demons and patrons alike every sabbath morn in the village church below. She commended those faithful folke who stayed through that.

The bees continued their busy dancing as Agatha pushed her way through the tall, dew-laden grass, dampening and weighing down the woolen skirt of her long, brown dress. The bees' dance became more erratic the closer she approached and by the time she was upon them, the bees had fallen into a stupor. Smiling under her mask, she tilted the basket and pushed the herbs underneath, allowing the sweet smoke to fill the hive and give the industrious insects a brief period of indolence. When they were pacified to the point where she could brush a finger lightly over the hundreds of fuzzy backs, she urged the drowsy bees away from the corner of comb she intended to cut, the same corner as last month which had since been filled in. She cut the comb away and dropped it into the pail she brought with her before taking a moment to savor the fruits of her labor, licking the life's work of her dear bees off of her fingers. A single bee escaped the smoke and landed, drunkenly, upon her hand. It tottered along in little, half-hearted circles before stopping to lap away some of its honey and return it to the hive.

The sun finally made its presence felt after many teasing hours of deep blue light, but no warmth to be felt in the approaching mid-autumn. The rays lighting upon a massive orb web covered in dew droplets which burst into fragmented points of reflections and rainbows. After snuffing the herbs and replacing the lid to the skep, she set herself on a protruding rock to marvel at its simple beauty for a moment. The rainbow of the web was broken harshly by none other than one of her bees, wavering in its flight from the hive, crashing and becoming entangled in the sticky, silken fibers of the spider's creation. The spider leaped into action, racing expertly along its lines having felt the telling vibrations of the panicked bee. She felt sorry for the little bee, but she could do nothing for it, it was already encased in silk. Not wishing to witness its further demise, Agatha picked up the pail and walked back down the hill.