Copyright 2014 Sarina Dorie
Cover Art by Sarina Dorie
Originally Published in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Discover other titles by Sarina Dorie at:
https://www.sarinadorie.com
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The Day of the Nuptial Flight
By Sarina Dorie
I will try to use the words a human might understand, for that is what you are and what you will grow up to be, as much as you may be part of my world, too. . . .
The day of the nuptial flight, the sweet, heady pheromones of the mating season filled the tunnels of our underground hive. The queen’s perfume grew stronger, causing me to tremble with longing as I neared the entrance to the above world. I shot out of the tunnel at the base of our tree and into the air, the light blinding. I collided with someone mid-flight, veered off, and smacked into someone else. A thousand scents crashed down upon me: the queen’s trail lingering in the air, the musky odor of drones following her and trying to conceal where she had gone, the undiluted nectar of the flowers, and the powdery poison of mothraflies amidst our flight. My eyes adjusted to the black swarm all around me. It wasn’t just the queen and drones from my hive in this nuptial flight, but all the queens and drones from every hive. I had my pickings of queens, if I could only find one.
The spray of a queen drifted my way in the wind. I set off in a new direction, my wings humming as fast as they would go. Honey sloshed in my gut tube and my thorax cramped with the exertion of flight. My eyes adjusted to the brightness. Below, I spotted the blue iridescence of a queen. Her abdomen was swollen with unfertilized eggs. A male an eighth her size was busily mating with her. I drifted lower, ready to join him. From the shadowy cover of a tri-leaf, an arachnipede barbarian jumped out and caught them both in its mouth. I flitted off, nearly losing my honey at witnessing the disturbing sight.
I ventured farther from my hive, darting about, hoping to catch another queen’s scent. Any queen would do. My body trembled with need, overwhelmed by the sexual charge in the air. I was out of the thick of the swarm, the drones around me growing scarcer, yet the trail of a queen grew stronger. An opalescent purple-blue glinted in the sunlight. I tore through the air after her, gaining speed. Once I caught up, I danced around her, chittering songs of love and devotion:
“Oh, Queen of the Purple-Blue Tribe,
Your youth and beauty are a thousandfold.
I will explode with passion for you.
And when I cease, I will chew off my genitals and become your handmaiden.
If only you’ll have me, if only you’ll have me, if only you’ll have me.”
I landed on her back, my genitals rubbing against her posterior. My exoskeleton rattled with pleasure, jostling the honey in my gut tube, and my abdominal armor slid back as the queen dropped toward the ground.
We descended into the fluff of a purple pollen bed at the center of a giant flower. I regurgitated over her side, pleased to see her lap up my gift without hesitation. Her tail-end lifted into the air. My body shuddered with pleasure as I brought my abdomen down to fertilize the queen. Her musk of desire called me. My armor slid farther back, exposing the entirety of my genitals. The tension in my muscles was too great to hold.
Nothing happened.
She turned her head, antennae projecting confusion, then anger. “Spray me, Drone,” she screeched.
I tried, but my head swam with dizziness. I tried again. My genitals didn’t explode into her like they were supposed to. My mandibles frothed with the effort. She didn’t appear to notice.
“How dare you insult me like this. You tease me with an offering, but refuse to fertilize me?” Her antennae twitched and she bucked, her words vibrating through the air. “Get off me. You aren’t worthy of chewing off your genitals and becoming a handmaiden. Straight to the honey-pot chamber for you.”
“No!” I wailed. “Let me try again.”
Two more drones landed on our flower. They regurgitated offerings of nectar and she permitted them both to mount her.
Where had I gone wrong? Had I gorged on too much honey that day? Or was something wrong with me? I knew I should have waited on the edge of the flower for the queen to break off my wings. She would carry me to her home to serve her for the remainder of my life as a honey-pot, a living food vessel with no other purpose than to eat and then be eaten. But watching the other two drones filled me with despair. The muscles beneath my thorax swelled, putting painful pressure on my armor. My antennae twitched as failure rattled me to the core.
I flew off, staying low to the ground, not caring if an arachnipede pounced on me or a flesh-eating mothrafly caught me in its jaws. A forest of flowers stretched before me. I landed on a purple one, sending up a puff of pollen. I nuzzled into the ruffles of stamen and poked my tongue down to the pool of nectar.
I stored some in my cheek sack as an offering for the next queen. It was possible I might do better next time.
I slurped the remainder of the nectar into my gut tube, occasionally looking up for arachnipedes or flesh-eating mothraflies. On the flower just to my right, a blue and black striped fuzzipillar chomped down on purple ruffles, sending powder up into the air. She consumed the flower bit by bit until she was forced to lower herself down the stem, munching on the frills of leaves. A clod of dirt was stuck to the bristles of her back—at least what I thought was a clod of dirt— though it was far too sharp and angular to resemble any lump of earth I had ever seen. And there, encased in the block of dirt, was one of those queer-looking new creatures that had been invading my world. That’s right, one of your people, the humans.
Mildly interested, I flitted over to examine her. I say “her” because it surely was a shepherd and all our fuzzipillar shepherds were female. When I landed, the creature ducked down, forcing me to climb up onto the fuzzipillar to have a better look. The worker was about my size, though with no segmentation. Skinny and straight as a worm, this definitely had to be a sterile female.
A shadow loomed over us. My antennae tuned in on the soft flapping of wings signaling danger was near. I looked up just in time to see the giant red wing of a flesh-eating mothrafly swoop down. Surely it wanted the plump blue fuzzipillar, not me. I dived off anyway to avoid being brushed by those deadly wings. The fuzzipillar screeched and released its grasp on the stem, tumbling downward. The poison powder from the mothrafly’s wings collided with its body in a crimson cloud.
My nerves rattling, I ducked under a cluster of flowers and hid. The fuzzipillar writhed on the ground, the powder burning her skin. That unnatural clod on her back kept her from wiping the mothrafly poison off on the wriggling tentacle grass.
A high-pitched cry like that of a frightened larva rattled over my antennae. I turned to find another of those four-legged invasive species—a queen like none other I had ever seen. Her smell. . . .My antennae danced before me. The pheromones of the eggs within her drew me closer. The tangy pollen of the purple flowers powdered her hair and skin. Honey-sweat clung to the air about her.
I didn’t know if I wanted to lick her or mate with her.
She darted through the flower forest, her two feet taking her in a frenzied dance. Was this a mating dance . . . for me? But no, my antennae picked up a vibration in the air that didn’t match that of a queen in heat despite what her pheromones said about the eggs ripe in her belly.
She made the cry of the larva over and over. “Wah waaaah!” She raced around the writhing fuzzipillar, unable to find whatever she searched for.
I scuttled toward her, drawn to her scent. It was like nothing I’d ever smelled before. Though her height would have been smaller than mine had she walked on her four limbs as I did with
my six, she loomed regally above me on two. Her eyes were small, but the blackest I’d ever seen. A long, black tuft of hair grew out of the top of her head. A blue sheath of skin covered her brown, worm-soft skin. It took me a moment to realize she had no wings. It didn’t look like they’d been broken off, just that she had none. Well, that didn’t mean anything. The Little Greens, a species like my own hive though far more diminutive, didn’t have wings. This was definitely a queen. The swollen abdomen was a giveaway, even if her store of eggs was smaller than the queen of my hive.
She stared up at a leaf on the flower’s headless stalk. I saw what she searched for now. Held in the lacy embrace of that leaf was the wormy body of her attendant. Pungent dew extruded from the queen’s pores, liquid salt spilling from her eyes.
I flitted up to the leaf, noticing she screamed louder than ever. The convulsing attendant was covered in red powder.
I landed on the earth beside the queen. “Your handmaiden isn’t going to make it,” I said.
She stumbled back and hid behind a flower. She picked up a dried, broken flower stem, pointing it toward me.
I twitched my antennae at the writhing fuzzipillar. “You’d best tend to your fuzzipillar before the poison eats through her skin.”
The queen acted as though she didn’t hear me. The fuzzipillar thrashed at that clod, or perhaps boulder, stuck to her back against the earth. I cooed at her, singing in the low, sweet tones she would be able to hear. The hollowed rock on her back was fastened around her body with straps. I sawed through them with my mandibles and threw the box aside. Now free, the fuzzipillar wriggled the last of the powder off and turned her head over her shoulder to lick her back. It’s amazing how resilient a fuzzipillar’s stomach is.
I continued to coo softly, imitating the lullabies the workers of my kind sang. She snuggled her face against mine, opened her immense mouth, and hawked a wad of sticky nectar into my mouth. I stuffed it in my cheeks to save it for an offering. Though it was laced with mothrafly poison, the antidote in the fuzzipillar saliva would break it down, if it hadn’t already done so.
“That’s a nice fuzzipillar,” I cooed, patting her soft exterior with my antennae.
I glanced at the queen but she wasn’t where I had left her. She was attempting to climb up the stem of the flower to retrieve her attendant, though her claws didn’t sink into the surface, nor did they cling like a worker’s would have. Probably she was too burdened with eggs.
“You can’t retrieve her. She’s covered in poison. It’ll just rub off on you,” I said.
She didn’t look at me. I hated to insult a queen, but if she truly wanted her attendant, there was an easier way. I would show her.
Flitting up a few lengths, I hooked my legs around the queen and gently set her down. The shrill, high-pitched sound she made raked over my antennae. It didn’t look as though I had injured her soft skin but her face wrinkled up. I bowed my head and shrank back.
I cooed to the fuzzipillar who scampered over, nuzzling me again. I backed toward the stem and up it, singing all the while. The fuzzipillar faithfully followed me, trying to nuzzle me each time she came close. I backed away, drawing her a little farther. Once I reached the leaf where the worker lay, I opened wide for the fuzzipillar to regurgitate a wad of nectar. Instead of storing it or swallowing it, I softened it in my mouth and then spit it onto the worker. We repeated this process several times until the visible side of the queen’s attendant was covered from head to foot. I turned her over and coaxed the fuzzipillar into giving me more. Once the worker was completely covered, I lifted her and set her on a patch of moss-tentacled ground.
The queen ran over. More of those salty dewdrops slid from her eyes. She placed her claws on the worker, felt the thorax and head. My antennae read a burst of relief from her pores.
That arduous task complete, I chittered at the queen. “Shall I sing a mating song for you?”
Her black eyes stared into mine. She tilted her head to the side. Even the dung-brained aphids and the bumbling cow-worms understood when my kind spoke. But these new creatures had no antennae. For all the noise they made, I assumed they must be deaf.
The queen tentatively reached out an arm and stroked my head with her soft claw. My antennae quivered with longing. Deep within my abdomen desire built. The armor at the tip of my abdomen drew back.
“Black-Eyed Queen, if only you’ll have me, if only you’ll have me, if only you’ll have me,” I sang.
I spat one of the sticky wads of fuzzipillar honey at her feet. She stepped back, her face wrinkling up again. No pheromones of wanting came from her pores. If anything, I thought my antennae picked up sensations of confusion, but that seemed impossible. How could she not understand a nuptial gift?
She ignored my offering and turned to a sack of cloth, which she set next to the fuzzipillar. Dejected, I stored my nectar back in my cheek. Two rejections in one day.
The queen danced around me and retrieved a giant vessel of amber liquid that looked very much like a honey-pot, only without the rest of the body. Was this a game? Or an odd manner of courtship? I let my antennae lead me to an item with her scent, clutched it in my mandibles and placed it in the pile. She had collected a variety of leaves and fruits, though most were now bruised. My new pet, the fuzzipillar, followed me about, whining for more song.
“Not now,” I muttered. “I am busy figuring out this queen.”
The Black-Eyed Queen tried to harness my pet back under the hollow boulder of dirt, but the fuzzipillar would have none of that, especially after the difficulty she’d had getting it off. The queen gestured to me and then to the fuzzipillar as if she expected me to do something. Did she not understand? I was a drone, not a worker. My two jobs were to eat and mate. Later if I was successful, I would become her nursemaid and care for our young. Perhaps I had confused her when I’d retrieved her worker.
The queen sat down, resting in the shade of a flower. She rubbed her hands over her swollen belly. Oh, aphid dung! I supposed she had a right to rest more than I did. I forgot she was with eggs, given how small her belly was compared to that of my former queen.
I cooed another lullaby to the fuzzipillar. She clumsily lumbered over, antennae swaying as she listened. Before long, she was nuzzling me and regurgitating. I anointed each piece of the queen’s cargo with sticky nectar and stuck it on the bristles covering her back just as I had seen workers in my own hive do. This labor was quite beneath me, but I supposed if I wasn’t serving the queen by mating, I had to make myself useful to the hive in some way. Better this than become a honey-pot.
With the load of food and the worker stuck to the fuzzipillar, the queen mounted and rode at the front. It would have been easier for me to fly her to wherever we headed, but the nuptial rules were clear: the queen carries new attendants home. It is never the other way around.
At least this queen knew enough about fuzzipillars to understand how to lead one. Just as the workers back in my old hive did, she used food as an enticement. Though, unlike my hive sisters who held flowers and sweet fruits out to our vehicles, the queen held a leaf on a stick, dangling it in front of the fuzzipillar’s mouth. She allowed the beast of burden to eat the leaf and then wasted time attaching another while our ride meandered over to munch on more leaves.
Tiring of this, I rose up to a flower and sawed through the stem. The trick was to use something much more enticing than a leaf, something sweet. You do know why you can’t let the fuzzipillar eat the flower, don’t you? She’ll go back to munching leaves. I showed the queen how it was done.
The queen clapped her claws together, a high tinkle of sound escaping her mouth. My antennae sensed satisfaction. Well, we hadn’t mated yet, but this was a start.