CHAPTER II: QUEEN MAULA
I looked around the cage, for I had already been here for several hours. The walls were as tough as nails (natural for a hornet's nest) and the cage wall (made of what appeared to be stings of dead hornets) wasn't going to give way either.
I considered my options. There were two possibilities: the hornets would just leave me here forever to starve (I was already hungry), or they would just kill me. Neither was particularly inviting, but, then again, there was only one reason for any invertebrate to exist: to mate with a mate and continue the survival of the species. I had lost my only chance with Cora, so what was the point of existing anymore?
I was suddenly snapped out of my daydream by two armed hornet guards arriving outside the cage. They both appeared to be tough females. One of them unlocked the cage and opened it. The other viciously gestured for me to get out, which I did immediately. They were both carrying spears – which was pretty pointless, their stings were good enough weapons – with which they pushed me up the stairs, one by one.
As we walked, I took in the appearance of a hornet properly for the first time: they were slightly taller than me – but of course I walked on all six legs – their stingers were on their lower abdomen, with their wings above that. They had four arms, and both of these two hornets were carrying spears and wearing hats that appeared to be made out of bones.
As we continued to walk, they remained completely silent. I was nowhere near brave enough to even consider making so much as a whistle. However, at the top, they frogmarched me back to the room where I had previously seen the king and queen hornet.
They shoved me inside and then locked the door. I quickly glanced around. There was nothing else in here but an empty dining table. There were no windows anywhere in the room. What had they brought me in here for?
I was left in doubt barley a second longer. The door was re-flung open again. In came the king and queen, escorted by a dozen guards apiece. Both of them walked around to the reserved positions at the table and sat down. None of the guards sat down – you'd have sworn they were robots – but they kept standing, as silent as stars.
The king and queen turned to face me. In our colony, it was questionable who was in charge more, but here it was clearly the queen, as she spoke up first.
'Please sit down, young one,' she said calmly.
She gestured to the seat opposite her. Nervously, I sat down in it.
'What would your name be?' said the king nicely.
'D – Di – Dim...' I said slowly. 'And... and yours?'
For a split second, the two of them appeared to be white with rage, but when I looked closer, they appeared perfectly normal.
'King Palpatine,' said the king.
'Queen Maula,' stated the queen, and, judging by her tone, she might have been stating that she was the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. She then made the weirdest noise you could think of by scraping her sting on the ground, upon which several of the guards came forward.
'Bring the Coleopteran creature and us a full banquet,' she said to the guards. The guards left the room, and the queen turned her attention back to me. This was a strange move. Why would they give me – the prisoner – a full meal?
'So, Mr...' stumbled the queen.
'Dim...' I repeated.
'Dim,' she said slowly. 'Tell me and King Palpatine a little bit about yourself.'
What? This was very strange. From what I knew about hornets, few were even allowed to speak, and they hardly ever showed any interest in any other insects, let alone non-royals. But the guards were still standing, and I thought it best to do what Queen Maula wanted.
'Well, I'm a worker, I was banished from my colony, and...'
I kept talking, telling them about what had happened during the mating season and afterwards, though I altered the story to make it sound like I was banished for being clumsy. The guards brought us food and I ate as I talked – after that, I will never forget what it was truly like to be properly hungry.
As I got to the part where I returned to the colony, I noticed that they looked very interested in my story. This was even odder – most that I talked to usually wandered off after about a minute, and were bored after the first 10 seconds, yet that was clearly not the case here.
'...and then they sent me here with the peace treaty proposition, and, that's about it,' I finished.
The king and queen appeared to suddenly snap out of a reverie. Queen Maula spoke up.
'Well, uh...,' she paused briefly, 'Dim, it seems that you have been treated unfairly. Now, that doesn't seem quite fair, does it?'
'Well...' I too paused briefly, 'no...'
'Of course it isn't,' she continued. 'But that's all about to change now.'
She seemed so nice – in fact it wouldn't be going too far to say that she was the nicest insect I'd ever met – but something wasn't quite right.
'Speaking of change,' I began slowly, 'what about the peace treaty proposition?'
'Ah yes,' said Queen Maula happily. 'Well, King Palpatine and I had a chat, and we have decided to concur.'
'Rea – Really?' I said, shocked.
'Really,' smiled Queen Maula. 'Now, what we'd like you to do is fly back to your colony, and tell them that we'll be along shortly to negotiate the terms.'
'Well, OK,' I said. If this worked out great, the colony would rewards me for being partly responsible for ending the hornet threat that had endangered us for generations!
'Well Dim,' began King Palpatine, 'we've all learnt something today. We beetles and hornets aren't that different really, are we? We're all insects, right? All we want is the survival of our respective societies.'
'Yeah,' I said. He was right, that was all that mattered in life, according to the king and queen of the colony. I quickly stuffed down one last kernel and then I stood up.
Queen Maula and King Palpatine stood up as well. They both did the scraping noise with their stingers again and several guards approached them.
'Escort the Coleopteran creature outside nicely,' said Queen Maula to the guards. The guards went around to me and gestured towards the door. I walked outside with the guards following me. The guards escorted me to the exit. Once we were out of the room, they escorted me to the exit outside the nest.
I could not believe what had happened. I had managed to do something right, and what's more, it would benefit the whole colony! Come to think of it, had I really done anything in there? Well, I had said a lot in there, but that was about it...
The hornet showed me to the exit to outside. I would be back at the colony in a half-hour, and then everything would go smoothly.
I started to fly out. After a few inches, I glanced back to see the two hornet guards going back inside.
I was flying over a swamp when I realized that Queen Maula had not said whether there would be any other hornets coming as well. I should probably go back and check...
Approximate Chapter Running Time: 00:05-00:07