Lyn was fascinated by the moving wooden hive, not just one, but dozens of them, all moving. Once more, she noticed that the two-leg she sheltered with, also had two mates, at least that was what she was able to deduce by the interactions between the two-leg that gave her honey and the other ones with black and white hair.

More importantly, she realized that this two-leg was probably the hive mate. A hive mate being the male that the hive uses either for sexual satisfaction or for getting pregnant to produce more sisters. In fact, the hive mate didn’t just get the Mother pregnant, but others as well, to help produce more insects. It’s just that compared to the mother, all are sisters, even if they are not all blood related, though admittedly, her specific mother gave a lot of births. This is also why a hive mate is called a hive mate, he is essentially the mate of the hive.

Which was why it was such a big deal for Lyn to find out she slept in the same room as the hive mate. For her, it was like finding out that not only did they find her worthy of being part of the hive, but that they also wanted her to be mated and produce offspring for the hive as well.

“I just joined, and already they are treating me so well! I wasn’t just chosen to join the hive, but to also be the mate of the hive mate! I will protect the hive mate with my life!” lyn buzzed happily.

“If only the others could see me now, they were all trying to trade for sperm with the trader fairies and I landed on a hive mate the second they kicked me out!” Lyn thought smugly. Only for that smugness to turn sad.

“I wonder if it’s possible to convince the hive mate to share some of its sperm with my former hive…” but then she shook her head. “Such a precious resource obviously can’t be given willy nilly! They were kind enough to take me in and set me up with a mate, asking for more would be far too greedy!”

“...but perhaps one day…” she thought, wistfully, an imagination of tipping over a large jar of sperm in front of her sisters and Mother in triumph as they all watched in awe.

But she quickly shook that idea off and started to watch her new hive as they work. Unfurntalty, they didn’t do much, just stayed within the moving wooden hive for most of the day. Which was starting to drive her a little stir crazy. It wasn’t until much later she realized that this wasn’t just a moving hive, but that they were moving towards somewhere.

“I see… so perhaps they are also looking for a new home, I wonder where they-we are going? Hopefully, we’ll reach it soon.” and she was right, for a few days later they arrived and Lyn was flabbergasted by the sheer volume and size of the hive before her.

“A hive! Made of stone! That’s crazy!” she screamed in her mind. “So tall! So big! So much!” her little brain going crazy at the sight. As they entered the hive she saw so many sisters that the numbers were starting to make her feel a little dizzy. “So many sisters! There must be over a thousand of them! How will I ever introduce myself to all of them!?” fear getting the better of her.

She was zipping around near the glass of the wagon, looking around in awe at what showed outside. Wondering if this was the new hive that they will be staying at. “Wait… I also see other males, other hive mates perhaps? Maybe this place has more than one hive? A super hive!” she then gasped. “Could there be a high queen!”

Lyn then became worried about her looks and how she would present herself to such a powerful figure. She turned to Van, for that was what all the other sisters called the two-leg, and wondered how he and his mates were presented.

“Oh no! Everyone is wearing the colorful stuff! And I don’t have any! What were they called again? Oh yes. Clothes! Mother wore them too sometimes… I never realized now that it was a sign of authority or nobility, or perhaps a sign of power?” she thought deeply about this for a second before she got back on track.

“I have to do something! Where can I find the… clothes… in such short notice!” she then gasped in realization. “I don’t even have any nectar or honey to trade for it!” she then zipped around with agitation wondering what she was going to do.

After a while, the wagon finally stopped and they were let out, Lyn staying back because she was a little too embarrassed to show herself. Only to hear a roar of anger, which scared her out, not out of fear, but because she was worried if her hive mate was in danger.

Thankfully he was not, but one of the females who seemed to be a leader of some sorts, seemed very angry at and pointed at another wooden hive, then stomped into the stone hive with a bang, followed by her own personal hive mate and leaving the rest behind.

Lyn then saw that her hive mate was trying to comfort his other mate, who seemed to have become very agitated upon seeing the wagon, and required some consoling.

“Hmm, so despite being of the same hive, there are still some great divisions between queens, even though there is a high queen? What is the high queen doing allowing such friction to exist within the hive? Or perhaps is there something more going on?” Lyn then decided it was her duty to get to the bottom of this. So she zipped out to scout the place out and familiarize herself with this new hive, making sure she still remembered the scent of her hive mate so she could return to him when her scouting was over.

With that she flew around the entire stone hive, making sure she had a nice birds-eye view of the entire place to determine potential routes of attack. But found that against the other two legs, it was very well defended, so that ruled out fear from outside attack as a cause of such friction.

She then moved inward, zipping around and spying on the worker's two legs and a few of the more important-looking two legs. Even going so far as to notice one particular two-leg with too many shiny rocks on her and another who seemed to carry herself with great nobility.

Which brought into mind that she should probably look for the high queen of this hive, so she did, but could not find her. It wasn’t until much later that she found out that the woman who roared earlier, was the high queen of the place. And from what she could piece together, another hive had intruded upon her territory, without permission.

But instead of kicking her out, allowed her to stay. “They are letting the intruder stay? Perhaps this is some form of diplomacy, like with the fairies? Just because you do not like them, doesn't mean you can just get rid of them or something like that, right? But I also understand why the high queen was so mad. To be so rudely intruded upon without prior notice, and without given any gifts of good intentions. Is that young queen stupid or something? Or is it trying to start a fight?”

She then thought about it a little more. “Hmm, perhaps there is another nearby high queen, and this is her young queen. Maybe they are hoping to start something?”

Either way, Lyn was very tired and decided to look for her mate. After some searching, he found him and the white-haired two-leg walking together. Landing on his shoulder, they then slowly made their way towards the room.

Upon entering, she was very impressed by the decor and flew to the bed and chose a spot on the window sill so she could look out and watch for danger, but also to marvel at the amazing sight of so many lights, like stars on the ground. With that, she slowly went to sleep.

---

Lyn had expanded a lot of energy yesterday, so when the time came for them to wake, she still stayed in bed resting. One of the best things she noticed about this hive, was that they didn’t seem to care if you got up to work or not. Or at least from her perspective, after all, they never asked her to look for nectar or pollen. But then again, she never actually saw them gather any, which did bring into question as to how they got the honey, but that required too much thinking, and she was too tired at the moment for that.

In fact, she was so tired, she forgot she was hungry, and upon realizing it, she was forced out of bed to look for any food she could grab her hands on. Only one problem, the door was closed and so was the window, trapping her inside. Which meant she was going to have to sleep a little more until her hive mate returned and begged for some honey.

It was much later when her hive mate returned, startling her awake from a snooze. Upon seeing him, she immediately knew that something was off, her mate looked very unwell. The white hair then opened up the window and Lyn took that as a sign and left to look for something that could help with her hive mate's dilemma.

Leaving, she went to search for anything that could make her mate feel better, finding a small field of flowers. She then noticed that one of the flowers was the one that some of the zappers that worked in healing used as an ingredient to make healing salves. she got to work trying to gnaw at the stem of the flower, ripping it off and carrying it back to the room.

Upon entering, she dropped the flower near her mate, but it didn’t seem like either one of them knew what to do with it. It was then she remembered that despite being a hive mate, he was rather young, and so was the young queen next to him. So of course they wouldn’t know how to use it yet. Which made her berate them in her mind until she realized if she had paid attention and learned like she was supposed to, she would’ve known how to use it.

Now berating herself, she then zipped out to look for someone who might know how to use the flower or just anybody at all who can help her mate. Unfortunately, no matter where she looked, she couldn’t really differentiate one two-leg from another, or what job it was they had, other than their station of importance depending on the clothes they wore.

Feeling like she was just wasting time, she turned back to see what comfort she could bring to her mate. Only to become horrified at the sight of her mate with the young queen of the rude hive!

Lyn gasped upon seeing what she was doing to her hive mate. The young queen. Was a mate thief! Doesn’t she know how rare a hive mate was! To steal a hive mate from another hive was the lowest of lows! Worse, it was clear that the hive mate was not for this, he was still very much loyal to his hive. Yet the young queen ignored that! And tried to force herself on him anyway! Does she not know honor!? What kind of queen acts this way!!

Enough was enough! Lyn silently flew behind the offending queen and landed on an exposed part of her body near the head. Prepared to give the young queen a zapping of a lifetime. Perhaps that would show the queen what she was doing was wrong.

The very rude queen yelled out in pain as Lyn gave her a good zapping! But instead of learning her lesson, she smacked Lyn with her hand and grabbed her. And to Lyn’s shock, the rude queen squeezed her hard, until it felt like something inside her cracked and one of her wings bent the wrong way. She was then thrown out of the window with no way back in.

Lyn fell hard on the ground, dazed and dizzy with pain. But for all the pain she felt, an even greater burning rage fueled her. This was her second chance at a happy hive life! She was not going to allow an evil queen to ruin it!

With that in mind, Lyn, through the immense amount of pain she was feeling, flew to find some help. She zipped around or at least tried to, as she went from person to person trying to make them understand the plight she was dealing with right now. But no matter how much she buzzed or glowed her bulb, no one understood her or seemed to care.

But this did not stop her from trying, it only caused her to redouble her efforts and try to brute force her words onto them through a few minor zaps. But that still did not seem to work, so instead of trying to zap just anybody, she tried to remember the important people who surrounded her hive mate.

Remembering who they are, she went in search of them and was pretty sure they would be with the other important-looking people. Losing no time, she zipped for the last place she remembered a bunch of important-looking people were, mostly by following the smell of food, which she was sure was the draw to where all the important people were going to. There was a hive meet after all, which meant the high queen would use the gifts given to her, if any were food-based, and add her own food stores to feed everyone.

And she was right. A large open carven within the stone hived contained an amazing amount of food on wooden tables. But more importantly, many important-looking people were buzzing around them.

Tired, and the pain of the bent wing slowly catching up to her exhaustion, Lyn wasted no time in searching for the high queen. Rudely zapping anyone who would get in her way, both to draw attention to her and to move with more ease without having to move out of the way herself.

One may then ask why she did not fly up high so she could see where the high queen of this hive was? But she couldn’t fly up high, in fact, she was having great difficulty just trying to fly at head height, with each passing minute she was slowly getting lower and lower to the ground as even with all her effort, her wing could not keep up, nor could her energy reserves with all the people she was zapping.

Thankfully, somehow, she was able to draw the right amount of attention. An old-looking two-leg grabbed her gently into his hand, and carried her to the high queen and her personal mate, even her sub queen was there with them.

Doing the best she could, and using the last of her energy, she gave many bright glows of her body and rapid and then erratic patterns and then followed a light rhythm ending with the softest of zaps.

The high queen and her entourage looked at her with concern, but finally started to look around for the young hive mate, soon they seemed to question what was going on, and a few minutes later seemed to have figured that the young hive mate was missing. Putting two and two together, and unleashed a search party. Upon seeing that, Lyn was happy, she tried to get up and fly towards the direction of the room, but before she could even fly an inch, the old wizened two-leg put her on his shoulder and tried walking towards the direction she intended to go.

Like this, whenever they had a choice between which corridor to go down, he would just turn in that direction and if she glowed, that was the direction to go. Finally, after what felt like too long, they were able to figure out where the hive mate was, with the help of the black-haired two-leg who was just on her way there.

She felt great relief now that they finally seemed to know what may be happening and where. So much so that she unintentionally blacked out. The old two-leg, putting her gently away as he prepared himself for what might come next.

---

When Lyn woke up, she was in an old unfamiliar room, laying on a nice soft pillow on a desk, with a small jar of honey that had its contents spread out on a small plate next to her. Groggily getting up, she shuffled over to the plate and ate her fill. But now on a full stomach, her mind was starting to rev up and she remembered everything.

She jumped up into the air, only to pause for a second as she realized that her wing was already healed. She worried that maybe she had been out of it for a lot longer than she thought. Which scared her even more, so she zipped out of the room, squeezing out between the half-closed door.

Free, she zipped back to the large stone cavern she was at before, to look for the important people.

Flying high so she could get a good view, she searched for anyone that could be of help to her, only to be surprised that her hive mate was perfectly fine and waving her down. She was so excited and happy that she flew straight towards him and landed on his outstretched hand. He then said something to her she didn’t quite understand, but she was just happy to hear he was doing fine. In fact, she was so happy she even purred! How embarrassing!

After a while, they then joined up with the old wizened two legs and they began to talk. Lyn didn’t know what they were talking about, but strangely enough, she felt like it was about her. After some more talking, the two then looked down towards Lyn and her hive mate then asked her something. She didn’t quite know what it was, but it sounded important, so she unabashedly gave a purr of support! It may be embarrassing, but it would surely show him how she felt for him!

But the next thing she knew, she felt a weird sensation coming from him, as he placed a drop of his blood on her head. A little weirded out, she accepted the act, only for a blast of mana to pour into her! A strange feeling then formed within her, a feeling of connection that she felt in her blood! She felt hot, but also strong! It felt like she had an epiphany and her power surged and her body soon followed.

Feelings, emotions, new ideas, concepts, and words flowed into her head. She didn’t get everything, but just enough to know that the hive mate really was named Van and that he was now her master.

Lyn wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but she had an idea. It must mean that she became his personal mate! No… the term was, that she became… a part of… his… harem? She didn’t know exactly, but she knew it had to be something like that. She gladly accepted her new position as a personal mate! In fact, she was so happy! She fainted! That must have meant she was really really happy!

And so Lyn went into that peaceful slumber.