Chapter 3

Poppy watched her friend go and felt like sobbing, "That wasn't what I meant." She mumbled, flying slowly upwards after her.

Bees built their their hives in the trees that surrounded West Village so there was a surplus of honey for everyone, the bees were as big as the butterflies and wasps so it made producing huge amounts of honey easier.

  She knew Eden had translated Poppy's words as Poppy calling her weak but that wasn't what Poppy meant at all.

He wings dropped when she landed on the hexagonal opening of the hive, it was a big structure laying in the middle of the biggest branches and Poppy was quite sure it penetrated the tree as well.

The walls were a pale gold and it slightly glowed like there was a light source within the walls. Beehives reminded her of the Outhouse it was practically an open space in the middle with levels but instead of a circular pattern it was all hexagons.

 "Excuse me?" She interrupted a passing bee. "Please where are the honey kept, I'm a collector you see." She told the bee, showing him the small pouch she would use to collect and transport the honey to Apple by making plenty trips, the pouch was pretty small.

 The bee she had stopped was obviously a busy worker bee, only the workers where ever found at the first levels. The creature buzzed impatiently, moving around rapidly and moving it's wings very fast as if to show it's displeasure.

Poppy leaned in and wrinkled her brow as she tried to decipher what the bee was trying to tell her, she wasn't a Fauna Fairy who could communicate with animals but due to the frequent times Forest Fairies came in contact with bees they had started teaching the language in Fairy school.

  Poppy had hated learning Bee, because it sounded like plain buzzing to her and it didn't help that buzzing bees always lulled her to sleep but at least she knew the basics.

"Young girl, I'm in a hurry, as you can see." The bee was saying. "Is this your first time being a Collector? How can a Collector not know where honey is kept? I wonder why they keep sending us inexperienced Collectors these days, we're making more honey than ever and yet their sending me a child to come collect it, this is why our honey grow stale and we have to throw it out." The bee continued buzzing, flying past her. "It's so hard to get rid of honey because we simply can't throw it out till it's stale and when that does happens it makes the entire place stink up so you can see our dilemma…" The bee continued complaining, flying away without answering Poppy's question.

"So you don't know then?" She called out tentatively to the retreating bee." She had barely understood what it was furiously buzzing about but what she was sure about was that the bee never gave her directions.

  It ignored her, sighing she decided that she would have to find it herself. It wasn't Poppy's fault that she didn't know where the honey was kept because the other hives she had seen were very different from this one, they had all looked like a lot of complex tunnels that you would always get lost in so there was always a helper bee that would direct them to the honey.

She started to fly up to the next level, because the first one was filled with bees flying in and out with pollen.

  The next level wasn't any help, she found out when she flew up the open space in the middle, it was like a storey building, except with an open space in the middle where the staircases should have been.

 A translucent wall enclosed the open space, hexagonal openings were placed in multiple places around the walls.

The wall was translucent, which meant she could see through but it was blurry so she wasn't exactly sure what was on the second layer.

 She flew towards an opening and peeked in.

"Aaaaaaargh!" She screamed when she got a good look around. The worker bees were making honey.

Feeling a little ill, she quickly flew up to the next level and luckily that was the right one.

"You will not believe what I just saw." She shivered to Eden who was almost done with collecting.

Eden chuckled, adjusting the ropes that she had hooked into her holster. "You saw level two didn't you?"

"Yes!" The blue haired Fairy wailed, covering her face with her hands. "I'm going to have nightmares for months."

"It's not that bad." Eden shrugged, she was putting the finishing touches to her contraption, it was just a simple tool that helped her collect more than one small pouch worth of honey. With the holster she could carry nearly ten times the equivalent of a small pouch so she would only have to go two trips instead of the numerous trips that other Fairies had to do.

"Not that bad?" Poppy repeated with disbelief. "I can't believe you just said that, they chew it for hours and regurgitate it a couple times, how is that not very bad?" She demanded, looking a little green.

"At least it's hygienic." Eden shrugged, dipping her small hand into a honeycomb cell and retrieved a hand full of honey. "So what now? You're not going to eat it anymore because a couple bees licked it?" She asked with a full mouth of honey, her bright green eyes twinkling mischievously.

Poppy glared at her. "You're not getting my point." She muttered, stomping off to another honeycomb cell at the other side of the place to scoop honey into her pouch.

"So what's your point?" Eden asked drily, waiting for her to finish collecting so that they would fly down to their butterflies together.

"That I've been traumatized and I would like you to acknowledge that." She harrumphed seriously.

Eden slapped a hand over her mouth, struggling hard not to laugh, she honestly wondered how someone as adorable as Poppy ended up being best friends with someone like her.

"Are you laughing at me?" Poppy asked darkly, her back to Eden as she finally filled her pouch.

Eden couldn't hold it in anymore when Poppy turned around and glared at her, she burst out laughing at the cute expression on her friends face, laughing so hard that Poppy even joined in.

"I forgive you because you finally laughed after I've been trying to get you to laugh all day, I just wish it wasn't at my angry face though." Poppy said as they started their journey back to their butterflies waiting outside, they passed other Collectors on their way and they exchanged greetings.

After Fairy school, all Fairies where mandated to work for the village, a kind of patriotic duty which was at the same time a training of sorts, they were mandated to do this for two years and when it was completed they would be eighteen and then they could decide on the jobs they wanted to do.

 It was just another couple years of schooling with lots of practicals but the Fairies were given allowances every week, it wasn't just the Outhouse that Fairies could work at, there was more.

In the West Village, there were five major occupations, the Collectors, the Florists, the Cultivators, the Builders and the Artists. 

Fairies were required to pick one and work hard at their part to build the Village, Eden always thought that Poppy would have made an excellent Florist but because Eden had chosen to become a Collector, her best friend eagerly came along.

"You could have helped me." Poppy complained to her friend who was almost half asleep on her butterfly, as expected Eden's creation made it so that she had to only make the trip twice but Poppy had to fly up and back some twenty-five times.

"I could make a holster for you." Eden drawled, getting up even though female Fairies were required to sit side straddle, she always straddled it normally, legs on both sides.

Poppy pouted, emptying her pouch into the last wooden container and secured the lid. "You know I can't lift that, it's too heavy."

"And I keep telling you that you don't need to." Eden said seriously. "I know that Fairies can't lift that much weight because of our size and fragile bodies so I rigged it so that the vases attached wouldn't be carried by the muscle strength but rather the power of your wings and...Poppy? Poppy!" Eden looked around, she had been so engrossed in her explanation that she hadn't even seen Poppy leave, sighing she followed suit.