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Eshere

Baker's gentle nudge towards existentialism in the previous chapter fits quite well with some of my own thoughts that crossed my mind as I visited the bees. I never entirely understood what I was, and I don't think I currently understand it now. Tik Tik gave my species the name "Sex Jelly," but even that is not quite an accurate description of what I am. I indeed enjoy the fluids excreted by lovers as my primary nourishment. Still, over my time as a sapient being, I've come to enjoy many more byproducts of different living beings.

For instance, as stated in "Baker's Recipe," the humble egg-a vessel designed to house a new life. It was abandoned when no male fertilized it with his own delicious semen. Many consume that piece without associating it with sexuality, and yet I can slurp cum and be seen as a degenerate monster for it. Why is this so?

In my time with the bees, I realized that perhaps the taboo against sexual fluids as means of sustenance comes from the human-centric world view. Is it because humanoids cannot create their own tools from within themselves? For myself and the bees, this is different. Their bodies are designed to gather and store nectar from flowers. Like me, it is a part of their essence to use their own forms to accomplish what they can. They develop tools out of their bodies, and I can make my body into a tool. I collect memories and impressions within me when I feed. The bees keep all their memories in the aether through constant communication, with little to no loss in data when traveling from bee to bee to bee. What does this mean?

While Tik Tik had gone off to speak with their queen, I searched for what else a bee could do with themselves. How did they build their cell walls? Where did their waxy weapons come from? Most importantly, what was the secret to the creation of their honey?

The first question I sought was an answer to how the bees could build so much with so few resources. Their homes, tools, and weapons were all constructed with the same wax. But how did they make it?

"Observe," said my guide as I inquired about the origin, and she scrunched up her face and puffed out her cheeks. She clenched her fists and tensed up, humming with a strain. Her rear wiggled, and as she grunted to a louder degree, flakes emerged from the scales of her fuzzy exoskeleton.

A second bee crawled up to her companion, scooping the white bits and molding them in her hands to form a ball. Then she plugged in a hole in the wall, thinning out the roundness to create another of the many cells.

After I had witnessed this, I couldn't help but see it happening everywhere, thousands of times. It's simply fascinating. I was reminded how bits of my form could be used in the culinary construction of dessert goods, but is it possible to learn their skill to create more permanent things?

I must rely on direct communication to find out, as any attempts to sup upon the fluids of any individual bee leaves me with only bits and pieces of their collective knowledge. I verified this by sneaking a bit of the wax as it fell from the bee's abdomen. It's almost as if the hive's mind is its own thing--a more incredible being that I cannot access through a single bee alone. The implications are as frightening as they are exciting.

"Our wax makes our colony strong," said the constructor bee, patting the last of the materials down. "It keeps us safe, and it houses all our materials."

"We are the colony," added another bee, this one carrying heavy loads of nectar in her legs.

I asked her what she would do with that material, as I believed it to be related to the object of our party's investigation.

"Turning it into honey!" the bee beamed.

As I suspected.

"I would very much like to learn how this happens," I said, hoping it would be acceptable and not some trade secret. The bees continued to surprise me, but if the honey itself was unique in how they create it, that would be quite the discovery for our business.

The bee motioned me to follow her with not a moment's hesitation. So I followed, slurping through the corridors and around the endless chain of bodies that made up the ever-growing and ever-working madness of movement.

My mind travels to my biology texts, in which I hear that many lifeforms are made up of things known as cells. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a single being made up of so many little things, working in tandem, growing, working, and dying. How can Tik Tik be Tik Tik and not just a colony of tiny slimes like myself, piloting a giant world that makes her up? And yet, when I delve into Tik Tik's slit and drink deep of her knowledge and love, I obtain not the experience of individual beings but of a single kobold.

It is a conundrum. Am I somehow incomplete for being a single core? Or am I a part of a whole, and out there, there is some cosmic entity that I am a part of, and all this work I do as Tik Tik's scribe is some near-mindless task to this slime god?

Am I discovering not only sentience for my species but also spirituality?

But enough on that tangent. I would strike it from this record if Tik Tik would allow me, but she values my asides. The journey was quick enough, even though those thoughts bothered me even then, but soon we found a mildly less congested chamber.

"Alright, gals," the bee announced, sitting by one of the combs. She lifted her leg and held it by the thigh, the nectar in her leg pouch sloshing around. "Let's show our friend Eshere how we make honey!"