The morning is dim, silent, and mildly warm. In a suburban neighborhood, populated mostly by elderly or childless couples, an alarm buzzes out. A gray-furred arm reaches out and turns off the alarm in nearly an instant, retracting back under three or four layers of comforters and another two layers of sheets before a similarly-colored fox catapults upright.
“Eight fifteen, wake up from a warm, restful nap. Eight sixteen, go over mental schedule for the day out loud. Remind self that this is perfectly reasonable and that the blasted psychiatrist had no idea what she was talking abou-”
A whimper sounds out from the side of the bed. A gray- and silver-furred shepherd.
“Eight seventeen, hug Terra.” The fox scoots over to the side of the bed and wraps his arms around the canine, the dog thumping her tail against the wooden bed stand for the duration of the embrace. She is released from the vulpine’s affectionate grip moments later, happily trotting out of the room to await her scheduled breakfast. “Eight nineteen-“
“-Be interrupted by your better fourth.” A feminine snicker rings out from the doorway.
The fox upon the bed looks over to woman, seeing a nearly-identical gray fox, with the primary differences of a slimmer figure, a pair of breasts, and what seems to be a bathrobe covering both. “Oh, Lucile, I thought I asked you to be here closer to ten forty-five?”
“Sorry, Virmir, woke up sooner than I anticipated, got bored, came here early, and ate some of your food.” She reaches into his closet and tosses him a cape as he stands upright. “What’s it this time? Single-pose, or did somebody spring for a comic?”
Virmir catches the cape and latches it around his neck in a single, swift movement. “The latter, three pages at that, so it might take a few days.” He hears a groan from the other, rolling his eyes in response. “Since you’re here early, we can get started once I’m done eating.” The two foxes stroll into the kitchen, Virmir stopping at a cabinet to fetch food for his excited dog, filling her bowl to precisely two-thirds full and giving her an equal amount of fresh water. Crossing another item off of his mental schedule, he goes to prepare himself breakfast while Lucile attempts to occupy herself with idly conversation.
“So, what exactly is this comic about?” She inquires.
“Something about you being turned into a dragon and going on a rampage with… toast…”
“With Toast?”
“Oh, no, with Medik. I’m trying to find the Toast… ah, there it is. I think Toast makes a cameo, but nothing major. I think there’s a fight scene with Featherfall, but I’ll need to reread it… honey… honey… where’s the honey?” Virmir rummages through the shelves as best he can upon a small step ladder. “I know I have enough left for three more pieces of Toast.”
Lucile finishes putting a spoonful of honey in her mouth. “Um…” She quickly tosses the empty container into the trash. “Maybe Terra got into it last time you put it out? Anyways, plain toast is fine.”
“…Plain toast is fine?” Virmir’s eye twitches as he jumps off the step ladder, walking towards the female fox. “You don’t understand! Today is honeyed toast day! If I don’t eat honeyed toast, then I’ll have to eat another breakfast food, which means next time I have it I won’t like it as much, which means I’ll take longer to eat it and won’t be as satisfied, which means that I won’t be as productive until lunch! This is dire! I won’t- no- I can’t have breakfast until I get some honey for my toast!” He pants, inches from her face, as his tirade ends.
Lucile backs away from the clearly unhinged fox. “Riiight then… How about this, we go out and get some honey from… the…”
Virmir raises an eyebrow. “…From the what? The store? I mean, I guess we’ll have to drive, but it’s preferable to-“
Lucile smiles awkwardly. “Heh… well… you see… its Labor Day.” The other fox takes on a devastated expression, and Lucile’s eye go bright and he smile wide as she remembers something. “Oh! But there’s another way for you to get some honey!” Without waiting another moment, she grabs Virmir’s arm and yanks him out the back door and into the conspicuously thick forest behind his house.
“Gah! Hey! Let me-! Stop pulling-! Where are you taking-” Just then, the two find themselves in a clearing, staring at a monumental bee hive. “…Oh, I suppose that works. But how do we get in without them noticing us?”
Lucile ponders for a moment, before letting out an, “Ah!” and pulling a paint brush from behind her back, complete with buckets of yellow and black paint.
Virmir briefly ponders relying on paint to fool creatures that, if he remembers correctly, barely even identify each other by sight, and the likely death he’d suffer if they found out… but… unproductivity is significantly worse than any such fate. After all, he’d be fine after the next scene change, anyways. “Fine, let’s get on with it.”
-------
“Do you see anything?”
“Aside from the hundreds of bees flying in and out of the hive above us? Not a thing.” Virmir grumbles, trying to avoid rubbing at the paint and smudging it. “Why’d I have to leave my cape behind? I bet some raccoon or cat or mustelid took it by now.” He starts walking in, the female fox following closely after him.
Lucile shoots a glare at Virmir, her robe equally as discarded as Virmir’s cape. “Do you know how hard that paint is to get out of cloth? Besides, at least you’re just as naked as befo-”
The vaguely-masculine fox turns around with a grand frown, shouting at the top of his lungs, “WEARING FUR; NOT NAKED!”
“Fur? Don’t you mean fuzz?” An odd, droning voice inquires from behind Virmir, Lucile looking above the fox with a startled expression.
Virmir turns back around and face a massive worker bee, one at least two meters tall at the shoulder, its head tilted as it tries to identify the intruders. “Ah- erm- yes! Fuzz! It must have slipped my mind! Well, we’d best get going, pollenating and eating nectar and vomiting it back up into hexagons and such, isn’t that right Lucile?” Turning around once again, Virmir finds the space the female fox once occupied entirely vacant. “…L-Lucile?”
“You know, now that I look at you closer, you’re not very bee-y are you? I mean, I don’t even see any wings!” Virmir gulps. “Clearly, the nurses did a terrible job feeding you!”
Virmir laughs awkwardly. “Heh, yeah, heh, that must be it. Obviously didn’t eat enough honey growing up. Ah well, we make do with what we have and I have to leave here right now so-“
“Oh, don’t worry, we can fix that right now!” The bee chimes in happily, grabbing Virmir around the waist with its front arms.
“GAH, f-f-fix!?” He sputters, distressed, before flailing as much as his weak body could.
The oblivious bee carries the squirming fox further in, speaking in a chipper tone. “Certainly! I mean, it’s relatively experimental, and the past few bees were disfigured beyond recognition, but there’s a first time for everything!”
“No, you don’t understand! I’m not a bee at all! I’m a blasted fox!”
The worker bee giggles. “Oh, that’s a good one. Since when did foxes come in yellow, huh? Tell me that!”
Virmir was stunned, either by how hopeless his chances for escape were or by how stupendously stupid this bee was. Clearly, growing didn’t help its brain function very much.
“We’re here!” Virmir examines his surrounding, finding himself in a chamber consisting of a pool of glistening, golden honey and several fleshy tubes dangling from the ceiling.
“What exactly are you going to- GAH!” The painted fox is cut off from his question by being casually throwing into the honey. As the fox breaks the surface, of the sticky substance, he finds himself entirely immobilized in it. “Hey, what go- MMMPH!” Yet again, the fox’s question is cut off, this time by one of the fleshy tubes being shoved into his maw.
“Now calm down, this will all be over soon.” The bee lightly pats Virmir as the tube begins pumping honey into him, only distressing him further. “This special honey will correct any biological and mental defects you might have.” As if on cue, a two pairs of wings burst out of Virmir’s back, the fur around it hardening into a carapace and slowly spreading across his back.
“MMMPH!” The vulpine shouts out, trying, fruitlessly, to squirm his way free as the sweet fluid is slowly pumped into him.
“Oh, don’t bother fighting, that honey is extra sticky, and you should be feeling the other honey’s effects on your mind quite soon.” The bee grins- can bees grin? One wouldn’t think they had the requisite facial muscles- as the fox’s eyelids grow heavy as his struggling ceases and the carapace covers his entire torso, spreading over the exposed portions of his arms and causing a second pair to press out from half-way down his chest. “Yes, you can feel it, can’t you? The love you have for the Queen? How you want to be a loyal worker bee? How much being a productive little bee makes you happy?” Virmir nods, his head losing the visage of a fox and shifting to that of a bee, the only tell-tale signs of who he is being the third, small antennae adorned on his forehead.
Virmir smiles to himself as he realizes who he truly loves more than anything else in the world, and how much he can’t wait to begin working…
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The morning is dim, silent, and mildly warm. In a suburban neighborhood, populated mostly by elderly or childless couples, an alarm buzzes out. A gray-and-yellow fuzzed arm reaches out and turns off the alarm in nearly an instant, retracting back under three or four layers of comforters and another two layers of sheets before a similarly-colored bee catapults upright.
“Eight fifteen, wake up from a warm, restful nap.”
