The Fall of Wasps
The history of a Garden and its royals.
The First Story: Of the Garden and its Keepers
Once upon a time, all the world was a garden without men to tend it.
It was a sparkling canvas that shaped sunlight into every pleasant form and fragrance nature could realize. A miracle born over silent eons that had flourished into an iridescent expanse of endless flora blossoming into gemstone flowers glittering above seas of emerald grass, with pillars of adamantine bark towering into the heavens bearing constellations of shining fruit, strange fungi glowing deep beneath the earth as beacons to illuminate the hidden parts of the world, and countless other wonders.
Yet the Garden was still, and the Garden grew old. In some parts barren, in others overgrown.
So, the Garden shaped the sunlight into beings of motion and instinct. Minute creatures emerging forth from fruit and flower with wings of flashing glass, armor of gleaming chitin, and bedecked in magnificent furs. Regal dress which enabled them to gracefully fly or crawl or dig all across the land to reach their countless charges as planters and pruners of the timeless Garden, an animating force of a static world. As the tides give life to the seas, as the winds give life to the sands.
It was then that the Garden’s maker deemed the world fit for his own harvest, tilled by time and sunlight, and so let loose a star from his sky.
An opalescent teardrop swaddled in sparkling fire fell through the air to herald the beginning of time. It crashed to rest beneath the tallest tree at the Garden’s center with the sound of thunder and the flash of lightning, a cry for any keeper to bury it in the earth.
It was not long before two sisters came to oblige.
The eldest reached the crater that cradled it first, yet nascent cowardice turned her hand before she could seize it, sending her scuttling away from the alien light to hide in the shadows nature’s familiar foliage so readily provided.
Yet in the youngest the light sparked only courage and wonder, and she took up the jewel in her limbs to heed its unspoken command.
The instant she did so she was no longer any mere insect but instead coronated a Queen by powers beyond her understanding. For the star’s seed bore light unfiltered by space and uncolored by nature, and it bestowed upon her reason and thought and will, shaping her body into a vessel not unlike our own, a wondrous temple that could now house a brilliant soul.
Starlight coursed through her blood, that which bound her to all her sisters, filling the shadows where their souls should be with radiance and setting their minds ablaze with the spark of sentience, bestowing upon her kin all the same wonders. At once she knew her name was Venus, her sister’s Vesper, and that what she held would be known as the Starseed.
And though Venus knew more than ever that a seed was to be planted, both through nature’s instinct and the Starseed’s newly bestowed reason, she could not bear to relinquish it to the soil. For reason brought with it knowledge of the treasure she held, and she thought it a waste of such a gift. So, she took the petals of nearby flowers to forge a crown with the Starseed as its center jewel, and placed it on her brow.
When she had finished the Queen twirled to smile at her sister, eager to rejoice with their new emotion, yet found her sat weeping.
“I weep for my inaction.” Vesper claimed through tears, “I arrived first, I could be wearing that Starseed if only I knew what it held, yet cowardice saw me delegate whatever dangers it may have possessed onto you, my younger sister!” she sobbed, “Now, for your bravery, you are made Queen of the Garden, and I am left only with the knowledge of what I have lost.”
“Weep no more, dear sister.” said the Queen, taking pity on her, “And know that though the Starseed shall rest on my brow, I too will be beneath it, and I shall share its blessings so that its light shines upon us all.”
Queen Venus dried her sister’s eyes, crystalizing Vesper’s tears with as much of the Starseed’s light as they could hold. The white light split through them to create a pile of countless jewels in every color of the rainbow at her feet, and Vesper watched as her sister kneeled to pick the grass beneath her, speaking as she wove the blades into a tiara that housed a tear in every stitch and seam:
“As you were first to the Starseed, it is only right that you should receive a better part of its wonders, for I would have you rule over a third of the world, to carry its light where I cannot reach, as Princess of the Garden.”
The Queen placed the finished tiara on her sister’s head, which Vesper accepted with an embrace, and together they turned to their subjects as they emerged from their solitary nests, wary of their awareness, seeking the purpose once so effortlessly granted to them as insects now stolen by their enlightenment.
So, their Queen returned it to them:
“As the Garden shapes light to beauty, we shall shape beauty to order.”
By those words the Garden became a queendom. Where once the keepers were merely eaters of rot and planters of seeds, they were now spirits of starlight wrapped in bodies of earth, and became artisans to guide the Garden towards higher and more magnificent goals. And the Garden accepted their guidance, and recognized the starlight in their hearts, and allowed them communion with its flowers, providing them raw beauty that flowed from their petals like mana from which all their needs would be obliged, and all their wonders realized.
And realized they were.
Golden hives in perfect hexagonal patterns gilded trees sculpted into masterpieces all the way up to the stars, through husbandry they bred plants of new colors and scents so fantastic they have since been lost to the world, species of flora that once grew haphazardly between each other were arranged into more pleasing and healthy orders. Petals and leaves already beautiful became canvases adorned with art and poetry as spells to enchant the keepers that viewed them and the land that housed them. Most magnificently were the tulip bulbs crystallized by mana into jewel bearings that allowed shining clockwork to turn in divine motions in service of sustaining the eternal Garden.
With the blessing of the Starseed and the mana the flowers provided, Queen Venus spun new creatures to facilitate this great work. Mantids formed of flower petals to exclusively care for the most precious treasures of the Garden, stocky beetles armed with chitin and lance to dig into the earth and till the soil, and harmonious colonies of ants forming living veins of resources between hives. Above lakes of crystal twinkled dragonflies like dancing rainbows, butterflies graced the day as living paintings, moonstone moths graced the night, and choirs of crickets sanctified the air itself with song. Though no creation of the Queen could commune with flowers directly, she saw that her keepers tended to their needs as they would any other charge, for they were all a part of the Garden.
And so, the harmony of earth and starlight would come to produce a Garden of everlasting perfection, eternally unfolding into new and greater wonders at the hands of the keepers and the guidance of their blessed Queen.
If not for the Princess, and what became of her third of the world.
The Second Story: Of the Rebellion of Princess Vesper
With all the blessings of emotion came too its curses, and the day the Queen placed the Starseed upon her head a dark seed was planted in the Princess’ own mind, taking root when Princess Vesper lied to her sister about why she wept, growing deeper each time one visited the other. Each time the Princess saw that jewel so near to being her own, the one would have seen her named Queen of the Garden.
If only the Princess’ empathy outweighed her envy, or if honesty had seen her confess her greed, then all might be forgiven, and she might realize the light of the Starseed was already within her, and the Garden may still grow today.
Yet time strengthens temptation, and with time the seed of jealousy in her mind sprouted into a parasite that gnawed away all the love of her sister, all her obligations to the Garden and her subjects, all the memories of her own faults that saw her abdicate the Starseed until Princess Vesper was left little more than a bitter husk ruled by envy. Even the tiara of tears she once treasured above all else seemed to wane duller, the countless yet finite colors paling to the infinite brilliance of her sister’s crown, and her realm fell with her in her search to surpass it.
Curtains of smog and storm arose to conceal the machinations of tyranny from the Queen’s sight, woven by wretched engines built to steal the mana offered by the flowers as fuel to ravage the earth and reveal the precious gems and metals with which the Princess would continuously adorn herself in her vain pursuit of apotheosis. Her waters ran black with oil, then dry as she drained them for any wonders hidden beneath, choking what little life was left in her realm until all was clad in death’s sole color. Neither was the sky spared, for whatever refuse remained from the ravishing of nature she built into hideous towers that scraped the stars, desperate to tear another jewel from the heavens. The subjects brave enough to refuse her ever-more heinous commands she banished, while those who shared her cowardice or else her greed she rewarded with a splinter of her crystal tears, bestowing them in dark ceremonies of false coronation under the promise that they would one day be Queens themselves. In vile parody of her sister’s works she shaped herself and her servants with the starlight trapped in her tears into monsters, profaning the temples gifted to them by the marriage of light and nature under the delusion that the Princess had improved upon them.
Yet it was all in service of nothing, all the armies she commanded and all the treasure she wore worth less than a scintillation of the Starseed. For Princess Vesper impossibly sought to claim the starlight’s boons by forsaking its virtues, and never could she understand that the Starseed shone so beautifully on the head of Queen Venus only because she was its most faithful instrument, while for all her efforts to usurp it the Princess was left only with a horde of glittering baubles amidst a sea of ash, of black trees, of barren rock.
And all of it was nothing to one who desired all.
So she beat her ploughshares to swords, her engines of industry to engines of war, and brought her army to Queen Venus’ palace; that tree at the center of the world where they had embraced so many ages ago.
Flame fell like hail upon that sacred tree, soldiers following the fire and flooding into all the passages and chambers to rain down swords forged with steel stolen from the bowels of the world upon the keepers who knew naught but peace, who could never have known to prepare for such war.
For the first time the Garden tasted blood, a poison that would forever taint the land with the sickness and strife we know today.
At last they reached the Queen upon her throne, and when Queen Venus saw what her sister had become she wept for pity, begging Princess Vesper cease her war and repent her sin.
Yet the Princess saw only the jewel on her crown.
Madly she charged towards it, first amongst her uncountable swarm of monsters, ready to shred her sister with sword and teeth until only the jewel remained.
Only when the Queen had spent every moment she could pleading with the Princess, when her sister’s left hand gripped her throat and her right grazed the Starseed, did she reveal to Princess Vesper all its coveted wonders.
Incandescence erupted from the gemstone and transfigured Queen Venus into an angel of justice, a blinding white star that flung fire into the hordes surrounding her. Princess Vesper watched her army burn to glittering embers like so much kindling for the flame, and the wrath of evil withered before the wrath of the righteous.
At once she took flight, abandoning those she led in hopeless retreat, fruitlessly launching spells against the Queen who pursued her in panicked attempts to stay her hand. Storm clouds burned and lightning bolts fractured impotently before the shooting star as it raced to pluck her from the air, embracing the Princess in gleaming fire and reducing all the riches she had forsaken her soul for to slag. The tiara the Queen had so lovingly crafted for her sister burnt to soot, and the precious tears within melted to fall again as heavy as they did on Princess Vesper’s first day of sentience, spilling across her body while the Starseed reclaimed the light within, leaving the Princess with naught but seared flesh forever stained sickly colors of amber, emerald, and sapphire.
When the Starseed had taken back what was its own, Queen Venus cast the flaming Princess from the heavens, sending her crashing into her accursed realm, the cleansing fire exploding off of her in waves and torrents of iridescent flame that engulfed the dark land, catching on the rotten towers and swirling into pillairs of sparkling smoke that ignited the black clouds and burned the pollution from the skies before raining back as blazing hail to erase the ashen wasteland and cauterize the cancer that had too long festered in the Garden.
In a brilliant storm of light and flame the Princess’ rebellion perished, and Queen Venus resumed her regal form as she descended to see what became of her sister.
She found the Princess scarred and weeping, yet saw her tears as they truly were, empty of remorse, and the Queen’s forgiveness could not heal one who would not be forgiven.
Yet still she could not bear to slay her sister, and with all her power she could not keep the tremble from her voice as she declared her sentence:
“Vesper, for all you have done against the Garden you shall be exiled from it, forever stripped of your title of Princess, and excommunicated from the flowers. Never again shall you walk amongst them, and forever shall you wander the caves far, far beneath the world. . .”
This time Vesper dried her tears herself, tended to her wounds as the Queen only watched, and turned her back to her sister without a word, setting off to do as she was commanded in silent surrender.
“. . . unless you should realize the error of your ways, and repent your sins.” finished Queen Venus, notes of hope desperately clinging to her voice.
Vesper halted, but did not face her sister. She lingered wordlessly just outside the caves that would be her prison until the Queen’s hopes died in the scorched air, then vanished into shadows as dark as her thoughts.
As for Vesper’s realm, even the Queen could not fully repair the damage her sister had done to the Garden, for the soil was too barren to till, the sky too empty for rain. So, her keepers polished each grain of earth until it glittered, and Queen Venus created plants hardy enough to grow with seldom water. Occasionally they wept as they worked, overcome by the Garden’s wound, creating oases in what we now know as the deserts of the world.
When the Queen had done all that she could she returned to her palace and resumed her duties as maintainer of the Garden’s order, reluctantly raising armies to protect it should it ever again be threatened.
She spoke little of the desert, or the fate of the Princess.
And her subjects never saw her smile again.
The Third Story: The War of Flowers
Far below the world, in labyrinths bereft of sunlight, wandered she who was once Princess. Denied the mana to be gained from the scarce plant or fungi that grew in such depths she sustained herself on slime and dirt, never stopping to reflect in the scum-topped pools of water she drank from, never discovering the error of her ways as Queen Venus had naively hoped – though neither did she seek it.
Instead, she cursed her sister for what had been inflicted upon her, lamenting her fate, raving about her plans for vengeance, all while searching for any exit unguarded by the sentinels the Queen had employed after her rebellion.
So, she spiraled aimlessly, further and further down into the very center of the world to a place that starlight had never graced with its touch, nor any keeper had ever seen.
And though Vesper had fallen to darkness, she was still born a creature of light.
Here lived true dark.
At the bottom of the world she stumbled upon a creature older than sunlight given form by its absence, an amalgamation of shapeless shadows that suggested the presence of countless legs and fangs and eyes, all suddenly surrounding Vesper and threatening to plunge her into a far blacker abyss.
Yet the shadows recognized their own, the unseen eyes peered into her soul, searched her mind and read her memories, saw her schemes and designs, and witnessed a world blanketed in darkness that would allow it to at last emerge into the Garden.
So, its tongues spun the words that would guide Vesper to her final damnation.
“Fool you are.” taunted a chorus of whispers, “A thing of evil, to challenge good so courageously in fair battle, in a contest of strength. For courage and fairness and strength are the domain of good, and only a fool would do battle where their enemy claims advantage.”
“Evil shall never overpower good, though it is no matter, for our domain is deception. To turn good’s power against itself.”
“What could your sister - so pure and noble, who even now spares you – have done, had your defeat demanded the life of a single innocent?”
“You beheld the wrath of the just. How much more would your armies have accomplished if they believed in their hearts they served just causes, rather than merely serving you to serve themselves?”
“Leave this place, and claim that which you desire.”
And the shadows vanished into impenetrable darkness, down tunnels leading to unknowable depths, and even Vesper dared not venture after them.
Yet the words stuck in her mind, and she pondered them as she undertook the long ascent back through the maze towards the tunnels closest to the sky, and found their shadows bright by compare.
When she at last came upon a portal to the Garden above, barred and guarded by two beetles that served as sentries beyond. She approached the gate and asked:
“Do you know who I am?”
“You were once Princess, the traitor Vesper.” the sentries responded, “Imprisoned for your crimes against the Garden and the war against Her Majesty.”
So, Vesper retreated, and spent an age choosing the words that would follow, and when many years had passed she approached the portal to find new beetles, and asked again:
“Do you know who I am?”
“You are the one called Traitor.” the sentries responded, “Imprisoned for crimes against the Garden and a war against Her Majesty.”
And Vesper returned to the dark, and retired into a strange and timeless slumber, and many ages passed above her.
She awoke, and again found new beetles, and asked for the third time:
“Do you know who I am?”
This time the sentries were shocked to hear her voice, and after collecting their tongues replied:
“Legend says you once rebelled against Her Majesty, though I never thought it to be true.”
“Legend says?” responded Vesper, feigning surprise, “My, how long has it been?”
“There are none alive to remember, save Her Majesty herself.” answered the sentry.
Vesper smiled to herself, and at last employed the words she had prepared for so long.
“Then you know not your history, or the truth of my imprisonment, for what she calls rebellion was a just revolution against her tyranny.”
“Tyranny?” asked the sentry, “Of what sort?”
“I see you know not what she has denied you.” Vesper lamented, “You are not keepers yourselves, and have never held communion with the flowers.”
“We are given communion by the keepers, for the keepers were made by the Garden, and we by the Queen.” recited the beetles, now doubting the truth, “For the flowers recognize them as their own, yet still they are called to serve us, for we are all a part of the Garden.”
“Is that what she told you?” sneered Vesper, “The Queen made you - how convenient! Do you not see they only give you scraps? Or else you should learn to take it for yourselves and become like them, with all their powers.” She softened the indignation in her voice before continuing, “Such was the reason for my rebellion, to liberate all creatures of the Garden from the tyranny of the Queen and her keepers, to spread the light of the Starseed throughout all the world rather than use it as a mere jewel in a gaudy crown. . .”
And the beetles did not stop Vesper as she preached her warped gospel, taught false histories. Telling them how she and the Queen both found the Starseed, and how Vesper was to take it before Queen Venus so savagely ripped her away to claim it for herself. How her realm was a land where all were equal, where none were mere parts of the Garden, but instead all Queens of their own. How the false Queen Venus had struck her down, burned her realm, jealous of her virtue and fearful of her supporters.
So long had Vesper sharpened her tongue that the beetles soon believed every word loosed from it, already resenting the Queen who created them for what they believed was stolen from them.
So, they released Vesper, and abandoned their posts to tell their fellows what they had heard, allowing their prisoner to wander to and fro, up and down the Garden, taking every creature she came across by the ear and whispering lies into their minds until there was no species she had not tainted. Even the keepers were not immune, for whenever one discovered her she played upon their empathy. She invented stories of the plight of those who were not keepers, and shamed them for their complacency in the machinery of such tyranny, and smiled as they fell into her armies.
And it was just as the creature in the shadows had foretold, good knew not how to handle a threat that emerged from within itself, and was powerless to halt its spread as the tainted repeated to all they crossed the poison Vesper had whispered in their ears. Not all succumbed to it, and many remained firm in their faith, yet that only served to widen the divides that had grown between them and those who had not. Discordant notes poisoned the harmony the Queen had so thoughtfully orchestrated as conflict broke out amongst her people, the divine clockwork began to creak with tension as cogs pulled in opposing directions, and all seemed to begin sliding backwards towards the land as it was before the Starseed had bestowed its blessings upon the Queen and her kin.
When as much damage as mere words could cause had been done, and only those who could not be swayed remained loyal to their Queen, Vesper quietly sounded the muted trumpets that would incite her armies to war.
And it was more terrible than anything Vesper had ever dared imagine.
For she had not merely waged war against the Queen, she had caused the Garden to wage war against itself. All the defenses Queen Venus had prepared after Vesper’s first war were turned upon themselves. No blade of grass went unmarred by death, no masterwork was spared its ruination. Fallen keepers ravished the flowers they once held sacred, colonies fell to anarchy and hives tore themselves asunder, mainsprings of clockwork were shredded to gilded ribbons, jewel bearings smashed to sparkling dust, and all the Garden’s wonders shattered into glittering rubble as savagery claimed the world so carefully crafted by earth and starlight.
Without a passing thought Vesper abandoned her alleged allies to die in senseless chaos, flying for the last time to the tree at the center of the world where she effortlessly slithered through the palace, unchallenged by guards busy with the mobs on their doorstep.
She found her not in the throne room, nor in her private chambers, but at the tree’s peak. In a room of windows interwoven into the canopy of stained-glass leaves that scraped the edge of heaven, built so the Queen might behold the majesty of her realm.
Here the Queen stood weeping. Windows that once allowed the sunlight to scatter into rainbows now only intensified the crimson of blood and flame, before that too was tainted by the sickly colors of flesh seared amber, emerald, and sapphire.
“Weep no more, dear sister.” mocked Vesper, “And know that the Starseed shall rest on my brow.”
Every emotion flashed through Queen Venus’ heart as she turned to be greeted by her sister’s cruel smile, watched her hand smugly reach out in anticipation of her surrender, and though wrath rose within the Queen for what she realized Vesper had done – both knew she could not bear to doom the misguided to perish in cleansing fire, for it would doom the entire Garden with them.
Without a word Queen Venus removed the Starseed from her crown, and took the jewel into her hands, and Vesper strode forward to claim the victory at last rewarded to her by all her countless years in that accursed darkness.
Only to scream more tortured than any soul she had damned as Venus obeyed the Starseed’s first request, and cast it through the canopy of glass to relinquish it to the soil.
For just as good knows not of evil’s capacity for deceit, evil knows not of good’s capacity for sacrifice.
Vesper leapt from the roof of the world to follow the twinkling shards that fell after it, while Venus closed her eyes.
Below, some watched an opalescent teardrop swaddled in sparkling fire herald the end of time. Others fought until the moment it landed, piercing the earth with a thunderous hush that spread its light all throughout the world and silenced the Garden and all the strife that came from the sentience within it.
And for all the sound that came before, it was silence alone that reigned.
Not until all that had been built had succumbed to entropy, not until all the weapons and wonders turned to dust as though they never were, would voice and thought return. When the Starseed at last revealed its fruit, spirits of starlight wrapped in bodies of earth, and humanity emerged into what was once the Garden.
Though the days of the Garden would be remembered, and the faith of the faithful would not go unrewarded, nor would the sins of the wicked go unpunished.
For the Queen and her loyal keepers retain their lovely shapes, and are still given communion with flowers – though we know them as bees, and one can taste the mana they share with us in their honey, and the fruit of the Starseed shall forever nurture them.
Yet the fallen keepers of the Princess were warped by their sin, and became the wasps and hornets of the world, wretched beasts of no use, who mankind slays wherever they are found. Some still retain Vesper’s colors, and prey as parasites on the cockroaches descended from the beetles that released her back into the world.
Indeed, the fate of all other insects was decided by their loyalties in the War of Flowers, the end of the Garden. One may see their blessings and their curses even today, navigating the world as creatures of instinct, none the wiser of what they have lost.
Though it is hard not to imagine, whenever one should wander from its hive, or seem drawn to we humans and our homes, if not they seek the light in our chests, or still search for the Starseed buried somewhere in the earth.