Those bearing messages between Judgements.

Puzzlement as to why a matter is frightening. The experience of having met only a single member of a species.

An ancient injustice, still resented. A failure to understand the cause of one's desires/feelings.

Frustration at the number of grudges in the world. Regret at having caused fear. 

She turns around and heads back to the Tacketies. 

The bees continue fleeing. The impromptu Tackety camp is loud with the noise of buzzsaws and drills, working on disassembly of the giant tree.

She lands and changes back. "Chorister bees are afraid of Messengers, apparently," she reports. 

"Good for you," the Tackety captain snorts. "They're menaces. Attack Titania on the regular, attack anyone who has Chorister Nectar, even though they gather it instead of making it."

"I'm not a Messenger--not mostly anyway--but I look enough like one. Were you aware they are people." 

"...Like Rattus Faber? I mean, they sing. Sometimes in English, even. But they won't stop and chat with you even when they're not trying to sting you."

"Okay, just checking. They didn't say anything in English to me, and back in London rattus faber were not kindly treated."

"There's people who hunt them to steal the nectar. There's people who hunt cantankeri, for the gems under their hides, and scrive-spinsters for their bodies - bronzewood - and curators for their collections. London hunts us. Tackety engines, and we them. If anything, chorister bees are the least defensible, they don't attack you unless you have nectar aboard."

"Fucking shit on a bed of hot coals, do people just pick up a gun one day and go, 'I know, I'm going to be a serial killer for fun and profit?' Ugh. What is a scrive-spinster, what are cantankeri, are either of those giant floating isopods 'cause I did meet one of those and not recognize it...do curators regularly attack people, I thought that was just the Vake." 

"Scrive-spinsters were celestial librarians, but their library got smashed to bits and scattered long ago. Now they wander lost and angry and trying to piece it back together, and attack people sometimes. Cantankeri are the giant flying isopods. They mostly attack anything that's not other cantankeri on sight. I've heard a bunch of stories of curators showing up in the sky and screeching bridge-windows right out of their fittings to loot the engines, but there's a couple specific ones that aren't hostile - Mr. Pennies springs to mind, he buys tons and tons of hours and I'm not sure why - I think most people don't realize the terrifying giant killer bats are the same thing as the human-sized figure wearing a heavy concealing cloak? Anyway, it's easy to see something other than human and think - oh, that's a wild beast, undeserving of my sympathy. Or a monster, a threat that I'll be lauded in clubs and papers if I take a trophy from."

"Ugh. So I guess people have figured out the Masters of the Bazaar were curators, if you can identify Mr. Pennies as one? The cantanker...what is the singular...anyway, it didn't attack me, hm. The scrive-spinsters sound maybe soluble, depends on what it is exactly they need..." 

"I don't know much about Fallen London, to be honest - just the sky. Mr. Pennies is kind of a fixture at Lustrum. Selling off its whole collection for Hours, talking about postponing a reckoning - seems worrying if you ask me, aren't their collections supposed to be their whole purpose? Anyway, maybe the cantankeri was scared of you. I would be."

"I was in human shape at the time! Anyway, yes, that is concerning, I'll have to investigate at some point."

The captain shrugs. "God, this is all... I don't even know. Sometimes when strange things happen, you don't even know what to do next, you know? Well, June has some Bronzewood set aside for you. She's very keen on showing you how to use Hours."

"I'm very keen on being shown!" 

She goes off to find June.

She's working side-by-side with her father on the big pile of recovered machinery. It's all a lot more organized than before, and several things are attached to the mining rig that's attacking the tree.

"Hey! Find out what you wanted to know about the bees?"

"Not everything I'd like, because the first thing I found out was that they're scared of me." 

"...Huh. Well, better that than the reverse."

She finishes tightening a bolt, says bye to her dad, and walks over to a small handcart with some solid timbers of wood on it. They're a bit rough, but they gleam like bronze.

"So, I figure you'll get about fifty Sovereigns for this and it's mostly believable for one of us to push it into the Reserve?"

"Cool," she says, and takes the handcart. She can pretend to struggle with it when they reach other human eyes. 

"You'll need to fly us closer though. I think the main landing is about a hundred miles away. Can you be... Littler? Or sneaky somehow?"

"Hmm, yeah." 

Her skirts spread as she transforms partially beneath them, and she picks up June with one arm and the handcart with the other. 

ZOOM. 

They pass another locomotive on the way in, steaming the opposite direction. It's mostly unmarked - June identifies it as optimized for trade due to the wide, curving outer hull. 

The main settled section of the Reserve is a small clearing on the edge of a high cliff, mostly free of vegetation. It's very warm and moist here. The plants are verdant and colorful and diverse, flowers and trees and shrubs and vines and more - and more beautiful than one would expect a jungle to be. The jungle chitters and mutters with the sounds of animals of all kinds. Clusters of raised huts made of something bamboo-like mark most the human presence here - only a handful of utility buildings, a crane by the docks, and a lonely rusting cannon turret are built more conventionally. Families and tourists and academics and a small number of laborers to support the others are walking around - many of them with rifles, just in case. There are smaller clearings scattered like islands and connected with little bridges, and paths down into the jungle here and there. It's easy to pick one out to walk up from.

"Pretty, isn't it?"