The duty insects, pollinators

"I expect your essays by next week, dismissed!"
"Ugh, again with the essays, and not a short one either..."
A few weeks later.

Essay for metaphysics 301 Student: Ami Dandelion-Meiho Presented for fall term 814
It is known, it was known, it will be known, now and forevermore, that plants in Arnd rely on several species of pollinators for their reproduction. Those most involved in this practice are the so-called duty insects, the social insects: termites, ants, wasps and bees, in growing order of importance. It surprises no one that bees, especially the Firebees cherished by Duty, but feared by anyone who ever tripped on one of their nests, have a heavy involvement, visiting thousands of flowers during a season, setting a small percentage of them on fire during this. Clearing out swathes of old forests, dry plains, kindling savannahs as they do. The Great Kimagure Fire of 465 is now thought to have been due to a negligent orange orchardkeeper failing to keep his Orange Trees wet enough to prevent this. The loss of life in the thousands, the disastrous effect on the economy of all Kagomei, not fully recovered to this day, now more than three hundred years later, attest to how much damage one single act of neglect can cause. It should surprise no student of the elements that Duty took special notice of these industrious little insects, always ready to sacrifice themselves for their fellows. Their firey tempers and reliance on honey, a sugar-like substance used as a staple in Eurania and the Ericsson Continent, but comparatively little-known in Asirania also endear them to Advantage 's cult and cultists, who find their creative, self-reliant ways to maintain chemical and social balance within a hive most reasonable.

Mirsala Minomiya set aside her reading, it was late. This was the best essay on this topic, the only one to notice the link between fire and bees. Of course, everyone knew about the air link, but fire? And advantage. And as Mirsala was an Aumhava-for-life of Duty, how could Ami even manage to teach her about Duty's own creed? This essay would go far, perhaps be shared up to every priestess. But then, Ami was looking very good as a candidate to the Mistress of Rites, position. It shouldn't surprise her, but it still did. Just barely a legal adult, and already wise beyond peers who had a decade on her. The link to the Great Kimagure fire had not, so far as Mirsala could tell, been examined by anyone, but Ami laid eyes on an interesting cause and effect here: why wouldn't Duty embrace the dangerous but industrious animals, when they made neglect of duty both so obvious and punished it so painfully?
And looking at it from another angle, why were firebees so involved in pollination? Because so many predators chose pollination as a moment to strike. Firebees had almost no natural predators, just the odd Phoenix, who would eat anything smaller than itself. Regular bees and wasps had to contend with birds, lizards, dragonflies, mantids, stick-bites, hummingbirds, most small mammals and especially bats, who'd gorge themselves on them. Firebees managed to pollinate so much because they were left alone. Ants and termites would pollinate flowers mostly by accident, they had numbers though, when Nectar Ant] chose to drink up, they would do so in thousands, and termites often had have semi-captive semi-sheltered flowers growing in their nests. Only the Nectarwolf would attempt to bother either, and they only did so at a time and place of their choosing.

Manifestation

Just like in our world, pollen is exchanged. Arndans have biases about using magic, and who uses magic, and for what. The student whose essay we read highlights some of her self-reexamined notions, bringing out uncomfortable truths.

Localization

On the world of Arnd, and its many continents. This doesn't happen, say, on Massimo or among the great Monasteries of the Nek-Mo-Ti.

Type

Metaphysical, Supernatural