Anise

Anise was hatched as a Royal Jelly in a hive residing in the Windswept plateau. As such she’d always felt a strong attachment to her hive, a sense of protectiveness over a peaceful home.
But it never felt quite like her home. Anise loved her Queen and King, loved her siblings, and felt ashamed of her desire to leave and find her purpose. If she was one of the only royal jellies, this might have been enough to make her stay. The fact was that she was one of many, the small hive on the outskirts of wind territory had more than enough protectors.
So when she sat atop a flat stone, basking in the midday sunshine, and a breeze carried a scent of flowers she’d never before smelled, Anise decided it was time. Time to expand her horizons and find the source of that wonderful smell. It smelled like calm, still petals atop water, like a garden well cared for, and like a bush ripe with blooms that hid sneaky thorns.
She brought the request before her queen, jittery with nerves and the thought that she would be denied. Twas’ all for nought, the queen was gracious, blessing her passage and willing her to visit, telling tales of her journey.
A few pioneering insects stowed away with her, their excitement infectious as Anise took flight, following the scent.
A weeks flight to the edge of the land and she’d found the source.
A cliffside whose top appeared to be occupied by a sprawling garden, all manner of flowers and herbs, from medicinal to aesthetic to edible.
The air felt positively infused with pollen, Anise hummed happily as she walked through the garden.
Only to fall rather clumsily through a concealed hole in the ground. The imperial within gave a startled (and rather undignified) squawk when she crashed straight into his study.
“Oh dear oh dear! Watch your feet! Don’t crush the aloe!” The large dragon quickly scooped her up and away from the multitude of aloe plants littering the ground.
Setting her down carefully on a bare patch of ground, he shook his head in exasperation.
“I have TOLD Nymeria at least 20 times that there needs to be some kind of warning! Some kind of ‘Holes ahead!’ Or ‘Watch your step!’ But she insists that it would ‘ruin the aesthetic’ as if safety ever made things worse!” He finished in a huff, Anise still stunned by the events.
He seemed to realize the situation.
“Oh my, terribly sorry, you must excuse my abhorrent manners! Prattling on when you’re probably terribly confused. Well anyway, my name is Lukas, welcome to the Wind’s Peak clan.”
It turned out there were many more holes throughout the garden, they provided a lot of light to the inside of the cliff, where the clan resided.
Most of the skylights were covered with a thin mesh to prevent the precise incident that had befallen Anise, but Lukas had heard it was going to rain, and wanted to water his newest experiments in plant science.
Anise made fast friends with the bumbles living in the enormous garden, often being surrounded by them as she moved to observed and sometimes collect different flowers.
Anise gave off a feeling of peace, of calm days and warm sunlight. She was quickly accepted into the clan, and she grew to regard it as her new hive.
She began making her own honey, adding little tweaks here and there until she decided it was time to present her work. It wasn’t long before the clan’s cafe asked to buy her honey, and after seeing how they put it into pastries Anise decided to learn how to bake.
The smiles on the young dragons’ faces when they scarfed down a puff pastry slathered in her homemade honey made her feel content, and as she brought a jar of her honey back to her original hive on a visit, she was happy to tel them that she had found the home she didn’t know she had been looking for.