John Harding

When the Uz lived during the time of endless eating in Wonderhome, Gorakiki was a servant of the first mother. Gorakiki was wise and good, serving her mistress well. She had a natural affinity for the all the animals of Wonderhome but her favorites were the black bees.

Most Uz regarded these as useless pets for children, but many still liked how the bees felt to their darksee. When they swarmed in the fungal forests the beating of their wings and their chitinous bodies made many Uz drunk with darksee pleasure.

Then came the time of great pain when the Burning Death came to Wonderhome. The Foul Burner killed many Uz, but some knew how to escape and one of them was Gorakiki.

The bees came to Gorakiki and cried, “Save us from the burner, two legged mother!” So she took the black bees in her right hand.  The black wasps came to her and cried, “Though we are not your favorites, two legged mother, we are cousins to the bees. Will you not save us as well?”

Gorakiki took the black wasps in her left hand and the rest of her many legged friends had no choice but to run behind her. She ran and jumped and escaped to the hurtplace but many of her animals burned as she fled.  Not even the bees and wasps escaped. The foul burner had scorched them through her fingers. Where the space between her fingers had let the death light through they were burned yellow the color of the foul burner's light. The bees and wasps were remained yellow and black ever after and to this day some Uz call the stripes on Bees and Wasps "Gorakiki’s fingers".

Notes by Warncliffe of Jonstown

The trolls “darksee” or darksense is odd to us humans but it gives as much aesthetic pleasure to the trolls as our own hearing and sight. I once asked a troll of Dagori Inkarth why trolls got drunk on the swarm of bees in this story. He told me that the  bees were much bigger than the “komor” kind and he attempted to describe why everyone got drunk.

Unfortunately either I failed to really understand him or he lacks the wit to express himself properly. What I did glean from the conversation was that both “the insides and the outsides” of bees were aesthetically pleasing to trolls. What this means I could not fathom but then who can truly understand the ways of the dark men