Kabaneri Fluffbit – Cooperation

~ crossovercreativechaos

“…Honey.” The Yomogawa heir caught herself before she licked her lips.

Kurusu, Yukina noted, amused, was carefully looking anywhere else. Aww.

“We can get some of it, can’t we?” Ayame went on, eyes still fixed on the buzzing mass. “I mean, I know you can’t leave the hive there, not if we want to be sure the tower’s maintained – and we have to do that, it wouldn’t be responsible to leave a problem for a Hayajiro that might be in worse shape than we are – but we could save some of the honey? For the young, and – well, everyone.”

Yukina’s brows climbed. Honey. Huh. She hadn’t even thought of that; just a big, waxy, stinging problem. But here they were on short rations with no sure date for resupply… and honey was food.

Not to mention if she could sneak off – er, secure a pound or so for Suzuki, the engineer would quite possibly hug her to death. He hadn’t had a chance to make a good mead in ages. Not that anyone would be drinking it until they were off-duty. But when they were – the Koutetsujou’s steamsmiths had earned some drunken hangovers.

Movement caught her eye, a swagger of leather, and Yukina made her smile slip away to an engineer’s neutral cool. And here comes part of the reason why.

Uryuu, and the sad Hunter with a sling and a bushi ponytail, strolling up to peer at their buzzing problem. “Huh. That’s a big one.”

Ayame finally looked away from the promise of sweets. “You’ve seen hives like this before?”

“They like shelter and water.” Shading his eyes, Uryuu studied curves of darker wax. “Yeah, not the first one we’ve snatched off a water-tower.”

That raised Yukina’s eyebrows. But the Hunters were Lady Ayame’s problem. Unless they went after another steamsmith. She almost hoped they would.

“Snatched?” Kurusu gave the Hunters a cool look. “It would be useful to salvage some of the comb before it’s destroyed-”

“Bushi. Shoot and burn everything.” Uryuu smirked, but gave Ayame a cautious glance. “Why not just take it? A good hive can be worth a lot at a station.”

Yukina kept herself from drawing a sharp breath. Funds. Money for parts. Repairs. Medicine. Everything.

Ayame drew herself up straight. “How do we do it?”

23 thoughts on “Kabaneri Fluffbit – Cooperation”

  2. Hmmm, I know there’s no love lost between the two groups, but maybe they should keep the Hunters? Biba’s faction was a mobile fighting force for years and made it work, I got the impression that the pull they had with the stations had less to do with Biba’s family and more to do with their reputation as Kabane slayers… which they did not have when they first started out, I imagine. Uryuu and his people might be some of the few people that know how to make a roving home base actually *work*.

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  3. >
    Ayame drew herself up straight. “How do we do it?”
    >
    I suspect this is going to involve a lot of smoke and potentially the kabaneri taking point to remove/store the actual hive. After all, they are a lot tougher then humans when it comes to who knows how many bees objecting to their presence.

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  4. Hm. Does anyone in this milieu know the principles of making a Langstroth or pre-Langstroth type beehive? It’s not out of the question — the first “hanging frames” were developed in the early 1800s, although the bugs (ahem) weren’t ironed out til around 1850ish. Our merry band’s biggest issue would probably be creating the “starter comb”. But if they can make something along those lines, they can really extend the useful life of this hive, *especially* if they can figure out the trick to creating splits (or get lucky with a swarm).
    The Kotetsujuo’s mobility will be an issue. But if they can keep the bees contained when in motion, and avoid moving again before nightfall when they do let the bees out to forage, that will minimize the losses (bees come home at sunset).
    They probably won’t get into the potential medical benefits for people suffering from allergies, MS, or rheumatoid arthritis. 🙂 But one of honey’s unusual properties is that it’s essentially self-sterilizing, and beeswax… well, canning/jarring, candles (when mixed with paraffin), and it’s chewable — when I was a child, my father gave us youngin’s chunks of honeycomb in lieu of candy — chew it until all the sweetness is gone, then chew it until your jaw gets tired…. 🙂

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    1. I’d need to dig around some more but from the looks of it, traditional Japanese beekeeping in this era used a different method then the Langstroth.

      Of course this is an AU timeline and the Hunters probably have developed their own methods so it’s up to Vathara in the end.

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    2. As it happens, one of the background details of Kabaneri is that Hin-no-moto had contact with their version of Britain much earlier than in our reality.

      So if they have English steam engines, Langstroth hives aren’t impossible either.

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  5. Honey has anti-septic qualities to it too.

    Through remember to never ever give to babies under a 1 year old. Honey can contain botulism. It isn’t usually enough to harm or sicken adults and children unless they are immuno-compromised in some fashion but infants’ immune systems aren’t strong enough yet to whack down even that amount.

    Also as noted in The Project, honey produced from the nectar of certain flowers like rhododendrons can have . . . interesting effects.

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  6. On a semi-related note, for those that haven’t watched the series and are simply following the snippets and have no idea who Yukina and Suzuki are, they are supporting characters (both steam-smiths) that pop up in multiple episodes.

    Suzuki is presumably a foreigner that took a local name due to his western features, hairstyle, heavy accent and the English words he constantly uses.

    Yukina however is in a bit of an interesting position. Despite supposedly being a mere apprentice, she’s acting as the head engineer/steam smith of the Kotetsujou (presumably by being the only surviving Aragane steam smith with the requisite training to drive the thing). She’s easily recognizable by the dark pink/red hair and the fact that under her robes, she looks like she bench presses the Kotetsujou’s road-wheels in her spare time.

    For a better image of the two along with an idea of the sheer scale of the Kotetsujou and the Kaban fused colonies that were talked about in previous posts (and the sheer level of damage needed to make the things vulnerable*), here’s the battle at the end of Episode 6.

    *I mean they had to shoot it with a gun that wouldn’t be out of place on a heavy warship.

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    1. Suzuki is also more than willing to hang off the side of a moving train to view damage for repairs. He’s a character. 🙂

      Yukina actually came in on the Koutetsujou, so she might not be from Aragane at all.

      And ep 6 is just pure Awesome. *Nods*

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      1. >
        Suzuki is also more than willing to hang off the side of a moving train to view damage for repairs.
        >
        Well considering the Kabane, it’s very likely safer to hang off the side of the train when it’s moving then when it’s not if you’re outside a station.

        >
        Yukina actually came in on the Koutetsujou, so she might not be from Aragane at all.
        >
        Who knows. It was Ayame’s master key that was needed to start the Koutetsujou so presumably Aragane was it’s home station. Of course considering the conversation at Shiro station it’s also possible that Yukina was brought on from another station at some point.

        >
        And ep 6 is just pure Awesome. *Nods*
        >
        Funny thing. There’s actually one scene that gives us a ballpark idea of the size of the ‘type 48’ cannon. When Mumei runs up it, I’d say her shoulder width is about half as wide as the cannon. Based on a shoulder width (she may be supposed to be 12 but honestly looks closer to 16) of say 30cm meaning the gun could be up to 60cm across.

        Now this doesn’t give a solid idea on the gun’s caliber but that is still one massive piece of ordinance.

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      3. >
        Do not ask me to explain the master key mess. It just… no. Does not compute.
        >
        Well it could be that the commander of every train has his own key for said vehicle. It’s just that the Koutetsujou was made at Aragane so the ‘master key’ that Ayame’s family had could work for it or any other train made there.

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