Some people will try and tell you that Winnie the Pooh is a completely wholesome book series and a completely innocuous tv show. They’ll tell you that Pooh and Piglet and Tigger and Rabbit (and maybe even Eeyore) are all good friends even after the camera stops rolling. They hang out after the show in the hundred acres woods, these untested young souls will tell you. They’ll say that they’re all very nice creatures and that they care for each other, Christopher Robin, and the wood very very much. Disney will assure these people that Pooh and the gang are kind loving creatures with simple but gentle natures. This simply isn’t true. Ever since the author of the books died, Pooh, at least, has long since been converted to the unscrupulous ways of the dangerous Disney corporate world. Who do you think brought that Winnie the Pooh statue in the author’s home town to the attention of Disney officials? It was Pooh himself, the icon in question. But I’m getting off topic. The point is that Pooh isn’t such a naïve or nice little bear anymore. In fact, he’s rather nasty having gotten the star treatment for a number of years now, having always been recipient of Piglet’s admiration, and the addition of several thousand adoring fans. He expected a bigger book to live in and a larger illustration of his house in the new book. He began to branch into new mediums. You didn’t think it was an accident that he got into Kingdom Hearts, did you? No, he forced his way in, insisting on reaching a larger audience and receiving a larger cut of the profits. Pooh isn’t so nice any more.

So it wasn’t much of a jump to think that he’d adopt a cavalier attitude with regard to stewardship of nature. Disney wasn’t the most eco-friendly company anyway, disregarding their early Bambi days. Pooh always had a streak of gluttony and it wasn’t long before it grew out of control. He began to demand more and more honey regardless of the complaining buzz of the bees. He’d never been sensitive to their wants and, with the rather forceful encouragement of Disney, the bees were silenced altogether. Pooh no longer needed a balloon or a clever scheme to get all the honey he wanted. As time went on and Pooh’s influence grew, the bees became more and more exasperated with pooh’s gluttony and cruelty towards their kind. A few times they tried to send a protest to Christopher Robin, a character who had remained honest through the Disney regime. Their pleas were intercepted. Robin never suspected what was going on and the bees began to despair. They then turned to the wise Owl. The bees hadn’t been close to him, but they’d never really been close to anyone before. And they respected Owl’s gentle bookish nature. Unfortunately, Owl had already been compromised by an invitation to the new and improved library. Not only did he turn a deaf ear to their many cries, but he used it as an excuse to move out of the wood and closer to the library. Rabbit wasn’t much better having always been easily swayed due to his pragmatic nature. The bees didn’t know who to turn to. There was no one left outside of the control of Disney. No one who didn’t either look up to Disney or Pooh.

Except for one.

Eeyore is always forgotten. On many occasions he is ignored and excluded from the adventures of Pooh and friends. He is too dour, too practical, too depressed to be allowed in on the fun. He’d ruin it. Although most of the character’s attention wasn’t as short as Tigger, none of them had the patience to really get through to Eeyore. Through rigorous testing and surveys, Disney had established that Eeyore was to stay as he was. It was too much work to develop him into a new character and it would take too much effort to figure out a personality that wasn’t already covered. Besides, Disney had quickly seen that he was more useful depressed. He had a strong base in the angsty teen girl crowd because of his hug-ability. They’d capitalized on this established venue rather than help Eeyore with his problems.

And Eeyore, with his observant droopy eyes, had noted this decision with only a flick of his tail and a snarking, “I didn’t think your really cared.” Since then, he’d taken up avoiding Pooh and his cohorts altogether and spending his time in a cold contemplation by the riverside.

And it was there that the bees found him. His grey back had a slumped cynical curve and his tail would make a vain attempt at a ‘swish’ every two minutes or so. His ears fell down into the dirt; their floppy form weighed down with an aura of depression. All in all, Eeyore was a very depressing sight nd it made the bees buzz a little softer as they approached. But, approach they did.

“Eeyore, we come on behalf of our Queen and the hive itself. We come asking for help from you,” the little entourage of bees buzzed.

Slowly, Eeyore turned to face them. He blinked at them, the movements of his lids lazy and resigned. “What do you think I can do,” he said, mournfully.

There was a moment of awkward buzzing. “We do not know what you can do Eeore,” the bees finally admitted.

“Well, that settles it, doesn’t it?” and Eeyore made to turn back to the river side.

“No! Please! We may not know what you can do, but we know that you will try. You have always tried and that is more than the others!” the bees exclaimed.

Eerore gave a dismissive bray and shifted into a standing position. He twitched his ears and shook his flanks and stamped his hooves. Only then, with the slightest hint of a smile, did he face the bees.

“So what are we going to do?” he brayed.

“We, as we said, do not know. We are but a few of many. How could we ever know? We will take you to the Queen. She knows.”

Now this was the first time that the bees had ever allowed their queen to be seen by a creature of the hundred acre wood. Not even Owl had seen the wonder of the bee’s delicate yet fierce queen. No one but her docile servants had beheld the intricacies of her wings or felt the strong clean hairs that lined her back or been lightly examined by her antennae and feet. One of the reasons for this was that the queen, like most Queens had a castle all her won.

This castle, looked like any other beehive. It was a nice step pyramid built of perfect hexagrams. But the Queen’s Castle was not nestled between the long branches of a tree or hidden inside the trunk of a dying oak. No! the Queen’s castle was truly a castle fit for bees. Physics says that the bumble bee cannot fly. But the humble bee knows no such foolish nonsense ans so he keeps on flying. The queen’s Castle was rather like that. The worker bees should not have been able to lift her castle, even with the help of the little propeller that was on top of the whole thing. The bees should not have been able to carry it far above the tallest tree in the wood and bring it across one side of the forest to another without ever resting or setting it down on the ground. The bees should not have been able to do this, but they did. Eeyore himself saw them carrying the thing and Eeyore is not the sort of donkey that lies or makes up stories.

The bees lowered the castle down and very very carefully set it on the ground. Eeyore stared in amazement as the Queen slowly lumbered out of the castle.

“We greet you, Eeyore, in a time of hardship,” the Queen buzzed in a soft commanding tone.

“Hi?”

The Queen shifted ever so slightly and rustled her wings in such a way that Eeyore felt bad for not being more polite.

“Yes, it is a trying time indeed. We are happy that you have come to help us; we and the hive are forever grateful,” the Queen continued.

“So… what do I do, though?” Eeyore couldn’t stop the words from coming out.

The Queen buzzed a little at this, “Let me explain a few things to you, Eeyore. We have suffered greatly for the gluttony of Pooh and the nonchalance of others toward our plight. We have a means to destroy those who seek to destroy us. But we have not used it because we are bees. A bee dies when it uses its sting. In the same way, we would die if we were to destroy our enemies. So we have suffered and done nothing. We would continue in this way if we could. but we cannot because someone has discovered out power. We do not know who revealed us, but it does not matter. It cannot be undone. We must take action.

We bees create honey. We have done this for millennia, before your human creators ever saw the earth. We have dedicated our lives to the creation of honey, the milk for our children. Every queen creates a special set of honey, meant only for her heirs. It is a secret special honey. If they do not have this honey, there will be no new queen and the hive will die. Do you understand? If someone other than the queen to be drinks this honey all of us will die. My daughters will die without fighting to lead the hive. My hive will die without a queen to lead them. 

And Pooh has set his eye on this honey. Someone found out about it and told him of it. And now he wants the entire vat for himself. Not a pawful the way he once was, but the entire vat. Those humans that have begun their campaign on the Hundred Acre Wood are gluttons too. They will turn their eye on our special honey. They will see its power and they way it lifts my castle and they will want more of it. Once they take all the honey that we can produce, other hives will suffer. There will be no special honey left and no queens to protect the hives. This cannot happen!” the Queen’s buzzing had built into a frenzy that the other bees had tuned in on. The sound of their buzzing was loud in Eeyore’s sensitive ears.

“Well, we can’t have that,” he brayed dully. The Queen quieted.

“What do you suggest we do?”

Eeyore tilted his head one way and then another. He swirled up dirt with his tail and made a funny sound in his throat.

“I don’t know. I think you should take your honey and hide it. I don’t know where you can go, but I think you should leave the wood. Surely, there is somewhere you can go where you can’t be reached. And I think that I should help you. I think I should tell Pooh the opposite of what you’re going to do. I think I should keep an eye on Pooh so I can warn you if they catch on. I think I should try and stop them. I think I should stop sitting by the river while things happen in the Wood,” Eeyore brayed.

And that is exactly what they did.

 

OMG, rushed ending >__> I suck at deadlines and page limits… waaaah! Forgive me!!  I wanted to cute little illustrations like the original Pooh stories but I realized

All conspired against me and my efforts. >__>;;

For here.