#3 - Sugar and Spice

The faint buzzing sound drew her nearer towards the tree, glad that it wasn't too loud or angry sounding, which probably meant there were less bees present.

Reena stopped at the base of the tree and put her backpack down to take off her cloak, she did not want it to get caught on the branches and rip.
She then took out an empty jar, and then a second one just in case.

She secured the jars in her shirt, gasping briefly as the cold glass touched her skin.

After studying the branches and mapping out the best way to climb up towards the hive, Reena reached for the lowest branch and pulled herself close to the stem of the tree.
She tried to stay as close to the tree as possible, not wanting to risk the thinning ends that might not be able to support her weight.

She stopped briefly an arms-length down from the hive to catch her breath and assess the situation once more. There were only a few bees buzzing around, as she had expected from the volume before.
So far the bees weren't bothered by her, but she knew this could change quickly if she played this wrong.

Reena finally closed the distance between her and the hive and carefully glanced inside.

It seemed to be only enough for one jar, which was a little disappointing. There had to be a better way to get this specific ingredient. Climbing into trees and risking bee-stings for such little of such an important ingredient seemed almost more trouble than it was worth.

Reena pulled one of the jars out of her shirt and unscrewed the lid. She then slowly and gently reached into the hive to scoop the valuable ingredient into the jar, carefully watching the bees.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but the bees seemed to become a little bothered by her, the buzzing seemed to grow louder.

Still, she forced herself to stay calm, slowly pulled the jar back out, screwed it shut, placed it back inside her shirt, which left a trail of sticky honey on her skin, and started to scramble back down.

She did the mistake of glancing down all the way and gritted her teeth, as she tried to ignore the buzzing around her.

Why was climbing down so much harder than climbing up?

She only dared to breath once she was on solid ground, picking up her cloak and backpack immediately and walked a few metres away, just in case.

Now, that no bees appeared to be following her,she got the jars out of her shirt and placed them into her bag.

"Tergeo!", she cleaned her shirt as good as she could from the angle she was holding her wand.

Putting her cloak and backpack back on, she continued down the forest path, looking for more hives in the trees in hopes for more honey. She also occasionally let her gaze sweep further down in the trees, looking for wild primpear, while she was here.

She spotted the primpear first and stopped at the base of its tree. Reena put down her backpack and cloak once more reached for the branches to climb.

When she was one branche below the one with the primpear, she turned to face away from the tree trunk, yet held on tightly to the thicker part of the branch the primpear was on.

She then slowly shoved herself along the branch towards the fruit but stopped when it started to bend down too much.
The primpear was still out of reach, so she pulled on its branch and slowly bent it towards her until she could safely pick the ingredient.

Once she had it, she carefully slid back towards the tree, now climbing one-handed.

She almost lost her balance once, twice, but she made it down without falling or dropping the primpear.

So this was two for two.

Figuring that there might not be any hives in this area, because bees had territories (although she was not sure about it and decided to ask Kody if he knew), she looked towards the surrounding trees in case there were any more wild primpears.
She also let her gaze drift down, as nettles were on her list as well.