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Cicada Hive is one of the nine Hives of Pantala. It was the former home of Blue, Burnet, Luna, Cricket, Swordtail, Io, and Silverspot, as well as many other SilkWings and HiveWings. It was formerly ruled by Lady Cicada and houses her aunt, Lady Scarab. Cicada Hive is located in between Hornet Hive and Mantis Hive.

Description[]

Cicada Hive is best known for its Mosaic Garden which reflects the well maintained and orderly caretaking taught at Cicada Hive University.[1] The Hive is described by Cricket as "regimented and orderly."[2] It contains hallways and a market with various displays.[3] Some of the halls and tunnels are covered with posters, half of them warning dragons about LeafWings.[4] It is described as a beautiful Hive to enjoy nature.[1]

Notable features[]

Cicada Hive Univeristy[]

Cicada Hive University is the university of the Hive. It trains its students to be farmers and gardeners for all of the Hives.[1]

The Mosaic Garden[]

The Mosaic Garden is what Cicada Hive is known for. It is on the highest level of the hive and is on the right of the end of the tunnel from the Hive entrance.[5] It is a giant garden filled with orderly flowers and hedges, located on gently sloping hills and grass, and crisscrossed with a seemingly random path that leads to the center. It is glimmering in droplets of amber and gold, cobalt and jade, obsidian and pearl.[6] The garden contains different mosaics depicting famous scenes. A notable mosaic is the Salvation Wall, a mosaic depicting the end of the Tree Wars with Queen Wasp standing over a pile of dead LeafWings and lifting the Book of Clearsight, done in gold tiles, into the sky.[7]

Marketplace[]

The Cicada Hive marketplace is a huge, vaulted space that hums with activity. The best shops have permanent six-sided cells around the outer wall. All other shops are in stalls in the labyrinthian middle.[8] Yellow and orange lanterns hang along silk filaments that hang on the ceiling. Blue describes these as "criss-crossing the ceiling like necklaces of tiny suns." Soldiers watch the market from balconies above, and they can be summoned by any HiveWing at any time. Some carry long, needle-like lances.[9][10] There are many posters and murals of Queen Wasp all over the market, some depicting her claw stingers.[9] The marketplace also has candy stores. The Sugar Dream has a tall, imposing cell-front with its delicate sugar confections arranged in the window. The Sugar Dream generally only serves HiveWings, as the items sold are expensive and considered luxury items.[11] It is owned by a HiveWing named Chafer.[12] Droplets is another candy store more friendly to SilkWings, and it is the store that Blue and Luna usually go to.[9]

Known products at The Sugar Dream

  • Apricot taffy[13]
  • Chocolate stars with orange peel[14]
  • Honey drops[15]
  • Honey sticks[12]
  • Nectar vials[13]
  • Pale pink and lavender candies[15]
  • Sugar cubes[12]
  • Sugar insects (including sugar wasps)[13]
  • Sugar-spun artwork[12]

Misbehaver's Way[]

Misbehaver's Way is one of several prisons in Cicada Hive.[16] It is described as having pathways made of sharp, cobbled stone.[17] HiveWings from an elite unit of soldiers inject offenders with a special nerve toxin that causes a dragon's muscles to stiffen, freezing them in place for one day.[18] Prisoners can see, think, and feel while in this state, but cannot move. They are placed on stone pedestals, accompanied by a tablet explaining their crime in dramatic detail. The pedestals have quotes about law and order from famous HiveWings, and a few from Clearsight herself.[17]

The only named prisoner of Misbehaver's Way is Swordtail, although both SilkWings and HiveWings can be sent to the prison.[19]

Terrarium Academy[]

Terrarium Academy is a HiveWing school run by Principal Lubber. It is based around agriculture and plants and is meant to train HiveWing farmers and gardeners.[20] Each student possess a terrarium, most of which contain one type of plant in neat, orderly rows and small flamesilk globes acting like little suns to the plants. The school also possesses chemicals, with purposes including killing weeds, accelerating plant growth, and healing plants from poison. Cricket's grandfather described it as a down-to-earth place.[21]

The academy also offers art classes, mostly based around painting plants. Dragons may be barred from art class if their art is "too messy."[22] The art room has an enormous glass window, long, neat rows of easels, a cabinet with paintbrushes in it, sponges to smooth out paint, a mirror, and a shelf with jars of paint in it, all in color order.[23] The only known attendees of the academy are Bombardier, Katydid (formerly), and Cricket, while the only known staff are Principal Lubber and Professor Earthworm.

Silkworm Hall[]

Silkworm Hall was one of the schools for the SilkWings who lived in Cicada Hive. It taught young SilkWings basic knowledge, silk studies, art, and the history of the Tree Wars. It also taught obedience to Queen Wasp and the HiveWings.[24] Swordtail said that there was a Manners and Proper Behavior class, although it is unknown if it exists or is a joke.

Like all other SilkWing schools, attending students had to wear a metal wristband with the school's name on it.[25] The metal wristbands likely all had toxins used to paralyze runaway or fugitive SilkWings, though the only wristband that has been observed to have the toxins belonged to Blue. Silkworm Hall took field trips twice a year to Misbehaver's Way to scare their students into obedience.[26]

Some of the teachers were SilkWings, and the administration was entirely HiveWings. There were guards at the doors, the walls were thick with no windows, and the hallways were narrow. Recess involved standing or marching around an open balcony on the side of the hive, with a balcony railing that looked like it had been built as an afterthought.[27] The art classroom is a huge room that is covered with weavings, with looms set up all over, most of them with incomplete projects. There is no window, but one wall is entirely covered with a giant woven skyscape, bright blue with golden clouds and sunlight and hundreds of dragons in flight.[28]

The Cocoon[]

The Cocoon is where SilkWings who lived in Cicada Hive underwent their Metamorphosis. It is close to the lowest level in the Hive and is the main feature of the mostly empty level. It is a long oval dome two levels tall. When a SilkWing emerged from their cocoon, they were expected to create their first silk tapestry and donate it to the Cocoon as an offering of thanks, where they are used as decoration. Because of this, the Cocoon is swathed in so many weavings that it almost looks as if it is made out of silk itself.[29] Each weaving is said to have the mark of the Chrysalis on it, hidden in some way. The entrance is low and arched and dimly lit by lamplight.[30] Dragons going through metamorphosis will go through the archway to the Cocoon floor and any guests that come to watch will go to the balcony. The balcony, also referred to as the gallery, has ancient silver-silk carpets and goes all the way around the dome and overlooks the floor below. It is only lit by small candles floating in a central pool of water.[31]

Lady Cicada Art Gallery[]

The Lady Cicada art gallery is a section in Cicada Hive that is dedicated to its ruler, Lady Cicada. It is on one of the lower floors and is dimly lit. The art gallery has different rooms, including one for sculptures (made of wood, metal and marble) and one for tapestries. Luna's favorite room is the tapestry room, and her favorite tapestry depicts Lady Cicada flying with a long trail of radiant SilkWings behind her in the sky.[32]

History[]

Pre-Series[]

On her first day attending Silkworm Hall, Luna experienced many hardships due to the strict rules imposed by the HiveWings running the school. During recess, she witnessed a HiveWing guard trying to scare a SilkWing dragonet named Glider into thinking that she was about to push him off the balcony. After yelling at the guard to stop scaring Glider, the guard threatened to send Luna to Misbehaver's Way until Swordtail jumped in to distract the guard, pretending to lose his balance and potentially fall. The guard then pulled Swordtail off of the railing and sent him and Luna to see the headmaster for punishment, but they instead stopped at a corridor where they introduced themselves to each other. Swordtail then showed Luna the art room, where Luna declared that she would do what it would take to show that the way HiveWings were running things was wrong and oppressive, convincing Swordtail to help her fix the world.

The Lost Continent Prophecy[]

The Lost Continent[]

Cicada Hive served as the setting during the first half of the book. Blue and Luna spent their time throughout the Hive before the latter's Metamorphosis. Upon being hunted, Blue became a fugitive and hid due to possibly being a flamesilk. He met Cricket at her school and they plotted to rescue Swordtail from Misbehaver's Way, then fled from the Hive soon after.

The Hive Queen[]

In a flashback, Cricket witnessed an elderly HiveWing get chased down in Cicada Hive because he could not be controlled by Wasp.

The Dangerous Gift[]

In Snowfall's vision of Blue, he was in Cicada Hive. Under the control of Wasp, he smashed displays in the market, rounded up SilkWings that were peacefully lying in the Mosaic Garden, and threatened more SilkWings. The SilkWings were gathered in the Hatchery. Later on, in Snowfall's vision of Io, she and Cinnabar were outside of Cicada Hive. Io suspected that something had gone wrong in the Hive, but Cinnabar reassured her that it would be fine. They both flew into the hive.

The Flames of Hope[]

While Luna was trapped in the abyss, she asked Freedom if she could see Swordtail. Freedom agreed and mind-controlled a HiveWing near Swordtail, in Cicada Hive. Later Cottonmouth said that dragons were causing trouble in Cicada Hive, and that Freedom should go kill some SilkWings there to shut them up. Freedom noticed the look on Luna's face and decided not to. After the othermind was defeated, Luna flew to Cicada Hive's Mosaic Garden as agreed to see Swordtail.


Field Guides[]

A Guide to the Dragon World[]

Cicada Hive was mentioned in Io's Rules for Happiness and Prosperity in the Hives.

In the HiveWing chapter, it was mentioned in Cricket's scroll about coursework at Terrarium Academy and was featured in An Official Guide to the Hives.

Trivia[]

  • Scarab owns Cicada Hive's only telescope and does not lend it to anyone.[33]
  • Blue and Luna's home has a dew collector.[34]

Gallery[]

References[]


HiveWings
Queens

Present: CochinealJewelWasp
Historical: Cicada

Royalty

BloodwormCicadaHornetMantisScarabTsetseVinegaroonYellowjacket

Other Dragons

AphidBombardierBumblebeeCadelleCarabidChaferCricketDragonflyEarthwormEarwigInchwormGrasshopperHawkerGlowwormKatydidLibrarianLubberMalachiteMidgePinacateRootwormSandflyTreehopperWeevil

Kingdom

Bloodworm HiveCicada HiveHornet HiveJewel HiveMantis HiveTsetse HiveVinegaroon HiveWasp HiveYellowjacket Hive

Society

Book of ClearsightTree Wars


SilkWings
Queens

Present: Monarch
Historical: DiademMonarchMonarchSilverwash

Other Dragons

AdmiralArgusAtalaBlueBurnetClorindeCinnabarClubtailDanaidDuskyFestoonFritillaryGliderGraylingHeliconianIoLappetLunaMorphoPieridSilverspotSwordtailTauTemoraTussockWhitespeck (TLC)Whitespeck (TFoH)Xenica

Kingdom

Bloodworm HiveCicada HiveHornet HiveJewel HiveLeafSilk KingdomMantis HiveTsetse HiveVinegaroon HiveWasp HiveYellowjacket Hive

Kingdom
(Historical)

SilkWing palace

Society

Book of ClearsightChrysalisSilkWing AssemblyTree Wars

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