Cherro grasped the test tube carefully, as a scientist, this was supposed to come easily, but as a four hundred pound bear, his early experiments consisted of simply trying to pick up frail equipment. He tipped the vial into a small beaker currently resting above a controlled flame, placed the beaker back on the table, and then proceeded to run for the safety of a three-foot high wall running through one side of the room. A close observer, if they cared to get that close to a worried looking black bear, would hear him counting under his breath.
Safely behind the wall, he peeked over, eyes on the larger beaker. If he did the math and mixed the levels of honey correctly (and part of that relied on the very specific training of a branch of the local swarm), then it should be a few more seconds until...
The door opened on the other side of the room, and Cherro was spurred into a panic to see Queen Grendolia and her assistant stride in. "Back! Back! Get out!" he shouted, leaping over the short wall and racing across the room.
Grendolia had enough time to take in a charging Cherro before she saw a beaker on the worktop beginning to simmer before the black bear tackled her and Forsyth, bringing them both to the ground.
She was about to ask what was going on when Cherro leapt back onto his hind legs, and slammed the double doors shut, and heard him mutter "...Fifty Nine, Sixt-" before a flash of light emanated through the cracks in the doors and a sudden resounding thud shook through the hallway. Cherro slumped against the door, breathing hard, then began laughing gently to himself. She stared at him for a moment or two, confused and slightly worried before he seemed to remember that he had tackled royalty to the ground.
"Oh, hell, your Majesty, forgive me for the mishandling of yourself and your...page?" Forsyth, picking herself off the floor, shot him a dirty look. "I was only just testing the latest sample of the charge honey and forgot to put a notice on the door..."
"Quite alright, Cherro, and I forgive you on the caution that you remember the notice in the future. I gather you've perfected the timed reaction of the charge honey?" Grendolia pulled herself off the floor as Cherro experimentally opened the door to the test-room a fracture.
"Very close to it, I believe, your Majesty. That was only the first test," he said, waving a paw in a fruitless attempt to clear smoke away, "but the timing was correct for a dose of that size. And that was only a tenth of the size we hope to employ in the battlefield. I've been working with Warlord Oberton very closely on this, and we hope to more than meet the original parameters of the Charge-Honey postulation."
Grendolia smiled, albeit coughing while doing so as smoke wafted into the hall, despite Cherro having shut the door and pulled the lever for the ventilation to kick in. "That is good news, Cherro. Unfortunately, it's the matter of the Charge-Honey project that I need to talk to you about. Could you find the Warlord and bring him to my secondary meeting-den in an hour's time?"
"Certainly, your majesty. Is there anything I should warn Oberton about? You know he's grumpy during the traditional Hibernation Season."
"Tradition holds us back, Cherro," Grendolia said, motioning to Forsyth to follow her as she walked back the way she came away from the still smoking test-room doors. "We have to move with the times, and grow with progress, or else," she added darkly to herself, "be buried by a mountain of fools."
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