Chapter Text
Laughter.
After what felt like forever in the suffocating void, the first thing Hornet hears is laughter.
“Ahah.. hahah.. oh, dear spider,” Lace says, incredulous, “really, you went through with it? You risked it all to save this worthless kingdom, this worthless life, and you came out unscathed?”
“‘Unscathed’ is an understatement, pale one,” Hornet responds, taking hold of her needle and attempting to push herself up. It’s the first time she’s moved since diving into the void—her limbs groan and complain and lock up, but she keeps going. “But yes, I did. Because I refuse to see your life as worthless. Because someone who led a life very similar to yours was the one who—“
Hornet’s claws are shaking. She grunts, falling back and letting her needle clatter onto the ground.
“…who…”
“Your strength is running out, spider,” Lace observes from a distance.
Hornet draws in a breath. “It is not. I simply need a moment to gather myself.” She shuts her eyes tight, claws pressing harder down on her needle. She’s used to Pharloom sapping her strength by now, but she wants out of the Abyss as soon as possible. “Besides, should you not know my name by now?”
“Mother said it once,” Lace says, cringing at the memory. “Hornet.”
“That would be mine, yes. And yours?”
Lace hesitates. Her name is all she has left. Can she give it away?
“Lace. My name is Lace.”
“A name worth saving, then.”
She huffs. “How did you manage to get me out of the void anyway?”
“I carried you,” Hornet says bluntly, still not looking at her. “You were quite light—but your mother had to give up the rest of her silk to allow us to escape.”
“You—“ Lace’s face flushes gray briefly, before furrowing deep in frustration— “She.. Mother? Mother saved me?” She suddenly starts laughing again, backing away from Hornet, trembling, “SHE saved me? After being made as a replacement for someone who was already one, after years of watching her chase those damned Weavers, after weeks of hearing about you on and on and on, she suddenly remembered she had a daughter?”
“Lace,” Hornet says, one clear, annoyingly smooth syllable, "I'd rather you stay calm. I despised your mother, trust me, I’m just trying to–“
“No, no, dear spider! No need to carry out any more acts of heroism! I promise you need not explain who my own mother is to me!” Lace interrupts, grabbing her pin and stabbing it into the ground below them, making a gross little crackling sound in the fossilized shells. Hornet flinches slightly at the sound—like it’s reminded her of something. “Really? Banishing my sister to the edge of the Citadel, making me track you down after her plan failed, never being allowed to be more than a puppet, and now I’m supposed to feel bad for her?”
Hornet shifts in her seat. To Lace’s further displeasure, her posture implies that she’s actually been listening to Lace rant. Unlike the bugs in the Citadel, who usually scurried away whenever they heard her voice.
“…I apologize for upsetting you,” Hornet says after a while, her voice tinged with a sincerity that makes Lace want to jump right back into the void. “And, technically, you need not feel anything for her. If you truly wish to express your ire, then take your newfound freedom and become whatever you wish.”
Lace groans. “Why are you being so nice all of a sudden? Where has your bite gone? Where’s your disdain?”
Hornet shrugs. “I was upset because you underestimated my abilities. Now, however, I know that that was born not out of disrespect, but misinformation. Tell me, how do you think I should feel towards you?”
“Angry.” Lace suggests, retrieving her pin from the ground and laying it across her lap. “Upset. Or, indifferent, maybe.” Her voice begins to shake. “P-Pay no attention to me. Leave me here to d—“
As her voice crescendos, an ominous stirring arises from the depths beneath them, making the platform sway back and forth.
“Don’t move,” Hornet hisses hastily, creeping toward the edge of the platform, keeping her needle held close.
“I wasn’t planning on it. I’ll lay here and let the void finally claim me.”
“That’s not what this is. At least, I don’t think,” Hornet says, sitting back. “I have reason to believe it is my half-sibling, who controls the void. When the pale bloom that protected us from the void faded, both you and I nearly perished in the depths. They lifted us to safety.”
“Your half-sibling, who controls the void?”
“…Yes. I can promise you, Lace, that my family story is no less complicated and tragic than yours.”
The void trembles again, more violently this time, causing the platform—and the rest of the cavern—to shake. Lace digs her claws into the stone beneath her. Hornet, stronger now, wills herself to stand up, peering down into the abyss.
“If this keeps going, I fear the cavern may—”
Before she can answer, a swell of void mass rises up out of the lake and crashes into Hornet’s quickly drawn-up needle. She shoves it to the side, where it lays for a moment, before two glowing white eyes materialize from the puddle.
Hornet’s voice suddenly becomes very, very small.
“Ghost of Hallownest?”
The mass shakes and writhes until it contorts itself into the shape of a small bug with two double-pronged horns. Several tentacles splay out from its back, along with two defined forelegs and feet. A small tail trails behind it, which it quickly draws into a wag upon seeing the half-weaver.
“Little Ghost,” Hornet says warmly, “thank you. Thank you very much for saving us.” The smaller bug (?) runs into Hornet’s cloak, who draws it into a hug, tentacles wrapping around her arms and back.
Lace scoots closer, slightly, regarding the creature with as much curiosity as her exhaustion will allow. In turn, Ghost shifts their head to look at Lace. They scrutinize her with their creepy little pale eyes for what feels like an eternity. She opens her mouth to ask Hornet if this is a common occurrence before it suddenly turns back to their sister, tail wagging faster, making an odd shape with its claws.
Hornet heaves a great sigh. “No,” She says sternly, “And do not bring it up again. You are much worse at this than Hollow is.”
“You have multiple siblings?” Lace asks, trying not to be left behind in conversation. “Well, of course the savior of Pharloom would be a good sister—”
“Do not assume that of me.” Hornet looks down at Ghost in her arms, raising a hand to their forehead and tracing the shape of a crack in where their shell would be.
Lace takes a closer look at the shade. Truthfully, they do not look like they have always been in this form. Their body is far too small to be of a god of void. Their horns, their limbs, are shaped like shredded threads trying to break free from the rest of their body. She questions, for a moment, if Hornet had had anything to do with whatever made Ghost into what they were now. She questions, for a moment, why Hornet’s apology sounds so familiar, why seeing the two of them reminds her of—makes the strings in her metaphorical stomach twist themselves into a knot…
Ghost quickly shakes their head, whacking Hornet lightly with several of the tentacles and frantically making more curious shapes with their barely defined claws.
She watches Ghost’s silent dialogue intently, and as they go on, her face softens.
“You need not apologize,” Hornet says, still not looking at Lace, “I did not expect you to know. I cannot hold it over my head forever. Especially because Hollow is here, too, correct?”
The little ghost nods, their horns thumping against Hornet’s chest.
“Hollow,” she repeats, “They must be worried sick. Tell me, little Ghost, did they follow me all the way to Pharloom?”
Ghost nods again, more vigorously this time, making more shapes that seemed to both impress and concern Hornet. Even Lace could guess at what they meant this time, as their movements are far more violent, and they seem much more excited to be making them.
”Of course. As if they would ever let something like this happen to me and let the culprits go unscathed,” Hornet says, almost incredulous.
“Do you know where they are?”
A gentler shake.
“Then we shall encounter them on the way to Bellhart, no doubt. I am confident that they can hold their own just fine. Perhaps they would like to settle here?”
“It must be nice to have some family members left,” Lace muses. “After all, someone has been responsible for the destruction of all of mine.”
“All of yours?” Hornet turns to her, confused. “Was it not just your mother?”
What?
“Huh?” Lace gasps, her voice quickly growing panicky. “Did you not—a-are they still—“
There’s—there’s no way.
They said they would—they said they were going to—
“Lace.”
Did she kill them and just forget about it? Or did she really not find them, and they found someone else to—
“Lace, stop doing that.”
Hands on her claws. Hornet’s. A stinging in her arms. They’d burrowed themselves into her wrists—her claws. Strands of silk are frayed and sticking out at odd angles, but her claws are held still. Lifted up. Lifted away.
Even the little ghost has come beside her, an inky tentacle wrapping itself around her arm.
Ghost. Phantom. Both echoes of the past. Both fickle. Both haunting.
“If I had known it would upset you I would not have asked,” Hornet says, “but, if you’ve a wish for someone you need to find, I would not delay to aid you.”
She can’t be serious. She can’t seriously keep doing this.
Lace laughs lightly, feigning recovery. “So this is what I have become? Another hopelessly helpless pilgrim pinning wishes for the heroic Red Maiden to see?”
“It is difficult to be a common bug in the wake of a pale being’s rage.” Hornet stands, and Ghost lets go of Lace’s arm. “And it is difficult to be any bug when you have just had everything taken from you. Regardless, I think you will soon find you are not as incompetent as you may think.”
Wordlessly, Lace stands up as well. She looks around the cavern—has she really lost anything? This is her kingdom, her Pharloom. Assuming Phantom’s followed up on their promise, she is now the sole and rightful monarch—but she’s never considered Pharloom worth saving, and certainly can’t now. Really, what’s left?
Hornet, and her siblings, and likely troves of annoying pilgrims up above. She glances over to the spider, who stares intently at a strand of void reaching up through the cavern.
“Ghost,” Hornet says softly, turning towards them, “it seems that the void not under your union still keeps its hold on this kingdom. Would you ascend to reabsorb these strands?”
In place of a nod, they run over to their sister and take her (now free) hand.
“And you would be able to do so? Void falters without a shell, does it not?”
Ghost shrugs, scratching lightly at Hornet’s wrist until a strand of silk comes out. They twist it around one claw and looked up to her, tugging it.
“Silk? I see. You need something with Soul?”
A few frantic nods.
“Very well then. Here, hold this,” Hornet says, cutting off the silk strand and fetching a tool from her cloak.
It looks like… the tip of a rosary stringing machine, but modified heavily. It bears a strong resemblance to Weaver technology and has a very, very sharp end..
“There should be some Silk loaded in there. It will be a temporary solution until I can fashion you something else—it can also serve as a last-ditch defense option, but I’m assuming you have no need for that.”
Ghost pores over it for a few moments. They look up to Hornet, longingly, their eyes suddenly full and round like old Silk’s spool. Hornet, at once, seems to know what they were asking for, and nods.
The apparition pulls a trigger on the lower half of the mechanism, aimed at a cavern wall in the distance. A laser appears for a moment, before a shell shard shoots out, recoil knocking them backwards, the ensuing bullet following the laser’s path as faithfully as a pilgrim before lodging itself deep into the wall.
“Hornet?”
“Yes?”
“What is that?”
“The Weaver term for it would be the ‘Silkshot’.”
“I see. And there are no issues with them holding it?”
“They have to, to remain corporeal.” Hornet beckons Ghost over and turned towards the exit to the cavern. “It is imperative that we clean up the rest of the kingdom—”
“Seriously? You aren’t even going to rest first?”
“I will. I was simply stating it as a longer-term goal. For now I would like to rest in my bellhome.”
Lace snickers. “You say this, and yet I’m sure if I jumped into the void right now you’d be after me before the gears in the Cogworks could move an inch.”
“Yes, I likely would.”
Well, now her head is starting to spin. This weaver has been annoying her for the entirety of her presence in Pharloom, but at this point she’s being downright frustrating. How can she say all of these things so easily? When her own mother couldn’t even promise her love?
She forces her pin a little deeper into the ground in lieu of a retort to the spider. Well of course Hornet can say that she would rescue her, because she’s already done that before!
“Lace.”
She hates the way Hornet says her name. She hates how soft it sounds in her mouth.
“If you need something to pick apart and dig into so badly,” she says, reaching into her cloak and tossing Lace a dull red ball—“then play with that. It’s much safer.”
Lace catches the object, which quickly turns out to not be a ball but one of the cogflies from the High Halls, only with a bit of Weaver flair. It buzzes dumbly in her claws, keeping its wings closed tightly underneath them.
Lace says nothing. If Hornet wants a response, wants gratitude, reverence, worship, her face does not show it.
“For now, we need to leave this cavern. There is a diving bell that will take us back up to the Deep Docks, and from there we should be able to take the bellway h—to Bellhart.”
————
“You are quite easily entertained.” Hornet observes. Lace, for the most part, has been fiddling with the cogfly for most of the downtime during the trek back to the diving bell, which is a positive surprise for Hornet. For now that should be able to keep her claws out of her own silk.
“One must learn to do so when your mother barely speaks to you and your home is riddled with spikes and hot steam.”
Hornet groans. “Tell me about it. Sometimes I wonder if the pale beings are more partial to worship or to sawblades.”
At the mere mention of sawblades little Ghost clutches the Silkshot a little harder.
“Hm. Haven’t I seen you using sawblades before, spider? Though I would forgive you for leaning into your pale heritage. Your delight in shredding your captors’ caste was quite cathartic.”
“Was there truly nothing better to do than to watch me?”
Lace beckons the cogfly into her claws, then throws it back into the air again. “Quite. You must be the most interesting thing to happen to this kingdom since the last Whiteward surgeries.”
“You took interest in those? One of the psalm cylinder recordings was of a bug’s last surgery and I’d never dream of hearing it again.”
“They were quite amusing. To see bugs so desperate to inject themselves with the same Silk that I resented. To see bugs so loyal to the cursed strands that simply humming my mother’s lullaby would draw them around my pin. It made them good tools, if nothing else.” Lace catches her cogfly under the hook of her pin and draws it to her chest. “Speaking of tools, this one you’ve made is actually quite amusing.”
“You can keep it if you want,” Hornet offers.
“Keep? As my own?”
“Lace, why do you sound so confused?”
As far as Lace is concerned her sole belonging other than her name is her pin, and at this point she considers it an extension of herself. What would it mean to keep something? What would it mean to keep her?
“I can easily make more,” Hornet continues. “Though they are quite fragile, so I wouldn’t recommend getting too attached to that one.“
“So am I, no?” Lace breathes in what is almost a whisper. “What makes you think I won’t be devoured by muckmaggots or frayed by time and make all your efforts for naught?”
“Neither of those things will be issues,” she answers plainly.
Plainly. Answers always seem to come so easily to Hornet. She resents it. She’s not even sure how those things can’t be issues, because Mother warned her about them all the time. She almost opens her mouth to ask, but doesn’t get the chance to before Hornet clears her throat.
“The bell is right around this corner.”
Sure enough, the diving bell lays in the center of the next room. She remembers catching a glimpse of once briefly when she was snooping around the Deep Docks. Oh, how wonderful that had felt! To defy Mother’s orders and descend far deeper than her gilded cage. And then to rebel again and again and realize there was so, so much farther she could fall.
Though, now, her mind is substantially quieter. When she gazes at the lava above, it no longer feels as appealing as it did when she had first peered down into the docks, into the void, wondering, if she were to just…
Lace looks over at Hornet as she opens the door to the diving bell.
She won’t let me.
“Come in,” Hornet calls from inside, her voice reverberating off the bell’s walls.
Lace follows, Ghost slightly ahead. The bell is quite cramped, with one, gleaming seat at the center.
“Lace, you can sit down.”
“Hornet, this is ridiculous,” Lace says, her tone indignant, “I got us into this mess. You’re the one that saved everyone. How could I possibly deserve this?”
Hornet scoffs. “Who decides what we do or don’t deserve? It’s a short ride. I truly don’t mind standing for it. I’ll rest at Bellhart.”
Lace, incredulous, shuts her mouth and sits down, though quickly opens it again to yelp when the straps suddenly come over her chest.
The spider, content, turns to her sibling. “Ghost, I assume you are fine with sliding around a bit?”
The void creature gives a short nod, and even rolls around the bell to demonstrate, making an oddly pretty sound as they hit the walls. She gives them a little grin before clearing her throat and calling into the gramophone on the bell’s wall.
“Ballow?”
There’s a short silence before a gasp of surprise from the other end. “Oh, Hornet! It is wonderful to hear your voice again. There was a great scream from the depths, although I have not seen much from my little control center. I was worried something had happened to you.”
“Quite the opposite, Ballow,” Hornet says, her words labored, “I felled the pale being puppeting Pharloom and saved her daughter. Both the threads and the void should be gone, but I have…”
Ghost begins to clap their hands, although the void does not make much sound.
“…someone… to help me with any remaining corruption.”
“Oh. Well. I’m very glad to hear,” Ballow says. “Now, I would love to bring you up right away, but I must warn you that there is a large creature awaiting your return, and it looks quite…antsy.”
Hornet sighs, leaning against the wall underneath the gramophone and crossing her arms. She hopes this isn’t another old-nectar-in-the-basement situation. “Do you mean that as a matter of appearance or disposition? Describe it to me.”
She expects one of the usual life forms of the Deep Docks that Ballow had forgotten due to isolation, or even a stray Skarr, but—
“A tall bug with a pale mask,” He starts, “and horns with three extensions on each side.”
—she turns towards Ghost with wide eyes. Her sibling looks up at her expectantly.
“Their cloak looks masterfully made, but tattered and burnt,” he continues. “Like they ran here without any regard for their surroundings.”
She makes a rushed sequence of claw motions at Ghost that Lace can barely make out. The small void-creature nods excitedly.
“The weapon they wielded
Was long and sharp and nicked with strange patterns,” continues Ballow.
Ghost doesn’t need to hear the rest. Hornet doesn’t need to hear the rest.
“And, it may have just been my eyes playing tricks on me
but when
I saw
their hands
I could only see one.
I couldn’t find
Their other hand.”
———
“Your other hand,” Hornet said, exasperated, “what happened to it? Hollow, what happened to it?”
The King said you’re supposed to be howw-hollow. Can I call you that? How-hollow?
Nothing. She got nothing. Her sibling stared at her intently, quietly, not out of malice, but because all of their energy was seemingly being put into keeping them upright.
Don’t answer. Do not speak. Do not think.
Do not feel. Do not- do not love. Do not love it. Do not love her.
*
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Hornet asked, more for reassuring herself than to receive an answer. “Come on. To the hot spring. I can- I can fix you. Let me save you.”
Let me fight you! Mother says I need to be stronger. Says she’ll send me off to train with Queen Vespa. But I want you to teach me, too.
Do not.. fight her. Do not teach. Do not love.
Come on, show me how you do it! That blocking thing!
It’s called a pa- DO NOT. THINK. Do not speak. Do not love.
*
“Show me where it’s worst,” Hornet said, her voice trembling, trying as hard as she can to force her tone into something clinical. Her sibling, at first, did not respond, sinking deeper into the soul-infused waters. Absent-mindedly, their good hand went to the crack on their mask.
“I can’t.. I don’t know if I can fix that.”
I don’t know if I can fix this.
No- do not know. Do not think. Do not wince when they weave the rune onto your back…
Do not wince when they weave…
“I’m sorry if this hurts,” Hornet offered, “although I doubt it’s anything worse than the Infection.” Silk slowly started gathering around her, and then through the gashes in their chest and torso, weaving themselves into a crude scaffold onto which a body should be built. Onto which void will be built.
Hollow. Tomorrow is the sealing, is it not?
Do not speak. Do not cry. Do not beg.
As if I could get it wrong. As if I could forget the day that I will lose my mother and my half-sibling forever. I have my grievances, but what rebellion can I offer?
…
Regardless. The skills you taught me will no doubt prolong my life.
I’m not sure if you can heed my thanks. I’m not sure if you should.
I shouldn— do not think.
Whether this works or not… you and I will be bound in servitude to this diseased kingdom. In a way, we will stay together.
I want to stay. No- fuck, I don’t- I don’t want- I don’t love- I love-
After all, vessel, where else would I go?
*
“Where else can we go?” Hornet asked. “Is it really your wish to stay here? Neither I nor you are bound to this place any longer.”
Hollow shrugged for the first answer and shook their head for the second.
She sighed. “It is not an easy question to answer. Tomorrow, I will travel up to Dirtmouth to check on the settlement there. I anticipate you would rather rest here?”
They nod, weakly, regretfully.
“I know you want to come with, Hollow,” Hornet says gently, “but you are still recovering. I’m not sure how well my Bind works on beings like you.”
“Do not worry. I will not be gone long.”
———
“Ballow.” Hornet says urgently, one commanding, damning word. “Ballow.”
“Y-Yes, Miss Hornet?”
“Get me up there—“ her voice holds a slight growl— “as quickly as possible.”
“As you wish.”
The bell begins to rumble soon after, and Hornet squeezes herself close to the ground underneath the gramophone.
“This bell is safe, right?” Lace whispers.
“I only had one break on me during my numerous descents.”
“Eh? You—you fell from this far? Poor spider. That had to have been the third or fourth time.”
All for her. Lace squints as the view from the window suddenly shines with lava. It reminds her of her first battle with Hornet—likely because that was really the only important time she’d been down to the Deep Docks anyway.
Hornet offers no reply to her comment, but her breathing is audibly shaky even through the groaning of the bell. Lace feels an odd needling sensation in her chest as she stays quiet and listens. Her mouth opens to say something again, but her mind goes blank.
Ghost crawls over to their sister and curls up in her lap, like some of the Memorium creatures that had been bred from violent ancestors to be pets. She was never fond of the idea, creating something just to serve oneself…
“I hope, in my absence, they have not driven themselves insane,” Hornet says, her words clear despite her broken breaths. “They didn’t want to lose another. I didn’t want to lose another.”
The bell comes to a screeching halt, and Lace can see the architecture of the Docks outside.
“Ready whenever you are, Miss Hornet.”
Hornet, wiping her eyes with her hands, stands up in one long, complicated motion. She makes for the door—but Ghost rushes ahead and swings it open.
————
There were a few advantages to being forgotten.
Nobody bothered to keep record of you anymore. Nobody bothered to warn their capture squad about you anymore. Nobody expected you to be lurking under the kingdom, waiting for you to venture too deep to come back out.
“N-no! Stop! Stop, I don’t know anything, I swear!”
There were a few disadvantages to being a vessel, though. Like not being able to speak. Not being able to ask questions. Not being able to scream and yell and roar at whoever this was for kidnapping your sister.
WHERE.
WHERE IS SHE.
Those are the things you wanted to say, but you cannot say them, of course. You could write them, though. With blood.
“I- I’ll pass out if you keep doing this, you know! Then you won’t get to ask me any-“
Rip that vile hood of theirs off. Make them look. Make them see.
“Okay, okay, I see what you’re pointing at- is that my blood?”
You wished you could growl. Pushing your nail deeper into them should work.
“I GET IT! I get it! Where—where is she? I’m not allowed to—OW! Pharloom! Pharloom! That’s the name of our kingdom! Can I go n—what, you need directions or something?? Just follow the rest of the squad, they can’t have made it far alrea—EAST! East, you go east! It doesn’t matter! We’ll kill you anyway! The judges will kill you, or at best you’ll be jailed in Sinner’s Road, and that weaver will be Grand Mother Silk’s—”
You sliced them cleanly in half.
I will see her again.
————
Hornet practically stumbles out of the diving bell, the heat from the lava making her head spin even more. She barely registers the figure in front of her before it wraps her up in a tight, familiar hug.
“Hollow,” she breathes, weakly, “you missed me, didn’t you?”
The only response she gets is their good arm pushing her closer. In her sibling’s embrace, her mind begins to wander.
Briefly, she remembers trying to fashion a prosthetic for the other arm. It never did work—shellwood was too weak, rock and fossil were too heavy, and the remaining metal was certainly not of a high enough quality for her sibling. But perhaps, the steel in Pharloom could be good enough? And light enough. And enough talent remained to fashion her sibling something…
Hornet jolts when she sees the world getting darker around her. No, no, she can’t possibly fall asleep now. Not when there’s so much to do.
“We should go,” She says suddenly, with whatever authority is left in her waning consciousness. Hollow relinquishes their grasp and takes Ghost’s hand, while Lace strides up to them.
“It’s, um. Nice to meet you,” Lace offers, completely unaware of what she’s meant to be doing.
Hollow makes an odd sort of clicking sound to get Hornet’s attention, after which they make the same sign with their claws that Lace vaguely remembers Ghost doing earlier.
“I,” she starts, “Will be answering that. Later. After I sleep. Please.”
Lace has never heard Hornet plead before. How bad is her exhaustion? Or, rather, how bad was whatever her sibling had communicated to her? She knows for a fact that Phantom is probably the only bug that could possibly make her plead for something (e.g., their own life) because they’re the only one she damn well cares about anyway.
“The bell station shouldn’t be far from here,” Hornet says, walking briskly, shouting a final thanks up to Ballow before quickening her speed. She leads them through a series of hallways full of garish molten lava and dull gray rock, before eventually coming to a spacious room full of bells.
Hornet looks like she’s about to say something, then sheepishly covers her mouth and takes out her needle. Drawing a line of thread from the needle’s point to its eye, she rests it against her body and begins to pluck at the string.
It’s been a while since Lace has heard music.
She doesn’t get to listen to it for long, though, before a beast leaps up from the bells—one of the ones the Memorium had bred from the creatures in the Wormways. It trills happily when it sees Hornet, though the sound quickly turns confused as it sees the throng of bugs behind her.
“These are my siblings, Ghost and Hollow, Eira,” Hornet coos softly, “and this is Lace.”
Lace. Not “pale one”, not “child”, just Lace. Not Grand Mother Silk’s daughter, not the haunted doll crossing the citadel. Just. Lace. She still isn’t used to it. She’s not sure if she’ll ever be.
“Would you take us all to Bellhart?”
The beast trills again, stomping in the mass of bells, which gets Ghost very excited.
“She’s very gentle,” Hornet begins, gracefully jumping onto the beast’s back. “Although she does like to jump out at the destination, so be prepared for that.”
Lace looks at the beast with wonder. She’s so used to walking wherever Mother needs her to be. Has a simpler solution existed all along? She keeps staring, awkwardly, unsure of how to approach the beast, clutching the cogfly tightly in her hands.
Ghost runs up to the beast and curls up in Hornet’s cloak. The much taller bug—Hollow—approaches the creature, but turns back and sees Lace, alone.
It stretches its hand out.
Lace takes it.
She’s not sure why. She’s not sure why she’s trusting anyone that isn’t Mother, or Phantom. She’s sure Mother would be very upset, if Mother were alive, but then again she’s sure that Mother would probably have killed a bug like this. One of their hands is missing. One of their eyes is covered in a torn bandage. And yet, here they are, offering their one good hand, and she has just taken it.
They walk her right up to the Bell Beast and gently help her onto its back. She mutters a quiet thanks, and sinks her claws in as deep as she can without hurting the creature.
As it begins to claw its way into the bells, Lace shuts her eyes tighter, and tighter, until it hurts.
I’m so sorry.