Chapter Text
"I'm scared. I can't do it, I just- ... I just can't !"
"Listen Hornet, I'm here with you. You're stressing out and it's normal, but you've got to understand that it'll get better. And in the end, what could go worse ?"
"I don't know. Loosing another limb perhaps ? Lace, have even thought before telling me that ?"
Hornet giggled seeing her girlfriend's face decomposing after she said such a simple thing. It was a good relief for such moment. Hornet waited for her next molt for what it felt like ages. She was still unsure about a possible healing for her limb, but would probably not feel too bad if it didn't happen. She learned to live with it at this point, and it felt like it didn't mattered anymore. But still, the idea of loosing another limb was something she couldn't get off her mind. It happened once. Why wouldn't it happen again ? Plus, a lot of stress usually was something that only made molts even more difficult to succeed.
Thankfully, Hornet was usually someone pretty calm. And if the situation was really something she couldn't handle to think about, she couldn't escape it. Molts were something natural that would have to happen for her entire life, and there was no escaping it.
"Lace, c-can you get out of the room ? I think it's starting and ... I need to be alone."
"No problem sweetie. Like always, call me if you need help. I'll be cooking something for you for when you're done, spending 4 days without eating probably didn't do any good to you."
"Y-yeah ... Thanks."
Hornet climbed on the ceiling as she watched her partner going out of the room, gripped the rocks, concentrated and slowly let her her body slide out of her last shell.
Wanting to be alone in a quiet room for such thing was only due to base instincts of spiders. A body that just molted was usually very weak, and fragile. Very easily killed by any contact with a sharp surface, and a very easy person to murder for any kind of creature lurking around. As a princess, she learned that this state was possibly the way that she'll die with all of the enemies's attacks. She was safe now, but her brain couldn't help but think about everything that shedding meant.
That's why she lost a leg last time. She was way too stressed about all of her nasty thoughts. But that was not going to happen twice.
She took a deep breath as she felt her body getting more and more into the freedom of movements, appreciating the relief of feeling that the upper half of her body was already doing good.
And in a last stretch, her body fell down completly off the molt, as she kept griping the ceiling not to fall and break her fragile skin. She took a little time to stretch her four limbs and-
Four. She had four limbs.
The spider looked down to her hips seeing a leg, lighter than the rest of the body yet still there. It was back. She had a leg once again.
She took a little time out, putting her hand on her face and trying to gather her thoughts before realizing she was sobbing.
It did. It got better.
Everything was alright now.