Chapter Text
Quiet…
In the rolling grounds of Hallownest, the precious and rare silence was something that meant one of two things; some looming husk had caught wind of some poor explorer of the sprawling depths of the dying kingdom and its expansive and lush chasms to be mapped.
Well… only for those that could so be skilled enough to roam these cavernous ruins and not find themselves on the pike of a long dead and reanimated husk of a lost and familiar friend.
She tried not to think of it.
But it was very seldom rare that she found herself successful in such a daunting task.
Many days came by she would pass by a husk that carried a shell with a familiar pattern, a wing she had seen as a child-- an old hunting companion, a stranger she had spied in passing in the City of Tears… some days it was agony… but those days had long since blurred into one long day paused by the fitful sleep of dark and stuttering sleep.
Dreams never came to her, to which she thanked her lineage, that of the White Wyrm and his grand power, that of which coursed through her shell, and flooded what little sleep she could find of foreign image of glittering skies dotted with strange gleaming lights and their dancing plumes of color.
It was always what she found to be the most serene, the rarest moments when she found solace in her days, holed away in caverns no one can reach and slumped to the far walls as though she were some wretch to be found by a kind stranger and taken into their home as in some grand fairytale from her childhood.
A sigh left her, eyes pressing shut as she drew in a long breath, hand running a cloth down the surface of the needle kept at her side and cared for greater than even her own carapace--
Why was it that she felt such guilt for the collapse of a kingdom she had no hand in, she was just a hatchling at the child, she had no hand in the decisions made, it had all been--
A swift rustle catches her attention and swifter than she had settled to tending to the blade in her lap, the huntress spins round to rend the corpse mosskin
Don’t lie to yourself that is a corpse.
But the sound of a nail through the wind, slices through the shrubbery and shell knocking the hostile her way, it turns around, facing its attacker, she can feel the pain in her gut-- a name on her tongue, but no expression shows on her face. Before she even has the breath to bounce away from the mosskin’s slayer as its shell falls back with a burst of rancid amber spilling from it, the form of the hollow eyed vessel glances to her.
She moves, turning to hop away, she will not be facing you hear, little ghost-- but they turn from her instead.
Hmm?
Bounding onto a platform and through, this was… most peculiar… since their battle they had been on their keenest deals to find her and chase her through the entirety of Hallownest’s great undergrounds to see what as to be had of her story, her mysteries, and honestly she had not quite slept in the past few cycles because of it.
She was nigh considering returning to Deepnest for a rest but that meant then that she would be nearest to--
No, she could handle a bit more sleeplessness… the Howling Cliffs had a few plces she could reach and stow away in-- perhaps a room in Dirtmouth as the Elderbug had been so eager to welcome her into the fading town’s confines, gentile in nature and gentler in nature he was a bug of his word, and she had known him since his youth. To him, she was something of a god…
To her… he was just another face to be lost with the coming nights…
But it was curious, why would such a frustratingly perserverant little shadow follow her with no regard for their own safety, and yet on spotting her in a moment of peace once broken by a pathetic enemy turned away.
T
hey had a name,
you knew it, it was--
She blinks away the thought and turns her focus toward the little ghost vaulting over the far platform with a flash of white and then higher still and out of her field of vision. This was most peculiar, it shouldn’t bother her and yet.
No, this was silly-- she had no reason to follow the little shade for the simple reson of sating her own curiosity, this would not be happening, this was not happening.
She gives a deep sigh and slaps a hand to her face, dragging it down her shell and dropping her head back to hang. She was curious, yes, this she had to admit… it would be rather embarrassing if they spotted her though, the little shadow that hounded her akin to a beast and its prey, as she did with her own, as did the Hunter.
No, not embarrassing-- she’d never live it down and she knew it.
Don’t get caught Hornet, just don’t get caught is all that it can come to.
Sighing, and giving a shake of her head, she lifted her needle, winding her silk about the opposite hand, and looked to the far edge she had last seen the shadow bound away to. Her arm drew back, ready to chase the shade toward their destination, but she paused.
Arm faltered and lowered, glancing back to the form of the bug and its shell left oozing on the far distant ground, form nigh buried by the foliage surrounding and the falling leaves of the looming canopy above-- this wasn’t fair. The little ghost left a swathe of death in their path, she was a huntress, but only when she needed to be, was it the same for them?
A deep breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding in rushed from its place within her carapace, and parting her cloak from the side she reached beneath to grasp a dried bloom, pressed between the pages of an old tome she had long since read to the spine’s destruction and reconstruction, and rinse and repeat a good five or so times-- (from there she lost it and had to rewrite it from memory, fairly certain Lemm has it).
A delicate flower dried from it’s original pure white had kept its color all, gleaming its silvery hue in the gleaming light of the grounds of Greenpath’s glow with a soft twirl or its soft sagey and rigid thorny stem. A soft breath left her as she bowed her head and tapped the fragile bloom to her brow before keeling to tuck it within the foliage of the Mosskin’s overgrown form, watching the form bloom with the flowers and a subtle hum of contentment leaving her.
“Find rest in the end, Brenas” Head bowed and she rose from her place, turning round with a fluttering whirl of her cloak-- she had the nerve to kill many beasts… but only if it was the only option.
It was… hard to see a beast in a familiar face.
With a deep breath in she straightened the pin to the shoulder of her cloak and again darted attention to the far ledge and bounded to it to catch after the little ghost, she would certainly have to use her skills as a hunter at this point to trace after th--
What.
Standing to the far platform, waiting within her view, as she had with them on their first encounter before they bound up and through.
They had seen her.
They had known she would follow to begin with… how but--
She got spotted?
When did she get spotted!?
This was ludicrous!
Her shell flushed to a vibrant cherry shade and she stamped a foot on the ground, turning round with a huff, a building want to give a pluming burst of whipping silk, shriek an unholy sound, a blast of light-- but she wouldn’t.
No, that’s what a child would do, Hornet. It did little to stop her from doing a second stamp with a hand pressed to her face to scrub at the shell in attempt to stamp away the rosy hue from its place staining her face.
She bound forward, silk catching the ledge and tugged with her great strength, and like a leaf on powerful wind, was carried forward and on high, a quick kick of her foot to the foliage rich stone and she bounded higher and through the grounds toward where the shadow had gone.
She’d show them to mock her for her wariness of them, landing amid the thick foliage the husks spotted her in an instant… at least what remained of them… a path.
So perhaps they did only take down what they needed to.
It would be something to think on in her rarest moments of rest, but for now, she leapt and kicked through, with a quickness and kicked off the fast approaching form of a Vengefly and she darted beneath it, to which it spun round, searching for her and drove it’s wicked stinger aimed for her core.
A swift backward swing of her needle to slash through its form severing its head from its body in one fell swoop, her stomach twisted with guilt and opposite hand went to the pin on her left shoulder on instinct, but expression did not shift.
Cold and collected is what one could call it.
How could you.
Ducking beneath the spray and through the hall, and higher still into the Howling cliffs, the path vanishes but she has a feeling she knows where the shade is headed. Slowing her pace, and glancing overhead to the platforms of the crumbled stairwell and its barely lingering remains overhead, a sigh holding its place in her chest and she stops to gaze out into the wind torn wastes of the Kingdom outside of these haunted bluffs.
This place had been her entire world… to watch it rise and all and with it countless lifespans of countless other bugs-- it sort of came to disconnect her from just how important social contact was for the mind.
Why?
So she could get attached and lose them too?
She couldn’t handle it again, she had known the love of a shy bug but it was brief before he was taken, known friendship and they passed within the decade, known happiness and it faded by the day, known family and it had all fallen to nothing but husks and dust within the century’s cycle.
What point was there in trying if it all just went away and tore you apart with it as it left.
Her eyes narrowed with a sigh, turning to leap to the platform and--
Shrieked.
Standing before her as she bounds back in a state of shock and tumbles back from the ledge to land on the firm stone below with a hard thwack that did little to her shell other than make a tremendous clatter through the fabric of her cloak and clothing beneath it.
Idiot, you couldn’t even see a little vessel behind you.
A Bully gave its snarl and charged as she groaned and strained to sit up, landing on the breadth of her needle, thanking what entities there were she didn’t get chopped in half or speared through with her own weapon but now fumbling for it she found herself out of breath and staggering like she was a child again, why had she been startled-- why had the vessel managed to sneak up on her.
The silk had dried to her cloak and peeled away in a frustratingly sticky sheet wound about her-- right!
This was why she never went to the cliffs!
This damnable place and its winds dried any spun silk within silks and left her to be stuck clingig to the mountain sides or bounding around some young bug or a little jumping weaver-- she felt a fool in this place, and it was where she was at her weakest!
The Bully dove for her and she pushed with her feet, skittering backward in a sheer moment of panic, Silk cloud-- no the winds, Soul Burst-- but it wasn’t needed, the Bully was driven into the ground by the thunderousstrike of black and shimmering violet fell from the sky and slammed into the former bug and killed it instantly.
It… saved her… but…
“Why...”
The ghost extended their hand to Hornet, and she blinked in a sort of disbelief, looking to it and the weaver like grippers in place of digits and a fuzzy palm… an amalgamation of many bugs it would seem this little shadow was amidst this armor of chitin and void. She paused a moment longer, before right hand lifted to take the other’s own far tinier… accepting their offer of assistance in helping her back onto her feet.
Their opposite hand took the opposite side of her palm nd with great determination, they leaned backward and tugged firm, and with her own assistance, she rose with great ease from her place on the cold and stony floor.
“I sought your end in the fields of Greenpath, it was my direct intent to make certain you perished in the path to me, why did you rescue me.” Her disbelieve was evident in the cool tone of her voice but barely visibly in her expression. Shaking her head, and perplexed to no end as to why the would be saved by the very entity she fought to destroy but a few days before.
They had yet to travel to the Resting Grounds, she had been tracking them nigh every day, it seemed they were far more focused on… saving small grubs from containers?
Perhaps it was why she had been unable to locate the children of the Grubfather, stowed away within containers she had been too busy following the little ghost to recognize were right over her head or in front of her face.
The vessel starred her down, and looked to their channeled nail and held it up, to which she blinked. “Because you want to… fight?” Their arm lowered, as though disappointed, she hd gotten it wrong, “Because… we fought?” To which their shoulders slacken and the nail lowers.
They point to their nail and then to their helm, and it takes a moment, their shell… the weapon? Is it their armor? But, because of their armor… and their weapon… an armor, weapon, what had both, why would it correlate unless they… were a… knight. Heavens be, Hornet, you should have actually listened during your studies, maybe you wouldn’t be so dense.
“Because you’re a knight?”
And their entire posture straightens back out, shoulders back, chest puffed out in a prideful manner. It would seem she had gotten it correct, “You rescued me because you are a knight then… is that what you would prefer your designation be then, little Knight?” And they gave a soft nod of their head, to which she gave a chortle.
They stepped nearer at that, looking up at her, as though it had been the first time they had heard a genuinely charmed little chuckle from the huntress before. They had heard the one in which she knew the thrill of a good battle, a fiery little giggle, but nothing quite so gentle.
“Might I ask as well… why did you wait for my following… and cut a path so I may go my way after you without finding harm… why…?” And with that the knight reached out and offered their hand up to her again and gestured for her to follow, pointing upward and toward the gates of Dirtmouth and its once beautiful bridge through to the yonder crystal mines that workers would come from for many many years travel just to fill their carts and turn back round to head back to their home grounds.
“Dirtmouth...”
Her tone was that of almost unimpressed, to which their hands dropped, shoulders slack, had they the capacity for expression they would most certainly have been giving her a frustrated stare. “Alright, I shall follow you to the Dirtmouth grounds, but I see not your need for my attention on such a menial and humble blooded town.”
Their posture straightened but their hand swatted at her as though to say she should not be insulting the town as such.
Perhaps she was being rather hard on it, but she had also seen it at its zenith, and this was… sad.
It was another memory to watch crumble in her hands and tear a little bit more of her world away from her again.
And she wasn’t certain she could entirely handle such a death of a memory again.
She gave a sigh aggravated, “I will not speak so ill of the town the moment it finds it denizens to better fill its grounds”
Please don’t fade away, please don’t go.
They gave a stamp of their foot, to which she gave a huff and turned her head, firm. And peeled at the silk clinging to her cloak, the layer peeling away with ease but the fact it had dried so quickly was the frustrating part of considering using silk in this blustering expanse. “I have said as I felt, I will not lie to better your emotions on a dying town for a kingdom I have known far longer than you have, little Knight”
Liar, liar, liar-- don’t say what you don’t mean.
The little knight stood there a moment, form shaking in what she could only assume to be frustration before their form turned and sprinted opposite her direction and bounded out of her view… and then the guilt washed over her like a weighted sludge that tore at the core of her chest and drug down with all its might.
Look what you’ve done, they had feelings, you hurt them, like you hurt the Knight, like you hurt the Pale King, you pushed them away, they wanted to show you something and look what you went and said, Hornet. This is why he--
She pinched her eyes shut, and exhaled a long and slow breath, and treading forward, her eyes looked toward the path above, hoping they would have perhaps waited at the top as a shadow does, and the guilt’s weight tore ever harder when only the cool grey of the sky above was all to be seen.
A kick of her foot and she shook her head, clutching at the pin on her left shoulder with a sigh and looked up to the ledge far above.
In the next moments, she rebounded between the walls, and onto the thickest of the shelves yet, stepping across, in quick bounces to the ledge, and to her disappointment, no sign of the Knight… not through onto the next ledge, and flitting into the next grounds below the cliffs before the bridge’s mouth or… what remained.
It was easy, bounding through, no capability to use silk in such confined grounds, she wondered how the knight could do this in such tight grounds and not find themselves maimed in every moment caught between a wall of jagged spires and a flat wall.
The very concept wasn’t quite impossible but daunting.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t herself been hurt by such spires, the point had left many a scar on her carapace that still had never healed away their marks of proof despite her gifts of Soul and Void, it was marring and proof she had (in some sense of the word) failed.
She hated that…
She couldn’t fail… not anymore.
Not with death so close to being the option for everyone remaining within the kingdom, it wasn’t an option if she wanted them to return to the thriving civilization they had once been.
She had to succeed.
She had to save them.
She had to save everyone.
And failure in any sort was not an option. Even now… her thoughts flitted to the little knight and her hand gashed on the stone she had grasped on the ledge. A hiss left her, swinging herself up and landing with a gentle click of her feet she looked to the spilling white and frowned.
Another Failure.
You deserve to fail for what you did.
The wound took little time to carefully pick its path knitting itelf back together, the shiny surface once more a perfect sheen of black and her attention again on the little knight she had hurt… a failure, one she had not intended. She had not realized they were so connected to the old grounds, let alone so attached as to get angry should she insult the place to hide her own attachment to the grounds.
She shook her head, no she had to apologize for this, as much as it pained her pride, this was a creation of her father’s, and by all design, a sibling of hers. Though she would stretch the definition sibling as far as she could before the thin threads may just snap.
Walking the bridge’s remaining pathway, her hand extended to trace the old scriptures of the towering white walls nearest the exit-- something she’d been able to read since her youth without her father teaching her as she had needed with her languages as her studies had required. It was yet another reminder of a world long since gone but something still so intact that it never hurt to see.
Eyes shifted from the gleaming white glow to the fractured bridge end and eyes drew wide.
“Oh, Knight”
They had been trying to show her something.
Gleaming in the far distance over the ground was some dark and gleaming cirque of a warm and gleaming crimson hue with towering steed standing proudly before it. Oh, she should have just listened, she had gone and made such a fool of herself for her own pride after they were so kind so as to save her from a wound, and here she in turn wounded them.
With a low breath she leapt from the bridge’s edge and thanked the spirits she had worn something form fitting beneath her cloak this day (a tattered ruffled shirt ruined by many battles and her well loved nigh pitch silken shorts to cover her hind end in said scuffles).
Grippers hit the ground and form compacted into a graceful poise as though she had taken the fall a million times before and landed it without fault. She had… but it was not of her focus this moment-- eyes remained transfixed on the towering tent, stepping nearer toward it and nigh gawking towad the howling face stitched into its front.
For what manner could such a macabre cirque find the means to need such a dark design to attract their audience, this town was anything but eager to explore such a dark concept, they would more than certainly tuck tail and hide than approach such a daunting terror with the infection below, for risk of death.
Within one of the tent’s eyes far above its maw, she swore, perhaps it could have been a trick of the light to the average bug, but he was anything but the average bug, she had seen a figure standing there. Twin horns… or at least their shadow, looming and speaking to a shorter bug, of whom bowed and turned tail and ran off to carry out some deed.
So… that must be the Cirque’s Master then… no bug would be so eager to serve lest he were the man’s servant… or feared him.
Perhaps both.
And it was a rush, a shift in position and the shadow was back briefly, stepping nearer a though to peer through the gaping window and its tattered fringe, nearer… what ever could he look like and he paused, as though something had caught his attention.
And in a quick whirling spin of his form, and a plume of fiery crimson light that seemed… familiar… why did it seem familiar. Of all things-- the color struck its cord the strongest with her, where did she know it, what place had she seen it, what bug had she known with such a fire to them.
Her steps were feather light, inching nearer and needle drawn, watching as but a split second as the maw of the tent illuminated that same brilliant scarlet hue. So this fellow had the gift of teleportation a most Higher Beings did… it stirred a curiosity deep in her shell… nearer still, she inched round toward the smaller tent nearest her, attempting to sneak past its entrance and peer through and into that tent.
It had been a Higher Being, and there had only been so many that had a love of red, let alone a power over light or perhaps flame. But, who could it be--
Edging nearer her brow furrowed, hissing under her breath, it was on the tip of her tongue.
Scarlet… Scarlet why did she remember just that color’s name.
Why was it that these flames rang something within her, perhaps a glimpse of their creator and she could connect the dots.
The fringe of the smaller tent had been passed, and larger tent only a few steps away…
So close, come on just a few more--
“Ah, so rude!”
She really had to start working on this stealth thing.
Spinning round to find the source of the voice, her eyes scowered the nearest tent for a face and found form but… eyes just went… up and… up… and up before at last making contact with eyes.
A-Ah, a female termite.
“Certainly you do not mean harm to our dear troup with that dangerous needle of yours, no? The Master would certainly be very displeased” She gave a trilling churr, clacking her claws in elation, “Ooh! Perhaps he will give me the gift of consuming what is left after he deals with you--!”
Her eyes shifted, a welling uncertainty forming a pit in her gut and lowering herself into a battle ready stance, “Or perhaps he will reward me for dealing with a pest before he has to know of its nuisance!”
Hornet gave a step back, watching as her focus darted to her and a claw drew back, and in a dangerous and starved giggle, swung the limb with lethal intent.
A bound backward and she toppled backward, over the tail of the towering stead but out of the Termite’s reach, getting up and leapt out of her reach, eye on the tent and breath heaving in her chest before a fiery burst of red illuminated the tent’s maw before her.
Wait…
Oh… dammit!
Nearly got eaten by a termite and nothing to show for it, not even...
And there, running from the tent’s tattered doorway was her savior from but an hour before.
“Knight--!”
They skidded to a halt, staring at her with a body posture that rang of surprise that sank quickly to that same hurt from before, and they turned to dash away, “Knight wait--” Their form stopped, but posture did not change, “I did not mean what I said… this town is… almost all this kingdom has left that is still in tact… still alive by some means… it just...” Her breath drew in tight into her chest and rushed out as fast as it had torn in.
“I apologize… for my rudeness before… I did not intend to hurt you… I did not realize you were so deeply connected to such a small town, little Knight” And with that her breath gain pressed from her, own eyes shifting to lock with the ground and trace patterns over the ground.
She lifted gaze briefly, their posture still had not shifted, “I see now why you had wanted to bring me here… it is quite the intriguing spectacle, it was unfortunate I could not catch sight of the Troupe Master as well--” Her eyes again shifted to the Knight, and their posture had still not changed, she frowned.
“Why was it you wanted me to see this, was it simply to show me it?”
They gave a soft shake of their head and it was then that Hornet noticed it.
They were shaking.
And it dawned on her, this was a hatchling, “You were scared...” And the Knight gave a soft and turned round, black void like liquid spilling from their very sockets and hands in tight fists.
It was then instinct, to kneel, a sibling was still a sibling. “Come here...”
Their steps were hesitant at first but they toddled nearer and into her arms, to which she picked them and kept them pressed to her being, this was too much for one being to take on, and here she had fought them with her all but a few days ago.
Glancing about she sighed, and walked forward into town, catching sight of the far standing Elderbug and mking eye contact for the first time in many a moon. “Ah! My lady Hornet, how might I be able to help you this fine evening, I see you have the traveler with you, my! The poor thing is shaking like a leaf!”
It was that paternal instinct in him that rang through his voice soft and gruff, and hands lifting, ginger and soft, and cupping a hand to the Knight’s back and feeling the soft tremor coursing through their being.
“You wouldn’t happen to still have that room would you...”
“This is not a permanent thing… I don’t even know if you sleep...”
The Knight stared at her from their place tucked into the cot and gave a gentle wiggle of their feet from beneath their blanket, to which she could do little but chortle and shake her head and watch them snuggle down in the blankets and lay their head on the pillow.
It had taken roughly an hour to scrub the stains from her cloak, let along from the Knight’s shell, and it settled somewhere deep within Hornet’s core that though she still did not trust this little shadow, she would not see them weep… for the sake of her cloak and he energy to clean it.
Curling down into her own cot she gave her own sigh, humming low, comfortable for the first time I ages but… empty… was it really even worth it… to help one little vessel?
Wouldn’t they leave as well?
Why even have any hope if you would just lose your reason for it later…
She had no hope left to begin with to lose…
And she shut her eyes...