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Hornet never remembered much of her childhood.
Not the good parts anyway.
She remembered the doom and gloom, the sounds of bugs getting infected. She remembered the promises of her mother and Midwife as she was coddled to sleep with empty promises that everything would be okay.
Hornet with that neither had lied to her.
She wished the lies were true.
She remembered her father.
Short and bright and so very commanding, so very different from how she had remembered her sibling.
With no voice, no mind, no soul.
Just an empty vessel.
That's what father said.
That's what mother said
That's what Midwife said.
Hornet didn't believe it at all.
She didn't know if they knew her, they weren't allowed to talk or play or spar. Not with hornet and the other spiderlings, not with any child.
The Vessel wasn't allowed to interact with her, but Pale King be damned if Hornet wasn't going to try.
She liked the name Hollow, especially on windy days when their mask would sing, like some of the hardened carcasses of her old molts.
They never spoke to her, wouldn't even look her way.
They still paused when she would call them Hollow, a name hidden beneath their armor.
"It is empty, my child." Their father would tell her, stained claws gently holding her mask. "They do not understand the basics of life like you and I."
It was the biggest lie everyone told her.
Hornet was young, she was small, and her eight legs could not come sooner!
She had taken after her father, her mother would say, she shone brightly in the depths of Deepnest, no need for a lantern, like the other younglings, no need for a watcher.
She was young, she was strong.
She could never be as strong as the Vessel.
Hornet would watch on the weeks they would come over. Training against her mother and Midwife, training to be better.
All for nothing.
They looked soulless, parrying and thrusting like nothing she had ever seen before.
They had fallen.
Mother had struck a part of their midsection, tearing the vessel in half.
Hornet felt bitter and cold.
That was her sibling.
And Mother had killed them with no remorse.
The training wasn't supposed to be dangerous, it was a learning curve. Why would mother kill them?
But the vessel moved, surging from their broken carcass groggily. They were newer, shinier, brighter. Every nasty indent, every bruise, and scratch, gone, in an instant.
They had an ugly patch on their midsection as if their entire being had sown itself together.
Mother nodded, bowing her head jerkily.
"You must react faster." Herrah hissed, no longer kind, no longer the calm teacher Hornet had known her to be. "Your timing is far too slow, and your patterns are predictable."
The vessel stared emptily back before nodding, following her mother as she berated them- it- instead of gentle praising and workarounds.
Hornet crawled after, desperate to hear more when she passed the fresh molt of the Vessel. It smelled odd, like taint and disgust, and the ugly sewage from the one guard her father seemed to love entertaining.
She slowed her crawl, leaning over.
And Hornet saw something small.
It was black and floated by the head, curled up in a small ball.
Hornet should not be able to see it.
She hissed, squishing the molt beneath her claw as it started up.
All black with white eyes, its wings? Seemed to blend into its nonexistent body.
It floated up, and Hornet could begin to hear the tellings of a lullaby.
She heard that before, in the incubation room her father had barred her from.
The creature moved back, just as her mother and the vessel walked forward. The creature's lullaby got louder as it floated towards the Vessel.
The Vessel did not seem to see it, but Hornet couldn't tear her eyes away as mother rushed her out of the room, barely able to get her through the door just as the Vessel swung its nail at the creature.
The inky blackness had been absorbed.
Hornet was determined to find out what it was.
She never did.
A bitter realization that stings with her to this day, remembering falling asleep beside her mother, remembering the last days she had with her.
Hornet had never thought twice on why mother was spending so much time with her and had enjoyed the added attention. She was not one to look a Gift Stalker in the mouth, so she craved and coddled and demanded all the attention her mother had freely given.
Hornet was a foolishly naive child.
Hornet was a bitter, bitter, orphan.
She had woken up to white walls and soft blankets, so cold compared to her mother's body.
Hornet had woken up and wailed, tearing up and crying loudly for any to hear.
The White Lady had come by, her stepmother- for all intents and purposes -had come and lifted her up, holding her close.
She felt so similar to mother, nice and warm and comforting and so very very strong that Hornet had tricked her young little mind to believe that it was truly mother playing a cruel joke on her.
A cruel joke that never seemed to end.
Father had taken her to see mother one last time.
"You will not understand, my daughter," He had sounded so defeated, but Hornet could only hear excuses at the time. "When you are older, you will understand."
Hornet hadn't gotten that either.
She was older, she was wiser.
She understood better than anyone.
She just wished she knew everything so much earlier, given them all another way, another plan that wouldn't fail.
To this day, she still had not come up with one that wouldn't have led to the death of hundreds.
Father had disappeared not too long after the black egg was sealed.
Hornet had found him.
She didn't know-how, she could never seem to replicate the first and last time she had ever seen her father.
Filled with grief, filled with hatred, just wanting to see her father, to curse him for leaving her without so much as a goodbye.
And she found him.
Her father, the Pale King, had teared up when he saw her, still on his throne
He had lifted her onto his lap, whispering apologies as their masks clicked together.
Hornet had wailed at him, too young to know much else, too young to cover her emotions.
She cried and cried, calling him names, telling him how much Hornet hated him. As a King, he took it all without so much as a sound.
As a father, he took it all with tears falling down his mask.
"You are already so strong, my daughter," Pale King breathed hazily, holding her tightly in his four arms. "I only wish your mother and I could see you grow further."
Hornet had woken up in tears and anger, screaming loudly for mom and dad.
Neither ever came.
So Hornet grew without a mother, having Midwife try and raise her through the growing mass of infected. Her once wonderful light was starting to become a danger in the Deepnest, where more infected creatures were beginning to follow her light.
So she had left to the hive, where Vespa had begun to train her in ways mother and midwife could not.
And just like that, a third mother had fallen to the infection.
By her word, Hornet despised it all.
So she rose, fighting and defeating the infected without a thought, scurrying around the Hollow Nest as best she could.
She would protect everything.
And yet, Hornet stood in her mother's empty room.
She had failed.
And it was all her fault.
The vessel, Ghost, had come at a tide where the infection was worsening. Where Hornet had to wait four full days for the meat to be cured so she could consume, where hunger was known throughout the land.
Curing the meat had begun to fail, the infected would follow and consume it before it ever had the chance to be cured, and Hornet had to web it up with silk to prevent those horrible creatures from stealing her well-earned meal.
And yet the little Ghost did not seem to mind.
She had not seen them in crossroads, although Hornet had refused to go there, as she did not want to see that dastardly prison anymore.
She had seen them in Greenpath and had known full well what this would mean.
Hornet would need to reset all the blocks she had set up for the infected once more.
First, she needed to prove to this vessel that it was no match for her.
They never were, none of them could ever bear to hold the strength the Pure Vessel had, nothing short of a match compared to stage lights.
This one held a torch.
Hornet had been surprised, shocked, to fall against the Ghost. Of course, she was not using her full strength, but it was a shock nonetheless.
They had potential.
They had magic.
The other vessels could not use any such spells, the other vessels that were still pinned and hidden away in the grasses of Greenpath, where Hornet had tied their souls so they could not return.
She had the odd creatures follow her.
Shadlings, she had come to know them as. And yet, this Ghost had never joined her collection.
She watched as they followed her, bribed easily by her presence alone, following like a lost moss crawler.
They were the most like the Pure Vessel.
Strong, quick, and silent.
Hornet wondered if she could find out more.
They hadn't taken to learn more spells, somehow acquiring claws from the Mantis Tribe that killed most outsiders weaker than they, wings that were not even showing on Hornet's own body yet, and a faster ability to dash throughout Hollow Nest.
They had crystals growing from their bottom paws, a small clicking every time they stopped from a particular fast dash.
They were so very much like the Pure Vessel.
And yet so very very different.
They weren't as soulless, yet they couldn't speak. They made noises, squeaks, mewls, and the occasional wail when things troubled them. But despite that, their silence spoke thousands of words.
The tilt of their head, curious and questioning, the shake of their shoulders in a certain angle to indicate anger or sadness. The worst was fear, watching them grow silent and empty.
Like the Pure Vessel.
Was this how they all expressed fear?
How many times had she presumed the vessels to be empty because of that same expression?
How many had she tied and hid away, disgusted that they all had the same face as the vessel?
They were afraid.
Those were her siblings, like Ghost, like Hollow.
She had never related more to her father than now and wondered how he had handled the guilt of losing so many vessels before, sentencing his strongest- his oldest- to a life of death as a martyr.
She wondered if her father cried in his grave, where he now laid with his millions of children.
Hornet wondered when it would be time for her to join them.
Life continued on, and despite Hornet's guilt, despite her reservations, she continued with her plan, explaining as best she could to the little Ghost their new purpose.
If she were entirely fair, they took it all in stride, demonstrating more determination than Hornet had seen in many adult soldiers. She wondered if she showed even a fraction of the pull they could do.
Unlike them, she had no power to infiltrate dreams.
No.
That wasn't true.
She had the power, but she had no way of accessing it. In the simplest of terms, she just could not figure out a way to harness her dream-wielding prowess. There was no one to teach her, no one who could access dreams in the way the moths and her father could.
It stung that a child had mastered it within weeks of arriving, presumably hatching, whilst Hornet still struggled with that since the day she lost everyone.
The irritation soothed out, if only because she no longer had to complete her own plan.
It was cowardly, it was disgraceful.
It was all she had to cling onto now.
No mother, no father, the guilt of tying her siblings down.
And now the guilt of sending the last to their presumed death bed.
They had received the King's brand, which would return to its rightful place as soon as Ghost perished within a battle, as soon as they became a new Vessel.
By her father's horns, it made her sick to her stomach to even think that.
And yet she persisted.
Like her father.
Like her mother.
Like Midwife.
Hornet would continue.
She didn't expect it to be so…
So painful.
She had technically already lost her mother and father-
Hornet had lost them.
And yet she entered her mother's room, pissed at the stupid council members that dared to try and consume her sibling, to see nothing.
No-
There was Ghost, covered by their cape like a blanket amongst an empty stone bed. The ridges worn down where her mother had laid, once strong webbing had been torn, had been ripped apart and broken down.
No…
Hornet collapses, using her needle to hold herself up, uncaring of how the webbing beneath her would erode away at the edge.
Slumping against it as she struggled not to cry, not to scream and wail and want.
For a few moments, Hornet hate's everyone.
She hates her father, hates him for being a king- a god- that wasn't strong enough to beat the enemy on his own. Hates him for his outrageous plan, for placing so much pressure on his children as if they could hold the world like he once did. Hates the fact that he took away her mother and father.
She hates her mother more. Hates how Herrah had accepted the plan without any forethought on how it would affect her daughter- her people- hates that her strength- her elegance and purpose- had not been passed onto Hornet. Hates that her last memories of her were bittersweet happiness, hates that the last words they had ever spoken were soft I love you's without a single goodbye.
She hates Ghost, her sibling by all accounts. Hates how they could not conjure a plan of their own- hates that they so dutifully followed her plan- how they rid the chain without ever once questioning Hornet.
She hates herself, hates her planning, hates that she was just not enough to convince anyone to stay.
That Hornet was just not a good enough reason to stay.
Ghost awakens, and Hornet has to stop the thickness in her throat to speak to them.
She cannot hate them.
She cannot hate anyone.
Even if the bitter feeling lodges itself in her throat and makes her trip over her own words, no longer the regal princess, no longer the warrior she knew herself to be.
Right now?
She was Hornet.
A scared little spider that wanted her mom and dad.
"What?" She chokes out as Ghost walks up to tug at her shawl. "You think me stern but I'm not completely cold."
Ghost says nothing, like always, and silently hugs her side. There are no chirps, no mewls.
It's silent.
Hornet is unsure if she hates or appreciates it at the time, nonetheless, she leans against her younger sibling, tears dribbling down her mask that plinked softly against the hard webbing. It hurts so much, and she's struggling to breathe, struggling to say more.
"We do not choose our mothers," Hornet opts to say, inhaling a touch too sharply. "Or the circumstances in which we are born."
She's thankful for her mother, for the life she was given.
She's bitter at her mother, for leaving without a goodbye.
She hates her mother for not saying no.
Hornet has never been more confused in her life.
Ghost leaves her be.
She stays for a fortnight within the confines of her mother's room, feels the suffocating air as she cries and wails, calling for all her mother's in an attempt to feel something.
Her first mother is gone, her second mother is hidden and blinded, her last mother hibernating in an attempt to save her subjects.
Queen Herrah, White Lady, Queen Vespa.
All three mothers, gone, in a blink of an eye.
For some childish reason, Hornet had believed them all to come back to her, to smile and train and fight, as if nothing had ever gone wrong.
She hated the reality she was forced to face every time she woke.
2 weeks, an entire 14 days later, Hornet finally sees enough sense to finally leave.
She is hungry, and thirsty, having been surviving on the dewdrops collected in webs and the meat of the councilors that dared defy her.
It is disgusting, but Hornet does not care.
She stands up on wobbly legs, trying to stumble out of the room before she pauses.
In a moment of horrid clarity, Hornet knows exactly how her father felt all those years ago.
So she turns to the empty room, ignoring how stiff her mask felt, ignoring the burn in her eyes and the ache in her throat.
Gently, she raises her needle to her hands, knowing she would need to sharpen it on her own.
Everything stills.
"There is no cost, too great."
The whisper sends shivers down her spine, and she screws her eyes closed.
The silence is horrifying, deafening.
She hates her parents all the more.