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"I'm bored."
Hornet ignored him, her attention captured by the trap she had set.
"Horneeeeeet."
He poked her this time, and she twitched. Gods give her patience, because Tiso was about to snap the final thread she had.
"Hey." He poked her again, and that final thread of patience snapped.
Hornet turned to face him, a stony glare on her face. "Tiso, if you don't shut up I am going to gag you, now what do you want."
His smirk turned into a pout, but he still had a mischievous glint in his eye. Hornet's glare deepened, and the smirk returned. He remained silent, and Hornet could feel her blood begin to boil.
She honestly had so idea why Ghost seemed to like him so much. If her opinion had been taken into consideration, then Tiso would've been kicked out of the house the first time he slept on the sibling's couch. But unfortunately, Hornet was weak to her siblings' begging, so he stayed.
Seeing the ant around town had become a regular occurrence lately, and yet every time Hornet ran into him, he seemed determined to annoy her. Be it doing something stupid, or relentlessly attempting to speak to her, he would always find a way to get under her skin.
Speaking of getting under her skin, Tiso seemed pleased with apparently completing his goal, and had turned back to the trap. Hornet took a deep breath, attempting to calm the fury running through her veins.
She also returned her attention to the trap, and shifted slightly into a more comfortable position. With the way hunting had been going recently, it was likely that the two of them would be here for a while.
There was a brief, blissful silence for a few moments, and then-
"Hey Hornet."
There it was. Those were the words that destroyed her last sliver of self control.
"Would it kill you to shut up for five minutes!" She snapped, her voice raising at the tail end of her sentence. She had been trying not to yell at him, but fuck it. He deserved this one.
She hadn't even wanted him to come with her on this trip. He had just seen her heading down to the kingdom and had invited himself along.
"You clearly don't want to be here, so leave!" He jerked backwards, a pained expression on his face. It was quickly wiped away by his own anger, and his voice rose to meet hers.
"Fine! Maybe I will!"
“Good!”
They glared at each other, the air between them burning with tension. Tiso broke first, dropping his gaze to the ground with a huff. Hornet managed to catch the lingering remains of his earlier hurt, but when he saw her looking it morphed into a glare.
She could feel guilt beginning to form, but she refused to acknowledge it. Tiso did this to himself, there was no reason why she should be feeling this way. And yet, here she was wanting to call him back as he turned away.
She instead kept her mouth shut, watching him storm off. Hornet knew that something like this was going to happen. Any time the two of them were together it always ended with one or both of them being upset, and this was no exception.
Even so, her siblings did like Tiso, and they wouldn’t be happy with her if she didn’t at least try to get along with him. Hornet let out a deep sigh, her anger dissipating. Gods damn it all, now she was feeling guilty again. They truly are making me soft. She mused with a small smile, before snapping back to reality.
Hornet winced as she caught sight of Tiso again. The ant was almost out of earshot already, and he still looked fairly pissed. Not that Hornet could blame him, but still. With how far away Tiso had managed to walk during Hornet’s internal conflict, she had to raise her voice in order to catch his attention.
“Tiso! Wait!” She shouted, inwardly feeling the guilt grow again as Tiso stopped in his tracks and moved to face her, his glare not entirely managing to hide the distress that still lingered.
His expression caused her to hesitate, apparently for a moment too long, since a glimmer of hope Hornet hadn’t even noticed disappeared from Tiso’s eyes. He started to turn back around, and Hornet panicked slightly.
She started to jog over to where Tiso was standing, which was enough to get him to pause again. He faced her again, a question written on his face. Hornet stopped a few feet away from him, an invitation to come back on the tip of her tongue. Her brain, however, seemed determined to screw her over, and the words wouldn’t come out.
They stood there in silence, Hornet trying to get over whatever was keeping her from speaking. Tiso let out a quiet scoff, before he broke the stillness that surrounded them.
"What do you want, Hornet." His voice was flat, and completely devoid of the teasing undertone it had carried before. Looks like earlier had upset him more than she thought.
Hornet managed to finally unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth and opened her mouth to say… something. She didn't know exactly what was going to come out in that moment, and she never would.
Their eyes both shot over to the foliage next to them, which had started moving. Both of them immediately went on guard, their hands going to hover over their weapons.
All previous events had been forgotten in the moment, and the two of them locked eyes for a split second. As it turns out, that would be a lethal mistake.
Somehow, they had ended up right next to a hidden vengefly nest. A swarm of vengeflys burst out from the foliage, startling the two hunters. Due to their brief moment of hesitation, they were quickly overwhelmed.
Thankfully, both of them had gotten used to dispatching vengeflys. They moved around, watching eachother's backs, and killing every vengefly in sight. An outsider might have thought they had been fighting together for years, with how smoothly they moved around eachother.
Hornet's quick and graceful lunges worked well in tandem with Tiso's more offensive style. Unfortunately, neither of them could watch the other's back at every single second, which would end up being their undoing.
As Hornet finally managed to get a hold of the final vengefly, her rhythm was disrupted by a cut off scream of pain from behind her. Quickly stabbing her prey, she whirled around, only to freeze in horror.
"Tiso!"
In all of the chaos, it appeared that both her and Tiso had forgotten that with a vengefly nest came a vengefly king. Said king had somehow managed to sneak up on the both of them, and currently had its pincers clamped around Tiso's throat.
Tiso had dropped his shield, and his hands were desperately grasping at his neck. Hornet flew forward, her needle aimed directly at the king's heart. It went down in one blow, but took Tiso down with it.
Hornet dropped to her knees, managing to pull Tiso free. Her heart was in her throat, but she had long since mastered the ability to hide that particular feeling. She looked around for anything to press to the wound, and upon finding nothing, she tore off a part of her cloak.
Her attention turned back to Tiso, and a storm of swears immediately ran through her head. There was blood everywhere. It soaked into the ground, and she and Tiso were both covered in it.
"Hey, keep your eyes open asshole. Ghost will kill me if you die." Tiso's body shook beneath her, but she couldn't tell if it was from pain or laughter. She hoped it was the second.
Hornet pushed down the rising nausea, focusing on keeping a firm pressure on Tiso's injuries.
"You'll be fine, you managed to survive the Coliseum right?" She couldn't completely get rid of the tremor in her voice, and she felt Tiso's hand move to rest over hers. She bit back the comment she wanted to make, and just focused on the fact that he could still move.
Hornet forcefully swallowed down preemptive grief. He was not going to die here. Not after everything.
Her eyes glanced up to check his face, and her stomach dropped. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving at all.
"Hey. Hey. Eyes open dumbass." Tiso's eyes cracked open, and focused on hers. Relief briefly flooded through her body, before she noticed the expression on his face.
There was pain there, of course, but there was also a bitter resignation. Suddenly, his hand on hers didn't feel anywhere near as comforting as it had. It felt more like an apology.
"No. You do not get to die here, you bastard." Her vision went blurry at the edges, and she pressed down harder on Tiso's throat. He didn't even flinch, and Hornet's body went cold.
She blinked away the blur in her vision, and her eyes refocused on Tiso's. He offered her a small smile, one which she couldn't return.
In that moment, watching Tiso slowly choke to death on his own blood, Hornet hated herself. There was nothing she could do. If she let go and tried to move him, he would die. If she just sat there, trying to stop him from bleeding out, he would die.
However, she could at least give him the courtesy of something to look at as he died, so she kept their gazes locked. Tiso's expression relaxed, the light finally starting to fade from his eyes. His hand twitched on top of hers, a final goodbye, and then he was gone.
Even though she knew it was futile, her hands continued to try and stem the bleeding. Hornet was familiar with death, but it had been a long time since it had been someone she had been somewhat close with. She had forgotten how deep those deaths cut.
Hornet knelt there, her hands attempting to stop bleeding that had long since ended. She didn't move for a long time, until far after any opportunity for the ant under her to come back had passed.