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Her needle, bright in her hands. She knew the weight, could feel it settling against her claws. Cold. Unrelenting. Near as tall as she was, and razor sharp to the hilt. It held no potential for mercy.
Hornet had trained with it. Now it came with her on this journey, to be tested alongside her.
She'd been granted a small escort as well. Just the guards who'd come to fetch her from the hive, with their news of trouble at the palace. A token, really, to take the tram with her - they would never travel to the depths of the basin; they were not of the rank necessary to so much as glimpse a Kingsmould. Just being allowed on the tram, that glistening symbol of Hallownest's progress, was something they took great pride in.
But when she stepped out of the tram, they did not follow. The doors hissed and clanked shut as she whirled around, but her command stuck behind her fangs. The vehicle was grimy and dull. The windows were broken and dark - dark enough for her to see the reflection behind her, the smudged orange against black.
She spun again, and this time pulled her needle from its sheath.
That momentum was enough. The needle knew her weight as well, the force she brought to bear against her foe. Shambling limbs, their ties to their nerves already tenuous at best, could do little against her. Although she was outnumbered, it was a short battle.
Vespa would have been proud to see it. Likely her mother, too. She had done well, neither spared nor wasted effort. Your mother would be proud, she reminded herself, or, something reminded her, echoing inside. Don't waste it. Move.
But she was stuck. Caught by her needle, still embedded within the bug - creature - husk's ruined shell. Her blade was orange and sticky, and she had been trained with equal care in its cleaning and maintenance as in its use, but she felt bile crawling up her throat when she thought about -
Then do not think about it. Move.
She lifted her arms, the needle came free. There was no chitinous crack this time, only a discouraged crinkle, some tearing. A few bits of blood-soaked shell came away with the metal.
They had been dead already, she told herself, staring at their face. They had died dreaming.
But that didn't change the sucking wetness at the end of her needle, or the jolt, again, the crunch that echoed up her arms even now as she looked down into that face, nameless, unknown to her, and saw a guard from the city. She’d forgotten his name, but she’d known, once. He was in her retinue on extended trips to the city, and Hornet's needle was still buried deep in his gut, and she did not scream, or jump back.
She moved faster this time. She yanked her needle free, and this time it was that desperate, overbalanced move that she felt jolting through her, burning up to her shoulders, as she stared down at her needle which had apparently perfectly pierced the heart of her first instructor at the hive, and now she was dizzy, was ill. She tried to run, to step back, even to drop her needle, but again she had just killed some former ally, enemy, grave robber, suitor who'd come to court the fabled Princess, and whatever she'd thought of them she'd never wanted this, never-
She just wanted this to stop. But there were more. Of course there were more of them, always; the Light had as many troops as there were bugs in Hallownest, and could make them rise and fight thrice again, and in the midst of this it occurred to Hornet that maybe she was one of them now.
And with that, finally, she-
* * *
Hornet woke up just as the breath to scream gathered in her chest. Lace was leaning over her, one hand resting on Hornet's shoulder. Hornet slumped back into the pillows. The breath remained, however. There was a sunken, drawn-out, drained moment where Hornet thought it might become a sob instead, and she would throw herself into Lace's arms, trusting that Lace would catch her, and sob on and on.
But when Hornet opened her mouth, there was only a strangled sigh. Her thin sheets of lung deflated into themselves.
"What's the matter, dear?" Lace asked quietly.
"A bad dream," Hornet told her, and then shoved away the blankets. Lace's hand had stayed on her shoulder, and when Hornet sat up, Lace pushed back lightly - a suggestion, absent the real force Lace was capable of.
"I am going to make some tea," Hornet proclaimed.
Lace's hand fell, though only briefly. She curled it thoughtfully over her mouth. "Would you like me to?"
"I must do it." Without looking back, Hornet paused in the doorway. "Though you may come with me. If you so choose."
She left for the kitchen, to make tea. A task made up by a merciful number of other, smaller tasks. Uncovering the lamp did not count, by her estimate - she would need to do that to do anything else. The rest would follow.
Fetching the kettle was first. Her claws shook around the handle.
Next. She needed the correct amount of water, for her and Lace. She braced herself on the edge of the sink with one hand, and with the other switched on the tap.
Lace stepped into the kitchen. Hornet watched Lace's lavender robe flutter as she passed the table and joined Hornet at the counter, pressing her hand over Hornet's for the moment it took the kettle to fill.
Hornet let the water reach the weight she recognized, the pull against her shell that meant she had what she needed. She straightened, squared her shoulders against the shiver that had settled between them. Lace set a hand there.
“A moment,” Hornet said.
“Alright, sweet.” Lace pressed a kiss where her hand had been on Hornet's back, and went to sit down.
Onward. Hornet lit the stove, a simple matter of flicking a dial, in this kitchen. She set the kettle atop the burner. Selected the variety of tea and measured the quantity required. The shredded, dried leaves went into the strainer, and the strainer went into the teapot in advance.
She performed each task, at her own pace, by her own will. There before her were only the countertop, the stove and the sink, and the objects she chose to work with there, picking them up and putting them down. Her body responded to her mind. Her hands were as clean as they would ever be.
Consequence followed action. Soon there would be tea.
This did not make her feel less sick. It didn't steady her hands or stir her stagnant blood. Still, she was done - finished. For now. She joined Lace, who stood to meet her.
Lace took Hornet's face in her hands gently, and whispered, "You look awful."
Hornet huffed, her fangs flickering in half a smile before falling again. "I am aware. I rather feel so."
"Oh, ma petite araignée ..." Lace kept one hand on Hornet's cheek, but the other she brought up to stroke the base of one horn.
Hornet closed her eyes. How strange it still was, sometimes, especially on nights like this where a thought in the wrong direction could tilt her heart into chaos - how strange to stand here and have someone touch her gently and murmur a pet name for her, when some part of her would always be holding her needle buried in that first corpse, in what had been a corpse before she ever struck, but still -
"Hornet?"
Hornet gasped, softly, wetly. Lace's hand moved against her face again, and she felt her own tears between their flesh.
"Ah," she said, once, intentionally, and then again and spiraling on, "ah, ah…"
Lace took her hand firmly, and led her into the living room. Hornet dropped onto the couch, and Lace settled beside her.
"I'm - sorry," Hornet managed. She made a sound that couldn't quite be a laugh. "I thought - thought I'd had it… Or, that I could..."
"I understand," Lace assured her, "You certainly don't need to apologize."
Hornet gulped down air, but there was nothing for it. She hunched into Lace's chest, and Lace caught her, and Hornet sobbed on and on. Lace turned all her own hard-won strength to holding Hornet. Hornet felt it under her: unyielding, stubborn, that strength which had ensured Lace’s survival and now strove as fiercely to offer comfort. Lace rubbed slow circles over Hornet’s back, and Hornet cried harder.
The kettle wailed in the next room, somehow, impossibly, louder than her. An impulse to stand stirred in her and faded as soon as she lifted her head. She had tried. She really had. She was exhausted, somehow.
Hornet said, "W…would you-" at the same moment that Lace began, "I'll get-" and then Lace nodded neatly and hopped off the couch.
Lace wasn't gone long. She couldn't have been, and it didn't seem that she was. It only seemed - separate, apart from the moment or any meaningful experience of time. Static. Hornet pressed a hand over her mouth, although there was nothing to hold back, no one to hold it back from. She was still weeping, still hunched over, but now on herself. She shouldn't have told Lace to go, or should have gone with her, should have gotten the damn tea herself.
And then the quiet thunk of a mug set down on the coffee table, and another mug was pressed into her hand. This mug, she identified as hers with a dip where the handle met the body that she so often traced with a clawtip. She started the motion now, unthinkingly, and mumbled, "Thank you."
"Of course." The couch shifted as Lace set down next to her. There was the quiet scrape of ceramic, and as she reclaimed her tea, Lace drew her free arm around Hornet's shoulder. Hornet drank. She took several long swallows over fresh sobs, and turned them into awful little hiccups and hitches in her throat, and with each noise and each sip she took to counter them, Lace was there soothing her.
It felt too good, painfully good. Undeservedly so, and that was what welled up in Hornet's chest and made her cry again. It went on a while, a cycle that left her feeling like her organs had been scooped out. But at least she had the tea now, which she had made with her own hands and which Lace had brought her. It was hot. Scalding, bitter and perfect. It replaced some of what she'd lost in tears, and its warmth filled in place of whatever else it was she'd lost.
She repeated, "Thank you."
Lace repeated, "Of course, darling."
"Is it?"
"Mm, I'm going to need a little more context, darling. Is what, what?"
"Is it a matter of course?" And Hornet gestured with the mug.
"For me to bring you tea sometimes? Certainly."
"Ah." Hornet took another long drink of that tea.
She tried again. Her voice still shook. "I had a nightmare."
"What about?" Lace did not waste time asking if Hornet wished to speak of it. She wouldn't have brought it up, otherwise.
Hornet was grateful. "The first time I turned my needle against a - sapient creature."
"I understand," Lace murmured. Her eyes narrowed, her hand was tight around Hornet's shoulder, though she massaged the joint.
"It wouldn't stop. I couldn't stop." Hornet's claws curled into Lace's robe. Her voice steadied as she spoke, "It isn't as though I hesitated, but I never…I didn't want - I didn’t want to kill them."
"It never stopped mattering, no?"
"No."
"I remember, too." Lace kissed the side of one horn. "You can go on."
"It felt like it would never end. Like that was all there would ever be. Sometimes, though it brings me shame to say this, it - it felt like all there had ever been." Hornet pulled her mug, now nearly empty, to her chest, and nestled closer to Lace. "And now there's this."
"It feels like this will end, somehow, doesn't it?"
Hornet looked up. "Yes."
"Too soon." Lace said, with a hint of old venom, the urge to poison the world that had taken so much from them already.
Hornet straightened. "And I want to tell you that it won't! I want to promise you, would that I didn't know the folly of that…"
"I won't ask you to. In any case, I don't want to hear it, either. No, no promises... But," Lace pressed, "Stay with me, won't you?"
"Of course!" It was a declaration, earnest and unflinching.
Lace set her tea down. She leaned in, resting her forehead against Hornet's. "Just stay with me?"
"If that's-"
"Shh. Hornet," Lace breathed. "I could offer to kill a thousand enemies alone, if they came upon us, to keep your claws clean. But I won't. You've had enough of sacrifice."
"I-" But it was true, no matter what Hornet had been gifted in return. "Yes."
"All I ask is this," Lace said. "Just let me stay with you, for as long as you want. We'll bear what we've wrought together. Please?"
"Very well."
"Is that what you want, Hornet?"
Hornet was still absorbing it: how little was now required of her, and what was apparently wanted of her. Just herself. Her presence. And maybe it was unseemly, but she wanted. Even if every heartbeat she'd stopped echoed hers now, she did. She was alive to want. And Lace, knowing everything, had offered. Hornet placed a hand on Lace's knee, and nodded. "Very much. Yes."
Lace kissed her. Hornet's face was still damp, her breathing still had a ragged edge to it. But Lace kissed Hornet again, and again, and each kiss was shivered through her, almost sharp. Not blows, but lancing wounds: tender, steadying bursts.
Finally Lace pulled away enough to offer Hornet her tea back. Hornet accepted it, and whispered, "Thank you, my love."
Lace shook her head, and drew Hornet close again. "Oh, come here."
Hornet nodded, already tucked back against Lace. She drained the rest of her tea, still cradling the mug, and glanced up. Lace pressed another kiss to the side of her horn. There was no excuse, really, to not go back to bed.
Neither of them moved. They needed no excuse to stay exactly where they were, wrapped up in each other.