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Deepnest is different; much different than you recall. Before, there was life within — not quite like the lands beyond like the princess spoke of, for those lands were blindingly bright and full of vegetation that Weavers do not eat. Rather, there were voices and the thrums of claws skittering across silk threads. Now, there is only the scuttling of those pesky centipedes and the grunts and snarls of arachnids made mindless.
You’d never thought much of the color orange. It was rare to see it in Deepnest, for its denizens could and can see quite well in the dark. Orange only came in the form of fire. Torches and camps that outsiders tended to make to cook prey that most spiders ate raw. The princess would cook her meals, too: a product of both her foreign half and the Wyrm’s hand in her upbringing, however brief it may have been.
But now orange means something entirely different. Orange means danger. Orange means illness.
Orange means the Queen laid down to rest eternally for nothing. Nothing at all. She is gone, forever beyond your reach, and the princess’s fate is unknown. The natives, your people, your kin, they’ve gone wild with madness and act only on the instinct you’d all once been so proud of. While Deepnest had minds of their own, they’d still held dear their instincts.
Instinct is what kept you alive, and what kept you safe. Now, though, instinct is all these arachnids have left, and they’re using it to hunt you down.
Your claws scrape against stone as you flee from Stalking Devouts: once the Queen’s guards, now they are one of the biggest threats within this place, foreign yet familiar. Everything is wrong. You feel wrong, too. You’d fled your den full of corpses when an outsider entered and stole from it. But you can’t bring yourself to be angry, for they too are only trying to survive.
You keep running. It’s all you can do. You’re not quite sure where you’re going: like the others, you’re acting on instinct. But their instinct is to kill you, to destroy anyone not bearing those glowing orange eyes. Your instinct is to live.
You don’t realize that you’re running towards the Queen’s resting place until you scrabble to a halt at the ledge leading to it. That ancient lift is gone; a look upwards reveals it to be broken and suspended in the air by wild, untamed webbing. You look ahead of you. You see the path. A deep, dark body of water lies far, far below. If you fall, you will drown. But if you succeed, you will have shelter, at least. Another familiar place to regain your bearings.
You jump. You jump, and just barely stick the landing. More ledges lie ahead. You must make it. You must reach the Queen’s abode; to see her body if nothing else. Her existence alone is a comfort to you. She is there and breathing in her long sleep, and you must see her.
You leap from ledge to ledge, sometimes clinging for dear life and sometimes clearing the gaps with no difficulty whatsoever. You are not built for this. You are built for creation, not for traversing the darkness in search of respite and comfort.
You make it to the den. The floor is scattered with abandoned robes and masks. They are unimportant to you now, as your desperation is only growing. You scale the walls. You climb and climb and climb some more, sprinting past corpses — fresh ones; someone has been here recently — and you reach your Queen’s chambers—
She is gone. There’s nothing there, save for the huddled figure of someone you know slumped against what was once her bed.
“Princess!” you cry. You don’t know what you’re feeling: is it grief, anger, or something else, something unlike any emotion that’s marred your heart before? But you feel it, and you rush to her. She is crying. Is she mourning too, or is she the cause of the Queen’s — of her own mother’s evident death? “What happened? Where is she? And where have you been?!”
So many questions, and Princess Hornet of Deepnest only answers two. “She’s dead,” the princess croaks, her voice having long since dwindled to murmurs. “She’s dead, and I let it happen. It wasn’t my hands, but I let it happen, because I believe that something else may be done to stop the madness plaguing this land…” She ducks her head down, hiding her face.
Shame. You aren’t quite sure whether you’re happy that she feels it or not. But you are angry regardless. It would do neither of you any good to lash out, but you want to. And she notices.
“I know you must be upset with me,” she rasps. “Do it. Lash out at me. Scold me. Strike me if you feel the need. I stood by and let another kill your Queen. I let my mother die.”
Her acceptance quashes your desire to hurt her. Why couldn’t she fight back? Why couldn’t she be deep in denial about what she’d done? You only feel pity alongside your grief, now. So you sit down beside her, gathering your many limbs beneath you and wishing desperately for the Queen to miraculously come back from the dead.
“The others,” Hornet chokes out. “The Weavers… do they live on still?”
“It’s just…” You take in a deep, shuddering breath. Tears prick at your many eyes, blurring your vision. “It’s just me, princess.”
“Hornet.”
“Huh?” You look to her and see nothing but a blurry smear of white and red.
“Just call me Hornet. My title means nothing nowadays. Everything has fallen, save for a few stray factions and Hallownest’s Queen. But she doesn’t have any subjects, either.” Hornet trembles. “There’s nothing anymore… even the Weavers have passed on. But perhaps that’s for the best. Better to die undefiled than to be taken by the plague.”
“Better to live peacefully,” you mutter, feeling rather bitter at the world as a whole.
“Such a goal is unattainable now.” Hornet falls silent for a few moments. “But… there’s a chance everything could change. A slim one, but a chance nonetheless. It’s why I stood to the side. That chance relies on the strength of another.”
You ruminate on that for a while. While you’re desolate at the death of your Queen, if it means peace for everyone else… but you’re a Weaver. You’re not built to think of the big picture, and the concept of sacrificing your monarch to achieve a larger goal is beyond you in your hysterical state. But if the pr — if Hornet thinks that here’s a chance, then you trust her to take it. You trust the spiderling that you helped teach the art of weaving to.
“I hope it works,” you say weakly. “I hope the Queen didn’t…” You can’t bring yourself to finish the thought. Queen Herrah, dead… it’s still so hard to believe.
“I hope so as well.” Hornet inhales deeply, exhales slowly until nothing remains within her thorax. Then she stands and offers you a hand, taking her needle in the other. “Come with me,” she offers. “There is a safe town above ground for you to take refuge. Deepnest… it’s no place to die. Not anymore.”
Your instincts tell you to trust her. Despite everything you’ve seen, you still take pride in them.
You take Hornet’s hand and let her lead you to safety.