Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I am not my mother. I am not just a child, or a weapon, or her tool. This life is mine.

When Lace resurfaces from the sea of void, mind still hazy from deprivation and skin tingling uncomfortably from being freed from the cloying, suffocating sensation of nothingness clinging to her like a vice, these are the words at the forefront of her mind.

I am not my mother.

No. Her mother is stuck down at the bottom of the void, and she likely died wishing Lace could’ve been better. Lace can’t help the spiteful little giggle that escapes her when she locks eyes with Hornet.

I am not just a child, or a weapon, or her tool.

Not anymore. No longer would she be bound to her mother inexorably, doomed to servitude of a dead and haunted land, forever a disappointment, forever a failure. Even now, her shell feels lighter, and it isn’t just because of the pervasive weightlessness of the air in the Abyss. Lace climbs to her feet painfully, limbs unsteady and chest aching.

This life is mine.

And it will never belong to another again. Lace peers down over the edge of the platform and into the pool of void beneath her, stagnant and settled. Peaceful, Lace could almost say, if she hadn’t spent the past few days with her mind subsumed in it, knowing anything but peace.

Lace looks down at nothingness and loss, at the place where her mother’s husk would lay resting forever. She laughs, high and haughty, breathlessly and loud as she can. She laughs until her head hurts and her legs buckle beneath her. When she falls backwards to the floor, Hornet catches her.

Hornet’s limbs are sharp and strong under her cloak. Her mask betrays nothing, but her eyes are clearly inquisitive.

“I did not rescue you from that void to see you throw yourself back in immediately.”

“As if I’d ever go back, little spider,” Lace laughs. “I was simply savouring the victory.”

Hornet scoffs. “Your mirth is misplaced. We merely survived, and it was by the grace of another. Do not mistake mercy for surrender.”

“Grace?” Lace laughs once more. “Piety doesn’t suit you, spider. I thought you hunter types were the ones who preached about victory at all costs, and all that drivel.”

Hornet’s hands tighten. Lace shifts uncomfortably in her embrace. When she looks up at the spider, she sees Hornet staring down at the void, barely cognisant of the fact that she’s squeezing Lace.

“A victory can only be considered such if it lasts.”

A singular void tendril surfaces from the ocean beneath them. It doesn’t thrash violently or claw at her, like Lace had seen when she and her mother had first been snared. Instead, it simply observes.

Lace shivers. Her right leg – the first part of her shell to be consumed by the void – aches.

Lace pulls herself out of Hornet’s grip. “Can we leave now? This place makes me sick.”

After a moment of staring into the void, Hornet nods. “Follow me.”

-

Their progress through the Abyss is slow. The ache in Lace’s leg doesn’t fade. Rather, it only seems to grow, both in pain and breadth. She’s hindered by searing pain running up her leg and through her whole shell, forcing her into a shallow limp.

Regardless of pain, Lace refuses to let Hornet look at the wound. The spider had supposedly exhausted all her silk in her leap from the bottom of the ocean of void, and any silk she’s able to generate are to go to traversing the Abyss.

Anything that slows them down from their escape from the Abyss is unacceptable. Lace hates the pools of void that lie unnervingly still and the layers of spikes that look more like teeth, embedded into stone and shells far older than anything known. But most of all, she cannot stand the little start that Hornet unknowingly does whenever she sees one of the Gloomsacs diving at her.

Fear, Lace recognises. She has seen it countless times before, in the moments before her pin had speared the pilgrims and husks daring to traverse her failed kingdom. She doesn’t expect to see it in a warrior – a true warrior, which Hornet has unfortunately proven herself to be – and she doesn’t expect to see it in one as seasoned as Hornet.

Phantom had shown fear in the presence of their mother, after they had been told their fate. Lace had not begrudged them for their fear then, and she still does not.

But Hornet had dove into the deepest depths of the world and weathered all manner of claws on her shell. She had survived two failed kingdoms, challenged a god and won, and she had bested Lace, three times! How dare she let a mindless little bug get to her!

When the two of them settle down after hours of slow-moving traversal through blackened tunnels, Lace lets her feelings be known.

“Do these void-ridden creatures bother you so, spider?”

Hornet ignores her for a moment. She brushes the dust off the most comfortable looking rock and sits. Her entire shell droops, as if the danger was the only thing keeping her functioning.

“I am not in the mood to entertain your prodding, child.”

Lace twitches. “You told me you had stood sentinel over your own kingdom. I wonder – did that include your own Abyss?”

Hornet’s black eyes narrow. “Speak carefully.”

“Your fear merely irritates me. I’m entrusting my safety to one who fears a bug so wholly beneath her. Should I begin to worry for the worms that roam this place as well?”

Hornet is quiet for a moment. She shifts her needle into her lap and runs a hand over it, as if letting the pale steel calm her. “It is their simplicity that bothers me. A mind is the greatest gift a bug possesses. In my kingdom, I have seen what it looks like when that gift is withdrawn. Seeing these bugs… it reminds me what we all once were, and of my home. That is all.”

Lace hums. “Your honesty doesn’t change my feelings, spider.”

“My emotions do not rule me. I will live to see Pharloom’s new age, and that hope guides me far more than any fear I may possess.”

Lace swallows the bile that rises in her shell. “I lost hope in Pharloom long ago,” she says, and then she leans up against a rock opposite to Hornet.

Hornet shifts her needle off her lap and onto the floor, leaning it up against herself. She begins strumming silken strings that form over the steel, playing a soft tune.

“Serenading me now?” Lace laughs. “You truly have bought into Pharloom’s farce.”

Hornet’s mask betrays nothing. Lace reluctantly lets her have her peace. She falls asleep to Hornet’s playing, massaging the ache in her leg with shaking claws.

-

There’s a small cogwork device that Hornet keeps on her self. It’s as small as a locket and hangs securely from her pouch. Supposedly, it counts the time as easily as any clock would, even in the depths of the Abyss.

Lace isn’t sure if she believes that, but the device is still the best thing she has for keeping the time. With a barely audible click, the device signals a new day in Pharloom above.

Quietly, Lace recites the words she had first thought when Hornet had lifted her from the void.

“This life is mine,” she tells herself, and sitting beside a slumbering Hornet underneath a crumbling, black-rocked cave, the idea seems almost laughable.

The pain in her leg has only worsened, to the point where Lace can barely put any weight on it at all. She supposes the roof of the cave will have to entertain her for a while longer.

Hornet stirs a little later, but she’s foggy and still out of it, still blearily blinking away sleep even as she carries Lace over the layers of spikes preventing their progress.

They move even slower than the previous day. Every labouring step Lace takes grates at her patience.  

Hornet’s silk spear is their only means of traversal over the seas of spikes, with Lace having to cling to her to avoid being left behind. Hornet is also their main means of combat; Lace can offer support with her pin and defend herself sufficiently, but for the Gloomsacs hovering just out of reach and the lumbering Gargant Glooms, Lace is nothing but a burden. Hornet is forced to lead both those bugs away from Lace before she can engage them, enraging Lace further.

After a particularly gruelling fight, Hornet keels over. Her breaths are heavy and laboured. There’s a crack in her shell that she tries to heal, but her spool runs empty.

The cogwork device on her pouch goes tick-tick-tick, and Lace feels like she’s suffocating.

“I didn’t ask you to save me,” she growls, patience finally snapping.

Hornet sighs. “Yet I chose to do so.”

“You could’ve just left this pitiful kingdom to rot. Why me?”

Hornet’s eyes find hers in recognition of… something. “Why us?” She whispers, and Lace jolts.

“How-“

“Perhaps I felt something kindred in you. Perhaps it was that I stood by and watched countless bugs die in the past, and now I am tired of it. Perhaps it was for Pharloom as a whole, and you are a part of it. Unfortunately.”

“You speak as if you know me. You could never.”

“Perhaps.” Hornet straightens up. “If you continue like this, I will never know you.”

Lace is quiet for a moment. She drags her ailing leg along like a weighted anchor. “Why are you so weak?”

Hornet raises her needle. “Would you care to test my prowess again?”

“You know what I mean, spider. You’ve been sleepwalking since we woke, and your silk spools remain near empty. Why?”

Hornet lowers her needle with a shake of her head. “If I tell you, will you allow me to look at your leg?”

“Maybe,” Lace shrugs.

Hornet ponders the idea. “When I rescued you, I dipped into power I did not possess,” she says, finally, “I used everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. To make the leap, your mother offered me the last vestiges of her power. All of it went to getting the two of us out – and still, it wasn’t enough.”

Lace reels back as if she was struck. “My mother? But-“

Her head hurts. Hundreds of years- lifetimes of neglect and rejection, of forcing her into a role and spurning her for it, and it culminates in this?

“It is true, child. That much exertion wounded me, however. Much like your leg, yet my wound isn’t visible. When we return, I must visit the Weavenests for insight into this affliction.”

Lace can’t bring herself to respond. Her mother’s only form of affection, and it comes like this?

“Of course she’d give you her power. She simply had to save you, didn’t she?”

Hornet sighs. “It was for you. The cocoon of silk she made, languishing in bondage beneath the void – was all to protect you.”

Lace scoffs. “Well, she can rot for all I care.” Lace turns away, tapping her good leg on the floor at a rapid pace.

“Your petulance isn’t amusing.”

“Boo-hoo, spider.” When she looks up, Lace sees Hornet staring at her expectantly. “What?”

“I told you the story of my injury. Now tell me yours.” Her eyes flit down to Lace’s injured leg.

Lace laughs. “Bad luck, dear spider. Your story,” Lace drags the word out, “only reinforced my feelings. If you’re silk-challenged at the moment, I won’t have you wasting it on a little scrape like this. I’m not staying here any longer than I have to.”

“Why are you so focused on leaving the Abyss?” Hornet asks her.

Lace doesn’t know how to tell her she doesn’t like seeing Hornet scared. She doesn’t know how to tell her she feels it too, when they’re too close to the pools of void, or when the Gargant Glooms start spewing out their black liquid.

Lace composes herself. “I’m not that easy, dear spider,” Lace winks, and then she strides past Hornet, forcing her leg to move normally through willpower alone.

-

Lace is tired. It only hits her when she wakes on the eve of their second day in the Abyss. She can barely bring herself to move.

The Abyss isn’t cold, but neither is it hot. There’s no wind, and the air is empty and sickly. Every breath takes a little more out of her.

Her leg isn’t healing. Stubbornness forces her to keep her eyes away, but she can feel it – silken skin degenerating, crawling higher and rendering her weaker with every moment.

The only movement in their cave comes from Hornet, sleeping beside her. Hornet possesses the only heat in the Abyss, and her cogwork clock is the only noise.

Perhaps, Lace thinks, she owes Hornet a bit of gratitude. To make the ascension alone would be a nightmare.

The ease with which she accepts that thought scares her.

Lace can’t bring herself to move until she recites the mantra she had woken up with. This life is mine, she whispers, shifting a little closer to Hornet’s warmth.  

-

“What will you do?” Lace asks her, when Hornet is waiting for her silk to regenerate after a long section of spikes she’d had to carry Lace over.

“What?”

“When we get back to the surface. Are you staying?”

“Hm,” Hornet hums. “I’d like to.”

“Why?”

“Because I have friends here. It is a new feeling. I’d like to savour it.”

Lace can’t help herself. “Friends?” She scoffs. “You?”

“Your jealousy is more transparent than you think.”

Lace gapes. “Jealousy?” She laughs. “As if.”  

“You cannot fool me,” Hornet tells her, but there’s a mirth behind her voice that Lace has rarely heard.

She likes it.

“Why do you ask?” Hornet continues.

“Just wondering. There isn’t much to do in Pharloom, after all. Especially now that - oh, everything’s destroyed.”

Hornet is unbothered. “And what will you do?”

Lace opens her mouth. Then she closes it.

“You will find there is more to do if you simply allow yourself to look.”

Lace fumes. “You can’t even imagine how many years I’ve spent wandering through this pit of despair.”

“You are wrong,” Hornet says. “And I know that, in my experience, there were so many bugs to help, right beneath my mask. Had I only looked, perhaps things could’ve been different. Pharloom was a chance I did not wish to squander.”

Hornet looks away with a palpable, quiet regret radiating from her.

Lace shakes her head. “You can be so annoying, spider.”

Hornet looks amused. She steps in front of Lace. She extends a limb – Lace watches her movements closely – and then slides it around Lace’s back. The contact is warm and far too much to think about right now.

Lace gasps. “S-spider-“

Without warning, Hornet throws her needle over a sea of spikes. It soars into the dark, the string of silk going taut as it embeds itself in some far-off rock.

The limb around Lace’s back tightens, and she’s forced to all but jump into Hornet’s grasp when the silk launches them over the spikes.

The only thing Lace can do until they reach solid ground is to hold onto Hornet and scream.

When they finally touch down, Lace stumbles out of Hornet’s grip.

“What are you doing-“

Hornet nods to herself. “Fulfilling wishes is an enjoyable pursuit.”

“That was not my wish!”

Hornet turns to look at her, that same mirth from earlier shining in her black eyes. “Is it not? We are closer to the bell that took me down here. Your wish to escape draws nearer.”  

Lace fumes, and not just because it’s clear that Hornet has won whatever this little exchange is. It’s because inside her fake and empty shell, where once she had only felt the lonely grasp of the void, Lace feels warmth.

Warmth that belongs to the hearth in a home, or from bathing in a spa, yet it comes from within. It’s unrecognisable, and a bit frightening, and it renders her speechless. Lace knows she must make a sight, staring dumbly at Hornet, but the spider doesn’t seem to mind.

“We must rest,” Hornet tells her, already setting her needle down against the long-solidified shell of a bug.

It isn’t like Hornet hasn’t carried her before, Lace tells herself. They’ve been forced closely countless times on the climb back to Pharloom, whether it was over spikes just like this one or when Hornet had to use her Silk Soar to carry them above unclimbable walls. Each time, Lace has felt that miniscule stirring in her shell, even if she’d deny it. The feeling had never been this overwhelming before.

Lace knows it must have to do with Hornet’s teasing. She knows that, if Hornet’s mask allowed it, Lace would see the spider smiling at her.

Lace enjoys the feeling – warmth, like the embrace of another.

-

The cogwork clock continues to tick. The hours go by in stillness, the only movement being Hornet’s strumming of her Needolin.

Lace has grown used to the music. Now, when they’re approaching their third day in the Abyss, she might have come to enjoy it. It’s the only time the hunter ever closes her eyes, where normally she was always scanning and alert, even in weakness.

Hornet never plays the same tune, but many of the songs she plays carry similar sounds sprinkled throughout. Lace even recognises some – stolen melodies from the Weavers, repurposed for Pharloom’s faith.

Lace hasn’t been feeling right since Hornet slipped her limb around her back. She’s been antsy, flustered, anticipating of… something. She thinks she must be going mad.

It’s in the interest of ridding herself of these feelings that she stands.

“I didn’t realise you were awake. I’ll keep watch for a while longer, child,” Hornet says when she sees her.

“Just keep playing.”

Hornet acquiesces after a moment. The tune is slow, quiet, and thankfully one she recognises some of.

Lace closes her eyes and recalls a time in an age past, when she and Phantom shared the joy of song. Phantom would sit at their organ and play a decadent, holy song for Lace to dance to. Lace would sway and move elegantly, just like her mother wished her to, and all the onlookers would cheer, except for one.

Lace remembers praying at the altar after the performances, in the foolish hope of finally impressing her mother and earning some feeble recognition of her ability.

Now, Lace dances for herself.

She closes her eyes and lets her limbs move on their own.

It’s… painful, knowing Phantom would never play for her again.

Lace raises her arms high, leans her head back and dips her shell. She steps forward, placing weight on her right leg. She stumbles when the pain ignites her nerves.

Hornet’s playing stops. She locks eyes with Lace. Wordlessly, Lace urges her to continue.

The music starts again, and Lace closes her eyes. Her movements flow like water, moving effortlessly in a way that she hasn’t allowed herself to in a long time.

The pain remains, but Lace remembers her mantra – this life is mine – and it’s much more bearable. She may not have Phantom anymore, but she is free.

She also has Hornet. Like it or not, the two of them are bound, if only until they get out of the Abyss.

Lace feels her leg ache as she puts weight on it, but she doesn’t let it show. She sweeps her good leg in a wide circle, letting the motion rise through her entire body. Her right leg remains her main foundation, even through the pain.

Hornet’s song builds to a crescendo. Lace twirls in place and then dips forward. Her leg shakes, but she refuses to let herself buckle. Not in front of Hornet.

There’s a sickening sound of tearing – like claws ripping through fabric – and then Lace is crashing to the floor. Pain roars through her body before she hits the ground. Lace sees spots in her vision, and she can’t hear anything over the ringing in her ears.

Hornet leaning over her, visible panic in her eyes, is the only reason Lace knows Hornet had stopped playing her Needolin.

“Garama! Foolish Child!”

Hornet crouches in front of Lace’s wounded leg. Lace tries to push her away, but Hornet slaps her hand. Hornet’s eyes widen in shock – or perhaps fear – at the sight of the injury.

Silk materialises in Hornet’s paw. It threads into her palm and through her claws, and from there she directs it into Lace’s leg. Strings bind around the limb, finding frayed parts of Lace’s shell and stitching them together.

It’s a balm to the searing pain coursing through Lace, but it isn’t a proper solution – like finding a hole in a wall and hanging a painting over it.

Lace’s leg aches; there’s an opening in her shell that gnaws at her, and no matter what Hornet does, it doesn’t come close to closing.

Hornet’s loom runs empty, but she’s managed to turn the sharp stabbing sensation in Lace’s leg to a dull throbbing. Hornet uses her claws to cut strips from her cloak, and then with little pins she secures a wrapping around Lace’s wound.

When she finishes, Hornet slumps down.

“Spider,” Lace croaks.

“Quiet,” Hornet wheezes.

Lace gulps. She tries to move her leg. As soon as she does so, a jolt of pain seizes her, rendering the world little more than shades of grey and spots of flashing light.

“Spider,” Lace tries again, this time through gritted fangs.

“You are incorrigible.”

“What-“ Lace swallows her fear. “What is happening to me?”

Hornet sits up. She keeps her eyes turned away from Lace, and in a way, that’s more revealing than any look they could’ve shared.

“Your leg is dying. In my current state, I am unable to stop the affliction; the silk composing your shell rots, and the dead threads spread to those around it.”

Lace stares up at the roof of the cave they’re in - blackened, fossilised husks blending into rocks, indistinguishable from each other. She can’t look at the leg.

“Should I celebrate?” Lace tries, with her voice shaking. “To find a wish even you were unable to grant, I must be the luckiest bug in Pharloom.”

Hornet gives Lace a pitying look. Lace sucks in a harsh breath and turns away.

“We must reach Pharloom as soon as possible,” Hornet tells her after a brief, mournful beat. “I have some ideas, but…” She trails off.

Hornet slides on her silkspeed anklets and straps her needle to her back. She picks up Lace easily – just as she must’ve done before, Lace realises, when she had leapt out of the void with Lace in tow – and then Hornet begins running.

She doesn’t have enough silk to make the anklets work. She’s forced to duck and weave beneath enemies, scaling walls with nary a thought to her own safety and taking hits directly on her shell to prevent Lace from getting hurt any further.

The entire time, Lace is unable to act. She swings her pin uselessly at their pursuing enemies, her leg hanging like dead weight. The wound eats away at her.

They don’t exchange any words, but Lace’s mind is anything but quiet. To calm the turbulent thoughts, Lace takes to repeating the same mantra she had woken up with.

I am not my mother. I am not just a child, or a weapon, or her tool. This life is mine.

Lace is almost able to believe it – if not for the widening cavern in her artificial shell where her heart should be, or the fading sensations in her leg, snuffed out like any other bug suffocated under her mother’s rule. 

Chapter Text

Lace and Hornet’s ascension out of the Abyss through the diving bell is done with no words exchanged between them. The bug talking through the speaker – Ballow, Hornet calls him at some point – chatters away about Pharloom, rebuilding, and other nonsense. Lace doesn’t bother listening, and she doesn’t engage with Hornet at all.

Hornet at least puts in enough effort to respond to Ballow, but her eyes never leave Lace’s leg. At one point, she asks Ballow about medical supplies, but she’s directed elsewhere.

Lace can’t bear to meet Hornet’s gaze. She finds the most interesting looking scuff on the wall of the bell and stares resolutely at it for the entire trip up, even as Hornet’s stare feels like it could burn through her leg.

Or perhaps that’s just how bad her leg feels on its own.

Despite herself, Lace chuckles. Hornet gives her a stink eye, but that only makes her laugh harder.

-

When the diving bell finally reaches the bottom of the Deep Docks proper, the bug operating it is already outside, waiting for Hornet. He gives her a trinket; a relic of Pharloom’s past, an emblem of the dockworkers, supposedly from when the forges in the Deep Docks had been the backbone of the Citadel, high above it. Then he nods his bell-covered head, thanks her for her service, and lumbers away, barely sparing his princess a glance.

Lace couldn’t care less about him, and she doubts Hornet does either. Still, the spider thanks him for his generosity and tucks his trinket in her pack.

Then Hornet scoops Lace up in her arms, ignores her protesting yells, and steps out into the wilds of the Deep Docks.

“Let me go, spider-“ Lace shrieks as she’s dropped unceremoniously. “What are you doing?”

“Your injury renders you unfit for much of anything, and I am ill-equipped to treat it as I am,” Hornet tells her as she pulls out her needle. “In my travels, I have met with a few bugs capable of healing. If there is a chance of your leg recovering, it will be because of them.”

Lace’s eyes bulge at the wording. If there’s a chance? How bad could things possibly be? Then again, this is Hornet – dramatic, self-sacrificing, dove into an ocean of void to save a broken kingdom and maybe Lace along the way, Hornet. Lace considers the possibility that perhaps every foreign bug is simply this dramatic.

Lace sticks her pin in the ground to help her stand and pitches her laugh high. “What makes you think I need your help?”

Hornet eyes her dubiously. “You cannot walk. Will you scavenge for healing supplies while crawling?”

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, spider, but you saved Pharloom.” Lace gestures around the room, pointing at the empty husks of dock workers on the floor, silk strings still connected to them now lying dormant, a stark white instead of the void painting their colour. “Congratulations, hero. I think I’ll be fine.”

Lace takes a step forward, using her pin as a cane. The pin wobbles when she moves – too thin to fully support her – and Lace tumbles over.

Hornet catches her.

“Your leg is dying. This is no simple injury. Your shell will rot from the inside out if left untreated. You cannot ignore this!”

Lace’s fury rises, bottled up over hours of being rendered useless by her injury and carried around like a burden. She feels hot, angry tears threaten to spill over her.

Lace shoves Hornet away, even if it means she hits the ground harder than her. “My shell cannot rot! It’s artificial, fake! Just like the rest of me!” Lace yells into the ground, arms wobbling as she forces herself up. “How could it possibly get any worse?”

Hornet bends to Lace’s level. “There are multitudes of ways your life could get worse, child. I have seen-“

“Oh, spare me the lecture, spider,” Lace spits. “If my mother wished for me to live a proper life she would’ve designed me better. This leg can be fixed with any old spool in the Whiteward, and I’m sure one of your precious pilgrims would be oh so willing to fix up their princess’ leg.”

“You do not understand your own situation. You…”

Lace looks up at Hornet, meeting her eyes from the ground just as the spider trails off. In her eyes, Lace sees only darkness.

“Look elsewhere, spider. Your pity sickens me. I’d rather you let this kingdom drown in the void if I’d known you’d look at me like that.”

Hornet blinks. Then she stands, breathing heavily, angrily. It’s the first time Lace has gotten a response like this from Hornet since the early days, when Hornet had first arrived in Pharloom. Lace can’t help the hysterical giggle slipping out of her mouth.

“Impertinent and idiotic. You are so quick to disown your kingdom, yet you reclaim it when it benefits you. You are annoying, stubborn-“

“Yes, yes, dear spider, I hear you,” Lace giggles, her own anger and fear morphing into a sick satisfaction at finally provoking Hornet. “What was it you said? Multitudes. I have my own, you see.”

“I had thought- no.” Hornet shakes her head. “I assumed too much of you. Stand, child.”

Lace forces herself up, ignoring the sharp pain that pulsates through her leg. It fades in barely a moment – something that should probably worry her.  

Hornet uses her needle to point at a ledge high above them at a far-off point in the room. “Go.”

Lace tilts her head. “You’ll have to elaborate, dear spider.”

“You don’t need my help, correct? That is the exit. If you can make it there on your own, I will not bother you again. You will be free to do whatever you please.”

Lace looks between the ledge and Hornet. She takes one cautious step, feels how her leg bends beneath any kind of weight, and thinks better of it. Lace balances on her good leg, lines up her pin with the ledge, and hurls the pin towards it.

She tries replicating the clawline ability she’d been a far too close witness to several times in the Abyss when Hornet had used it. But without her mother’s silk reserves, Lace is as good as useless and unable to perform the trick. The pin sails past the ledge and buries itself in a rock wall, with no way of pulling Lace along with it.

“A pitiful attempt,” Hornet says from behind her.

Lace snarls. “Your weaver tricks simply looked appealing. I’ll begin my attempt properly now-“

Hornet takes off while Lace is speaking, jumping high and bouncing off the walls, her winged cloak unfurling as she goes. She digs out Lace’s pin from the wall, returns to Lace with barely a look, and drops the pin at her feet.

“Show off,” Lace grumbles.

“Quiet.”

Hornet lowers her needle to the floor. She plucks a few times at the Needolin, as if testing it out.

“Is this really the time?”

Hornet ignores Lace. She changes her grip on the instrument, holding it higher and closer to her mask. Lace listens as a new song pours from Hornet’s Needolin. It’s a softer and cloying song than what she’s played before, like a lullaby for a baby.

Not that Lace cares about Hornet’s music. Whatever camaraderie the two had found in the Abyss means nothing now – Lace is free, for once in her life, and Hornet’s pity is sickening to be around, like sticking a knife in the Bilewater gunk and stabbing her with it. She just wants to leave-

Without warning, the ground begins to rumble. Lace, unable to properly move, can only watch.

“Spider?” She calls.

Hornet continues her playing. From beneath the ground, Lace hears countless pounding steps and the pushing of bodies against hard material. The stampede approaches closer, until Lace can feel the rocks breaking beneath her.

Lace loses her footing and falls with a yell. The ground finally shatters open, spraying rocks all over Lace.

Out from the ground bursts three baby bugs, each six-legged and four-eyed. Two of them barely glance at Lace before diving at Hornet, knocking her to the ground and dislodging her weapon from her paws.

Lace swallows her panic. Without her needle, Lace knows that Hornet won’t be able to put up much of a fight. Lace jumps up, balances precariously on her working leg and readies her pin, aiming to kill. Their survival now rests in her hands, and Lace won’t take that lightly.

The third bug approaches her cautiously, sniffing at her injured leg. It recoils, seemingly repulsed by it. Lace takes the opportunity to stab at it with her pin, aiming for the fleshy part of its neck.

Her stab glances off tough skin harmlessly. Lace wobbles from the recoil, but she doesn’t fall. She ripostes quickly, aiming higher for a guaranteed killing blow this time. Again, her pin fails to penetrate skin, and this time Lace does topple over, shocked at the tough ricochet from the bug’s skin, even around its mask.

The bug she’d been attacking trills happily. It bumps its snout into Lace’s shoulder, and then it licks at her cheek.

“Be careful with that one,” Hornet chuckles. “She can get snippy if you stop petting her.”

Hornet, as it turns out, is not engaged in a wrestle to the death with two murderous, hungry bugs. Instead, one of the bugs is curled up in Hornet’s lap, pushing its head up into Hornet’s claw. The other seems to be rolling around under her cloak, judging by the way her cloak is tangled and pulled up, revealing… much more of Hornet than Lace has seen before.

Lace clears her throat and averts her eyes. “Petting?”

Hornet stabs with her needle at the bug harassing Lace’s delicately coiffed silken hair. The bug nuzzles into the pointy end of the needle, making more noises Lace doesn’t know how to categorise beyond ‘happy.’

“They enjoy sharp things,” Hornet tells her seriously.

“Perhaps I might as well.”

“Don’t be a fool. You would easily cut yourself. These babies are made of much thicker hide than you or I, regardless of any divine bearing.”

Lace gawks. “Babies?”

“Indeed. You will be meeting the mother soon, so prepare yourself.”

Lace glances at the hole in the ground. She only notices upon further inspection how it widens into a tunnel. “You can’t mean-“

“I will give you a head start. You can show me there is some bark to your bite and make your own way there, and I will confer with the babies.”  

Lace scoffs. Any withering remark she could make dies on her tongue when she sees Hornet, however. There’s an odd, contented look on her face when she’s surrounded by the babies. Combined with the soft, careful way she uses her claws to pet them, and…

Lace can’t bring herself to say anything. There’s something warm and soft in the moment, and Lace finds her mouth glued shut. She doesn’t like this feeling, and she refuses to think any more of it.

She ducks her head and retreats into the tunnel, using her pin as a cane and not daring to look back at Hornet.

-

Lace does not like Ayra – the mother of the babies, as Hornet has taken to calling her – but she does appreciate her services. She cannot say the same for Sherma.

“White princess, please-“

“I told you not to call me that, tiny fool.”

“But what else am I to call you, white princess! Our kingdom is saved; our faith was rewarded! Now, our princess returns, and the throne remains unclaimed! Oh, holy light, you truly do shine upon us again!”

Lace scoffs. For a saved kingdom, Pharloom looks horrible. Even without the husks littering the streets and alcoves, the Citadel is marred by destruction. The retreat of the black threads into the Abyss had freed Pharloom from its bondage, but it also robbed much of the Citadel of its structural integrity, as many of the corrupted threads still performed their original role of holding the Citadel’s structures together. While Songclave remains mostly untouched, the same cannot be said for most of the Choral Chambers, which have all but collapsed. Little passages and tunnels remain, but for the most part the Citadel is unliveable.

Oddly, Lace doesn’t feel as happy about this as she should.

“Your faith offends me, tiny fool. Pharloom wasn’t saved by prayers or piety. It was saved by-“ Lace’s eyes flit to Hornet, standing beside Sherma and staring back at her impassively. She coughs to flawlessly cover up her mistake.

Sherma’s eyes dim. “You are right, white princess. ‘Twas our strong red maiden who saved us. Holy light still shines from high above, yet our saviour was one of our own.”

Lace groans. “Yes, and she wields that same silk that bewitched your fellow pilgrims. Will you worship her as well, tiny fool?”

Sherma looks conflicted. He’s saved from having to answer by Hornet’s paw landing on his shell.

“Ignore her, little one. She compensates for a dull blade with a sharp tongue. Do not allow her to bother you – or put foolish ideas in your head.”

“O-of course, sister.”

“Sister?” Lace coos. “How quaint. A walk among the pilgrims for our little spider, and she’s risking life and limb-“

“Sherma,” Hornet interrupts. “Can you do me a favour?”

Sherma’s eyes dart between Hornet and Lace. “Of course, red maiden. I would be honoured to help you.”

Hornet gestures to the makeshift bed of cloth she’d forced Lace onto just moments before. “Please ensure she doesn’t leave this bed. She is wounded badly and seems to enjoy making the injury worse.”

“You just made me crawl through a tunnel from the Deep Docks.”

“One of the bell babies picked you up long before you could exhaust yourself.”  

Lace grumbles. “Whatever. Do you really think the tiny fool can help me?”

“I have faith in him.”

Sherma speaks up. “Um, r-red maiden? Your friend might be right. E-even if I had the knowledge, supplies are sparse enough between our siblings!”

Right. Because even if Hornet has enough clout to get Lace a bed for herself, the crowd of bugs surrounding Songclave would be far less likely to part with their precious medical supplies. Pilgrims grow used to sleeping on cold, hard surfaces, but there’s no replacing bandages or an antibiotic.

“I thought as much. Don’t worry, Sherma. Do as much as you can and ensure she doesn’t leave.”

“Of course!” He turns to Lace. “I’m sure you’ll like it here. We may not look like much, but our little haven protects the hopes of all the pilgrims who made the ascension.”

“I do not put much weight in hope, tiny fool,” Lace levels him with a withering stare.

Hornet steps in front of Sherma. “Insulting my friends does not make me want to help you, child.”

Lace grins. Before she can prod further, Sherma interrupts. “Don’t worry, red maiden. We’ve all been through a lot. Songclave is open to all, regardless!”

Hornet glares at Lace. Lace makes a face at her. “What?” Lace pokes.

“L-let me change your bandage!” Sherma steps between them. Lace has half of a mind to kick him away, but she decides better. At least in front of Hornet.

He uses a pair of scissors to cut away at the remnants of Hornet’s cloak, freeing Lace’s wound from its silk binding. Her leg throbs, exposed to air for the first time in a while. Pain shoots through her, but only for a moment. When Sherma sees the wound, he gasps and turns away.

“W-white princess… Your leg-“

Lace sits up, alarmed at his reaction. She had been expecting a reaction, sure, but nothing like that. “What? Is it that bad?” Her head turns to Hornet.

Hornet peers down at the wound. She clenches her fist and closes her eyes, as if she can’t bare to look.

“N-nothing a little care and some prayer can’t fix!” Sherma tries.

“Don’t lie to me, tiny fool,” Lace says harshly. She turns again to Hornet. “What is wrong with me?”

“Your leg is dying. I already told you.”

“Perhaps you weren’t clear enough. Tell me, spider, what is going to happen!”

“I do not know,” Hornet admits. Unfortunately, Lace knows her tells enough to confirm she isn’t lying. “You won’t die, this I’m sure of. Anything else is out of my realm of knowledge.”  

It takes an effort to swallow. “I am made of silk. Can’t you just… find a spool? Fix up whatever’s wrong?”

“Even if I wasn’t still afflicted, it isn’t that simple. Weaving is a delicate affair, and your body…” Hornet trails off.

“You told me you had ideas. Please don’t tell me this fool was your most promising one.”

Hornet doesn’t respond. She glances between the wound on Lace’s leg and her face. “I am not out of ideas.” She answers, irritatingly vague.

“You really are annoying, little spider,” Lace tries. Any of the teasing that would’ve come through in her tone is lost. Lace feels like she’s barely treading water in an ocean, as if she’s one slip or missed step from being submerged in uncertainty and fear.

“I should be off,” Hornet says, and suddenly Lace is drowning.

“Of course. Be safe, red maiden, and you have our faith with you.” Sherma replies.

Before she can think about it, Lace has forced herself to sit up. “You’re leaving?” The words out themselves.

“I am. There is another doctor-“

“You’re leaving me alone?” Her voice comes out small and pathetic, and she hates it.  

Hornet pauses. “Yes. Is this not what you wanted?”

Lace looks away. Her chest feels tight, and it’s hard to make her mouth work. “Not- not right now, no.”

“I… do not understand.”

“Do you have to leave?” Lace asks. There’s a part of her mind screaming at her not to act like this, that there isn’t anything rational about her feelings, but all of that is overruled. Their reaction to her wound had shaken her, and now Lace finds that being left here, alone, is a thought that frightens her terribly.

“I do,” Hornet answers slowly. “There is another doctor, one who lives sequestered away in Greymoor. If there is a solution, she will have it.”

“But- don’t you need me to come with you? For her to see the wound?”

“It would be too dangerous. You would move too slowly, and time is not on our side. Besides, I am confident in my ability to describe the wound.”

Lace shudders. Something about that is wrong – it must be. But her mouth feels like jelly and she can’t make it work.

“She’ll return soon, white princess,” Sherma says quietly. “The red maiden has saved all of us here, more than once. I have faith she can save you, too.”

Lace stares at Hornet. With her eyes, she begs her to stay, to not leave Lace alone. Hornet stares back, and for a moment, Lace thinks she gives in. She takes a step closer to Lace-

And then she takes Lace’s hand in her paw. She squeezes it softly, and then she lets it go.

“I will return,” she tells Lace, and then she turns away.

Lace tries to yell for her to come back, but fear paralyses her. Then Hornet is gone, the warmth in Lace’s hand the only thing left of her.

-

Sherma, unsurprisingly, talks far too much. Over the next few days, he chatters about Songclave and the pilgrims he’s been taking care of. He talks about supplies and learning how to heal people, and then when he’s finally finished, he hums under his breath.  

Oddly, Lace doesn’t mind. She still thinks he’s a fool, of course, but the noise is comforting; it reminds her of white noise helping some of the nobler bugs in the Citadel sleep. Without the quiet, Lace doesn’t have room to dwell on her leg, or her fear, or the fact that Hornet has left her hopelessly alone.

When it does quiet – whether it’s because Sherma is called away to assist some other doomed pilgrim, or simply because his song has ended – Lace’s hands begin to shake. She clasps her pin close to her chest to still them, but it doesn’t stifle the pit in her stomach or the raging of her artificial heart.

I am not my mother, she recites like a mantra, and it somehow does help.

I am not just a child, or a weapon, or her tool. She isn’t, and she wouldn’t be so again.

This life is mine. All she needed to do was get out of this – let her leg heal, await Hornet’s inevitable cure, whatever – and then she’d be free to make her own life.

The prospect excites her.

She’s ripped from her reverie when Sherma, perhaps taking her stillness as sleep, touches her wounded leg.

The contact jolts her fully alert in an instant. She shoots off the bed and onto one knee, her pin pointed in threat at Sherma.

The little pilgrim raises his hands in surrender. Lace is unable to register the motion for what it is. There’s a roaring in her ears and pins and needles in her cheeks. The bug steps forward, saying… something, but Lace can’t hear anything. She uses her good knee to push herself back, further away from the danger.

Even with one usable leg, Lace knows she’s still a threat. She’s fast, and her reactions are good; if she can just get a lay of the surroundings-

All she sees are pilgrims. Staring at her-

Lace lowers her pin. Her eyes come back into focus.

“White princess, it’s just me, Sherma!” Sherma’s voice finally breaks through her ears.

Lace blinks. “What?“

“’Twas my fault, white princess! I didn’t mean to startle you!”

As the adrenaline fades, fatigue replaces it.

“Don’t touch me,” Lace growls.

“You’re right! I should’ve known better, but please, lower your pin. You’re scaring the pilgrims!”

Lace doesn’t particularly care about them, but she is sick of their stares. She lowers her pin without looking.

“Please, come back to rest. You’re risking your leg further.”

Lace looks down. Hm, perhaps he’s right. While she’s been putting all her weight on her good leg, her bad one has bent awkwardly underneath her, with a significant portion of the leg beneath the wound being twisted at an unnatural angle. Oddly, she doesn’t feel it at all.

Lace lies back down on the bed. She doesn’t want to think about it.

“Don’t touch me,” Lace repeats, her voice quivering.

“I have to touch you, white princess,” Sherma replies. “But I shall let you know when I next have to.”

Lace lets out a harsh breath. “Why?”

“I need to change your bandages. We do it once every few days.”

Lace closes her eyes. “Fine. Do it now. Just… keep making that stupid noise.”

Sherma starts humming again. “You enjoy my song?”

“It is better than the quiet,” Lace admits. “That’s all.”

Sherma giggles, and with it goes the tension. “What luck, to find a fan!”

“Fan is an overstatement, tiny fool.”

“Hoy! The red maiden was right about your tongue! Even after these few days!” He says, far too jovially for Lace’s liking.

“Do-“ Lace swallows her fear. “Do you know when she’ll return?”

“I don’t,” Sherma says, “but I’m sure it can’t be too much longer! Our sister has been through far worse than a trip to Greymoor, as I’m sure you’d know!”

Lace scoffs. “Perhaps.”

“Have faith, white princess. Now, may I touch you?”

Lace nods.

She closes her eyes and conceals the little jolt she feels at the contact. He makes a small cut – Lace flinches – and then he begins unwrapping the bandage.

“Faith betrayed me a long time ago,” Lace admits quietly. She thinks of long, quiet nights followed by even longer days. She thinks of sparring with her pin, of allowing silk to groom her form into whichever shape her mother so wished, and she remembers Phantom, silently sobbing, just out of view.

“’Twas likely not faith that betrayed you,” Sherma pulls the bandage off fully, exposing her leg to the air. He flinches at the sight, but he doesn’t look away.

“Speak plainly, tiny fool.”

“I believe in the red maiden,” he says simply. “I may be a fool, but this has yet to fail me. The error comes with misplacing our belief in one unworthy of it.”

Lace shakes her head. She sucks in a breath. “Stop,” she tells him when he pulls out a roll of bandage. “Fine. I’ll have some faith.”

Lace sits up. For the first time since her leg had ached, she looks down at the wound.

There are no visible punctures, no slashes or scars. Silken skin simply turns to black void. There’s a hole where much of her leg should be, and all the silk around it is slowly eroding with it.

Lace giggles. “Of course,” she whispers.

“White princess? Are you-“

Lace laughs harder. Pilgrims passing by look over at her, but when they see the wound, they grimace.

Of course. Her mother had ruled over Pharloom for an age. She had created a race of mystical Weavers, and in turn they had created the prosperous Citadel. The Citadel had birthed a religion, songs, technology, silken beings – and through it all, her mother had been queen. She had succeeded. Any failure was attributed to others – The Weavers, Lace and Phantom, then the bugs of Pharloom, and finally Hornet – but never herself.

But if Hornet hadn’t been lying when she had spoken about Lace’s mother saving her, down in the void, then Lace had finally found the exception.

Because at some point, down at the bottom of the world, the void had touched Lace. Had wormed its way in like a virus and eaten away at her leg, damaging her beyond repair.  

Her mother had tried to protect her. She had failed. For the first time in her life, Lace had seen her mother fail.

Faith, Lace thinks bitterly. She couldn’t wait to see what Hornet does about this.

Lace laughs hysterically, even as the tears rush down her cheeks.  

-

Hornet returns less than a day later. She’s hauling an uncannily familiar scissor blade behind her that looks like it’s been scavenged from the wreckage of somewhere in the Choral Chambers, made of brass with white fabric binding it. Lace can’t place where she’s seen it before at first glance, though, and she doesn’t let herself linger on it afterwards.

“Hoy, red maiden! You return!” Sherma calls.

“I do, little one. It is good to see you haven’t strangled this one.” She nods her head towards Lace.

“Charming, dear spider,” Lace rolls her eyes. Admittedly, her voice brings Lace great relief. “You must’ve missed me, considering how fast you rushed back.”

“A few days is fast?”

“I hardly noticed,” Lace grins. She can muster bravado like this easily, but especially in front of Hornet.

Hornet rolls her eyes in response.

“How did your task go, red maiden?” Sherma chirps.

Hornet kneels next to Sherma and beside Lace’s bed. “The doctor I visited spoke at length of things that could potentially treat the wound, were we given time and the resources that the Citadel possessed in the past.”

Lace tilts her head. “What are you talking about?”

“Yarnaby told me that in theory, your wound is curable,” Hornet says solemnly.

“In theory?” Lace sits up. “What does that mean, spider?”

Hornet places the scissor blade down on the bed. Lace can’t help but notice the purposeful way Hornet lines it up parallel with her leg. Their lengths are exactly the same-

“No.” Lace shoves Hornet away. “Get that away from me.”

Hornet takes the shove in the centre of her shell. “I am sorry, child.”

“You said-“

“I promised I would save your life. This is the only way.”

“That’s a lie!” Lace spits. “You just said that the doctor could cure it!”

“If we had time, if I had the silk to delay the spread – perhaps. But yours is no regular injury. If the limb continues dying, all of the fabric around it will die along with it. You are lucky-“ Hornet cringes at herself.

“Lucky?” Lace cackles.

“-In that the wound is limited to your leg. If it was located higher, it could spread to your shell. From there, it would affect your heart, and if not that, any of your other organs. You would die, painfully.”

“You can make new ones,” Lace urges. “You’re a weaver, and I’m silk.”

“There is more to you than just silk, child, and I am still weakened-“

“You can get stronger,” Lace whispers.

“Not in the time it would take for more of your body to die. I won’t-“

“You are not taking my leg!” Lace screeches. Something snaps within her – a lone thread holding her together, and before she even realises, Lace is sobbing. It’s all too much, it’s all far too much – she just wanted her own life.

Lace looks around wildly. All around her, she sees pilgrims staring at her. Lace hides her face beneath shaking hands and curls up on herself.

“Sherma,” Hornet prods gently.

Lace hears Sherma move. When she peeks through her claws, she sees him shooing the pilgrims away.

Hornet tentatively shifts closer, as if dipping her paw in water. When Lace doesn’t lash out, she shifts another pace closer.

“You are scared,” Hornet says, but it isn’t accusatory or pitying. It is warm and understanding, and Lace hates that it makes her calmer.

“When we were little, Phantom always used to call me lucky,” Lace hiccups. Her tears have never come out as water – they’ve always been a pure, pale white liquid. Yet, only recently has Lace realised that her tears now carry a dark volume as well – as if they still carry the void within them.

“Your sibling?”

Lace nods. “I always thought it must be true. Mother taught me to dance, and to be a princess. She made me eternal where Phantom never was.”

“And now?”

“Luck is a blade wreathed in velvet.”

Hornet nods her mask. She shifts even closer, until Lace can almost feel Hornet’s breath touching her.

“There are few lives more pathetic than that of a failed parent,” Hornet whispers. “I had the privilege of knowing the difference between that and a sufficient one. You did not.”

Lace wipes away her tears and looks up at Hornet with a glare. “Don’t pity me.”

“Sympathy and pity are distinct..”

Lace hits at her shell, but the blow is lacking any fire. “All I wanted was my own life,” Lace tells her honestly.

“And you will have it. You will be free of this kingdom and I, if you so wish. Let me first ensure the darkness doesn’t take you.”

Lace looks down. She sees training sessions with the Citadel’s strongest warriors, bouncing off her leg and propelling herself through the air as effortlessly as a moth. She sees herself dancing in front of her mother, twirling with flair and grace, a haughty laugh out of her mouth as she does so.

Lace can taste the salt of the Putrified Ducts before they became so putrified. She can smell the ash of the Deep Docks and the smog of the Far Fields. She can feel them becoming further away with every moment.

“Are you absolutely sure that this is necessary?”

“I am,” Hornet nods. “I will give you time to decide-“

“No need,” Lace cuts in. “We will do this now.”

Hornet blinks. “Are you sure?”

“I would never back down from a challenge from you,” Lace forces herself to wink. In truth, it’s because she doubts she’d be able to force herself to go through with it if she thought about it for too long. This answer boosts her confidence and, if the twitch in her eye can be believed, irritates Hornet. If there’s anything to fill her with false bravado, annoying Hornet is easily the best choice.

“You should take this seriously.”

“I am serious. Amputate my leg now.”

Hornet sighs. “Very well. Lie down.” She moves away, and Lace misses her presence immediately.

Hornet begins talking with Sherma. When they’re finished, Sherma moves in front of the larger crowd of pilgrims congregating around the Songclave bell. Sherma bangs his own bells together, addressing the crowd at once.

“Hoy, everyone! I come with a request, for a most luminous sister! Our white princess is in need of urgent medical treatment. Any of you willing to donate your own medical supplies, painkillers, bandages – all of it would be appreciated!”

The crowd begins chattering, all manner of bugs scrambling to get a look at Lace.

“’Tis a most generous gesture!” Sherma yells.

The noises grow louder, the pilgrims keep staring. Lace’s breath quickens.

“I am here,” Hornet says from Lace’s side.

“Thank-“ Lace cuts herself off with a cough. “Of course you are.”

Hornet doesn’t respond. The spider is tense, clinging to her needle like a newborn to a toy.

She kneels and begins tying a knot with the fabric of some pilgrim’s garb high around Lace’s thigh and above the wound. She does so while muttering under her breath.

“What are you doing, spider?”

“Quiet. Yarnaby’s directions weren’t the easiest to follow, let alone with you whining in my ear.”

Lace gawks. “I’d say I’ve been pretty well behaved, for your information.”

Hornet pauses. “You’re right. That was- I’m sorry.”

Lace giggles. “It’s fine. If anything, I need a distraction right now.” She eyes her leg, and then the crowd of pilgrims surrounding them, still trying to get a peek at Lace.

“We’ll ensure they don’t look.”

Lace swallows heavily. “Thank you, spider.”

Hornet nods. She tightens the knot as hard as she can. “Ensure we save as much of the leg as we can,” she mutters to herself. Then she double checks the knot and leans back, satisfied.

“You seem more nervous than me,” Lace tries.  

“I simply see no reason to hide it.”

Lace laughs. “I like you like this, dear spider.” Lace holds up her hands, showing off their violent shaking.

Hornet takes one of Lace’s hands in her paws. “We’ll take care of you.”

The moment is charged, electricity heightening the sensation of Hornet’s paws on Lace. For a brief moment, Lace wishes she could go through Hornet’s pack and smash that cogwork clock she still carries around, if only for the illusion of keeping time stagnant.

“’Tis a few prayers answered, to be able to bring you these gifts!” Sherma announces himself loudly, startling them both. Lace doesn’t pull her hand away, and Hornet only lets her go after a moment, where she seemingly blinks herself back to awareness.

“What have you brought, little one?” Hornet answers finally.

Sherma first lays out a pile of wrappings, with moist green leaves pressed into the centre of the wraps. Beside that he drops a few flintstones, too small for more than igniting a blade. Lastly, he hands Hornet a small, woven trinket in the shape of a silk spool.

Sherma points to the items one by one. “Our siblings sing joyfully of how these leaves can cure any pain. The stones are for your request, red maiden, and the spool fragment is a gift from Jubilana. ‘Twas a reward for her most loyal customer, she said.”

Hornet nods. “Thank you, little one.” Then she turns to Lace. “Once again, are you sure about this?”

Fear shoots through Lace, enough for her brain to scream at her to say no. She recites her mantra - This life is mine – and tells herself this is how she makes it true. 

 “I am,” Lace answers. “Just-“

Lace’s throat closes up.

Hornet stares at her, blackened eyes seen through her mask somehow comforting. More than anything, Lace regrets all the words she never said. Yet now she’s unable to.

“I-“ Lace forces herself. “Please don’t leave me,” she finishes in a quiet whisper, spoken in one breath.

Hornet nods. She sucks in a quiet breath that she lets out with a full shell exhale. Lace leans back on the bed and forces her fear down.

Hornet’s mumbles return as she starts moving. “Mark out the flesh for removal – Sherma?”

“Right.” With a steady hand, the little pilgrim leaves imprints on Lace’s silken skin with a paintbrush.

“Second, numbing agents.”

Lace only feels the cool sensation of the wraps being applied to her leg for a moment. Then, nothing.

“These ones are fast-acting, red maiden.”

“Thank you, little one. Now, sterilise the blade-“

“Wait!” Sherma interrupts. Lace flinches when he touches her shoulder. She opens her eyes to see him holding out a pillow. “Put it in your mouth and bite down on it.”

Lace does so.

“Smart,” Hornet nods at him. “Sterilise the blade.”

Hornet gathers the flintstone and her needle. She strikes the stones rapidly, using them like a sharpening slate to ignite her blade. With one last strike, Hornet’s needle catches alight, turning the air around them hot and superheating Hornet’s needle to a red-hot shade, burning off anything that could be polluting the pale blade.

“Clean, straight incision-“

Lace whimpers. She isn’t able to stop herself – there are tears streaming down her face, and no matter how many times she tries to tell herself she isn’t, she’s afraid. More than she’s ever been in her life. It strangles her, drowns her, hollows out her heart until she can barely breathe.

Hornet hears the sound, catches her eye, and falters. Lace – with her heart strangling her – stretches out her hand desperately. Hornet takes it in her paw and squeezes, hefting her needle with her other paw.

“Clean, straight incision. Amputate the limb with a single slash along the markings.”

Hornet doesn’t let go of her hand – even as Lace squeezes her paw impossibly hard, and even as the world turns into white-hot flashes of light and pain, unending and excruciating pain. Lace never registers Hornet letting go, even as she passes out screaming.

-

She isn’t sure how long it’s been when she wakes. Songclave is quiet, with only a few nocturnal pilgrims keeping the flames alight. The wind howls, a rush of cool air shaking Lace into awareness.

Her brain is fuzzy and clouded over, all sense of feeling lost at some point in her haze state. No matter how many times she blinks, the world remains blurry. She can’t move anything aside from her hands and her head.

To her left sleeps Hornet. The spider sleeps silently, one arm extended slightly so that she’s almost touching Lace.

Lace wills her head to the other side. On her right is a wall that used to make up part of the First Shrine.  The bronze, glossy material that makes up the wall is faded and littered with cracks, but if Lace focuses hard enough, she can still see herself in the reflection.

Her eyes finally clear, and Lace is given the first look at her new prosthetic. It connects into her skin unnaturally, with parts of her shell stretched out and sewn into the handle of the scissor blade to keep the limb attached. Parts of the blade are scuffed while others look almost pristine, as if someone had tried to wipe it down, only to realise they were wasting time.

The silk connecting it to her shell is flimsy, too. It would hold, sure, but it held no candle to the weaving of Lace’s mother-

Ah.

So that’s where she had recognised the prosthetic from. Had she truly already forgotten? Or had her brain simply blocked it from her memory to protect her? Lace doesn’t know. What she does know is that the part of her brain that needed to be protected is the one screaming in horror, drowning out any other thought.

Because Lace knows without a shadow of a doubt that the prosthetic now attached to her is identical to the scissor blades her mother wielded through her rule of Pharloom. She wouldn't be surprised if it was one, left behind in the Choral Chambers when it had been replaced, ready for Hornet to tinker with and fashion into a prosthetic.

Lace would laugh if her throat wasn’t so dry.

I am not my mother, she remembers telling herself. A foolish thought, to believe she could ever be free of her.

Lace passes out again with nary a sound, remembering her mother’s affection in the form of a blade upon her throat.

Chapter Text

Lace’s new leg clicks when it moves. It’s the first thing she notices after days of acclimating to her prosthetic, spent leaning on Hornet and forcing herself to push forward.

Everything in her shell aches. It’s hard to speak and even harder to think. She’s relearning how to walk from the ground up, like the little larvae her mother had once raised into good little Citadel soldiers.

Lace had always seen herself as higher than them. She had always been better, blessed with her mother’s favour while the rest of them scrabbled for scraps of it, through prayers or silken augmentation. Now, Lace had been brought down to their level, or even perhaps lower. At least they could die – Lace was simply an imitation, doomed to live forever.

On the third day with her new leg, Lace takes her third consecutive step. The new leg clicks, and then Lace collapses in on herself, her lungs heaving and her shell aching. She’s caught by Hornet’s sharp limbs, holding her up delicately.

“Labour no longer, child. You have done more than would be expected of you already.”

“Still not enough,” Lace pants. “I can keep-“

“You will not. This is foolhardy at best and dangerous at worst. You are still healing-“

“Healing,” Lace scoffs. “There’s no healing for one such as I. I was built, and I will be repaired. Life is a cruel tease, you see, dear spider. Like a fair maiden whispering in my ear – tantalisingly close, yet forever out of reach.”

Hornet looks at her; sadness etched clearly even through her mask. “The mistakes of others need not haunt you. You have your own life, even if you do not see it.”

Lace meets Hornet’s gaze. In the black and empty void, she sees her reflection.

“Just take me back.”

“Would you like my help walking?”

“Don’t patronise me, spider. You can carry me.”

-

When Hornet walks back into Songclave with Lace in her arms, countless eyes find them. The pilgrims – despite requests from Sherma and concealed threats from Hornet – cannot help themselves. They had all watched as Lace had her leg cut from her shell and screamed herself out of consciousness for over a week. They had all watched as Hornet had stayed by her side, weaving for hours at a time to stitch Lace together with silk she had only barely regenerated, only for her to pass out for almost as long as Lace from exhaustion.

They’re a sorry sight, for two protectors. Truly, Lace can’t fault the pilgrims for staring. Hornet was supposed to be helping them rebuild, and instead she was just as useless as Lace, with her perpetual exhaustion and lack of silk.

Lace also can’t help herself from hating them for it.

Hornet’s steps slow when they approach the makeshift beds Lace and her have been occupying since they’d arrived at Songclave. Hornet places Lace down on her bed carefully, and then she kneels at Lace’s feet in front of her prosthetic leg.

After looking to Lace for permission, carefully, she pulls the prosthetic off Lace, taking care not to damage the silk that makes up Lace’s shell. There’s a switch built into the limb that opens it, allowing for it to be removed at will, and here Hornet uses it to get a closer look at her own stitching.

Hornet had readily admitted her weaving was shoddy at best. She’d been hampered by low silk levels, something that not even Jubilana’s gift of a spool fragment could rectify, and a level of skill that couldn’t match Lace’s mother. Her weaving is a patch on an otherwise flawless quilt, one that stands out despite her efforts.

As such, the past few days have followed the same routine. Hornet and Lace wake up late, in pain and exhausted. They head out to the wreckage of the Citadel, and Lace bangs her head against the wall trying to walk. Then they return, and Hornet uses whatever meagre silk she’s regenerated to touch up her weaving and fix whatever damage is left on Lace’s shell from the amputation.

The days are plodding and irritating. There’s an itch on Lace’s leg – the prosthetic one, and every time she leans down to scratch it, she touches brass instead of fabric, and she’s reminded, all over again, of the fact that her mother would never leave her.

Lace is sick of it all. She doesn’t know what she wants, but it isn’t this.

Hornet’s tired sigh breaks her from her reverie.

“I have done all I can for you. The silk is as secure as I’m able to make it, and I see no signs of your deathly affliction having spread. It seems your decision to amputate early paid off.”

Lace laughs. “Well, it would’ve been a shame if it hadn’t. What more can we even cut off?”

Hornet sighs. She lies down on her own bed beside Lace. At some point – to make space for the pilgrims congregating in Songclave for safety, Lace assumes – their beds had been pushed together to the point where they’ve been essentially sleeping side-by-side.

Even though it’s been happening for days at this point, Lace still isn’t used to it. It makes her cheeks feel warm and her heart pound, something becoming commonplace around Hornet at this point.

Lace isn’t sure how to feel about that. She doesn’t dislike it, per se, but-

“Are fair maidens your preference?” Hornet asks her out of the blue.

Lace’s head snaps to her side to look at Hornet. Lace gawks, and then she starts laughing.

“You aren’t the most tactful, are you, spider?” Lace chokes out between her laughter.

“Is it not a fair question?”

Lace giggles. “Is there a reason you’re asking?”

Hornet clears her throat. “If you aren’t going to answer-“

“Fine! Yes, I suppose, any trysts I’ve had were with maidens, as you seem quite fixated on. Though, mother would often have the bugs killed if she found out.” The thought makes her unexpectedly… sad. She’s certainly thought about them before, so why now?

“She did not like you defying your intended fate, I assume.”

“No, she preferred me as a pristine child,” Lace hisses with venom. “I capitulated with little fuss. Things would be fine until she would find something else to criticise, and then-“

Lace cuts herself off. She lets out a harsh breath, releasing the anger that had risen like the tide from within her shell.

“And what of you, little spider?” Lace continues flawlessly. “Was there a mate who captured your heart?”

“There were many,” Hornet admits quietly. “Though there were none who could match eternity – something I have been bound to, regardless of my will.”

Lace feels her heart rush at some implicit understanding that only the two of them can understand. The quiet that falls over them is packed with tension, drowning out any of the surrounding chatter of the pilgrims.

It dawns on Lace in the quiet that Hornet could leave her whenever she so pleased. She was under no obligation to stay with Lace – there were other friends for her to meet with, her own injuries to heal, and a kingdom to rebuild. What was a hollow, fake bug still teaching herself how to walk in the shadow of her mother against all of that?

Lace turns on her side to see Hornet staring up at some distant, crumbling building high above the Citadel.

“Where will you go?” Lace asks her, voice think and throat catching.

Hornet seems to understand what she’s really asking. “There are many places to assist in Pharloom,” Hornet responds, still looking up. “But for now, there is one wish I am focused on granting.”

Lace sucks in a breath. For a moment, she feels her heart stutter. Then she thinks about it.

“That is horribly corny, spider. You don’t even know what I want!”

Hornet turns on her side to face her, with levity clear in her eyes and through her mask.

“Don’t I?”

“You really are insufferable.”

“Best you keep watching. I’ve shown you little of what I’m capable of.”

Lace rolls her eyes. She’s tempted to turn away from Hornet, but something keeps her there, in their own shared little moment.

“I’m sick of this place,” Lace admits quietly.

Hornet hums. “The pilgrims seem fixated on you.”

“On the both of us,” Lace grits her teeth. “They seem to enjoy watching us struggle.”

“That isn’t necessarily true.”

“Whatever it is, I’m done with it. I’d rather be camping in Bilewater than have to deal with them staring for another moment.”

“We need not return there. I have a home in the town of Bellhart, beyond Greymoor. Perhaps you’d find that quieter?”

Lace gapes. “You’ve had a house this entire time we’ve been sleeping on pillows?”

“Before today your shell could’ve broken open at any moment. Without Sherma or Songclave’s medical supplies, my meagre silk stores would’ve-“

“Yes, yes. I’m sure you think your reasons were good,” Lace waves her off. “I’ve never wanted to sleep on a bed so badly in my entire life. One might think you a villain, for withholding this from me.”

Hornet’s eyes narrow. “Ungrateful, foolish and irritating.”

“Such a flirt, spider!” Lace giggles. Oh, how her mood could skyrocket at the littlest of things, without her mother around. Then again, Lace thinks, with her eyes dipping to her leg-

“My manner of flirtation isn’t so banal,” Hornet says, her smile clear in her voice. “If you’re to remain with me, perhaps you will come to learn.”

Lace’s mouth hangs open dumbly. Her heart stutters, an unbecoming type of warmth flooding her shell.

Hornet closes her eyes and turns on her other side.

“S-spider!” Lace hisses. “You can’t just-“

“Goodnight,” Hornet tells her solidly.

Lace groans. Sleep evades her, if only to let her ponder their last exchange for an extra few hours.

-

In the morning, Hornet and Lace are ready to leave Songclave. Neither of them have anything to pack beyond weapons and Hornet’s strangely full pack of tools. Sherma is there to see them off, and the crowd of pilgrims standing behind him are there to assist, supposedly.

“We owe you thanks, little Sherma,” Hornet leans down to his height. “We will return once our wounds have healed, to assist with your rebuilding efforts.”

Lace stands behind Hornet, leaning on her pin and staring into the distance. If there’s a part of her cheering at Hornet’s plans involving a we instead of an I, she’s sure to swallow it down. She won’t show the pilgrims any more weakness.

“It was no trouble, red maiden! Not after all you’ve done for us. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to visit us!”

“That won’t be necessary, but your hospitality is appreciated, little one.”

Hornet steps back. She stares at Lace until she takes the hint.

“I suppose I owe you thanks as well, tiny fool. The spider thinks you had a hand in saving my life. I have no reason to doubt her.”

Sherma smiles happily. “’Tis simply a joy to see you up and about, white princess! We pilgrims must care for each other, after all.”

Lace opens her mouth to object to being referred to as a pilgrim. Hornet’s glare, visible in her peripheral, gives her pause. Instead, she shrugs.  

“We’ll see each other soon, little Sherma,” Hornet nods at him. With the Ventrica Station located above them, Hornet goes to pick up Lace to carry her upwards.

Before she can, a little pilgrim from the crowd speaks up. “Thank you, red maiden!”

Another follows his cue. “Thank you!”

“Saviour!”

“Thank you, white princess!” One calls.

Soon, the entire crowd is yelling their gratitude. Hornet waves while Lace stares, unused to the clamour of cheers being directed towards her.  

Hornet sweeps Lace off her feet and takes her in her arms. Lace, still shocked from the pilgrims’ display, yelps when she’s picked up.

Sherma pulls out a pair of bells. “Our prayers go with you!” He shouts, and then he begins playing the bells to a happy tune while he sings.

Hornet jumps up, leaving the pilgrims behind.

-

“I didn’t even do anything,” Lace mumbles later, when her and Hornet are sitting atop Ayra the Bell Beast. Her arms are wrapped around Hornet’s torso from behind, giving Lace a feel of her pointed and firm shell that she’s doing her best to ignore.

“In many ways you were an obstacle,” Hornet replies easily.

Lace rolls her eyes.

“It felt nice, didn’t it?” Hornet asks.

Lace hides her face in Hornet’s cloak. “It wasn’t the worst.”

“Now imagine how much better it would feel if you deserved the thanks.”

Even though Hornet’s tone is light, the remark still pricks at Lace’s pride.

-

The disrepair in Bellhart is far less obvious than in Songclave, especially since their repairs have clearly already begun. There are bellhomes with holes covered up by shellwood, or windows haphazardly boarded up. Pilgrims with makeshift construction hats wander the town, one of them carrying a wish that he sticks to the bulletin board. The town bustles where Songclave had meandered, the pilgrims still moving through and beyond it. Lace is quiet as they move through the bottom of the town, Hornet waving to the greeter and the vendor even as she carries Lace around.

Hornet puts Lace down on the bench in the centre of the town. She then strikes a wooden pillar with a ring hanging off it, creating a clanging noise that rings through the town.

Lace feels the bug approach before she sees them. She drops from high above, landing gingerly on limbs covered in bandages, yet unmistakably dangerous. The bug clangs the rings she wears on her limbs together and bows her head.

“Poshanka! It is a relief to see you alive, Hornet Wielding Needle.”

“Shakra,” Hornet nods. “I am glad to see you safe as well.”

“Un-Daak, the bugs of this town were convinced a foul fate had befallen you, even as the world stabilised. My faith was never shaken, for I know a warrior such as you doesn’t simply fade away.”

Lace shifts uncomfortably.

“I would not die, but the threat was there, I admit. Tell me, Shakra, does the world around Bellhart remain calm?”

“It does. Whatever gambit you made paid off, Hornet Wielding Needle. The couriers speak of a quelled Pharloom at large, though my own injuries prevent me from confirming.” Shakra gestures to the bandages littering her shell.

“You are entitled to the rest you desire. It was only by your guardianship that the town still stands.”

Lace clutches at her pin. The respect that Hornet speaks with – curse her, and all the long-forgotten feelings she stirs in Lace!

Lace stands – or at least she tries to. Her leg clicks, and then it falters. Hornet is there to catch her.

“Let me go. I can-“ Lace grits her fangs. With a groan, she forces herself to stand, taking much of her weight off her prosthetic and shifting it to her other leg. Hornet’s paw retreats from her side.

“Apologies, Shakra. This is Lace, my companion.”

Shakra clangs her rings together and bows her head.

“Poshanka! Greetings,” Shakra’s eyes scan Lace up and down, “Warrior Wielding Pin.”

Lace raises a hand to cover her giggle. “Oh? You can tell, even in my condition?”

“There is no hiding stance and strength, as you would well know.” Lace inclines her head. Of course – in the same way that Lace could tell from the way Shakra dropped from above them, it’s hard to deceive a fellow warrior. “Besides, I have learned my lesson in judging a bug’s age.”

Lace smirks at Hornet. “Well, this is surprising! I didn’t expect your other friends to be competent. After all, the one I’ve met-“

“You would do well to be quiet, child.” Hornet glares.

Lace covers her mouth in mock offence. “What? Your friend is smart, am I not allowed to point this out?”

“Sherma treated your wound for three days, you ungrateful-“

“Ah!” Lace giggles. “I didn’t bring him up, you did!”

Hornet fumes, shaking her mask. Lace congratulates herself on a job well done, making sure to give Hornet her widest grin.

Shakra clears her throat, her gaze flitting between them. “Will your companion be staying at Bellhart, Hornet Wielding Needle?”

With one last glare, Hornet turns back to Shakra. “Yes, she’ll be staying with me. For…” Hornet trails off, looking at Lace for help.

“While I’m recovering,” Lace finishes with a glance at her leg. She takes a tentative step forward towards Shakra on her prosthetic, flinching and wobbling as she goes. The leg takes the weight, but the sensation is distant - like listening to something from underwater – to the point where manoeuvring it feels like stabbing at the dark. The prosthetic slips on something, and Lace throws out her arms.

She catches herself on Hornet’s shell. The two of them share a look before glancing back towards Shakra.

Shakra digests Lace’s words. She looks between the two of them carefully, and then she nods to herself.

“Ah, I see. I had been tempted to take a mate of my own as well, but the bugs in this kingdom enjoy their faith too much for my liking. I am glad to see you found a strong one for yourself.”

Lace’s mouth hangs open. She feels her brain stutter. Her heart speeds up to a rhythm far beyond what should be healthy, and her cheeks flush. Suddenly, the sharp limb wrapped around her back is far too present.

“W-we aren’t- I mean! No!” Lace’s voice comes out high and strained.

“We aren’t mates, Shakra,” Hornet tells her, with her eyes averted.

“Oh? In my tribe, only the fiercest of partners would argue like that. Then, when it would come time to retire, we would hear their mating ring out through the camp!”

Lace feels like she’s unravelling. She feels like if she keeps listening, her silk might melt away, leaving her nothing but a ball of emotions and a prosthetic leg.

“That’s- well. I suppose that isn’t-“ Hornet clears her throat. “That isn’t applicable to us, Shakra.”

Shakra nods. “That is understandable. The nights were truly a test of strength. I would not take such a relationship lightly.”

“I take it back,” Lace hisses in Hornet’s ear. “Your friends are all idiots.”

“We must be going, Shakra. I’m eager to get Lace situated, and I assume she is sick of holding her tongue.”

Lace shoves at Hornet. It’s a foolish plan, considering Hornet’s still holding her up. The irritated glare Lace gets in return is worth it, though.  

“Bakelo!” Shakra clangs her rings together twice, pointed once at Hornet and once at Lace. “I wish you well in your not-mating, Hornet Wielding Needle. And if there is any assistance you require with your healing, Warrior Wielding Pin, then be not a stranger. There are many techniques I have learned in my travels that may assist you, for my tribe valued strength in all manner of bodies.”

Lace nods. “I’ll consider it, Shakra.”

As they’re leaving, Lace leans in close to Hornet. “Next time, be more careful with your words when introducing me,” she whispers.

“The fault lies with you as much as I,” Hornet whispers back.

Lace groans.

-

Hornet’s bellhome is quiet, cozy, and oddly furnished. There are countless little trinkets hanging from her wall, illuminated by gleamlights dangling from above. Her desk is littered with shell shards, half-assembled equipment and pages of what looks like a dossier of Hornet’s encounters in Pharloom. The thing that gives her most pause is the personal spa above Hornet’s desk, along with one of the trinkets hanging from her wall – what looks like a pair of hearts indelibly joined together.

Lace rounds on Hornet with a grin. “If I’m being honest, I expected nothing more than a hole in the ground. I thought you hunter types had sworn off furniture.”  

“You can thank the residents of this place for that. They saw it fit to offer me these livings and the furniture within.”

Lace uses the desk as a stand to help her walk. “I assume this wasn’t a part of their offerings?” Lace tweaks the heart looking trinket with one of her claws. She recoils when she realises it’s beating; a synchronised, rhythmic melody that makes her think of the silk-possessed husks residing in Whiteward.

“That is a memento from a memory within a once fallen kingdom. You would do well to leave it untouched, for there is more power in it than you can imagine.”

Lace stares. Dramatic, she thinks.

“Anyway,” Lace pushes herself off the desk and lands on the bed with a fwump. The sheets smell of Mossberry and pollen from the Shellwood, and there’s a hint of nectar – sweet and cloying, but not strong enough to be overwhelming. It’s an odd combination of scents, but in that incongruency, it’s unmistakably Hornet. Lace has to hold back from inhaling her in – because that would be silly, of course.

“Anyway?” Hornet interrupts her musing.

Lace clears her throat. “Anyway, are we to be sharing the bed?”

“Ah.” Hornet takes a passing glance around her home. “We will be. Unless you don’t find that agreeable?”

“Perhaps I’ll bore of you one day, but for now it’s fine.”

Hornet nods, her gaze somehow soft when she looks at Lace. Hornet sits at her desk and hoists her needle onto her lap. She begins strumming the silk strings that form over her needle.

The song that fills the home is quiet and sombre – a requiem, if Lace had to compare it to one from the Citadel’s prayerbook – yet somehow calmer. Phantom had played similar songs on their organ, yet their playing had always given it a chaotic, spiteful quality.

Lace isn’t ashamed to think the song is beautiful, even if in the context of Pharloom it’s out of place.

Lace stands. The machinery within her prosthetic clicks when she puts her weight on it.

It reminds her that Lace can never dance again – not in the way she wants to. There had been freedom, in that one moment that Lace could dance for herself, before her leg had snapped. She’ll never get that back.

She can only stand for a few more moments before it feels too difficult to keep her balance. She falls back on the bed, a storm in her mind making her eyes cloudy and her throat stuck with emotion.

“What else would you have done?” Hornet asks, still playing her song.

“If I were not here?” At Hornet’s nod, Lace continues. “I don’t know. There’s been nothing here for me for a long time.”

“Nothing?” Hornet slows her playing.

“Phantom is dead. The Exhaust Organ would still be playing if they were not. My mother is dead, and my years playing at knighthood were all for naught. Everything is collapsing, and I-“ Lace’s voice breaks when her eyes find her prosthetic.

Lace is still living in the shadow of her mother. How could she ever escape her?

Hornet stops her playing. She moves onto the bed beside Lace, close enough that her cloak touches Lace.

“What about your mantra?”

Lace freezes. “You heard that?” Her voice comes out small and pathetic.

“You were whispering it while passed out in Songclave. I am not my mother. I am not just a child, or a weapon, or her tool. This life is mine.” Hornet recites.

Lace covers her face, shame tainting her silk. “I was foolish. A life?” Lace laughs bitterly. “I can’t even walk without your help.”

Hornet shuffles even closer, her paw taking hold of Lace’s hand. The contact is a touch of warmth in a blizzard.

“When you are recovered-“

“If,” Lace insists, spitting venom.

“When you are recovered,” Hornet ignores her, “I want you to come with me to the Weavenests. Together, we will cure my own plight.”

Lace looks at her, searching. Hornet’s mask remains steady, giving Lace nothing to work with.

“Why?”

“Failure eats at you like a parasite. I can see it, for it is a struggle I know dearly. But here, things are different. We were hurt together, and we will recover together. More than that, I promised I wouldn’t leave you. It’s a vow I don’t intend to break.”

Lace stares at her, lost for words.

Hornet’s affection is fleeting, coming in little touches and glances that Lace still struggles to decipher or words that portray annoyance, but she knows instinctively are tender. It’s easier to imagine Hornet slapping her across the face than it is imagining her holding Lace through the night.

Yet, Lace still feels loved. With her hand held, and with Hornet speaking her dedication – no, her devotion – The warmth spreads, overpowering everything until Lace feels like she’s unravelling.

“Fine,” Lace whispers. “I’ll come with you.”

Even with only her eyes visible through her mask, Hornet’s smile is unmistakable. “I’m glad. Tomorrow, we will go see Shakra. Your recovery may be long, but it won’t be done alone. Know that this is another vow I make.”

Lace nods her head, the motion a distraction from the tears pricking at her eyes. “Spider,” she whispers, her eyes firmly shut.

Hornet’s paw leaves Lace’s grip, but she remains close enough that Lace can feel her presence.

“We should rest. Knowing Shakra, her methods will be tiring. May I remove your prosthetic?”

Lace hums and nods her head in permission, not trusting herself to speak.

Hornet’s paws touch her softly, calmly, like a flower caressed by the wind. She takes Lace’s leg off, and then she helps her lie down on the bed. Her paw finds Lace’s hand again, and all through the night, they remain entwined.

-

A day later, Lace is standing just outside of Bellhart. She’s leaning on Hornet’s shell with Shakra observing them closely.

“Begin!” Shakra calls out, clanging her rings together harshly.

Her intensity contradicts the actions she’s observing. With a nod directed at Lace, Hornet steps away, leaving Lace to balance on her own.

Her legs wobble. As she adjusts to the feel of distributing her weight, Lace hears her new leg click, a telltale sound that she’s relying on it.

When she’s settled, Lace takes a deep breath. It calms her nerves and lets her taste the warm breeze blowing in from the Shellwood. Lace remembers her youth, when she had tackled every issue with a haughty laugh and a confident stab of her pin. Now, Lace is quiet.

Tentatively, Lace takes a step forward. She leads with her silken leg first, having to remind herself constantly that no, she isn’t about to fall – there’s something anchoring her to the ground, and she must believe in it, or she’ll never heal-

Her prosthetic clicks as it bends, the sound serving as feedback to her senses. Lace doesn’t stop to bask in her victory. She can do so much more.

She moves her prosthetic, finding footing on the bells littering the floor. It’s odd, knowing she has two feet on the ground but only feeling one. Slowly, she’s growing used to it. She puts weight again on her silk leg, and takes a rattled, exhausted breath.

“Good,” Hornet says from her side. She feels a tiny jolt of energy in her muscles at the praise, and then she shuts herself up.

Trusting her prosthetic is easier this time. She knows it’s there, she knows it won’t fail her, she knows she can do it.

Her silk leg straightens as she lifts it. The blade clicks as her weight shifts onto it momentarily, but it doesn’t buckle. Satisfied, Lace plants her foot.

Lace breathes heavily, taking a moment to rest. The fourth step is always the hardest.

She lifts her prosthetic again. Her silken leg overcompensates, straining as if she’s balancing only on it. The motion trips her up, because she does have another leg. It messes with her balance, tipping her over to one side.

Her silken leg slips under her weight, and Lace isn’t able to correct herself in time. She stumbles and falls over with a yelp, landing right in Hornet’s arms.

“Three steps,” Lace gasps, her shell heaving with exertion.

“Three and a half,” Hornet corrects her.

“My master would call that four,” Shakra says as she walks closer to the pair. “There are no half-measures in combat. Counting them in practice serves only to waste time.”

“Still not enough,” Lace croaks. Shame falls upon her like a heavy rain.

For a moment, the only sound is the clanging of bells from Bellhart behind them.

“As a perfectionist’s mind works,” Shakra muses. “Hakk! Stand, Warrior Wielding Pin.”

Lace tries – she really does - but her legs are wobbly and tired and she’s so embarrassed and afraid that even one such as Shakra will label her a lost cause, and then the only one remaining is Hornet, and who knows when she’d get sick of Lace-

Hornet’s limbs find the centre of Lace’s shell. They fit into the narrow parts of her waistline and hold her up easily.

Lace feels as if she’d been shocked with the gross little volt-bugs Hornet sometimes carries around.

Tamping down her blush, Lace arranges herself properly.

“Widen your stance and shut your eyes.” Shakra tells her.

Lace glares at her.

“Your wariness is appreciated, however unneeded it is,” Hornet says into her ear. Her voice tickles Lace’s skin. Lace shudders.

Lace pushes her legs out and closes her eyes. The noises from behind her fade away, as does the scent of Shellwood. This close, she feels Hornet’s touch. She smells Hornet, and her moss and nectar. She hears Hornet’s breaths, close to her silk.

That, and the odd feeling of weightlessness in the right side of her shell. Or perhaps the feeling is more akin to the void – shallow emptiness, devoid of any feeling.

“Do not focus on your leg,” Shakra intones, leaning in closer.

Lace scoffs.

“You laugh, yet you understand, I’m sure. An ant and a Weaver do not fight the same, so why force them to?”

“I don’t understand, actually,” Lace hisses.

“You cannot replicate a sense. There are muscles in your leg that once told your mind how to balance, but they are gone.”

Lace laughs bitterly. “What’s your point?”

“You possess an entire shell, do you not? You have a new centre of gravity, Warrior Wielding Pin, yet you are forcing yourself to walk the same way you used to. Listen to the whispers of your muscles – they will do for you what the ones you have lost once did. In time your balance will return, as will your prowess.”

Lace opens her mouth to retort, but then she closes it. It’s true – in a way, her artificial shell serves her well. She can feel it, the way she forces herself to walk in the same way she used to. How she places so much weight on her silk leg just because that weight is palpable, and the prosthetic is not.

Lace frees herself from Hornet’s embrace. She stands on her own two limbs – or rather, her silk leg, and the muscles above her prosthetic. It feels wrong, and it takes a conscious effort to actually use them, not even mentioning the fact that she’s horribly weak – but it works.

Lace stands on her own. She takes a step – and then, because something in her chest is rising, shining, invigorating muscles as weak as twigs – she takes another. Her leg clicks, and it clicks again.

Hornet catches her when she falls again, but this time instead of simply allowing herself to be caught, Lace throws out her arms around Hornet’s shell.

“Five steps!” She yells out, giggling, euphoria rushing through her shell like a drug.

“Congratulations,” Hornet says, her own voice clear with joy. Lace hugs her closely, not even caring about how it must look.

Lace laughs harder. It isn’t like her usual, mocking laugh. This one is clear as a crystal and light, freeing. When Hornet carries her home that day – to their home, Lace corrects, more than a little giddily – the smile remains on her face the entire way there.

-

Lace doesn’t bother counting the days she spends relearning how to walk. They pass slowly and painfully. Lace grows used to the burning in the middle of her shell as she gasps for breath, and the straining of the threads she’s using in lieu of her leg.

She only counts the amount of clicks her prosthetic makes.

When she counts six clicks consecutively from the blade bending and straightening, she does it without assistance from Shakra or Hornet. It’s at the crack of dawn in the bellhome, before Hornet has awoken. She does a lap of the room all on her own, only using the furniture to lean on when her legs feel like they’re about to give out. She makes it six steps – six stressful clicks of the blade of her prosthetic – before she has to lean on the desk and take a breather.

On the day she counts eight clicks, Shakra rewards her with a ring of hardened material, crafted identically to the mapmaker’s own weapon.  Pride overwhelms the stress of her shell, like summitting a mountain and looking down on the world. She’s always imagined climbing Mount Fay, if only to see the only place in Pharloom to rival the heights of her mother’s cradle. Like this, she can almost taste the frost on her tongue. She craves more.

When Lace takes ten consecutive steps on her own, Hornet looks at her differently. Her eyes are gentle, almost affectionate; Lace is a fool, she knows, for wanting to entertain the thought, but-

The touches, the casual softening of their tones. The steady strength behind Hornet’s shell growing warmer and more comfortable. The way Lace has grown to rely on Hornet, and it doesn’t feel like pity. Lace wants, but she doesn’t know how, because Hornet feels different. She’s foreign to Pharloom, both physically and mentally.

Lace knows at some point along the journey, she’d been caught up in Hornet’s gravitas. She can’t help but feel a tethering to the hunter, a craving deep in her mind to stay at her side. Whether the thing that binds them is made of flesh and bone, or void and silk, that she’s unsure of.  

Hornet reaches into her pack and pulls out a trinket. She holds out her paw to Lace in offering. Lace stares for a moment.

“Going soft on me, little spider?” Lace giggles. She’s caught up in the euphoria of breaking her limits again. It warms her artificial heart, turns her words looser and her touches gentler.

Hornet rolls her eyes. “I can say confidently I was not as insufferable as you when completing wishes.”

“Oh?” Lace teases. It takes her another moment to digest Hornet’s words. “Wait. What are you-“

“It was my wish for your condition to improve. For your assistance in venturing into the Weavenests, perhaps, but also for my own selfish reasons.”

Lace flushes. “Spider-“

“You have completed the first step to that sufficiently. I would reward you for your efforts, in my attempt to replicate the traditions of your land.”

Lace’s throat bobs. “I-“ Her hands wobble as she accepts the gift. “I’m not some pet maggot you can reward with-“ Lace looks down at the trinket.

It’s the heirloom the bug from the Deep Docks had gifted to Hornet, back when the two of them had first returned from the Abyss in the diving bell. Ballow, Lace thinks his name was, but other than that his existence was inconsequential to her.

“This means nothing to me.”

Unphased, Hornet nods. “The value in fulfilling a wish is not found in the material, child. Seeing the world grow is reward enough.”

“Refrain from lecturing me about ‘the material’ when you have a spa in your room.” Lace crosses her arms. Then she narrows her eyes at Hornet, who’s gone conspicuously stiff. “Are you teasing me, dear spider?”

Hornet’s eyes lighten. “I was. I’ve learned that your reactions are quite entertaining.”

Lace averts her eyes. The warm feeling in her shell is becoming overwhelming.

“Considering you’ve had your fun, would you enlighten me to the point of this?”

Hornet straightens. She beckons Lace towards the bench in front of them in the middle of Bellhart. Lace obliges, and Hornet sits beside her.

“When I was given this heirloom, we had just returned from the Abyss. You were injured, afraid, and lashing out. I recall your barbs as easily as any danger in this land.”

Lace coughs. Hornet wouldn’t make her feel embarrassed – she was entitled to her reactions! “So?”

“Don’t mistake my recollection for offence. I don’t begrudge you for your feelings. Rather, I merely wish to illustrate how far you have come.” Hornet reaches out to clasp Lace’s hand in her paw, closing it around the gift. “You told me you wished the world would drown. You felt there was nothing for you in this life, and as such you couldn’t think of anything to do, even with your freedom. Do you still feel the same?”

There’s something in Lace’s throat – perhaps a tangling of silk. With a squeak, she clears it. “I don’t,” she admits.

“What would you do?”

Curse this affection that lives in her shell. Curse Hornet, for all her bewitching charms. Curse her own false heart, for beating so true. With her heart heavy and her lungs squeezing, Lace speaks.

“I’m going to get better. I’m going to help you. And then, if you’re ok with it, I’d like to stay.” Lace looks away. “With you, I mean.”

The paw around Lace’s hand grows tighter. Lace feels Hornet lean in closer. “You’d stay at my side?”

“I would,” Lace admits quietly, her voice thick with emotion. “You make me feel better about myself. And I don’t want to bury Phantom alone.”

The thought of traversing the Exhaust Organ with only her prosthetic and pin as company frightened her. It felt like stepping into a world crafted from the worst of her mother. To do so on her lonesome – while carrying all that remained of the only one who could relate to that struggle – was a thought that immobilised her with fear.

“Then I will stay with you too. You have my word.” As she says it, Hornet closes Lace’s hand around Ballow’s trinket. “Take it and remember how far you have come.”

Lace stares at the heirloom. It’s old and chipped at the side, in the shape of a bell with a pin crossed over a horn. The symbol of Pharloom’s faith is emblazoned on the centre in a faded gold. Lace runs a claw over it, tracing the engravings.

“I’ll try.”

Hornet nods. She leans away from Lace and curls in on herself almost imperceptibly, as if bracing herself for something. “You should know that Phantom’s death was not of natural causes. It was my own responsibility.”

“Ah,” Lace intones. The thought doesn’t shock her – Hornet had been all over Pharloom, after all, and the Exhaust Organ was one of few working routes to enter the Citadel. The idea that they’d come to blows wasn’t surprising either, because Lace knows Phantom. They had always been too dedicated, too solitary and resigned to their fate.

“Their shell was fraying, seemingly with age. They challenged me to combat, and it seemed clear to me that they did so with the intent to kill or be killed. A warrior’s death seemed far more fitting than what awaited them.”

Lace laughs hollowly. “It seems you’ve fulfilled another wish then, dear spider.”

Hornet is quiet for a moment. “You are upset.”

“No, actually,” Lace corrects. “Phantom never deserved their design. We were close, once. But not anymore; not as mother intended. I simply have a lot of regrets, regarding my sibling.”

“The estrangement of a sibling is not a matter to be taken lightly. You have my deepest sympathies.”

“I know,” Lace nods. Hornet tries to pull her paw away. Lace refuses, clutching her paw closer. “Take me home?”

Hornet scoops Lace up in her arms without a second thought.

-

Perhaps it’s the thought of Phantom still running through Lace’s mind. Perhaps it’s the time of day – far earlier than any reasonable bug would be awake at. Or, more simply, perhaps it’s the law of equivalent exchange. For every moment of whatever façade of a life she lives that gets better, it would one day get worse.

There’s a hollow feeling in her chest that reminds her of Phantom and of their mother’s disappointed glare.

There are countless regrets that cling to her skin. They tear at her silk like claws tangled in her threads. They stab at her icily, tasting grey and empty, like the void.

Lace walks on her own two legs out of the door of the bellhome – five aching clicks of her prosthetic – and stares at the freshly painted brass and the reflection visible in the alloy.

She looks like her mother.

She sees it in the silk making up her being. With her prosthetic, and her silken hair – in her exhaustion, she’d taken to wearing it down during her stay at Bellhart – and in her eyes, a shining pale white tinged with the blank emptiness of the void.

The thought terrifies her.

I am not my mother. I am not just a child, or a weapon, or her tool. This life is mine.

For the first time since she lost her leg, she recalls her mantra. The resulting swell of emotions in her shell are discrepant with how Hornet makes her feel.

The spider had been so adamant in her growth. But had Lace really grown? Would she ever be free of her mother’s designs? Or was she doomed to a fate identical to her sibling, an eventual putting down like a rabid pet after lifetimes of servitude?

Lace pulls the trinket Hornet had given her just hours before and recalls what the spider had told her. If she were truly growing, then all she could do was to pry the claws out of her silk with her own strength, or she could unravel trying.

Lace remembers Sherma and the pilgrims cheering for her. She remembers Hornet’s eyes, crinkled in joy from watching her relearn to walk, and the way she would softly hold Lace's hand in bed.

She knows what she has to do.

This life is mine, Lace reminds herself. She’d make it true – this she vows, on her honour as a princess and a knight, and a daughter no longer.

Chapter Text

It’s difficult to distinguish the exact moment Lace realises she can walk again.

Perhaps it was when Shakra’s balancing lessons began involving weapons and morphed into sparring sessions between the two of them and Hornet. Or maybe it was when Lace had gone to speak to the vendor in Bellhart, only to realise Hornet hadn’t followed her, leaving Lace without a safety net to catch her for the first time since she’d lost her leg. The two had locked eyes, and with little more than a nod shared between them, Lace had felt the belief the spider had in her.

Or, more simply, perhaps it was when Lace had stopped counting her steps. When the conscious contractions of the new muscles she was forced to rely on in the absence of her leg became instinctual, and she stopped having to plan on something being there to lean on or for Hornet to catch her.

Regardless, it doesn’t become official in her mind until late one night, when Hornet is taking off the prosthetic just as they’re about to sleep.

Hornet’s paws are soft to the touch as she undoes the mechanism holding the prosthetic to Lace’s shell. Even as Lace becomes accustomed to her unique touch, she doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to how casual their closeness has become. It’s a vexing feeling, to know the spider’s presence better than her absence, but Lace supposes Hornet’s presence in her mind has never been typical.

“Why have you not asked me to fix your prosthetic?” Hornet asks, breaking Lace’s reverie.

“Fix?” Lace frowns. “It works fine, does it not?”

Hornet holds the limb up to the gleamlight. She bends it and it clicks, the sound reverberating through the bellhome.

“Ah. I… suppose I had forgotten.”

“It does not bother you?”

“The opposite, truthfully. When I was struggling to walk, it was the clicks of that limb that served as a tally for my progress. When I was… worse off, it was a reminder that the leg was there, if not how I remember it.”

Hornet sits on their shared bed, still clutching the prosthetic in her paws. “And now?”

“Now I need not count my steps,” Lace grins. Pride is a warm light that she basks in.

Hornet nods, her eyes light. “No, you do not.”

The moment turns quiet as their eyes meet. The room becomes warmer, the bed becomes softer, and the distance between them feels shorter.

“You may adjust the limb to your wishes, dear spider. Far be it from me to keep a tinkerer from her toys.”

Hornet rolls her eyes. “You presume I am a slave to my impulses.”

Lace covers her mouth and widens her eyes in faux shock. “Never! I simply wish to avoid a greater tragedy. What if I were to awake with an exoskeleton attached to my back? Or a claw that sticks me to walls?”

Hornet puts the prosthetic down on her desk. She lies down on the bed facing Lace.

“You are a fool. Both those augmentations would be beneficial to you.”

Lace gasps. “Ah-ha! I knew it! You are using me as a test subject for your wicked, witchy ways! This was all a cover to find somebody to test out your experiments on, wasn’t it?”

Hornet sighs. She opens her mouth, and then she gets a look in her eyes. It’s a sly, dangerous look that elicits a shiver in Lace’s shell. Hornet’s eyes travel down Lace’s body like a predator examining their prey.

Lace gulps.

“There is only one thing I’d like to test on you,” Hornet says huskily. The timbre of her voice shocks Lace, the same shiver returning stronger.

“W-what could you possibly mean?” Lace tries fruitlessly to keep up her performance.

“A harness that fits just below a bug’s waist that holds a rod, still and stiff even through vigorous movement. It hasn’t seen use in a long time, but I’m confident in my prowess.”

Lace frowns. “What could that possibly-“

Then she thinks about it for a moment. A harness around the crotch area that holds a rod? Vigorous movement? She couldn’t possibly mean-

“S-spider!” Lace stutters out. “That is far too much!”

Hornet stares at her, her expression taunting, even a little cocky.

Lace’s entire shell feels like it’s overheating. If her silk could melt, she thinks it would. This was a heat she only knew from the furthest parts in the Deep Docks. She covers her face with her hands and lets out a shrill squeal.

“Y-you wouldn’t have a strap-“

“I do,” Hornet’s voice is still husky, and this time it resounds through Lace’s shell, making her feel far too much. Then Hornet’s eyes lighten. “Your reactions truly are entertaining.”

Lace gawks. Her mouth opens and closes dumbly as she grapples for any words.

Hornet watches her closely.

“You know, last time you did something like this you turned away from me.”

In Hornet’s eyes, Lace sees a smirk. “Perhaps I’ve grown too.”

Lace groans and flips herself over on the bed so that her back is facing Hornet.

“In the morning, your prosthetic will be ready. Goodnight.”

“And how am I meant to sleep after all that?”

Hornet stays infuriatingly silent. Lace flips back over, a stern glare already plastered on her face. However, Hornet has mimicked Lace and turned on her side to face away from her. Lace contents herself to glare at Hornet’s back, not intending to do much else.

But, despite herself, Lace’s eyes travel down Hornet’s shell. Her gaze lands around Hornet’s lower half and towards the parts of her just peeking out beneath her cloak. For a moment, Lace imagines the harness attached to her-

Lace stifles a squeal and flips back over in a flash.

She doesn’t get a lick of sleep after that, and she’s certain Hornet is able to tell in the morning when she hands Lace her prosthetic, newly adjusted and freshly cleaned, with the most annoying look in her eyes.

-

Perhaps it isn’t the best anecdote to associate with her ability to walk. It means for the first few days after Hornet completes the adjustment, the leg will move smoothly, effortlessly, and make zero noise. Lace’s laughter comes easily in those moments, swelling with pride from the recognition that she doesn’t need it to make noise anymore, because that’s how proficient she is now. No need for counting steps when Lace was strong enough to try fighting, after all.

Then her cheeks warm and her heart skips a beat at the memory of Hornet’s voice turning husky, and the contraption she had so flirtatiously alluded to, and-

How embarrassing. The spider could truly be insufferable.

Then again, Lace doesn’t particularly mind. Her pride belongs to her, and no memory could take that away from her. She knows how far she’s come.

There’s also the fact that it’s Hornet, which… is another matter entirely.

The only brain power Lace is willing to commit to the matter is that she doubts she’d be where she is without the spider. Having her be a part of those memories – of her growth – is perfectly fine. Preferable even, because Hornet matters, a lot, even if Lace could do without the thought of Hornet’s supposed strap-on.

Lace shakes her head free of the thoughts. She has work to do, progress to make, and a pin to sharpen.  

-

The training sessions with Shakra and Hornet are slow and languid affairs. The three warriors exchange their weapons for little more than play toys fashioned out of shellwood and cloth, held together with whatever shell shards Hornet had on hand.

Shakra’s flying leaps and Hornet’s silk-spun acrobatics are traded out for simple feints and dodges. Lace tries her best to mimic her own high-flying combat style, but her new leg simply can’t handle that much pressure, and in the time she’s spent recovering, her pin has grown dull and her reflexes are diminished significantly. Hornet and Shakra come at her with the intensity of a pilgrim, and even that tests Lace.

She repels Hornet’s slashes and Shakra’s projectiles, but only barely. By the end of it, she’s exhausted. Her chest screams for air as she leans over herself, panting harshly. Her entire shell aches, straining to keep her balanced through all the dodging and stabbing.

In the past, Lace would’ve laughed at any fool hoping to serve the Citadel through combat with a performance as shoddy as hers. The version of her that could run circles around her lives as a ghost, a vision conjured up if she closes her eyes and imagines. She can see it clearly – a leap here, a dodge there, feint one way – then hold for the inevitable retaliatory strike, pin ready for a parry and the following flurry of stabs.

“Good,” Hornet says, breaking Lace’s reverie and dispelling the vision.

Shakra clangs her rings together. “Well fought, Warrior Wielding Pin.”

Lace can’t bear to look at them. “I can do better,” she hisses.

It’s hard – so hard – to forget what her limits should be. There’s a voice in the back of her head that sounds exactly like her mother, telling it to her clearly, over and over. She could do it once, she should be able to do it now.

“You can,” Shakra nods. “One day, you will. This I know, Warrior Wielding Pin, but today is not that day. We train today for tomorrow’s fight.”

Progress is a long and winding river, one that threatens to drown her in its rapids. The only thing stronger than that critical voice in her head is the one that remembers what it was like to hold her head above the tide and stand on her own two feet.

“I know,” Lace nods. She brushes her hair out of her eyes.

Her prosthetic leg holds strong. It doesn’t even wobble, even in her exhaustion and through all the weight she’d put on it through the training. Lace stands to her full height proudly.

She meets Hornet’s gaze for a moment. The spider is clearly judging her, but it’s of a different variety to the usual stares she’s used to.

Hornet seems almost impressed, something that becomes clearer when she nods her mask to herself.

“What say you, Shakra?” Hornet turns away from Lace. “She is ready, is she not?”

“Gendaa… If you are asking me, you are already sure of the answer.”

Hornet nods again, seemingly lost in thought. Shakra clangs her rings together and bows her head in Lace’s direction.

“You possess strength of more than one kind, Warrior Wielding Pin. It is difficult to learn such a thing, so be proud! The many paths of this kingdom and beyond remain open, and you will grow further by walking them with your not-mate at your side.”

Lace nods, a little bewildered, a little embarrassed. “Thank you, Shakra. You have… helped me. More than I know how to repay.”

Shakra’s eyes grow wild. “Spar with me when you are recovered! I would know the strength of this kingdom at its peak, in my pursuit of my master’s skill.”

Lace smirks. “I could use the challenge. After all, I don’t see any other bugs who’d be able to best me around here.”

Hornet raises her stick, meeting the challenge with a glare. “Would you care to test that?”

Lace laughs haughtily, the smile stuck on her face as she stares back, undaunted. The two of them are stuck at an impasse – both staring, both clearly enjoying it.  

Shakra looks between them. She mumbles something about getting earmuffs for herself at night, and then she disappears in a single powerful leap.

“Well,” Lace says without breaking the eye contact. “Care to explain what me being ready means?”

Hornet looks away. She drops her makeshift weapon on the floor and exasperatedly shakes her mask. “Come with me to our bellhome. We have some preparations to attend to.”

Lace giggles, partly because she’d won whatever little exchange they’d just had, and partly because Hornet had never referred to the bellhome as theirs audibly. As Lace follows Hornet back to the bellhome, her steps have a noticeable swing to them.

-

Lace had known Hornet had a… thing with tools. Knowing about it and seeing it in action were two entirely different beasts.

Hornet’s only instructions had been to ‘pack for an expedition.’ Lace had grabbed her pin and the ring Shakra had gifted her previously – she only had the one, but she’d been practicing bouncing it off walls and found combat with it to be quite efficient, especially with her reduced mobility – and then she had waited.

She was gifted with the sight of what she can only describe as a perfect storm of madness, as Hornet straps injector bands, anklets, and a claw grip onto her shell. She unfurls a pack of tied up shell shards, using them in combination with her needle and silk to fashion into a collection of tools - a round device with a button on the end that Lace clearly remembers exploding after having it thrown at her, and a small spear with orbs of glowing electricity attached to it, along with a flask of glowing golden liquid that she tucks away securely.

When Hornet is finally done, she stands and nods at Lace. Lace scoffs and shakes her head.

“Are we preparing for war or an expedition?”

“I have seen the sharpest of barbs in this kingdom. I won’t be caught unawares again, especially with my silk reserves remaining near empty.”

“I don’t even want to know where you keep all that. Where is it that we’re going, spider?”

There’s a quiet beat for a moment, longer than Lace expects. Hornet’s limbs remain pulled against her shell, and though her eyes never look away, there is a hint of… fear? No, shyness would likely be more apt. But on Hornet? It looks… wrong.

“Before we head to the Weavenests and fashion a cure for my affliction, I’d prefer if I knew we were both ready and able for the journey.”

“A test run, then?”

“Yes. I…” Hornet trails off. It’s an odd look on her, but there’s a part of Lace – new and unknown, yet not unwelcome – that wants to give her the space to work through it. “I believe now would be a good time to visit the Exhaust Organ.”

Ah. That explains her nerves.

“Spider…”

“I understand if that’s not something you’re willing to do. We have come far, and-“

“We’re doing this,” Lace declares with a swish of her hand. “I can think of nothing better to do with my time.”

Facing Phantom again, after all this time, remains a fearful thought. There’s something that shakes her deep to the centre of her shell, reminding her of the person she’d been when her mother loomed so tall over Pharloom. It had been too long since she’d visited them, in their eternal place of duty, and now all her fears coalesce in a black cloud that hovers just above her, drowning her in vice and the stinging pain of regret.

But Hornet believes in her. The thought swells in her breast, a sensation like bathing in warm light.

More than that, Lace is different now. This is something she needs to do. She’d give her sibling what her mother could never do for any of their kind – dignity, and the right to be remembered.

Hornet nods her mask, her eyes clear with approval as she looks at Lace. “You have come a long way,” she says, her voice light in appreciation.

“I’d hate to disappoint our divine saviour,” Lace winks.

Hornet rolls her eyes. “You cannot help but tarnish a moment.”

“Don’t jest. I daresay you can’t live without it anymore.”

Hornet doesn’t argue. They leave together with a wave to Bellhart behind them and an open kingdom ahead.

Even if their pace remains slow and they need periodic stops for Lace to rest her legs, her heart remains full with joy at the thought of finally being able to stand on her own.

-

Bilewater is never a place Lace had imagined revisiting of her own volition, yet oddly, the place isn’t as bad once she’s there. It likely stems from the fact that it remains mostly unchanged, even with her mother’s death.

Many of the bugs residing in Bilewater were unaffected by the Haunting – their aggression borne naturally from a predatorial instinct rather than a silken compulsion. Even in the little time Lace and Hornet spend in the maggot-infested swamps, Lace thinks she spots at least three Stillkin hunters hiding in the tall grass. High above them, Lace hears the telltale gurgles of a Bloatroach, spewing its noxious liquid over the terrain.

Despite all this, Lace would almost rather stay in Bilewater than traverse the Exhaust Organ.

While the makeshift shelters and platforms in Bilewater have remained intact through Pharloom’s collapse and Lace’s mother’s death, the Exhaust Organ is a different story. Lace had never realised, but Phantom must have been doing more to keep it functioning that it had seemed. A part of the structure has broken off and fallen into the waters, with deadened silk threads still attached to the broken buildings, their evident loss of strength from the death of their source causing the structure to collapse.

Cracks litter the brass base of the building, with waste from the Citadel landing at the bottom and accumulating, creating a foul stench and an even fouler sight.

It’s a sorry place to die.

“This destruction is recent. Your mother’s death has had greater ramifications than I could have envisioned.” Hornet says as she teeters on an unstable section of the platform.

Lace scoffs. “Do you see any pilgrims around here, spider?”

Hornet tilts her head in confusion.

“Phantom did their job too well. There’s no pilgrim foolish enough to dare traverse this path. When you killed Phantom, you removed the only bug able to keep this place together.”

There’s a horrid scraping sound, like sharp claws scratching at metal, and then the pipes connecting the Exhaust Organ to the Citadel begin to rumble. Where trash and other waste would’ve poured from the pipes, now with the Citadel in a similarly dilapidated condition, the only thing that falls from the pipes is more wreckage, cloth, and the husk of a dead pilgrim, seemingly caught in the collapse of the Citadel. Everything drowns in the maggot infested waters below.

“Come,” Lace hisses. “I’d rather not waste any more time sightseeing.”

-

The insides of the Exhaust Organ fare no better. On the rare occasion Lace finds a stable platform, it’s often covered in enough muck and waste to render it unbearable for more than a moment.

Lace’s usual way of visiting Phantom is long destroyed. Once, when she had the command of silk threads, she would take pleasure in soaring through the heights of the Organ, weaving through the twists and turns on the way to Phantom’s room while turning her nose up at the faithful forced to use the elevator. Now, hampered by a prosthetic that gains little purchase in the muck and destruction, Lace is slow and weak.

“Any bright ideas, spider?” Lace calls out after wiping the blade of her prosthetic clean of green sludge.

Hornet nods. She stands on top of the bottom half of an elevator and points upwards in the direction of the elevator shaft.

When Lace joins her, she sees the top half of the elevator lodged into the shaft with an extremely precarious piece of rubble holding it stuck. It teeters and lurches, but it clearly can’t free itself.

“My Silk Soar will bring us close. If we let the rest of the elevator fall, we’ll be that much closer to reaching Phantom’s room.”

“Assuming it isn’t currently submerged in maggots,” Lace grumbles.

Hornet glares at her.

“It’s a valid concern, spider. Now, am I going to have to climb up there myself?”

Hornet sighs and stretches out a limb. It wraps around Lace’s shell and pulls her close. Hornet’s touch still makes Lace feel too much, even when they’re surrounded by maggots and trash and destruction.

Hornet gathers her silk. With her free limb, she hurls her needle skyward, the silk thread attached to it remaining strong and pulling taut when the needle reaches its destination. Lace throws her arms around Hornet just as the silk begins pulling the two of them higher.

They rise through the elevator shaft rapidly, with Lace only seeing glimpses of the destruction affecting the Exhaust Organ.

When they reach the top, Hornet pulls her needle out and shifts Lace into her arms in one smooth manoeuvre, dashing into a little alcove in the shaft next to the top half of the elevator.

Hornet lets Lace down. Her breathing is a little shorter than usual, but it’s barely noticeable. Lace thinks nothing of it.

“Would you care to do the honours?” Hornet asks her.

Lace laughs. “Such a gentleman, spider! Why, it would be my pleasure.”

Lace aims Shakra’s ring at the piece of rubble keeping the elevator in place. In one fluid motion, she throws the ring into the rubble, shattering it and bouncing the ring back to herself.

The rest of the elevator, along with all of wreckage above it, comes crashing down the elevator shaft. Lace catches the ring with a flourish and a wink.

Hornet rolls her eyes. She begins climbing up to Phantom’s room without looking back at Lace – which is exactly how Lace knows she’s succeeded at irritating the spider.

-

The rest of the Exhaust Organ is mostly empty, if only barely standing. The rest of the climb and the subsequent walk through narrow corridors – made only narrower by the collapsed roof and broken floor – is the only challenge the two of them have to deal with.

It’s why the balloon of fear in Lace’s chest is allowed to keep growing. Every step she takes is heavier, slower. Her prosthetic begins to weigh heavier and feel stranger. It’s as if she’s regressing back to the person she used to be with every moment her fear sinks its claws into her.

Right before the door to Phantom’s room, Lace stops. She takes three deep breaths.

“Say something,” she whispers.

“What did you say?”

“Just- talk to me. About anything.”

In the past, when Lace had felt like… this, she’d been able to slip behind the mask, let it fade in the façade of overconfidence and easy mocking. But in between learning how to walk and growing used to sleeping beside Hornet, something within her has twisted, and now Lace is certain that it won’t work this time.

All she can think to do is trust in Hornet.

“I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps I’m simply growing bored of the quiet,” Lace tries, but she’s sure the strain in her voice is clear enough to let Hornet know that isn’t what’s really going on. “It tends to grate on you along the journeys, does it not?”

Hornet stares. “It did not used to for me. But now, things may be different.”

“Getting used to me, hm?” Lace hums. Her hands clench and unclench at the pin in her hands. Her leg taps at an inconsistent rhythm, the sound drowned out by the pounding of her heart.

Hornet’s discerning stare is the only response she gives. Lace’s face falls.

“I hate to beg, spider, but-“

“What is going on?” Hornet’s alarmed voice shocks Lace.

“I-“ Lace chokes out. Her throat bobs. “I’m afraid of facing Phantom. I just- I need a distraction. Some time. Can you do that?” The words are like hardened clay, requiring a significant effort to force out of her throat.

Hornet is quiet for a moment. “The Bellvein beneath Bellhart has many fluffy bugs living in them.”

“Do they?” Lace strains. Her claws begin to scratch at the silk above her prosthetic.

“They do. The Haunting once rendered them predatorial and unsafe to pet, for they could use their surprising power to charge at me. However, with the silk dispelled and their calm disposition returned, that threat no longer exists.”

Despite herself, Lace giggles. “Oh?”

“They enjoy being pet around their neck, where the fur is also fluffiest. The sensation is fantastic, as is embracing them with your entire shell.”

The weight on Lace’s chest lightens. The grip of the fear recedes, though it doesn’t disappear. The mental image of Hornet’s face buried in the fur of a fluffy bug is simply too hilarious to ignore. “And when have you had time to visit the Bellvein?”

“I visit when you are training with Shakra.”

“So, you have been withholding this from me?”

Hornet is silent.

“You’re horrible to me,” Lace sways.

“You would not understand their appeal.”

Lace laughs fully. “Oh, you’re showing this to me. You have far too little grace to insult me like that.”

Hornet sighs. “Very well. Know that if you irritate them, I will remove you immediately.”

Lace rolls her eyes. What a foolish spider she’d gotten stuck with. Though, perhaps it isn’t all bad. Her hands are steady and her mind is calm, the fear in her chest far less consuming than it had been. Lace takes another deep breath and nods.

Hornet’s gaze turns serious. “None would begrudge you for turning back,” she says seriously. “Every step forward is a testament to your strength, but this mountain need not be summited yet. If you wish, I can go in for you and retrieve anything you may want.”

Lace shakes her head. She takes another deep breath, and in the process, imagines herself leaving. No matter how she might try, Lace simply can’t envision it.

“Do you know why I, despite being made of silk, cannot produce my own?”

Hornet tilts her head. “Does this riddle serve a purpose?”

“It does, dear spider. My mother saw it fit to build me with no Silk Heart. Though my shell could house one, and many of the prototypes that predated me bore one, mother made the decision to keep my heart hollow and empty.”

“Why?” Hornet asks after a beat.

“She preferred me pliant and malleable. She enjoyed my subservience. For that, I was kept reliant – on her praise, on her tasks, on her power. Mother designed me to rely on her for my silk. After all, how best to keep a pet on its leash?”

Hornet is silent. She nods to cue Lace to proceed.

“You keep it weak. Enough that it knows you are the source of its power.” Lace answers her own question. “Mother liked that I had to use her silk to heal and fight and move. She knew it meant I could never leave her. And why would I? I enjoyed strength.”

“I am sorry.”

“Never again will I be so reliant on another,” Lace spits out. “Not even you. This is something I must do. This strength will become my own.”

Hornet places a paw on Lace’s shell. It rises higher until Hornet is caressing Lace’s cheek.

“I understand. I merely meant to offer you reassurance.”

“I know. I just- can’t.”

“Then we won’t,” Hornet nods. She pushes her head forward until Lace’s forehead is touching Hornet’s mask. Lace closes her eyes and pushes, seeking out the contact. “Move forward and know that I am by your side.”

“Thank you,” Lace whispers. “I really- you’ve done so much-“

“We heal together, do we not?”

Lace laughs softly. “We will.”

Lace pries her head away from Hornet’s. She takes Hornet’s paw in her hand. With her other, she pushes the door to Phantom’s room open.

-

Phantom’s room is destroyed. A part of the wall high up in the room has been broken open like a crater, exposing the room to the fumes and waste from the outside. The pipe organ that Phantom had been so proficient in playing is wholly destroyed, almost split in two from a section of roofing caving in and landing on top of it. There’s deadened silk coating the entire room, a strangling presence that reminds Lace all too much of her mother.

In truth, none of this is surprising.

What really gives Lace pause are the four bugs who had beaten them to reaching Phantom’s room.

There are four Snitchflies in the room already, all of them bent over at dangerously low angles as they scavenge through the wreckage of Phantom’s room.

Lace draws her pin and Shakra’s ring, ready to scare the ingrates off – but then the closest one seems to find something.

It lets out a happy trill, and then from the wreckage of the organ it pulls out Phantom’s mask, half-broken and covered in muck, but unmistakable in its visage. The thief holds the mask up like a trophy, celebrating the find.

Rage burns through Lace’s shell. She moves faster than her brain, Shakra’s ring singing as it flies through the air, aimed at the bug holding the mask.

The ring meets its target with a sickening crack, the impact breaking off a piece of the Snitchfly’s shell and splattering it over its companions.

Lace doesn’t even let it react – she follows the ring with a dash of her own, catching the ring with one hand and skewering the bug on the end of her pin and cutting off its pained shrieks with the other. She rips Phantom’s mask out of the dead bug’s hands, and then she points her pin at each of the other bugs.

“I’m going to snuff each and every one of your miserable lives out like candleflames!” Lace cackles, the sound coming off a little mad even to her own ears.

Lace couldn’t care less, because how dare they deface Phantom’s grave like this? How dare they go looting around Phantom’s possessions as if they were some common noble? Phantom deserved better!

It’s less a fight and more of a hunt. Lace has seen a Snitchfly fight before – she knows they’re capable of it. Instead, all three of them make the wise decision to run, not even entertaining a confrontation.

Each of them has something that once belonged to Phantom in their grubby paws, and each of them will die, painfully, Lace decides.

She launches the ring as hard as she can at the closest one to her, aiming low to disable rather than kill. Without even looking to see if it made contact, Lace dashes forward in a different direction, her prosthetic carving through the ground as she goes. She leads with her pin, a stab aimed for the second Snitchfly’s neck, though it ends up penetrating lower down, shattering a portion of the bug’s shell. Lace follows the impact with a flurry of stabs aimed at the centre of its shell that misses entirely.

The Snitchfly she’s targeting dashes away, only to get entangled in a storm of threads. Hornet’s silk ignites in a blinding white, causing the thief to drop its loot – a collection of rosaries threaded together, and the sharp end of a golden longpin.

Lace shrieks in rage. She dives onto the injured Snitchfly, stabbing into the fleshy part of its neck over and over and over again. She only stops because there are other thieves to punish.

Lace scans the room quickly. The one she had thrown her ring at is still on the ground, trying fruitlessly to walk on a limb bending the entirely wrong direction, its wings flapping uselessly. Further away and approaching the opening in the wall leading to wider Bilewater is the last Snitchfly, clutching its loot close to its shell.

Lace tries to dash to reach the further one. But adrenaline, or anger, or whatever odd combination of it that’s been fuelling her maddened combat is running out quickly. When she tries to leap, to reach out high and bring the bug down – she falters, her legs unable to hold her up. Lace curses.

“Stay,” Hornet declares. “I will chase it down. Ensure the other one doesn’t get away.”

Lace nods. She could trust Hornet. If she couldn’t, who could she?

As Lace begins moving to the injured Snitchfly, Hornet hastily gulps down a flask of the golden stew she’d packed. Under its influence and combined with the silkspeed anklets, the spider moves faster than Lace has ever seen her. Her every step leaves an imprint of silk in her wake, like the flames of a trail blazed.

Lace is in awe. She’s seen Hornet at her peak, she knows just what the spider can do – but like this? She looks majestic. She looks beautiful.

Hornet leaps up. As the Snitchfly approaches the hole leading out to Bilewater, Hornet uses the wall behind her as leverage to jump again. Wings unfurl from her cloak, propelling her even further and higher. When she’s at level with the Snitchfly, Hornet reels back. In mid-air, she prepares her clawline grapple and tosses her needle, aimed directly at the thief’s head.

The silk attached to the needle snaps. Hornet’s silk reserves run empty, and with a sputter, the needle falls to the ground. Hornet tumbles down after it, her own exhaustion finally catching up with her. She crashes to the floor, landing with a horrible thump that rattles the room.

The Snitchfly escapes, taking whatever it had that once belonged to Phantom with it.

Lace sprints to Hornet’s side, her prosthetic scratching at the floor as she goes.

-

“Spider!” Lace yells. She slides to a stop, coming to her knees beside Hornet’s crumpled form.

Hornet coughs. “I… am fine,” Hornet growls. There’s a hole in the lower part of her shell, one that bleeds void particles. Hornet throws out a flimsy thread of silk that tries and fails to stitch over the wound.

“You are not!” Lace’s voice rises, something painful igniting her shell with fear. “I never knew the truth until now. You may speak a big game, but you are a fool at heart!”

“My shell is unique. I will not fade – not this easily.”

“I care little for your justification, spider! You are hurt – you have been, all this time! If your silk deficiency was this bad, why exert yourself like this?”

Hornet sits up. The effort she has to expend to do so is clear in her straining gasp.

“I did not want the thief to get away. It held multiple cylinders, similar to those used to replay the songs the Choir sung in the Citadel’s past.”

“Cylinders? But-“ Lace closes her eyes to think. There was no chance Phantom had need for them – Lace’s sibling had long grown tired of the hymns of the Citadel, and before that had memorised them all. If there was no need for Phantom to own them, then-

“The cylinders were altered with greying silk, like the material used for Phantom’s garb. I assumed-“

Lace doesn’t hear the rest of it. Phantom had made their own music – recorded it, likely for her, the only person who would come back for them – and now they were gone. Lost to some thief’s inventory, to be bartered over with worthless rosaries and tools.

Lace would never get to hear Phantom’s work. She was forever stuck with memories, and even those would fade away eventually. Lace leans her head against Hornet’s shell on the uninjured side.

“I…” Hornet breaths come laboured. “I know what it’s like to lose a sibling. Having something to remember them by…” Hornet trails off.

Lace would forever miss the part of Phantom that she’d never know. There’s sorrow in that that’s hard to quantify, but Lace feels it like a blade in the back.

But knowing Hornet would go this far for her – that she had been suffering, and was willing to suffer further? The feelings warred within her.

“Thank you, spider,” Lace whispers into Hornet’s cloak.

“I failed,” Hornet growls.

“You did,” Lace nods. When she shifts her head, it allows her to feel the sharp edges of Hornet’s shell through her cloak. “Taking a page out of my book now, hm?”

“Your failures do not define you.”

“Then why would they define you?”

Lace takes Hornet’s paw in her hand. She presses her lips to the back of Hornet’s paw and nuzzles the tuft of fur on it.

“Lace,” Hornet whispers, her voice soft.

“We’re using names now, are we?” Lace smirks. “You said it yourself. We’ll heal together.”

Hornet struggles to stand. Lace slips an arm around her cloak to help her. “I did,” she admits.

“Then try not to kill yourself in front of me so easily. I’ve been thinking of redecorating the house, and I’d like your opinion on it.”

Hornet rolls her eyes. She lets Lace’s arm around her back direct her towards the broken Snitchfly, still trying desperately to fly out and into Bilewater.

Without looking down, Lace sticks her pin through its skull, killing the last of the thieves desecrating Phantom’s room.

Lace lets go of Hornet to peer into its shell for the loot it had been carrying. She finds rosaries, a fragment of a silk spool that she passes along to Hornet, and the second half of a longpin.

Lace looks down at the three trinkets she’d claimed – the only things remaining of her sibling. A broken mask and two pieces of a longpin. Nothing whole, and nothing worthy of the respect Phantom deserved.

Lace kicks the Snitchfly’s shell away.

“Is there any way to get over it?” Lace asks Hornet, with her throat tight. She doesn’t elaborate, but Lace knows Hornet will understand.

Hornet is silent for a moment. “In my experience, loss becomes a companion. You may forget their voices or their masks, but in the long lives we’re doomed to live, they live on in the hope they shared with us.”

“I’ve always been scared of the past,” Lace admits bitterly. Her shell aches and her artificial heart bleeds – but is it really so artificial, for making her feel like this? For fearing the ghosts that live in her mind so strongly?

“I felt the same, once.”

“You? Truly?”

“The void below all things – every day in my kingdom, I lived paralysed in fear of it. But no longer; I have friends by my side, and people to care for. Fear and loss never fade, but strength always overcomes. That is the true nature of a hunter.”

Lace laughs, but it doesn’t come out as mocking. Not with the taste of Hornet’s fur on her lips and the sensation of her shell leaning on hers. Not with all that remains of Phantom clutched tightly to her shell, and the thought of their music playing through her mind.

-

Lace buries Phantom’s mask just outside of Bellhart, in the Shellwood just beyond. She marks the spot with a post made from shellwood and wrapped in grey silk, and then she attaches one half of the broken longpin to the post.

Hornet remains by her side the whole time. Even as she cries silent, angry tears that wet Hornet’s cloak, and even as Lace lashes out at the hostile plant life in the vicinity.

When they return to their shared home in Bellhart, Hornet cleans away the black and white tears dried on Lace’s silk. In the night, she pulls Lace close into her cloak so the two of them sleep embraced. Lace falls into the touches and the affection as easily as breathing.

-

“What will you do now?” Hornet asks her later, a few days into their rest period – something Lace had insisted on, regardless of Hornet’s protests.

Lace has spent the day tinkering with tiny nails and a board of shellwood. She’s been taking notes from Hornet, disguising her observation of Hornet’s work as simple teasing while secretly learning how to craft for herself. She hadn’t been lying about redecorating the place – Lace has always desired to leave her mark on the world.

“When you’re all rested up, you mean?” Lace winks.

“When you have decided I am ready to venture out again, yes.”

Lace lifts the board of shellwood up to the wall of the bellhome. Using one of Hornet’s tools, Lace affixes the board to the wall with one of the tiny nails.

Lace hums. “Well, our first order of business is to address your silk issues. You can’t be running around like that forever.”

“The Weavenests are our likeliest solution, if one exists. The Weavers understood silk in a way the faithful of your kingdom never could.”

“Yes, yes, the majority of the Citadel were all fools, I know.”

Lace rubs a discerning finger on her chin. She sticks another nail into the board, though she doesn’t hammer this one in as deep. Instead, she uses it as a hanger for the trinket Ballow had once given Hornet, and then Hornet had given to her when her condition had improved.

Growth, Lace remembers, isn’t linear. With this, she would never forget it.

“I’m glad you’re staying with me.”

Lace turns to look at Hornet, who’s lounging in the spa above.

“You aren’t the worst to get stuck with,” Lace giggles. Her eyes remain firmly focused on Hornet’s mask, and never once does she look down at the expanse of Hornet’s shell typically covered by her cloak. Lace is flawless at keeping her eyes at a respectable level.

Lace turns away to attach another nail onto the board. From this one, she hangs the ring Shakra had given her after countless days learning how to walk again.

Strength, Lace knows, is something one must earn. Even when lost, with enough willpower, it could always be reclaimed.

“And what will you do after that?” Hornet asks. Her voice comes from far closer than it had been. When Lace turns her head, she sees the spider standing behind her, her cloak back on and her eyes light and affectionate.

Lace hums. She steps back as Hornet steps forward, feeling Hornet’s shell press up against her back.

“I’m sure I can think of something,” Lace says with a grin. She affixes one last tiny nail on the board. She takes the second fragment of Phantom’s longpin and ties a length of fabric around it. She uses the loop of fabric to hang the longpin from the last nail on the board.

This, Lace knows, she couldn’t forget. She’d never forget her sibling, no matter how hard her mother tried to pry them apart, and no matter the time or distance. Even if she wishes desperately to hear them speak again, this is the best she can do.

“A wall of mementos?” Hornet asks over Lace’s shoulder.

“Something to spruce the place up, I suppose.”

“If you had simply waited, I could’ve made you shelves like my own.”

“Ah, but this one is mine, isn’t it, Hornet?” Using her name still sounds a bit odd, but not in a bad way. She enjoys the feel of it on her tongue, and she especially enjoys that it feels like claiming Hornet as her own.

Hornet’s limbs come to rest on Lace’s shell. “It is,” she says proudly.

The feeling in her shell grows overwhelming. Hornet’s embrace warms her down to her soul, a balm to any affliction. It’s an overflowing cup of affection and devotion and love, and Lace suddenly wants to share it. She’d never dreamed of feeling these things – not with a life such as hers.

I am not my mother. I am not just a child, or a weapon, or her tool. This life is mine.

Lace remembers her mantra for the first time in a long time. This time, however, it’s because she doesn’t need to remember it. Not when she’s claiming her life back, bit by bit.

She turns in Hornet’s embrace and throws her arms around Hornet’s neck.

“I’m going to learn how to dance again,” she declares, gazing into Hornet’s eyes closely.

Hornet tilts her head. “I suppose I could teach you, though I may be out of practice. It was once a pastime in the Hive, to dance with one another.”

“You?” Lace scoffs. “Hornet, dear, I could dance circles around you, even as I am now.”

Hornet’s eyes raise in response to the challenge. “I’d like to see you prove it.”

Lace doesn’t slip out of Hornet’s embrace. Instead, she leans in closer. She presses her lips to Hornet’s mask, where her mouth should be. She kisses her for a moment that lingers, the sensation of her lips on Hornet’s mask feeling like it could turn her silk a bright and vivid red.

When Lace steps away, Hornet is staring at her.

“I win,” Lace giggles.

“That-“ Hornet coughs when her voice comes out high. “That was not a dance at all, fool.”

“Oh? You’ve never heard of a kiss being referred to as a dance? My, you must truly be innocent.”

“You-“ Hornet sighs. She shakes her head, and then she steps forward into Lace’s personal space.

“You know, whatever you do now won’t matter. I’ve already won-“

“Be quiet,” Hornet growls, her voice deep enough to send shivers through Lace’s shell. Hornet moves further in, pinning Lace against the wall between her limbs. In a way, Lace does listen to Hornet’s words – for the rest of the night, she barely speaks another word – though admittedly, she isn’t quiet at all.

Chapter Text

The day Hornet and Lace set out to find a cure for Hornet’s affliction is an unremarkable one. Lace takes her pin and Shakra’s ring, Hornet packs an entire militia’s worth of tools and her needle, and the two of them set off. Aside from a shared salute with Shakra, they don’t say goodbye to any of the residents of Bellhart – and why would they? They both intend to return soon.

The mood is light and jovial; if not for the worried look Ayra the Bell Beast gives Hornet when they step into the Bellway, Lace could almost forget Hornet’s dire affliction.

“Do not worry. My companion and I will find a cure, of that I am certain,” Hornet tells Ayra.

The beast nuzzles up against Hornet’s mask. The little beastlings jump at Hornet, bumping their heads against her limbs.

“I know, little ones. But I am strong, and I fight alongside one I can trust. Because of that, my resolve will never falter.”

Lace ducks her head. For as new as their relationship is – soft caresses, touches that come as easily as the wind – it doesn’t feel new. That is, until Hornet kisses her with all the fire of a hunter, or when she says something… like that, uncaring of the bugs watching. Her heart stutters and pounds, feeling more present with every passing day.  

“We heal together,” Lace pledges quietly. One of the beastlings trills at Lace’s feet. It looks inquisitively at Lace’s prosthetic, and then without missing a beat, it begins scratching its back on the sharp end of her leg.

Lace rolls her eyes. Hornet looks at the beastling at Lace’s feet deliberately. “Have you found a new friend?”

“I have,” Lace drawls. “In fact, I’m considering letting you go off on your own. This baby is far more interesting than you.”

Hornet sighs as she steps in closer to Lace. “You would grow bored in less than a moment without me.”

Lace laughs. “You can be so confident when you wish to be. What’s the source of it today?”

“It isn’t confidence. Rather, I know who you are. I’d not wish to be separated from you as well.”

Lace does not swoon. She does have to fight the urge, though. “Fool,” she whispers, with flushed cheeks.

Ayra uses her head to push Hornet forward into Lace. Lace stumbles at the contact, but Hornet catches her. Her limbs are sharp as always, but Hornet has never let that hurt Lace. Her touches are always precise and soft.

“Careful,” Hornet hums.

Lace shakes her head, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Like a charming villain,” Lace groans.  

Hornet tilts up Lace’s chin with a paw. She kisses Lace softly, the taste of her on her mask a warm nectar – or perhaps a golden stew.

When Hornet pulls away, Lace follows her closely. “Come,” Hornet says, leading Lace along with her to Ayra’s side.

“Shall we go save your life?”

“Not yet,” Hornet climbs up onto Ayra and holds out a paw. “A little detour, first.”

“Oh?” Lace giggles. “Well, I suppose I’ll come along.”

Lace slides her hand around the centre of Hornet’s shell. Her heart sits full in her shell, every moment close to Hornet causing it to swell further.

-

The two of them don’t go far into the Blasted Steps, but from what Lace can tell, it hasn’t changed much in the wake of the collapse of Pharloom. The towering pillars and platforms that had provided the perfect vantage point for Lace to pick off weaklings in her years-long watch over the land still stand, as do the Judges standing sentinel on the path up to the Citadel. The main difference that Lace can tell comes from the noise – the place’s typical churning sound from under the sand is replaced with screaming.

Bits of stone, broken off from the grand structures and covered in dead, faded silk, collapse and sink into the sand. Deadened husks of bugs, once subsumed in void and silk both, are thrown into the sand by the slow decay of the land.

The Sandcarvers burrowing beneath the sand try to eat the waste. Whether it’s the deadened silk, the hard stone material making up the structures, or the last vestiges of hollow void that sapped everything from the husks, for whatever reason, the Sandcarvers are unable to eat.

Their screams echo from the sand below all the way up to the Bellway.

Lace shivers.

“Why are we here? This place has been barren since long before you arrived.”

“Barren is what we’re searching for. It attracts those not suited for the company of pilgrims or the townspeople.”

“We’re seeking out the bottom of the barrel? You certainly know how to plan a date,” Lace giggles.

“There’s a vendor in an alcove above us. He’s a thief who I had encountered on my travels through Pharloom, though I’d not call meeting him a date.”

“A bug from the slab, then? I put my share of criminals back there in the past, you know.”

Hornet sighs. She readies her needle with a flourish of silk. “He is a snitchfly, and he stocks his wares through trading with others of his kind. If there is one who will have Phantom’s belongings, it will be him.”

Lace’s easy mood evaporates in an instant. It’s replaced by a hollow feeling in her shell – one she’s gotten used to feeling when she thinks of her failure to keep Phantom’s memory preserved. Her hands begin to shake. Hornet notices, her eyes locked onto the subtle wobbling of the pin in Lace’s hands.

“Then I suppose we’re going shopping,” Lace’s voice is little more than a growl.

Hornet nods. She dashes out of the bellway and into the wider Blasted Steps through a narrow tunnel with red stones that look more like coral breaking through the stone. Hornet leaps up, climbing onto the wall and using it as leverage to jump higher.

Lace follows Hornet. Her jumps are shorter, and she doesn’t have Hornet’s winged cloak to help her with vertical distance, but at the same time she keeps up. Her legs are strong now; her prosthetic leaves deep cuts in the stone as she leaps, enabling her to maintain a fast pace of wall-jumps that the her of a week ago could only dream of.

As a testament to that, Hornet never even looks back to ensure Lace is following. Her heart swells with pride – but only for a moment.

Hornet lands on a platform leading to a cave with an orange advertisement board outside of it. The state of the board seems to give her pause, however. It’s been torn to pieces and left on the ground, as if hastily disassembled by a bug uncaring of appearances.

Hornet holds out a paw to stop Lace from stalking in.

“Careful. An ambush could easily lie in wait.”

Lace scoffs, but she lets Hornet take the lead.

Hornet walks into the cave quietly, her needle held at the ready. She scans the bottom of the cave with a discerning eye, only moving forward when she’s certain there’s no bug lying in wait in the shadows.

Lace follows, her pin in one hand and Shakra’s ring in the other.

Hornet, seemingly satisfied, leaps up when she reaches the centre of the room. Her wings unfurl to push her up to the ledge above.

Hornet disappears from view for a moment. Her steps are barely audible in the room above, but in the otherwise total silence, Lace latches onto the sound.

Hornet sighs. A thread of silk comes down for Lace to hold onto. Hornet pulls Lace up into the room above with nary a grunt.

While the cave could’ve been a shop at one point, it certainly isn’t one anymore. There are countless boxes littering the room, turned over and emptied hastily. There are strings of rosaries hanging from the roof of the cave, though the rosaries themselves have all been picked clean, leaving just the knotted strings. In the centre of the room, there’s a sign made of shellwood stuck into the ground with a message scrawled over it in black ink.

No honour among thieves, fancy bug?

“He must’ve assumed that you would not be open to trading,” Hornet says. “Perhaps he was warned by the bug I failed to kill.”  

Lace clenches her hand into a fist. Her claws scratch at the silk making up her hand. She unclenches and breathes.

Like a thread of silk too frayed to survive, something snaps in Lace. She lets out a shriek of rage and lashes out, swinging her prosthetic leg in a vicious kick. The blade of her leg cuts the sign in half.

“He assumed right. I would’ve killed him where he stood, and any fool who dared stand with him. And then I would’ve hunted down the weak little ingrate who sold him Phantom’s things-” Lace cuts herself off.

Hornet’s paw on her shell doesn’t do much to calm the tempest in her shell.

“I am sorry,” Hornet tells her.

“I just- how dare he!” Lace stomps on the sign with her leg, stabbing into the wood with the blade again and again.

When she finishes, she’s breathing heavily and painfully. Her shell feels like it’s being squeezed in a vice.

“We should leave this place,” Lace grits out.

“Lace,” Hornet tries.

“I know. I… Let’s just get out of here. We have more important things to worry about.”

Lace stomps off, Hornet’s sad stare burning a hole through the back of her shell.

-

Lace has never seen the interior of a Weavenest before. In the past, she had tried all manner of methods of forcing the doors open to no avail.

Once, it had been her mother’s wish for Lace to stay far away from the nests buried at the edges of the world. Lace had obeyed for a time, but as Pharloom fell further apart, Lace had been motivated to peer deeper into her mother’s first set of failures – if only for the chance at becoming the white knight she’d always dreamed of being.

But the doors had never opened for her, and Lace was left an outsider, powerless to truly do anything but wait.

Now, things are different. Lace can sit back and watch as Hornet opens the doors with a few plucks of the strings on her Needolin.

The ease by which Hornet is able to… accomplish things around Pharloom still rankles Lace – it’s a festering type of feeling, one that burrows in her like a parasite and refuses to leave, regardless of how ashamed of it she is. In Bellhart, the feeling had begun to fade; as much as she rolled her eyes at the thought of it, it felt nice living in the town. Ignoring the greeter in the centre of Bellhart, sparring with Shakra, waking up next to Hornet; it had felt like community.

Now, being exposed to the cavern between them feels like being doused in cold water.

In all her years, Lace could never liberate the people of Pharloom from their suffering. Hornet had done all that and more in a fraction of the time.

But Hornet is hurting as well, and Lace knows she isn’t being fair. She’s jealous and ashamed of it at the same time, a feeling that forms a pit in her shell. If she could just help Hornet, do anything like what Hornet had done for her-

But with every Weavenest they visit, that prospect looks increasingly out of reach.

They start high, with Hornet leading Lace through the winding course that leads up to the peak of Mount Fay. Hornet’s silk is the only way for them to ascend the mountain, which means more time for Lace to spend being carried in Hornet’s grasp.

Normally, Lace would enjoy being pampered, especially when the one doing the pampering is Hornet. It just feels wrong this time.

Lace hates the thought of causing Hornet even more stress than what she was going through already. She hates seeing Hornet bent over in exhaustion, taking longer and longer breaks to let her silk regenerate. She hates not being able to do anything.

All of that effort on Hornet’s part, and it comes to nothing. There’s nothing in the wreckage of Mount Fay’s Weavenest that could help Hornet. Not even the odd forge-looking apparatus that Hornet seems familiar with, though Lace spends what feels like hours scrounging through the faded schematics scattered over that room.

They agree that anything that could’ve once helped Hornet had been worn away by the icy wind long ago.

They proceed slowly down Pharloom’s heights, stopping for Hornet’s music to open up another door to a Weavenest, and another opportunity for salvation.

Each time they’re met with nothing but ruins and faded silk. The Weavers have countless schematics and plans kept stored in little alcoves and drawers. There are old prayers written for Lace’s mother, tucked far away in the deepest recesses of storage areas or scrawled over with plots of rebellion. Old weapons, maps, plans for a civilisation from long ago clutter the rooms – but nothing to help Hornet.

There’s not a single word on a Weaver being blocked from weaving their own silk.

For all their research and power, for all they foresaw in Pharloom’s future, the Weavers left nothing for their daughter who returned.

Lace doesn’t truly begin to lose hope until she sees Hornet’s needle shaking in her grasp.

-

Weavenest Atla is the largest of all the Weavenests they’ve searched through. For that reason, it gives Lace a flicker of hope – that perhaps, somehow, the miracle cure to Hornet’s affliction was sitting right under them, at the entrance to Pharloom.

The two of them navigate through the maze of tunnels slowly, scanning through every nook and cranny. This Weavenest seems to have been a place of resistance – many of the schematics the two of them find resemble traps and bindings intended to immobilise and kill. While Hornet tucks a few of the designs away for herself, Lace can’t help but scoff. The idea of binding her mother in silk is just laughable.

They come to a room with more machinery in it than most. There’s a delicate looking apparatus attached to the wall with strong threads of silk binding it together. Ethereal, pale white strands surround a dip in the floor below the machinery with a platform in the middle. There’s a silk spool in the centre of the room, larger than any Lace has seen before outside her mother’s domain. It connects to both the white lights and the machinery, creating a subtle whirr of power in the lighting and the platform.

“The path splits here,” Hornet stops Lace in front of the circular platform with white light radiating from it.

“I believe I can handle myself for a few moments, Hornet,” Lace quips. It falls flat when Hornet’s only response is to squeeze Lace’s hand with her paw.

“I understand,” Hornet nods.

Lace wants to comfort her; she wants to say anything, really, but what is there to say? Should this place be empty, like everywhere else they’ve been searching through has been, what hope remains?

“I’ll join you at the bottom when I’m finished,” Lace tells her instead.

Hornet nods. She steps onto the platform under the light. There’s a beat, and then Hornet is transported down to the bottom of the Weavenest.

Lace sighs. She shakes her head hard enough for it to hurt.

Lace kneels on her silk leg, beginning her search for information low on the shelves of dusty relics.

The entire time, her mind is elsewhere.

If Hornet’s affliction kept getting worse – if whatever was eating away at her from the inside like acid kept burning, kept taking, what would happen?

Silk is an indelible part of a Weaver. Lace can see it in everything around her, in the Weavenests that write endlessly of the applications for silk, and in the structures so clearly reliant on the material to hold them up. What would Hornet be left with when her affliction had its fill? Would it move on to her shell? Take everything from her save for a mask and a weapon, just like Phantom?

Another thought strikes Lace. If Hornet lost her weaving, would there be anybody able to replenish Lace’s silk if she was injured?

Lace laughs bitterly. Truly, their fates were entwined.

The shelf she’s searching through comes up empty. Lace sighs angrily and moves on to the next one, anxiety causing a tremor to run through her hands.

-

The bottom of Weavenest Atla reminds Lace of a hollowed-out shell. There are pale white lights illuminating the belly of the nest, revealing shattered structures and empty husks littering the floor. The husks are newer than the rest of the wreckage – likely bugs that had filed in from the Moss Grotto, seeking refuge from the collapse of Pharloom only to be taken by the void-ridden threads of silk.

Lace eyes the path that leads out of the nest and into the green foliage of the Moss Grotto, and then the smashed open hole in the wall that leads deeper in.

Lace’s feet carry her further into the depths. Her prosthetic screeches as she slides down the metallic walls, the blade cutting into the material. The mystical white lights that had seemed to hover on their own above any contraption or power source fade away, as do the scuttling automatons that have roamed all the Weavenests before it.

Lace finds Hornet crouched at what resembles a cocoon – though it certainly isn’t, given that it’s been created out of entirely Weaver technology and has been shattered open, with pieces of it laying splattered over the floor.

Lace sits next to Hornet, recognising the mournful look in her eyes for what it is – another failure.

“My mother never knew of this place,” Lace breaks the quiet. “Or, if she did, she never told me.”

“That was the intention. A place away from your mother, to cultivate their own means of resistance.” Hornet nods her mask towards the broken cocoon in front of them.

A beat passes with the two of them staring silently.

“What was it?”

“She was Eva, a being created by the Weavers to mimic divinity.”

“I suppose it didn’t work?”

“Though the weight of ages past took its toll on her mind, this she was sure of. Her existence, and every other attempt by the Weavers, ended in failure.”

“How quaint,” Lace tuts.

Hornet sighs. “She lives now only in my mind.”

Lace assumes it to be another one of Hornet’s dramatic turns of phrases, until she catches the look in Hornet’s eyes shift to grieving.

“She lives in you?”

“She wished for a chance to experience an unbound life, away from solitude and bondage. I was willing to grant it.”

“Again with the wishes,” Lace mumbles, though she does so with a grin. “I’m going to ignore that you have another woman on your mind, dear Hornet. Tell me, what does it mean to live within another?”

“There is… a song that I hear. In the quiet moments along the path, when I have been tested by the dangers of your kingdom, I can hear Eva’s song. If I focus on the sound in my mind, my wounds will heal and my silk will be rejuvenated, all through no effort of my own.”

Lace nods. It’s an impressive story, but Lace can tell through Hornet’s mannerisms that there’s more to be told. “And yet?” she prompts.

“And yet, that song is out of reach for me now. I hadn’t realised until we began our trip around Pharloom into the Weavenests, but her song is muted. There is no true restoration for me, not through her will or my own.”

Of course. That lingering wound, that blight that lives within Hornet’s shell. Lace stares at the wreckage of Eva’s cocoon, her glare filled with malice.

“…For all our travels across Pharloom, do either of us possess any inkling of an idea of something that could cure you?”

“We do not,” Hornet sighs.

“What are we even searching for, Hornet?”

“I don’t know.”

The admission kills something in Lace’s shell – a fragile little hope she’d been keeping despite all the things warning her otherwise, like stoking a fire at the summit of Mount Fay – and the realisation that Hornet really could die grips her, shooting fear all through her veins.

Lace slips her hand into Hornet’s paw. The contact is a comfort, but not enough to stand against the tsunami of rising fear.

 “What’s wrong with you?” Lace asks through a tight throat.

Hornet breathes in and out, her paws stroking the silk on Lace’s hand.

“Do you remember when I told you of our escape from the bottom of the void? How I exhausted not only my own power, but your mother’s as well, and still it wasn’t enough?”

“I have not forgotten, no matter how I have tried to,” Lace laughs coldly. At the well of all her doubts sits a voice that speaks like her mother. It reminds her that no matter what she does, she’ll always look like her, remind others of her, walk differently because of her. With that comes the knowledge that her mother had tried to protect her – and failed. There was no erasing that from her mind, even as she grows stronger.  

Hornet’s squeezes her hand sympathetically.

“I believe in that vacuum, where I expended all of myself and more, it left a vulnerability in my shell. One that should not have existed in a being such as myself, yet in my weakened state it did. Whether it was a sibling that sensed my weakness and tried to help, or simply how the void flowed when the Everbloom fell from my paws, it was void that filled that hole in me.”

Of course, Lace thinks. She had seen the dripping blackness leave Hornet from her injury in the Exhaust Organ, but she had been so fixated on Phantom that she hadn’t thought about it beyond that.

“It was barely more than a drop, yet it wreaks havoc on my shell from within,” Hornet continues. “I believe it is what has been interrupting my connection with my soul, my ability to weave silk, and with Eva.”

“So, if we get this void out of you, you’ll be fine?”

“Yes. If my shell is able to produce silk again, I will be able to heal the damage. A combination of my unique bearing, along with the fact that the void now lies dormant, rather than writhing as it was when it grasped you, means I am sure of it. I’m certain if my shell were weaker, the void would have receded to the ocean below on its own, ripping itself out of me.”

It all sounds good – but Lace isn’t a fool. She remembers how they had to treat her own void-related injury.

“So, to get the void out, we simply have to amputate your entire shell, then?” Lace asks bitterly.

Hornet is silent. She stares into Eva’s broken cocoon.

“I can’t believe this. We’ve been searching these filthy nests for little more than a pipe dream. Why don’t we just travel back up to the Cradle and start praying? Perhaps it’ll be a smarter solution than what you have.”

Lace snatches her hand from Hornet’s paw. She stands and begins pacing the room, kicking at the shards of glass littering the ground and scattering them into the dark.

Hornet remains infuriatingly silent. “What?” Lace demands. “Say something.”

Hornet breathes shakily. “If we allow the void to remain within me, it will wear away at everything. My silk, my mind, my shell – all until it can return to the ocean below.”

“We’re not letting it stay in you,” Lace snaps. “Tell me, spider, why do you sound so scared? You told me you didn’t fear it anymore. Was it all a lie?”

“Of course it wasn’t.” Hornet sounds shocked.

“Well, it certainly sounds like it, spider-“

“Lace!” Hornet interrupts, her voice as furious as Lace has ever heard it. Hornet’s paws clutch at Lace’s arms, holding them tightly – and it’s only then that Lace realises her arms are shaking. Her whole body is.

The thought of Hornet dying paralyses Lace.

“Spider-“

“Strength is worthless if you give into fear at the first sight of it. My name is Hornet, and I enjoy hearing it from your lips.”

Lace breathes through the vice around her lungs that turns every breath raspy and rapid. It feels like there’s a knot in her heart, squeezing her until she could unravel.

“Hornet,” Lace whispers, her frustration releasing and turning into exhaustion, the horrible feeling enshrouding her mind passing.

Hornet gathers Lace’s hands up in one of her paws, and then she cups Lace’s cheek with her other paw.

“Lace, know that I do not fear the void; not anymore. What I fear now is what it could take from me. I fear losing this world that we could build together. I fear losing you.”

Lace whimpers pathetically, the straining in her shell wounding her. Hornet wipes at her cheek – tears, Lace faintly registers – and then she presses her mask to Lace’s forehead.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” Lace whispers.

“You would survive,” Hornet answers, voice strong as steel.

“Surviving is different from living,” Lace shuts her eyes. “My silk will not replenish itself. This you know, even if you don’t wish to accept it.”

“You would find a way.”

“Like we’re doing now?” Lace rasps.

Hornet is silent. Lace pushes her head forward, seeking any comfort.

“We have two options,” Hornet declares, the black of her eyes resolute.

“Tell me.”

“We return to the Abyss. There is one last Weavenest down there – one last opportunity to uncover a method to restoring my silk and burying the void that lives within.”

It doesn’t sound promising, but Lace will take anything at this point.

“What’s the other option?”

Hornet closes her eyes.

“There are substances capable of resisting the void. The Everbloom was one, though that option remains out of reach. If we could find another, perhaps I could use it to gather the void within and remove it from my shell. The healing process would be more taxing, and there would likely be more danger involved, but-“

Lace scoffs. “The entire kingdom almost collapsed in mere days under the influence of the void. What power exists within our fallen little home that could resist that?”

Even as Lace says it, she can think of one. But the thought itself pains her, terribly, and so she refuses to acknowledge it.

Hornet presses a gentle kiss to Lace’s cheek.

“Your mother’s silk,” she whispers, her paws holding Lace tightly, as if in apology. “When she used it to protect you and herself, under the sea of void, it was able to resist-“

“I know.” Lace leans into Hornet’s cloak. With her eyes shut, Lace tries to imagine a life spent alone, wandering Pharloom like she had done for so many years before.  

Lace finds that she can’t imagine it at all.

-

In the end, the decision is easy. Lace’s mother terrifies her, even after all she’s gone through and everything she’s done.

But for as much as her fear still grips her, it can no longer control her. Even if she slips up, it won’t last. That’s something she’s been certain of, ever since she learned how to walk again. Weavenest Atla brought that fear back to the surface, but the hold on her didn’t last.

Lace and Hornet travel from the depths of Pharloom all the way up to the highest peak. They do it quietly and quickly, working as a team on the way up.

It’s the first time Lace has returned to the Cradle since she betrayed her mother and brought them both down into the Abyss. The place is even more decrepit than she remembers, but that doesn’t bother her.

If anything, Lace prefers it destroyed. There’s no hiding the hideous underbelly to it all like this. Every scalding blast of steam and layer of razor-sharp spikes is a reminder of every little lie her mother told, every thread she pulled to manipulate and control.

Grandeur doesn’t mean anything to Lace anymore – not when this is what it looks like when everything gets pulled away.

Hornet comes to a stop in the middle of a collapsed tunnel. She gestures wordlessly at Lace; her eyes focused with determination.

The two of them take their places on the floor, Lace lying down on the most comfortable spot she can find while Hornet leans against the wall, her Needolin held in her lap.

“Remind me of the plan would you, dear Hornet?” Lace breaks the tense silence.

Hornet shifts the Needolin at a lower angle than she usually holds it.

“When the time comes, you will need to recall what the Cradle once was. Remember how it appeared in a time long past, when your mother’s silk was in abundance and the workshops used to create you and your sibling were in operation.”

Lace feels anxiety grip her once again. She reaches a hand out.

Hornet takes the hand in her paw. She meets Lace’s eyes, her confidence reflecting on Lace.

When Hornet looks at her like this, how can Lace not believe?

“I will play the Elegy of the Deep. My Needolin will transport the both of us into the memory of the Cradle. We’ll delve into the workshops, steal back a Silk Heart for me – one imbued with your mother’s power – and then we’ll return and remove the void within, using her power to heal me.”

Lace lets out a heavy breath. “It’s idiotic at best.”

“I have already bested your mother once. Do you think I cannot do it again?”

Lace laughs. “When you faced my mother previously, she had spread her power thin to cover all of Pharloom in the Haunting. Now, she is in her prime, and you are weakened in her stead.”

“Experience is the best teacher, and I have plenty in killing gods.”

“Experience tells me that our best option should we face my mother is to run and pray. None of your bothersome confidence will change that.”

“You enjoy my confidence. I can tell.”

Lace blushes. “Stop flirting. We’re supposed to be serious.”

Hornet hums. “It was an attempt to distract you. It seemed to work last time, in the Exhaust Organ.”

Lace’s mouth hangs open dumbly for a moment. She hadn’t been expecting… that.

“It… did work.”

Hornet squeezes Lace’s hand. “Good.”

“Thank you, Hornet. For everything.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to thank me when we return,” Hornet nods at her. “Now, close your eyes.”

Hornet pulls her paw away. Lace rests her head on the floor and closes her eyes.

Hornet’s music begins to fill the room like the steady flow of a clear and beautiful river. The sound beckons Lace to look into her own mind, to recall all that once was, and to experience the past, for one last time.

As the music sweeps her mind away in a tide of silk, Lace lets herself remember.

--

Long ago, Pharloom’s heart had been open. Not to every bug – Lace’s mother would never allow the wicked and degenerate near her, of course – but to the particularly pious, to the ones holy and willing enough to believe entirely in the Grand Mother Silk, the Cradle was once open to walk through for her most devout to serve her personally.

The devout had walked under pale light, their masks eternally covered, demonstrating their obedience to the higher being above them. Their voices had rung out in harmony, singing hymns that echoed through the Cradle, eventually reaching the Citadel below. They had trotted back and forth, ringing bells while singing across platforms that were whole, long before Lace’s mother had transformed the Cradle into little more than a deathtrap for all but herself. The devout would carry buckets filled with silk that shimmered powerfully in the light, delivering them to workshops built into the Cradle’s walls.

The workshops were in fluctuating use – kept barren and quiet until the moment inspiration struck, and then there would be a whirlwind of movement from all the devout as another silken being would attempt to be brought into life.

After another failure, the workshops would be shut down. They would only become active again when it was time for another attempt.

In the present, the workshops had been hidden away, covered by silk and stone to hide them away after too many failures. The devout had all been chased away from the Cradle, spurned by their god and used for their silk. The ones who survived left warnings for others, before eventually being taken by the Haunting themselves.

Only Lace remained from that time, taking on her duty as the sole knight of Pharloom. The songs the devout sung died out, remembered only in cylinders of music. Even the Cradle eventually crumbled, and the silk that held her mother’s kingdom together faded.

Lace is the only thing that remains, and she never wanted to go back.

But Lace won’t run anymore. There’s nothing that’ll stop her from living her life – even the memory of her mother, made as real as it once was.

When Lace opens her eyes, she sees the Cradle, in all the former glory it once held. Before Pharloom collapsed and her mother used silk to ensnare the world.

When Phantom and Lace had been allowed to walk their mother’s halls, side by side.

It’s a chilling feeling, to see it all become reality again right in front of her eyes.

Pale light shines down on Lace’s head. In here, her mother’s gaze is unavoidable. It scorches her like she’s standing in lava.

Hornet stands at her side. “This was your home?”

“Once, it was. Though it never felt like one. There’s no getting away from mother up here.”

Hornet takes in the gaudy white structures and golden lined cloths. She steps into the pale light, her cloak illuminated in the glow from above.

“In my experience, it is not the structure that makes a home, but rather the bugs within it.”

Lace laughs. “I’m inclined to agree. This place was much more bearable before Phantom was banished.”

“Phantom once lived here as well?”

“Yes,” Lace sighs. “It may surprise you to know that my sibling and I were not born failures. Truthfully, mother was quite loving when we were young.”

And Lace spent countless years futilely chasing that love. Never again, Lace vows.

Hornet takes Lace’s hand in her paw. “Remember, if things go bad, you save yourself. My death will only end the memory – yours will kill you in the real world as well.”

Lace nods. She shakes out her arms and readies her pin and Shakra’s ring. “Shall we, my dear?”

Fear won’t keep her down. Together, Hornet and Lace step forward into the memory.

-

Lace’s prosthetic scrapes against the polished floor. Every step leaves a scratch on the ground behind her.

A passing group of devotees – one of the rare few to be allowed into the Cradle – glares at Lace for the scratches she leaves. Then they realise who she is.

“Lady Lace!” The ringleader yells. “My deepest apologies for my transgressions. I didn’t realise you had-“

It takes Lace a moment to find her voice. She has to reach deeper, search for that cruel, mocking tone she had grown so proficient in over the years. Her posture shifts and her eyes narrow.

“Quiet, fool! Is there a special occasion, or was it your own judgement to speak with me?”

“Mine! The mistake was mine! Please, have mercy on me!” The bug falls to his knees and touches his mask to the floor.

“Pitiful,” Lace cackles. “Don’t even think about bothering me for the rest of the day, lest I inform my mother of your sins. Tell the other bugs too, and be quick about it!”

Lace watches him scamper off with the other devotees behind him. When he’s out of sight, she releases a breath. Her posture shifts back to a more relaxed stance.

“They called you ‘Lady Lace?’” Hornet asks from her side.

Lace scoffs. “I’m a princess in this time. I’d be well within my rights to have him executed for disrespect.”

“Would you have?”

“…I preferred doing my own work.”

Hornet rolls her eyes. She steps forward out into the wider Cradle and looks up. Above them, where in the present there would be spiked platforms and cut-off paths to make the ascension up to Lace’s mother difficult – if not impossible – now, in the past, there are silken platforms that connect the two sides together. The woven platforms are strong and solid, yet they leave enough room for the pale light from high above to shine through them.

Lace’s mother can’t be seen. There’s a blurry mess of incomprehensible whites and golds up at the top of the Cradle and beneath the light, but it’s formless and indistinct, like looking through water.

“You don’t remember your mother?”

“Perhaps I simply don’t wish to,” Lace grits out.

It’s not like it matters. Her mother could never leave her – evidenced enough by the hanging silk threads connected to everything in the Cradle, twitching as if they’re breathing. Their trails lead up to the top of the Cradle, the threads disappearing in the light.  

Her mother was always watching.

“The workshops are above us, I assume?”

Before Lace can answer, a familiar voice interrupts from just behind Lace.

“And why would my sister tell you that, spider?”

Hornet already has her needle held at the ready before they’re finished speaking.

Lace turns far slower. She’d had a feeling, but she didn’t expect them to seek her out so soon-

“Phantom?” She asks shakily.

“Sister. You test mother’s patience by bringing a spider into our home.”

Lace looks at Phantom properly. Their outfit is white, and their mask is whole. Even as they shift, they don’t need to adjust it to stay on their face.

Lace opens her mouth. When her mind supplies her with nothing, she closes it. She had been hoping to have more time to prepare, or to at least see Phantom first- anything that wasn’t this.

“I…” Lace’s throat bobs.

Phantom ghosts a hand over their longpin the moment Hornet takes a step towards Lace. They move easily, fluidly, like an acrobat ready for a performance.

It’s so odd, seeing Phantom unblemished, unbroken by their mother and their own deterioration. Lace hadn’t been there at the end – something she’ll likely regret for the rest of her life – but she had seen how it had worn on them.

Seeing Phantom now just puts it into perspective.

“I’m sorry,” Lace whispers, her voice cracking.

Phantom tilts their head. “Sister?”

Hornet ignores Phantom’s threat and takes a step toward Lace. Phantom readies themself for a fight, their shell tensing and their hand grasping the longpin. Lace panics, stepping forward to stop whatever confrontation is brewing. She’s just gotten her sibling back, she won’t-

Lace’s prosthetic scratches against the floor as she moves. Phantom’s eyes dip and trace the limb, something unrecognisable in their eyes.

“I see,” Phantom hums. “I’m sure you have good reason for bringing her here.”

Phantom meets Lace’s eyes one last time. Then their shell bends – flexibility on a level that Phantom had lost long ago since Lace last saw them in the Exhaust Organ – and then they take a giant leap, disappearing into the towering woven structures above.

“They know something’s wrong,” Lace whispers. “They noticed the prosthetic.”

Hornet nods. “We will need to hurry.”

“If Phantom raises the alarm there’s no chance we get out of here. My mother won’t let us just leave.”

Hornet is quiet for a moment. “You should stay behind, then.”

“What?”

“If things go wrong-“

“I’m not leaving you-“

“You are not.” Hornet’s voice tightens. “That isn’t what this is.”

“Then what is it, Hornet?” Lace shakes with anger.

“It is the safest option. A guarantee that we both survive. Your death is the only thing permanent from this expedition. Do not make it true through your own actions.”

“You’re a fool,” Lace tells her. She turns away from Hornet. Tears threaten to prick at her eyes.

The first chance she has to return all the goodwill that Hornet has gifted her with, and she’s being asked to return it by watching as Hornet does all the work. Again.

“Please trust me,” Hornet’s paws come to rest on Lace’s shoulders. “Lace,” Hornet begs.

The moment passes without resolution. Hornet takes her paws off Lace. She sighs. “If things go wrong, return to the spot we both woke in. Hum the melody I played to bring us into the memory and strum the silk on your arm. We will both return to the present.”

“You don’t even know where the workshops are.”

“Phantom would not have interrupted if my guess was wrong, correct?”

Lace nods. She tries to speak properly, but no matter her efforts, her voice cracks. “And if humming the melody doesn’t work?”

“…Wait for me to die.”

Lace only turns back once she’s sure Hornet has left her, her form receding into a red blight on the white landscape ahead.

-

Of course, Lace doesn’t listen to Hornet. Once she’s sure Hornet is gone, she traces the steps she had once taken in her youth when she had ascended the Cradle.

It’s an odd feeling, walking through a memory. She’ll recall an inkling of the past – a step off the beaten path, or a little cubby she had found as a child – and like blowing mist away, the path will suddenly become clear in front of her.

Lace’s climb up the Cradle eventually gives her a vantage point over Hornet’s journey from a forgotten little platform once used for the Choir to lead their songs from. It had fallen out of use once the need for direction faded. After all, if the faithful were always singing, there was no need for someone to lead.

From the spot, Lace watches Hornet’s journey. She’s already searched through one of the workshops for anything that could help her, but she’d walked out with nothing but a haunted look in her eyes. Lace could guess what sight had greeted her in there.

Dead, empty husks. Woven entirely of silk, yet all that remained was the dregs. Prototypes and attempts at improvement, failures upon failures. Lace had always hated the workshops, and this was the one thing she remembered clearly. What she could have been, had her mother made a single mistake when weaving her.

The only thing that shadows that pervasive memory is the one of the Silk Heart.

It had been a wonder to gaze upon its radiant light. Her mother had guided her to look at it, and then she had whispered in Lace’s ear a melody played in silk, that would eventually be played for all bugs across the world, even those who weren’t holy enough to live in Pharloom.

Hornet’s journey across the silken bridges takes her to another of the workshops built into the walls of the Cradle. She kicks open the door, scattering the few devotees working on whatever ongoing project was just past the doors.

Lace can’t see the inside of the workshop, but she has a feeling this was the one they were searching for. Pale light spills from the workshop, signifying something higher just inside the door. Suddenly, the light disappears.

Hornet steps out of the workshop. Her form looks solid, stronger – not at all like the tired lean Lace has gotten used to seeing as of late. With a flourish, she summons a strong thread of silk that shines bright with a powerful light.

Despite her anger, Lace can’t help but smile. The feeling is short lived.

The moment that Hornet attempts to leave, the silk that stems from the blocked-out memory of Lace’s mother, clinging to the walls of the Cradle, springs to life.

The first thread wraps around Hornet’s throat. Hornet tears through it with her needle, but another thread ensnares her paw. Hornet begins stabbing and thrashing wildly, but the threads simply keep coming. One takes hold of her needle, ripping it from her grasp. Another binds her paws together, keeping her from fighting back.

Hornet’s silk spreads out in a storm around her, igniting with power. The light it creates is blinding, one that Lace hasn’t seen since she fought Hornet in the Cradle of the present. It isn’t enough to destroy the silk holding her down.

The threads pull her down to the floor. One wraps tightly around her throat, fully immobilising her. Lace watches as the threads that hold her begin pulling her away, up and up, until Lace can’t see her anymore.

Lace stands from her spot, her mouth tasting like ash. In a haze, she runs through the plan. Retreat to the spot we awoke in. Hum the melody. Return to the present.

The ground rattles as a figure lands behind her from above. Lace whips around, her pin and Shakra’s ring held at the ready.

Phantom stares back at her, their own longpin pointed at Lace’s throat.

-

“What did you do?” Lace growls.

“Besides confront the imposter wearing my sister’s face? Nothing at all.”

“Why lie, sibling? All it took was a glance at my new leg, and you run back to dearest mother? Tell on us like squabbling children on the playground?”

“I did no such thing, and you are a fool for suggesting it.”

“Then why did mother take her away!”

Phantom’s eyes narrow. “Mother sees us all in here. Did you really think that spider could steal from us and get away?”

“She’s done it before-“ Lace cuts herself off too late. It’s hard to think like this – not when she’d seen Hornet immobilised and taken, just like so many other victims to her mother’s cruelty in the past. Fear haunts her, reminds her of all her mother would have done to those who had wronged her.

“Who are you, fake sister?” Phantom asks.

It occurs to Lace that, if she wants to live, Phantom might be her only hope. And what an end that would be – skewered by her sibling under the looming shadow of her mother. Lace could almost laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic, to come all this way and die like that.

“What is it that you want to know, sibling?” Lace asks, with her chest tight.

“How is it that you look so much like her?”

“Because I am her, Phantom. Not in the form you know, perhaps, but I am your sister. Mother spun my threads, just as she did yours.”

Phantom hums. “Magic, then? A silken mimicry of my sister’s form?”

“Come now, Phantom. I’m here, aren’t I? How else would I enter the Cradle?”

“Your form may be recognised-“

“We trained here, every day in the Cradle. We did it to become the greatest tools to our mother. We believed in her vision for the world. You always called me lucky.”

At the sound of the childhood nickname, Phantom’s gaze loses the killing intent behind it. Phantom is silent for a moment. They stare at Lace, eyes unreadable.

“You say that like you don’t believe in mother anymore.”

Lace forces herself to smirk.

“I have better things to believe in.”

“…What is this?” Phantom lowers their longpin.

“This world isn’t real. We’re in a memory of mine from long ago. That spider – Hornet – is suffering, and I intend to help her by any means necessary.  If that meant returning to this time, then I was willing to brave it.”

“Long ago,” Phantom ponders. “How long?”

“Longer than you can imagine.”

Phantom sighs. They look over the little platform to where Hornet was taken from. Then they turn back to Lace.

“You blaspheme, sister. The Lace I know would never.”

Lace moves in close to Phantom. “Mother never treated us right. She never deserved our loyalty. Help me escape, sister. Please.”

Phantom is quiet for a moment. “Devotion, like fire, burns ever upward,” they recite like a mantra.

“Devotion will burn you until there’s nothing left. Trust in the future that I have seen.”

Phantom wobbles. They stare out at the Cradle, gazing over the majestic peak of the land. “Mother has… begun to neglect me. She looks at me like I’m nothing, if she even looks at me at all. It’s the only reason I’m here. Her silk chooses not to watch me.”

Lace puts her hand on Phantom’s shoulder. “I know,” she whispers.

Phantom closes their eyes. Their hand covers Lace’s. “What happened to your leg, sister?”

“I was touched by a foul presence in the lowest depths of our kingdom. Mother was… indisposed, and unable to heal my silk.”

She’s still wary of speaking too much of the future to Phantom. At this point in their lives, Phantom’s loyalty is unquestionable – all Lace can do is hope Phantom would help Lace over their mother.

“Who healed you?”

Lace’s face tightens. “Hornet.”

Phantom stares down at the bridge below where Hornet had disappeared from. There’s a pack of devotee bugs patrolling the area. “I will help you, sister.”

Lace lets out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Thank you. Phantom, I-“

“Don’t tell me any more about the future. I… I’m not sure how much of it I can bear.”

Lace nods. Phantom steps away from her, priming themselves for a leap. “I will pull the devotees away. When the path is open, leave this place. I don’t know what you intend to do, but you and I both know the safest place to be is far from here.”

Before Phantom can leave, Lace reaches a hand out. “Wait!” She stops them.

“Sister?”

It’s something that’s been in her mind ever since they arrived. With the chance in front of her, Lace has to take it.

“Have you been composing your own music?”

“My own-“

“Don’t make this embarrassing, Phantom.”

Phantom smirks. “I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine. That spider – what does she mean to you?”

Lace groans. “Do you really intend on doing this?”

“Come now, sister. If I’m right about how the present may turn out, this may be the only chance I have to tease you about this.”

Lace giggles even as the blush on her face deepens. To see Phantom smiling – how long had it been?

“I… may love her, I suppose.”

Phantom’s eyes widen. They laugh, a deep and joyful sound that rattles from their soul.

“To enchant our fair princess; what could the spider have done?”

Lace scoffs. “Nothing worth speaking about. She’s dishonest and overconfident, and far too easy to annoy.”

“You fell in love with her out of pity, then?” The teasing look in Phantom’s eyes lets Lace know they don’t mean it.

“…She is kind and loyal, and the strongest warrior I have encountered. She believed in me when none in their right mind would have. If not for her, I would not be able to stand here and tell you I am proud of myself.”

The knot in Lace’s chest that had grown so suffocating since she saw Hornet dragged off finally lightens.

She’ll save Hornet. This she can believe in with all her heart.

Phantom hugs Lace. Lace falls into their embrace, burying her head in their silk.

It lasts for far too little time.

“I have been writing my own music. I’ve recorded some on the cylinders if you’d like to hear.”

“Please.”

Phantom smiles. “I’ll seek you out before you leave. Stay safe, sister.”

“You too, Phantom.”

Phantom leaps away into the light, their silk shining brightly.

-

The devotees residing on the silk bridge below slowly filter away. They’re guided by an apparent sighting of an intruder on the higher levels of the Cradle by Phantom. The bugs leave, and they take their song with them.

It’s quiet when Lace makes her descent. She moves through the white halls quickly, her leg scratching at the floor as she goes. The silk above her lies unmoving, suggesting her mother was busy with… something.

Lace’s leg begins to ache. Her muscles burn as she pushes on through the pain. End the memory, she repeats in her mind. Bring Hornet back.

The pale light from above grows dimmer the further down Lace goes. Lace keeps her head down and keeps running.

She only slows down once she sees the source of the memory – a blurry spot in the world, a smudge on the fabric of reality.

And, oddly, the figure in a red cloak blocking her way.

“Hornet?” Lace speaks before she can think better of it.

The figure doesn’t respond. From the back, it looks exactly like Hornet – red cloak, sharp legs with the anklets strapped to them – but something stops Lace.

Nobody could escape from her mother. Not at this point in time.

Lace’s tentative steps forward are the only thing that save her.

For a brief moment, the pale light from above shines on Hornet’s back. In the light, Lace sees countless white threads, coming from high above and connecting under Hornet’s cloak and assumedly directly to her shell.

When Lace sees the threads, she jumps back.

A moment later, Hornet’s needle is cutting through the air where she had been.

“What are you-“

Hornet lets out a primal growl. She straightens while facing Lace, revealing her mask has been concealed – covered by the same white fabric all of Pharloom’s faithful don, emblazoned with the golden insignia of the Citadel.

“Hornet!” Lace yells, her chest burning.

Hornet doesn’t even seem to hear her. She shifts her grip on her needle and slashes at Lace like she’s clawing at her. Lace only barely dodges back.

Hornet pushes the attack relentlessly. She roars like an animal and throws her entire body behind every slash, momentum throwing her shell wayward behind the swings. Lace dodges the first two, but the third – a vicious slash aimed directly for Lace’s throat – is too fast for Lace to avoid. She only just gets her pin in the way, redirecting the slash above her head with a clang of their clashing weapons. Lace uses the opportunity to kick at Hornet’s shell with her silk leg, pushing the spider away and giving her a moment to breathe.

Hornet roars, the sound barely muffled by the mask over her face. The sound rattles Lace’s silk. Even for as horrifying it is, to see Hornet like this, the worst part is that she still sounds like Hornet. Even as the roar pulses through her shell, twisting her limbs and bending her forward at an unnatural angle.

Hornet dashes forward, the silkspeed anklets leaving trails of silk behind her. Lace catches Hornet’s swing with her pin, but she’s forced to dodge when Hornet uses the claw from her other paw to slash at Lace’s centre.

Lace interrupts Hornet’s next move with a stab of her own. The blow doesn’t connect, but it at least gives Lace some breathing room. The next time Hornet tries to dash forward, the extra space Lace is afforded gives her room to dodge easily, gliding along the floor around her.

“Hornet! Wake up you fool!”

Lace dodges a mad dive Hornet takes at her legs. She stabs down at Hornet, but the spider rolls out of the way. She comes up swinging, her needle gleaming a pale light. Lace parries the blow, but one of Hornet’s tools – the weighted belt, Lace curses – keeps her steady, enabling her to deflect Lace’s riposte with a frenzied slash of her needle.

Lace uses the impact to propel herself backwards. She watches as Hornet scratches at her own mask with her claw before letting out an animalistic roar aimed above. She stands nothing like the Hornet Lace knows – instead of quiet, confident poise, this Hornet is panting with a thirst for battle.

Lace laughs haughtily.

“Oh, to hell with it!” Lace lowers her stance. “Why not just have our rematch now?”

Hornet growls.

“How dare you try and leave me behind! How dare you get caught by my mother!”

Hornet stalks forward, weapons bared and aimed to kill.

“I’m going to save us both. I’m going to bring you back, and then you’ll never underestimate me again.”

Hornet lunges forward. Lace dodges to the side. She swings her prosthetic leg in a slashing kick that tears through one of the strands of silk bound to Hornet’s shell.

Hornet roars louder than ever. For a moment, one of her paws reaches for the cloth over her mask, but then in an instant it goes back to her side. Lace’s heart – even energised by the anger she’s using to fuel herself – aches.

“If I kill you in here, the memory ends, correct?” Lace grins, readying herself to react to another mad dash. “Come then, dear Hornet. Let me show you how far I’ve come.”

Hornet’s needle screams as she drags it along the floor. Before she can make it in striking range, something stops her.

Silk in the form of a collar around Hornet’s throat materialises. A strand of silk connected to the collar like a leash pulls taut. It stops Hornet in her place, even as she claws at it.

A familiar figure holds the leash. She steps into the light, a mocking grin on her face.

“Enough, beast,” a younger Lace speaks. “If she’s content to let everything spill, why should we stop her?”

Lace can’t help her laugh. Staring at her past self, how could she not?

-

“My mother came to me with a story today,” the other Lace giggles, twirling the leash between her hands. “Two intruders had seemingly materialised inside our defences. One little wretch slipped away out of sight, while the other tried desperately to steal from us.”

Hornet tugs at the collar around her throat. When it doesn’t yield, she settles for swinging wildly in Lace’s direction.

“Of course, mother had already captured the foolish one. How could a mangy little beast stand against divinity so pure?” The other Lace pulls on the collar, tugging Hornet back to her side. “Would you believe my surprise when mother told me the other intruder wore a face exactly like mine?”

“What have you done to her?” Lace demands.

“Oh!” The other Lace laughs. “You even sound like me, little echo! What a joy, to know the rabble look upon me so favourably. To answer your question; Nothing! She took a Silk Heart of mother’s own make within her! Don’t tell me you really thought she’d be able to resist mother’s influence?”

Lace looks closely at Hornet. Her sharp limbs twitch with a palpable lust for battle, her shell wheezing with effort. The cloth covering her mask only barely muffles her panting breaths.

What a travesty.

“You disgust me,” Lace growls.

The other Lace laughs. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Just a ball of base instincts, held in the palm of my hand. You know, mother mentioned that, with a little refinement, the same technique could be used to extend her control across all Pharloom! Wouldn’t that be such a joy, little echo?”

Lace’s heart chills.

“You know nothing of what you speak of. What is to come-“

“I know exactly what I’m talking about. Mother’s greatness, beheld by all!” The other Lace twirls as if she’s dancing. “Of course, first I have to kill you.”

“Mother is testing you, even now?” Lace laughs, putting as much venom as she can into it. “I won’t kill you. You won’t be worth it for a long time.”

“I have no such reservations,” The other Lace grins maniacally, readying her pin. “Allow me to liberate you from your delusions, pathetic impostor.”

“The only delusion is the one you tell yourself every night – that mother truly cares for you.”

The other Lace’s grin vanishes – but only for a moment. “I’m going to rip that bladed leg of yours from your shell and tear you apart with it,” she giggles.

Then the other Lace releases her grip on the leash. Hornet dashes forward, her needle swinging wildly in a wide arc aimed for Lace’s head. Lace ducks it and retaliates with a stab at Hornet’s centre that only just gets deflected by her needle.

Lace dashes backwards as Hornet follows relentlessly. It’s what Lace has been aiming for – bait Hornet into overextending, use her single-minded aggression as an advantage to prevent the other Lace from having an impact.

But the other Lace has anticipated this. The moment Hornet moves too far forward, the leash attached to her collar goes taut. Hornet is powerless against the collar. With her momentum being stopped so suddenly, she’s knocked painfully to the ground.

Lace is left at a crossroads; capitalise on Hornet’s weakness while she’s recovering, or focus on the other Lace while she has the opportunity?

The indecision costs her. Before she knows it, the other Lace’s pin has punctured the silk on her left arm. She’s only able to avoid a follow-up stab that would’ve disembowelled her by swinging her prosthetic leg wildly.

Lace steps back, her lungs heaving. The other Lace taunts her with a laugh as Hornet clambers to her feet.

“You told me yourself – if the beast dies, this all ends.”

“She is not a beast!” Lace screeches.

The other Lace laughs harder. “I’m going to take my time with you. There’s nobody like me – no matter how many times mother tries to create one. I could never be someone as weak and pathetic as you.”

Lace laughs back. If only the other Lace could’ve known – but how could she? Everything that she’s been through has taught her that she is strong, just for surviving it. She’s not giving up on this life. Not now, and not ever.

Lace shifts her approach. She takes the same defensive stance she held before, but this time she places more weight on her legs and leans back.

The other Lace grins. She releases Hornet’s leash. The spider dashes forward again, a mirror of her last attack.

This time, instead of weathering Hornet’s assault, Lace ignores it entirely. She throws Shakra’s ring fast enough that it screams through the air, aimed for the centre of Hornet’s shell. Without even looking to see if it made contact, Lace uses the extra weight on her legs to break into a sprint immediately.

She runs straight for the other Lace.

Before she can even react, Lace has tackled the other her to the ground. The other her struggles, but this version of her is younger and weaker, strength not yet tempered by countless years seeking combat across Pharloom. Lace uses the handle of her pin to strike the other version of her in the face. She tries to do it again, but she’s thrown bodily across the floor.

Hornet jumps on top of her, snarling.

From this close, the Citadel insignia covering her mask is horrifying. It reminds Lace of all the reanimated husks that had wandered the Citadel in the wake of the Haunting.

Hornet swings her needle down in a merciless stab. Lace barely dodges it. The sound of the needle clanging against the floor right next to her ear drowns out her thoughts – the only thing she can register is that Hornet deserves better.

Lace extends her claws and uses them to slash at Hornet’s head, pulling off the cloth insignia over her mask and revealing the truth of her new devotion.

In Hornet’s eyes, no longer does Lace see empty blackness. Now, she sees pale, unfettered white, swirling like a storm in her iris.

Lace gasps.

Hornet bares a pair of fangs that peek out from under her mask. She growls hungrily and bites down at Lace’s throat. Lace pushes her head back with an arm, and then she uses one of Shakra’s martial arts to turn Hornet’s weight to her advantage, tossing the spider over her.

Lace moves with speed she hasn’t known since before she lost her leg. She uses the blade of her prosthetic to cut the threads binding Hornet to the Grand Mother Silk’s will, and then she slashes down again to cut the leash binding Hornet to the other Lace.

Lace then dashes away again, dodging an angry stab of the other Lace’s pin. Lace backs up further, giving herself a moment of respite. Even if her movements feel fluid and easy, even if she can feel the strong wires of silk that hold her together and know that they’re reliable, she still has to preserve herself.

One false move and she’s dead. Lace wouldn’t die – not today, and especially not here.

The other Lace laughs madly. She clutches uselessly at the leash in her hands, still trying to pull Hornet along her whims. Then, for a moment, a familiar type of fear overcomes her features.

The other Lace looks up at her mother.

“I know what fears needle away at you,” Lace says to her.

“You could not possibly,” the other Lace shakes her head.

“Oh, but I do. Those same fears once claimed me, brought me lower than any bug would dare to go. You fear our mother and her fathomless power. You fear what will happen if she finds you unworthy.”

“Quiet-“

“The remedy to those fears will never come. You will never be worthy – there is no bug in this world who is.”

“You spin lies like mother spins her silk. A little echo like you could never know a thing about me!”

Lace sighs. It would’ve never worked, of course, because Lace knows what she was once like. Why bother arguing with a memory?

She does it anyway, just to give her past self the chance her mother never did.

The two Laces raise their pins. Hornet rises from the ground, howling at the loss of her silk bindings.

From above, a shadow falls to the ground.

Phantom lands in the centre of the confrontation, their longpin aimed at the other Lace.

“Stand down, sister,” they declare calmly. “This fight isn’t yours.”

The other Lace flinches. “How could it not be? Mother entrusted this to me!”

“This Lace… she comes from another time. All she wishes for is to leave.”

The other Lace giggles. Her laughter spirals higher until she’s gasping for air. “Oh, Phantom. I was a fool to think better than what mother spoke of you. Beast!” The other Lace yells at Hornet and points at her counterpart. “Kill the little echo. I’ll correct my sibling’s ways.”

Lace moves to stand beside Phantom. The two siblings stand together; pins raised as one.

“Sister,” Phantom whispers, in the moments before Hornet readies herself for a mad dash.

“Sibling,” Lace responds warmly.

“Hold out your hand.”

When she does, Phantom fits a cylinder wrapped in silk in her hand. Lace closes her eyes to still the tears.

“I’ll bring this home,” Lace pledges.

Phantom nods at her.

Lace knows she won’t forget this moment – not until her silk fades, not until she’s dead in the ground.

-

Fighting with Phantom again is a dream come true.

The two of them slip back into working together like they’d never even stopped. Phantom’s long, precise strikes are complemented by Lace’s quick swipes and woven in kicks, their combat styles creating a blur of slashes that neutralises any threat their opponents pose.

Hornet fights nothing like she usually does. As she is, all her mind can conjure up is aggression and rage, and that’s what she fights with. The other Lace tries futilely to fight with her, using the constant pressure to sneak in stabs and bait Phantom into attacking her parries, but Lace is always there to cover for her sibling.

Eventually, the other Lace gives up on strategy and resorts to childhood tricks, attacking Phantom with the same moves that won her all the spars in their childhood. Lace remembers them all, and she’s far more skilled than her younger counterpart. When Lace blocks a stab aimed at Phantom, they’ll switch to defending against Hornet without missing a beat.

Lace stabs at one of the silk threads holding Hornet. Phantom’s riposte catches the other Lace off-guard, knocking her back.

Lace kicks at the last of the threads holding Hornet hostage. Phantom sweeps Lace’s feet out from under her, knocking her to the ground.

The cloudy white in Hornet’s eyes begins to fade, replaced with her usual black. The other Lace doesn’t reach for her pin again.

The battle is won.

Lace tastes victory – in the pale blood running rapidly through her silken veins, and in the elated feeling in her chest, like bathing in an ocean of nectar.

-

Hornet gasps, her mind finally freed of her silken fate. “Lace,” she croaks out, her familiar voice like falling into a canopy of leaves.

“I missed you, dear Hornet,” Lace whispers.

“…End the memory, my love,” Hornet hisses. There’s a hole in her shell, just below her neck – and no black particles bleed out of it.

Lace readies herself to stab Hornet, but the ground begins to shake before she can. Lace wobbles, catching herself on Hornet’s solid shell.

The pale light above begins to descend down the Cradle. Devotee bugs begin rushing down the halls, the fabric over their masks moving with their pace. The blurry figure at the apex of the world opens her eyes.

“DAUGHTER… WHY FORSAKE ME?” A voice Lace had never wanted to hear again speaks to her. The timbre of her cry shakes the entire world like a cataclysmic event.

Hornet slips her paw into Lace’s hand. She gives her a comforting squeeze. Lace closes her eyes, rids her mind of any doubt, any fear, and lets her heart speak.

“I didn’t forsake anything, mother! It was always you!” Lace calls, pointing her pin at the pale light above.

“I… LOVE… YOU…” The Grand Mother Silk cries.

Lace shivers. In all her years, had her mother ever said those words? Of course it would come now, entrenched in a memory. It wasn’t real, and it didn’t feel like it either – merely a manipulation, designed to keep Lace in place.

Lace squeezes Hornet’s paw.

“You loved what you wanted me to be, mother. But this life is mine! It always has been!” Lace screams, her voice breaking. From the corner of her eyes, she sees the silk threads that captured Hornet initially rushing towards her. It doesn’t matter – Lace knows exactly what she needs to say.

Hornet presses her mask to Lace’s shoulder. “Whenever you are ready,” she whispers, baring the centre of her shell to Lace.

Through tears, Lace looks her mother in the eyes. “You made two mistakes in your plans, mother. You aren’t as strong as you think you are, and I have always been more than what you made me to be!”

Lace looks away from her mother. She squeezes Hornet’s paw softly, gazing into her beautiful black eyes. Without words, she tries to communicate a thousand things.

Then Lace pierces Hornet’s shell with her pin.

For a single horrible moment, nothing happens – but then the devotees, still rushing towards them, begin to fade into threads of silk.

The Cradle halls dissipate into nothingness. The pale light dims and then turns to darkness. The silk threads connected to Lace’s mother fall away, as do the workshops and silk bridges above them. Above that, Lace’s mother closes her eyes for the final time, her pained roar fading with her.

Hornet collapses in Lace’s arms. Lace brings her body to the floor, cradling it in her arms. Strands of silk begin rushing out of Hornet’s shell.

The last thing Lace sees before the world turns to ash is Phantom kneeling in front of the other Lace and offering her a hand, a slight smile visible in their eyes.

-

The first thing Lace notices upon reawakening in the present is the noise. Compared to the constant eerie humming of the Choir in the past, the crashing and clanking of broken machinery churning within the walls is a relief to hear.

The Cradle is falling apart. Seeing it in its prime only reminds her of that fact. Her mother would be so angry.

Lace laughs.

She looks at Hornet. Slowly, the spider comes to awareness. Her eyes flutter open. In them, Lace sees no trace of the pale white that had dominated her being.

Lace smirks at her. “Welcome back, dear Hornet. I wondered-“

Hornet scoops Lace up in a crushing hug. Her strength has always been there, but in this moment, she seems reinvigorated, freed from the worst of the affliction and reconnected with her silk.

“I’m sorry for leaving you. It was a mistake I won’t repeat again.”

Hornet’s sharp limbs press softly into Lace’s silk. Her mask presses against Lace’s head, holding her close like a precious jewel.

“…Don’t ever scare me like that again,” Lace growls. She pulls Hornet in even closer, content to just breathe her in.

They remain like that for a long while, breaths synced and hearts beating as one.

A crack forming in the wall behind Hornet is the only reason they break apart. Something falls from the hole, rolling to a stop in front of Lace.

It’s a cylinder, in the same design as the psalm cylinders of the Citadel, but this one is wrapped in silk, signifying contents that have been overwritten.

“Phantom,” Lace whispers, recognising the nature of the song contained in the cylinder.

When she starts to cry, freed of that horrible hollow feeling of failure, Hornet is there to hold her.

-

From the top of the world to the bottom, Lace and Hornet descend into Pharloom’s basin.

They come to the edge of the sea of void at the very bottom of the Abyss, where the ocean of blackness lies dormant beneath them. Hornet kneels down, bending her mask low to the void.

“Before we begin, allow me to make things clear. Within the white memory, I did not tell you to stay behind out of a lack of trust.”

Lace sits at the foot of the ocean, leaning her head on Hornet’s shell. “Go on,” she drawls.

“I have always believed in you reclaiming your life. Your strength is inspiring, Lace – a marvel of this kingdom in its own right.”

Lace fans herself with her hand and giggles. “Well, I can never deny an admirer’s praise.”

Hornet shakes her mask. “I… did not want to lose you. I admit, that fear was one that I let control me. I never meant to undermine your growth.”

Lace sits up and leans in, gazing into Hornet’s black eyes. She cups Hornet’s mask, and then she kisses Hornet slowly.

“Just don’t do it again, dear Hornet. Now that we know who wields the blade in this relationship.”

Hornet scowls. “I was under the influence of your mother’s silk.”

“As was I in our previous fights, was I not?”

“That is not the-“

“Ah! Apologies, dear. I don’t speak sore loser.”

Hornet grits her fangs. It makes for quite the adorable expression. “No moment remains intact with you around.”

Lace grins. “You wouldn’t have it any other way, my love.”

Throwing Hornet’s words back at her like this is likely too soon – but Lace doesn’t care. She’s riding far too high on her emotions, her heart light and airy and her shell clear of any doubt. For the way her heart had soared at her declaration, made in the throes of an impending death, Hornet deserves a little needling.

Hornet looks away. After a moment, she sighs. “Though the circumstances may not have been ideal, I stand by my words. If you would have me, dear Lace.”

Lace giggles. The way her breath caresses Hornet’s mask is intoxicating. “I suppose I can allow it,” she says. Honesty bleeds into her teasing tone. “After all, this heart only began to feel real once you entered it.”

Hornet bonks her mask against Lace’s mouth.

“I’m glad you’re here,” affection clear in Hornet’s voice.

Lace winks at her. “Now, shall we proceed with the maiming?”

Hornet rolls her eyes. She gestures for Lace to move back.

Silk begins to spring from Hornet’s shell, imbued with a powerful, shimmering energy that illuminates the ocean of void below them.

The threads delve back within her, as if probing her shell for something within. The light gathers and then shines, silk coursing through Hornet’s veins.

Hornet gives Lace a nod. Lace steps back, aims her pin at the centre of Hornet’s shell, and slices.

Hornet gasps in pain. Regardless, she uses silk threads to pull open the gash Lace has just formed.

From the wound, a ball of silk – not unlike the one Lace’s mother had constructed to preserve her and Lace under the sea of void – though far smaller, is pulled out of Hornet’s shell. The silk ball replenishes itself constantly, corrupted black threads being immediately covered by pale white ones.

Hornet pushes the silk out of her shell. Then she lets it drop, freeing the void that’s contained within. It’s little more than a droplet, and it sinks back into the ocean without even a single perceptible change. Yet, with it gone, the world feels lighter.

Hornet slumps back, exhausted. With a tired paw, she stitches the hole in her shell closed.

“Is that it?” Lace asks, a little giddy.

“Well, I’ll need time to recover, and perhaps consult Yarnaby about healing-“

“But your silk is returned? You won’t die?”

“I will not die,” Hornet confirms. “This I am certain of.”

Lace shudders. Joy tastes like a fine nectar after a long day of sparring. It smells like the flowers, blown along the wind through the Shellwood. It feels like Hornet holding her in bed, her cloak wrapping around them both securely.

Lace looks over the sea of void. Just like she had done long ago, when Hornet had just rescued her from the bottom of the ocean, all Lace can do is laugh.

But it feels so different this time. This pride that lives in her heart is hers and hers alone, a product of all the work she had put in to making it so.  

-

There’s no grand celebration for their return. The people of Bellhart cheer when they return, but there had been no world ending threat this time. Life would’ve gone on for them, even if Lace had died in the memory and Hornet had been lost to the void.

Shakra bows low at the news of their success. She gestures happily at a pair of earmuffs she’d apparently been sold by the merchant, and then she wishes Hornet good fortune in her mating. Lace chooses not to listen to her own offered congratulations.

Hornet and Lace slip back into their home. Hornet sheds her tools while Lace hangs up Shakra’s ring on her wall of mementos. She nails another notch into the wall for another memento – though she doesn’t move to hang this one up.

Lace hands Phantom’s cylinder to Hornet. Hornet slots the cylinder into the Gramophone above the bed.

Phantom’s song begins to play. It’s a slow, romantic melody – one that reminds Lace of the grand balls once held in the Citadel, where young faithfuls and the Citadel’s anointed would come together and find love, even under Lace’s mother’s shadow.

The song has its own unique texture to it, setting it apart from the Citadel’s composers. Phantom’s organ adds a slow, almost painful melody to the ballad that slowly builds to something lighter and happier. It’s reminiscent of the Phantom Lace had met in her memory – one that was hopeful, ill-fated as that hope would be.

Lace pulls Hornet into the centre of the floor. She takes Hornet’s paws and places them around her waist, and then she puts her own arms around Hornet’s neck.

“Help me learn to dance?” Lace asks innocently. “It was a goal of mine, after all.”

“In your own words, you could dance circles around me. What can I possibly do?”

“Don’t be a fool. I can teach us both just fine. Just don’t step on my silk.”

Hornet rolls her eyes. She leads the dance in an… acceptable manner, though it’s nothing compared to what Lace could once do.

Lace’s legs are strong now. Her heart has never felt so whole. Life did not grant her anything; she seized this second chance with her own strength, and she’d never relinquish it.

Lace takes the lead from Hornet, relishing in the way her legs let her move. She can bend low, even as she holds Hornet in her arms. She can twirl around on one leg, only needing to be cognizant of the pointy end of her prosthetic when it could cut Hornet.

She can dance and dance, losing herself to her sibling’s music, just as she did when she was younger.

This time, she has another – one she never imagined she could love as strongly as this – dancing with her.

“What will you do now?” Hornet asks.

“How should I know?” Lace giggles. “There’s an entire world out there for us, is there not?”

Hornet’s eyes show a clear smile. “There is.”

“The one thing I’m certain of is that I’d like to stay with you, dear Hornet.”

“I’d be glad to grant that wish.”

Lace rolls her eyes. She pulls Hornet in close and pecks her where her nose would be under her mask.

“If I had another wish?”

Hornet tilts her head. “What would that be?”

Lace pushes Hornet away from her. She stalks over to the bed and lies down gracefully, resting her chin on her hand. She switches off the music and narrows her eyes at Hornet, letting the blush on her cheeks speak for her.

“Make sure everybody in this village know we’ve returned,” Lace husks, never looking away from Hornet. “Show me some of that newfound strength you’ve gained.”

The look in Hornet’s eyes is enough for Lace to shudder.

“You won’t win this dance,” Hornet’s voice drops low.

Lace kicks her legs teasingly. “Prove it to me, dear Hornet. Grant me my wish?”

When Lace eventually sleeps that night, she finds she’s fully satisfied – wrapped up in Hornet’s cloak, Hornet holding her around the waist, her smile unbothered and free.