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Lace was stitching up a tear in her arm when Hornet entered their Bellhome. Looking up from her work, the former cocked a kind head at the latter.
“There you are, little spider!” Lace said. “I was beginning to fear you’d left me here to wither away.”
“I’ve been gone an hour,” Hornet said, dropping a bag full of food from her back onto a side table. She nodded at Lace’s work. “I see you’ve taken to stitching yourself up as I showed you. Good. Such self-sufficiency shall be required on the road ahead.”
“At your urging I decided to give it a try,” Lace said. “As much as I adore being the center of your attention, I cannot rely on you to be there all the time, after all. Though how will you occupy yourself now that you do not have to dote on my every need?”
“I’ll survive,” Hornet said, sitting down on the bed to rest her legs. “You’ve come a long way in only a few weeks. Before long you may even be able to take up your own adventures out there in the wastes.”
Lace pouted. “I don’t want to take up my own adventures though! I want to take up journeying with you!”
“You may follow my lead, or you may choose to stay. It does not matter either way to me,” Hornet lied.
Lace sighed and returned to her stitching. “Why are you so distant all the time, little spider? I don’t believe I’ve ever even seen you laugh.”
Hornet shrugged. “I have never been one to show my emotions in the open air. Throughout my childhood, I was raised to be a warrior, not a poet.”
“From how you’ve described it,” Lace said, looking up from her arm, “it sounds more as if you were raised to be a weapon.”
“No, that’s certainly true. The White Lady, Vespa, Herrah… all of them sharpened my senses and skills from a young age so I could be strong enough and ruthless enough to forge my own future. I learned to strike to kill when I was but freshly hatched.”
Lace paused her work which was now near completion. “That’s… tremendously sad.”
“How so? It worked, did it not? I would never have been able to free the both of us from our bondage if I hadn’t been raised as such.”
“That burden never should have been your responsibility,” Lace said, hastily finishing up her arm so she could turn and face Hornet. “The same way carrying Grand Mother Silk’s loss of the Weavers never should have been mine.”
“It is what it is. We cannot control the circumstances we are born into – we can only grow beyond them.”
“You say that,” Lace said, sitting down on the bed next to Hornet, “but then why do you refuse to lower your guard now that the danger has passed?”
“The danger is never passed, Lace. There is only one battle after another. Do not let the current peace fool you into complacency. Soon there shall be some new threat, some new monster to be slain, some new Pale Being high on power breaking the world to their will. I must keep myself sharp and keen for when it arises, so I can be prepared.”
Lace kicked her legs and considered extending a hand to rest on Hornet’s leg, but decided against it. She still did not like being touched. Lace sighed, and spoke instead.
“That’s not all though, is it? I saw how you changed while exploring our Kingdom, watching your progress from afar. You began as only wanting to return home, correct? Then as you explored our Pharloom and met the bugs here, that changed.”
“Where are you going with all this?”
“When the Void descended upon Pharloom,” Lace said, ignoring the interruption, “you could have run. Mother Silk was not a threat to you at that point. You could have returned to Hallownest and allowed us all to rot. Why didn’t you?”
“...I had come to care for the creatures of this Kingdom. I could not simply leave all of my new allies to die due to my mistake. I swore I’d fight until the very end.”
“And that’s the true reason you refuse to drop your guard, isn’t it? Even though we are currently in a time of peace? You are afraid if you stop fighting and stop training, that one of us will come to harm?”
“You are more perceptive than I gave you credit for, Lace.”
“Hornet, dear, I spent countless years keeping up a playful facade when all I truly wanted was the love of my Mother and a friend who would care. I can recognize when somebody is putting on a mask.”
Hornet’s shoulders fell, and she felt some protective layer of herself being stripped away. Lace had been through something similar to her own upbringing. Both of them hadn’t had a choice in becoming who they were; neither had ever felt true freedom until a mere few weeks ago. It was pointless to keep her guard up around somebody who was cut from a similar cloth, and could tell when she was being coy.
“Yes, you’re correct. That is all true,” Hornet said. “What’s more than that though, is that I allowed myself to feel at peace once before. After the Radiance vanished in my previous Kingdom, and I took ownership of my sibling, would you believe me if I told you I fell into an almost-domesticity? I helped the survivors rebuild, and taught the Hollow Knight how to stand on their own two feet for the first time. I felt comforted. I felt assured that things had reached a pleasurable equilibrium. Then, one night as I was on the edge of Hallownest, I was accosted by my kidnappers and dragged away from my home. I… I had sensed something was wrong, but did not take the danger seriously until I was already swarmed with cultists, and it was too late to escape.”
“Spider…”
“I know the cost of letting down my guard. I shiver to think what’s become of Hallownest and of my sibling in my absence – it is part of why I have been training you so vigorously and why I have tried to hasten the healing of Pharloom. I need to return to my home.”
“Despite all of that, you cannot remain behind your walls forever. I tried that, and it broke me.” Lace paused for a second, deciding if she wanted to take this plunge, and then went for it. “You clearly have affection for me, and yet your barrier is so strong you refuse to be touched.”
“The last time I allowed myself to be touched, it was when a mad doctor tied me to a gurney and drilled my chest open to remove a parasite while I was still fully conscious. I have never liked being touched. I especially dislike it now.”
There was an interval of dead silence.
“Hornet, that is awful. I had no idea you’d been through such a thing.”
“I wish I could forget it as well,” Hornet said with a sigh.
“Did you talk to anybody about that? To Shakra or Sherma perhaps?”
Hornet scoffed. “No, of course not! What would they be able to do about it? It is my curse to bear.”
“I was only able to stop hating myself day in and day out after I confessed all of my tragedies to you in that wasteland after the Abyss. It was only when I saw you were listening and I understood that, finally, there was another person in the world who cared about me, that the voices of self-loathing began to abate if only in part. It is a cliché to say, but nobody can keep everything inside of themselves without breaking. I learned that the hard way.”
“Then I shall be the first to succeed at it.”
“No you won’t. I am not saying that to be catty, I mean it with the full sincerity of my being. I feel things for you I have never felt for another living soul, and you stare at me with a compassion I have scarcely else beheld, and you still refuse to allow me to hold you. You cannot carry that weight forever.”
Hornet laid down on the bed and let out a long, low groan. “What difference would it make if you could hug me? Is a ‘cuddle’ a bodily function a construct cannot live without?”
Lace laid down next to her. “I feel as if I cannot live without you in my life, and not being able to express that feeling is a torment akin to torture. Besides, I can tell it’s something you require. When was the last time you allowed yourself to be held?”
“The last time I had a mate, which was lifetimes ago. Even then, opening myself to their embrace was hard, and it didn’t feel quite right. Perhaps I was haunted by the knowledge that our love then was a transitory thing which would soon be over.”
“You needn’t worry about that with me, spider,” Lace said, rolling onto her side to look directly at Hornet. “I’m made of silk, so you won’t be able to get rid of me that easily!”
“Much to my great dismay,” Hornet said, turning to Lace with a small smile.
“I’m certain it is the worst feeling. Why don’t I help relieve it with a hug?”
Hornet gave in. “Fine. You may embrace me. Once. I certainly hope it lives up to your expectations.”
Lace made no careful approach or delicate gestures. Rather, she practically leapt up from the cushion and wrapped her arms and body around Hornet, aching and desperate to show the compassion which she’d been unable to fully express. Lace pressed her soft plush around her companion, nuzzling Hornet’s neck and pulling her tight and close. Hornet, who had been for once taken off-guard by Lace’s outpouring of care, bit back the inherent urge her limbs had to toss away one who would touch her, and instead leaned into the embrace, allowing herself to feel the comfort and care of being held by another. She’d always been the one to carry others, such as when she carried Lace out of that Abyss. How many years had passed since another had held her, instead? The whirring thoughts and instincts in her mind dwindled down, and her stiff back loosened, and her limbs finally lost their taut energy.
Her head went quiet.
“How is it?” Lace whispered.
“You are… very soft,” Hornet replied, slowly extending her arms to wrap them around Lace.
“Isn’t it lovely?”
“I do not hate it.”
“Aww, no need to be so sour, spider!”
Hornet exhaled, and nested her head against Lace, leaning into her plush as if she were a pillow. She closed her eyes and simply stayed there in that embrace, feeling the delicate warmth coming from the bug she’d rescued and who might now be saving her in turn.
Her thoughts drifted and, far from breaking away from the hug after a minute as had been the original plan, Hornet stayed put, being dragged into a comfort which had been so long denied her it had faded from memory. It was so delicate that Hornet even found herself being pulled into a doze. How long had it been since she’d allowed such a thing to happen? Since she’d fallen asleep in the embrace of somebody close to her?
“Sleepy, aren’t we? I’m guessing a hug did help after all,” Lace giggled.
“Silence,” Hornet mumbled, nuzzling Lace’s neck.
“Aw, you’re no fun. How about this: I shall leave you to rest if you promise me something.”
“What is it?” Hornet said, lightly opening her eyes and perceiving Lace’s haloed head in the glow of the Bellhome.
“Let me hold you again like this. I think you have spent quite enough time out there in the world with only yourself for company. I have leaned on you so very much these past few weeks – to be honest I’ve been quite the wreck! It is only fair you have time where you can lean on me, is it not?”
“I can accept that,” Hornet said, groggily, edging into sleep. “And Lace?”
“What is it, little spider?”
Hornet wanted to ask what they really were, the two of them. They’d left the Abyss as allies, perhaps even friends; it was swiftly becoming clear they were more than that. She wanted to thrust herself into the conversation, to tackle all of its nuances and difficulties head-on. To define who the two of them were and what they might become together. For now though, all of that heady and troublesome stuff didn’t matter. Hornet only wanted to be held, and to know that there was a body in this world she could feel comfortable holding. Everything else could come in time.
“Let us talk more tomorrow,” Hornet said.
“Absolutely, my little morsel. What do you wish to discuss? Hornet?”
Much to Lace’s shock, she heard her companion begin to snore. She stroked Hornet’s back, and rested her head next to the bug she loved, wondering and hoping if the spider felt the same way about her.