Chapter Text
Hornet had thought that bringing Ghost to Bellhart would solve her problem. She'd passed the confused and sad child off on Pavo before hurrying off to complete the wish she'd been working on when she ran across the small bug to start with. That should have been the end of it. Pavo was more than qualified to help out a child, and if he hadn't known what to do he'd know who in Bellhart would. A foolproof plan that should have left her feeling relieved and calm, no longer having to worry for the small bug's safety.
It did not.
Instead Hornet found herself thinking about Ghost the entire time she finished that wish, and when she left town to make her next delivery, and on her way back after completing that delivery. In all honesty she shouldn't have gone back to Bellhart that quickly. She should have taken some time to continue exploring the Lower Cogwork Core, but she couldn't. She had to make sure the small bug was settling in, or at least had been taken in somewhere so that they could start doing so. So to Bellhart she returned.
She'd expected to find Ghost with Pavo, or perhaps settled with Frey. What she had not expected was to find the smaller bug standing by the wishwall. A wishwall that was missing a wish she knew she hadn't completed herself and the citizens of Bellhart wouldn't have been able to do themselves. She also hadn't expected to find out that the request had been completed by none other than the small bug who, apparently, wasn't a child at all. Small though they were, Ghost made sure to write out that they were far older than they looked, older than most bugs apparently, though they didn't specify how old exactly (she felt a bit bad about the mistake. How many times had she gotten annoyed when people mistook her for a child herself?).
She was further baffled when Ghost insisted on coming with her when she left Bellhart once more. None of her protests against the idea swayed them, no matter how she pointed out that she would be going into increasingly dangerous areas and that she may look like who they wanted to find, but that didn't meant that they needed to stick by her.
In the end she insisted on testing their skill before agreeing to allow them to follow her. Something they'd agreed to without hesitation. They'd almost seemed…amused? Their expression and posture didn't visibly change, but that was the impression she got off them all the same.
Fighting Ghost had been…a revelation. She'd caught them off guard a couple times when using some of the abilities she'd learned in this land, but their skill surprised her far more. Despite their small size they hit hard and fast. And they had abilities like no other bug she'd ever met (then why did they seem so familiar…?). In the end she found herself knocked prone with a nail pressed to her neck, just bellow the base of her mask. They'd bested her and she got the impression they might have been holding back on top of that!
After that she couldn't think of any reason to deny their decision to travel with her. They were set on their path and could clearly hold their own, so who was she to tell them where to, or not to, go. And, if she was being honest, it was somewhat a relief to have them at her side as she traveled after that. She was more than capable of holding her own in a fight, but it could get lonely on the road, and having someone there to watch her back was nice. Maybe if they'd been with her earlier she wouldn't have ended up locked up in the Slab without any of her gear, or even her clothes, not that long ago.
Ghost was a silent companion, never making noise unless it was the sound of their nail hitting something, but that didn't mean they had nothing to say. Their expression rarely changed, but the smaller bug was extremely expressive with their body once she got to know them, gesturing, pointing, and doing little hops and dances when excited. This only grew more evident after she asked them to reach her the hand-language they used (something she found herself picking up much faster than she'd expected to). They had a dry, dark humor that wasn't too dissimilar from her own. That, more than anything, was part of what convinced her that they might have been telling the truth when they said they were older most, if not all, of the bugs they met along their path.
Despite this, they didn't talk much about their home. Hornet learned that they had a number of siblings, though they were most willing to share stories about two of them; their sister and their twin. And even then they tended to clam up if she asked any questions about the former. Hallownest, from the sounds of it, was a damaged land not too different from Pharloom, though it was recovering. She just hoped Pharloom could do the same once she dealt with the source of the mess happening in it.
And she was getting close! Hornet had been worrying about how exactly they were going to deal with the silken queen at the root of all this. Some part of her had been warning her against simply attacking the queen head on. Some instinct flaring up at the idea of taking the lady down and claiming this land for herself, swiftly followed by a visceral flinch at the thought. Pharloom didn't need a territory dispute tearing it apart even worse than it already had been. And that's what it would have been, though she couldn't say how or why she knew that.
Thankfully the caretaker had been willing to offer up a different option; a way to snare and trap the god-queen and be rid of her that way. Ghost had seemed uncertain, but relented quickly enough when she explained her reasoning. Strangely enough they seemed to understand what she meant completely, even if she found herself uncertain about it herself.
Then finally, finally, she had all the parts. It was time to face her grandmother and end the cruel rule she held over this land. Weapons in hand, she and Ghost ascended to the Cradle to take out the threat.