Work Text:
Lace's gaze turns to the steel needle beside her companion. She picks up the weapon – a weighty thing, with a heft much unlike her own pin – and offers it to Hornet.
"Cut me down, spider," she pleads, "Kill me. Grant me the only fate such a pathetic, worthless shell could have." She kneels, holding out the needle with trembling hands. Hornet graciously receives it, and Lace awaits a final strike from the blade whose bite she knows so well.
What she receives instead is a soft clatter – metal gently touching stone – and a claw resting on her shoulder.
"You ought to know better than to handle my weapons without permission," a firm yet kind voice mutters. Hornet's voice. Even through the murk of welling tears, Lace recognizes the red hue of her cloak and her vain attempt at feigning nonchalance. Typical of you, spider, she thinks to herself.
Hornet continues, though Lace cannot bring herself to meet her eyes. "I have no intention of harming you, now that the conflict between us is resolved. You know this as well as I – if I had set out to end your life, it would have long been done. And…"
She hesitates before finishing the sentence. "I knew another bug, a pale artifice much like yourself. I saw how they so desperately sought exit from the anguish of their life. I would prefer not to witness such tragedy twice." Even after all the suffering she'd seen and felt, Hornet's heart aches at the sight of her partner's pain, and the terrible familiarity of the scene before her.
"Lace." Hornet speaks her friend's name like a command. "Come here."
Lace weakly raises her head. Her tears spill from her eyes, rolling down the dark silk of her face and dripping onto her lap. A surprising sight greets her – Hornet's open arms, inviting her into an embrace.
She crumples into Hornet's arms, who responds in kind, squeezing Lace's soft body and pulling her close. It's the first time in far too long (ever, for Lace) that either of them has felt such warmth. The security of Hornet's embrace only further breaks the dams within Lace's heart, turning her quiet weeping into violent sobs that shudder through her whole body with every strained breath. She clings to the Weaver's red cloak, tears seeping into the collar as she presses into Hornet's chest.
"Why…?" Lace whimpers, her face buried in cloth and down. "Why do you- what do you… see in me, this empty thing that has done nothing but fail?" Her voice drips with desperation as she digs her silken claws harder into her partner's cloak, holding on like a lifeline.
Hornet raises a claw to cradle Lace's head, gently scratching the back of her bonnet. "It saddens me to hear you speak such ill of someone I love. You are as much a living bug as myself, or little Sherma, or anyone else you have met on these roads. You have travelled, fought, laughed, wept… Failure, if yours can even be called that, is only one of countless moments in your life. There is so much more you are yet to know."
With every word Hornet says, Lace seems to collapse more thoroughly, curling into her companion's warm touch, grasping at the folds of her cloak to hold onto her tighter. Shame rips into her as she cries, yet every pang of it only draws more tears from her aching eyes.
Lace's thoughts only continue to spiral as she breaks down further and further. A husk... a mimicry of a child, weak and worthless... I am undeserving of this. Why does she stay? Why does she comfort me? It shouldn't be so hard to kill something that's never even lived. I shouldn't be crying. I shouldn't want her to stay. I shouldn't want anything. I truly am broken, aren't I?
Hornet struggles to find words of comfort now, while Lace seems unable to string together a sentence at all between ragged breaths. She simply holds the silken bug against her chest, resting the end of her own mask atop her partner's head. Instinctively, her fangs wiggle under her mask, running back and forth over the threads of Lace's bonnet, as if she were a hatchling again, combing the fur of a nestmate. The absurdity of such a display of affection flusters her slightly, but she allows it to continue, especially when Lace tilts her head acceptingly into the brushing motions.
"So precious..." Hornet mutters to herself, before quickly cutting off. Wait, I didn't say that out loud, did I-
Unfortunately for her, she did say it out loud, and Lace shifts sideways, emitting something between a giggle and a sob. "Hah... Spider, I've- I never thought you so sickly sweet," she chokes out, "For something like me, no less."
"Enough of that." The way Lace calls herself something grates on Hornet's nerves. "I will tell you again. You are not something, you are someone. Whether you believe it yourself or not."
A strangled, heartwrenching noise escapes Lace's throat. "Agh- aha... And if I never believe it? What then? You'll just hopelessly lie to me, again and again, forever? You truly are mad, spider."
"If it is madness to love, then mad I am," Hornet declares, matter-of-factly. So many others had told her the same, that her desire for a free Pharloom was a flight of fancy, that she was foolish, mad – it was all the same to her. She has always trusted her own convictions. Pharloom deserved to be freed, and Lace deserves to be loved.
Hornet takes a deep breath. "And, Lace... I love you. Even if nothing else, know this. Even if you think yourself unworthy of it, if you cannot find it in yourself to love me in return. Know that I love you, no matter what."
"There's no convincing you, is there?" Her raspy voice breaks as Hornet's affirmation of love pierces deep into her chest. She buries her face in her claws, trying to conceal the pained expression in her eyes.
"Absolutely not." Hornet cups Lace's chin, lifting her head, and plants a small kiss on her face.