Chapter Text
Lace lay among the silk flowers.
But of course that’s where she was! Resting within sight of the divine, ready to serve at her hand. It was exactly where she ought to be.
Besides, it’s not as though there were anywhere else she could go. Tch. What a thought.
So there Lace lay, curled among flowers the hue of her thinly stitched skin.
From a distance, the blossoms could be confused for the real thing, but draw close, lay beside them, and that thought will be revealed for the folly it is.
Peer into them closely and you can see the thin stitch marks, the fine weave of thread. Observe them, and their movements will only be that caused by another – the stir of a breeze or the pluck of a hand. Incapable of change, of growth on their own terms. They’re nothing but pale imitations of the real thing.
So easily too, could they be destroyed. Crushed, perhaps, or gently teased from one end until it all comes apart, unspooling into thread. So easily could a new one be spun, so similar to its predecessor there is no need to mourn the loss.
Somewhere, deep beneath Lace, underneath her silk skin, there was movement. An echoing rumble of machinery, ancient gears crunching and sliding.
So the little spider had made it all the way to the top? She had already struggled through so much, in her crawling journey through Pharloom, and remained strangely optimistic despite it. It should come as no surprise the trials she faced in the Citadel weren’t enough to dampen her distressingly high spirits.
Maybe the spider had finally found the grace and humility required to stand here, to bow beneath the divine. Or maybe she wanted to display that boundless strength she claimed to possess.
Lace should rise, prepare for the battle that was surely at hand. Preempt a strike, destroy the spider before she even knew what was happening. Lay a trap, catch her in a web in a delicious bit of irony. And yet, even as the echoing beneath her grew to a crescendo, Lace remained where she was.
After all, who was she to make such a decision?
The elevator rose around her, a thing of industry and ingenuity, metal gleaming in the dim light. The little spider, cloak stirring the silk flowers, stepped free of its grasp.
Lace watched it all, the confidence with which she moved, barely even noticing the half-lifes she ended with each step. Only then, only then did Lace rise.
She had to bite down, keep her mouth closed, or she would make some snappy comment. On the time it had taken the spider to get this far, how she must have suffered to reach this place. Or the state of her cloak, perhaps. But it would not do to act so here. Not when a god was watching.
Lace, at least, could have some of the decorum her opponent lacked.
She spun into the air, her pin a thin line of gold, and slashed down again.
The spider managed to step away just in time, but it was close – so close that when Lace dashed forwards, she was unable to escape, and the pin sliced across her mask.
Despite everything, Lace could not help but let loose a little giggle of delight. Her impertinence was rewarded with a blow of her own, and another, before the spider stepped neatly out of the way of Lace’s counterattack.
The pair danced over the field of flowers, slashing and dashing, beautiful and brutal, each slice of flesh traded for one of silk. The spider was stronger than when they had last fought, Lace could tell, her cuts sliding deeper.
Marvellous! It seemed that she really had regained that strength and stamina she claimed. Beneath her silk mask, Lace could not stop smiling. She was made to fight, made to serve, and here she was – doing just that in absolute elegance.
The spider’s strength was starting to wane, her form bending. Poor thing. Someone ought to put her out of her misery.
Lace dashed forwards, pin a blur of shining light. In the moment before she hit, the spider bent. Needle across her face. A thin line of purest white wrapped around her blade.
There was no time to react. Lace’s pin swung across the centre of the needle. Silk wrapped around it in an instant.
Silk and needle, the spider wrenched her out of her perfect poise, leaving her sprawling, scattering. The spider was a blur around her, everywhere and nowhere at once, as she rained blows upon her, slicing again and again.
There was nothing Lace could do but stand there and feel the blade’s bite.
Tch. All this time, and she was still just a pathetic child, losing to the same trick she always had.