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Bellhart is always a welcome sight after the sodden haze of Greymoor. The prepared bellhome makes it even more so; Hornet had not intended to exploit Pavo’s entirely too generous act of hospitality, but she has found that having a designated space into which she can quietly and privately retreat has been a great boon. And after recent events in particular, she feels deeply eager for the peace in which she can rest and gather her thoughts.
Unfortunately, the peace does not last terribly long. No sooner has she completed cataloguing her latest findings in the materium than there comes a knock on the door. Hornet sighs, ready to call out a dismissal, anticipating Pavo or some other errant pilgrim with yet another wish to grant, but the voice that follows instead surprises her.
“Poshanka! Hornet Wielding Needle, might I seek an audience?”
Hornet pauses over her notes. Ever since the blackened threads began their blight upon the land, Shakra has been relentless in her defense of the town’s borders. If she has left her self-assigned post, then it must be with good cause. Thus, Hornet rises to answer the door.
“Greetings, Shakra,” she says, “you are most welcome.”
Shakra’s tall stature ill suits the confines of a bellhome; it takes her kneeling to half her height to shuffle in through the door, and standing to her full height once inside gives her head little leeway before the ceiling above, a fact that does not pass unremarked upon. “Ka, va!” she jeers, knocking one of her rings against the metal wall of the bell, which emits a bright clang. “It is little wonder that the bugs of this settlement remain so weak and idle with such confined lodgings.”
Hornet finds herself supressing a smile at the complaint. “They certainly value comfort more than you or I,” she says, “but I find that the occasional indulgence is not so terrible.”
“Clearly,” Shakra replies, glancing up at the private bath installed in the loft above before meeting Hornet’s gaze again. “Did I not know better, I would think you as idle as the rest!”
Hornet has spoken with Shakra enough now to recognize that there is no sting behind the words, only the playful jabbing of a close compatriot, and thus takes no insult. “If you do not know better, I would be happy to demonstrate yet again,” she shoots back.
Shakra’s expression darkens. “Bakelo. Any other day, I might rise to your challenge, but our usual sparring grounds are now overrun with those black-threaded bugs. And it is regarding that very matter that I sought you out.”
Hornet grips her needle, suddenly on edge. “Have the tides changed for the ill?”
“No such change, but that is itself the illness ,” Shakra sighs. “I have strength in me yet to defend this settlement, but that strength is not unending. The pinmaster has some skill with a blade, but he is no warrior, and those dark husks are fierce foes.” She kneels down again to speak with Hornet face to face. “You spoke before of a method to quell this curse. I would offer my aid to this task, to hasten its end.”
This gives Hornet pause. She takes a moment to choose her next words carefully. “Your assistance in mapping these lands has proven invaluable throughout my long journey,” she says, “and your skill in battle has been a great boon as well. For any other task, I would be grateful to accept your aid once again. However, where I must go next, none may follow; not even as capable a friend as you.” She draws herself up to her full height to meet Shakra’s level gaze. “Only know that the time is close. The cost was grave, and the challenge steep, but I have gathered all that I require to claim a power that can end this wrong.”
Shakra nods, solemn. “Gendaa… This is good, Hornet Wielding Needle. If that is so, I shall return to the fray with faith renewed. Take your final action, and let us see the end of this together.”
She claps her rings together in a hearty farewell before she departs, leaving Hornet once again alone, and with little more reason to dally. She gathers what she needs, preparing to set out for the shamans’ ruined chapel, but then hesitates.
The snails tasked her to claim three old hearts of Pharloom for their spell, and claim them she has; however, by mere happenstance, she found herself also claiming a fourth. The Green Prince, still living, had sensed her intrusion into his memory and rebelled against it, and while the dance had been fierce indeed, Hornet’s needle struck true, winning her the Conjoined Heart before her.
A part of her thinks to bring it along to be consumed by the shamans’ spell; after all, surely more power given would yield a greater chance of success.
But then, she thinks of her father and the myriad of broken vessels left in his wake under the unending mantra of no cost too great, and she sets the heart aside.
The toll she has exacted upon this land in the name of seeking a means to repel the void is not lost on her; nor is the fact that she, like her father before her, carves out a power not hers to claim in order to save a kingdom on its deathbed. But she is not here to doom Pharloom to the bleak stasis the Wyrm sought for Hallownest. Hornet knows better than to think she can fully shirk her pale lineage, but if nothing else, she can keep from repeating her father’s folly. What she does, she does not to preserve Pharloom’s past, but to ensure its future.
Still, that does not mean that the past must be discarded altogether. There are, she thinks—setting the heart upon her shelf where it continues to beat, sharp and clear—perhaps some things worth preserving, if only in this small way.