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A part of Lace was convinced that bugs would come up with any excuse for a party.
The haunting, the void threads, the scourge that clung to every corner of Pharloom, it’d all been dismantled a few months ago, now. Of course, it’d been cause for celebration at the time. Lace had been thankful that the thick walls of the spider’s bellhome did well to muffle the din of their raucousness. Otherwise it may have taken a week before Bellhart grew quiet enough to get any legitimate rest.
The festivities came and went, and Lace had figured they’d gotten it all out of their system.
But it started up again, recently. Music and song, food and drink, carousing to a degree that felt a bit baffling, comparatively.
Hornet dissuaded the notion that they’d been throwing parties for no good reason, as Lace had suggested. Apparently, it’d been some sort of holiday. Now that the haunting was through, and bugs were no longer desperately pushing themselves beyond their means to meet a heaven they’d never find, they had time to indulge in such matters.
Lace could not recall if she had ever witnessed a proper holiday before… There’d been no such conduct in the citadel, that was for certain. Such behavior would have made the long-dead, thoroughly inanimate choirbugs recoil in disgust.
… The manner and origins of Bellhart’s holiday remained a complete mystery. By which to say Lace had asked Hornet, and Hornet responded with a shrug, and a confession that she had not asked. If she expressed interest, the spider explained, Bellhart would plead for her to join. The insufferably noble thing would not be able to turn down a direct request, so it seemed- even despite her insistence that such parties ‘were not her place’.
She was content to huddle within her bellhome, sculpting scraps of material, fashioning weapons and bolts and whatever else her deadly mind saw fit to fashion.
Lace was not nearly as boring. Not that she partook in the festivities, either. Certainly not. She wouldn’t fit in, and they likely wouldn’t want her down there anyways. The visceral tales of Pharloom’s White Knight hadn’t been forgotten by what pilgrims survived. Even if Bellhart was more familiar with her than most- knew that hornet held her leash, and thus the chances of being slaughtered were rather unlikely- her presence would probably sour the mood.
Lace did not partake, no. But she watched. She perched on the balcony of the bellhome, swung her feet, and observed the way the world moved on without her. Bugs spun and sang and made merry as if they’d been born to.
It… Well, perhaps it did not irk her, but suffering from an unexplainable feeling of ostracization had irked her, and so by extension, Bellhart did too. How many times did a bug need a party, anyways? Once a year was probably enough. More than enough. Lace had gone her entire life without one, and she was perfectly fine for it.
What dissuaded Hornet from partaking? Was she simply too good for it all? Was the company of her own thoughts better than the ones of the mortals she had saved? Were her tools and weapons exciting enough for her dull mind to be sated? More entertaining than dragging Lace down there and forcing her to mingle amidst the commonfolk?
… She was done bugwatching. She leapt to her feet in one fluid movement, not daring to look back at the crowd before cloistering herself away in the bellhome.
Hornet had been in the same place she was last Lace observed her: perched at her desk, fiddling with the inner workings of an especially stubborn cogbug. Painfully boring… It was a miracle the damned bug was still alive, if this is how she spent her time. Lace would have been driven insane a few decades ago- and that was coming from someone who spent nearly all her life in one place.
Groaning loudly, she purposefully missed a step, allowing her body to flop against Hornet’s mattress face first. She lied there for a while, counting the seconds until her display felt appropriately dramatic, before finally bothering to roll over.
“Does your pale soul hold no room for mirth, spider?”
The tilt of Hornet’s mask had been the only cue that Lace was heard at all. She didn’t turn away from her project, swayed neither by her words, nor her theatric performance.
“What leads you to such an assumption?”
“What, beyond all the evidence you’ve provided? You do not revel. Not as the mortal bugs do.”
The tick of claws against shards cut out at once, and Hornet wheeled around at last, seemingly deciding now that the pale bug was worth her time. The impassive shell of her mask-like face rarely conveyed emotion. As such, it’d been impossible to tell whether she met Lace’s words with surprise or offense.
Or, well, that had been true until she spoke. Then it became rather obvious that the comment had bit at her ego.
“I revel.”
Such a stern accusation in such a dry tone. The utter antithesis of merriment. Lace swallowed her rising laughter, so as to give herself more room to chide.
“It is unbecoming to lie, spider. Look at you, prim and proper thing you are. I doubt you’d know revelry if it clubbed you over the back of your pale skull.”
“And you would?”
A mock gasp, far louder than it had any right to be. Lace pressed a paw against her forehead, going limp against the mattress, as if the comment struck the vital organs she hadn’t possessed.
“How hurtful! I, at least, have an excuse!”
Cooped up in that gilded cage they called a Citadel, strung up by that noose she called a Mother. There was not room for anything that had not been either productive, devout, or both. The spider had no such justification, surely. Was she not royalty? Had she not been subjected to such outings- by choice, or by force- before that piddly little kingdom of hers succumbed to ruin?
She hadn’t gotten a chance to ask. Hornet had already turned back around, Lace proving less interesting than her little arts and crafts project.
She ignored the way her eye twitched. She ignored the sudden urge to leap onto Hornet’s desk, shove her possessions to the side, and force her to pay Lace any modicum of attention.
Instead of doing any of that, she rolled onto her back, batting at a speck of dust drifting lazily in the air.
“Will you go the rest of your immortal life without dancing, spider?”
“Perhaps I will.”
Gods. She was as old as she was dense.
“... Will you go the rest of your immortal life,” Lace began again, voice wringing itself from her silken throat with notable annoyance, “without dancing with me?”
Hornet froze again. Turned again. When the two locked gazes, there’d been a hesitant glimmer in the spider’s eyes.
“... Oh.”
She was an incredibly talented warrior, an utterly selfless explorer, and would make a picture perfect martyr someday. But her spider handled matters of romance far more clumsily than she handled her weaponry.
And usually, that had not been an issue. Lace did not need romance. And even if she did, she could be charming and doting and chivalrous enough for them both. And even if she couldn’t, it wouldn’t have bothered her anyways.
But sometimes it would have been nice if Hornet took the hint. Without any of that direct communication nonsense she droned on and on about. Lace had been humiliated more than enough throughout Hornet’s time in Pharloom; she would not drop to her knees and beg for what should have been obvious.
At least the spider had the decency to look contrite. It hardly made up for her utter empty-headedness, but it was proof, at least, that Lace was not expecting too much. Proof that she was not making expectations out of the blue.
“... I did not know you danced, pale one.”
“Yes, well. You’ve never bothered to attend any occasion in which I ever would.”
Truth, if only partially. Perhaps Lace would not dance even if she were dragged to any sort of outing that might call for it. Still, it would have been nice to have been given the option.
… Hornet’s hollowed stare continued to pierce her. Unreadable, quiet, cold. It made lounging upside down feel significantly stupider than it did a few moments prior. So Lace twisted again, first onto her stomach, before lifting back into a sit.
“... Yes, I can dance.” She sighed, filling the dead space in Hornet’s stead. Always her doing the heavy lifting. Where would her spider be without her to carry their elaborate conversations?
“Mother wove it so, I think… Though I couldn’t fathom why. There was no reason nor room to do so while she was asleep… An indulgence for after Her awakening, perhaps? Or maybe She just figured that every proper girl should know such things.” Bitter tone. Bitter thoughts. She swallowed them both. Mother was dead. Recalling Her served no one. It was more than She deserved.
“Regardless,” Lace continued, “the knowledge remains. Buried somewhere in these tangled threads of mine, I imagine.”
“What sorts of dance?” Hornet probed, seemingly recalling the basics of a two person conversation. It was better than the prior silence, even if the question itself forced a bitter laugh.
“Take a guess.”
“Formal, presumably.”
“Clever thing.” More clever than she looked, at least, “All of that slow swaying, graceful stepping nonsense. Anything else would have been beneath Her.”
Lace waved a dismissive claw, and Hornet trailed the movement with her head… Perhaps lost in thought (or perhaps still too ashamed to meet Lace eye to eye), her observation almost seemed directed to the appendage, as opposed to the bug it’d been attached to.
“You do not seem fond of the act.”
“Hard to be fond of what you’ve never done.” Perhaps the quip escaped her a touch too bitter. But, in her defense, Hornet had asked. She knew her well enough to know what she was getting into.
“Maybe it would be nice. Or maybe it’d just be another sickening reminder of the role Mother built me to fill. Regardless, I never had a partner, and never indulged in such a thing…”
She’d been content to leave the statement there, at first. But as the words escaped her, they tugged at the threads of her mind. Beloved memories beneath a thick sheet of dust, better left alone.
Lace grabbed the mental thread and spooled it out regardless.
“T- ah… My sibling and I- the Organ’s Phantom, you remember- we would dance, at times… Nothing like what Mother wove us for. Something uniquely them, and uniquely me.”
Perhaps calling it dance had been disingenuous. Lace knew what dance was meant to look like. Graceful, refined, direction given movement, steps given purpose. Her antics with her sibling had been nothing of the sort… More closely resembling a newborn hardbone than a sophisticated bug. Frolicking, giggling, swinging each other about. Stepping on each other’s toes and hardly bothering to care. A pearly white flowerbed as their soft substitute for a ballroom floor.
“We probably looked like fools…” Eyes curled in a manner almost joyful, had the nostalgia not been there to temper it, “Embarrassing to look back on, perhaps, but I loved it all the same. And they enjoyed it too, I think…”
… She was losing herself. Sinking inch by inch into that festering pit of sentimentality. There’d been no time for such things.
Lace’s eyes pulled back, expression neutralizing in an instant. Perhaps too quickly, judging by the way Hornet recoiled. As if wiping any trace of weakness from her face had been an unusual occurrence for her. As if Hornet never met her before.
“And what of you, spider?” If she did not ask the question, she would be asked one in turn. About her past. Her sibling. This was her conversation. Lace would not allow that.
“Was Hallownest’s princess ever trained in such matters?”
Thank the gods her gambit paid off. Hornet blanched near instantly, head jerking to the side, little slip of nostalgia all but forgotten.
“Gods, do not remind me…” Though her tone was playful, the spider could not repress a shudder through her shell.
“Yes, I had lessons… More engaging than my schoolings on politics, but that was hardly saying much. I learned dances native to Hallownest, and a few of our distant neighbors’, in case the need arose… I suppose father was preparing me with the social tools of a noble, in addition to the bureaucratic ones… One would think his foresight would have warned him of the futility of such things. They have not served me since.”
The thought of it returned Lace to her usual spirits… Imagining her spider in stuffy palace attire, attending a class for dance of all things. Getting graded on her posture, on her steps, how well she kept in time. It almost made her feel lucky in comparison. Coming with the knowledge prepackaged seemed infinitely less humiliating.
Folding her paws in her lap, Lace leaned forward, gaze and voice both syrupy sweet.
“Well, I don’t suppose you’ll be waltzing with me any time soon, then.”
Hornet’s head cocked sharply to the side, in a manner Lace had come to recognize as the closest she’d get to resembling playfulness.
“Nor do I suppose you’d deign to mingle with the bugs below? Grant them a glimpse of the dance from your youth?”
“Hah!” A sharp bark of a laugh, proceeded by a few giggles more, “I would sooner be drawn and quartered!”
She’d sooner throw herself to the roaches. Sooner return to the abyss of the Void. That part of herself was for her sibling and her sibling alone.
This time, she ensured her face did not betray her thoughts. Hornet was none the wiser, chuckling a familiar, tepid sound (truly, mirth was not her strong suit). It pittered out quicker than usual, and the silence that rose to fill its place was… contemplative. Again, the spider retreated back into her own mind… Lace supposed it couldn’t be helped. That oversized skull of hers probably housed more thoughts than her mind knew how to handle.
She expected to remain in such silence for a while longer. Perhaps a few minutes, or an hour, or indefinitely, as far as she knew- one could never really tell with Hornet.
So it came as a great surprise when the spider lifted herself to her feet, extending a claw in Lace’s direction with a confidence usually reserved for her missions.
“Rise, Lace.” A command in structure, though far from it in tone, “Might I show you something?”
Despite the way she felt her eyes narrowing in skepticism, Lace found herself rising to her feet. Though she made sure to spurn the offered paw- fragile she may have been, she could stand on her own accord, at least.
“... Depends. It had better not be the cogbug.”
“It is not the cogbug.”
Hornet’s hands folded neatly beneath her cloak, completely unbothered by Lace’s refusal to touch her.
“I never took to the dances of my kingdom. I have no sentimentality for my presumed obligations as a princess… But there was a form of dance I was taught- not as a princess, but as a warrior. As a daughter.
“Might I teach you the ways of hivedance, Lace?”
Teach a dance…? Lace couldn’t help her beat of hesitation. On one hand, she would likely make an utter fool of herself- in front of Hornet, no less. She wasn’t confident her ego could survive a blow like that. Lace worked very hard to keep up appearances, picturesque, graceful, death which trotted with delicate feet.
… But on the other hand, it was an invitation to dance. An invitation from Hornet to dance. If Lace refused, it might take a good few centuries for her to see an offer like it again.
And really, when she put it like that, it would make her a fool to spurn it so.
“I suppose you may. Not as if we have anything else to do.” A tilt of the head, a small step forward, until the plush of her silken shell brushed against Hornet’s cloak, “How shall I stance myself, then? Shall you have me pawing at your hips all the while?”
The spider’s eyes widened behind the sockets of her shell, head jerking to the side in the exact way Lace knew it would. It was ever so easy to get beneath her carapace, poor thing.
Hornet’s hands rose to smooth at her cloak, grounding herself with the feel of claws-on-silk (even when there’d been much nicer silk to run her claws along, should she ever find either the courage or the intellect). When she brought herself to reply, her voice was appropriately uniform, if not a touch quieter than usual.
“... Before I might teach you any steps or motions, I should elaborate.” Feet shifted against the plush of the carpet, but Hornet kept herself where she was. She didn’t draw any closer, but hadn’t felt the need to pull away, either.
“Hivedance is likely far different than the dances you are familiar with. More akin to the dancing ongoing beneath us- though ours, unlike theirs, comes with rules.” A pause. Then, almost sympathetically, “We do not often hold to each other.”
Being as close as they were to one another, Lace knew just how well Hornet could notice every shift in her expression. The way her eyes narrowed and her intrigue dulled, impeccably perfect posture slacking under the weight of her spider’s tedious words.
“And here I thought you intended to be romantic.”
Dry. Barbed. A giggle that held no humor. Lace fell back upon the bed with a thump, crossing first her legs, arms following suit shortly after.
“No touching, and now a rulebook? Do you strive to make this a lecture as horrid as your palace years?”
She rolled her eyes in a wide arch, glancing up at the ceiling of the bellhome, past the spa, down to the blankets at her side, and then back up to Hornet again.
And flinched. Flinched, because Hornet was stanced differently now. Because her shoulders were raised, and her mask was tilted, the sockets taking on a far more furious appearance at such an angle. Flinched because Hornet’s claws had been shoved into the interior pockets of her cloak, pulling at the fabric with strain.
“May I finish, at least, before you chide the culture of my long-dead clan?”
Patience pulled thin… Hornet’s resolve normally lasted a bit longer than that.
Lace was hardly one to pull punches, but if she’d known the spider would have been so touchy, perhaps she would have shown a bit of restraint.
Regardless, she would not apologize. She never apologized- couldn’t. If she did, there wouldn’t be anything left of her. But she averted her gaze for a time. Folded her claws in her lap again. Adjusted her posture into something more astute.
“... Go on, then.”
Hornet blinked slowly, as if unwinding herself took some force of will. She straightened herself out, pulled her claws from her pockets, heaved a quiet sigh. Impossible to tell whether she’d evened herself out, or simply donned a rather convincing mask. But Lace supposed it would not have changed anything regardless.
“Hivedance,” Hornet began, in a tone that did resemble a tutor- though Lace kept that observation to herself, “is unique from other dance in many ways. The most notable, I think, is its utility... From my understanding, dance is something carved into their nature, much like their loyalties to their hive and queen. It is an art that has evolved alongside them, its origins trailing farther back than any living bug can recall.
“There is a sort of… language to it. Not nearly as effective as clawsign, mind you. But steps, gestures, directions, all of it carries meaning. Hivedance as a term refers not to a set of steps, but to the translations of the motions. The steps of the dance itself depends on the context…”
Well, that may have been well and good as far as Hornet was concerned. But Lace had still been left with a frankly absurd amount of questions, and hadn’t come closer to answering any of the important ones. A centuries long culture could not reveal whether said dance was fun- or even interesting. Mother had been as old as dust, and She’d been neither.
“And what does that look like?” Lace pried, and simply had to hope the words sounded more intrigued on Hornet’s ear than it had on her own, “Show me something, then.”
… The spider did not obey at first. Didn’t speak, either. Tensed a little, as if the prompt was surprising- but surely, Hornet hadn’t been that dense. Dances were not meant to be spoken of. They were meant to be performed, seen. Anyone knew that.
More hesitation. Lace had pondered the pros and cons of ribbing her a little. Maybe if she implied that Hornet had been bluffing, or making things up, or- gods forbid- scared, it would be the little push she needed to actually get a move on.
But Hornet took a step back before Lace could find any suitable words. Gave herself a bit of room to work with. Inhaled sharply.
The two of them had their fair share of battles together. Some of them more lethal than others, true. But regardless of their ever growing number of spars, Lace couldn’t help but marvel at the spider’s fluidity. Perhaps all Weavers maneuvered in such a way- grace and lethality in tandem, another hallmark of Mother’s design.
All of that to say, when Hornet begun her demonstration with a familiar flare of her cloak, the threat display- somehow- felt entirely natural.
The following movements had been far less familiar, but equally as resolute… It was hard for Lace to imagine another bug moving quite like she had moved. Each step, each flash of claws, of cloak, all precise in a manner only Hornet could be. Honed to a fine and deadly edge.
She swiped as if the air itself had wronged her. Stomped a paw fiercely- shell meeting metal with a hum- and hadn’t even bothered to flinch. She breathed as she did in combat, chest filling swiftly, and only in moments where she had the room to allow it.
A final step backward, a sharp bow of her head, and only then did Hornet still. She remained there a moment, the lack of reflection in the sockets of her skull implying that her eyes had been shut.
When she finally abandoned the position, the ease in her posture had been Lace’s only cue that she had finished her display. No flourish. No parting words. No eye contact, notably.
It was quite the display of restraint. If Lace had such a talent, she would have embellished it a bit more. If only to prove she could.
“... What… does that mean?”
The words left her quieter than she assumed they would. Hardly loud enough to bounce off the walls of the bellhome. It reminded her of the hushed whispers of the choirbugs, cloistered away in their cathedrals.
If Hornet found the conduct unusual, she decided not to comment on it. Instead, she straightened herself once more, preparing to repeat the movements such that a laybug like Lace could understand.
“This…” Another flare of her cloak, fabric snapping loudly at the motion, “translates roughly to many things. Warrior, in this context. Challenge, as well. This,” -and there was the foot stomp- as if crushing a bug’s skull- punctuated with a sudden twist, “is triumph. This one means trials…”
And on and on, Hornet repeated each motion allargando, the slow pace softening the edges of the preceding display.
“Honor. Gift. This motion here is to give, or to bestow, often followed by the giver in question- the queen, in this instance, as this motion here conveys. And this-”
(Lace almost hadn’t caught the way her breath hitched, focused instead on the way Hornet’s claws moved- starting at her shoulder, before trailing diagonally across her body, moving well past her torso before tapering off. Similar to how she polished her blade. Similar to how she strung it with silk in order to play her needolin.)
“... Refers to myself. More accurately, myself by name. Hornet.” She repeated the motion again- quicker this time, and followed it with the finishing step backward, head bowing, “Hornet of the Hive… This was the dance conducted at my naming ceremony.”
“... I wasn’t aware bees had those.”
“It is not often conducted for younglings any older than a grub. Consider it… a cultural blend. The dance of the Hive, and the ceremony of the Weavers.”
Hornet approached the edge of the bed at an especially leisurely pace. Perhaps hoping to disguise her hesitation as leisure. It might have worked on another bug, who hadn’t dedicated so much of their time to watching the spider’s every move. But Lace knew good and well when something weighed heavy on her mind.
The mattress bowed to Hornet’s weight as she finally settled down. She flattened her cloak on her lap, meaningless busywork for her claws.
Lace had not responded to the comment. What was she expected to say? Conversations on Weavers never lasted very long, as far as the two of them were concerned. Their experiences were few and far between, and any conversation that didn’t escalate into an argument usually pittered out no sooner than it’d started.
But perhaps the silence and the recalled memory made a poor combination for Hornet. And while there was nothing she could do about the latter, her voice picked up again, eager to fill the painful void Lace had so rudely left behind.
“... From what I know about them- and keep in mind, I have never known much- names are transient things. Earned, donned like a cloak, and replaced once age and time have rendered it unfit.”
Ah.
Well, Lace couldn’t claim to know a lot on the subject herself, but she hadn’t doubted such a fact for a second. When a name was given to you by an unfeeling warden, what sentimentality would one have to it? Weavers weren’t trained roaches, content to embrace whatever title they’d been given, coming when called with a sickening obedience.
Besides, the concept of finding Mother’s names improper was not new to her. Her sibling bemoaned it often. Used to. Whatever…
(Lace tried to remember what it felt like to be named… But the memory was old- as old as she had been- fuzzy around the edges. It vanished when she reached for it… Perhaps they would have remembered better.)
Hornet was still talking. Oblivious to the mire of Lace’s thoughts. Quite the boon obliviousness could be, in circumstances like these. It saved the spider the pain of bruised emotions.
“I had… perhaps not names before my ceremony. But I had titles of address. Pale Gift- which mother never liked. Gendered Child, as I was often referred to in the White Palace. But Hornet was my first proper name.”
“... You must have received it a while ago.”
“A great age ago, yes.”
Hornet. Hornet of the Hive. Hornet of Hallownest. Something earned instead of given…
“And you’ve not outgrown it yet?”
“No-” The reply was sudden- something Hornet must have noticed, judging by the way her gaze fell to the side. A claw ran through the downy interior of her cloak, meticulously picking out any stray grains or debris that may have collected in the exposed edges.
“Perhaps it would be a sacrilege notion, to my kin… but I hope I never do.”
Made sense to her, Lace supposed… If she had anything that was entirely her own, she’d be remiss to let anyone take it away from her, too.
More silence… Lace could not possibly expect Hornet to fill it forever. She was patient, but hardly that patient. Better to have her talk her ear off than return to that damned cogfly again.
“... How might I perform my name?”
Hornet’s head picked up, and Lace’s coy squint was awaiting her. Her head tipped askew, to the point where it almost brushed against her silken shoulders.
And maybe Lace had been looking too closely. Seeking out things where there were none to be found. But she would have bet a hefty string of rosaries that the question almost delighted Hornet.
“Hah… It’s not often that simple. Usually, it is a motion you claim for yourself. Something that does not take much effort to perform. Many bugs prefer it to include a hand, so as to introduce nuance with the claws. Direction is also an option. Observe mine once more.”
Without rising to a stand- perhaps distracted by her newfound earnestness, or perhaps not figuring it important- a hand rose to repeat her claw sign. A confident diagonal swipe, claws cupped as they traveled down the length of the invisible needle. Direction. Nuance with claws. Partnered with the example, it became far clearer.
When Hornet’s paws returned to her lap, she’d been a bit closer to Lace than she’d been before. Spine bowed forward, dark eyes glinting attentively. She did not seem to notice. Lace noticed.
“Is there anything in particular that comes to mind?”
… She asked the question as if it were a simple affair. As if this should have come naturally to her. How was she to know what would have been fitting? She wasn’t a bee. Nor was she raised by them. Nor had she ever even met one. Shouldn’t Hornet had been the one to come up with such a thing? Was she not the teacher here?
… Was there anything in particular that came to mind? … Nothing outside of the usual. Would that have been good enough?
Carefully- so slowly that Lace did not recognize she’d been doing it- her claws drew close to her chest. She balled one hand into a gentle fist, opposable claw tucked away inside. With the other, she pinched around an invisible thread, and spooled.
“This… This is me.” She muttered, in a tone that implied she hadn’t quite believed it herself, “This means Lace.”
She repeated the motion again, and refrained from meeting the spider’s gaze as she did so… Lace had never been the most creative bug. Between them, her sibling took that title easily. The motion was probably rather generic, especially for one seemingly fluent in this ‘hivedance’ thing. What a cruel joke it would be, if the simple sign already had a translation. How ironic, to accidentally name herself silk, or string, or twine… Fitting, she supposed, but painfully ironic all the same.
Hornet hadn’t made a comment on it one way or the other… Not to chide her for her lack of creativity, nor to inform her that a long dead bee had coined the action millenia ago. She simply nodded, content with the decision, feeble as it was.
“So it does.”
And just like that, Hornet was on her feet again. Her paw reached out to Lace. A charming sense of déjà vu prickled at the back of her mind.
“Rise, one named Lace. Let me teach you something.”
Lace allowed her paw to fall against the spider’s. She allowed herself to be helped to her feet.
Hornet had a look about her that Lace had come to recognize… Perhaps it did not show across the shell of her face, but it was entirely evident in her body language. In the way her gaze flitted, how her head jutted this way and that, studying the silk bug as if it’d been the first time she ever laid eyes on her.
Hornet was scheming. A conclusion all but confirmed when the bug in question positioned herself directly behind Lace, as if content to act as her shadow. Chitinous claws interlocked with silk ones, far less possessively than she imagined one could hold anything. Especially her.
Something cold and smooth fell atop her shoulder, a fleck of white in the corner of her vision- Hornet’s head, it turned out. Lace didn’t even have to spare it a glance. The soft rumble that rippled at the threads had been evidence enough.
“Oh?” Demure as ever, Lace allowed her head tip, until she’d been sandwiching the spider in between, “What happened to not ‘holding to each other’?”
“Hush, pupil.” A honey-sweet mutter, raspy around the edges as the purr rolled forth, escaping Hornet fully, “Allow my guidance, will you?”
Ah, well. If the spider insisted.
Lace slackened just enough to allow her spider to take the lead, partially curious, partially content to allow herself to be held in such a way. If being her pupil was what it took to coax an embrace out of her, Lace would learn whatever Hornet saw fit.
Her paws were coaxed to her chest, and at a muttered request, Lace staged her designated call sign. Hornet pulled back, and Lace followed, stepping with methodical purpose. She made sure their legs were never too far apart from each other. Made sure that Hornet’s cloak remained pressed between them.
“Bow your head here…” Hornet instructed, and Lace obeyed without complaint. The action felt familiar. The step, the dip…
“... This… means hive?”
“Ah… Yes, and no. Truly, it means ‘home’- specifically one’s current home... But, to a bee, the two are synonymous.” Hornet paused her puppeteering for a moment, ensuring- ever diligent teacher she was- that her lessons were finding purchase, “The meaning can shift depending on the dancer…”
“Pharloom, then. For me.” Lace concluded. A purr hit the crook of her neck, low and smooth and impossibly pleased.
“Ahh… Look who’s clever, now.”
Hornet effortlessly returns to her leading, and Lace, her following… There was something so delightfully ludicrous to it all. If she had explained to herself an hour prior that she’d be here- led in a dance she didn’t know, cultivated by a tribe of bugs she’d never met, taught to her by the Savior of Pharloom herself- and that she’d been doing it willingly, past-Lace would have cackled.
… But this was nice. Which was odd, because nothing about it would have registered to her as nice, before. Even being led should not have felt such a way. Lace recognized the tug of a yoke when she felt it. Lace knew what it felt like to be tethered to invisible strings, looping and whirling to the content of another.
This did not feel like that. Hornet’s gentle claw- guiding, never tugging- had not felt like that.
… Lost in her mind as she was, Lace did not realize they had been repeating steps and motions for the first few repetitions. Hornet had fallen silent, leading with her hands, but otherwise not intervening… Lace had been performing the majority of the motions herself, now.
“And this…? What does this mean?”
“Care to try your hand at a guess?”
Truth be told, she didn’t. Didn’t want to spoil the atmosphere with her amateur knowledge on anthophila-linguistics. But Hornet had asked her so kindly, and a part of her could not help but fret her reaction were she to deny (how disgustingly sentimental her spider was making her)...
“... I do not recognize much. Might triumph be a part of it?”
“Yes. Good… You learn swiftly. It is quite commendable.”
Lace was suddenly exceedingly grateful that her back had been to Hornet. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d play off the broad range of expressions so quick to color her face. She basked in the praise intentionally- or attempted to, at least- smothering that altogether too-fuzzy feeling with her usual decorum.
“This,” Hornet pressed on, lifting Lace’s hand to cup the air above her head, dragging gently down to the center of her chest, “means above- in either sense, metaphorical or literal. This claw sign here designates ownership. And this-”
Something shifted in her voice. Sharper than a smile, softer than a grin. She trailed Lace’s hand so that it gently grazed the length of her body- down to her hip, where the arm swung off toward the right.
“- translates roughly to mother.”
A brief pause to stitch the words together.
When Lace craned her neck back, her eyes were pulled in a narrow, delightfully wicked squint.
“You know, spider, I’m becoming rather fond of this dance.”
“I figured you might.”
Lace did not keep track of how long their little lecture had gone on for. The world moved without them, and she let it. For once in all the time she’d known her, her spider had strayed from her nature of being a complete and utter bore, and Lace would drink until the well ran dry and tasteless.
Hornet, to her part, seemed content to indulge her. It hadn’t even taken much prodding for her to divulge other such dances, patterns of movement, associated meanings. She walked Lace through what she called a ‘feast rite’ (though, she’d been so busy pondering what bees must feast upon that she tuned out for a majority of the culture lesson), and even coaxed her through the steps of a coronation dance (Hornet did not remember that one as well… Apparently, it’d never come into practice during her time in the Hive. Judging by the tone of her voice, Lace could only assume that’d been a good thing).
They spun, and stepped, and meandered, biding their time until the spider’s feet were thoroughly sore. Then it’d been a good bit of fun to pester such a mighty warrior on her utter lack of stamina.
When Hornet’s claws pulled away that final time, her silken skin nearly ached. As if addicted to the feeling, to the warmth, the sturdy hold, and the recognition that she would not fall or falter. If it would not have eviscerated what she had left of her pride, Lace might have whined at the loss.
Instead, she watched the way her bug fell back against the bed, not quite lying down, but clearly tempted by the thought of it. She hissed in muted relief, that fleshy body of hers seemingly too much weight for her feet to handle. Pros and cons to being spun from silk, Lace supposed.
Well, if Hornet would return to being a bore, then Lace would return to her usual self as well.
“Say, spider.” A sing-song cadence, a head cocked sly, “If I ever met a bee, and greeted them with something to the effect of this… They would understand?”
Only belatedly did Lace realize how difficult it’d been to mimic Hornet’s fluid movements without her hands and cues as a guideline. Regardless, she had begun her taunt, and was now thoroughly determined to commit to it. Call signs, paw stomps, a bit of a flourish entirely her own. If she was a bee, she would say she had done a rather good job.
Judging by Hornet’s reaction- shoulders shaking in stifled laughter- she had not agreed. But she wasn’t a bee, either. What did she know, really?
“In truth, I am unsure…”
Truly, there was only one bug in Pharloom who would entertain a contrived question after being so ruthlessly mocked. Only one who would take it all in stride, and find the benevolence to seek out a genuine answer.
How lucky Lace had been, to live with such a silly, foolish little bug like that.
“I have never met a bee beyond my hive; for all I know, there could be nuances to hivedance that vary from settlement to settlement.”
As exhausted as she was, her voice took on an almost wistful air… As if she’d never bothered to consider it. Or that the thought was one long discarded, pushed to the back of her mind in pursuit of other matters. Always busy. No time to entertain even her own mind, restless little thing she was.
For a moment, Hornet seemed content to leave the comment there. Then, flopping heavily onto her back, she added- completely unnecessarily, in Lace’s opinion-
“But even if they did, your follow-throughs could use some work.”
“How cold!”
As deeply and terribly hurt as Lace had been, the comment hadn’t been enough to deter her from collapsing onto the mattress herself. She squirmed and pressed as she made herself comfortable, taking her place in the little Lace-shaped gap that Hornet always left for her.
“I’ve only begun today! I thought you said I was a quick learner.”
“That you are, pale one. But if you want to convince a bug you’ve ever bested me in combat, your motions outside of it must be precise. Confident.”
Shifting from her back to her side, Hornet took in the sight of her… Her gaze was heavy, in the same way water had been heavy, when it seeped into her threads and weighed her down. Whatever it was the spider was seeing in her, she must have been hallucinating it. There hadn’t been any part of her worth gawking at like that.
… But, she let Hornet hallucinate. She let Hornet stare, as if she’d been something as divine as Mother intended her to be. She let Hornet touch, dragging an arm around to pull her closer, and she let her nuzzle into the crook of her silken neck. She let Hornet murmur into her, quiet and tired, honeysuckle sweet.
“Perhaps, should you actually best me in a spar, I shall aid you in refining your movement… A fair enough reward, for such a difficult feat. Then, you may tell any bee you wish…”
Lace hummed thoughtfully. Her silk buzzed beneath her spider’s weight.
“That’s a deal I can agree to.”