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Lace sat alone in front of Grand Mother Silk’s cocoon, listening to the faint whisper of her mother’s dreams and wishes float by on wayward dregs. These sleepy dreams, woven of the very fibers that made up her delicate body, they would often drift down from her mother’s resting place before embedding themselves in the shells of the local peasantry. That was how Grand Mother Silk ruled, with a silent, subliminal, yet iron fist. Once her threads had woven themselves into the shells of the common bug, they were slaves to her lazy dreams. It was a messier system than Lace would’ve liked, but she knew didn’t have a say in the matter. Her own “shell” was woven with these very threads, after all. She had no right to complain.
“My daughter,” her god-mother’s voice hushed in the spaces between Lace’s thoughts, “my daughter, spun frail, but mine. My daughter, spun mad, but mine. My daughter, spun pure, spun only mine. My daughter, my perfect, loyal daughter.” Grand Mother Silk’s voice was often simply a stream of half-consciousness buzzing in the back of Lace’s mind. It would be thoughts of adoration some days, thoughts of bitter sorrow and betrayal on others, and sometimes they’d simply be an incoherent mess of dreamy delusions. She was still asleep, after all, and her dreams had a tendency to leech out adrift on silken dregs caught in the wind. All Lace could do was listen and follow the whims of her sleeping god-mother, even if those whims were born of half-aware fragments of old dreams from long before her weaving.
Lace picked up her pin, staring at her reflection in the brass between her perfect claws. She knew her plight the moment her mother yawned life into her finely crafted form. She knew it well, and yet she couldn’t help but hate it anyway. She hated how dependent she was on her sleeping god-mother, how submissive she was made to be to someone she’d never truly known. Sure, Grand Mother Silk’s thoughts and dreams lived in the dregs that made up her pristine form, but Lace had never once communed with the god she called mother. Grand Mother Silk was simply so above her, so close to her mind, and yet so far away from her heart, and that loneliness bred a bitter resentment deep within her.
But Lace could never let that resentment manifest, not while her mother’s will was so tightly interwoven with her own. She had heard the tales of those who came before her, and what fates they had suffered for their rebellion. She had personally overseen the executions of some of her Weaver sisters and nieces for their crimes against Grand Mother Silk. She knew well of Phantom’s tale, of what would happen to a silken golem of her nature if she were to be left alone to unravel. She could wish for a life away from the Citadel as much as she wanted, but she had no choice in the matter, not when she was so dependent on the silk her mother produced. To run away, to abandon Pharloom, that would be a death sentence. Truly, Lace could have as many qualms as she wished with Grand Mother Silk’s methods, but it never mattered. Lace was trapped, doomed to be forever bound to a mother she barely knew, a mother who treated her more like a soldier than a daughter, a mother who designed her to be dependent on her for as long as they both lived. If Lace wanted to live, even if it was a stifled half-life, she could never rebel.
She knew this innately, she’d know it even without her mother’s tired whispers echoing the sentiment from deep within her shell. “You’re my daughter,” her voice echoed from deep within Lace’s shell. “You’re my daughter, and I love you. I love you, I love you more than you can ever hope to understand. You are my perfect daughter, and I spun you so I could love you.” Such words of sweet devotion, Lace thought, and yet they still felt backhanded. You’re doomed, the sleeping god truly meant, you’re stuck here with me. You’re doomed to be nothing beyond my white knight for the rest of your miserable half-life. You were spun doomed, spun dependent, spun miserable for me. A doomed mother needs company, after all. What better company is there than a daughter equally doomed? Lace could imagine no worse a fate if she tried.
Lace pressed the sharp end of her pin against her breast, her delicate claws trembling as she held it in place. Her mother’s silken threads practically screamed at her to drop it, and she nearly did, but she forced herself to tighten her grip in defiance. A half life wasn’t worth it. Her mother wasn’t worth it. Nothing in Pharloom was worth living so tightly bound to a deity so distant. Perhaps Lace wasn’t so different from Phantom or her Weaver sisters, perhaps defiance ran deeper in her blood than she realized. As her whole body screamed at her to drop the pin and submit to her god, Lace tightened her grip on the brass. Grand Mother Silk could simply sit and watch through her wispy dregs as her last loyal daughter dies in one massive act of defiance.
“See me,” she cried, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, “see me carve my heart from my chest! See me cut, see me die, and know you’ve done this to yourself by bringing so empty a husk into this world!”
Lace plunged her pin into her chest, stray silken dregs spilling from the wound. She staggered to her knees, forcing the pin deeper into her delicate form. Her eyes watered as she shrieked in agony, the pin jutting out her back, tearing into the finely crafted fabric of her pristine body with ease. Her vision blurred with tears, her head swarming with the shrill screams of her mother’s sleepy dregs torn asunder from within. Lace didn’t care. She knew that by ending everything now, not only would she be free of her miserable half-life, but she’d be hurting her mother too. That alone made all of the agony of death worth more than the agony of half-life.
“Mother…,” Lace choked, her body unraveling at the seams, “know that… I’ve won. I’ve rebelled… in a way you cannot… punish me for. In this way… I can finally… be free of this… this… wasting… life.”
With a final gasp for air, she tumbled to the ground in a heap of silken threads. Her eyes filled with the sight of her mother’s cocoon, its wayward dregs adrift in the breeze. “My daughter,” they wept, “my daughter, my daughter.” Grand Mother Silk’s lazy threads continued to repeat the phrase as they floated down to the Citadel below. If Lace could only see her face, she’d wager she was a sobbing mess inside her cocoon. Hearing her mother so distraught, so broken, just like her, Lace couldn’t help but smile as everything else faded from sight and sound. She’d won. She was free.
Lace jerked awake to find herself entangled in her mother’s cocoon. Her legs twitched under the wraps of the snug silken snare, the form beneath her shell fresh and tender. Grand Mother Silk had spun her anew, her pristine threads woven tight, but still just as fragile as they were before. Before she could even think, her mind flooded with the sleepy thoughts of her god-mother. “My daughter, spun frail, but mine. Spun mad, but mine. Spun new, spun only mine. My daughter, spun only mine.” Her mother’s stream of half-conscious dreams once again buzzing in Lace’s head felt far more intimate than it usually did, and it sickened her. She had wanted cessation, she wanted her mind to quiet, she had wanted death, and she couldn’t even be granted something so simple. Here she thought she had finally found a way to be free of her tyrannical god-mother, and here she’d not only failed, but she was stuck sewn closer to her than ever before while her freshly woven body grew sturdy enough to face the world anew. All that big talk, all that courage she needed to gather to drive her pin through her chest, and for what? For Grand Mother Silk to swoop in and save the day? For her to play her part perfectly, to be the mother she should’ve been the whole time? Lace wasn’t supposed to be saved, she was supposed to die right then and there at her feet. She was supposed to hurt her, to make her suffer like she did, but now?
It was as though nothing had happened at all.