Chapter Text
A lake of black inky substance, liquid void, smooth and polished like a mirror. Calm, quiet. The tremors and quakes which had rocked the land of Pharloom finally ended with the death of the pale being Grand Mother Silk. A few small stones and clouds of dust fell from the cavern roof into the sea of void below without ever disturbing the surface. The void accepted them silently, without splash or ripple.
By the edge of the lake stood a platform of ornate metal, if one were to reach down from the edge the tip of their claw might just barely touch the smooth surface below. A place where samples had been collected by weavers in the past, the obsession with void had absorbed the minds of many bugs in the past to less than prosperous results.
Upon the platform lay a bug, vibrant red cloak, pure white mask with two proud tapered horns, lithe and slender frame. Her movements were graceful as she sat up, dark eyes gazing over the lake of void, glancing side to side as she watched the remaining long silk threads spun by Grand Mother Silk succumb to the void and fade away into nothingness. Before long no physical trace would remain of the pale being who's rage and pain had caused so much destruction to the land and its inhabitants. Well... no trace except...
A faint laugh from beside her. The sound of a creature who wished to cry but had no biological means by which to do so. A painful sad little sound. Hornet turned and gazed upon the child spun from silk.
The daughter of Grand Mother Silk was slightly shorter than Hornet, a creature of soft round shapes, white silk tightly spun into the shape of a doll with the implication of a bob cut hairstyle and clothes, with lean limbs more than capable of combat and posessed of great physical strength Hornet was all too familiar with. On the ground between them was the silkspun child's pin. Hornet gripped her own needle firmly, although she had gauged the creature no longer a threat she would never be fool enough to let down her guard completely. Sure enough when the silkspun child picked up her own weapon she made no move to attack, she crawled the short distance to the lake of void, hugging the pin to her chest tightly and giggled again in an even slower and sadder manner, watching the last traces of her mother fade away.
Sensing the presence of life the glassy black surface of the void began to stir, jagged tendrils and vicious sawing edges burst forth, hissing softly and whipping the air around them, the metal platform just barely high enough to prevent the void from latching on to it's edge and pulling the silkspun child down after her mother.
Hornet watched in impassive silence, her own thoughts pondering what she had seen below that deadly lake. A ghost, in more ways than one.
The silkspun child began to tilt forwards, her shoulders shaking softly as giggles at last turned to something resembling sobs. Her weight shifted, her head dragging her off balance. She was going to fall.
Hornet moved, a swift graceful step, the metal ring of her needle gently interposing itself between the lake and the creature who had been moments away from entering it. The silkspun child closed her eyes, the cold metal against her forehead and through it the connection with the one holding her back was, for a moment the only thing in her world.
"What's wrong... L-little Spider?" She asked, her voice faint and breathy with laughter. "Let me guess, y-you want the pleasure... of pushing me in... yourself?"
"I have no such intentions." Hornet responded simply.
"Why not?" Lace asked, her brow furrowing in a frown. "You only s-saved me in order to ensure my mother would use up the last of her silk and die quietly. A cold calculation as befits a weaver of your stature." Her voice steadied as she spoke.
"You mistake me, child. I returned the favour of your saving me. Your life is yours to do with as you please now, if that means throwing yourself to your death then I shall neither help nor hinder you."
"I mistake you? Little Spider, your every word only mocks me further." She pressed her forehead harder against the handle of the needle that kept her from oblivion. Hornet shifted her stance slightly to brace herself. "You know what I am and what the remainder of my life is doomed to be, you have taken no small delight in calling me child at our every meeting."
Hornet remained silent for a long moment, deciding if the creature was even worth responding to. Then a memory sprung unbidden to her mind. A funeral around a pit, a small village of pilgrims destroyed by a skull tyrant. A silence of guilt in the absence of a name. "If you have a name you are free to share it."
There was something soft in her tone now. The silkspun child opened her eyes and looked up, but Hornets mask was as impassive as ever. "Lace. My name is Lace."
"A beautiful name. I have no intentions towards you Lace, as long as you do no harm to the bugs up above we shall have no quarrel."
"So that's it then? You walk back up into Pharloom and play the hero, Little Spider?" Lace's voice taking on a derisive tone. "Perhaps I did mistake you after all. Perhaps you have no idea of the fate to which you have consigned me."
"I know full well, Lace, what lies in store for you. A creature made of silk, no longer sustained by the life fed to you by your mother. I did slay your sibling in the exhaust vents of the citadel. I remember well how they threw themself into combat, driven by desperation at first for my silk and then as the battle turned against them in desperation for their own death and release from pain."
"Can you imagine it, Little Spider? The agony of feeling yourself coming apart, fraying, unthreading, uncoiling? Already I can feel it now, and the sensation will grow hundredfold through every one of the millions of threads which compose me, imagine the sensation of shedding your shell and eating poison while your carapace simultaneously turns to acid. That is my future, Little Spider, a tormented grey phantom longing for death. You have saved me from void only to condemn me to that. Now I ask again, will you cease this posturing and posing and push me into the void? Or will you deny me even that small mercy?"
"The silk heart I claimed from you was your means of surviving outside her presence for brief durations, was it not? I have in my possession two such hearts and I have heard rumour of a third up above in the White Ward of the Citadel. Would three silk hearts be sufficient for you to survive?"
Lace's eyes widened for just a moment, before narrowing again in suspicion. "Your speculation is correct, a silk heart can sustain me for a time and if there are three as you claim that might be enough to forestall my fate for longer still... But we both know you would not give up such strength. You are weaver and pale being both, the only thing stronger in your blood than a desire for power is a delight in lying about your intentions."
Despite her efforts Lace's words received no rise of anger from Hornet, only the slightest tilt of her head. "Believe what you will. There are many bugs in the kingdom above who's welfare concerns me greatly and I would take my leave of this place. I shall grant you a silk heart with no conditions attached, prove yourself trustworthy and I shall grant you a second and a third when the opportunity arises. But if you seek to throw yourself into the void then do so of your own volition, I shall not stop you."
Lace laughed, finally with a hint of true mirth. "Little Spider your needle has been holding me back this entire time."
Hornet stiffened slightly as she realised how close she was and abruptly stepped back. Lace remained upright, giggling softly as she stared out across the dark lake of void. She made no move to throw herself in. Hornet stood behind her, silent, impassive, unreadable. Lace frowned, then sighed after a long moment.
"Very well, little spider, my curiosity has been piqued. As I said before in denying my mother your silken strength I have won. The bleakness of my prospects means nothing to me, although I should prefer to avoid pain if the opportunity is presented."
"I shall rest on the bench down the tunnel." Hornet said. "When I have extracted the silk heart from my shell I shall return here to offer it to you. If you have not thrown yourself to the abyss by then you may consider it yours. I shall leave you to your thoughts until then." And with that she departed.
In silent caves Hornet sat upon the bench, when she had been here last she had been surrounded by the soft trills of cogflies and the racing of her pulse and silk within her shell in anticipation of the fight. Victory brought with it a strange sense of relief and hollowness, but Hornet captured the feeling and quarantined it; there was much still to be done and while she had accomplished a great feat this was no time to relax. Her feelings were under her control, each one had it's proper place and time.
Somewhere far up above Shakra was likely still defending Bellhart from the last remnants of void corrupted bugs, the Second Sentinel would hopefully be doing the same for the survivors in the Songclave shelter in the Citadel. And Garmond... Hornet shifted slightly in her seat, she would need to steel herself for what she might encounter upon her return to the sad isolated chamber where Garmond had secluded himself before he fell completely to the void. She couldn't afford to linger overlong down here in the abyss. And yet here she was, waiting for an ageless child who might very well have simply killed herself in the next room. Hornet knew the feeling of losing a mother, and had seen the pain writ plainly on Lace's expression.
A silk heart, she could sacrifice that much. After all she had taken it from the defeated Lace to begin with. She breathed in deeply, then out, readying herself. This task could prove unpleasant.
Hornet began to bind, weaving silk around herself, her claws raised as if conducting music, drawing the focus of her binding forwards and outwards. A faint cry of pain escaped her, Hornet did not waste energy on attempting to control her voice in such situations, such efforts were better spent on efficiently completing her goal no matter what screams she might make.
Silk spun and whirled, feeling like it was hollowing out a layer just beneath her shell, like something inside her was being sucked out by the proboscis of a squit, or perhaps several dozen squits. Those really fat venom spitting ones from the putrified ducts. It was a matter of only a few seconds, but it felt like hours and it left Hornet feeling weary and uncomfortable. The silk heart floated in the air before her, a storm of endless silk that danced before her eyes, almost hypnotic.
Hornet's head tilted downwards as she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Her dreams were dark and fragmented, filled with threads of silk and parasitic witch-root thrashing and fighting upon a shiny black floor of void. Hornet swung her needle, cutting through endless waves of reaching tendrils as she raced after a tiny figure with a white horned mask, a little ghost wandering with it's nail and leaving a trail of void in it's wake. But for every strand Hornet cut two more took it's place, and the little knight grew further and further away, sinking down into blackness until nothing remained.
Hornet woke with a gasp, needle leaping to her claws as she took a battle stance, the sound of her own spun thread and her shout echoed back to her through the quiet tunnels. The silk heart was right by her head, it would be the easiest thing in the world to reach out and touch it, it seemed almost to be leaning towards her, it wanted to return to her power. For a moment she was tempted, powerfully tempted. The silk child had killed thousands of pilgrims, and more than likely had been cruel to many of them for the simple sport of it. In Hornet's shell this silk heart would be used to do good, while if it was given to Lace then it would only bring her back to her dangerous state.
Why had she promised such a thing? Had she just been struck by a whim? If so this was her chance to rectify that mistake. She should reabsorb the silk heart, dispose of that creature, and return to the world above to protect those who deserved her help.
Lace sat cross legged on the edge of the platform, her golden pin laid across her lap. Even now the void still lashed towards her, its patience endless and its intelligence seemingly nonexistent as it had still not realised it would never reach her in this way.
She did not hear Hornet approach, it was only when the corner of Hornet's red cloak fluttered in her vision that Lace realised she was no longer alone. She flinched, halfway raising her pin on instinct. Hornet's feet moved slightly as she readied for a fight, but Lace lowered the pin and giggled. "Little Spider, you startled me! Why, but I seem to have returned the favour. Are you truly so afraid of a dying shell like me?"
"I respect your abilities." Hornet responded simply. She gazed down at Lace, seeing signs of fraying already on the silken bug. A few stray threads drifted away, pooling on the ground around her and disappearing.
"Your mask hides your emotions, but do I detect a hint of pity?" Lace arched her eyebrows. "To think it would be pity that drove you all this time. I find the thought even more disgusting than my initial assumption that you were driven by rationality."
Hornet remained silent for a long moment before responding. "Speculate as you wish. I have simply repaid a life debt owed. And now I simply return an item taken from you in fair combat but which I have decided is needed more in your claws than in mine."
"Oh that's rich coming from you, Spider. From pitying me you deftly pivot to this self aggrandisement? A spawn of weaver and pale being, bragging about her endless spools of silk while my body breaks apart before your eyes from the lack of it."
"I'll not disavow my nature. It has been the cause of plentiful trials for me, not least the pain and indignities I have gone through in this land specifically."
Lace giggled, but with a hint of malice in her tone. "Of course, woe is you Spider. Such suffering you endured on your long journey through this land after I saved you from your cosy caged trip directly into the jaws of the beast!"
"Weakened though I may have been I would have stood up to your mother regardless of my means of arriving there." Hornet shot back, the faintest hint of emotion finally in her tone although due to the expressionless mask Lace couldn't place what precisely it was. "And difficult though it would have been I expect I would have eventually prevailed... and you may not have liked the result if the entirety of her power I did claim for myself."
"So you expect me to believe that you do not owe me a debt for freeing you from that cage because you would have fought my mother and won even in your weakened state!?" Lace cackled. "My freeing you from that cage was me trying to save my mother from you, and not the other way around?"
"We both know that your freeing me from that cage was so you could kill me yourself without your mother ever being aware of my presence." Hornet responded. "And that is why I intend to withhold the remaining two silk hearts from you until you have proven yourself trustworthy."
"I did kill you." Lace said, scraping her pin across the metal platform sullenly. "Several times. Your ability to evade death and scamper back to your dainty little benches, does that ability come from weaver or pale being?"
"Wyrm." Hornet responded shortly.
Lace turned, finally catching sight of the silk heart, floating softly behind her, just far enough from Hornet to prevent accidental reabsorbtion. She stood up, her limbs aching, small strands of silk falling behind her as she moved. She reached out, her eyes remaining warily on Hornet. Despite her mocking, her efforts to taunt, she still could not identify the mood of the red cloaked bug. Lace's body tingled with more than just the pain of threads peeling away, she expected to be skewered at any moment. She would have been almost relieved, her world would have made more sense. She had been meant to die, and now she had delivered a final round of mockery to her executioner. There was no way a pale being would ever give up power like this.
Lace touched the silk heart.
Hornet observed silk binding around the frayed edges of her form, repairing the damage to a certain extent. Lace was immobilised, her body locked in place by a power greater than herself, her every strand tangling with the source of silk she was absorbing. To Hornet's keen eyes the fragility of Lace's form was laid bare, every strand was equivalent, there was no heart, no eyes, no innards. Just layers of ever more fragile silk. Laces body seemed to meld and distort, in danger of unravelling completely before with a cry of effort the silken creature controlled herself and wound back into a cohesive whole. She fell to the ground, gasping and panting, shoulders shaking softly.
Better a child spun mad, than none.
The silk heart had come from Grand Mother Silk directly, a tool that had been used to control Lace's loyalty and her life. It still contained her mother's commandment, something that a brief stay in Hornet's shell had not yet been sufficient to remove.
One to wish my waking.
Lace looked up, eyes narrowed.
"Little spider, give it to me now."
Hornet gripped her needle tighter, her instincts screaming at her, alerting her to the terrible mistake she had made.
"The second silk heart, spider. Before I skewer you and tear it from your husk!"
Lace sprang to her feet, her pin whipping up gracefully into a guard position. Her steps were light, her movements swift, her body had been partially mended from a spools worth of Hornet's own silk that had been extracted along with the silk heart. But the deterioration had merely been slowed, rather than stopped.
"I have promised you all three when a suitable opportunity presents itself, provided you can prove yourself worthy of my trust." Hornet responded. "The silk heart you absorbed is heavy with the weight of your mothers intent, so strong that when I absorbed it even I was briefly overwhelmed by her vision and will. Stay your blade, child, and I shall judge your threats as being my own fault for failing to remove the lingering malevolence within those remnant threads."
"You have some nerve spider!" Lace laughed. "You think my actions even now are not my own? My mother is dead because of you, and still you think she controls me!?"
"I am certain of it. I can see it in your expression and hear it on your voice." Hornet responded.
"Give me the heart!" Lace's voice rose to a shriek and she dashed forwards.
Hornet calmly parried the blade, silk whirling around her as she responded with a cross stitch riposte, her needle lashing out and striking Lace faster than the eye could see. Lace's momentum carried her forwards to the very edge of the platform, void hissing dangerously below them. She crouched and sprung up, seeming to float in the air a moment before darting downwards with pin outstretched. Hornet skipped backwards a few steps and lashed out with her needle again, striking Lace twice more as she landed in the space where Hornet had just been.
The cuts severed thread which Laces body knit back together with her diminishing reserves of strength, the thrill of battle muting the pain of the wounds.
"Oh the spider bites!" Lace laughed. "For a moment I thought you might simply let me kill you."
Lace hesitated slightly, she had noticed that Hornet's movements and attack style had changed once again. The first time she had encountered Hornet the red cloaked spider had been using an advancing and aggressive fighting style with a lot of diagonal movements and dashes.
On their second encounter Hornet had switched to a strange and vicious attack style which made her needle strikes appear almost like claws. Hornet had been defeated many times while using that technique, but in the end her savagery had won the day.
Lace's memories of Hornet defeating her down in the void were hazy, but she felt there had been a lot of strange mechanical attacks in perfect twisting lines along with floor tacks and a swarm of poisonous mechanical bugs.
But now Hornet seemed faster than before, she gripped her needle high on the handle, shortening her attack length but increasing speed. Her fighting style had changed again; and Lace could not identify the reason why it had happened.
Lace advanced forwards, a shuffling step, keeping her guard up and following Hornet as the fight took them away from the void and towards the bench. She struck a swift flurry of attacks which Hornet stepped back from, dodging side to side gracefully. The entire time their eyes remained fixed on each other, as if the rest of the world no longer existed. Lace could tell that Hornet was intentionally dodging the attacks by the tiniest margins so she could retaliate the moment Lace let up the pressure.
"Oh no you don't, spider."
Lace's other arm spread apart into long barbed threads and lashed out like a whip, catching Hornet who had not expected an attack of such range. Her cry of pain was music to Lace's ears, but Lace did feel a sting of concern as she noticed that despite landing a solid hit it did not appear to have done as much damage as she had expected.
"I see your experience in the void has taught you something new about your body." Hornet said, jumping up and over Lace as the silken whip lashed out again and missed her elusive form.
Lace pulled back her arm, reforming it and turning to follow Hornet's arc. She jumped, aiming to crash down on the spider when she landed, but Hornet dashed away, silk glimmering around her ankles as she moved even faster than Lace had expected. By the time Lace hit the ground Hornet was well clear of her.
Lace looked up, seeing a thrown needle coming at her.
Hornet's needle struck her in the forearm and dug in deeply. A string stretched from needle, and Hornet yanked on the string to launch herself towards Lace. Hornet's mastery of her clawline ability had also increased since Lace's last encounter with her. Hornet's knee slammed into Laces head, sending her reeling. Hornet reversed her grip on needle and slammed the metal ring into Lace's claw, trying to force her to drop her pin.
Lace darted away, struggling to regain her composure. She attacked with her pin behind her, catching Hornet again as the red cloaked bug attempted to pursue but once again not doing the damage she had hoped for. She had expected to break two of Hornet's masks, but instead it seemed she had barely broken one.
Hornet hopped backwards and bound to recover her wounds, silk whirling around her. Lace saw the flying strands and an overwhelming need rose up inside her. She leapt forwards, but a red flash blinded her and knocked her back, her head spinning with pain. She looked up, blinking and rubbing her eyes to see Hornet tucking a single red and gold mirror back underneath her cloak as she drifted back to the ground.
"Spider your tricks are infuriating." She said, readying her pin. Her mind was racing with confusion and frustration, Hornet was now even stronger than she had been during their previous fights, just how much power did she have, and why did her skillset keep changing?
"No more tricks then." Hornet said, striding forwards with silk and cloak billowing around her.
In that moment, Hornet was far beyond the nature of a bug, she was something untouchable, something beautiful, something terrible. Something that was filled with the silk which Lace needed to survive.
It felt like Lace was being drawn in, like a seam ripper had been ever so gently inserted into her chest and was tugging her forward, like if she backed away something inside her would break forever. And so she had no choice but to fight.
Lace dashed to meet Hornet, needle and pin clashed once, twice, three times.
Hornet did not deploy any tools or evasion, she simply matched her skills with a blade against Lace directly. And Lace was losing.
With every strike she could feel her body's structure crumbling and breaking away. Meanwhile every strike only caused Hornet to generate more silk from the adrenaline of the fight.
Lace could only get weaker, while Hornet was getting stronger with every second.
"I never should have-!" Lace started, but then she stopped, pin wavering slightly. Despite her rage she just couldn't quite bring herself to say it.
Hornet took advantage of the momentary hesitation to loop the ring of her needle deftly over the pin and yank it from Laces claw. "Control yourself. You are your own bug now, Lace."
The sound of her name being spoken by Hornet seemed to snap Lace out of her fury. She fell to her knees, once again trying and failing to cry, only able to laugh sadly. "I don't know who I am, little spider... and it would seem I have wasted your generous gift, my body is in worse state now than ever."
She looked down, seeing scattered silk all around her, falling from her, the ground where they had fought was covered in thread like her blood.
Even with this silk heart slowing my decline I fear I shall not have the time to find myself."
"Perhaps you have found more of yourself than you realise." Hornet said.
Lace groaned and rolled her eyes. "Dear spider, why must you be so belligerently optimistic?" She stood up and made to brush herself off, before realising even that simple act would only hasten her unravelling. She shivered in discomfort at the thought. "Let us leave this place then, little spider. It may be the place of my mothers death, but it is far too drab of a place for me to live my last. And I am certain you will be well pleased to be free of it."
Hornet nodded, and began to walk away from the black sea, starting on the long path back up to Pharloom.
They travelled in silence, leaping over metal platforms across the sea of void before reaching solid stone.
Hornet gazed back at the quiet black lake as they moved to leave it behind, and Lace laughed.
"Sentimental, spider? Committing to memory the site of your greatest kill?"
"You're not the only one with dead family down here." Hornet responded quietly.
Lace went to laugh, but something in Hornet's tone made her hesitate.
Soon Hornet turned away and began to walk again, leaving Lace standing stunned in her wake for a few moments. She hurried to catch up with the red figure before she disappeared into the darkness.
"Spider?" Her voice was uncertain.
"Yes, Lace?"
"The thought occurs... that I never did ask your name."
"Indeed. A situation I am pleased you have chosen to amend. My name is Hornet."
"It's... nice... to meet you properly at last, Hornet."