Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Gladly I accept your union, Eva. No longer shall you suffer eternity alone.”

She drew herself to her feet, surveying her now ruined surroundings. The iron shell which had once stood tall between them was in tatters, cleaved through by the entwining of their silk.

Perhaps the extent of the damage could be called surprising. Binding had always held the potential to be a violent process, and she could even say that it had been and would be against those who would resist – the remains of the imprisoned Weaver inside the Slab and this kingdom’s Pale Monarch certainly – but with a soul as kind as Eva’s..? Perhaps theirs had been a potent union. Hornet had seen her share of those in Hallownest.

Without Eva, there was no purpose left to this chamber anyway. It was built to sustain her like, and truly… There were not many creatures in this world who could fit that description. Perhaps the pale child and her greying sibling, but their craft had been fostered by a different kind, and without the old Weaver’s runes, who could say what difference had been made? The opportunity to witness Eva’s true face had never been granted to her, and Hornet’s senses were not so attuned as to find her answers from such a distance.

This was a union, but it was also a farewell. She bowed her head to the remnants of what had been both Eva’s sustenance and her cage. The procedure for honouring the deceased was well-ingrained in her by this time, even for the rare few souls that she could call friends.

She moved to leave, duty calling still.

But something gripped at her.

It was not unlike the feeling of that parasite that had burdened her only so recently, just simply… not as draining. That had sapped her strength and prayed on the natural silk formed in her shell, but this… Something swarmed in her mind with each step, yes, but if anything, her silk felt only more abundant for it. A foreign feeling nonetheless, as even the silkhearts that she had consumed from this kingdom had only restored what had once been an innate ability for her.

Hornet staggered towards the nearest wall, impaling her needle into it to rest against. She checked first her shell – cool as should be normal for one of her ilk – before turning her attention inward. If anything were to be wrong… She had known the risks of accepting Eva’s request, and she had known to ward her mind during the process, but something had yet still transpired here.

Unassisted, there was only so deep she could press into her subconscious – and there was only so far that she would go before deeming it unsafe. But what was here, it had not attempted to bury itself.

There was a foreign presence lodged between her eyes, not so physical as a parasite, and not so malicious as a curse, but simply peaceful as a soul laid to rest. A second mind, not manifest as crest or possession, and with its source still clear. It should have been impossible for one as frail as her. No, more than that – it should have been impossible in a shell as small as Hornet’s own.

And yet.

“I had anticipated your personality potentially taking root in my mind,” she said, “but this is more than that, isn’t it?”

There was a stirring, a murmur, and then…

“Lady, you address me?” something hummed back. Eva. Her voice was familiar – a melody that in the air, lyrics intrinsic to the mind.

“I address what consciousness is bound within my shell. If that is you, Eva, then…”

Certainly, this was unexpected. Of all the beings to be neither subsumed by the binding process nor encroaching on her identity, Eva would not have been who she would have suspected, and certainly not in this manner.

Two souls in one body was not… a foreign concept to her – not when the place of her birth had been within Hallownest. She had seen many bodies be puppeted by foreign forces, and had it not been her own cursed sibling locked into perpetual torment against a being who sought only freedom from the constraints of a pale shell? But this was not entirely that. If Eva even had any control over her remained to be seen.

Proceeding might yet prove to be a difficulty, Hornet noted. If her physical abilities were altered by this – perhaps as they were by crests – then she was not certain that she would have time to adapt to such a new skillset. There was one remaining heart of Pharloom’s olds that she needed, and to brave the Abyss unprepared would be as foolhardy as any of her father’s meddling with it. Yet, even if the change was purely internal, would it not be cruel to bring Eva with her to what could yet result in her death?

This Weaver-born had wished for freedom, yes, and she had wished to see the world – it had all been plain in her wordless song – but in this void-ridden state that Hornet’s clash with Pharloom’s pale monarch had left it in, there was hardly a representative view to be found. Many had died already as a result of this collapse, and this she would not be able to spare the moments to bring forth Pharloom’s true beauty for her new companion.

It seemed wholly to be an unjust situation, but could the same not be said for even the circumstances of Hornet’s birth? Fairness was difficult to come by in a ruined kingdom, and even her trip to Pharloom itself had been born of a cruel mission from a tyrant.

“I feel your thoughts press up against me, Lady. What ails you so? Is it simply my presence?” Eva spoke gently. “I will attempt to retreat to the back of your mind, if it would provide you peace.”

Hornet sighed, “No, Eva, it is not a bother. I was merely strategising – this is an unexpected development, yes, and I cannot claim that it is under anything but dire circumstances, but I am… pleased to see you still functioning.”

“It is a limited existence, I find, but that is no different to what I was born into.”

“You cease to find independent control over my shell?” she asked.

They were balanced up against her needle still now, and as such, a fall taken here would spell no serious consequences. It would be best to understand what she was now working with early.

“I would not presume to claw at your assumed divinity, Lady,” Eva denied. “Think of me as a newly-hatched, for within my past shell, I had little opportunity for mobility.”

“I would never expect you to pilot this form in my stead, Eva, but I find need of a clearer understanding of our situation. I will keep up propped safely here, where there is no danger, and would you experiment for me?”

Even if Eva was determined to not attempt to exert any control, and she considered herself incapable of doing anything much with Hornet’s shell anyway, there was a distinction to be made between a world where Eva had the potential to move Hornet’s body, and one where she was simply a passenger inside of it. If Eva could take control, it could be a risk during times of true crisis, but perhaps also a boon, as a form of emergency escape.

“If it is what you ask of me,” Eva agreed.

It became obvious when Eva’s vie for brief control began, as it was signalled by a brief sting inside of her shell – not unlike that of the injector band allowing her access to her silk much more swiftly than what should be natural. Physical pain was easy to build a tolerance to, when you had been alive as long as Hornet, so she easily brushed this off, but it was far from the end of this procedure.

The following sensation was not uncomfortable necessarily, though certainly still unfamiliar, and that served to make Hornet uneasy all the same. An unknown shape pressing into her mind, and then yet deeper – through her body, tendrils like that of silk spreading through and weaving into nodes at key points. Perhaps this was what it felt like to be a marionette on strings, or a pilgrim haunted by the thrall of Pharloom’s pale monarch, but what she had not anticipated about either such scenario was the gentle lull that she could sense in them.

The feeling that losing control would provide relief – surely some instinct brought about by an innate urge to assimilate into a hivemind, and the kind that would compel bugs to not fight against the grand will of Hallownest’s Radiance, or Pharloom’s own monarch. Perhaps distantly, she must have been resisting this all of her life. But now, this was a push due to her own request, and for Eva…

Hornet surrendered to the call, and allowed herself to relax into it.

Moments later, she watched her claws begin to twitch of their own accord, and her legs stumble and fawn. Her needle kept the body stable, as Eva slowly made to move in stumbling little motions, uncertain of herself and unsteady, but moving without Hornet’s input all the same. She was quick to find her footing where it counted, and so perhaps she had simply been too harsh on herself before.

“Lady, unless you have been guiding me without my knowledge, I have found control through my own merit. Should I release you now?” Eva spoke, tone mimicking her own, yet spoken through Hornet's own vocal chords.

If total control was possible, then Hornet would need to work to find a system that would prevent anything akin to this from occurring during tense moments in battle – perhaps during combat in its entirety. Were Eva to fall into control at the wrong moment, it could lead death to them both.

“Had I the time to afford you an opportunity to explore yourself, I would, Eva. But Pharloom’s fate waits only for me, and I cannot cease my duty, even for a circumstance as miraculous as this one.”

What had been intended to be a farewell had bloomed into grand new life, and yet there was no opportunity to revel in that. Just as her moments of mourning had been ended prematurely by this event, celebration has not the chance to emerge. There simply wasn’t the time for this. The Hunter’s Heart called to her, and if Eva was forced to be her companion for her journey and hunt.

Perhaps… Perhaps at least the company would be welcome. And within her own shell, Eva was safer yet than even surrounded by the iron that the Weavers had sealed her within. Hornet could make personally sure of that.

“Of course, Lady,” Eva returned, retreating with the feeling of those strings and tendrils, though Hornet noted a certain excitement to her voice anyway – stark, compared to her usual softness. “…I will assist you from within where else I can. I have no need for my own silk anymore, so if nothing else, allow me to share that with you.”

“And this will not hurt you?” Hornet affirmed.

“My body exists no longer. You will not find it amongst this rubble. If I have none of myself to use silk to sustain, then what better use than to assist you, Lady?”

Purpose was a fickle thing, in a kingdom where the heart of the Citadel would have it stripped from you in favour of sharp strings to be plucked to the melody of the choir. Eva was likely correct though, at least for the time being. Any assistance would be useful when attempting to stand up to the void itself, even if it simply came in the form of more silk to be consumed by the darkness.

“I will accept whatever you have to offer, Eva, as we have been granted a chance to share like this,” she said.

“Then I will remain dormant in your body, Lady. Let my gift and my voice be what you remember my presence by,” Eva returned.

And her voice was a beautiful one, at least. A small comfort, but in a kingdom so governed by song, it was perhaps also the best kind of guidance.

“Thank you, Eva,” Hornet offered. “Though if I may make another suggestion – what lies ahead for me may be difficult, so if you are thrust into certain opportunity, please, then I would ask that you bring us somewhere safe, as much as you are able.”

“I would not leave you to die, even if I fear mine would be a meagre assistance. Is this truly the scale of your task?”

“If Pharloom is to be saved, yes,” she confirmed. “You will see.”

Hornet drew her needle back from the wall, and began to move once more, adjusting to the strange sensation of having a foreign presence and mind within her. It was not so abnormal nor intrusive now that she knew to anticipate it, so it could be yet that the consequences of this miracle would be minimal. Just so long as her focus did not waver, and she remained aware of the changes within her shell, at least.

The short trip to the front entrance of Weavenest Atla was a smooth one – certainly inspiring confidence back into Hornet. Perhaps it had been hasty to doubt Eva in any regard; she had been nothing but a light and a great help in the tasks that had befallen her before this one, even at such a distance away and sealed.

Still, as she strung up her needle to prompt the door to let her out, Hornet slowed once more, one question still playing in her mind. Miracle as this was, and beneficial as it seemed it would be… Did the miracles in her life not so often come with such heavy prices? It was surely a law of the universe that shifting forces occurred as responses to each other.

Her presence here, a result of the will of this pale monarch, her plan, a need to escape a destiny willed upon her by such divinity, the void, a fall allowed only by what she had schemed unknowingly with the Snail Shamans. Cause and effect.

“…Eva,” she spoke, “how is it, do you suppose, that you are allowed to present so clearly still? It should have been impossible, as we both agreed, and though I am grateful, I found myself wondering what I must have done for such an outcome.”

“Pharloom is the Kingdom of Wishes, and I am already her child. That is what has surfaced my mind within yours, I believe, Lady,” Eva answered. “There can be nothing else to it. In our union, perhaps we both willed it so, and a wish to the divine must be a certainty.”

To call her divine felt perhaps too grand, but the blood of her father did course through her, and it was his pale power that had kept her alive long enough to be here now. For and with Eva.

“Then I hope our will remains so aligned in the future,” Hornet nodded.

“I do not mean to bother you, Lady,” Eva motioned, nonexistent limbs phasing through Hornet’s mind to plant an image of a waving claw at her, “but I feel I must remark on what you have shown me already. This is…”

It was easy to forget that to have been born into that shell of iron truly meant Eva had seen no walls outside those of Weavenest Atla. Surely even the gentle atmosphere of the Moss Grotto – a sight similar enough to Hallownest’s own gardens or Greenpath that Hornet had never remained much to dwell on it – was fantastical to Eva.

And then surely even the empty and crumbling remains of the camp she was currently passing through must have seemed unbelievable. Bonebottom had nothing left to remark upon, to Hornet. No bench left to rest her legs upon, no board to hear the pleas of pilgrims in the surrounding area, no vendors or fixers, and worse yet, no citizens. A town it certainly was no longer, and yet, if you had never before laid eyes on one…

“I apologise that I cannot pause to show you everything up closer,” Hornet responded. “I do not mind hearing you it as we go, however. I would implore you to speak your mind as I move, Eva. The companionship is hardly unwelcome.”

She slowed her sprint just slightly, out of respect perhaps for what had once been a civilian area, though also certainly for Eva’s benefit, as she approached the Bonebottom Bellway.

“It may sound naive of me to say, but I would remark upon the incredible variety of creatures that we have seen already – even if most have met a swift end by your needle, Lady,” Eva said, a whisper of a laugh punctuating the end of her sentence.

“You are not the first that I have met to be so taken by the simple creatures of this land and the hunting of them. I have been taking journal notes of all the bugs that I have slain for another. Perhaps if we are permitted the opportunity, you can review them with me,” Hornet offered.

“I would be certainly foolish to say no to such a suggestion,” Eva replied, before Hornet could feel her companion turn her attention back outwards. “…This was a settlement once, was it not? I had thought even to suggest such a pleasant activity here, and yet… I cannot deny that I see a site in ruin.”

Hornet sighed, as she descended to the Bellway tunnels beneath the remains of the town. “Another victim of the darkness, I am afraid. Perhaps once I cleanse the land of it, pilgrims will be able to pass through here once more.”

The Bell Beast and her young were still waiting here. She rubbed the great creature’s side appreciatively in a brief gesture, before preparing to mount.

“What impressive friends you have made, Lady,” Eva laughed. “I do not doubt that a combination such as this would see the land restored.”

“You flatter me, Eva.” She shook her head. “But I suppose I am rather fortunate to have this one’s aid.”

She gave quick instructions to the Bell Beast, and then they were off, diving through the bells below to the true Bellway’s tunnels. Ah… She did hope the ride was not too uncomfortable for Eva…

Exploring the Far Fields for the Hunter’s Heart had led her back to Greymoor, and from there… The Green Prince, freed from his prison in the Sinner’s Road, was sheltering in a small cove – somehow yet undiscovered by Hornet. He had brought with him the metallic corpse of one of the Citadel’s automaton dancers – modelled after his lover, he had previously explained, and fitted with said lover’s soul.

Another left to mourn a great loss in this kingdom, though for this death, the fault could not lie solely on her shoulders. He had been pleased to see the dancers destroyed initially, and she had not been here for nearly long enough to have taken the soul of his lover to fuel them. The remorse that Hornet felt was better attributed to sorrow that not many would be able to share in a similar fate to that which she had achieved with Eva.

There a was a thrum of power at the foot of this makeshift grave. She had not immediately noticed it – focused instead on the heavy regret in the air, and giving condolences, as she had been – but it was displayed heavy in the current silence like the beat of a heart. A fourth heart. And perhaps just close by, a fifth.

If the Elegy of the Deep would restore this memory, it would be her responsibility to explore it. A back-up heart, if it did exist, could be instrumental in her success, and if nothing else, she felt that she owed whatever she could offer to the Green Prince, as he held the evidence of her destruction in his hands.

She tried to warn Eva internally of what was to come. That the world was about to change in ways that did not make sense if you tried to liken them to anything other than a dream, but that it was controlled – harnessed solely by her song.

When she began to strum the notes of the elegy across her needle, she was pleased to hear, within the confines of her mind, a second part to the song. From Eva, a new harmonisation – a vocal line to complete the song’s sound. It was about as fitting as it could get, as an elegy played to two lovers. It was poetic, even, to be coming from a being with whom she had formed such a unique tryst.

The collapse at the end of the melody was usual, by this use, but she felt Eva’s spike of panic at it quite distinctly. Ah, she had forgotten to warn of this outcome…

There would be time for explanations in the memory. She willed Eva to let them both drift off.

Hornet did not look back, once awoken into the memory. She was well aware that to retreat back into the the webbing that indicated its construction would simply be to find an exit from this inbetween state, and so early on, what need could she have to leave? And yet, perhaps she should have taken the chance to examine her surroundings more closely.

“A memory, is this not?” Eva called, prompting a pause to Hornet’s step when she realised where the sound had come from.

The reverberation of hosting another consciousness’ voice solely within herself was notably absent, and so soon, so suddenly, after having settled to being used to it…

“Eva?” she called, tightening her grip on her needle. She turned, towards the source of the sound and the web and the exit, and there… “You… You exist separately in memory? How curious. I have often before found myself bared down to only my own essence within the crevices of others’ memories, but I had not thought of the effect this might have on you. How do you feel?”

The Eva before her was perhaps still no clearer than the outline from within her cage, or the image presented of herself within her song, but to see a light behind her, shaped as she had always imagined Eva to be, was a second miracle, truly. To have, in a way, been cursed, and then to so quickly see it undone… It was a shame that they hadn’t the time to experiment with this in the waking world.

It was possibly also a consequence of the stronger structure of the memories born of Pharloom’s old hearts. With such power to fuel them, the weavings that formed them were tighter, sturdier, and more robust, and as such, were better equipped to handle to full extent of Hornet’s current nature. The crests and skills she had acquired through binding still remained present, so perhaps this interaction with Eva should not have been a surprise.

Nonetheless, it was a sudden and quick change, and that would be difficult to not remark upon.

“Light, Lady,” Eva explained. “I do not move as freely as in your shell, as mine was neither designed nor tested for that, but to have a form that responds so robustly to me at all is a strange blessing. Do not allow me to halt you in your search for the power we must both feel lies dormant here – I will tether my essence to yours, if I must, to keep up.”

Hornet approached, and held out a hand. “Let us join once more then, Eva. I will guide you to the source of this silken dream – it is already that which I search for.”

The sensation of their silks entwining was familiar, by this second time. Certainly, it reminded her that to share herself like this was indicative of the fostering of a deep trust with Eva. Perhaps the kind that came from a bond with a rare true ally, perhaps that which would come intrinsically to a partner in a true union, or perhaps something only attainable with someone whose entire existence was lodged within her own shell.

There was a small shockwave, to signal that the connection had been made, and now between her own claws and Eva’s chest, existed a tether. It trailed loosely, and upon a swift test, her hand phased through it in midair. It would likely be secure enough, then.

“It seems it is sung decisively in my fate that my existence should only be permitted through such supports,” Eva jested lightly, running an ethereal arm across the tether.

Hornet began a swift sprint into the figment of what was surely once Verdania, offering Eva an amused hum as a response. Her focus had to be somewhat divided, entering an unfamiliar place, but it would not be right to dismiss a companion so coldly.

“I know that you only say so in light humour, but understand that I would do for you what I could to otherwise deny that fate,” she said.

“Do not trouble yourself with it. I daren’t even press my good fortune in having first met you, Lady,” Eva laughed.

The cavern widened out around them, giving way to a wealth of luscious plant life, verdant as its namesake, and a certain tranquility hovering in the air. There were scarce few spots like this one left in Pharloom that were not tainted by pollution and other forms of the Citadel’s cruel rule. For that, Hornet could certainly appreciate it, even if she would not have much of an opportunity to admire.

Eva, it seemed, had other plans, passenger as she was. She floated up close to the flora, gently touching its smooth surface with a tenderness that Hornet was not sure she possessed herself. Fortune seemed to favour them once more, in that respect.

The vines strewn ahead seemed climbable, under the right conditions, so Hornet struck the bud at their base with her needle – simply hoping to finesse them into a correct state. Under such pressure, however, the entire plant lit up, projecting what could easily be mistaken for a precious glimpse at the surface’s sky.

“I see that this kingdom still has wonders left to surprise me with,” she noted, even if these wonders were now simply just those of the past.

The lights and the view died down after a short while of planning, so Hornet repeated her first strike, before beginning to climb.

“That must be a multitude, for me,” Eva sighed. “Tell me, if you would, Lady, what does it take to surprise a being as ancient as yourself?”

Hornet paused at the peak of her ascent of this first cavern, turning to study her companion. She could call it deep irony, but the question itself took her by a certain surprise. Perhaps she had simply grown too accustomed to the impression that she typically left from the sight of her shell alone.

“You recognise my true age?” she asked.

“Lady, I saw you first through your own eyes,” Eva replied, amused. “And even before that, I perceived you only through your nature, and that nature is worldly in a way that only a particularly ancient creature’s could be.”

“Many in this kingdom have only seen youth in the mask of my shell,” she explained, turning back away.

…And of course it would be now that she felt such a childish sense of embarrassment to have spoken such a query.

Perhaps it was all in expectation. Once, there had been a time where she would have had to find a true plethora of questions to ask before the clock’s margins ran too fine, or else face the dangers of a falling civilisation unprepared, but in the days of the present… Eva had said it best; she was already worldly. And now, she had a mistake to rectify, so she was to be Pharloom’s saviour.

“Does that bother you?” Eva questioned.

“It seems to serve as reason to many to underestimate me.”

Around a corner, a warrior – bearing a striking resemblance to the Green Prince whose mind had brought both her and Eva here – approached, leaping up to hover with small wings just before her. Its speed was notable, perhaps even exceeding her own. In truth though, it reminded her most of the mantis warriors of her home, and she had a wealth of experience duelling them, in large part due to the contingent of infected so-called ‘traitors’’ that had resided in the gardens.

Like those mantises, this creature was swift and sharp, smart enough to know to keep its distance, and skilled enough with natural tools to capitalise on that. Fortunately, Hornet had fought both warriors and cowards alike back home, and this combination of both of their skill sets was nothing that she had not trained with solely her needle for.

She dismantled her foe with a dance of precise strikes, finishing it with a blow to the chest. A worthy opponent, but she had bested worse.

“And what a mistake it is indeed to underestimate you,” Eva chuckled.

Hornet withdrew her needle with a wry huff. “This one fought well. Truthfully, I only mind as I recall that this experience is one that my father must have gone through many times.”

“The one who broke our kind’s curse to create you,” she felt Eva nod, “and you do not favour him, I sense?”

“There are only so many grand monarchs one can face before they begin to see the makings of a pattern,” wearily, Hornet answered.

And his divine influence running in her blood certainly did not help in suppressing the urge of the Weaver to take control, especially not when presented with as much raw silk to be consumed as she had first sensed, then witnessed, in her duel with this kingdom’s monarch. She would not begrudge him or his kingdom, and yet… Truly, was she not only her father’s daughter in so much as her father had been the kingdom that he had created?

“Then I shall press no more,” Eva said.

“It’s… alright,” she replied, shaking her head. “I do not have many to share such stories with, I find. Though I would much prefer to be able to show you my home one day than simply voice clumsily its grand masses with my words alone.”

“To see your home, the lands which would birth a creature as strange and divine as yourself, would be an honour, Lady.”

A hard-earnt honour, but when one found a kinship like that of what she shared with Eva, perhaps the walls that made it so were eroded, somewhat.

She continued her ascent through Verdania, her and Eva emerging shortly into a garden-like open space – identified as such despite the teeming plant life covering all of this kingdom by its resemblance to Hallownest’s own gardens, and there, at the centre of the chamber, the lonely remains of a temple. A small body of water – perhaps comparable to a moat – surrounded it, and by its shore, the Green Prince was perched.

Briefly, she lingered back behind him, wondering if it could be ascertained if he would know that this was simply a memory, or if he would be caught up in its entirety. Eva seemed to share in her reservations, now attempting to conceal herself amidst the bountiful nearby foliage. For a being whose presence was as blinding as hers, it was not the most effective, but Hornet could appreciate the care in the gesture.

There could be no word for it other than fortune that of all Weavers and their kin, one patient and kind as Eva would be who would take residence by her side. Perhaps hers would serve to be a naive approach, when faced with the worst of the kingdom’s current horrors, but Hornet would not expect as much yet; Eva had often seemed worldly beyond what her imprisonment would imply.

Hornet settled by the Green Prince on the bank, his seating and hunch matching them in height, and softened her grip on her needle. A subtle kindness, but one that she understood one who had been through the kinds of tragedies that they both shared in would understand. A share of the kind of care Eva had shown her, perhaps.

“This was your kingdom once, was it not, sir? It is quite beautiful. I have seen scarce few spaces quite like it in Pharloom’s many caverns,” she spoke.

His was a mournful sort of song, carried by memories in place of melody, “These waters, at land's edge... and the shrine atop... our furtive escape... our brief retreat from rule...”

With speech so disjointed, he did not seem entirely lucid. Was he wholly unaware of the altered state of reality the Elegy of the Deep had brought them all too, or was he simply caught up in the evident thrall of his old home?

“It should be obvious to all that such a place would be suited for these retreats that you speak of. I have often found royalty to be drawn to escape found alongside flora,” she remarked, watching the Green Prince for a reaction. Her words did not seem to stir him. “Perhaps if I had ever taken a partner long-term, we might have enjoyed it too.”

“So many moments spent simple... joyful... free...”

She sighed. “Certainly, sir. I will leave you to mourn your better times in peace.”

Whatever level his current awareness was at, it was clear that he was in no shape for idle conversation. There was little more to be extracted here than that.

Hornet took to the water, pulsing through it with swift dashes, and – as it took her a moment to realise – dragging Eva along to skate upon its surface behind her. The swim was short-lived, and they were both upon dry land around the shrine before long, but she did wonder… In another life, perhaps between the two princes, and not two cursed beings such as herself and Eva, would this have been an enjoyable sort of sport?

She did not allow herself to linger.

The shrine’s surface was old and covered in moss, but there were yet still visible directions hidden in a tablet in its centre. She confined them to her memory swiftly, searching the rest of the cavern for the mentioned fountains.

“Lady, if I may,” Eva interrupted, suddenly up close, with the gentle impression of a hand ghosting across Hornet’s shoulder, “what you spoke to the Prince… You have no other half? You have had no partners?”

Hornet paused at the water’s edge. “…It is not quite as simple as that, Eva.”

“Forgive me, if I have pushed. I did not intend to be intrusive. From within the confines of my iron shell, I had never taken a partner either, as you might perhaps suspect…”

“You misunderstand my words,” she explained. “There was once a time where I shared in that base desire to seek a partner, but when you are expected to bear each other’s souls upon your shells, and mine is so much grander than any could expect… You were made the mimic the divinity that I was born from, Eva – you must understand the curse of its lifespan.”

“A boon, if you may find simple fulfilment,” Eva nodded, “but a curse for those with lives as pre-written as ours.”

“That may be yet to change, once I have fulfilled my duty to this kingdom, but whilst I stand a soldier still, it is as it has ever been,” Hornet resolved. “If I was to be more than a mourner, like that of the Prince, mating was a youthful desire that I have long put to rest. My bloodline is cursed from both sides, and I would be a fool to fight it now, as your mothers once did.”

“And yet ours is a union, is it not?”

Hornet paused. By her own admission, it was indeed, but recalling her initial assumptions about the outcome of the binding process… Another tragic union, she had expected it to be. Perhaps there was still the opportunity now for it to blossom into something much grander, and there were none she would rather that be with now than Eva.

Unions did not always last, even as in the cases of those which seemed pre-ordained. She thought of her father and the White Mother, a partnership which had brought about such death in the depths of the kingdom, and yet such prosperity for those above it, for a time. Even they had been torn apart. First it had been for own conception, and then… Well, the less said about the state of her father in the present day, the better. His existence was only still prospered by Hornet and the countless empty shells of her siblings.

Even if the union of herself and Eva had been similarly fated, Hallownest’s pale union was one she was grateful for, but not one to follow the example of. Were this to blossom, it would have to be on her own terms.

“I had already agreed to as much,” Hornet settled.

“And so I have hope for our future, Lady,” Eva said. “Truly.”

Hornet submersed herself once more, bringing Eva dancing across the surface of the lake as they headed towards the first of the temple’s three fountains.

There was a pale trail ahead, shed pieces of fur and foliage bathing in a gentle light that begged for attention from all around. It was of the sort that Hallownest had so long bathed in, and it could only be a sign of short-lived prosperity.

To hunt was simply her nature, and this track was easy to follow, so Hornet pursued it. If nothing else, there would have to be a great collection of power somewhere here, with Lost Verdania once rested upon its back, and that would have her one step closer to the kingdom’s salvation. How ironic it was, for a pale thing such as herself, to be put so on guard by this light she followed.

“Something grand left this,” Eva murmured. “There is… an imprint, across it.”

“All the more proof of what a magnificent place this was, whilst it still stood,” she nodded.

More warriors were scattered along the trail, but Hornet had gotten into the rhythm of fighting them, by now. It was a simple task, and if none of them had the skill to hunt the pale creature whose memory had left these scatterings to follow, it was only right by the rules of the current world that she cut them down along her way.

They passed by the Green Prince once more along the way, still wrapped up in recollection. Eva did not bother to hide herself in front of his resting eyes, unleashing the full majesty of her current form for all who cared to stare beyond the point of Hornet’s needle.

“Here, the trail of the stag touched pale... We hunted her, felled her, as none before were able...” the prince murmured. “Proof it became, of our majesty... mark of our divine right...”

“Chosen for his skill,” Hornet acknowledged. “A system often lost, under this current breed of monarchs.”

“And what of you, Lady?” Eva asked, a slight amusement colouring her tone. “Was it your skill with the blade that earned you your regality or simply a divine birthright?”

Hornet plucked a piece of pale fleece from the ground, and rolled it between her claws – a luscious sensation. “Perhaps both, I should say. Make no mistake, Eva, I was born to my father’s throne, yes, but it was never mine to inherit. And my mother…” She dropped the fur, and started back into a sprint. “It matters not. I may be princess in title, for those who care, but I do not see it my duty to govern a ruined kingdom.”

“I would sooner see you a knight than a princess,” Eva said.

“Then I carry myself better than the pale child in the Abyss,” Hornet sighed.

She could not begrudge Lace, even after seeing her still maintain such a haughty attitude despite having come so close to sealing her kingdom’s fate in darkness. Her mother had moulded her as a child, and as such, a child was all she knew to be. It was simple nature. Any child of Weaver knew well the lasting impact of a mother.

“Of whom do you speak?”

“Pharloom’s white knight, though she would seem to hold herself its princess,” Hornet explained. “She’s… I wonder if perhaps you two would get along. Her existence is of a similar sort to yours.”

“Another cursed creation of this kingdom,” Eva lamented.

“I will tell you what I told her – that your existence, for all that it is, is still life.” An opening was just ahead, a gleaming light shining through towards them. Hornet paused for her final words before combat, clicking her claws carefully across her needle’s handle and the torn strands of silk left entwined over it. “And for my part, Eva, I am well aware that none of us can choose the circumstances of our birth. There is no obligation to express gratitude for this, of course, but… I, for one, am glad to have you here regardless.”

Something pranced ahead, shaking the ground just out of view, but Hornet held steadfast, gifting the moment to Eva for a response.

“That might be the kindest take on my existence that I have heard, Lady. I thank you for that.”

Hornet lunged forward, using the shared silk she was siphoning from Eva’s continued song beside her to follow through with her strike and land upon the back of a mighty pale beast indeed.

There was no corpse left to pay respects to. At the final strike of her needle, the beast’s shining form burst into light, disappearing overhead. She could not tell if this was a result of the creature’s pale majesty, or its ephemeral nature inside of this memory.

“I had not realised there existed such beautiful creatures,” softly, Eva noted from behind.

“It is a shame to see it slain,” Hornet agreed. “But did you see its essence gather? Power attracts power, and as spoken by the Green Prince, it was from the grave of this beast that his rule was grown. We must now track the remains of its soul to what drew us into this memory.”

“This memory will break, if you seize its heart,” said Eva.

Hornet attuned her sense to where the the sparks of light had broken off in the beast’s death. Only short distance was left, it would seem, and she would suppose Eva could recognise that too.

“That has been my experience with this realm in the past,” she nodded.

“What is it that you seek from these memories, if I may ask, Lady?”

Eva’s form was flickering brightly at the edges, burning perhaps with curiosity, or otherwise simply a renewed vigour as they neared the end of this leg of the quest. Hornet supposed it was always a novel sensation to be first free to explore, even voluntarily still tethered to a mission as Eva was. Though… She was not certain that she could recall her earliest moments discovering the world. So long ago they had been, and under such different circumstances…

It mattered not. Clinging too closely to their origins for either of them could only lead to being bound by them.

“The manifestation of Pharloom’s old power. There is a… ritual, that must be performed on myself. It requires a great deal of power to fuel – certainly more than any remaining bug in Pharloom may source on their own, to find a lantern potent enough to ward against the void’s kind of dark,” she answered.

“Perhaps I may assist,” Eva volunteered.

“I wouldn’t… ask that of you,” Hornet said. The pale bloom that she required has been held by the White Mother in her youth, and to go back that far might require wading through more than it would be right to so brazenly share. More than she might want to, and… What she had seen in Hallownest over the long span of her life would not be right to show to someone searching for the world’s many wonders as Eva was. “I fear that which binds us together would bring you with me by association, but I would not have you offer more than what will naturally come about.”

“Lady, with all due respect, I have nothing better to do.”

“True as that may be…” she hesitated, “this may be a… painful process. I would rather you enjoy what you can here in these memories of nice times before then.”

It could be perceived as childish, to hold stubborn on this matter. Perhaps she even thought it was herself. But these were her memories, and even whilst she shared a union with Eva, was she not to be afforded some level of privacy still?

…Unfortunate though, it was, that this company should have come so late – as a lonely child, she certainly would have appreciated an Eva by her side to share in the memories she was still yet making. Would Eva have been created by that point? Hornet could not be sure. She would have been sealed and hidden, even if she had been, and with the distance between Hallownest and Pharloom as great as she had observed it to be…

She was letting time bleed away with these ruminations. The most childish thing that she could do in her situation would be to truly be her father’s daughter and leave this kingdom to its fate in the dark.

“I would not deny your will, Lady,” Eva conceded. “We shall see where our situation takes us.”

“Again... to see... this land abandoned... betrayed...”

The prince was knelt before a throne for two. It looked empty, when his form could only cover one half. That was the trouble with unions in such potent positions – forever was the world out to get them, and once they ended, their absences often bore terrible consequences for those who once basked beside them.

“...And a throne I could not sit alone...” he continued.

Hornet sighed, “You were mortal bugs, caught beneath a being pale... Devotion or destruction... these are the only fates my kind allow. Feel guilt at your absence, sir, but know the end was inexorable, the outcome set, whether you remained or not.”

Anguish often came from thrones such as these, but under pale thumb, all would ail equally. Diminished as she had been by her imprisonment during her time travelling to Pharloom, even she was not free from guilt of this. That much was self-evident. But even poor Eva… To be lodged in the shell of one whose presence demanded control could not be wholly pleasant, even if it was a form of freedom still.

The prince rose, meeting her eye with a sharp glare.

Ah, so there, finally, he had broken the illusion of the memory. To acknowledge her presence with blade beside him, her and Eva having followed the trail of him and his partner all through Verdania, was to shatter the ideal world where his mourning could be swept away by pleasant recollection. It was to awaken to the fabrication.

He did not seem pleased by what he saw. Hornet felt Eva move to retreat.

“Do not seek to console me, warrior. This memory is mine alone... I'll not brook your brutish intrusion. You who dare trespass this sacred chamber, ready yourself... to see us, and know us, Verdania's rulers, together in our finest form!”

A faint second form – a copy of the Green Prince’s own in many ways, though Hornet recognised it better as the soul behind the Citadel’s cogwork constructs – movements manifesting perfectly in time with the Prince as they both prepared for battle. Had she been gifted more time with Eva, perhaps they might have danced together too, duelled as one as nature had had them become, but Hornet was far from unprepared to dispatch of multiple foes at once. She had started this slaying the two cogwork dancers alone.

If a duel for honour was how the Green Prince wished to end this, then she would face him to seize the source of this memory by force, just as she had done Nyleth and Khann. Perhaps even between strikes, there would be solace, to be reunited with a partner. It was a premise Hornet could neither fathom for her own history nor allow herself to dwell on.

The Green Prince’s body had become a husk, once she had torn through the memory, and conversely, Eva had retreated back into Hornet’s own shell – almost certainly involuntarily. Two souls, conjoined as one.

Hornet looked down, and now in her hand, from where she had clawed at the memories seams and sliced through, was a heart. It beat still, just as the others of Pharloom’s olds did, a steady rhythm, a march, a dance – the spirit of the two princes sewed up together along a patchwork core and obvious two halves of two separate hearts. What a strange yet beautiful thing, even compared to that which she had wrenched from memory before.

“…It is different, I find, Lady, to witness the love that would have someone die content with their partner, rather than simply hearing of it through the spoken word of story or song,” Eva murmured.

“Certainly, it is not a concept foreign to the Weavers’ cursed existence,” Hornet acknowledged. “And though bonds as strong as these may not be rare to come by, even during the worst of times, I have not seen such peace be the final result of what should have otherwise been a tragic union in quite some time. Or, ah, ‘reunion’, perhaps I mean.”

The many mourners in Hallownest had not been afforded the same fate. Whether it was truly a kindness on her part to have cut the prince’s life to have him rest early beside his lover, Hornet could not say, but was there nothing gentler than die side-by-side with a partner? It drew up a certain nostalgia from her, recalling the youthful days of expectation. Dying beside whatever partner she had briefly taken would have seemed nice, but it always going to have ended in tragedy.

…Was Eva to be respite to that? A being sustained off of her own undying shell and silk… Perhaps it was tragic in its own way, but there was liberation in there somewhere for both of them. When this was all settled, when Hornet could accept this union safely for what it was, then she would search for that liberation personally. And there was still plenty that could be done along the way.

“A first for us both, then, at least in recent memory. What a miraculous thing.”

“Eva, perhaps I…” She caught herself from speaking too mindlessly on what was certain to be fantasy. And yet, even as the clocked ticked, Hornet was aware of where she wanted this to go. “You speak of miracles in that memory, and I must wonder now that you have found confinement once more, it is possible certainly for me to draw power – draw objects – from inside such spaces. And so perhaps… next time we find ourselves in that realm, if not during the ritual I spoke of to you itself, I could attempt to extract you in that form that you had assumed.”

“Lady…” Eva sighed, that defining gentleness present in full force. “My plight is that I am wholly unable to support my own existence. Any body that you may bring forth for me would be surely doomed to collapse, just as what became of that which I was born into.”

“The Green Prince’s lover should have been long dead,” Hornet argued, “for I tore his soul from its mechanical imprisonment myself… And yet, is it not half of his heart that is in my hand now?”

“Wishes have taken me farther than any should believe possible already, Lady. I would not push that fortune, unless it is to be directly to yours or Pharloom’s benefit.”

There was little tangible benefit to finding Eva in body at her side, but for long before she had brought about the start of its downfall, Hornet had been bringing hope to this kingdom. She was pale, and she was Weaver-born, and it should have thus been her responsibility to shoulder the sins of those who had come before her, and they who begged for her to follow in their steps. To condemn Eva after one construed act of kindness felt incomplete.

“I would not act against your will on this matter, though I do question it,” Hornet said. “It is freedom that you yearn for, yes? It is freedom that I wish to grant us all, Eva.”

“Oh, Lady…” Eva laughed. “It is freedom that you have already gifted me.”

Hornet nodded slowly. It was… not her place to judge what Eva deemed a worthwhile existence, and certainly, Eva was the most welcome passenger that she had ever taken within her shell.

“Then I will think not of it. My mission continues still.” She agreed once more at the conjoined heart that she held. “…It would be a shame to sacrifice this one so recklessly after what we have witnessed to form it. There is another heart with strength enough for my purposes – close by as well, unless my senses deceive me. We will seek that in this one’s place.”

“And what would you have become of this one?” Eva questioned.

Hornet chuckled, “It may seem brutish, but there is a nice space on my wall, in the Bellhome gifted here to me. It would display this one’s union well.”

“You are certainly a strange creature, Lady,” Eva remarked, “though I have known this since I first perceived your nature. I would not deny you the mark of the hunter you define as.”

She slipped the heart into her cloak, and turned from what had become the Green Prince’s final resting place. An old song from deep in Far Fields called yet.

Chapter Text

The statue of the hunter queen provided an opening – a tunnel that the Skarr must have been funnelling themselves through for decades, and Hornet was a tad ashamed to have not noticed it sooner. Eva’s attention was captured elsewhere, though.

“She is one of Pharloom’s olds, is she not? One of the few that you seek,” she remarked.

“Yes – a hunter once, I understand. It does not surprise me that the Skarr’s history should run so far back. They seem like a capable sort,” Hornet replied.

“Ah. She is… quite beautiful, even captured as a statue.”

Statues did not tend to be made of just anyone. In Hallownest, that had frequently meant that her father’s visage had been plastered everywhere, of course, but in Pharloom… Many older civilisations had been preserved through them.

It would not have surprised her to have faced the hunter queen’s memory here, concentrated over her image, as that had been how she had sourced a pathway to Nyleth and the old King Khann, but the hunter’s trail ended not here, and Hornet could sense the beat of a powerful heart a short distance away yet still. This queen had outlived her own downfall, it seemed. She would not be the first to do so, with the White Mother still alive within her self-inflicted bindings in Hallownest, but Hornet knew yet more who had met the same untimely demises as the likes of her father.

“…She is,” Hornet agreed. “Such is the grace of a queen faithful to her people.”

“You wield the same blades as her, do you not, Lady? You seem once more to be the culmination of many greater powers,” Eva noted.

Hornet drew out a curvesickle, admiring it in the light drifting down from above the statue. Certainly, it did seem fit for someone as skilled as this statue depicted and the beat of its basis’ heart would imply. Eva must have sensed its origin from where it was affixed to her current crest.

“This one was crafted for me by one of her own. A mark of respect, I suspect,” she explained. “It is a mutual feeling.”

“Perhaps I will be so lucky as to see you in action fighting with it.”

Fighting fire with fire was not always such a good plan… But Hornet could not deny that her interest in the curvesickle piqued at Eva’s words. A challenge it would be, but Eva’s pleasure could be seen as a prize in its own right, and she had been trained to be proficient in many forms of combat. Her needle had always been her primary tool, but she was a multi-faceted being; she had to be, to have survived Hallownest for so long.

“And perhaps my skills with ranged weapons could use some sharpening,” Hornet said. “A true duel between hunters, that would be.”

Eva laughed. “Then my patience now is only matched by this current anticipation.”

“Pale beast... “ a hoarse, raspy voice – a faltering note at the end of an extended solo – rumbled from behind a curtain.

This den had been well-guarded, and the ruffles and antennae drooping out into view only served further to give an answer as to who this had to be. A singer whose power and voice had been drawn thin, a queen-like size, all too similar to that of dear Vespa’s, in her final days, and the overgrown claws of a hunter.

“…This is her, in the present day?” Eva questioned.

It was difficult not to find that profound disappointment justified. Though truly… Was this outcome surprising? For all of the power that Hornet could sense this queen to possess, she was mortal still, and to have resisted in the face of true divinity for so long… There could not have been a world where the Skarr’s ruler persisted in her prime forever.

…Such permanent youth would be unnatural, would it not?

“Bringing ruin... we had sensed it... you writing harsh our final fate...” the queen continued, wheezing between each short turn of phrase. “If power... you come seeking... mine is faded.... mortal... time taken...”

This could not be Pharloom’s final fate; it was a great many things, but it was not Hallownest.

“Great one, I come not to see you as you are, rather I would have you recall what you were, before the pale monarch, when once your heart beat bright and brave. That beating heart I would take, though know my intent is worthy. I seek it only to save these lands, to break them free from this fatal sickness born of thread and void,” she denied.

Surely she who must have existed for so long had seen the comings and goings of enough ages to understand the pinched grip that they had all been caught between, Hornet included, as Pharloom’s pale monarch threaded them all through the needle’s eye and stitched them up together. It was a denial of fate which had even ordained this meeting today, and it was a constriction by both thread and void that would see the Skarr Queen’s immanent death.

“Kcha!” the Queen scoffed. “If you may... beast... If you can... Mine once was power... wild... proud…”

“I do not doubt it, great one,” Hornet sighed. “Your people’s prowess in battle remained among the best that these lands have to offer to this very day.”

“Then my strength... my power... Could you claim it, pale beast? Are you so strong…?”

Three hearts pulsed already, each on different rhythms to dance to, beneath Hornet’s cloak. Today more than ever, with she who must have once been an equal before her, Hornet intended to put on a performance. For Eva, perhaps – to show her something much grander than disappointment with a fellow hunter.

“Let us find out together, great one...”

Hornet moved herself to rest beside the queen, already hunched and ready to take the imminent collapse that would come with accepting entry into a memory. She was certainly used to the process by now, as well she would need to be, to face the immense strain the ritual to descend through her own memories would place upon all those webbed up in it.

“Lady, before I panic uneededly, am I to expect another sudden fall from you?” Eva asked.

Hornet chuckled dryly. “There is no other way to do this, I am afraid.”

“Beast… within you… a foreign presence… Not pale nor six-armed fiend…” the Queen’s senses seemed to sharpen, leaning in towards Hornet. “You intend to bring that against me?”

“We have no choice,” sharply, she responded. “She will not interfere with our duel, great one. You surely have your subjects to attend to you surely, but this one is all who I have to stay by my side.”

“I must have underestimated her sight,” Eva murmured. “She is the first to notice my mind lodged against yours.”

The queen’s antennae twitched loosely. “…She has… a beautiful voice… Bring her, beast, and ours… will be a battle of song… A… worthy clash…”

Hornet bowed her head, and played the Elegy of the Deep with a deep focus.

A powerful voice carved out the shape of the cavern ahead. Hornet turned back; once more, Eva’s spectral form was floating close by.

“All that lies ahead in this realm is a battle arena,” curtly, she explained. “I won’t ask you to tie yourself to following me in, Eva.”

“And I would not deny you what additional silk I may gift,” Eva returned. She inclined the shape of her head to the side. “In actuality, the choice may be neither of ours. A request from a queen is not one so easily denied.”

Hornet narrowed her eyes, “…And what do you suppose she would have you do? She must have already known that this was to be a challenge between us two of higher caste. You would not even be made manifest, were it not for the necessity of challenging one of the great olds on their own turf.”

“Well, Lady, I would presume such an elegant voice could only belong to her.”

Eva drifted ahead, towards what Hornet had already scoped out from this distance as a colosseum. Tentatively, she began to harmonise with the hunter queen – Skarrsinger Karmelita, Hornet read from the fragments of the queen’s soul that bound this realm of memory together – with quiet resolve. When Hornet approached, she noted a strange effect, as her silk began to replenish much for readily once enthralled in the song, as if Eva was unravelling herself from within.

The melody from both singers was unfamiliar, but it felt resonant through Eva’s voice, and it drew at Hornet’s soul. Distantly, she was reminded of her mother’s lullaby, and how terribly ironic it was for her to remember such a sound, but not the face of the one who had delivered it to her. She was no child now, and these voices were a great degree more refined than Herrah the Beast’s, but to be cared for so purely by song had awakened something primal in her.

“Whilst she and I engage in the art of wielding blades, you intend to match her at her other craft?” Hornet deduced, shaking off an unsteady feeling of nostalgia with the logic of path-finding towards a mission’s end.

“Would that be too presumptuous of me? I have not performed for any other since the departure of my mothers,” Eva stopped singing to question.

And yet Hornet would suppose Eva would have had plenty of time to practice, with nothing but the passing of a song to measure and pass time by. How would she go about expressing that? It would perhaps be forward, or come across as mere platitude, to be too brazen with any response.

“From what I have heard of your voice, it is wonderful, Eva. In a kingdom full of singers, yours… sticks with me.”

“Truly, Lady?” asked Eva.

Hornet shied away, averting her gaze in a youthful sense of embarrassment – akin truly to slipping in front of Queen Vespa, or first finding herself socially unrefined in front of the common citizen of Hallownest.

“…I would not mince my words,” she offered carefully. “I did not question you initially for any doubt of your ability, Eva, I assure you. I would only ask that you confirm for me that you are certain that you would not want me to shoulder the Skarrsinger’s expectations alone. I am… well-practised, in defying royalty.”

“Princess, knight, and voice of the people,” Eva mused. “There could be none I would rather assist. Allow me this chance to unite us further.”

It was never wise to attempt to deter one wrapped up in such fierce determination. Hornet nodded. “Of course, Eva. Let us be the ones heading the test.”

She drew her needle forth, and offered a claw to Eva. It was accepted as readily as everything offered between the two of them, and joining with Eva once more in this sense – entwining silks through the quiet hum of Eva’s practising song, and minds singly focused as if one – felt right. By the tragic fate of Verdania, to be too in sync with a partner was an omen of a curse, but two whose lives had already been so defined by curses needed not fear such a prospect.

Queen Karmelita might have protected her people with her song and weapon for an age passing by yet still, but Hornet had done the same unfalteringly for equally as long, and for all of her life’s lonely length, Eva had found patience beyond them both. Unions, as it were for even the most volatile pairings, both pale and long-lived, were formed for the innate strength that two held over one soul alone.

Hornet was not entirely sure that she could be ready to fully accept Eva in that sense yet, not while that which made her so volatile a creature to remain by the side of had Pharloom still held by blackened thread, but some union theirs had been since the moment they had joined. So gladly, she would have to accept Eva’s aid – this imprint of her soul through her silk running through Hornet – and direct it across the sharp of her blade.

“You shimmer once more, Lady,” Eva said.

“It is the thrill of battle, Eva,” Hornet laughed. “I hope that, within the constraints of your presence here, you are able to experience and appreciate it still through my eyes.”

The Skarr were a dedicated group to their queen, and Hornet would have to credit them for that; she had not seen a people quite so content with their ruler in some time.

Before she was allowed to trial the Skarrsinger in combat, a gauntlet of her finest warriors had to be torn through, and all the while, Karmelita’s distant form danced with admirable and thoughtless ease. Hornet had fought all manner of Skarr before, and though something within her burned with impatience to fight the hunters’ queen directly, this was no worse than what she had stormed through in the Coral Tower, and she showed these Skarr warriors as much respect in battle as she would their leader.

Perhaps this was simply a warm up for both of them – her and Karmelita – as the greatest challenge to be found in it was protecting Eva. They had assumed a close-knit stance together, with Eva hovering just over Hornet’s back to grant them maximal silk transfer, though that left no clear sight to locate each other with. It was a somewhat precarious balance, and neither of them knew what would become of Eva were she to take a stray strike, but Hornet was both confident in her abilities to keep them up on this clawline tightrope, and determined to find some thrill in it for them both.

Training as a young child had been gruelling – this much could not be denied. Satisfaction could scarcely be found in such leagues anywhere else, though. There was little like the feeling of landing a perfect strike, the feeling of awaiting pride from another for such technique, the feeling of a well-earned victory. Yes, she could recall the physical strain of duelling Vespa and her Hive Knight… but also most clearly of all the fulfilment of defeating them.

Chained by her own form to a cage of iron, Eva would have never been afforded the opportunity to revel like this before. A fragile form could certainly still sustain a thrill for battle, as the likes of this kingdom’s white knight and grey ghost had certainly made clear, but one that would fall apart from blemish formed from the decay that always hung taught in the air of a dying kingdom…

It was a cruelty. Eva had such beautiful control over the flow of silk – divinely so, to be comparable to the Weavers who had made her – and her song was so powerful… Her soul shone to Hornet every time that she glimpsed it, and here, a being finally understand the heavy burden of shame that had to hang over her own existence, but not one allowed to share in one of her greatest passions. She would not waste this opportunity through any carelessness endangering Eva.

The final two Skarr who placed themselves between the two of them and Karmelita were a pair of the bulkier sort, clearly positioning themselves as direct bodyguards. Amusing, to think that someone with a reputation as sharp as the Skarrsinger’s would need employ such defensive measures.

“Such laboured movement… The price for their build and armour, I suppose,” Hornet hummed. “They are skilled still certainly, but also…” She flipped backwards to the corner and drew a curvesickle. “I must say, Eva, also easy to lure into position.”

Her timing was immaculate, and the blade she threw sliced through just under the edge of the first’s shoulder pad, before arcing up to catch the second square in the chest mid-lunge. She gave a self-satisfied huff; this was bringing her back to her days in the Hive, these two warriors perhaps the Skarr’s equivalent of Vespa’s mighty Hive Knight, and the rush of resulting pleasure was surely evident. If nothing else, she suspected Eva would appreciate that.

She took a running lunge, launching into the air and then propelling herself further using her needle’s point between the chitin plates of her foes’ shells. They both crumpled before the clean precision of her strikes, and she moved to deal the finishing blow on both at once with her silk, lashing it out violently around – a favourite technique of hers, even amongst the other notable learnings she had found in this kingdom.

For just one of the resulting moments, Eva’s voice was the only one filling the chamber. At the sound of the clubs on her finest falling to ground, the Skarrsinger stopped and turned. She noticed Hornet quickly, even with eyes closed to her surrounding world, and perhaps remembered the weight of her challenge both here in this colosseum, and out in the waking world.

As the start of her final response to Hornet and Eva’s direct opposition and claim, Karmelita filled the space with an unattainable grand note – a cry, a challenge, and the ward of vigour that had kept her tribe alive since the olden times.

Hornet sprinted in for an early strike, and Eva raised her voice into something separate from the song of the hunter queen that she had been mimicking up to that point.

It was her song, Hornet noted. That which she would fill the halls of the empty Weavenest Atla with, and the wordless piece that had so frequently managed to draw strong emotion from Hornet. It was lonely, and it was anguished, but that was because it was Eva. It was her Sylphsong that they shared now.

The Skarrsinger had a beautiful and powerful voice certainly, but hearing them both together, Hornet easily picked out Eva’s song through it. Beat-on-beat, the sound of a shattering lock, and reaching back into it, an intimacy Hornet had not experienced in a long time. Eva’s was a contribution not to be dismissed.

A worthy clash this would be indeed.

To call the Skarrsinger a mighty opponent would be an understatement. Truly, she lived up to every ounce of effortless grace that she had exuded in her song and in her movements as she danced, and as opponent, Hornet had not met many able to test her this well.

She would have to admit, Eva’s silk was likely what was keeping her alive, as it provided her with all she needed to rapidly tend to her wounds. In that sense, Karmelita had been right to invite Eva here too, and to insinuate that her part to play in their joint performance would be grand. Perhaps what she was contributing in this duel was even more impressive than Hornet’s own part – to go toe to toe with the song queen of old in a kingdom whose heartbeat was simply a baseline to a natural melody was no small feat.

The trouble Hornet was having was endurance. She knew how to outlast her opponents perhaps better than anyone else, but when the moment called for it, the Skarrsinger knew when to retreat into the flow of her dance as if she were no opponent at all. It was a difficult rhythm to adapt to, and to assume a defensive strategy against pure defence was foolhardy. Whilst Karmelita danced, hits on her would not come; her arms moved rapidly, and it seemed curvesickles made for impressive shields when positioned correctly by the right hands. Even the point of Hornet’s needle could not find its mark.

Certainly, she had fought enemies that she would call cowards before. The type who would flee and demand that she chase victory in the most literal sense, and those who would be too afraid to strike her back. But Karmelita was no coward, for there was only confidence in the flourishes she took whilst shifting back – always just out of reach.

She was a hunter who clearly valued patience over any kind of aggression, and there was a consistent serenity to all of her moves for it. It was not necessary to go for excessively many fast or lethal strikes when just grazing Hornet’s shell enough times was enough to wear her down over the long period of finding herself unable to land enough blows to mend herself up in turn.

Against the Skarrsinger, she could be no hunter or reaper, and the wild slashes of a beast were too unrefined to do anything but be lost in Karmelita’s careful routine. In other words, Hornet needed not be a warrior to best the hunter queen; she needed to be a performer. And was it not only with Eva joining her ensemble that she was able to steady herself enough for this?

Hornet had defeated all of the great olds before Karmelita, and she had torn their hearts out for her goal with her own claws. She faced the source of wilderness and wildlife at its heart and roots, she had stormed through the the Karak’s gauntlet in their tower to fight their ruler at its peak, and she had matched the dual princes of once lush Verdania beat for beat in their primes. With Eva here to compensate for her own shortcomings – her lacking skill in the songs that should have been in her blood, were it not for unorthodox circumstances of her birth, and the terrible fate soon to become of all those who would remain in the kingdom where she had grown up – she would certainly not shy from the call of the final heart.

With a great sense of purpose, she began to match Karmelita’s pace, keeping to the edges of the arena in the careful rhythm of a prowl. She kept her head low, but flourished her needle, staking it out and twirling it lightly on the spot. It reminded her in some way of the elegant spins required to make use of the twin claw mirrors she had obtained from the Citadel’s stage, which helped to settle her into the feel of these new movements.

Carefully, she drew a curvesickle with one of her free claws, and waited for an opportunity; it would not do to make too flashy a move without waiting for the spotlight.

She found what she needed as Karmelita slowed out of a spinning slash, taking a moment to reposition her weapons to guard herself properly. Hornet struck forward, launching a curvesickle to catch the Skarrsinger in what little chance she had. Her strike found its mark, working like a charm as Karmelita staggered backwards.

The two locked eyes for a short moment, as Karmelita halted her song to let out a hefty battle cry, before altering her strategy. She rushed forward, a steady thrill and sense of competitive spirit alight in her as she adapted to being knocked onto her back foot with fast aggression.

And, finally, Hornet thought. Now this was fight happening on her own terms.

She moved to meet Karmelita directly, parrying her strikes with bold slashes. Eva was still behind her, and still supplying her steadily with silk. She could end this decisively now, if she so chose. Let this part of her quest – the hunt – come to an end, and submit herself to righting the kingdom’s fate. To the ritual, and what she would find crawling within the depths of her own mind…

…She could deny some dread in what was to come. But even when knowing exactly what was soon to occur, one had to take responsibility and still fight for the outcome they desired. It was her duty to face what was still to come, and she would define herself as different from the pale power which had created her in that she would stand tall against the oncoming future. It was her duty to end this now, cleanly, even against the certain thrill of it all.

“Eva!” she called. “This will be the final chorus!”

And so Eva increased her volume, hanging onto a powerful note that Hornet felt all throughout her. Her silk hummed as though it was strung up to be played on the needolin; it called upon her to draw on it.

Fiercely, she let out a cry of her own as she vaulted over the Skarrsinger, then used her clawline in the point of Karmelita’s back to draw herself close once more. The decisive final blow, as it was always meant to be, came from both her and Eva, with their silks entwining to form a grand storm of silk that lashed a growled with all the driving hunger and force of the mindless anguish that she had seen time and time again be given form in the Abyss.

Karmelita could only bow down before it, and Hornet did not waste any more time. She felt the Skarrsinger’s final wishes for her people as she tore loose the proud hunter’s heart, and she clutched the concept of that salvation tight.

She would not repeat the mistakes of those who had brought her into this world, and if she was to show the marvels of life properly to Eva, she was going to clear the way for them all to be in finest form. As any partner of hers would deserve.

The hunter’s heart nearly blended into her cloak. It beat steadily, no reaction to being cupped so close to the body that it had once resided in. A test, Hornet supposed, the Skarrsinger had intended for this to be, and a test it was that she and Eva had passed.

She’d amassed quite the collection of hearts now, all lined up on the inside of her cloak, all still beating on off-beat rhythms as if fresh. Of course, in a much less literal sense, she carried the hearts of many more than these four with her. Everyone that she would remember long past when she had been by their sides, as their songs still rang out within her mind. The only tragedy in it was that she had not had someone that she would have been willing to tear her pale heart out for in return.

Wordlessly, Hornet drew forth her needle once more, and played some vague eulogy for the deceased queen. The Skarr would be strong without her most certainly, but perhaps never the same – she could not leave this heart for them as memento.

Hornet could feel Eva stir from the recesses of her mind – perhaps providing such vital aid within the memory had drained her – but she did not have time to wait for an awakening. The future waited for nobody, not pale power nor darkness or haunting sickness, and the fate of this kingdom’s people still rested precariously on the tip of her needle.

Eva came to fully by the time Hornet was already being carried back to Bonebottom by the Bell Beast. It was quite a careful awakening; it seemed likely that Eva was terribly used to being cautious of her surroundings in general.

“On the road again already?” she asked.

“Forgive me for not waiting for you, Eva. It is my shell that the fate of this kingdom rests upon, and even if you are within it… I could not halt so easily,” Hornet replied.

Eva sighed – an lighter sound than one might expect. “No, Lady, I do not begrudge this. I simply question how you are able to move on so quickly from that duel. It was… incredible, truly. A common occurrence for you, I must presume?”

“That one was a lot, even for me,” Hornet admitted. “Your aid was instrumental, Eva. You do have an incredible voice, you know. I… am grateful that I can continue to hear it.”

When was the last time she had been challenged so? By Hallownest’s little Ghost itself for the title of king? Even the terrible might and knowledge of the Weaver imprisoned within the Slab had not tested her so. Pharloom’s white knight, for all other similarities she shared with Hornet’s siblings, had not quite been able to hold a candle their might, so wrapped up in furious void.

So the Skarrsinger had been a unique battle certainly, and it had been through Eva’s presence that Hornet had found victory.

“Perhaps you are more remarkable than even I had realised, to see so much potential in me.”

“Eva…” Hornet objected, “…we are more similar than you seem to allow yourself to think. You think of me as some miracle, and perhaps I will yet prove myself as such, but as the sum of my parts, I am no more fantastical than you. You share in a divine sort of power just as much as I, even as it manifests uniquely.”

“Lady, I appreciate the attempt, but surely you know your own soul better than I have simply observed, so you must be deeply aware of its transcendental nature,” Eva spoke. “You speak of divinity, but what I mimic only in an appearance lost even to me, you have in droves in all parts of you. Your mind, your soul, your skill in the hunt… I could not dream of claiming to match it.”

“And what of your voice? Your sight? I know that you have been shunned despite your unique abilities, and I understand well the foreign fear that our kin experience for differences within their own, but, Eva… It is what drew me so immediately to you.” Thoughtlessly, she reached out, running silk through her claws as if it could be so directly from, so directly part of, Eva. “It is the very foundation of our union, and I… I am grateful that you of all beings should be the one to shed the constraints of time to remain by my side.”

Eva did not reply immediately. Hornet could feel a great mix of her shame and admiration and flusteredness run through her anyway, and she chuckled softly at it.

“Dear Lady, I have nothing left to offer you except a repeated notion that you are the most incredible creature that I have met.” Her gentle laughs blended into Hornet’s. “The light of my life, I consistently find you to be.”

“So long as you acknowledge it still as life, I am content with that, Eva.”

“I was named for life,” Eva said. “That much, even if perhaps it is simply your own that I am subsisting off of, I do contain.”

She would have been happy to delight in simple, base pleasure at hearing that, but of course, circumstances called for her focus to remain on something much grander. Even if she had now found herself someone who could well fit the descriptor of ‘partner’, the void cared not for such positive emotions. Its was all emptiness and fury, of which she and Eva currently shared none.

The road ahead was nearing its end, though. She had all of the necessary hearts, and Snail Shamans, tricky as they were, would have to keep their word and remain to assist her in this ritual. Then it would be to the Abyss, and from there…

Ah, she wasn’t entirely sure where she would go from there. She had the goal now of showing Eva the world, her journey, Pharloom, and one day her home, but would there not be rebuilding necessary first? And what of the Pale Mother and her stubborn creature of a daughter constricted down in the darkness? Hornet could not say what state they would be in once she was able to reach them; she knew not what she would be required to slay nor save, down there.

And then she could not put off deciding what she would have to do to protect Eva during the upcoming ritual in her determined haste. They had only briefly discussed this before, and with Eva lodged so firmly within her shell, Hornet was not sure what would become of her dear friend once recalled to the recesses of memory. She feared she had little control over what they both might see, and it would not do to have Eva be forced to share in any of her pain – physical or otherwise.

“…May we discuss now in depth what lies ahead?” she asked. “This ritual, that I have mentioned… Others will be there, so perhaps between the five of us, we might be able to find some way to preserve you without having to involve you in any of that… darker business.”

“Do not seek so desperately to spare me. Lady, I must confess, I already found so much pain in my own existence before I found companionship in you. It will be nothing new.”

“It will be a scape formed of my own memories,” she said, “and I cannot say that they will be pretty. Are you certain that you are comfortable bearing witness to Hallownest’s grand fall?”

“Hallownest, your kingdom…” Eva murmured. “But it has not fallen, has it? For you live still.”

“I am its child, but I am not synonymous with it. Make no mistake – it is a fallen kingdom still. I… It is not that I am uncomfortable sharing my past with you, Eva, but my past is something that even I am reluctant to so directly visit. It will not be pleasant for either of us.” Hornet sighed. “And it will certainly be dangerous.”

Eva’s mind flickered in amusement against Hornet’s own. “You have taken me into battle with you, Lady. At your side, I feel I must have nothing left to fear – I have already trusted you with my entire being.”

“This… will be a different sort of battle. I will accept your presence throughout what we see, but I…” she found herself faltering. How foolish to let that happen now, so late on; ideally, she would have made her peace with all that she needed to in order to face the void. There could yet not be time for it later. “…I would ask that you withhold judgement for it. There is a tangled web of complexities to all of my most formative experiences that will not be so simple to make sense of.”

To expect another, even one as kind and wise as Eva, to be able to appreciate the scope of the terrible task that had burdened her mother, as they would surely see, or the deep shame that had motivated the White Lady’s retreat… There were forces at play within that would be unthinkable to any mortal bug from a distant land.

Of course, Eva was hardly mortal, and her similarities to Hornet motivated a certain sense of connection – as if they had always shared a home – but even she had not seen first hand the countless deaths brought about both by the darkness that lulled below and the light that burned in the minds of sleeping bugs.

“I fear the rotting heart of this kingdom, the joint sin of our kin and the terrible divinity that we all share in, leaves little room for me to judge whatever your corruption may sought its way through yours, Lady,” Eva responded.

After all, Hornet supposed, gods had a tendency to be fickle. She could only hope to still get across the deserved respect for those who held strong in the face of such reigns. The three queens whose reign she had been raised and trained under… Three mothers, truly. Perhaps she was underestimating Eva to assume that such a construct would not understand motherhood’s complicated ties throughout their lives.

She settled on the Bell Beast, gently stroking the creature’s back to calm herself. “Then we are prepared to face an entirely different sort of darkness.”

Hornet could not help the screams that wracked her as the three hearts pierced through her just as she had torn deep into their owners to retrieve them. She could not help that she screamed as a child would for its mother – a defence mechanism to beg for help. She could not help that the only fitting response to excruciating pain was simply to cry out, as if she had not been fending for herself for so long that she had forgotten the feeling of somebody else tending to her pain.

This was always going to hurt her. The price for achieving the impossible – the price for such miracles as what she would demand to rectify her mistakes – was always high, and she had no other choice but to accept that.

She cried anyway for a mother who she could not remember the face of.

“Lady,” there was only Eva to soothe, “please hold strong. It will be over soon.”

And she would. For she had been through worse before.

She awoke with several gasping breaths, and began to instinctively claw her way with harsh needle point through musty segments of old webs and windings of silk. They dissipated before her at first contact, revealing a greater scape, an infinite scape, painted in dull hues of red. It spread out all around her – no retreat to be found by simply scuttling back.

Her own mind had never been intended as a prison as her siblings’ had, but… The mind of a higher being, even if only in part, was strong, and with the old, beating power that brought her here, there was never to have been a prospect of easy escape. As if she would ever truly entertain such an idea.

Steadily, Hornet brushed off her cloak, shaking off still the last lingering remnants of pain, and looked around. Everything seemed… hazy, and she could not claw at the insides of her soul in this state. In essence, inside her own mind, she was stripped bare to her base components – to her natural crest and silk supply, simply the hunter she had been born as, and the hunter she had arrived in Pharloom as.

Ah, but then… If her nature had been diminished…

“Are you still hurt? Is that… within the scope of how this realm functions?”

Hornet jumped. A bright light had appeared beside her, floating slowly away and leaving a trail in its wake that led directly from her forehead. It pulsed for a moment, flickering in mimicry of spoken words, before expanding like a divine being emerging from a cocoon of reincarnation.

“Eva…” she deduced. “You… I am alright. Only slightly shaken – all will be alright.” She reached out hesitantly. “…What about you? My alternate crests are not presenting here, so what of your presence? I hope this has not hurt you.”

The light bloomed at first into a familiar shape – the silhouette of Eva that she become accustomed to accompanying her through memories. But then it grew yet greater, lines of runes spreading across what could almost finally be made out as an actual shell, and a projection of an arm reached back to Hornet. It seemed so much more tangible than ever, even as Eva remained distinctly incorporeal.

Hornet hadn’t seen Eva this close before. It had seemed for so long that they were never meant to perceive each other in any physical sense; Eva was to speak directly to her soul, and she was to respond through seeing Eva in her song. This was something much greater than that.

“Your mind is unbound, Lady, unrestricted and transcendent. It defines me to the greatest extent I have ever known,” Eva explained.

Was this some result of her affection for Eva, or simply a result of the power inherent in her heritage? Certainly, her father had once been renowned for his foresight, and her mind could expand to detect and accommodate her needs to a much greater extent than any true mortal’s, but would such a miraculous outcome have occurred for simply a stranger? Hornet didn’t think so.

She grasped Eva tight, revelling in the small sensation actually granted to her in this. Time might have still been limited, even in this realm, but she was still recovering somewhat from her entry into it, and for just a moment, before she was thrust into all of the horrors of her past, it would be nice to appreciate the miracle granted to her in her present.

“Is this… what you have always looked like?” she asked quietly. “Beneath the cage, and behind the layers of my mind…”

Gently, she traced one of the rune patterns across Eva’s current form.

“Ah, Lady… I would not know…” Eva chuckled shyly. “I did not make a habit of perceiving my own frail form. There was nothing worth a glance there, and even then, for all that my sight could see deeper than any true bug’s, within the outer cocoon of my firm – within my cage – the eyesight of that body within was greatly diminished. Certainly not as clear as your own, as I am grateful to have experienced.”

“It is nice. That’s all. Perhaps we do not have time to dwell, but–”

“Then do not dwell, Lady,” Eva said, gently. She retracted her arms. “I understand that you are focused on your mission – do not let me be a distraction, unless that is what you need me to be. I have already given my word that I will not judge any of what I see here.”

Hornet sighed. “…Right.”

She let go of Eva carefully, before starting to step swiftly off in the direction that felt… right. It was difficult to describe with any actual sensibilities, but this was a projection of her own mind, and as such, it made some indescribable sense to her. Something called – she called – in much the same way the hearts had always done, and with no clear way to navigate, that was all Hornet had to go off of.

After a short while of wandering, the path gave way to nothing – an abyss of sorts, though a different type to that which had sourced her siblings and begun to devour Pharloom. Perhaps there was an equal measure of emptiness down there,but that was simply the product of an unconscious mind.

It mattered not anyway; there was a mass of silk suspended partway across, practically begging her to use it. She expended a small amount of what natural silk she already had to reach it with her clawline, then consumed what remained of it to refill her reserves on the rest of the way over. It was graceful movement still, she supposed, but she still felt a little off kilter for being restricted as she was.

She turned to look back across sullenly. If she had experienced some level of trouble, then it would be ridiculous for her to not consider Eva too. But, ah… Eva was simply floating, of course. Such was the way of the incorporeal.

A door presented itself on the other side of the gap in the path. It was one that Hornet recognised all too well.

It was childish, but her hand shook as she reached for its handle. She wished that she could write this off as simply some lingering shock or sense of pain, but since discovering Eva’s form here, she had calmed rather remarkably. This was simply… She knew what she would find on the otherwise of this. She knew who she would find on the other side of this. But although Hornet had been beside that being on her deathbed, to see her again in the early days, when she had been present and had tried her best to provide life, was daunting.

“You hesitate,” Eva observed. “Is this…?”

“The entrance to this chamber resembles my old home,” Hornet explained. “I suspect that beyond here… some vision of my birth mother awaits. She is not the one that we seek.”

How convenient it would be, if Herrah the Beast had been allowed to hold all of the answers for her. She had been taken too soon for that, and in her place… The White Mother had done her best, and she would recognise now what was needed.

“Does this door’s presence not suggest that she is yet who you want to see, Lady?” Eva asked.

“It is a childish thing, to wish for one’s mother.” She bowed her head against the door. “…But I am afraid that even despite my worldly age, I am not above being so childish. She and I were permitted so little time together… I do not need her to dictate my life for me, and in fact, she was always the least inclined of my mentors to do so, but I can feel only the great weight of loss over what she was not afforded the time to teach me.”

“I do not think it is childish to miss a mother,” Eva murmured, “especially when their departure… may have hurt you.”

Hornet suspected she was not truly the one being spoken about. She did not press, out of respect for Eva.

“I should not put this off, regardless,” she said.

And so, she stepped through the door.

“…Show us your craft, child...”

“…Show it splendid, as only we can teach...”

“…Prove yourself more Weaver than Wyrm...”

It was a strange sensation, to exist as though she were a child once again. To exist inside of that memory had had her take on the mind and body of who she had been at the time – a naive thing, a quiet thing – and to be birthed back as her current self from it was to carry the weight of an entire lifetime upon her shoulders.

Eva appeared beside her. She was not entirely sure what had become of her companion as the past unrolled itself.

“These Weavers did not contain your mother within their ranks, did they,” Eva posited. It was not phrased as any sort of question.

“No,” Hornet shook her head, “her den was deeper within. Stopping here is merely a brief respite.”

“…I had forgotten how cruel they could be.”

“Eva,” she chided gently.

“My apologies, Lady,” Eva sighed. “I do not mean to judge, truly. This group… They reminded me of the Weavers that I had known through layers of iron, within the confines of the Weavenest. The burden of expectation is enough to bury any wedge deep enough to sting, I find.”

“I didn’t really understand what they were saying, at the time. My father was not one to visit, so I was hardly aware of his true nature.” She felt Eva’s stare. “I was unwanted on his part, you see. Simply part of a greater bargain. I cannot begrudge him for this, though I suspect some faction of our kin likely did.”

Pharloom had been her most direct experience with the Weavers. Most had departed Hallownest long before she would have known to seek them out, and consequently, they had seemed such a distant relic of the past until confronted with them again so directly here. She was grateful at least to have never been taken with them; had she been brought before the Grand Mother Silk so much sooner, she likely would not have escaped with her mind in tact.

How ironic that would have been, to escape one plague of a mind, only to have hers deteriorated anyway as if by a second.

“To contain the strain of a wyrm certainly explains some parts of you,” Eva mused.

“…I would advise you not to dwell on it. I care not to take too drastically after my father.”

Even if she suspected that she must do anyway. Perhaps only in inconsequential ways. The White Mother always liked to tell her how much she truly resembled her birth mother.

“Understood, Lady.”

In certain moments, it became very evident what had separated Eva from the Weavers who had created her.

“We should move on,” Hornet announced. “The rest of the den awaits.”

“...Ignore them, daughter... their whispers...”

“...Greater, grander... Weaver, guardian, queen... Those are their desires... not your own. Certainly not mine......Only if you resist them, you might see it, another hope... beyond......But to recall these words, in time so far...”

“Will you even remember me, child? Could you?......A mother... before the mask... before I lay forever in duty...”

“…Some part of me remembered, mother,” she murmured, upon regaining herself.

But not her face. Never her face, for in recent memory, it had always been concealed behind that mask. Masks defined a bug’s mind and identity, and certainly, to remove it from the Beast would have left her to drift aimlessly – formerly even, perhaps. But that did not mean Hornet’s curiosity had not persisted as to what was behind there that she could not recall.

“I had forgotten that bugs could be quite so small, in their youths,” Eva said carefully. “Especially bugs as grand as you, Lady. How… old were you?”

She was being careful not to broach what she had seen too harshly, clearly. Hornet appreciated it – appreciated what it stood for as a gesture of respect. Though, to be totally honest, she was not sure that she was so averse to hearing Eva’s thoughts on her mother. After losing her so early… had it not been so absolutely through others that she had come to learn of Herrah the Beast?

It didn’t matter, really. Neither of them were here for insight on Hallownest’s olds.

“Close to freshly hatched, I would suppose,” Hornet dismissed, “though I am not entirely certain.”

“And how long ago that must have been for a being such as yourself…”

After a while, it became difficult to keep track, so Hornet tended not to dwell. She was older than elders, but younger than gods, and that tended to serve her best as an indicator. After all, it wasn’t as though she’d had a mother primed to remind her when the day of her hatching came around each year.

“An age, yes,” curtly, she nodded, “but let us not linger.”

There was hardly anything here to linger on.

She expected to land once more as a witness, awoken as a version of herself that she could no longer be. She expected to be caught in the thrall of memory, unable to remember her current self, reliving her distant beginnings in search of the experience of seeing the pale bloom that she searched for.

But this… was not that.

A spectator she remained, yes, but it ran much deeper than that here. She was observing from within the fabric of a memory – woven so strangely compared to the strands that always comprised her own – but she was not within, as though this was some kind of dream in the third person. It was a vision, and it resembled more closely observing the worlds of the hearts that had brought her here. All was still seen through her own eyes, and yet also from their perspectives.

It took her a long moment to decipher it all. After all, this was her mind, and to be stranded on the outside of such a window, only able to simply look in, was never to have been expected. She was a participant; she had always been so in her own life, for it would not do to remain idle when she could act, and she could make some material difference.

An explanation was soon on the horizon, though. Hornet grasped at it quickly.

“…She is frail… She will not survive release…”

A familiar iron cage was positioned behind three darkened silhouettes. It was open, in this memory, depicting complex silken mechanisms surrounding and pooling out of a glowing shape like wires. Inside of the gentle light was a body, slumped and strung up like a scarecraw or corpse. But it moved, a slight compression of the chest as first breath, and Hornet recognised its shape.

This was… the form Eva had always been crafted in? Unchanging and ungrowing, sustained only by this prison of a machine. Even now, she outshone her Weaver mothers, though it was such a fragile form of divinity, frozen and bound, and she would never emerge from this cocoon as the Grand Mother had at Hornet’s challenge. She had seen the ending of this story already.

“…And yet she is awakening…”

Was this some premature birth? To be awoken to a world that would scald you to exist in, to be brought into life by only conspiratorial whispers, to molt into a shell unable to sustain you.

“She will not cry…”

“No… Sister… she cannot cry…”

“…Is she listening?…”

Was Eva in there now, stuck back in her unchanging body, just as Hornet had been brought back to the memory of small youth still within hers?

There was a soft hum, the first note in the song in mimicry of the natural melody haunting the chamber by the tuneful flows of air. Hornet recognised it instantly. It was… somewhat tragic, to hear this sound now, knowing what it meant to Eva in the future.

“I am… here…” Eva, or some memory of her, called. And those were her first words. “…I am… yours…”

Hornet could not perceive any following response over the blinding light that emerged from Eva’s cage, drowning out the silhouettes of the three Weavers who stood before it.

Eva’s awakening from the memory must have been similar to Hornet’s own from each of her recollections. The actors in this section of the realm had simply destabilised, and after a brief moment of unconsciousness, she found herself watching Eva emerge from the similar form that she adorned in that memory. She approached Hornet carefully.

“Lady, I… I apologise for that,” she whispered. “I had not realised I had taken root so deeply as to let my memories begin seeping into your own.”

Hornet took her hand gently. “It is no trouble, Eva. Perhaps it is simply some form of universal balance. If it makes you uncomfortable, I will attempt to avert my gaze if it happens again, and otherwise… I intend to hold myself to the same standards that I asked you to comply with.”

Eva shook her head sorrowfully. “I have nothing worth concealing within the remains of myself. You already know of my despised beginnings…”

“They are not despised to me,” firmly, Hornet said. “Truly, Eva, I know you must understand how… liberating it is to finally meet someone who is such a match of yourself. We have both seen it in Verdania’s lands, with the dancing princes, and you must have felt it as well as I, when our unity brought about true synchronisation against the Skarrsinger.”

She had never felt anything like it with another before. How could Eva be purposeless, how could she be despised, when she slotted in as if she were a long missing half of Hornet’s soul? When she could press against Hornet’s hunter’s crest until she was part of it herself? When she propagated such unadulterated joy that Hornet hadn’t been able to experience in so long?

“It is all you, Lady… You have turned my meagre life around.”

“And you have changed mine,” Hornet insisted. “I told you before that I have not attempted to take a partner since an age that has long since passed, and yet, Eva, I should tell you – I accepted you as mine without a second thought. You requested to become a part of me, and I was the one to first call it what it was – our union. True companionship… We have both led terribly lonely lives, Eva… You understand its wonderful embrace.”

“…Truly, you see me as divine as yourself, dear Lady?” Eva asked hesitantly.

Hornet turned, away from the empty remnants of Eva’s early memory, and towards a dull golden glow ahead.

“I do not believe in the tangibility of divinity, and I do not believe in the worship of it. Fickle gods have stranded us both here, Eva.” She sighed, and shook her head. “I see ‘divine’ as an empty label in the face of what I feel towards you – you are a mirror of my own life, my partner, and I may only respect you for that.”

Eva joined her at Hornet’s side.

“Then I suppose I have no choice but to trust the good lady’s word.” She brushed the shapes of their heads together gently. “I suspect you may yet see further disjointed pieces of my story. Do not be alarmed of them… I… I am through that, now. You must know that.”

“I do, Eva,” Hornet nodded. “In the kingdom of wishes, even the curses that plague beings such as ourselves can perhaps be broken.”

“…Good... Better...”

“...Yet still you will need to be faster......In time, they will come for you...”

“Those who fear your nature, and those seeking to claim it......To survive our world, you must learn to sting... swift and sudden...”

“She was a fine teacher,” Hornet lamented. “A shame, that she should have lost her life so soon, even against my lifespan.”

Vespa had been harsh… But it was her teachings that Hornet would forever be grateful for. They had kept her alive up until this moment, and they were all that she had currently to fight the dark. They would yet prove to be Pharloom’s saving grace, she suspected.

“I must confess, I had been wondering how you might have obtained such a name as that which you carry,” Eva said.

Hornet chuckled wryly. “You are not the first to have been confused by it. In truth, think of it more as a title – I was named for my ability to sting like those I shared ranks with.”

“It is a beautiful name,” Eva replied. “It suits one as sharp as yourself.”

And was it not special to be told such by one named for life itself?

“…Let her stasis remain… She will be watched over… by our Sister Atla…”

Perhaps there were a great many similarities that Eva shared with Hornet’s family, then. Hornet had long ago seen the tragic parallels between the silken constructs of Pharloom and Hallownest’s great many shells and tinkering crafted by its Pale King. If her siblings were to have been granted voices… Why would they not use them as Pharloom’s White Knight did? Bitter… Cynical… And yet still manically bright… All appropriate reactions, and even contained within emptiness as they had to be within Hallownest’s Little Ghost and Pure Vessel, she had never been able to help seeing theirs atop Lace’s.

Stasis was a cruel constraint for a dying kingdom. It would not resolve any of the lands’ issues, and it would save its inhabitants for suffering – taking one’s ability to cry out would not restrict the want to. To invoke a blessing from the Weaver of Time over Eva personally felt yet crueller still.

“For the despised child… this sacred place will rest a tomb…”

How remarkably grim. Hornet should have known better than to underestimate a mother’s capacity for malice, especially within Pharloom, but even as she waited still for the deep wounds of loss inflicted upon her by the Weaver’s parasitic relationship with motherhood to heal, she had not expected such direct callousness here.

It seemed, from Eva’s first reaction to the glimpses of Hornet’s memory she had been granted, it had slipped silently both of their minds that the face of expectation and judgement bore six eyes.

“…Her shell will sustain her… even in our absence…”

“Then our shame will fuel her, Sister…”

Shame was such a capricious emotion, but Hornet could still not fathom having it applied to dear Eva.

The Weavers in the memory approached Eva’s prison. “…Farewell… child of the deep… May our wishes yet be granted for you… one day…”

It burned to keep watching.

Eva rested against her, when it all melted away. She was not quite physical enough to not phase through Hornet’s shoulder somewhat, but it was no violation of privacy if Hornet allowed it, and truly, she did. She was grateful for it, even.

“You were correct, earlier,” she said, “when you called them cruel. My apologies that I only bit back at you for it.”

“Do not worry, Lady – I would never hold it against you. And they… I suppose I must remember what grand threat they fled from themselves… What even crueller semblance of a mother that they had slaved away for, prior to my creation,” Eva returned, softly.

“Our joint curse may have been propagated from a single pale source, but I believe we all hold responsibility for how we conduct ourselves, and if we are to think of piercing through that curse to foster new life, then that responsibility should be at the forefront of our minds.”

“Well said, dear Lady,” sighed Eva. “And for your intentions towards Pharloom, you are our shining example.”

It was the tender touch of the worldly sort who had raised her. Herrah the Beast’s defiant spirit, Hive Queen Vespa’s sharp notions of respect and discipline, and the White Mother’s imparting of what it meant to feel true shame.

“I am fortunate in many ways, but here I see that it is for my mothers’ breaking of the cycle,” Hornet said.

“…My own fortune arrived too late for that.”

And yet Eva was still humble, and Eva was still kind. It was a true testament to her worthy character and temperament; it was the mark of someone with whom Hornet would enjoy sharing her life.

This was a loss still anyway, she supposed.

“Do you miss them?” she asked.

“I do not believe it childish, to wish for one’s mother,” Eva hummed. “I have never felt myself a child, and yet I have yearned for a mother’s spoken word ever day for a great many years.”

“Especially when their departure may have hurt you…” she echoed.

Hornet could feel him watching, running through his palace. He had been claimed by the culmination of his own foolishness by the time of his great kingdom’s fall, the creator lost to that which he made by his own hands in his darkest hour, but she would never shake the grand sensation of being perceived by foresight in his presence, when he had persisted still.

Perhaps it was a true kind of childish fear – not of the sort that would have one cry out, for a mother or otherwise, but that which would have one cower needlessly – but what had her truly shake was the image of his crown that she could see in her own shadow. She would not be some image of him; she chose not to be. Her greatest fears could so easily be laid out by her own mind, however, and if those were to be made manifest in his shape, with his voice to chide, then she was not sure she would be able to so easily shake them off.

Eva would tell her otherwise, she was certain, but to have brought about the darkness, to be forced to face directly the void, she was a fool yet too. She would right fate where he had not, and would never have done, but she shivered childishly nonetheless at the notion from his gaudy palace that suggested that she had only learned her lesson from him. That even without him here in image or shell, his surroundings and power had been formative.

“…Alas, spider’s child…”

The White Mother at last. Perhaps it was by the grace of prodding at such a powerful mind, but Hornet found herself cognisant already, bowing before her.

“...For our ways you will think us harsh... You will think us uncaring, unrepentant...” the White Lady spoke. Her tones were as regal as Hornet had always remembered. “...And so we must seem, for such is the cost of our wish...”

Hornet found herself able to stand, shedding the Pale Court’s robes that she had worn in the name of her father for the familiar red that had always allowed her to surround herself in the hues of her birthplace. Eva split off from her during this, appearing by her side in her bright spectral form.

“You are wrong, Lady...” she allowed herself to say.

Once, at the beginning of her life, it would have been foolish to deny divinity, but by now she had seen it fall time and time again. Within fate’s claws, gods would rise, and gods would spread their tyranny, but eventually, those who had pushed past mortality, and yet still understood it anyway, would come, and such clashes would return gods’ influxes of power from where they came, and where they belonged. They would return to nothing; they would return to emptiness.

The White Mother would understand this now. Though her sight had grown clouded over time, and her awareness had been so deliberately dulled, she must have sensed still the rampant changes in the natural order of the world. She must have at least sensed the actions of her own children.

“ I knew the wish, and the price to achieve it,” she continued. “And now, across these many ages, I have only come to know it better...”

The Lady’s true eyes were on her now, she was certain. Hornet had become accustomed to noticing one’s sight on her, as she had so often experienced it directly from Eva.

“Strength... in mind, in care, in claw. Strength enough that I may live to see a world better than our own, or to craft a world as I desire,” she recounted. “I have witnessed enough true cruelty to see it not in the flickering remnants of the intentions that came about for me. My eyes may not be as worldly as yours, nor my mind as expansive, but I know enough to recognise this as the wish of my mother, of my mentor… and of you, Lady…”

“…Indeed, spider. So much pain you must have passed to speak our hope so simply…” The image, this past image, of the White Mother did not move. It was solid, but frozen in the moment that it had been taken from. “…I sense that you have brought another with you, on this last leg of your journey. Hope has granted you more than we may have imagined, then.”

Eva raised her transient eyes to the White Mother, upon feeling the otherworldly attention before them drift to encompass them both. There was no space for simple reassurance now, but she held herself proud as an example for her partner nonetheless.

Did it not grant a feeling of power, to have their union recognised by the lady whose love had run so deep it had formed the foundation of that dark heart which had unified the darkness below?

“Divine Root, your charge contains a strength I had not conceived of as possible, before I met her,” Eva declared. “Hers is an unmatched fortitude, and that hope of which you speak… It is hers that has allowed me to be here today….”

Warmth like the embrace of a mother, like the spreading of new roots and beginnings, settled in the air.

“…I am glad, spider,” the White Mother said.

Then she was in the right place, the right memory, the right presence, for what she desired – for what she required. It was no longer simple wish or fantasy that would see Pharloom saved. The journey’s end truly was within reach, yes, and as she had always intended to, Hornet would fight to her final fang and claw to grasp at it.

“Lady, you know what I awaken for. You know what it is that I must transition into…”

The White Mother spoke its power into existence. “For her you become... who knows clear our desire, and has seen full the darkness beneath our house, I would show you the gift...”

Light, that which would make it possible to find passage through even the emptiest of darknesses, crackled as it manifested over the White Mother chest. Wrenching it forth was the tyrannical might of the Crust King, the evergrowing vines of nature’s Nyleth, and the unending song of the Skarrsinger Queen.

“Witness, the first light. The only means we possess to resist that void with which our family is forever linked.”

A multitude of petals bloomed forth from the lights centre, fragile and pale, but still burning with life.

“Reach forth, child grown strong. Wrest it from this remembrance. Burn yourself free from our sad fate...” the White Mother concluded.

Hornet complied, and to the cadence of three beating hearts, the realm dissipated away.

She was alone in body, rising on the plinth at the heart of the Ruined Chapel.

But the air was heavy with the weight of spirits, and within her grip, that lantern that would see it possible for her to brace it darkness and still return with her mind and life.

The Everbloom… Hornet found that it was often the most fragile things that were also the most beautiful.