Chapter Text
The Pure Vessel followed closely behind its father, as always. Just a couple feet behind the king, never too close. For one thing, the perfect vessel would not bump into the king when he paused. For another, the king preferred distance. Finally, while the vessel had been instructed to follow, it had not been instructed to keep so close, and any closer would make it obvious that it was doing something Of Its Own Will.
It thought, though- although it tried not to- that staying close was warranted in a place such as this. Step too far out of the correct path, and its feet could get tangled in web, causing it to trip and bump into its father. Back to point one. Additionally, the cave was getting darker and darker the farther they went. The darkness itself wasn't the issue- the Pure Vessel was born from Darkness, and Darkness was inside it. It had no reason to fear the dark. No, the issue was the movement in the dark. The glimpses of eyes and claws and spikes, and the sounds that came with them. Things were hiding. And when things were hiding, that meant Danger.
It wanted to summon a Soul Dagger for light, but held itself back.
No, do not want. Never want.
But it was still afraid.
Father has enough light for both himself and m- himself and the Pure Vessel, it reassured itself, and felt a little better.
The king and the vessel walked deeper into the realm of spiders, past the centipedes, past the things that hid in dead bugs' shells- the king did pull the chosen vessel closer there, casting a look of disgust at the lowly arachnids. The Pure Vessel did not understand, but cherished the moments of being closer. It was good to know that the king thought of it more highly than the corpse-creepers.
Eventually they reached a village made up of round silk cocoons. The vessel followed its father's lead, as always, flapping its wings, propelling itself upwards towards the entrance of the largest cocoon. The king was already inside; nobody but itself noticed that it had Stumbled on the ledge of the entrance. A less-than-Perfect landing.
Nobody else had noticed, but that didn't stop it from feeling a little guilty as it picked up the pace to make up for the seconds wasted by the Stumble.
Do not feel.
The vessel, in an attempt to shove other thoughts out of its head, took in the scenery. The silk nest was more spacious than it had seemed from outside. It had heard someone say once that spiders were known for trickery and hiding things. This must have been one example. Despite lacking the pristine look of the palace that the vessel was so familiar with, this place had its own sort of grandeur, with the large, wooden masks hanging from the back wall, the glass lanterns strung from the ceiling, and the insects standing around wearing elegant, red cloaks.
(The Pure Vessel didn't know much about fashion, but the lines on the cloaks were almost the same pattern as the royal cloaks, which meant that they must be sophisticated.)
The king walked briskly towards the bench in the center of the room. The edge of his cloak brushed against one of the red-cloaked insects, which wobbled slightly. "Greetings, you are very tired, sit and rest," it said, with a bored tone and an unfamiliar accent.
"I am the King of Hallownest, here on business with the Beast," the king answered, sounding equally bored and slightly annoyed.
"We are friends. Welcome," another creature closer to the bench said, also sounding bored. "Sit and rest."
The king sighed and tossed a golden object onto the bench. Immediately, the strange bugs began moving towards the bench, sliding towards it rather than walking. Then they lifted up off of the ground and the vessel could see that they were not real bugs at all, but puppets attached to sticks. These sticks were held up by eight large spiders, each unique but wearing the same six-eyed pin on their cloaks, and looking much less bored than they had sounded before. The spiders hurried towards the bench, fangs bared, and halted suddenly, nearly bumping into each other when they realized that nobody sat there. They whispered to each other for a moment (the Pure Vessel caught phrases like "blame the new guy" and "another false alarm" and "should have paid better attention" and "aww, I wanted to do the roar"). Then the one who stood closest to the bench picked up the golden object and started peeling sticky webbing off of it, and another looked from the object to the visitors and stood up a little straighter. The vessel knew that posture, it was one that it had done several times itself. The stance of one who has just realized that they need to be very professional very quickly.
"Enter," the quickly-professional spider said, in a voice decidedly less bored than the one she had used before. Another (rather hairy) spider pulled what was probably a secret lever under the ornate table, and a pathway opened up that led, as always, downward. The king grabbed the vessel's hand as he stepped into the tunnel.
The Beast's Den was filthy. From what the Pure Vessel understood, this was the home of a ruler. It ought to look like the White Palace, or at least be just as clean. But there was webbing everywhere, and bits of dead bugs. Spiders moved unnaturally along the webs, along ceilings and walls and floors and in between. Always scurrying, always busy. After a moment, the pieces clicked. These must be servants, and the webs here must be like the servants' passageways.
(The vessel wasn't sure it was supposed to even know about servants' passageways, but it couldn't help noticing secret doors when it stared at the wall decorations long enough, trying to block out thought and emotion by instead filling its head with the walls' patterns.)
A huge spider, with a mask that split down the middle, blocked the path that the Pale King was traveling. The king said "I have important business with the Beast," but the spider did not move. Her mask began to split, revealing that it was actually a pair of painted claws covering a fanged face. (A rather ugly face, if the vessel could judge at all, not having one behind its own mask.) Then a string to the side of the large spider bounced violently, catching her attention, and her whole attitude seemed to change. She covered her face again and hurried backwards, letting the king and his vessel pass.
The throne room was far more spacious than the tunnels of this Palace Den, but filled just as (seemingly) randomly with webbing. A wide stone bench or platform lit by two lanterns sat beneath a metal throne shaped like a dead creature, suspended from the ceiling by metal cables that looked like legs. On this throne sat Herrah, the Beast, the Queen of Deepnest.
Herrah had warned her daughter that someday, she would have to leave, and Hornet would need to protect the kingdom. She had warned her daughter to always be on the lookout. To strike first in battle, but stay hidden when necessary. She had warned her daughter to never attack the king, but never trust him. His silver palace was nothing more than an elaborate metallic web.
Hornet knew all of this. She always listened to what her mother had to say, of course, especially when she used her "this is important" voice. But right now, peering down at the king from the back of her mother's throne, all she could do was wonder at how small he was. How could he rule anything? He was practically her size! Anyone could eat him!
And what was more strange, was that there was someone else standing next to and slightly behind him. This other creature had a face too big for their two horns. Just like she did.
Where Herrah may have seen another reminder of her fate, where the Pale King may have seen all the hopes of his kingdom, Hornet saw another kid. And so naturally, she pounced. Grabbing a sheet of web that had come loose, she parachuted off the back of the throne and dropped on top of the other child. "Gotcha," she said, pointing the dulled needle of a fallen warrior at them. After a moment, she slid off and got to her feet.
"I'm the best spider." She explained. "I could'a ate you! But I didn't."
"What is the meaning of this?" The pale king demanded. "Do you wish to nullify your side of the bargain by destroying the vessel you are meant to guard?" Glowing daggers filled the air, circling Hornet, who curled up into a little ball and flung her discarded parachute over her head.
"She is a child." Herrah said sternly. "She is playing. An essential activity for learning how to be a proper warrior. Which is what she will need to be if we are to continue the plan. You promised Deepnest an heir who could properly lead them when I am gone, did you not?"
The king dismissed the light daggers and took a second look at the spider that had ambushed his vessel. "That's her?" he asked. Hornet had horns like her mother, or at least the beginning of such horns, making her head shaped like a crescent moon. (The king had always loved moon imagery.) Her red silk poncho hid her too-many arms well. Admittedly, she was kind of cute.
"I apologize for our unpleasant first impression," the king added, reaching a hand out to the small spider. It was never too early to begin forming a good relationship with the next ruler of Deepnest, especially considering she was half-Wyrm.
Hornet did not take his hand. Mother had said not to trust him. Although small, he was larger than her, and grabbing her hand would put her at a disadvantage. Could a trap be any more obvious?
(Well, except for the trap that the teenagers kept in front of her mother's doorway. But that was just because they didn't really care.)
She grabbed some sticky web and strung it between her hands. "Why don't you grab my hand?" She asked the king. (She really did think that she was being subtle.) She put her hands around the outside of his. Ta-da! His hand was trapped in sticky web. He couldn't trick her now.
"Hornet, no trapping the king." Her mother called from the throne. "The king and I need to discuss something. Why don't you play with the vessel while you wait?"
"Ah- play with th-" the ordinarily well-spoken king sputtered, completely blindsided by the suggestion. "with the- the Vessel? Play? wh- It doesn't need to play, it's not a child." Of course the king knew better than anyone that this was not true. The vessel was not only a child, it was his child. But to play would be to inspire creativity, to encourage dreams, to weaken it against its sole purpose.
"It is hollow, yes?" The Beast asked. "Then nothing it meets will affect it. It will not care if Hornet plays with it, and I doubt she could deal much damage at this age. And playing with it will certainly not affect its mind, if it has none, as you have claimed in the past." Once again, the queen of spiders had made an argument that the king could not get out of. Perhaps twisting words came with the territory.
"Very well." His tone dripped with only-slightly-exaggerated dislike. "Hornet may play with the vessel while we discuss matters."
The Pure Vessel looked at the little spider. It couldn't quite figure out what to make of her. She had ambushed it, like an enemy, but then she had let it up, like training. But she could not have been training it, as training was not mentioned on the schedule, and besides, she was younger than it!
The vessel could not ask her why she ambushed it, so it just tilted its head at her in the way that meant "Listening", and hoped that she had something to say.
As a matter of fact, she did.
"Why are you just standing there?"
The vessel remained standing in place, listening.
"Are you pretending to be a dead bug? You can't fool me, dead bugs always lay down."
Nothing changed.
"Are you pretending to be a Doll? That's backwards. Dolls are supposed to pretend to be bugs. It's a disguise on a stick." Hornet seemed very proud of this fact. The vessel realized she must be talking about the trap with the bench and the puppets, at the entrance to the Den.
It must have shifted a little as it realized this, because Hornet immediately reacted. "Oh! You moved! I win! I caught you!" She shouted.
A Win. So this must be some sort of fight or training after all. The vessel adjusted its stance accordingly.
"You wanna fight?" The spider asked. "I never fought a vessel before." She tugged a few strong strands of web down from the wall and tied one of them to the end of the small, worn nail she carried. Then she looped the other end of the string around her hand. "Ready?" she asked, and, without waiting for an answer, charged towards the vessel.
The vessel blocked her attack with its own nail, the sound of metal against metal ringing satisfactorily. It pushed with the blade, shoving her back. She skittered away on at least two more legs than the vessel had expected, and climbed a little ways up the wall. She waited a moment, adjusting the weapon in her hand, then threw it down at the vessel.
She missed. It had landed a couple feet away from the vessel, no dodging necessary. The vessel went to pick up her weapon from the ground, confident that it had won. But the nail yanked suddenly from its grip, and the little spider was once again flying towards it at high speeds. Instinctively, the vessel dropped its nail and reached its hands out to catch her. It flung her to the ground next to it and picked up its nail again. It held its nail to her neck like she had done before, but she was small and able to roll out from under it. Now she was behind it. It turned just in time to block her blade, and delivered a couple more swings, both of which she dodged by moving backwards. She looked like she was heading for the wall again. The vessel summoned a Soul Dagger and sent it straight forward, where Hornet would be if she launched herself at it again. But this time she didn't. She parachuted sideways off the wall, gliding gracefully down while the dagger flew safely past.
The vessel summoned two more Soul Daggers, and sent them directly through the parachute, causing Hornet to fall back to the ground.
(It was satisfying, trying a trick and succeeding. The vessel would have grinned if it could.)
Hornet got up and charged towards the vessel, and it was ready, holding out its weapon, prepared to parry whatever she did. But she dodged out of the way last-minute, and shoved the tip of her nail into the ground. The vessel looked at the discarded weapon, confused, and that was all Hornet needed. In an instant, she was behind the vessel, than in front again, wrapping around the vessel with the thread that was still tied to her hand, anchoring it to the ground. Once sufficiently wrapped, which to Hornet's mind was two or three times, she untied the thread from her hand and stood over the vessel with her hands on her hips.
"Get good." Hornet said smugly.
The vessel struggled for a moment before figuring out how to disentangle itself from the web.
I am good! It would have insisted if it had a voice. You just fight weird. Instead, it settled for imitating Hornet's pose and tilting its head down at her, just to emphasize that it was still taller than her. Hornet stared up at its horns for a moment, then dropped her pose and started trying to walk behind the vessel again. The vessel turned quickly, not wanting to let her get a surprise attack again. Again, she slipped behind it. Again, it turned around.
"Stop moving!" Hornet insisted. "I wanna do something."
The vessel stared as skeptically as it could, but stopped moving, becoming the perfect little statue that it had been earlier. Hornet stepped behind it again, and started climbing up its back until she was sitting perched between its horns.
"Okay." She said. "You can move now." The vessel tentatively took a step forward. The weight threw it off at first, but it adjusted quickly to this new obstacle to balance.
"Wo-oah!" Hornet shouted. The vessel stopped, not wanting her to fall off.
"Why'd you stop?" Hornet complained. The vessel started moving again.
"Why do you move so slow? You should go faster." Hornet insisted. The vessel attempted to pick up the pace as much as it could without dashing, which would require it to lean forward, causing the young spider to fall off.
"Wheeeee!" Hornet shouted, and the vessel slowed, preparing to stop again. "No!" Hornet said. "Don't slow down. Fast is fun!"
Fast was, indeed, fun. It wasn't really the trying to run without leaning forward, but the excited noises of the little spider, that the vessel enjoyed the most. Hornet liked when the vessel did things. Hornet liked standing close and holding on.
It was amazing.
All too soon, though, the vessel noticed the king turning away from his conversation with the Beast, and resumed its statue-like default pose. Hornet climbed down from its horns, asking what was wrong, but it did not respond.
No mouth to speak, no will to break, no thoughts, no emotions, head empty.
Head not empty enough.
It had to leave now, and it was disappointed.
Look at the web patterns on the wall.