Chapter Text
In an ornate rune-sealed cage carried by empty-eyed bugs, drifting through cold forgotten lands heavy with the stench of death, a spider trembles with rage.
Wind and ash cut through the bars of Hornet’s cage, and she distantly recalls the edge of her own kingdom. The dried castoff of the wyrm’s corpse, perpetually falling like snow, every piece a reminder of the god who had failed both his subjects and his children. The cave where she had attempted to drive her needle through the smallest vessel’s core, intending to simply end another fool’s mission like the rest of the vessels before them.
She had been more terrified of the notion that the vessel might have a will of their own than the fact that they had grown more powerful than her. The little ghost was seeking the truth. A dangerous thing, never meant to be sought, especially by a being whose free will meant the infection would never be fully sealed.
How ironic had it been, then, when the free will of her siblings was what ended up conquering the goddess once and for all?
It had taken time to get used to them. Even after they managed to reclaim their mortal shells and heal their broken masks, Hornet was wary of the apparently-not-empty-anymore vessels. While they were technically always family, only recently has Hornet been able to see them as such.
The lords of the abyss, the vessels created and consumed by the void, the beings of power beyond any mortal bug’s comprehension who still occupied fairly normal looking shells, if only slightly paler -and now more cracked- than most other bugs. Her siblings.
Ghost. Hollow.
These despicable bastards had taken her away from them.
Hornet shakes with useless rage, her powers sealed away by whatever spell has been cast on this cage, as she vividly pictures just how she’ll tear these worthless bugs apart when they make the foolish mistake of arriving at their destination. How dare they take her away from her family, how dare they kidnap the princess of Hallownest, how dare they-
Ghost and Hollow won’t even know what happened to her. The bugs ambushed Hornet alone, while she was on a solo hunt, and the cowards had overwhelmed her with sheer numbers. The remaining bugs had dumped the bodies of those she killed in the acid ponds, leaving behind no trace of the battle. Her siblings will think she left them.
Hornet’s fury burns through her chitin. She will make every last one of these wretched creatures pay, and then she will crawl back to Hallownest with her bare claws.
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When the seal on the cage breaks, Hornet’s only thought is her siblings. Her silk shoots out through the bars, months of repressed power breaking free, and she feels a sick satisfaction at the trembling of her captors. Her single desire is to demolish the cage and the guards surrounding it in the most violent way possible, and the fact that they’re currently on a narrow bridge doesn’t register as an important fact in her mind until she’s falling through the cavern. Maybe, in retrospect, it would have been helpful if it did.
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Hornet’s first thought upon waking up is to finish what she started when she broke free of the cage. She would remember if she had driven her needle through those wretched guards, and the fact that she doesn’t means it hasn’t happened yet.
When she manages to sit up and look around at their bodies, she realizes she might have lost the chance.
Her second thought, after mourning the loss of the guards she has so desperately wanted to kill with her bare claws for months, is the reason she was so enraged in the first place.
Her siblings. Her home.
Hornet stands up, binds her aching body with her healing silk, and takes stock of the situation.
I must collect myself, and quickly. I am useless if I let my emotions impede my mission. She will crawl out of this place with every last strand of silk she has, and she will make it back to her siblings.
She has to repeat this in her head several times, at an increasingly fast pace, when she realizes her silk reserves are almost entirely gone.
She was just trying to spin enough silk for a clawline. She had decided the best direction to go was up, to escape this (quite beautiful, but that’s not the point) mossy grotto, until she found another bug or the way back to Hallownest herself, whichever came first.
Her silk is gone. Binding her wounds had depleted all of it. If Hornet were a more emotional bug, or simply quite a bit younger, she might have cried incredulous, frustrated tears. She hasn’t been this weak since her third molt.
She can’t clawline. Even once she spears a mossgrub enough times to replenish the silk she would have needed, the silk refuses to attach itself to her needle. She can’t shape it in any way. She might as well be a freshly hatched spiderling again.
In an outburst of anger, Hornet violently slices through the nearest corpse of one of her captors. It’s completely irrational and she knows it- they are all long dead. Falling even a quarter of the distance they did would decimate any normal bug. They have no life left for her to take.
Still, though, she is enraged. Not only for her abandoned siblings, now, but for herself. The bugs have kept her in captivity for so long, she has become the one thing she despises.
A weakling.
How much longer will it take her to make it back home, now that she’s lost her skills?
Hornet takes a deep breath. Compose yourself, daughter. You may not falter in the face of a trial. You will see them again.
She repeats this in her head until she believes it.
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“Up with you! Up! I won’t have you dying on my floor!”
A rhythmic tapping against her shell stirs Hornet from the depths of unconsciousness, and she rises slowly.
“Ah, awake at last! You should mind your strength, traveller. There’s no use wasting energy on an old nobody like me.” A kind looking old bug reveals herself to be the owner of the voice, as well as the staff that was presumably tapping on Hornet’s shell moments earlier.
“I see that now, madam.” When Hornet speaks, it is for the first time in months, and her voice has a slight rasp that she hopes will go away soon. She is relieved to see another bug, though. Getting through the moss grotto had been an embarrassing struggle in her weakened state, and she can only hope that the road back home is simple so she can recover her strength without any more lethal danger. “Forgive me, but could you tell me if you know of the kingdom of Hallownest?”
The Chapel Maid blinks. “You seek the kingdom of the ancient Wyrm? Most pilgrims of this land are climbing for the holy Citadel, I have not once met one seeking the cursed lands beyond.”
“I am no pilgrim,” Hornet replies. “I am Hornet, and I arrive in your land by no choice of my own. I was taken from my family, and brought to your kingdom by force by strange bugs clad in veils. I must return as quickly as possible, lest my siblings believe I abandoned them. Would you tell me of the fastest route?”
“Oho! How curious! You say your homeland is the land of the Wyrm?” The Chapel Maid hums, thinking. “I’m afraid the only way over the southern mountain is the bridge from the Citadel.”
“And where might this Citadel be?”
“Why, the Citadel is the summit of our land!” The Chapel Maid brings her gaze up, and Hornet follows. All she sees is the endless cavern. “The veiled bugs who captured you, they are of the Citadel. Just like every other pilgrim scuttled out of the darkness to climb the great path, they serve their faith. Or perhaps they are slaves to something greater…”
This kingdom is sounding uncomfortably like her own, long before the Wyrm descended on the lands and the bugs still worshipped the moth goddess. Hornet would like to know why the veiled bugs went to such lengths to bring her here, but making it back to her siblings is more important. If she must ascend the lands of this kingdom, so be it. Perhaps it will lend itself as an opportunity to recover her strength.
“Then I shall seek this Citadel, and the bridge leading back home.”
Wait.
The Chapel Maid had said there was one bridge. The veiled bugs had been taking her to the Citadel.
That bridge they were crossing when the seal broke is the one bridge leading back to Hallownest.
The bridge that, as Hornet had thought to herself a short time ago, was so high up that falling even a quarter of the distance to the ground she stands on now would decimate any normal bug.
The Chapel Maid flinches when Hornet kicks the rock wall they’re standing by with such force that several pebbles are dislodged.
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Hornet has been alone for centuries.
Ever since Hallownest had succumbed to the infection, with everyone Hornet ever knew either dead or sealed away, she had been alone.
Hornet had watched the White Palace crumble. She had watched the cracks under the Blue Lake open up, and watched the City of Tears earn its name. She had watched her mother’s own kingdom, though its sovereignty from the Pale King’s rule had always been a subject of debate, fall into ruin. Its subjects- her fellow weavers- had become nothing more than the beasts the rest of Hallownest feared they always were.
What a strange experience it was, to watch a land she held such ambiguous feelings for crumble into ruin before her very eyes.
Most of her life was spent standing sentinel over her fallen kingdom. Most of it was spent alone. She had sought companionship occasionally, with several different mates, but none of them could match her lifespan. She mourns them, of course, but accepts it as a fact of her life.
Hornet likes solitude, for the most part. There’s no one she has to protect, no one she has to consult when deciding where to go and what to do, and no one bothering her with inane comments or questions.
Sometimes, though, she wishes her lifespan were not quite so long.
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You have spent centuries alone, spider. You are being ridiculous.
Hornet dives onto a kilik with her needle, and steals its spot on the edge of the cliff to sit.
As she gazes over the cold gray expanse of this cave system resembling the Forgotten Crossroads, chewing through the meat of the kilik, Hornet feels an irrational loneliness.
She misses them. She misses them terribly.
If she were somehow able to talk to her past self, and tell her that in a few decades her heart would be aching from missing the Pure Vessel and another, much smaller vessel, she would have laughed. And really, it would have been fair. Hornet felt nothing for her sibling when they were sealed away in the Black Egg, and nothing when she drove her needle through the masks of the vessels that came before Ghost.
When Ghost gave her a flower after they slayed her mother, she thought it was a mistake. Perhaps they were repeating a gesture they had seen another bug do, or someone had told them to give the flower to the first bug they saw. She had crushed it, and attempted to send her needle through their shell with a powerful coil of silk. They dodged it, of course, and left with only a single look back.
It was only when she held the Pure Vessel with her silk, and saw the fear in their eyes, that she realized her siblings were never hollow in the first place.
Ghost would love this, Hornet thinks to herself as she finishes the kilik meat. The meat was the perfect combination of sweet and salty, Ghost’s two favorite flavors. I’ll have to make some jerky to take back to them.
Hollow would have loved the moss grotto she just left, as well. They had never been allowed to explore Hallownest in their childhood, and Hornet still remembers when they had first seen Greenpath. It had been about a month after she brought her half-dead siblings up to Dirtmouth, using whatever silk she could to repair their masks until they regained consciousness and were able to use their own Soul. They stayed in Dirtmouth for a time to recover, as well as do whatever they could to come to terms with their family trauma and their feelings towards each other (which was hard considering neither of Hornet’s siblings could speak, but they figured it out,) before Hornet decided they should set off.
She hadn’t been sure where they were traveling, exactly, but she knew that both her and Ghost were wanderers at heart. She could only hope Hollow would enjoy travelling as well.
And by Wyrm had she been right.
Hollow’s face was not supposed to be capable of emotion, but Hornet could swear she saw their eyes shine. They had immediately rushed for the nearest clump of grass, and examined it with enthusiasm Hornet never thought she’d see directed towards- well, literal grass. Apparently, Hollow really likes plants. And color, which is understandable seeing as the only color they had really seen before that was orange.
Ghost and Hollow would have appreciated the beauty and comfort of the moss grotto far more than her. She wishes they were here.
If they were here, she would not even need to return to Hallownest. She has been referring to it as her home, but really it’s just because she left her siblings there. Home is not the land itself, which she feels nothing towards, but the sweet energetic bugs she has found she can’t live without.
She wonders how they’re doing without her. Likely just fine. The only thing they really need her for is talking, and even that they can simulate with a paper and quill.
If they were here, they would be able to explore this kingdom together. Hornet would be able to enjoy the journey, knowing the two bugs she cherishes most are safe, and she wouldn’t have to hasten herself to get back to them.
You are being foolish, daughter. How have you come to rely on your siblings this much?
As Hornet stands to continue onwards, she can almost feel the ghost of a tiny hand in hers.
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Hornet should have spent just a few more minutes resting in the seamstress’s cottage. She had still been tired, she knew she was still tired, and yet she had rushed herself.
Now, as the giant hands of this mechanical monstrosity bring themselves down, Hornet wishes she had listened when she told herself not to let her emotions impede her mission.
Hornet had been stunned when she saw the beast rising from the lava. At first, she had thought it was a normal bug possessing some sort of shiny, lava resistant exoskeleton. It was huge, but so are many bugs, and its size is nothing she hasn’t faced before.
When its hands had gotten close enough for her to see, she realized it was no living bug but a metal automaton.
This fight would have been child's play for her several months ago. She can visualize just how she would send her needle through its exoskeleton with her coils of silk, then use her grapple on its head to send herself down onto its mask.
Unfortunately, she still can’t do any of that.
She has regained the ability to dash, though, through the help of some ancient shrine, and it’s all she can do to dodge the giant hands while striking the automaton’s head from below.
Admittedly, her new cloak is extremely useful, and nothing like anything she’s had before. Perhaps this kingdom is not all worthless.
As the automaton’s hand brings itself to sweep across the small platform, though, leaving Hornet with no time or strength to jump after landing from the dodge of its other hand, she knows she would trade everything she has acquired in this kingdom for a single clawline.
Will she die from this?
It’s hard to say.
She isn’t entirely sure how powerful this construct’s strike will be, but she can guess from the pieces of lava rock that have been crushed under its fists. Even if the strike doesn’t kill her, she’ll be pushed into the lava…
Time has seemed to slow down. How interesting.
Hornet never feared death before. She’s just never had to think about it much, either. For most of her life, she was strong enough that nothing could kill her, but had not much of a reason to try terribly hard to stay alive in the first place. How cruel, now, that both of those facts have been reversed.
Hornet is not sure how to react to the idea that she may die here. Like always, the only one she can blame is herself. If only she had rested a little longer…
Ghost. Hollow. I’m sorry.
Hornet’s siblings would be fine, if they were in this situation instead of her. Ghost’s shade cloak would allow them to pass straight through the hand with very little effort. It’s been years since they received it, but much to Hornet’s amusement, they still love playing around by taking Hornet and Hollow by the arms and bringing them all through enemies.
And, as if she manifested it, the hand passes straight through her.
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I have died. I must be dead.
That’s the only explanation. She died when the automaton's giant hand struck her, her body has been crushed, and-
And what, exactly?
Hornet has never died before, so she doesn’t exactly know what it’s meant to feel like. Who’s to say your consciousness doesn’t linger a little while after your death? She is not a vessel, she does not have a Shade, but perhaps there is some other sort of spirit that remains.
And perhaps, she is hallucinating the tiny figure clutching onto her cloak.
“Ghost…?”
Ghost looks up at her, and nods. They hug her tighter, nuzzling their shell into her side, and Hornet barely has time to react before they shadow dash through the automaton’s giant hands once more.
“How-”
A deafening crack cuts her off, and she and Ghost look up to see the automaton’s mask split down the middle. At the center of its skull, driving their nail straight down into the metal, is Hollow.
Ghost screeches, Soul and Shadow bursting out from under their mask and striking the automaton from below, and it lets out a roar. Hollow drives their nail further into its shell, arm trembling with effort, and the giant metal mask falls away. A complex arrangement of cogs reveals itself to be underneath, and the glowing white of the eyes bursts and turns to empty black pits.
Hollow leaps from the head of the automaton as it sinks into the lava with a hiss, and lands gracefully next to Hornet and Ghost.
Ghost is still clutching onto her cloak. Hollow kneels in front of her, and holds out their hand. Hornet hesitantly touches it with her own.
It’s solid.
“You-” Hornet chokes on her words. “How are you here?”
Ghost gestures wildly, pointing to her, then themself and Hollow, then back to her. They make a walking motion with two claws, then a wide falling from the sky motion. Hollow nods along enthusiastically.
“You were able to track me?”
They both nod eagerly. Hollow points to her, then makes a gesture with their arm. Hornet tilts her head.
Ghost makes the same gesture, though with both arms Hornet is able to understand what it means. They were miming the explosion of the cage, and how she fell down into the cavern. Hollow hangs their head, and Ghost pats their hand.
Hornet, though still stunned, laughs quietly. Her siblings are here. They tracked her captors and followed her into the depths of this new kingdom, and they found her. They saved her life. They are here.
They are here, and she is laughing at their antics like she always does. Like nothing ever changed.
“You truly jumped down after me?”
Hollow nods. They point to her, point to themself, and point to a spot a little ways away from where she’s standing.
“You landed somewhere else?”
They nod rapidly.
“I…” When Hornet blinks, she realizes her eyes have started to water. How embarrassing. I have not cried in years, why now?
Of course, she knows the answer. She missed them so much. She missed them more than she had even realized. And they had come to find her.
When her tears start to fall, she realizes the weight of the incredible relief that has settled over her body. Her siblings are here. She does not have to struggle to crawl back to Hallownest in her weakened state, and she does not have to worry that Ghost and Hollow think she abandoned them. They trusted her, trusted that she would never dream of leaving, and somehow managed to track her all the way to this distant kingdom.
Hornet picks Ghost up with one paw, grabs onto Hollow’s cloak with the other, and holds her siblings as tight as her weakened arms will allow her.
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