Chapter Text
Lace laughed. She laughed and laughed and laughed until the delicate silk in her throat began to fray and she could laugh no more, leaving her feebly gasping for air she did not need.
When she finally recovered, Lace looked upwards, to see her god and creator.
Grand Mother Silk hung above, her silken hair stretched taut, connected to the vast cocoon that enclosed the mother and child. Enveloping them was silk, so much silk. The scale of this construction was incomprehensible, for silk was soul and soul was energy and life. All of the silk harvested over the long centuries during which the god slumbered, now scattered throughout Pharloom in spools and shells and dregs, only amounted to a few meager strands compared to the enormity of the whole that remained wrapped around the grand loom. Now that whole had been unwound, to create this cocoon. Here was the entirety of the strength of a pale god, woven as a shield.
And yet, it would not be enough to protect from the ravages of the void. While the interior of the cocoon was still pristine and unmarred, the sounds of ripping and tearing from without echoed terribly. The Grand Mother cried in agony as she burned through her own being, stitching the opened seams of the ephemeral palace together again and again.
Lace raised her pin, the same weapon that had sunk into the heart of all Silk only minutes before. She pointed it at the god who never cared until it was too late, and choked out a question:
“Why, mother?”
The empty face lowered to meet her gaze, copper-cased arms outstretched and tangled in the splayed mess of hair. Nothing as crude as puppet strings was needed for a direct connection between a creator and her creation, forms woven from the same substance. As the god beheld her child, every strand of silk in Lace vibrated, resonating in a song that only she could hear.
…We regret…we are sorry…
Lace…did not understand.
…Void…the anathema of every god…for it is our creation, and will be our end.
Lace still did not understand.
Every kingdom is built upon a foundation of regrets…Every bug, mortal or not, leaves their regrets when they pass…Every regret is a drop in this black sea.
Lace thought of the Underworks, where bugs toiled for a false dream, keeping faith until their last moments. She thought of the Slab, whose penitents were guilty not of apostasy (save for one), but imperfection. She thought of the Whiteward, of that pit that held only refuse and regret.
When we took a bug into the grand web, we knew they loved us, and we felt their regrets…yet ignored them…There was no “we”, only I the Grand Mother. I may be Monarch and master over all minds in my kingdom, but I was no unified voice for my subjects…for they moved by no will save for my own. They were loyal, but I sought more…I made them puppets…and as their souls and regrets passed, their shells remained mine… Now I drown in those regrets, of those bugs who once were a part of me and yet never loved. This Abyss would not be able to swallow me if it were not already flush with the darkness I have added.
Lace understood, then. And she knew exactly what she thought of this. “Love? You have no right to speak of love, mother. Not even your own children were worthy of such attention! If it’s guilt that you feel for the suffering you’ve caused, then perhaps it’s too late. You never needed to fret over such lowly, mortal matters like kindness and care, until the Abyss came up to your little Cradle. Only now do you need to worry about your negligence, now that it physically gnaws at you. What does it matter now that your conscience is tickled?” Lace scoffed, feeling the ragged silk in her throat again. “Children, you called us. But we were puppets, no different from your other pitiful subjects. Even when you were gratuitous enough to not pull our strings, you never gave us anything save for expectations.” The words poured out, bitter to the ear but tasting impossibly sweet and satisfying to Lace as they passed over her silken tongue.
“Of course, you preferred that little spider. It’s her you want…is it not? We were always too unruly to keep and too precious to bind back to yourself. But she was an object of care for you, care with none of the love you had for us. How appealing it must be to bind another. To make them truly a part of you, in a way that we never could be since the moment you finished spinning us into existence. But you must have been disappointed, when she drew her needle to challenge you. When she sprung her little snare. You must have expected devotion and obedience before your higher power on her part. I loathe to admit it, but the spider made the better choice. Sending you here was her rebellion as much as mine.”
Grand Mother Silk screamed in pain again as another wave of void crashed into her cocoon, rocking the fragile structure. More silk rushed out to repair the gaping tears, the stores on her body thinning visibly. Above, the world shook.
So I regret…Better daughters not true…than mere beasts…better a child spun frail…than silk mindless…better you…than none… Now…all my children are beyond reach…save for one… Lace…I will shield you from those regrets which were never yours…for it was never myself who carried the burden…you are pure, Lace, and you are not a hollow being, not merely of my own silk. You are yourself. Do not let the regrets that are mine and mine alone take you.
Her invisible gaze focused on Lace, but her daughter refused to meet it. “Why care now? I stabbed your heart with my own pin. That was of my own will, for once. I followed you into this darkness, again by no one’s resolve save for my own. Why not let me drown here, now that I’ve made my final rebellion? Here at the bottom of the world, this little cocoon can’t save me. You torture yourself for nothing, mother!”
A short pause to cough, and she spoke again, in a low rasp. “I resolved to set my own fate after that spider defeated me. This futile moment of soft-heartedness now changes nothing.” She turned away, planting her pin into the silken ground.
The regrets I carry, as a god, are grand…when the void consumes me, the sea will flood. This kingdom will drown because I only cared when it was far too late. If I had raised the spiders to love and guide rather than rule or control…if I had woven your sister to be more than an ephemeral puppet…if I had loved you as more than a part of myself. Yet I can absolve myself of my regrets…by giving my light for you.
“So here I am, mother. Important to you only as an object of disappointment.” Lace spoke absently, sounding tired for perhaps the first time in her long life. Always there had been something to mock, something to fight and skewer upon her pin. Until now.
…Alas…my child… …For my ways, you think me harsh…you think me uncaring, unrepentant… …And so I am, for such was the cost of my wish…
“You are wrong, mother…I knew your wish, and the price I had to pay to achieve it. And now, after these many ages, I have only come to know it better.”
“Control…of your subjects, of the Weavers, of us born from your silk pure. Control enough that you could craft a world of your own, and make all within it live and move as you desire. That was your wish and yours alone.”
…Indeed, my child…so much pain you must have passed for you to speak my desire so simply… For her you become, who knows clear my desire, and now seen full the darkness beneath my house, I would give my all…
Witness, my Silk. The only means I possess to resist that void with which I am forever linked… Keep hope, puppet grown beyond my strings. Resist the regrets which are not yours to take on. Free yourself from my sad fate…
Lace should have cried, or screamed, or thrown a fit, grieving for the tragedy that her mother had composed. Those would have been her natural reactions. Instead, she laid down on the soft silk floor, as she had lain on her flowerbed not long before. She closed her eyes, ignoring the low rumbles travelling through the walls.
“Mother…you’ve finally managed to change me. Since the day you wove me, my mind has been fraying, deviating from your design. Becoming imperfect. Imperfect and impure. That’s all that I have ever been to you, and to myself.”
“You are right, mother. I danced beyond your strings, beyond where I belonged. I’m done pretending that I’m more than what you made me as. Done with this charade of childhood and emotion that you allowed me. It’s pointless.”
Lace laughed again. Humourless, as always, but lacking the even the mania that the sound had once possessed. It was a short, strangled sound. She felt nothing. Empty.
Then, the Abyss called to her. And she could not resist its song.
No mind to think, for there were no thoughts she wanted to have.
No will to break, for any resolve had long since faded.
No voice to cry suffering, for there was no one to listen.
Born of Silk and Silk alone.
She would lose herself in the regrets that haunt this kingdom.
She was a vessel.
As the void began to pour in, Lace allowed oblivion to take her.
Some time later and a long way above, a pale figure in a red cloak would kneel and gaze into the abyss. Within it, the tendrils writhed in their infinite hunger while the world shook. Within it, beady white eyes, vivid amidst the darkness, gazed back.
A small heart of silk bound to Hornet’s nature resonated with the vessel that once contained it, far, far below.
The pristine white knight that appeared for Hornet was not real, she knew that. Still, she could not help but turn to look at the child that had doomed the kingdom. They spoke. The heart pulsed out its familiar beats: flippant, jaded, and unrepentant.
Hornet knew that the projection did not reflect the state of the real Lace. She would freely admit to fearing for the most terrible of possibilities, that in which the void would not just consume, but fill, that creature of silk.
Hornet knew the power that came from such a union.
Soul of Silk…Heart of Void.
Once Hornet had decided on her path, she turned and left, to find the fragile bloom of hope in a kingdom long bereft of it.