Lace (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threadsbare) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
mistymansion2025-09-22 08:38 pm
threadsbare) wrote in mistymansion2025-09-22 08:38 pm
weaver queen au
Terrible things are behind this cut CWs will be added as needed.
CW: baseline toxic codependent relationship, dehumanization, suicidal ideation
[Why was she still alive?
Lace felt cheated. It had been the one thing to console her after she had lost yet again to the spider. Finally, finally there would be an end to all this. Her Mother would get everything she ever wanted, and the temporary replacements that were her and Phantom would be gone and dealt with. She had fallen unconscious with envy, resentment, anguish but most of all relief in her heart.
So why was it that she was still alive? Could she not at last be given reprieve?
The sounds of battle had drawn her upward to her Mother's waking place and she had watched from a distance as the battle went on. Hah. The spider still thought she could do it. At this point Lace supposes she shouldn't be surprised. Where did this confidence come from? Was it because she too carried pale blood? Yet she was only half of one and so much younger than her Mother. It would have been so much easier if she just caved in. One way or another, her Mother always got her way.
And yet...
And yet...
The spider was winning. Lace could not believe her eyes. She was actually winning.
The silk construct clutched her pin and for a moment she almost went in there to join the fray and protect her mother on instinct but then she stopped in her tracks, and fell back to the shadows. No. This was what Grand Mother Silk deserved. This was what she deserved after everything she had done to her, done to Phantom.
Lace stayed her blade and there came the final blow.
Her Mother's scream as she collapsed rattled her but still she stayed, but as she watched it was now horror that kept her in place as she watched Silk be devoured, her beautiful form being absorbed by the spider until her body came apart completely, and all that was left was the metal of her legs, and the bracers she once wore.
For all the hatred and resentment she had harbored for her mother, hearing those agonized screams as she withered away to nothing sickened her to her core. The spider was a beast of that there was no doubt, and as Lace looked up at the cocoon that looked so much like the one that had been her mother's bed, she wondered what sort of Queen the Weaver would be.
One Lace wanted nothing to with.
What was left to her now? Only one person, and Lace feared that they too were already gone. A journey to the Exhaust Organ confirmed this fear, and Lace almost threw herself to the muckmaggots then and there. Yet even now such a death was abhorrent to her and she eventually made her way back up to the Cradle. As she did she passed many pilgrims and she had to wonder: did they have any idea of what was coming? Would their lives become better or worse from here on out? Considering what she had seen of the spider during her ascent...it seemed she would be benevolent. Perhaps it was unfair to take into consideration what she had witnessed, given that it was a battle of dominance between two deities.
Hornet had always been kind--if anything, in Lace's opinion, overly so towards the people she encountered.
She had been kind to her, which was the most ridiculous thing.
Yet she still could not help but have doubts. She supposes she always would with those of the higher caste.
She didn't know why she suddenly cared about the fate of Pharloom's citizenry, she never had before but it didn't take longer for her to come to the conclusion.
It was because this was all her fault.
If she had just accepted her fate and not freed the spider from her enchanted cage both her Mother and Phantom would still be alive. That had been an agonizing realization to come upon and so many what ifs began to fill her mind. What ifs that were now an impossibility because of what she had done.
Once more she reached that platform where the spider's cocoon hovered and she sat down, pin across her lap. Lace had no illusions about how this would go. She had never bested Hornet when she was a half breed, there was no way she would be able to do so when she was reborn.
That was fine. She will have her death and it will come as any knight's should---in battle.]
CW: baseline toxic codependent relationship, dehumanization, suicidal ideation
[Why was she still alive?
Lace felt cheated. It had been the one thing to console her after she had lost yet again to the spider. Finally, finally there would be an end to all this. Her Mother would get everything she ever wanted, and the temporary replacements that were her and Phantom would be gone and dealt with. She had fallen unconscious with envy, resentment, anguish but most of all relief in her heart.
So why was it that she was still alive? Could she not at last be given reprieve?
The sounds of battle had drawn her upward to her Mother's waking place and she had watched from a distance as the battle went on. Hah. The spider still thought she could do it. At this point Lace supposes she shouldn't be surprised. Where did this confidence come from? Was it because she too carried pale blood? Yet she was only half of one and so much younger than her Mother. It would have been so much easier if she just caved in. One way or another, her Mother always got her way.
And yet...
And yet...
The spider was winning. Lace could not believe her eyes. She was actually winning.
The silk construct clutched her pin and for a moment she almost went in there to join the fray and protect her mother on instinct but then she stopped in her tracks, and fell back to the shadows. No. This was what Grand Mother Silk deserved. This was what she deserved after everything she had done to her, done to Phantom.
Lace stayed her blade and there came the final blow.
Her Mother's scream as she collapsed rattled her but still she stayed, but as she watched it was now horror that kept her in place as she watched Silk be devoured, her beautiful form being absorbed by the spider until her body came apart completely, and all that was left was the metal of her legs, and the bracers she once wore.
For all the hatred and resentment she had harbored for her mother, hearing those agonized screams as she withered away to nothing sickened her to her core. The spider was a beast of that there was no doubt, and as Lace looked up at the cocoon that looked so much like the one that had been her mother's bed, she wondered what sort of Queen the Weaver would be.
One Lace wanted nothing to with.
What was left to her now? Only one person, and Lace feared that they too were already gone. A journey to the Exhaust Organ confirmed this fear, and Lace almost threw herself to the muckmaggots then and there. Yet even now such a death was abhorrent to her and she eventually made her way back up to the Cradle. As she did she passed many pilgrims and she had to wonder: did they have any idea of what was coming? Would their lives become better or worse from here on out? Considering what she had seen of the spider during her ascent...it seemed she would be benevolent. Perhaps it was unfair to take into consideration what she had witnessed, given that it was a battle of dominance between two deities.
Hornet had always been kind--if anything, in Lace's opinion, overly so towards the people she encountered.
She had been kind to her, which was the most ridiculous thing.
Yet she still could not help but have doubts. She supposes she always would with those of the higher caste.
She didn't know why she suddenly cared about the fate of Pharloom's citizenry, she never had before but it didn't take longer for her to come to the conclusion.
It was because this was all her fault.
If she had just accepted her fate and not freed the spider from her enchanted cage both her Mother and Phantom would still be alive. That had been an agonizing realization to come upon and so many what ifs began to fill her mind. What ifs that were now an impossibility because of what she had done.
Once more she reached that platform where the spider's cocoon hovered and she sat down, pin across her lap. Lace had no illusions about how this would go. She had never bested Hornet when she was a half breed, there was no way she would be able to do so when she was reborn.
That was fine. She will have her death and it will come as any knight's should---in battle.]
no subject
They ran into the seal, and she breathed out a sigh of relief, shoulders sagging. She stepped backwards, keeping a watch on them to make sure it held before leaning against the statue.
A moment. She just needed a moment to rest. The past five days had not been good to her. Her sleep had been poor--how could she sleep with Hornet's eyes fixed on her? Then her mad dash hadn't allowed for a single moment of respite.
When the tiny critters finally gave up she returned their hissing with a very unlady-like gesture. Her eyes closed.
A moment. Just a moment.
Slowly she slid down the statue until she was seated on the ground.
Exhaustion ate away at her and she might have almost passed out there but then came that voice, that once again seemed to come from everywhere at once. She immediately jumped up and looked around.
Where was she? Where the fuck was she?
Slowly she turned around, surveying the entire cavern, then looked up. There was a pathway upward, but she couldn't be there. No...she wasn't nearby. It wouldn't make sense. Lace straightened up, trying to figure this out. Her Mother had always been able to track her. That was because of the silk her body was composed of. The few instances they spoke, Her voice had resounded within her mind. This was different.]
I
[She immediately shut her mouth. Hornet hadn't responded to what she had said previously. She somehow doubts she would let telling her to shut up slide. Which leads Lace to believe she can't hear her which makes talking pointless. She can't stay here for too long. The weaverlings would doubtless return with her.
She cast her eyes upward, trying to judge the height. High. Very high. She might be able to make it, but her legs were now unstable with how ill-fitting they had become since her body shrunk.
Hornet's words echoed in her mind, incensing her. Words like that had been ones her Mother had spoken, back before she'd appointed herself a knight, when she had tried to dissuade her from picking up the pin. Frail, frail, frail. That's all anyone thought when they looked at her, didn't they? No matter how hard she worked. No matter what she accomplished.
She hated that it was true.
Most of all, because someone had deliberately made her that way.]