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In a cruel deception, Lace had been blessed with everything that signifies life: a voice, an artificial silk heart, a soul. Eyes, claws, the ability to cry, to rage, to feel love. As strange as it was, she could even feel pleasure. But make no mistake—she had no real shell to bleed, no lungs to breathe. And yet, Lace was terribly, painstakingly alive, consummately conscious. The final, gruesome touch was that Lace possessed a mind capable of believing she had once been free.
Ever since the day the spider dragged her from the Abyss, Lace had followed her. It was supposed to be temporary. Forever lingering a few steps behind, she found herself returning to the spider’s Bellhome. At first, their encounters were marked by a dull, mutual hostility. Then, it dawned on her: Lace was being seen—seen as never before. Stripped bare, scrutinized. Hornet was the only being in the world who would constantly remind her of the undeniable fact of her own existence, and who treated her accordingly. Your life is yours to live, the spider would tell her. To Lace, those words could feel like a solace—or like a curse. Lace had never been given a choice in the matter, and that vulnerability made her claws burn and ache. The bitterness of the Void was now woven with the agonizing pain of sentience, pilfering her sleep and swallowing her heart.
As time went by, Lace began to feel loved—of all the outlandish feelings, the most unsettling one. The silk-spun maiden would find herself in tears whenever the spider took too long on her missions. She would be plagued with visions of Hornet’s demise—the same demise she herself had sought to inflict twice before, with her own longpin. What had once filled her with exhilarating euphoria now became a dreaded vision that made her insides sink. Lace caught herself longing for the spider’s touch once, twice, three times. Then, infinite times. When the persistent tendrils of the Void became visible upon her stained chest, she would hide in shame. The spider could not see her like this, or she would be rejected—cast aside like the ruined doll she was. Ultimately, she wanted the spider near. It was excruciating to be that vulnerable, the most challenging part of her alleged freedom. Lace suspected it was precisely at this point that her blasphemy bloomed. Her worst act of defiance.
The elaborating prison of Lace's birth never truly ended. The comfort of the Cradle had been ripped from her, replaced by the cold, gnawing chains of the Void dragging her into an unending fall through the Abyss. That raw sensation still tore through her—a visceral rip in her core, sometimes too acute to conceal. She would wake struggling for air, eyelids sealed, body inert, mind clawing into wakefulness. Icy tendrils filmed her vision and coiled around her belly as she gasped. The spider's generous deed—the invitation into her home—did nothing to stop that cruel wheel. The Void was a persistent, aggressive substance, her new and everlasting curse. It was woven into every silk thread that danced and crossed to build her form; an eternal stain upon her silk heart.
Yet, when Lace choked, blinded by that inner darkness, she held her little beacon of light with her.
The cradle swayed softly, and Lace watched, transfixed by its every wave. Back, and forth. Tick, tock. One, two. Three. Ivory hands and loving claws, locked in an eternal task—an infinite lullaby where every motion bled into the next, an unbreakable cycle. Back, forth, back and forth. Her work would know no end. Sometimes, a weak squirm. A feeble cry. Like her own form: mere fabrications. Faulty. Rotten from the start. Dead before their eyes could ever open. If by some miracle alive, then condemned to die or suffer eternally. Everything born of her mother emerged anomalous or dead. From her sibling Phantom to everything after. Why would Lace believe herself to be any different?
Those strange, aching feelings were to blame. Feelings her mother had tried so hard to shield her from. Mommy was so careful. Mommy was right. Lace should never have felt love, never have left her cradle. This was her deserved punishment for trying to break the whirl. The cradle’s lull could never stop. Her claws had to work harder, and more, and more. What an ungrateful child she was. In her immense selfishness and insolence, she had dared to believe her hollow, condemned body could create life. She had tried to make something more perfect than her mother ever could.
It happened on a cold afternoon, as she panted—euphoric, lustful—beneath the spider’s form. That dark shell hovered over her, dripping with a warm desire. This was the spider of heroic words and foolish idealism, who believed she had wrought a salvation. Lace’s inner walls clasping and dripping pathetically around the ovipositor as she babbled incoherencies, her neck bared and exposed to the beast’s hungry teeth. And there, upon her silken skin, the spider etched her mark with three words and three blasphemies.
I love you.
And with each of the three declarations, Lace was filled—once, twice, thrice—her insides twisting and moving to make room for the living, pulsing eggs, the ultimate symbols of her insolence.
An unforgivable heresy. To think herself capable of more than her divine mother, to fill herself with a life of her own making. They had both wanted it desperately. But coiled deep within her ill-fabricated heart, Lace knew the truth: soon, very soon, divine rage would fall upon her. She closed her eyes and let out a strangled moan—born of love and desperate desire, yet stained with primal fear. Her womb swelled, weaving itself into a nest for three perfect, delicate eggs, each one brimming with the love she shared with the spider. They belonged to her as utterly as she belonged to them. Back, and forth. Mommy spoke softly, her voice reaching into places Lace had thought sealed shut. Everything born of my flesh is rotten to the core. You, this world, and all that springs from you, too, my sweet baby. My eternal child.
Persisting in her defiance to all things divine, Lace marched on. She'd make the perfect cocoon for protecting the three little ones. While the spider was away, Lace would hunt on her on, careful so her babies could be fed as soon as they were born. Her three little miracles were her priority. Lace couldn't wait to see their first flights, their eyes opening, their infant little fangs starting to come out. Her sleep was lulled by the soft agitations of her litte revolutions, kicking and pulling before they were even born. She would sleep with a smile. Under the spurious peace that came with her newfound freedom. They would be perfect beings. The first pure thing to come out of ther lineage. They would shine light into her darkness-stained and faulty body.
One day, a strange, dull pain gripped her, and her belly moved with an alien rhythm. Her mate rapidly improvised a nest within the same stone tub where they washed blood and grime from their shells, where they had cleansed each other's wounds. The spider settled behind her, drawing Lace into her lap—that familiar, comforting scent enveloping her. Hornet caressed her midsection and ran dark claws through Lace’s hair. She was so caring when she chose to be. When the time came, Lace sprawled between the spider’s legs in a twisted embrace—an improvised delivery.
One, two, three. Back, and forth. Lace worked through each breath, heavy and pained, her silk-spun body twisting and rearranging itself in a pathetic attempt to generate life. From two eggs, no life emerged. Just as Lace lost herself to a voiceless cry, her anguish spilled onto the spider’s shoulders, something bit her trembling leg.
A form of life.
Gods, the most perfect form of life Lace had ever laid eyes upon. She had her mother's converging horns. Born from her own silken womb-nest. Impeccable. She had a voice, tiny teeth, a heart; she could bite, she could kick. Lace laughed, letting the newborn grub nip playfully at her ankles, each small bite a comfort, an endearment. Nothing in her hollow half-life had prepared her for this warmth, this euphoria—her mouth stretching into a wide, involuntary smile. The spider planted small kisses on her neck and took the squirming hatchling to place it gently in Lace's arms. Every tiny grunt from the child filled her chest, creating a hot, tight bundle in her throat. The tears of her first desolate cry replaced by tears of joy, streaming down her cheeks. Lace was the happiest heart in the whole world.
"She is so beautiful, Hornet… so beautiful…" Lace almost sang, her voice thin with effort.
"Vespa," the spider's soothing voice spilled against her neck. "Please, let me name her Vespa. Like the woman who raised me… who trained me."
And Lace could only nod, sinking into a slumber against her lover's body, her little defiance cradled in her arms.
An improvised cradle, white as the moon, was placed in their shared Bellhome. A place where Lace’s little miracle could grow, eat, and be safe, protected from the rest of the world.
One day, as she lulled little Vespa to sleep, a gray flash flickered through the small body. I must be seeing things, Lace thought, exhausted from hunting for her little spider. But then she saw it again. And again. Just like herself—mere fabrications, unreal, pathetic makings of a tormented mind. She ran her claws delicately over Vespa's tiny chest, desperate to believe her mind was playing tricks. Black threads. Dark stains. Lace rushed to cover Vespa with the delicate, frilly red garments she had made for her. Unaware of Lace's fabricated visions, the older spider fumbled awkwardly, trying to rock their daughter to sleep, yet doing so with her dutiful, scientific air. She even attempted to hum a tune. Vespa, Vespa, my love, my little child, Lace would sing for the little hunter. The grub would bite her fingers, small arms grabbing at Lace’s claws. Agile and lethal, like both her mothers. Vespa laughed and roared with what would one day be ferocious growls, terrifying her enemies.
Then one arm lost its color entirely. Vespa coughed, gasping audibly, her grunts tight with a pain nothing could soothe. Lace wrapped her in an even thicker mantle. Mere fabrications. Then the other arm followed. Lace continued her endless task. When the older spider returned, Lace layed in bed with little Vespa in her arms, inhaling and exhaling in time with her daughter's breaths. One, two, three. One, two, three. Back, and forth. She counted each one. No faint flutter of the young mandibles was in vain. Every slight rise of the tiny chest was noted, observed with scientific devotion. Lace had managed to create a perfect life form. It did not matter that she herself was a defective, rotten shell, a useless husk. She had forged, with all her love, something infinitely greater. Vespa was enough. Vespa was desired. Vespa was her making, her baby, her miracle. The little spider was everything Lace could never be. She faintly heard the weaver's muffled voice, sharp with alarm, trying to get her attention. Something about the Void, something about Vespa. It wasn't important. Mere fabrications. She cradled the baby spider against her chest, hiding the greyed arms from sight. Another breath. One, two, three. One, two. One.
Vespa finally fell asleep.
Back to the infinite pendulum. Every agony poured into the next. Every new suffering smothered the pathetic attempts at joy, killing whatever tried to bloom beneath. Lace untangled her hair and let the ivory strands flow down her back and shoulders. Just like Mommy. A warm, protective cocoon framing her form, shielding her face from view, creating a world where only she and Vespa existed. Something touched her shoulder—spider claws. It wasn't important. Mere fabrications. The only thing that mattered was fast asleep in that little white crib. Not that she didn't love the spider, no. She loved her dearly, and Vespa was born from that very love. Lace could never have made her alone. But her watchful eyes were needed here, at the cradle, and nowhere else.
Lace fell asleep alone against the crib, dreaming of a sea of white roses. The older spider tried to lead her to bed, but she muttered excuses until she gave up. Lace remained at her post, white claws rocking the cradle back and forth. Even in sleep, she lulled little Vespa.
Inevitably, the whirl spun once more. The Grand Mother Silk’s agony would not die peacefully. It would drip down and cannibalize everything below. Everything born of that womb, everything that emerged from the Void, was tainted for eternity. The three eggs. Her love for the spider. The spider’s love for her. Their house, her claws, her womb, her hair, her fangs, her very name. All of it seeped with Void, rotten to the core. Blasphemy. This was Lace’s rebuttal for defying a goddess. My eternal child, everything you try is doomed from the start. You belong with me. The voice echoed, jolting Lace from an imagined fall.
Seldom had Lace seen the older spider lose her calm. Not even when they made the sky fall upon the world had she lost her temper. But now, her wide black eyes were riddled with horror. Her claws gripped Lace’s shoulders, locking her in place. And she pleaded her name.
“Lace. Wake her up. Wake our daughter up,” she bawled in a shrill that sounded nothing like her own voice.
Oh. Because Vespa was asleep.
Little Vespa wasn’t waking up, but that was okay. Lace just needed to rock the cradle a little more.
Melting against her embrace, Lace wept a soundless cry. Hornet could only feel the body in her arms shudder and contract. Lace had lost her voice. Her mandibles gaped, ivory strands sticking to her fangs. She screamed without sound, contorted, her claws compulsively clasping Hornet's own. She rocked and kicked her legs like a drowning thing fighting for air, seeming to unlearn the very use of her limbs.
And then, it came.
Not a scream, nor a wail, but something uglier—a sound that would lodge itself in every fiber of Hornet’s being for every century she had yet to live. A howl that seemed to echo from the depths of the Abyss to the rim of the cradle. Hornet did not move. That raw, sharp clamor grew lower and weaker until it frayed into desolate, broken grunts.
Hornet knew then that Vespa would never wake.
And she wanted to drive her own needle through her chest for her foolish innocence. For every naive word she had spoken when she first dragged Lace from the Abyss. Fancied themselves free, but only one of them truly was. The silken maiden was stained forever, and that corruption had seeped through her into their child. That fragile form of life. The responsibility to foresee this tragedy lay with Hornet. Yet despite her centuries of life, her heart had remained corruptible. In trying to create life with Lace, she had taken the last of what little life Lace still possessed.
Hornet clung to the bed, her body leaden, her thoughts a formless gray fog. When she tried to pull Lace from the cradle, the maiden pounced against her arms in feral aggression. Hornet lacked the will to react, recoiling like wounded prey. Lace consumed the hours in a torturous cycle, rocking the crib as if to lull little Vespa's soul. Sometimes she would hum a tune, the same one she sang when they first met. Its tempo was almost clocklike, a cruel metronome to the cradle’s sway. Lace would not eat or sleep. The day of that howl was the last time Hornet would ever hear her voice.
One day, Lace collapsed, exhaustion folding her body onto itself and over the crib. Only then could Hornet finally mourn her child. Alone, she lifted Lace from her post and took one last look into the cradle.
Strangely, Vespa seemed only to sleep. Were it not for the black stains staining her carapace and the haunting stillness of her chest, she might have been dreaming a sweet dream. Peaceful. It was that very peace that finally unlocked Hornet’s tears. The spider retreated to a corner of their Bellhome, away from the bed, the cradle, away from Lace. The tears fell, wetting her knees and cloak, until they carved a space for a desperate, silent scream in her throat, a cry for no one to hear.
Little Vespa was laid to rest in an improvised garden on the outskirts of Shellwood, while the mourning maiden slept. Lace slept for almost two days, watched over by her spider. Sometimes she would smile or murmur in her sleep. Faint remnants of the one Hornet had just lost.
Lace never put her hair up again. When she passed the small mirror in the Bellhome, she saw her mother—the goddess who had spun her with such love and care. She had given her heart and soul so Lace could live. Mommy had swallowed the Abyss and suffered through it, all for her. And yet, Lace had been ungrateful. A rebel. A shame. She would finally tell Mother she was sorry. Soon, ever so soon. The Grand Mother Silk would welcome her and Vespa, her little rebellion. Soon. The three of them would sleep in the same embrace, in a peace impossible for the world above. An imperturbable warmth greater than life or death. Nothing would matter if she could hold Vespa again, if she could sleep in her mother's arms once more. It was simple. And it would bring her so much joy.
She went after Hornet had left to fulfill some wish, a delivery far from Bellhart. It didn't matter. Townspeople offered their condolences; Lace would nod robotically and thank them. She took an unused path to Shellwood to avoid prying eyes and whispering mouths.
Having finally arrived at her failed miracle's grave, Lace dug her claws into the soil, drinking in the mineral scent. Her longpin had recently been sharpened by the spider herself. How convenient. How kind. Because of that, she would find her desired peace even sooner. Lace would be perfect, perfectly obedient, just as Mommy had always wanted.
One, two, three. The barrier of her silken shell was the most resistant. She hadn't known her insides, on the other hand, were so soft. The third and last barrier was her glowing silken core, stained with gray and black. Then, a sharp pain gave quick passage to the tip of her pin. One. Two. Three. One, two. One.
Vespa wailed beneath her knees while Mother Silk screamed against her neck. Lace lovingly followed, going limp between them. She was headed to the place she should have never left. Where she was loved and perfect, the daughter Mommy had always wanted. And the mother who would never stain her own child. Lace followed Vespa to where she would lull her, forever, into slumber.