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The room was steeped in darkness, save for the gentle glow of the gleamlights.
Somewhere beyond the walls of the bellhome, the chatter of Pharloom's bugs had quieted, though it never truly fell silent. The sounds of life were a melody of their own, woven into the kingdom as deeply as faith had once been. But here, in this small chamber, silence reigned.
Lace slept differently from her usual manner—peacefully, deeply, without pretense. The theatrical grace she wore like armor during her waking hours had dissolved into something softer. Her claws were curled loosely against her chest. Her breathing—if it could be called that, for she drew breath more from habit than necessity—rose and fell in a rhythm as gentle as the tide.
Hornet lay beside her, awake.
Sleep had always been an elusive thing for her. She could rest when she needed to, could fall still and silent in the manner of all hunters, but true sleep—the kind that buried you deep and left you unguarded—had never come easily. Tonight, especially, her mind refused to quiet.
She shifted onto her side.
Lace's form was a pale curve against the darkness. Her frilled garments had bunched slightly around her middle, and the sight stirred something in Hornet's chest—a feeling she couldn't quite name. Tenderness, yes. But also something sharper, more urgent: a fierce need to protect.
Protect her from what? Hornet wondered. From whom?
The answer, she suspected, was Lace herself.
Hornet had heard the way she spoke of herself when she believed herself unheard, in those unguarded moments when the mask slipped. Flawed. Heavy. Sprawling. She had seen the way Lace's claws would drift to her stomach, her hips, as if checking for imperfections—smoothing down silk that needed no smoothing.
As if her softness were something to be ashamed of.
She reached out.
Her paw came to rest upon the generous curve of Lace's hip. The threads of her shell were cool beneath Hornet's touch, smooth as tranquil waters, yielding slightly to the gentle pressure. Lace did not stir. Her expression remained slack, peaceful.
Hornet's paw traced a slow path upward.
The fullness of Lace's waist filled her palm. Soft. Supple. The delicate weave of her body gave beneath Hornet's exploration like fabric beneath an embroiderer's needle. There was no exoskeleton to speak of, no chitin armor—only layers upon layers of silk, pressed tight and shaped into something beautiful.
The word surfaced unbidden, but Hornet did not push it away.
Her paw continued its journey, settling finally upon the swell of Lace's stomach. She let her touch rest there, feeling the subtle rise and fall, the quiet hum of soulblood moving through silk-thread veins. Lace was warmer here, warmer than she'd been when Hornet first reached for her—heat blooming where their bodies touched.
Lace shifted.
It was a small movement. A tiny press of her form backward, into Hornet's touch. Her mouth opened slightly, a soft sound escaping her—not quite a word, not quite a sigh. Something in between.
Hornet stilled.
She's asleep, she reminded herself. She doesn't know.
But Lace's body knew. Even in slumber, even unguarded, it responded to gentleness as if starved for it. Her hindclaws curled tighter. Her posture softened further, melting into Hornet like silk settling into water. And her expression—
Hornet leaned closer.
A faint glow had crept across Lace's features. A pale blue light, barely visible in the darkness, like the first hint of dawn across snow.
She's blushing.
The realization settled into Hornet's chest. Even in sleep, Lace reacted to touch as if it were something precious and rare. As if she couldn't quite believe it was real.
As if some part of her was waiting for it to be taken away.
Hornet's paw pressed slightly firmer against the swell of her belly.
Never. The word was a vow, silent and absolute. She would not take this from her. Not for as long as she lived.
Lace made another sound—small, content—and pressed back further into Hornet's warmth.
Hornet exhaled.
Slowly, carefully, she shifted closer until her own shell rested against Lace's back. Her arm draped over the curve of Lace's waist, her paw still resting upon her belly. She could feel the hum of Lace's soulblood, the faint pulse of it, steady and sure.
Sleep, she told herself. You can hold her as you rest.
But her eyes remained open for a long while yet, watching the way the light painted Lace's features silver. Memorizing the softness. The warmth. The quiet trust of a body that had learned to expect pain and was, perhaps, beginning to unlearn it.
Eventually, though, Hornet's own exhaustion crept in. Her eyes grew heavy. Her breathing slowed to match Lace's rhythm.
And in the dark, holding the full, soft weight of her mate against her, Hornet finally slept.
Lace woke slowly.
The sensation reached her before consciousness did—warmth, pressure, the unmistakable feeling of being held. Her threads stirred with the ghost of sensation, as if her weave remembered something her mind had not yet grasped.
Safe, her body told her. Warm. Wanted.
Lace's eyes fluttered open.
The room was still dark, still hushed. The distant hum of Bellhart’s bugs going about their lives drifted through the walls like a dream half-remembered. And pressed against her back, wrapped around her with an arm draped over her waist and a paw resting upon her belly—
Hornet.
Lace went very still.
Her breath caught. She could feel the steady rise and fall of Hornet's breathing against her shell, the faint weight of her arm, the way their bodies fit together—her soft curves pressed flush against Hornet's leaner, sharper form.
No barriers. No weapons. Just Hornet's body against her own.
Oh.
Her mind began to race, threads tangling and catching on one another. How long had they lain like this? Had she—had she leaned into it? She could feel the evidence in her own body: the warmth that still lingered where Hornet must have touched her, the faint ache in her claws from curling so tightly, the subtle heat of her face—
You were blushing in your sleep. Like a child caught in a mischievous act. She squeezed her eyes shut. So terribly unbecoming. You are a graceful duelist. You are composed. You are—
Hornet's paw shifted against her belly.
Lace's thoughts scattered.
The movement was small—Hornet's paw adjusting in sleep, pressing more firmly against the soft swell of Lace's middle—but it sent a shiver through Lace's entire form. Her claws fluttered involuntarily. Her threads seemed to hum.
Stop it, she told herself fiercely. Stop. You are not some flustered nymph. You are—
But what was she?
The question surfaced unbidden, bringing with it a familiar weight. The Choir's voices echoed somewhere in the depths of her memory, repeating refrains that had been drilled into her like sewing-needles into silk. Unspoken expectations she had never quite met, no matter how hard she tried to reshape herself.
She had tried. Oh, how she had tried. She had wound herself tight, pulled her threads taut, bound herself in vain attempts to will her form into something smaller, something daintier.
But silk could only stretch so far before it snapped.
And Lace had learned—young, miserable, and surrounded by hidden judgmental gazes who never said the wrong thing but somehow always conveyed it—that her softness was a failure written into her very weave.
Too much.
The thought was old. Familiar. A refrain she had internalized so deeply it had become part of her soul's melody.
And yet Hornet's paw remained upon her belly. Heavy. Warm. Deliberate.
Lace opened her eyes again, staring into the darkness.
She tried to shift away—a small movement, barely a pull backward—but she was soft, and the mattress gave beneath her, and she found herself sinking further into Hornet's hold rather than escaping it.
Escape. The word felt strange. Why would she want to escape? This was Hornet. Hornet, who had risked death at the jaws of the God-Eater at the bottom of the world for her. Hornet, who had never once looked at her with disappointment. Hornet, who had fought beside her, who had bled beside her, who had stayed.
The thought trembled through her.
And then, in the darkness, she heard it: Hornet's breathing shifting. A low sound of consciousness returning.
Lace froze.
Feign sleep, she told herself. Pretend. It's simpler.
But her body would not obey. Her claws fluttered—a small, excited motion that she could not suppress, her threads practically vibrating with the closeness, the warmth, the terrifying, wonderful feeling of being held by someone who chose to hold her.
Stop, stop, stop stop stop—
"You're trembling."
The words were low, rough with sleep, and close enough that Lace could feel the warmth of Hornet's breath against the back of her neck.
Lace's entire body went taut.
"I—" Her voice emerged smaller than she intended, thinner. "I did not mean to wake you."
"I was already awake," Hornet said. Her paw pressed slightly more firmly against Lace's belly, and Lace felt the breath leave her in a soft, unsteady exhale. "I was holding you."
Yes. I noticed.
Lace's threads twisted with embarrassment and something else—something warmer, more desperate, that she did not want to examine too closely.
"I see," she managed. Her theatrical voice, her usual deflection, felt impossible to summon. "Well. I hope I was… sufficient."
The word slipped out before she could stop it. Sufficient.
The arm around her waist shifted.
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing." Lace's claws fluttered again. She tried to pull them close to her chest, to hide the reaction, but Hornet's hold kept her gently in place. "It is only… holding me as you did cannot be comfortable. I am—"
Too much. Too broad. Too heavy in your arms. Too thick to leave you space.
"…I am not small," she finished, the words barely audible.
Silence stretched between them.
Lace's soulblood seemed to pulse too fast through her veins. She could feel the flush spreading across her features, that pale blue glow that betrayed her every emotion. She wanted to bury her face in her frills. She wanted to disappear. She wanted—
Hornet's paw moved.
It slid upward, over the curve of Lace's belly, tracing the dip of her waist, the breadth of her hip, before settling back where it had started. The motion was slow, deliberate, almost worshipful.
Lace's breath caught.
"Small," Hornet said quietly, "is not what I want."
Lace's heart stuttered.
"I—" Her voice cracked. "You do not have to—"
"I know I do not have to." Hornet's voice was calm, measured, but beneath it lay something firmer. Something immovable. "I choose to hold you. I choose this."
Her paw pressed against Lace's belly again, palm flat, spreading warmth through her silk.
Lace's claws fluttered so frantically that the motion almost hurt.
"Hornet—"
"You are soft," Hornet continued, her voice still quiet. "Your body yields when I touch it. You press into my hold rather than pulling away. You are warm, and alive, and here." A breath. "Do you know how rare that is? To have something warm and alive and here, after a lifetime of ghosts and echoes?"
Lace's vision blurred.
She blinked rapidly, trying to clear it, but the wetness continued to gather. Tears—soulblood in another form, leaked from her eyes in pale blue streaks.
"Hornet," she whispered, and her voice broke on the name.
Hornet shifted behind her. The arm around her waist tightened. And then, chelicerae pressed gently against the back of Lace's neck—a barely-there touch, soft as silk falling on water.
"You are not too much," Hornet murmured against her shell. "You are exactly as you should be."
The words sank into Lace's soul like a pin into fabric—piercing, precise, and dreadfully intent on remaining there.
Lace turned.
The movement was sudden, graceless—entirely unlike her. She twisted in Hornet's hold, pressing her face into the space between Hornet's neck and shoulder, and her claws came up to grip at Hornet's cloak. Her body shook with silent sobs, her threads vibrating with the force of held-back emotion.
"I apologize," she gasped, her voice muffled. "I apologize, I do not know why I am—you should not have to witness—I am being absurd—"
"You are crying." Hornet's voice was calm. "That is not absurd."
"I never—no one has ever—"
No one has ever called me enough. No one has ever touched me like I was something precious. No one has ever stayed.
The words would not come. Her throat had tightened too much, her soulblood too thick with emotion.
Hornet's arms wrapped around her fully. One paw came up to stroke the back of Lace's head, claws gentle against her woven shell.
"I will tell you again," Hornet said quietly. "As many times as you need to hear it." Her paw continued its slow, soothing motion. "You are not too much, Lace. You have never been too much."
Lace sobbed—ugly and raw, a sound she would never have allowed anyone to hear. But here, in the dark, wrapped in Hornet's arms, she could not hold it back.
"…I wanted to be slender."
The words fell between them like stones dropped into still water. Lace's claws tightened in Hornet's cloak, her face still pressed against the warm curve of her neck.
"They never said it directly. They never needed to." A bitter sound escaped her—half laugh, half sob. "They were masters of the unspoken. A glance that lingered too long on my shape. A discussion of silhouettes where mine was simply… absent from consideration. The way they would admire the slender forms of other bugs, of the Weavers before, and then fall silent when they looked at me."
Hornet said nothing. Her paw continued its slow, steady stroke along the back of Lace's head—patient, waiting.
"I liked my body." Lace's voice cracked on the confession. "For but a moment. When I was caught in the age between threadling and maturity, before I understood what I was supposed to be, I thought I was—I thought I was beautiful. The way my shell curved. The softness of my weave. There were times I would hold my own form and feel…" She trailed off. "Happy. I felt happy."
Her claws fluttered weakly against Hornet's cloak.
"And then I learned that I was not supposed to feel that way."
The memory surfaced like a wound reopening. Lace could still see the Choir's chambers—the soaring ceilings, the gauze-thin curtains, the way the light filtered through in pale ribbons. She could still feel the weight of their gazes, their silence, their disappointment radiating like heat from the Deep Docks.
"I tried to correct it," she whispered. "I thought—I thought if I could just reshape myself, pull my threads tighter, become what they wanted, they would finally…" Her voice broke. "I would bind myself at night. Wrap my middle so tightly I could barely move. I would hold my breath when they looked at me, trying to seem smaller than I was."
The words felt strange in her mouth. She had spent so long trying to shrink herself, to compress the generous curves of her form into something daintier, something the Choir could love—but not once had she admitted to it.
The failure was a sin she thought she had to bear alone.
She pulled back slightly, just enough to look at Hornet's face. Her mask was unreadable as ever, but Lace had learned to read the language of her posture—the slight tilt of her head, the softening of her shoulders, the way her claws rested against Lace's form without tension.
"Eventually I stopped liking my body," Lace said quietly. "I… I do not know if I had ever liked it at all, or if I had simply imagined it. Every time I looked at myself, I saw only through their eyes. Too soft. Too wide. Too much." A shudder ran through her. "I would catch my reflection in polished metal and feel…"
The word wrong lodged in her chest.
"I still feel it," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. "Even now. Even away from them. Even when I know that their judgments were cruel. I look at myself and I see every flaw they never spoke aloud." Her claws fluttered again, a frantic, anxious motion. "I do not know how to stop seeing them."
The confession hung in the air.
Lace trembled. The effort of speaking so much truth had drained her, left her feeling threadbare and exhausted, like a weaving stretched too thin. She waited for Hornet to pull away, to offer some platitude about inner beauty or the opinions of others, to—
Hornet's paw moved to her face. Gently, so gently, she wiped a pale tear from Lace's cheek. Her claws were careful, precise—but there was nothing cold about the motion. It was warm. Present.
"You were a child," Hornet said quietly.
"I was—"
"You were a child," Hornet repeated, firm. "Woven into a form you were told to hate. Shown cruelty dressed as silence. You were not meant to emerge from that unscathed, Lace. No one could."
Lace's breath caught.
"But that does not mean you deserved it." Hornet's voice remained steady, but Lace could feel the way her body had tensed—the coiled anger of someone who had witnessed an injustice that they could not undo. "You did not deserve to be made small. You did not deserve to be told that your body was a failure."
"I was their creation," Lace whispered. "Their instrument. I was meant to be—"
"Yours." Hornet's claws pressed against her cheek. "Your body is yours. Your form is yours. You may not have woven yourself, but you are the one who lives within these threads. You are the one who moves through the world with this shape, who feels and thinks and lives within it." Her voice dropped lower. "No one else gets to decide what it should be."
Lace's vision blurred again.
"I do not know if I can believe that," she admitted. "I want to. But I have spent so long—"
"You do not have to believe it yet." Hornet's thumb-claw traced the curve of Lace's jaw. "You only have to let me show you."
Lace's heart stuttered. "What do you mean?"
Hornet shifted, and the mattress dipped beneath them. The darkness seemed to press closer, wrapping around them like a cocoon.
"I mean," Hornet said quietly, "that words are insufficient. You have been told many things, and I will not add my voice to that chorus without action."
Her paw hovered just above Lace's belly.
"May I?" The question was low, serious. "I will not touch you without your permission. But if you will allow it… I would like to show you what I see."
Lace's breath caught in her throat.
Her mind spun with tangled threads of emotion—hope and fear and desperate longing, all wound together until she could barely tell where one ended and another began. She thought of the Choir's silent judgments. She thought of her own claws running over her curves in secret, trying to smooth away what she had been taught to hate, to force herself into a smaller shape.
She thought of Hornet's steady presence, and her unwavering gaze, and her arms wrapped around her in the dark.
I would like to show you what I see.
"Yes," Lace whispered.
The word barely escaped her.
Hornet's paw moved with deliberate slowness.
She did not rush. She did not treat Lace's body as something to be claimed or conquered. Instead, her touch was almost ceremonial—a reverence usually reserved for sacred objects and quiet temples. Her claws traced the curve of Lace's hip, following the generous shape of it, and her touch was light enough that Lace could feel every small shift of pressure against her shell.
"Here," Hornet said quietly.
Lace's breath shuddered.
"This part of you." Hornet's paw traced the outer curve again, mapping the terrain with patient attention. "The way your hips curve. The breadth of them. I have watched you move through the world, Lace. I have seen the way your form shifts when you walk, when you fight, when you dance."
Her paw settled fully against Lace's hip, palm pressing into the softness.
"You move like water," Hornet continued. "Fluid and elegant. Every step you take, your hips sway—and I cannot bring myself to look away." A pause. "This is not a flaw. This is balance. This is the shape of someone who stands firm, who refuses to be moved when she does not wish to be."
Lace's claws fluttered against the sheets beneath her.
"I—" Her voice emerged thin and unsteady. "The Choir said my hips were too wide. That they threw off my silhouette. That I looked—"
"I care not for what they said."
Hornet's voice was not harsh. But it was firm, unyielding, cutting through Lace's words like a blade through old cobwebs.
"I am telling you what I see." Her paw pressed more firmly against Lace's hip. "And what I see is beautiful. What I see is a form I want to hold, want to touch, want to—" She stopped herself, as if catching her own thoughts before they could spiral further. "What I see is yours. And it is beautiful because it is yours, and because it is soft, and because those two things are inseparable."
Lace's eyes blurred.
Hornet's paw traveled upward, tracing the slight dip of Lace's waist, following the fullness there. Lace's shell was soft beneath her touch, giving slightly, yielding like fine fabric. The sensation made Lace's breath catch—a vulnerability she was not accustomed to allowing anyone to witness.
"Here," Hornet murmured once more. Her paw rested there, palm flat against Lace's middle. She could feel the warmth radiating from Lace's silk-woven form, the faint pulse of soulblood beneath the surface.
"The Choir spoke of slenderness," Lace whispered, her voice trembling. "Elegance. I could never—"
"You are elegant."
Hornet's words cut through her again.
"Your waist," she continued, "does not cut a sharp line—it flows. There is no severance between one part of you and the next. You are a continuous thread, Lace. Woven from start to finish without breaking." Her claws traced a slow circle against Lace's side. "I have seen you fight, and I have joined you in battle, both against and beside you. I have watched you twist and spin and recover. Your waist is not too much. It is exactly what it needs to be to hold you together."
Lace's claws tightened in the sheets.
Hold you together.
The words resonated somewhere deep in her chest, in the place where her threads had always felt like they were unraveling.
"Hornet," she breathed, and she did not know what she wanted to say—only that the name felt like both a prayer and a wound.
Hornet's paw did not stop.
It continued its journey upward, over the slight curve of Lace's chest, tracing the lines of her form. But then it changed direction—moving downward again, sliding over her waist, her hips, and finally settling with deliberate weight on her belly.
Lace went rigid.
"Here," Hornet said quietly.
Her paw pressed flat against Lace's middle. The swell of her gut was generous beneath Hornet's touch—soft and round and undeniable. This was the part Lace had hated the most, the part she had tried hardest to hide, the part that made her feel the most seen in ways she had never wanted to be seen.
"This is where I held you tonight," Hornet said. "Where I rested my paw while you slept. Where I felt your warmth, your breath, the steady rhythm of your soul."
Lace's chest tightened.
"The Choir—" she started, her voice cracking.
"I know what the Choir said."
Hornet's voice was soft, but there was an edge beneath it. Not anger at Lace—never at Lace. But Lace could feel the coiled tension in her, the fury directed outward at those who had caused this wound.
"They were wrong," Hornet said simply. "And I will tell you that as many times as you need. But more than that—" Her paw shifted, pressing more firmly against the swell of Lace's belly. "I will show you."
Lace's mouth opened slightly, a soft gasp escaping her.
"This part of you," Hornet continued, her voice dropping lower, "is where I want to rest my paw. Where I want to hold you. Where I want to…" She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Where I want to be. When we lie together, when we sleep, when we wake—this is where my paw finds you. Not because it is an accident. Because it is where I want to be."
Her claws traced a slow, gentle path over the curve of Lace's belly. The sensation made Lace shiver, her threads humming with vulnerability and warmth.
"You are soft here," Hornet murmured. "Soft and warm and alive. I have known hard things all my life. Hard shells, hard weapons, hard choices. When I touch you—" Her voice softened even further. "I feel something I rarely feel elsewhere. I feel peace."
Lace's eyes overflowed.
The tears slid down her cheeks in pale blue streaks, soaking into the frills of her garment. She could not stop them, could not hold back the trembling in her form, the way her claws clawed weakly at the sheets beneath her.
"You cannot mean that," she gasped. "You cannot—this part of me is—I have tried so hard to—"
Hornet leaned forward.
Her mask came close to Lace's face—not touching, but near enough that Lace could see the subtle angles of it in the darkness, could feel the warmth of her breath against her shell.
"I do mean it," Hornet said quietly. "Every word. Every touch. Every moment I have spent holding you, touching you, looking at you—" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I have spent my life in a harsh world of sharp edges. And now I have found someone soft. Someone who makes me feel like I can rest. Do you understand what that means to me?"
Lace's breath came in shallow gasps. "You… Hornet, I—"
Her claws released the sheets and came up to grip at Hornet's cloak instead, pulling her closer. She needed the closeness, needed the weight and warmth and reality of Hornet against her, needed proof that this was happening and not some fever-dream born of loneliness and longing.
"I have never—" Her voice broke. "No one has ever—"
Her claws fluttered frantically against Hornet's cloak, betraying the storm of emotion she could not contain.
"I do not know how to accept this," she admitted, her voice small and raw. "I want to. I want to believe you. But I have spent so long hating—I do not know where the hatred ends and I begin."
Hornet did not pull away.
She allowed Lace to grip her cloak, to pull her closer, to hold on as tightly as she needed. Her paw remained pressed against Lace's belly, warm and steady and unmoving.
"Then let me show you," she said quietly. "Again. And again. Until you do not need to be shown anymore."
Lace's trembling slowed. The words sank into her, weaving through the tangled threads of her self-image. She did not know if she believed them—not fully, not yet. But Hornet's voice was so steady, so certain, that something in her wanted to.
"I am afraid," Lace whispered. "I am afraid that if you see too much of me—if you look too closely—you will find what the Choir found. You will see the flaws I have hidden. You will realize I am not—"
"I have seen you."
Hornet's voice was firm.
"I have fought beside you. I have watched you laugh and cry and falter and rise. I have seen your strength and your fear, your grace and your doubt." Her mask tilted, catching a sliver of light. "I have already seen you, Lace. And I am still here."
The words struck something deep in Lace's chest.
Still here.
She had spent her life surrounded by bugs who judged without speaking, who conveyed disappointment without words, who made her feel like a failure while never quite saying why. And now… now Hornet was here. Holding her. Touching her with reverence. Telling her she was beautiful.
Still here.
Lace's claws slowly unclenched from Hornet's cloak. She reached up, hesitantly, and touched the side of Hornet's mask. Her claws trembled as they traced the angular edge of it, the smooth surface cool against her tips.
"I do not deserve you," she whispered.
"You deserve to be loved," Hornet corrected. "Whether that love comes from me or from yourself or from both of us… you deserve it."
Lace's vision blurred again.
"I will try," she said, her voice barely audible. "I will try to believe you."
"That is enough." Hornet's paw pressed more firmly against her belly. "Trying is all I ask."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The darkness wrapped around them like silk. The distant song of Pharloom hummed through the walls. Lace could feel Hornet's warmth against her—steady, present, unmoving.
And slowly, tentatively, she let herself sink into it.
She let herself feel the weight of Hornet's paw on her belly. Let herself notice the way it pressed against her softness without disgust or disappointment. Let herself register that Hornet was choosing to touch her—choosing to stay, choosing to speak these words, choosing to hold her through the storm of her own unraveling.
I do not have to believe it yet, she reminded herself. I only have to let her show me.
"Hornet?" she whispered.
"Yes?"
Lace's claws fluttered weakly against the side of her mask.
"Will you… stay? Holding me like this?"
There was a pause. Then Hornet shifted, moving with careful deliberation. She drew Lace closer, arranging her form until they were pressed together—Hornet's shell against Lace's back, her arm wrapped around Lace's waist, her paw resting once more on the swell of her belly.
"I will stay," Hornet murmured against the back of Lace's neck. "For as long as you want me."
Lace's threads hummed with warmth.
She closed her eyes, and for the first time in centuries, she let herself be held without pulling away.