#askthegalaxy

     It had been a good while since her plans were initially put into motion. Already, a few months had passed. However, now, the god felt was an ample time to act.

“With the new year comes new opportunities... and indeed, my preparations have finally been finished. Biding my time was worth it, indeed. Heh heh heh...”

Hornet has always slept with one hand on her weapon. Here, where beds are raised off the ground, she props her giant toothpick up on the mattress to make sure she can grab it within a split second should an enemy wake her. This time, as she slowly lifts into consciousness (two or three hours past noon - she more or less has the night shift at Dressed to Kill, by her own choice), it doesn’t occur to her that the “handle” she’s carved with a kitchen knife out of the toothpick’s soft wood feels different under her claw. It doesn’t occur to her, because the shaft of smooth metal is even more familiar than any wooden toy.

Only when she’s fully awake does she realize that something does not quite add up. The toothpick - not a toothpick anymore - feels too heavy, for a moment and a moment only before her arms find an older pattern, pull harder at the weapon like she used to.

Her needle makes a silver arc in the air as she sits up in bed and slashes it in front of her, like a wide parry, clumsy with poor foundation (mattresses move too much, she can’t move enough while seated) and lack of proper practice.

Hornet can hardly believe it. Her needle. Her needle. The weapon the weavers forged for her, at her mother’s request. A weapon to exemplify the Deepnest style: the eye, the long hilt with no crossguard, the narrow blade with just enough give to the metal that it will not break easily. She herself watched as the sparks flew in its creation, watched the white-hot metal cut and folded and wrought and cooled in Soul-infused water. It’s mostly mundane steel, but there is a bit of palesteel in its heart - at once a tribute and a defiance to her father, since the metal that he claimed as sacred to himself was always denied by law to Deepnest.

She can tell the Wyrmlight that once empowered and protected its cutting edge is absent, as is her thread, but no matter. She will simply have to be more careful as she spars.

She allows herself a grin as she lays her needle across her lap and picks up her phone - why has she understood it so much better since the crisis with her human duplicate? - to text a certain small sibling.

[To: Little Ghost ( @hallowknighted )] [From: Hornet]

There was time to spare after arriving. The worry of elaborating to allow him a clearer picture of what he was walking into permeated throughout the journey and wait. The terms had been set without her consent. Numerous times her fingers added further detail which was never delivered in bout of trepidation. His gentle heart, would it ache more from awareness or ignorance? Without understanding why, she had taken to soaking in the sights around her more thoroughly, as if dreaded that it be her final opportunity. This was no Time Temple, yet the stakes felt easily escalated in its shadow.