#hunter queen

"You'll have to elaborate," Zalea replied, but she turned to look herself. She saw. She walked with slow, deliberate steps back to the table. She placed the bowls in her claws back down. Then she stood, flexing them. Staring at the statuette — the device.

"Oh. I believe that that indicates the Liar is dead."

"…What?"

Zalea did not answer at once. Irigo repeated, "What?"

Zalea looked back at Irigo, though her mask hid her gaze. Irigo's unconcealed face, chelicerae clenched tight, offered Zalea no similar escape. She tried, "Supposedly. That is what it was designed to do: confirm when the Liar's power was finally extinguished."

"I did hear you right, then." Irigo returned the ladle to its place by the hearth and crossed the room, snatching the device up by its arches. "I thought you said it was just an heirloom!"

Zalea hurried to her side. She didn't try to snatch the device but her claws hovered close. "And it is! Whatever it was meant to be, I've never known it was more than that — I had no idea it could still work."

"Of course. Of course not. Let alone that it ever would." Irigo lifted it to her eyes, turning it around in her claws. "Can you turn it off?"

Now Zalea asked, faintly, "What?"

"You heard me."

"Do we… wish to do that?"

Irigo shot her a pointed look, and Zalea's claws flew up in a halting gesture. "That… I don't know that she believed it would ever happen herself, but my grandmother told me what her mother had told her." Her voice slipped into a taut recitation, "If the light shines, then we are free to reclaim Pharloom."

"You're seriously considering it."

"If she's really gone… I want to know." Zalea admitted, "I don't know if I want to reclaim anything."

Irigo tapped on the crystal itself, but the light continued its steady rhythm. "Could she have learn how to trigger it on purpose? To summon us, in effect?"

"I can't deny the possibility. Certainly it would be effective bait. But I'd imagine precautions were taken in its construction."

"But you — we don't know how it works. Suppose she did just figure it out after all this time? Or it's simply false, and we arrive, and she—"

Irigo had not grown up hearing the stories. Zalea had. She did not need this reminder. Still, she answered softly, "You'd rather not. I understand."

Irigo nodded tightly.

"May I?" Zalea held out her claws again. Irigo set the base on it, and Zalea accepted it, turned it over and around herself, tracing a claw over the delicate pattern in the metal. "Something set it off. I think that's most likely. I am curious about what caused this. After all this time."

Zalea thought of what her grandmother had told her, exactly, about the device. It had come from Pharloom. Part of her foremothers' plans. It had sat dark and silent — should there be sound? Perhaps it's not in full working order, after all — in the Den, in the Nest. When the Nest had fallen, dragged down by their once-hallowed neighbor, still they had carried this with them.

This thing in Zalea's claws was a reminder, the last remainder, of both flights.

Could we — I — make it? Do I want to?

Irigo was silent. Zalea concluded, "No matter what may have done it."

Irigo sighed, a single sharp breath. "Well, cousin. We'll discuss it, won't we? But I think it's foolish to uproot our entire lives on empty stomachs."

Zalea tore her gaze away from the light. "Oh, I'd…"

"Gotten distracted," Irigo concluded for her, this time. "Understandably so. We'll discuss it… I'd rather not let you go alone, I can tell you."

that didn't work super well for this, though... actually in hindsight just "she is dead" might have worked which can be something to keep in mind going forward, so thanks for helping me figure that out??

since i'm probably not going to do much more w/ them outside of the main thing i have planned (though maybe something to introduce the third one), i'll say that yeah zalea was raised by her mother and knew her grandmother. she's lived in that little community all her life and they were pretty well accepted. among her family, though, it was considered a disappointment, if not a surprise, that her silk was fairly weak as it had been for the last few generations. she was raised with a fair bit of pressure from that - the sense that she's a disappointment, not what would have been wanted, etc. so you know. she feels like she Has to go to pharloom and fulfill her family's wishes.

irigo was actually... maybe not born in the wastes, but had been traveling them alone for a while before she met zalea. she's always enjoyed working with silk artistically and never felt much pressure regarding Being A Weaver. this also means that she was less connected to them culturally, but hearing stories and learning music from zalea really helped her on that front, so she's happy where she is actually. but because she cares about zalea and values what zalea has helped her with, they'll go together.