#ph hunter

Then came the beast. They tried to tame her, make her a princess. Instead she lashed out, pushing against them with claws too sharp. She would never grow old.

Then came the reaper, when there was nothing but death. The kingdom dying around her because her father failed, she had to kill. Kill or be killed...better her face it than the others.

Then the wanderer. When silence finally fell, and there was nothing but a corpse, the wanderer met it with stoic quiet. What choice did she have?

Then the architect. The ticking...the ticking and singing, the grinding of gears and clicking of plates, they embedded themself in them. They warped them, made them more automation than bug. And least they don't have to worry about the souls trapped in bronze...as they are the same.

The witch was born crying. Crying and screaming, ripped from its place with the whirr of blades and needles. It screams for comfort, screams for home, screams for warmth. A need it does not know...a need it will never truly sate.

But not today. She can think of ways to hunt them later. The pages rippled through her fingers as a different thought consumed her. She thought...she thought once she was better the pressure in her head would return. But she still felt so empty.

Her hand stopped and she pushed the pages past. Past all the creatures she had killed. The journal was too big for all the fights she had, so the latter half had become her own personal journal. She found the account of the parasite, the shaky writing, the fear as she scrambled for answers, jotting down everything anyone said. Two pages of it, ending with a single line. A line she would have called pitiful if it was not still raw in her.

I do not want to be alone.

She shook her head and flipped the page. A new day, a new page, new thoughts to-

There are already words here. She pulled her hand back. Only two lines...half in her hand writing, a formal flowing script taught to her by the white lady, the other scratchy and awkward, forcing the script of beetles to encode the words of a weaver. And neither she wrote.

You are never alone, Hunter, we are here. -W

Hi! Can hear us? -B

Hor- Hunter blinked at the words on the page, and spoke softly, hoping beyond that the words were only true for her.

"Red maiden!" She picked up her head to find the little pilgrim had found a place beside her. "What are you doing in the bell shrine?"

Hornet blinked at the question, then looked up, to the large bell she didn't need to ring but did anyway. "I am steeling myself. The next departure may be my last."

"You're not coming back?"

There's a sharpness in his voice. A tension that pierced the hunter's chest. "I will try. But it will be difficult."

A long pause...then a question. "Are you afraid?"

The hunter hummed, letting her gaze soften. She shoved down every voice, every feeling in her head, and gave a single answer, one wholey her's.

But that is not what sank terror into her body. Parasites happened, she would need to expel it, likely with help as she needs to do this quickly. She can't wait to outlive this one.

The terror that seeped into her shell, into the muscles underneath, that made the fur on the back of her neck bristle...it was born of the silence. The sudden quietness of her mind. The feelings that would press against her, the quiet muffled voices that would leak into her usual silence, the call just beyond the wall of her mind, they were all gone.

Gone...gone and silent and- and Hornet- and Hunter hated it.

".....hello?" she called softly, trying to find the wall she had been so dedicated in building in her denial. ".....is...is this...blocking...you?"

The parasite wiggling was the only answer, was the only thing that broke the silent stillness.

"I- I'll get rid of it. Promise. Don't- don't die-"

She doesn't even know what she's calling for, she doesn't even know why she is, she doesn't know why she would think that. This fear felt deeper than her mind, something in her being. In a snap she was on her feet and running. She needed this thing out of her.

Hunter sighed. "They are my siblings. The only kin I have left. I care for them, of course I do...its what family does. What I chose to do."

The answer to the question you're probably asking: Hunter is the oldest chronologically and the main host.

Normal in terms of Hornet? Yeah close enough.

Its also that, beside Beast, they're the oldest and serve an external purpose, handling certain things for Hunter that she has issues dealing with.

Like the crushing isolation.....and killing the threats that wear the faces of family and friends. They're used to being ready incase they're needed...or wanted. Sometimes Hunter wants to confer with the council.

Hunter ran a claw along the binding of her journal. "I was good at being the princess, my father's daughter. I was good at seeing my kingdom...being in every part of it. To feel its beating heart."

Beast spun a pin as she hummed. "I'm good being Weaver! Being gendered child! Making Deep Nest beat with its heart.

Reaper's hand glided down her needle, searching for any imperfection. "I carved that heart free of myself. Its easy for me...to kill those bearing the faces of those we loved."

Wanderer didn't lift her head, still sitting on a bench, alone. ".....no heart beat once she was done...just dead...lonely nothing. The least I could do...was bear its silence with strength."