#writeraudio

Their paths met in the Crossroads. Quirrel, rising from the large, vertical chamber of suspended platforms, caught sight of a flash of red emerging from the tunnel to Greenpath and zipping out of sight. He called out to her, relieved when Hornet paused on a platform some ways above him, and hurried to catch up to her. As they continued together, up to the doorway near the room’s ceiling and towards the well, Quirrel told her of his encounters in the Soul Sanctum, and Hornet explained her meetings with the Mantis Lords and the Midwife—though the more personal details she did not recount. Quirrel didn’t need to know everything. Some memories, happy or otherwise, were hers and hers alone.

“So the Mantis Village has agreed to spare those who may stumble into it,” Quirrel summarized, “but neither they nor the village of Deepnest wish anything to do with Hallownest. The spiders have rejected any help we may offer in return.” He stopped walking just outside of the field of light cast from the well above, and Hornet turned back to look at him once she stood beneath it. “Hornet...” he said slowly, “...are we certain they’re not right to?”

The Queen’s only reply was a slight tilt to her head.

“Well, I mean,” he amended. “What I just saw in that laboratory...the horrors committed by those who would have kept the kingdom standing. Would it...condone their actions to revive it? Were they here today, would they approve of what we aim to do? I would rather let their attempt at a legacy die.”

Hornet stared at him a few seconds more, wondering how much he knew about Ghost’s origins. What would he do, she wondered, were he to know what the Pale King had done in his own efforts to preserve his dominion? She chose not to find out. “We cannot care about such things,” she said instead. “Let the opinions of the dead rest with them; what right have they over those who still live? And as for the scientists you mentioned who still roam that Sanctum...” she raised her needle. “I will deal with them. Our conversation would be better continued on the surface.” Quirrel nodded, but Hornet had already hurled her needle towards the top of the well and zipped out of sight.

A few seconds later he had joined her, and was surprised to find that she had stopped short immediately after climbing out. She hadn’t been waiting for him; she didn’t even glance his way as he vaulted over the short bricks lining the well and joined her in looking at the little hamlet. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the bench in the center of town, and the elderly bug who stood across from it. Around him stood three other bugs with whom he was conversing, and though he remained visibly gloomy a kind of almost joyful satisfaction seemed to shine from him. The way he had lifted a hand out of the folds of his cloak and was gesturing with it as he spoke to his audience told of a far greater enthusiasm than she had seen from him before, only spurred on by the rapt attention the other three bugs paid his words.

He might have been cheerful, but the presence of a small gathering of bugs had caused Hornet to hesitate. She was their Queen, yes, and more than that she was one who would shortly need to address a group far larger than this. What she had believed upon entering Dirtmouth before--that she would never be able to make the ruins rise again without joining with and walking among whatever bugs they found--still held true, perhaps even more so. Between practicality and pride, she had every reason to join the small crowd and begin to address her subjects.