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“Twill. I need a word with you.”
Vaulting easily over a decorative fence, Lace studied her sister below. Meandering as always, pin sharp, posture sharper, but with a noticeable air of boredom that Lace never understood. If hunting for pilgrims did not enthrall her, could she not at least pretend?
Well, no matter. Twill wasn’t busy (she was supposed to be busy, but she wasn’t, so she wasn’t), and Lace had found her, now, and no force in the world could have torn them apart by this point.
Lace had waited too long to have such a conversation. If she allowed it to haunt her a second longer, she wasn’t quite sure what she’d do.
“I noticed something yesterday evening while I was making my rounds. It’s been irritating me all night. Some… nonsense in the Citadel Spas.”
It was rather funny to talk with her sister from up so high. Twill had not been taller than her to the point where Lace ever had to look up, but it was enough to be noticeable. Normally, the only bugs Lace could loom above had been pilgrims, and even then, only a specific few.
Perhaps the thought of it would have made her giggle, had her mood not been thoroughly soured. She’d pen some time into her schedule to giggle later.
“There were two bugs in there- long after closing hours, mind you, not that it matters in the grand scheme. Whatever. There were two bugs in there, and they were…” A flippant wave of her claw, as if conducting the air would force the proper words to come to her, “Ugh. I can not even begin to describe it. You had to have been there. Freakish behavior, really. Grasping and panting and biting on each other like animals. Giggling and whispering, like gossips trading secrets.”
She dangled her legs between the fence’s prongs, swinging her feet idly as she leaned a little closer. Twill’s posture had shifted- more tense than before- but without a comment, Lace couldn’t parse her thoughts on the matter. The featureless stretch of her face made such a feat rather difficult.
“Are they stupid or something?”
Twill seemed to give the perfectly rational question the thought it was due. Her head quirked down a bit, unoccupied hand fiddling at the edges of her cape. The claws that held her pin shifted almost rhythmically- stiff, rigid, but contemplative all the same.
“... I’ve endured playing observer to such conduct before.” When she finally spoke, her words were… uncharacteristically careful. A hesitation beyond mere thoughtfulness, “Not often, but I am not unfamiliar… I’m afraid the bugs you interrupted were copulating, sister.”
“Copulating.”
Lace echoed the word quietly, tilting her head as she contemplated the taste of each consonant.
With a delicate grunt, she leapt from her perch, only barely fumbling the landing this time. Twill’s empty face tilted in her direction, as if urging for her thoughts on the matter… Though unposed, it’d been a good question. What had been her thoughts on the matter?
“... Too many syllables for such an act, I think.” Lace concluded, “Makes it sound like something higher grade.”
“From my understanding-” Twill began (a disclaimer in its own right, considering the both of them learned purely from observance), “- it is a sort of ritual for common bugs. A crass one, granted. Normally reserved for pilgrims, as opposed to the refined natives of the Citadel… But they treat it with an unusual sort of reverence all the same. Perhaps, to them, the spa had been acting as their chapel."
Idolatrous profanity… Yes, that sounded about right. It made sense that foolish travelers would come all this way- enduring threats of death and hardships unconditional- just to taint the steps of their citadel with their heathen rites. One could only expect so much from a common bug, after all.
“Mm… Well, if their conduct was as deplorable as it appeared, I suppose they won’t be missed.”
“You cut them down?” Twill might as well have asked her if she polished her pin this morning. A thoroughly uninteresting question, as boring as the answer was obvious.
“Of course I did.” Well, obvious or otherwise, Lace did so love to talk, “Bugs of their caste aren’t meant to step foot in the Citadel to begin with. They are a distraction from the pursuit of Mother’s sweet silence.”
A mild hum from her sibling in turn, reminiscent of the way the pious bugs would mutter in their temples. Agreement, perhaps. Or maybe it’d been the same neutral disinterest that often overtook Twill when matters of pilgrims were involved.
“Not to mention,” Lace continued, a little too dryly, “they were getting on my nerves.”
Lace was pure.
Lace was pure in all the ways a bug could be, and many ways a bug could not. Pious. Obedient. A child to be proud of. A child to hold close, to cherish, to christen with adoration deserved. A balmy spinto-soprano, so sickly seraphic, a haunting echo that froze pilgrims where they stood. A high knight, touched by God, quick to cut down the unworthy with nary a stain upon her silk to show for it.
Lace was a virtue bundled in the veil of a child. So, of course- as any virtuous child would- she made it her mission to cut down any copulating pilgrims she came across.
… To be fair, any pilgrim she came across usually met their end soon after they locked gazes. But Lace took a special pride in felling those who dared indulge a hunger so low. Any bug stupid enough to let their guards down- shameless enough to tarnish a place so holy- deserved the fate she wrought upon them.
Frantic gasps were much preferred when they’d been forged from pain.
Pleas sweeter when they’d been desperate for her mercy.
Slack bodies better when they never moved again.
She didn’t catch prey in such a compromised state very often (which was good, she told herself. Less nuisances to make her problem. Less need to expose herself to such foul behavior). But, somewhere along the line, it must have happened one time too many.
The symptoms were small, at first. Hardly noticeable. Little oddities she could wave away. Hesitation behind corridor corners- flinching at every gasp, every groan. Anxious to strike, yet powerless to move. As if her feet dreaded what her eyes would see. As if her pin dreaded the status of the flesh it would pierce.
It hadn’t been an issue at the time. Discipline came to her quickly enough. And if it didn’t, she could simply summon a cobbled imitation. The pilgrims certainly couldn’t tell the difference.
But then the hesitation sunk deep. Sunk into her thoughts. Drenched the spun threads that constituted her very mind.
That had been a different matter.
It was different when the thoughts clung to her- tangled in her threads like matted clumps of hair. It was different when it disrupted her holy task- her once-steady hand shaking, pin trembling in a grip too tight. It was different when it began to occupy time she would much rather spend contemplating anything else. Anything at all.
Images flashed behind her eyes whenever she shut them. Shells uncloaked, gleaming with sweat. Drool from mouths unfurled. Scars caressed with tender reverence. Warm bodies- hot bodies (- real bodies)- rutting frantically against one another, chitin against chitin, breath against flesh.
Gods, she could not stand it. Thoughts haunted her like spectres- perhaps they had been spectres. Perhaps the ghost of every soul she cut down saw fit to make her mind a vessel for their most debased perversions.
They clung to her like the shackles of a penitent, rattling every now and then, just in case she hoped to forget they’d been there. Images of claws meeting shells.
Images of claws meeting silk.
What would a common bug do to her, she wondered (she did not wonder. She recoiled at the thought of it). Would they dig their hands between the threads and feel around the cavity within? Would their bodies press together so tightly that her softer form would give, and envelop them completely?
(Nonsensical. Depraved. Irrelevant. She would cut them down before they had the chance. The very notion wouldn’t have the chance to bloom in their minds before they’d perish, a squeal cut short by a pin through the throat.)
Would they bury themselves within her- uncaring and unheeding to the fact her body wasn’t built for such an act? Would they sink their fangs into her and tug? Would they rip her apart between claws and teeth? Would there be anything left of her? Would she expire, warm and electric, a heap of soaked fabric, sin laden, left to rot, not worth remembering, not worth adoring-
Lace could not vomit. She could not. She yearned to anyway. She hunched herself over and shuddered, as if the feeling would split a seam beneath her eyes, as if her body would sprout a mouth purely to expel the waste that clouded her horrible mind.
She gagged- convulsing like a bug about to die- desperate for the nausea to pass. She had observed sick pilgrims before… She recalled the memories and trapped them in a vice. Pilgrims heaving, spitting up blood, choking on half digested food, spitting up bile. Nasty, horrible pilgrims, suffering from their own fleshy impulses.
It sent shivers down her silken shell, and Lace let it. It curdled her expression, churned at her gut, and Lace let it.
She embraced disgust. Cupped it in its claws and forced it into her chest. Breathed it into lungs she hadn’t had. Every act utterly purposeful. Deliberate beyond measure.
If she did not cling to disgust, something else may rise to claim the empty space. She dared not consider what that might be.
Twill must have noticed the way her disposition changed over the next few weeks. And she certainly knew the cause, doubtlessly. Were Lace a worse sister, perhaps a part of her would have pinned the blame on Twill, at least in part, for the forbidden knowledge she’d passed along so carelessly.
… But Lace tried very hard to be a good sister… She knew that would not have been fair to her. Twill could not have possibly known the vice would have affected her so badly, or she never would have said it. Twill never set her up for failure. She never raised a hand against her on purpose. Never hurt or tricked her. It was not her fault… How was she to know of Lace’s unique susceptibility?
For Twill’s part, she was always there to talk. Better to have such thoughts outside than in, she would rationalize. Lace did not exactly know if that was true, but it had been such a relief to speak on such matters that she did not bother arguing.
Twill would not belittle her. Twill would not recoil in disgust. She would simply sit with her, nod every now and then, give advice where she was able.
Try not to think about it. Ground yourself in the room you are currently in. Do not bring this up with Mother.
… She could only obey that last one for so long.
Perhaps Lace was stubborn, true. Perhaps she had a bit of an ego. Perhaps she would often bite off more than she could chew. But she was far from a fool. She knew when something crossed the line from a nuisance to an issue. And she knew the sorts of issues that could not be endured forever.
(The thought of it chilled her innermost threads… The thought of being like this for the end of time. She would rather be incinerated.)
It was a necessary precaution. A swift resolution to a most unbearable issue. It would be good for her. It would help her.
All of those thoughts may have been true, but none of them soothed the apprehension that accompanied her climb. She rose higher than her ever-familiar flower bed, past the gilded cages, the disturbed motes of dust, the curtains of abandoned silk, up to Mother’s catwalk at last.
The rhythmic pulse of Her cocoon seemed to shift its tempo upon Lace’s approach. Sensing the presence of silk- Her silk.
Lace did not dare to ask for Her council. Her presence was request enough, and Mother would deny or accept without her needing to say a word.
Like a whipcrack, a thread lashed outward from the silken mass, striking where Lace’s heart would be, had she a proper one. It didn’t really hurt. These sort of tethers rarely ever did. If anything, she was relieved that Mother saw fit to indulge her… Lace wasn’t exactly sure what she would do if She didn’t.
A second thread joined the first. A third. A fourth. They trembled, laden as heavily with thought as they were… Silk was not exactly meant to facilitate these sorts of conversations. It was only by the nature of its soul-soaked origins that such was possible at all.
“She approaches. Child. Daughter. Do you seek company, or council. Know I can not speak long.”
“Council, Mother-” always council. She rarely had time for anything else, “- The common bugs… their behaviors have vexed me, recently.”
Silence. Space to speak. A silent command. Lace obeyed.
“I observe them, as is my duty. I cut them down, as is your will. But they act so… unusually. I find their conduct hard to parse.”
“Speak plainly, child.”
A flinch. She was being too brazen with her hesitation. Mother could taste it, now. Mother knew something was being kept from Her.
“What do you observe.”
“... They… copulate, Mother.” The word- so vile in the face of something so divine- forced a shiver out of her… But she kept proper diction, and kept her voice clear. It would not do her well to stammer and mutter in front of Her.
“Why? It is… upsetting.”
… The silence that followed should not have lasted so long. Mother certainly should have processed the question and developed an answer by now. Lace would never dare imagine that She could not have an answer. That She did not know, as Lace- as Her child- did not know.
Mother did not like the question.
Lace could not retract the question now, of course. Far too late for that.
She could only speak. Speak and struggle to dig herself out of this pit, before Mother’s displeasure shifted to ire. She was thankful to be well versed in such a necessary skill.
“They grasp and crawl at each other like the lesser bugs of the fieldlands. They fight for dominance. They wail and scream. Incessantly, at times.” (Do not fidget.) “And I do not understand what compels them to do so.” (Mind your posture) “Is it because they rise from filth?” (Do not avert your eyes) “Is such conduct permitted from where they hail, so much so that they see fit to tarnish our Citadel with it?”
Beholden to her Mother’s cocoon, Lace could only stand, wait, wilt, dread. The threads that sprawled from the mass of silk began to vibrate, an almost imperceptible motion that shifted down the length of the strands.
To the best of her ability, Lace emptied her mind, allowing Her words to wash over her.
“All mortal bugs are lesser bugs, child. Whether blessed with will, or devoid of it. They are beneath you. Beneath your sister. Beneath Me. Their base urges are a halter that tethers them to their stations.”
“It is instinct?”
Ripples. Words. Emotions. Loathing. Disdain. Revulsion. Mother’s thoughts nestled between her silk, buried their way into her chest, briefly suppressing all thought, all memory, all hesitation. Warmer than fresh nectar. Colder than the bite of brass. She listened, as a child should.
“Instinct. Hunger. Pleasure of the flesh. They chase it incessantly. Always gorging, always unfulfilled.”
“With such a ritual, they spawn young. Arrogance. To attempt an act so sacred. Amidst themselves they breed; copies upon copies of low ranking filth, a sickness intent to spread. To make is a divine right. A dangerous thing. Indulged by many, deserved by few.”
Lace could feel the jagged edge of the incoming thought before it hit her. It shook the thread it traveled on with such ferocity, she was surprised it hadn’t snapped.
“My thankless clutch were beneath the privilege. Your sister is beneath the privilege. You are beneath the privilege.”
The words settled uneasily, and if Lace did not focus on properly squaring her feet, the impact might have knocked her straight off the ledge. Beneath the privilege. For what offense? Where- when- did she transgress against her Mother’s word? When had s-
“Still your thoughts.”
She could only attempt to obey. It did not matter, anyways. New words drifted towards her before the prior ones had finished echoing.
“It is not your actions that forbid you, but your role. A child is not built for such things.”
Relief. Of course. Of course… She was fine. Not her place. Better than a place undeserved. Relief. Relief. She should have felt it, so why didn’t she?
Lace’s throat hurt. She could not speak. She could not trust herself to. The words would not escape her properly if she were to let them. A nod sufficed in their stead.
New message. New words. So warm.
“All you should have, you have earned. Through your grace. Your piety. Your obedience.”
“... Thank you, Mother.”
“My ivory child. My flawless child.”
She should have preened at the words. She should have basked in Her divine attentions, Her doting word, beads of light pearling on her silken skin.
But she couldn’t. She could not embrace what wasn’t true. She felt nothing. A hole where her worth should have been.
Her hesitation had not gone unnoticed. It never did.
“... Thoughts are provoked. She thinks, but does not speak.”
“May you mend me, Mother?”
Hasty, strained, forced like sludge through the Citadel’s sewer systems. As if the taste of the words would not linger if they left her quickly enough. As if Mother would not recognize the insult for what it was.
Your work is imperfect, Mother, she may as well have said. Are you not divine? Are you not capable of recreating your immaculate image in miniature? Must your defective child be the one to point such blemishes out?
“I sense nothing in need of mending, child.”
Tone did not come across well over the threads… Lace could not tell whether Mother had kept her composure, or if the transmission veiled what was intended to be a threat.
Silence. Lace obeyed. Lace continued.
“Perhaps not physically. I am not torn, no… And yet, I-”
“Speak.”
“... I fear those lesser bugs have… rotted a part of me. Something within me-”
The sudden pulse that shot from every tethered thread had been enough to make her head spin. Every chord shook like the plucked string of a harp, each carrying something different, each fighting for purchase in Lace’s cotton mind.
Her knees hit the catwalk- perhaps of her own volition, or perhaps it had been a command. It had been impossible to parse the din that infested her threads, but it felt altogether proper in that moment.
Supplication was not unfamiliar. There was comfort to the gesture. A blanket she threw over herself. A shield she cowered behind, preserving herself from the scorched earth Mother would often leave in Her wake. A wordless beg. I am your daughter. Pliant and devoting. Do not harm me.
A shudder dragged itself across the ridges of her threaded spine, carrying a disgust that transcended the language of Pharloom. Her disgust. Her wrath. Her indignation. The outrage did not abate, but instead found company in interrogation. Names. Faces. Locations. Actions. Had Lace any blood, she wasn’t sure if it would rush to her face, or abandon it.
“They- they did not touch me, Mother! I would never allow such a thing! Nor would Twill! I am safe, just… wrong. I fear something is wrong. I fear there is a… a knot. A snag somewhere within me. I fear those horrible bugs have attempted to drag me away from your divine vision… somehow… And that-”
(- Scares her. Shakes her to her core. Makes her sick-)
“Unacceptable.”
Her forehead hit the floor. Blunt claws scratched for purchase against the aging metal. She did not observe the shifting of her tethers. She did not scorn her Mother’s cocoon with her rotten gaze. I am your daughter. Humble and miniscule.
“A-apologies, Mother. I have tried my best t-”
“Soothe yourself, child. Rise.”
Lace did not tarry. Shock be damned, she rose to her feet as if the ground had scalded her.
“You have done well. You are tempted off the road to perfection, yet you return to Me. You are wise. You are faithful.”
She was wise. She was faithful. Of course… Of course she was. What else was such a thing to be? Spun from soul and silk, pure in all ways it mattered. She was wise. She was faithful.
Mother did not deal in lies.
Connections from the tethers returned to what Lace had been familiar with. Soft, warm things. Gentle and refined. What she imagined it must have felt like to coil up by a hearth. What she imagined it must have felt like to curl up beneath heavy blankets.
“I will mend you, Lace. You will be well. I will make you well. I will make you whole. I will make you right, Lace.”
Of course she would. Mother did not deal in lies.
As far as Lace had known, mending had often been quite a simple affair. Usually, all Lace needed to do was sit there, look pretty, try not to flinch as thread after meticulous thread stitches shut whatever wounds tore her open.
This was not that.
This was a mending beyond the physical. A mending beyond her years of consciousness. Beyond her understanding of sense, touch, pain. As if the crux of her soul were scooped out of her, caught in the palm of her Mother’s claw. As if the threads that composed her were nerves, pulled taut and plucked, a vibrato that threatened to shake her very being to dregs.
Mother would not allow that, of course.
Mother would piece her back together. Make her right again. Whole again.
The thought did not ease the worry. Nor the sensation.
Brassy claws pinched, twisted, pulled. Wedged between tightly knit threads and unwound- unspooled- left her lesser than a living thing was ever meant to be.
(A living thing would not survive such an ordeal, of course. She should be grateful to be above them.)
The line between awakeness and awareness and utter unconsciousness blurred into a murky puddle, dark around the edges and white hot in the middle. It didn’t matter. Awake or elsewise, sensation remained. The cleansing burned at what once was her stomach (nothing, as of now. It would be back soon), scratched at what once was her mind (it is not silk that makes the girl. Replaceable. Expendable. Her true self is safe. Safe in Mother’s hands), kissed at where her eyes once had been (she is not alone. Mother is here. A truth she knows without seeing. A presence she’s recognized from the day she was born).
Pain.
She was nothing.
No. No, something still. Just something small. Dregs. Sinew.
Pain.
Threads. She was something small. Twine. A pale and fragile braid of next-to-nothing. Gossamer thin and fleeting.
Pain.
She was something small. A silken skeleton. A crude approximation of a bug. Willowy, unnerving, altogether wrong. A spectre fit to make feeble pilgrims recoil.
Pain.
She-
Pain.
She…
… Hah. Ahah. How had Lace forgotten?
She had always been something small.
Feet touched cold ground. Her own, Lace belatedly realized. Her own feet, at the end of her own legs, attached to her own body.
Soft claws clutched helplessly at her arms. Her usually cool body still burned with divine touch. It ached. She did not pull away.
“You are whole, daughter.”
A strand of silk detached with a quiet snap. Another followed. The lifeless strands almost seemed to caress her face as they departed, drifting on a breeze she could not feel. Intentional or not, Lace could not say.
“Cling to this strength. Do not stumble. Obey. Break the chains My thankless children thought eternal. You are dismissed.”
The final strand broke, the connection fully severed. Lace’s claws unfurled.
She smoothed out her pearly skin, bowed deeply to her Mother, and departed without a sound.
It did not work, of course.
There were ailments even Gods could not mend. Something Lace would never say to Mother’s face, of course, but a truth all the same. Their hands could coax and prod, suture and stitch, undo and remake. Some things would always remain.
For Twill, it had been sleep… An experience they would recount on nights that stretched too long, too thin. Mother would have much preferred a child immune to the ploy which saw Her bound. Sleep was a habit to be broken. A sin to be absolved from.
Lace did not know how many times her sister was put through such a process. Twill never told her. Couldn’t- either for her own lack of knowing, or the sickly terror that gripped her whenever she tried to recall.
All Lace knew was that Twill still slept. She did, as well. A vice without a cure… Something even Mother’s hand could not mend. A flaw She must have abandoned.
… Now Lace had one of her own. The thought of it burned oppressive in her silken excuse of a throat, hot and shameful.
Mother did not have to know. It would be cruel to tell Her such a thing. Cruel and unnecessary. It would be better, Lace asserted, that She never found out. A good child would not burden Her with broken things. A good child would not parade their own inadequacy. It would be an insult to Mother’s hard work.
That was fine. Lace could keep a secret from Her.
She could not, however, keep a secret from Twill.
“You were in the archives again.”
A statement as opposed to a question, spoken with a dryness reserved for much less intriguing topics. Lace had been perfectly content with watching her sibling train (the word stalled her thoughts for a beat… Sibling. They’d been trying it out recently. Different. Not bad, though). Considering Twill hadn’t even been looking at them, the comment came as a bit of a shock.
Twill- still not shifting their focus from the dummy they held at pinpoint- must have felt her hesitation. The tip of their weapon clattered against all the usual weakpoints, chipping at all the same pockmarks in all the same places. It was as if their pin conducted them, instead of the other way around… It advanced, and they followed its lead.
“There is dust all over your claws. You normally preen yourself better than that”
“Ever so perceptive, sibling... Maybe I was.”
“Find anything interesting?” Another sharp stab at the mannequin. Another scratch at its wooden skin. Lace felt grateful in that moment that they’d been swiping their pin so noisily. Perhaps it disguised the strained noise she made- something between a sputter and a scoff.
“Interesting is certainly a way to put it.”
Twill’s next jab was cut short, posture slacking at once as their head snapped behind them. Lace never knew how they could perfect such an accurate impression of a stare, devoid of eyes as they were. They beheld her silently, a knowing not-quite-gaze that felt all together more prying than Lace had ever desired it to.
“You found erotica.”
Immediate, confident. Statement, not question. The fact that they could speak the word without as much as a flinch made Lace’s silken stomach knot up. She swatted at their shoulder, hoping the veil of irritation would smother the sudden heat of embarrassment.
“Do not say such things!” The scolding hardly had room to breathe before justification took its place, “It is not as if I sought it out! I… stumbled into it, more than anything. Locked away in dusty rooms I suspect haven’t been opened in a great age. Perhaps before either of us were woven.”
Hidden away where no one should have been able to find it, be they pilgrim, silken, Citadel borne or otherwise. But the locks must have withered from ages of unuse, and the door had looked so beautifully ornate, gold leaf flaked away, once-painted brass dull and lifeless, a croaking doorway that begged for its secrets to be spilled.
It must have been a storage for contraband, at one point… There’d been no other excuse for the sheer quantity of illicit material crammed into bookshelves, stuffed within half open drawers, spilled atop desks with no semblance of order- as if whoever put them there could not stand to glance at them.
Lace had done a lot more than glance. She poured over every illustration, every word, jerked back and forth between mortified curiosity and-
… And something she could not place. Something a little deeper. The sort of contemplation a bug might have when they look at a commissioned portrait. Or how a pilgrim might gaze at the Citadel from the other side of the gates- climb not quite concluded, but so tantalizingly near.
There was poetry. Lace had not expected that. There were many things she had not expected. Song. Prose. Journal entries. Paintings of a vast array of qualities. There was a locket she found with a rendering of a bug inside, reclined on a mattress, half swaddled in a soft blanket, and otherwise as bare as when she must have hatched.
Lace put that one down rather quickly. Not entirely out of embarrassment either- an observation that came with its fair share of dread. No… The bug was bare, true, but technically Lace had been as well. She was a hypocrite about many things, but she felt no desire to be prudish towards this stranger- probably dead, from an era long gone, perhaps forgotten entirely.
It felt… invasive. Like prying into a bittersweet memory. Like digging her claws into a still-soft wound and tugging it back open.
It did not feel especially heinous… Especially considering the material it had been lumped alongside. Did that say more about the bugs who locked it away, or herself?
A question not worth entertaining. A question that did not gain worth the longer she refused to entertain it.
Lace would never hold any respect for any mortal bug, let alone one who would lower themself to the status of a pilgrim… But, if she must confess (and she would never do so to their faces, mind), the literate ones had quite intriguing minds. The Citadel may have honored some of these bugs, if their works did not lower the worth of their holy bastion.
They spoke of sin with a reverence usually reserved for hymns…
Or, well- certainly not all of them spoke in such a way. But enough of them did. Enough of them did, to the point where Lace often couldn’t tell if she’d been reading of the same acts so brazenly illustrated around her.
She was not meant to be there. In that room. In that corner of the Archives. In the Archives at all. She was not meant to be there, skimming through the minds of pilgrims from ages gone by, little flickers of the past imbued possessions, perhaps the only evidence that any of them existed at all.
… Did they evolve past the need for such things, with time? Were such things little more than mementos of a past life, a skin shed and discarded, outgrown as a molt? Was it shameful to them? Humiliating?
Was it all relinquished willingly, or by force? Perhaps there were pilgrims whose ascensions proved incomplete. Perhaps they still floundered, staggering gracelessly on their holy trek. Perhaps, for the greater good, they were relieved of such burdens unwillingly, weak minds still baying for what they thought they needed.
The vaultkeepers were quite foolish to keep such knowledge preserved. Some things were better unlearned. Some books were better off burnt.
… Perhaps, deep down, they were weak. The pilgrims, the vaultkeepers, the residents of Mother’s grand citadel who craved such carnalities and still dared to call themselves holy. Perhaps they were as weak as she. Too sentimental to deprive the world of their earthly comforts, even if they would never lay eyes on them again. Too scared of the finality of the pyre, the steadfastness of the flame.
Twill jabbed at the dummy again. Metal-on-wood brought her back to her senses. An unnecessary sigh, aching with something Lace couldn’t name.
“... Do you think it is nice?”
Perhaps, if the dreamlike haze of memory hadn’t distracted her so, she would have retracted the question. Perhaps, were she in her right mind, she wouldn’t have asked it at all.
But Twill did not falter. Twill rarely faltered- they’d always been rather impressive in that regard… Their fencing stance dropped once more, pin in a proper resting position as they whirled on a pointed foot.
“Copulation?” They specified, despite the fact they clearly had no need to, “... No. In truth, it strikes me as anything but.”
“Ah…”
“... It does not sound like that was the answer you were expecting to hear, sister.”
Lace liked having her eyes, all things considered… She could not picture herself without them. But it was hard not to be envious of Twill, who had such a convenient way of disguising every twitch of emotion, while she’d been forced to bare them all so explicitly. Every feeling- every thought- not truly her own.
“... In honesty, I don’t know what I wished to hear. Forget I asked. You should resume your training. My musings are only getting in the way.”
Twill was not one to hear a command and obey it so simply. Lace knew that. She took no offense to the fact that her sibling did not lift her pin once more. That they approached her instead of backing away. That they used their free hand to cup one of her own, prying her attentions from the dust that littered the floor.
“... I can see how it eats at you, Lace. I wish I could help… But I do not know if I can, when I can barely understand what about it ails you.” A beat of hesitation- something Lace learned to dread whenever their sibling was involved, and then- “It is not as if you could partake in such an act-”
“Yes, I know that!” The familiar embrace of scandalization cloaked her in its embrace, and she was quick to jerk her wrist from Twill’s hold (though she missed the kind touch almost as soon as she had scorned it), “Nor would I ever want to!”
Easier to recoil in disgust than sit with the feeling. Easier to follow Mother’s word than speak any of her own.
“It is not about sating the sensation-” (“Lust-” Twill supplies, earning themself a few more strikes on the shoulder) “- It is about ridding myself of it entirely! Preferably before it drives me utterly mad.”
Throwing her claws up in defeat, Lace allowed gravity to have its way with her. She tipped backward, leaning until her pitiful silken form lay crumpled on the nearest bench- not exactly sitting as much as she’d been draped. Like laundry left to dry. Like cloth yet to mildew.
When she dared to speak again, the words seemed hesitant to leave her. Meek and quiet. Shame; a cowl she was growing far too familiar with.
“... What if it becomes even worse…? What if I can not keep it under control, and Mother finds out?” A claw slid down her face at the notion, and she dared not linger on the thought any longer, "Why must I be cursed with visions so… grotesque? Is it- is…
“Twill. Is there simply something wrong with me…?”
Lace had returned to examining the pebbles and grit on the floor, and as such could not see her sibling’s reaction. But she noticed their feet, stepping gently through her line of sight, disappearing as they drifted to the left of her. She felt the shifting of their skin against the metal of the bench. Felt the way their claws tugged at her shoulders, hefting her until she sat sprawled against her lap, limp as a broken cogworker.
She felt the way their claw came down upon their shoulder, stroking gently along the grain.
“No… No, I do not think so… I am quite fond of you, Lace.”
“... Only quite?”
“Hush.” A claw smushed against her silken cheek, but beyond that, they did not falter, “I am certainly fond enough to endure you at your worst… Your teasing and your temper. I would not change any of it for all the world. I do not think there is something wrong with you… But I do think you ail. And that disheartens me…”
Claws drifted down the length of their arm, retreated, and then returned to her shoulder once more. A soothing little cycle. Lace could get quite used to it… She let her eyes fall shut, a brief little indulgence, Twill’s contemplated tone soothing the worst of her.
“Copulation seems so… bizarre. Like an act that was never meant to be… Altogether painful and uncomfortable looking. And yet, bugs and beasts alike are… well, I suppose compelled would not be inaccurate. It seems… unnerving, to me. That someone can be coaxed into something so senseless, purely because their body urges it. Are their minds not their own?”
When Lace felt their claw again, it’d been on her head this time. It trailed down her pinned up hair, fidgeting with the threads. Were this any other conversation, she’d have swatted them away by now. Made a little comment about them worrying her threads loose. But the thought seemed horribly unappealing at the time. And it was nice to have a thought she could discard with ease. A rarity she hadn’t been afforded much, recently.
“I think… I would be scared were I you, sister. I’m sorry…”
“Twill,” Lace opened her eyes at last. She had wanted the squint to come across as playful. But all expressions felt a bit tired on her face, “-you are altogether awful at this comforting thing.”
“Apologies…” They mused, in a tone that hadn’t seemed too apologetic at all. Not that Lace minded much. The claw brushed over her arm again, and she had not minded that either, “... But this is nice, is it not…?”
“Mm… Yes. Quite nice.”
Lace did not count the seconds of silence between them, intent to relish it as long as it lasted… It could have been hours or minutes before Twill spoke again.
“... The thoughts still burden you?”
“I fear they may never leave.”
“Hm.”
A noise pulled taut. Not quite displeasure, but within the same family. Disappointment, perhaps.
As if she were made of glass- as if Lace was any more fragile than she was- Twill sat her upright, ensuring she would not tumble when they rose to their feet. Their dominant hand danced upon the handle of their pin with a newfound anxiousness. Shame. Her sibling was training, weren’t they? Must she always get in the way…
Debating the best way to apologize for her gluttonous indulgence in their time, Twill- who had not seemed distressed by her meddling- spoke first.
“If what is ailing you manifests-” a sharp claw tapped at her forehead, dulled only by the silk that blanketed the brassy endoskeleton “- up here, perhaps we might find a way to flush such thoughts out. A mind can only be pulled in so many directions at once.”
Their pin was at their side with confidence, now. Not the cautionary half-grip they defaulted to out of battle. Their featureless face tilted almost goadingly, only aided by the playful lilt that accompanied their tone.
“Would you spar with me, Lace?”
Perhaps she was becoming too predictable… There was probably a part of Twill that reveled in how quickly the request had her sitting upright, then leaping from the bench, then grabbing at her own pin. And where that normally would have irked her- the thought of becoming so formulaic that her own sibling could scheme against her hadn’t boded well for proper fights, really- she couldn’t find it in her mind to care.
“Hah! That desperate to break your winning streak, are you?”
“My own sister wounds me so!” Claws pitched dramatically at the top of Twill’s forehead, spine arching in faux offense, “I extend an open palm, and she spits venom at me! You truly think me low enough t-”
Lace pounced before they could finish, unable to suppress the vicious giggle that ripped out of them.
“Mind your monologuing, sibling! Or at least try not to make it so exploitable, mm?”
“Oh, you’re one to talk-!”
Twill was a genius, really. She would never say it to their face, of course; as the baby sister, it was not her place to bolster their ego, but to endanger it. But not speaking it aloud did not change the fact it was true.
Sparring worked wonders for her wandering mind. Perhaps it was the threat of danger- fabricated or otherwise- that kept her attuned to the current moment, the fight and the fight alone. Perhaps the rush of artificial adrenaline had been enough to sate the churn of her silken insides. Or perhaps, as Twill claimed, she simply could only consider so many things at any given point in time.
She never told them how smart they were for the comment. She never thanked them for the respite. She’d come to regret that later. After their exile. On their slim few visits, the two of them had much more important things to worry about than the petty favors exchanged in the Citadel above. She would not burden them with such things.
With her sibling’s absence came the development of new methods of smothering that sordid call to action. Lace knew nothing about cooking, really. But she could only imagine it was quite similar to her own process. Experimenting, experiencing, finding what works and what doesn’t. Taking the lessons and discarding the rest. Hours spent lamenting over what she could not control. That sort of thing.
Leaping from rooftops became quite the common method of respite. The same adrenaline rush without the pesky need for any company. Devoid of a terminal velocity- she had no neck or bones to break, after all!- most of her exploits were graceless freefalls rather than the precise jumps she’d imagined. But her practice paid off in time- if not slowly. Getting the jump on unsuspecting pilgrims had been quite a treat! They barely had time to jolt in surprise before she’d ended them.
Occasionally, vice clung tighter to her than she’d liked, and she would begrudgingly employ the help of the Citadel Spas. Not in the same manner the pilgrims did, of course. Not to relax, nor to find a quiet place to indulge in a body.
It was easier to get the shower spouts to run cold water than hot, a truth that Lace was quick to exploit. The thoroughly jarring sensation of being doused with liquid ice proved an effective- if not uncomfortable- countermeasure to such thoughts. So long as she wrung herself thoroughly dry, no one would suspect a thing.
But sometimes the urges were deeper still. Deeper than she knew what to do with.
Lace did not have an exploitable cure in times such as those. Any attempt at her usual methods, paradoxically enough, seemed to only make everything worse… Perhaps her rage simply fueled the fire. Mother did always claim that her temper would ruin her… Lace would never let Her know how true her words became.
On one such off-day, Lace lost control of herself. One minute, she’d been perched upon a bench, shifting viciously as she tried to find a half-comfortable way to arrange herself. The next, her claws were in her stomach.
Then they exited, and several strands of silk came with it.
Again and again, a desperate cycle of scraping, as if the itch that burned within her was simply buried beneath the skin. As if she could pry it out, quash it under her foot, and be done with it. As if she were a mite caught in a trap, mutilating itself, gnawing at its leg in a desperate bid for freedom, regardless of the certain death that awaited the moments after.
(That had been difficult to explain to Mother… She had to craft a truly convoluted excuse, revolving around a trip in the High Halls and a particularly determined drapemite, and even then she wasn’t certain that She bought it… Her mending was particularly harsh, then. Her threads stitched especially tight.)
It wasn’t a solution she desired to repeat… Though, in fairness, none of them had been solutions at all. Not truly. A solution, Lace asserted to herself (for there’d been no one else left to assert to), would have fixed the issue. If Mother could not do it, it could not be done. She would not find a solution, and it would behoove her to abandon the hunt for one altogether. The Citadel’s White Knight did not dabble with the unfeasible.
She would not find a solution.
But by the gods did she want one.