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Chapter Text

“Auntie Hownet, auntie Hownet”, the queen heard a squeaky voice call her with a tug on her cape.

          She took deep breathe, holding her temples as if by it a headache could really be avoided, weren’t she so wrong?

         “What is it, Grimm?”, she sighed in displeasure, almost hissing; she put down her quill.

          The child of her sibling looked straight at her sockets with these big, scarlet, eyes of his that much resembled his father’s.

          “Can I go out to play?”, he made few lines on the dirt of the room with one foot.

          “If I allow you, will you bother me no more?”.

          Her “nephew” smiled widely and shook his head in affirmation several times, Hornet feared he’d get himself dizzy and the child would end vomiting fire at her, so she pressured to answer.

          “Then yes. You can”.

          “Nyah!”, the little worm celebrated throwing his winged arms into the air.

          Hornet made a sweeping motion with her hand to tell the small spawn of hell she had for nephew to dispel as she continued to look through the documentation of few missing grubs. The child nodded eagerly to tell his aunt he was heading off soon, but, before that: he pounced into the older female, her muscles stiffening at the warm touch.

          “Twanks you, auntie Hownet!”, he cuddled Hornet’s neck.

          “Do not”, she said simply, pushing him back to the floor, gentle enough to don’t hurt him too much.

          Grimmchild giggled, knowing his aunt meant no harm and it was merely her way of playing with him.

          Hornet huffed, “Shoo”, she swept her hand once more, “Go already”.

          The child laughed and rushed out of the room, he was too eager to be outside to notice how in no time he had strayed so far of his aunt’s kingdom. Too late it was when he noticed the shadowy tall figure carrying a round crystal enclosure. 

 …

Hornet placed her quill aside, something was unusual: it had been long since the child last pestered her; she stood up and walked to one of her subjects.

          “Is prince Grimm back yet?”.

          They shook their head —or rather, whole body— as a no.

          She nodded thanks before keep on making her path through the kingdom.

          “Have you seen Grimm?”

          The responses continued to be negative, and the more she asked, the more anxious she began to feel. She took her needle tightly on hand and rushed to see the midwife, as she usually got information into her claws one way or another.

          “Midwife”, the queen called out, said bug came out of her hideout not after long.

          “Oh! But look who graces paying a visit to this humble host, the queen of deepest herself!”.

          “Talk no more, do you know where Grimmchild is?”.

          “The little worm? My, my, but of course”.

          If almost by instinct, Hornet drew her nail. “If you ate him-!”.

          She laughed. “Oh, my queen, believe me I wish, I’m famishing! But I did not”.

          “Where is he?”.

…

Hornet walked through the dark corridors of the love tower after hacking her way into it with the aid of her weavers. The rotting carcases of different breeds of bugs laid within the rosy glass containers.

          Her heart skipped a beat, what if…?

          She shook her head; there was no way Grimmchild’s flame would be extinguished that easily: he was the offspring of her sibling, the thought of the little pester dying as these weak bugs was unmasterable. Yet, she pressured her pace, better safe than sorry.

          “Grimm!”, she called out, but her own voice was not the only one to echo through the halls. “Grimm is that you?”.

          From deeper into the tower, she could hear her nephew’s soft “Nyah!”.

          “Hang in there, child!”.

          The grip on her needle tightened as she rushed through the long hall which turned soon into battle arena when both extremes closed and the child’s kidnapper showed itself, the collector.

          It laughed like a maniac before dancing frantically along the room and scurrying onto the ceiling, throwing flask at Hornet which she avoided with ease. Once the glasses having crashed against the floor, small bugs were released; none of them meant actual threat, they were slain in one hit.

          Eventually, the collector showed yet again: dancing madly, arrhythmical, like an adolescent bug whose crush had just noticed her, it sickened Hornet to see such an outrageous display and —for the little or less she knew about her protegee’s late father, Grimm (or “that cradle robber”, as how she had dubbed him)— she was aware he’d feel heavily insulted for the mockery of the art he so loved.

          She threw her nail forwards, the collector avoided the hit with a jump and a mid-air swirl; luck, the queen judged before whipping that creep with the thread, its own erratic movements getting tangled up.

          With her prey tightly tied into her net, Hornet slashed the collector with her needle multiple times until, finally, a black substance commenced to leak from its body, she deemed it time to deliver the killing blow with few final words.

          “You will not torment our young anymore”.

          The collector began to laugh once again and evaporated into pitch black molecules, leaving no sign of it shortly. Hornet withdrew her needle and climbed up further into the tower.

          At its tallest point, Grimmchild had been caged within a glass bubble alongside the few grubs that remained missing. Feeling the presence of his guardian, Grimmchild uncurled and straightened up, Hornet could practically see how his inner fire flared back to life as he laid eyes on her.

          “Nyah!”, he squealed, pawing at the crystal.

          “Back off”, Hornet ordered.

          The child eagerly did as his aunt told him, and she freed him with a stab of her needle.

          “Auntie!”

          Grimmchild lunged himself at the other bug as a mass of void and flames, materializing once he nested on Hornet’s arms, the impact throwing her back, but she didn’t mind.

          “Are you hurt? Did they do anything to you?”.

          She checked under his wings, at his face and so his torso, finding nothing but only relaxing when the baby burrowed his head on her neck and nuzzled against her while happily purring her worries away.

          “Right…”.

          Hornet stood up and placed the boy down, trying to pretend this sudden outburst of affection had never happened. She stepped forwards as to take leave, but a gentle tugging on her cape stopped her.

          “Huh?”

          Grimmchild stared at her with big scarlet eyes.

          “What is it?”

          He pointed at the whining grubs behind them.

…

“It was no problem, really”.

          He, along his kids, cheered and threw gifts at the queen and prince, the last squealing eagerly and picking up with his little wings the most he could.

          “We only did what was right for our people”.

          The Grubfather laughed again, now his last gift being a pretty charm alike to his children; Grimmchild took it and his eyes widened greatly as his jaw dropped.

          “Ooh!”

          Hornet bowed, “Well, thanks for your gratitude, sir. I’m sure these gifts will be of prince Grimm’s liking”.

          “Twanks you, sir!”, the child squeaked and awkwardly bowed thanks.

          Hornet decided it was time to leave and gently nudged Grimmchild. Both royals bowed farewell, the queen aiding the small prince this time to make a more tasteful attempt this time before taking their leave; the pretty charm, (Grubberfly’s elegy), falling off the child’s wings while they departed.

          “Worry not, little Grimm; I’ll retrieve it”.

          Hornet stepped back into the grub’s lair.

          “Excuse me, sir…”.

          She choked on her words at the sight of the Grubfather with a belly full and no grubs around, only their squeaky, soft, puppy sounds remaining, coming from the innards of their father.

          “Huh…”.

          “Auntie?”, Grimmchild called out from outside.

          Hornet picked up the charm, “I’m coming!”, she pressured to say before reuniting with the child.

Chapter Text

Weavers rushed into Hornet’s room, “Queen!”, they called out agitated.

          “What is it?”, she remained calm even at the drastic change of the formerly quiet atmosphere.

          “It’s prince Grimm!”

          She put the quill aside.

…

Hornet jumped into the platform with the smallest ball of spiderweb which was right next to her mother’s shrine and rushed into the room.

          “Grimm!?”, there was a hint of anguish on her voice.

          The little kid was at the floor, his head at his knees and these joints pressed tightly against his chest, wrapped up by his own wings; pitch black tears poured down his cheeks leaving marks alike to the ones he was born with.

          Hornet sat next to him, paying a more careful inspection of the charred, warm, floor full of black ashes most likely made by abyss shriek, an ability the child had inherited from their parent.

          “Grimm?”, she started, “what’s wrong?”.

          He shook his head and sobbed, his aunt couldn’t understand, she looked at her weavers for any kind of hint that could help to figure this out.

          “We did what we could, my queen”, said one of the weavers.

          “Did someone saw what happened?”.

          They shook their head, (body), no. The queen sighed and picked up the crying child, he kept his eyes tightly closed and wrapped his wings around Hornet’s neck proceeding to hide his face within shaft as he continued to shed tears that fell on his aunt’s cape, she’d scold him for staining her clothes with void later.

          “My queen?...”, the weavers looked up at her, they seemed intrigued.

          “Prince Grimm is staying with me for the night”, she demanded, walking out the room.

          “Understood!”.

          As she made her way to her own room escorted by the guards, she pondered what could have possibly distressed the child so much?

…

Grimmchild couldn’t sleep even though it was way pass his bedtime; he flapped few times his wings to land quietly next to his sleeping aunt, he felt slightly guilty for not have said a word to her, but he didn’t feel like talking at all after having a nightmare, plus, there was not much he could do right now. He had a lot of things in mind and thought that, perhaps, a night hike would do him good to ease his sorrows.

          The child took an old nail auntie Hornet had deemed fitting for him due to its small size and light weight that would made it easy to be carried around by him; it was not on its better shape, but “It’ll do for now”, she had said.

          Careful not to wake his aunt up, he waddled his way out the room: it still felt weird for him this new acquisition named legs.

          Once out the hidden room, he waltzed pass the stalking devout guarding the entrance and went for the closest watching point where he could get a nice view of his aunt’s domains.

          He contemplated the sight: into its darkness he felt safe, at home. The obscureness was what reminded him the most of his parent, to their pitch-black eyes and ebon body; on this cold weather he could almost feel their touch.

          The toddler wrapped himself between his wings and closed his eyes, trying to imagine a time back when either of his parents —or even both— would hold him close to them and rock him to sleep, their calming heartbeats accompanied by soft respiration and usually sweet lullabies, the youngster couldn’t help but smile at the memories. Soon, Grimmchild yawned; perhaps this had been enough and it was time to go back with auntie Hornet.

          The child sat up and opened his eyes, he couldn’t believe he was stood before him! He had to blink and rub off the sleepiness out of him to make sure he was not already dreaming; the image didn’t vanish: there, on the darkness he called home, they whom the young bug called his parent was.

          Grimmchild chirped in excitement and flew towards were his parent was standing still, nonetheless, as soon the toddler approached, they ran away into a gap on a wall. The child refused to let go a second time and followed them into the shadows, but he had gotten behind, now he was lost and without his parents nor auntie Hornet to relieve him.

          He winced and sat against the wall in fetal position leaning slightly on the nail he had brought; there, tears overflowed from his eyes at the thought of having lost his parents yet again.

          “Mama!”, he cried. “Papa!”.

          He called out for either parents, but no reply could possibly be heard; he began to lose hope with a heavy tug at his little, fragile, heart.

          “Mama, papa!”, he shouted again, in tears; but, this time, he was able to hear familiar voices coming from deeper these halls.

          “One, two, three; one, two…”, a groan, “No, no. Worry not, my dear, you’re doing just fine. We just need some more practice”.

          Grimmchild straightened up, “Papa, papa!”.

          In a flash, he was already back up and making his way through the corridors as a mass of void, leaving behind a trail of scarlet flames. Regardless the high speed, he could hear the whispers of the corpses that laid around, but he deemed them no attention.

          The child arrived at a chamber, “Papa! Mama!”.

          At the centre of the room, the couple danced, his “mama” acting more like a doll made of old rags if anything, maybe they were already feeling tired of dancing?

          Grimm grinned and held up Ghost’s chin with a single clawed finger, “Look, dear”, he gently turned the other’s face at the direction of their offspring. “Our child has finally arrived, isn’t it wonderful?”, he purred.

          Grimmchild climbed up the platform at the centre of the room, struggling due to his small size. His parents opened wide their arms as a sign of a welcoming hug.

          “Come, my child”.

          The young kid let go of the nail and pounced on his parents, wrapping his around them and cuddling against their chest as he used to time ago, happily chirping and sobbing. But something was off… The taller bug was not as warm, nor the smaller as cold…

          He heard grotesque cracking and rattling of bones: breaking and fusing again into new shapes. The child looked up in horror that now claws foreign to him held him tight in front of a hungry maw that slowly revealed itself.

          Grimmchild screamed, conjuring abyss shriek to try to free himself, the spell doing nothing but hitting the roof and flinching the monster for barely milliseconds that had seemed enough to buy time for a familiar needle and thread to pierce through the creature’s mask, provoking it to, in pain, drop the child. Hornet caught him before he could crash against the floor.

          “Auntie!”

          She put him down and stepped up to be on the monster’s way to the kid. “Go and hide”.

          “But…”

          “Now!”, she yelled with a swing of her needle. 

          The child gulped and flew to the ceiling, hanging head-down at the roof, shuddering at the realization of the nearness of the dangling corpses of the monster’s victims and at how close himself had been of sharing the same fate.

          Grimmchild looked down to said creature, it moved fast, but auntie Hornet moved faster. She was doing her best (along her weavers), to keep the monster focused on them so it would not hunt after him.

          It felt unfair, being only able to watch and not do anything else at all, but he knew auntie Hornet had her reasons (and good ones), to have asked him to do so.

          “Get down!”, yelled Hornet.

          “Nyah?”

          He thought too slow, and in the blink of the eye, a cloud of dust had been lifted all around the battle arena, avoiding the queen and her escorts to see.

          “Grimm? Grimm!”, she tried to find her nephew based on hearing.

          The roof had crumbled down when the beast jumped to hide into it, the pesky coward…

          “Nyah…”, she heard softly, coming from within the debris.

          She rushed to the pile of dust and rock and digged on it with aid of the weaverlings. “Grimm, keep talking, I can’t find you!”.

          “Ngh…”

          She took the small kid out of the remains of the ceiling, his wing looked broken, teared, blood leaked out from the corner of his mouth, his eyes were devoid of their bright, scarlet flame.

          “Oh, for Herrah!...”, she hugged him, seeing another body rising from the dust at the corner of her eyes. “Sweetie, are you alright?”.

          The other looked surprised, but the child at her arms simply replied with a quiet “Nyah”.

          “Good”.

          She stabbed the child on her arms’ little body with her needle with a clean thrust, orange blood busted out from its body, splashing on the surroundings and specially on herself and Grimmchild. The kid gasped as his lookalike began to screech and crack back into its usual shape.

          “How?... What if?!...”.

          “I saw you. You know I’d never call you sweetie, you little hell spawn”, she said sassily.

          He giggled, it was true! But his smile dropped as soon he remembered why this all was about.

          “Auntie?”, he looked down to his feet, “aw you mad at me?”.

          “Yes”.

          Grimmchild shrugged.

          “But it was not totally your fault, Grimm of Hallownest”.

          He looked up.

          “I need to tell you something”.

…

The child looked up at the building, it had the funny shape of a black egg and was covered in beautiful white flowers much as the one auntie Hornet had insisted on picking up before coming to this place.

           “Where are we?”, he asked innocently looking now at the delicate flower on his hand.

          “The black egg temple”.

          She knelt down to his same eye level and he looked back at her, watching silently.

          “Your…”, she cleared her throat, “parent, my sibling, Ghost…”, the child heard her struggling with the words. “They had been sealed all this time here”.

          “Why don’t we take mama out?”, he asked innocently interrupting his aunt.

          “Because they sealed themselves inside for a reason”.

          “Mama doesn’t love me nor daddy anymore?”, he interrupted again.

          Hornet flinched for a second before replying. “The opposite, I’d dare to say”, she lied seeing the tears forming at the corner of the child’s eyes, she didn’t want him hurt, but in truth, the kid’s parent was hollow.

          “Then why would mommy be in there?”.

          “Ages ago, the infection plagued this kingdom. They took it into their body and sealed the light within them at the temple so it won’t hurt the people of our reign anymore, that includes you”, she tried her best to explain in simple words so the toddler could understand.

          “Is mommy sick, then?”.

          It would be easier this way. “Yes. They must sleep; it is highly contagious, so they cannot leave”.

          “Like when I get sick and you tell me to rest?”.

          “Yes”.

          He seemed to finally have started to understand. He looked down at the flower before staring at Hornet again and saying: “Can we bring flowers to mommy so they feel better?”.

          She felt guilt yanking at her heart, they would never feel better. “Yes. We can”.

          He sniffled and wiped off the tears from his eyes. “Everyday?”, he finally smiled, a weight lifting from Hornet’s shoulders.

          At least he was happy for now.

          “Everyday”.

          Grimmchild giggled and pounced on her, clinging at her neck; Hornet placed one hand under him for support and another at his back for security’s sake.

          “Mommy will feel much better in no time with all the flowers we’ll gift them! I’ll make sure of it!”, he exclaimed cheerfully and later nuzzled his aunt’s neck.

          “Yes… I’m sure…”.

          If either he squealed or meowed, Hornet had no idea, not even of how to call it, but that fake, temporal, happiness would haunt her nightmares tonight.

Chapter Text

Hornet sat against what once had been the bed of her now long deceased mother, Herrah the beast. It was truth no much time between the two had been allowed, but she couldn’t help but grieve her lost.

          “If only there had been another way”, she thought out loud but in a whisper to herself. “If only I had arrived sooner… I could have prevented it, we could have found another way… I failed you, I failed you all…”.

          Black tears began to roll down her cheeks and blurred her sight just as the deep sadness misted her mind and senses. She felt lost into an abyss and without hope; she felt lonely, like nothing was worth it anymore, hollow.

          “Auntie…”, the voice knocked her out of her trance.

          “What is it, child?”, she said in stoic tone despite her recent breakdown.

          The toddler looked with curious eyes at her. “Were you crying?”.

          She flinched at the statement. “Of course not!”.

          Her protegee took seat next to her, she deemed him no attention until his head pressed gently at the side of her arm (quite away from her shoulder), and a silky material poked her elbow.

          She turned, her gaze rested at a small, crudely made, doll that resembled herself in some way.

          “What’s this?”.

          The child pouted — had she said something bad? — and hid further into his over-sized replica of his aunt’s cape, with his feet and knees totally covered leaving only to sight his little horns (that had now begun to shape after Ghost’s, his parent) and the tips of his wings.

          “I wanted to make you a friend, so you could talk about how much you miss your mom with them”.

          “How are you so sure that I miss my mother?”

          Grimmchild stuck his head out from his cape and gave her a look as if telling her “Are you kidding me?” with merely the eyes.

          “We’re not that different, auntie”.

          “We’re plenty different”.  

          “But we’ve got things in common”.

          “How so?”.

          “Well…”, he started. “We’re both royals… We like the colour red…”, his aunt replied with a “mhm” after every pause, he looked up. “But most importantly, I know deep down you miss your mom, and so do I”. Grimmchild accommodated to lay on the floor, only his head resting at his aunt’s leg. “And I know you miss my mommy too”.

          “We’ve both lost someone special in our lives, hadn’t we?”.

          Hornet placed her hand over the child’s side, Grimmchild nodded, nuzzling her leg at the process as he closed his eyes, his aunt’s gentle touch welcoming to rest for a while. She had to admit having the little worm around wasn’t so bad all the time, even maybe… he gave a bit of meaning to this hollow and hopeless pitch called life, he understood her pain and so she did his.  

          “Maybe we’re not so different after all”.