And I’m tired of this and the way that it feels

I’m not there anymore, this has never been real

We’re just awful together and awful apart

I don’t know what to do anymore

_____

She knows she is weak. Perhaps it is a shameful admission for a goddess. But she can confess it, at least. There was a time when she couldn’t, when her title had her stand tall above others with an air not quite conceited, but certainly lofty. When she cared for her branches and the folds of her skirt as if they lent anything to her elevated nature.

These years have long passed. Reminder after reminder has shown her the frailty of her nature, the delicacy of her body, the ineptitude of her mind. She is just like anyone else, put in the more precarious position of bearer of power. At times, it is a relief—she no longer keeps up the air, the illusion of perfection she once chased after. She is allowed friendship, is allowed love. At other times, all this serves to highlight what she knows she is too weak to protect.

All this to say, the White Lady has become an expert at knowing her limits. And she knows that she, weak as she is, is reaching hers.

She moves in long strides through the empty hallways, white light spilling through the windows and across her features. A few attendants bow their heads, soft, meaningless greetings floating past her. She nods stiffly in acknowledgment and drifts on forward, the palace melding into one blank, colorless form.

At last, she reaches the throne room. Her husband is sitting, somewhat hunched over, a table pulled in front of the throne. Around it crowd the three intended dreamers, discussing the details of their eternal resting spots. Their locations have finally been decided, but extra measures must be taken in order to prevent a potential breaker of the seals. Different sorts of ideas were being thrown around and tossed back away, and she could tell from the way the Pale King has a hand pressed to his temple that they were not close to a definite solution.

The door bursts open behind her, and in jumps a blur of red and white, streaking toward the table. All eyes immediately turn, but none faster than that of the dreamer from Deepnest, her imposing figure softening at its edges.

“Mama!” the little bundle cries, but even as it clings to the spider’s legs, Herrah shushes gently, picking it up and setting it down on the floor in front of her.

“Hornet, you must return to the nursemaid,” she scolds, holding her at arm’s length. At this, the child grimaces, thrusting herself forward and against her mother’s form once more. Herrah sighs, but the sound holds no irritation. The White Lady has seen her bring her daughter to countless meetings, but she presumes that this is a conversation she does not want her to hear. What a poor, innocent little being, entirely unaware she has barged in on her mother planning her own death.

Something turns in her chest, and she is speaking before she realizes.

“I can take her,” she says, and all eyes move from the small figure to herself. Herrah turns to her in surprise, while the other two dreamers exchange an uncertain glance. The Pale King looks at her with wariness in his eyes.

“Are you certain?” he asks. She is not at all, but she folds her hands in front of her and nods, ever the image of perfection.

Herrah returns her nod. She gathers the child in her arms, before depositing her in hers. The little one lets out a protesting cry, but it dies as her mother caresses the side of her mask.

“I’ll be done soon, Love,” she murmurs, before shifting her attention.

“You have my gratitude,” she says, “and my apologies.”

“It is no matter,” the Lady responds. This small favor might be the one that wrecks her.

The child struggles against her, small black limbs thrashing in vain against her shoulders, until the voices fade and she falls limp, resigned. She can feel the frustration boiling behind the creature’s tiny forehead.

The Lady places a hesitating hand on the child’s back. She curls up, small and soft and fragile in her arms, and she can feel her shift against them as she breathes: in, and out; in, and out.

She is good with children. A cruelest twist of irony.

As she retraces her steps through the halls, she pauses underneath the hidden entrance. The small, sparsely decorated nursery, which she had had constructed without the knowledge of anyone. Even him. The cradle sits empty, gathering dust.

She moves past the entrance, bringing the child to her own quarters.

This corner of the palace is, perhaps, the most alive out of anything within its walls. Creeping vines cover the walls and hang from the ceiling. Moss lines the dirt-dusted floor. As she crosses the threshold into the room, the child turns, eyes wide with wonder. She would not have seen this room before; few are granted access.

The White Lady releases her, taking care to stand in front of the door should she try to return to her mother—but she doesn’t, curiosity getting the best of her as she scurried around the small haven. The Lady relaxes, folding her hands in front of her once more.

Why has she brought the child here? She should’ve returned her to her nursemaid. The poor woman must be filled with dread, searching every corner for the only child of Hallownest.

And yet, she doesn’t move from her post at the door, eyes fixed on the small figure scuttering to and fro across the decorated floor. She examines the moss clumping in the corners, and attempts to pull down the vines. She stares with awe-filled eyes at a flower that has begun to bloom in the corner.

Eventually, she tires of her exploration, and runs back to her roots, small, muddied claws extended toward her.

And oh, she is so weak.

The White Lady lifts her up off the ground, paying no heed to the dark stains now streaked across her clean white clothing. She doesn’t move to stop the child as she crawled up to her shoulder, leaving dark footsteps in her wake. She doesn’t speak a word as she climbs into her branches, humming to herself.

She doesn’t speak a word, tears trailing quietly down the sides of her face.

_____

The meeting lasts for nearly another hour. The White Lady returns with the child, and she jumps back into her mother’s arms without the slightest hint of hesitation. She does not even look back at her as the two of them leave the room.

The Lady is left standing still in the throne room, little dark stains trailing up her dress and all around her branches.

Her husband clears his throat. The wariness has not left his eyes.

“Come,” he says quietly, “let’s get you cleaned up.”

_____

She sits atop the bed, eyes fixed lazily on the lumafly lantern illuminating the corner. The fly trapped within flits around within the confines of the orb, dancing this way and that. The walls are draped with vines, yet no moss lines the floor—this room is not hers alone, and it would not be fitting nor practical to dirty the white walls and floors with dirt.

Her husband is off elsewhere in the palace, training with his Pure Vessel. It has grown significantly the past few years, nearing its matured form. There is little time left before it will be called to fulfill its duty, its purpose.

She has already washed herself, dark stains removed from her immaculate figure. Her dress has been tossed to the servants, replaced with a simple, more comfortable gown. She has spent the last hour arranging her branches as she did in her youth, obsessed with the way they twisted one way or another. She is no longer obsessed, but the time has left her with nothing much to do. Unlike the Vessel, she has already fulfilled her purpose.

The door opens, and she turns her head to see him in the doorway, murmuring a few words to the Vessel. It has to bend down to watch him, limbs and face grown long, but it still has the same sort of horns, the same dark, void-infused eyes. Its mask is still the same bright white, the same as its father’s, the same as the little spider’s.

It turns from the opening, and he shuts the door behind it.

“Just a moment, my dear,” he says, his voice laced with fatigue. “I am sorry about the hour, I just…” He does not bother to finish his thought, having disappeared into the adjoining room to wash and dress for bed. She doesn’t think much of it; it is not the first time he’d worked late into the night preparing the Vessel, or doing research in his study, or meeting with some important figure or other. It is a small price to pay for the salvation of Hallownest; perhaps one of the few sacrifices she can yet offer.

In a few minutes he returns, slipping wordlessly into bed next to her, all curled up and spent from the day’s efforts. And a day it has been. She lays herself down, sapphire-blue eyes gazing up at the trapped fly. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the vines draping down the walls, and down in the shadows she can almost see tiny claws pulling at them.

She closes her eyes, letting out a trembling breath.

“Are you alright, Root?” Her husband murmurs faintly, a question he wouldn’t ask if he didn’t already know the answer. She lets out a soft, noncommittal hum in reply.

A quiet sigh is released from his form. He is turned away from her, but as she glances, she can still see it leave his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, love. I should have said something.”

Confusion furrows her brow. “Said what?”

“I don’t know. Something…” He sighs again. “You shouldn’t have had to look after the child, if you did not wish to.”

Did she wish to? She stares blankly at the ceiling. She had offered, yes, but only because her aid was needed. There was no desire involved, no hidden sense of wanting.

She nearly laughed at her own thoughts.

“It is alright,” she whispers into the stillness of the room. “I didn’t mind.”

He shifts a little. “Was she hard to care for?”

She shakes her head. “Not at all.”

“She can be quite the little troublemaker.”

And now the little one is consuming her thoughts, little claws all over the walls of the room, feet pattering all over the moss-covered floor. Minute limbs climbing up, leaving dark streaks along her dress, a tiny body nestled in her branches, giggling to herself.

The laughter ceasing once she began to tremble, tears falling, unbidden, down the curve of her chin. The little one climbing down to her shoulder, down into her arms, and reaching up, claws brushing her face.

“Why?” the child demanded, confusion and compassion swirling in her eyes. “No cry!”

“Root?” Her husband’s voice is far away, soft and distant. Concern is slipping through the tiredness. “Root, you’re crying.”

And she is, tears pooling in her eyes for the second time that day. But this time, there is no little one to care for, no attendants lined up in the hallway, no visitors in the throne room. There is no one to impress, and she has reached her limit. And the tears come in gasping sobs, leaving her a breathless, pathetic mess.

“Oh, love.” And he is at her side, no longer turned away, and she curls herself around him. She buries her face into his shoulder and weeps, tears dampening the sheets around them, and he wraps his arms around her and holds her tight.

Eventually, she is spent. Eventually, the tears subside, and she is left whimpering, her throat raw and her face numb.

He pulls back slightly, worried eyes scanning her features.

“I’m alright,” she says, a slight rasp in her voice. “I—I’m alright.”

He begins to nod slowly, before rapidly shaking his head. She lets out a shaky breath, pulling him close to her again. He reaches up to her branches, running his hand down to her face.

There is no comfort in the gesture save familiarity. The warmth she knows; the consolation she is supposed to feel. She remembers the comfort, back from when she was naive, when she played with her branches and the folds of her skirt. She remembers him holding her face in her hands and the need for such frivolity melting away. She remembers feeling for the first time that she wasn’t strong, and it was a blessed feeling, because she did not have to be when she already had everything she loved in her hands and the hope—the promise—of everything better yet to come.

It has been a long time since then.

She closes her eyes.

“Can I ask you a favor?” she whispers.

“Of course.” He holds her tighter. “Anything.”

She is weak.

Her throat is still raw.

“Can we pretend?”

He studies her face again. “What?”

She exhales. “Can we pretend, for a moment, that none of this is happening?”

He stares at her. It is a lost cause, she knows. He is a practical man, and this will not do either of them good. It could be worse than what she has already done, holding the Daughter of Hallownest in her arms and pretending she is her own.

But he must be weak, too, for he looks at her with thinly-veiled pain in his eyes and nods.

For a moment, both of them are silent. It has been years since she has broken into the unhatched egg of fantasies, hopes for her family she’d harbored within her since she was young. For him, she figures, it must be similar. It has been painfully long since they have wished anything for themselves, anything beyond the survival of their home and people. And even that seemed too much to ask for.

He finally clears his throat.

“I am sorry,” he says, “that I returned late. There was an unusually long line outside today, and the people would not rest until I’d heard of their plights.”

A smile tugs at her lips. He has not heard the peoples’ cases in years, not since they had melded into one indistinguishable cry calling, begging for a cure to the mind-holding infection.

“It is alright, love,” she replies, fingers resting on his chin. “It’s been nice to have some time to myself, after the business of the day.” She has had all the time in the world, and far too much of it to herself.

“Mm.” He nuzzled his face into her shoulder, and she closed her eyes, leaning into the touch. “This day has been a bit much.”

“I was able to spend some time tending to my garden. The flowers are just beginning to blossom.”

“That does sound lovely, my dear Root.”

“I should have brought some back to the palace.” She holds her breath, knowing what she wants most of all, yet is the most afraid to speak. She shoves away her fears, forcing them beneath her hold as she adds, “the little one loves them.”

He stiffens at that, but nods with a shuddering breath. “I saw it—him—playing with the flowers you planted outside.”

“Did you?” Her heart quickens. She feels about to collapse from the muchness of it all. “I thought them quite dull. They’re much smaller than I meant for them to be.”

“Nonsense. They all think they’re beautiful.”

“All?” she breathes.

He nods, and tears fill her eyes once more. Not much longer, she thinks, but she knows it will never be. When the plan is complete, she will be left irreparably damaged. She will not be able to see a child of hers without seeing the blank expression of the Vessel, or the shells of their first brood, broken in her hands, unable to withstand the void dwelling within them.

Her heart, now filled, aches thrice as much as before. And yet, she sees them in her mind, their little feet pattering across the plain palace halls, filling up the cavernous rooms and the empty cradle. They climb within her branches, and sit in her hands and hold her face when she cries. It pulls at her chest as if to unwind her. And yet, she is grateful.

_____

There is, she realizes now, one sacrifice she has yet to make. It may be the hardest one of all, for she knows what it means. It is to lock herself away in a prison of her own making, for him to the same. It is closing the door, letting the unhatched egg fall broken on the floor. She holds it close to her heart, seeing everything that she has ever wanted, and will never be.

The door, she knows, has already been closed.

The goddess moves through her garden in slow, graceful strides.

A cruelest twist of irony.

_____

And the stench of the sea

and the absence of green

Are the death of all things

That are seen and unseen

Not an end, but the start of all things

That are left to do