• An addendum to Rule 3 regarding fan-translated works of things such as Web Novels has been made. Please see here for details.
  • We've issued a clarification on our policy on AI-generated work.
  • Our mod selection process has completed. Please welcome our new moderators.
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
  • The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.

The Red Maidens Refuge (OUAT/Hollow Knight: Silksong)

Created
Status
Incomplete
Watchers
12
Recent readers
101

The last survivors of Pharloom find themselves refugees in a land of strange and unusual creatures with strange powers. Storybrooke, Maine. Unforunately not all the arrivals are harmless...
Chapter 1: Threads across Worlds New

FireWalkWithMe99

Getting sticky.
Joined
Jun 10, 2023
Messages
71
Likes received
457
PINSTRESS


The boy bleeds beautifully.

Not much Pinstress has been careful but enough that the strange pale claw shaped light above catches it, dark against his cloth collar. The man beside him older, scarred, some kind of warrior by his stance has better instincts. He's already moved his metal claw to shield the child, the other claw looked considerably different and unusual but held a weapon drawn that reminded her most of the god slayers needle but also shared reminiscence with her own pin draw eyes tracking her position in the branches above.

Good. She was worried this world would be boring.

Pinstress shifts her weight, blue silk rustling against this lands strange version of shellwood. Nine silver pins left on her person. She could end this in seconds drop, strike, jump back into the canopy before the man's body hit the ground. The boy would run. Or freeze. Either way, she'd have time to find where they're keeping Seamstress.

But there's no rush. Not really. And it's been so long since she's had a proper fight.

"You took something of mine," she calls down, voice carrying that particular musical quality all the Pin Sisters share or shared, before the Citadel consumed most of them. Before everything ended. "I'm going to need it back."

The man's grip tightens on his blade. "We found an injured woman with a cloak similar to yours in the woods. We're helping her."

"How noble." Pinstress drops from the branch, lands in a crouch ten feet away. Close enough to see their faces clearly. Far enough to appreciate the man's protective instinct as he angles himself between her and the boy. "And if I told you that woman is my sister? That I watched your kind carry her away while she was unconscious and defenseless?"

She doesn't mention that she could have intervened then. That she chose to follow instead, to observe, to wait as a predator was meant to.

The boy brave or foolish, she hasn't decided peers around the man's shoulder. "We weren't hurting her! Grandma and Grandpa are probably helping her right now, back in town—"

"Henry, quiet," the man Killian, she'd heard the boy call him murmurs. His eyes never leave Pinstress. Good instincts, but they won't save him. Nothing will, if she decides they're threats.

And part of her wants them to be threats. Wants the justification, to feel her pins punch through leather and flesh, dance through their defenses the way she and her sisters used to dance through the Citadel's halls when everything was blood and silk and purpose.

Gods, she misses purpose.

"Tell me where she is," Pinstress says, hunger for battle creeping into her own voice. "and maybe I let you keep your tendons intact."

Killian's eyes set then shifting his strange yet familiar weapon shifting into a guarded position.

Oh.

Pinstress smiles behind her mask.

Finally…












Some time earlier..

KARMELITA


The day the old god of Pharloom well and truly fell, not just bent or broke but ended and replaced. Hornet a half pale/half weaver being she briefly heard mention of some weeks back from some of her Skarr gard and stalkers.

Apparently the rare bug proved herself in combat to many of her lesser soldiers and even dealt with the annoying fly that invaded the chapel. That very same bug that had the briefest of dalliances in her domain became Hornet the Godkiller and now stood in the ruins of what had been perhaps the Citadel's greatest secret and made a choice.

It wasn't the choice anyone expected, growing used to the Citadel antics and some bugs such as Karmelita herself still recalling the weavers similarly profane rule, though that had been marginally more tolerable than what came after. At least the Weavers had understood strength. The Citadel understood only control.

The newborn god freed the old persecuted groups first: the Craws, the Underworks workers, her very own Skarrs who'd hunted many bug but themselves have been hunted for their shells. Even the Pin Sisters, for all that remained of their long defunct and slowly massacred order.

And somehow, inexplicably, the new god had offered bugs of the dreaded High Halls clemency too. Those who'd spent centuries conquering and encroaching on kingdoms of old, hoarding arcane secrets while Pharloom rotted from within.

Moments like these were rare for Karmelita. Rare was any ruler so... accommodating.

The Crust King certainly hadn't been. The Green Princes were amicable enough, but only due to their complete lack of ambition which Karmelita found almost more pathetic than outright hostility. At least conquerors had drive.

She herself had no plans to expand Skarr territory beyond perhaps a few more patches of the Far Fields and the docks. But that was caution born of age. The bug she was grooming to take her place when her inevitable end came that one had a conqueror's soul. Perhaps if training continued apace, they'd reach something approaching Karmelita's own glory days. Then perhaps this new pale one of Pharloom could prove less of a thorn in their side.

Conquering the Citadel had been a consideration, though not one she'd dwelt on long. Too much work. Gold was not a color for the Skarrsinger it was the color of lesser bugs, not a proper Skarr. It would take another age to redesign the whole cursed place in bone instead of glittering stone.

If only those Conductor upstarts had kept with their initial noble intentions. But no like most bugs of weak-shells, they'd fallen to greed. Not greed for combat or skill, but for mystique, image and currency.

Such boring proclivities.

Karmelita's thoughts on the new found freedom they gained suddenly weighted on her for time.











A time too brief as it turned it did not last long, just as the training of her replacement was coming along a few months later. A shake was felt and an announcement was divinely conveyed.. Not through the old worn speaker system of the citadel but the very silk that existed in near every corner of this land… even hers unfortunately… Void has taken the new god but she was using the last of her strength before the void trap consumed her to provide a portal to somewhere safe.


Snail Shamans, for all their supposed ancient wisdom, couldn't accept a pale god whether freed or ruled. Their device centuries in the making, fueled by soul essence had sprung the trap before anyone realized what was happening.


Though not before the portals were set.

One of those portals opened inside Karmelita's own chambers. Whether by design or chance, she never learned. It was… strange that this god Hornet would deem the Skarr worthy of sanctuary. Especially given her history in these lands.

Perhaps it was a trick. Perhaps the child god misjudged. Even mighty beasts erred. There certainly was a chance it was a ruse or even that the new adolescent god was mistaken "Tunnels know the Silken Beast before made her fair share of blunders, The Mother would not end up trapped and betrayed by her own kind and the punier bugs that came after if not".


Yet Karmelita was a Skarr and would not be going alone… besides even her own will didn't seem to be keeping the tunnels of her domain stable anymore. The strange force consuming their god of temperance was too powerful to resist. Karmelita's people would die here. Her successor would die here if she did not go and who knows perhaps in this new land there would be all the better creatures to hunt and strike claws with.


As if sensing the once great queen's own thoughts, the voice of the child god spoke:


Go, it had echoed, already more void than god. I sense safety beyond. Go.

What other choice was there?

Remain in a world collapsing under the weight of its dying god… or step into the unknown and hope it held mercy.












EMMA


A strange singing cut through the quiet of Storybrooke's main street along with a relatively annoying banging that sounded somewhere between symbols and bells.

Emma Swan stopped mid-stride outside Granny's Diner, one hand instinctively going to her hip where her gun usually sat. Beside her, Regina Mills had already conjured a fireball, purple flames dancing between her fingers.

"What the hell is that?" Emma breathed.


Emma saw a portal come into being not like the time portal her and Killian were forced into not even a few days prior nor the portals shes experienced from magic beans. But one that was nearly pure white and seemingly physically.. It reflected off the evening sun in a way that reminded her a bit of spider webs as strange as the thought was but it felt right. The portal being in the middle of town was strange enough but the person… or thing that came out of it even stranger.

The creature and it was a magical creature wasn't it? Stood perhaps three feet tall in the middle of the street, rotund somewhat chitinous body though a triangular top to its head, a white cloak gleaming a pale yellow in the evening sun. Vaguely humanoid bipedal two arms, a head of sorts though certainly not human. The face was a smooth shell-like mask, and from its hands? No hooks or claws? Held what looked like metal weapons, a coppery gold vase shaped bludgeon and a rapier that was in the style of a sewing needle… as strange as that was. Though it was using neither tool for its intended purpose but instead clanging them like symbols.

And it was singing. Singing in a tune that sounded vaguely familiar though slightly off. Its voice sounded young, though she could not be certain. Continued to sing melodic and strange lyrics completely unconcerned with the small crowd of bug-like beings also wearing robes huddled behind it, similarly alien, equally here in the middle of her town.

The creature, despite every eye on this side of storybrooke glued to it, was utterly unfazed. Continue to clank happily along with its song, weaponlike instruments ringing like the world's strangest street performer.

Emma blinked at it. Once, thrice, she lost count. Her brain politely tried to file this under "normal weird Storybrooke thing," but the system stalled somewhere between bug monk and festive alien.

Finally, the words clicked.


"Praise the Red and shining maaaai-den,

Weaver bold of thread and fate!

Through the dark she cut a paaath,

Opened us a shining gate!"



Oh God. She realized finally It sounded like… Christmas music.

If Christmas music had been rewritten by a very cheerful off key doomsday prophet.

She glanced at the others strange beings behind the "singer". Most of them were robed in similar white cloth, and all of them seemed filled with nerves. Some looked around anxiously. One rubbed at its temple like it had a headache. Two exchanged a look that read "we have no idea whats going on?" And one very small one seemed to be seriously reconsidering all of its life choices.

Emma snorted. Great, the aliens were also embarrassed.

Regina's fireball flared hotter beside her, snapping Emma out of the daze.

"I ought to.."

"Wait." Emma held up a hand. Because despite the wrongness of it all, the creature wasn't attacking. Just singing, and occasionally striking one of its instrument-limbs, sending discordant notes echoing off storefronts.

Because that definitely made sense

Mary Margaret and David came sprinting up, weapons drawn. Behind them, townspeople gathered in clusters whether scared or simply as confused as she, the savior couldn't say.

The creature's song cut off abruptly. Its head tilted, regarding them with whatever passed for eyes behind that pale mask.

"Oh!" The voice was bright, almost childlike in its enthusiasm. "Hello! You are the peoples of this land, yes? We are most grateful for refuge you provide, even if you did not know you were providing it!"

Another clang as it struck its rapier with the vase, clearly pleased.

Regina's eye twitched. "Stop doing that!"

"Ah, apologies!" The creature he? She? performed what might have been a bow. "I am Sherma, of the Citadel, Sanctuary Guardian of these pilgrims of Songclave. We are refugees, you see. Our land of Pharloom... it breaks. It broke. Shermas friend, Red Maiden she who killed gods and became god—she took pity on us in her final moments. Used the last of her pale influence before the Snail Shamans' trap consumed her, opened portals across our dying kingdom."

The casual and confusing way they (no he Emma finally decided something about the voice) described god-killing made her uncomfortable granted to many Peter Pan and even the Wicked Witch may be considered gods… so why is that so hard for her to stomach

"So you're saying," David said slowly, "there are more of you? More portals?"

"Oh yes!" Sherma struck another chime. "Many portals! Across Pharloom. Blasted Steps, the Underworks, Marrow, Moss, Moor, March, —all places good life remained, Red Maiden opened doors. Safety, she promised. Though..." He tilted his head again. "She did not specify what safety, or where. Only that she sensed it beyond."

Emma exchanged a look with her parents. Refugees from a dying world, scattered across... what, the town, or woods around Storybrooke? God, how many?

Emma let out a breath that hopefully would subside the headache that started to grow within as she looked at Regina who seemed to be in an even worse state than she was a moment prior.

Storybrooke really needed a handbook for this kind of thing.







A.N. This is meant to be more comedic than anything honestly. Just kind of was a fun little idea, wanted to go a different route than post act 3 or even post act 2. But moreso what if act 3 happened but after hornet took the place of GMS. and lets assume hornet would be a mostly chill benevolent god (despite some believing she'd be corrupted by power there are examples such as UNN of chill pale beings)

Also if I would continue this tale I wanted to mention I'd probably ignore some elements of ouat canon like given nothing really comes of the Marian twist at the end of season 3 beyond some stalling on relationships. Im decidedly removing that element of canon also the queens of darkness and author storyline, though the frozen plotline I debate on keeping (mainly cause if I would eventually get to a point where the characters can return to pharloom I think itd be interesting to have some fire, ice and light weilding human mages around to help) But again not sure how far i'd take this. It was certainly a fun idea though.

Love to hear reader thoughts
 
Last edited:
I'm afraid I can't read any of this. The font is in white making very hard to read.

I see the chapter has been edited but I'm sorry to say that the problem has persisted, at least on my phone.


Hmm strange it shouldn't have a set color at all it has no hex number when i checked. Weirdly this issue popped up with an update to another story i posted earlier this month wonder why. Never had the issue before disappointing as well. Since I enjoy feedback and thoughts.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top