The final version of her project was about to fail terribly. Everything was going to fall to pieces, Paperhall was going to excommunicate her, and worst of all, her Orb Mother was going to be disappointed in her.

One giant, spindly Spiderleg, extending from the cephalothorax of her Chitin, descended closer to the drifting, frayed silk end of her project’s Weave, and pressed it into the node, then snipped the excess. She flexed the three prongs at the terminus of the limb before retracting it and folding it into her Chitin.

Never mind, she thought, her fears temporarily mollified. She plucked a thin, tapered stick of carapace from her desk, dipped it in a shallow bowl of ink, and wrote down her notes in a broad, thick-papered book.

Much of the page was already covered in her jagged, spiky script - undecipherable to any but her, just in case. Others called it paranoia, she called it insurance.

“Iyojin!” A throaty chuckle followed her name, as one of her fellow students strolled in, sliding open the hexagonal paper door before bothering to knock. “I thought I might find you here!”

“Gihan,” Iyojin muttered in response, turning her head slightly so that her peripheral eyes had a better view of him.

She began the process of putting away her project in its nutrient bath, pouring a few droplets of Apex Honey into the viscous soup, and sealing the lid to avoid contaminants. Then she lifted the chitinous hexagonal prism - despite appearing almost as thick around as her torso, and nearly as tall as Iyojin herself - and slid it into the grid set into her wall, alongside her previous projects.

Only once finished did she turn to the interloper, whose pleasant, roguish smile had not faded into the intervening minutes.

“How fares the lovely lady this fine evening?” he asked, raising one elegant eyebrow and leaning further into her laboratory.

“Well,” she replied, and busied herself with setting her Weaver Chitin to its nutrient dock.

The exoskeleton’s inner mechanisms unclasped with a thought, freeing her right arm to reach up and disconnect the Bridging Thread from the nape of her neck. As usual, the disconnect of the Chitin from her nervous system came as a sudden jolt of bodily dysphoria, which rapidly faded as she extracted herself from the carapace suit. She connected the Bridging Thread, a band of woven silk no thicker than her little finger, to the bulky rope of Mother Thread that passed through the back of her lab, crossing from one wall of the room to the other.

“Glad to hear it,” Gihan remarked cheerfully. “Especially as it seems you are now done for the day. Perhaps you’d like to join me for a trip downtown? I hear Kagino’s has a pair of ex-Executors on the bill tonight. Should be an exhilarating match - might spark some inspiration, no?”

Iyojin took a moment to consider it seriously. In truth, she cared little for Gihan’s repeated attempts to socialise her - it took time and mental effort away from her projects, from the Paperhall, and so was ultimately fairly wasteful. He did, however, make a good point - her project’s aim was combat viability, rather than industrial functionality, and seeing two actual Executors doing battle could help point out some flaws in her project.

The point was unfortunately moot. She had a meeting with her Orb Mother shortly, to discuss her scholastic career, and nothing was going to interrupt that.

“I’m busy,” she replied instead, and gathered up her notebook, sliding it into the woven paper basket that contained her day-to-day essentials, before slinging the whole thing across one shoulder.

Gihan’s expression quirked momentarily downward into an expression of annoyance, but his cheerful grin quickly reasserted itself.

“Next time, then!” he announced, nodding and stepping aside to allow her exit. Iyojin said nothing in response, merely closed the door to her lab and set off towards the office of her Orb Mother.

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Paperhall was a hive of activity. She was fortunately already promised at least six months further residence in the college, but initiates were scrambling to find research worthy of pursuit, projects that would earn them at least temporary lodging.

Each hexagonal paper door she passed was still lit from the inside by glowlamps, indicating her fellow students laboriously toiling over their personal projects. As she wound her way up the spiralling corridor, the labs gradually gave way to dormitories, classrooms, testing facilities, and finally offices at the very top of the Paperhall.

She knew her Orb Mother’s office location off by heart, now. She had been responsible for Iyojin for the past eight years, and whilst she herself had been shuttled to various classrooms and departments over that time, her Orb Mother had remained stationary. She felt like an anchor to Iyojin, especially now, when it somehow felt like her entire purpose in life - up until now, at least - was coming to its climax.

She very pointedly did not try to think about what would come next.

When Iyojin had first entered the Paperhall, simply a child from aboveground who had displayed some talent, she had been assigned her Orb Mother as supervisor, alongside seven others. Over the years they had dropped out, joined the Executors, or found employment elsewhere in Swarm Cradle.

Only she had remained, fascinated by the art of Weaving and the beautiful works it could create.

Iyojin finally came to a stop, just outside of her Orb Mother’s office. Painted in strident black ink on her paper door was her name, in the ancestral script of Swarm Cradle. Literally interpreted, it read as ‘Graven Queen,’ but sounded out it said simply, ‘Yatsuki.’

Iyojin knocked on the wooden frame of the paper door, and waited until she heard her Orb Mother’s soft voice say, ‘come in.’ She slid open the door frame and entered, waited for the woman to indicate a seat, and sat.

Yatsuki was still in her Weaver Chitin, a far more specialized exoskeleton than Iyojin’s department-issued suit. The woman had built and now maintained her Chitin herself, with an extended Spinneret and branching Spiderlegs. Even now, two dextrous limbs were spooling out silk, and two were putting away whatever notes she had been writing.

Now, she sat across from Iyojin with nearly-undivided attention, eight Chitin eyes peering at her with blank, empty stares.

Iyojin calmly waited, tucking one strand of long black hair behind her ear as she did so. One Spiderleg on her Orb Mother’s Chitin finally snipped the strand of silk and carefully wound it around a spear, the point of which appeared to be a Titan Wasp’s Sting.

“Apologies,” Yatsuki finally said, disengaging the custom Spinneret and settling into her chair. “Necessary maintenance, I’m afraid. Your project’s deadline is in six months. How do you feel it has been going, so far?”

“Well,” Iyojin said. “The Weave is approaching completion. I’m confident the working prototype will be finished in four months.”

Inwardly, she found herself shocked at her own words. She had no such confidence - problems kept cropping up left and right, and though she could apply temporary fixes, she was growing increasingly worried that her project was fundamentally flawed.

But she simply couldn’t say that-- not to Yatsuki, not to the woman who had been her inspiration for more than half of her life, who had practically raised her. It would be tantamount to admitting that the woman had wasted all those years on her - and Iyojin would never waste her Orb Mother’s time.

“Excellent,” she replied. “Your last report generated a significant amount of interest in Paperhall’s directorial council. I’ve fended them off for now - I know how irritating an interfering administrator can be - but I want you to know that you shouldn’t be worried about what comes next. You will have options.”

“Thank you, Weaver Yatsuki,” Iyojin said, and bowed her head slightly. Her stomach churned, so intensely that she felt for a moment it must have been audible.

I will have options… Provided my final project works. Provided I haven’t actually wasted the last eight years of my life. Provided I actually had any talent.

“We can discuss those options now, if you would like?” Yatsuki continued, apparently oblivious to Iyojin’s inner turmoil.

“Apologies, I’m too focused on my project at the moment,” Iyojin replied. “Once I have the final pattern Woven, and only the tedious parts remain, I would be grateful for any help you could give me.”

“Of course,” Yatsuki nodded. “Well, then a successful meeting. Thank you for coming, Weaver Iyojin.”

Being addressed as such by her Orb Mother should have ignited a spark of pride in her. She hadn’t graduated yet, but for the Graven Queen to express such was incomparable praise. Instead, all she felt was a yawning pit opening in her stomach.

“Thank you for having me, Weaver Yatsuki,” she said, then stood, bowed, and left the room. Once she had slid the paper door closed behind her, it was all she could do not to bolt to the nearest washroom and empty her stomach into a disposal chute.