While I'm Preparing All The Art For The Main Worlds I'm Working On Right Now, Take This!

them

(plus a wingless Angler under the cut because.)

Hive Awakening

so I wrote hive knight fanfiction

(Under the cut, it’s relatively short but I still like it enough to post, takes place post-Embrace the Void)

The Old Light... was fading.

My Queen.

She stood there at a kingdom’s heart, arms crossed in eternal rest. Stood, watching over her beloved Hive just as she had been since...

She had been there for far too long. Uncountable days, him staring up at her in wonder, him reporting whatever notable feat had been accomplished (of which there weren't many, the bees were tense and more restless than ever, though the stasis Hallownest has fallen into in recent times impacted even the ones who wished separation from it), holding one claw raised in a salute as if nothing had changed, him resting by her side and wondering when her dreamless sleep would end...

But the golden heresy seeping into the corners of his mind and vision had left him.

And his thoughts were only his own again, whispers of forgotten light gone now and forever, and he'd had to admit it. The Queen... Queen Vespa, the one he had waited to protect for so long, it was all for nothing, for she was dead. 

Some part of him knew. The same part that had already given up. But he wouldn't, not when he and his kin were dependent on her return. Not when there was a threat to their colony, a pale little wanderer bearing a silvered nail…

He hadn't heard from it in some time. It held no significance now.

With her unmoving form revealed a corpse, the Knight of the Hive couldn't bring himself to stay any longer. It'd be some form of torture, keeping the reminder of his failure fresh in his mind.

He needed to leave.

How could he? That would be the most selfish thing he'd ever done, leaving the Hive in disarray without their most skilled knight to figure out what in the Queen's name they were supposed to do now. He was her protector, though almost equally her second-hand. Every worker had their own part to play in keeping their Hive strong (though it was easy enough to hide from a citizen of Hallownest, it was obvious to those who shared his blood that his duty was not one of a drone), and the Hivelings were content with carrying out short tasks while the rank of a Soldier or Guardian called for their unwavering loyalty, defense for their weaker kin. The Hive Knight was Queen Vespa's closest thing to a diplomat. He wasn't occupied with anything other than the promise of cutting down any foe who'd dare to hurt their dear Queen, leaving him free to be granted the highest honor of the more important work, that which concerned Vespa herself.

The thought of him now being...possibly the most important living bee in the Hive by any standard at all was one that hurt almost physically, seemed to leave a pain in his thorax to wonder, considering what he had to lose.

The most important...

Queen Vespa could produce no more heirs, a fact that should go without saying as of her status. New adults were emerging slower than ever, and the number of eggs was gradually dwindling as more were raised to replace them.

A Queen, in her youth, is no different than a worker. A royal diet is all she needs.

If the Hive were to survive, a new queen must save them.

The Knight sat up. He offered one last, pained and prolonged goodbye to the Queen he'd been willing to lay down his life for.

It had been a while since he'd left her chamber. Longer than usual by...what must've been a few days, a few weeks even, he couldn't judge. The warmth and droning buzz of his sisters' wings comforted him, calmed his tumultuous mind. A Hiveling quickly accompanied him, brushing her soft setae against his own, smelling of honey and... and lacking something else.

The orange haze seemed to have lifted.

The radiant sickly-sweetness of Hallownest's blight no longer bombarded his senses upon his departure from the Heart of the Hive, leaving only traces of what once was.

He whispered a command to the Hiveling, who drew her antennae down in a brief nod, before taking off.

Perhaps the Hive would be alright without him.

Perhaps, he would wander. He would return to serve the new Queen, wouldn't he? The Knight's allegiance lasted longer than the reign of one ruler.

Perhaps Vespa was wrong, and the Hive would not be killed so quickly.

Ok so this is one of the coolest sketches I've ever made

Attempted to draw some Nosks, but ended up getting sidetracked drawing Caramel's sisters instead so that's the post now

Lotus!

Whether she counts as my character is kind of...unclear, as I designed her appearance, her parent, and the AU they live in, yet I didn't play the character and develop her personality.

Whatever.

^^also featuring that one "When Mama Isn't Home" meme

Lotus is the god of Chaos, child of the gods of light and dark, daughter of Mosaïkó. She takes her title seriously, but her power not so much.

i put “All I Want for Christmas is You” through a MIDI converter, and then back through an mp3 converter

the result is this garbage

[Start ID. A neat collage of twelve drawings, titled Peridots' Year In Review: Art of 2022. Each one is the favorite drawing made in a particular month. End ID]

A few days late like last time and a couple of these were on the previous post, but here's my art summary for the year :]

x / x / x / x

x / x / x / x

x / x / x / x

I feel like I was supposed to post this earlier but I have an ArtFight

Pan dress

so for pride month im drawing some of my characters in pride dresses hehe, I started with Aaltt becuase people wanted me to do him first.