Hornet moved deeper into Deepnest, away from the Mantis Village, accompanied by three bees and one Fool. Thankfully, none of them had caused trouble while staying in the Mantis Village during her trip to see the Undercourt, though the Crusher had apparently sparred with a few of the mantises. He was still alive, that was all that Hornet cared about.

During the retrieval of her companions, Quan had attempted to intimidate her. The much taller mantis had stepped into Hornet's space, stared her down, and told her that she was welcome back in the Village anytime.

Hornet had glared back just as readily and responded that she would be delighted to visit again. She knew how the game was played, and the mantis' attempt at doublespeak was honestly quite clumsy. Quan would have to try harder than that to assert her dominance.

A Dirtcarver popped up from the ground and dived at her, and Hornet lazily skewered it and threw it to the side. Dumb beasts. They never learned.

The motley crew continued, and soon they came to a pit that descended into lightless depths. Hornet stopped at the edge of the pit, and gestured to her companions.

"Alright. I know that Deepnest is unpleasant for those who aren't used to these environs, but we're almost to our destination. At the bottom of this pit is a hot spring, then it's just a quick journey to the tram station. We can rest while we're riding the tram, it's a lengthy trip. Then we'll stop off at the Hive, where I'll speak to what is left of the Bee Hivemind, and after that the only thing left is to climb to the Colosseum of Fools. Then our journey together will be complete."

None of Hornet's companions responded to that. The bees were clearly terrified of Deepnest, and the Crusher seldom spoke. Hornet felt slightly awkward at the silence, and just opted to jump into the pit and let herself freefall.

She still needed some practice at talking to other bugs. It had been a long time since she'd needed the ability to hold a conversation. Though, to be fair, her current companions weren't exactly up to the task.

Maybe she could practice with Hollow or Ogrim?

. . .

Rhondson sat at Fyson's market stall in the comforting warmth of the setting sun, her eyes closed. It was a new experience for her; in the Gerudo Desert, the sun was the enemy. It burned from on high in its place in the sky, and could easily be fatal if one was caught in the desert unprepared. Not that many Gerudo ever were unprepared, they were taught from childhood how to survive the desert, but still. The sun wasn't something to be enjoyed in her birthplace.

Here in Akkala though, the warmth was to be savored. Even though it was late spring, the mornings were colder than they were in the desert, sometimes even to the point where she found icicles hanging from her eaves. On otherwise tolerable days, the wind could bring a deep chill that stripped the warmth from her bones, and the rains were even worse. Rhondson both dreaded and anticipated what winter would bring.

Rhondson heard a rising murmur and opened her eyes to see what all the fuss was about. She froze upon seeing two bugs entering Tarrey Town, the one bug that she had first met and his...whatever she was. Wife? Sister? Mother? Clearly they were close, and Rhondson didn't much care to dwell on it.

The bugs looked around and (Din be cursed, of course they did) they immediately headed in her direction. Rhondson swallowed the instinctual surge of distaste and steeled herself. She may not like them, or trust them, but Tarrey Town was a tolerant, diverse community, and she'd give them a fair chance to prove themselves. Even if they were giant insects that made her skin crawl and used demon-damned mind magics.

The short male bug, who was around the same height as her husband, stood directly in front of the table, while the tall female bug, who was Moblin sized, stood behind him. Rhondson didn't miss that the tall bug had a good grip on the long, needle-like sword at her side, and Rhondson felt grudging approval.

"Yes?" Rhondson asked brusquely. She was giving them a chance, that didn't mean she had to be polite. Besides, it wasn't like they understood her words anyways.

The short bug reached into the satchel on his back and withdrew a roll of paper (it wasn't like any paper or parchment she was familiar with, too white and it didn't make any noise when he unrolled it). The paper was placed on an empty section of the market stall usually reserved for Rupee counting, and Rhondson leaned over to see it.

It was a drawing...of something. Lots of lines and doodles that she didn't recognize, some very strange symbols that almost looked like magic seals. So many rectangles connected together...Rhondson's eyes widened. It was a map! Of course, the kingdom was underground, it wouldn't make sense to have topographical maps like they used in Hyrule.

With that information, Rhondson began looking over the map with a fresh eye. The individual groupings of rectangles must be individual floors, then. Dotted lines connected different groupings together, signifying paths between floors. Rhondson spotted repeating symbols which looked rather like the houses in the bug village, possibly population centers.

Rhondson looked up at the silent bug who stood in front of the stall and arched an eyebrow.

"Yes, very nice. Is there a reason you're showing me a map?"

The bug reached down and tapped on the map and said "Ne meta'lo. Lu cherek, ema, hy'rool."

The bug then gestured around at the surrounding land, then reached into his satchel and retrieved another piece of paper. This one was blank. He tapped on the blank piece of paper and gestured to the surrounding land again.

It took another minute of pantomiming, but Rhondson thought she caught on. They wanted to buy or trade for a map of Hyrule. Well, giant bugs they may be, but they were also customers. Though...Fyson didn't sell maps. No one in town did, maps were preciously guarded things used mainly by travellers. The stable owners sold maps at a hefty price, but it was a half-days ride to either one of the Akkala stables from Tarrey Town.

Maybe she could tell the bugs to go buy one from the stable owners? That would be a difficult thing to get across with the language barrier. Rhondson thought about the problem, then snapped her fingers. The bugs looked intrigued by the gesture, and whispered to each other. Rhondson ignored them, and cupped her hands around her mouth.

"Granté, get over here, some bugs want a map of Hyrule!"

Rhondson heard a thump from Granté's nearby home and smirked. A few minutes later, the Sheikah emerged and enthusiastically bustled over to the market stall. Trust the egghead to have some spare maps lying around. Or maybe this was his only map and he was just that excited about trading with the bugs.

"Ah, excellent. Here we are. It's an older map, made during the Age of Burning Fields, but it should be fine for their purposes...oh my, what's this?" Granté leaned in to see the bug's map as the bug accepted the Hyrule map in turn. Both began to look them over and muttered to themselves. Rhondson tuned them out, and turned her attention to the tall bug.

The female had come around to stand at the market stall beside her companion and reached into her own satchel. She withdrew a pouch, and Rhondson heard it clinking.

"Corn'eefer, moden tib bada'ulana. Nes meet'allo se dala geo eneka, das hy'leen geo."

The bug's map was extracted from Granté's hands (with some protest from the Sheikah) and was placed on the table alongside the map of Hyrule. The short bug then placed a sheaf of other pieces of paper on top of the first paper, and from the looks of the topmost piece, they were all maps. There had to be at least a dozen of them in the stack.

The short bug tapped on the Hyrule map and said "Hy'rool? De'chakugan Hy'rool?"

Oh, he was saying Hyrule. Rhondson nodded. Yes, that was a map of Hyrule.

The short bug then tapped on the pile of maps and said "Hallo'nees. De'chakugan Halo'nees."
Granté squinted his eyes, then gasped.

"I think he's saying that that is a complete map of the kingdom!"

Rhondson blinked, then nodded. That made sense.

The tall bug then reached into her pouch and began to draw out something that definitely wasn't Rupees. Rhondson inspected them as they were either placed on top of the map pile or off to the side. They looked like some kind of shell, very organic in shape, but they were metallic and reflected the orange light of the setting sun quite enticingly. There were four different kinds that Rhondson could see coming out of the pouch; a small silver, a large silver, a small gold, and a large gold. Rhondson wondered if the small gold or the large silver was worth more.

The tall bug finished counting out her foreign currency, then gestured to the map of Hyrule.

"Hy'leen geo, dasada?"

Oh. That one was easy to parse.

Rhondson turned to Granté, who had already realized the same thing and was counting out Rupees on the table from his own pouch.

"Let's see...it's an older map, so not up to date, but it is colorized, and professionally made by Folin the Mapmaker before he died. Nice, durable parchment too. I'd say maybe...500?"

Rhondson shrugged and said "I don't know maps, but that sounds fair. Though, isn't it kinda unfair for them? They have a bunch of maps, and we have only one on our end."

Granté shrugged as well.

"I have no idea. We'll need to figure out an exchange rate, see if we have any mutual items to base it off of. Maybe food, that's always a good metric for value. However much the average bug eats in a day, calculated into their currency, versus however much the average Hyrulean eats in a day in Rupees. It won't be perfect, but it should come close."

Rhondson grunted and noticed that the short bug had picked up the single gold Rupee that Granté had put down, and he moved it over to the metal shells. He picked up a large gold shell and looked at them, then placed them down in their previous positions. He then picked up a small silver, and said "Inu geo." He held up one claw.

"Oh, of course. He's asking about denominations." Granté said, and he slid a green Rupee over the table and placed it in front of the short bug.

"One rupee."

The bug clapped his hands in delight and slid a large silver in front of him, then slid five small silvers into a line under it.

"Efai geo."

Granté, smiled splitting her face, repeated the gesture with a blue Rupee and five greens.

"Five rupees."

Rhondson watched with interest as this continued. The small golds (geo?) were apparently worth 25, while the large golds were worth 100. She did some quick math in her head. The pile of maps was worth 1300 (ten large golds, ten small golds, and ten large silvers. She wondered why the insistence on ten of each denomination. Maybe it was a cultural thing?).

They still had no real basis for knowing what that number meant though. Maps were rare in Hyrule, but they could be incredibly easy to make for the bugs. Rhondson turned to Granté, who was inspecting a large silver geo closely, and asked "Do you think the map of Hyrule is equivalent to their maps in value?"

Granté chewed on his lip for a moment before he said "They're well made. I'm not an expert, but I'd say it's a fair trade if we throw in a local map of Akkala. But, wait...are we trading, or buying?"

Rhondson considered the maps and the piles of money, and tapped her chin.

"I think it's our choice. They seem to consider the maps equivalent. So we could likely just trade them, without paying with Rupees. But it also might not be a bad idea to get our hands on some of their geo." Rhondson gestured at the shells and said "They've been here for two days now, and we're already trading. We're so close together, we're going to be trading in the future. In the future, we can work out a real exchange rate based on food like you said earlier."

Granté nodded in agreement, and he withdrew a map of Akkala and placed it on top of the map of Hyrule, then slid the gold Rupee and the two silver ones on top. He then added a purple Rupee and slid the entire thing over towards the bug. He gestured over the two piles of maps and money and stuck out his hand.

"Deal?"

The small bug looked at the hand, then gingerly reached out and grasped it with his claws. Granté shook twice, and the bugs studied the movement intensely.

"Agama."

The small bug picked up the four Rupees and handed them to his companion, then he picked up the maps and placed them into his satchel. Rhondson moved the geo over to where she sat and Granté grabbed the bug maps.

The two bugs then nodded to them and turned away. Their business in Tarrey Town was seemingly concluded.

Granté held the maps in his hands with an almost feverish glee, and he began walking away.

"Fascinating, so this connects to here...and this symbol looks like...is that a stag beetle head?"

Rhondson watched the Sheikah go with no little amusement, then turned to the pile of 1300 geo before her. What strange currency...but still, money was money, and it had been a worthy trade, in her opinion. And Granté had even walked off without collecting the money that he had earned for selling his own maps!

Rhondson chuckled as she began sweeping the geo into an empty pouch, and reminded herself to drop it off at Granté's house later.

No matter how much she kind of wanted to see how long it'd take him to realize that he'd never got his money.

. . .

Zelda was having dinner with Impa and Impa's granddaughter (Paya, and wasn't it strange to consider that her former friend had gotten married and had children) when Link returned. She exhaled, letting the coiled spring of worry that she'd held since he left relax. She didn't doubt Link's abilities, not at all, but she had come to care for her bodyguard (if she was being honest with herself, she did more than just care about him). These bugs were something new, something unexpected, and that could potentially be very dangerous.

But, Link looked unharmed, and not upset in any way, so things were probably fine.

"You took your time. It's nearly dark. Are you hungry?"

Link gave her a look at that, and she giggled. Link sat down on an available cushion on the floor and began filling up a plate with the food in the middle of the table.

Zelda kept her curiosity at bay as they all ate; this was not the time to hold a debrief, it would be quite rude, and if the situation was urgent, Link would have told her. However, the minute that Link leaned back and patted his stomach in contentment, Zelda leaned forwards.

"Link. What did you see?"

Link unhooked his Sheikah Slate and passed it to her.

{Look at these first, then I'll give my report.}

Zelda flicked through with growing wonder at the pictures within. It was all true. Bugs of all shapes and sizes, round, shell-like houses, and two new mountains in Akkala. This would be plenty of evidence to convince the Sheikah elders. Zelda also noted that Link had visited the bug village up close to take these pictures, which...didn't really surprise her.

Zelda passed the Slate around the table to Impa, who took it with a hum, though she kept an eye on Link as well as he began giving his report, hands flashy through signs rapidly.

{I studied the village, Dirtmouth, from afar before I went in, and I talked to the villagers in Tarrey Town who visited. They all had similar stories; that the bugs were unsettling, but hadn't attacked them, and seemed friendly. I determined that an up close look would be beneficial, and glided down. I was met by three bugs, community leaders of some sort, and assigned a guide. A very tall bug called the Hollow Knight, almost as tall as King Dorephan, one who could use some kind of psychic speech.}

Zelda blinked and asked "Mind magic? That's…"

{Illegal, yes, but it didn't feel like any mind magic I'd ever felt. They trained us to recognize and resist mental intrusion in the Knights. This didn't feel like that. This felt more like the voice I hear when I pray to Hylia, or your voice I heard when you were trapped in Hyrule Castle.}

Zelda squashed the old feeling of annoyance at Link being able to hear Hylia's voice so easily while she had tried for years with no success, and focused on his words.

"I see. Do you think this Hollow Knight is some form of divine or infernal being?"

{I don't have enough information to be sure. But they weren't like the other bugs. Their body seemed to be almost fluid, and it absorbed all of the light that hit it. Their body...honestly reminded me of the Malice of Ganon.}

Zelda scowled at that, and Link waved his hands.

{In appearance, not in evilness. The Hollow Knight was actually quite friendly. We talked about our kingdoms. Well…'talked'} Link put up air quotes around the sign.

Zelda rolled her eyes.

{They're the sibling of the current ruler, Hornet, and they're related though their father, White Monarch. I also got something about Hornet having a different mother, Angry Spider? Beastly Spider? Or something like that, their speech was difficult to parse. It was purely conceptual, no real emotion attached, and alien in a way I haven't felt before.}

Zelda steepled her fingers.

"Anything else?"

{They just got out of a similar situation to our own. Some ancient enemy, who's name for some reason translated as the Sun, was infecting their kingdom. She reanimated dead corpses and devastated their population. Apparently this ancient enemy was defeated just before they came here.}

The movement of Link's hands paused, then he signed {Tarrey Town residents reported a flash of light and an earthquake happened right before they discovered their new neighbors. I had originally thought they were talking about Ganon's defeat, but now I'm not so sure. The two events seem to have happened around the same time. In fact…}

Zelda finished for Link in a low voice.

"They may have happened at the exact same time."

Link nodded once, and the room fell silent and still.

Author's Note:

Hey, thanks for stopping by, now let's talk about a few things.

First of all, if you didn't notice, I added in another denomination of geo. 1, 5, and 25 are all well and good, but Hallownest really needs something larger like the Gold or Silver Rupees, or hauling around money would quickly become ridiculous. So, there's now a small gold, which takes the place of the large gold geo at 25, while the large gold geo from the game is now 100. Also, I am going to be working on the exchange rate, don't worry; if you hadn't noticed by now, I am nothing if not overly dedicated to accurate mathematics.

A readers asked me if Greenpath and all it's residents made it over in the transfer. Yes. Slug mom is here, but she is currently sleeping. That will change at some point in the future.

Finally, on the Gerudo. I have a problem with the Gerudo, and two possible solutions.

The Gerudo are a society of all women, who somehow all share physical traits (height, hair color, dark skin, abs) even after generations of making babies with Hylians, Sheikah, etc. The only time they give birth to a Gerudo male is when it's Ganondorf. Which leads me to believe that one of two things are true. Either the Gerudo are like the Asari, and there's some magical genetic shit going on that means they exclusively give birth to Gerudo females (unless it's Ganondorf).

OR, the Gerudo traits are heavily dominant, but only in females (not sure how that works, but bear with me). Which means that Gerudo can either give birth to Gerudo girls, with only a few traits from the father, or they can give birth to non-Gerudo males, with only a few traits from the mother.