About halfway through their first taste of gulka guts, the Ghost of Hallownest officially regrets everything.

It's not like they've never eaten before. It's not even like they've never tasted something unpleasant before, even on purpose. (Isma's tear was so sour.) But they cannot for the life of them understand what the Hunter had found so appealing about gulka venom to recommend it, and now they can't get the awful burning taste out of their core, only writhe in disgust, liquid void bubbling at their eye sockets in an effort to flush it out. Trying to wipe the rest of the juices off their mask only makes it worse when the venom starts to seep through the joints of their suddenly clumsy claws, burning just as sour as the rest.

At least it doesn't taste like infection. They'd probably be panicking if it did. Small mercies.

They try wiping the void and excess venom away with the fringe of their cloak instead, vision blurring as they thank whatever gods aren't complete assholes that they thought to do this up in Dirtmouth and not some dark cranny of Hallownest where they could stumble out blind and get their mask shattered on some thorns or mindless crawlers like an idiot. At least the thorn charm they're wearing would protect them a bit, though, maybe lash out enough to kill whatever attacked them before it could kill them, but it would still be stupid. Too stupid. So was this -- stupid, that is. Why did they try this again? Stupid, stupid, stupid, climbing and falling, falling, into the...

Oh. They're on the ground. When did they fall? Ghost wobbles, pulling their legs back under their body, arms propping them up. Arms. Yes, arms are good. Strong and solid. They can hold a nail with their arms.

Their eyes still burn. They try to grab the nearest hem of their cloak, but it keeps wiggling out of reach, like a tricky vengefly evading their strikes and flying around too high in the cavern to hit. Joke's on the vengeflies, of course, because Ghost can almost fly now, and they can climb walls and shoot across the room to get them anyway.

On the fifth or sixth try, they catch the edge of the cloak enough for a good grip, and swipe it across their eyes to sop up the void leaking down their cheeks. The black goop puddles a little on the floor.

Is the venom supposed to make them lightheaded? Maybe they ate too much? Or maybe the dizziness is just a side effect of whatever else it's supposed to do. The Hunter never wrote down what gulka venom's effects were, just called them "exquisite". It's like putting on a new charm they can't even examine first, without even a shopkeeper to explain what it does. Eating lifeseeds and the crystal heart were good, though, so surely there's got to be something good here, too.

They sit on the floor for moment, waiting. Time seems to stretch the longer they sit, something elastic ready to snap, honey poured from an open jar that refuses to reach the lip, and it just keeps slowing and slowing. The pulse of their undead core murmurs a heartbeat; the room fills with silence like the abyss's hum, but upside-down and inside-out. It doesn't make any sense at all.

A creak and a scrape doesn't so much pull them from their reverie as it does throw them across the room (except they're still sitting down, and not sure they trust trying to stand up.) The door to the empty house slides ajar, and a shade of Hornet fills up the light the streetlamp casts through the gap.

"Little Ghost, are you still in there?" Her tone bites gently, like a warning.

Ghost staggers to their feet, and tries very hard to suppress the sway in their stance. Their range of vision gains a second, voidless Hornet in the doorway, who turns her head to spot them. Or does she? The house is very dark. They raise a hand in the air to get her attention, which proves to be a mistake when their balance shifts with it, listing to the right like how their lost kin's horns would weigh them down, and they almost trip on what's left of the evaporating puddle of void on the floor. Hornet's head snaps to their direction, though, so it works. And as Ghost knows well, it's not stupid if it works.

"Your essence stains your mask," she observes, "as does another substance unknown to me. Should I be aware of something?"

They shake their head and wave their raised claws at the pile of gulka guts strewn on the floor. Nothing wrong. Gulka tastes bad. I'll live.

Hornet does not hear this message, as usual. She's a bad listener. Ghost tells her as much all the time and she never answers. Hollow's a bad listener too, but at least they can hear Ghost. Sort of. Usually.

She steps closer, nudging the door a claw's breadth wider as she goes, until the guts are in her sight. Her needle gleams in the lamplight. It's very distracting. Ghost tilts their head left and right, watching the shaft of reflected light slide up and down the blade.

"A gulka," Hornet says. It's not phrased as a question, but it's followed by a sigh. "What a foolish habit to acquire. Did the mapmaker tell you of these? Or was it that hunter in the jungle?"

This is the part where Ghost would have nonchalantly raised two claws for an answer, but their claws can't seem to remember which of them are which, so instead, Ghost just sort of waves a hand in the air and nods twice. Hornet hisses and grumbles something too low to make out. The words absurd and caretaker and expected better are involved.

Ghost ends up too busy with the way their nodding has turned the room into a rocking ship's cabin at sea to respond further. Their wings flutter rapidly at their back, trying to catch them as they teeter side to side, and suddenly the fact they've never learned to fly seems like a very good thing after all.

The fluttering draws up a memory of something, from before Hallownest. This alone is not unusual, but this memory in particular features bugs drinking from the juice of a rotted fruit, and Ghost watching from afar as they stumbled about and struggled to lift off, wings buzzing, veering left and right and crashing mere body's-lengths from the ground.

The juices of the fruit, left stewing, had turned to a sort of poison. The other bugs had enough mind to laugh and jeer at their companions from the ground, watching unaware of Ghost's presence. The winged bugs laughed as well between their foolish attempts to fly, mocking each other's efforts like how the Coliseum bugs ridicule Ghost from the stands when an aspid knocks them off a platform four times in a row.

It is beginning to occur to Ghost that they might have just poisoned themselves for poison's sake.

"The savior of Hallownest, and I leave you unattended for a quarter-hour," the not-shadow Hornet declares, at last. She doesn't need to finish the thought. Ghost's shell is beginning to pulse with a growing headache, and though the rocking has stopped, turning their head to face her makes the walls spin and change color instead.

Hornet's bedside manner won't win any prizes, but at least she doesn't want them dead. Anymore. (Though she might want the Hunter dead, just a little bit, if the muttered insults wafting off of her like candle smoke a moment ago meant anything at all.) They sit down again, more on purpose this time, and try not to look around too much as they wait for the seasickness to subside.

Hopefully she won't begrudge them this mistake. After all, they've certainly made far worse without her watching.