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The Pure Vessel stood idly by. It did not watch the Pale King keel over, it simply saw. It heard the sudden strain in the watcher’s voice, but it knew better than to listen to his light, panicked words. From its beginnings, the vessel took in the environment to let it go again. It did not process what did not explicitly concern it. It was not meant to.
A watcher’s step forward, stumble back; the king’s reverberating voice, harsh tone.
This meant nothing to it.
Lurien muttered an apology as he turned, elsewhere—to it. Although unstable, Lurien chose to rush forward, away from the king and toward it instead.
The vessel tensed. Although it was clear he would not attack, his sole goal the exit, it could not control its sudden firm grip on its nail. To take him from the back or throw him to the wall, either assumed he would allow it time. A swift stab just as he came into reach would be best, it would undoubtedly cut through the fragile shell with disturbing ease. “An easy kill, laughably so,” the Queen of Deepnest had said in reference to his small physical form; oblivious to what he was capable of if given time or reason to apply his power—however, all such notes were entirely irrelevant in the present. Lurien would certainly not fight back, let alone initiate attack, if it was the king’s vessel.
Discard the memory. Halt this search for strategy. Both were equally ineffective in this case, though the former was far more reprehensible.
In mere moments, Watcher Lurien stepped by the vessel without issue. It relaxed its hold on its nail.
The king lifted a hand and focused on raising the entrance behind the watcher—too far, it slammed the top with enough force to shake the walls, as stable as they typically were. The vessel did not react. It did not do much more than stare blankly as its creator crumpled against the table from the strain. He had exerted too much effort into hiding the room in his state. His sole solace was none alive remained to witness his facade crack.
Only as the vessel heard coughing did physical apprehension return. It dared not move. It could not move. It was a construct. It would only move once beckoned forth.
The king spoke—no, this was no command, nor some musing aloud, but a sharp sound, sudden as a cry. Although he weakly muttered something afterward, his whispers were hardly loud enough to catch and register as far too distorted to be recognized as Hallownest's tongue.
The vessel remained. It blankly stared ahead as its creator slowly, shakily rose to his full height, desperately gripping the table despite this guise of strength.
A king who would deceive himself.
This was not the first instance of such. It certainly would not be the last.
He breathed heavily, still labored despite his forced efforts to steady them. Any progress made was swiftly swept away as another vicious cough rose, breaking both his act and body, ruthlessly knocking him down. It sounded as if it had torn his very throat apart. The edges of the vessel’s body sharpened in wary anticipation. It did not know how it was meant to react at the retching which followed too soon after, fallen with blood from its creator’s mouth.
The king’s words, although rendered intelligible by both the foreign tongue and attempts to dispel what had taken him, left no room to doubt he was expressing pain. He turned just enough for the vessel to catch him clutching his side and chest, still struggling to keep himself steady even with the pressure of its gaze upon him.
His vessel did not share his watcher's worry for him. Even had it the capacity to feel, there was no cause for concern. Beings such as he moved past such physical hindrances with remarkable ease, taking full command of their own bodies despite what wrought them.
Perhaps the very fact the Wyrm failed to adhere to this now when he had no previous semblance of struggle proved valid reason enough to take up and voice such fervent anxiety the watcher expressed. If the king, stubborn as he was, could not adapt to what had taken him in these moments when not even a nail through his abdomen, coated in his own blood, could disrupt him so, his present situation must be dire. None required foresight to imagine his fate to such a grievous injury.
It did not linger on this thread. It did not acknowledge the sharp pain in its core.
"Vessel," Its creator rasped, unable to continue the command as choking stole him. It had heard enough to prompt it forward, staying by the king's side, awaiting any command to act further. It was he who moved first; he reached for its arms with his primary hands, using it to keep himself up.
His palms were sickeningly cold against the void of its facsimile shell, but that was nothing in comparison to the piercing texture of void along the back and tips of his claws. Its body quickly took to adapting the temperature of the king's natural form. It took much effort to remain rigid, stable as expected of it, when instinct called for it to take the void upon his hands into itself—as painful as it knew the process to be, ripping up his own shell with it if the vessel conceded.
The Pale Wyrm was known, revered, for his cool yet fierce light: an allure which captured most, urging them to heed his words. To witness a discrepancy as clear as this in the king’s pure covering would undoubtedly instill fear in his subjects, however loyal. His glow was previously enough to shine against the void of the vessel's body, a matter no other light would dare touch. Such an aura seemed unachievable now, as his claws were irrevocably stained with the abyssal force and his arms hardly stood out as anything more than the silver cloth the vessel wore. To see his bright white shell stained to such a point with the very same void he had easily employed control over was assumedly disconcerting, to any other.
As it was, the king only cast the light expected from him through his crown and, notably weaker, through the seal engraved upon his chest beneath.
His grip on its arms were weakening.
(The vessel should have immediately returned the grasp to help him, but it knew it was at enough risk with the king so close, possibly already feeling the light tremor of its void—though it was lucky in the fact he, himself, was left trembling as he unwillingly began to slip away from it, perhaps too involved with his endeavor to regain himself to notice its flaw.)
In an attempt to keep himself standing, his claws dug into the vessel’s shell, threatening to break through the firm outer layer which held it together.
“Help—hold.”
This whisper was barely held together, it echoed weakly.
If his claws had cut through its topmost covering to draw the looser void within, allowing it to rise, the moments it took to claim him before dispersing would be more than enough to join what tainted essence already resided within and remove any voice at all, perhaps more.
The vessel stared a moment longer.
It would never consider pitting its creator’s life against his own pride.
The vessel swiftly followed his command, firmly holding the upper part of his primary arms in turn to keep him as stable as possible.
He breathed carefully, quickly shattered as another violent shudder broke his demeanor. His gaze fell downward and his arms weakened, claws twitching despite his attempts to regain control. He curled his hands into fists yet they continued to feverishly shake.
As painful as it sounded, the king could breathe without void’s intentional interference again. The most he dealt with now was his body’s shaking, still struggling to repel the void cutting at him from within.
This inherent corrosive nature would inevitably eat away at his very being as easily as acid ruined foliage, lashing against his pale shell carelessly. Under typical circumstances, he should have died the moment it touched his system, however it entered. (The vessel knew how. There was no question as to when it claimed him.)
In truth, he would be better off if it had.
Void now claimed the Pale Wyrm's core.
It only scraped him, for now, as seen in these attempts which left him alive, but it would remain, fester. The king’s end proved inevitable once it gathered enough void around his center to act. Those with nothing more than basic knowledge of what void did would conclude his death was in sight, regardless of whether or not he indulged further in it; his only choice was how he would end. A slow demise as it ripped up every inch of him, layer by layer, or—should the king prove so ignorant to his physical form, continuously employing void for his coming projects—become far more vicious in its path to victory, tearing at him from within as it would any other bug, leaving him but a barren husk.
No matter what either hoped or how the kingdom would pray, what was to become of him was unavoidable.
The vessel met the king's eyes, noting the glint of fear as he looked up to it. He had gathered himself again—enough so, for now—and the full realization of what this meant arrived and mercilessly cut into his facade.
The Wyrm worked to gather his breath again, still shaky and heard with an overlay of the void he could not yet clear. He pulled away with little acknowledgement to the vessel, pressing a hand to his forehead only to wince at the sharp touch of void which now enveloped it entirely. He paced the front of this table, lightly running one of his lower hands along the surface in the case he fell to it again. It knew the panic in his expression. It could practically hear the hum of thoughts racing through his mind despite his slow walk, each movement weighed with consideration.
Both knew it to be a hopeless endeavor. He was wasting what time was left with staying here, contemplating his sudden mortality.
It was as if the vessels' father had forgotten this same substance already killed countless of his own shell and blood.
Void had taken the lives of every egg before any hatched, manifesting within the childrens' husks, taking the godly corpses which did not shatter as its own physical form.
From the Pure Vessel's beginnings, it had only ever known the void's ache within. A curse, to be trapped in this state of living and dead; at once starved through its overwhelmed senses and suffocating on nothing.
Father was born alive . A Wyrm free to take the lands as his own, who did take lands as his own. A renowned God-King, able to manipulate void to his will, entrapping them with his constructs. His pale light battled the void which yearned endlessly in those years to take one like him and always won. So passively, could he bend and utilize this without tasting the effects of which would halt and kill any other.
But he had willingly gone to the Abyss, the void's heart. Even before his deed, his light could hardly combat its constant hunger for more in that accursed place. It was never satiated. Even now, the vessel's void self-sustained with the undying shell it had taken on.
With the offerings of his own kin, the void had fed and the ache grew. It had lost so much to HER.
Father knew this well.
He relied on the fact it wanted HER light above all other sources to keep himself safe. To live even as he remained in the Abyss in these months to destroy those who were no more than theoretical in conception. As he broke through the outer layer, as blood was drawn out of gaping wounds, as he tore through their throats, arms, stomachs, white shells not unlike his Root’s—which were hers, as much as his own—to ensure their true death came swiftly. As he split them in two, as he threw them down again, as he heard the strangled screams of those the void could not claim entirely. As he killed children who thought. As he slaughtered the children who shared the same mind his subjects were gifted with no such burden. As he shattered the shells of children who wished for nothing more than to find deliverance from the smothering emptiness of the Abyss they were banished to in their father's distant embrace.
As he murdered his own children for the crime of being alive.
Only vaguely, did the vessel hear its creator's call to once more join his side. It followed.
Void did share the pain of the children who joined its ranks, yet it never thought to harm he who caused this. It was he who fed it.
Beyond this, his cold light had grown to be familiar enough in its constant composure, impossible to pierce so long as he did not falter. It had already settled enough in the chance to use these physical forms to combat HER light, the true enemy.
But in these moments the pale one spent tearing away at both void and its newfound, vulnerable constructs—releasing the contaminated essence of his kin over again (and again and again and again, crying and ripping and fragments of children's bodies littered across the void's once-lifeless surface) as he remained, desperately working to finish his task, to find the “Pure Vessel” which joined him now—he unintentionally allowed it to tarnish him. Although the void upon him back then was but a breath compared to what could have been if intentionally embraced, it was enough to manifest beneath his shell.
Over these years, it only grew stronger, gathered itself, finding points of weakness where he most commonly took control of the void, forcing pieces at a time to latch to his outer shell and join it in taking him down.
It would triumph.
No matter what the king tried, the void within would remain. It had seized his very core, become but an eternal parasite eating away from within. No rebirth should save him from its hunger.
Void never meant to claim the pale light on its way to HER, but never would it deny the feeding of a god.