Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It fell.

First, before the fall, it dreamed.

It always dreamed. Even in moments when it became aware of its physical body, it was dreaming. Despite the pain of those dreams, this was a small mercy. Time could blur in that daze. It would have hung in that true physical darkness for each passing year otherwise- aware of passing seconds, passing minutes, passing eternities. 

Worse, it would have been aware of its body after it had cracked. 

It would have felt its fingertips rot away. A process that took days.

It would have then felt its fingers burn and rot until that rotted flesh could stick together no longer and slipped to the ground. 

Hands. Wrists. Forearm. Elbow. Days, months, years? It did not know how much time it had been. It felt like eternity. 

Infection filled its chest and pushed against the carapace there until bloating finally turned to breaking. It clogged its throat and spilled up into its mouth and poured from its eyes and each moment of awareness of what state its body was in made it writhe in chains in panic worse than dreams elicited.

It retreated away from that body as far as it could. 

Its body still rotted. Eventually, it would rot apart completely. And then there would be no containment in its husk. The Black Egg would hold the Old Light while the Dreamers sealed it shut. But the Black Egg alone did not hold her. The Black Egg and vessel together did not hold her. Not after she found a crack and slid her fingers in to pull it apart, wide, force herself through and out. The infection returned to Hallownest. It did not know for how long, it did not know how far it had spread, but that it did know.

It knew the outside world was aware its last defense had broken and failed.

The Old Light remained in its dream, but it was she that controlled the realm around them. It was she that set its heat and light and filled its every corner with her noise.

It was not empty. It was not pure. 

Her light hurt, when it should have felt nothing. It should have swallowed every attack up in its hollow well. 

It should have been hollow. Then there would be no memories encoded, tainted with emotion, no hopes, no wishes, everything that had let her break out of it.

Instead of feeling nothing as its dream became the prison of an angry god, its dream was wrenched away from it and turned into anything she would like.

She liked nothing- wanting only freedom, vengeance, security in both- but she gave herself distractions through her prison. Her dreams were nightmares. They broke it, more and more. New cracks. Old ones gaping open. Voice screaming. It should not have a voice. It screamed for death, for rescue, for something that could never have been.

It dreamed and those dreams were of searing sunlight, taunting memories taken and twisted, the pain of its body seeping through the barrier of sleep, desperation and growing apathy and it went on and on and on without end.

At their most benign, the dreams were flat and mostly empty things. They were spent with the pulsing aches of the outside body, but little noise or flash or tormenting emotion. Dull pain, existence, nothing that required thought. The emptiness came from the failed vessel. The occasional memory of connection, unity, mindless adoration came from the moths of old, before their sentience, before they left the Old Light to fade and die.

How it wished she would have stayed dead. 

It would not have existed, in that case.

(It wished that too.)

Its thoughts were sluggish through time without stimulation aside from agony. It hung from chains while its flesh deteriorated and slipped off to the infected floor below. Its screams and hers alike were never answered.

Dream and reality were a mix of pain and long-hopeless despair. If it was able to, it retreated so far into dreams that it could almost not feel the pains, almost not think those painful sluggish thoughts- they would still be bathed in the light that it and the world could not escape, but it would be left alone there to fade into a numbness that was almost merciful nonexistence. The Old Light let it rot more often now. Isolation took its toll on both captive minds. To be ignored was preferable to anger, preferable to begging, preferable to gentle behavior guaranteed to turn back into rage. The infection spread on. Alive, outside the temple. Alive, only partially of the mind that created it and the rest an evolved, ever-hungry life that would spread. It was her anger and rage and hurt at being forgotten, made into form. And that form coated the walls of the Black Egg, pulsating, glowing, taking away its one physical comfort of darkness.

It didn’t want to see that. It never wanted to see the state of the void chamber and its chained body. It stayed in dreams. 

It did not dream of the past long lost if it could stop itself. 

Every dream was tainted in her golden light. Even those of that lost past and the pale light that they should have contained. Trailing vines, buzzing machinery, a lullaby meant for children never born. Cold silver, easy breezes, no sensation whatsoever against the surface of a being born of god and void. Everything that she was not, that she corrupted in her realm. 

But not this time. Not these times.

This dream was recurring.

It would be somewhere with still air and cold light and as little color as possible. There was a bronze shape seated that the vessel had never seen before.

It was there to fight, nothing more.

Combat was not a purpose the vessel was ultimately intended for, but it had been given skills and tools to master it. Its pure nail had been given soon after its final molt and it had rarely parted. The weapon gave the imagery of a knight. It would stand at the side of the king with nail held with both hands and look that part. It had known then that the nail would never strike the source of the infection, but the king had not given it a decorative weapon with that in mind. It was a true nail. It could cut down nearly anyone. It would cut down the challenger it was sent to fight in this dream.

It made no noise where it would have been screaming. It fought with the perfection it had been trained to have. Every limb was solid. The void flowed through and out of it. Its decorative armor was untarnished, shining like the day father helped the vessel into it last. Its cape was clean and untorn. No stains of the infection had ruined its fabrics with moisture and rancid substance. 

It looked the perfect tool.

It challenged a vessel it ought to recognize with all the blank apathy of a pure tool. Only a part of it struggled at the start and finish, where the dream was not quite as all-surrounding. Only that part recognized the vessel as the one it had let fall. It had felt shame, sadness at having to do so. It had felt its first, right there at the top of the Abyss, and the corruption of emotion would only burrow deeper in the time following. 

When it lost, in those dreams, it fell from them into a similarly foggy state. It saw light and lightlessness. It would fall.

It would fall, but always be caught short.

Always hoisted back, back into the sickness that was, at the least, not the physical world where it would hang in chains in a body burning and atrophied. No writhing would free the vessel. Nothing would allow it to fall out of chains, to grab the nail it had never been expected to use in here, to plunge into the infection sticking in and out of its chest. It had long ago forgotten that it ought not want that. It ought to think only of containing the infection, no matter the pain. It wanted and it had failed as a vessel already for that alone. It was not the pure vessel. It was not the Hollow Knight. It was impure, impure, a failure.

Up it went again, into a place almost untouched by the light that had touched its every world and thought constantly for this eternity. Up it went, until it recognized a small vessel, until it forgot that it had regretted watching that vessel die, until it was pure for a battle’s length.

In that dream, it could almost not remember ever being impure. It could barely remember that it was a failed vessel.

It fought as it should have and felt nothing upon every victory and every defeat.

The dream would fade and it would remember what it was, in reality. 

The dream would return and it would fall so deeply into that perfect vessel that any trace of pain and emotion was forgotten.

Somewhere, the infection within the Black Egg bloated larger and pulsed with more life. Somewhere, she became aware of a dream that was not theirs.

It called to her. Summoned her. Sought her. 

The vessel was cast aside now, as victories turned to repeated defeats against a ghost from a time long lost.

It fell.

But first, it ceased dreaming.

It thought of its sibling in the past.

This was an impurity. It was one of multiple marks against it that would later culminate in a pointless extended death with a god that would proceed on from its broken corpse to fulfill her destruction.

It was another hollowed tool, another vessel. Another failure, as its strength was not enough and it went falling into the darkness below. 

There had been chains around it since it followed father from the Abyss. But they had tightened and squeezed within the Black Egg until it fractured from the force of their constriction. A hundred broken shards, all that remained. A hundred broken shards, to entertain and maim. It had fractured long ago.

So if it had thought of that vessel long before it had ever walked into the Black Egg, then it was nearly inevitable that this fractured, desperate thing would be forced to think of it again. That was why it challenged and cut down and was cut down by a dream, was it not?

The watching bronze audience mattered naught. 

Neither did its opponent. It had not mattered when it had let it fall back into the Abyss, and it did not matter in this dream challenge. 

But that vessel moved past their cold arena to one of blinding heat again and again and again-

until at once, there was no light at all. Its antithesis had risen, massive, angry, old, reached and pried and fell as liquid through the skies to fill every space of the world. 

It flooded the arena of ancient light. It flooded the arena of a dreaming vessel still watching with the purity it had faked. There was no emotion as the living lake approached.

There was only…

Relief, that came after it had been engulfed.

An emotion.

One acceptable. More than acceptable by the still angry world surrounding this dream. They had never been empty. None of them had. 

Numb. Soothing. Peace. 

It ended. 

Even the rare comforting dreams did. 

It ended with the sight of something unrecognizable by the void, no matter its reach. It ended with the sight of delicate petals.

The dream shattered like the essence of the Old Light had, before the force responsible had devoured each flying particle.

There were chains digging into skin it would rather not feel. A damp and ruined cloak was pressed against chitin and bared flesh alike. It was alone.

There was no one inside of it. 

The dream had ended. 

All of them had.

It fell from its chains. It fell from the harness designed by its creator, that it had been hoisted into the last time it saw him. It fell to floor that should have been infected.

But it was dry under its skin and there was no glow left. The sealed doorway was opening. Its light hurt eyes. Eyes- they were clear. Not coated over in infection. Not leaking in burning tears. 

There were translucent skins dried and shriveled on the floor under it. More, on the sides of the chamber. No seeds of orange life within. No pulsings thrums. No sweet stench in the air. It had fallen from a dream into a world with no infection. 

She was gone. She was gone? It had found its nail, but she was not in it any longer, to be carved out. It used the nail to prepare itself to stand instead. The vessel had been falling for far too long. Its dreams were no more.

It rose.

Chapter Text

It dragged itself from the black egg into the temple. The first step had left it coughing. This was not a motion it was used to doing. Not even the coughing fits that would overtake it in chains had prepared it for the totality of this feeling; for then, it was in dream and she was more of its consciousness than it alone was. It only had the means to hack and spit because of her light. It had been her fingers that pressed against its throat, her light that burned into solid flesh and void. Whatever she occasionally claimed, the voice was for her. She tried to call to any other vessel to break the seals and free her. And it was just another portion of the vessel’s body reformed and eaten away, replaced by light and plague that slowly took every ounce of it away until, eventually, she would have no remaining prison containing her but the Dreamers.

This was not meant to be a part of a vessel. Another mark, another marring stain, another tearing wound that made it not the pure vessel it had hoped to be.

One cough turned to multiple. It couldn’t stop. They grew worse as less air was brought in through gagging breaths and the diminished intake left panic rising. It should not need air. It couldn’t stop coughing. The movement was racking its chest with pain, pain. 

It stopped. No more than a few seconds. It had felt longer. 

Its nail was too heavy to keep using to prop it upright. It had to let it go limp and drag it. Its chest continued to burn, like it had swallowed shards of hot metal. The temptation to stab into the source of the pain left its hand twitching. It wouldn’t make it better now. The Old Light was gone. The infection was gone.

It needed to find- go- needed-

Out. 

To start with.

Then to make its way down to the city. Its purpose was complete, failed or not. It had no other. 

It wanted to rest until there was no pain, no light, no sounds of pulsating plagues and angry gods. 

But it did not make it to the capital. It did not even make it out of the temple.

There was color there. Stark against the dead skins of infectious pustules and the black stone of the temple. Red.

The cloak of a fighter, falling into a ready stance the moment it dragged itself out of the opened black egg. 

The fighter held a needle at the ready. That was an unusual weapon. 

She realized what the vessel did, seemingly the very moment it came to the shared conclusion. Her needle dipped from its position. It had not even pulled its nail forward into a ready position to start with. 

The needle was much larger than those wooden ones she used to be trained with. Those, she would bring to the palace at times and carry around proudly. She’d gone so far as to ask the vessel what it thought of her tiny weapon. She asked what it thought of her sparring skills, eager to show them off. She had never once gotten an answer, because she asked an object that did not think. 

Except it had. It had thought that her style was already shaping up to match her mother’s and she would do well learning under the sage that it had learned under when it was as small as she. It had thought she might go show her father instead because he would offer much more than the pure vessel could. If she caught him at a time he was not busy, he may rub a hand over the top of her mask and pretend to lose in a play fight just to see her laugh. She was a child, after all. She was so very, very young. It learned what a childhood was like by watching her’s.

She had never understood what it was, nor what it was for.

She was small enough to sit between its horns and dangle her legs down over its face without either obstructing its vision. Sometimes the threads of her little red capes would break off and stick to its horns long after until someone else finally noticed and brushed them off. Her voice was far higher than father’s and nearly unintelligible through childish lisps.

She was the Gendered Child and she was its sister.

But this figure now held a weapon proper to her size. She stood at nearly half its height. Far, far too large to fit between its horns. Her voice was low no matter its tone of surprise. Mature. 

How much time had passed?

How long?

This was not what she answered. She seemed more concerned with other questions.

“You are…”

The length of her needle shook minutely.

Why?

The Gendered Child stood straighter still.

“Are you what I recognize you to be?” she spoke again, after her own pause. “You are the Hollow Knight?”

The Hollow Knight.

A title created by the Pale King. One he said would be recorded into history rather than its common title of Pure Vessel, not that he expected it to care about that privately shared information.

Long before that, the title it heard while it climbed from the Abyss. 

Its purpose, its function. 

It was not hollow. Nor had it restrained and destroyed the Radiance in any way worth celebrating.

Was it the Hollow Knight? A shadow upon the eternal history of Hallownest? The empty vessel that allowed it to live forever?

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. It was all it had to be.

It was never the title used by the Gendered Child before- she, who had never understood that a vessel was not a living being, who had never understood the object she called its sibling was destined to a fate it would never be retrieved from. This warrior in front of it was not the child of before. 

Its breaths were a rattling whine. It did not know whether to nod in acknowledgement. 

It was glad its sister was alive. It did not know how much damage the infection was causing, while it was restrained, but it feared the worst and those nightmares bled into and became reality. But the Gendered Child was alive. Below, past the city, in the palace…

It had to get down there.

It didn’t even feel like it had the strength in its atrophied form to make it out of the temple.

The Gendered Child shifted closer.

“You’ve lived,” she said. Her needle pointed lazily to the floor.

“I had never thought- But you’ve lived. The infection?”

The vessel tried to shift so that the cloak the Pale King had laid upon it for their final occasion together fell past its ruined shoulder. Black carapace and void alone would be visible. Though its chest cavity had been hollowed and filled with the infection’s designs, that substance was gone now. Gone, with only cracks and open wounds left to see.

The wounds were debilitating. She could strike the vessel down now and say later that it would never have made it to the city as it was. 

She did not. When she saw no orange, her needle’s point fell as far to the floor as it could.

She would not be attacking.

The vessel felt nothing on that, though it did think it ought to. What harm did one more feeling cause now? 

It just wanted to go home. Thinking and feeling could stop after that.

Duty came first. It must be sure the infection was truly gone. Vague visions did not make for certainties. The Hollow Knight had one purpose and it was to contain and destroy the threat of the infection.

The Gendered Child sighed.

“It’s gone. They must have- But I waited here to-.” Another sigh. A determined pinch of eyes behind the mask. “You are not infected, but you are wounded.”

Nothing in sight was infected. It knew that the chamber of the black egg had been recently overgrown with infection. It was gone. She was gone. 

It kept breathing into lungs she had made and felt touched by Her regardless of the infection’s disappearance.

The Gendered Child did not seem to notice this fear, this terror gripping into it, causing its hunch to worsen. She continued to muse to herself.

“Then…”

Quiet again. A silent pause filled with a mantra of observations: it hurt it hurt it hurt. 

“Then we do not need to remain in this place,” the Gendered Child finally said. 

She moved. Forward, down the steps of the central dais. One last glance to an open door, seals hidden from sight. A mother’s mask. A gate meant only to open if no trace of the plague remained within. 

Another whistling breath through a throat unused to anything but screaming.

No trace, then. 

No trace.

Then think not of it. Think not at all.

It moved as she moved.

The vessel did not know what the Gendered Child planned. It would follow any instruction given, of course, as she was the child of the Pale King. She would control its movements until it could find their shared father. Where she directed, it would follow.

It would return to the city otherwise. The palace was gone. It could sense that now. A gap in dream and world lay over its location. 

The Pale King would be in the city if not his palace. So the vessel had lurched westward in plans to return and follow the path it had been taken on to get to the temple.

But she noticed its direction and ordered it to stop. 

“Wait.”

The Gendered Child did not speak again with a corrected directive. The vessel would stay until she decided on that, then. 

She thought silently for a moment that it spent aching and longing- something it should not do- for all sensation to just cease. It ached and burned. She had touched every inch of its body in her attempts to get out. Cuts had been oozing that burning, sticky infection until recently. It could still feel the phantom touch of the substance. Lungs felt full of the gunk but hacking had produced nothing in the black egg and it would produce nothing here. The infection was gone. Something had so thoroughly done what it had failed at. The failure should have outweighed anything and yet it was still grateful to whatever had done what it was meant to. It meant part of the pain was gone. There was no more hot goo coating its throat down to its lungs. There was no more rotten-sweet scent trapped in its head. In the absence of the infection that had filled the vessel’s body so completely (held in only by thick skin that she would find a way to replace someday too), its form for the first time almost felt truly hollow.

It was difficult to stand. The weight of its shell was pressuring internal muscles that felt nonexistent- as if its skin covered only emptiness in the shape of a once-pure vessel’s body. It should not need to breathe, but air rattled down its throat and out again regardless. Every change the Old Light made stayed burned into its form aside from the orange substance of the infection itself.

It must make it back to the Pale King, but the vessel sensed it would not manage to walk far without aid. The longer the Gendered Child made it wait, the more likely it would collapse along the way.

And would that not be pathetic?

Its efforts to hold itself completely still in a position that hurt the least slumped when it heard her speak.

“Let’s…Come this way. I need the chance to treat those wounds and the closest town will be safe.”

Another clear order. That was good. 

Though her purpose in the order was for its sake. Its…It did not have a sake. That implied value. The Old Light was gone. Whatever value it had had as a vessel was moot. 

And there was another thought accompanying that. 

It should not be thinking.

But it did. And it thought of that purpose the king’s daughter spoke of. Treating wounds. Tending to its many marred areas where She had burned through and out of its body. And it thought, she did not have to do that. 

Let it succumb.

Let it die. 

The vessel hurt. Its mind hurt. It was far from pure in this moment. Years of pain could not allow instant clarity. Still, it remembered father. It must return to him. Only he could retire it from service. It could not decide that it should or should not be on its own. He might have purpose for it yet. 

(He might have pride to offer it, one last time, before it could be retired.)

(It remembered those glances-  and the thought of receiving one more, after everything, after the Light, was such a consuming, hopeful relief that it almost numbed its screaming mind.)

First, father, who it assumed was in the city. Then the pain could end.

It could follow orders until then.

But it hurt.

Every step, every breath, even holding as still as possible. It had hurt for years.

Internal, contained but no less agonizing. Mental, emotional, what it should not have- the cracks the light saw and wrenched further apart with glee. Then external, slowly, physical vessel rotting inch by inch away. Letting the light sear it from the inside had hurt enough, but it was what it had been created for. It had withstood it. It had withstood the constant inevitable pain of close proximity with a higher being in this raw form, as well as withstood rage and bargains and the isolation of being forever cut off from the palace and city and father and sister and knights it had spent the first portion of its life with. 

If she had not found its cracks, then it would only have had to withstand that.

But it was impure. A failure. It had thoughts, of home and hopes of the Pale King being safe through its containment, being proud, or, unstoppably, though it tried to stop this, coming back to undo the seals and free it from the chains and Old Light. Father had never come, even as it had fallen completely to its impurity and screamed across its dream-prison for him. She would not have let the shameful noise reach anyone but those that benefited her. She controlled the dream-prison the vessel was trapped in with her, even as the Dreamers were meant to keep her powerless from her domain. 

She was noise incarnate, stripped apart and strained and pushed into a singular point too small for a god to exist as all at once. But what parts of the noise retained clarity leapt on that weakness it had given away. No hiding could prevent its impurities from existing. Exist they did. And she used them all to burst out again.

Its form was slow to fall to infection, but it hurt with every step along the way. Internal moved to external and then it was pain, pain on every front, every battlefield, there were no nooks, no shadows, left to retreat to for even the briefest reprieve. 

Even if shadows had come to rip the Old Light out of it and this world, the vessel’s body felt as if it had been ripped apart and the pieces sat together to grind with the slightest movement. Now, the infection was nothing but leftover wilted flabs of thin skin hanging from any opened orifice. It fought with a desire to use its remaining hand’s claws to rip these traces out and fling them away. Such a thing would exacerbate injuries. It would not make it to the city if any were worsened now.

The Gendered Child did not pause regardless of how the vessel dragged itself with rattles and wet choking breaths like a tool so damaged there was no point in keeping it.

It hurt.

She led it east from the temple. Marks of infection were everywhere. Corpses bore them. Fresh corpses and ancient ones alike. Shriveled skins of the infection’s vines and bulbs were left nearly translucent on the ground and walls.

Everywhere they went, it was reminded of her. And, if that was not already enough to leave it shaking, the signs were a reminder of its failure to contain her too.

Its failure to father.

Its failure to be pure.

Its failure to every bug of the kingdom, dead or grieving the dead now.

It hurt.

The Gendered Child watched when they reached the first significant divet in the ground. She did not descend first. It held still, waiting to follow.

She hesitated, aborting one movement and rapidly another before stilling again.

Then, she tried to reach for the vessel where it once had an arm. 

It did not try to flinch back, but the movement occurred. Its stump of arm was raw and unprotected. Vulnerable. 

The jerking movement made every wound flare into fire. It heaved while it waited for the pain to fade into something controllable. The Gendered Child was waiting when it finished. Waiting, staring. She reached again and it held itself still this time. The heir did not move for the stump of its shoulder, no matter what (impure, fearful) instinct expected. She was just repositioning the vessel to put weight on her as she moved down the divet, over the rubble, and up onto the ruined cobble path again. 

Her destination was a chain not far at all from the temple, yet with the vessel’s speed to hinder her it felt like a short eternity. Time was stretched to everything and nothing at all within the temple. Its mind hardly knew its surroundings now after so long letting dream and chained reality blur. 

The Gendered Child had asked if it would rather put its nail down and retrieve it later. The vessel did not understand why it would be asked this. If she wanted it to release the nail, she would make it an order. Without that, it would not release its nail. Not to stabilize its balance. Not to lose the agony that that extra weight caused.

It hurt. But it would hurt without the nail. And that was its weapon, decorative though such a thing would be while it hung restrained for eternity. It was not necessary yet it had been given. 

That was, now, the best way it could tear into the vessel’s chest and let whatever haunting rot spill out before it returned to the void and all the absence of sensation and thought that the void offered.

It had no chance at all for fighting back against the Old Light after she had ripped that first crack wide. Its grip was left to tighten further on the object it saw as its chance now.

It did not think as it ascended what ended up being a well. It felt, it burned, it nearly screamed with the voice She had forced upon it. But without thinking of this pain, it stayed distant enough that no scream occurred.

None should.

No voice to cry suffering.

It could not see for a short time. It could not tell it was breathing. 

It was hunched on the ground when it did recover those senses. The well was nearby and so was the Gendered Child. Her red silks stood out from the fading air around them. It was nearly dead air, like that of the temple, that which She hated. The caverns were dark up above and left the town with its huts sitting above and beyond the king’s daughter dim.

It was not no light. But it was close.

It was close.

And the vessel felt, once more. It felt relief. This was not the void, but it was far too dim for Her tastes.

The Gendered Child had spoken, but it hadn’t heard her. There was still noise in its head. It would never return to the perfect vessel, ready and open to receive any words from its creators. It had never needed to request words be repeated before.

The vessel did not have the means to make a request now regardless. 

“This way,” she said, when it had pushed onto its legs once more. 

It almost tried to lift the nail enough to stab it into the ground and rest its weight upon it. But the vessel’s arm protested in pain when it tried to lift the weapon any higher than it must to drag it along. Its point screeched against the ground, likely too quietly for others to notice but the vessel had been without true sound (aside from the rhythmic pulse of infection in its body and the room it hung in) for so long that it was sensitive to all.

Hornet walked ahead of it, stepping up into a town without hesitation. It hesitated, however. It hesitated far too many times for a pure vessel- but it was impure, already, and all must know it. What was the point of hiding?

(It did not want to face any who would see it as corrupted. It did not want to see the pain its failure had caused those destroyed by infection that they had likely once been hopeful was gone when it had been locked away.)

This was not the city or palace by any means. The huts here were few and worn. It was a dirty little place. 

There were lumafly lanterns and the vessel could not help its instinct to cringe away from the light. If this dim of a light bothered it, how would it hold itself properly in the palace where father’s light kept metal and gardens alike bright?

Hornet walked past the first hut without pause, even though there were two bugs out front. Real ones. One was a blue beetle, listening. One was talking. Not the mind-speak and screams of a god trapped in dreams with the vessel. Not the mindless pained sounds of an infected bug. 

It had failed, but the infection had not destroyed everything. If it had not spread to consume such a nearby town, perhaps it had not returned to the city below. Perhaps its failure to contain the Old Light had not been a death sentence on the Pale King’s kingdom. 

The thought made the vessel emotional, though it could not name what it felt. 

The talking bug did not even pause in speech while first Hornet and then the damaged vessel walked by. It appeared to be a knight by garb, though a very small one. The vessel in its dreams had been small. That had not stopped it from ripping the Old Light open and consuming her. 

The blue beetle next to the small knight did what they had not and noticed the two walking past. It heard a gasp and saw the oddest pink washing over their face. 

The beetle moved to follow after the two even as their companion did not pause in their speech. They paused to hesitantly pull at the other. What happened next, the vessel would not know. It had walked on and its attention was solely on the Gendered Child in front of it while its focus was consumed on making sure each step was steady. 

A few of the huts here had open doorways with more light (light, hurt) pouring out. Two circled around a cobblestone town center where an iron bench lay and another living bug stood.

It was a stooped bug moving slowly to turn and face their approach. The Gendered Child walked up without any form of hesitation or deferment. She was an heir. Why would she have either? The vessel dragged its feet unsteadily behind her.

“Oh. Hello there, travelers,” the stooped bug greeted. “You’ve arrived from below? There was a piercing cry earlier. Did you happen…No, better I do not know. If you are passing through, this bench is a good place to rest.”

It did not look it. The vessel would more likely never rise again if it sat on that bench. 

(Would that be such a poor thing?)

“I did not plan to merely pass through,” the Gendered Child said. “I seek temporary board. My sibling and I need a place to stay.”

It did not want to stay long. It must return to Hallownest. To the heart, the palace, its king. 

It likewise wanted to lay in darkness and stay forever until the pain eventually faded.

(She viewed it as a sibling? It had expected her to grow out of that misconception sometime after it was sealed away.)

(Her insistence as a young child had affected it, no matter if it hid that from watching eyes and questions. It had begun to consider her a sister in return for the relation that she insisted. Another impurity.)

“Oh,” the stooped bug repeated. They were quiet for a moment. “We are a little town. We don’t have much to offer. That dreadful carnival left b…There have been more residents, lately. I am unused to it.”

The bug shuffled a little closer. Their attention was still on the Gendered Child. With its own stoop, the vessel was not the unignorable presence it might have been before. 

“What are your names, then, lass?”

They did not recognize the king’s daughter?

This town and the crossroads below were not all that far from the heart of Hallownest. Surely its inhabitants would recognize the daughter of Hallownest, regardless of if she was heir to Deepnest rather than father’s eternal kingdom. 

The vessel did not know how long it had been since it was sealed. It felt an eternity, but that was through pain, isolation. It could have been shorter than it felt.

It could have been longer.

Why did a town of Hallownest not recognize its king’s child?

“I…” that very king’s child hesitated. “Hornet. My name is Hornet.”

Oh. 

She had a name now.

Gendered Child was a placeholder, after all, but it’d thought…

It hadn’t really thought much on the matter. It tried not to think at all. Its assumptions had been a name much more traditional to Deepnest, or one reminiscent of the Pale King and White Lady. Herrah would not have gotten the chance to name her when her daughter reached the proper age, would she? No, she would be dreaming by then. And it would be gone by then. It was gone by then.

She had been given a name in the time between and it imagined that it had come not from the postmortem choice of her mother nor from her father and other mother.

It did not know what to think of names aside from believing it could not have one. Father had never had a name that it knew of. Only a title and a descriptor. And he had given both to the vessel. He had made it the Hollow Knight and it was the pure (but impure) vessel.

The Gendered Child had a name. Its sister had a name.

It was struck again with the swooping, dropping sensation that far, far too much time had passed while it was sealed.

The old bug looked past Hornet to the vessel. They did not appear to recognize it. Few would. The palace knew of its purpose, if not its origins. Most inhabitants of the city did not. Those that saw it when it trekked to the crossroads would not necessarily understand what it was there to do. 

This bug appeared old, but the vessel had not been told how much time had passed. She had not known either. It had left her raging, flaring, collapsing, despairing, reaching out through her infection to see and never seeing enough. Its dream kept her trapped without time, no matter what parts of her power did force their way out of it. If not for the Gendered Child- Hornet’s survival, it could have been left thinking a millennia had passed and left it with no living bug from the age of its sealing. If not for her presence revealing her age, it could also have thought few years had passed. Had this stooped bug even lived in Hallownest before its sealing? 

They certainly did not recognize it. Their words made that clear.

“And this is a fearsome looking fellow,” they mused very carefully. It probably hid fear, discomfort. Many had before. Even before its molts had made it tower over all but a few bugs. The stooped bug did what most in the presence of the king did: played polite. “Is this your sibling?”

Hornet looked back at the vessel, unreadable.

“Yes.”

And Hornet was the daughter of Hallownest and Deepnest. She was the daughter of the Pale King. He was not here yet. It would follow his daughter until it reached him. 

It could allow this, then. It would not even be mimicry or lies. The vessel had never been pure. It had considered her a sibling before the world was shown its masquerade. 

There was a wavery voice near its knees. It had not paid attention to any approach. 

“Are you staying here? What’s their name?” 

“What does it matter? These vagabonds will be here to hide in their shops like the others, nothing more. They were likely nearly killed by those beasts down there and came running here!” 

It was rather too much noise. The screams of the Radiance did not leave it used to so many sounds. The lanterns were uncomfortable and the bugs here would not stop talking. 

Hornet was staring at it again. 

“Are th- are you a knight?” the first bug asked. It was the closer of the two- the blue beetle from before. 

The vessel stared while the beetle’s attention wavered and dropped and looked from its cape to nail to head to Hornet. They did the same with her, head shifting minutely as their vision went from garb to needle to glare.

“They do not speak,” Hornet said in its stead. It had not seen a need to respond, but if she saw one, then it would note that for their return journey to the city.

“Why does it matter?” that other bug asked again, a little louder as they glared at the back of the blue one. “They’re not a knight of great renown, no matter if they call themself a warrior.”

Hornet’s head turned to face that one before they had finished scoffing.

“This knight saved Hallownest,” sister said, making each word distinct in a way it did not understand. The vessel did not deserve such a defensive introduction from her. 

The small knight lacked any awareness of the danger its sister exuded.

“Saved?” they scoffed again. “In what way do you walk through those infernal ruins and think its former self was saved? Why, any one of these oafs-” they spread their arms open to gesture to the few others in the town circle. “-could die just by walking down that well! Not all are capable warriors like myself!”

The stooped bug cleared their throat. 

(Throat. It had a throat now too. The noise of the other made its own clench and spasm and it wished it was gone.)

Their frown went unnoticed by the speakers. The blue beetle’s defensive retreat into their own posture went unnoticed by the speakers. The vessel was used to going unnoticed. 

It watched while its sister kept herself tense and looked a string’s breaking away from making a likely fatal movement. 

When she spoke, Hornet’s voice was as deadly cold as her mother’s sometimes was. 

“Mind your words. I’ll not have any of you speak ill of the Hollow Knight. Without them, the infection would have consumed this town long ago. Without them, your infected crossroads down there would be impossible to travel.”

It was, again, a defense.

For what?

Its failure?

If it had not hid its own defectiveness, then it would not have given false hope to everyone. It would not have meant the sealing of the Dreamers all for the sake of a plan that would not work so long as it was the vessel central. 

It was the only vessel, then. It was the only hope. Father had no better plans. He had void in his labs still regardless. He had void on his hands. It could not be the one responsible for sending him down there again to find another solution. It could not be even if it would send him to desperate searches again once its containment of the Old Light broke. 

(It could not have helped, either way. It could never have worked.)

It should have revealed its impurity before giving false hope. It should have, before being trapped with a god inside it. It could never go through that pain again. It could not think about it now. It could not, or it would be lifting its nail to stab itself until it could be sure She was not in it. 

More words had been spoken while it reached for all these thoughts and fought to drown them away. The vessel did not know what had transpired. It was a vessel. It had no need to know. 

It certainly did not need to know if the Gendered Child had spoken like that about it again.

She was near it again when it did refocus. The small aggressive knight was back to the building it had been standing at before. The beetle was standing near the tall arched building instead, watching. 

Hornet aborted a motion to reach for it and waved it forward instead.

“Here,” she spoke, needlessly. Her command had been understandable. It did not need the reasoning behind it. 

It followed- 

It hurt

-laboriously while the stooped bug moved slowly towards a round hut nestled behind those buildings nearer to the well. The bug spoke with sister more, but the vessel did not try to register the meaning of the sounds now. The noise had been enough. The pain was constant and so very distracting. It consumed nearly every thought.

There was a skylight in the center of the hut’s ceiling. It could not escape that light, no matter how dim. 

-Light crawled in it.-

Hornet shut the door on the old bug. She spent some time moving around the place, acting more concerned than necessary when the both of them would be here only until it was repaired enough to return to the king. It stood with its nail, too large for this room, breaths rattling and whistling in a way that would not let it escape the reminder that Her Light had crawled in it. Hornet put her needle away before opening a door in the floor and disappearing below.

It felt a surge of alarm to see her vanish. What if-what had-what if-

The world knew it was impure. He knew it was impure. It could panic. It made no difference now. Fighting it would not make a difference for the better.

Hornet returned before its panic had fleshed out into something clear. She spoke of a room below and asked- asked!- where it would rather go.

There was dim light pouring in from above. 

Its nail would not fit down that door. It would hurt to descend and ascend anything.

Everything hurt.

It remembered that she would have no way of knowing its answer unless it actually answered, and so lifted its nail enough to extend a finger off of the hilt and towards the hole.

She took its nail after that. When it became too clear to deny that was her intent, the vessel had made its fingers loosen around the weapon. This was the daughter of the Pale King. It would follow her intent. Even if the separation felt unsafe, unreal. 

It could take it back later, if she said nothing contrary to that. It would be difficult to rest with the weapon and rest…

Rest would come, whether it sought it or not. 

It was far too weak to avoid that.

But before its sister could lead it to the door there, the vessel made both pause.

It wanted to ask why.

No voice to cry- no mind to think, no voice to cry-

Stop.

No wants. Let alone wants for a voice.

(It had a voice now. It had Her voice now.)

But it did want to and it had been torn apart, hollowed out, filled with sick light, altered and corrupted and hurt and fixed- and it had lived. It was alive now, even with the Old Light gone and its purpose completed by another. 

The world itself reeled.

It would not do any more damage by falling into impurity now. 

What were the shapes (letters, they were called) for these questions? It read. It had never dared to replicate any of the shapes involved. 

So it would ask in another way, since it had momentarily resigned to its impurity. The vessel extended an arm and tried to wave out over the hut and town beyond. The motion felt awkward. It felt awkward to hold an arm up without its nail in its hand. 

Hornet followed the motion and continued to look at the door as she spoke.

“The other…Our- The ghost. Another vessel. I brought us here because of them.”

She went quiet but did not move to push it from the spot. Thought, then.

It took far longer than living bugs to compile and understand a thought. It could understand the pause.

“They returned to Dirtmouth often,” she started again, after. “I followed and watched. It seems a safe enough haven, for now. Even if a god took up residence nearby.”

Another higher being?

It wanted to panic. It wanted to fear. Higher beings were painful. Even when they did not intend to be, their presence seared. Only the Pale King and White Lady hadn’t, but both kept their distance. The vessel could not bear to have a higher being drag it close and consume it again. It could not bear that. 

Hornet drifted away from it. She moved to a window and stared out for some time before quietly turning to brush rubble off of a nearby stool.

“I was waiting for that vessel, when you were freed. I had expected they would meet me there. They have not met a single one of my expectations since they entered this old kingdom.”

There was almost a smile in her voice when she spoke next- almost a hint of the voice and attitudes she had once had, so completely hidden in this adult she had become while it was sealed away. Almost. But it was still too far from that self of her’s she had once had.

Hornet paused again after clearing the rubble.

“I trust their judgment,” she said eventually.

She sat down and it seemed that all her strength and height and age that so impressed them with the difference in passing of time deflated out of her.

Not that she returned to the Gendered Child of youth, but now.

Now she was small.

Hurt. Resting from that.

The vessel hoped (do not hope, do not, a pure vessel can not hope) it was not from something it had caused.

It probably was.

She looked over to it.

“I wish I had trusted it, before they vanished,” she said.

And it had no more understanding of that than anything else she had expressed.

Chapter Text

It dreamed of void.

Of battles and of bronze faces staring on as tendrils slid over them.

Of restraints and claws tearing its face wide open.

It dreamed, but it woke from these dreams. These dreams ended.

It had been so long since dreams were finite. 

This room was as dark as it had been before it collapsed onto the makeshift nest. The vessel took comfort in the darkness. It curled into its knees to press them to its eyes in an effort to see nothing but blackness.

It could not stay still forever. 

For the first time in what seemed an eternity, it could move. There were no chains hooked to the armor it had shed. There was no infection keeping its mind as much a prisoner as it kept hers. 

It hardly hurt less than it had before its rest, but, now that it had rested, the vessel could not find that pain outweighing the fact that it could move and should, before that opportunity was lost again. 

The room above was less dark. Faded blue light shone through the window and skylight. A small lumafly lantern was sitting on a desk beside a set of seats. Its light felt searing, even if it could hardly illuminate a few feet of distance. 

The palace was light, it thought absently. Not bright, not burning, not orange, but pale though it be, it would be light. It could not cower from every little light when it got there. 

Next to the lantern, Hornet was seated on a rough stool spinning silks. It had never been given the opportunity to watch the knitting process closely. It could not say what she was doing, only that it was not at odds with many of Deepnest. 

Small creatures were running beside and between her legs, trailing silk of their own. 

She looked up at the sound of its feet dragging over the dusty floor.

“You’re alive,” she said, bluntly and relieved. 

The vessel was alive, so it did not need to attempt a response. Hornet didn’t seem to expect one. 

“Good,” she went on to herself. 

The tools in her hands vanished under her cloak. She folded them onto her lap instead to look them over.

“I planned to leave when you got up. There are better supplies for you elsewhere, but I did not want to leave you to go get them until I knew you would be alright.” One of her eyes narrowed more than the other. “You will be alright?”

A question. But one it could read as referring only to its damaged body. That made it easier to give a jerking nod. 

She hummed at their answer and from there the room went silent. Its sister- she called herself its sister, it could call her that in return, couldn’t it? Couldn’t it?- did not get up to leave despite her words. It did not have the strength to leave. The missing palace grounds and city would have to wait. Father would have to wait. 

It did nothing aside from its nod but look at the creatures that were still running around its sister. They would jump onto the side of the stool and off, climb it, hang a web near the seat and then fall upside down before breaking off the silk to skitter around her legs once more. There was no reason for the movements. The vessel was confused over what their purpose was.

Hornet followed its gaze.

“Those are weaverlings. They were traditional comforts in Deepnest, meant to provide company in quiet hours, before the Weavers left. I’m not sure how our sibling found this charm, but the weaverlings are summoned through it.”

She lifted the item she called a charm and unclipped it from her dress to hand it over. The vessel did not realize that was what she was trying to do until she had already pulled her waiting hand back and at that point it was rather too late to show that its lack of motion hadn’t been purposeful. 

The weaverlings kept bouncing and rolling on the floor, now between both of their legs. They appeared to follow close to the charm or whoever held it. 

“They left a few of their charms with me before they vanished. I had thought they were returning to join me at the Black Egg.”

Hornet paused and her fingers folded up over the charm in her hand.

“Evidently, that was not their plan.”

But what had been the plan of this other vessel? It did not understand the actions it heard of. The vessel it had seen in and out of dream in the time before the Old Light vanished was one it had thought came from its own breaking mind and memories. It had been the one left to fall. It had been one that the vessel had thought of before.

So if it was that vessel that was responsible for what had happened to the infection, then the Hollow Knight could not understand. They had climbed the abyss at the same time. They had heard the same words from their father. They had undoubtedly felt the same purpose, written into their very being: to become the Hollow Knight and contain the plague that haunted the kingdom’s dreams. 

Vessels climbed to answer that call. They climbed, and would be taken, trained, and placed in the egg when ready to become the vessel of the angry god. 

It would have needed entry into the egg to kill the defective. So it would have needed past the Dreamers. Then, it could enter, grant the defective vessel death, and take its place.

Surely that echoed through that vessel’s very being. 

So how had it thought to ignore such a call and…what? What had it done?

There was a short, narrow box on the table. The vessel had not realized it until Hornet reached that table and opened the container. The light colored charm fell in and with a snap of breaking webbing, the weaverlings vanished. 

“These were what I was left with,” she said even as the vessel did not need to be told this. It did not need to be told anything but directives. No explanation, conversation, apologies, defenses.

Hornet left the lid open and turned so she could face the vessel. Though no directive was said, it could read one from her body language. It began to lumber forward before she’d even started to wave it over. 

“Some charms, most of a variety I did not see them equip in combat. I followed them often,” she added, even as the vessel recalled her saying something similar the day before. “They left maps and their compass charm as well. And these items pinned to the red circle on the City’s map.”

She did not pause long. She likely did not expect interest or questions. 

“They did not plan to come back. I should have realized.”

She should have been alright with that. This was not the tiny sister the vessel had once seen often enough. This was a named child, a daughter of Hallownest, an heir of two kingdoms, a protector of the realm. This was an aged and experienced being. This was someone who knew what the purpose of a vessel was. The Gendered Child in all her youth never had. 

This person would know that whoever the other vessel was, its purpose was to contain and destroy the Radiance. Its purpose was one it would never come back from. 

Hornet should have no reason to find this upsetting. A young child may not understand such a thing, but the adults in the vessel’s early life had and that was what she was now. 

Something in the box did draw its attention. It was not out of curiosity, because such an emotion was rare for it. Rather, it prickled at the vessel’s senses the same way an attack from behind might when it trained with the nail sage or great knights. 

It reached in past the folded papers to the messy pile of little rounded charms. The weaver’s charm was near the top, but the vessel brushed it aside and saw-

There was the source. 

It was rounded on all but its top. It bore a design that meant nothing to the vessel. What mattered was what power seemed to cling to it. 

Dreams. 

It hummed with an essence so much like dreams. But rather than the circular yellow flares of the Old Light, this was thick with flame, red and dancing. 

The Pale King had been a higher being. The vessel had spent much time in his lab watching him work. He had always seemed to be happier when it did and it wanted him happy, it did. He worked with void there and made notes on a civilization long gone. There was power in the void, these notes suggested. The vessel could have told him that. The void was home just as it would be the death of its impure sense of autonomy. The void was hungry and satisfied and old and ageless. It was the home of shades and it was those shades. It might not have been a being, but the void carried a power like higher beings held strapped around them. The White Lady had an essence of her own. Different from father's. But it intertwined and danced together. It was stronger that way. This mix of power kept the Old Light from truly reaching either of them. And the Old Light herself, Her- she was wrapped in dream and light and energy as well. She could take a form, but it did not make that form Her anymore than the vines and growths of the infection were Her. 

If not for the time with father and the constant exposure to her, the vessel may have sensed nothing. But it was attuned. It knew higher beings. 

This thing carried the trace of a higher being. 

And a part of it thought to snuff it out with void now, before it could ever grow powerful and hurt the vessel like She had. 

It was not its charm to touch. The vessel stepped back. 

Hornet was staring at it again. She reached for the red charm- the vessel could have lunged, knocked it from sister’s hand, do not let her be endangered- and picked it up. There was a frown in her voice, now.

“This thing was called the grimmchild, I believe. I have not let it out. Our sibling was fond of it. I saw them use it often. They even tried to use it against me, near the corpse of…”

She drifted off. 

The charm and all its god-taint went back into the box. The lid was folded over and shut. Hornet left it there and went back to her stool where she retrieved her needle. It had not even seen the weapon there. It was meant to be more aware of surroundings. This wouldn’t do. The god-taint clung in the air. It was still too bright here.

“You should rest more,” sister spoke as she walked back to them. Her hands moved quickly and clinically over each bandage without straying too long on a single one. It was grateful for that as well. It did not know what it would feel if given too much touch, too much concern. 

Finished, she turned her head up and stared directly at the vessel. Even that left it with an unpleasant crawling sensation. Few had ever looked into its eyes without showing discomfort. Most grew used to staring at the mask near its sockets rather than into them. The Gendered Child had been one of those exceptions, but she had been young. It had excused every odd behavior from her with her youth because that was the excuse father had eventually, exasperatedly, fallen upon. 

Time had passed. Hornet was not a child. She had not seen a vessel and their void eyes since this one was sealed away; she could not have. Not for a long passage of time. 

She had not grown out of it. She had not grown into the discomfort most others had around the vessel.

It did not know what to think of that. It did not know. 

“You are certain you will be safe while I’m gone?” Hornet asked while she stared.

Ah. Was that why she wanted such close contact? Such a direct meeting of eyes?

It did not know what to think of that either. 

The vessel was unused to being asked about its wellbeing in such a manner. It was always checked after training duels and molts and exposure to void and soul for injuries, but those questions were not expected to have a person behind the answer. Their answers were meant to be objective. Reports. Not opinions. She wanted an opinion. 

It finally gave a nod and wished its delay had not been so notable. 

Hornet accepted it as their father might have. She left and it wondered why the space she’d just occupied felt so jarringly empty now. 

“I’ll return with proper supplies,” she said at the door. “There is a lifeblood cocoon not far from here, and soul totems in the crossroads below. I’ve seen both heal ghosts like you.”

Ghosts like it? 

Fitting.

It was a phantom. Nothing more or less.

It should not be alive, yet it was here. It still remained in this world of the living when it had died long ago in its egg and, if that was a lie, then it had surely died in the constructed egg after She flayed it.

There was no direction for this thought to go. She had called it a phantom and that it was. It could find no more from this.

So after Hornet was gone, it pushed against the table. Ah. It had been propping its weight up by its arm for some time. There were tremors in the limb and its legs. It fought against collapsing here. If it was to collapse, it would not be under the beams of a skylight. 

The vessel paused before it began its trek to the lower room. 

Sister was gone. 

The nest below hid from light, yes, but it was quiet, emptied, soundless aside from its thoughts and it did not like thoughts. 

It carefully took the pale round charm from its box before limping downward. The summoned creatures were active until it curled into the fabrics and ceased all movement aside from rattling breaths. After that, the weaverlings only ran their circles briefly before curling many legs under their round bodies and seemingly sleeping. 

It was easy to let its mind fade again. 

It felt a breath away from the void sea as it was. Only its body’s pain kept the vessel from slipping into nothingness altogether.

Chapter Text

Hornet was not gone long, to its knowledge. It had slept through her absence completely and thus could not say.

She had tied bandages to its wounds on their very first night here. Or it thought that had been the first night. It thought that there had been multiple others after. The vessel did not actually know. It could have been asleep for days or only hours in those increments of rest. Its only measure was interruptions. 

But the first time it had crawled down into the underbelly of this cottage, she had followed. She had set leftover blankets into a pile and told it to sit there while she wrapped its wounds. It bled no orange in the process. It barely bled at all. The flakes of void that came out of cuts were just that- flakes. Rough fragments. Not what they should be. Nothing was. She’d scraped the infection skins out with her rag and it hurt, but it had felt right, cleaner, it wished she would stick her hand into those cuts to pull all remaining skins out of it. They did not belong in there. It made its void crawl to think of the deflated bags of Her still clinging to the cavities of its body. 

Hornet had not. She had cleaned only what was visible and tied gauze down that prevented it from reaching into the wounds itself. 

When she returned this time, it was with more bandages. It didn’t want the current ones opened. It did not want to feel the air against any of its injuries. It thought the sensation would make them feel a part of its body again, where the tight wrappings had left it able to feel distanced. 

The weaverlings rose and began their dizzying movement when Hornet lifted the door up above. The vessel slid the charm over the floor to some other mess in a hurry. As hoped, the distance made the little creatures vanish. Having them and Hornet around would be too much. Too much movement, motion, too many living things when it had done nothing for how long but be trapped with a single god?

Its sister dropped nimbly. The bag was set on the floor and the limb holding it retreated under her cloak. Unfortunately, one of her remaining hands was holding something that she did not hide under her clothes. It was the small round lantern again. The light from the trapdoor’s opening was enough. This light was too near, in its spot, its nest, its darkness.

She put her lantern down and caught how the vessel cringed. 

“I’ll need to see,” her voice held a frown. An apology? It was not her fault.

It did not understand her behavior very much. But rather like her father, she did not say much. He had not been one to, until those moments when he forgot he was not alone and his excitability kept words unknowingly spilling out. 

Hornet had not done that yet, just the former. Just the quiet, stiff remarks. Still more of those than the vessel understood. 

It let itself be confused while she opened her bags and began unwrapping its many bandages. She unpacked a few small luminous jars and opened them. Little rounded lifeblood seeds fell out into her hands and wiggled where they were clenched there. Lifeblood was frowned upon in Hallownest. It was not to be used. The vessel was a tool of Hallownest- loyal without passion, without choice. 

The vessel also hurt.

It could not continue to bear pain. Constant, constant pain. It accepted each seed handed over and crushed them. They popped and spilled cool substance over wounds in a way that did make that constant agony dull.

There was no expression of relief fitting enough for the sense of that pain leaving. 

What was condensed, condensed, collapsing, drowning, now alleviated. Lifted. It was like being bathed in the full light of its creator.

When she ran out of the lifeblood seeds, she handed over a totem that surged with soul under the vessel’s touch. It was much too large for her to have had to carry. 

It took too long for the vessel to gather that soul into itself. It felt like something that would be done for it.

It did not like that thought.

It did not like that its instincts now were to wait for the thing inside it to work it like a puppet, no matter if it had held still for the king to treat it before ever being trapped with the Old Light. 

Finally, it garnered enough and focused. Like the lifeblood, not every wound closed. The empty cavities in its chest did not fill with void. Its shoulder stayed a stump. The crack of its mask continued to sting.

So Hornet replaced the bandages where they were still needed and the vessel continued to sit in a slump, wheezing and rattling. 

It followed her upstairs.

The complete motivations for this were hard to understand. But it was difficult to move up and down and so if it was going to go up there at all for the sake of seeing Deepnest’s heir, then it may do better to just be up there to start with. It was not as dark, but it was not as trapped. Hornet was far from a higher being. Her presence was very different from Her’s. The vessel took comfort in the vast difference.

She did stare at it very often. No matter if she returned to weaving or sharpening her needle or sitting by a window that surely offered better views than staring at a failed vessel.

(It hurt to think that. It had tried so hard to be perfect, to be pure.)

(Containing the Radiance had hurt far more and far more recently. Its failure would be crushing when it reached the Pale King, not before.)

But the vessel was an oddity. It had never been meant to exist outside of that temple prison. It had been unfortunate that its molting process had taken as long as it had or else the Hollow Knight plan could have been enacted earlier. The thought left it nearly shivering. Everything within felt too carved out, barely strung together, infectious skins still remaining inside it to rot. It wished the molting process had never ended. It wished it had told its f- the king that it was not pure, if just to avoid the shattering agony of its imprisonment with the Old Light. Mortals could not hold gods. Mortals could not hold gods. You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams.

It was an oddity. It was not meant to be seen wandering the kingdom. Questions would arise. The Pale King and White Lady both wanted to avoid questions. Its birth from the void was to be hidden. Locked away. Like the void was. Like the Hollow Knight would be within the temple for the eternity of Hallownest’s reign. 

She would not have seen another vessel for the remainder of her childhood after it left to fulfill its purpose. She would not have seen one ever again throughout her adulthood. Or she should not have. But that had not happened.

She’d mentioned another one. One she called a sibling. She called it a sibling too. It made it easier to explain things to these townspeople. It used to be true.

The townspeople would stare too. But they weren’t in here. They weren’t in here because Hornet didn’t want them staring.

The vessel had no opinion either way.

This was a lie. It thought of its failure with every stare. It thought of the people staring- people that had likely hoped the terror was over, because their king would have told them the nightmare was ended. That they would be safe. That their loved ones would return to health. That there would never be the widespread death and fear that had been consuming the kingdom. They would have hoped and the vessel had noted that hope as it was transported to the temple and- 

And what would they have looked like, after realizing the infection had returned?

What would father have?

This had been the last chance for Hallownest.

It had been the last chance.

It wanted to avoid leaving the walls of this hut because it would be stared at, out there. It would be recognized. It would have to see the people it had failed. This was its opinion. It had had an opinion, though it had first said otherwise.

It was adept to lying. It had never lived without it.

Hornet worked on many things and watching did keep it occupied. She replaced its bandages often, which broke up the time it spent asleep to the time it was alert. It spent most of its time curled under a tall table where less light reached it. From there, it could watch her work in the rare hours it wasn’t asleep.

It was asleep too often. It had started worrying about that. Its body could not handle being up and moving, though. Hornet told it to rest. It rested. Her order made the creeping guilt that it should be at the city, it should have reached the throne go quiet.

She would also weave. The weaverlings would be brought out for many of those times. They were quiet. Mostly unobtrusive, despite their frenetic movements. Hornet’s project was a gray cloak. Its gray cloak, once white. She had asked it to remove the old one and since then had been keeping herself occupied with it as a project. 

The last cloak had been worn nearly constantly within the palace. It had been a part of the Hollow Knight design. It had been smoothed out of wrinkles by its creator before they had left for the crossroads and it could still recall the sensation of the absent motion.

It was old and ragged and ruined by infection. 

The vessel still had not wanted to see it so replaced.

As for what she did at other times, it did not fully know. It drifted in and out of sleep and had only seen her weaving or caring for her weapon or staring out a window as if waiting for someone.

One time, it woke to Hornet crouched near. She was kneeling by a table leg, rather than fully entering this cramped nest. The vessel still nearly startled to wake to that mask and the nearly-hidden eyes being so close.

But she was just there for another question, before she left again. She was making this a habit- this asking the vessel about itself before she departed. 

“You do not require meals, correct?” Hornet asked. She would remember that. Though it had, occasionally, been brought to stand or sit at attention at palace feasts, it did so for presence alone. The void was unfeeling. It had hollowed its vessels out and left them without the need or processes for food and drink. Its younger sister had tried to bring it smuggled favorite foods. Her father had had to explain to her that the vessel would not eat, even if she told it to. It could not.

The Light was hungry. Starving, ravenous. She had shared that sense of gnawing starvation within it, inside, and out. Had she reframed it enough that it could eat with the mouth she had given it for her screams? It did not want to know.

The vessel shook its head.

Hornet nodded absently.

“So I thought,” she said. “I will return, then. Rest here.”

And it did, while she was gone.

Its sleep was hazy. Its waking mind was no more clear than its dreamless sleep. It noted through this haze as she returned with a crawlid and devoured it quietly at the table, as if trying to be unobstructive and avoid waking it. It had already woken- but its waking was hazy and motionless and it slipped back into darkness again some time while she cleaned after her meal. 

The next time it was awake to move, she asked if it would like to go below. She had caught on to the vessel’s aversion to light. It did not want to be alone. She would bring her lantern if she came below with it. To not be alone, it would have light either way.

For now, it would stay here.

It did try to move this time. A heaviness remained over its mind and dragged its body downward, but it pulled itself over the room to sit near its sister. It took effort to remain upright. Its back ached with effort no matter if sitting meant its legs avoided the burning of unused muscles. 

It sat for longer than the last time. If it was this difficult now, then the journey to the city could fail. It may be left on forgotten roads, face down and crumpled. Would anyone find it? Did anyone still remain in the kingdom to walk those roads or had its failure to contain the infection killed its populace? 

How long had it hung, muscles deteriorating?

The vessel hated to do this.

No voice to cry, it thought and thought and thought.

But it could not determine how best to return to father if it would not learn how much time it must repair from. 

The vessel’s back burned almost like the infection when it unfurled from its hunch to stand. It ignored the fire.

Tried to, at least.

There were tablets left in the mess of a home. It took one that was still soft enough, set it in its lap for balance, and shook while its claws wrote.

No voice.

No voice.

It wanted to scream out of its alien mouth.

But the growing noise faded when it held the tablet and its words out to its sister:

how long?

And she looked at it with pity.

A hundred years.

So long.

Most of it passing with the kingdom in the thralls of infection. The vessel infected for the same duration of time.

Slowly breaking, burning, rotting.

It would reel, but the overwhelming understanding of all that time did not come. It couldn’t understand yet.

So it understood the minor instead. A hundred years without movement. Its body would take a great amount of time to rehabilitate enough to walk to the city. Bodies did not quickly recover from a century of muscle deterioration. Not even bodies born of god and void.

It would be trapped here.

First in this hut, then in the town, before it could regain the strength of its body enough to descend into Hallownest.

It wanted to move.

It wanted anything but to be trapped motionless again.

The damage from her Light would not allow it its wants anymore now than during their containment.

Chapter Text

So it was to be stuck here until its body had been retrained. Hornet appeared to think it best to know the town, then. She came back with names and occupations and descriptions of the few inhabitants. 

Elderbug was the stooped bug. There was a shopkeeper named Iselda whose partner made maps. He had supplied the maps of the other missing vessel, those that Hornet now had in the box with the charms. There was another shopkeeper named Sly. It actually had a thought on that one, rather than listening and feeling nothing as it did with the rest of Hornet’s information. Sly was a somewhat familiar name. It had been a century since its time before. It had been an eternity with a burning higher being distorting time and dream and body. It could not remember why, exactly, the name of a single fly sounded familiar. Hornet seemed unfavorable to him anyways. She complained about the price of the lantern he had sold her. 

The blue beetle- Bretta- apparently lived nearby, on the other side of the set of huts. And the one that the vessel had thought was a knight- Zote- apparently was not one. Hornet was unfavorable to him as well and mocked the shellwood he called a nail. The vessel could not see a purpose in a nail made of such a material aside from training.

Training. It could train again, maybe. After a time of doing that, it could be fit enough again to make the journey down.

It had always journeyed up, before. From the moment it had broken out of its egg, it had been driven to go up up up to where the pale light was. Then up from there, to the mouth of the kingdom where it would hold the burning light in another egg.

But its descent would not be that day.

Maybe training would help. It remembered how to, with partners and teachers. 

Maybe tomorrow.

For today, the vessel continued to fade in and out of sleep.

The vessel sensed it before it seemed any in the town could.

It had contained the Old Light for so long. It had long ago grown intimately familiar with recognizing the all-consuming presence of a higher being. 

Even if, in an age before, it could sit motionless on the Pale King’s bench and watch him fiddle away with metal contraptions without ever feeling suffocated by his light. It had rarely seen the White Lady, but it was with its fa…king nearly every day. And those times had always been lighter rather than heavy, overbearing, crushing and constricting down like the Old Light.

She was dream, gold, sunbright, light, and every single sensation of the plague along with that- the hunger, the foul taste clinging to unwanted throats, the bloating cysts pushing out at bone and skin and chitin from within, a sweetness always trapped in mouths and on antenna always one breadth away from smelling right. The burn, the bloat, the spilling of fiery orange out of chests and guts that pulsed in its skins and moved like a being alive on its own.

She was feather-fringe, light, brushing, each barb individually sharp. She was tall, towering, all-surrounding, with colored yellow eyes that shone like lamps in a world where only mother had had any subtle glowing color to her eyes. 

And She was dreams. The Dreamers did their best to keep her sealed within only the vessel’s dream, but her radiance washed over every sleeping bug, shone on every dream while bodies distorted and contorted and died.

That was the Radiance, if it had to try to give words to everything She was. A higher being’s essence could not be explained in simple words no more than it could be contained away. 

And this being approaching now carried an essence very much like her’s. 

It was more fiery than blinding light. Flames danced at its edges. Flames stolen from bugs and kingdoms. The trace of dream surrounded each, just as the trace of dream was what distorted and fluxed and allowed this to slip onto nearby land. But it was not her dream material. It was not her realm. 

Just as the fringe here was sharp down to the hilt of wings, rather than holding any misleading fuzz. It was a being of the same nature, undoubtedly, but it was not her.

And so the vessel could not find the energy to take up its nail and go meet the god. If it was angry over the destruction of the Old Light, then it would find the vessel and the vessel would have no sympathy to offer. It had lost all life from its time with her. It burned and ached and knew its body was forever distorted because of her. No matter how much occurred without purpose from the god, it all occurred regardless. And it had all hurt, regardless. Sympathetic coos and raging torment hurt alike.

(It wished, so badly, that it had been rescued. That its foolish fantasy of its father making the pain stop could have been real, rather than a weakness She could use against it.)

(It wished it could have been saved when there was still something of a person left to be saved.)

There were voices out in the town. Hornet looked up from her weaving. 

Out by the town’s border, fire swept wide from where the flame had bloomed, slipping from a pinpoint, a gravity well, fueled by dream that was not-dream. It swept out and flooded up against the border of this town, curling around its edges before its roaring state slowed and collapsed to a few restrained flames just east of the town. 

It was not just voices now. There were the noises of heavy fabric, thuds, clumps. Then, music.

Of all things, music. 

Music that drifted all the way over to this hut. It was nothing dramatic, but there was the hint of a presence in every note. It left the void under its chitin crawling. Flames danced with music and coated the world in red. 

Hornet was standing now. It wondered if she knew how her body rotated until her needle was in perfect reach. 

It pushed itself upwards. Since its cloak had been removed, it had taken to wrapping a blanket over itself. The fabrics hid its missing arm and the rest of its marred body. The blanket fell now and it felt too bare. When the higher being came, it wanted to appear…

It did not know.

Like the hollow knight? Like the king’s pure vessel?

Not broken. 

Its nail was on the floor nearby. It made it to its knees before having to let go of the floor to reach for the weapon. Hornet’s attention was drawn over. She was distracted by it, moving closer now, forgetting how she’d been reaching for her own needle. 

The box on the far table burned like a lantern’s flame. It grew and pulsed and seemed a beating heart responding to the fires approaching closer and closer.

There was noise outside.

It had known the sound was coming. It could sense every swell of the lantern here, responding to the rest of the god as that presence drew nearer. It had left little guessing that the approach would finish here, where it rested and its sister passed hours in solitude rather than returning to her kingdoms below. 

The sound was a knock on this hut’s door and it left both Hornet and the vessel freezing. The vessel’s arm was still stretching out for its nail. Now, it was not sure what it was meant to do. Hornet had stopped reaching for her own weapon and her doing so to start with was why it had begun to prepare for a defense. 

It took the nail and dragged it back towards its table in a compromise. It would be near, that way, even if it was not yet standing for an attack. 

In that time, Hornet had grabbed her needle and walked over to pull the door open. She did not fully throw it aside. Instead, she had opened it enough for her to stare out, but kept one foot against it to prevent it from opening further. 

There were dark wings rustling, sometimes in view lower down where a cloak would flare. The rustle was not the same as the Light’s, whose wings were rarely folded upon themselves. It was a small comfort. 

Hornet’s head was turned back, so the god must have been tall. Though she was rather small still, even a century later. She had never inherited her mother’s height, like it had taken the height of the Root. 

“What do you want?” she greeted, cutting and sharp. Now that, she did inherit from her mother. It was more distinct here compared to how she’d greeted Elderbug upon their arrival. The vessel wondered if it had anything to do with this being a higher being- or carrying the taint of one, at least, even if it was diluted in an odd way.

The voice that spoke back was horribly raspy. Its void crawled again, this time in unprepared sympathy. The speaker sounded like their throat was burned away. It only had a throat because one was burned into it. The throat in question had begun to ache and squeeze at all this thought being directed upon it.

“Now this is rather hostile. We have not even met!” the hidden higher being- was it a higher being? The presence was diluted and the vessel did not understand- said.

Its sister’s reply was quick.

“I know who you are.”

“Then you have me at a disadvantage,” the Dim Light said. “But I am right in thinking the small one left the child with you?”

What point was there in denying? The god-taint was clear. The room reeked with it. If the vessel could sense that through exposure to an old god, then old gods themselves would sense it with ease. 

“Yes,” Hornet admitted. “I will retrieve it and you may go.”

More an order than a suggestion, no matter how it was phrased.

But what was a warrior to a higher being? What good were pointed suggestions to old lights and flaming dreams?

“I would rather hear any news of yours regarding my friend,” the croaking voice denied as smoothly as a voice like that could. “Many changes have occurred around us in such a short span of time. A rushed dance, but no less delightful. Surely you know, daughter of Hallownest.”

Flames licked against the exterior of the hut. They held little strength or heat, but they were searching. Searching, finding. It tensed defensively.

“You aren’t alone,” the master of the flame declared, sounding curious despite the declaration being known before it was ever spoken. They had seen one another from afar, the moment that the flames began to rise out of that lanternstand on town’s edge. It had found every similarity to Her as it approached, and it knew from experience that gods would do the same with more ease yet. This one no doubt knew every being in this town: location, mind, dreams, weaknesses. Gods were very good at finding weaknesses. “I sense one just as they were.”

The dark foot against the door pushed its opening even smaller. Hornet better braced her leg to keep it there.

“Leave them,” its sister ordered.

“I have not even seen them,” came the protest.

Oh, but the god had. Those flames had found their answers.

The thing on the tabletop kept pulsating, beat by beat. 

The vessel had contained the Old Light for far too long to walk away without tainting. 

Its throat burned like it had when forming. It could imagine every dead skin hanging loose from internal exoskeleton and organs within, once holding sticky orange life. 

Impure before it walked in, but so corrupted now. 

Everything the closest god could sense. Everything the Pale King would sense as well, when it returned to him. 

There was either a hiss or a sigh.

“Really, this hostility is unnecessary.”

“It is your presence that is unnecessary,” its sister said in return. 

Was this too a defense? Standing between it and something that could, would, could hurt it? She did not need to. The not-knight- Zote- could not have hurt her for it, but a higher being…

The door did not exactly get pushed open, but the vessel did see how Hornet’s foot slid when it widened just slightly. The being outside, for the first time, tilted their head so they could peer in better. The vessel, for the first time, saw a hint of pale face, dark horns, flaring sharp wings framing that head. 

None of which was easy to make out. The light outside was dim. The face and wing-cloak would be too. 

Except for one thing.

The vessel caught a glimpse of vibrant eyes. They glowed against the darkness of Dirtmouth’s ambience. It had only seen Her’s glow, before. 

Flame- fire, burning, wingtip pressed against void throat. Not-dream. Eyes, eyes, lamplights, so opposite the peace of the void.

Calm down. 

The nail was right there. The vessel could stand and fight within a few seconds. The infection wasn’t here. It was fine.

Its sister who remained its sister, called herself its sister now when she knew better- she was also fine. Unharmed. Strong. Protecting it. 

Those vibrant eyes turned to her as the face they were set in retreated from sight. The god had seen it. The god had chosen not to stare.

Maybe this would not end in a fight.

It may not have been about avenging the Old Light at all. She had not even come up yet. 

The vessel realized it wanted to know. 

It was curious about the similarity in presence, this less abrasive burning fire, these not-dreams so similar but not the same. If this was not a being angry about the annihilation of the Old Light, then what was it here in father’s kingdom for? To fill an emptied space? The monarchs of Hallownest loved each other very much, but the vessel knew that outside their bond, most higher beings did not encroach on the realm of another’s. Encroaching felt like Light pressed against, into, Void- constant discomfort. Fighting. Battling to subsume the other. Polarized. Battling to just move away from that press. 

It was born of god and void. 

This in and of itself should have been a constant contradiction. It had never hurt until containing the Radiance, though.

She had no place left in this kingdom. That was her flaw. She had been forgotten. Her creations had found a better monarch and chose him over her. She forced her way into memories again. This was unnatural order. She had not had a natural place in the kingdom, so there would be none empty now for another higher being to slot into.

Its grip on the hilt of its weapon loosened. It had more questions than it felt threatened, now. Though it was not its place alone to turn a higher being around and send them into the wastelands. That would be the position of its creator. It was wasting time trying to think as he might.

The voice on the other side of the door went amiable again. As amiable as what sounded like a dying croak could. Perhaps it was sensing such tones not from the voice but rather the flames that licked and danced outside. 

Born of god and void, reforged by light. What was it now, to sense the hearts and cores of beings beyond it?

“Ah,” the god was saying. It sounded as if they had stepped back some. Hornet had lost a fraction of tension, so the vessel thought the god might have done just that. She did not seem the type to appreciate threats standing in her space. She barely entered the vessel’s own.  

“My presence is for your benefit, but I see now how you would not realize this.” The Dim Light paused only for effect before saying something that made Hornet’s tensions return twofold. “You did not sense a new god awakening in this land.”

A new god?

No, a part of the vessel thought. The knowledge coiled about. 

Not a new god.

An old god.

The oldest. 

And the vessel owed it everything for making the pain stop.

“You want to know what’s happened,” the god said, not asked.

Its sister was tense. More tense, even. Her claws were digging into the door. 

She finally forced them to loosen and release the door altogether. Without hand or foot in place anymore, it opened. The vessel was almost able to see the full figure of the being beyond.

“Then tell me.” Hornet acquiesced. She was looking back at the vessel, rather than who she spoke to. It did not know what her stare meant. Her eyes were shadowed by her mask at this distance. “But let them rest.”

But the vessel wanted (do not want, do not) to know what had become of the other one- the one who had fell, who it had let fall, who had risen again and again to fight in the same dream, who had fought the infection at its source- too. If this stranger knew, it would not be adverse to their entry if it came with explanation.

Hornet wanted it to rest rather than hear such a thing. So it would remain here. It would not seek out answers to a curiosity it did not have.

It leaned back into its blankets and tried to do as she’d wanted while silence engulfed the hut and ancient flames danced a few streets away.

Hornet returned without the one tainted of higher being. 

That taint remained nearby. The faint music had yet to stop.

The heart on the table kept beating, far more active now than it had been before the fire’s arrival.

She looked tired. Or frustrated? With the way she put her needle against the wall and the force used to pick up the case left by the other vessel (what had become of it? What answers had she learned that it had slept through?), frustration became more likely the correct read.

It unfolded itself from the nest and shifted until it was sitting on the floor just beyond the table. There was no way for it to sit upright while underneath. 

Hornet slumped onto her usual chair with the box in her lap. She seemed tired. It rested, but did she? She was evidently not going to begin now. Not with how she opened the case and picked up the red charm within between two claws and held it up but away. She did not put it on, or do whatever was necessary to make the being tied to that charm appear. 

The vessel stared at it and her and the window beyond and wondered once again what had been discussed. 

Hornet looked from the charm to the vessel with its legs sprawled out and only one arm left to hold the ground and balance itself. 

It was still surprised that the higher being out there had not arrived for it. That one had come for news and words and something to do with the charm, child? Hornet held. The similarity to the burning light was just coincidence. 

It hoped (do not hope, do not) its sister would explain these latest proceedings even if she had no reason to talk aloud to a vessel. 

(Father had never had a reason either and yet he would forget himself, sometimes, caught up in work, and speak to an empty audience about what life his projects took on. His daughter may be the same.)

But she didn’t. She just glared at the charm. 

The vessel eventually lifted its arm from the ground, wavered and recompensated, and then used it to point towards the direction of those dancing flames.

That brought Hornet from her glaring. 

“We came to an agreement. Don’t worry, he won’t bother you.”

The vessel did not want to acknowledge that her statement did give it relief. It did not want to consider that it was worried to start with. 

It did not want to think of its lifetime with another burning light…of its fear. Nothing but more fear came from thinking of the emotion.

The vessel kept pointing. Hornet looked away out the window by her favored stool.

“That was Grimm. He calls himself the leader of the Grimm Troupe. They hide much in their circus tents and cheer.”

They hid a god, for one thing. A god far too like the Old Light.

“We’ll be… neighbors, apparently.”

And it was more than apparent she did not like this fact. 

It did not like the idea either.

“He claims he had a contract with our- the other vessel. One finished, but that he seems to have no desire to release now that they are…”

They were what?

This other vessel…what had happened to it? What had it done?

Hornet didn’t say. It didn’t know how it could convince her to if she didn’t think to do it first.

“It was over this spawn of his. The one Ghost left behind with me at the temple.”

Her fingers twisted around the charm and the heartbeat within it pounded. With a flash, something small and gray twirled into the air.

Its wings spanned much more of its small body than Her’s would, proportionally. They were sharp and gray rather than soft tendrils saturated in light. 

Its head looked similar to the charm itself.

It had the eyes of the visitor from earlier.

Void coiled and crawled under broken chitin. 

“That is the Grimmchild,” she said, seemingly having confirmed a name she had before said she was unsure about. “It…he does not have another name, that I know now. But Ghost agreed to help him grow. By Grimm’s word, at least.”

Her head dipped closer to one shoulder. The small creature kept hovering near her. He would have seemed unnotable, if the heart of a god was not beating within his tiny frame.

Hornet sighed.

“For now, I have agreed to hold onto it. Grimm was rather insistent, even if he was equally insistent that he’d wished the child spend this time of its life with my- our-...”

She drifted off. It was thinking of her former sentence rather than the latter anyways.

So this god-taint was to remain within this shelter?

Perhaps the vessel would manage the pain of descending to its basement again. It did not think it could bear the presence of a higher being nearby for such consistent periods of time. Not when it had only just been freed from that. 

It was dragging itself up before it had realized it. But now that it stood, it thought of another action instead.

One as equally distasteful now as it had been the only other time it had done this. But one it had to do. 

It wanted to know why the dreams had ended. 

It wanted to know why its sister talked of something else like someone else. 

The vessel found the same tablet and shook once again while it attempted legibility before handing the word over to Hornet.

Ghost?

She took up the tablet easily, as if there was nothing wrong about the vessel using it to start with.

Her shoulders tensed and then fell when she actually looked at it, though.

“Ghost of Hallownest,” she said. “Your-...our…sibling. They would be our sibling.”

Oh. It referred to that missing vessel then. 

She had given it a name.

How very alike to the Gendered Child of years ago.

Chapter Text

It slept. It dreamt. It waited for an energy that never seemed to arrive.

Its dreams were bland. The Light was not in them. It was barely aware of itself in them.

The vessel slowly grew to prefer awareness. For the seeming eternity spent with the Old Light, it had lost hold of itself. It blurred into her, they blurred into a strained thing that longed for the peace of half-existences ending.

So it moved more. It stretched when it woke. It tried to sit more often with its sister, rather than remaining on the floor while she was seated. Its back ached. Once, a lifetime ago, it would stand upright while its king sat.

It wanted to return to that. But it did not even have two hands to place on the hilt of its great nail anymore. It would never match the same image as it stood by him. 

It still would rather it was doing that, at Hornet’s side. Rather than sitting. What was the point of sitting? It made its back ache. It would be so much easier if it just remained in its makeshift nest.

So much easier.

But it made itself sit and soon it would make itself stand. It already had less bandages to wear.

Hornet had not returned its cloak. She said she was not done with it yet. It began to wonder if she was delaying. It did not want to leave this hut without that layer of protection to hide its rotted shoulder. 

Eventually, it would have to leave.

Hadn’t she realized that?

The ‘child’ would stare at it sometimes.

It seemed most fixated on its mask. It felt peeled and laid bare when those red lamps remained on it too long. It did not have a voice to tell the god-child to go away.

It would put up with the creature. There had been plenty in the palace that it had put up with while small, before its time with Her had stripped away all choice and power in the matter.

The crack in its shell stung. It remembered what it felt like to have its eyes bloat and burn.

It would always turn away before the child.

Hornet still had not returned its cloak or a replacement, though it saw her work on them. 

It kept indoors as it regained small amounts of strength and health. Sometimes, she left and would return with more lifeblood seeds. Other times, she told it of better ways to stretch and watched its progress closely. 

She must want to return to Deepnest. She’d been its heir, so surely she sat at its head like her mother before her. 

Grimm had called her a daughter of Hallownest rather than Deepnest. She stayed here, never bringing up a desire for it to hurry and heal so she could return to her realm.

It wondered what it all meant.

Hornet knew more about repairing from atrophy than it decided she should have. Some part of it felt uncomfortable over this. It knew now how many years had passed while it was chained, but it did not know what she had done during that time.

Had she remained in Deepnest?

Taken on a mantle from father and the White Lady? She had referred to the queen as a mother when she was oh so young. Perhaps with one mother gone, she had spent the years with her other. Had they named her? 

Why did she know how to bind wounds and stare down gods and correct the stance of one recovering from significant physical damage?

It had let the infection out.

She would have been touched by it, indirectly though that might have been.

It had not protected her.

The king’s daughter did not act rightfully angry over that. She stayed distant, but patient. And ever watchful. 

She could be. It was far more welcome from her than from the child of another god so close in resemblance to Hallownest’s enemy. 

Even if that child did very little that could be called similar to what She did or was. It hovered or it laid down and the movements seemed dependent on what those around did, much like the weaverlings. The vessel could tell it wasn’t sleeping when it would lay on the table near Hornet, but it would maintain that position for hours.

It thought of- oddly enough- the lifetime the Light had taken from it. Of being small enough to go unnoticed, trailing the king, waiting for hours in his labs or standing near his seats while its mind went blank rather than running.

(Why couldn’t it have been saved? When it had been that child, that person, before Light and Pain and devastating isolation?)

(It blamed no one. So why think on this?)

Recently, it had unfurled its long legs from its own sleep and accidentally kicked the thing. It hadn’t realized the child was there. It made a squeaky coughing noise as it recoiled and rolled from the force of the blow and spat out a small flame in response. The fire had barely singed the vessel.

But it was a symbol of the power to singe.

To burn, burn. Its father, its beating heart, all of it held that way of being. 

As she had. 

It hadn’t known it was shaking until its sister was there, near its side, reaching close but hands landing on the floor nearby rather than its shoulders. Good. That was good. It would not have wanted touch when it didn’t realize who was responsible. It did not want to lash out accidentally. 

The god-child was nowhere in sight when it had managed to refocus and Hornet finally deemed it safe to leave the side of. 

It still did not know why it would try to sleep so near the vessel anyways. It was Hornet who had pulled its charm from the box and let it wander her hut now.

But that was not the last it saw of the small moth. 

Its lamplight eyes had woken it on two occasions now while it had been sleeping in the darkness of the basement. 

It hovered and played on the table above it those times that it needed to lay down and did not want to go all the way below. 

And while it mostly stayed out of the way during the exercises Hornet gave the vessel, this was not always the case. The moth would land and watch it stretch when she was gone: out in Dirtmouth, sleeping, rescuing survivors (it had only heard of one brought to Dirtmouth so far, though) (the infection would not leave many) hunting, whatever the case. 

(She hunted for herself, it noted. It had not tested whether it could eat or not. Taste was sweet, sick, rancid rot. It never wanted to taste again. Not even the inescapable taste of the inside of its unnatural mouth. And for all that the flame-child had a mouth and the fangs of a predator, it had never seen the thing eat what Hornet brought back.)

The child would not bother the vessel when she was there, but it seemed free of guilt without her presence.

Even if it never attacked. Aside from that one incident, it had never spit its fire at the vessel. But it watched and came too near and kept staring at its mask with an intensity it could not bear. At least if it was in the midst of movement, it was not staring like that. So it almost preferred how the creature would begin to mirror it on those occasions it stretched without its sister to help.

If it stretched a leg and tried to reach to its tip with its hand, then the child would land on the ground to stretch one wing flat out, neck down, tail unseen underneath.

Only one eye would crack open to peer at it in that position. It seemed more to see whatever the next stretch would be than the hungry dissecting gaze that it offered its mask otherwise. 

It wasn’t her.

As long as it reminded its shattered mind that this thing was not her, then it could make it through the day without an episode of tremors and the sense of suffocation.

But still Hornet had not told it that they were returning to the city now.

And even for his daughter’s sake, the vessel that was not pure knew it needed to find the city in place of the missing palace.

It needed to find him. 

It did not know why she was not saying the same.

It did not want to leave without a cloak to cover its missing limb. It did not want to leave without a cloak that would cover many of the scars of infection and few remaining bandages. 

It did not want to leave without its old cloak, the one given by father, the one worn as it left him last, so that it could return to him as close to resembling the vessel that had left. 

It was an impossible dream, that.

It was missing an arm. Its face had been nearly split open by the force of her lunge to escape; even if it had not fully split, the crack was glaringly obvious.

Its entire image was corrupted.

It would be hard to even walk into his presence like this. 

Hard, but it had to. That need grew more every day. It could not bear to remain up here at the mouth of his kingdom.

So it left.

It walked from the hut with nail in hand, limp unrepaired, and ruined form bare. 

No one seemed to notice it go. The nearest houses only had the ones called Zote and Bretta out front and both seemed preoccupied with his flow of speech.

It had thought them preoccupied, at least. It had barely caught that the beetle perked up and saw it departing. What would she do, anyways? Tell? That would happen anyways. 

The descent down the well did not hurt as badly as ascending it had. It still had almost fallen from the chain completely when the weight of the nail upset its hold and the vessel had decided to drop instead. The impact rattled through it and left it hurting. But what else was new? It had to reach the city. It had to reach its king. 

The crossroads were quiet. There were multiple bodies littering the sides of its pathways. A few- mostly pests, mindless anyways- were not bodies at all, when it reached them. They moved or wheezed or tried to crawl. It did not pause to look more closely at the first still-moving vengfly. Nor the second. Its nail scraped against stone. 

This was just its instinct to ignore. A hollow vessel would not care.

The way that it determinedly did not stare at any of the skins left over from the plague’s growths was far more purposeful. It had felt a swooping sickness at the first accidental sight and could not bear to see another. 

She was gone.

She was gone and this kingdom could repair from the damage its failure had cost it. The king would help it. The king would build it up again. 

(The king would maybe even build it up again.)

It passed by the temple while its void crawled. There were many rough drops on the uneven path from there. The vessel felt something tear, up from its hip to its gut, on one of these drops. 

It tripped in the next room down. It had staggered until it could not stop itself from hitting the ground. Parts of its fingers were crushed under the hilt of its nail where they ground into the stone beneath. A tiktik walked by unfearing in the time it took the vessel to push up to its knees again.

This was pathetic. 

It could not reach the city like this. 

It had to reach him.

But it could not.

It had to.

But it had no strength for it. Not without help. It did not even know where it was going. Its memories of the day it had been transported here were scrambled. Many of its memories were. And the world had changed regardless. These were not smooth, maintained paths. It would get lost in the wild lands of the Mantises when it descended. It would never even make it to the city and it had known that. Why had it tried? 

It slid back from its knees to sit and gripped its head with the same hand that still held its nail.

There was so much pressure there. It was nearly like having the infection pressing outward. 

Too much, too much. 

It did not know what it could do. 

A horrible vibration ran through its throat and an equally horrid noise began to break past its closed mouth. The vessel barely stopped the sensation from becoming a scream. No nono, she was gone. She was gone. 

It couldn’t think.

It was never supposed to think to begin with.

One thing was clear: father would have to wait. It would not be reaching him today.

She found it by the temple, lost. 

Hornet stopped in the entry to the cavern. Her needle was out, but tipping downward. She stood there when she found it.

It stood at the doorway to its prison and waited for her. 

Then she moved. Her needle was slotted away while she walked forward. Not a rush, but curt nonetheless. When she reached it, there was no hesitation before she was checking on her bandages. One set of wrappings near its hip were soiled now. She seemed frustrated to see it.

Perhaps angry. That was not something her father had often directed at it. It had not meant to upset her by leaving. 

It had meant something by leaving, but what that was now, it could not put a finger on. It had wanted to reach its king. What more of a plan had there been? It was lost. It had been lost since hearing how many years had passed without it.  

Hornet tugged its arm. Oh. She had moved already again? It needed to focus. She was trying to move it towards the tunnel she had come from. Towards that town again. 

(What was the purpose?)

It was unmovable. Hornet stopped to look up at it while it stared into the dark doorway of an empty temple. 

(What was its purpose?)

She tugged again, more insistently. It pulled its arm out of her grip. 

It had not contested the king’s daughter since being freed. 

She stared.

It felt the world spinning as it had since it had collapsed a few streets away. Would she have answers for this? Her father would.

(Its father would and it wanted him.)

“Hollow Knight. There is nothing here,” she said.

No.

Just broken chains and the memory of terror. It hated this temple. It hated being so near. Every part of it- the void, the real, the reframing done with the Light- shuddered and crawled to be so near. 

Why hadn’t father the Pale King come here after feeling its seals break? If…

If it waited here long enough, would he come? Had he already, when it was gone, up above in the town?

Another unwanted noise coughed out past a mouth it forgot to seal shut. Hornet startled at the sound. It ripped away from her attention, turning around to face the temple and egg within and falling into a crouch until its head buried between weak legs and it could shove its hand- hilt and all- against its head once more. 

He would come. 

He would come and it would be over. 

It had so dramatically disappointed his hopes, but maybe he would be glad to see it anyways. Glad. That’s what he was to see it a lifetime ago, when it was small but growing nearer its time for sealing and he would look down at it without prompting or reason. 

It had dashed the kingdom’s hopes, but…

But it could hope to see a little bit of that in its creator again, one last time? 

Hornet was next to it, pulling on its shoulder. 

“There is nothing down there for you right now!” She insisted but it sounded like a plea. It sounded far too much like a plea and that made no sense (what did?). “You need to rest!”

No, it had done nothing but rest. It needed to be useful. It needed to be given use, because it had expended it all on these very grounds it was kneeling now. 

Its sister made an exasperated sound.

“Alright. You disagree.”

There was a moment without sound before she crouched down too and used two hands to push its shoulders up until they faced each other. It let the motion happen limply.

“What could it be?" Hornet asked. Did she expect an answer? “The roadways and cities are dangerous. Is it the Abyss?”

In part. 

The sea called it, to be certain. Its draw was forever there.

For the king’s daughter, it could answer.

She was its sister.

That meant more than it should ever have felt. 

So it shook its head. 

Still, she did not understand.

“What is it then?”

What else could it be? Surely she remembered how rarely the pu- the vessel was apart from her father in all her visits. She would take it away sometimes to entertain herself, but that always meant retrieving it from where it tailed him.

But if she did not understand…

It pushed upright and looked over the cavern around it. Across the roadway from the temple’s entrance were fenceposts. Their sigils were familiar (welcome, wanted, where was he? Why could it not sense his palace down below?). It left Hornet confused to lumber over to one and heard her trailing. 

The vessel pointed at the distinct top of one of these posts.

She was silent.

She was silent for too long.

“He isn’t going to be down there,” she finally said, slow and low and very, very careful.

It stared at her. 

What sort of statement was that?

As slowly as she had spoke, it shook its head.

It began to move towards the far road again. Hornet was here. Hornet understood what it needed to do. She would be able to navigate the present world it knew nothing of.

“Stop.”

Why?

She could help. They could both reach him. 

He was both their-

He was her father.

He had always seemed to love her in what time the vessel had existed simultaneously with the Gendered Child. 

It kept limping on. The sound of the stone beneath its nail hurt to hear.

The cavern was replaced by the next room. It paused at the foot of the first drop. 

Behind it, Hornet caught up. She moved until she was between the drop and the vessel.

“Stop.” She repeated. “This will not be a good reason to go down there.”

There would be no better reason!

This surge of emotion was unbecoming. 

It shook its head again. This was as much of a voice as she would get from it. 

“No,” she shook her own head.

It lifted its nail and stooped until it could grab at the crack on its head. The pressure did not go away. It didn’t understand why she was stopping it. 

Then it tried to push past her and drop regardless of how it might tear another injury.

It should have been easy to push past her, no matter if she had grown some from the tiny child she was once. But it did not want to shove. 

(It remembered how easily the other vessel would break, during those first battles in its dreams.)

(It remembered the sound of breaking bodies and how its twin must have made the same sounds when it reached the bottom of the abyss that it had stood and watched it fall into.)

(It did not want to keep remembering when the memories left it ill.)

It did not want to shove and she had done so instead to keep it from the ledge.

“Stop! He isn’t there!” Hornet insisted.

But he would be. The palace was a dream-stain, but father knew what he was doing. He was a higher being. He understood void and old lights alike. Even if the palace was distorted, he would be there or the city or somewhere in his kingdom.

He would not leave Hallownest. Keeping Hallownest eternal was what had driven him to its creation rather than an evacuation of its unfortunate populace. He’d wanted them protected, rather than driven to mindless, dangerous wastes. 

It shook its head insistently and lifted its heavy nail to point downwards to where the dream-stain lay.

But Hornet did not listen. 

It was not that she didn’t understand.

It was that it hadn’t. 

“You aren’t going to find him! He’s dead!”

The words first meant nothing.

They were just sound from a being capable of speech.

Then something in its chest began to shake. The squeezing tremors moved to lungs and throat and then its limbs follow the organs’ suits. 

Something was rising up its throat. Something that burned. 

She was gone, she was gone-

And He was gone?

No.

It misheard.

It misunderstood.

Make the meaning go away. Please, let it think nothing of the sounds she’d made.

Its keening wavered but it could not stop itself this time. 

Hornet stepped back.

“I-you-”

Its king-

Father

The father it kept calling to, screaming to, unheard because of the seals- 

...would never have heard without them? Was dead as it screamed?

She was gone, He was gone, what remained?

“He’s dead.” Hornet repeated. “He died.”

She stepped back again. 

Black eyes were wide under her mask- 

shining, glittering, visible finally in the lighting of the ruined crossroads.

She had not meant to upset it. 

There she was, doing it once more. Concerned about protecting it again.

The vessel turned to walk back to the temple. It did not make it to the entrance before it was on the ground. And a hesitant hand landed on its shoulders where a cloak- father’s design- should have been. 

She hadn’t meant it.

But it was true and if it was true, what chance did it have to not feel despair?

Chapter Text

The Pale King did not often leave his palace.

This, the populace knew.

The Pale King had the habit of not leaving a few select rooms in his palace to wander and visit the rest.

This was information his queen, retainers, and the vessel that shadowed him everywhere knew. 

The White Palace held many open courtyards, small gardens, and great halls. But it also held labs meant for little more than tinkering. These were not the places where void was stored up and experimented on. These places held piles of materials and tools precariously placed and apt to fall. They held cluttered countertops and unfinished projects. The king, it had learned, did not like to leave a project unfinished. It determined this based on how he would stay focused on one while hours passed into days and meals were missed and his queen eventually sent retainers to remind him to sleep.

(She did not come herself, though it had gathered through its king’s absentminded speaking that she used to. She avoided being anywhere near the vessel.)

To these rooms, it followed the king on many occasions.

It remembered those occasions now.

The quiet of those rooms. No retainers were here to mumble and praise. 

Just quiet and contentment and sometimes the happy humming of someone lost in work. Then the machinery would be tested and that could be loud, but it had nothing against noise then. It was another thing She had yet to poison. 

It remembered.

It remembered how, one time, he had been working a track and blade, fiddling to make the blade slide down and back on the track without its chains getting caught or jumping off the rail. His elbows had gotten too near one of the piles of leftover metal sheets and the vessel watched blankly as he finally did knock into it.

“Ah-”

The king grunted when one metal sheet fell from the counter. He caught it against the counter with his hips.

“Vessel, hold that.”

It left the bench and took the sheet. It’d placed both hands on it and he’d watched so as to know when he could free his hip and-

It was almost like something else. It was almost like a child and father indulging in the elder’s hobbies, the child learning and absorbing all under that idea that they’d be like this when they grew up.

The vessel was never going to grow up. Those were not in the plans. It would spend its whole life containing the source of the infection.

The king took the sheet back and set it on the precarious pile it had fallen off of in the first place. He was back to his gears and automation. But this time, the vessel didn’t return to the bench.

It should have, probably; it didn’t want to be in the way; it also did.

No wants. No wants.

The hours drew on. The king tested what he’d built and seemed pleased with it. So he’d built onto this initial design, all while the vessel stood at the side of the counter with its empty stare.

He knew it was there. He remembered. It knew this because when another set of items became too hindering for him to hold, he’d absently handed a few over.

“Would you hold this too?”

Absently was the right word.

That was not how a vessel was spoken to. It did not need to be asked questions.

The king did this, sometimes.

Just as he would start to talk to himself after a while, on good days.

He wasn’t talking to the vessel.

He’d just know there was another presence there and his focus was his work and the words came without thinking about (who) what that presence was.

It liked the times that he would talk. Not because it understood or felt passion of any kind about what he spoke about, but because he sounded-

(Like he was speaking to it)

happy

(Like a father)

and that wasn’t something it saw him be often. The infection kept him miserable.

(Maybe in another world-)

It remembered that day’s words. They’d felt important. The whole moment had, no matter if it had not seen a purpose in the speed of a tool’s spinning or how smoothly it was able to move back and forth on a track.

“I’ve been working on improving the automated movements. I think I’ve found a better way, though admittingly, by myself, this is difficult work. It really does require many hands. If only my Root saw the joy of this work.”

He’d tested the track after leaning up from fiddling and his eyes alit when he saw the thing spin from one end to the other.

“It’s excellent,” the king said to himself. He drew his claws atop the sharp edge. Black blood trickled from a cut left behind. It thought that dangerous, but what was a vessel to input advice? Besides… He was smiling.

He was happy with this work.

The vessel held up the last of the leftover tools it had been handed and he didn’t even look at it as he took them back. He was preoccupied with the prototype on his desk.

“Good work.”

It was because he’d forgotten. It wasn’t directed at the vessel. It wasn’t a shared good work, a shared we’ve done excellently.

It felt it felt it felt like-

He looked down and saw the vessel there.

Not a helper. Not a friend.

His vessel.

And the spell broke. The smile dropped. The king retreated away into himself, as he always did.

It started being assigned nail training during the bulk of the time he spent in his workrooms. After molting, it was told it was simply too large and would have to remain outside.

It remembered how happy he had sounded while he talked about his hobby needing a helper. It remembered how pleased he’d seemed for what they’d done together. 

Perhaps after it had contained the infection, he would be able to stop retreating, defending, hiding away ready for a fight.

Perhaps he could be happy like this.

The vessel shouldn’t want, but it did. It wanted that future for its creator, while it fulfilled its purpose in isolation.

It shouldn’t have wanted.

If it had been hollow, then this-

What would this be?

Just the pain of holding a sun within it?

It would have weathered every attack and ignored every word and never have needed a voice to cry with. 

It cannot feel.

It will not hurt.

Who was the wyrm reassuring? The royals that grew too curious?

Himself?

It?

It certainly did feel the hurt. 

If it was hollow-

…but it wasn’t. It had lied. It had faked. It had denied.

There were no other vessels. The abyss was sealed. This was the only hope for Hallownest. So much pressure, and only one viable pair of shoulders to carry that. 

The hollow knight would contain the Radiance. 

The kingdom would live on.

Its father could stop hiding himself away, more miserable every day.

That was a hope. A wish. A reason for its actions, rather than those actions being the innate following of an order.

The Light could break free because of things like that.

It learned to retreat, like its father.

Except its father had never truly been able to retreat into himself, had he? He had known, he had seen. He had doubled down on the insistence that the vessel is pure, it cannot feel, it does not think, this will not hurt. 

Lies.

Had he known how much of a lie it was? Had he sent it to burn?

It had played up its emptiness. It had wished it was hollow. 

Not at that time because it had any inkling of understanding of the pain it would suffer for the next century that it could only wish it hadn’t felt, but because that was the only way for its creator and king to stop retreating into his own shell.

Now it was the one trying to retreat and like father, it found the task impossible. There was no place to go where thoughts would stop forming. There was no place to bury self awareness that her Light could not shine down on.

It held to memories deep, deep in dream, where things were pale instead of pulsating, where metal screeched familiarly, where the queen’s vines hung beautifully.

It heard it all again.

The cold order first.

The rambling.

The praise.

Her Light reflected off the walls of the palace until everywhere it turned was painfully bright. Her laughter overpowered the sounds of any machinery.

You think he loved you. That affection-...You feel now because you were given an idea. From him? Are you happy, that his love is what lets you feel now? That he is the reason for your agony?

The rage through it all was more palpable than the words were even audible. It was crushing, crushing. She twisted the palace to this painful thing.

But that didn’t work. She could tell it hadn’t worked.

She was rarely so coherent. It was hard to be, in that state of such recent death and rebirth.

No retreating let it be free of her, though.

It tried not to remember Him. It would be better if it didn’t. Wouldn’t it? She should not have seen what she had. She could see everything.

Let me out. Let me go, I’ll let you return to him. Let me go, let yourself go. 

It didn’t have a choice. The seals were not its own. The Dreamers stood between them. 

It had broken long ago, didn’t she see? It could do nothing but endure until she finally rotted every inch of its body away.

And it quailed still that thought. 

The egg echoed its screams back at it.

You think it was love? Then he should not have sent his toy to fight me!

It didn’t matter because he could feel as he would: it would not. It was a pure vessel. It was the hollow knight. It would not feel. No matter if he viewed it with any emotion at all.

You are the hollow knight.

It was shattered light. 

It knew what it had felt. It knew what its corruption was, had always been from the moment it crawled atop the platform and saw its father face to face. 

Her Light kept ruining the hallowed grounds of a palace in memory. 

No. It ignored her, it fought her, because there was nothing else it could do, because it wouldn’t fail him more.

And to learn that he had never used that time of respite to rebuild what had broken in himself, his queen, those words unsaid, that happiness dampened by infection’s threat?

Maybe he had for some of that time. Maybe, before the infection had broken loose again. Was it less painful to think he maybe had, when it would be stripped from him eventually?

It hurt hurt hurt.

She had not even realized he was dead. Neither of them had.

Dead?

Dead Dead Dead

Shouting, a mantra, it just kept repeating. It was as loud as being stuck with the infection had been. She would be cheering. If she had the presence of mind to understand, anyways. Most of the time, she was nothing more than an exposed nerve. Angry, so angry, so desperate, and trying to break free for vengeance beyond the grave on…what? A god that was not there? 

Its distaste for its tormentor grew. And here it would have thought there was no more room for it to grow. 

But it had thought it was going to be returned to its king.

Father, its father. It had always viewed him as a father, not a king. No amount of mentally correcting after the fact stopped it. 

Eyes as black as the void glancing down at it before tearing away. 

Eyes glancing down and not tearing away fast enough before it turned to meet them.

Words to knights and magistrates and retainers. It cannot feel. Do not worry. You have not upset it. The molt did not hurt. It cannot internalize what it reads. It will not write unless you have told it to and we prefer you not. It it it. And then-

It has her height- mumbled, unintentional, slipping out when it had come to him after one of its later molts.

Gaze proud on the balcony as it successfully parried and defeated the nailsage and one of his pupils.

The help enlisted in messy workrooms.

Good work

The last time he’d looked up at it-

(The last time? It was the last time. If he was dead, then it would never see him again)

-hoisted up by chains to hang until she died. 

Nothing at all like those glances after training. Nothing at all like when they would sit side by side.

(Why did that look of turmoil have to be the last it would ever see of him? Why was he dead?)

And it could hear him begin to speak, even after there was no reason to remain there.

I…

Desperation, despair. Shared, it knew. It had not known enough. Not as the chains hoisted it up and he watched and almost spoke.

It would have begged to be let down again, now. It had learned to beg well enough in the last century. A desperate god and tortured vessel had taught each other well enough.

Why did that have to be the last look?

This was a cruel twist of fate indeed. The vessel had outlived the maker.

That had never even been considered during its time trapped. Only the fear that if it fully failed, if it stopped fighting at all, then the infection would reach and kill him.

Not this.

It could almost understand her desperation to be remembered. 

It wanted to be remembered by its father, even if it wanted to be freed and drowned in void until it could not remember anything itself.

And now it was left to remember him, while he had no memory left? 

It was left while he was gone?

Gone?

A world without him was impossible. 

Its throat and chest were convulsing.

Before there had ever been an unfinished word- he was gone, he was dead? he would never be able to tell it what he had partially said-, there were tests and disclosures and briefings and the feel of its new harness and the weight of its fate and he had been there, always.

Before the week of the sealings, he had left his labs far past the time even a god should be awake and stumbled into the stationary vessel. Fatigued eyes had turned up to it and he’d spoken.

You are hollow? 

It was not a you. 

It stared, reactionless.

(It could have broke the charade then, escaped the chains, run from the burning radiance engulfing the land.)

(It would never have known to, then. It had wished again and again that it had, while it writhed in and out of dreams and she had used that, too.)

He was satisfied.

It knew what he wanted to see. He saw what he wanted to see.

Still-

…Still.

The meeting of eyes. The touch of a hand. The slips in the midst of lab work. 

Gone now?

Really gone now?

Nonononono.

Its sisters hands sat on the floor near it. She’d tied a sheet around it after helping it to the floor and now she remained near though the sheet kept her hand from making contact again. She was very close. She changed into weaving on the floor rather than her seat. The weaverlings slept. It heard no words. It did not remember the walk back up into Dirtmouth. 

It remembered other things instead.

It could not forget even for a second of peace that he was gone.

And it did not think it could breath again.

She would not let it have its nail.

She broke and squeezed lifeblood into its gut, when she had always let it do so for itself before.

She cleaned the void blood from the floor with a rag.

It thought of the whir of machinery.

It thought of being told a shared job had been finished excellently.

You are a toy.

It does not live.

So simple. If only.

Chapter Text

The truth of it was, the hollow knight was lost.

What was a knight without a king?

But it had lost that title even before it had lost its king. It lost that when the Radiance overpowered it.

What was left, then, was what it had started with. Something far, far from pure. But so desperate to impress...

What was it now?

Just the vessel- pure vessel, that was what it had been called, what it was intended to be before failing - failing - the impure vessel? It hurt to take that title.

It had the time to think about this more clearly now.

It was not in the mind numbing pain it had been when the chains had just released.

It was not in the realm of safety and consistency that a belief in its father had given it after.

It was just left with reality to face now.

A reality where it was not the pure vessel and it would not call itself the impure one.

She had called it broken too many times for the vessel to accept that title, no matter its truth. This could be one last resistance.

It was left in a world without its monarch and with its destined enemy finally destroyed.

A world with a sister that only resembled the Gendered Child in brief moments and otherwise was someone new. She maintained it and kept it alive and did not…did not press. 

Not often.

Which was good.

It would rather hear “Take this” than “Would you like this?”

She would know the latter were pointless motions. She acted, sometimes, like she did know all that which her father (dead, he was dead, how was he dead?) tried to tell her before: the vessel had no wants or preferences.

(She did not always adhere to this.)

(She was adhering less now than before. What had happened at the temple and the hut had shifted her behavior.)

Its father’s advice should have been true.

But it had been faking for him.

It shouldn’t have had the consciousness to choose falsity. It chose to lie out of emotion and it should not have had emotion. 

It did not like to have emotion.

Without the panic of just being released and the confidence that father would have a purpose for it yet, the vessel was feeling more and more.

It just wished (why not? It could wish now, it was told. He was dead now, it was told. There was no one left to impress.) Hornet wasn’t encouraging more of that emotion when it did not know what to do with the impurity to start with.

The Grimmchild was beginning to make its presence known more often again.

It was not sure what Hornet had done, but the god-child had been rather absent since the night she’d tugged it back into Dirtmouth. It was also not sure what the returning proximity might mean.

However, it still saw the creature less regardless of the god-child's return to the hut. 

The reason was simple.

It was supposed to walk more.

This was Hornet’s idea. Everything it had been doing recently was Hornet’s idea. It would be content to sleep and fade into the fuzzy half-void that deep dreams almost felt like.

(Father wasn’t dead, down there.)

But for all her talk of “let them rest” that had come before, now she pressed them to rise. Aside from a self inflicted injury, most of its former wounds would not become inflamed by light movement. Stretching had turned into walking, then. Slow lumbering steps around the small room. It had to make an attempt to not knock into things. A few tablets had already been shattered and a dusty vase met the same fate. Its perception of its body and surroundings both felt distorted. It was missing the weight of an arm.

The Grimmchild still mimicked its stretches, but did not bother it while it walked its cramped rotation of the house.

Hornet interrupted one day to say she’d meant it should walk more outside.

In the town, not the crossroads.

With the full freedom to stop and interact with anyone there if it felt like it.

She really did not understand the purpose of a vessel.

But it started walking the town now too. It would pace the cavern slowly. The uneven limp did not go away. It missed the weight of its nail. Zote got to have his nail in the town (for all that it could not lay a dent on a tiktik). Why not it?

It was brighter out here than in the hut. 

There was grass in the graveyard. It preferred that stretch of the walk best. The opposite went for the tents at the western cliffs. 

It was not alone in that, it learned as it went through this exposure to the town and its populace.

Elderbug didn’t like the troupe.

He glared at their tents from his garden. And from the bench. And had almost sat down to listen to Zote to get away from their music, before returning to his garden despite complaints about the noise and aura of the circus.

The vessel could not blame him.

He clearly did not know there was a higher being in those tents, but he recognized that through vaguer means. Discomfort. Bristling defensive senses.

The troupe master did not even seem to ever leave his tent. Still, their music carried over the air and their flames licked against the border of the town unseen. Was it surprising the townspeople would recognize something strange in that air? 

The bugs of Hallownest had recognized the Pale King’s light. He had given them mind and thought and they comprehended that sudden shift as best they could. 

It seemed well known enough that Unn was a god, above their city. It had heard her spoken of but- granted- those conversations had included a god themselves so perhaps they were not indicative of what most knew. 

And the vessel had rarely seen the White Lady, but she seemed unmistakable as well. The ground around her thrummed with life. She had left such beautiful vines spanning the palace and their existence was much like seeing a piece of her.

It was born of god and void. Even before its overexposure to the burning sun, it would sense what others might not.

So others did not sense that the elusive moth in his red tent was a higher being. Or...related to a higher being, in some way.

But Elderbug called them “sinister” and complained about them being there. It knew because it had needed to sit on the town’s bench after a single pacing of the cavern, a few of the early times. When it sat, the stooped bug would wander over and just…talk.

It didn’t really understand. It wouldn't speak back to him. He never seemed to mind.

He rambled about many things.

The days this town was much smaller. 

Gossip that one of the shop owners here was frustrated her partner had not returned to stay in the house they’d claimed. 

His distaste for the circus nearby and insistence that it should not have come back considering no villagers had participated in whatever “acts” it “put on”.

The many questions he had on Hornet and the vessel both, but seemed to hope the latter would give away about the former.

And sometimes…

Sometimes, his rambling centered on someone he claimed “reminds me much of the both of you”.

He never said that traveler’s name, but it knew that was because that traveler would not have had a name. Hornet may have named it, but a vessel itself would not walk about associating a name to itself and telling it to others.

He did seem more supportive in his reminiscences of the other vessel than he did while talking about some of the other long term guests here.

Elderbug, it turned out, had multiple things to complain about:

It was too loud these days.

(It was not nearly as loud as the dream it had been trapped in. The Light was very, very noisy. Even if she hadn’t known it, her mere essence was blaring sound where the void was the absence of sound in totality.)

That knight would not shut up and had, before its arrival here with Hornet, had a streak of a week straight where he’d talked.

(Sometimes, it could hear the muffled sounds of those monologues through the open skylight. Elderbug’s frustration seemed fair.)

The circus music was eerie and he felt like the entire group was dangerous.

(Not incorrect, though he was more suspect of murderers than of fiery moth gods capable of widespread destruction on par with the infection.)

But he didn’t do much complaining about the other, missing vessel. He would say that one was quiet and respectful and had helped each shop here. He even asked if the vessel wanted to see the flower that the other one had given him. As with any question about “wants”, the vessel couldn’t really answer that it didn’t have an answer. It was used to following now, though. That was what sister expected of it, wasn’t it?

It followed the stooped bug over to his garden and looked at the delicate little flowers growing there. They were very light, it thought.

Very light.

They reminded it of the White Lady. She had a strong affinity to plants and was a being of Light, just as father and the Old Light. These little flowers all faced upwards to a sun that was not there and their petals spread open to exude that faint touch of power unrecognizable. 

Elderbug did not seem to notice a thing, no matter if he had sensed the thick aura of not-dream and fire carried by the Grimm Troupe.

The bug had offered one to it, but it had no use for a flower (it felt unease at the idea of accepting any sort of gift for itself, especially one so delicate, like its mother, who had never wanted anything to do with it). It would take it back to Hornet because maybe she had some idea of what to do with the gift. 

It worried that the Grimmchild might light it on fire before she ever got home to see it. 

The vessel was helpless to come up with anything else. Elderbug did not have to know what became of his gift anyways and- infant or not- the vessel did not feel like standing up to a god right now.

Hornet was not there when it returned. It had held the flower by its stem between two fingertips and realized a petal had come off during the short walk. Were they not supposed to be held with their heavier tops faced down? But it would bend the stem otherwise, wouldn’t it?

It awkwardly placed it petals down on its sister’s favored table.

Sure enough, the Grimmchild spun into the air nearby. The vessel flinched. 

The child just flapped in the air looking at the flower rather than landing to chew on it or burn it or whatever else it imagined a thing so closely related to Her might do.

It stared.

For too long, when its other actions did seem rather restricted to infancy. 

Almost like it would stare-

Ah.

And there the Grimmchild went: landing, poking its head into the flower and recoiling, then looking up at the cracked face of a vessel that wanted nothing to do with it.

And staring.

Its red eyes held too much intensity. The vessel turned and heard only a small whine from behind as it dropped to the room below. 

When Hornet returned late that day, it went back up. While its focus (it tried to focus, to see the room, to hear what those around it were saying when they spoke) was on her, it did notice that Elderbug’s flower was not a crisp. 

The Grimmchild hovered and made its odd sounds as Hornet unpacked her meal and slumped in her seat to eat it.

She was tired. 

Father was dead.

Her mother was sealed in dreams. 

How much of either kingdom was she trying to carry without them? 

The vessel sat on the floor next to her stool and let itself wonder that.

Chapter Text

Hornet was out for some time when it woke that day. So it just began it by following through the new routine:

Walking down past the well to the graveyard that Elderbug sometimes took care of (and sometimes left a flower at a single grave of), down to the open cave, across the far cavern wall, to those tents, back to the town bench and eventually its sister’s house here. It was growing easier, so it had no need to pause at the bench this time. It did notice one of the other recently opened huts had its door open. It was too-bright in there, but it still saw the one shopkeeper- Iselda? She rarely left her shop, so it had never crossed paths with her- sitting by an occupied bed. She was talking to someone else in there. Someone in red. 

That answered where Hornet currently was, at least. But she was clearly busy. It would help with whatever she was doing, if she just thought to tell it to. Its recovery slowed it down considerably, but it could still shoulder some tasks. 

It continued to the hut and stretched while it waited for her return. Some days, she was gone from its waking point all the way until it had gone to sleep again. Even if- no, especially because it was sleeping less now, this seemed a long time. The Gendered Child had never liked being in one place for long. She had been very active and incredibly determined to get outside any nursery she was put in. Did Hornet not want to sit indoors and weave for days on end? Had she only done that to keep an eye on the vessel? It did not think it wanted her to. It would rather she-

No, now it was thinking as it had with father. All this hope on being ignored, on taking on their tasks, so they could one day be free to do what made them happy. 

Was that so bad a thing?

It had meant the lie. It had meant Her. It would never do it again, if it meant avoiding that. It had ended in father’s death regardless.

The Grimmchild hovered. It wondered why the creature did not fly back to the tents of its father (if that was the relation it assumed). It still had one. What did it get out of staying here? What did it want from them? It was the heart of the god; it may as well join the body, out there on the border of this town.

But it didn’t and the vessel just tried to ignore its rubbing presence as it rose to sit for however many hours it would take before Hornet returned.

It was not actually many. 

She came in early (was it early?) and nodded to acknowledge its presence. The Grimmchild made one of its whines and hovered down to trail her better. 

Why she had apparently made a deal to take care of the being, the vessel still did not understand. It had no voice to ask. 

(It had no voice)

After some time, she approached the seated vessel for the next of the routines. The quick, clinical check of its recovery thus far.

This time, Hornet took the last of the bandages off and did not replace them.

She hummed while she looked over the scars and tender spots that remained. It seemed more like she was humming to herself. That reminded it of their father in his labs. 

The thought did not feel good.

She finished up and moved away with a nod.

“These look good. Soon, if you want-...”

It wouldn’t learn what she thought it would want, because she didn’t finish. It had no wants regardless. 

(It didn’t have to fake)

(It didn’t know what was real that was left over after burning in Her Light)

Hornet occupied herself after that. She ate, let the Grimmchild use small balls of silk for target practice as she lazily threw them into the air, and wove. 

She kept glancing over at it.

Why?

It had not done anything new. 

She had already seen to the progress of its recovery. It had not had any…Whatever its collapsing after learning the news of the Pale King could be called. That intense understanding it was lost. There had not been a repeated incident where it hurt quite so strongly. 

Hornet slid her projects away regardless and pulled her needle up instead. She paused in the room where its nail had been put away by her. There, she looked at the weapon before looking back at the vessel.

“Come with me,” she said.

That was enough. It unfolded from the stool and stood.

She still paused, as if she thought she had to say more.

“There is a hot spring only a short hike from here. Does that sound like something that could help you?”

It didn’t want to be asked for an opinion so often. 

But she clearly wanted to go, or thought it would want to, and so the vessel gave a sharp nod.

She nodded along, though it thought that motion was for herself. 

The vessel walked to reach her. Its nail was so close. It could reach and touch it, but- …it would not. Hornet had stuck it to the wall and told the vessel to leave it and the order was enough of a binding that the silks were pointless. 

“There are still some dangers in the crossroads,” Hornet said now. “We will take our weapons with us.”

And it almost felt (do not feel) excited. Excited? Was that the name for it? There was something hot in its chest, but it was not the same heat as the infection. It was more like the satisfaction after a battle well fought: a satisfaction it had only known to begin feeling after it had seen the Pale King’s own at one of its duels. It had felt nothing from the fights before that.

As much as being a pure vessel had been a lie, it had always been close to one. Not until after containment and burning and fingers clawing into minds to spread cracks wide did it begin experiencing more emotions than the muted few. 

It missed its young state.

Missing was mourning, was emotion. 

It felt. 

And now it felt again, but what was it to do?

It let the heat buzz until it began to almost feel sick, waiting as Hornet removed the silks from the wall. Its hand found the hilt of the nail almost immediately. It did not feel empty now. That nail belonged.

(That nail was comforting. For as long as it was there, it looked almost the knight father had made it to be. And for as long as it was there, it had the means to stop its nightmare from returning if it ever was to feel the presence of the Old Light in this world again.)

It could be the full part of the broken toy it was, with that weapon in hand.

Hornet’s eyes were hard to see in the dim light, but her mask was upturned as if she was staring at it. 

But finally, she moved and it followed. As did the Grimmchild, teleporting to keep up with Hornet at the head of the procession. 

The well was the first of multiple drops. There was a wide cavern with motionless lifts that its sister began to descend smoothly before she’d paused and come back up to be nearer as it made its own descent from lift to lift. A few uninfected mindless bugs crawled and flew about as a hindrance. More were corpses or suffering under the alterations to once-small bodies.

It was not too far a journey from the bottom of this cavern to Hornet’s destination.

Nothing tore on these drops. That was…good?

Was it good?

It meant it was closer to being functional again.

But…function for what?

He was gone and She was gone and both gods had defined its purpose.

Its sister was here. She had pulled it from the temple twice now. It could not think this way, could not spit on her actions this way.

As it turned out, water could not be breathed in. 

The vessel wasn’t used to having a mouth or throat. It could be excused for not knowing this.

They had reached the hot springs and Hornet had modeled what it was meant to do when she’d walked straight into the pool. It was a wide shallow thing and it glowed. But this was not Her Light. There was soul, thick in the ground and air here. The light coming from the steaming water left it thinking of pale beings, then, rather than forgotten gods. 

It tried to, at least. It could not always flinch away from light. 

So it had followed her slowly. The water was startling against it when it first stepped in. It was hot.

It was light, it was hot, it was burning-

It was not burning.

It was fine. 

The vessel kept moving in until it saw that Hornet had found a submerged rock near the edge of the pool and sat there. So it found one across the pool from her and slowly did the same. Its throat was hurting again. It hated when it hurt, because the sensation meant it couldn’t ignore that the thing existed in the first place. The vessel realized the pain was coming from how short its breaths had become. It forced the rattling things to even out. 

There.

This was fine. It was not hurting. Nothing here was harming it. The water was warm, yes, but it did not burn. It numbed, actually. It was as if it was putting itself into a soul totem large enough to fit such an action. Muscles that were aching from the hike down here soothed out.

Hornet’s head was leaning back. So this was why she had thought this was a good idea. She knew of the properties of these pools. Whatever hurt her too would be soothed.

That was very good. 

The Grimmchild had landed on the ground near where she was resting in the hot springs. It did not enter the water. The vessel could sense its flame twitching about, keeping itself away from the pool. The heartbeat was even, however. It seemed the being was content.

Content was a good word.

A good word for a good thing. 

If it let itself fall a few more inches deeper by sliding a little on the rock, then the soul seemed to flow through its emptied chest. Maybe it could burn the remaining infectious skins away? It did not remove lungs and whatever other organs were attached to the threat. It numbed them, though. It left the vessel able to feel whole and not so permanently touched by Her.

Hornet was doing nothing but peacefully breathing where she was resting, head back but apparently not at an uncomfortable angle. The vessel shifted and lay back as well.

Hornet, however, was nearer to the edge of the pool. Her head rested on pebbles with very little water over them.

The vessel’s went under.

This was nice for all of a second. It had poured into the crack above its eyes and that was the first time anything had numbed its sting. It flowed around the void of its eyes painlessly.

But it flowed down a mouth it had forgotten was there.

It was burning, suddenly. Like her infection was once again slowly sliding through its void to leave that throat cavity behind. There was fire in its chest and it was nothing like the warmth felt when it had retrieved its nail. 

It had to stop.

Stop stop, get it out, get away, make her stop, father-?

It pulled back to its rock without much conscious thought. The initial panic began to fade as the water was expelled and it found itself breathing again. It realized slowly that it was sitting forward and hacking. It realized some time after that that Hornet was rubbing slow circles on its back.

Its breaths rasped. The vessel forced them to be slow and full. There were still some remains of water in its throat- not bad by nature, but unpleasant so soon after breathing it in. 

Void did not need to breath. This should never have happened. This would never have happened if She-

Other thoughts. Breath. Hear the rasping. (There would be no rasping if She had never-) The soul was numbing the remaining pain in its chest. The steam was very warm. Very warm, not burning, not danger. 

It was not in pain.

Think. Calm down and think instead. Think calm things.

Alright. It found a subject. A calm subject. Just mild curiosity, now fulfilled.

So was that how drowning felt? No, just momentary suffocation. It burned. And the panic had burned. 

And it knew that it had not been wrong, a few times in its captivity when it had thought it felt itself drowning. Her Light was a substance as unbreathable as water and its surrounding pressure was constant. 

This was not a calm subject.

It forced itself to stare at the pool. Even if this meant staring across it into the colored eyes of a god. This was a different god. This was a different location. It was not in chains. And it was not burning.

It tried to relax back down, even if its breaths kept coming in short and stuttery. 

Hornet stayed where she now was for the remainder of their time there. She never returned to sitting across from it.

It did not know what muted emotion that caused, but it was not a negative one.

And that, it would take.

Chapter Text

The thought had started after the light had first begun burning its way into its neck and thorax.

It had never needed to breathe before that. It had never needed the components that made up air. Void existed. It merely did. Bugs breathed by instinct. They merely did. It would take them conscious effort to stop, rather than needing any to start. That was nature. Nature and instinct. 

The Void consumed. Could it be called an instinct? The Void did not think. It did not make conscious efforts. The Void’s very nature was to consume.  

The Void did think. It had realized that in the final dream, while it ripped her light apart and consumed her essence. It did not think the thoughts of wyrms and roots. 

But it had focus, regardless. 

This too must have been in its nature. 

Roots took in the necessary components of the air through bark and through the hairs they submerged into water. 

Wyrms took in those components of the air through moist skin. Their mouths were for consumption, not breath.

Moths breathed by their nature.

(My children- creations- Child, you do not live- I will do what they have failed to-)

Oh yes they did.

It would not forget that. In her rare moments of coherency, the Old Light had told it of their needs:  to breath, to eat, to speak, if just to cry out to their god for help again and again. 

They were Wyrm and Root and Void. Anything the latter two’s contributions to its body required from air, it received through its skin. 

Air, water, most carried the same necessary components. It would never have been able to suffocate or drown even if it had been held under the water of the Blue Lake.

But when light entered its void and matter under chitin, and burned, burned its way up and out, burned its way down-

It had felt like a suffocation. 

It had writhed and flailed but it was not a bug held under water, able to free itself, surface, gasp in air again. 

Feeling its arm burn and rot away so slowly was torture. 

But it was the pain felt there upon receiving that throat that permeated deep into its dreams. There was something even more helpless about needing breath and suddenly not receiving it. It could fight against the chains. It could rub against the low shoulders of its harness and that would only speed the damage up in the long run, but it changed the type of pain for the moment and it would choose that frantic scrapping over not being able to cause it. 

There had been no way to fight her light within the dream.

The dream was HER and the presence blanketed every pore and it-

had-

drowned.

In moments where its shards separated so far that it felt- more than felt: existed- existed as- raw- panicked- trapped, trapped in its chains, Light surrounding it too tight-, it felt like it was suffocating without having ever done so. It felt this was how it felt. 

This existence. It made it writhe, flail, but that had not helped when it had first been privy to the idea of drowning, and it did not help within these sealed dreams.

It cried, it screamed, it retreated deep into silver halls and nursery songs and Her Light would follow to hear every forbidden cry meant for gods other than her.

Drowning drowning it was drowning it could not save itself, so-

So, someone-

Please, please father, mother, please-! Help!

The sense would not last forever. The burning need for air would return to being an illusion.

There were few thoughts like those drastic ones, however. Because despite their failure and their lies, they were only just corrupted. A slight thing prevented them from being pure, stainless. 

A slight thing was all it took.

It wondered now, at what point in the century had the pain become too much to bear? At what point had it stopped thinking its monarchs would hear its cries and started hoping for Void instead?

In any case, it knew what the true sensation was now. That question could lay answered.

The burning of her reforging was apt enough. 

It had been right to imagine so.

The thought was not the most helpful. This dream was not the most helpful.

It remembered that its father would never hear it again anyways, even if it did break and begin to cry suffering with a voice their enemy gave it again.

It was woken up by its sister’s voice. She’d seemingly just come in, judging by how the sound of a door shutting rang in its sleep-awake memories. 

Hornet set a bag down on her table before glaring at the moth larva that spun into being in the air by her head.

“Your father may not set foot in Deepnest whether it begins to offer his flames or not. Mark my words,” she told the thing. 

It gave a nyeh directed at her and then landed to chew on its tail. Apparently, her threat did not worry it much. Hornet sighed and walked past the child.

She paused near the vessel and looked down thoughtfully.

The stare lasted some time. She did not have eyes that reminded it of the plague. (If they reminded it of anything, it was the dark ones of their father- gone- And it did not need a reminder.) So it was alright. 

It knew it took longer to indicate a response those times she held something out for it to take or asked it for an opinion. 

She ended up crouching down to check it over, despite the bandages being removed so recently. If anything, it barely felt most of the injuries now. The hot spring had dulled the constant pain and only after had it even realized so many of them had still been hurting.

All that it had not fixed was the weakness and aches of the muscles themselves. Only slow movement would. It could take months. It could take years. It had been chained to a god for a century. Recovery could not feel more daunting than that. 

Hornet stood up but paused to stare once more.

“It seems you could walk the nearby regions without reopening injuries, rather than only Dirtmouth. If that is what you want.”

It…

Dirtmouth was home to the ones calling themselves the Troupe. The god had not done anything, but the proximity was uncomfortable. Hornet did not like them. Together, that was reason enough to also not want them near. 

Dirtmouth was dim and mostly quiet, but it was even farther from the heart of the kingdom than the crossroads: and the crossroads had been chosen for the containment because of their distance from that heart. 

The vessel did not think it had much of an opinion on this, but it could see where, maybe, it had something. Reasoning, if not emotion. When it had first been taken from the temple by its sister, it had wanted away. As far away as one could get. It had wanted its father and it had wanted rest and it had wanted away from that place.

It would be odd to be far away from that emptied place, if it thought about it now.

There was no ‘why’ for this. It just was. 

It would also be odd to have to walk past it every time it went into the crossroads and below. But if Hornet was staying up here for now, then…

It was not going to leave the place she was calling home. 

She was waiting for an answer. Or for something. She certainly couldn’t expect it to talk.

(It could-)

(NO VOICE)

The vessel shifted its shoulders up. It had seen bugs at the palace do that. It had never had a reason until now to replicate.

Then it went back to motionlessness and stared at the window she would normally be sitting at. The Grimmchild was rooting through the bag she had left near there. 

Hornet did not go. She was shifting on her feet but remaining in the same spot.

“I’m…unsure what you want. What you need.” she said slowly. “I may need you to write more.”

To…write.

To write more.

Or she could decide that it did not have wants and that she could determine its needs. That would be smoother for all involved. 

Hornet waited there as if she was waiting for something.

But it did not know. It could not hear. It did not think.

No voice to cry suffering

No voice

You are the Hollow Knight

It had yet to walk today. So it got up, took its nail, and dragged both weapon and body around the cavern until both tools were worn.

Elderbug was clipping the grass of the graveyard. Zote was talking to the empty street, Bretta having left his side when she saw the vessel so she could stutter and ask if it wished to sit on the bench to rest. 

It did not know why anyone would want it to, but it followed regardless. She didn’t really talk from there. It did not talk. From the bench, it could see Hornet walking from the hut to another one. It rose and heard an “oh” but nothing more as it left Bretta to follow its sister.

She was there to speak with a few other bugs. The descriptions she had given days ago let it identify most, though two remained unknowns. One of the two was laying on bed in the cramped room. The other looked a bit like them. More awake, at least. 

The room’s noise petered out when the vessel’s shadow fell over the doorway. Hornet was the first to look away from it and begin again. The other bugs hesitantly follow suit.

They talked of mending, and crossroad repairs, and of organizing larger groups to lead into the City of Tears since Dirtmouth would not fit every survivor from the nearby regions.

They talked of work that sounded daunting and perhaps even hopeless to those here, without their god-king to offer reassurement and direction. It was making the rest uncomfortable. It had learned to recognize that among those in the palace well enough. It always made bugs uncomfortable.

Its eyes move. 

Is it watching me? It’s watching me.

I cannot stand that thing. It looks like a child, but there’s nothing there inside. It would not know how to do the simplest thing without being told to.

Something is moving behind that mask, I swear. It’s abominable. 

Nothing new. Nothing that could bother a hollow vessel. Nothing that was said in the presence of either monarch. People learned not to. 

Hornet’s voice stayed clipped and kept the rest on track. Almost purposefully. Almost to draw their fearful gazes away from one she publicly called her blood. Eventually, they grew accustomed enough to not keep glancing over and hesitating before any distracted response.

But that was all. Meaningful. But small.

It wondered when she would tell it how to help.

I may need you to write more

The vessel shifted in the doorway. No. It would wait for her to decide. It would not prompt her. 

Not even if the Pale King was gone and would never see it give voice to written words again.

Perhaps especially because he was gone. 

It descended down the trapdoor when Hornet slid into the loft bunk of the upper room. It was good she sleep. Especially when it seemed she was managing more than just the crossroads while it had been sleeping and wasting away. 

Related to the reasons she was kept busy…

The god-larva landed near. Those bright colored eyes stared. Stared into it. Unmoving. The vessel could not retreat into itself enough to be unseen. The dark room was coated in dim pink lighting. Its body shone back with the color.

Why did it decide to come down here? It bristled defensively before it could stop itself. No, Hornet was sleeping upstairs. Let her rest. Let her…

Ghost agreed to help him grow.

I have agreed to hold onto it.

Let them rest, Grimmchild.

More, and more.

Hornet had agreed to whatever pact or deal lay between their missing- the other vessel, and the local god. She did not seem pleased with the one called Grimm, but she did not extend that displeasure entirely to the child from the charm. Though she treated it coldly, she did the same for the vessel and…still that seemed warm, in its own way. More than it needed to be. Different from how she held herself with civilian bugs. 

Perhaps she did not like the god-child, but she was treating it with the same care as she freely gave a failed vessel. She ensured their well beings and prolonged lives and…

And she would not know what the source of the infection looked or felt like. She was part god, but never chained, contained, under those golden eyes. She would not have that reason, that similarity in their presences, to dislike the god of not-dream.

The Grimmchild kept staring until its void began to curl and shift from how just two little eyes could bathe the room in red. 

Then it- or he, Hornet had switched to saying- seemed satisfied with what he saw. The child huffed and closed those red eyes so that their light was mercifully covered in black eyelids, before curling in on himself.

To sleep?

Here, where the vessel slept?

The vessel did not, in fact, sleep. Not for some time. It could not find a comfortable enough position so long as it was staring at the nearby god.

Hornet had finished its cloak. 

She put it on while it sat stiffly upright and spoke only once, to apologize for it not being much of the old one. Too much material had needed replacing. Too much even aside from that was gone altogether. 

This one was more gray than white. It covered its shoulder and left its hunch less startling for witnesses. What more did it need to do?

Hornet smoothed the cloak out at the front when she finished and it was reminded again of how he had made a similar motion before they’d left for the crossroads and its fate within. 

A wet noise left its mouth. It curled its head down so white bone covered any sign of an already-hidden mouth from its startled sister. That wasn’t enough. It curled its back, raised its knees, stuck the lower point of mask behind the skinny joints, drew its arm around both calves- and still this would not undo that the sound had broke out from it before. 

It was vaguely aware that its sister had moved away. She returned and pressed a hand briefly to its upper arm to draw its attention. There, in her other hands, was one of the tablets that lay around this abandoned home. 

She extended it even as it recoiled and only stopped short when it slammed its head against the leg of the table it occasionally slept under. 

Her arm withdrew slowly. 

Disappointedly?

It did not want to disappoint her.

It did not want to disappoint its king, father, either. 

(He was dead. He will never know. He died after finding out it was impure, a liar, that the infection would consume them all regardless-)

(If he had died hating it, could it act surprised? Feel wronged? More wronged than Hallownest, for having been given hope only to return to a nightmare?)

Another short noise seemed to force its way out the way a cough would. 

Something stung near the crack in its face. Its void was moving instead of holding itself in place. 

“I’m…” Hornet paused. Her grip on the tablet tightened. It could see the way its soft rock squished and flaked off under her hold. 

She was upset. No, no.

“You sounded upset,” she said, as if she had heard its mind and wanted to turn what it had thought of her back upon it. She attributed emotion to it. 

She had told it that father was dead and since then, what was it to think, to feel, to do? It was either empty and half-reaching for some thought, emotion, to make meaning, or it was shaking in the thralls of some somatic convulsion. What was left but these sickening motions in its thorax and gut that forced noises from it?

“So I thought you could tell me why.”

She motioned halfheartedly with the tablet again. It pressed itself further away.

It couldn’t. 

To tell meant to give voice-

It had been thinking of father when the first of the sounds had bubbled out. And then her reaction, the realization it was using Her Voice again, left it thinking of father more inescapably, but without the longing for the touch of a cloak being smoothed and instead the terror and certainty he must have hated it for the lie that had killed him and his kingdom-

It’d only wanted to make him proud.

Another sound coughed up from a spasming throat. 

And had it not, he was dead. What did it matter? 

It wanted to find his palace and kneel before his throne and allow him to decide and define a purpose and fate. 

It did not get that. It would never get that. 

Neither would it get an answer on how much grief its failure might have put its creators through.

The vessel shook its head.

Normally, Hornet would accept that. Its sister mostly did, in the past. 

“Can I bring you anything?” she spoke through a frown.

A vessel shouldn’t be asked.

A vessel shouldn’t answer.

Who was here to see anyways? Its sister had seen enough. Its king was dead. The watcher was trapped in a dream. The Old Light was dead and without her, what would be the purpose of a pure vessel? 

It was hard to remember she was dead when it was her accursed voice hiccuping sounds right then.

Why did she have to remain after death in this manner and not its father?

-It was sorry- please, come back, open the seals, save it-

Hornet was sitting now. When had that happened? It couldn’t focus past how helpless it was to this corrupted body. The more alarm that grew over not being able to control and stop this, the more frequent the reactions became.

Why why stop, father make her stop-

Don’t think of that. The seals had held. He’d never heard any of it. He hadn’t chosen not to stop its pain. He was gone now anyways.

He was gone he was gone he had paid the price for its deception

Void was flaking now. Flaking away, floating out past bone, some sticking to the mask and some drifting into air-

What was this?

It did not hurt like the infection had when it would spill out its eyes. It did not hurt, but it was alarming.

The vessel tried to back away further. To curl tighter until the hiccuping force in its chest would stop and it would not have to see its own void drifting out from its eyes.

It didn’t. Hornet was closer yet. Her hand was on the floor close enough that the fingertips had pressed its leg. She brought it from the senseless panic. It tried, tried, to focus on the room again.

“Would you tell me what it is?”

It shook its head again, but kept shaking it, kept on, it could not seem to stop even as its neck was panging from the use of these muscles.

No, it didn’t want to- didn’t want to talk, but also to put to word the fear, the resigned expectation, that the Pale King had died knowing it had lied and its will had shattered within that egg.

She looked away, then down to the tablet. Don’t lift it, don’t make it, don’t make it tell.

“What did I do wrong?” its sister asked and she almost sounded desperate too. She had held herself up so well before. Clinical care, pity for its state. Apt reactions to a broken vessel just freed from years of torment.

Now, she thought it was her? That she had any power over its breaking body? It wished she did. It wished she could order it to stop, but even the word of the king’s daughter wouldn’t make that happen. Not while trapped so thoroughly in its throes. Not even the king could through word alone.

(He would have had something, though. He could have exerted his will, forced Her remnants to hide away and torment his vessel no longer.)

It tried to shake its head, reassure her. No, this was not her fault. (The tablet was near her hand. She had told it of father’s death. It was her.) She was not at fault. (She brought it a voice when it wanted to get rid of the one a god had forced upon it. She had not told it how their father had died, if he had held out desperate hope for the vessel to regain control and keep his kingdom from dying-)

It was not. Her. Fault.

And her own upset made it shake more. 

Stop. 

Stop, how did it make this stop. Its throat was not a part of its void nature. It acted on its own instincts, instilled by another. It was terrifying how a part of its body could rip from its control, betray its directions. If this had happened before it had been sealed, it would never have been able to masquerade about as pure. 

The more it hurt to do so, the more the throat seemed intent on convulsive. The more the vessel panicked over not being able to stop, the more frantic and frequent the convulsing sounds ripped out of it. 

She was near, suffocating it in burning light. No corner of the dream was not fully saturated in the god. This was the design of a filled vessel. It had no idea before it had gone into the temple to be bound. 

The Light was suffocating and inescapable and it would panic, panic, but it could escape from her no more than she could escape from it when her own panic flared.

Father-?

Wasn’t. Here.

Wasn’t ever going to be.

It wasn’t there, with Her, anyways.

Still its chest burned as though filled with infection.

It grabbed its head, hand finding the base of a horn and curling around it. 

Hornet made a small sound. It dragged its head up to check on her, only to find her own was lowered. What else had it missed?

The flame’s heartbeat was pounding too close. It- he had moved then, while it panicked. He had moved to the floor nearby and was laying there, staring, wings extended like the creature had been reaching towards it before he’d stopped himself.

It was glad he had. 

It thought it might have punted such a small thing into the far wall if it had been touched without being aware. 

Breath.

Just breathe for now. After, it could show Hornet that it was ready to help her.

(It would not write.)

(She wanted it to.)

(She wanted she wanted she wanted-)

The king was dead. His daughter lived. It needed to control itself. It needed to aid her.

The child of not-dreams and burning dim-light was still looking up at it balefully. Hornet was just resting on her knees near it, but she was staring low as if not there at all.

It still felt void leak, thin. Ceasing. Slowly but finally. Its thorax was burning so badly it did not understand how it could keep coughing out meaningless sounds.

It looked at its sister and did not know what it could do to repair her.

But it had killed their father. It might just kill her too.

(It almost thought it would face the Radiance again rather than that, if not for how much despair the mere idea of the light left it with.)

It reached past her to the tablet and shook too hard to write a thing.

No voice to cry

No voice

What was one more purpose failed?

It had thought from the moment it watched the other vessel hanging on the platform.

Its will had broken only years into containment. The crack down its bone was a permanent mark of that.

It had cried suffering in that egg for what seemed an eternity- their voices shared, their suffering shared, their screams directed at different targets who would never hear.

The vessel tried to write.

It could not bear it. 

So while Hornet watched intently, it smeared a shaky image into the soft stone and noticed void falling from its mask once again as it stared down at it. Pronged crown. That was all it could draw, with fingers this shaky and no experience beforehand. His daughter would understand. It understood. It saw him in everything already.

But Hornet stared at it and did not understand. She verbalized that it was thinking- upset?- over the Pale King, but it was not enough for her. How was it not enough? He was everything.

How did it admit to what wracked its will now?

The Pale King must have destroyed every record. Erased every sign and memory of the thing that had failed him so thoroughly, so cruelly.

He had not viewed it completely clinically.

That it knew, whether She had mocked this for being love or not, for being the reason the vessel was breaking instead of withstanding her, whether it was pride in his own accomplishment in making such a pure vessel or pride in its accomplishments or-

Did it matter?

The higher he might have thought of it, the worse he must have thought after it failed. 

He had died.

It had not saved him.

He would have…It was in his rights to…

Retreat and retreat, like the White Lady and her lullabies. 

Turn aside and erase what once was. 

Feel nothing, see nothing. 

A stain on his history, never to be remembered. The greatest traitor to his honor.

“It killed him” it wrote.

It had killed him and all it had wanted was-

No wants.

He couldn’t forgive it. Even if he had, somehow, it would never know. He was dead. It was not dead. How was it not dead as well? The Void pulled and it rattled through another sob.

Hornet had handed the tablet back again.

Again, again, what more was there? It scraped its claw into the thing with a fury.

“It failed him, and he died. It killed him. It failed him.”

There. 

The vessel handed that truth back and put its head back down upon its knees. Still, it peered over to see how she was responding.

Hornet’s visible fist clenched on her leg.

“He did not-“

But her sharp tone cut into a hissing inhale and she stopped. Her fist tightened.

“He wasn’t…”

Another halt.

A sigh.

Her hand relaxed.

“You didn’t. I do not think he viewed you that way. And if he d-…You did more than anyone could have. You kept the infection at bay to the end.”

She had said as much to the denizens of Dirtmouth. 

It was a nice pride to have.

The vessel did not share it.

Its best was not enough. Its attempts were enforced rather than pure. The kingdom fell regardless.

It would have released the infection if someone had opened the seals and given it the opportunity to flee. It had called for its father to do just that.

It was for the best he could never have heard.

Hornet stood. She looked down upon it, gaze sharp.

“Come. There is something for you to see.”

It was calm by the time they reached Hornet’s destination.

It was an exhausting calm. More the strained absence of anything than the emptiness of a pure vessel. It was drained.

In one sense, it had been drained since being freed from the Old Light. Things it had once thought, felt, in a life before- they did not exist the same way. They did not come as they once did. 

It had barely been corrupted and even that, in that small scale of impurity, was more… alive than this. More aware. The rare thoughts it had came with clarity.

It had been a person then. 

That child had died as no one came to save it. 

Hornet allowed it to take its nail along, as she had when they had walked to that hot spring. It slowed her down but she allowed it.

The vessel found it difficult to be outside without the weapon. This was some solace then.

She led it into the crossroads and its exhaustion left it almost numb to the fact that they walked past the temple. For all that the unpleasant, helpless betrayal of this body had sent its thoughts into a fixation on a foolishly unanswerable question, now none rose. 

Before its time trapped and rotting, it likely would have felt a spark of undesirable interest when they passed a monument to the Dreamers. It would have noted the tram they'd ridden before ever reaching that monument was one full of corpses, yet its music still played through tinny speakers. Father’s design was long lasting. Why did it not have more to feel on that observation? The Dreamers as well may have elicited more, once. They were still sealed in that state. They had not been given the chance to rest, find peace.

It passed them by. It listened to the creak of chains and gears in a large elevator. 

It dragged its nail out onto a once-clean floor.

Oh. The city, then. Its original goal when it had first been released was the city. Without father here, it had not seen a reason to keep that goal. 

Down here, it was closer to where the palace should have been. Still, all it sensed was that distortion of dream below. The kingdom had no palace. It had no king. It was not really Hallownest at all anymore, was it?

The vessel did not know that it cared. Earlier in the day, it had been shaken over the thought of its failure devastating this kingdom.

It was tired.

It was tired and its body was aching. In some places, the aches were sharp and concerning; in others, a low burning. Though Hornet had picked a path with little dropping or climbing, the distance was strenuous. 

That, it felt.

Its nail in its remaining hand, it felt.

But meaning or opinion stayed absent.

The city still stood, unlike the palace. But it was in disarray. 

Corpses were as widely strewn here as could be expected. Many lay in ditches of dirty water, black and contaminated so badly that only the way limbs stuck out onto drier land showed they were full of the plague’s dead. Other figures sat hunched against walls and one another.

Alive. They could be considered alive. The vessel could be considered alive.

It saw sentries curled against walls with their long weapons laid out beside them. Their chitin was bloated too large- not enough to make them drop dead now, without that infection holding them together, but still a distortion to their frames it noticed- for the type of bug they were. Outside of one of the smaller tower elevators, one that had been laying half holding another looked up. There was no orange in their eyes now. There were no eyes at all. And the rotted holes made the sentry look hollow to the vessel.

These would be the survivors of her wrath and vengeance. 

The Goddess of Light had done a better job at hollowing out the denizens of this realm than her proclaimed Ancient Enemy had. 

There was an irony to that thought.

It had forgotten it the second that it had walked past the hollow duo.

The tower was all in that state: at its lowest levels, the floor was covered in water that hid the dead. At all higher floors, the tower was quiet, dark, and reeked with a smell it did not know how to name. It was not the sour-sweet of infection. It had little other smells to compare and identify one by. Purple curtains still hung in many of the rooms they rode lifts past or walked through. Their silks were somewhat faded, dank, and smelled. Tablets, vases, decoratives and more littered the floors. Dirty tracks had long since stained them without anyone to mop them up. Furniture was upended or else rank, damp and grimy like the curtains. 

The moment that Hornet led it to the exit of the tower, the vessel saw that the wide cavern of the city was in a similar state.

Water poured. Old streets were flooded. Drainage ditches were nothing but murky over-flooded canals. The water from above pooled into the cracks of every cobble underfoot. It ran down the sides of the tower behind them and all those around. 

This city had been the capital of Hallownest. Its cavern had been reinforced strongly. While a mist did tend to cling up above and leave dew on the windows of the city’s towers, there was never before this pour of water. The reinforcements above must have weakened and broken. The Blue Lake leaked into this ghost town while its husks had no thoughts of making repairs. 

The cloak Hornet had so recently given it was already getting wet. The rain was not enough to drench it so quickly, but the places droplets landed soaked through until its skin could feel the unusual sensation of moisture. 

The infection had left moisture too. Its sticky substance had eventually ruined the cloak designed by its father. 

That had been warm. That had been a slower process. That had felt sticky where this was just cold.

It did not hesitate at all to follow its sister into the cold downpour. 

She led it in silence. The Grimmchild had been left behind. Perhaps she intended this to be more private. Perhaps she just felt i-his flame would make this wet place counterintuitive to his wellbeing.

There was a ruined set of stairs. Hornet used her silk to grapple up to the ledge the stairs would have connected to and turned to watch it as it found its way up. It raised its nail to lay it flat on the road above. Rather than releasing it to get a better grip and pull itself up, the vessel leapt, slammed into the overhang, and rolled over.

Its hips hurt where they’d hit stone with bruising force. Its shoulder and the muscles of its thorax hurt worse. 

Its missing arm burned.

The vessel took a moment to push up from its knees. Hornet finally turned and led the way to her destination. It followed, nail dragging from an arm now feeling overexerted.

The road widened out. This was a major intersection. It had never been here, but it could piece that together through clues around it. This sat near the center of the cavern. 

This was a statue.

It was a different style than the one Hornet had led it past earlier. This was wide at the base. It was intended to be full of water, the vessel realized, even if the ceiling above had not been leaking: it was a fountain. And still water ran over the statues, poured in strips from the petals of the statue’s base into the basin beneath. Lumafly lanterns stood near, unchanged by infection and the loss of a population. The light reflected off of the water pouring into the basin. It left the statues to glint. 

This was avoidance. A way to notice every other detail but the blatant one.

The figure memorialized up there was the vessel.

It stood like the vessel would have before the Radiance, when it had been called the Pure Vessel and tried to believe itself so. It stood tall, even as the vessel was hunched under the weight of the nail, the off balance of its missing arm, the pain that forcing its back straight would cause. Its cloak was long and even and nothing like the torn, rotting thing it had become in reality. Its shoulders were covered in the decorative pauldrons of its harness. The statue’s did not have loops to be hooked. They looked like true armor instead. They looked…

The statue looked like everything it had once been. 

Everything it had tried to be and thought it was.

Hornet was staring at it. She had stepped up to its right side and turned her head up as if to gauge whatever it felt from this. 

What did it feel from this?

Empty.

Drained and empty and almost more hollow than the thing that had modeled this fountain long ago ever was. 

Its fingers tightened around the hilt of its weapon. It was hard to release the grip on its nail. Hard. It was a piece of the vessel. It was a part. It would have been used to stab, stab itself, like a broken toy gone wrong when it had first been freed, if it had not realized any more quickly that she was gone. It had wanted that for years of its imprisonment. It had dreamed and imagined and longed for that from the moment it felt the first tiny pustule of infection in its chest.

Her (HER, Light, Pain,- NO it was not. It never would be. Its sister was far from that.) hand lifted slowly, stilted, until claws grazed the dark ones holding the nail.

The touch was almost as odd a sensation as the cold rain was. These were things it was not used to. Its void remained settled under its skin, however.

Her hand was almost comically smaller than the vessel’s. It curved around two fingers only and then held itself in place, there. It did not understand the purpose. It was not like being checked over for injuries.

It had seen similar motions done before. Some retainers could be found holding the hands of others. The Great Knights were tactile with one another. The nailsage’s pupils…they had been siblings, hadn’t they? It barely remembered the sage or those young students. Its memories were scattered, unused to being on a consecutive line again after so long in dreams and stagnation. 

Hornet had not done this before.

Hornet saw a purpose, then. A meaning. The hesitance she had reached out with left it thinking she even saw a risk.

The physical sensation did not let it drift too far from its surroundings. So it stared at the fountain with its face upturned into the rain and wondered why its sister had brought it here.

She just stayed there even as it finally noticed the placard and read it.

Its hand tightened around its nail until it was almost painful. Hornet’s smaller hand stiltedly shifted. 

The placard was a lie.

The Pure Vessel had been a lie. 

Still, this fountain stood. It stood in a desolate ruin full of corpses and husks and that felt like mockery to the words memorialized.

Very few knew of the vessel’s existence. The Knights and other trainers had. The retainers of the palace had, though they knew nothing of its origin and little of its purpose. Only two knew its origins in full. And of those that knew the details of its fate, three had been sealed into a dream.

There was no room to guess and wonder who might have commissioned these words. 

Rain ran down bone. It dripped from the bottom of the mask to the drenched cloak, or from the tips of its horns to the ground below. 

Hornet began to speak.

“There is a memorial for the dreamers as well, in the resting grounds. But this one was made in the center of the city. Only those who visited the resting grounds would see theirs. Everyone would see yours.”

She said it flatly, but…

But she thought this was something the vessel would gain to hear. 

It considered what meaning it could have gathered from its own thoughts and its sister’s declaration.

It thought again of the Pure Vessel, standing still and unfeeling in the downpour.

The vessel should have been like that; that knight would not gain anything from this. So it shouldn’t take anything from it. Shouldn’t feel. Didn’t…Didn’t feel. Did she want the vessel to? Would she be disappointed? The vessel could fake.

It had faked being pure. Hollow. It had for the sake of the king. 

It could fake for the sake of his daughter.

So it looked downward to her. She had returned to staring at the placard, but looked up at its motion. Her fingers squeezed minutely against its hand. It could not release its nail to return to the motion, even if it now suspected that was what she would want in the future. And it could learn her needs. It would not keep failing his daughter, at the least. 

Settled though its void had been since the journey down exhausted it, the vessel felt it swirl some in its gut. It was done here. It had seen all there was to see. 

It looked back at the fountain instead. The rain kept running down its face and dripping off. It was too like the infection that would run out from its eyes and drip drip drip off its chin. This did not hurt. The water fell like tears ceaselessly.

Through its sacrifice, Hallownest lasts eternal

Its fate had always been to contain Her. There had been no understanding of a sacrifice. The Pure Vessel would not have viewed its duty as one, at any rate. Who, then, had?

It did feel empty staring up at a monument built by its father. It had not been lying to itself there. It did not understand what it should be feeling, by Hornet’s standards.

But it did understand what it stared upon. 

It understood regardless of if its mind stayed dully, exhaustedly empty.

That knight was what it should have been.

Tall, strong, robed as a royal, voiceless in the face of an eternity of pain. 

The vessel’s head was turned up to stare at this painful model and realized far later than it should have that flaking void had joined the rain sliding down its face.

Chapter Text

Long ago, it had seen the daughter of the king. She would stay with the king and queen at times. During those times, she would nod and follow along and claim that she understood what the hollow knight was, that it was a purely hollow vessel and not a child like her.

She would claim it, but she was a child. She saw the vessel and heard it called empty (as it was supposed to be) but what she saw was little different than everything else she saw. Everyone else. If she said, chase me, the small figure would chase. If she said, play with me, then the thing that looked similar enough to a child would play. It did so through mimicry, rather than natural creativity.

It got nothing out of it. It couldn’t.  

But she saw what she saw. She felt. 

Like the king saw a pure vessel, when they were soiled long before and hid it from him.

She had been very small in her youth. When it was still small as well, she would be brought into the palace by her mother or another from Deepnest. She was a tiny thing then. All her little legs were hidden under a red dress that made her look like a colored ball. Her head had been too tiny for a mask then. So it was left peeking out of the fluff of her infant wear- soft chitin a shiny black, eyes- only two, like her father- pinched closed, chelicerae wavering open and shut around a teeny mouth. Despite the size, all the teeth lining them stung when she would find a finger to cling onto.

Her father called her a menace after this had occurred for the third time. He’d lifted his hand, spiderling and all, and then looked over to the rest of those at the table helplessly. The White Lady had actually laughed. The vessel did not get to hear her laugh often. Not with how she kept such an enforced distance from it.

The Gendered Child had not stayed so small for long. Soon, her eyes had opened and she was able to move herself around without needing to bite and cling onto whatever her mouth had found. The infant dress was replaced with a larger one, of which her legs stuck out from under and were often very visible considering her aptitude for running about. 

She continued to grow as the vessel itself kept molting- the time for being sealed held off until the final molt. 

The vessel had spent years in the palace even as the outside world fell to worsening infection. The king’s daughter grew in those years as well. She learned to speak. She started to call for it. She called it an ‘essl’. As her language improved, she called it a sibling. The Pale King had looked distraught when he first heard her do so (she had been doing it weeks before he noticed). The Pale King had not corrected her. 

But as she grew large enough to lug her toys around with her and her language skills finally allowed her to say “vessel”, the child started being given far more serious conversations on what her sibling was. It was not a living thing. It was never going to be a living being. It would never love her back, or feel jealousy like she did over things like its height or how it saw her father more, or feel happy when playing the games she told it to play with her.

It did not stop her from telling it to chase her through the empty wings of the palace. It did not stop her from making it sit with her and hold the soft toys she had stored in her room in the palace. They were always given different objectives and histories each time she played with them, it seemed. A toy tiktik could be a knight one day and an exiled weaver trying to steal garpede larva the next. It understood that information and filed it away, yet never found use for it.

The child seemed happy. The child never noticed it wasn’t.

She also liked to be read to. Except the vessel obviously couldn’t indulge in that pastime for her. The White Lady read to the child anytime she ran to her and asked for a story. After some time, the child began to take these small books with her, locate the vessel, drag it to some empty room, tell it to sit down, and then she’d lay on the floor with her legs swinging up behind her head as she tried to read to it. She would use the same tones and emphasis as the queen. It seemed likely she was reading less of the words than she was just remembering them. 

She would tell it to sit up and look at the pictures too.

It sat. It listened. It looked.

It meant nothing other than a slight discomforting impurity that arose when it stayed in proximity with the one calling it a sibling- that impurity being how it looked to her and its mind would slip, referring to her as sister rather than the king’s daughter. 

Another play activity the child rather liked was art. She would lay parchments out over the floor and draw across them with pastes and inks. As she aged, her drawings became recognizable. Sometimes, she would show them to her parents. Sometimes, the vessel considered what it would be like to share that experience. But it rarely wondered that.

It had no preference for what the child did with it. So long as it was not in direct contradiction with something its king had told it to do or interrupting time it was to spend training, then it would let her drag it into one play or another. Since it earned nothing positive or negative from the sessions, why would it find a preference?

She could read to it, she could tell it to join her in drawing a “veroshush monser”, she could spill ink all over its cloaks.

It gave her joy. 

Even as she seemed to misunderstand its role in it all to the very end. Even at the end, when she was old enough to be truly training with a needle rather than patted and patronized for her toy weapon, the Gendered Child had not understood. She had not understood that her mother would never wake again. She had not understood that the vessel was never coming back. 

She could repeat these facts as much as she liked.

That was as much a mimicry as its playing with her had been.

She heard the words, but did not realize them. Just as it could mirror what it saw living bugs do, but never feel what they did during the actions.

So no matter what she’d said, the king’s daughter had never known then how to treat and see the vessel as a vessel. She only saw a sibling. She only saw a friend, as isolated and friendless as herself. 

It followed her tasks to the end. Even as she outgrew some toys and grew into other games. Even as it grew too large for her to try to tug around and it instead would be told to carry her to whatever hall was her destination while she sat between its horns. 

Even as she returned to it a century later with a name and a heavy role and the attitude of one who finally understood what she as a child never had.

Because now, she forgot all that she should have learned from those activities.

Reading and writing were different to the vessel.

It could read, out of convenience. 

To write, however, was to voice thought. It could not.

Art was to voice thought or feeling too. When it drew years ago, it was always and only for her. She wanted it to join. It did, but only in mimicry. Only to follow her. No joy or emotion or opinion went into choosing color or shade.

It did not know how to do otherwise.

It did not know if it ever could do otherwise.

Even if Hornet wanted it to now. 

It could always pretend.

It had pretended for her before. Did it make a difference now?

Despite having spent so much of the previous day traveling down to the core of Hallownest and back, Hornet rose before it did and was in Dirtmouth working by the time that it left the hut. 

It was early still. The vessel was satisfied to notice that it was waking earlier, even if it was still sleeping more than its sister. It would be without use to do nothing but rest. 

(The Void called from deep below. It promised rest, rest, rest. If Hornet had not been waiting, it likely would have perished trying to walk from its prison to the city below. It would have joined that sea, found that rest, before ever having to hear the full quality of its failures.)

This time, Hornet was not in that other recently opened hut. The vessel found her in the stag station with others. It was a much larger building. There was a good deal more space here for multiple bugs than any of the huts of Dirtmouth could offer. It was able to follow her down without having to hunch through any of the small doors. It still hunched once down there. Its stretching had not managed to earn it a strong posture.

As was usual, much of the conversation noise dimmed when it came into view. There were even more bugs now. Hornet was finding more and more stragglers in the crossroads and Greenpath. Many seemed to be pillbugs and other commoners rather than those retainers of the palace or royals in the city that made their appearances shine. There was little chance for that during the thralls of infection. Even for those that found dens and stayed hidden and safe from their dreams, there would be no time for such novelties. 

The vessel recognized one of the bugs resting down here as the one from the bed of that hut earlier. They were out of that bed now, currently sitting on the bench of the station. Staring down and fiddling with the flaking paint of the seat. Their legs swung.

The vessel’s approach shadowed the bug and they stared up in surprise.

There was a lantern strapped to their head (mercifully dark; it was cracked open and the lumafly within must have flown away). Under that lantern, it saw the signs of strain around their eyes. What should have been shiny black eyes instead held pinpoint sized milky dots. 

Early stage infection then. The bug had walked away without losing the eyes altogether. Many of those it had witnessed during the walk to and from the city had theirs rotted out.

If the vessel was not a creature of void, it would have nothing but gaping sockets as well. She had reached its eyes in the earliest stage of its infection and they had done nothing but leak burning tears as its arm and chest fell to her next.

Strained though they were, it seemed some form of sight remained. The bug’s eyes widened as they took its appearance in.

“O-oh. Hello.”

It did not return the greeting, though it could in some form. It could nod or tilt its head or- Why? Vessels were not expected to.

The bug jittered as though nervous, but spoke on regardless. Perhaps- and this was silly- they were nervous about something other than the vessel. 

“I’m Myla. What’s your name?”

It had no names. Only titles that it now could not wear. No matter if Hornet continued to refer to it as the Hollow Knight, it would not. And it would not pretend to deserve the title of Pure Vessel.

Both, father had given it.

Neither fit now.

It did not need a name regardless. It did not understand an appeal for one in the first place.

So it ignored the question and thought instead of the introduced information.

Hornet had mentioned a Myla. She tried to keep the vessel updated on all common inhabitants of Dirtmouth (including the god troupe out at its borders, though the vessel had never once gone close enough to meet a Brumm or Divine or multiple ‘grimmkin’) and the one called Myla had been among a few survivors Hornet was planning to keep here. Until what, the vessel did not know. Its sister only shared the names as if she expected it would want to go meet these people. She did not tell it her plans, the way she was out here discussing them with the people of this town.

That was all it knew. The one named Myla had been found in the crossroads during one of Hornet’s scouting trips and brought above for better care. Its sister was trying to find survivors that could not care for themselves. Those who had found a way to avoid husks and falling to their dreams were less likely to need direct help. The formerly infected were the opposite.

No one was supposed to be infected. The vessel was supposed to have stopped that plague. No one was supposed to fall to the burning dream again. 

Myla shifted on the bench.

“That’s okay.” she tried to smile. “You r-remind me of someone. Th-they didn’t tell me a name either.”

Because they (it was easy to guess who she meant, who anyone here seemed to mean; that other vessel had made the acquaintance of many, even gods) would not have had a name.

Not until Hornet gave them one. And even that was a name she gave the vessel- not one the vessel necessarily took upon themself. A vessel wouldn’t.

“Ar-are you r-related to them?” Myla asked. She looked hopeful. 

As hopeful as one could while also looking desperately, disgustingly sick. And this would have been early stages. Not yet to the point that limbs rotted off and organs dissolved and new anatomy came to life. 

It still hurt the vessel to look at.

Myla was waiting. Her legs had stopped swinging. 

Hornet was looking over now. 

It nodded to the tiny bug. Just an incline of the head that stayed that way. It showed that it was listening. This was the sort of motion modeled by those it’d seen before containment. Hornet would be satisfied and so would the little miner.

She did perk at the motion. Her fingers raised up from the bench and fiddled with each other instead. 

“Oh, I’m glad. Do you know what h-happened to them?” 

Her second sentence was far more hesitant than the last.

But it did not know, good news or bad. It had not been told anything. It should not have cared to know one way or the other. 

Right- that had been a question. The vessel shook its head. 

Myla looked sad but did not bring it up again. The vessel remained there. Hornet never approached to give it something to do. She was occupied in conversations, visibly pulled back into them when she would start to move away. It grew sore standing in place. 

The vessel forced its back up from its hunch and began to walk for the lift. Myla stuttered where she was left and lifted a hand to wave at its departure.

“Nice to m-meet you,” she said.

It wondered if that was genuine. It had not done much to elicit and deserve that if it was genuine, but then it had never done much to the young Gendered Child and she had still seemed thrilled in her games. 

It found itself behaving much as it would have then.

Perhaps that was no different than how it always had behaved. It acted exactly how its father wanted it to, so that he would see it as the pure vessel and never grow suspicious that it was anything less. It acted how his daughter wished it to when she wanted to monopolize its time. It was the perfect voiceless pupil for the nailsage and great knights. It was empty and paid no heed to the distress of the White Lady when she began slipping and letting that show. Giving no indication that it noticed it was the cause of such upset made it end quicker. 

It was whatever it was seen to be.

And that handle on identity had been strained and burned away under the Radiance. She did not keep a stable perception on what she wanted her prison to be. She did not often have a stable perception of her own existence. It could not cave to her directions regardless. No matter how many decades would pass since last seeing him, it would adhere to father’s vision first and foremost.  It had no choice but to while in the Egg. It could not have released her even if it had decided to. 

(Could it hate itself more now, in the hindsight of an existence without constant pain, for having tried that?)

The Pale King’s vision would continue to come first here, except he was gone. What point was there in pretending to be the pure vessel without him here? 

It did not know a life without that goal of flawless emptiness. It did not even know if it wanted anything otherwise. But it did know its father was gone and his daughter was the one invested in its state now.

It felt nothing while lifting its hand to return her wave. It felt nothing in return at seeing her expression brighten.

But no one else would have to know that.

Hornet had an order for it.

Despite former analysis determining it needed her to give it a direction, this was not a good thing.

She wanted it to write.

After its routine walk (that now stretched into the crossroads down to the hot spring and back), it returned to find Hornet waiting. She had gone out herself, evidently, because her table was covered in new supplies she had not had before. 

Stacks of parchment. Some sheafs laid out away from the stacks. While there were no messy inks and pastes like those she’d had such fun making messy pictures with years ago, she did have quills sat out. And she was sitting on her usual stool staring right at it as though she’d been prepared for it to enter for hours of waiting. 

The scrutiny made it want to shift in discomfort. But the suggestion she had for it was far more discomforting.

It’d pretended not to understand.

Writing was speaking. Writing was words.

Writing meant a voice.

It did not have a voice.

It couldn’t, or father would be-

Disappointed. Sad. Lose interest? He may not even do that. He may keep the vessel, as he worked on other plans to defeat the Old Light. But…it did not want to be kept, not like that. (It did.) It did not want to disappoint him. It wanted to do him proud. 

Vessels had no voice. No voice to cry. 

No voice.

It stared at the parchment blankly. It acted as if they could be the floor or moss or a living bug and it would make no difference. There was nothing special about ink on silk. Nothing special about the shapes that made up ‘writing’. Nothing about it was something they could comprehend or replicate, because the vessel had no will to comprehend and no voice to replicate. 

It wished then that it actually couldn’t see the difference. It wished it couldn’t read. It wished it had never written for her before.

Hornet sighed. She had already directed it to sit in the chair across the table, but now she rose from her own seat in order to stand up against it. Her hand picked its arm up and held the outside of its own as she directed it to pick up a quill.

The vessel almost began to shake. 

No. It caught the motion. It would not disappoint her now. And if it collapsed into some sort of helpless mess as it had recently, then-

(Then she would probably sit close by and call it her fault and ask what she had done wrong, rather than put any blame on it)

It kept itself stiff. Any flutters in its throat were clamped down upon. It would be making no new noises today.

Even then, the parchment leaves sat there looming up out of the darkness. They were innocuous things. It did not feel like they were. Its gut curdled. 

“Just start simple,” Hornet said as she let go, but stayed close. “Write…Something you’d like to have here. How you’re feeling. An interesting thing you saw today. It doesn’t have to be much.”

The first option could do. If it did thought of a necessity rather than a want. 

The second was out of the question.

The third confused it. What did it mean to see something interesting? What was it like to have interests?

She said it did not have to be much, but her options were daunting now. 

Hornet reached for another quill and paper and pulled the page next to the one under the vessel’s hand.

“Here,” she mumbled and scratched her own words down. The vessel read them dutifully even if it would prefer to be far away from this. I am hungry. I am sleepy. I am bored. “Just something like that will do.”

But it wasn’t hungry. It would know what ravenous hunger felt like after so long sharing the presence of a very hungry god. It was exhausted, not sleepy. It did not know what boredom would feel like. 

These were excuses. She wanted it to do this.

The king’s daughter wanted it to. Its sister wanted it to.

It lifted its lax hand again and tried to scrape the quill against the page like she had.

“I” it wrote and that was as far as it got.

It stared at the letter. Hornet had started all of her examples with that. But it was different being the one to voice that.

I.

What is “I”?

It was a word the vessel did not know for itself.

There was Light and pain, the voices of the plague. The Radiance. The Radiance was a she, a Her, an old god. The Radiance would view herself as I, me, I, myself. She was a being. A person.

She was…

‘I’ felt like her. The vessel was the vessel. Not an I. If its mind was full of I’m trapped, I’m hurting, help me - that was Her bleeding into it. Not the vessel. 

It did not know how to be a…

How to be.

It stared at the page like a statue. The pen in its hand shook minutely with the tremors of its body, but otherwise remained in place.

Hornet did not move as she waited. She was patient. She was growing concerned with its motionlessness. It could see the glint of eyes narrowing.

So it stared back at the page again and found the strength to move the quill.

It changed the “I” to a more fitting word.

“It cannot think.”

Hornet leaned in to read the page. When she leaned back, it was to take its face into her hands and direct it to meet her eyes.

“That’s a load of dung and you know it.”

Its chest pulsed in spiking pain. Void writhed before calming itself.

Despite all that time with the Old Light, there was still enough of the thing it once was to flinch away from such a declaration. It had feared being told that in the palace. It had avoided the Watcher at every chance because it thought he was going to say just that. It had waited and feared over when someone would finally take it to the king and tell him that it had a mind to think and feel after all.

There was hardly a reason to hide that now. Hornet more than knew already. The instinctive fear faded with a few rasping breaths. 

Its sister released its face and picked up the page. 

When she spoke again, it could hear the frown within her voice.

“And you do not deserve to be called an ‘it’, like an item.”

And here you said it would be simple, a part of it thought briefly. That spark faded into the rest of it as easily as it had come. It could not hold onto it even if it had wanted to.

Then what was it supposed to think, if it was supposed to think of itself as a self now?

I am a person?

No. It did not feel real to think. It was unpleasant. The vessel curled over its stomach and let its cape flop over more of it like it could hide.

It looked down to the floor and shook. This time, it did not try to hide the motion. Not even as Hornet set the parchment aside and cleaned the table clear of her new supplies. She returned to it soon after and just…stood there. Close, to be at its side. Not close enough to touch. It did not know what she wanted to do. Or what she wanted it to do. No-

No, it did know the latter.

She wanted it to think of itself as a being might, rather than a self aware tool.

Slowly, it noticed a hand on its back rubbing the same spot repeatedly. Hornet cleared her throat eventually.

“Good…Thank you for doing that with me. You did well.” 

A part of it still lunged ecstatically against its thorax to hear that. She was not the Pale King, but it was still praise from his blood. 

“Do you-...You may go to rest now, if you wish to,” she continued slowly.

It was a compromise between the directions it wished she would stick to and the questions she had fallen into using recently. The vessel pulled itself from the chair and stumbled below.

When a young moth spun into the air after it had closed the trapdoor above, the vessel barely even flinched. It was too exhausted to fear the thing now. 

Besides. With his bright eyes shut, it really could ignore much of the threat the god larva posed.

It could not think.

It had no mind to.

And it had no voice to cry suffering.

Except its breaths rattled now and sometimes it woke to a moan or grunt or strangled roar that came out from it in her voice.

And it had always had a mind.

Hornet’s latest requirement was far less welcome than her establishing the routine of walking had been. Still, she seemed to believe it would be useful. She seemed to think it would succeed in bringing a voice out of the voiceless.

She missed how the voiceless was voiceless by choice and stubborn promise to itself that it was pure and therefore had no words to speak. 

That too was something it was used to.

Repetition. 

Stubborn internal promises that repeated again and again. 

The vessel had follow its directive slowly at first and its sister hardly pushed for much more. It woke, it stretched, it walked, and then it returned to force the words “I am alive, not an item” onto a page.

The vessel didn’t believe it. Hornet did. 

Just as she and everyone else in this town seemed to believe the same of the other vessel. 

The one that had fell. 

The missing one.

The one called the Ghost of Hallownest by a sister that seemed genuinely disappointed it- they- had never returned to her.

The vessel did not believe what they did about itself yet.

But think it more. Say it more. The repetition becomes reality.

(How could it? Repeating that it was pure, that it was hollow, had not made it so.)

There was nothing to lose.

(There was its every purpose as a vessel to lose.)

It hurt.

It hurt all over, in its mind, it wasn’t supposed to. Failures, over and over again.

Not an it, the idea repeated. Not an it like an item. Though it was a broken, worn tool, it was not to think of itself that way. The repetition sounded like Hornet in its mind and made little more progress at making an idea reality as its internal promises of being pure had. 

It was not an it that was hurting all over. They were something else.

(The vessel did not want to be.)

She continued to call the vessel the Hollow Knight. That vessel continued to call their self a failure.

They repeated the task regardless and waited for it to mean something other than a straining agony in their head.

They hurt.

The chains crawling around them were hollow replicas of those that had held them for so long, but the bindings felt suffocating nonetheless.

And here they had thought the hurt would stop.

(They had thought father would make it, one way or another. And now…)

(They drowned alone.)

Chapter Text

This was not the end of Hornet’s ideas.

She said this was about their recovery. Yet she brought in tasks to train them on that they had never once been trained for previously? That was not recovering a skill. If she put them outside to spar, that they would recognize. And likely hurt themself trying to do. Atrophy took a painfully long time to heal. That was not even mentioning how they were used to fighting with two arms available. Intense exposure to the infection seemed to have cauterized their void. They could not turn their missing limb into vicious void, as they could long before. The stump was much like the features inside them that they could not reach to tug out: permanently unchanging. The living infection was gone, but these marks were not healed by lifeblood or soul. 

(It was still tempting to think of more brute ways to remove them; but they knew no one that could cut them open and take the invading skin flaps and organs away, and they did not think their sister would allow them to try such a surgery on themself.)

The angry flesh of their shoulder would burn throughout the day. Lifeblood had helped, but their sister was too busy to continue finding the seeds for them. The hot pool helped, but only so long as they were in it. It was a manageable pain regardless. Far from the worst they had ever had. 

(They wished it would go away, even if that would require cutting the infected shoulder off and leaving them even more unbalanced.)

What she came to them with this latest time would not make that pain dull. It would not remove the odd cauterized mess that was infection meeting void. It would not return their arm to them. It would not make them any better at standing with the posture the Pale King had wanted them to have, nor walking without a frightening hunch and limp. It would not make them capable of sparring regardless of how pointless such an activity was considering the old enemy was gone and they had no father to show off to. 

How was it going to help with ‘recovery’ then?

This was only meant to make them…more of something they were not, had never been intended to be.

It did not stop Hornet from calling them over to her table and it did not stop them from lagging in their response when it saw her writing supplies were out once more.

Sister set the little leaves of parchment down.

She explained her idea.

They listened without understanding, but with true apprehension for the task.

Hornet talked at length (for her, to them when compared to previous experiences) about the process of journaling. There were no rules, according to her. They could be very short. All that mattered was that they would write something different every day. It could be a thought, or something they wanted to have here, or an event of the day. 

Somehow, this breakdown did not make it seem less daunting. Hornet still had directed them to start and they struggled to stay focused in the situation.

But it did not- They did not know how to make entries. 

Sister said she understood that. That there was no perfect, determinate way. It was to allow them to know whether they found it a good medium for themself. Whether they found it good, so that eventually they could chose the medium of speech with her.

How could they find it that?

It was wrong wrong wrong.

Sister was a child of their father. Father was gone. They found her direction vitally helpful in the absence of his own.

She wanted them to try.

They had no wants. Not in this regard.

They tried.

“Entry 4

I—”

They scribbled ink over the nonsense to follow and began again.

“I am well.

I have nothing new to say-”

Say wasn’t a good word for it. It left them confronting the fact this was, in a sense, speaking. A low growl escaped their throat as they scratched this out as well.

What was left? They could not just write eight words and be done with it. If this was for their sake, then they must make an actual effort. 

The vessel brought their head down and pushed it into the table top. It hurt, but the external pressure hardly helped an internal straining. 

They rose again. Their hand cramped from the delicate position it had to hold the quill with. It was a very different motion from holding their nail.

Across from them, the Grimmchild was staring. He was hanging upside down in the doorway, but his eyes were glowing red slits.

They tried not to break the eye contact first even as void crawled under the skin of their back. 

What more, what more? Write on how they wished the god would stare somewhere else? Or how they still did not know why the child and the nearby circus were here?

They looked back down at the aggravating paper. 

“My arm hurts.”

There.

Now it was eleven words in length.

And their head ached from just finding three more. It was the use of “my” that seemed to drain them most. My’s, I’s, both, all. They would prefer writing such information as a status report: the vessel is well; nothing has changed in the last hours; the vessel’s injury is still hurting. 

That would not take upwards of an hour to complete, let alone think up in the first place.

Their mouth closed around another unwanted noise before it could break free. They put the page face down on the small pile of completed entries and then let their head fall to rest against the table once more. 

It should not be so exhausting to make such a little report.

They felt so weak this way. Like a malfunction. Their father wouldn’t want to see them like this now. They could not even mimic the reports of other bugs? It should have been easy. It shouldn’t have felt so much like betrayal. It shouldn’t have felt so impossible. 

They were not designed for this.

The opposite was true, in fact. Void should have eaten out any ability to make these entries at all.

They felt precariously balanced in doing this. It was a step away from what they were meant for. It was likewise an impossible step to take towards the full impurity they had not been intended for and they did not have the means or talents to make it. 

It was better than being trapped with the Light.

It felt like chains regardless.

They learned more about the other vessel. The ghost of Hallownest. 

Their sibling, according to Hornet. They would think the relation and right to call it a sibling died when they had stood and watched it scramble and fall. 

The sound of breaking bodies was still memorable after everything the Radiance had done to them.

It had been one of the first sounds they had ever heard. Such a thing was bound to sear its way into memories. At the time, the sound was only combated by the voice of their father, the pale light, shining and speaking up above.

He had left before ever seeing that another vessel had reached the ledge. He had never known that they had delayed there, let alone why. 

They had left that vessel to fall and fall it had. 

No. They did not have a right to call them their blood. Yet Hornet insisted. 

(She insisted, even after they realized she did not think she had that right either.)

They learned from the townspeople.

Elderbug had only fond things to say about the silent traveler who would pop in and out of his town. They had brought him a flower and given him company and not been nearly as disruptive as certain other travelers.

(If it was possible to glare to the west at the circus and to the east at Zote, Elderbug somehow managed it.)

Sly (who they had frozen upon first seeing, because that was the nailsage) was hardly seen, as he stayed within his shop at almost all hours. Still, he remarked that the vessel had bought out his former stock and seemed quite happy with that. None of the shopkeepers were easy to overhear and it hardly had a good means to walk up to any and communicate with them that they wanted news about a vessel that should have been dead.

Zote had plenty of information about that vessel. He said they were very rude. They had no battle etiquette or respect for superiors and had attempted to slander his name. 

(No one else had mentioned the vessel communicating with them in any form aside from points and nods. They did not think this accusation was likely then. Slandering would take too much effort in points and nods.) 

Down in the stag station, Myla called that vessel a friend of her’s. She said they would visit her as she mined and just sit to listen while she sang. It would be good company.

They didn’t understand why a vessel would go seek out time to spend in the company of others like this- without purpose.

They didn’t until they thought of the Pale King and remembered this other vessel was no more pure than they.

The Old Stag had been there at this time. He overheard her talking and began to recall his own times spent with the silent traveler who had reopened the stations of Hallownest. He sounded fond. His recollections were painted in affection and respect. The vessel was learning that everyone’s recollections seemed to come with this draw. They were filtered through whatever opinion the speaker held on the missing knight. It was hard to guess what the vessel had actually been thinking during any of these recalled times, because the speakers applied their own emotions to silent gestures. 

The answer was likely simple anyways.

They probably had not been thinking much of anything.

This was just hard to remember when every different story made the vessel sound like some person they knew as a friend or ally or rival.

Hornet did not talk much.

They almost found that frustrating, considering she was trying to push them to give themself a voice so hard now. 

But slowly, they had also pieced information about the vessel together from things she said here and there. 

She viewed that one as a sibling as well and had taken to calling them by a name of her choice. She had met other vessels in the time since Hallownest fell. 

Those vessels were not alive now.

Hornet did not want to talk about them.

She expressed surprise at finding out any more had survived the abyss after its entrance was sealed. The vessel was surprised as well, considering their father had not thought any other vessels had survived. He foresaw only one leaving behind him. His plan centered around that accordingly. They knew there were thousands, or millions, something uncountable at the time, of others who had hatched. They knew they had crawled from a mound of the already-dead and seen many more fall and break as they ascended. They knew one other reached the ledge.

And they knew that one had fallen. 

They had never expected any survivors to be trapped down there any more than father expected it.

Maybe neither wanted to consider that as an option and fell into the comfort of a vision as an absolute answer for a question unasked.

Hornet had been just as they: certain that the one being called the Hollow Knight had been the only to survive.

And then they had left her on the day her mother had left her, her father had left her, who knew who many others had died and left her without support. 

Hornet had seen these vessels around the dying kingdom. Many tried to reach the Temple of the Black Egg. Others slipped out of the kingdom altogether and Hornet would not follow, for the sake of retaining her own self through memories. 

She learned to view them as she always should have.

They thought that good.

But then she changed her mind. 

Ghost changed her mind. 

She could never go back to the naivety of her youth, but by the time that she had waited outside the temple to join them in their fight against the failed vessel sealed within, she viewed both as someone rather than the things they should have been. 

If she had felt an affection for this vessel, then they doubled down on their question: where was it now?

If the vessel was dead, why not tell the people of this town still waiting for their silent knight to return?

When they learned, they were not sure they understood the answer.

They were not sure their sister did either.

On the night that the fires of not-dream had swept into this town, Hornet had left them to sleep while she spoke with that higher being. The two had left after discussing missing friends and new gods and yet when she returned, it was to speak about the Grimmchild rather than those topics.

Their dreams were mostly vague things of void and dark silence. They rarely included blinding light and a dead voice. Rarer still, they dreamed of other dreams.

Of a fight fought again and again against an opponent they had let die.

Or how that fight ended.

Was that a vision, a subconscious parallel of whatever was happening to the Old Light? Was it the half-traces of foresight, only then awakening in wyrm-spawn?

Or there was the chance that it had been real.

That they had watched her die. 

That they had seen the sibling they had failed flood the dream-world with void.

What vessel could do that? They certainly couldn’t. They would have long ago. 

So they found the tablet they had once written upon (if they had never written on either occasion, would she be attempting to teach them now or would her current task never have had to happen?) and brought it to her.

“Ghost?” she read aloud. 

They pointed at it.

They pointed until she understood.

And finally, they heard what was hidden about this missing vessel.

“Will you be alright if Grimm comes here?” their sister asked that night. She had realized they wanted (they did not like having wants, but she was encouraging them anyways) to know what they had never heard on that night the circus arrived. She was not the only one with that information, however. She had learned most of her answers from the god. Before his arrival, she had been as confused as they were about why they had suddenly been freed, why a vessel hadn’t come to kill them and take their place, why the infection was gone.

Whatever he had told her had left her satisfied. She did not go search the realms of Hallownest for the missing one. She stuck to nearby aid and they did not think she expected to find the vessel in the crossroads.

Hornet was still waiting. Ah, right. The question. They were being asked a question. They were not much used to that.

The vessel would prefer he not.

The alternative would be to go to his tents, though, wouldn’t it? If his information was crucial either way, then they could not just avoid him altogether.

Or they could, they supposed, since surely Hornet had learned whatever he knew. But she was the one that thought he should come. What did they know?

They gave a begrudging nod. 

She looked as unsatisfied as they felt as she approached the door. The Grimmchild flew behind her. He usually did, unless she left his charm in the hut. This time, they thought he did it because he could sense the other half of the flame that beat in his chest. It had flared into being outside, far too near. The border of Dirtmouth had been bypassed altogether. Gods could. Few things could stand in their way.

Despite their sense, Hornet startled upon opening the door and finding the one called Grimm outside.

They had not fully seen him last time. 

His eyes were the same as the Grimmchild’s- if slightly less vibrant. Grimmchild’s were startling and bright, as Her’s had been. Grimm’s carried the same startling color without any of that powerful life. 

It was a small comfort.

He stood taller than Hornet with dark wings folded about himself far lower than the Old Light ever swept hers around herself. Those wings were darker than Grimmchild’s. But they looked very, very similar regardless of these slight differences.

The flame was curiously searching about, sensing, sensing them, as it had before. The heart beat faster. The vessel did not understand where one ended and the other began. This was not Her. They did not know how this higher being operated. 

They looked at the being’s face, determined not to flinch from the eyes that were not Her eyes. It was odd to discover he was staring elsewhere. They had grown used to Grimmchild’s tenacity.

“You were inviting me in, Daughter of Hallownest?” Grimm rasped.

Hornet looked like she regretted ever offering this as an option. She did stiffly step aside and hold the door open, rather than slamming it shut.

He strolled in very easily, as if oblivious to how defensively Hornet held herself or how the void crawled beneath the vessel’s hide. 

It seemed unlikely either could actually go unnoticed by a being of the same power as the Pale King or Old Light. 

Hornet pulled them to sit in the stool next to her’s. It left them with support nearby. They were not sure how to express that they preferred this. 

The god- was he a god? He carried the taint, but so did the child- found another stool in the mess and set it upright. Had they really never cleaned this place? They only realized now how cramped it must appear. If this was to be a temporary nest meant only for their healing, then they understood why it would go untouched. But they had stayed here much longer by now. 

Hornet must have inherited more from their father than just his dark eyes and short stature. His every laboratory and workshop had been a danger to walk into. They had seen him trip on his own messes before. He had fallen onto a spike once after slipping on a discarded saw and they had almost broken their act to rush to him urgently, before he had laughed it off and healed himself. Their father was a god. Gods were very, very hard to harm.

Nothing they had done had ever scratched the Light. 

Of all the behaviors to pick up, that did not seem a convenient one. If…they asked, which required voicing something, her how long she planned to stay here, perhaps they would clean out the leftover junk for her. The civilians here might even find some of it useful, if just to sell. 

Grimm’s arms appeared from his long wings as he sat and brushed them flat against his legs before they disappeared under the appendages of flight.

“There,” he said cheerfully. They thought it was cheerful. The flame around him was dancing happily, lazily. His voice alone was not easy to distinguish. 

Grimmchild mewled and flew down to softly land in the other’s lap. He curled up there easily and fearlessly. 

“They want to know what you told me.” Hornet began without filler or pompare. 

That, she inherited from her mother. They had been near the Pale King and even the White Lady long enough to know how both would dance around questions and concerns. The monarch of Deepnest seemed to take pleasure in doing the opposite. 

“What happened to the infection and the void and…”

She cut herself off, briefly.

“Our sibling,” she began again, a little less brittle. “Your…friend.”

Odd, to think of a higher being considering an emptied void product as a friend. They did not think it likely the consideration was shared vice versa, but for a god to think it in the first place...it was different than with the denizens of Dirtmouth. 

Grimm turned his head to nod at them. Only then did they realize how he had held his attention on their sister or the charm child rather than on them. His hands had come out from his wings in order to hold the child steady. 

It looked so effortless.

As if he did not even know or think about what he was doing.

Even with Hornet, they had watched the Pale King hold himself stiffly and take notable time to reach out to hold her each instance that she would run up to ask for that. The vessel had wondered why, when she was his child. Perhaps anxiety over Herrah.

(Perhaps something to do with bones, so many bones, enough that they’d had to tunnel and crawl out of the bodies of the dead just to reach the surface of the Abyss.)

“Of course,” Grimm purred. The child had managed to separate a finger from the hand near his head and was rubbing it until the elder obligingly began to pet between those tiny black horns. This too was effortless.

“They sought a difficult triumph after completing our dance. Our child was to join them on that stage and many of those that followed, should they succeed against the Old Light.”

The vessel was not sure if they should be concerned with how little they understood. In the palace, they would listen and take what they could. Shouldn’t they here? No, they had interrupted both of these people. They should make sure that interruption culminated in answers or they would have wasted all of their time. Did they interrupt, then? Ask questions? The idea repulsed them. 

“I was waiting at the temple,” Hornet spoke to them, turned in her seat to better face the vessel. “I knew what their goal was. They had already opened the abyss and returned from it. So I was going to wait for them to kill the Dreamers and join me against you. I don’t remember when I slept there, but I remember dreaming.”

Grimm lifted his hand and seemed oblivious to how the child in his lap nipped after the retreating finger. Or perhaps he did it for that child, to keep him entertained. 

How odd.

“It was a stage,” he added, as if that helped. “A grand stage, at that. The Seeker called, we answered.”

The vessel thought of bronze and gold and the limit of the environment when they fought their past’s phantom over and over again. Was that a stage? An arena?

They lifted their only hand from where it had been clenched against their lap, and pressed it against the crack of their bone as if the pressure would clear foggy dream memories.

Their sister shifted in her seat, staring at them. Concern? Likely concern. 

“We both shared dreams with the little ghost.” Hornet said.

Shared dreams?

They had dreamed about that vessel.

They had fought, again and again.

That had been…real?

“Indeed,” Grimm smiled thinly. 

It was just enough to catch a glimpse at jagged structures behind those jaws. Teeth? She had not had teeth. Her moths had throats and mouths and voices. She spoke through them. Just as she screamed through the vessel to an audience unheard.

“Though I do not know that it was their dream we shared, any more than it was a dream of ours. They were dancing for another.”

Dancing?

He spoke with all the clarity of father: that being, very little. Not until one learned to understand the idiosyncrasies. 

The vessel realized a few seconds slow that, in order to make them slow down and explain, they would need to give them some reason to pause. They jerked upright and made themself tilt their head.

“We fought them,” Hornet clarified. 

Fought.

Then it was the same dream. Why had the vessel delved so deep into Her realm to fight…allies? Lost siblings? Failures?

They gnawed on their own alien tongue as an internal debate began, ran its arguments, and concluded. With no shortage of trepidation and guilt, they reached for a quill.

“Why?”

Grimm was giving another thin smile at them, they realized when they’d looked away from their paper in Hornet’s hands. 

Why?

She stared down from so high above- always high above. Light was all illuminating, surrounding, it had to stay large in the sky and dwarf any beneath them. 

It was never a smile, not like that, not like that. There were times that the Light would slip down, lay flatter, try to appear smaller, to ask, ask, beg, the prison to open. Still not like that. Fake, always false, desperate covers, false friendships, fake protective offers. 

This was not about Her. 

She should leave i-them be. 

Leave them. Wasn’t it enough? 

His smile was from across a room at an even eye level and it promised nothing and asked for nothing. 

She wasn’t here.

“That was to be our dance,” he said as if it was the simplest thing to understand. “We were called there to fight by a most charming tribe. Who would I be to turn their call down? It was an honor to participate in their delightful ritual.”

The smile drifted shut. Grimm glanced down at the child and returned to playing with the excitable larva.

“I just did not know how that stage was fated to end.”

“Ghost finished this…ritual, that this tribe had them fight in,” Hornet continued for him. 

They remembered that. 

They remembered being the last to stand between the infection and a vessel that surpassed every design of their father’s.

“They fought the Radiance in her purest state,” Grimm said. His jagged smile went lopsided. “They won.”

But…

How?

How did a single vessel destroy a god? After everything father had done to them, trained them for, prepared them for, they couldn’t even succeed in holding her back. 

“I did not sense this part,” their sister said as she sat back. She was still looking at them far more than she looked at her guest. Her arms were out from under her cloak, as if she was prepared to reach…

“Our friend prepared ahead,” Grimm said in her stead. “They went where gods do not follow. We would not have sensed it. But they unified the Void, down there. They must have. 

“Incredible,” he mused, as if to himself, or perhaps to the child now purring in his lap. “I sensed the Void awaken from beyond the borders of this fallen kingdom. It rose against the Old Light. I could sense it.”

He closed his eyes and hissed a breath in.

“Gods cannot stand against Void, but we do not often worry about having to. It lays unfocused in its abyss. Not so, then. Your sibling ascended. They became Void and Void became Lord. Undoubtedly, this newly awakened god could have consumed any higher beings like it did the Radiance.”

Grimm’s eyes opened.

“I have never felt such terror from myself. It was marvelous, how they ascended. Really, it was. An old god, destroyed so thoroughly and seamlessly. The Seeker’s ritual completely consumed. I thought for certain the Void would rise from the deep and take us all.”

Hornet coughed. 

“Oh, clearly it did not,” the god waved. “But I cannot explain what happened next any better than your sister. The Void vanished back into the abyss and seems to have returned the Wyrm’s seals on its entrance. Why and how, who can say but that Lord of Shades?”

They were not sure how to process every bit of information there.

They felt as if they were still stuck on the part where their dreams had not been feverish illusions, but some ‘ritual’ of beings powerful enough to pull the goddess of dreams from her prison into a dream of their own.

The vessel looked down at where their hand lay limp in their lap.

They had wanted to know what became of their savior. They were not sure they understood that more now than ever before.

“Are you alright? Is this too much?” Hornet asked them.

They shook their head.

Yes, it was overwhelming. It likewise had not left them overwhelmed. They did not feel that pressure. They did not feel much of anything at all. Not even fear at the proximity of licking flames. 

They reached for the parchment that she held and handed it back after laboriously adding to it.

“The vessel?”

Hornet looked away.

“I-...we don’t know. They’re gone,” she said dully.

A look at the god showed him staring right back at them. Void crawled before it could help itself. The expression was sympathetic, if anything.

She had been sympathetic at times too. It never stopped the hammer from falling next.

They shook the thought off. 

“When the god of the abyss was reborn, they disappeared into the Void. They had a distinct signature to them before. There were glimpses, here and there, in those brief moments that the Void was surging forth. But with the abyss locked by what lays within, we cannot answer how much of that discarded vessel remains.”

Then they were gone.

Or they were not, but they were still far distant. They had not come to see the sister that worried for them. 

Were they trapped in a state like the vessel had been, so deep in dream?

Existing, but not- unique, but scattered- a being, but nothing at all, and a multitude all and the same.

If there was anything in all of this to feel an emotion from, it was the relief that the infection was truly gone. It would never crawl within them and rot them from the inside out again. Their marks would not go away, but no new ones would arrive.

The others had spoken again.

What had they said? The vessel had stopped noticing. They pulled from the fog of their mind and tried too late to recenter. Hornet was standing again. Grimm was standing as well, speaking down at the shorter being posturing so closely. The child hovered in the air above his shoulder. 

Red eyes looked up over Hornet and stared into the vessel. 

Dim fires filled the home. Smoke lay thick near the ceiling, like a fog. Like their fog. It was not hot. It did not burn. 

Grimm stepped past Hornet back towards their seat. 

“The Old Light hurt you.” they heard him say through the smoke. “I do not plan to do the same.”

But she had hurt even when she hadn’t planned to, tried to. Higher beings did. When they pressed so closely against a mortal, the mortal was bound to burn away into them. To pull and strain and crush in their gravity. To blur into them until they could not remember who or what they were. 

Father hadn’t. The White Lady hadn’t.

The Radiance had, because she was sealed into them. No mortal was meant to take the full essence of a god into themselves. It would burn. It would hurt. It would kill. 

And oddly enough, it was something Grimm proclaimed to know.

“There is no sustainability to being a vessel,” he said quietly. Quietly? As if not for Hornet? But they did not need to be spoken to, they were just a ves…

What had he said?

“It should be impossible to even conjoin the vessel to higher being without an understanding between both.”

But…

They had been born of god and void to do just that.

No one living would be pure enough to keep the infection within them. Trying to use a living being as a vessel would…n’t be sustainable.

Sustainable. 

They tilted their head in unwanted curiosity and confusion. The god- or was he?- tilted his head in the opposite direction.

“I’ve never met another vessel in this lifetime,” he said, brighter. One arm flared a wing out to the side and he bent. “It’s my pleasure.” He straightened and looked down at them again. “I wish your circumstances had been different.”

They did not realize when the smoke cleared from the building. They did not hear whatever parting words came after. 

Hornet set a hand on their good shoulder and only then did they refocus.

She was looking up into the holes of their mask. In the dim ambience, there was no seeing her own eyes. They had gotten better at reading her regardless.

“Are you well?” she asked.

Well?

They did not know what the answer to that should be. They were not sure what the answer ever had been. They had been well as a child in the palace. They were not sure what a life now would have to look like to be called good. That palace was gone. Their parents were gone. 

And that phantom sibling was gone too, apparently.

Too distant even for a higher being to distinguish and call. 

They were not sure if they were disappointed about that. The vessel had stayed on the edge of conversations, silent or otherwise- never crossing them. Never entering this hut with the sister that looked out windows for it. Never appearing in dreams again, not even for them to fall to its feet and beg forgiveness for letting them fall swear gratitude for how they had ended the vessel’s eternal imprisonment.

Instead, they nodded and saw her relief. Disbelieving relief, but relief. Tense, but more at ease.

They tried to do what she had done, in the hot spring and as they shook and at the fountain. Their hand lifted to brush the chin of her mask and graze down her shoulder before flopping off. 

It was odd. They didn’t know what she was supposed to get from that motion. They weren’t sure what they were supposed to get from it, when it was turned on them.

It wasn’t negative.

Then they forced themself to face the table and wrote an answer for her.

“He is not Her.”

That was enough for them, though Hornet was still standing as if confused.

The entries were not getting easier.

They were exhausting and complicating for them and had begun to make them feel like this was another purpose they were failing at. They had failed to be pure, but now they failed this minor task to be a person?

There shouldn’t be all this complication, stress. Pretending to be pure was simpler.

They looked down at what they had.

"Entry 9

Grimm explained how sh the Rad the Old Light was defeated.

Not-dream is not dream.

He is not here to hurt us."

That would be enough. It took too long, but surely it’d be enough. 

They didn’t understand the point of this. 

Grimmchild flew over and perched on the vessel’s shoulder. They stiffened. 

As if noticing that, the small moth hopped off and onto the table instead. Propped onto the front claws of his wings, he turned his head up and coughed flame.

The vessel pushed a free page over to him obligingly. The moth spat an ember onto it and soon the sheaf burned to nothing.

Perhaps they could give him all the parchment in the house. Then Hornet could not tell them to do this task. Not unless she replaced the supplies.

She would. And she would have to be annoyed about it.

The vessel just slid a few already scrapped papers to the god instead. They did not like his presence, but in doing this, they almost felt at ease. It was as if his motives were being drawn out into a clear picture, so both could understand the other. 

The Old Light hurt you. I do not plan to do the same.

So long as the fire did not land on them or the kingdom, the vessel could let the infant play.

If the older and currently stronger flame did not mean to hurt them as She had, then the small one wouldn’t either.

Chapter Text

Grimmchild was latched, claws hooked, on their cloak. 

The vessel was allowing this, for now. He seemed to grow tired from constant flying. And the claws did not scrape past the fabric to cut their back. 

They had started to wonder more about him. Not just how this split higher being worked, but why a piece of that god would willingly go with a vessel born of Pale Beings and Void to kill the Old Light. The similarities between dream and not-dream could not be a total coincidence. Why one would stand aside and let the other die- they did not have an answer on that yet. But the troupe master had talked about that missing (gone? That vessel was gone now, something else, something sealed away now) vessel and the god-child staying together. Instead, the child had been left with their sister for a reunion at the Black Egg that would never occur. 

The motive remained. The two had been intended to fight together by Grimm. To kill the Old Light and continue on to more.

Did he miss them?

Could a higher being miss a mortal? 

(Had the Pale King missed them?)

The vessel was not the child’s Ghost. He would not find answers with them. But for now, he could hang off their back and keep himself entertained. 

They returned to their task.

“Entry 17

Hornet got into an argument today. The v I did not step in.

The hot spring was being used. I did not recognize their armor. They told me to go to a colosseum. 

My arm is not burning badly today.”

They looked at the note for a moment longer before shoving it into the stack of finished entries. No matter what they strained to do, these entries felt as empty as a pure vessel should have. Others may be fooled by them, but they may not. It did not matter, since Hornet had said she would not read them.

It still bothered them.

They were not supposed to have a voice.

But this voice they wrote out, this betrayal- it did not sound like a voice either. It did not come from a person. It never would.

It never would, because the person worth saving within them had died long ago, hadn’t they?

They forced themself through this because Hornet thought she could coax that life out of them again. Was that it? 

Their missing arm burned. They could not scratch it. The crack through their face stung. They remembered her light in them. The infection’s taints were still trapped within. They couldn’t remove that time for them completely. 

The vessel slumped, suddenly exhausted.

It was difficult to leave the hut for their routine the next day. They thought staying in the darkness below unmoving might have been nicer.

The miner who’d survived the infection was out in the town center.

They passed her near the bench and did not notice when she’d jumped and ran over to catch up to them. Not until her hand had caught their own to pull their attention down.

“U-u-um- Hello again.”

They remembered to incline their head.

She had greeted them multiple times by now. They followed their sister into the stag station most days. There were less flinches now. Not by much, but less. The bugs still were inconveniently scared of them. By now, they would accept their help, though. They carried bags of supplies alongside Hornet: food, medical necessities, tools. It did not matter to them what. They just took what she handed to them. 

While a few of the early bugs were gone now, more stragglers kept drifting across Hornet’s path on her searches and were brought here. The stag would take anyone to any station, but Hornet discouraged most. Many regions of this realm had fallen into decay and were riddled in dangers. Acid, thorns, unsafe structures. Ridding the world of the infection would not remove these threats. 

When they waited down there between tasks, the miner had taken to coming to sit nearby and talk.

She never did seem to realize they didn’t talk back.

But they had seen her with others by now. She did not react smoothly to conversations where the other party spoke or interrupted or argued. She didn’t seem to understand how to adjust.

They did not think that odd because they did the same.

“Wo-would you like to g-go crystal mining with me today?” Myla asked nervously.

There was no point to crystal mining. The kingdom had fallen. The crystals would not be put to use until it had regained some semblance of structure again.

She talked freely about herself, however, so they had already heard how she used to mine constantly. Sleeplessly (almost) (clearly not enough). She had been mining near an entrance to the crossroads, where husks did not run across her.

It hadn’t prevented infection from reaching her.

The Light would have reached all, eventually. 

The vessel felt uneasy.

They displayed the palm of their hand in a gesture to wait and she nodded along.

“Oh, it’s o-okay. I have to find my axe anyw-way.”

They left her there to return to the relative quiet of Hornet’s house. When she returned to eat, they wrote for her.

“Miner Myla wants the vessel me to — Mine near crossroad. Would return to help?”

She waved the latter part off.

“You’re free to go. It would do you well.”

She thought of them too much, when they didn’t even know how to think of themself.

She rarely even saw them. Her time was occupied with traveling the nearby roads in search for survivors, hunting, organizing, and her own rare rests.

They could not expect more. She already offered far more care and devoted far more resources to a broken vessel than they could have expected from her. 

She could have focused fully on her people, if she had never found them outside of the Black Egg.

Myla was waiting near the eastern stairs. Her headlamp had been repaired. They did not shrug away from the small light. 

“I’m glad you decided to c-come,” she said shyly. 

They didn’t move. They did not even move when she had started for the well, until she walked all the way back to them.

She took them by the hand and tried to guide them down. Down, past the town, down the well, into the crossroads where they had been- no, think not of the temple, of Her- concentrate on the little bug trying to guide a broken vessel somewhere…for…what purpose? What did she see as a use for this?

The entrance to the mine emitted a soft purple light. The crystals of the peak held their own energy. They did not emit that energy with the same sense of heat that Her’s would. The vessel would not flinch. 

Myla hummed as she led them into the entrance. They passed over a lift that rattled and carried itself up behind them. The miner did not seem to even notice the noise. 

The infection ate away at minds. Drowned them. Drowned their sense of identity, muddled it up with the escaping identity of the Light. It made sense that perceptions and understandings would remain muddled after.

It was a discomforting thought and they were not down here to be discomforted.

(They were not sure why they were down here.)

“Here- h-ere,” she placed them a little bit away from a wall of stone and then approached that wall herself. They stood still where they were placed. This at least felt proper. Being ordered in movement and stance.

The little bug returned into view with a weapon in hand. No- not a weapon, but a tool. The vessel realized that after she explained what she was going to do. An ‘axe’, but not one for fighting. She had carried one of her own down, but this old thing she was handing to them. Its wooden handle felt fragile under their grip. They could snap it into splinters without effort.

They could break just about everything (everyone) in this world with such ease, disarmed now or not. Void was dangerous. Very dangerous. It should not be left unchecked. The Pale King had always kept them very close. He made sure nothing was ever hurt by the void he had pulled out of the abyss. Nothing but the Radiance.

(She had hurt them far more than they had managed to hurt her.)

Myla demonstrated. She would hit at the same general area of the deadend and let stones chip off. In the time it took her to show them what mining was, all that her efforts had amounted to was dust, gravel, and such tiny particles of crystals that would be of no use.

They still lumbered forward to pick at the wall. She flung her whole body into the motion, but they could hardly do the same. There was no space in the tunnel and they did not want to hit her.

Myla still clapped at the lackluster movements.

“See?” she asked, as if she had just won an argument over the worth of this activity. How many others had she tried to convince to join her down here? Uninfected bugs were rare in the crossroads. Probably none. At least none who lived still.

“And th-then while you do it, you can pass th-the time by singing!” she went ahead.

And Myla demonstrated that for them too.

They would never join. The mere thought kept causing their throat to clamp, and that just served as a reminder that it was there. They could not distance themself enough from it. 

It was a different song. Not as smooth and gentle as the lullabies of the White Lady, who they had heard sing Hornet to sleep. And that was different too from the singing that sometimes rattled through their prison dream. Moths had liked song. They did not have their own strong minds, but they called to one another through hums and music. Her lullabies were wordless and melodic and sung only to herself when she was in one of her stages of surrendered despair, and they shivered to think of the things.

This was soft, but not as elegant as the queen’s many songs had been. It was voice alone, words alone. Rather grim words at that. Myla did not seem to notice.

She mined while they crouched hunched nearby to listen. When she would turn to look back at them, her lamp shone into their eyes. 

“It’s hard work, but I never mind!” she said on one of these times. “It’s f-fun!”

And she said that, and sang, and played that role, until eventually the axe fell from her hand and she slumped on the floor and began to cry.

…What did they do now?

They stilled. Even their breaths had shortened enough for their rasps to quiet. 

Myla wiped a hand across her eyes and sniffled.

“Sorry,” she apologized.

Was she supposed to apologize?

Were they?

Was anyone?

They had not taken any pleasure from this outing, but they had not noticed it being miserable either. Hadn’t she been enjoying this? It had been her idea. 

Myla sniffled again and tried to giggle through it.

“Sorry,” she repeated. “I thought- but. I thought this w-would b-be fun.”

Her lamp dimmed when she averted her gaze off to the side.

“I loved to mine. I’d si-s-sing and mine and I wa-was going to f-find something, someday. There was s-something down here, and the crystals were whispering b-back to me that there was, and I-I was going to find it. It wa-was my dream. It w-was the only purpose I had.” Myla added, with growing audible desperation. “And now-”

The bug’s voice choked off.

They knew what that would feel like. When their throat exhausted itself or their distress peaked, their screams would choke into thin gasps and silence. It would be painful.

Myla reached for her axe and clutched it as she wobbled to her feet.

“I can’t do it right anymore,” she said. “It doesn’t give me what it sh-should. It’s…my mind is crawling, I’m sorry, I have to go, I’m sorry-”

What was the point of the apology?

They hadn’t asked to come down here. They had done it for her.

And she had grown miserable.

Something curdled inside them. 

There was likely nothing they could have done to prevent that. 

They retreated down the tunnel in their crouch until they could stand properly again. The fragile tool was left behind in a tunnel they did not see being used again anytime soon. They waited until Myla had reached them before following her out into the crossroads again.

Myla sat down on the stones out there and looked back at the ethereal glow of the entryway.

“...Maybe I heard what they were s-singing,” she said lowly. “The crystals. I th-thought I was hearing them.”

If so, she did not seem happy to have heard them. 

The vessel realized the truth a moment later, when she turned her head up to them and spoke again.

“You’re- you’re an empty one. Aren’t you? That’s w-what it kept telling me to k-kill, whenever they visited. I w-would never have- otherwise- I-...”

No, it had hardly been crystals. 

It was her.

It was always her.

Linking back, always, always. The great poison of the crossroads. And Hallownest beyond. The desperate vengeance of an angry god. The vessel and Dreamers had kept her from leaving the temple completely, but parts of her influence seeped out and they were more than enough to devour the old life and supplant the land with the new. 

Everyone hurt, here. Every single living bug in this land.

So many more dead, but the living?

Did they live?

They survived her blight, but the lives they belonged to were long gone. 

The Hollow Knight should have prevented this loss.

Myla should have been here chipping away at stone for riches she would never get, happy, oblivious, fully consumed in a world she enjoyed. Not unable to even stare that world in the face again.

They would not be able to stare at the palace grounds or any royal retainers or the idols of their father again. They would never find a life down below and they hardly had one up here.

The Old Light’s markings on this world had not left, no matter if the blatant blight of the infection had. They had not left the vessel and they would leave no others and there was no parent still alive to take on that weight now.

They returned to Dirtmouth silently. While Myla had gone to knock timidly on the door of the mapkeeper’s shop, they kept moving.

They moved until they had entered their own hut.

No, not theirs.

They did not own anything. They had not chosen this place. It was not their home. It was their sister’s choice but they felt nothing for it.

They had spent weeks here now. Blurred together and vague and painful. And it still meant nothing to them?

Maybe nothing would again.

The palace was a dream stain and they would not have entered it anyways without father there. They had woken to a world they had failed and could not seem to find a purpose in. There were reminders of the Light everywhere. They wanted to forget her. They wanted to forget what it felt like to be chained in isolation for years and years while pain chewed through them. 

Their father could have made them forget. 

They felt lost. They felt as if they had found the direction meant for them.

They felt as if they had missed it, when its path passed by.

The place was silent. Empty, empty, silent. Not enough. The town’s noises drifted in. But they were alone. 

Being alone should not bother them. They were defective.

This hurt. 

They took out a sheaf of silk parchment from their sister’s assigned pile and moved automatically to the table. Hornet was not back yet. Her orders stood no matter if she was back or not. She was the heir of Hallownest in every regard and the vessel was to serve that. They were not meant to survive but so long as they had, then their functions were one of knight to the (dead, they had failed and let the kingdom die, it was dead) kingdom.

She wanted the vessel to make these entries and so they would.

They would again and again and again and maybe she would deem the papers satisfactory enough to release them from the task. Or maybe they would start to find…something out of the task. Something that made it easier. 

One or the other would come, or else they would be writing these until the day they (finally) died.

Normally, they had taken to recording ‘events’ of the day. There was no reason to put themself into those events. They could record what Elderbug had said that day. They could record what they had watched Sly do another day. 

Hornet wanted them to put themself in. To put down thoughts, opinions, or feelings. 

An antithesis of what she should be ordering.

Normally, it was so very difficult to think of even a few words. The word “I” caught them up every time. The vessel had not found a way to stop getting caught on that.

I was Her.

What would she write for these things?

Let me be free- I’ll let you return to him, just let me go- vile voidling- the light cannot be forgotten- they will not let me die again- I cannot die again- kill the empty one- why will you not hate them?- kill- will not die

The vessel held the pen over the paper motionlessly as they considered all of this. 

Eventually, they began the laborious process of writing.

There was no I in this one. They had its entry number written just because the vessel was meant to be efficient and efficiency meant organization. But despite the number, it was not much like previous entries.

The vessel placed the sheaf in its place in its ‘finished’ stack.

And then they walked from the hut, from the exit to Dirtmouth, until they could slip down the well and walk back to where they belonged.

“18

Bury the lady, lovely and pale. 

Bury the priest in his tattered gown, 

Then bury the beggar and his shining crown

Bury the knight with her broken nail, 

Bury my mother, pale and slight, 

Bury my father with his eyes shut tight

Bury my sisters, two by two, 

And then when you're done, let's bury me too.”

The Black Egg was still opened. 

Its spiral door was collapsed into its walls, where they could not see the glow of the Dreamers’s seals. They would be there. The Dreamers were still trapped in that dream. 

All things considered, it was rather close to the mine’s entrance. Perhaps they should have stopped here on the way there. This was the inevitable destination. Why delay?

They had not wanted to acknowledge its inevitability before.

Whatever they had watched today had shook the denial away. They would not be trapped between the state of longing for father to retire them and continuing to persist just because he was not here to do so.

They should never have left this place.

Being so near it made their void crawl and it did not settle after the brief shudder. A century was a very long time. A century with nothing but pain and no other stimuli was unthinkable. 

They made their legs move. Their nail dragged behind them into the sphere.

Bury the knight

Bury my father

The vessel flinched but the unwanted ring of her voice in their head only drove them to move faster in.

Bury my sisters

A child convinced she had a sibling- gone, now. Gone now, even if she had not died.

Breaking bones and snapping bodies. Wings crushed under shattered backs. A single other that made it to the top. A face just like theirs staring and waiting and then falling to break and snap and shatter like the rest. 

For what?

That one had defeated the enemy in the end. They had let that one fall just to secure their own doomed position as the vessel chained in this hell.

Let's bury me too

The egg was meant to sustain the void without letting any leak out. Only through void would the Old Light stay contained. No one who was alive could enter the site of their execution for long. Their father had only been in here long enough to hoist the chains and secure the seals before he ushered the rest out and left. Better that than a delay. Better that than him dying because of them.

Little good that had done.

Oh, bury my mother, pale and slight, 

bury my father with his eyes shut tight

It was diluted now. They could sense that its pressure level had changed since they had been restrained here. It felt familiar regardless.

The skins of the infection still lay around the egg. Time had chewed away at some, but not enough. Time would never get rid of it all.

Chains lay on the ground and hung around the room. The rusted harness lay there at the center of the floor.

They reached the center by the discarded harness.

And then when you’re done, let's bury me too.

They should have died in here. They had failed to destroy the source of the infection. They needed replacing. A better vessel to take their place. A pure vessel. They would aid as best as they could. They would help destroy their body. They would help hurt Her on their way out of the body that did nothing but hurt hurt hurt. And then they would return to the void and be nothing, feel nothing, finally think nothing. There would be no more agonizing screams. There would be no more searing pain where infection ate at the stub of an arm and shoulder. They needed pain to go away, please, and that was their impurity, that was their will broken, that was additional agony upon the rest in that dark room.

Instead, no vessel had killed the Dreamers and entered the egg to kill the sealed one.

Instead, She was destroyed without their aid and they were dropped down to the floor to live. 

They had never been made to live.

The fight- and there was no fight in father’s plan; only containment- hadn’t occurred here. The one who had defeated Her had acted outside of father’s vision and the temple alike. This was meant to be their grave. This was their eternal home until they died within it.

When you’re done, bury me too

The vessel had dragged itself into a room that made every part of i-them wish to panic. Their gut and shoulder burned in memory. It hurt to be here. It was also…less confusing, than all those areas of details and homes and people and the noise of the Troupe’s music. This was darkness and chains and visibly little else now that the infection was gone. This was silence without shared screams to fill the prison. 

Being with Hornet and strangers in a town that was not Hallownest may have once been nice…Back when they’d have traitorous thoughts about the king, the king’s other child, the idea that she was an ‘other’ child rather than his only one. Of living that life, that world.

But that dream felt to them now like the little miner’s former love of digging and singing did to her. 

It was far too hollow now. It had been poisoned and they could find no purpose in it. 

They lay their nail on the ground with care. It had been designed and gifted by the father they had failed. They would always treat it with care.

Then they stayed there, crouched on one knee, to brush their fingers over the rusted metal of the harness.

The cavity inside their thorax seemed to burn and shudder until it almost felt as if the outside would be visibly thumping. They wanted to run from here. They wanted to be so far away. They were scared.

Scared of the armor that had held them suspended and helpless for so long. Scared of the chains they could never break. 

They bent until the fore of their mask pressed against the cold floor. It was cold now. Almost as absent of temperature as the void. It was no longer baking in here and it never would be again.

That was the ending they had desired, wasn’t it?

For the Old Light to eventually die within this prison. 

They were always expected to follow her in death.

Bury me too. Bury me too. When you’re done, let's bury me too.

They-

Why keep bothering with that? The vessel had no identity. Sister was wrong- 

Sister was not sister. She was Hornet. Princess of multiple kingdoms. They shared no family because the vessel had no relatives, no parents. It was a vessel. Nothing more.

She was wrong in telling it to have an identity.

It lowered itself to the ground by its nail. The harness stayed by its head, rather than being slipped on again. It could fade without it. It had lost the cloak already and it was far from the shining figure piece father had made it.

It would fade.

It would follow.

That was how this should have gone, all along.

…

But it was not left alone. 

It was not left long enough to fade away, a relic of a dead time. 

There was little sound outside. Not until the child found the entry to the egg and gave a raspy warble.

The vessel did not move. It did not push up to see the Grimmchild hover in the entrance and did not turn its head to see him fly down to land next to it. 

The door had been open. The pressure had shifted to almost that of the crossroads outside. This place would not kill the god-child or any other that entered, the vessel did not think. But it did not know. Others would not either. All should avoid entering. 

There he was regardless, making noises into its face that it had no hope of understanding before it pawed close to its heaving thorax and laid there.

The moth curled around until his head was buried under rounded wings pressed up against its shaking chest. 

Why?

The god-child was not here to hurt the vessel. He had not hurt the other vessel either. They had been allies, somehow. Allied even though vessels ought only follow Pale Beings. 

(Friends. They had been friends. The vessel had never had a friend before.)

This was the grave of an old god. 

Before that, it had been a prison that had severely weakened her. If the vessel had been pure, she never would have escaped from its body. The pressure of the void and old seals would have crushed her into dust. 

He should not be here.

This was its grave. It should be here. Because it should have died here.

He shouldn’t be here.

It sh-...

It could have laid there until it died.

Could have been unmoving, as it had spent much of its imprisonment on the floor of that prison. None could blame it. None could move it. Not this infant god, not the dead light, not absent Pale Beings. He would know that.

They moved.

Their legs bent up to better cradle the tiny body into their chest. Their arm lifted around him, without the ease that Grimm had held the child, but…there, regardless. There in thanks. 

Confused thanks.

Confused any would think them worth saving still.

But gratitude nonetheless.

This would not be their grave.

Chapter Text

They were not here to rot and die.

No, not again. They had risen and followed Grimmchild from the egg knowing they would not return for that.

Still, it felt as if they must return. To face the fear, the confusion, the sense of directionless…They did not know what. They went regardless. 

They slipped from Dirtmouth while no one was near to watch but Zote and he was too occupied with mumblings to even notice them departing down the well.

The Temple of the Black Egg was so near the well that it did not start the burning sense of working muscles to reach. It was near, it was silent, and they would think it was abandoned. Aside from them, who would think to visit such a desolate place? It practically rank with fear and pain. They entered it regardless with plans to walk into the egg once more and perhaps retrieve what was left in there. They would not dally. They would not wait so long the moth child sought them out.

But they weren’t alone in the temple when they reached it. There was a small blue bug sitting in front of the egg, with arms drawn around knees.

The vessel looked at them with much of the same nagging sense that they had felt when Hornet had first brought up Sly’s name. 

Recognition prickled slowly in a mind that had been drowned in a century of mindless pain. 

The bug’s head turned without standing. The vessel stood still, halfway to the dias.

Then it was the stranger whose eyes widened with recognition first. They pushed up to their feet and offered a hand in…

The vessel realized slowly it was a form of greeting. Some bugs had done it in the palace as well, though the retainers mostly bowed and others would draw an arm over their chest in salute. They recognized this one eventually, but the bug’s arm had been extended embarrassingly long by the time they took the offered hand. 

“Ah. Hollow Knight.” The bug said with a nod, because they knew- someone knew, in a world where people seemed to remember infection alone and none of father’s kingdom. They could not help but think that meant this one knew how they had failed their purpose and the hope of Hallownest both. But the bug went on ahead without showing any sign of disapproval or anger. “I have not seen you in a lifetime. Are you well?”

Were they well.

That was not how a vessel was greeted. They were recognized, proclaimed to have been known before, and then treated improperly regardless?

They didn’t even think to nod or shrug, so caught up in the question. The bug did not seem to care or even expect that.

They looked the other over again. Short, though in a healthy state. No weapon, but a belt for a missing nail. There was a cloth strapped about their head.

It was the voice that did it for the vessel. 

Monomon.

The Dreamer.

The Teacher, before that point.

A rare visitor to the palace, outside of Dreamer conferences, though she and father seemed to get on better than he did with most. She kept to studies and research and such a heavy task alone would drain most.

So she kept an assistant with her. One trusted enough to bring along to meetings and to be assigned a role in the protection of the Dreamers’ seals.

Quirrel.

His name had been Quirrel. 

They remembered him.

By now, he was trying to help the vessel onto the dias. They allowed it, though they did not need the aid.

The shorter one dusted his hands before turning his attention upward.

“Are you here to rest?” he asked.

They were here for peace. Was that the same?

They just turned to stare into the empty egg. Monomon’s assistant seemed to gather some answer from this. He hummed and sat again, though this time with legs crossed and back straight and significantly less weakness on display.

“I came here to rest and think too,” he said. 

They…supposed that was interesting?

What Monomon’s assistant did was not really related to their presence here. They did feel a little more uneasy entering the egg with a witness, however. It was through a witness last time that they had left. It felt shameful to be at this scene, but the emotion was ignorable until they knew they were being watched here.

So it was with that unease that they slowly entered, gathered up the harness, and retreated back from the oppressive cage. 

Quirrel looked up at them cheerfully when they stepped back out on the dias.

They stopped there. 

Stood.

Their only hand held the rusted metal. Their arm drooped low. 

Quirrel did not seem uneasy about the fact, or pressured to stand as they were. He gave them another nod and looked at the open gate of the egg.

After some time, he began speaking.

“This was where I met them. Your…sibling? Are you considered siblings?”

They were not sure what he meant.

Hornet was their sibling. She wanted to be that, over being heir to Deepnest and Hallownest to them.

“I’m sorry,” Quirrel apologized wryly. “I met another little knight of your nature here, a time ago. I meant them.”

Oh. ‘Ghost’, then.

Everyone knew the missing vessel, it seemed. For something (someone, Hornet wanted them to think now) that had come here to kill a god (fulfill their purpose, that was it, that was how they had viewed it as well), they had spent an inordinate amount of time becoming familiar with people.

This was Monomon’s assistant, though. The other vessel could have sought him out to learn of the Dreamer’s location so as to kill her.

Except they had not killed the Dreamers. They had not entered the Black Egg.

The vessel lifted a shoulder to show they understood him now. Quirrel hummed and went back to staring into the empty prison.

“It was very strange, in truth,” he mused aloud again. “I was called back here from beyond Hallownest. While I do recognize you,” Quirrel looked up and then away, “I do not remember everything in the time before I left into the wastes. Far from it.”

He laughed.

They did not understand the humor. 

At least it did not seem false or forced, like Myla’s laughter had been so recently?

Unlike the humor, they did know of the effects of those wastes, of the limit’s to father’s lasting lights. 

(They wondered if it would work on a vessel like them.)

“This temple drew me in many a time.”

Likely through the connection with Monomon. Otherwise…what piece of this place would attract mortals in? The egg would destroy them if they stood inside, by its nature. And that was not considering the angry blight trapped inside.

Quirrel dropped his chin onto his fist.

“I didn’t know why I came here” He mused with a frown in his voice. “I wonder if they knew why they’d found it so early in their journey.”

If the other vessel knew this was the temple with the failed sealed vessel and Her within, then yes. It- they- would have clear purpose in seeking it out. The plague was prevalent in the kingdom outside. Therefore, the plague had not been contained and starved out. Therefore, a hollow vessel would be drawn to find the temple, enter it, kill the impure vessel, and take in the Radiance. 

One would find, enter, and kill by design and drive and purpose.

Why hadn’t it- they?

Why had they challenged the Old Light through dreams instead of destroying her in a way that destroyed the failed vessel too? 

Why had they been made to live?

“Are you alright?” the bug asked.

What had prompted that? What had they given away? They should not show the tiniest hint, sign, of emotion. They couldn’t let anyone realize they were broken. The king would be so disappointed if he’d realized it.

(He had, of course. He had to have when the plague picked up once more. He had to realize that the lying vessel had made the sacrifices of the Dreamers and the White Lady pointless.)

(He should have taken that statue down the moment the infection returned.)

Stop thinking about that. No mind to think. Where was the vessel? It was supposed to remember where it was, now. Hornet wanted i-them to. So the vessel’s mind sluggishly refocused on the circumstances: the floor of the dias outside the egg, inside the temple, by a bug named Quirrel that claimed to know the other vessel who had succeeded against Her where they had failed. And they were shaking, on that floor. Just minute tremors. Still a show of emotion. A show of their impurities.

“That was a foolish question,” Quirrel said, scolding himself. “I shouldn’t have asked it. Of course you’re…is there anything I could do?”

It was much like with the Gendered Child- Hornet now. Sister now. Much like with her.

Checking them. Asking them. 

They did not know what the others could do. They never did, no matter how they were asked it, so why keep asking? Just act according to good judgment. That would work. That, they were used to.

Monomon’s assistant sighed from right next to them. He had moved to check them over, apparently while they thought of things elsewhere and failed to see their surroundings. 

“I’m sitting here mourning my own losses, but I’m- you’re-...”

He did not finish the thought.

They thought that was for the best. 

They knew what they were. They knew what losses they had to mourn, if they were a creature capable of such a thing.

(They knew what losses they had caused for others.)

Quirrel hummed as they sat upright. The harness had pressed a dent into their palm where they had been crushing it to the floor. They had not remembered sitting.

“Is there a place nearby where you can rest?” he asked. “This may be a poor choice of location.”

They nodded to him and gestured vaguely in the direction of the well. 

The vessel kept ahold of the armor as they pushed to their feet, even as it pressed into their smarting palm. They would not retreat from pain. Or thought or feeling. She was gone and they were out of the egg and retreating had been their survival only while within that place.

That is what this was.

A way of staring into that place and leaving it when they walked away. They had clearly not left enough when Hornet had helped them out before. 

The assistant followed along as they walked to the well. When he saw them stop at the chain, he brightened up again. 

“Ah! Dirtmouth, then? Far from a bad place to set up camp. Your sibling stayed there often as well,” he said.

They had gathered that much from the townspeople, yes. 

It was evident that the other vessel was not the only one to have stayed some time in Dirtmouth. When the two had exited the well, it was to find Elderbug tending the graves nearby. The bug began to greet them before noticing the small figure that followed them out.

“Quirrel?” Elderbug moved closer slowly, old eyes widening. “You’re alive? The little knight made us think…”

There was an oddly strangled noise from the Teacher’s assistant at their side. Alarm? Or should they be alarmed for his health?

He seemed safe. He was waving his hands in front of him, in fact.

“No, no, I’m fine!” Quirrel laughed.

This one did not seem quite as genuine as those before. 

Elderbug kept shuffling nearer.

“Oh. That is good news. They brought your nail back here, did you want-”

“No, thank you,” Quirrel interrupted and then laughed that one away as well.

They watched without interest, but without anything negative swelling either. They listened to many things now. It left them to piece together this town. Eventually, they would do so on a wider scale. Eventually, they would return to the city of tears and then to the grounds below. 

Quirrel eventually returned to focusing on them and encouraged them to show him their house. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure they arrived there. Perhaps he wanted information on his friend. They did not think he would like that information, if so.

He complimented the quaint hut’s outside and interior, which was currently empty. Grimmchild’s taint did not stick to the air. He was gone, likely with Hornet. Although he had learned to leave the hut without her, even if she left the charm on the table. 

He had found them that way-

Don’t think about it now

Quirrel finished his compliments and stood in awkward silence. They thought he might leave, and realized they had questions for him first.

So the vessel moved abruptly to find Hornet’s writing supplies and motioned for their visitor to wait. Now, to write.

Talking. They were not used to talking. They were not supposed to talk.

Their writing was as slow as always. Emotions flared, minor and tiny and yet so notable to them when it felt like failure to feel them at all. 

Hornet said to feel. To allow it. So they allowed the muted irritation and shame at their speed and penmanship. It took much longer than others did. They were the Hollow Knight. They were the chosen (if not pure) vessel of the Pale King and they embarrassed his memory by failing at such a minor thing.

It did not help that the words took so long to pull together in their mind before getting put on the page. This was, after all, talking.

(“It cannot talk, my Root. Not just for lack of voice, but lack of will to understand the words for expression.”)

But finally, the vessel had finished and stiffly handed the sheaf to a patiently waiting Quirrel.

"Why was there surprise you are alive?"

The bug read the words and then gave an uneasy laugh.

“Oh, I…Well, it was just, I left my nail to go for a swim in the blue lake. I suppose your sibling brought it back to my acquaintances here and they just inferred…”

He lost his light tone. Drifted off. Looked at the floor.

Spoke again, flatly.

“I wasn’t there to swim. I thought I would die and I tried to. Remembering only a little of what had once transpired, everyone who I could not help…I am too old for this world, though my memories leave me feeling young. It is a beautiful place. But one my presence hurt in. I didn’t think I could bear that weight.”

A beautiful place?

It had been rotted away by infection.

They remembered the city of old. It would shine almost like father. Its mists held the ethereal silver high above the blue city. 

Now, they thought of sentries toppled on one another, rotted sockets turning to track a noise they would never see. They thought of the stink of mildew.

It must be nice, they thought, to see a beautiful world instead.

Quirrel shook his head.

“I suppose that is foolish too,” he said. “Especially when I see you. You must have been put through so much….If I can help, in any way, do tell me.”

He handed the paper back and stared expectantly, as if he thought the vessel would give him a list of things they wanted, needed.

They stared in return until eventually his expectation left his face. Quirrel slid off the seat and gave a nod to them.

“Thank you for giving me company. I’d like to share your company again, sometime,” he said. Likely manners and routine. No one wanted an empty vessel’s ‘company’; they would have none to offer. No one should. The court had all known to keep a distance and to not treat it- them- like a fellow.

“Have you been to Greenpath?” he kept going, ignoring how wrong every word was.

They didn’t move. Quirrel did not apparently mind. The bug shrugged and left.

Hopefully not for another lake.

The vessel shouldn’t care either way, but they felt a muted distress thinking of Elderbug learning someone he knew was dead. There were people to mourn him.

And that made the thought uncomfortable.

To a degree, it began to make their own wish that they’d died uncomfortable too.

“Entry 21

Dreamer Monomon’s student was found in the Black Egg today. He was kind.”

Add something with life to it. That is just a report. Put yourself (they did not think of themself as a you. They didn’t. But she wanted them to now.) into it.

That’s what sister wants. 

The vessel fought back the tiniest traces of frustration. The thought was right, after all. Even if it meant putting harder effort into something they would rather call done now.

“I may see him again.”

Perhaps he had something they could help with too, since Hornet kept such a busy distance. 

Since they were told they could want, now, they thought they might just want that.

Chapter Text

They listened more than they stayed in the hut now.

It was empty most of the cycle. Grimmchild would return spinning into the air if they were in the structure, but otherwise did not seem to like to wait around in there alone. He grew bored after being given scraps of paper to burn anyways and seemed as if he wanted to leave even when they were there. Though he wouldn’t, because he would curl up and fake sleep near the vessel.

They began to stand around Dirtmouth for longer periods of time after their walking regimen finished for the day. 

They trimmed grass with Elderbug. While he talked much to them as if thinking he would get a response in the town, he was quiet at the graveyards. They knew how to be quiet. It was preferable.

They watched Iselda’s husband come back and fail to notice a single odd thing about them.

They stood taller than almost everyone they had ever seen. They were missing an arm, wheezed and rattled constantly, and were as dark as the void because they happened to be void. 

And still, nothing.

Not even a comment on whether they were related to a certain other void knight.

Because of that, the vessel would have thought maybe for once, someone hadn’t inexplicably run across the other one. Except not long after, Cornifer started telling stories that involved running across his “favorite little adventurer” or “short friend”.

Even aside from the fact that the vessel was mostly incapable of surprise, they weren’t surprised. It seemed their missing counterpart had been everywhere and made sure to be seen by everyone. 

He seemed a little offputting, but in a way the vessel wasn’t sure they disliked. They did not feel like he would have paid attention to their failure. The thought seemed ludicrous. The infection was impossible to ignore. 

They listened to his stories, told to the town at large.

Another time, they saw an unknown bug- one of the survivors taking refuge in the stag station- get into very loud commotion with Sly at his shop. Elderbug had even crept over to them to ask if they would break the fight up. He seemed quite distressed at the noise. The vessel hardly thought the nailsage was in danger. When Hornet arrived later and was asked the same thing by an upset Elderbug, she said that Sly should keep his “cutthroat prices more reasonable” or "face these inevitable consequences". 

(She had stepped in to take the angry beetle back to the stag station eventually. They had wondered if they should follow or leave the heir to it. She had commanded a large degree of respect among those sheltered at Dirtmouth, while they had hid away in her hut.)

Their listening extended even into the area of the cavern they had avoided before.

While they had not gone so far that they’d run across the higher being (they knew he knew they were near; the flames stared and danced at a distance, giving the impression he knew they knew he was near as well: near enough that he would be the one to keep away now), they had stood to hear the playing of a troupe member and listened to the…they did not understand much of the meaning of the termite's words. Her manner of speaking was much like father’s and Grimm’s in that they would have to know what her idiosyncrasies of choice meant.

They wondered what the point of the accordion was. They had never understood music. They stood and listened now waiting for some meaning to click into place.

The same went for any of the listening.

The stories, the ramblings, the laughter, the questions.

It was almost refreshing to see Hornet or the Teacher’s assistant, because they, at least, knew. It seemed as if all others misunderstood their very nature and expected something from them they did not know how to give. 

They understood expectations like that.

They had understood it since they had pulled themself onto the ledge and stared up at father’s light.

The vessel would stand and listen anyways. 

Perhaps one day, those meanings would crawl into their understanding.

Someone was knocking on the door.

It couldn’t be answered by Hornet, considering she was out. It was likely for Hornet, but they could shake their head once whoever stood there asked to see her.

Grimm had been the only visitor since they had come here, they realized. They imagined that was out of respect for Hornet, except so few seemed to remember Hallownest at all, so why would they remember the royal? The people that feared and looked up to her now did it because she had been a sudden protector that snagged them from the jaws of danger and sent them to join other lost survivors. That they looked at her like a leader did not mean they viewed her as a royal of two kingdoms. This latter respect would not keep so many away from hallowed personal ground staked, which, by all means, this hut had become after she chose it.

It was not Grimm (it lacked all dancing flames that always accompanied his presence), though they realized they would not have been averse to that. His presence so near the Pale Being’s territory was strange, but he was not there to hurt them.

The presence was so distinctly un-god-like, in fact, that they were unable to sense who it might be entirely and were left to the mercy of the surprise.

They opened the door and looked out. No one.

They looked down.

Bretta shuffled her feet immediately upon being noticed. There was a small tray in her hands that tilted from her movement. And from the way her eyes had gone to stare at the ground rather than pay attention to it. Nothing slid off, thankfully. They did not want to be responsible for her losing her breakable belongings.

They continued to stare because, again, aside from Grimm, there had been no visitors. And in the palace, it had been told not to mind most of those who came to pester it with curiosity and questions. Only those of relevance needed to be listened to. Those like the Pale Beings, any of the Dreamers, the Gendered Child-

Ah. They did not have experience with this, but they did not think staring without any gesture of acknowledgement was considered the appropriate response.

Meanwhile, Bretta’s face had gone curiously pink. They were very unsure how such a feat was anatomically managed.

“Hello,” the beetle said nervously. She held her tray up a moment later as if having forgotten it was there. “Would you, um, would you and your sister like to have tea with me?”

Hornet was not there to answer. They shifted to the side to show her the empty room.

Bretta did not leave though. In fact, she seemed to see that as her excuse in and so in she came. 

They closed the door behind their visitor and followed her to Hornet’s table. She had set her tray down and began to fidget more. 

They discovered that had to do with the ‘tea’ itself. She poured it from one container into smaller ones and then drank it in sips.

They did not want to remember what their throat flooding with the water of the hot springs had felt like. Certainly, drinking was not the same as inhaling water into lungs. They still did not want to try it. They were not sure if their throat led anywhere except its lungs.

“Is Hornet not here?” Bretta asked as she looked around the single room. 

They knew that the place was cluttered, but even with the extent of its mess, Hornet could not be hiding. The question seemed rhetorical. They thought that was the word. 

The vessel shook their head. 

“Oh. Okay,” the beetle squeaked and drank her tea again. The other two cups steamed. They imagined one could be left for Hornet. It would not be warm by then, but it would mean Bretta's visit was not a complete waste. They picked the other up carefully and held it in their lap just to match the posture of their visitor.

If Bretta was disappointed they were not drinking too, she did not show it.

“You’re a knight, um, right? What is that like?” she asked after a while.

They stared at her. 

She fidgeted. 

They eventually nodded. “Knight” was in their title, even if their position was very different from the Five Great Knights and any other frame of reference. They no longer deserved their title, considering they had failed to be the hollow knight, but Hornet introduced them as such regardless and Bretta would not know any different. 

“Do you have a name?” Bretta asked next.

For that one, they stared fifteen seconds longer before finally shaking their head.

They had never had a name. And they had lost both of their titles. But what was the point of a name? It belonged to someone. They did not even feel as if ‘vessel’ belonged to them. Not just because of how many vessels had existed, but they had never wanted a name that belonged to them.

They had hid one too many things from the world regarding their pure status. But that was never one of the lies.

None of this they could explain, even if ordered to. And Bretta hardly seemed about to. Though she also hardly seemed as if she understood why they would answer no to the question of a name.

“Mysterious,” she squeaked out, likely intended to be far too quiet for most to hear.

They saw no problem when the conversation went quiet again. The fragile little glass in their hand cooled at a slow pace.

Bretta looked over again.

“Is your sister a princess?”

They…supposed?

Both of her parents were the rulers of their own regions. She was the heir to Deepnest, destined to take it as her own with Herrah gone.

They gave an uncertain nod.

Bretta averted her face again.

“She seems like a warrior too,” she mumbled, with her face turned as it was to shield the noise. 

Black eyes peeked back to see their answer. 

They lifted their shoulders and dropped them.

Bretta made some sort of noise they weren’t sure how to register. They continued to sit straight and still, then, as their default. The pose felt comical when they still had the cup in their lap, with only one finger managing to stick through its handle awkwardly.

The conversation died again. 

Bretta kicked her legs on the stool. She did not fit it with the ease that Hornet did. 

Her tea must have become unpleasant or she had finished enough, because she set her little cup onto the tray again and tried to better face them. They did not mind that. She was the one that kept turning away and hiding. 

Facing them meant seeing the table better, however.

And seeing the table meant seeing the two stacks of silk parchment left there by the quills. Bretta’s attention singled in on them.

“You have a lot of paper,” she said. “Do you, uh, do you write?”

Unfortunately.

They gave a lackluster nod.

“Oh,” Bretta went inexplicably pink again. “I do too.”

There must have been an internal reason then, because they could not imagine forcing themself to have that voice if they weren’t being told to.

“What do you write about?” she asked.

They froze. 

This time, they did not lose the stiffness and give any movement for answer. They stayed in that position until she broke the silence for them.

“Do you write about yourself?” she pressed curiously.

They supposed that could be accurate? Not by their choice, but most definitely by Hornet’s design. They did not know how to write about themself. They did not know what having a “self” was even supposed to be like. 

They gave a nod that seemed rather close to switching to a shake. She didn’t notice. She had brightened up, in fact.

“I’ve never met anyone like me, like that. Although you’re a mysterious knight, rather than a maiden. Um.”

The brief confidence vanished. 

“I thought. Am I wrong?” 

They didn’t really even know what she was asking them. 

She made a nearly silent whine and went back to looking away. 

They sat like a statue, even if that statue would hardly be much to look at with this posture and undersized teacup. 

With a sigh, Bretta started to clean up her supplies.

“Is it very hard to learn to be a knight?” she asked as she did so.

They really did not know how to answer that one. It had not been hard for them to train, which they assumed was what she meant anyways. Most did not think of containing old gods when they thought of knights. Or so they would assume, since most would not know of the plans to contain old gods anyways. 

But they were also born of two gods and the void beyond gods. Their experiences training with the sage and Great Knights were likely different from the experiences of, for example, a palace retainer should they decide to try. 

They returned her cup to the tray and wiggled their finger loose so they could leave it there. With their hand free, they were able to shake it flat a few times in a ‘so-so’ motion they had also seen others use before.

It was almost entertaining: they had spent so long trying not to notice any differences in the living people around them at all, and now they fell back on the memories they had gathered despite these hard attempts not to gather any at all.

They never had been pure. 

(But they had never seen a choice in the matter anyways: it was the Radiance through containment or the Radiance through her victory over all if they had given up the act while their father had no other solution to fall back on.)

(Being without a choice was something ingrained in the vessel. They almost felt more turmoil to be given so many as opposed to orders now.)

Monomon’s assistant met them as they walked one day and invited himself along.

They walked mostly in silence. Quirrel did talk aloud when they rested in the hot springs. Something about having enjoyed some time away from threats with the other vessel, in a similar pool in Deepnest. They had never been to Deepnest. Their thoughts derailed from whatever else he said as they tried to consider why either would have been down there. Were they with Hornet? They would consider searching for Herrah as an option, except the vessel had not killed any Dreamer.

In any case, it seemed a fond enough reflection for Quirrel.

“It is a beautiful world,” he insisted. “Even there.”

They had- again- never been to Deepnest. They hadn’t the faintest idea what it looked or did not look like. 

But if the hot spring in question was anything like this one, they supposed…it would be beautiful. This one was, in a sense. They were not meant to recognize aesthetics. But the feeling of soul numbing pain and stress was fittingly beautiful, for all that they understood about the word.

They wondered if Hornet would like to go to Deepnest, rather than be up here.

They did not like giving themself a voice. They still considered that they could ask her this. 

A discomfort for them could be outweighed by her comfort. She had done so much for them. She had done so much for everyone here. 

They wished that the Pale Beings and even the mother of her’s that they had never known were still around to rule these realms. They would take that pressure from their daughter.

Quirrel joined them on their journey back to Dirtmouth as well. He talked a little of the nearby areas they may enjoy walking, once again raising up the idea of Greenpath. The vessel was not sure why he seemed so convinced of taking them there. Or why he would want to take them anywhere. He was not a relative and they were not a significant remnant of his past, as it was with Hornet. And even Hornet had only taken them to the statue in the city. She had told them as they rehabilitated that they were ready for longer walks, or more climbing activity, and then expected them to use that information as they saw fit. She did not join them. Not much. They had- all three, Grimmchild included- visited the hot springs another time since the last. It had been welcome.

Quirrel talked about beautiful and dangerous paths very lightly, though by the time they had reached the hut in Dirtmouth, he was laughing off the likelihood of him taking on those treks soon. Not all at once and not alone. 

“Not at my age” was how he put it.

They were not much younger than him.

They were exhausted very, very easily.

As a whole, they found nothing suspicious about his statement.

The vessel was tired already, in fact. So they sat on the floor where they could reach one of the blankets under the large table and then curled it round and round like a very shallow nest. 

Quirrel had seen them less dignified already. He had watched them fall down, apart, at the temple, despite all their internal promises not to shatter there that day. He also knew of the Dreamers, the Hollow Knight, the failed plan. It did not hurt anymore. Not as it had earlier with Hornet. They were more numb. It did not matter so much what the assistant saw them do.

Not that he seemed to disapprove regardless. He made himself at home in a hut that was certainly not his. He even found some old meat left under a stack of tablets by Hornet. They did not know what kind of meat and did not think Hornet would either. She may have eaten it regardless. It had seemed buried purposefully, rather than accidentally hidden.

Quirrel also had no issue eating the mystery meats. 

They looked elsewhere until he finished.

(Meat was hardly his favored choice of meal, they learned later. They also learned later that he had forgotten to eat anything for some days and had fallen on Hornet’s stash in rash concern when he had realized what he had been doing.)

Then he came to sit beside the vessel. 

“You will be silent too, I assume? How like them,” he said with a smile in his tone.

They could guess with ease who he referred to.

“They met everything I said with stoic silence. I rather found it stabilizing. Do you?”

Did he realize he was asking a question in the same breath as he had voiced an assumption they wouldn’t acknowledge his words?

The vessel just looked down to the blanket on their legs. 

Questions were uncomfortable. The pressure to supply answers made them uneasy. 

They had no voice.

(They had Her voice.)

(And even before that, they could have written, at any moment, could have broken the charade, could have shown their father their corruption.)

Quirrel didn’t seem to notice how they had not responded. He sat with a smile in his eyes and did little more.

They weren’t sure why they did it.

But they pushed up to take a tablet and paper back with them. When they sat again, they put the flattened silk on top of the rock and scratched the very antithesis of what their being should be onto it.

What they handed to Quirrel read, messily, “The vessel was not pure. I have a voice to cry suffering. I can speak.”

He was quiet until he held it back.

“I always imagined they could as well. You have already proven more talkative, friend.”

If he meant that as a compliment, their purpose screamed back that it was not. 

Their purpose was moot now. And its distant speaker- the light atop the abyss, the quiet voice that meant ALL falling down it- was gone. 

(Did that make him moot too? No, that thought hurt too much to humor further.)

“I could teach you some sign, if you wish. I remember the language well,” he offered, though he did not seem to expect a response just then.

Then Quirrel talked on a bit, about anything and nothing. He spoke about fighting their sister once and still not understanding why. He talked about recalling their title from the statue in the city, while also vaguely remembering them as a small vessel. 

At one point, he stopped talking to fill in noise and turned his face around to look at them.

“What do you like to be called?” he asked and they could tell he was serious, genuine.

They could tell that, even as they did not understand.

Could not understand.

Would not.

They scratched that down.

“Nothing.”

He hummed.

“Alright.”

The paper was handed back again.

“I do not mean to repeat that question. This is not asking for a name,” Quirrel prefaced first, before continuing. “How do you want others to refer to you?”

The vessel would prefer others not think of them at all.

They wrote the mark of a question for him.

Quirrel thought for a moment before elaborating.

“Well, the king wanted you referred to as an ‘it’ and I admit a part of me must have remembered that, for I viewed my stoic friend that way. But I realize that may seem…insensitive? Disrespectful?”

The vessel did not think so.

They shrugged.

Quirrel hummed again. Perhaps he accepted it, then. 

“I do not remember much of the king. Was he important?”

The quill snapped in their hand. They stared at the mess of fragile bone fragments, feather, and ink, as if they could not understand what they were staring at.

“Oh. Oh my.” Quirrel stared. He reached over to scrape a few of the bone’s shards out of their palm, before pushing the majority of the mess to the center of the paper and lifting it at its corners to dispose of it. 

They continued to sit there. Even as part of them thought they should be the one cleaning, or retrieving a new parchment and quill, they were motionless. 

Quirrel did not bring the king up again.

That was for the best.

Instead, when they had sat together and Quirrel had kept asking if they were alright, if he should leave, they pointed him back to the former topic just to make those types of questions stop. They were not sure what they were and they were only slightly more comfortable seeing others concern.

“This is not the palace anymore, remember that. Do you still want others to refer to you as ‘it’ or would you rather they think of you another way?” Quirrel asked.

They…didn’t know.

They didn’t really understand what he was asking.

Hornet had told them to stop thinking of themself that way. Quirrel had even referred to it as potentially insensitive. They were not sure they agreed, but the less pleasant air stood.

You do not deserve to be called an ‘it’, like an item.

They shrugged helplessly and wrote a rather unpleasant admission.

“I do not understand.” 

“Hm.” Monomon’s assistant hummed. 

After a moment of silence, he dropped the hand that had propped up under his chin.

“How is this? Think of Hornet.”

That was easy.

They thought of Hornet and cleared their mind of any other impure noise.

“You are her sibling,” Quirrel continued. “She is your sister, correct? So is ‘sibling’ the word you view yourself as and would like others to use in reference to you, or is there another?”

This was making their head hurt. They did not understand.

The vessel pointed to that previously written sentence before scratching a question down.

“What are 'other'?”

“Hm,” he hummed again, tilting his head side to side. “Sibling would cover all, but some specifically call themselves sisters or brothers instead. The same as they view being a child of a parent. They could be a child, or they could be a daughter or son. That is still being their child, of course, but it would come down to who they understand themselves to be.”

No.

They understood that even less. 

“I was in many ways Madam’s child, but specifically, for me, that would mean I viewed myself as a bit of a son to her.” Quirrel said. He looked back at them. “So what were you, royal child?”

It-

Hurt.

Like infection breaking out within their chest.

Like they were breathless.

The Pale King was their father, to them, in the privacy of their own mind. Never otherwise. To think that would be to think their dream was somehow reality when it could not be. Would not be. Had not been. Not…

Quirrel was patting them on the arm when they refocused. 

“-ight. You do not have to.”

They weren’t sure what he’d been saying, but they nodded at him because it seemed to make him relieved. 

He let himself out soon after that, with another promise to visit again for something else. Hopefully for something with less questions. Less talking, on their part. Less pressure.

The pressure was still there after he left. 

It was there even as they opened the trapdoor to below and rummaged in the darkness for something they had seen before. When they felt their hand cut open, they knew they had found it. A large shard from a mirror, broken off its frame now. They ignored the void drooling on the glass to tug it out of its pile of rubbish and up into the main room’s light. 

Too many questions today. This was for certain.

Too many questions asked by others recently. Quirrel’s today had been under the premise of being for those others, those strangers, as if it would benefit the vessel to have them all on the same page about what- who, who, nowadays it was who- who they were. 

They sat on the ground in front of the glass and looked at a thing so very different from the figure in the city. There was no armor, no royal cloak, no crest. There was only one arm and parts of their chitin were shriveled and scarred. Her crack lay indented in their face, down through one eye. It made them look like a different being from that statue altogether. To them, at least. To them, they would never be the same again.

(They were not sure what part of this image was the one deemed worth saving, but Hornet and the god-child had deemed them that and they would not hurt them.)

Hornet. 

Think of Hornet.

Easy still. 

They thought of their sister often.

There it was. The relation. The word? They were not sure why this was important.

Sister. Sibling. Brother? Another sister? 

She was the Gendered Child and she was their sister.

(She was the proper child. Not a corpse walking, a hollowed container. She was the only “royal child", no matter what the Teacher's assistant had said today.)

(They wished they wished they wanted-)

What were they? They had never asked her. Should they just ask her? Then she would tell them that answer. Except Quirrel had wanted the answer from them. Did they have to find it first then? For…what? Just to tell townspeople how best to think of them? The vessel did not even know how to think of themself. 

The word, again.

Quirrel had muddled things. He had not meant to. They thought of siblings and children and parents and all that lay within. They had been the Pale King’s child? Not to anyone but themself. Except Quirrel-

Maybe he had thought it, too. Maybe he had seen the hollowed container that was not hollow as his child. A daughter, a son? A child. They did not care which. What mattered was being viewed by him as his child, who loved him-

It hurt to think. It felt like being infected. They had been infected because of that thought.

Focus. Just answer Quirrel’s questions first. 

The vessel stared at itself. Themself. Herself? Himself?

Father was a he. 

They wanted to be like father. They wanted father back.

They wanted so badly to make him proud. And what would make him proud was emptiness, was the vessel being a vessel and not a person.

Not a child. 

That was Hornet’s role alone. 

They had always seen him as their father, no matter how he viewed them back. They hurt to wonder how he had viewed them. He had been proud to see their accomplishments. He would have been proud if they had contained the Old Light. There would not have been pride if they had broken down in front of him instead and pleaded to not be her prison. 

Couldn’t I have been enough? 

Couldn’t I ever have?

Maybe there would have been something else, after. If not pride in a perfect vessel, then something for a child-

These questions would never get answered. The chance to was long gone. It hurt to just think about them now.

Things would have been better if they could never think these things at all.

The vessel wished-...I wish I could have been pure, hollow. But if I was, I would not be I.

And they had no idea what that would have left them as, instead. 

(Because for all that it was a struggle now, they had always been an I. They had shoved it down, down, down, until now it was painful to dig open again, but it had always been there.)

And they would never know.

The unknown was a bit intimidating.

Hornet spent some time weaving before she went to bed. Grimmchild was sleeping on her shoulder, despite her having told him not to multiple times that night alone on account of how his position affected her arm’s movement. Far below that charm-child, the weaverlings were climbing and jumping below her feet. 

She was working on something red. They were not sure what. Another dress? They had never thanked her for the cloak she had spent time on, had they? They were not used to thanking people. A pure vessel wouldn’t think to. 

They would have spent this hour peacefully silent. It was nice to just have proximity in silence. Far nicer than how Hornet had gotten rather tetchy about them bleeding, when she had first come back.

(Truth be told, they had forgotten they were cut. The void had ruined part of the broken mirror and sat on the floor and they had never noticed. They wondered if that should be concerning.)

She bandaged their hand quickly and efficiently and that was familiar. It had not been long ago that she was doing this daily. 

(Nothing was long ago, when their sense of time compared back to a century that felt like an eternity and nothing at all with a half-there goddess and constant pain.)

Her head was drifting into her collar now. She was tired. She would go to her bunk and get her deserved rest soon. 

The vessel realized they did not want her to, just yet. They remembered their time with Quirrel in the hot spring. Ah. That was why.

Hornet paused when they rose and went to her table. The vessel bent low to see what they were doing as they wrote for her. Some of the ink of the new quill slipped out and left the letters dotted and marred. They should not have broken the old one. Now they would have to adjust again.

It was still legible enough. So they turned the paper around for a waiting Hornet.

“Deepnest.”

She squinted at the single word.

“What about it?” she asked.

Unfortunate. They would have to write more, then. 

They did so very slowly. The pressure to finish quickly, so Hornet could sleep sooner, only seemed to slow them down.

After too long, they spun the paper again. Hornet squinted down at it again.

“Do you want to return to it?”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I am not leaving you,” she said. “And there are many others here I must protect first, before I think of visiting the den.”

Those first words felt a bit like when she’d rubbed those circles into their back after they’d choked on water, or tried to take their hand while they still held onto their nail in the city. 

They weren’t sure what the feeling was, but it was similar to the desperate, scary warmth they had often felt towards their father and sometimes the White Lady, those rare instances they saw her. 

Nice?

It was probably nice. Until the one causing the emotion died, like father. 

But Hornet was not dead. They could breathe easy and just…accept the sense. 

They still felt that sense of security and closeness as they turned the paper to write their own offering. She sacrificed for them. They sacrificed for her. 

They wanted to see her home. Wherever that home ended up being. 

Even if she didn’t clean it any better than father did.

“The ve - I can go,” they offered.

“Not now. But thank you,” Hornet shook her head, eyes dim. She reached out, paused, and patted the top of their hand.

They lifted Grimmchild off her very carefully and ignored his sleepy mewl of protest. Their sister picked up her weaving project with more ease, now that she did not have to worry about upsetting his position with the movement. From there, she rose and carried herself to her bed.

The vessel scooted under the second, taller table and set Grimmchild into their lap until he finally stopped acting so betrayed.

They walked and they stood and they listened more than they stayed in the hut now.

This had not changed. Their time outside its walls grew. 

They overheard all the townspeople, it seemed. 

This included one who had recently gotten an abandoned hut nearby. 

That was Bretta’s doing, as it turned out. He hadn’t sought out a house. He didn’t seem to notice a need to be anywhere but the street, talking to any who’d listen (and the air if not). 

And she had gone to the vessel to ask for help in clearing some of the debris out, so that her…were they friends? The vessel did not know how to begin guessing. In any case, her acquaintance who had spent weeks outside of her house. 

That did not quite seem synonymous to ‘friend’, now that they thought about it.

They did not care one way or another. They were just there to remove all tripping hazards and turn an upside down bed frame over. The new homeowner did not thank them. They were used to getting little thanks. There was no need to thank something that could not understand and thus receive the gratitude, after all. 

After Bretta was gone, the vessel lingered. They learned from listening. Not much, necessarily, and more often than not, they had found new pieces of a stressful puzzle to stress over rather than answers. But they were…someone, now. And these little things built that someone. 

So they lingered and they listened.

And now they were not sure when they would get the chance to go. They knew from the palace that it was rude to walk out on someone without first excusing yourself. They were not about to use Her voice to do that. And they had nothing to write on here. 

What had started because they had- truly curious, rather than just looking to let someone think they were capable of holding an interest in anything- pointed at the shellwood nail Zote had hung against his bed, had culminated into a constant stream of advice that they did not even have the time to digest. They were slow. It was another flaw. But it was just a fact. And Zote had no pauses to allow them to understand, slowly, what they had just heard. 

They learned not just of the many feats of ‘Life Ender’ (incredible sounding feats and undoubtedly impossible considering the thing would have broken into splinters in all of them), but also of the many rules he lived his life by.

Or they heard that all, in any case. They had not digested much of any of it. 

And it had gotten late, still without their chance to interrupt, excuse themself, and go. They would wait until the opportunity that they could leave respectfully and politely. Their father was not alive to be proud of that, but they imagined he would have insisted on them knowing those same rules as he had for Hornet, had he known they were not hollow.

The vessel held its head upright against its single hand, elbow propped on a dusty table, and continued to wait for that opportunity to leave so that they may go sleep in their nest.

At least Zote didn’t ask questions about their view of themself.

There was not much else as a positive that they could note about the long experience.

Chapter Text

There were more questions put up for the vessel every day, it seemed. Sometimes by strangers, sometimes by those they’d grown familiar with, sometimes by those who were closer than just a recognizable face. 

But today was not a day for questions and it was not a day the vessel would spend hurting themself over answers.

No. 

Today, they were going to Greenpath.

Quirrel had dropped by the house while Hornet was still there. She’d declined his offer to join them, but handed Grimmchild’s charm to the vessel before she left for the day.

“He’d rather be out more anyway,” was her reasoning.

Grimmchild was practically wiggling; his stubby tail especially. They suspected that Hornet’s analysis had been correct. 

She came back after leaving, as if she’d forgotten something.

That something was to walk up to them again and say, “Have fun.”

They weren’t sure that was an order. More a hope. They didn’t have a response. She’d left by the time they remembered to move.

Quirrel had waited a polite distance away throughout it all and mentioned nothing. They were glad of it. They did not need to hear that their family looked odd to outsiders, who had much smoother ones of their own.

(They remembered a second later that they knew nothing about Quirrel’s blood and that the scientist he had viewed as family was trapped in a dream to this day.)

He was in a bright mood as he led them down into the crossroads to an entrance into the mosskin’s territory. 

Things were different now. Kingdoms had fallen and thus did not have to worry about angering other kingdoms. Besides that, the people of Unn had always been reported to be less likely to instantly attack than the mantises or denizens of Deepnest.

They had brought their nail regardless, just in case. Quirrel was armed this time, but his nail seemed small, and Grimmchild was not yet as powerful as the older Grimm.

They did not expect to need it against mosskin, but there were other creatures and dangers in wilder lands. 

But as they walked and climbed through the greenery, they did not run across any mosskin and those creatures like obbles were quiet and subdued on the ground rather than the air. The infection had reached this land. They recognized the behavior of its wildlife as that which they saw in the creatures of the crossroads. They noted it and wondered if they were supposed to feel something other than their own failure as they stared at the suffering. 

Quirrel chatted a bit about his recent trip to Unn’s lake. He had not known then that it was the lake of Unn, or even who Unn was. 

The vessel could not sense that higher being. Not like they could sense the flames of Grimm when he had approached Dirtmouth. It felt more like their attempts to sense father in the palace and finding only a dream stain. There was something very dormant about this region’s god. They thought it for the better anyways. They did not want to see a higher being. 

Dormant as the presence was, they sensed it at its strongest when they came upon the great acid lake. Quirrel seemed oblivious to the steady thrum of life giving energy. 

“Ah, here we are!” 

He showed them the quiet temple and the dock and told them to feel free to take a seat.

They sat where the dock began, rather than where it overhung the acid. Quirrel chose to join them there. It was to their satisfaction: they had not wanted him near the edges. The acid below could eat even void away without protection. 

Grimmchild landed by the vessel’s other leg.

The acid burbled. The moss rustled in a breeze. It was all very quiet and very still.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Quirrel said.

They did not have much of a metric for ‘nice.’

Grimmchild made a bored noise and spat a ball of fire into one of the bushes by the dock. It went up in flames. The child’s noise changed to a happy one.

It seemed he agreed with Quirrel’s statement, at least.

Their nail and Grimmchild’s charm were not all the vessel had brought along. They had also searched the other vessel’s belongings until they found a map labeled ‘Greenpath’. 

While they were sitting at the lake, they retrieved it from his bag and laid it out for Quirrel to see if he found any of it interesting.

He did.

He had grown a little excited about “all the places they went that I didn’t think to find” and had asked them if they wanted to continue walking Greenpath to see any.

They did not know.

They were content with the burbling lake. They were content with Dirtmouth. They would likely be content if they walked more, at least until their body began to protest the exertion. 

In contrast, Quirrel did know what he wanted. And they were planning on following where he thought to go, as they toured a region he had said they would enjoy.

Before they rose to do any more of that walking, Quirrel encouraged them to sit a little longer. Grimmchild moaned and left to burn more nearby bushes. 

(They were glad the nearby higher being was too dormant to notice another higher being in her territory spitting fire on her decor.)

“I remembered to bring a snack,” Quirrel said as he rummaged through a bag he’d brought. His hands returned with small pale eggs. While he peeled one open for himself (which was good, no matter what they thought of eating in relation to themself; it was good, because he was not starving himself so long as he remembered to eat), he held a few out to the vessel as well.

They stared.

They did not want to take them. Fear curdled inside.

Like infection had sat rancid within them, clogging a chest that should have been void.

Pressing further and further out, skin peeling, leaking, dripping to the floor, it had hurt-

They nearly felt sick. Something that burned almost like the infection, but thinner, rose in their throat. They scooted back so they could turn and let it spill from their hidden mouth without Quirrel having to witness such a thing.

Disgusting.

They wiped under their mask urgently before returning to Quirrel and miserably taking his gift. Or trying to. He pulled his hand back when they reached for it.

“If these would make you ill, please don’t take them,” he said.

They did not know if the eggs would make them ill or not.

They suspected, because even the idea of eating made them think of the infection inside them, reframing them, altering and changing. But they did not know.

Zote had recently said something about eating. More than one something, if they remembered properly (they were not sure they did). Something about eating as much as one could. For extra energy? He had said extra energy, yes. They had little energy. None, it felt like on some days. 

They did not need to eat. Not as a vessel. But that was before. That was when they were at their most pure.

The means may exist now. Lungs did. What of gizzards? If the means existed, did the need?

They had not eaten yet. It had not killed them yet.

But against that argument, they certainly did not have energy. 

Hornet had not mentioned any expectation they needed food. Hornet may not have realized the extent of their altered anatomy.

The vessel considered it all before shaking their head and drawing their knees up to drop their head against them. 

Quirrel patted their back briefly before returning to his meal.

“Do you know what kind of foods you can eat?” he asked curiously when he was done.

They tilted their head to stare at him with one eye. 

What?

“Well, I have known other people who were uneasy about larval eggs,” he shrugged. “And the Madam, I recall, had an appetite most unique to the others of Hallownest. If you know your diet, then I can make sure to bring what you can share next time.”

Next time? He had so many outings planned, it felt like.

They did not mind. Dirtmouth hardly changed. They did not like the brightness of Greenpath (light would, should, burn, even though this light did not), but it was different. It was a change. It was not stale. 

Quirrel talked of many locations. Any one of them may offer similar results.

But that was besides the current point. He had not asked them how they would feel about another outing, had he? He had asked them something that could not be answered in a shake or a nod.

Unfortunate.

They retrieved writing supplies from Quirrel’s bag and sat staring for some time before figuring out what to even begin writing. 

“I have never eaten.”

“Oh,” Quirrel said with rather flat surprise. “I suppose I should have known that, but I did not remember.”

That was nothing to apologize for. It was impressive enough he remember any of his former life after he left Hallownest’s borders. They did not know that memories could often return after one entered the wastes beyond.

“Does it have to do with…” he waved a hand up and down them vaguely “whatever you two are? I recall that you were to seal the infection, but I don’t remember what either you or my silent friend are.”

This took even longer to reply to, as they worried over and wondered if they ought to explain vessels to him now or just focus on the topic of food.

“It would be. But I am changed. Mouth now. Breathe now. I do not know if I can eat,” they wrote.

I do not want to would have been the next piece, but they did not write it. They were not sure why. Perhaps because it was too much of a stance, an opinion, that came from them and no one else. 

“Hm. That is certainly something to look into,” Quirrel thought aloud, holding his chin.

Looking into it would mean, likely, trying.

The very thing they did not want to do.

Though they…

They also considered it might be better to learn what this body had been made to have. Their strategy thus far had been to ignore. To put as much distance between their awareness and the body it inhabited as was possible. 

To retreat, like they had learned to do in the long dream. 

They did not want to feel their rattling breaths. They would not like to feel clumps of food sit within them. Within them, within them. It should have just been void in there. 

Retreating had never been fully effective during containment. They would stop short one way or another, someday. They would rather it be under calm, controlled circumstances.

“Should try?” they asked Quirrel and braced for the expected affirmative answer.

But he just hummed thoughtfully instead. 

“If you have no stomach, where would the food go? Would you be injured trying?” he asked.

The talk of trying, food, the process, made that ill sense return. They wrangled it and shoved it away. 

“Void would eliminate, maybe,” they wrote back.

They expected that. 

Their void had not eaten their lungs and the deteriorating skins of pustules away. 

Such things were the handiwork of a higher being and their void was weakened. It would still be stronger than water or substance. That which they had inhaled in the hot spring had vanished, after all.

The idea of a piece of food sitting inside them forever like the thin skins did made them nearly sick again. They tried to control their tongue enough to push the burning liquid down. It was difficult work. They had never had a tongue by design. It did not feel like them. More like a limp parasite sitting in their mouth, any of the times they noticed it was there. That was not a relaxing thought. 

“There is no rush to try,” Quirrel said despite what they had last written.

The vessel did not wish to admit the relief they felt, but only on account of their discomfort admitting to impurity alone. Not because of Quirrel. Not because of the surroundings. 

They did not think it would be bad at all to spend more time following him. He did not leave them lost and scrambling, like Myla and all those aside from their sister and the nearby young higher being had. 

Following the map south led them to more acid. This seemed a shallower stretch than the lake above, but nearly as long. 

Ghost had left a marker on the map at the end of this cavern. Quirrel seemed ready to discover what it was for. 

But they were not sure their body would last well leaping across durandoos after already having made it this far from Dirtmouth.

Vessels should have nearly infinite limits of energy. Battle or dream damage should have been their only source of exhaustion, their only reasons to rest.

It wasn’t useful to mull on that now. They had already accepted atrophy as a reality and challenged it no matter how slowly.

Quirrel had been ready to do that parkour, but the vessel had found an opening above them instead. They lifted him overhead to crawl in before leaping and catching hold of the tunnel’s floor with their one hand. Pain shot down through their shoulder and sides. More pain poked into them in many locations, where they had slammed up against the thorns. They ignored it and kicked up and into the path above the acid. 

Grimmchild following, making his passive noises while he was trapped behind them and forced to follow their very slow crawling speed. The thorns above were rather close. This would have been far easier in an earlier molt.

Regardless of the child’s impatience at the lack of speed, the three made it past the acid.

They discovered that the marker was for a hut, or perhaps its inhabitants.

They also discovered that Quirrel’s small snack would not be the only time they were faced with the topic of eating that day.

The vessel wondered if they recognized one of the two bugs. Something about them seemed familiar. It was frustrating to have lost and blurred so much of the past and time within the egg.

They continued to stare, even as Quirrel handled introductions with the bug sitting on a mossy bench outside their home. 

It was not the bug that they recognized, they realized. It was the garb, rather. Though a stained tunic lay over it, the bug wore a distinct brand of red armor. The gray furs of the dusty cloak completed the picture. It was the garb of one called Esmy, who they had witnessed accompany the Nailsage. Little versions had been made for the sage’s young pupils. The three brothers…The vessel remembered fighting off all three at once while in their third molt. Father had not watched that fight, but three of the Great Knights had and they had praised the vessel and the pupils alike. Just with more enthusiasm and crouching down for the three students. The vessel would not need such coddled praise. 

Though they identified the garb of a nailmaster, they did not recall any of those brothers’s names. Was this even one of them? Or had another generation come and gone? 

Quirrel had found that information for them. They realized it as he tried to introduce them, rather than just himself.

“Well met! And Sheo, this is-”

He paused as he looked at them and they remembered that they had told him they did not want a name. 

Sheo (that had been one of the names of the trio, so this was a brother-pupil after all) looked at them. 

“I remember you from the palace,” he said in Quirrel’s silence. 

They stood for a moment before they thought perhaps they were being waited on for a response. Their nod was stiff.

The moment was interrupted as another bug came around the side of the hut.  

“They will take time to cook,” the bug said to Sheo directly without paying either Quirrel, the vessel, or the small flying moth any attention. “We may continue the sculptures as we wait.”

Sheo’s eyes crinkled. 

“Thank you. We have visitors today. Perhaps they will join us.”

It was only with that that the large beetle turned around to look at them. 

“My partner is known as the Nailsmith and he has been making a delectable lunch. Stay, if you wish to. Company is always refreshing,” Sheo told the rest.

They gave another stiff nod. 

Quirrel said hello.

Grimmchild lit another bush on fire.

The Nailsmith squinted at one of their number. The vessel preferred that attention on another and thus hardly minded.

“Ah. Quirrel, was it?” he asked.

As Quirrel nodded, the Nailsmith was already looking down at his belt.

“That is a different nail.”

Quirrel’s ease froze and stiffened. 

“Yes. I left my old one,” he said evenly, forced. 

And it was somewhere in Dirtmouth now, they had pieced together days ago. The other vessel had brought it to the town. Elderbug had said as much.

Quirrel had not taken it back.

The tension seemed unnoticed by the Nailsmith. 

“I see. I have left nailsmithing altogether, so don’t ask me to repair that one,” was his reply. 

The vessel alone thought of a nail in a small town, waiting there as a memento of someone lost. Ghost should not have felt loss. But they were no more hollow than the vessel, it seemed.

Perhaps none of them had stood a chance of being hollow. 

It didn’t matter now. 

“I hope it gives you joy,” the Nailsmith added after a moment, as if he had not thought to say it. Then, he turned back to Sheo and the nail…was he a sage by now? A master? A student still? They did not know. Whatever the case, he invited them in while his partner entered the home without waiting to see how any of them answered Sheo’s offer.

Quirrel turned to look up at the vessel.

“Would you rather leave?”

They did not have a preference. 

So they shrugged. 

“I think I would like to visit,” Quirrel said, looking back at the doorway. “If you need us to leave at any point, tell me. Please.”

They did not know how they would communicate that. Their own comfort had never been asked for before these past months.

(It had never mattered.)

(Likely not to anyone. But definitively not to them.)

Sheo’s clothing’s stains came from paint.

They hadn’t seen paint before. A young then-unnamed Hornet’s inks and powders were not as permanent or else as thick as the substance here.

He had a cluttered home with little room for practicing nail techniques. But it did not seem that such a thing was his focus anymore. Not even if some of the canvases stacked against each other on the walls were of paintings of dashing figures, nails in the midst of slashing.

(Behind those were paintings of three identically dressed figures, sitting close or standing close or just being close, near, and the way that these canvases now collected dust where they were shoved behind so many newer ones left the vessel uneasy for a reason they could not identify.)

Those were not the majority. There did not seem to be a majority. The paintings and sculpted figurines crowding the home represented anything and everything.

The vessel paused by a shelf.

There on it were little wooden versions of the Five Great Knights. 

Were any alive now? 

Had the infection ruined all?

They had always been kind. Even Dryya, the strictest of them all. 

(They had always known Dryya was the close personal guard of the queen. She had seen the White Lady hurt from their very existence. They had never faulted her for viewing them with the queen’s hurt in her mind.)

Isma complimented them often for the progress they made in training. It was her idea for them to utilize void in tendrils, which they had learned to do with the arm they had lost now. It was a similar action to the vines that she could extend and whip around. Ogrim’s personality left him seemingly forgetting who and what they were. As with Dryya’s strictness, they had never faulted him for this. It was a part of his nature and sometimes they admittingly felt something nice about being included in his laughter. Ze’mer had shown them how to wield a weapon the size of their longnail. She spoke uniquely. They weren’t sure they had ever figured out how to understand her. But she trained through example and that needed no words. And Hegemol-

Hegemol had known. They had thought that for a long time. There was no confirmation, but they suspected it still. He had been soft spoken and unobstructive and that had allowed him to watch them without notice. His attention had grown uncomfortable, once the vessel had started worrying that he suspected them of faking. His kindness left them waiting in alarm for the moment he told the king.

The vessel reached out to brush a finger carefully against his round figurine. 

Was it right for them to hope all five were fine? 

Was it within their rights to start doing such a thing?

“He was always my favorite too.”

The vessel startled. Thankfully, their hand had jerked away rather than into the figurine when they did so.

Sheo was next to them now. He was rather graceful, to have approached without their notice.

Either that, or they had gone distant and unfocused again.

That happened often enough that it was a likely possibility. 

They tugged their hand back and pressed it against their chest so that their cloak would fall to cover it and the arm altogether. They had not been given permission to touch. Was Sheo angry?

The former student looked up at them.

“Do you know what became of them?”

Did…he not realize they had been locked away, all this time?

His brothers had been very young when they came to the palace. Perhaps they had never even heard what the voiceless thing they dueled with was meant to do for the kingdom. 

They shook their head, still looking at the Five. 

“I do not either,” Sheo huffed. 

They stood together there staring at the little wooden representations. 

The vessel thought it all a bit surreal. 

In time, Sheo invited them over to one of his tables and offered them a seat. 

“Do you have a name? I never caught one, as a child,” he asked.

They shook their head. This time, they did not stiffen.

“My last pupil did not have one,” Sheo said. “They didn’t speak either. Bit like you.”

It was the other vessel, wasn’t it.

They did not feel like they even needed confirmation for what seemed an inevitability. 

Sheo looked at them thoughtfully.

“I still taught them.”

His eyes pinched tighter.

“Is that why you are here?” he asked. “To learn an art? I can be Sheo the Nailmaster, but I do not think he is who you came for.”

They…

The vessel had not had a specific reason for being here. They had certainly not known that the Nailsage’s student would be found at this location.

They were here because they had followed Quirrel on his offered outing. They were choosing to follow more offers now, no matter if they were not used to receiving any to start with. 

They looked down at the table and worried that their confusion would disappoint Sheo somehow. 

He did not seem disappointed. 

“Would you like to make art together with me today?” he leaned upright in his chair to ask.

They nodded. Then shook their head. Then helplessly reached up to grab the base of a horn before dragging some of the bug’s own supplies close.

They scratched a dot. Added a line. Another line. A curve. They did not know where to go with this. It was a hollow act. Any proper living creature could come up with something to draw, couldn’t they? Their hand returned briefly to their horn and a hiss came from their mouth.

“I do not know how,” they wrote for him, when they had calmed. The pathetic ‘picture’ they had drawn seemed evidence enough of that statement. (He would be disappointed, wouldn’t he?)

They would never know how. When they had indulged the Gendered Child’s art projects, it was without any creativity or skill on their part and they had earned nothing from it aside from a spark of warmth at making her happy.

Sheo’s eyes crinkled in a smile.

“Do not worry. There is no wrong way.” He set a blank piece of parchment in front of them, on top of the one they had written on. After motioning for them to wait, he went to retrieve a few small canvases and laid them out on the table. “You do not need to create something from nothing,” he said, “Not yet.”

They did not understand. That was art, wasn’t it? That was what Hornet had done in her youth. It was undoubtedly what these two bugs here did. The Five Great Knights had not been seen in some time by Sheo, it seemed, so had their replicas not been created from nothing?

He laid out different tools and recommended they start with a simple single color charcoal. The choice was left to them ultimately. He made only suggestions. They could take suggestions as directions regardless. 

He explained the different uses of the paints and inks, the protractors, the papers and canvases and what the advantages of either were over the other.

Then he had them look over the finished paintings he had laid out. They were simple. Little to no background noise. A bluggsac. A single durando standing in acid. Three flowers. Single colors for all. Nothing but blank white as the borders.

“Why don’t you try to copy these pieces?” Sheo suggested.

So they did.

It was not easy. It did not come naturally. Their replicas were far from the quality that the originals were. Their hand had too many tremors, they were afraid of breaking the tool in their grip, and they had no second hand to keep the paper steady as they drew. They felt nothing for the products of their efforts. Not disgust, not pride, not joy. It would certainly not have been an activity they would have thought to do.

But it was something to do without thought. Or at least, it left them thinking only specific thoughts based on this concentration. And that left no room for a storm of emotions.

No constant overwhelming pressure.

Simple concentration. 

At some point, the others had left the hut and brought silence to the room. They returned not long after and the vessel’s concentration broke at the return of the noise.

The Nailsmith brought a tray of sizzling greens over. Sheo looked up from the vessel’s work to give a happy air at his partner’s approach. He rose from the table, complimented the vessel on their progress, and then left to join the others around a table free of art supplies to eat. 

They did not resume sketching. 

They stared at that other table instead. 

This was something they had done before. They had been present for large dinners, sometimes. They would sit at their father’s side with their hands either in their lap or on their nail. Such dinners were uncommon, but Hornet and the Dreamers’s occasional visit often heralded them. Hornet never had understood why they had no reaction to her attempts to give them some of her favorite foods. Hornet had never realized what they were, back then. 

They thought again of what had been discussed with Quirrel earlier. When was a fitting time to try, if they must experiment and try at all? There were witnesses here to help them survive if they began to choke. Or…whatever else might happen. They were not sure of the dangers. Their only certainty was how much they did not want to ever feel their throat existing. 

The vessel rose slowly and just as slowly made their way over to join. Quirrel glanced up, mid-conversation. He looked thoughtful, before sliding down the bench and making room for them. 

After telling Sheo to please continue with whatever story was being told, he whispered to the vessel to ask if they were alright, did they need to go? Or were they here to eat? Or-

He asked too many questions and forgot they did not often respond. 

They nodded, shook their head, and then did a hybrid motion of both for the third question. Something in their abdomen hurt. Nerves? It was called nerves, they thought. Apprehension. 

Grimmchild was curled up on the floor. They noted his flames perk up. Black eyelids peeled open so red eyes could peek up at them. 

The vessel tried to exert a sense of calm. They were not sure how well it was managed. They were not a full proper higher being. 

Grimmchild seemed satisfied with it, however, as he closed his eyes again and merely shuffled closer to curl against their ankle. 

They returned their apprehension to the tray of food.

The vessel waited until it seemed Sheo and the Nailsmith were occupied before their arm lunged to grab at a stem and pull it back to them. 

Then stared at it.

Little else. 

How was eating done? 

They really did not want to choke. The sensation was haunting. Neither did they want to taste. The infection had a taste as well as smell. It was an overload to senses that were never supposed to taste to start with. 

They thought again of Zote. There had been something about eating before rest…no, not eating before rest. They were not going to sleep for some time. That was irrelevant then. There had been something else about eating and drinking. Slowly? No, it was to eat quickly. If eating was done quickly, perhaps the taste did not linger so long in one’s mouth and the pressure did not take so long to slide down throats. Infection had done nothing but sit in there, clogged and stagnant. 

They looked haplessly down at Quirrel.

“Bite only a small piece off,” he whispered to them, apparently having watched their confusion closely. 

Bite?

Did the whole leafy stem not go in at once?

They supposed not, if the others were any indication. They had not noticed it, but the bugs would stick only the end of the green in and then break it off with their mandibles. 

The vessel was not sure what they had. Jaws? Mandibles? Teeth? Chelicerae like Hornet’s? Bugs had many types of mouths. Roots and void had none. They hardly wanted to find a mirror to look. No more than they felt comfortable feeling around the spot to identify where it truly was and what it was shaped as. 

They tried to open and close it and thought they had succeeded. 

With their head turned down, they lifted the thing to that buried mouth and hesitated. 

Shame curdled unpleasantly and they did not understand its source.

Quirrel was still paying careful attention. 

“Go slowly,” he directed. “Make sure to chew before you try to swallow. The smaller the piece, the easier.”

Easy felt rather unlikely. 

They tried to press down on fear and shame and the thumping rising panic that would be inappropriate in this home. They would manage this before it could break out. 

Retreat. Just retreat. Bite it, but do not feel it.

They tried.

The first shock was the sensation of taste. They almost had to spit it out from that alone. They- …the infection was thick, it was sweet, it was rancid, it was rotted, and it was trapped, constantly trapped, tongue forced to taste that rotting sweetness nearly constantly. 

The plant was not rotted or sweet, but it had a taste. That tongue was sensing so much, like fire, sparks running along it, it was too much. 

It was a wonder the bite did not drop onto the floor with how long it took them to think to close their mouth. Void flared about their eyes, nearly climbing up the edges of the mask’s holes. They gripped the bench hard. The rest of the stem had crushed under their hand uselessly. 

Chew. He’d said to chew. They knew what that was. They thought they knew. They had never done that to the infection.  

Each clamping movement made more flavor squeeze out. There were too many textures in their mouth. The crispy parts were breaking off and tasted like ash or something equally inedible. The rest was mush and that was less pleasant than before. Too similar to the infection. The stiffness of the stem before it had been chewed was further from that comparison.

They wanted to be done. Quirrel had said slowly. Zote had said quickly. They just wanted to be done.

It slid down their throat too slowly. They battled to keep it there, rather than gagging and having to restart the process of getting it down. 

Would they discover that their throat led only to lungs? That would hurt badly, they thought. If just water hurt in there, a lump of food would be worse. 

But that pain didn’t arrive. The sensation of suffocating, drowning, stayed absent. Instead, something clamped inside them and it was over. 

Though it was also not over. The eating part was done. The discovery had been made. They would wait to see if the second discovery regarding their energy came as well. 

But whatever destination the bite had made it to was spasming now. There should be nothing but void within them. Things were rumbling and moving instead.

They had not realized…

She had always been ravenously hungry. Her starvation was shoved upon them. They had not been sure if that came through dream or true reframing. 

They had not realized since their freedom that their insides had been gnawing at themselves in a similar sensation as her enforced starvation. 

It was cold. A freezing cold, that clamped and released and clamped tighter. 

It hurt.

Not badly, but it felt wrong to so directly acknowledge this alien pain.

The vessel slowly released their grip on the bench and wiped their palm there to rid the rest of the smashed food. Then they waited for the chance to reach for another grilled stem and restarted the process. 

And did so again and again until they thought the clamping, freezing spasms were satisfied.

Neither of their hosts seemed disturbed by their behavior. They had tried to keep it hidden enough to appear normal and it seemed they had been successful enough.

They helped the others clean up. They had not gotten the chance to help much with that in Hornet’s home, because she was not doing that herself for them to join.

Perhaps they could act on their own accord.

It felt strange to have their own accord.

Afterwards, they attempted to finish the tedious sketching of the painting with the flowers. They had reminded the vessel of the vines in the palace and of the queen they rarely saw. The bluggsac may have been an easier choice, in hindsight. They still concentrated on finishing the mimicked picture. 

Sheo asked them if they wanted to keep it when they finished. They stared at the paper for some time while he waited for an answer. 

They felt nothing for it. That was already a step above writing, which they felt guilt and shame over. Copying another’s art was not having a voice. 

“If you practice, you will find your own style,” Sheo promised.

They were not sure that was a positive. 

The vessel accepted the box of supplies they were offered anyways. Sheo had seemed rather excited at the idea of them learning these arts and they had not wanted to disappoint him. 

Seeing his paintings left them with a thought they were unprepared for. They struggled over whether to follow it or not before they wrote for the artist.

“The last one. Other pupil. Can you draw them?” the vessel asked.

Sheo nodded.

“In time, yes. You will have to come back to retrieve it. I do not have a painting of them yet,” he said.

They found that satisfactory. There was nothing making them adverse to returning to this place in the future.

Sheo had asked another question later. Perhaps it had been prompted by their request. It had turned his attention on the one Hornet called Ghost.

“Have you met my brother Mato recently?” he asked them, a little quieter than he had been before.

They shook their head. 

He seemed unsurprised, if slightly disappointed. 

“The little knight found him before they found me,” Sheo said. “He always wanted to teach. To pass on the arts as our master passed them onto us. I would rather pass on other arts now, but…I wonder how he is doing.”

He stared to the side. They stared at him. 

“Perhaps I should search for him instead of waiting to be visited. I have waited, but neither they nor the Great Nailsage have come.” His voice carried a frown. “I would like to show them my latest works. I’d like them to see how far I’ve come. But…”

Sheo looked back to them and tilted his head.

“Perhaps I should do the seeking.”

They did not have an answer for him. Or advice. They were not sure it was a question. They were not much used to being treated in this fashion. 

Before they had departed with Quirrel, however, they had left a hand drawn map of Dirtmouth and circled a shop they labeled ‘Nailsage’ with Sheo.

Perhaps it was not their place to. It certainly had not been before. They had not meddled in others’s affairs. 

They just wanted to pay the nailmaster back for what he had given them freely.

They did not feel guilt for it.

Chapter Text

They were drawing when Hornet came to ask them her question. 

Iselda and Cornifer had a small collection of what they called ‘watercolors’, brought with them from ‘their old home’. They didn’t understand how they had once lived anywhere outside of Hallownest. Would they not have been mindless as they traveled wastelands between kingdoms? Those questions were irrelevant. They had only asked the couple if they could pay (Hornet’s geo, for now, but they were trying to find some when they walked the crossroads now that they had found a need for money) to borrow the art. 

There were a few other options found downstairs and in the mess shoved against the walls here. The vessel had thrown much of the broken junk upstairs out, but had found a few things of use. More intact writing tablets, some decently intact fabric Hornet had wanted to work with, and a set of tiny metal pipes and strings that they only did not throw out because Grimmchild was completely taken with clinking them.

And old art pieces. They thought that they were art. Sheo had had a variety of things in his home, after all. They didn’t know what counted as ‘right’ art or not. But Sheo had also said there was no wrong way. That would be applicable to others as well as the vessel, if it was true. They did have a hard time viewing such a sentiment as true. They did not like things vague or interpretable. They did not have the imagination to interpret. Rules were rules.

Their rules were to copy. To take the artwork done by someone who knew how to make art, who felt something for creating, who saw a scene and then recreated it with a style rather than matching it identically-  to take art and copy it shallowly. 

They would try to replicate the originals as closely as possible, because they did not know how to branch away. It took heavy concentration to see each exact detail and measure where to replicate it on their counterpart. 

They could not worry so long as they concentrated. They could not think about how vessels should have no mind to think.

They had run out of reference pieces from their hut and realized they wanted more. They would work away, slowly trying to keep their lines steady (their greatest challenge aside from a lack of creativity; they did not have a second hand to hold the paper still and their dexterity had been completely lost during their time in the egg, which was aside from the fact that they had never needed to hold anything smaller than the hilt of a nail before and had never developed a technique thusly) while their sister worked on weaving projects just as silently. Perhaps she did so to keep her concentration on a single target too. Perhaps father had when he spent so much time in his workrooms.

Thinking like that put the vessel on the same level as two beings they knew as people. 

They felt guilty for it. 

If they focused on sketching, they had no time to feel that guilt.

It was one of Iselda’s borrowed paintings that they were trying to replicate now. Grimmchild was sitting nearly against them, lazily knocking the tip of his wing against the little pipes of his instrument. Every so often, the vessel would make a mistake or realize their picture looked so far from the original that its distortions couldn’t even be recognized and they would hand the failure over to him to shred or burn (or both).

They did not noticed when the door opened. They had not heard it over their work. They noticed only after Grimmchild had knocked his instrument over in his clumsy speed to fly to the new occupant. His absent weight shook them from their focus and they looked around for the culprit.

It was their sister, who had gone stiff as Grimmchild landed between her horns. His head peaked over, chin propped out past the mask and he mewled very proudly.

They remembered the sensation of a small being perched in the low arch between horns. It had been so long since they had felt it, but they remembered. Their sister had once been so very small…

Hornet reached up to pull the moth off and he hopped from her hands to fly circles behind her instead. She did not seem to pay attention to this, because her gaze had centered on the vessel.

She hesitated there a moment longer before approaching them.

“Would you like to come to the city with me today?” their sister asked.

The city.

Leaking and damaged. 

Sentries that may never guard another again.

The. The monument.

They were unsure how comfortable they would be going to that place again. It was so far cry now from the capital their father had made. 

Did it really matter the location? They had been willing to go to Deepnest, despite stories and attitudes. They had made that offer.

They had been approached so little by her that they had begun to think Hornet’s investment was in their recovery but little more. The vessel would prefer if she wanted them to aid the burdens she carried. Their drive was to help.

Helping was to be next to someone. They remembered holding the various tools the Pale King had asked them to hold, that once. That had been helping. That had been hearing explanations on what was being done and why and they didn’t understand what was important, but they saw it was important to him and that made their help a part of that fulfillment.

They didn’t want to think about this. They weren’t sure when they ever would.

The city would be full of reminders of him. The crossroads held reminders. It could not matter. 

It occurred to them that they had been surrounded by Grimmchild or Quirrel nearly every day for some time. But Hornet-

The vessel nodded. Not a single motion. They were still nodding as they rose, sketch easily forgotten.

Hornet’s eyes were unseen at this angle’s lighting. But her stare moved down from their own eyes after some time and a twitching hand reached over to take theirs. It lost its confidence a moment later and retreated after a pat.

This was for the best. It would have been harder to hold a nail with her hand against their fingers.

Something in their void stagnated from a briefly excited state anyways.

They took their nail and Hornet clipped the familiar red charm to her cloak.

And with that alone, all three left for a place deep below.

Hornet had them ride the stag this time. 

“We will be down there some time. Depending on how much needs to be done, there may well be more exertion than you are used to.” She paused and looked up at them carefully. “You don’t have to continue past being tired. Or to exert yourself at all. I am making this trip to direct whoever lives there to a single safe location. You may follow me or cover other streets.”

They were content with any option. 

For efficiency, they would choose the latter most. It meant no longer accompanying their sister and the moth larva, but it was the wiser plan. In theory. They were unsure if they would get lost and hoped there would not be too many areas of climbing necessary, especially not if they needed to carry any bugs safely. With only one arm, they did not see themself capable of doing both. They were not sure how they would be carrying anyone with one arm so long as they had their nail.

(They would not leave it. They would not.)

The stag came to a tired stop in a quiet station. Water was pooled in the cracks between floor tiles. They could not yet smell the mildew that they had in the tower before. It would be unpleasant to smell that again, but those towers would likely hold as many if not more bugs than the flooded streets. The thought of the scent made their insides move in a way that did not feel like their void. They were not sure if it was a repulsion from their new stomach or a longing. Either way, the vessel had no plans to have a meal. 

Grimmchild meh’d at the damp air. Hornet led them out from the station regardless of his displeasure. It was on a ledge, surrounded by other levels and platforms. They did not know stags to have stations higher than the ground region. But they also had hardly seen many. They only heard of kingdom infrastructure through official talks between their father and others, or in his occasional complaint to himself. 

The vessel understood why the stag had gone through the upper tunnel by the time they had followed their sister to the floor. A second stag station lay in darkness: its ceiling rubble, waterlogged, and hosting vermin. 

As they moved eastward, Hornet indicated she was going to start with the nearest rooms. The Watcher’s tower was near, as were places of entertainment. Singers and operas, those sorts. Father had rarely been interested in accepting the many invitations such places would send him and the queen. They would not understand why he would want to. Entertainment was a concept often lost on them. 

Since she had picked her path, they started off towards the open markets and city squares. Hornet called for them to stop.

“Wait. You shouldn’t go without a way to speak to them,” she said, when they turned back around and approached her. “They may not understand to follow you or that you are trying to help. People have had to become paranoid. To survive.”

Being attacked was hardly a concern. They were not easily damaged. It had taken a god-

Or themself. They were fully capable of piercing through their defenses.

(They would not leave their nail, even though they knew rationally that she was gone.)

So attacks would be brushed off and they would direct the paranoid bugs to Hornet’s chosen location (the apartment chambers near the stag station, for now). 

That was clearly not going to be good enough for Hornet.

She pulled a few sheafs of paper out from under her cloak and strapped them and a charcoal pencil (they knew Hallownest to use quills, at least in the palace; this had the making of the god troupe nearby) onto the vessel’s side with dry silk in a makeshift belt. 

How coincidental she had them on hand.

She had prepared for this.

It…they had not explained to her how much of a betrayal writing felt like. They did not know how to explain it to her. They would have to write to do so.

They wondered how long it’d been since she’d begun bringing these supplies with her. Just today, before they woke and she was able to retrieve them for this mission?

Or for a week, perhaps. A month. A constant way to ensure her sibling would be able to explain themself should something happen in the stag station or town.

The way that was thoughtful alongside efficient of her warred with the crawling sensation of distaste the power of speech ushered in. Despite continuing to make entries, they hadn’t found the betrayal easier. The words, yes. The usage of words, no. It was almost more of a betrayal the more they grew used to it, able to write longer passages about themself. 

Now wasn’t the time for bitterness. The rationale of the situation won out. They accepted their belt. 

Hornet unslung her needle and pointed it along the ground, where the street would be once they had left the overhang of the Pleasure House and Watcher’s Spire. 

“Look along the street and lower floors at this level for anyone alive under the West Towers,” she directed. “Don’t go far upstairs, though. We will have to deal with the sanctum later.”

They watched her disappear up towards the entrance to the Pleasure House with the fluid grace they once had.

Perhaps someday they would recover some of that motor control. They could not turn their limb into void the way Isma had taught them. The infection that had rotted that arm away had done something to the void of the stump. Their void was far less fluid as a whole within them. It still roiled and settled, but the movements were restricted by new internal structures and burnt scarring. Whatever open wounds had closed up, the mess inside the chitin remained instead of smoothing over. It showed no signs of returning to what it should be. They took their nail and dragged it and themself along the surface, a far cry from the leaping flight of their sister.

They kept their head down as they moved past the statue. That should have been enough. They were not sure they could bear to look at it, so they had begun to think they simply would not. They could lead bugs back across the city without having to look at…the thing, the monument, the memory, left by their father who had never heard them call to him for rescue. 

But they wouldn’t know ahead that their attention would have to be drawn to it. 

There weren’t as many sentinels found on the way. They did find a large guard in rusty maroon armor that strained and cracked where it had been pushed near its limits from the inside out. The vessel had stopped by this sentry because they had seen them still moving even though their body was face down in one of the brackish canals. 

Pulling them out meant watching them hack water out over the floor while they stared unmoved beside their nail (stuck in the ground to free their hand for the deed). The sentry didn’t do much else but cough and spit and hold themselves in as much of a ball as they could. They couldn’t see who had pulled them out. They couldn’t see the vessel reach down to take their arm. They would not read even if the vessel tried Hornet’s strategy. But they did not need to. The sentry allowed the vessel to lead them, just as they allowed the vessel to seat them on the floor of the apartment's lobby without ever making a move to leave. 

Empty eyes, empty mind. They left the victim of infection behind to retrieve their nail with perhaps more speed than necessary.

Beyond the statue was where they found the next survivor. 

This one was not a sentry- not a great sentry, face down in a ditch trying to keep grip on a nail that defined their job despite its purposelessness, not a marching guard no longer marching, not a winged sentry laying dead with hands still frozen tearing at the stumps where wings had rotted off. 

Those were far more expected than a shopkeep who was managing to keep a shop while the infected would have been patrolling above and below and on that very floor. 

His name was Lemm, as he introduced himself. He had done so later. At first, though, he had asked what they had come back to sell (sounding equal mixtures of irritated and excited) while facing his shelves and clearly mistaking them for someone else.

It was poor awareness of surroundings. The vessel had seen the state of the city and its sentries and was genuinely surprised this bug had lived through the infection. 

It was only after he turned around and his eyes went up, up, up that he realized he had his back turned to a total unknown.

Except that instead of alarm over what could have been an infected husk just weeks before sneaking up behind him, he’d told them that they couldn’t have his relics.

What would they want with relics?

They lay their nail against the doorway slowly enough to leave him unalarmed, though the shopkeeper had become alarmed instead; he protested that it would fall and break his shelves and was truly far more caught up in that idea than the fact that a stranger with a great nail was here for unknown purposes. With their hand free, they took a piece of parchment and the pencil from Hornet’s bindings and moved to the stone desk of the shopkeeper. Pressing the parchment flat, they fought to write at this angle without the paper sliding away. 

When finished, they lifted it up and turned it around so that the “Follow me.” was obvious to the uninfected bug. 

“I will not,” the shopkeeper protested. “I found this place dead empty and there’s no one left alive to claim this tower. I’m staying here fair and square.”

The vessel was unmoved. 

They put the paper down and began to scrawl away at it again while the shopkeeper sidled along the walls towards the door. Perhaps he had finally begun considering his own safety? It did not matter because the vessel was here to help him. He just had not seen it.

Their next words were done and they turned around with the paper to the unfortunate sight of the shopkeeper not trying to escape but instead trying to move their nail.

The vessel crossed the space in a single step and grabbed the hilt. The bug tugged. They hardly felt it. 

He grumbled as he stepped back towards his desk, telling them to put it somewhere where it would not fall on his “collection”. 

They just held the paper out again.

“Follow me.

Safe place. Resources. Planning. 

Daughter of Hallownest leading.”

The eyes buried in wiry fur narrowed again.

“Daughter of Hallownest?” he repeated.

Did he not know who that was?

Did he even know who the Pale King was? Or had he died too long ago? They would rather not think of his death now. So instead, they scratched ‘Hallownest’ out and pondered only briefly if they should write ‘Heir of Deepnest’ instead. They were unsure if that was the proper terminology anymore. Surely with Herrah dreaming, Hornet had ascended from heir to whatever role she was in line as heir for. Queen? But she was not in her kingdom below leading. 

Perhaps…

The infection had spread down there?

Perhaps there was no one left to lead.

How far had the infection reached after their failure?

Regardless, if this bug did not understand her role in Hallownest, he would likely not even recognize Deepnest. 

They wrote “the Pale King” in Hallownest’s place despite not knowing if that would be more recognizable. Surely the king had been preserved, even if his shared daughter with Deepnest had not been. 

Sure enough, Lemm reacted.

“The king? You know the king? There is a surviving relative? This sounds foolish.”

Despite what he said, he was leaning forward, attention nearly hungry. The vessel was not sure what they should take from that.

They only learned his name after that; otherwise, he seemed ready to continue telling them off for intruding and swearing he did not have to move from this shop’s spot. This change was because he’d scrutinized them a little more before his eyes narrowed.

“You look familiar,” the shopkeeper said with far less defensive irritation.

Yes. They had been told they had a passing resemblance to a certain ghost of Hornet’s. 

He stepped out from behind his desk to look them up and down.

“You wanted me to follow you somewhere? Let’s get out, then.”

The vessel didn’t see a reason to question his change in tune. 

Not until the trap sprung.

They led the slow walking shopkeeper out from the tower into the streets while Lemm gave them his name and occupation and then brought them to a stop in the rain.

It was by the fountain. He sat right down on the ground, despite having led the vessel to believe he was following them to Hornet’s shelter.

You look familiar.

He hadn’t been talking of the other vessel.

They really should have realized this.

The monument was right here. If anyone would recognize them, it was an inhabitant of this city.

Lemm looked over when they remained standing and acted almost surprised that they had not joined him in sitting down. 

“If you are going to stand around, you may as well block some of this downpour. You're huge,” he said casually and went back to staring at the fountain.

They walked over to do as suggested, because they were unsure what else to do.

Lemm made a content sounding hum when their leaning body and cloak began to take some of the water for him.

Then, he tapped their nearby leg and pointed at the fountain.

“Are you this Hollow Knight?” he asked.

Breaths came in rattles. Were they? 

The thing set in stone was that- a thing. A pure tool that had sacrificed and that saved the kingdom. A dead kingdom, dying kingdom, nothing now. Not eternal.

They shook their head. Then nodded. Lemm hadn’t been watching either.

It felt as if they stood in the leaking water for too long. Time spread out, stopped. Nothing but the water pouring from the fountain and the gentler rain gradually soaking through their cloak. This was not what Hornet had been expecting, was it?

They did not know when to leave, but Lemm broke the moment first. He stood up, brushed droplets off himself, and waved for them to follow him back to his shop. Weren’t they supposed to go back towards the apartment towers? 

When they finished lumbering after Lemm, he took a seat in his shop and looked at them again. He did not start off on their clumsy nail knocking anything over, or tell them how it wasn’t squatting if he had gotten here first.

Instead he shuffled and pulled a few items out onto his desk. They recognized the idols of their father. They recognized the stabbing, coiling feeling in their thorax, the way their throat closed and clenched.

“Would you tell me what that world was like?” Lemm asked. 

They-

They could explain, likely enough. They would know answers for many of whatever questions he may have on Hallownest. 

Another time.

They were helping Hornet now. They could help Lemm later. They could explain a past that hurt, that they longed for, that they had never been a part of, hidden away in their father’s presence.

“Directing survivors now. You should meet with my s Horne the king’s daughter. She can tell.”

They considered it. They thought of talking and its difficulty. They thought of how uncomfortable unearthing their failure would be, but that they would rather others know of him and his beloved kingdom even if it meant weathering the stares of those who now knew they should have saved them.

“I can. But another time.” they wrote for him, then left. 

If Lemm followed that advice or not, it did not matter to them. He had survived safely this long and the infection was gone.

There were more sentries found past the relic seeker’s place. Unlike the great sentry found earlier, these ones were most often huddled together. Civilian bugs had also been found- not the nobility seen in the eastern section of the city, but those their sister brought up to Dirtmouth. They had eyes more like Myla’s. Sometimes, the infection didn’t enter the eye at all. It had been the first external area for the vessel, though. 

They were in the midst of directing these small groups together when they heard the voice.

It was at a distance now, but loud for such a distance. Especially compared to the rasps of the sentries and whispers of the other bugs. If one of them were at this distance, their voices would be inaudible.

The vessel directed this latest bunch to stay while they searched ahead. 

They found more bugs along the way and, each time, had to pause their search to lead those back to their growing group. The voice got louder and louder. It had a distinct laugh to it. They had heard it before.

But…No, they did not remember well enough. Perhaps they would be of little use to Lemm after all. Time in the shared prison dream mixed all together, the real and dream and false. 

The vessel crept on, nail dragging loudly against the stones behind them. 

Another lost bug interrupted their investigation. They had peaked out from behind a messy nest of rubble and dead fungal matter and jerked back within when they realized they’d been seen. The vessel waited patiently. Another laugh came from nearer yet; this time near enough that they could hear some voice respond, though not what the response was. 

The pillbug peeked out again. 

“Ar-are you a husk? Y-you don’t l-look li-like one,” they asked. The voice was weak. It sounded burned, almost in the way that Grimm’s did.

(Almost in the way that theirs did, when they screamed with it.)

They shook their head. The bug tried to crawl out and fell across the floor instead of standing. Their legs lay out behind them, mangled and rotted away. The smell was pungent. The vessel nearly retreated from a smell they knew so well to associate with Her. 

She wasn’t here. She was dead. 

The vessel shook fear off, stuck their nail in the road, and picked the pillbug up from the ground. They tried to gently shift them over their front on top of the vessel’s working shoulder, so that they could take their nail again while still carrying them.

But it was while they were in the middle of this that the source of the noise being followed turned around the corner of a nearby building and caught sight of them. They were a larger bug than the beetle they were carrying along. 

“Aha! I see we have the same idea!” they said cheerily and immediately upon seeing the vessel helping the injured one up. 

To help? To scour around and gather up those who had lived?

It seemed so, yes, and it would be in character for this bug to do.

Because the vessel recognized that laughter now. They recognized the strong shape, the rare white eyes (oddly tinted now), the tufts of fur. 

And those eyes recognized them.

They stopped short and so did he.

Despite their thoughts in Greenpath, they had not wanted to think of whether the Great Knights had survived or not. It seemed too unlikely. They would have laid their lives down for the king and queen, each of them. They would have died before he did.

This was still one of them. It was still very clearly one of them, no matter if his shell was a rusted dirty color now and his furs had shrunk. 

“You?” Ogrim’s voice was uncharacteristically strangled. 

The vessel did not remember that bugs needed answers for a few awkward seconds. They tilted their head to the side once they did. It almost unbalanced the injured survivor.

An equally injured beetle looked back and forth and pawed a little at Ogrim’s chest to ask what was going on. But the knight seemed too occupied to notice. Too…disturbed. Unsettled.

Was this finally someone who would recognize that the devastation around him was their responsibility?

“You lived. You survived. But they said-. I tried to convince hi…after the affliction came b-” Ogrim stopped himself short and shook his head. “No matter!” he began again, a little closer to his characteristic tones. “I see you are helping these fine bugs, as was I! We can help one another.”

And they did.

They passed hours, carrying or leading injured and uninjured groups back to Hornet’s rendezvous. They had not run into her there yet, but the size of the crowd was larger every time they returned so she and the god child were finding survivors as well.

Perhaps Ogrim would want to meet her. He did not seem to realize that she was here. They had only written to him once, so far, and that was to tell him they already had a place to take bugs to. It was a different location than the upstairs room he had apparently been using for this purpose. He had seemed more distracted by the fact they could ask questions and make statements than he was over asking questions of his own about who might be organizing these efforts. He could not assume it was the vessel. Vessels would not. Perhaps the other vessel, as anomalous as they were. Perhaps any other vessel. Perhaps they made assumptions on the whole of their dead kin. But they would not. They had been told what a vessel ought to be and they had lied to themself that they matched every criteria. The same lies had still been shared among the rest of the palace. 

Ogrim had only stared at them hard through the whole process.

“You could speak? But if the…of course you could,” he murmured and that was it. Nothing more on why they would have organized this venture or otherwise argued for him to join their plan rather than the other way around. 

Hornet would have done a better job with this.

He made time pass quickly. He was good at talking, unlike them. But he never said anything specific about what he had been doing, or about the other four, or about the Pale King and White Lady. 

Upon dropping the next few sentries off (and waiting for Ogrim to make certain they were comfortable, since he did so after every trip quite naturally. He had gotten a guard to laugh recently. They did nothing but stand coldly when their job was done. They did not know how to do anything that could take the pain of these people away.) (This was a lie. They knew of one thing. They had tried that. They had failed at it.), he walked on towards the wet streets seemingly ready to go again and again and again at this rescuing business. Their own back had begun to coil and knot and keep them in a twisted position. They could not continue like this for much longer. Hornet would be frustrated if they reinjured themself. 

Before they reached the point where they would need to sit among the rest and wait for her, they would find answers. Sheo’s carvings were in their mind. They could return to him with the information he wondered after.

Ogrim was energetic. The vessel forced themself to speed up until they could interrupt him.

They pulled his arm, turned him around. 

They put a hand out to tell him to wait, because wait he and anyone else would have to do so long as it was the vessel was writing.

There was no desk or dry wall here. They sat down and tried to write atop their leg instead. After three attempts that had been completely illegible, they found a way to write legibly on the rounded surface and turned this fourth paper around for Ogrim.

“Who is alive?” it asked.

He tapped his long pincers together. 

“Well, it seems a good many in the city are,” he started off. “The flukes below have taken a rough hit. I am not sure that enough remained uninfected for their population to survive. There’s-”

Though they knew manners and tact from the palace, they also suspected their question had been understood and Ogrim was rather purposefully ignoring it. He was staring elsewhere and his shoulders had crunched in protectively. 

It did not bode well for their answers.

It was better to know than continue hoping naively. Wasn’t it? They were not sure. They thought they might have preferred thinking father had abandoned Hallownest rather than ever learning he was dead. The discovery had hurt them in ways they had not repaired. 

They scrabbled another set of legible letters together and stood up to make him look at it.

“Ogrim- alive. Dryya, Isma, Ze’mer, Hegemol. Palace occupants. Who is alive?”

Ogrim was quiet for a moment. Then he retreated to the wall of the hallway and sat down.

“I am unsure,” he admitted.

The vessel waited. When he did not stand to continue on their task here, they guessed he was unfinished. Their back hurt. They sat again, across from a knight they had not expected to see alive again.

“I went to the palace grounds after I felt for certain that the affliction was gone,” Ogrim said after a while. “There was no sign of my king. There was no sign of the palace. The basin was completely empty. It did not seem as if there had been a siege at all. It seemed more as if the palace had never been there to begin with.”

A dream stain remained. Not Her’s, though. Not hers at all. 

They were so much closer to it here. They were not sure they could ever bear entering that basin just to witness the absence of their childhood home the palace. Hearing confirmation from a witness was enough, for now. 

Ogrim lay his pincers against his bent knees with a sigh. 

“I’ve been defending the royal waterways since…Isma’s death. Her grove…her grave is within those waterways. In protecting it so constantly from any beasts or ruffians attempting to enter her grove, I never entered myself to gain confirmation of what I feared.” 

That was one, then.

Their shoulder burned. They could remember the sensation of writhing, controlled void coming from it as she trained and praised them. 

“I have not found the others yet,” Ogrim said. “There is a greater need here, in his former capital, than there is to seek them out.”

One was more than they had expected to survive. Aside from their sister, they had felt as if this world had no one from their previous life. Quirrel had entered that previous life a few times in the past, but not consistently often. Not in the palace. Not like Hornet and the Five.

One was more than they had expected and yet it still left them feeling oddly to hear confirmation that there would likely be no others. How had they died? Had they been forced to rot inside out with her burning light? 

Their shoulder burned. Their missing arm burned with it, twisted against the joint and painfully stuck in a position they could not touch and fix.

Ogrim gave another slumping sigh.

“I fear I am the last in this line. Though if such a thing can be passed on, I have met a truly mighty knight.” His eyes flared with the energy he had lost in this conversation. “I have only to find them again. They would have fit within the court of old. They were like you.”

He looked directly at the vessel.

“I never expected there to be others. I was told there was only the one. Only you. And for just the one, it was a cruel enough means.”

This time it was they that hunched lower, discomforted. 

It was a necessary means. They held no grief over it. The Old Light…they knew her too well. They knew her threat too well. There had been no cost too great. But they had not been a fully enough price paid either. 

They never could have been. They had felt from the start. Muted and wrong compared to the living, and still so, but feelings nonetheless. 

All that could be done now was to continue on. There was no stopping the infection of the past. But Ogrim’s instincts, Hornet’s ideas- helping those that had lived through that nightmare could be done. 

No matter the thoughts on how much, how infinitely, better it would have been if the infection had never reached this dead city to start with.

Chapter Text

The last time they had been in this place, they had learned many things and nothing at all. 

It wasn’t a matter of the substance, but rather the quantity and speed it had come with. They had only really heard every three of the fifty-seven rules Zote seemed so eager to share.

Were they rules? He called them something else and some of them were mere statements rather than orders or advice. 

They had come too quickly for the vessel to process them.

But those precepts had come later. First, they had only thought they could involve themself in the situation by questioning the only thing that actually struck their attention.

That had been the toy weapon that was treated not like a toy.

They had pointed at the…nail. If it could be called that. 

It could be called that, though it didn’t make it true. It could also be called Life Ender, they learned a moment later, though that too did not have to be true.

Monomon’s strange spawn could have their lives ended by the shellwood blade. The vessel could not think of any other creature right then. Retainers and bugs like Dreamer Lurien may be soft enough to be bludgeoned by the wood if its wielder kept trying. That was far from what a knight would do. Zote’s status as a knight was confusing to them anyways. Who had knighted him? What liege was he sworn under? The Five had all been one or the other monarch, or both. The hollow knight-

Had not been a knight at all. The idea was an aside point. They had never truly been what the hollow knight was meant to be. 

But…if they had been a knight, it would have been in the service of the Pale King and The Five Great Knights and the whole of Hallownest together. They had been meant to protect all. 

They had failed to protect any.

Since their first visit had been such a storm of continuous, uninterrupted statements, the vessel had never gotten any sort of answer on that topic.

And since Quirrel had suggested sitting with others in their daily routine now, they had taken writing utensils with them on their way back.

Granted, it had not been their full idea to return. Bretta had shown up while they sat in silence on the bench of Dirtmouth and had asked them if they wanted to accompany her to the other knight(?)’s house. She had a bag of what she called cookies with her. They were, apparently, food. Which meant they were intended to be eaten.

The vessel had only tried to eat once since their visit to Greenpath. It had been an evening when Hornet had come back earlier and Quirrel had arrived to talk with both. The vessel did not talk back so that was perhaps the wrong way of phrasing it. But Hornet had offered him some of her meal and he had then looked at them in a way lost on their sister and they, after a few seconds of horrid confliction, taken a tiny leg from the platter and ate it before indecision worsened (or before their sister started asking questions, because it would be harder to write replies right then than it was to shove meat into their mandibles) (they had looked, just briefly before discomfort and panic and revulsion fought to overtake them. They had looked and seen mangled shapes they thought must be mandibles) (they had not looked again). She had learned that they were able to eat at that moment. She’d seemed…alarmed. She held it in. And they had learned that meat made their mouth water and insides ache more than the Nailsmith’s plants had. 

The White Lady received nutrients from the soil, mainly. 

The void was always hungry, but it tasted nothing.

The Pale King had been a wyrm. They had never learned much about what that meant. He did not talk about it with retainers. He shut down attempts by Herrah and Monomon. They could not go do their own research into it, because they were hoping that the more they pretended, the more likely they could be pure enough. And curiosity and questions were not pure.

What they had gauged came from snippets of information about diets. A comment here or there from a Deepnest denizen or mantis, their father’s eyes hard as he cut their conversations off, whispers and taunts of meat and brethren and bugs made into meals. 

They had never been capable of eating, but they had attended various dinners at their father’s side with dignitaries and smaller ones with the queen and Gendered Child. He would eat slowly with tiny, picky bites, barely touching the various platters. They had also been at his side so much of that time and seen him, if fatigued, tear into red meat in privacy with as much dignity as his tiny daughter. 

Though they had not been intended to have a mouth or digestive system of any kind, perhaps it would make sense to consider what their genetic donors would have given them before the void ate over all within the egg. 

Hornet had asked if they wanted her to hunt for two, now. They had sat there with their insides writhing around feeling empty in an unpleasant way, as if the intestines were eating themselves in haste to get more, and they had shook their head no before curling their arm over their abdomen. 

Had the Pale King been unhappy about hunger too? It made a bit of sense, if he did. They could understand it. Perhaps not for the same reasons, but…they had never learned his reasons. They never would. 

As for this day, they thought it might be a decent day to try eating once again. The scent of Bretta’s ‘cookies’ didn’t cause any reaction. Nothing fought to push them, screamed at them to eat, to feed the unnatural growths within that may- if there had never been any void to make them what they were, if there had never been vessels- have once been natural donations from their sire. 

They trailed behind her while she knocked. In the time it took the occupant to arrive, she glanced up at them and then away, pink once more.

Zote was grumbling before he reached the door. He looked unimpressed to see either of them.

“Who are you?” he greeted. It sounded genuine. The vessel was not entirely used to judging, however. 

Bretta slumped and then bristled. She walked in through the door with her bag of food in hand. 

They kept standing there until Zote said they looked like an idiot and told them to come in.

He seemed to think they were there “to learn from the wisdom of Zote the Mighty.”

They didn’t remember anyone telling him that, but they did not see a reason to correct it. They had brought tools to ‘talk’ about some of those regardless, if the ‘precepts’ came up again.

They had felt rather certain they’d come up again.

He had stood outside Bretta’s house for weeks repeating them. 

The hut looked emptier than it had before. There was the bed that they’d have to push upright, a simple table and unused chairs, and that was mainly it. The curtains on the windows were shut. Life Ender hung on the supposed knight’s back instead of being propped against the bed as it had been last time. A large rusted helmet was hung up on the wall over that bed. They had seen it sitting against the wall of Bretta’s house in all the previous weeks. 

Aside from these things, the interior of the hut was empty. Perhaps more was stored below in its basement. Or perhaps there were no belongings to be stored. 

They took a seat at the table, because standing made their neck ache after a while with both of the other’s so much shorter than them. Its wooden surface had been recently dusted. The floors had little dirt on them too, the vessel noticed.

Bretta had dropped her bag off on the table, but moved away from it towards Zote again hesitantly.

“Gr-gray- Um, Zote? We just stopped by to say hello,” she said. 

They had not known that was the exact purpose. Did this mean they had to write the word? The vessel brought their tools out and put them on the table.

Zote looked between them.

“And?” he replied, before his attention narrowed on the vessel. He looked up at them where they were seated.

“You’re the supposed knight.” he said. 

They were nothing. Just a vessel. A failed vessel. They could not call themself the hollow knight, even if their sister could.

Speaking of her…

“Your sister claims you’re a knight at least,” Zote continued. He seemed displeased at the idea. 

“How come you remember- never mind,” Bretta frowned. 

The hut went quiet. Both beetle and vessel lookalike seemed to be waiting for something. 

Bretta slumped first and retreated a few steps until her legs hit the bedside and she propped herself on its edge.

Zote returned his attention to the vessel.

The vessel grabbed at something within her bag and held the crumbly stiff thing out to him. 

“Hoy!” Zote protested and gestured at the ground. “Watch where you drop that! Do you want to clean up after yourself? Hmph. If you expect I, Zote the Mighty, to clean after you when you’ve trespassed, think again.”

They had not intended to make a mess. They did not find it immediately important. They held their position stiffly.

He took the cookie with a grumble. 

There.

Bretta shifted side to side.

“Are they- um- is it good?” she asked.

It was impossible for them to determine what Zote said through his chewing.

They hesitated before reaching in to nibble on one of their own. It had a taste and a texture and that was enough to make them feel overwhelmed, but it was far from as notable as the meat had been. 

They gave her a nod, so that she at least had some form of positive response from one of them. She went pink again.

The other two conversed a little while their mind wandered. In time, however, they were asked directly why they were there. 

There was no valuable answer to that. So they moved to revert the conversation to the one they had only understood pieces of last time.

They pointed at the nail again.

Zote perked up.

“Ah! Life Ender! At least you have a good eye,” he said. “Unlike some.”

They were not sure who that insult referred to, but they expected Hornet was included in the likely vast amount of people questioning the use of a wooden weapon.

Amongst whom they were included, but Zote understood their gesture as he understood it.

“Life Ender and my personal philosophy has led me through life-nay, let me conquer it! If you wish to hear how to make it anywhere in yours, you would do well to remember the 57 precepts of Zote.”

“But- I’ve already heard all-…never mind,” Bretta sighed, as Zote had already begun.

They focused a little better this time.

As a consequence of being able to actually listen, they found themself questioning his advice more. 

They did not have to.

But it was a part of the different approach Quirrel kept encouraging them to take. To…involve themself in the moment. They were used to existing outside, as an observer, or better yet a tool unaware of observing at all.

They asked questions at the start on how Zote had discovered precept one and two and listened blankly to long winded replies. At least with this method, he stuck long enough on each single precept that they didn’t not fall behind.

Even now, he was continuing on from a short explanation on the importance of rest to something the vessel was less certain of.

“Precept four is ‘forget the past’.” Zote was saying. “The past is painful-”
That did give the vessel pause. Only four in and they already needed to pause? But…

The past was nice. It was good. It was much better. They wished they had never left it. They wished they had brought an end to their act and preserved their time in the palace. 

Though the containment was also the past.

And that was not nice. Not nice at all.

They wished they could forget it. They wished they could forget the pain, the agony of isolation, the old god altogether. 

(They wished she had never been remembered, even if that would have meant they never would have existed.)

They listened through his reasoning despite their own argument for and against such a statement, until he reached its end and they patted his arm to make him wait. The vessel turned their paper around and tapped their quill against the latest addition.

“Why food?”

“Why not food?” Zote shrugged. “Food is good.”

Oh. He meant to think about ‘good’ things then. Food did not qualify to the vessel. They thought they may understand the premise of the precept, however. 

They were still considering this by the time he reached what he called the sixth precept. This one, too, brought them pause. They shook their head and waved for him to stop. It took them time to think of what to write. Zote’s foot was tapping impatiently.

“Why do you disagree?” they finally wrote. Better to just ask about him than to include their own uncertainty or vague thoughts on why this precept seemed to leave them unbalanced. They did not agree with it. They weren’t sure how to explain why. 

“Because they are wrong to think it,” he said, looking a little confused himself. Perhaps confused on why he would be asked to elaborate something simple. Was it simple? They had not thought so, but they would not know. 

“I do not understand,” they wrote for him.

“Then you are the kind to just listen blindly to whatever fate your nest said you had,” Zote sniffed. “Elders in the nest know nothing. They think you must stay there to be what they tell you to be. They will never see potential for anything but their own ideas. And they are more than likely to choose a fate that they find small and demeaning for you, to keep you down!”

He nodded his head along to himself.

“This is why you must leave the nest quickly. If you want a different fate, then take it!”

Their fate had always been to contain the Radiance. Or it would have been, if they had been a pure vessel. They had not been a pure vessel. What fate would have been chosen for them if they had admitted to that? They would not have been lined up to become the hollow knight. They might have been a fixture at the palace regardless? But what a sad fixture that would have been, to wander and see their father hopeless. Still-

What fate had they wanted, all along? Not to contain the Old Light. They were merely willing to. They had not understood the cost. That job was a means to an end. They wanted to keep their father’s pride in them and only the hollow knight would have. They had chosen that fate. It had been chosen for them? It was both. They wished they had chosen another. It had hurt.

“What fates are good?” the vessel wrote after a while.

Zote sniffed again.

“To become the best, of course. The best in whatever path you chose. The best in all paths! To be a knight of great renown, I would say, but that is I. Others will just have to aim to be the second best.”

Though they had failed the kingdom and their father, and sister, and the other vessel that they had let fall, they still were not sure that they were less of a knight than this small vessel lookalike. He judged that based on strength, as he had said earlier. His nail was made out of shellwood. 

They would move on. 

Although they found themself pausing him again at the next precept. He hummed while he waited for them to figure out their words this time. Bretta had taken the chance to move to a chair at this table with them and stood up on the seat to peek at their writing process.

The vessel almost broke the tip of the quill from pressing too hard. Reigning the force in, they finished and held their new paper out to Zote.

“The dead must be mourned.”

A moment later and they scribbled on the same paper before holding it out once more.

“The dead must be mourned.”

“There’s no point in doing so,” he huffed. “It means only wasting our own time wondering on things there will be no answers for. Recall precept four: forget your past.”

He narrowed his eyes at them.

“Next time you think you have to waste time mourning the dead, think about food instead.”

The vessel did not think they would.

Zote moved on, recovering his tempo easily enough.

They tried to keep up without needing to pause him again so soon. They didn’t understand the bit about traveling alone, but they had only started traveling after being released from the egg and that was merely routine circuits to recover their strength. If they spent too long being confused on that, however, they would not hear the next point. That one was one they found nothing confusing about. It was almost vindicating to hear confirmation that a home should be kept “nice and clean”. It meant they were doing something correct, something that meant they were making others proud. Caught up in that, they missed the name of precept ten and heard only the end proclamation that Life Ender was kept sharp.

They thought that a bit pointless. And potentially unlikely. It did not look sharpened, even for wood. It seemed entirely blunt.

But the next left them confused once more. They had listened through three, at least, before getting confused again. 

Zote did not seem confused. He made his statement and moved on with ease and they would have to interrupt him again, it seemed, to clarify what he had called self explanatory.

It explained itself? They did not think it explained anything. It seemed like a mere statement.

The vessel leaned over to write even as Zote went on.

“How do mothers always betray you?”

They reached over to tap his arm and show their page. He squinted at it and then at them.

“You are still on precept eleven? We’re on sixteen now.”

No, Zote was. The vessel wasn’t yet. They were slower. Bretta didn’t seem to be on any. She was alternating between staring at them and sleeping, head flat on the tabletop. Currently it was the sleeping. Only Zote was looking at them right now.

They wondered if it was disapproval or mockery that they were being stared at with. 

“Would like to learn,” they wrote, because it was polite.

This seemed to leave him conflicted. He puffed up again while at the same time looking aside and deflating from irritation into pride. 

“Fine then. This does make you better than the other oafs- er- what were we discussing? Precept eleven, yes! Mothers.” Zote nodded. “They care naught for you or your chosen fates. When you think they may be listening, they turn their backs in the very next moment. You cannot expect support from one!”

They had never quite had a mother, not like they had had a father. The Pale King and White Lady had created the eggs that were given to the Abyss together. His had been the first voice they had ever heard. His light had driven them up with the same desperation as their siblings around them. It was after, though, that he truly became their father rather than god. It came from the time they spent at his side, for years and years and years. They rarely spent an hour at the side of the queen. She kept away, for herself. They knew she was hurt, but did not fully understand how. They did not have many full thoughts in those days. They did not allow themself to. 

The White Lady had never betrayed them, but they were not sure they could consider her a mother regardless. In that case, it seemed more likely that they would never understand this precept. It was simply inapplicable. Though…Hornet had a mother. She had multiple. Herrah loved her daughter, and the White Lady had as well. Did either betray her? That did not seem right. ‘Always’ was a very strong statement. 

“This seems incorrect,” they wrote for Zote. 

He did not seem to like that.

“You claim to want to learn, but do not listen?!” 

Had they made him angry? That was not the intention. They did not particularly feel bad for his sake, but they did not come here to be kicked out of this house. 

It did not seem there was any concrete elaboration coming. They wrote something new instead and directed Zote’s ire to that.

“When did you become a knight?”

The ire disappeared. His chest and shoulders puffed up again. 

“Years ago! Likely more years than you’ve been alive, crawling about in your first molt! I’ve slain thousands!” he claimed.

They did not think it likely. It had been well over a hundred years since their first molt. 

The vessel thought it over and changed the first word of the question.

“When Where did you become a knight?”

This time, his answer was a little less quick. He leaned in to re-read the paper before glaring at the vessel.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Zote asked.

They weren’t sure how to put it. 

A few attempts were scratched out. 

“ What court

Were there oth

Fa

Knights of Hallownest 

What king are you in the service of? Hallownest has none now.” 

Zote scratched his chin. 

“I am a knight of the people, as hundreds of villages can attest. A knight has no need of a king,” he lied (because everyone needed a king, the vessel thought. At least, one specific king. At least, they needed him). “Kings try to claim superiority over others without showing their strength as superior! They make laws to enforce their desires upon others. I myself obey no law but my own. This is an important precept itself! But we shall not skip ahead.”

They shook their head and began to write again. Zote grew impatient at the next interruption and began on the following precept, but they did not hear it nor planned to. They did not think they would get much more out of staying at the moment. Their head hurt from trying to pay attention and respond. This would have continue another day.

He seemed to be back to precept sixteen when they tapped his arm to give him their last paper.

“I am tired.”

How odd it was, to refer to themself as a being with self awareness to another person. It was one thing to do so in the privacy of their mind. It was another to write so in the entries Hornet had them make. It was….exhausting, to try it with a stranger.

Zote was oblivious to this struggle. He read the paper and then picked it up to read it again. When they stood up to go, he spluttered at them.

“You-! You’re walking out before we’re done? How do you expect to learn if you do not fully devote yourself to eating, breathing, living these precepts-“

He went on like that for a while. They weren’t able to pay attention to writing and listening at the same time and had decided for once that speaking was preferable.

They took the paper back without him even noticing.

Perhaps they were not the only one who could not focus well on their surroundings.

After leaning over the table to write again, they took Zote’s arm and pulled him to stare at their response.

“Always be rested.” It read. “I must rest.”

“…”

Zote’s perpetual frown deepened.

“…fine,” he grumbled.

They felt little upon taking up the rest of their stuff and leaving. There was no satisfaction in using his own words to support their departure. They did not think they were feeling satisfaction, at any rate. But that was not an emotion they were well experienced in.

They met with Bretta a day later.

She had shown up at Hornet’s hut when no one but the vessel was there. Hornet herself had taken Grimmchild to see Grimm. They might have gone with them, if they had not already been tired from attempting participation in conversation earlier. 

(They had not yet seen Grimm since the day that he came to explain what had happened to the other vessel, but…they were not so adverse to the thought. No matter how proximity with a higher being carried the threat of being burned, they had inched closer and closer to the amphitheater portion of the tent many times by now. They would enter after their walk through the crossroads and Dirtmouth, listen to the music played by the one called Brumm, and almost step out into that large theater. Never once had they seen Grimm. But they sensed his fires all around, very much present, merely waiting for them to make the official move.)

Bretta had a bag with her again. They thought it might have been the same bag. 

She’d offered it over as a gift for the vessel and their sister shyly. 

Now, they were at her house with the empty bag and a prewritten paper that read “Hornet sends gratitude for the cookies.” When Bretta opened the door, they held both out.

She read the paper first and then seemed flustered when she took the bag back.

“Oh! Um. Yes, she’s welcome! Not a problem. I can- anytime- um. Yes.”

She drifted off. They stood still. She began to tap her fingers together.

“Do you want to stay for a while?” she asked the moment they moved to leave.

The vessel paused. 

There was little reason not to. There was also little reason to, but they did things without reason now. They did things they were advised to do even if they didn’t seem useful. Yesterday had been a full exercise in that.

Though they did not understand Bretta, they expected her alone to be less exhausting than yesterday had been. Which was not to call the experience a negative, but it had left them with little energy even today. They had woken later than their usual schedule and a part of them had been tempted to not walk the crossroads at all. That part had also felt very tempted to remain in the basement of the hut once they returned from the walk, and leave Hornet to do this thanking business later. 

But she was busy again with Grimmchild, as well as a coordination issue in the stag station, and they took on the task instead.

Bretta pulled a puffy sack from the wall and then a second, before sitting on the latter. They hesitated before folding down into the other one.

It was soft. 

Like a nest, but more vertical. It did not seem like it would hurt their back to remain seated here for long, as the wooden stools and chairs did.

Bretta had returned to tapping her hands together. They did not understand the action and would never be able to try it, but they had come to notice it was common for her. Perhaps like weaving was for Hornet. Or tinkering had been for their father.

“Well. Um. So have you written anything recently?” she asked. 

They had, in fact, written one of their mandated entries last night. So the vessel nodded.

For whatever reason, that made her look away. The tapping sped up a little. 

“Me too,” she squeaked. Her hands broke apart so that one could make an aborted motion towards a pile of things nearby her. 

Unlike Zote’s home, Bretta had many accessories and items. It felt very crowded in here. 

“Do you ever- um- have you ever thought of someone looking at what you write?” she asked. 

When Hornet had first assigned them their task, she had said she would not read the entries. But they had thought of her doing so, even if they did not think she would. They had thought of the shame they would have to experience if their sister saw them fumble such a simple task. There was something else displeasing about the idea as well, though it would qualify no matter who saw it. They had never wanted to be capable of thoughts or emotions or anything that had make them an imperfect fit for the hollow knight. But at the least, no one had ever seen those flaws. They had hidden them away deep within the privacy of a guarded mind. No one- 

Until the containment, of course.

Until Light ripped every corner of and bared every flaw. Until Dream became something where privacy and hiding had no concept. 

There was fear involved with those entries. Far moreso than they felt when writing replies in when asked direct questions. They were private things put into visible words and that erased their privacy.

So yes, they had thought about those papers being turned over and read by anyone that came into the hut. 

They nodded. 

Bretta seemed oddly happy to get ‘yes’ as the reply. 

“Me too,” she repeated. Then her arm once again made a slow motion to her side, but this time did not jerk back. It retreated instead with a stack of tablets.

“I’ve never- because they’re very silly and I don’t want to be laughed at, but- haha!- erm, I’ve really looked forward to meeting somebody that writes too,” she stuttered and half-held the tablets out for them. Were they supposed to take them? The answer was apparently yes , they learned a moment later. “Then we’d both understand, you know, and…Do you want to read some of what I’ve done recently? It’ll be fun to share.”

It seemed impossible for her to go even more pink. They wondered if something was wrong with her health.

It was evident she was excited at the concept of getting someone else to read whatever she had written. They could not fathom it at all. 

The vessel knew what she wanted, however, and they were at a loss over why, but the former meant disappointing a townsperson. They took the offered tablets even as Bretta added a drifting, “Please don’t laugh at them, but…”

They turned the top one over slowly. It was not what they had expected. They had not been sure what to expect. These were not novice unhappy journal entries. Nor were they factual reports. They were…long? Long and full of details that they would not think to incorporate into their already unwanted practice. 

The vessel skimmed over the odd paragraph as they had been asked to.

“The Warrior Princess caught her fall. Her eyes were dark, coldly unreadable.

‘You must keep your footing. Or are you a wasted venture?’

The words struck harshly, yet heralded in a fire. The maiden would be no one’s wasted venture anymore. She fixed her grip and began again.”

The next tablet seemed disconnected from this. Disjointed paragraphs or sentences sat in gaps from one another, with nothing bridging one narrative to another that seemed unrelated. A few even more unrelated things were scratched parallel to the edges. 

“Answer seemed to be that it is semi hard to become one? If I had help-”

“I tried to look for one at the shops here but the fly said he had no nails in stock and Iselda was nice but told me I shouldn’t try the hills without experience and the weird lady in the tent had bloody legs right next to her s-”

That seemed continued on the top margin of the next stone.

“o I didn’t even ask. Maybe I’m not confident enough to make them think I’m serious? I don’t know if I want to leave-”

“They haven’t ignored me, but everyone does so maybe I’m understanding wrong.”

The larger text continued on this tablet as well, however. And it required less straining to lean in and read than the smaller scripts. 

“The call seemed ever closer. But so close to finding them, dangers seemed even more eager to keep her away. 

She could not have stayed idle, but the beast that charged her now was horrifying and grotesque. Its fangs looked as long as she was tall. The maiden stood her ground shakily. 

Would this be the end?

It would not. It could not be. 

She ran and allowed the horrible beast to hit the cliffs behind her. But then, from above, light blotted out. From the shadow dropped the dark knight, straight atop the monster. A cloak of red flashed from the cliff and nimbly landed nearby. The town was safe once more.”

They read piece after piece much the same. The finished tablets were set carefully atop each other. 

The writing of the next seemed deeper ingrained and more jagged than before. They recalled the blots of their own text, or the breaking of a quill. 

“The maiden clutched the crutch to her chest.

‘I will find my love myself,’ she swore. ‘I will make my own place.’

Faces from the past flashed before her.

Horrid beasts, most ferocious; gases and fumes of a dreadful fungal jungle; gnashing fangs and massive jaws. A white figure, strong and steady. A mysterious prince, sweaty and fierce. A savior, a partner in darkness, and none, none right for her. And she- not yet right for them.

This crutch of her’s…she never learned to live, so long as she clutched to it.

Its comfort smelled like family long gone. 

She flung it into the howling wind.

‘I will find myself.’ she promised.”

They turned to the next tablet diligently.

“Heaving heavy breaths; flush from the exertion of battle; the figure emerged from the well. Triumph was-”

Small hands snatched the tablet from their lax grip. The vessel stared at their empty hand. 

Bretta was shoving the remaining tablets away into the mess beside her. 

“Oh, um, don’t go too far back. Maybe later. Ha,” she laughed and looked like she wanted to run away.

They could understand that latter part. 

Which was more than could be said than their understanding of any of what they had just looked at.

Chapter Text

“Entry 38

Grimmchild is growing more active. He flies further from his charm now. 

Hornet says he will not be completely free of the charm for some time. 

He follows me into the crossroads when the charm is in Dirtmouth, further down than —-- when – the temple”

(The vessel gave up on their mandated journaling that day after this.)

“Entry 41

They are still curious about identity. They do not accept having none as a permanent answer. 

They say, ‘Do not rush.’ 

But this would mean change?

In the future.

What is the need for a name?

Father did not have one.

I do not even deserve a title.

Do not rush.

If small lies are told, will truths show up out of them?”

They had not before. Not enough. Not enough to stop the infection from breaking out of them.

“Entry 42

Here is a small lie, for this day:

I-

<this is already a lie. I is a lie.

-enjoy the company in Dirtmouth.

Truth: some can be tolerable. Some can be inconvenient. All can mean learning. 

I will call it more than that now. I will call it enjoyable.

It may be. Someday.”

Repetition had never worked for its dedicated drive to be hollow before. Did they want it to work this time? 

They couldn’t tell.

They saw Myla on their walk. She was on the western side of the crossroads, which was the only reason they had found her at all. They did not go to the eastern side. Not the top levels anyways. They would not approach the temple.

Myla had her pickaxe with her, but there were no crystals to use it on here. She was wandering around the former store room.

They pointed at their path and she took it as silent invitation. 

The vessel led them both to the end of their circuit: the hot pool.

Myla said she’d never seen it before. She had grown excited about its existence, so close to where she had been spending her life and yet never found by a miner that never left the entrance to that mine. 

They just sat in the water. There was hardly any apprehension about drowning here now. They had stopped to gather soul for weeks now. They knew how to sit in a manner that covered them up to their shoulders but that would not have a chance of reaching their mouth. 

Myla splashed them once and then apologized for it. It took a moment to realize she was upset. It did not make sense to them that she would be. But she was. So they shrugged and she started to relax enough to splash again, though this time in an empty direction. 

At one point, she had shown them unprompted how she was flicking the water. It involved a snapping motion of two fingers and they had replicated it when she stared waiting. 

They got nothing out of it, but they supposed it was more knowledge to file away. 

She followed them back to Dirtmouth when they were done and hesitated to follow them into the house itself. 

Hornet was playing some sort of game with Grimmchild on the floor when they walked in. She looked up and stiffened; Myla looked down and stiffened.

The vessel was unfazed.

So Myla eventually stuttered out a greeting to their sister, who returned it, and things calmed from there.

They sat mostly as an observer listening to the other two talk. Hornet knew Myla as one of the first survivors rescued from below. She asked about where the bug was staying now, and informed her that the old capital city was an option. Myla denied interest in the city, but neither still did she want to live in the little apartment she’d had in the opening to the mines. 

The vessel understood something of that sense of being unfit for the offered options- of hanging between two and not being able to reach either without guilt. Of not knowing how to exist in either. 

Of not knowing…

Hornet returned with Grimmchild later the next day than they had the previous. The vessel had been trying to figure out how to write an entry when they came in. It was a welcomed distraction. They put the papers aside. 

Their sister took the other stool and began to check her needle over. Grimmchild flew over both before landing next to their arm and watching her perform weapon maintenance. 

Hornet looked over to him at one point.

“Stop looking so smug,” she spoke through a frown at him. “You both are as bad as each other.”

Grimmchild rolled upside and made a noise at her. His eyes were burning bright. They sensed no remorse.

Hornet hummed at his excited reaction and went back to attending her needle. 

When she did stop, she set it across her lap and looked at the vessel. For a moment, she just stared.

“The Troupe Master is branching out,” she finally said.

They did not understand what that meant. 

Grimmchild rolled over again with another mewl. His excitement was impatient. 

Hornet sighed.

"They would not normally remain here, but Grimm brought them back and now the troupe has nothing to do. They have already fed off the heart of Hallownest’s nightmares. The kingdom’s flame is gone and only those new nightmares of individual bugs remain.”

She reached over and pulled the moth child off of the vessel’s stacked paper, which he had rolled into. He wiggled about in her hands.

The vessel waited for Hornet’s attention to return on them before pointedly tilting their head in confusion.

“I understand it little more than you,” she said. “He says he will remain here to watch the void until he dies, rather than wander.”

What did he expect to see from the void? It rise again? It raise up to devour all as it had devoured the Old Light?

It release its singular ascended shade back into the world for him to see again?

That seemed a sad hope. To remain forever waiting for something, forgoing the task of troupe and god.

Grimmchild was still wiggling, though by now her hands had retreated to her lap. She carefully extracted her needle from the spot so he would not hurt himself on its point. 

“He wishes to entertain his troupe, though I am not sure any of them are even alive.” Hornet continued. Grimmchild made a slightly more unhappy noise and shook his head. She patted it absently.

They wondered why this mattered. What did it have to do with her? The troupe had existed on the edge of the town but hardly interfered with her actions within it. 

It hardly even interfered with the town itself. Not aside from Elderbug’s outspoken frustration that it existed at all. The vessel had not seen any of its members walk into Dirtmouth. The most that they had witnessed was the one called Brumm leaving the large tent to visit the smaller for some time, and one other instance where a strange small thing had teleported into the tent’s entryway while they happened to be inside (listening to Brumm’s music and edging towards a theater they never quite entered). 

“They’re hardly a real circus, but at times I suppose they pretend to be,” their sister said and earned another protesting noise and bite from the child. This time, she picked him up and dropped him off her lap into the air. 

He chose to fly to the vessel instead, though laid on the table a careful distance from actually touching their arm. 

Hornet sighed and went quiet.

They reached a point where they wondered if she was waiting for them to prompt her. They would rather not, and she did not push them to do so often, but how could they know before trying? 

They did not need to, in the end.

“I’m going to be sparring with him tonight.” Hornet finally said.

Sparring?

The Knights had done that often. Not just for training purposes, but for recreational ones. The vessel had never allowed themself a concept for recreation. Training had still been one of the parts of that past they preferred over others, no matter if they should have no preferences. Combat was something they had once been very good at. 

Although they had not seen Hornet fight yet, they felt she was likely skilled. This did explain why she had been preparing her needle. 

Hornet reached across the table to set a hand on their arm.

“Did you want to watch?” she asked them.

They had no wants.

This was a lie.

They had few wants.

They were stuck between wishing they could return to a passive state of suppression, and hoping to become something rather than be trapped in this general status. 

But they…had not seen Hornet fight yet. Hornet was inviting them, it seemed. They did not see her as often as they had intended to, when she had first pulled them away from following their father after hearing the news.

Would she fight like the Great Knights? Would she have ever had the chance to train under The Five, as they had? 

Had she trained in the same courtyards as they had? Did their father watch her too? Or did she learn her battlesilks in Deepnest alone?

They had not really heard anything from Hornet on what had happened to her in all the time that they had been contained. They remembered that…They were supposed to have seen the world, outside, but everything had blurred so badly in pain and years, and yes, perhaps it was better that the containment be so muddled and forgotten. Perhaps they would truly have no mind to think at all if that time had not muddled together. Nothing left after that. Nothing left.

This hurt to think about. 

Hornet had asked a question. They hadn’t needed to remember their imprisonment. That was not necessary for their answer. Their answer-

If she wanted them to go, then they would go.

She had not phrased it exactly that way. She had wanted them to go if they wanted to go. 

And they could have gone just under the assumption of the former reasoning anyways, but, besides that, they would get the chance to see some of those answers if they went.

They would step into the heart of that distorted tent. It would mean crossing that unspoken barrier. Did they mind? They did not think they were particularly fearful of that higher being. And from the single time they had sat with him, he did not seem the type to challenge a mortal just for the sake of a humiliating defeat. He considered Hornet a balanced opponent, then. 

There was some apprehension about seeing not-dream (nightmare? Was that what Hornet had called it?) fight. They did not want to be reminded of the Old Light while standing as an audience to their sister’s moment. They would not want to break there, surrounded by sensations too similar to Her’s. 

But if they could remain divorced from that, then they would see their sister battle. 

They made sure that she was staring at them before nodding.

The one called Brumm interrupted the three of them when Hornet tried to bring them into the tent. He grunted for her to stop and then muttered something about a master wanting to see her first. They felt by the context this must have referred to Grimm. 

They waited silently after she disappeared deeper into a tent that was much larger on the inside than its outside appearance could suggest. Perhaps the bugs of the town would not sense what this place was. If they entered, they might be surprised to see its size.

The vessel felt this place as a stain. They had sensed it arrive- sweeping fire, not-dream, taking hold of a point speared into this place and returning out through that point. Something had been left from the troupe’s former stay here. Something that allowed the higher being to bring his gravity well back to the spot abandoned. 

Stepping within this tent was stepping into that well. The vessel was not truly awake, so long as they stood in here. They did not dream and did not truly sleep either, but this place existed as a distortion wherein anything of its host’s design could be feasible. It was a fine craft on Grimm’s part. He put it to far less painful use than anything She had made. 

Grimmchild beat his wings to stay in place. He did this often, if whoever he was with did not move. They thought it must get exhausting, but he was the one that did not choose to land. 

The beating of those wings was the only movement for the first moment. Then Brumm moved again, glacially, to look at the god-child. One odd, jointless arm reached out to rub between his horns. The child squealed delightedly. 

There may have been a smile behind Brumm’s mask. His voice, at the least, seemed to suggest it, for all that it was slightly more emotive than the other times he had spoken to the vessel. 

“Mrm. Hello, young master,” he said. 

Grimmchild made another delighted sound and flew to land on the tip of the musician’s arm. 

Perhaps these two visited often. He seemed rather used to the strange troupe member. The vessel had noted Grimmchild flying further from his charm and Hornet did not seem alarmed to know he was coming and going so independently now. 

And he seemed to replicate Brumm’s song with his own little instrument, on the rare instances where it seemed a melody was being made at all with the clinging pipes. 

Brumm noticed them, as if for the first time. It was as slow a motion as the previous ones. He met their flat gaze and turned his eyes back to the child that was wrapped- wings and tail both- around his arm. 

“To not raise, this time…Strange.” He seemed to be musing to himself, but his attention on them a moment before similarly suggested he meant for them to hear. If so, they did not understand it. But they did not understand much of what they were told. “Master’s idea. We follow.”

He did not speak again for the remainder of the hour.

When Hornet did return, Grimmchild unwrapped from Brumm’s arm and the strange bug returned to his place in the hall where they had always found him before.

There was no duel for the rest of the day. Hornet had brought them there to begin but had, apparently, found out Grimm had even larger ideas now of bringing a fuller audience in to see their ‘dance’.

Her usage of the word confused them enough that they had written it down in a question. She explained that it referred to the fight and they were left confused over why words needed to have various meanings when it was enough remembering their literal ones. 

What audience could be brought in if no one outside the troupe ever entered those tents anyways? 

This was a fair question.

It was also what had landed the vessel in their current predicament.

Hornet was similarly uncomfortable, the last they had seen of her. But she had declined Grimm’s request that she pass out invitations that she had fair reason to doubt anyone would accept.

This did not account for the vessel. 

They had given one to Elderbug and thought afterwards that it may have been a foolish action; but they had not put such thought in prior to the action and they felt no disappointment regardless. Quirrel was out, gone for a few days for something he had not explained. They had no expectations one way or another when they had dropped one of the mildly sinister papers off in the cartographer’s shop. 

They did consider Myla. She did not live in Dirtmouth now, but the vessel had seen her recently. 

Grimmchild followed them when they left for the bottom levels of the crossroads and found a hut there with lantern light coming from broken windows.

Though she had seemed glad- they would not know why- at their presence and invited them to stay for a visit, she declined the paper they held stiffly out to her.

“F-fighting isn’t really m-my f-favorite thing,” she’d said, looking away. “All the other miners started…Th-then I did too, when they came b-by last, and I didn’t want to…”

But the infection’s light drowned every inch of a mind and no amount of not wanting would let one resist Her puppeteering.

Still, after Myla, they returned to Dirtmouth to try the last ones they could think of. There were still bugs in the stag station, but the vessel didn’t plan on going down there. Even if the tent was a distortion and could fit all of those crowded below comfortably, they were always stared at when they were down there. 

They took themself to a nearby hut and were let in nearly immediately. The beetle tended to be eager about visitors, even if they did not understand what their presence gave her. She asked them to sit down, asked they if they wanted tea, and asked them if they would like to read some more of her… were they journal entries? What was the word for what she wrote?

All of which Bretta did before they had the chance to hand her a flier. 

They held one of her teacups anyways, because she had gone to the work of making and handing it to them. 

“There’s going to be a show?” she squeaked after looking over the paper. “The circus hasn’t put any on yet! Actually, they haven’t- I’m not sure why they’re here.”

Her brief thoughtfulness ended and she rocked on her feet.

“This is so exciting!” she exclaimed and came close to their soft seat before catching herself. She still was looking straight at them, however. Her usual hesitance was for the moment absent. 

“Do you know what sort of acts there might be? Are- are you inviting me? Oh, this is exciting! Oh!”

Bretta looked back at the parchment sheaf again and read from it.

“Music, singing, shows- is that your sister’s name listed on the performers of the night??” 

They nodded because that was a question, but she didn’t look up to notice.

“What sort of performance? Oh, wait, do you think that one lady is going to be performing? She scares me, she’s not really scary though, right? She won’t eat anyone? What am I saying, this is a circus, of course not, haha. Em. Do you know what they’ll be doing tonight?”

She seemed to think they were a part of the troupe, for all the questions she had for them about the group.

Bretta finally took a breath and wore down.

“And…you thought to tell me? The girl everyone forgets? I…” she paused, went pink, and then began to groom her antennae frantically. 

The vessel had not quite thought there was anything especially impactful about extending Grimm’s invitation to her. No more than it would have been to extend it to Quirrel, if he was here. Or Myla, who had denied it. 

Though perhaps she had just said why she found it impactful.

In the time they had spent with Bretta recently, they had felt mostly lost. Bretta was not as understandable as Hornet, Quirrel, Myla. 

Understandable perhaps was not the word for it. But they didn’t know the word for it.

(“Relatable,” Quirrel told them, later. “That is the word you’re looking for.”)

But although listening to her was much like listening to the one who had given so many speeches outside her house- namely, neither made sense and they could listen for the sake of trying to learn, but felt they would never relate-, they had no direct purpose to occupy their time and she was lonely. Very clearly lonely. It made a degree of sense to visit. Just as it made sense to inform her of the troupe’s activities.

“The show won’t start for an hour, but I’ll be ready,” she promised though they were not sure why she thought they had been asking that. “Do you want to stay here while we wait?”

They did not really have an opinion on what hut they spent the hour in. But they were also not done with their task, so they rose, shook their head when she looked, put her teacup on one of her tables, and left for the last house they planned to approach.

Zote did not open the door as quickly as Bretta. She must have seen them approaching through her windows. His were covered in curtains on the inside and so they eventually realized they would have to knock, like Bretta had before. 

He looked irritated when he opened the door.

He always looked irritated.

They didn’t really know how to take offense, so it hardly mattered. 

“What do you want?” Zote asked. 

They held the last sheets out to him and left him holding the small stack. Bretta had wanted them to wait with her, so they would.

Zote let out an exclamation behind them and they soon were facing him down where he had run in front of their path. 

“Are you attempting to clutter my home? Take your rubbish back with you!” he said.

When they took the papers commentlessly, he seemed a little thrown off.

“Wait,” he said to make them pause again. “What is this about?”

If he had wanted to know, he would have kept one of the sheets for himself.

They bent their arm to hold the stack in the crook of their elbow while attempting to pull one sheaf free. It was horribly crumpled by the time it was handed back to Zote. 

The vessel heard him following them that short distance to Bretta’s home.

She opened the door for them just as quickly, before freezing up at the sight of the strange not-vessel and going pink. 

“Erm, Gray Pr- hello.” She looked up at the vessel. “Is he coming too?”

“To what? I have no knowledge of whatever foolishness you two are conniving about,” Zote grumbled.

They found themself taking an unused tablet from Bretta’s bedside and scrapping into it.

While the two of them were, apparently, talking, the vessel finished and handed it over to Bretta. 

She looked at it and then to them.

“It’s…a challenge? What does that mean?” she asked.

Did bugs no longer challenge each other frequently? They were too used to life with the Great Knights as ever-present parts of the Pale Court.

It clearly meant as little to her as “dance” did to them.

They took the tablet back. 

“A duel. Fight. We watch, they fight.” they wrote on it. 

Zote rose to the tips of his feet to look at the tablet when Bretta held it once more. He dropped his balance after reading it.

“That is all? We watch others fight? Pah. This will not be a show. They should have me fight, if they want a true show,” he complained.

The vessel chose not to tell him that Life Ender was far from fire resistant. 

Bretta looked excited again.

“Yes, you told me how impressive you were in that colosseum!” she gushed, before pausing. “I want to see it. Do you…not want to go, though?” 

Zote made some mumble that had no words distinguishable in it and both others in the room seemed to take it as a negative. 

Bretta returned to excitedly "getting ready". Zote decided to sit down next to the vessel and complain to them about how much better it would be if he had been the one showing off. He spoke on about ‘hundreds’ of other arenas and the adoration of every audience who had ever witnessed his incredible battle prowess. The vessel noticed Bretta looking his way once, expression oddly constipated. They wondered if it meant she had seen him fight before. 

“Hmph.” Zote finally wound down and dropped his chin on his fist. “I am surprised you call yourself a knight.”

They didn’t, for one.

“You’d go be satisfied watching lesser fighters? I am not. I shall bring Life Ender, and they shall see their error in putting me in an audience.” 

He already had Life Ender, for another thing. They had never seen him far from it. 

“Would you go without a nail? No knight goes without a trusted weapon,” Zote told them.

They, again, were not a knight. 

But in case he was correct, they carried their’s along with them when the time actually came to watch Hornet’s fight.

It was odd to lead the way anywhere. They were very used to following others. If they walked alone, it was because someone had ordered them to go elsewhere. In the court, it would likely be to deliver a message or attend to a task. Otherwise, they followed. 

Bretta was trailing them very closely, granted, but this still meant trailing. She looked nervously at the mounts laying on either side of the tent’s entrance. Grimmchild followed in the air, keeping behind their head. Zote did not display any nervousness at all. Perhaps he was immune to the instinctual sense of a nearby god that the rest of the townspeople carried. They had assumed all bugs had such a sense. 

He kept up a mixture of complaining and bragging directed at her while they entered, oblivious altogether to surroundings.

The vessel truly did not know how he had ever survived the crossroads alone during the infection. But rather like Lemm, the survival strength- or perhaps luck- of bugs was a surprise. 

Brumm was not playing his music in his usual spot. Instead, there was a legless hovering creature that giggled and pointed a torch-topped staff into the wider room beyond. The vessel stared into the holes of its mask and saw no eyes within. Not-dream clung inside it, though, and a small flame danced within its oddly fabric body; they sensed many similar flames nearby, far more than there had ever been in the tent when they had come before. They moved about like flickering lumaflies, independent of bodies that would keep them from dancing through walls and floors. 

It left them thinking briefly of all the little bony masks they had climbed through to reach the surface of the abyss. They shoved the thought away.

When they followed the pointed direction, it led them across the wide tent floor to an alcove beyond where the troupe master was speaking to his usual two troupe members. Bretta kept behind their legs at the sight of Divine. 

The higher being turned vibrant eyes on them and they waited for their chest to clench up in fear. To some relief, it did not come.

“Ah, my friend,” Grimm nodded to them. “There will be a box for you above.”

He set the size of his bleachers. They appeared or disappeared at his design. There could very well be no ‘box’ above at this moment, but that did not mean it would not await by the time they reached it. 

“Brumm, would you lead them there?” he went on calmly. The musician grunted and began to trudge deeper down the dark hall. They sidestepped Divine and followed him to a set of elegantly carpeted stairs they were certain had not fit in the tent before, all while their own entourage kept close behind.

A ‘box’, it turned out, was not some sort of cramped prison. Its walls were very short rather than stretching up to a ceiling. All that it really seemed to do was keep them separate from the other seats crowded with quiet…not quite bugs. Their masks made their affiliation with the troupe clear, even without the vessel’s ability to sense the low flames in each. These ones currently burned like dying embers, more faded than the one they had seen minutes earlier had. All of their masks pointed towards the stage below. Even with some murmurs passing through the crowds, the way each was staring unmoving at the same point belayed the idea that this was an audience crowded with living bugs. Their masks had no color in the holes meant for eyes, unlike the glow of the one below.

The murmurs were a bit unsettling, actually. 

They put their nail against the plush bench and took a seat to wait. Bretta climbed up next to them and tugged Zote to do the same by her when he kept standing around. Grimmchild landed on the back of the bench and stared almost as intently as the empty crowd at the floor of the tent.

It was rather dark in this elevated level of the tent. They waited silently while Bretta listened to Zote tell a story about a village he had once had to protect from the “hordes” of an attacking army. 

The only other time the audience broke from its static murmerings was when they parted to let Brumm lead two other bugs to a similar ‘box’ now on the other side of the stands. In the darkness of these rafters, it had been impossible to see if it was there before or not. They saw a tense-looking Iselda hold the box’s gate open for her partner. The map maker did not have any such tension. 

When no others arrived, the lanterns below dimmed and the higher being at the heart of this all teleported to the center of his stage.

With a flick of his hand, the audience came to life. True sparks flew from a multitude of directions into the faded embers of the mumbling crowd. Dozens of identical masks leaned forward, red now shining out from them like their god’s eyes.

Their sister did not arrive to duel. Not right away. First, Grimm teleported away again and Brumm played his strange living instrument. At different times, Grimm would flash onto the stage again, introduce an ‘act’, and then vanish if he was not a part of it. Most of those involved in ‘acts’ teleported there and away with the same spinning grace as their leader. Pillars of fire were created and woven between. Rings of fire were jumped through. Orbs of fire were juggled back and forth. They did not see a point in any of it, but both bugs on their bench seemed entertained and they supposed they were a better indication of entertainment’s success than what a failed vessel did or did not feel.

The sharp tips of Grimmchild’s wings dug into the fabric of the bench. He was now leaning forward more, practically perched as if ready to drop atop prey. It was this that served as an indication that the main event had arrived. 

Grimm and Hornet entered the stage from their separate halls. The god gave a bow while Hornet pulled her needle out, soul silk spinning around it already, and held it by her legs as she replicated his motion stiffly. 

The audience leaned forward just as Grimmchild did. The red of their eyes was uncomfortably vibrant. The child next to their head was chirring low in his throat. It was not a sound they had heard him make before. 

Grimm pulled up from his bow and they could see his pale face crack open in what must have been a smile directed at his opponent. 

There was a tense pause. 

Then both flew into motion.

Chapter Text

The vessel had not seen a fight since that dream.

Even that had been one they participated in, at least until the other vessel had begun leaving them defeated to challenge the Radiance herself. 

And that fight had never been clean to watch. It was brutal, fierce, a raw fight for survival and then dominance. 

This was- at its heart- a fight for entertainment. It was much like the sparring duels that the knights often challenged each other to. There was no survival at stake. 

And though it was a fight with a higher being’s power involved, their sister was in no danger. A swipe of Grimm’s claws would leave her bleeding, but duels accepted such things. They had never minded injury when they had fought against the five great knights or the nailsage. Such pain was so infinitely minor compared to the pain endured during their infected containment. And aside from that, it had always been worth it to bleed when their victory or close defeats meant being looked at proudly from the balcony above. 

Though dark blue hemolymph had dripped to stain the fabric floor, their sister was nearly as unconcerned as they might have been had it been they in her place against one of the knights of old. 

(Did Ogrim still fight? they wondered. Would he fight them, as they had done before? There was some appeal to the idea.)

(They had not gotten to fight since that dream and those fights had been more miserable than they had been satisfactory. Surely their body was recovered enough to manage a short duel.)

She danced away from the bats of fire shot at her. She leapt in the air and whipped the ground with silk when Grimm shot from the air to the floor in a clawing lunge. She shot backwards, flinging her needle in front of her, when he lunged from the floor to swipe before jumping. 

Grimm moved away from the attacks she made as well, however. The battle began with both testing each other's movesets and then moved into a fight of much dodging rather than aggressive attacks.

Perhaps this was why he referred to it as a dance.

Grimm flashed into the air, swinging his wings around himself into a sharp point that nearly speared one of Hornet’s legs. She shoved a spiked star at his face in panic- the third of three that she had evidently been planning on slinging over the field on silks like the other two. 

As he unfolded himself gracefully and teleported again, the beetle next to the vessel flinched back then leaned up towards them.

“He’s scary,” Bretta whispered to them.

They had thought that before, when they only knew his realm was connected to one relating to dreams and had seen his eyes glow with vibrancy that reminded them of another moth god’s. They had stopped thinking it though and thus only shrugged for her.

Zote frowned at them both. 

“He’s not so impressive,” he muttered, but the words fell rather flat. 

On the stage below, both opponents lunged and retreated from one another, equally parried. Hornet leaned against her knees to breathe. She moved only when orbs of fire fell too near her. Grimm spun on the ground away from her next thrown needle. A leg lifted with the opposite arm, wing coming high off the ground in the movement. 

Bretta meeped.

“Who is he? He’s so dark,” she whispered next, but they were not sure it was actually fear that she was saying this with. 

They watched as Grimm tripped through silk, hitting one of the spiked stars. The audience's little arms clapped. He directed his next fire attacks at the various remaining silks. With the time he spent in the air, Hornet was taking a good approach with her obstacles. They threw his pattern off balance and, against a god, these advantages were rather necessary. 

They looked down at the fight with actual interest from their balcony. Interest, pride, even…something like longing. They thought again of whether Ogrim still fought for the sake of passing time and testing skills. 

“Oh, she’s good!” Bretta tugged absently on their arm to say.

Yes, they agreed. Their sister was quite capable. They were correct in their guess that she would be.

“Pah,” Zote crossed his arms, looking a bit disgruntled at her enthusiasm. “She is fine, I suppose, but you should see me fight.”

That would be a very quick battle, they thought without much energy. Most of their thinking was rather devoted to watching this fight. 

Bretta giggled.

“Really?” she asked him happily. 

No, not really. 

His nail was shellwood . 

It was more distracting than they had planned, inviting others to sit with them. 

Zote puffed up at the attention anyways, instead of watching the skillful battle below.

“I could defeat either of them with ease,” he swore. A look of hesitation crossed his expression briefly after, before he looked at the vessel. 

“What of you? Are you content to just sit here watching others fight? Bah. A true warrior would want to fight themselves.”

They had not fought since the dream.

They had not tested their nail against their sister’s needle, but now they saw how she would match their strength. Match and perhaps surpass, with their body so out of practice. And Grimm had pauses between his movements that they could take advantage of. The vessel in that dream had not fought so much in the air as he or she did. 

They watched the two below clash and considered what their own responses would be. To Grimm’s lunge, they would teleport- if they still could, outside of dream- or fall into a parry stance. He was tall, but light. Their nail could send him far back with a successful parry. And for Hornet’s spiked stars, they would have once sent their long lashing void reach to break the silk holding the little weapons up. Now, they would need a better improvisation. The infection had taken that from them and there was likewise no infection left to throw over a battlefield. 

It was interesting to watch with this filter in place. Harder to keep up, yes, and harder to follow completely, but…interesting. 

Hornet slid where she landed but this time did not move to leap out of range of the floor. As the troupe master flung one wing out to send firebats her way again, an arm appeared from under her cloak and she flung something small from her hand. The moment it hit the floor, she shot away to the side of the arena. The object thrown did not stay small. It became an extended spinning blade, circular, racing at Grimm while his attack was on the last bat. He teleported too slowly. It tore in, to the clapping applause of the audience. 

The blade ceased its (rather familiar) sound and collapsed in on itself again when he was gone. Hornet pulled it back with silk rather than retrieving it by hand. Considering Grimm had just speared the area in his downward lunge in the same moment, this was a wiser move. 

She did not fight with the styles of their teachers, but she was clearly trained. 

By who, they would not know. Not unless they asked. 

The weapon was similar to some of their father’s. Perhaps he had trained her, before he died. They would not know how to recognize the styles of Deepnest’s fighters. 

Both fighters were seemingly wearing by now. Perhaps that was part of the show. They could tell the fire of this god was not truly tired. Not more than it had been before the fight had begun, anyway. And it was not altogether vibrant to start with. Not in the way the small but growing flames around Grimmchild were.

They were leaning away from the back of the bench by the time it ended. Not so dramatically as all the troupe members(?) (presumably, that was what the identical flames counted as) around them, but still notably for them. They hadn’t fully realized when they’d started. After Zote’s last heard comment? They felt foriegn blood pumping within them. It beat against the moving void in their skull.

With one last whip of silk and thrown needle, Grimm contorted. Energy rushed around him, spitting and crackling, and then-

He vanished.

And reappeared in the center of the stage to bow a little more shakily to the audience there.

It roared in response. Bretta clapped. They had no way to add to the noise, though they saw how it was proper to. They could not clap. They could roar into the noise of the fires around them, but such a sound was more likely to scare all off than it was to be received as polite praise.

The troupe master went about thanking his dancing partner for the audience’s sake and Hornet disappeared sometime while he was then thanking the audience itself.

She reappeared from the nearby stairs and sat quietly beside them. 

They did not know how to tell her that she had been impressive. Father had shown he was proud through stares alone, for the most part. 

Bretta wiggled away to be closer to the end of the bench where Zote was looking bored. When the beetle tapped into him, he noticed his surroundings once more and glanced at where Hornet had now joined them.

“Psh,” he turned his head away. “I should be down there, defeating my prey. Any true warrior would want the same and that is what I, Zote the Mighty, am.”

Hornet pushed the vessel’s nail a little bit so that her legs would not have to rest so close to it. She tilted her head at the weapon and then at them. 

“Why was this brought?” she asked- not accusatory. They knew what accusatory would sound like from her. It was good that this was not that. 

But genuine curiosity did not matter when they realized their answer would have to be that Zote had made them think they were supposed to bring their great nail.

Their hand lowered to help her move it, but when they felt over its hilt, their appendage wanted to curl around it. 

Hornet looked at them. Then at their hand, holding the hilt of an unused weapon. 

Would she remember their practices of old? Or had she been too young then to form lasting memories? She had watched many and cheered, but she had been so small and young then. 

“Did…you want to try too? This should have been told to Grimm before,” Hornet thought aloud.

‘Want’? 

They wanted to hold their nail. Not from an emotion that they could tell, but because their void and unusual blood alike were pumping from watching their sister and a god fight and because they…They hadn’t gotten to use that nail in so long. Not since their failure. Not since before their failure. And Ogrim was not here to ask about practicing.

Their grip tightened. 

She looked from their hand to their head, which had shifted away from the weapon their father had made for them and turned to the amphitheater instead.

Grimm was staring at them from the floor. They knew it was them he was staring at, no matter where he looked or what he did. He knew what was being discussed. He knew what was being considered. 

It should have been uncomfortable to have their mind peered into, especially after trying to pretend no mind was there for so long. The pretense had only defended against Her in minor ways. It was their only defense. But it had still failed to keep her from tearing them open. 

It did not matter.

They looked back at Hornet. 

There was an audience and that much, they were not sure they would prefer. Their body was weak. Their skills had no doubt weakened. Their father was not here to watch. The many flaming eyes of Grimm’s Troupe could be distracting. More distracting than the bronze figures in that dream? Perhaps not. They pulled the nail upright and rested their weight against it, still sitting. 

She would let them go. They were unsure if she encouraged it, but she would let them. The god below allowed it. It had been his idea to fight their sister.

An audience did not matter. 

Something within them felt twisted. Nearly nauseous. They were not sure what it meant. They were not sure whether it was an encouragement to fight or a reason to stay seated and perhaps never watch combat again.

The fights of old were dead and gone. There would be no more king to watch over them. Ogrim lived, but who else? The fights of dream were sickening. She rooted through memories and pointed out each split second moment that they had felt something in those duels, each evidence, each small time that they proved unfit to contain her painlessly. When they fought her in her realm, they were effortlessly crushed. They had stopped early on after beginning to strike at her (they had not begun for what was likely many years; not until after infection had wormed into their physical body and they grew desperate to remove it), remaining limp instead and being allowed to flee into the emptiest possible corners. She had fought with swords of light and the heat of the sun and they had been hurt each time they had tried. Why would they want to fight again? Why would they want to fight a god so alike her? Would the god below’s blades not feel the same as hers, piercing through them? Would their fires not both burn? In what way was agony meant to be tempting? Therein lay the contradiction. Hornet did not seem broken by pain. She had fought and accepted her victory now much like any of the great knights would have. This was not a desperate challenge against the over-saturated essence of a god. There was no reason to burn in guilt over the idea of volunteering. 

Their opponent wanted a casual fight like any of the knights of old would.

This was not a small vessel who appeared so helplessly outmatched until they used the void so seamlessly against their failed elder- it wasn’t their regret that they were forced to fight to kill again and again and again-

The vessel pushed up against their nail and stared, standing, down at the higher being who seemed to be staring back outside the constraints of passing time. The world was static around them.

Then the vessel let their void rip within them until their vision was black and senses were numb and both returned only when they were standing upon a fabric floor.

So they could still teleport.

Above, Hornet would be in their former place. Bretta had been asking something of Zote as they stood before they had found their way down here. Perhaps she was asking for explanations on their actions and how they fought and would continue to throughout the duel, much as she had when it had been Hornet fighting. They found- unsurprisingly- that it did not matter. They found that the audience was a wash. It did not contain a specific pale light. The hungry identical fires up there could be the bronze figures of that dream for all that it mattered now. When they had fought that vessel, there had been no thinking of their staring faces either. Only battle. Void itched. Only a part of that sensation came from how it was resettling itself and new organs.

Energy expended from the short jump, their posture loosened and their nail went from rigid in their grip to drooping against the fabric floor. It didn’t tear under its tip. They had not cleaned it and maintained it as Hornet had her own weapon, but their great nail would still be a dangerous thing to fight against. Especially for an opponent airy and light, like the troupe master had been in the fight against their sister. The dream variation of their nail had done very little against the other moth god’s essence. This would be different. They remembered- though it felt a little hard to reach the thought, as if they had to strain- that this meant they had to be considerate. It would be like fighting the nailsage’s pupils or the sage and great nailsage, or the knights. 

They itched. 

The vessel pulled themself into a taller position, their back arching unmistakably to one side while their missing arm kept them off balance. In front of them, the troupe master turned to the crowd, said something, and then faced them again easily.

They would fight. They would fight, theywouldfight. They saw a small vessel in front of them, staring without eyes, waiting to surpass them while they were helpless to do anything but fight. Chains dug into their body despite the harness’s intentions to hold them up painlessly. There were still skins in their chest rubbing against the sides of lungs and other organs, remnants of pulsating infection. The small vessel should have been in that room with the chains. The small vessel should have cut them down and then they would have cut themself open to get Her out. Their breaths were so quick and shallow by now that they were getting little air. They had itched and burned in there and in the dream and only now did they get to fight.

Grimm bowed deeply. 

They threw their head to the side and screamed.

The sound rattled through every section of their throat. It was her voice and her scream and they had used it before. They had made to scream in that dream many times, unable to but attempted, nearly pure there yet remembering the pain that pushed them to scream before. 

If it left the audience rattled, they would not know. They did not stare to where their sister sat before they had already lunged. 

Grimm’s ability to move away felt faster now that they were witnessing it in front of them so closely. They had bent and rushed forward with their nail held to pierce, but he was gone before their lunge slowed to a stop. The vessel twisted and saw him appear on the opposite side of the arena. Their nail dropped to the ground and they dragged it after them while they moved for him. Grimm did not wait for them to reach him. He lifted an arm and sent fire at the taller vessel. 

They tried to teleport again. The sensation began in their middle and it seemed as if it would work, but their soul was low. One of the fire bats reached them first. It dispersed over their chitin painfully. Certainly painfully enough to take damage from. It burned. It burned but it still did not burn with quite the encompassing hot fire She would have had. It did not burn as a thickness trapped suffocating their skin and keeping escape from the fire impossible. They still flinched away and moved on foot to the side of the arena’s walls rather than letting him burn them again.

The start of it all was like that. They had seen the types of attacks he had, but not felt them. Their sting and bite was weighed when experienced. They learned which they must avoid and which they would stand their ground in. 

Grimm hadn’t used his fire bats again. But they felt slow, clunky, compared to how he appeared and reappeared around the floor. They did not have his grace. The pure vessel once had, but they were unbalanced, lacked their old strength, and fought messily. There were few of their own chances to attack. They were still capable enough of dodging. 

Grimm reappeared in front of them. His weight shifted to his further hip. They knew how he would swipe forward next, before leaping into the air to send fire down. They had seen him do so against Hornet. 

As Grimm swiped forward, they set their nail in the way and felt his hand catch it. The moment after this contact was made, the vessel swiped their own weapon. It impacted against the god heavily and sent him back. Their parries had always been heavy attacks. Especially against lighter enemies. Even- the smaller vessel (they felt distraction, they stopped seeing)-

The stump of their shoulder itched and burned and void writhed underneath the numb scarred portion like licking worms. Isma’s attack would knock the troupe master down, if they could. They could not. Nor did they find the chance to hit him often enough to consistently keep soul high. 

After the parry, they took what soul they had absorbed and strained to create soul pillars. The pure nails shot up from the circular floor and they saw Grimm’s body arch when he was hit by one. His own spiked pillars speared up from the floor in return. They staggered down to one knee. 

He did not attack until they stood. Then, they recognized his slow swing of the arm, wing draped from it, softer red shell exposed. The vessel did not wait for his three fire projectiles. They raised their hand with its heavy nail and focused an attack of five soul daggers. It was not the seven they should have been able to focus, but it was still another spell they had not tried outside of dream. 

Grimm teleported to their left. Their legs felt heavy as they jerked and stabbed at him. The god fell to his lower legs to skitter away. 

He was so much faster than they were managing to be. While their attacks carried the speed and strength they had been trained with, all the time spent in between was heavy and lumbering. Their nail was hard to hold off the ground. Their body was hard to keep off the ground. 

They had to keep attacking. Only then did the exhaustion vanish and their mind blank out into something they would prefer to keep as their usual state. 

They stabbed and retreated. They staggered and limped. They jumped and landed to pierce the ground with deadly force. 

Few of Grimm’s attacks actually burned them (he had spent far more time physically attacking than he had with their sister; they knew to be grateful, as they did not like feeling heat and burning), but their body felt burned away inside. 

It was possible to forget they were weak when they were in the process of attacking. They preferred it. They kept pushing for that white out.

Their last stab had left them with enough soul for more pillars. The vessel focused them forth. But Grimm brought his own from the fabric floor in the next moment and they were far too large to just fit within the gaps on the ground to avoid them. The cutting force left and the vessel staggered one final time.

Then they acknowledged the floor below their head. Their knuckles were being crushed under their nail on the ground. They were barely holding their own weight up.

There was no more soul to ignore their exertion. They were emptied. In the wake of it, their mind felt slow to think but more at ease.

They remembered that there had been a tent and an audience and they had lost. But they had lost against their teachers before. Their father wasn’t disappointed in loss so long as the battle showed improvement. This did not equate to pride but that emotion was offered by him in enough fights to become associated. Again, it was not a matter of losing. They had lost against the small vessel besides this and they were relieved for it. They wished that they had lost earlier, rather than hurting that phantom again and again. The vessel in that dream had been at full capabilities. Had Hornet’s Ghost fought them here, it would have been a faster fight than the one Grimm allowed. Even tired from their sister’s victory, the god had been nearly guaranteed to win from the start.

It did not feel too humiliating to know that. They had expected it before they had tried. No amount of desperate itch and screams and the forceful blows of a failed vessel trying to regain old seals of honor could completely hide the futility of the combat. They saw through the transparency of hindsight.

They were just tired now. Not unhappy with their choice to fight, nor happy with it. 

They would have thought to stay there until the tent fell quiet and they finally remembered the former audience, by then gone. They would have stayed there lost in thought on other battles and opponents and burning gods and singular important figures watching. But the muted atmosphere broke through in noise again. Flames came up to their skin, stopping short from the surface. The troupe master had approached them. They bent up from the floor until their face no longer saw fabric alone. Sure enough, the moth’s feet were near them. There was no resemblance to the Old Light in his face when he looked down at a defeated vessel. Nothing smug, nothing furious. 

(She was not here, and this meant they could train once again, spar once again, do as they had in free time long ago without having to think of the pressure to contain, defeat, withstand her. If they so liked, they could do this again and again until eventually there were no reminders of more desperate battles always failed and lost.)

He helped them up and then bowed again to the audience once both stood. The vessel bent in a shaky bow of their own and caught Grimm smiling. He helped them again, this time to the wall of the far hallway. They tried to teleport to their former seat again, but they were too depleted to repeat the action. Instead, they breathed hard and stayed standing and that was enough.

It was enough, even while Grimm spoke again and there was a song and then the few residents of Dirtmouth to come vanished down stairs in the hallway across from theirs. They vaguely noted Bretta looking at them as she went as if confused that they were not joining her or Zote in departing. When the last of the townbugs were led by Brumm from the amphitheater, its lighting went dim again. The bleachers above were hidden in darkness. Perhaps they no longer existed at all. It was a little odd, how much both Grimm and his child seemed to prefer the dark tent to a light one. Their experience with moth deities suggested the opposite should have been true.

Hornet and the Grimmchild evidently approached while this change in the false tent realm was occurring. Their sister checked them over unprompted, but their injuries had long ago healed enough that none were reopened now. Soul and void had coated over the few burns and scratches they had received. All that was left was exhaustion. Rather deep exhaustion. 

Grimmchild chirped and flew at the troupe master when he approached them. He curled himself around the god’s neck. Grimm seemed unconcerned. 

“The audience adored you, dear friends,” he rasped through a toothy smile. 

Hornet gave a stiff acknowledgment. 

“Our deal tonight is finished,” she said. “We would take our leave now.”

Her hand had paused on their wrist when she finished checking them over. It tugged a little now. They returned to feeling the sensations of their surroundings rather than drifting, acknowledging sight and sound and nothing else. The vessel’s breathing rattled as they pushed themself to stand away from the wall. 

Grimm slid in the way of the siblings' departure. 

“You humor me, heir. And you humor the child. Look how the night’s excitement has thrilled them.” 

His hand appeared from under his wings in order to stoke down the back of the charm-child. He wiggled noisily in response.

“I would invite you to stay for a meal, if I imagined you would accept,” Grimm continued speaking to Hornet. His hand gave the child one last pet and then disappeared again. “The child shall stay, I believe. The rest of you are welcome as well.”

Hornet looked to the hall beyond. Her hand was still on their wrist. They were not sure they understood it. They did not think they were ready for her to let go. But they also did not think she realized it was still there. 

“Your offer is hospitable, but I will be declining,” she said. 

It did not seem that anyone present expected her to answer otherwise. Still, Grimm inclined his head at her and then looked at the vessel instead. 

“And you?” he asked.

And them?

They followed Hornet. They made no decisions on their own. They functioned as a piece of a machine. Except that they did not, now. They had risen to fight on their own today. While they wanted to follow her directions, she took her role oddly. The functions she gave them were difficult. They were intended to encourage them to separate from needing orders or purposes. They did not much want that. It was hard to do her tasks or listen to Quirrel question them little by little on identity. They did not want to have one. They didn’t have one. But Hornet seemed to think the same as the archivist and expect them to- and they could pretend for their sister. They wanted to rise to the task their sister hoped for them to accomplish. It was contradicting. 

Hornet finally seemed to realize she was still holding onto their skin. She looked up at them and let go. She would no longer be capable of pulling them after her, then.

Grimm was still staring.

“Would you like to stay a while? Rest here, with the child and I, if you would,” he pressed. 

They didn’t want to have an opinion one way or the other. They should only follow what their king- who was dead, so his daughter, his heir, what she wanted. That was how their empty mind should operate. 

But it was not empty and they were worn and even the short walk back to the hut sounded like too much.

The vessel looked at Grimmchild, who was looking back. Though Hornet was his caretaker (they assumed? She had been given the charm, they were not sure what that made her), they knew he tended to stay nearer to them. Whether it be mimicry of stretches, or burning scrap papers, or knocking little pipes together, or flying to a ruined temple grave-

They thought that a few minutes more was not so bad.

Though it left them feeling uneasy to see Hornet glance back on her way out. Was it the wrong choice, to not accompany her? Grimm did not wait for them to stew. He moved ahead into the hallway and smiled so that the brighter pink interior of his mouth showed past teeth in the tent’s darkness. They wondered if that was not meant to be viewed as a threat. 

“This way,” Grimm waved them forward and kept his pace slow while they dragged themself and their nail forward. Red lanterns hung further down the hallway to help illuminate the pathway. Grimm took a left turn into another low doorway opening into a short hall that logically could not fit on the tent’s exterior. But here it was and here they were and their nail was leaving rips in the fabric floor. That was hardly good guest behavior.

Two lanterns in the following doorway lit up when Grimm came near. A ring of the lights hung from a ceiling much lower than the main room’s. But the fabric walls only lay on three sides. There was an opening in that fourth side. The tent’s cloth hung down as an awning and fabric piled up from below into a short partial wall at the base of a metal fence. Still, no matter if these obstacles kept the room shaped as a room, it was open. It let in the air from Dirtmouth. The vessel hadn’t even realized how stuffy it had gotten within the tent until now. 

Grimmchild unwrapped from his elder’s neck to fly down to a table that was taking up much of the space of the room. The troupe master did not mind, it seemed. He had been speaking, they realized, though they’d missed it. They refocused to find him pointing out the different ‘foods’ on the table that he was offering his guest, and they hardly thought they wanted any.

There was ‘tea’, like Bretta so liked. It came in a tall white pot that seemed to have a long, hanging mouth much like the exterior entrance of the tent looked to have. A similarly large pot was metal and covered in spiraling details. Its opened top let them see a brownish substance that carried the distorted touches of lifeblood. There were other fluid foods too. Or drinks, not food. Liquid sustenance. The type they knew would be easier to manage, but that left them thinking too much about drowning to ever successfully try. The table had little teacups, tall translucent glasses, metal mugs. It would have been too much for them to eat anyways even if they had wished to join in a meal here. 

Grimmchild didn’t have the dexterity to lift a cup for himself. These were not for him, then. The troupe master hadn’t begun to drink anything. It was likely for them, then, as a guest. 

But the child had found a basket tray at the center of the table and easily grabbed something out of it with his jaws. He flapped up back into the air and balanced his hovering with his tail curled out and his back facing the floor. The vessel waited standing until they were certain he would not fall while attempting to nibble the thing. When it seemed he would not need catching, they followed Grimm’s request to sit in one of the cushioned metal chairs. Unlike most, the furniture fit them. Grimm was rather tall compared to many bugs, however. Not their height, but taller than the norm. They joined him in sitting at the table and glanced at the plate that the child had taken his meal from. The closest that they could identify the tray’s food with was their slight similarity to the appearance of Bretta’s ‘cookies’. 

Whatever it was, he enjoyed it.

They had never seen Grimmchild eat before. Perhaps only the troupe had whatever he was capable of eating. Hornet took care of him and she didn’t try to feed him in the hut. She would know. They had never cared to ask. They had never even thought to ask. 

Grimm had stopped talking to watch the child eat. He was smiling again, though this time very little of that pink mouth was visible.

As the god-child finished inhaling the food, he stepped up from his seat and lifted both hands to fold around him. The taller being’s hands kept the small one’s back supported even as the two thumbs pressed up against the red belly of the tiny moth. They tickled there the way that the vessel had once seen the monarchs and Dreamer Herrah play with a tiny Gendered Child. Grimmchild squeaked but there was no reason for alarm; the sound seemed happy. 

“Look how you’ve grown,” Grimm praised while he held the child up. He wiggled in the hold, stomach the only unmoving part as Grimm’s thumbs kept him still there. 

The god released him after. Grimmchild returned to hovering in the air, following the troupe master until Grimm reached the table side. 

The vessel felt odd to sit and witness this. 

The sense did not seem shared. Grimm was at ease. He had sat again while Grimmchild darted and hovered this way and that by his face. It seemed he would be vying for attention thusly until the troupe master reached into the food tray to find a distraction. He gave another cookie to the child, who squealed happily before curling around it to nibble away. 

While the vessel watched, they heard that rasping voice continue to say its latest words again and again in their mind’s memories. They had been for the Grimmchild. They did not need to affect the vessel. The vessel did not need to think about the taller god holding the tiny god-taint in his hands the way their sister had once been played with.

Grimmchild was quite talented to chew away at something without holding it up to his mouth. His teeth kept the cookie in no matter what pieces they also bit away to swallow.

Grimm was smiling at the sight. It was a thin smile, a long wide crack that did not show jagged fangs. It was…

It was all of the smile- the eyes, the mouth, the relaxed posture.

It was the way that was directed at his child.

They did not understand why the other vessel or Hornet were given the child, rather than his father keeping him. But they did understand that that expression, that look, was fond and-…and-…

Any child would want their parent to look at them that way.

Even when the child wasn’t looking back and seeing it.

Because then it wasn’t for show, it was constant.  

It was someone being happy just by seeing another be content. 

They’d…never shown a sign of feeling anything. They never would have earned this specific look because it would be impossible. The Pale King could not have found happiness in their own happiness if they were never happy. 

…If they never showed it like this child did so blatantly, at least. Each time they had been what they thought was happy, they hid it desperately. He would never have seen. 

They had been rather good at hiding. Convincing enough, anyway. 

They wished they had not been. They hated how they had broken under her light. 

Frustrated, the vessel looked away from the scene to document everything at this table instead. The Dirtmouth air was cool. There was a degree of temptation in the heated lifeblood derivative. It would soothe away the aches of battling. It would cool and erase any burns that the troupe master had given them, however unintentionally. They thought it unintentional, at any rate, based on how he had so rarely used such attacks against them when he had used fire against their sister freely. 

The Old Light hurt you. I do not plan to do the same.

Still, they had no desire to cough and splutter and panic under the sensation of inhaled liquid in front of a higher being. They ignored the pot and cups for now. 

None of the sustenance present appealed to them. The stack of elegant napkins drew their attention instead. They pulled them over to themself slowly and felt at the thick paper. It was not the silk of Deepnest. This was a different make. Meant to clean fingers, perhaps, but thick enough to not soak and tear if a quill was used upon it. 

They had no quill, however.

The vessel’s mouth shifted. They were unaware of what brought the sensation on, but they hated it. 

Still, there were other things to be frustrated about aside from having an anatomy that did not behave as it should. They did not like using words and giving voice to their thoughts with anyone, but it seemed a waste to be this close to the resident god without ever voicing their growing list of questions. What was he? Did he know of Hallownest’s other higher beings? Did he come from Hallownest? Why was his essence so similar to Hers? 

He was not here to cause an infection.

They thought.

But Hornet had only said he was here to watch the void and they hadn’t understood that either.

The vessel tried to ignore the odd pulling of their mouth and set the napkins back down. Grimm was staring at them across from the table. 

“I had expected your voice, I’m afraid. I hadn’t realized your needs when I had this prepared,” he said. Apologized? They weren’t sure what for. Still, one of his hands had lifted from his wings and he flicked his fingers together. There was a flash that left them blinded momentarily. They fought to breath and remain absolutely still. It was better that than to lurch from the seat and panic, because they couldn’t be blind, they couldn’t bear to have their eyes burn and leak again-

Grimm was holding a quill when the light faded away. He handed it over the food very carefully and it took the vessel a shameful amount of time to realize they were meant to take it. 

Oh.

His words made sense. He knew they could- that they had a throat. That they could make noise through it. They had screamed earlier. They had used Her voice. Grimm did not call it hers, but he knew. He had to know. They wanted to shift away protectively. They were not sure why.

But they tried to move past the talk of voices and move the god’s attention to something else. Something that was not related to them, preferably.

Something like what had brought all this on anyways. 

The vessel dragged one napkin off the rest and carefully moved the quill over its snagging surface. When done, they set the pen down, slid the napkin onto their palm, and extended it to Grimm.

“You are a good father.” it read.

He may not understand that it- that that mattered. Or what had brought it on. Or why a stranger’s word should be taken for it.

But they felt lighter having written it and could not care how he read it. 

He’d thanked them and smiled anyways and they’d taken their arm back to hunch over a second napkin while they waited for an inevitable conversation. People always wanted conversations. Even if Grimm only asked about things like if they would like some tea or not and then went about blowing on a steaming cup seemingly content with shared silence.

They decided they wanted to ask about the void first. But to do that, they would prefer knowing what higher being they were dealing with. So they held another marred napkin up for him to see.

“What is your name?”

The troupe master tilted his head as he read it. The metal cup in his hand steamed. Such hot liquid could not feel nice on a throat as burnt as his likely was. 

“Hm? Grimm, friend.”

They took the paper back to clear up a confusion they hadn’t assumed would be there.

“That cannot- This vessel has witnessed higher beings. Pale King. White Lady. Old Light. What are you?” they wrote.

By then, the little paper was covered in words. They didn’t bother to take it back after handing it to Grimm.

He chuckled when he read it. It was a very raspy, dried sound. The vessel changed their mind. Even if hot liquid would probably feel like burning, he should drink it anyway for the sake of how dry that throat must be.

“Not all must have such grandiose titles!” he laughed. “Why, just below us Unn rests. I will be offended on her behalf. Do not worry, she would take no offense herself.”

This was likely humorous, since he was smiling once more, but they only knew that it did not answer their question. They set the quill down and looked out into the darkness of the cavern outside. 

Grimm coughed and drew their attention again.

“Nightmare Heart.” he said simply. They stared blankly at him. “That is the name you seek. But I am not the Nightmare Heart. Not any longer. Did you not know?”

They had never heard of the Nightmare Heart. How would they know how the god operated? They knew only that he had arrived outside the town in flames of not-dream that left them feeling his realm was far too close to the plague’s. They knew that the charm in the other vessel’s box had also carried the taints of this essence and fire and the child itself carried the beat of a heart. They were unaware that heart was the important factor. Grimm had seemed unequivocally the more powerful to the duo.

They were unsure how to write that. They settled for a shake of the head instead.

Grimm sipped from his cup and then set it on the table with both his hands wrapped around it. 

“I would have thought Hornet would have explained what I am,” he mused.

They had not heard much about him from her. A few complaints, but directed at the Grimmchild and possibly teasing. He reacted with amusement most of the time and she had to be aware of that, if they were aware of it. She called him a higher being when she checked with them to make certain they would be alright with his proximity and presence. But she had not told them of his realm or loyalties or purpose in being in their father’s fallen kingdom.

They settled again for shaking their head.

Grimm tilted his own, mouth parting lopsided enough to catch a glimpse at a few teeth. He relaxed back in his chair with his arms straightening to keep hold of the cup. 

“I see.”

There was a pause before he found an easy (easy enough, when the voice came from as tortured a throat as it did) tone. 

“The Nightmare Heart belongs in the nightmare realm. It requires a vessel in this world. As I told you, I have not met another vessel in this lifetime.” Grimm’s eyes were too vibrant. They peeled away at layers they would rather keep hidden.
“That is what I am.”

They stared. They looked down at their new napkin and stared at it.

Vessel.

It was a bitter word.

Vessels were born of god and void and intended to be hollow. 

Those were the only vessels they had ever known to exist. 

And of those vessels, none had risen to be what their father’s voice had called them for. One had destroyed the Old Light, not contained her. One had failed to contain her. More died deep below. None were pure. They certainly weren’t. And they had hurt for it. They had taken in the goddess and they had hurt. 

There were other vessels? Ones not born of god and void? Their existence must hurt too. They must burn, burn from the inside out, like this one had. 

They reached up to clutch at the base of one horn. Their hand scraped down the crack in their bone on its way down. 

Hurt, hurt, hurt. 

Who could talk with such ease about a thing like that?

Their hand found the quill again and they labored over writing a single word.

“How?”

They hardly needed to write, a part of them thought. 

The god- who was not a god- had proven capable of noticing what went unsaid. 

Grimm still did not reply until he had seen the written question.

“Through the ritual,” he said, like he expected that to mean something. Perhaps it was supposed to. Perhaps he was just assuming they had heard things from Hornet that they had not, again. “I am a vessel, as is the child,” Grimm continued and lifted one hand from his cup to motion at the tiny moth. “We contain the Nightmare Heart. But it is by design. It is an accepted union. I benefit, the Nightmare Heart benefits.”

He folded that hand onto the table, the other extricating from the cup to do the same. At this same time, he leaned forward again until his shoulders were nearly over his hands.  

“It is not one sided,” he said, closer. “You should never have had to hold the Old Light.”

And that hurt too. 

It was wrong to think it. More wrong still to hear it.

Yes, they wished they had never held her. They wished it so badly. But that had still been their purpose. If they had been pure- it was the purpose of all vessels. All of the voids vessels, anyways. (These odd fiery vessels were something else.)

That had been the purpose of every vessel.

That had been why they had been created. 

They would never have existed without that purpose.

And it had been the purpose they had heard from the moment they broke from their egg and crawled through corpses. It had been the purpose they heard from him .

Grimm could not just…not just say that he was wrong. He could not have been wrong. The only thing he had been wrong about was trusting their falsehood.

Yet-

She had hurt. 

They fought to drag their mind from that stupor of thought. There were other things to take from his flawed   no, correct comment.

The vessel retrieved the quill to ruin a new napkin with ink.

“The child is a vessel?” they asked.

Grimmchild was happily oblivious to the fact that he was being spoken about. At the moment, he had landed on the table and lay sprawled out with his chin on the lip of a pot so he could slurp at any chosen moment. 

That- a vessel?

He was far too lively.

He was too much a child. 

They had known that they would always have to be-

Vessels were not children. 

Not those born of god and void. 

Grimm just nodded.

“Surely you can tell. You sense the Heart, as we sense you.”

They sensed its beating, but it had meant nothing. Their focus was the not-dream- nightmare?- essence that Grimm had far more mastery over.

The vessel turned that napkin over to scrawl upon its opposite side.

“I sense two split gods that are not gods. It has not made sense.”

The troupe master took a moment longer before replying this time.

“The mass of the Heart’s fire resides in me still, but the beating flame is transferring even now to the child,” he explained eventually. “A slow process, but one unstoppable now that our ritual is complete.”

There was that word again. It still meant nothing to them. Was it a little like the process taken within the Black Egg, where they had been left to dream and the seals had snapped shut the moment that dream took the Radiance in?

The vessel looked at Grimmchild again. They thought of the first things they had written for Grimm this night. They had called him a good parent. A parent of what child? A vessel? Born to burn away? The sad fate didn’t mean its parent could not be a loving one. 

Did they not know that already?

They still struggled to reconcile with the thought when it was the moth larva rather than their own past self.

The vessel took a new paper to write their growing concerns upon.

“He is born a vessel? Does he know?” they asked.

Grimm read it quietly before he too looked at the playful container of a powerful god. 

“The child’s mind is not fully developed enough to know much of anything at all,” he said. “But he feels no pressure of responsibility. It is not as you were from the very start, as a child.”

They had never been a child. They could never have been a child.

They had been a child.

They had but it had never been as Hornet’s early years. It couldn’t have been. Not unless they revealed their impurity. And at that time, they had not known to wish they would.

This was not something they wanted to talk about. 

They did not know how to react to the intent Grimm had reassured them with. It had been a reassurance, that much they had gathered; it had intended to be one, but they couldn’t figure out how to accept it.

They wrote about the Grimmchild instead of responding to how the troupe master kept turning the conversation to them. 

“You are good with him. You will tell him these things when he grows, then?”

Grimm was silent.

It became a notable silence. They did not like the way he stared at them.

“I will not be there,” he finally said. “But they will be supported. The Heart does not intend to hurt its vessels. We deteriorate and burn away, yes, because no vessel can hold a god indefinitely. But it is a slow process. Most manageable. It has always been transparent with me. The child will be a satisfied host of the Heart of Grimm.”

Their void crawled at the word burn. It boiled under their chitin.

They looked away. 

Grimmchild grew tired of lapping up whatever liquid was in that pot and snagged another cookie instead. He took it with him as he jumped off the table and curled around a tip of the fence instead.

They could sense the beat of the heart in his little frame. 

Just as they could sense the fire stored in Grimm. 

The vessel turned to write again. Minutes ticked on as they fought to find words.

“You are not like her at all. You — 

Will you be staying here? Some are moving to the city. I want to visit again. You are not going anywhere, yes?” was what they finally passed over.

Grimm read the front and back of his latest gift before he looked at them critically. There was another notable silence. His eyes were searching for something and he had not found it. They so disliked feeling like they’d disappointed another. 

The napkin was crumpling in the troupe master’s hand. He did not seem to notice it. 

“Do you know what the process-…” Grimm paused and restarted. “Have you been told about the ritual for the child?”

There was that word again. This night was the first they had heard of it. 

They shook their head.

Grimm looked almost hesitant. It was not pleasant. He never looked anything but confident.

“Ah. I should tell you, then.”

They were hesitant to hear it now. 

Void crawled in warning. 

It did not slow Grimm down. He cleared his damaged throat and said something with so much complete ease that its tone could almost leave the vessel oblivious to the words themselves.

As it was, they went stiff and tense with each new sentence.

“The Nightmare Heart must feed on the flames of a dying kingdom to prolong itself, but the vessel it rides in wears after a time. When one reaches its lifespan’s end, the troupe will find a new dying kingdom to enact our ritual. The flames feed the new vessel until the time comes that the Nightmare Heart can transfer to them. This ends the ritual. Ours has been completed recently, through the partnership of your missing sibling.”

Grimm paused again. 

“The former vessel fades eventually. They would have already been fading. It is no fault of the child that this occur,” he said.

He said it nicely and all they heard was die in place of fade. 

All they heard was death, die, inevitable- that the other vessel- Hornet’s Ghost- who Grimm called a friend came and completed this ritual for them and now Grimm would die for it. 

They had not realized they were shaking until a hand pressed to their good shoulder. The vessel turned their head back and saw the doomed, dying, dead troupe master was standing next to their chair now. 

Grimmchild similarly had left his perch and flown over to them. He kept a careful hesitant distance, but he was checking them. Like Hornet might. 

He was learning from her instead of living here, with his parent, with his father, in what time that father had to live. How much? It would not be enough. Not for a child. 

“You are upset,” Grimm said for them. 

Perhaps he could sense the void moving around under their scarred chitin. Perhaps he was even scared of that void. If so, he did not keep nearly enough of a distance. What would it matter though? What would it matter if something went horribly wrong here and left him dead? He was dying anyways. Grimmchild was here and he was happy and he did not know. 

The vessel nearly broke the quill. They were shaking too much. Still, he had spoken, and they knew it was polite to reply. They tried, then. They tried to keep themself still and write and all the while their void itched and their unwanted throat kept clamping up.

There was no need to hand the napkin across the table. Grimm had stayed by them and could see what was written easily.

“You’re going to die.”

“Not soon!” he protested.

That wasn’t enough.

How soon was not soon?

Perhaps it should have been enough.

Almost everything died. Only higher beings were a constant exception, so long as they were remembered. The Pale King was remembered. He should not be dead. What could kill a god? Oh, but a god could kill a vessel. They always would. It never mattered if they didn’t want to or intend to. Things had been easier to consider when they had thought Grimm was a higher being. 

There is no sustainability to being a vessel.

They shook as they pulled the next napkin over. 

“How soon?” they wrote, but they did not wait for an answer. Their hand kept moving. They rarely wrote fast. This time, it was not taking such a struggle to come up with the words.

“You will leave Grimmchild. You will leave Hornet with Grimmchild. You will leave everyone.”

And just after I-

The vessel shook their head.

Higher beings should not be so at risk for dying. Their father should not have died. His form as a king was more fragile, but he was still a powerful god. His light could not have been extinguished. Not by the infection when it was filtered through the struggling vessel. 

They had yet to hear how he had died, however. Hornet had not told them that. 

It was not age. Higher beings should at the least not be at risk for dying of age. 

But Grimm was not the higher being. He had said as much.

The true higher being burned him inside to out. And it would do the same to the child?

They knew what it was to burn from the inside out.

The vessel was finding it difficult to breathe. Their throat seemed intent on suffocating them. It was dried out and hurting. Perhaps they should have drunk something after all. It would have left them drowning. 

This news left them drowning enough.

But the child was watching and they could not distress the doomed little vessel. 

“Not soon,” Grimm repeated gently. 

Not soon. Still too soon. Any time was too soon. They had not found a way to recover from the news of their father’s death. They hadn’t thought to think about all those others they were involved with now. Their sister, Quirrel, the artist, the townsbugs- they hadn’t considered their futures. The infection was gone. They were not at risk of dying to the plague. The vessel had looked to the future with an assumed static state. 

They hadn’t thought about death. 

Without the Old Light in them, they hadn’t thought about if their own life ran on a mortal timer. Their sister was half-god. She might yet ascend. Did her life run on one such timer either? These were upsetting thoughts. 

Why was the one admittingly closest to death, then, not upset?

He was not showing it, at least.

They pressed their face into their hand again. Grimm stayed nearby. They preferred that to the thought of him walking further away. 

“All die. All should.” He spoke quietly. Soft, as soft as a burned voice got. A reply to a question they had not written. It was not enough of a relief or reassurance no matter if he thought it was. “For my kin, life and death is a more complicated process. A larva’s life as a grub ends when they are reborn as a moth. Rebirth is vital and such it is for my godly kin as well,” he said. 

Grimm stepped away to take the Grimmchild into his arms when the child flew and scratched to be held. The vessel tried to pull from their slow foggy state. 

They were quiet for a time. Grimm played with his replacement absently while he drank his own tea and tried to feed more cookies to the little moth. When Grimmchild stopped taking any, he stood with a dramatic sigh. He did many things dramatically. They found that better than when he grew serious, now, if just because their experience with him serious was recently limited to learning news they hadn’t wanted to learn. 

“Our show today tired the child out, I’m afraid,” Grimm said for their sake. 

They did not understand the cue. 

He smiled.

“I believe we have run out of time,” he explained, more clearly to the vessel than what he’d started with. “The child should return to your home and so should you. Your sister has no lost adoration for me, unfortunately. She is waiting for you and I would not want her to grow too concerned.”

That prompting was understandable. They stood from their chair and a groggy Grimmchild flopped out of the troupe master’s arms to fly behind them. 

They started to go when Grimm spoke after them.

“Do come back, if you would like. I may not be capable of dancing for much longer, but I will live for some time more.”

Not soon. Some time more. Talking was fine without the ‘dancing’. They did not like to give themself a voice, but it was more palatable with some than others. With a higher being- no, with another vessel, there was more ease. Less expectation for normalcy. Less need to only use words to get a point across, when the other party could sense their half-ascended state leaving clues of its own. 

They paused then before walking back to the table again to write a final note. Then they left the room with the Grimmchild sleepily flying behind them, and the paper with its “I do not know if I would like to, want to, I do not know how to accept wants. I will be back.” left behind. 

Chapter Text

They were in the city’s corpse again.

It felt odd to be here without Hornet.

Grimmchild was near them but she had been occupied. Instead, Quirrel had heard what the last visit here entailed and had offered to come with them if they should take that relic seeker up on his offer.

There should be nothing tempting about the offer. They did not wish to speak. They did not wish to be asked questions about themself and could only hope that would be avoided. 

But they did want Hallownest remembered.

Memory was a funny thing.

It mattered so very much to a god. It mattered even more than was likely normal to a specific god. There were few things that stood out with clarity from the rabid remains of the Old Light. A fear of being forgotten was one of them. 

If she was remembered for killing whole countries, a part of her (not one she ever said aloud) would just care that she was being remembered at all.

They weren’t here to remember her, though. 

The relic seeker didn’t even know she had once existed. They would keep it that way. If he asked questions on the infection, they were not required to answer. Quirrel had reminded them of that possibility when they rode the stag down here.

Quirrel liked to make reminders like that. 

You don’t have to eat. You don’t have to eat more than you think you’re ready for today. You don’t have to drink that. You don’t have to write anything. You don’t have to know an answer right now.

They were still not sure whether it would be easier if he just gave demands with the expectation they would follow, or if these optional outs were more necessary than they knew. They tended to take them, after all.

Lemm hadn’t asked about the plague thus far regardless.

He’d acted unsurprised at the presence of three newcomers. 

“Here to tell me about the old kingdom? Come in,” he’d said to them, and then told the other two to “loiter elsewhere”. 

That had not been done. The vessel at least kept watch on Grimmchild in the hope that he would not try to light any of Lemm’s relics aflame. None were silk parchments. It would be much harder for him to ruin what was in here. 

They may have even tried to tell him not to break anything, if not for the recent visit with Grimm teaching them that the child was still too young to understand most of such spoken things. It was for the best. They did not want to have to try.

It was odd enough to feel willing. 

But Lemm wanted to know about Hallownest and they wanted their father’s kingdom to be remembered. They would prefer if they were not sent away because Grimmchild decided to destroy fragile shelves. It would ruin this chance to let Hallownest be known, remembered. 

Quirrel wordlessly chose to keep near him regardless and Lemm had not been paying much attention to the archivist. There was no statue of Monomon’s assistant sitting outside in the downpour. Lemm did not recognize that he was just as likely to be useful as a broken vessel would be. 

The shelves here seemed full. Their organization style was an unknown. They contended to sit down and let Lemm bring items to them, then. Better that than to knock clumsily into his relics. Besides, they needed a stationary spot to write.

Their attention was drawn to stacked tablets first. Were they from Hallownest’s era? They remembered silks in the palace, rather than stones. 

When they pointed, Lemm shook their interest off.

“Those? Oh, there was an adventurer who kept intruding on my space. They rid me of a good amount of geo,” he said. Maybe he realized that answered nothing, because he continued unprompted.

“They kept bringing wanderers' journals back. Not quite relics of this place. The journals date closer to the present, after the kingdom’s fall.”

Quirrel had evidently been listening in, because he grew excited over this and there was an ensuing argument over whether he was allowed to touch any of the tablets. 

But the vessel moved on from them because they would not be important in explaining the history of Hallownest’s prime. Since Lemm was occupied in this argument, he would not be bringing relics to them to explain. They stood up and wandered alone.

They saw more tablets of a different stone origin on other shelves, old pieces of decoration, Hallownest Seals, and then a portion of shelf with small, handsized pale designs.

A king's idol.

Had they been common? They had certainly been spread throughout the kingdom but that was because individual idols belonged to individual people who happened to live or travel in a variety of areas. They were designed with their holder in mind. Little differences, little details, but still personalized. The Pale King had wanted them to be personalized even if he rarely met in person with anyone who held one (aside from the knights or Lurien). 

They had never had one, of course. It would be most unnecessary for the vessel to.

They wondered what personalization would have been given to theirs. 

The Pale King was gone now. He was remembered by them, but this belief did not return him to them. They knew it was pointless to wonder, then. They still looked at the idols and wondered if Lemm would allow them to take one home. They could place it in their basement nest. It wouldn’t glow. It was just metal, unalive. But it seemed a comforting thought.

The relic seeker had finished his argument with Quirrel, because he came up to the vessel now. 

“Looking at my collection of king’s idols? It’s sure to be the envy of other relic seekers,” he said unprompted.

They did not know that they cared whether he was the envy of other collectors or not. But they supposed the proper response was ‘good for him’. 

“Do you know much about Hallownest’s king?” Lemm asked them. “I’ve been trying to decipher each idol’s engravings, but it’s slow work and I suspect they would not tell me much true information about him. Just more embellishment.”

The vessel backed away from the shelf and returned to their place on the floor that they had left their paper stack at. 

Hornet’s lended charcoal wrote more messily than the thin ink of a quill, but she had recommended they use it instead; she did not suspect a collector would like the possibility of spilled ink.

They wrote “Embellishment?” for Lemm and waited for an explanation, because his words had not made sense. 

“The imagery left of him seems very likely embellished. He’s always an imposing figure, tall, fierce, gleaming. Embellishments, see? There are never blemishes in such imagery and kings will often hide such things,” he waved them off. 

They didn’t think his answer was good, but then they had little to contest it with. The king had gleamed, actually, and they certainly thought he ought to be imposing to other bugs that saw him. But he was always very quiet when they saw him, except on the rare occasion he got excited over something and such excitement was far from appearing fierce. 

Few would dare question him as a powerful entity regardless. To even be near his light meant to touch his power. 

“Not so.” they wrote back. After a moment of deliberation, they found more words for him. “The king was a powerful entity. More than his imagery.”

The relic seeker gave a little huff and another wave. 

“Well, I wouldn’t know. He’s been gone.”

Yes. They were aware. They did not like the fact. 

Lemm looked at them carefully.

“Do you know what happened down there?” he asked. “I’ve seen the palace grounds and there is not even evidence of a fight.”

They stiffly shook their head. No, and they didn’t plan to go down there anytime soon. It was uncomfortable enough to be in father’s capital city when it was in such a ruined state. 

When they never made any more of a response, the relic seeker finally moved on. 

“You would know more than I, since your statue was made in the king’s era. Who was he to Hallownest? Is it true he founded it?” His voice made it sound like a demand rather than a request. It also sounded like one that expected to be met. 

They found that a rather large question. They did not even know where to begin answering. 

“The Pale Beings made Hallownest. The king made Hallownest. Gave minds to bugs there. No kingdom without him.” they ended up writing. It took a great deal of time to finish. Lemm had gotten into another fit with Quirrel by then.

He took their paper and read it over with a scowl.

“How is that supposed to work?” He seemed disgruntled. Perhaps he was not used to news about higher beings. They seemed very quiet in this dead era. Even Grimm in Dirtmouth did not inform the town that he and his troupe had brought a higher being into their presence. It would not be so in the former years. Hallownest knew of its gods, the Mosskin knew of theirs, and it took very little for the world to know of the Radiance again. 

The vessel started to put this down, before realizing it wasn’t something they knew how to communicate. So they tried to write about their father and the queen instead.

“They were”

They ran out of thoughts on how to write that. After a while, they began a new sentence.

“The Pale Beings were monarchs of Hallownest. The Pale King and White Lady. Both higher beings.”

“Gods, then? Unsurprising, considering the idols,” Lemm mused aloud. He turned one of the idols around and squinted at a tiny inscription there. “Can you read this script? I’ll need it taught to me.”

They tried. It was barely any different than the dialect they had been writing with. But they could only read parts of it. Whoever had inscribed the idol had done so very with very tiny writing. 

When they gave up trying and admitted their failure, they did not even notice their words revert back to a style of comfort. 

“This vessel’s eyes are damaged. Words are too small. Cannot read.”

Lemm sighed but did not seem surprised at his own disappointment. 

Over where Grimmchild was sleeping, Quirrel glanced up. 

“I could likely teach you,” he offered Lemm. 

That was good. That was better than them. They had not considered how Quirrel could take their place here. Hallownest could be remembered without them having to try to make it so. 

Unfortunately, he undid that option a moment later. 

“The languages, I mean,” Quirrel laughed. “I know some history, but not much. Too many gaps in my mem-knowledge, I’m afraid.”

Unfortunate indeed. 

The vessel went back to the relics, then, since it seemed their job here would have to be completed after all.

They realized the two had been speaking for a while when they caught the name of the Pale King being said. It’d been said by Quirrel, they thought, though it was hard to recall when they entered their focus mid conversation. They recalled that he said he did not remember much of the king before. He would not tell Lemm of him, then. Not enough. 

With only some consternation, they scratched an interruption down.

“Do you have questions about the king?” was what was handed over to the relic seeker.

He lost interest in Quirrel and moved back to the vessel’s side. 

“I’d take any information that I can’t get from these relics,” he said. 

The tablets wouldn’t contain much, if anything, then. Not if they came from travelers after the kingdom’s fall. Kings idols would infer more about their holder than about him. They really had to expect Lurien or Monomon, historian and teacher alongside scientist that she was, to record about him. Lurien would have written on silks. They had seen enough of his home to know he had many ‘books’ and made his records on the city upon the papers. These had not come from answers from him to inquiries of theirs; they did not make inquiries. Nor did they poke into his belongings. But they read the surfaces of papers left in the open. They did not need to turn their head and make such a thing obvious. 

If they had, Lurien would have caught on to what might have already been a suspicion.

And the plan would have fallen apart before they ever walked into the black egg to be sealed. 

This hurt to think of. They needed to remember what Lemm had been focused on. 

The king. 

The king he had no records of.

Why had no records survived? That was wrong. The Old Light’s infection could not have killed off all signs of his existence. Regardless of if memory would not revive him now, he would not be forgotten while her plague remained remembered. 

There was something very important to establish first for the relic seeker. Something they wished they would never have to say.

“The Pale King is dead."  they wrote for Lemm. It was a very important statement. He seemed unsurprised by it. He did not seem to understand its importance.

“I guessed as much,” he said. 

No. It didn’t matter if it was guessed. He surely had a reaction to the confirmation. It was important. It was world defining. 

The vessel gave up on following that frustration anywhere. They didn’t like feeling that emotion.

“There was a records keeper in this city. Lurien the Watcher. He lived in the watcher spire. A tower.”

They gestured vaguely off to the east. 

“Have you looked for anything there?”

Lemm gave them a dry look.

“No,” he answered. “You may have noticed the city used to be full of lunatic husks. It made it a bit hard to go wandering.”

Said a bug who had already traveled to the palace grounds and back.

They let it be, though Quirrel reached over to look at their now discarded paper.

“Lurien…” he muttered before setting his chin on a fist thoughtfully.

“If you haven’t found lasting paper yet, it seems unlikely you’ll discover any there,” he finally continued. Perhaps the archivist had gone to the spire more than they. It would not surprise them. Though he also did not remember things very clearly. He said as much, but they’d found it confirmed in actions. 

They did wonder where he went when he would leave. Did he visit places of old, like the watcher’s spire? Or the teacher’s archives? Considering what he’d said when they met him, they weren’t certain that would be wise of him. Not alone. It might be like their visiting the black egg without someone else meeting them there.

This too might have fit that word Quirrel had taught them. Relatability. 

“That’s very useful to know,” Lemm said, except something in his voice made it seem like he didn’t mean that.

“There were other records.” the vessel wrote to appease him. 

It was true too. But unfortunately most of what they had to offer would be verbal history.

“The Pale Court did use tablets.”

Lemm snorted.

“Well, that court of yours also vanished out of existence. I couldn’t find much useful down there.”

It was a stinging reminder for them. The relic seeker had no grief over it. 

While he’d moved on to get them to explain whether an old vase was common in Hallownest before, the archivist startled from his seat.

“Wait.” Quirrel held his hand up while his expression furrowed. Lemm set the vase back down. The blue bug’s face laxed after a moment.

“I remember one. Something historical. Not from Lurien, as you suggested, but from another who held historical notes in her libraries,” he said, voice flat. “I remember something the madam wrote about Hallownest.”

They recalled his voice sounding similar when he had admitted to leaving his old nail at the lake. Most times, he had a bright tone. 

“Could I borrow from you?” Quirrel turned to them. “I can write as much of the elegy as I remember. I’m afraid I may not remember it all, or not the proper words, but I wish to try.”

He didn’t need their permission. 

But he wanted their permission. 

They didn’t understand why it would matter, but they would play along. They slid their charcoal and a paper over to the archivist, who began to scratch away on it immediately. He wrote very fluidly. One hand held the parchment down and the other moved quickly and smoothly and it was everything they could not do. His written words were small enough (though far from as tiny as the inscriptions on the king's idols) to fit an entire page with many sentences, when they used a single page to write perhaps two. 

It left them acknowledging their clumsiness once more. 

Lemm snatched the paper as soon as Quirrel said it was done. The vessel had to lean to see what was written there. 

Ah.

Yes, they recognized the first four lines. Reverence and regret, the challenge met, palest watch, instincts redeemed, a world beyond dreams.

If only.

But Monomon did not keep such a nice tone in the remainder of her prose. She called it the Elegy for Hallownest, according to Quirrel as he spoke with Lemm about the song and the king both. To their eye, it was not so much for Hallownest as it was for its king. 

He hadn’t been dead when she wrote this. She’d written it before the sealing. They had seen a copy at Lurien’s room. They had seen another in their father’s bedroom on a night when they had carried his unconscious form to a bed the queen used to share. As he was sleeping, they had paused to read it until they realized it was the same prose. It had been delivered by an entertainer as well. Delivered in a courtyard for the king and queen while they stood between the thrones with their hands on their nail and posture perfect.

Yes, it had been for their father. They understood that better now. Monomon had seen ahead. She had seen him before their existence and she saw him in Dreamer meetings that they missed if training. 

Quirrel remembered it clearly enough. Perhaps he had run across it in her archives recently, if he had returned. Or perhaps his memory was just very good when it actually remembered anything at all. 

They read slower than Lemm, so he was already asking Quirrel for the source and date and other such things by the time they were only halfway through reading it.

What cost to tame our savagery? You gave your all and then gave more. Yet still desires lay unquenched, more dreams remained, your energies spent. Monomon couldn’t have known when she wrote that. She wouldn’t have known that, if or when they heard it, their mind would catch on the word 'cost'. It had been one of the first they had ever heard. They had lived by it for a short lifetime that felt like an eternity ago. It had changed its meaning during that eternity. They would have paid many costs to escape the light within them. In their darkest hours, they questioned if it was any cost, actually. If it meant an end to the pain-

They did not want to think about this.

Nor did they like her words and how they wrote of a king who had paid too many prices. Had he truly spent his energies before they had even come into existence? They had tried to be right so that, when the world was safe again, he could have more of those moments of joy they saw in privacy. Had that been a fool’s dream too? Had he already lost whatever he’d once been?

They did not like this either.

It was the end that made their lower throat fill with burning fluid, though. It was the last piece of her elegy that left them nearly sick. It was no longer about the Pale King. Now, it referred to Hallownest. 

And to them.

Within your corpse can still be heard the plaintiff cries of one,

(stop)

Who took our pain, and loss, and dreams inside itself too.

(make it stop)

Through its pain we found a truth that must now be confessed,

(why had no one made it stop)

For nothing can contain such things but perfect emptiness.

They wrenched away from where Quirrel’s paper was still held in Lemm’s hands. Let them both discuss the historical value of the words of a teacher forgotten by time. Let them discuss Monomon and perhaps someday the Dreamers. They did not want to be here after all.

Instead of thinking of Monomon, it was another Dreamer that stuck in their mind. Lurien, again. They had thought of him earlier. 

When they had first gone to his spire, it had been to accompany the Pale King on one of his rare visits out of the palace. He did tend to travel quietly to the tower more, as compared to visiting Deepnest or Fog Canyon.

They had been small still. Small but already capable. Every vessel had been born capable. Their father had already given them a nail. It was perfect, pure. It was designed just as their great nail would be in their final two molts. 

With that nail, they stood as a tiny sentry and appeared as unaware as the kingsmolds appeared to be.

Lurien and the king spoke while they stood at attention by the door. A butler came and went. He offered tea to the vessel and received nothing in return. Not a blank gaze or even a shake of the head.

But their eyes had wandered. They had scoped out the room. This was not impure, the vessel remembered rationalizing at the time. As a guard to the king, a pure vessel should be completely aware of surroundings.

So they had seen his books and read the covers or open pages that were in sight that would not require them to lean closer in or tilt their head. They had seen his windows and his Seal of Hallownest, his tram pass covered in dust, his amateur paintings, and the object so vital to his job as a watcher. His telescope sat across the room. Lurien was not tall. They could likely stand on a stool and see out of his tool.

They wouldn’t.

They never would.

Not unless ordered to. They had no curiosity otherwise.

But they had looked at it.

They had looked at it and considered that they were at a height that could feasibly use it and wondered what the city would look like.

Only perfect emptiness, Monomon said? There was no perfect emptiness. The void sea called and its soundless noise carried hunger. Nothing could have contained the burning light.

It’d been hopeless. It’d been pointless.

She was not undefeatable. The void had swallowed her in the end.

But only through its own drive.

Only because there was no such thing as perfect emptiness. 

Only perfect annihilation, united, and ready to carve into any life to fill it with void. That was not an empty state. It was a filled state. 

They wouldn’t know that, then. They wouldn’t have even realized it was a sign of their inability to contain the Radiance, when they had looked at that scope and thought about it.

Lurien had been staring at them before they left, that day. They returned the stare flatly. 

Because they had been the pure vessel at the time and the pure vessel wouldn’t need to worry about what the watcher may have seen or not. The pure vessel was perfect emptiness.

They really had always lived a lie. How different was it now to push and pretend to be more than they currently were? They were here for their father’s sake. Not their own. Even as Quirrel had been led to believe they wanted to speak with Lemm again. 

The next chance they really had to focus on the conversations around them came when Lemm had them a Hallownest Seal and asked them if his understanding on the objects was correct.

They felt the cool metal in their hand. 

They’d held one before. 

Yes, Lemm had already deciphered much of their purpose and place in society. They wrote as much through distraction. They could recall shining light. Pale and powerful and full of life. 

It was the other half of Hallownest’s light. It was the half they rarely saw. 

Especially not the older they had grown.

When still in their first molt, they had been placed to rest in the palace’s dreaming hours in a room of hers. She didn’t stay in it. Just put them in a cradle and left them there and they would eventually sleep dreamlessly. 

Dreams had only really filled with color and theme and feeling after the one they’d gone in for the sealing.

There was a time when the king had been in one of his courtyards listening to the reports of two of his knights. They had walked in that direction when they ran across her. When she saw the direction they were headed, she’d said something about the knights and laughed and it was, in that rare instance, not a completely hollow sound from her. 

The retainers had been passing out seals that day in honor of a recent success by knights Dryya and Hegemol. The White Lady had been given an excess.

She set a Hallownest Seal into their tiny palm and sent them on their way. 

Lemm asked them if they had once had any purpose aside from an aesthetic one. With their mind on the queen, they took far too long to craft a response. 

Especially not considering the response could have been summarized as a no, likely. 

“They honor the king in design. They honor his knights as well. They were kept mainly as tokens to show support of the knights.”

Lemm hummed.

“That was about what I gathered. They’re useless now. Nice looking though,” he said and they took that chance to look at the collection he had of them. It was over a dozen. He must find them very nice looking indeed. 

The vessel flipped to a new paper. 

“Know that I rarely left the Pale Court. I do not know the extent of their use in this city and beyond.” they wrote.

That earned another hum. 

“Odd thing, that. You are a knight important enough to earn a statue in this musty capital, but you know little of the bugs of that kingdom?”

They wondered when others would stop calling them a knight.

But with his thoughts on statues now, Lemm went off; speaking of a fountain statue of the Pale King, and the many posts made in his image. Then of theirs. Then-

“Why didn’t the queen have as many statues?” Lemm asked.

They glanced up at the sudden turn in conversation. 

“I wasn’t sure there used to be a queen until you said there was,” the relic seeker said. “I haven’t found much to suggest her existence aside from rumors of an old stag station out past those noxious wastes.”

They hadn’t toured the old Hallownest. They had only seen fractions. They wouldn’t know if statues and monuments had once existed to remind bugs of her existence. 

They knew very little about her to start with.

The vessel’s experiences with the queen were almost limited to their earliest days, when they fit in that room she’d given to them. After that, they saw her at palace meals and she rarely acknowledged their presence there. Why should she? Her behavior was the expected one. It was little Hornet who acted outside reason. 

There had been lullabies in their original room. They remembered the songs. Small. Quiet. They played on a music box of her design. 

Before she had left and kept her distance forever. 

It was better that way.

She was one less person to scream for during containment.

(Though they had, at times. They had been desperate. It had been decades of growing desperation.)

It had hurt enough to hope for rescue from one god, one parent.

“Do not know.” they settled on writing. As Lemm’s eyes frowned, they considered how to elaborate.

“White Lady was a Pale Being, but different than the king. She needed fewer worshipers. Her gardens kept her alive to a degree.”

“I don’t know what to make of that at all,” Lemm admitted.

Well they didn’t know how to better explain it. 

“I know more about the king,” they admitted. 

He was satisfied with that for a while. No more memories played with them as he passed over the next few relics. Most were household items from all they could tell and they were forced to tell him once again that they’d rarely seen the city. They weren’t able to say which items were common and which were not and what all their purposes were.

By the time the subject returned again to statues- Lemm seemed rather stuck on the impression that a king would lie in their representations-, they were running lower on papers. If they were able to write at more reasonable sizes…But they were not, yet. And improving took practice, which meant more writing, which meant more internal conflict over giving themself a voice when the Pale King had hoped they had none. 

“He looked like that.” they wrote for Lemm this time.

“Truly?”

They nodded. 

“He was that much taller than me? Taller than you? I’ve seen the statue by the palace grounds,” Lemm pressed.

Again, their only surprise came from the fact he had made it down into the basin and back and apparently survived it. His survival against the infected and the derelict infrastructure of the kingdom was a mystery.

The vessel didn’t think he was really focusing on important things.

“Watch.”

They set their hand in the air and held it there until they knew he had taken note.

“That tall. ” they wrote when done. 

For whatever reason, Lemm snorted. Quirrel was looking a little amused as well. They couldn’t guess why. 

It was he that spoke next.

“And the queen?”

“Tall,” they answered.

She’d still towered over them in their final molt and that was when their posture allowed them to stand uncrooked and straight. 

“What was her role in the kingdom?” Lemm asked. 

They had already explained they knew more about the Pale King, but the vessel supposed that did not outright exclude the possibility they knew information on the queen. 

Lemm wanted them to look at his ‘collection’ to see if he did happen to have anything tied to the White Lady. Without seeing public replicas, he wouldn’t know of her motifs of the day. They could acknowledge that they would likely recognize some. They had a better chance of being able to then he, at least.

They gripped the base of their left horn before they realized their hand still held the charcoal pen. It might leave the bone smeared. 

“Are you tired?” Quirrel asked.

Too many questions. They answered them in order. 

“White Lady blessed lands. Blessed bugs. Kept the air pure. But she did less for the political side of the court. I don’t remember her role, at least. ” 

Then, for the archivist, they shook their head.

It was a lie. 

But how was he to tell? He was enjoying himself here recounting details from his lost first life. They wouldn’t make him leave.

Oh. Had Lemm asked another question? 

“Did not see her often.” they scrawled because they could not keep recounting about the queen. It was not she they had come to make remembered. Though it was good to do so too. It was good, but she was not dead. She was not gone like the Pale King had been from the moment they were freed from the Old Light. Her essence below Dirtmouth was weaker than they would have predicted, but it had not been of immediate concern.

They had not thought much of her.

Not before today had them remembering the sounds of a handmade music box intended for children never born, or the poking edges of a Hallownest Seal on their soft, young chitin.

The relic seeker was cleaning up the king's idols that had started this meeting. He paused before clarifying, “But you saw the king often?”

They hesitated before nodding.

“Lived in the Pale Court with him.”  

Lemm walked and sat back beside them slowly. He didn’t notice the last paper they’d written on for him.

“Did he make that fountain outside?” he asked.

Why did they have to be reminded of the monument’s existence each time they came to the city?

The vessel pressed their hand up near the crack that ran down and had once scarred void eyes. Quirrel cleared his throat.

They ignored him for the moment. 

“Don’t know. Built after I left. Can’t tell you about what he did from that point on.” they wrote.

“Hm. Something is better than nothing,” Lemm finally said.

They supposed so. 

Especially if it meant he would not ask about them again. They were not there for themself.

The vessel stretched their legs out behind them. It made their back along the spine hurt. They’d been sitting in this position for too long. 

They were done looking at relics today. 

They shook their cramping wrist and then leaned over the last paper they planned to use. The rest could come back to Dirtmouth with them. 

“Hallownest was the Pale King’s. I was the Pale King’s. Keep your records about him correct. I can help.”

“For wh-”

The vessel didn’t pay attention.

“Remember him right.” they wrote for him.

Because that was the important part.

A relic seeker was a collector. A collector drew crowds eventually to look at their collections. 

His memory would be properly preserved.

(How was he dead when they and their sister remembered him still? 

Few things were capable of killing a god and leaving them helpless even to memory.)

Though it had been more difficult than they expected to try to share who the Pale King was with strangers who had never lived when he did.

What could they say?

How did they write what it felt like to see him look down from a balcony with approval?

How could they explain what his excitement at successfully improving some machine looked like, or what it meant?

Lemm cleared his throat before they finished standing to go.

“Why are there no records about you?”

This was not about them. It couldn’t be about them.

They found another paper regardless of not wanting to touch that subject. When three words were scratched on it, they handed it over to Lemm.

“This Vessel failed.”

“What?” he looked up from it.

No one in this era would know what a vessel was.

Few in their birth era even knew. It was hushed. The Pale King had sealed the Abyss away rapidly after their ascension. Beyond lies only the refuse and regret of its creation. Yes, few aside from higher beings knew.

Theirs had been a creation of shame and secrecy. It should not have outlived the shining world it’d been made to protect.

“There should be no records.” the vessel wrote. Plain. Simple.

Or not, because Lemm had a comment on that too.

“There is a memorial.”

Well there shouldn’t be. 

But the king had made it anyways, according to their sister.

The vessel rose, shoved their papers away, and shook their head. They would not be replying to that train of inquiry.

Chapter Text

There was no journal entry that night. Nor did they remember their task the next day. 

They stayed late within their sparse nest below the hut. It was dark when they woke. Grimmchild had already teleported upstairs to begin his day with his caretaker. Without his fiery eyes peeking open, they had nothing. 

They were a being of partial void. And after so recent a captivity, they preferred to hide from light altogether. 

It would have been problematic in their ability to approach the Pale King, but such a thing was not going to occur. 

Yet-

He was not the only Pale Being. 

He was not.

They had told the relic seeker of this fact just the day before.

It was not something they devoted energy to thinking about before. But-

But their father had loved the queen. 

And she lived still.

In a near dormancy, like the energy of Unn, but there. There and they would see her. They hardly expected anything from such a visit. What was she to tell them that they did not already know? That they had failed? They were aware. They were very aware.

So few from that old life still lived. The higher being was one. 

They were compelled to find her. Even if it would mean accepting whatever few words she had to offer a failed vessel who had fooled her kingdom and husband and herself into false hope.

They opened the trapdoor above and did not flinch away from the light. They could not shy away from Dirtmouth’s dim ambience if they planned on entering in the presence of a Pale Being.

Hornet was in town. She seemed to be leaving for the stag station. They interrupted her walk and the odd behavior on their part easily convinced her to follow them back.

Once in the hut, they sat on their usual stool so as to not take Hornet’s claim. 

(It occurred to them at random, sometimes, that Bretta’s odd seats left their back far less achy. But this was not their hut, so they could not stand to ask its owner whether she would go find them such a seat.)

With Hornet, it was a little easier to write. She did not need full explanations and clear prose. She did not expect that. She stuck true to her word to not look at their ‘entries’ and thus would miss that they had been adjusting to longer and longer segments.

(They should not. It was their sin. Who was here to judge their emptiness? Such a time had passed.)

The paper they handed to their sister said only:

“The queen did not die. Where is she now?”

Hornet looked at it for a long while. They did not know what her expression was. Her mask hid it away. And in this lighting, they could not see through its shadows to her eyes. 

This did not matter. They could read at least that she was discomfited. 

Why? 

She would not have to tell them this monarch was dead. They knew she was not. If she hesitated on their behalf as she had before with their father, they did not understand why. She had no bad news to deliver. No blow to hold back on. 

Hornet finally spoke.

“She is…below.” She said stiffly and looked away. “In her gardens. She locked herself away years ago.”

She had often retreated to her garden.

More and more as they grew older.

More and more, as that day approached. 

They had rather hoped she would have moved back to the palace grounds once they were gone and sealed away. Even if they knew that the plague would ravage these lands and leave their king dead, they would have found their own agony just slightly more palatable if they could think they’d given the monarchs and little Gendered Child and knights, nailsages, pupils- all of them- a good amount of time to spend together. Happy. Happy, before their protection broke apart and infection burst out of their body and the temple alike. 

They could not think about this now. 

So they took a new paper.

“Stays inside? Did that before.” they wrote rather than thinking of their father alone, his friends, his knights (Isma, at least) gone, dying, daughter…they did not know how Hornet had spent that time but they did know she seemed displeased with their father (they could not fathom why). Now the queen avoiding him during the years that no infection haunted the kingdom? 

Hornet was frowning. That was clear through her voice.

(It reminded them unprompted of their father, when he was coldly disapproving, rather than the heat of her mother’s anger.)

“No, she is not attending to those gardens like before,” she rebuffed.  Before they could wonder what she was doing in them instead, if not taking care of them, their sister answered ahead. “She buried herself in bindings beneath its dirt. She had not moved in many a decade.”

Why?

They did not understand this behavior. 

Neither did they want to ask such a thing directly to Hornet. It felt different than asking for a location or status. It carried too much concern or curiosity or some emotion they were not used to experiencing clearly let alone sharing.

They could follow why with many things, however.

Why had she buried herself away instead of cherishing what time was left with a partner they had always seen her love?

Why had she left for the gardens so often before? Was their presence truly that unbearable when they never did anything that could be upsetting?

(Why hadn’t she devoted time with them as he did? Why did neither ever attempt to break the seals and release the vessel when it became clear they were pointlessly breaking apart in there?)

The vessel tapped the quill against the page while they waited for words they would actually allow themself to share with another. Finally, they pointed vaguely in the direction of the well beyond Dirtmouth. 

Hornet tilted her head to follow the movement and then looked back. 

Since she was silent, they would have to confirm what she might have already gathered from the pointing. 

“Will go there today.” they wrote. 

They had the other vessel’s maps. They could find the way. If any stag stations or elevators were near, they would not even hurt themself from the journey. Or they could try to find a hot spring, if they did begin to collapse. They could wait it out. They would not burden another with this journey besides her. They did not even consider to ask any aside from their sister, in truth. 

“You have visited?” the vessel added. Perhaps she would lead the way, then. 

Though if it would be to hear that they had failed, they may be more apathetic without her presence likewise hearing such words. 

The White Lady had never been cruel when they saw her. But she had been cold. She viewed the vessel as they viewed themself, at that time. Through use, purpose, success. All in desperate need of positive results only, because just a single negative meant every sacrifice made had been in vain.

(It had been in vain if the vessel lied. They wished they had known better then.)

(They’d known nothing but that purpose they were made to match and wanted to.)

Hornet tapped her fingers against the tabletop before she replied.

“I have not visited recently. But I…I do not think she would be good to you. No more than I was to our other sibling, when they were still here,” she said- warned?- slowly.

The Ghost? But Hornet clearly cared for them. They had heard nothing but that concern and worry and a longing for their return from her. 

It was not a matter of being good.

They needed to see her alive.

They needed to see directly that at least one had survived. At least they had fought the Old Light enough for that. 

They shook their head and pointed again. Hornet was so silent. Moreso than usual. She must have been having difficulty finding words. They related. Yes they did. 

“I can escort you near when I am done with a task in the city, but I will not see her with you,” she finally said. 

There was nothing to complain about with that. They did not often complain. 

Still, they were confused over their sister’s affect. 

First the Pale King, and now the White Lady. She had been so eager to see both parents in her visits as a child. She had loved them, as they adored her. 

Why would she have ceased visiting her stepmother?

They did not need to understand. 

To hear they had an avenue for their task was enough. They would wait for her availability and then go see their…the White Lady. Their queen? There was no kingdom to be a queen of now. Nor a knight of.

“I do not recommend this,” Hornet repeated. She no longer sounded quite like father or her mother. She sounded close to her voice breaking. In distress? But that did not make sense. 

“Grimmchild will stay with the troupe today. There is nothing good to come of bringing him to her territory.”

And that was it, from her.

She left it there. 

They still did not think to write and check why she might be distressed, or if she was. She would have done so to them. 

It bothered them to know that, to so fully know that, in the night after when they lay sleepless and the moment to match her unwarranted care had long been lost.

True to her word, Hornet stayed in a hall littered with the corpses of bloated mantises. She told them that the queen’s self-made prison was near and that, the last time she had come, there had been no thorns or other such obstacles. Considering she had also implied that had been years- maybe even decades- ago, they had crawled down the tunnel with the assumption they might find it overgrown.

It wasn’t.

But it was so, so littered in bodies. These were not ones killed by infection alone. Their wounds did not match the distorted frontal legs of these mantises. They were not inflicted by their own kind, though with minds lost and animal pain, some infected would. Along the way up from the stag station, they had noted most corpses dead from the plague itself finally bursting out until all remaining organs and bones collapsed and were unable to hold up the husks. 

These were dead from a nail. They saw why soon enough.

It seemed they had news for Ogrim. They would have to ask their sister for his location so they could tell him. 

They were twitchier when they’d crawled into the narrow entrance past Dryya’s corpse. It had been an unwanted discovery.

It did not help that the chamber the queen lived under had the shape of a twisted dark egg. It did not carry the touch of the Abyss as the black egg had. That temple had been built around the remains of something originating down there, even before it had been altered to contain the pressure and makeup of the Abyss so that their void would stay healthy within. This chamber was unrelated. It was unrelated. They could slip into its interior and they would not see chains. 

This was her location, that much was clear. Her roots grew out from cracks in the eg- chamber. They glowed with her light. Her usual essence of growth and life was still faded here, but none could mistake those roots for anything but a god’s.

The White Lady was not directly within this orb. Roots gave a glow to dark tunnels. The vessel made their way down them carefully. Their feet moved them in a vertical crawl as their back provided stabilizing, balancing pressure for the descent. These tunnels were made of metal, not stone. They could feel the ridges pressing into their back. It was an uncomfortable sensation.

But there was pollen drifting through the air, softly glowing, and they remembered that pollen hovering in their earliest room (if they called it now a possession, rather than a room they were placed in). They crawled into the final tunnel until the room opened into a space that could comfortably fit them. It could fit her, after all. 

She was seated. Forever seated, until she released herself. They saw now what Hornet meant. What would have been pale and difficult to look at was instead covered. Hidden. Kinder on their eyes, they thought. Kinder on their mind, still ready to panic at any suggestion She was near enough to strip their world away. Much of the pale light was blocked away from view by straps of metal wrapping around the queen. 

They itched and one shoulder jerked back while the other didn’t. It left their back slanted, before they corrected themself. 

These were not their chains. They were not bound.

(They had always been bound. Doomed to go to those chains through hope and lie, doomed to wear them forever after.)

(Stop thinking.)

The White Lady’s face was serene, but her chin shifted slightly upwards in their direction.

They waited. Their papers were here, by their own choice as much as Hornet’s reminder. They need only retrieve them from their silk belt.

They did so with the noise of rustling and it was over this rustling that the queen spoke.

“It survived. It returns here? I have nothing for it.”

Their hand paused. 

They froze there for a time before they fought against shaking to finish retrieving their supplies. There were no tables here and they would not write on her roots, so the vessel was forced to crouch on the floor instead. They straightened the first paper and watched as their hand began to tremor after taking the quill. Why? 

They began with a hello that they scratched out. What about what she had said? It would work enough to validate for her.

“ Hello

Survived, yes. Returned to confirm health. Are you well?”

They tried to write more, but the White Lady’s roots had shifted around the room and her voice had spoken up again, a little louder. The roots poking through breaks in the metal floor were facing away from them. Moving away, ever so slightly. 

“I never had anything for you,” she said simply. 

(She had a room and a lullaby and the insistence they try to eat and drink and bathe, and that truly was near the extent.)

“It was not I that tarnished you; it was not I that instilled any idea within you.”

Did she worry they were angry at her for that?

It was not her that had corrupted their chance at pure emptiness.

Was it any, though? 

They had needed father the moment they heard his voice echoing down into the Abyss. The love had grown more and more after, but a need? A need alone was an impurity. 

They had needed both gods and the very void around them from the moment they broke out of their egg, but only time and exposure left them trapped in a love they’d known they were not meant to have.

They turned down to their paper again and added to it.

“Sorry. Failed, knew it. It is true.”

There was no more that could be fit on the parchment. They lifted their sheaf of paper but clouded eyes saw nothing. Clouded? When had they been clouded? They had not looked while they wrote.

That was…

There were other means too. All meant having a voice, so all left them repulsed and ashamed. What difference did it make with her if they wrote and waved their fingers and hand and body around?

They lifted their hand and tried to sign with one of Hallownest’s old simplest greetings (they had no wings or second arm or excitable antennae for the rest), as Quirrel had tried showing them briefly despite how they wanted to tell him that they didn’t want to learn. There was very little in their repertoire but they knew hello, at least.

Her eyes were blue, like a higher being’s. Fitting color. But they had lost the light that once shone through them like crystals. 

They did not see the vessel’s hand and so did not hear their words.

That would also be fitting from her perspective.

It had no mind to think.

No, they, they did. Sister wanted them to. 

Sister hadn’t wanted them to come down here. She had said the goddess was in isolation, retreated so far into her mind. They knew what it was to retreat into a mind. They knew that form of escapism, and how it never truly got enough distance from the pain.

They had rarely seen the White Lady before. She had kept her distance then. 

It was not her that tarnished them with idea instilled.

Her distance had enforced that.

It felt wrong for her to stay in the state their sister had described. It felt wrong for any to have to stay retreated into their mind. Even the o- Anyone.

They could not tell her this with these means.

They could not kneel at the seat of Hallownest’s monarch and admit their guilt, before pushing her to leave chains behind. It was bad enough they had to be tied down by any.

There was a way-

No.

But there was.

No! They did not want to.

But they could not come here and do nothing.  

She knew what vessel it was but could not see them. Could not hear their noiseless means of speaking, now that they were told to speak rather than pretend the mere notion made no sense.

They had not come here to do nothing.

They did not know why they had come here.

But the vessel forced a ragged mouth open and pressed noise out as best as they could. 

The first sounds were nothing but tortured rasps. Then came form, nearly meaning, still too distorted and unpracticed to be word.

“Sss-shh-ssh-sss-”

The White Lady had gone so very silent. They did not take note of this. It took too much concentration to attempt sound.

“Ssshooaww…ry. Ssorry.”

Sorry, sorry, so sorry.

They managed this because it was one they had learned before. They had not practiced or asked for practice with Her voice since being freed. But before being freed, while still within the egg…

Sorry. Help.

They managed those. Save me was too complex during pain. But single words, screamed. That it could do. That it could do for an intended audience that could not hear the vessel breaking its voiceless creation. 

It was a macabre mimicry of language. She had said she regretted giving them a voice, if that was all they would use it for. Pleading for a Pale light instead of an Old one. A part of her was angry she would be reduced to pleading her prison for escape, but they would not return it. There was pain when the Old Light was angry. There was always pain, no matter her demeanor. No mortal was meant to contain the full force of a god within them. 

The vessel had been built to, but it had burned and broke. Still a mortal. Still a mortal, crushed under the whole condensed entity of a higher being and kept barred from the sea it was meant to rest in. 

They were sorry. Sorry for being doomed from the start. All vessels were. That was why the other- Hornet’s Ghost- had not broken the seals to enter and contain the Radiance themself. They must have discovered it would be impossible. Not even pure void was hollow enough to contain a god- but it was more than enough to consume one.

Hornet said that vessel had visited the White Lady as well. She had told it- them- to go, to take the impure vessel’s place.

She must have believed in the Hollow Knight plan. The Pale King had. He had to. There was no alternative left.

She believed in a plan and the vessel had been doomed to fail her from the start.

They repeated their hissing word.

It made them burn. Each vibration was evident in every part of that throat. It was a long organ hidden beneath flesh and chitin and void and so they could not reach it at the surface and rip it away. Or clamp a hand around it to make the vibrations less prominent while they made harsh noise through it.

They did not practice with that voice because they did not want to, could not bear it, preferred to pretend it didn’t exist. Not since being freed. Not aside from the time they had screeched before battle.

They did not want that voice. They had not wanted to be given it. They had used it only to scream for greater beings than they to come and help and none did. Not until the vessel they had left and let fall came.

They were sorry to it, them, too.

It was a rather encompassing word.

The White Lady’s voice was no longer passive and calm. Her eyes were unseeing, but had widened regardless. The serenity had been a breaking thing, little by little, from the moment a noise had first come out of the noiseless. 

No voice to cry suffering 

This too is a lie. One they had all believed, the three of them in the palace.

(But she would know now. They all would have known the moment the infection returned. They were not the pure vessel. They had a mind to think, a will breaking, why not a voice to cry?)

By the time she found her own voice, breaking glass spiderwebs had shattered. 

“That’s…” she started, alarmed, so alarmed. They wanted to wave at her to stop there. She wouldn’t see it. But they knew what she meant to say, and they couldn’t hear it.

Them. It was them. That’s me, it’s me, it’s not Her. It’s not Her, it’s me.

They did not want a voice but it was better to call it their own than let it be Hers. She was gone. The dead could not have a voice. She had carved and placed her own in them, and the Void had taken hers away as it consumed her. 

Their breaths were coming in too shallow. They hurt sharply, periodically, like a beat. The physiological came with the realization they needed to stop her from finishing. 

It took a moment to make sound come with fluctuation and meaning again. There was first a gargling rattle, which did leave the queen speechless. That was the hope. (They could not hear her panic about the Old Light being here, blind to the room itself and hearing voice only.) They felt like they were fighting their own body- or shared, hybrid, ruined body- they could fight that too- to make the proper sounds.

This voice had the capability to use most letters, most sounds. The Old Light had gone through a phase of rabid, manic teaching before she lost interest and remembered the voice was hers alone, for her benefit, to screech and yell and vent anger in the hopes that anyone out there was listening.

It was still more difficult to make unpracticed words, even if they could recall how the body had felt making such sounds before. Their screams hadn’t used the words they would need now.

“Deehhd.” they struggled and fought to hiss out. It sounded like the proper word to their hearing. Good. They could not labor so long on each one or they would wear before ever finishing what they meant to say. 

Dead. She’s dead. You sensed it was the tainted vessel in your presence already, do not let the voice confuse you. It is not hers, will never be hers, she is not in this room with us, she’ll never be in this room with us, she isn’t here.

“Ohhhld Lii-”

“This, I know.” The White Lady cut them off. “I felt when her Light was snuffed from our world.”

It felt like a mercy to be interrupted. They could take the moment to breathe and nothing else through that throat.

They found themself on the floor more comfortably. Its metal ridges poked into them still but the same did not seem to go for the queen. Good. Though she seemed uncomfortable now, it was not from a constant pain caused by her bindings. Just their presence. One was easier to remedy than the other.

The White Lady was silent. Her eyes remained open but pointed at the wrong part of the room. They leaned over their arm, across crossed legs. Their new cloak fell forward to drape to the ground and hide their motions beneath.

“What does it do to live?” she mused aloud, before her voice caught and she restarted. “…You. How have you lived?” 

They had never been expected to. Eternity was their price, paid for the kingdom's own eternal state. Neither had rung true in the end.

But the damage done was severe. Had they walked out from that temple and found no help, they likely would have died.

(And this was better. Right? This was still chains, but they had seen their sister before death and she still wanted them.)

The vessel could not say it all. It would be too hard with this voice (not Hers, but did that actually make it theirs? They hadn’t wanted it).

“Sssssiiiiissssterr,” was what they growled out.

Even that fought them, but not as much as a sentence would have. 

The White Lady spoke to no one or the room or herself or perhaps even the dead higher beings who’d played such a role in this.

“A relation sworn off. Time taken, griefs gone cold before the first other one of its kind appeared. I see she has returned to accepting it.”

She shifted back into directing her words towards them. 

“The Gendered Child is your ally, then? Good.”

The first other? Had there been more?

They had thought it was just Ghost. Though-

There was one who reached out for help, who wanted to be granted peace, escape from pain like them- they had dreamed that, though. They had dreamed it. She had dreamed it. Neither knew what was completely true out there, beyond the seals. Right?

Perhaps not.

Perhaps there had been more. But none had come to break the seals and take the place of a failed hollow knight. Why? They could not all have sought the strange ritual that Grimm said Ghost had.

But the rest made sense. Hornet would have moved on. She would have realized, eventually, that they were never coming back. No more than her mother. And she would have been reinforced that, unlike her mother, they hadn’t loved her and missed her. They’d been incapable of it. That was what a vessel was. A tool, not a relation. Not a relation. That incorrect view would have been sworn away. Now, she viewed this as a relation again. They did the same. The Old Light was gone. They were allowed to.

This was considered in silence for a time. The soft glow of pollen drifted about an otherwise dim room. 

Finally, they tried again. Their longest sentence yet. Oh how it burned.

“Shee….Naame. Hornnn, Hornnet. Dii- diid ent noh?”

The White Lady was again silent. It was not a peaceful silence. They rose up to their knees and then pushed to stand. She sat some distance away. What were they to do? Cross that distance and pat at her the way they’d been patted by well meaning bugs?

They just stood there instead.

Unseen eyes turned up into unseeing ones. 

She sensed their presence, but could not see them.

She had never seen them.

“She does not visit anymore,” the White Lady said. It was not loud enough to sound distressed, but the flat calm was a transparent lie. There had been moisture around her eyes since they first spoke with her their voice. “Why should she? Do I deserve to be thought of as a mother?”

The vessel did not know. They were not her child.

Chapter Text

Quirrel visited a while later. He had left Dirtmouth the day after they’d returned from the gardens. The town was sleeping (they had been awake still, avoiding dreams and busying themself with a replication of one of Iselda’s borrowed artworks) when he knocked on their door.

They would have taken him down to the basement, since Hornet was trying to sleep. It would mean finding her lantern but this was not all that distressing of a thought anymore. The dim light was weighed against time with the Teacher’s assistant and he would win. Quirrel was a fairly calm individual who knew nearly as much about them as their sister and such a thing was rare in this new era. They often spent time with him. He would compliment their lifeless hollow art and tell them stories and laugh occasionally about how their silence must run in their family. There were also still questions, occasionally, about whether they had come to view themself any differently. He seemed intent on knowing whenever that change occurred, if it did. But they did not have a name and they could not see themself with one. They really couldn’t.

They still kept company with him. Sometimes, they ate- it happened more with him than with others. They still would rather not, but it undeniably kept their energy more stable and they wore out less quickly when they consistently consumed. Even if the consistency also meant having their insides ache and whine to be fed on a regular basis, when ignoring the need altogether had made it fade into distant noise. 

But they would eat with him and when they did, it seemed to remind him to share in the meal.

Quirrel was very likely not here to eat. They did not want to bring food into their nest below. This balanced out. 

As they moved to lead him in, he waved and said they could speak outside instead.

This implied a shorter visit. Was it also past Quirrel’s time to sleep? They knew they were awake late this day. Even Hornet had gone to rest before them. Though this had become more common, as the numb existence of dream lost its appeal in favor of staying awake to sketch replica after replica and wait for some sort of life to enter their work.

He needed rest more than they. The vessel stepped outside and closed the door behind them as quietly as they could. He was not the only one to need rest more than they. Their sister worked herself too hard to have her sleep interrupted. 

Quirrel’s eyes crinkled upwards a bit in a smile. One of his hands went to rummage in a knapsack at his side.

“I went back to that shop in the city today,” the archivist said cheerfully (though quietly, because he was more aware of the time than they had been). 

His hand pulled out wrapped around something that fit within it. When his fingers unfolded, they saw a shining king’s idol sitting on the palm of his presented hand.

They didn’t understand.

“It’s for you,” he said while lifting it a little higher to remove any chance that he was not, in fact, profering it to them. 

They still did not understand. 

It was…a gift?

They were not used to gifts. Pure vessels would not need one. They had ambiguously received a few in their palace life but never with the direct intent or else words that they were being given one. It had to be painted in other lights. It had to remain ambiguous. 

Then, they had been sealed and dreamed and burned and how could there be gifts there?

(Tips of wings pressed into their neck- Child, you do not live- I will do what they have failed to-this is your blessing- your blessing- I give to you what they did not)

They did not want her gifts there. The only thing she could offer was to let them retreat as far as they could in her realm until they were nearly numb to the ever encompassing burning. 

This was not what they wished to think about now. 

The vessel was still standing there, utterly still, mind drowning in thoughts of helpless pain. They were brought from there only when Quirrel had cleared his throat and lowered his arm to look at his own hand. 

“Would you like it? I mean, if not…”

It was not a matter of liking it or not. Just confusion over why the archivist would travel to the city, to a shop owned by a bug who seemed abrasive to Quirrel, and return with something for them rather than for himself. Then again, why would he choose a king’s idol for himself? He did not remember him.

They tilted their head to show him confusion. It seemed still recent that they had ruined one of Hornet’s quills after he’d questioned the king’s importance. He did not remember the god. And even had he, would he view him as the world? They had realized he would not. They did. But not even his daughter did as well. Why would an archivist who lived in the canyon rather than palace care?

Quirrel lifted his shoulders a little.

“Well, it’s clear he meant a lot to you,” he said. “I thought you would like one.”

He had probably seen them staring when they were in the shop. It left them a little bristled to think they would give themself away like that, until they reminded themself that the days of playing pure were over. 

They reached over and gingerly took the little thing from Quirrel’s hand. It was meant for someone else. It had been personalized with another in mind. Likely someone dead now. They had survived. 

They gave the archivist a nod and retreated to their basement with the statue in their grip. It was dark down there, but they left the trapdoor open long enough to use the light to find a cleared spot. The vessel tore some fabric off one of their blankets and wrapped it around the base of the idol, until it could rest on something softer than the floor. They would hate to break a gift. A thoughtful gift, at that. 

They would not see their father’s likeness broken.

The next time they saw Sheo, they did not come and leave with quiet participation. They had come for a reason other than hearing more of these arts of his. 

They had come to pick up the picture requested of the other vessel. Their…sibling. 

Hornet’s sibling, at any rate. She had been defensive about admitting it and still slipped into that sometimes. She was defensive about anything. They considered their own defenses, before the black egg. They had hid much…Everything. So much of their ability to hide, let alone a drive to, had been stripped in the temple. They did not have a father to protect. They did not have that reason to throw up defenses. That his daughter had grown to do the same, however…

The vessel did not know what they thought of it. It was a half thought- begun, but with no end. They did not care to end it regardless.

They did not get to meet the one she called Ghost. They had seen each other once outside dream and never again. But they heard. They heard from seemingly every bug met about them. They saw what her lost sibling must have meant to Hornet. But now they would see what the one who had made the light stop burning for them. 

Sheo had placed it in a nice soft box for their transport.

“I meant to bring it to you when I went to Dirtmouth recently,” he told them. “I traveled up there to visit the nailsage, but you were out of town that day.”

It didn’t make much of a difference to them. It was nice to hear that he had seen the nailsage, since he said that he’d wanted to. They were not sure why he had not kept in better touch. The three pupils (now masters, if Sheo was to be judged by) had always seemed close to both sages. The younger sage had been near them often. Proud of their improvements and attempts during fights and trainings. Rather like a father. 

They couldn’t imagine why the pupils would not have kept close with one like a father to them.

But they had neither understood why Hornet would not have stayed in contact with the one mother she had left, and yet thus it was. 

They paused by the shelf with the figurines from last time on it. 

There was something odd inside them when they paused and went to write a note for Sheo. It did not feel exactly like anything experienced during the infection, because it was smaller and the lack of infection itself meant there was no burning. It could not be their void though, because why would it be? This wasn’t a roiling state of being. If anything, it was a still so unmoving that it became too solid and heavy, and void was not solid or heavy. It was a liquid thing at its core. It was a sea. 

(It was their sea, and yet they’d never felt so far from it as they had since the Old Light was consumed.)

The oddity only slowed them a little as they wrote that Isma and Dryya were confirmed deaths, while Ogrim lived. 

With that unpleasant task done, the vessel took the box offered and crawled through the greens towards Dirtmouth once more. They held it tight under their arm as often as they could when they were not forced to use it for crawling or climbing. The box was being held so tightly their shoulder actually had started to hurt from tension by the time they reached the hut in Dirtmouth. 

No one was in yet.

They found that better. Something about being seen with the gift left them uneasy. They weren’t sure why. They forced their arm to loosen, as it had clutched only tighter with the thought.

They took the hut’s lantern and moved it along with their art supplies down into the basement. When done, they shut the door above them and knew that, now, none of the others would see them. Not for a time. Not unless Grimmchild teleported down here in denial of the door, and that was far from out of the question.

No matter.

They set the box on the floor gently and then took the painting out again. And there, in Hornet’s home but their nesting spot, they took the painting out of its protective casing. 

Sheo did well from memory. Far better than they did, whenever they practiced with or without him. They would never have what he had. 

(He insisted that was alright.) 

The simple drawing stared back at them. Empty eyes, smaller horns, small . So small. They had crawled from their egg together, the same age, yet the other vessel looked as if they had never molted. 

They looked exactly as they had in that hazy dream, where they were what it should have been and hadn’t been able to feel the touch of the Radiance influencing them for once. 

They looked exactly as they did the day the vessel left them to slip back into the abyss and die.

All those bodies that had fallen before them- all the masks they’d had to crawl through just to get up onto a bony surface- and then all the bodies they heard fall and break around them, adding to that stacking floor-

And they had left another one to fall and make those same breaking noises?

They had.

They couldn’t take that back.

For a long time, they had not even thought they wanted to. They’d been so good about not having wants at all. 

It’d been cruel to face them in that dream. 

Just the same as the vessel they’d let die. Just the exact same. Never given a chance to live in the palace, never given a sister and father and knights, never given the chance to age and grow. 

All that against them (against them too, for being the one who could have prevented that) and yet they had still become the sea itself and risen higher than a god that had become the unequivocal most powerful (she could not free herself, but she defined their existence as pain) force in their contained life.

And then vanished.

Vanished, despite how Hornet went on searches that she returned only more disappointed from, or how another god’s dying vessel stayed in Dirtmouth to wait for any sign in the Abyss of their return.

If they could go to that Abyss and help the vessel onto the platform to go meet those they’d endeared, they would.

They would.

That was a new discovery. They had not known that before just now. 

Hornet said the Abyss was sealed off once again. 

They would remain above in Dirtmouth then with just that realization of regret and dull wishing, then.

The painting was very good. Its subject was so perfectly contained in a creative skill they would never own for themself. But they could replicate. That, they could do.

Their…sibling stared with black pit eyes. They’d seen those eyes on the first day of their life- staring, waiting, maybe even hoping if it was broken and impure like they. Clinging to a platform until they turned their back to follow the defining light. Was there anything in their stare in that dream, where they’d fought again and again and again? It was locked away in the birthplace now, if still alive. There were no answers to find. There were no regrets to air.

The basement was quiet. The lantern was just bright enough to fall on the painting and their own pile of tools alike. There was fresh paper and a few of the pens and charcoals they used for mimicking others' art, since they were slimmer and easier to use well than paintbrushes.

The vessel took up a pen and began to replicate the picture Sheo had drawn.

The sketches and painting alike stayed below, near Quirrel’s gift. But eventually, they returned upstairs in time to catch Hornet going to bed. Grimmchild chose to fall asleep on the floor by their legs when they sat at the smaller table.

Their sister’s ‘gifted’ papers were here. Their finished entries were face down in a continuously growing stack. They had slacked recently.

They would be productive tonight. Hornet’s direction to do these still stood, after all.

The vessel sat without words for a time. They looked back on their most recent entries. It helped sometimes. It was a reminder of how these worked.

Hornet was snoring, a small little huffing sound, by the time they’d started the first line of this one. But after that first line, there were fewer pauses to deliberate. 

It was getting easier.

(They were straying further and further from their purpose and call. A voice should never be easy . It was not supposed to exist comprehensively for them at all.)

‘Entry 46

The nailmaster Sheo was seen today. He recently saw the nailsage. This happened without me. It is good news. 

He gifted me with a picture of the other vessel. 

That vessel should not have been allowed to fall. It would make no difference in the end because the hollow knight plan failed. Maybe it would have been able to consume her earlier if it had not fallen. 

It is hard to know if it still lives or not. Grimm talked about it once. I will ask him again.

This vessel should not survive where that one did not. They should live too. They should come back. There are many bugs that want them.’

The same could not be said about them. Not comfortably. Hornet had wanted Ghost, but accepted them as an elder sibling she’d lost long ago. The Pale King was gone. The White Lady had wanted them replaced by a pure vessel and they could not fault her for hoping for their death- they had wished the same. But now that the Old Light was gone, what was left for the two of them? They’d had nothing to start with. So it had been mostly Hornet. 

At the start.

There were new bugs who had never lived in the old Hallownest. Young bugs, or wandering bugs, all of which oblivious to the expectations of the Pure Vessel that they once were. 

So maybe it could be said about them now. 

Maybe it could be said about both of the vessels instead of just one. 

Chapter Text

‘Entry 47 

This is a small lie: I do not mind the pushing of the Teacher’s assistant because I understand it.

This is perhaps a little bigger than a small lie.

I can not understand it. He thinks I have begun to. I lie. 

Still no name. No title. Failed vessel is too hard of a title to consider. Hornet told the town the former title given to me but it is not deserved. And still no name beyond a title though he asks at times if I would like one.

No?

Any could make one. Hornet could. Quirrel could.

A vessel couldn’t.

Hornet named the other one. If this matters , she can name me. There is none to come from me.

Addendum:

Sheo continues to say it is alright to not come up with art yourself. He is creative. Nailsmith is creative. Vessels are not. It would be a lie to say I might someday be. Sheo has never said I need this lie. If it will not become true in repetition, it may not make a difference if he already says having none is alright. 

The Teacher’s assistant suggests things would be better to have. Small lies say I will get them. Why is it different with these things and not Sheo’s?

Addendum:

I am writing smaller now. This only took two pages. I do not hurt. Dreams are mostly calm. 

Some changes can occur. No knowing which will and which can’t yet.’

Bretta had many books.

They had not seen books often, aside from those in the Watcher’s room. Their contents were too big to fit on tablets like most writing had been put on before Deepnest silks had allowed for Hallownest’s switch to parchment.

Books outside of the kingdom should not have existed. Father had given bugs minds here. Therefore, bugs elsewhere would not have any. But Iselda and Cornifer had come from beyond the kingdom’s reach with art from afar and Quirrel mentioned other kingdoms in passing. 

It did not make sense but it was something to think about another day. 

The subject of Bretta’s books was what they would devote this day to.

They saw the items of bound leaf and woven reed and other such odd things during a visit to the beetle’s house. It was easy to take a seat and stay longer than planned here. Their back didn’t start hurting as quickly in these seats. Where Bretta got them, they were not sure. They did not ask. 

They barely asked things except when something she had said was especially confusing. 

She didn’t eagerly-but-defensively hand over one of her…what she called journals (they were far from what the vessel knew to recognize as an entry) that day. Instead, she’d brought over a different stack of items.

“These are some of the books I brought with me from my old town,” Bretta said. 

That was how they’d learned to put the word ‘book’ to these folders. Aside from the contents being some sort of plant material rather than silk, they were not too different from Lurien’s.

“They really gave me company- I mean, I liked them, a lot, when I was traveling and…And, well, Dirtmouth was really quiet when I first came here. Books were always a good way to pass time! I wish one of the shops sold some more.”

Seemingly realizing that she had been talking but not making sense to them, she got to the point.

“Would you like to see some?”

No.

But they weren’t repulsively averse to humoring it. They just nodded and extended their hand.

The beetle made a noise that could only be considered a squeal before knocking over her stack of books to grab one out of it.

“Here’s one of my favorites!” Bretta offered.

The vessel took it politely and lounged back in the sponge of a seat.

With their reading speeds, it would be a while to get through ‘A Delicate Heart’.

‘Entry 51

This is not a small lie this time:

Hornet is my sister.

Company in Dirtmouth is tolerable, some more tolerable, some less.

Her company is different than tolerable. It means different feelings. I want to be useful to her. I want to be kept by her.

Here are more truths:

The nightmare god and vessels are not her . Their presence is not threatening. The elder is kind. 

The child wants me. I want him to feel kept.

Monomon’s assistant pushes. But he does not hate, though it is my fault I was not a hollow knight. 

The company of the above is different. 

Addendum:

This is not a small lie either:

I think-'

(Do not think, cannot think, they hated that phrasing.)

‘-my father loved me. That is the word. Maybe not all of it. Maybe a fraction of its meanings. Maybe little love. That was what I return. It is the word I will use.

I do not think I used to, like I did him. But I love my sister. This is now allowed .’

If there were indeed fifty-seven of these, then the vessel would take many trips to learn them. They rarely sat through more than five before calling a quit. It was a consequence of pressing more often during each one for elaboration.

Perhaps it was a fool’s errand to question Zote. Bretta complained sometimes without prompting that ‘he wasn’t the type to listen’. Bretta was, apparently, frustrated that she’d been the one listening before only to find out he did not even know who she was.

They didn’t understand how Bretta viewed him. Neither did it matter to them. They weren’t sure that it should, yet.

(Nothing should matter, something in them wanted to say, but that same something didn’t want them to be able to say anything.)

(It got easier every day to stray from every core attribute their creator had called them up from the Abyss by saying.)

They visited either home for different purposes. Bretta’s ‘stories’, they rarely questioned her on. Some answers were better unlearned. Zote’s claims were another matter.

If they should have no voice to speak, then they should find nothing pushing them to keep asking questions when others had told them the vessel lookalike never accepted any criticism on unlikely tales. It was oddly satisfactory to question anyways. They continued when they returned to start again on precepts interrupted before.

They had evidently already failed precepts twelve and thirteen when they learned them now. When chained in the air, they had no chance to clean their cloaks of infection. It had become unsalvageable, even for Hornet. And ‘do not fear’? They had broken that upon their first years of life when they realized their awe for their father was more than a simple drive to follow orders, as it should have been, and they feared being caught- being caught, and as such letting that father down. Then time with the plague had taught them horror and terror and what it was to cry for release. 

Fourteen, they succeeded in. Zote’s success in that precept, they were less sure of. They flagged for him to stop and wrote a question on who his superiors were.

“I have none here!” Zote had declared.

Then sniffed and seemed offended.

When they wrote that Hornet was a superior in the royal and age and combat sense, he’d threatened to kick them out of his house.

Zote’s threats were funny things, the vessel had begun to realize. He made them with claims that it would be whoever he threatened that was deprived of his presence, but never made good on them when someone was already in his house with him.

Precept sixteen was interesting, they supposed. Few things really interested them. But the idea to continue through with any decision once made was familiar. They hadn’t ever allowed themself many second thoughts when they had spent so long trying not to have first thoughts. Then every span of the time spent with the Old Light took hesitation and doubts and let it flood between the two way feedback in search for singular what went wrong moments that could never be gone back to and fixed anyways.

Then came seventeen, because the vessel had not thought to pause Zote long on the previous.

He sounded particularly proud of this one. 

“Others may doubt you, but there's someone you can always trust.” He puffed his chest out. “Yourself. Make sure to believe in your own strength, and you will never falter.”

What a nice promise. 

In what examples had it worked? They had lied so well that they had believed they would hold the plague in. Had they? They had thought themself strong enough. Now, they had a hard time remembering their strength. They felt weak after failure. Except when they had actually fought during the troupe’s event night, when the moment had been too distracting for doubts. Or their moments of artwork, when they were similarly all consumed by one focus to have thoughts of doubt about their worth.

Believe in yourself and you will never falter? It sounded too difficult to be true.

‘Entry 53

Here is a small lie that does not feel small:

I could deserve a name someday.

I do not believe it.

But I will claim it here.

Addendum: I am scared I may believe it someday. I am scared.’

It had been a nice evening with Hornet in the house. She had returned from a hunt with vengefly for herself and set about cooking it much earlier than she usually returned to the hut. They drew (it was their second attempt of the night at sketching a painting given by Grimm as a gift; they were getting more and more of those) while she cooked in silence.

They put their art aside and rose from the floor when she sat down to eat. Taking the other seat, they kept themself controlled while nibbling on some green stems Hornet had pulled out of Greenpath; she had taken to bringing back smaller servings of non-meats for them lately. They were (unfortunately) curious (because it was still hard to admit to such a thing) if Quirrel had talked with her. They’d both made the discovery about the vessel’s food preferences near the same time.

After her meal, she spent some time weaving. It was something light gray currently. They had decided not long ago that they thought it might be another cloak for them. 

Perhaps it seemed unprecedented and abrupt to her when they slid a paper across the table. She set the silks down into her lap to pick it up.

They knew what it read. It had just recently been written. Perhaps abruptly for them as well. It had been a whim. What they were bothered with currently was not something they were finding on their own. They were used to being told everything in life by another, not finding and deciding on their own. So while she wove, they had written, “Am I your brother or sister or neither?” and hardly gave it too much stressed thought before shoving it over.

Hornet picked the paper up to read it and set it down again in their reach. They took it automatically; they had grown used to the shuffle of parchment in hands to hold a conversation and it seemed so had she.

(They had grown used to it. Too used to it. What would he say?)

She hummed before answering.

“You may decide, not I. I will be your sibling regardless.”

It seemed so much the opposite of the conditional relations they had as the Pure Vessel. They had to be pure. They had to have no thoughts, no sufferings cried, no will, nothing. They had to lack it all in order to be accepted as the Pure Vessel. And…it was the Pure Vessel that had been wanted. They would not have been treated as they had been if they had decided to show they were not completely pure. 

(They may have been treated better. It had never been worth the risk for them at that young time, unaware of the stakes.)

This was a claim of the opposite from their sister. 

It was that thought that drove them to scratch her own words onto the paper and push it back to her.

“I will be your sibling regardless.”

It occurred to them later that they had rarely ‘vocalized’ to her before that they accepted that relation back.

Hornet was gone in the middle of that sleep cycle. They wandered the crossroads for a time before returning to Dirtmouth to sleep fitfully under the larger table. They woke the moment she crept in the door again. 

When they wrote to ask her why, she’d only said she had gone to Greenpath and then went to her own bunk to lay facing the wall.

They knew she did not sleep. There was no dream essence at all from her too-still form. 

Grimmchild had stared at them when she had given her short answer, as if he wanted to add to it.

But he did not yet speak and his mewls would tell nothing.

‘Entry 55

Why does it matter to make others think of you however you think of you?’

‘Entry 58

Quirrel explained this as what someone views themself as. Their self.

This vessel began by viewing any self as a tool until sister said otherwise. 

Quirrel said it is what someone wants others to view themself as.

It was always called an it in the Pale Court. It is not here. Most times, it is not in my mind anymore either. Others say, I take on . That did not make sense What others say is what I have taken on in my mind that I am not supposed to have.

Changing that now would be a change originating from this vessel unless others started it first. That has not been done before.

It is confusing. 

The purpose does not make sense. Mind to think, but not understand this.’

They rested in another room that likely had not existed before a few moments prior. This place existed in a half state of nightmare. They accepted the suspension that occurred when they entered the physical tent. It did not hurt them so it did not matter.

What mattered more was how plush the seats in this room were. The vessel sank in them rather like they would with Bretta’s soft lumpy sacks. 

Grimm didn’t always offer them any of his odd drinks when they visited him now. But seeing as they had very, very briefly dueled (very brief, because the vessel would not push him into deteriorating faster on accident even while he assured them that he would be fine ‘to dance’ for ‘some time more’), the kettles were out waiting for the two when they entered this room.

The vessel again ignored it. Maybe another time. They did not want to drown. 

Grimm found it easy to talk. That much was clear. No matter if his voice sounded like it was dying (he was), he did not seem to notice. Only when he broke off to cough at times. He waved them off and focused on drinking whatever liquid he had when that happened.

He seemed entirely too unconcerned to them. 

But they were not trying to think about that now. 

Instead, they took the papers (not silk either; not silk but not the texture of Bretta’s papers; how many other kingdoms existed to be making such parchments?) that came with the room and rested with their quill in their hand and their chin on top for some time.

“How have you enjoyed our gift?” Grimm asked them.

The painting. Yes. Another gift. It was now downstairs near the kings idol.

(They did not fully understand.)

“Good.” they wrote. Before handing it over, they started to write lower on the page as well.

“Where did it come from?”

Grimm laughed when he read it.

“The Troupe was fully responsible, I confess. Divine made it some time ago for my travel room,” he answered. 

Travel. 

Yes.

They spread another paper out (they were not too concerned about using too many too fast. They were not certain these papers were even real. Their quill was never the lighter for these visits). 

“That Ritual needs travel. Yes?”

At Grimm’s confirmation, they added more.

“Travel to specific places.”

“Dying kingdoms, yes,” Grimm replied.

Dying kingdoms. Dying kingdoms. 

Were there other beings like their father out there who had thought to elevate these kingdoms? There had to be. Without minds, kingdoms did not build. Then civilization was not tied to father completely.

(Something made them think of a dark sea and old bones before the thought shifted to their prison and they lurched nearly off their seat in the flinch’s attempt to escape that memory no matter what answers it might have held.)

“There are other kingdoms.” They wrote, before thinking to instead add a: “?” after.

Grimm nodded and leaned forward against his knees.

“Oh yes. Many, many more!”

The pink, burnt interior of his mouth showed when it peeled into a smile.

“Would you like to hear stories of some?”

The vessel found themself nodding.

‘Entry 60

I do not want a name.’

‘Entry 64

I am going to try something today. There will be an addendum on success later.

Father tried much and noted all. 

A broken vessel fails already. I lose nothing more from trying if I have lost all that was already.’

The vessel walked to Quirrel’s house with a predetermined thought on what they were there to do. The paper in hand was prewritten before it was ever handed to the pillbug.

“Today, I will be Hornet’s brother.”

Quirrel’s eyes crescented in a smile.

“Do tell me if it feels well for you.”

The vessel nodded at him before taking the paper back. There was tea after, a story of some distant kingdom, and reassurances that grew only slightly less uncomfortable from Quirrel throughout the day before the visit came to a close and he walked back out.

‘Addendum: 

No, I still do not understand.

I may continue to try.’

Chapter Text

He went back to Hornet’s hut, found she was gone, and ate (disgustingly quickly for an observer, but the vessel usually did so if no one was watching) before deciding to actually mull over it all.

It had been interesting. 

The vessel supposed that much. 

He went below the hut with a lantern to look in the broken mirror. 

Father’s son, then, for a day. It was not to last, but it didn’t need to last. There was no kingdom to claim being a prince over. None of this mattered. 

That ill thought carried the vessel back upstairs for an addendum and then they retreated once more to sketch and paint for hours until the town outside was quiet. 

Hornet came in late. She was sleeping when they went upstairs. 

They walked the cavern sleeplessly. 

It had been interesting. 

This was no longer something to just suppose. It had not had a very fulfilling purpose, but it was something to record regardless. Interesting.

Father’s child, son or daughter, what sort of claim was that theirs to make? He had never made it. The Pale King had left it very clear that the vessel was not a relation nor to be viewed as a successor. Its fate was doomed. There would be no point in giving it such a name. 

When the vessel returned to the hut, they wrote by the window’s light. Grimmchild and their sister both slept and they did not want to wake them. 

Though it was rare, they could begin multiple entries in a day. Normally, it was the minimum they were focused on meeting to keep Hornet satisfied. Today would be one of the rarer times. 

(If those times grew less and less rare, what did that mean? They could not like making these. They could not enjoy giving a voice to themself, himself, whatever the vessel chose- chose? Did they make choices now?- to be that day. It was impurity, it was corruption, it was failure-)

(And it was pointless to pretend now, so why must this hurt them?)

They scratched, ‘Entry 65’ onto the top of a new page and then set their chin upon their hand to think. Something moved around in their mouth. They thought it might be their tongue. It unnerved them to feel anything there.

If their focus went somewhere else, they would be able to forget the sensation of their own alien mouth. Their hand went back down to the paper.

‘I was a he today. Like father was.’

Which left the whole thing rather simple.

Except nothing to do with their father felt simple. It hadn’t since learning he would not be with them ever again.

‘Father is dead.

Father knew I was not pure before he died.’

The White Lady had. Hornet had.

Anyone who knew the purpose of the Hollow Knight would have. 

Those that did not were the grand majority now and they did not realize how much displeasure they should view the lone vessel with.

They had begun to prefer the thought that none would ever find out.

‘He will not see me be as he.

I think I am no longer Hornet’s brother now. Maybe I will be a brother again. Maybe tomorrow I will be her sister. It could be tried.

Father will not see me try that either. ’

Anything else would just keep tying to the Pale King and they did not think they wanted to curl up in shaking tonight. 

They copied Sheo’s picture of the vessel instead until their head was clear enough to forget about the grief.

It was a good thing that Grimm’s writing supplies were likely unlimited. Hornet had had to bring a new stack of silk parchments back to them. They came from Deepnest rather than the raining city. She still had not found a reason to accept their offer to go to Deepnest with her. 

(She seemed to be avoiding them even more now, after they pointed this out. They were worried and confused over what they had done wrong.)

His papers either were or were based on the parchment of a kingdom he called Kambeal. What it had died of, Grimm omitted. He called it a pleasant place laden with mineral lined caverns and they determined it would be better not to ask that question. Hearing of another civilization falling apart from a plague or other fate might make them retreat away from anything else said. 

They got the sense Grimm would still usually include that part of the recollection with most others. He would not even find it a more unpleasant thing to relay than the praise on beautiful mineral ruins was for him.

He viewed the end of life and the aftermath of that death rather distantly from negative emotions.

They found it reason to fear. The Troupe used death to stay alive. 

They’d heard of Kambeal the last time they were here. This time, they would hear more of the Troupe itself.

The Troupe and Hallownest both.

They seemed important topics. The latter always had been. The vessel had sacrificed all for it.

They wrote while considering the first true talk they’d ever had with Grimm. He had mentioned Unn. That was a higher being in Greenpath. Dormant now, moreso than the White Lady further beneath her.

What was important was that it had meant Grimm was familiar with her. And who would be familiar with a dormant goddess?

Someone who had been there before, when she was less dormant, they thought.

With that in mind, they wrote and handed over: “You knew of Unn. Did you know my father?”

With most, they would still refer to him as a king. They weren’t openly accepting a relational claim to him. But Grimm would know already, undoubtedly, and he was among Hornet and Quirrel and the child (not that he knew what they said or could speak back) in telling this to.

“I never met him, I’m afraid,” Grimm denied. “I would not get the chance. Living kingdoms tend to find our presence undesirable.”

They nodded to acknowledge it, but their disappointment showed to him. 

“We are more welcome in faded embers. Though surely you have noticed even the few living here keep their distance from us,” he pointed out.

They nodded again.

Grimm leaned back in his seat. It seemed dramatic, at least to a vessel that did very little that could be considered so.

Screeching before a fight could likely be considered so.

The idea that the troupe was a bad influence did not, as it should have, discourage or disturb them. It was not going to be a problem. 

“I cannot say why!” he was saying now. “We’re nothing but gracious hosts- and, if we were to visit a more thriving kingdom rather than dying one, we would be nothing but gracious to our hosts. My Troupe is most well behaved.”

Yes. It seemed a majority of them did not even properly exist. Not in the way mortal bugs were used to considering other mortals.

Each flame was only recognizable to bugs if it inhabited one of the puppet bodies of this odd troupe. 

Time with two gods and the change of the void itself left them more sensitive to such things. 

(They wondered briefly if this was a sign of an ascension to come. They didn’t know that they were open to that idea. If any child of their father should ascend, it would be his daughter.)

Some time later, they talked of Grimm’s…occupation instead. He called it ‘peculiar’ by his own word, but this hardly seemed to stop him from enjoying or accepting such a life. 

(It was not as if he had a choice, the vessel thought. He was born continuously into the role.)

“Think of this,” Grimm began, now leaning forward in his seat so his arms could appear from beneath his wings and gesticulate.

“While there is still ash smothering its floor, a land cannot spawn new life. But when those embers are cleared away, a recently smothered land finds itself with the freshest of soils. Life rises again, in time. Often unaware of what civilization came before, or how that one’s extinguished flames gave way to them. Can you see?”

With most, they would nod in reply to that question even if they did not ‘see’. They did not like to disappoint an expectation. With Grimm, there was no need to make it so automatic. 

But even if it was not automatic, they thought they had followed enough to nod. Fire was a mostly unfamiliar element for them. They had heard in theory that a recent burn paved the way for new growths. They had, admittingly, been hearing that from this same source. Grimm knew a lot about fire. 

The troupe master nodded too.

“Good.” he said. “Your father, however, would not have. Thus, my Troupe was always unwelcome in his presence.”

Hornet had wanted to keep Grimmchild in Dirtmouth when she led them to the queen’s gardens. There was a territorial nature to higher beings, sometimes. Sometimes that territory was literal. Sometimes it was people. It had been people for her-

They were not here to think about her. 

But Grimm suggested it was more than that. The Pale King may not have seen the Nightmare Heart’s presence just as a threat to steal his territory. It was also the implication that that territory was doomed and dying, because otherwise the troupe would not be there. 

They thought they understood that now.

It still seemed a bit of a shame. They thought Grimm was nice. They cared a bit (less than for Hornet, a little more than for Quirrel) for Grimmchild. They’d loved their father. All of this left them considering that it would have been nicer if they would have all liked each other, had they known each other. 

They pulled a paper over. 

“That is sad. You do not know other gods then?” they wrote.

It seemed lonely. Their father had known other higher beings. He had loved one with his entire being. At least until the vessel had ascended from the Abyss and changed their shared lives.

“I know of many, but only from being chased away from their territory or seeing their graves,” Grimm said.

Yes, that sounded lonely. He seemed content with his troupe, however. Maybe the Nightmare Heart was not one too capable of loneliness. 

Their father was very different from that, they thought. 

He had always seemed to prefer company. 

“Most gods hoard,” Grimm said later, regarding being chased from any still living kingdom. “They would not want to watch what they’ve made burn. I wonder if the new god of Void is different.”

They would not know. The void was quiet. The call of the Abyss was muted now more than ever before. Whatever had happened had distanced it.

“Are you?” they wrote instead of following Grimm’s curiosity or longing for answers about an ascended vessel they’d never properly met.

An interesting trait of Grimm’s that they had noticed was how he would still answer their questions regarding the god he was tied to itself, as if they were one and the same sometimes. He called himself a vessel, but that process was different from their experience with the Old Light. It was not subsuming one over the other. It was not chaotic. Maybe that was what let Grimm answer in these ways. He was very close with that which he hosted.

“I am certainly not immune, no matter my awareness of this trait where other gods are blind to it. The Troupe is the hoard of the Nightmare Heart,” he answered. “We satisfy that trait’s need. Because of that, the Heart can look to all other former creations with understanding of the rebirth cycle.”

They wondered privately if the higher being had ever made creations like kingdoms or tribes then. In their experience with gods, such things were not just left even if the bugs themselves would like to be.

The mirror had been moved back down into their basement. …Was it their basement now? They were not supposed to possess anything. Not a room, not a house, it should be a belonging of their monarch and nothing more.

It had been quite some time since being freed. 

Just a blip compared to all that time spent trapped, yes. It felt like a long time ago anyways. And the time spent trapped and hurting instead felt like the shortened experience, all condensed together and confused and blurry. 

It had been a short time in comparison to their lifespan but so much had changed during that. The changes would be appalling to the pure vessel of old. 

They tried not to think about that now. 

The vessel had the mirror in a corner most times. The nest on the ground was most comfortable to lay on if they faced the wall that would, one level above, be the door’s wall. They rarely saw the glass because it lay behind that nest.

Today, they brought the lantern over to it and looked. 

Their cloak was longer now. Hornet had found a way to make its bottom edges flat when their good shoulder and rotted one were uneven. The new one being made was shorter. They could tell that much though it was unfinished. Hornet had asked them recently if they would mind wearing any other color. They thought of the red of her garb and considered how much attention would be drawn to them in a color like that. It was less startling a thought than it had been weeks ago. Those that stared would be bugs already familiar with them. The only difference was when they went down to the old capital city and that wasn’t often. And most of the sentries couldn’t see them anyway. The point of this was that, while in Dirtmouth, who would be staring that hadn’t stared before? Who would be looking that somehow now knew they had failed to contain the infection if few knew that already?

They shrugged for her and realized it was honest enough. They would likely mind in the way that they would think too much about it, but those thoughts would not make it a completely negative experience. 

This also was a different thought process to that of the pure vessel of old. It would have just agreed to anything the daughter of the king told it she wanted it to do. After failing at its purpose, it would not have wanted to do anything that could draw attention and stares. 

That wasn’t something they were here to mull over currently.

They were here to consider some of the most recent two entries made a few days before.

They thought about being a he now, for a few hours that day at least that he had been a he. For those hours, he had been Hornet’s brother. Grimmchild’s…The vessel wasn’t sure what Grimmchild was yet, but he had lived in this house since nearly the very start and they thought that must make him family too. But now to think about being Hornet’s sister instead. Being a she, like the Gendered Child.

But that left them to think about what a she was. Father was a he. He made them think of father first, then others secondary; the teacher’s assistant, Ogrim of the knights, the nailmaster Sheo, Grimm, Zote…

‘She’ would be different. It already was different. ‘She’ should have made them think of the Gendered Child first. It didn’t.

‘She’ was-

The Radiance.

The infection crawling around the kingdom, unchecked, because they had not done what they were built to do, because the vessel had failed to contain, and it crawled through their body too in awful-

No no, too hard to think.

But that was she. In their mind, viewing their own mind as a she, her mind, instead of it, they, he, would also be-

Painful light. Painful, angry, angry light. Imprisonment and failure and pain and everything they had been made to stop and kill.

That was how she had viewed herself. She. I. 

And she had been in them. Their voice was not theirs, because vessels had no voice, no mouth to cry with. Their voice was hers and they had never wanted it. But it had not stopped her. Nothing they could do ever did. 

Attempting any speech was not just unnatural, but a reminder of her. 

But thinking of self…

They was almost fine. The Radiance had blurred the lines after some time. Where the vessel ended and she began had become so much more muddled, even for the trapped god. It and She became They at times. Never pleasant. The vessel did not want to think of itself with reminders of that, her, them trapped, her will forcing its way through theirs.

To think in their head of their self with she was harder even than to think with I. Both meant it was not them thinking. It was alien thoughts in their head, another’s presence and will exerted over theirs when they should not have one to start with.

“She” was Radiance, light, and pain.

But “she” was also…

Hornet said she was a she. Hornet was a sibling. Hornet…the vessel loved Hornet. 

(They shouldn’t. They shouldn’t love if they were what they were supposed to be.)

But they did. 

Hornet occasionally talked of her mother, or caretakers, and they were she’s. 

So the vessel…she could be she. Sometimes. Not currently, but sometimes. And she could hope, cling, wish that it would not make them think of Her. 

It was midday for most in Hallownest when they left the hut to walk down to the troupe. 

The plague was something they tried not to think about. After all, to think about it meant to face their colossal failure. And to face that failure meant to want to collapse and let void flake away and feel her throat (-no, it was theirs now, just like that throat’s voice was; it did not belong to a dead god-) convulse. 

It meant to remember every failure that occurred while sealed- every time they had called for a father that could not come, every time they had agreed to whatever she said to pacify her, every time they were unable to stay strong against some pain and, when they returned to awareness, found some new part of their body rotting and knew it correlated to some new part of Hallownest infected by a blight they were failing to contain. 

But there was more to hate and fear from that time than failure to contain. 

It was every modification. Every loss. The constant rotting. The hatred and despair reeking into every dream. The burning light that scorched void and left no place dark enough for it to feel comfortable.

They would never have existed if the Old Light hadn’t been destroying Hallownest, but they had long ago begun wishing she had either not existed as well or that she had never manifested such a plague. 

There was a god so very like her nearby.

There was a god of a realm a single step away from dream, whose essence was burning light, whose body was moth, whose eyes were colorful brightness even within its vessel outside that dream realm. 

A god alike to her for these reasons, but one who they had already decided was not her. Not her at all. Its vessel was kind and the essence behind Grimm and the child and troupe alike had no malice. 

If she had never had such malice, then they wouldn’t have hurt. They wouldn’t have burned. They wouldn’t have been created.

There had been no thoughts allowed of the plague for so long.

And now they walked into that other vessel’s territory to make him, too, think about someone they wished had been forgotten more thoroughly the first time? 

Sometimes, the vessel did not understand what they did. 

Actually, it was more than just a few rare sometimes. 

They took the lead to a private room this time. Grimm followed without needing to question the difference. Any supplies for voicing speech was ready when they arrived. They did not waste time before sitting and writing, “You are not the Old Light.” 

He hummed upon picking such a message up.

Yes, he knew that already. It was not a pointless thing to say, however. He had strove to make that fact clear before. 

The Old Light hurt you. I do not plan to do the same. 

“You knew of her.” they wrote. Their back twitched near the bad shoulder while he read that one. 

“Who near Hallownest did not know of the mad light? Her plague was an unfortunate thing,” he said (intentionally, most likely; this was a being that talked of the corpses of unfortunate civilizations calmly, disconnected from grief and sadness).

Perhaps from some, that would sound patronizing. They did not find it so. Their hand was already writing again. 

They did not want to think hard on what they were writing this time. 

It took effort not to think about her. To leave her forgotten in their own scarred mind, when remnants of that nightmare with her could be anywhere if they were not careful to stay guarded.

Effort they now ignored?

But-

They did not understand why they were here. Only that they had to be.

The vessel refused to look at the note any longer than they had to when the pen wrote the question mark at the end. They slid it to Grimm before giving time to feel guilt or disgust.

“Why did she have to fight my father?” it read. It would read. It would always read for the time to come, unless they handed it to Grimmchild to burn or something.

They knew too many answers already.

It had been a war, for higher beings.

She had not come back completely intact from that first death. 

She was madly, madly possessive. Jealous and devastated at the mere thought a creation of hers might choose to leave her for another fate. This had remained even while she was trapped in a breaking void vessel while her plague killed the world of bugs and moths alike with no difference spared.

What more?

What less?

They knew more. They knew more than anyone would ever want to. 

Being a vessel to a god was not something they would volunteer for even if that god was to want to be within them rather than spending the whole time trying to escape by force. It melded identity and viewpoint and emotion and sense and everything that made up Someone, and Someone Else.

There was the reason Grimm spoke for the Nightmare Heart with ‘I’s and ‘me’s. 

The vessel resisted a shudder at the thought of ever slipping and outwardly referring to the Old Light as themself. She was gone now. She was gone. They did not need to keep thinking about her. But she had reframed their shared body and she had likewise forever impacted the methods of thought in their mind. Their thoughts in front of the mirror this hour proved it.

Their tongue felt heavy in their mouth. They wished they had not noticed that, for now it would probably be stuck being felt for hours.

Grimm tilted his head. 

He would know why they went to him.

Nightmare and dream were far too similar to be coincidence.

But he did not give them more than they already knew.

“I never met her,” Grimm answered. “My part in the ritual came and went while we were far beyond Hallownest.”

Maybe it was better. Maybe there was nothing that could make the justification for their existence come to peace with the lasting effect of their own self perception.

They didn’t know. 

They didn’t understand why it had always had to be this way, from the moment they were created on the floor of the Abyss. Their fate had been to suffer and it had never been to survive. They had survived and they accepted that as better now. But their head hurt and it hurt to think and talk when they had been created not to, and it hurt that when they tried to follow Quirrel’s advice, they thought of her, like the god that created them and the one they were created to destroy would not let them be free even in death.

It was wrong to think of their father and the Old Light in the same breath. 

But both had made them by fighting each other. 

So why had they had to fight?

Who benefited as an outcome? Both had died. Both’s hoards, as Grimm called them, had died.

And they had been hurt. (Why couldn’t that have mattered, when they were a small child being pulled apart by gods, at least one aware and the other in denial that they were indeed a child?)

Perhaps they’d been hurt from the very start, years before walking into the black egg.

“Will it help you to know?” Grimm asked quietly. 

The vessel looked up, unaware their gaze had drifted to the floor to start with. 

They looked away by choice a moment later. Grimm’s stare was too direct. 

Avoiding his eyes did not mean avoiding him. They supposed they had been the one to begin this conversation. 

It was one they could end.

Was that what they wanted?

A lack of such knowing attention, yes. They did not want to be dissected by a stare. They did not want their intentions questioned. 

But the question they had asked was still one they wanted answered.

Even now, as they felt no answer, no properly satisfactory answer, would ever exist. 

In their silence, the troupe master began again.

“Some pasts are best left buried. But ah! I suppose you find me hypocritical for that, when my nature holds onto past after past.” He smiled toothily. “We still allow others to rest by taking in their lingering nightmares of the past.”

Thankfully, this had not been offered to them directly yet. They were unsure they’d decline. Nightmares were not common, but memories were. There was an appeal to losing pieces of a self if it meant losing those. 

They held the base of their horn for a moment until they released the pressure. Facing Grimm, they nodded. 

He tilted his head in silence before finally leaning back again.

“I never met either, as I said,” he began. “But the Old Light was a force always known to us. There were previous incarnations of Grimm that even met her. I cannot say my life is lacking for not being one of them. Not after I have seen what she has done to you.”

They went back to staring at the floor for a few seconds. Their first instinct was to think a vessel didn’t deserve such a major role in an opinion, but Grimm was a vessel. And they would not say he did not matter. They already thought the Nightmare Heart damaged him enough. The thought that the child would go through it all too unsettled them. He was far from that pain now. The vessel would have been while small as well. Those older around them knew what would come for them when they’d grown. They were now a part of the latter, in relation to Grimmchild.

“While they were similar breed, I do not recall ever seeing that much of the Old Light. We only passed by the peak of Hallownest as visits between our travels. The troupe would have been small then,” Grimm paused his even recollection. “Dream gives. It creates. She was always so fond of creating. The heart of the nightmare realm prefers the opposite. We take. Beings and kingdoms make nightmare essence without any help from us at all.”

Dream created alright. 

It created growths and pustules. It created plague. It created new organs and functions that had never been asked for and left the waking with a rattling voice that still scared them.

Between these functions of dream and not-dream, they knew which they viewed as preferable.

“I’ve misled,” Grimm interrupted himself.

Oh. They took a moment to resettle themself to the setting after the unexpected interruption.

“The realm was one, once. We are not allowed to reenter it. Not with any more power than the smallest sleeping bug.”

…oh?

There was indeed far too much similar between dream and the nightmare essence they’d called not-dream. 

But if it was all one realm once-

“Dream was her realm.” they wrote.

It still didn’t make sense.

“It was shared? Did not know higher beings shared.”

Grimm laughed.

“Nothing I have said would suggest they would!” he agreed. 

And he said no more on a realm shared with a now dead god. 

“There were no vessels at that time,” Grimm said, because he had an uncanny way of knowing what was asked in silence. Or to others that did not know his proximity to a god’s power, it would be. “There was no ritual. How am I to talk of it?”

He couldn’t.

And the Old Light did not talk to others. It took her years to talk to her prison alone, after realizing they were the only thing that could hear her at all. They did not know that to be an improvement. 

They still felt as if she was talking through their mind at times. That was bad enough. Just as it was bad enough to think I since they had been made to be the pure vessel and the pure vessel was no I, there also had to be that poisoned touch to it left from her.

All senseless?

They had always idolized their father. They wanted far away from the merest suggestion of the infection, but they were not sure they fully hated the Old Light. So why had it ended in corpses and ashes? Why couldn’t it have-

(Did it help to think this way?)

“Whatever motivations the Old Light had, they were kept within dream- and dream is where our power is barred.” Grimm said softly. “Even had I met her in this lifetime, I would have no answers for you.”

The vessel had thought so.

They had reached the conclusion as time passed between his responses.

They were left with no sense for the senseless. Nor, at the least, a stronger hate for the one that had ruined them. 

They felt empty.

How perfect, to feel such now. It was not needed. It was no longer pleasant. Their mind had grown too used to consistent thought.

Grimm waved his hands out to the side over the armrests of his chair.

“Who can speak for dead gods?” he spoke nearly cheerfully. “Not I. Nor the Nightmare Heart, I’m afraid. I would share any answer to you if there had been one, my friend. But I am left with no more than you and I have not thought to question either of them until you raised such questions now. To me, they paved the way for the finest stage I could ask to take my final bow on. But that is insensitive to you, is it not?”

It partially was. They did not want Hallownest dead.

Grimm was weird though and needed places to die in order to feed his child.

It killed him too, but…He still clearly prefered to burn if it meant giving that child life.

They let the conversation die. They had broken their own silence on the Old Light by bringing it up and now they were ready for that silence to return for a while. At least until the emptiness left.

Grimm brought something up one more time before they went. It was not explicitly about the Radiance, so it did not push them even more into a retreat of hollow thought. 

“The dream realm still exists. You have noticed its essence, haven’t you?” he asked as his eyes narrowed on them. 

They hesitated before nodding. Yes. They knew of essence. They knew of nightmare essence now and had become even better at separating them. They knew when their sister was awake and faking sleep, sleeping dreamlessly, dreaming, or having a nightmare. The lattermost was rare. Grimmchild would sit above her when one happened and the essence would fade away while leaving the beating heart to pulse stronger. 

(They never told her about that happening. It seemed like something she didn’t need to know.)

Grimm’s mouth peeled back from jagged teeth. 

“Interesting, isn’t it? When its god died, the realm did not return to us nor did it fade. If not the former, I could only expect it to break and fade away. Yet they still dream.”

He meant to imply…

That, what? She wasn’t dead? Their thorax hurt in brief panic. Unlikely- he had said its god died. 

Its creator, or original god, at any rate. 

Yet they still dream…

The vessel reached for their pen. 

“The realm has a god before you tried to retrieve it?” they wrote, before erasing the sentence to re-write it with ‘had’ instead of ‘has’. 

Satisfied enough, they gave it to Grimm.

He kept his smile and gave a nod of his own for the night. 

They had landed on the right answer.

“Whoever its new head is, they stay quiet. I am blocked from accessing even a glimpse of them. It is a far more shadowed and distant banishment than the previous.” 

His mouth finally relaxed and he leaned deeply into his seat. He looked tired. He seemed excited. Somehow, both could be true. 

“Curious, isn’t it?” he pressed and they knew he would continue to think so even if they did deny it.

But Hornet had said he claimed a desire to stay here and watch the void until his time ran out.

It just seemed he watched it through many a medium.

Chapter Text

The vessel was drawing something new this time. Quirrel had recently taken them to visit the house in Greenpath and Sheo had given instructions on this while the pillbug and Nailsmith talked somewhere else. Sheo had shown them how to draw one of the wooden figurines he had recently made- a new venture, since a figurine was not a flat model pre-drawn by someone who knew what they were doing. But so long as they kept the page completely blank aside from the figurine itself, it was…okay. Challenging. The dimensions were coming out all wrong. They had to set them themself, rather than a different flat canvas or page having already set them. 

If they were meant to also consider the surface a figurine sat on and the walls behind it and how to keep both within the same size scale as a flat drawn statue, it would have been too much.

This was alright, as it was. 

It was something new to do. It was new and so it took up even more focus and their thoughts could relax.

They were using the king's idol- their king’s idol?- for it now. It was notably harder to do this without Sheo sitting over their shoulder. He broke tasks down in a way their mind alone couldn’t yet. 

One thing they could say was that this did not look much like father. In their defense, the idol was limited as a reference. He had never been so round and limbless.

The vessel glanced up from their sketching when the hut’s door opened and closed. They continued when they realized their sister was not going to ask them to pause. She was busy. She often was. 

When she passed by the table to put her bag down, she noticed their activity. She paused as if she was going to speak.

Instead, Hornet brought her own stool closer to look at what they did. 

After a while passed and she said it “was good”, she got up to prepare her meal and pick up her own weaving project. The weaverlings were brought out to dance around their feet. She fiddled with her project sporadically before dropping it in her lap and looking at them.

“There are other nailmasters,” she said, unprompted.

They took a moment to understand what the string of words meant.

Oh! Nailmasters, like Sheo. Were all three pupils masters now? That would be good. Accomplishing what was set out to be done was good. They had been children when they set out on that path to master the nail arts. 

What did this have to do with them?

They tilted their head when they remembered that was an effective way to indicate a question. 

“I thought you may be interested,” Hornet said. “You know the one in Greenpath.”

Sheo. There were two others. Who were the others? They had all been rather similar as children. There had been one who asked to play with them a few times before learning they wouldn’t react. Wait- that one was Sheo. There was another who, with their hindsight of understanding people a little better now, they thought had been shy. But when they rarely saw the pupils outside of training matches between the four, they couldn’t recall much more of a distinction. They’d been identical in size, appearance, and clothing. Their differences then just came in skill and technique and strategy (and how fast they would be to tap out and give victory to the vessel).

Did Sheo know the others still? They were all siblings. The vessel thought siblings were very important. They thought fathers were too but Sheo indicated that he hadn’t kept up with the nailsage despite a similar bond. 

They reached over their sketch to grab a paper meant for a new entry.

“Two others?” they asked.

Hornet nodded.

“There is one in the Howling Cliffs near the edge of my patrol. I do not like that he stays there, but we came to an agreement.” 

Their sister paused. 

“If you would visit, tell me first. I will lead you there,” she offered when she finally began again. “The cliffs can be difficult to traverse.”

Perhaps it would be like when they had visited the White Lady, then. Hornet had taken them there but stayed away. 

Or perhaps she had kept that distance specifically because it was the White Lady.

Whatever it was, they thought they would like it if she wanted to see this nailmaster too. 

They went to write that before pausing at a separate thought. 

Though wants did occur, they did not often tell others. If asked if they wanted to do something, they may nod yes or no, but it was because the person needed an answer and they would oblige to an offer if they did not mind it. Not minding it and wanting it were different. This would hardly matter to most in Dirtmouth. Quirrel would know better. But Hornet especially would know better. She had wanted them to find ease in writing and speaking and interests, because she knew they’d been intended to have none. 

Conversations with others had grown common. Sometimes easy.

Others wouldn’t know better. 

In that moment, the thought of the Gendered Child hearing them say they wanted her was akin to saying to their father they wanted him and-

It was just facing change. Change they allowed.

Change they sometimes liked. 

They stayed motionless.

They were not nearly far enough through the cliffs to hear true howling. The place instead felt very quiet, despite its name. There was a breeze that ruffled the grasses peeking out of cobblestone. It was barely any noise. It felt like the noise of a place abandoned. Better than the pulsating of infection, yes.

Infection was the sound of a kingdom dying. 

This seemed more like the sound of a place already long past death. Dilapidated huts, ruined roadways, fences sagged with age…It used to be as alive as Dirtmouth but it was not, now. But neither was it dead.

Its people were gone, but the place itself was repopulated with vengflies, crawlids, and harmless tiktiks. There were still lamp posts that had survived the passing of time, but far, far more lumaflies just hovered in the air. They floated and flew about gently. It was hard to stare at a place clouded in lumaflies and think it a dead place.

Besides, it was not completely unpopulated of thinking bugs. There was a nailmaster here. Their sister had said so.

She led them along abandoned roads, all overgrown with new life, until they reached a smaller cave tunnel. Hornet motioned them into a hut there. It had more cloths hanging around it than they recalled Sheo’s place having. Then again, Sheo’s hut was very crowded inside with different pieces of art, tools of art, and even thorns grown over the interior walls. This home was clearly one focused on the nail arts and hunting instead. Bones and old exoskeletons lay about with scattered pillows. They looked like very comfortable pillows. Between the hanging cloths and the colored pillows, it made them think more of Bretta’s house than the other nailmater’s.

There was even an extra room- or was it just a hall, converted from the cave tunnel?- with a bench in the home’s entrance. Sheo lived with another, so the vessel thought it strange his house would be smaller than one with only one occupant. There was only one occupant, right? Hornet had made it sound like he lived here alone.

When they looked into the main room of the hut, they only saw one. He was crouched on the ground with his head so low that it seemed eaten by the fluffy collar of his cloak. The vessel recognized that style of cloak and the armor beneath it- not just because Sheo still wore his, under his painting apron, but because the nailsages of old had their own smaller versions. 

The current nailmasters had molted much bigger than the average bug. The vessel was also larger than the average bug. They remembered when the three brothers couldn’t even come up to their knees at their current height. 

A few nails rather like the large one used by the nailsage who was now a shopkeeper were placed against the far wall of the hut. Hunted beasts and shields hung on the walls. Maybe another would find it less inviting than Sheo’s. The vessel had grown up around nails and knights.

They spied for too long, considering the bug resting inside did not look up to see them. In fact, the kneeling giant didn’t notice them until they tripped against the door frame on their way into the room itself. His head lifted with a ‘huh?’ It showed a face nearly identical to Sheo’s. The vessel froze where they were caught.

But he shoved up to his feet (taller than them, at this angle; taller than them, while they half-hunched, half-crouched in a near sprawl on his floor) and spoke up with a voice they did not think was startled, or even angry. That was good. They did not want to cause either. 

“Ah!” the nailmaster greeted. He sounded like Sheo, if Sheo spoke louder. “I thought I sensed the aura of a fierce warrior approaching! Why do you wait there? Come in, come in.”

They pulled their legs and arm back up to a better position to obey and shuffled forward. The young pupils and older sages had always had a culture of their own around one another. They bowed, so the vessel should do that. That was a greeting. Right?

He had spoken up while they considered it and dipped slightly. Perhaps they had remembered wrong. He did not seem to need a nonverbal greeting anyways. He seemed eager enough to talk.

“To scale these cliffs is no simple feat. Any that find my sanctuary at the top of the world must have already endured and overcome much.” The nailmaster stood straighter, taller. “I thought I was again sensing a fierce warrior braving these parts, so soon after the last sought this place.” He clapped his hands together. “I see why you are here then!”

Whatever that reason was, they did not learn it. Hornet took the moment to finally step in.

They had wondered if she would stay outside. She said the few paths to access the old kingdom’s gates were treacherous to find without experience; but that only meant she would guide them here. It did not mean she wanted to join. 

With how she had acted ever since the night they had declared their familial relation back to her, they had thought she wouldn’t come in just because they were in here.

It was up to Hornet to avoid them, if she wished to.

(But the vessel wanted her to wish otherwise.)

The nailmaster’s attention was drawn to her.

“Oh, I see. Two fierce warriors, then,” he rectified. There was a short moment’s pause as they stared at one another. “It is you again,” he said directly to Hornet to break it.

She responded evenly.

“It is I. Good day, Nailmaster,” she added, inclining her head his way.

He repeated the greeting, though with ‘protector’ in the place of his own title.

Hornet nodded at the vessel next.

“This is my elder sibling,” she introduced and left it there.

The silence grew uncomfortable. They thought of asking for paper from Hornet so that they might ask her what they were supposed to request or say or do now, if this silence was on them to break.

It would be nice to know which pupil this one even was. Hornet hadn't told them whether their visit was to the eager little Mato or quiet Oro.

The nailmaster nodded to acknowledge Hornet’s abrupt introduction and then looked upon them more carefully.

“Have you come to learn the Art of the Nail? I have a pupil currently, but they have learned all they could from me so this must mean I have time to teach another. And…the Great Nailsage took multiple pupils on.”

It sounded like rambling thoughts voiced, rather than words intended for someone specific to hear. 

The nailmaster must not have thought so, for he lost his uncertainty to stand proud again.

“Yes! I see you are here for this, then!” he exclaimed. He sounded happy about it. They hadn’t prepared to train at all, and they remembered the Nail Arts taught by the great nailsage and the younger nailsage who now made people angry after they left his shop. 

Maybe he would have more insight on changing their form now that they were unbalanced from the loss of their arm. 

It wasn’t the sketching they were taught by Sheo, but in hindsight it was more odd for that nailmaster to teach art than to have a nailmaster offer to teach on the signature weapon in question. 

“I am not sure that is true for both of us. I will sit aside,” Hornet declined.

She turned to look up at them.

“Your decision is your own to make.”

They were not good at making rapid choices. They were still not good at choices to start with. The fact that they had improved left them conflicted between benefits and the lingering sense they shouldn’t, that it was betrayal.

The vessel shifted their weight on the foot nearest the door. The nailmaster looked saddened. 

“I understand,” he said, even if his voice did not sound like he understood. He mentioned a recent pupil. Considering Sheo had passed on a nail art to the other lone vessel, it seemed quite like this one had met Ghost as well.

They hadn’t meant to tell him no, when they just did not know what they meant to do. So they shook their head, then nodded it, then shook it again in frustration over which they had needed to communicate uncertainty. They merely felt rushed. They needed more time for a decision. They hadn't meant to imply their decision was to turn him down.

“You accept, then? Or hesitate? Why hesitate?” the nailmaster asked. “Do you think yourself unworthy of my Nail Art? Do not fret. I too was once like you, unsure of my own strength.”

They…this hadn’t been over a matter of worth. 

(But the vessel was unworthy of many of the gifts they were freely offered, this they knew.)

Neither did they remember the little pupils displaying uncertainty for their potential. Perhaps some seemed more confident than others, and some took to their failures harder. But none had thought they would not succeed in the sages’ teachings…had they? The vessel had not noticed. They watched much, but had endeavored to stay blank and empty and that meant not drawing conclusions about what the behaviors of others might mean for their internal states. 

Worth or uncertainty. They knew their strength. It was faded compared to what they once had. It was still strong. Strong enough to accidentally hurt nearly anyone around them. 

That was a fear they did not want to ever see realized.

There was something about his words. Something about the idea of being reassured, of someone saying they had comparable experiences, and that those experiences were not ones to fret over. They did not know what that something was, exactly. 

The nailmaster seemed nice, just like his brother in Greenpath. That was what they could draw from it.

They finally reached for their sister, who understood and offered paper and charcoal to them. They crouched on the floor to write. Above them, their sister was telling the nailmaster that they did not speak verbally (this was technically not true- but they had not used her their- that voice near her). He confirmed his last ‘pupil’ had not either. 

He would have to hear someday that this pupil was missing. If he cared, then he would not be happy. It seemed that most they met had cared. Even the red vessels of a rival god. They would not deliver the news now. Someone else could tell him. 

For now, they had a different set of messages to deliver. They flipped through the two pages they had written.

“Unsure. There is no enemy to fight now. But sparring is useful. Clears head. I have met Sheo. Which are you? Would like to stay to visit. Can we stay if not students? I cannot call myself a pupil now anymore ”

Not when their teachers were missing. Gone. Dead. 

Ogrim lived. One of the nailsages lived. Not all were gone.

Their king was, however, and he had been their world while the rest of their teachers had similarly centered around him. 

The vessel finished (deciding not to work over any spots and make more of a mess of the papers) and handed their message over to the nailmaster respectfully. He read through the papers while they wondered if they should have kept their words shorter or if they should have written more.

“Of course you may visit! Please, make yourself comfortable, both of you! You know my brother Sheo? How does he fare? Well, I hope. I know he is also teaching, as my chi-pupil learned from him recently.”

He…spoke of many different things without much of a break. They tried to remember the first sentence, then second, and so forth, just to make sure they had been able to catch each part said. 

Just as they thought they might have caught up, the nailmaster was talking again. 

“I am Nailmaster Mato,” Mato, apparently, answered last. 

So this was once the loudest of the trio. And the one who had been easiest to defeat whenever the younger vessel took all three on. It was of no fault of the child. He had always tried perhaps even harder than the rest. He would not tap out even when he had been knocked aside enough to warrant it. But the vessel knew to knock him aside and focus on the others. 

I was once like you, unsure

He seemed quite strong now. To have earned the title of a master, he would have to be worthy. Even those that showed the least potential could surpass the talented who stepped aside from upkept practice. 

This could be either a reassuring thing, or it could leave them to think about how they, of all the vessels, ascended the abyss, came the closest to purity, was nearly complete in their father’s need for an empty vessel’s raw potential- and then fell apart, body rotted, mind strained, while vessels that fell during the first ascent then ascended far beyond their climb out of the abyss.

They should have just stopped their mind at the former, when it seemed a reassuring thing. 

Minds never did obey.

Mato had sat after telling the others to be ‘comfortable’, following Hornet sitting upon one of the many floor pillows. From his position, he patted the floor. 

“We can talk or train or visit in silence. If you are unsure you came here to train, then stay here with me and meditate instead,” he offered. “If you wish to try more, then we will.”

They thought they might. Just not now. They hadn’t even brought their nail this time. They were trying to learn to walk without it. The climbing required to get through the cliffs had needed their single arm to be free. He had recently lost his pupil, though he didn’t know it yet. They had lost their old life, when they might take teachers and lords. It should not be either of their place to try to fit into such a dynamic. 

So for now, they sat to meditate and listened to his advice on how to when they shook their head at a question of if they knew how to.

(As it turned out, it was said to be something like Sheo’s art: there was no ‘correct’ way.)

(This too could be seen as a reassuring thing or a frightening one. The more they learned of living, the more that could be said.)

Bretta had more blue tablets when he visited next. It wasn’t very surprising when she offered them over.

Bretta tended to, even though she still kept the ‘early’ ones away in a stack by her bed. Since those would probably make as much sense as the ones he did read (so: not much), this was not a loss.

It was good that she seemed so happy getting the vessel to read things, even if they didn’t make sense to him. 

The latest set of tablets was held close in a hug by the beetle while she explained unprompted.

“I’ve started something new, without me…my old character, characters in it,” she said. Her arms finally loosened to hold the trio of stones out to him. The vessel had visited enough to know what to do. He took them from his seat and she stood a moment longer in front of him to shift her wait foot to foot.

“Do you want to read some?”

He had already taken the tablets. That should be answer enough. This was routine now. 

Apparently not, so he nodded for her and then read after she plopped down on the seat next to this one and ‘hovered’ over his slow reading.

The new ones had less unrelated notes scratched in the margins. They were not less extensive in descriptions. That might have made them make more sense to him. The vessel’s writing was still lacking in the amount of expression that Bretta had. He wasn’t sure he needed the amount she had.

As she had suggested, this one did not have some of the familiar names of the others. Namely, it lacked the name the others had all centered around. There were still a few others recognizable doing random things he did not think they were likely to actually do in reality.

Because they were all real. Based upon the real, at least. What they were written doing and saying, less so.

The vessel had caught onto that meaning of her ‘journals’ a few weeks prior, when he had read the one about the Dark Showman, Warrior Princess, and Silent Knight fighting. In hindsight, he should have noticed earlier than that. But the other entries seemed fictional. The vessel couldn’t judge the ones about ‘the maiden’ with what was apparently his sister or what he suspected was Zote, even if he suspected those hadn’t happened because the locations described weren’t matching anything he’d seen around here and he was fairly certain Bretta had not left Dirtmouth with either of those two. When they were so disconnected from a reference, how was he supposed to realize she was writing about all of them? But the aforementioned entry had described too much of a battle he had watched and another he had fought in and it seemed likely to be written from her own memory of watching it.

Even if he didn’t remember the two duels being ‘fights for the love of the maiden’.

The point was that that entry had shown the vessel that a mix of real events and…imagination? creativity? a different brand than Sheo’s, but yes, that. A mix of real events and creativity the vessel didn’t share went into her ‘journals’. They were not entirely fictional stories. They were wish fulfillment.

(They had wondered a little while after that realization if writing of themself and their sister and her mothers and the Pale King and Grimmchild and Grimm and the other vessel and the people they knew now like Quirrel and Sheo and those in Dirtmouth, in a world where the Old Light didn’t appear and they hadn’t been sealed and hurt by her, would somehow help them. They thought it might just make them long for the impossible. That would make the world hurt worse, wouldn’t it?)

He did not think most of those wishes would ever happen, but he had chosen to politely not volunteer that information to her.

So he now chose to not inform Bretta that his sister did not actually go on adventures with him that culminated in fierce battles against horrible beasts and Grimm didn’t follow them around to appear and disappear without the duo knowing he was near until that appearance. The vessel could sense the other god’s vessel, Grimm did not exist to cheer them on or be cryptically antagonistic, and the three were certainly not warriors for the court of Zote.

The Gray Prince, he meant. 

(He wondered if anyone else knew Bretta was writing wish fulfillment centering on them.)

Bretta was pink in the face when he finished and handed the tablets back.

“Did you like it? I know it’s different, but I read this great book of Iselda’s and I had to try writing more like that, ha.” 

She went on for a bit like that while the vessel found his papers to actually respond to her. He briefly wondered what books Iselda might have had that Bretta would want. She had always been nice about letting them pay to rent art from her. 

“It was good.” he wrote for her.

She made a noise he could only describe as eeeee.

(Bretta was strange to the vessel, because he really could not understand much about her. She was still nice to visit. The vessel did not have to understand.)

They hadn’t actually requested Hornet find Ogrim to tell him of Dryya’s status yet. There hadn’t been a good chance. She was busy or she was tired (or she was avoiding them, vanishing for walks unrelated to her work with survivors, and they didn’t know why so how could they correct whatever they’d done to scare her off?). Today was the day that changed.

After telling her why they wanted to know the knight’s location, she’d offered to take them directly there instead of just giving them directions. With how they had felt she was avoiding them recently, they accepted quickly. 

Grimmchild followed along while they called the stag and rode to the city below. The city seemed…livelier, than the last time they had been here. A part of that was due to King’s Station opening into the various apartments Hornet had wanted survivors in. They were mingling. Talking with one another, or helping another walk from one apartment to another, or bringing food to the survivors that couldn’t go get their own. They were surviving. They were going to live. 

Maybe the city outside this apartment zone could even live again, too. 

Ogrim didn’t live here, Hornet said. He came often to help and provide cheer but he had turned down taking a residence here. He would rather they go to other bugs. 

They thought that might be a ‘relatable’ sentiment. It was a very knightly thing to do.

(They couldn't call that relatable, they weren’t a knight, they had lost that title-)

He didn’t live here, but they found him in the city. He was out in the rain, helping a few others clear out the overclogged gutters. Most bugs could not swim. Void beings were an exception, since they were typically light enough to float where dense bugs sank. For most, then, getting into these deep gutters would mean sinking to their bottom and drowning.

The vessel twitched. 

Drowning was not something they wanted to think about. 

Ogrim’s height helped him, along with the fact he was used to burrowing in semi-liquid and knew how to survive life in the royal waterways beneath the city. If he were to fall in a place too deep for his head to reach the surface, he could probably climb the walls back out, or burrow into them if they were soft enough. There were fewer worries for him compared to the bugs he was helping. 

When he saw they were there for him, he excused himself from the work in order to invite them all to visit him in his home. 

The vessel was getting used to being invited into homes, so this was no longer startling. Hornet seemed more startled, if anything. She made to decline, but Ogrim was rather set on the idea.

“Come, come! I’ll provide the food and comforts!” he swore and he seemed so excited at the idea of visitors that they couldn’t understand why their sister wouldn’t agree. Not until they remembered they were mostly here to inform him of his old companion’s death.

It was too late at that point. The three of them were already being led down into the waterways. Grimmchild kept making low noises that seemed grumpy. He eventually landed on their scarred shoulder and took to glaring around. The air here was thick with humidity. Every wall was more damp than the city above managed to be. 

They lifted their cloak from under his perch and threw it over him. There. No more moisture. 

Ogrim was very chatty as he took them through the halls to a musty place. Hornet walked near the front with them as the other two lagged behind. Currently, he was talking about the Pale King. 

“Your father was a close friend of mine; he and the queen did me that honor as well as being my monarchs,” he said to her happily. She nodded stiffly rather than replying or denying a relation she seemed to want to deny on other instances.

They all ducked into a dim room. Ogrim turned around to face them all.

“Welcome to my home!” he said.

It was a home. Different bugs had different types of homes, after all. So it could be called that.

What drew their interest most were the tall mound-statues taking up a good amount of space in here. They could recognize the distinct horns of different heads. They realized they were statues because of Dryya’s horns, in fact. They would soon have to tell him she was gone. He already knew Isma was and her statue remained here. Their father was dead and they had a tiny statue of him in their room. Perhaps it was not abnormal to be surrounded by the dead while in your nest.

“It’s not as cozy as my old one, but I would still be glad to have any one of you pay a visit,” Ogrim was saying. They were glad Hornet remained very polite, because they were worried they may embarrass the rest by falling over. Their sense of smell was currently in agony. They wanted to keel over to grab the olfactory antenna she'd given them under their mask and cover them completely with their hand so they couldn't register the new sensation. It might not have even been a bad scent, so much as a new one. They always felt painfully overwhelmed with a new sensation and this room was thick with it. 

“I used to hold parties for your parents and the knights. As you can guess, my old place was a bit finer,” he laughed. “They certainly helped with that. I wouldn’t know any of the little things society currently wanted! Not on my own, hoho. I won’t hesitate to let you know your father was actually no different. Can you believe it? There was a reason he held few public events- he was scared he would do them wrong!”

Yes, that sounded like the king they knew. 

Hornet didn’t share his laughter, but they…they wanted to hear more of that old life. That happier life. They didn’t dare try to laugh themself when the sound may scare the rest away. So they nodded rapidly until their head hurt and made their shoulders shake like someone laughing might. 

Grimmchild fell out from under the cloak and spat an angry ball of fire at their foot. 

“Oh…I’m glad we three still live,” Ogrim said, quieter. “I would have liked to invite you all, if I could. Your family was always so kind to include me.” 

He did in fact find food for them and the vessel was content to sit on their cloak listening to him tell stories about sides of the Pale Court they never got to be a part of. He had no shortage of those stories. A few had Hornet pipe up, saying she remembered when they had occurred or some aftermath she had seen and she laughed at some of those reminisces. 

It left them to think that these people in the stories and two survivors now might have had years more of pleasant experiences, had…not 'had they not failed', when they were doomed to, when no vessel was pure. More 'if the infection had never existed at all'.

But eventually, Ogrim asked why they had sought him out and they knew their duty. 

Hornet delivered the news for them. They brought writing supplies regardless, but she knew what they knew and she knew tact better than a vessel would. She’d been taught to be a royal by three different kingdoms. Royals were very tactful.

(Quite a few stories from Ogrim today suggested otherwise.)

He took the news in quietly. 

“That is a shame,” he finally said. “She lived as a knight and died as a knight. Heroic to her end in the line of duty.”

He gave a deep sigh.

“It saddens me to hear so, but I cannot say I am surprised. I’ve long thought I may be the last of the knights,” he admitted.

For his and Sheo’s sake, they could hope otherwise. Could they not?

They slumped a little where they sat. 

Hornet was quiet for a moment before she volunteered a reply.

“Hegemol is dead too,” she said. It came abruptly, to them. This was news. They would have to give it to Sheo too. 

They would have to watch Ogrim deflate even more now.

“I believe he is,” Hornet elaborated. “His armor was stolen and used by a maggot that I ran across in the heart of the crossroads. Something killed him, to have allowed that armor to be taken. He would not part with it while alive, would he?”

Ogrim was silent. Their hand fiddled with the edges of their parchment. 

“No, he could not,” the knight said at last. 

All three bowed their heads. Grimmchild seemed oblivious to the topic of conversation. He was busy trying to stay completely on the vessel’s long cloak, glaring at the soft ground. 

“The armor could be retrieved. Something killed its second inhabitant and left the armor in the crossroads. I know the place,” Hornet offered. 

While Ogrim agreed, the vessel finally put a paper across their thigh to write. They did not understand Hornet’s words. The delicacies of this conversation must have been lost to them, for why would she only offer to give Hegemol respect through recovery of his armor now?

“Why did you leave the thief?” they wrote.

They leaned over to give Hornet their note. Grimmchild squawked as the cloak tugged away from him and left him rolling into the dirt.

Ogrim- sitting partially buried in the ground next to Hornet, while they and the child sat closely across from them- peered over at the note as well. She read it quietly before folding it up on her lap.

“Hegemol was gone either way. The thief was a protector for two others in the crossroads.” She shrugged. “I could accept that passion.”

But if the thief had died regardless, then-

They really couldn’t be surprised. The infection had been devastating. The death of one might mean the benefit and protection of a few others, but they too would likely die and all the corpses combined were good for no one. They thought it best to give the surviving member of the Five the remains of his friends. They would have preferred if their king and the other vessel had left bodies to do the same. It would have made things more final. It would have made it make more sense to move on from.

“Do you know anything of Ze’mer?” Ogrim asked them, looking between both. 

They shook their head when his eyes lingered on them.

“Not at this time. I apologize,” Hornet said on her own.

He waved an arm.

“No need, no need…” he said, but they thought he might grieve the lack of an answer as he grieved the two he’d just learned were dead. 

They didn’t stay much longer after that. Ogrim wanted to return to the city, to help those he seemed to constantly be helping. Perhaps he just did not want to be surrounded by handmade monuments of the dead and gone. 

But the vessel considered the stories he had joyfully told and that left them thinking that not every central player in those reminisces was gone. The princess lived, after all, and Ze’mer might (there could still be hope for that). The king was gone, as were three knights. The queen was not. 

They leaned over to write as clear as they could when the moist air made the silk tear under their pencil. Though it took a few attempts, they were able to press their note towards Ogrim before they followed their sister.

It read: “The White Lady lives in her gardens where Dryya’s body lays. She might like a visit.”

Whether he agreed was up to him. Whether she actually wanted a visit was up to her. But at the least, they could let the others know they both survived.

Chapter Text

They had to pause Zote on precept nineteen.

If you do not succeed at something, then you have actually failed? It sounded right enough. 

It sounded unwanted.

Zote clearly agreed. He’d said to avoid this failing at all costs. 

But what of trying to succeed at all costs?

Some successes still wouldn’t come. Some costs were so great and when paid still couldn’t stave off failure. 

They would know.

They didn’t need to be thinking about that phrasing.

(They didn’t want to think about their failure either.)

The vessel waved for Zote to stop. He grumbled while he stood in the center of the room. By the time they finished, his foot had begun tapping impatiently. 

They couldn’t be rushed. Besides, they had grown much faster. It was a consequence of speaking- and speaking as a person with a self- growing easier.

No voice to cry suffering

Your design failed too, father, though you paid all costs to succeed

They slid the paper over and he moved to the edge of the table diligently to look.

“What happens when you fail?”

“I’ve never failed!” Zote proclaimed the moment he was evidently done reading.

Alright. They had actually mostly intended that to refer to them, not him. Perhaps they had worded it poorly. 

They took the paper back and turned it over to write on its blank side.

“If someone fails at something, what do they do?”

“Hmph.” Zote scowled and actually stopped pacing while he put his chin on his hand. 

“They shouldn’t fail to start with. If you listen to all 57 precepts and obey them, you will always have the methods to succeed at whatever you try. But if we are referring to a past failure…-forget the past! Yes! We should not think about any of our past- I mean, anyone’s past failures. Not mine. I have none.”

If he said so.

They still did not like whichever number precept that ‘forget the past’ was. It was too hard to do. 

They also did not like thinking of their failure. Even should it be their duty to, or what they deserved for the lying, they did not want to think about it. They had tried their absolute hardest to keep the infection contained. They had not succeeded. It was a failure. It had affected everybody.

Probably even Zote, even if he never mentioned the infection. 

That left them motioning for him to wait again and they pulled a new paper over.

After some deliberation, they wrote, “What did you do during the infection?” on it.

Zote looked confused, but he had never before complained about a chance to talk about himself and his many (likely false) experiences.

(Maybe they were just wish fulfillment too? Like Bretta’s journals?)

“I have traveled the entire world, so I have not been in this musty excuse for a kingdom long,” he sniffed. They thought they didn’t like his insult towards their father’s kingdom, but they ignored it. “If you mean whatever insanity struck the husks below, I don’t care to find answers for it. They could never stand in my way to fulfill my purpose here! I was never endangered in the tunnels below.”

That had not quite been what they asked, but it was…good? For him? If he had been attacked, they couldn’t see him surviving. How he’d never been attacked was the real curiosity. Maybe he had never actually explored anything further than the crossroads. His nail would surely not defend him.

It was an answer enough. He didn’t know anything about the infection. He would therefore never know of the old plan to contain it.

“It was a god.” they wrote for him because for once they had information to share instead of to hear. 

Zote squinted at the paper. Then leaned forward to squint more.

“You’re saying you know this? Elders are always telling us events are the works of gods. They are just trying to hide their own culpability or failures. I’ve never seen a so called higher being in all my travels of the world!” he said. 

They didn’t know why their head said it would be a good idea to lay on the table. They ignored it anyways and instead lifted their arm to point out in the direction of Grimm’s tents.

Zote stared.

They poked the air stronger.

“What?” he said flatly.

The vessel dropped the hand and shook their head. If he didn’t realize he’d already seen a higher being, then that was his loss. 

Zote waited there like he actually expected them to write. Normally, he just spoke unless interrupted. 

Eventually, however, he coughed and cleared his throat.

“Ahem. Anyway, which precept were we on?”

Precept have more awareness, maybe, because the troupe oozed with godly essence. Even the others in Dirtmouth recognized the proximity of a higher being by symptoms, if not directly understanding.

The vessel almost jerked in their seat when Zote said the name of precept twenty-one just a moment later.

They realized they actually missed the earlier days here. 

Not most of it- no. Those were not good days. They’d been constantly hurting, and their mind had been hurting, and it’d nearly become completely overbearing after learning their father had died.

They’d been more close to what they’d always tried to be. They currently felt so far from a pure vessel. They’d been told to move away, and they’d always followed orders, and now they stood in a place where they could look at their present and look back and begin to be caught up in fear over the changes made-

But that wasn’t what they were thinking about now. It wouldn’t be.

What they missed from the earlier days was not that they were behaving and thinking more like the old pure vessel. They certainly didn’t miss the constant reminders of the Old Light’s influences. 

It was more memories of laying on the floor seeing weaverlings run around at eye level or lay sleeping as tiny round balls against their sister's legs while she wove in a silence that did not feel exclusive. Neither had known how to be around the other then. It seemed they had learned. And then they had written her own words back to her, declared themself her sibling, and she had gone silent in a way that did feel exclusive.

It didn’t seem like she was trying to. She brought them to Mato on her own accord, by her own idea. She took them to Ogrim recently. 

But their shared living space didn’t feel like it had then. 

Each time they had seen Quirrel lately, they’d almost brought it up. He had a lot of advice about other things. He would have advice for them on this. He might even have answers on why Hornet was mad at them.

That wasn’t his place to tell, was it?

And it wasn’t their place to bring it up.

Was it?

So they thought about it silently and found that they were far worse at burying thoughts now than they were before the containment. They continued to feel compelled to bring it up even as their mind was trying to focus on Quirrel. 

If they weren’t going to find that answer from him because they weren’t going to bring it up, then it meant they had two options: continuing to ignore what was failing to be ignored in their mind, or try to make things better themself.

They’d never really tried that before. It was a daunting prospect. Conflicts were resolved by others. Ideas were come up with by others. Their creativity in such things was only slightly better here than it was with art. 

With that said, it was not as hard as they had expected. They had been planning to go out and they saw she was staying in the hut for a time and it really did not take much straining to consider introducing those two facts. 

They wrote their idea out and handed it over to Hornet as:

“Would sister like to come with me to the tent today for lunch?”

“To the troupe tent?” she asked, before she accepted she’d answered her own question. “Oh, to see Grimm. You’ve done that often lately, haven’t you?”

They had. No one else visited the troupe. The vessel and Grimmchild were the exceptions. 

Hornet set the paper down on the table beside her.

“Take Grimmchild,” she said.

And that was not accepting the invitation, was it?

They held themself tense, too-still, for she must have noticed and drawn from it that they were still awaiting an answer.

“I will have to decline.”

It wasn’t much of a surprise. 

Aside from when she would bring Grimmchild over there, and the show put on for Dirtmouth, Hornet did not tend to visit the troupe.

They brought it up.

Perhaps it had actually bothered them. When they sat with Grimm not long after, they wrote that they had invited their sister and she’d declined. 

“It was most certainly not because of you,” the troupe master said.

They hadn’t wanted to think it was. A part of them had considered it as a possibility. But they didn’t think that part was very pushy about it. 

After all, they had precedent to stare back on when guessing reasons for her behavior and she had never seemed comfortable inside the troupe’s tents in any of that precedent. 

“She does not much care for me,” Grimm confirmed aloud. “Few outside my troupe do. It is understandable of them.” He waved a hand as if to show he was not concerned with being unliked. 

They did not completely see how it was ‘understandable’. He had not endangered anyone here. He had at first seemed an intimidating presence, but that was when they thought him a higher being too close to the Old Light. 

Regarding Hornet herself, however-

She was not distanced now because they visited Grimm, was she? No, they’d been visiting before she drew away. Whatever they had done was something else. 

This could be making it worse, whatever it was.

They couldn’t just give up Grimm’s company. 

This was not…This would not be a matter of choosing, would it? Because that was a choice they could not make. No matter how well they had learned to make little choices now, like which cloak to hide their scars with, or which denizen of Dirtmouth they would stop by to listen to after their walk. 

Maybe it was the way these thoughts were coated in fear, that let Grimm reply to them. 

“But do not worry of strife between us!” His attitude remained as unaffected and unworried as before, but the intensity of his eyes left them knowing his next words were a promise he knew would be meaningful indeed. “You will be caught in no middles now.”

Their own head dipped. 

It was a little like when he had promised his troupe was not there to cause the same hurt as the Old Light had. 

He knew of what pain they had gone through. He knew of the nightmare parts of their life had been.

He would know why. 

They let themself just breath, rattling breaths, chest tense, until it loosened like their downturned neck had. 

Alright. 

With that established, they wrote to ask why Hornet didn’t much care for him. He’d always seemed polite to her when they’d been around to watch.

Grimm laughed at that. 

“She knows of what we did here,” he said when he was done laughing. “And through that, she is wise to wish me gone!”

He sobered as much as he ever did, when they could see his mouth still crookedly smiling. 

“I think she is likely to pave a path for a new kingdom. Smaller than the last, perhaps, but who would mind? No kingdom is eternal.”

It stung, despite themself. Hallownest had always been called eternal. Their fate was supposed to make it so. 

“The new is born out of the old.” Grimm continued. “With her leading the new designs, I think the troupe will not come back to this land in quite some time, quite some time indeed.”

But he still spoke as if they would come back. Not him, not as he was, but the god would return to collect the flames of a dying kingdom again. 

He spoke as if all kingdoms would of course just die, even before they were born.

But this was the same bug who spoke of himself dying as if it was nothing to be upset over. 

Quite some time sounded like not soon to them and they were not reassured with either.

Precept twenty-two both confused and did not confuse them.

They had left their birthplace directly after birth, after all. 

They had climbed out of corpses until their blank face met air and they could stare upwards to the Light That Called. They did as every other vessel around them did. They climbed. They left the void. They single mindedly tried to leave their birthplace. 

There was no lingering in the nest. They had thought as much as Zote, then: there was nothing there for them. They had thought more though: there were no thoughts to be had. Only listening. Only receiving. Only hearing their purpose resonate through their shaped void and knowing they must reach the top to bask in the shining pale light that defined their world. 

The abyss may have had more. Something in it lived, in its own way. It must, for a different vessel to go back down there and come back up with shade focused around them. Grimm called it a new god. Every higher being they had ever known to exist was a person, a being, with a mind capable of conceptualizing a self. Vessels could do so. So the void itself- all of it, even their contained shade (right? Or had she altered their shade so much it could never go back?) no matter if they thought they were an individual being now- could too regarding its entire self.

The sea, the abyss, the shades. 

Was it giving those shades rest now? Or was it giving them a new medium to crawl about on this world’s surface? To be more siblings for them? 

There may very well have been something in the birthplace for them. But the void had been shaped and molded to its own displeasure by their father and so each vessel born was incapable completely of seeing any reason to stay down there. If anything, their father’s fear of the darkness was imprinted with the press of his light. There had been such an undebatable need to get out from the pit.

The abyss was the birthplace, but did they view it as a nest?

That novelty went to the quiet palace of old.

They had not lingered there. They had left the exact hour they had been intended to. They had gone to the temple with the king without even looking back to take in their nest one last time. 

There is nothing for you there, Zote said. But how could that be said?

How?

“What was your nest?” they wrote for Zote when he was about four precepts ahead from twenty-two already.

“What?” he snapped when they poked him on the shoulder. The snappish attitude didn’t exactly disappear when they showed him their question.

“My nest? Unimportant! I left it! It should mean nothing to me or you!”

He threw his arms up as he stomped away towards his bed. They kept themself very still. The first bout of yelling had almost left them flinching.

They did not much like to hear yelling. 

(She’d never been quiet. Even her episodes of misery had been loud, when they were in the dream realm and she was dream.)

“What are you trying to do? Find a weak point in my past? Foolishness! I have left my past completely! There is nothing there!” Zote ranted on. He’d reached the bed and turned around by now, so they took the chance to shake their head. 

That pacified him a little. 

“Hmph. Just a stupid question, then,” he said. 

They were fairly certain that was an insult.

Maybe they were supposed to sit aside and let insults come or go. They shouldn’t be affected, if they were pure. They deserved them, for having failed by being impure. But the Pale King had always taken great pride in his accomplishments and because of their lies, he had always viewed them as one of his greatest. Even now, they lived on. They moved on. They carried the scars of the infection, but their mask had never broken and their shade had never lost the constrains of his molding. What other being could say they had taken in the very heart of the infection for a century and still recovered their body from her touches?

They were not all too affected, but this had sparked a thought. If they were still considered an accomplishment of the Pale King- for if nothing else, they showed void could be molded by the will of another god despite all his history claiming that was impossible-, then his pride would take the insult. 

The brief moment passed. They stared at Zote blankly.

“-lly, it doesn’t matter where. Those types would never recognize why one would be a knight. A knight of the people? A bunch of vagabonds would never see the need! They’d rather just live as they had for generations until they die!”

Oh, he was back to ranting. But did that mean he was answering? He was providing details. He hadn’t seemed to want to provide any. If the past caused turmoil like any of their memories of containment did to them, then they would not want him to dredge it up on their behalf. 

“-so damn caught up in traditions even though they didn’t respect any elder that had actually seen the world. I was far too good for such a place. I left the moment I could,” Zote wound down with a haughty sniff. “It was the best idea I ever had.”

He was staring at a wall. They wondered if he remembered they were even there.

“It was my idea- my best idea, to go. Yes,” he muttered away.

Speaking of going, the vessel thought that a wise plan. They wrote, “I will go.” out on a blank page and held it while they knocked on the table to draw Zote’s long-lost attention over. 

He wandered back to his guest to see what they’d said.

To their surprise, he seemed snappish about that too.

Then again, they had decided to leave because he was. It meant he wanted to be alone. They thought. They didn’t have much experience with non-dangerous anger on others, let alone the experience of frustration themself.

(…Right? They didn’t know what that one felt like, it was a negative, they didn’t want to know.)

Zote looked at them quickly.

“What? But- no, we’re not finished!”

They understood he liked to talk- though they didn’t understand what it’d be like to like that-, but it was for his sake. They’d upset him. They would leave. He would stop being upset. It seemed simple.

“You will finish another day.” the vessel added for him.

“Why?” Zote’s voice made an odd sound. Perhaps it was a problem with his throat. He should definitely find a way to repair it before it was too late, then.

“We’re perfectly content now!”

Speak for himself. They, apparently, didn’t get spoken for these days. And if they had to speak for themself, then they were done here.

They’d stood up already and headed for the door. 

“I- well, you- rude!”

The vessel couldn’t catch the odd noise of a breath before it had left their mouth. Their head tilted back a little before they turned around again to face him. They crouched on his floor, keeping careful watch in case he told them not to write there. He kept it well swept and mopped, after all. But the vessel lookalike just stood there so they went through with writing. 

“I do not want to upset. You grew upset. Won’t push. No more stupid questions. I leave now.” they put down on it and pushed it over. 

He caught it up to read quickly. 

“I- How dare you say I have a weak point, pah-! But, I’m not, I’d rather not be left again, I- I mean, because we aren’t finished until I say we’re finished!”

They stood still. He stood. 

He shifted on his feet. They remained motionless. 

Zote slumped.

“Fine. We’re finished now. I was already thinking we should be before you ever were. Hmph.”

Zote was a funny thing, in some ways. 

He claimed there was a high importance to learning to detect lies and speaking the truth, but they were fairly certain he told more lies than anyone in this town and they did not know that he was even detecting that fact when he was doing so.

The next time they saw nailmaster Mato, they took the child’s charm. He had wanted to fly with them rather than following Hornet that day. While he flew far from his charm now, they didn’t know the exact limits and would not be comfortable if they made it into the cliffs only to leave him halfway there because his charm was still in the hut in Dirtmouth. 

Grimmchild killed a fair bit of wildlife along the way. The vessel eventually tapped his snout after he’d killed a tiktik, to warn him off. He couldn’t exactly grow up into someone as respectable as his father (to them) if he killed every little creature he came across. 

The success of the action was limited. They had to tap after every new kill or attempted kill. It took them until the return trip before he connected their reaction to his action.

Despite his general attitude to see any wildlife as a threatening enemy, they both reached the nailmaster’s hut without injury or even the risk of it. 

Mato greeted them excitedly. He was definitely more excitable than Sheo. They had only met with him three times so far, but they thought they could say that already. 

He was asking if they were there to practice nail arts or just visit when Grimmchild flew out from behind the vessel. He came to hover up by their shoulder. He really must learn to lay down on his own when tired, instead of always flying up and behind whoever he was with. 

For now, he stared at the nailmaster and nyeh’ed lazily before scriptedly losing interest.

Oh, he would be like his father alright. 

Mato was oblivious to the pointed, scripted dramatics. He just grew joyful and looked between the two visitors.

“Oh! Is this your child?” he asked in that excitement. 

Not…really?

It was Grimm’s child. It was even in his name. Or was that name to say he was a child version of the next Grimm? It confused them but because it related to an inevitable death that they did not want to think about, they did not bring it up with those who had answers.

The child spent a great amount of time with them but that was not…

They did not view him as their child. They weren’t sure what they viewed him as. It was almost more like being in the palace again with a tiny Hornet, except this time they were able and even encouraged to communicate with the little one (and discourage them from certain activities). They did spend time with him like the king had with them. That was different than with the young Hornet. But Grimmchild had a god inside of him already. A very old being, in a seemingly young one. Seemingly young enough to be their child, judging by Mato’s thought. And that made it odd to think of him like the Gendered Child then or Hornet now or their own young self with the king.

But they did know him from shared walks, or when he’d flown into the crossroads to keep them company in a temple grave dangerous to him, or when he copied their stretches, or played with his instruments and toys while they drew…

They didn’t know exactly what to view him as, but they thought it would all fit under ‘friend’ anyways.

(A pure vessel was not supposed to have friends- why did it matter? They broke the requirements. They did so regretfully at first. They had been encouraged to keep talking, keep thinking, keep growing. They did so with more gusto now.)

(Some hollow knight it was-)

The vessel looked between Grimmchild and Mato and thought the best way to sum their conclusion up was a shrug.

Chapter Text

Now that the vessel was forming opinions on people, the consensus was that most were nice.

The vessel had always formed opinions on people though, hadn’t they? Maybe most retainers in the palace meant nothing to them, but anyone that they were put in contact with routinely would. The king was obvious. The knights were another group of identifiable bugs. To some degree less, the sages and their three pupils had made enough of an identifiable impact for them to hold an opinion. 

They certainly had tried not to. 

No amount of trying could have prevented it. They knew that. They could not hurt forever over it. 

Now, in Dirtmouth, they were free to form more opinions than those that had naturally and unavoidably formed in the Pale Court before. And the current subject were the two who lived in the map shop.

The vessel had gone there to see if Iselda would let them rent a few of her books from her. Since Bretta had read them parts of Iselda’s before, they thought they might learn from them. What, they weren’t sure. These books were for entertainment. They didn’t know what worked to entertain them and what they stayed apathetic through, yet. Art was good because it made their mind focus on the activity until it couldn’t have other thoughts. They didn’t call that entertaining. Watching Hornet fight Grimm might have been? It had interested them. They had spent it wondering how they might fight against either of the two below. And fighting itself was a welcome activity. Did that make it entertainment? It would be of a different type than Bretta writing her wish fulfillment or reading the stories Iselda had brought from previous kingdoms. 

Even if they read them all placidly, it would still have meant they learned that such books did not entertain them. And even if they did not enjoy them, they would still be learning of the ways that other bugs thought and felt. 

So it had been a good idea to go ask for some (even if they realized later they could not read all of the words and Quirrel had had to come to teach them the new dialects). While they were there, they ended up interacting with more than just books.

This came back to what they had been thinking about. Opinions on people. 

Cornifer and Iselda were nice. That was what they’d determined.

They tried to get the vessel to visit longer than they’d realized they would be, but it was not bad. In the far past, they might have been ambivalent to it. In the less far past, they might have stressed over the concept of visiting and being treated with an expectation of someone who would answer questions and have opinions and hold conversations. 

They could almost call the visit nice instead. Only the way that they weren’t used to these two and the setting of their shop-house made it less so. If they did come into this place more often then it might be different. 

And that was a reminder they chose to push aside. 

They were still pushing down parts of their mind, after all this time. What had changed was what got put into the place of do not feel this do not feel this. 

Cornifer ended up showing them all of his maps of Hallownest (updated to include what the other vessel’s maps had been edited with, as they and Hornet had eventually realized those maps were intended to be returned to the mapmaker; since they had taken to using them on their outings with Quirrel, the papers had instead only gone to Cornifer until he’d replicated their additions and returned the originals to the siblings). He clearly enjoyed making each one and would talk about his favorite parts of the job here. At times, Iselda would lean over to see what they were looking at and comment accordingly. They learned that she wanted to go to the multiple hot springs and other such things that they were not sure why they had to learn. All the while, Cornifer told tales that left them thinking Hallownest was a peaceful and fun place to traverse and witness even in its infected death. 

It wasn’t, as others were quick to point out. There was acid and infection-filled thorns and infected beings and creatures and yet somehow none of this came up in Cornifer’s stories.

Aside from Deepnest. He did not like Deepnest. 

He claimed an area beyond the kingdom was a nicer place, even a perfect break after attempting to map Deepnest out. The vessel recalled that the eastern lands past Hallownest were where their father had come from. They also remembered times it was brought up in the court and how the king would deny any interest in expanding Hallownest eastward for now. He cited the dangers of the wildlife as the reasons he would not be sending any building guilds into the wastes. 

Perhaps that wildlife had been mostly killed off by infection. Cornifer didn’t say anything about it. But for those cliffs to be a break from Deepnest, surely they must have been safe.

First Zote and now Cornifer…the vessel really was confused at how some of the bugs in Dirtmouth had survived her angry plague below. 

Confused, yes, but it was good.

It was very good.

They visited Lemm again with Quirrel (Grimmchild as well, not that the relic seeker seemed pleased with that) and were content to leave most of the conversation to him. It was on the way back that the archivist took them by a bench on the western side of the city. The buildings here were in poorer shape than those by king’s station. The walls leaked and furniture was upended and broken still. No bugs were living here mending the place of their residence slowly. But Quirrel seemed very happy with the tower regardless. Especially so when they reached a bench near a rounded window.

“Ah!” Quirrel brightened. “This view here was the first I had of the city in a lifetime!”

He had already approached the window without seeming to falter at his choice of words. They followed carefully. 

“It took some difficult acrobatics to get here through the fungal wastes, but what a view to be met by…What a view.”

Quirrel glanced back at them from where he stood, hands splayed on the glass.

“My friend met me here. We waited some time on that bench back there. Of all the benches in this kingdom, this one, I believe, has the most stunning view,” he said. His head turned back to peer up towards the ceiling of the cavern. “Perhaps only the source above could rival such beauty, if one ever thought to put a bench there.”

The mention of the lake left them uncomfortable. They did nothing more than shift, however, and Quirrel had moved on.

They stood (or flew, in Grimmchild’s case) by the window for a time.

“I don't remember much of the old city,” he began to muse again. “But I think the rainfall may be a more wondrous scene than the mists of old.”

He had to run a vigorous hand at the cloth wrapped around his head a moment later, when Grimmchild burned a tiny portion away.

Quirrel laughed even as the vessel thought that this had been naughty behavior and very much the opposite of what they had been trying to teach the child recently.

“I see our little friend disagrees!” he continued laughing, while the child made one of his usual noises and flipped backwards midair. “Ah, but I understand why he might have qualms with rainfall.”

There was another disgruntled sound from the upside-down Grimmchild.

(It did not much occur to them to find any of this interaction odd.

Not until a little later when it occurred to them the child seemed reactive specifically to Quirrel’s words.)

In the moment, Quirrel brought them to the bench and seemed very happy to stare at the rain. When they were not in it (and near that statue), they did not mind. It was not especially beautiful. They were still learning to determine what they thought was beautiful and not anyways. It was one of those things that had no universal correct stance, like Sheo’s art.

It was hard to think the city’s rain was beautiful when they knew it was a sign of how their father’s prize kingdom had collapsed. 

It did have a very nice sound against the windows, though.

They sat to let Quirrel enjoy it for some time.

Grimmchild was curled up by the feet of the bench. They reached to pull him up. For one, they would soon be leaving so now was not the time for sleep. For another thing, he didn’t need to be on the floor. There were any of their shoulders or the arm rests of the bench.

The child let himself get lifted, their fingers on either side of his wings to do so. With them apart, his red underbelly was visible. It was much brighter than the dull shade Grimm’s thorax was. His tail wiggled around below even as he stayed placid in the hold and mewled at them.

They thought that was out of happiness. Or at least content with being held. Placid content had been their approach to being picked up when young. Except sometimes, with the Pale King, when they felt a little more before they were set back down too soon at whatever their destination was (likely a bath, if they were being carried; it happened mostly after wearing out their soul reserves in training).

“He’s getting bigger, isn’t he?” Quirrel said.

They refocused. What was he talking about?

Oh. He must mean Grimmchild.

The vessel tilted him a little one way to the other to look. They supposed? The growth must have happened gradually. Gradually enough they did not notice it. They’d needed to molt. He certainly hadn’t. Not at the house, at least. If he’d molted, the evidence was shed elsewhere.

Hornet never mentioned anything about that, so they…hadn’t really thought about it. 

The tail was longer than it had been when they had first been freed from the black egg. It was wider too, to match that length. And, if they pulled him up closer to really scrutinize, it was split a bit at the end.

Grimmchild finally grew tired of the investigation and wiggled free. They pulled their hand away.

They did not know what to feel from this discovery.

For now, it was fine to not know. They could just accept the information and return to staring at the rain with Quirrel and an apparently growing Grimmchild.

The vessel felt like being more like father today, or… he was fairly certain it was mostly father he was basing this judgment on. Perhaps a few of the great knights as well, and Quirrel now- Quirrel was easy to relate to. He was from the time of Hallownest, he was trying not to let that former time bother him, and he’d nearly given up completely. Yes, the vessel understood that. Similarly, Quirrel forgot to take care of himself sometimes (when it came to eating, the vessel simply did not want to), he seemed to enjoy walks, and despite liking conversation he was still a person to prefer the quiet. In his conversations of choice, there would just be the noise of rainfall or the muted sounds of a town, and not a bunch of others nearby also talking. The vessel still didn’t- it was more that he shouldn’t- enjoy conversation, but he preferred them in quieter areas. He had a preference now. 

(And he did like some conversations. He could remember some of the ones he had indeed enjoyed. It didn’t feel like as much of a betrayal as it should. But just the way his mind reminded him it should made him unhappy.)

(Sometimes, if his mind was truly trying to make him collapse, it would subsequently remind him that he should not feel unhappiness either.)

Maybe he was feeling more like Quirrel than the king who he’d never gotten to speak a word to.

(He’d never see his vessel claim- just privately or not- to be like him.)

One person he did not think he felt like, though, was the one he was visiting today. 

But that did not mean the vessel did not like this individual.

He really had no idea how he felt about him. 

Sometimes, they both agreed about something and so the vessel could say he understood him. Sometimes, the one that looked uncannily like a vessel instead said something completely strange and wrong to him. 

It was always a learning experience, with Zote. It truly was. 

He made it through precept twenty-seven as the vessel considered this. It was one of the rules he remembered hearing before, the very first time he’d sat and heard every single one of them (though…registered perhaps a quarter of them). 

He still was not sure he wanted to listen to this one. The part about getting to eat less frequently was nice. The part about eating at all was less nice. 

Ah, but Zote had moved on. 

“-you peer into the darkness and can't see anything for too long, your mind will start to linger over old memories,” he was saying. He put a finger in the air. “Memories are to be avoided, as per Precept Four.”

Yes, that was one thing he came back to. Again and again, really.

Which was funny, because some of the other precepts involved him telling the vessel of achievements or learning experiences that happened in the past. These were memories. They were the past.

He decided not to point this out. 

There was another funny thing regarding this subject. But that came out of the vessel’s own experiences and intimacy with darkness. Void, after all, was very dark. And it called from his shade. It wanted to return and rest with the rest of that darkness, so that it would no longer be trapped in turmoil, where it had been burnt and distorted by light. But the vessel did not want to go back to the darkness. The darkness was quite locked away. There was no entry into the Abyss, according to Hornet. His shade did not hurt very often now anyways. Old wounds had healed over. This was a contended state. 

The sea in the Abyss’s call was different anyways. Muted and distant. Without it, the vessel did not feel like he might slip into void and slide through the ground to a place that was not his home. How could it be his home? He had climbed out of it without a second thought. He had let its future god fall behind him the singular time he had looked back. 

Darkness and memories were tied together for him. But he did not think he wanted to peer into the former anytime soon. 

(The vessel did not think the former would want him to, after what he had done.)

“Are you still listening?” Zote asked. 

Ah. He was paying more attention to the vessel now, compared to when they had first begun meeting. The first change had come with how he would wait while he wrote, knowing it was how he asked questions. Since those questions were often about him or his philosophy, Zote seemed pleased to get them. 

Now he evidently drew himself out of his lecturing mode to make sure his audience was there. The vessel supposed he’d been staring at the wall a bit oddly for too long. 

He refocused and nodded his head and Zote needed no more encouragement to keep talking. 

“Good! Now, for precept thirty.”

This was another that the vessel was unsure he could follow. He had accepted promises before. That had essentially been what he had done since the start. He’d sworn, silently and unknowing to all, to be the pure vessel, the hollow knight. And in return, the promise was that the kingdom would be safe for eternity. Its king would be safe for eternity. That promise had been broken. But it’d been built on his lie.

There had been promises from Her, sometimes. They couldn’t be acted upon. Both prisoners knew they would not be fully escaping. Not unless the Dreamers’ seals were broken. Streams of her consciousness could slip out and infect the world beyond, but their minds were trapped together. 

Why would the vessel have accepted her promises, then? They would be broken. They were always broken. 

He did not want to think about this now. 

As for promises of “betrothal”, he did not think he had to worry about those? They were certainly not ones he’d heard before. He could not think of anyone he would have to hear them from. They’d be met with a very confused reaction, if ever they came. 

But he waved for Zote to stop and wrote out “Why?” as a question.

“They are pointless,” he said confidently. “Especially for a knight of great renown. My personal philosophy is to travel alone and people promising love never understand that! Such promises are always broken regardless and that will only be followed with more promises of not making the same errors again, but it will not be different! Never forgive when you are wronged. The easiest way to avoid having to face this is to just avoid those making promises in the first place!”

He considered it. 

It would be one of those precepts he would put away in his mind under the ‘to be considered’ sentiment, and then likely forgotten. 

Thirty-one was not one the vessel put into this mental category. He could agree with it from the very start. Cleanliness was better. 

Though he could not imagine himself making demands of any hosts. That would involve not just making the first move in talking, but by nature, as a demand, it would be something he was far from comfortable making.

Zote talked next about names. His sentiment had been something that the vessel had heard before, around the palace on a few occasions. He had not needed to think about it then because he had a title and it was something that only made self identification of thoughts a little easier. 

Names may have power, but he still was to have no name. 

Neither did any of his possessions, since he now had those. He was allowed to. He was allowed to. There was no point in being pure anymore. He liked having possessions. 

Would it really make a difference if they did have names? Did the great nail the king had made for him need a name, for it to matter greatly to him? 

Maybe he could just name the little weaverlings. It was not as if anyone else had to know. He did not feel like naming them, but it could be a challenge he pressed himself to do because, if this precept was any indication, it was something other bugs would do.

(Taking on the behaviors of other bugs was betrayal of the old self, but that self had died during containment, that self had never existed, so…surely the vessel could reconcile his current life with the fact that the void had been doomed to not be empty enough anyways?)

Since Zote seemed so excitable over the name of his own nail, he waved for a pause again.

“Not to steal” the vessel prefaced, because he had also been rather excitable over the idea of someone stealing the name he’d chosen for it. “How did you come up with the name?”

Zote climbed up the other seat to see the paper on the table better. 

“Ah, a good question. Life Ender is a magnificent weapon. It has more stories to its name than a lifetime of stories from most peasants,” he said and then proceeded not to tell him how for a good few moments. 

When he was going to accept the question wouldn’t be answered, Zote perked up. 

“The name came to me because of the accomplishments we have had together. When I realized after one hearty fight that my nail had already cut down at least a hundred foes, a more accurate name could not be offered!”

Truly an incredible feat of Life Ender’s, to have ever managed that first hundred out of thousands despite the odds stacked against it. 

(The vessel was not entirely sure where this thought came from.)

He nodded to show Zote he’d understood and then wrote another question down.

“Where did you get it?”

That was a story that had changed both times the vessel had heard it. Perhaps not by much , but the inconsistencies were odd. 

But understandable, if one thought that both stories were lies. 

He was certain they had been. They had been too impossible not to be. Life Ender couldn’t have done any of the feats it was said to do, and no great effort and pompare would have gone into a ceremony to make or gift it. The only way a shellwood nail might be a gift was to a child just learning to train. 

As expected, Zote’s story was a little different this time too. 

“I made Life Ender myself!” 

That part wasn’t changed. It had to be said anyways, because he had a precept about making (or was it finding?) your own weapon and it wouldn’t sound good to say he hadn’t. 

Also it didn’t seem made with enough expertise to have been a training nail stolen or bought. The more often the vessel saw it up close, the more handmade the thing looked. 

“And I did it while I, Zote the Mighty, was still young!” he continued bragging. “When I realized my chosen fate was the glory-erm, life of a knight, I went to every effort to find the finest crafting supplies.”

He looked over at his nail, resting against his bed. The expression could only be called fond. 

“The second best nails were my model, but Life Ender surpassed them all. When I showed my weapon to my nest, they were amazed! They envied it so. All who see it are as amazed, and many more have met their ends at its sharp bite!”

It seemed a happy enough memory of the past to recall.

This was not supposed to happen at all, per precept four. 

And every reminder afterwards, to forget the past, to eat food instead of indulge memories, to leave the nest completely behind. 

If that nest had been so impressed, why leave it? The vessel would go back to the palace of old where the knights and father showed they were impressed by his constant progress. He had always liked to make them proud.

The last time they had heard of Life Ender’s origins, it had been made by him some time after Zote was already a traveling knight. 

Maybe all of his insistence on forgetting the past had worked too well and that was why he seemed to have trouble recalling it accurately. 

The vessel turned the paper over to write a different question. It was one he’d heard a basic answer for before, but, as with the nail, he was curious to see what one might come this time.

“Why did you become a knight?” he wrote.

Zote leaned forward on the tips of his feet to see it before he went back to standing, chest puffed out. 

“It was the only path worthy for me! Every part of the world that you travel to, you will hear grand tales of knights. They are eternal in legends of their glory. I knew as soon as I heard these tales that I would become one too- the best of them all!” He paused a moment before saying, very contendly, “And I succeeded.” 

Which was undoubtedly why he lived in Dirtmouth, above a dead kingdom that had no structure for knights anymore. 

(This was also a thought he wasn’t sure of the origin for.)

The vessel motioned for him to wait while he thought of his own words. 

“You have said you did not serve a king but instead people.” he put down slowly, before he felt he had a clear enough direction with this question to speed up. Zote waited. “And that you travel much. In the travels, who did you serve the longest?”

It seemed to make enough sense. He responded quickly. 

“The people! There were…I recall one village that wanted- no, needed, my help.” Zote rubbed his chin while collecting the rest of his reply. The vessel understood. He took time figuring replies out as well. Less time, now. 

(He didn’t need to think about betrayal or feeling lost. Not now. He didn’t.)

“When I saved them from foul beasts that were of no difficulty to me to dispatch, they all wished me to stay. But my journey had to continue! I’m sure they remember to tell their larva about me. Perhaps I’ve inspired a generation of wishful knights.”

Zote’s eyes scrunched up (it was weird to see, when his face could almost be mistaken for a vessel’s mask before the mouth moved or eyes changed and the grooves along shell reminded anyone staring that this was directly the shell of a head rather than a covering) and he looked over to the vessel with that scrutiny.

“Why did you?” he asked in return, which was new. He didn’t tend to turn questions onto his audience. But the vessel had other things to think about than the behavior. 

Why did you become a knight.

He wasn’t one.

Hornet still called him one.

What could be said? That it was always going to be his fate to be the hollow knight, to seal the blinding light? That he would always fail in that fate? That he chose to hide in order to stay on that path, because it was all he knew to do or want? Because the creator-king was father in the privacy of his mind and he wanted to be that father’s hollow knight?

Because he hadn’t known better then, hadn’t known to fear what being the hollow knight meant, hadn’t known to hide from that pain.

Because…

It was…

It just was. 

For the sibling he sacrificed on the edge of the Abyss in order to be that pure vessel. 

For the father he’d never been allowed to have. 

For a kingdom that had hurt and died regardless and that he saw the corpses in without needing to search far.

He picked up the quill and settled on three words alone.

“To save people.”

He bent the quill in his hand after pulling back and it broke in his grip. 

All the better, however. 

It stopped him from adding, “It did not work” to the page.

Bretta was fiddling with a set of tablets during their next visit. They didn’t learn that day what might have been on them. Every time she began to hold them out, she pulled them back and put them behind her instead.

It likely meant she would ask them to look on a later date. 

They just continued to read what she had given them earlier. It was easy to take extra time to do so. The soft seat made it hard to consider moving. It dragged them deeper into it. 

Bretta looked down at one of the stones she was hiding and then gave a sigh. She put the stack atop her bed and slumped in her own seat. The beetle looked over at them balefully.

“Your other sibling wasn’t bad, were they.”

It didn’t sound like a question.

They did not mind pausing this latest odd tale about the usual ‘maiden’ and what they’d figured out was her wishful version of them. Not particularly. So they set her writing in their lap and looked off to think about it. 

She didn’t mean Hornet. She knew her name and tended to use it, or call her their sister when she asked questions about her (of which there were many, to the degree that the vessel wondered why Bretta didn’t just go ask Hornet herself) (they’d overheard the beetle talking with their sister a few times before about them, so maybe she just didn’t consider going to the person she had questions about for answers). 

Which meant she was talking about the other sibling. The vessel. The one they had left. The one who had fought and surpassed them in dream. Hornet’s Ghost.

They weren’t…bad?

Why would they be bad? What was that supposed to mean? They’d never met the vessel, really, but everyone else who talked about them liked them. Probably more than the vessel themself reciprocated. 

But it hadn’t been a question. She hadn’t said it like a question. She knew its answer maybe more than they did. 

They shrugged and shook their head regardless. 

After a moment, they picked up their own paper pad from next to the soft seat and wrote, “Why ask?”

They started handing it over before pulling the pad back to add to it. 

“Did you think they were bad?”

They still didn’t even know what bad was supposed to mean in this context. 

Bretta fidgeted while she read their question.

“No, I was just told. Uh. Will they ever come back?” she asked, a bit higher pitched yet quieter. 

It was a question others asked too.

Not even the resident god’s vessels knew. 

The Abyss was blocked from all. They would not know through their void either. 

No one seemed to know how long the new god in the void would wait down there, before either re-entering the world or fading away. 

Since all of this would require explaining their ‘sibling’ was a vessel, and now a void god, and that would be too much, they just shrugged again for her. Then shook their head and lifted their hand to wave it about noncommittally. 

Bretta sighed. 

“Oh,” she said and seemed to shrink down in her soft seat like it was eating her. 

Chapter Text

The hut was empty when they got up. They crawled out of the basement and peered around to find it so. Hornet’s bed was vacated. The vessel folded its blankets back onto it so they would not hang off or crumple. Grimmchild wasn’t on any of the ceilings he’d taken to hanging down from. He hadn’t been below, though he also slept down there quite often. 

They set about their morning with the expectation they’d likely be alone. That was fine. Though they spent time with others often, they still liked to be quiet and focused. As long as they could hear that the town outside was moving, they knew they were not alone, still trapped in isolation. 

They cleaned up a little and then crouched over the box in the hut that Hornet kept her leftover food in so they could eat from it as rapidly as possible while no one was watching. The uncomfortable sensation followed them for a time after, even though they tried and tried to forget they’d eaten, forget the way their mandibles rubbed, forget how that mouth had looked in the mirror when they’d braved that one glance. 

Then they sat at the table and did nothing but think for a while. That was not bad. It was not overwhelming to think anymore. When it got tiring, they merely had to find their supplies and try to draw instead. Their most recent project was to replicate one of the house’s walls. It had been their biggest project yet. Quirrel had sat with them a while as they started a few days ago and recommended they not give the paper over to the child to burn when they misshaped a single brick or window. They were trying to resist.

But before it got to the point that their thoughts became hard to handle, something else happened. There was a pop and then a familiar little form was spinning into the air. Grimmchild flapped to stay up and from that position, he scanned the room until he found them. 

He stared for a bit. 

They went back to thinking after a while. 

Perhaps they should walk the crossroads to the hot spring today. Maybe they would even go down to the bottom levels to see if Myla wanted to visit those springs. Or they could walk through Greenpath for a while. The acid made it harder to walk casually, but there were a few paths that were relaxing enough. 

The vessel got down to the floor to stretch first. 

Grimmchild followed. 

He lay there on his front, his wings extended and little claws sticking out from their tips when he pressed them into the floor to prop himself up a little. 

Had he always had those claws? They thought he’d just had one, per wing. 

His eyes were bright today. There was no way to miss that they were focused entirely on them. The scrutiny and attention no longer bothered them as it had long ago.

But they could sense the beating heartbeat and it left them preparing for…something. It beat like it was more excited than usual and Grimmchild looked as determinedly focused on someone as he might, when he was a child Grimm had said some time ago did not understand what people were saying around him. This did not look like the expression of someone who didn’t understand what was said around him. 

They leaned over their legs to stare back.

Grimmchild tilted his head. First to one side, then to the other. 

His jagged mouth slowly opened so they could see the pink beyond. Normally, this was followed with a mewl or groan or perhaps a tiny fireball. 

This time, it was followed by-

“Hi.”

If they had eyes proper, they might have blinked. But eyelids were not among the alterations the infection had made on their body. It had been content to just fill their eyes instead of changing their anatomy. 

So instead they just stayed still and wondered if they had heard that right.

It was rather like his usual sounds. Small, drawn out, already a bit raspy (though nothing as bad as his father’s) (not yet). 

Grimmchild tilted his head again.

“Haii? Hi.” 

His eyes looked even brighter. As if he was excited he was managing it. But- why wouldn’t he be? He hadn’t been able to before. Grimm could, so the younger vessel would someday be able to too. 

Not everyone viewed voices like they did. 

When Hornet had first started talking, the Pale King and White Lady had been so excited. The knights who had been at the court that week had been as well. Isma had cooed all over the child in the White Lady’s arms. They saw the Pale King in a more private courtyard holding her too and he had clearly been thrilled that she was managing to speak now, even if she was calling him a mum. It had been one of her only words. She was just a tiny thing, after all. 

Grimmchild grew differently than her, they thought. It probably did no good for a higher being to have to wait for their vessel to age as slowly as a grub usually would. He was already dangerous, after all, and had been since before he’d begun understanding language. He had been offered to a different god’s crafted vessel to provide aid as a deadly companion. 

The vessel was told it, anyways. Grimmchild was less deadly and more a general menace, in their experience. Killing maskflies and mosskin was as deadly as they had watched his flame be. Otherwise, it just lit the unliving on fire. And he knew better than to just try to chew on or burn anything. The youngest versions of Hornet they’d seen had not. 

The point was that speaking had still been viewed as a great achievement for her then. She did not have a mantra ingrained in her very being. She did not have to hear no voice to cry suffering each time she spoke. Neither did the child here. 

For him, this was just something new. Maybe something he’d wanted to do for some time, if his mind was aware enough to think it. He was limited to gestures and noises and expressions that they didn’t exactly know how to read. He would be understood, now. 

If he wanted to do something, he could tell them that. 

If he wanted to go somewhere, he could tell them that.

Yes, they could see why this would be exciting. 

(They were betraying that mantra to come to that conclusion- they were betraying-)

Grimmchild crawled closer, head bobbing, all excitable and happy and-

They wanted him to stay happy. 

To never have to think of a voice as a betrayal, a painful thing, a thing forced upon them unwanted.

If they’d always had one, maybe they wouldn’t think it. Maybe not even the all-meaning words they had been born to would make them think it. Instead, the rare time they had used it, it had been to constant reminders that it was not her voice, not anymore, never would be, it would be theirs . 

(Had they really gotten to a place that it was she that held them back, rather than what they had been created for? Had they decided to turn their creation aside?)

(Should they be so comfortable with talking nonverbally? It went against- it was against- they were far too used to it to stop now.)

The vessel shuffled closer to Grimmchild. They reached out hesitantly and put a finger on top of his head between the horns. It rubbed there back and forth, like Grimm’s might when he doted on the child. His wings flopped against the floor and wiggled.

He could speak now, then. 

One word, anyways.

He understood one word at least. 

Whether he understood more and couldn’t say them, or he was starting where their younger sister had long ago, they did not know. Either way, he knew a greeting. He’d used it to greet them. 

They kept rubbing his head and let their heavy tongue move in their own mouth.

“…hiii.” they managed. 

He wiggled even more energetically. 

They felt oddly warm, in a way very unlike the infection’s heat. 

They let Grimmchild crawl up into their lap for a while before a realization hit them.

They had to show Grimm!

Grimm appeared to be very excited indeed to see what had happened.

They’d picked Grimmchild up and carried him in a bit of a rush to the tents to show. It was only after they saw his reaction that it occurred to them that Grimmchild’s growth might correlate to Grimm’s declining time. 

They tried not to bring it up.

Instead, they watched while Grimm picked Grimmchild out of the air and smiled at his wiggling, all while the child kept up a stream of ‘hi, hai, hii’s. 

Eventually, they sat down with the other two while the troupe master tested how much the child knew. 

Or rather, they sat and Grimm sat and Grimmchild pranced around on the table half-focused and half distracted. 

Little flames danced unseen on the same table. Grimmchild would find one, stare at it for a time, before consuming it. They did not know what it all meant. 

“I will need to show him more as time passes,” Grimm told the vessel while the child amused himself this way. “Either with you or your sister, unless he comes to visit by himself. He can go far enough from the charm by now to do so, can he not?”

The child had been able to for months now. But Grimm did not see him quite as often as the vessel did and certainly not in the same capacity. Grimm did not really leave his tent. They only knew him to have left when he had come to the hut those two times.

They took a paper to reply. 

“What is he being shown? Is he learning more words? It is quiet.”

The troupe master waved out over the table where dull flames formed and vanished.

“Oh, he is learning,” he said. “But we can work aloud for much of this instead. Why? Are you interested in joining?”

Was that why they had pointed the quiet process out?

To speak more? To have the excuse to? Why would they need a new reason? They were already writing back and forth with Zote far too much recently. 

It could not be called ‘too much’ if there was no limit. There was no reason for a limit. 

They should not want to talk warred with they should not want warred with they did not need to be pure and they were used to talking now.

And they were. 

They wrote only somewhat slower than other bugs. They had learned simple greetings and expressions to show with their fingers and arm from Quirrel. 

If- or rather, when, because they could not imagine they would never see her again- so when they saw one like the White Lady again, and that being would need to hear or smell rather than see, then the vessel should not be hopeless to help them. 

Only the White Lady was left in those still alive to recognize the voice they spoke with anyway.

The rest of the world wouldn’t know. It would only be thought of as theirs. It was theirs. 

Unused, because it was unwanted. Did it have to be?

All voices should. By their creation, all methods of voices should. 

But not all were anymore. 

Maybe not any had to be.

They had changed so much. They had changed too much.

They had changed enough that, even if they decided they wanted to, they could not go back.

And it suddenly terrified them to know they were helpless that way. 

But they also could not blame it entirely on having a voice. 

No voice, no voice?

Too late for that. 

They recalled how they had decided, without pressure, to use it for Grimmchild when the child had chose to speak with them first. It had not felt like a negative there. They hadn’t needed guilt. 

Grimm would know more than others in town did. He likely already knew of their design, their purpose in creation.

It wasn’t worse that he would know. In some ways, the idea of talking to him, who knew, compared to talking in front of bugs who didn’t know…

It may be better.

Because he would know it was sometimes hard for them.

He would know they were not comfortable.

He would understand when they had to stop a while, and he would act like it was an achievement when they pushed through despite how alien it should have been to want to. 

Grimm probably already knew this just from how much fear tied in and out of the thoughts. 

But they steeled themselves and hissed out, “Yeess,” anyways. 

Yes. 

Sometimes.

Because also, no. 

For those sometimes, though, they could practice right alongside the learning and similarly inexperienced child, and their teacher would understand this was no easy process the way other bugs might take for granted.

It felt as if every time Zote said a precept explained itself, they needed him to explain it. 

Precept thirty-six was as good an example as any. 

Eggshells are brittle?

What was this supposed to mean? If precepts were a philosophy meant to guide one through life, to better that life, then how did this statement do that? 

Yes, eggshells were brittle. Eggs were fragile things for it. This was not exactly news. All the eggs in the Abyss had broken easily from the inside out. That was excluding the eggs that had already broken from a landing or the pressure of the air down there. Eggs were not soft and pliable and thus had no bend. Again, this was not news.

What was news was that this fact apparently was important in bettering one’s life. 

The vessel made Zote stop and wrote, completely earnestly, “What does it mean?”

He complained a short bit about having to go back from thirty-seven when he had been on such a roll (whatever it meant), until he actually read the note and went quiet. 

“It means that they are brittle,” he said, finally.

And what did that mean??

The vessel took the paper back and turned it around to face them. They added to the very beginning of the written sentence.

“But What does it mean?”

Normally, Zote did not frown at any chance to talk more about one of his precepts. He thought very highly of each and every one. And if he was asked by them, he would give some backstory or anecdote hinting at why he had created one. 

“If they get rolled or hit or laid on- You have already heard what it means! I’m not talking about it any further,” Zote sniffed.

That still did not explain why such a seemingly random fact was put in a list of more than thirty directions and statements of advice for life. But they realized that Zote wasn’t trying to explain. He was telling them to stop.

When someone said they were done, that should just get accepted. 

They merely had to learn how to do so themself when being around people was overwhelming them. 

If they didn’t out of worry over being ungrateful or rude, would they really be less rude by the time they couldn’t ignore the pressure to stop an interaction?

They would think about that later.

(They did not think about it later. They did not want to that night and they had forgotten by the next day.)

Forty was a complete lie. It had to be. 

Yes, laws could be a burden, but a being accepted that. They needed order. They had been born to order. Their higher being had spoken order into their eggs to mold their void before any vessel had been born. 

Since he hadn’t wanted to answer that question about eggs earlier, they decided not to press Zote on what he was saying here. There was no king anymore anyways. They did not have to defend the dead. 

The dead wouldn’t be able to care that their laws of old were being defended.

Though if that specific dead being was alive to see it, how could he approve anyways? Arguing was a sign of a mind and will and they weren’t supposed to have either. 

Let your own desires be the only law? What was that supposed to mean to a creature that did not easily have desires?

They found wants, now. It took time. It had to be forced at first, before they reached this current point where they could no longer go back to what they were supposed to be. 

Their early desires were simpler things. They wanted to make their creator proud. They wanted to be pure so that the infection would fade away inside them and their king would get to live a life with happiness in it again, with his wife and daughter and knights. 

Since they had hid any sign that they weren’t pure outwardly, did that mean they had been making that desire their only law? If so, it had not led to anything good. They wouldn’t do it again. They felt sick whenever they so much as thought about their containment.

Forty-one was interesting just because it was Zote saying it. With changing stories and shifting details, the vessel thought his comments on detecting deceit was a bit…amusing, even?

Being amused was nice. 

They weren’t supposed to be interested, or amused, or talk back, or

But it was too late to stop now, they knew it

And as Zote talked about spending geo, the vessel thought about their own lack thereof. They really had to start collecting their own instead of taking Hornet’s. 

“Some will cling onto their Geo, even taking it into the dirt with them when they die,” he was saying and it made them think of all the dead. All the dead they had known, or never known, and never would get to know. They had taken such a chance into the dirt with them. It was not geo, but they could apply that sad sentiment to money and then understand why Zote might think such a thing upsetting.  

“It is better to spend it when you can, so you can enjoy various things in life,” he finished, nodding along with his own wise words, and they considered that they did enjoy various things now. 

They were allowed to. 

They were even allowed to enjoy having a voice to talk back to Zote with, if they said they did. 

They were. 

So when they began collecting geo for themself, maybe they would buy more things for themself. They just had to find out what they would want to buy.  

While walking in Greenpath, Quirrel got a tear in his head cloth.

It had happened because they’d ducked too far into a thorny tunnel before deciding that it would lead nowhere of worth. As they crawled backwards, Quirrel hadn’t noticed his own steps and a red thorn caught the fabric. Caught was, perhaps, the wrong word when its sharp point cut with ease instead of sparing any time snagging.

They made him hold still while they checked to see if his head had been cut too, but their finger’s investigation had made the little tear rip wider.

He tried to wave them off and said it would be fine. Though as they returned through the crossroads, he talked about how he could mend it and-

“I really should get a second as well, so I can clean this one and let it last longer,” he laughed.

Was that the purpose of multiple cloaks? Hornet had finished that second one for them, but they had only switched because they felt expected to and had yet to switch back. It made more sense now if they considered that they were intended for trading while one might be washed. 

They had never washed robes before. It hadn’t occurred to them at all. They would need someone to show them how to, if they planned to start now. 

But as for Quirrel, they had an idea.

They invited him to follow them to Hornet’s house. If anyone had any sort of cloth, it would be her.

The vessel wouldn’t know how to fix the current cloth, but Quirrel seemed to. He told them that all he would need is a small scrap of material and then a needle and thread. Their sister’s needle was a weapon and far too big for what he meant, it turned out. At least Quirrel knew what he was doing. They sat over him to watch the entire process. 

When he finished fixing the tear, they remembered the other part of what he’d talked about. With that, they searched through Hornet’s bags of cloth again until finding a strip that was not too big and cumbersome. They brought it over to him, positioned him to sit on the floor, and then experimentally tried to put it over his head. If they just let it hang there, it would not work. He had his wrapped around the back and then down to the neck, didn’t he? This was not working, but they could figure it out. They took it off, changed the angle they were putting it on at, and tried again while the pillbug just sat under their attention.

“Will she mind?” Quirrel asked.

They didn’t know. They shrugged to show it and then persisted to try to wrap the cloth around his chin.

A part of them thought abruptly that if Hornet did mind, she should be around enough to tell them.

It was just as abruptly gone.

They thought it was gone.

Thoughts and the mind were hard things to say for sure about.

Tying the knot was also hard with a single hand that hadn’t done it before. It ended up loose and unraveled the moment they sat back in success. 

The archivist took the cloth before they could lean in to retry. He folded it up and kept a hold on it. 

“Thank you,” he said, so that meant he was keeping it. It did, didn’t it? Which meant they had done good work finding it after all. 

That was good. After everything that everyone else did for them, they wanted to be able to repay them. 

“This is a nice shade,” Quirrel also said as he looked closely at it. 

The vessel nodded. 

They had thought its gray looked almost blue, and Quirrel used a blue one currently, so their thought was that he would most likely want a similar shade. But he was also gray on the front and most of Hornet’s finished cloths (she made them herself out of silks, which was quite a talent to watch) were gray. Was that because she had been making the vessel cloaks? 

For now, they picked the folded cloth out of Quirrel’s lap to press it up against his gray front, then against the blue of his current handkerchief. He laughed while he took it back.

“Yes, you have a good eye, my friend.” While his eyes continued to smile, he looked at the different bags of silk that the vessel had opened to look through in their efforts to help him out. Then, when he looked back, he asked, “Do you ever weave too?”  

The vessel glanced down at the basket of silks.

They waved and then gestured at their shoulder. It would be too difficult with just one hand, they had thought.

Because they had thought about it a few times. It could have been something Hornet could teach them, directly. It wasn’t like assigning them to journal. She would have to be involved. Maybe the weaverlings could run around while they both sat quietly knee to knee from each other, just silently weaving away as Grimmchild slept.

But it had never gone any further than that thought, because they had tried to watch what she did and it looked to involve far too many hands.

It actually was a nice thought, though. 

They would like something that Hornet would. They would like it, because she would show them how and she would like it and it would end up being a way to share time when she, recently, didn’t act like she wanted to share any.

If they ever did, they thought right now that they might use red like she did for her own cloaks. 

But it was a silly idea all around. They simply couldn’t do it. That was the end of it. 

Bretta brought the old tablets over and actually handed them out before she could hesitate and hide them behind her. 

She laughed and it was a sound they’d heard enough to know came when she was about to ask for something she didn’t want to hear ‘no’ to but worried she would. 

Sure enough, her offer came right after.

“I was thinking, would you like to see some of my old stuff? It’s probably terrible, ha ha, but.” She left it hanging. 

They just held their hand out diligently. 

“Troubled dreams beset the maiden. Her saviour gone, consumed below. Now her only companion the cold wind, moaning at her door. Her heart fluttered with sudden fear…”

The top tablet’s entry was…interesting. Written about someone “tall”, apparently. 

They put it aside and started the one underneath. 

“Long had they remained apart and the village, once so warm, now grew cold. The maiden felt the well of grief. It gripped fierce about her lonely shell. And suddenly, as though her tragic state was sensed, the saviour returned, standing tall, glowing bright…”

There it was again, that “tall” descriptive. Except as the vessel read the rest of that tablet, a different idea overtook that. 

shining horns, eyes welled black

no glance was shared, no claws touched

perfectly composed

not a word

She was describing a void vessel. The ‘shine’ was the only part that did not make sense with such a theory. But she had described her characters for Hornet and they themself as shining at times, so it was just a word she used in these stories of hers. And perhaps other bugs did see something…vessels were born of god and void and Hornet born of god and beast. That shared parent was a Pale Being. But void had taken all light out of them, they had thought. 

It was the description of black welled eyes that made them the most suspicious. Reading about a lack of touch or looking or speaking helped.

On to the last. 

“The maiden woke in darkness…”

Yes, it was a vessel. She was talking about a vessel. Why she thought it shone, they didn’t know, but that description wasn’t enough to put them off the theory. 

And there was only one other vessel they knew to have been wandering around Hallownest’s corpse.

The very same one that seemingly met everyone . 

Bretta fidgeted as they delicately put this last tablet on top of the other two.

“So, what, um, what did-do you think?” she asked.

What did they think?

Well, the style had changed. Her current one was more like Iselda’s story series. They had gotten better at picking styles up. The really long ones were less good in their view. They got more confusing. The vessel understood writing best when it was distinct. 

They picked up their pad and instead wrote, “They are good. It is about the other vessel?”

When they remembered no one called them that, they scratched the term out and replaced it with “other sibling” before handing the note over.

Bretta’s face went very pink.

“Oh. Yes.” she confirmed. “Those were- Well, they had just rescued me.”

The journal’s first (read last) story had sounded much like that. It would have made her recent question about that sibling being ‘bad’ confusing, except she had given them other earlier tablets before that had mentioned some unknown character to them being ‘revealed as a vicious beast’ by the ‘gray prince’.

Zote had told her Hornet’s sibling was some sort of enemy?

That seemed purposeless. But the one called Ghost would think the same. It wouldn’t really matter to any vessel. They felt no need to pursue commenting on it.

The blue-but-pink beetle rubbed her antenna to hide her face. 

“I, uh. I admittingly was basing this on. Uh. Them. After they rescued me,” she spoke through the action. 

They gave her a nod when she glanced at them, because it showed they were listening and that yes, they knew. If they could figure it out, it was likely obvious enough anyone could know by reading these journals. 

But they were the only one to read them that they knew of and they still weren’t sure why Bretta voluntarily handed such entries (fiction or not) over.

“Do you think they ever…?” Bretta asked before drifting off.

Ghost?

They were a vessel too. A being of void. A being that heard their creator, their pale god, their everything, telling them from the top of the Abyss what they were meant to be. 

They had a hard time thinking the other vessel would be all that different from them in the regard of viewing others and emotion and thought. 

Though it wasn’t for the reasons he’d given, they thought of Zote’s insistence to avoid promises of ‘betrothal’. A vessel wouldn’t need to for the reasons Zote did, because his seemed more based in emotion- specifically the emotions felt after someone who made those types of promises then did not live up to them. A vessel probably wouldn’t have those emotions. 

But it was not something they were oblivious to, or else they would not have picked up on Bretta’s wishes put into her writing regarding various people in her life. 

They weren’t even oblivious that they were among those people and had not been since realizing who her stories included. 

So the other vessel probably would not have been either, if they ever were given these entries to look at too. Or if they were a little more aware than them and had picked up on what Bretta’s nervous behaviors meant earlier than they had. 

So they wrote, “They probably knew what you thought.” for her. 

Both of her antennae perked up.

“Oh?” she squeaked.

She sounded a little too hopeful. They flipped to the next paper on their pad.

“They did not likely reciprocate.”

“Oh,” she sighed. 

The room was silent after that. They did not mind silence. 

“Is there, um. Is there a specific reason or is it just…me?” Bretta asked quietly.

She often worried that people were focused on her specifically- enough that they ignored and forgot her, only, and no one else. It was a fear, they thought. It was recurring enough in what she wrote and said.

And that wasn’t really it at all.

Anyone could have gone up to that missing sibling and expressed adoration or made ‘promises of betrothal’, and it would not have mattered who did it because, if the vessel was correct to suspect all others were like them, they wouldn’t change their reaction no matter who it was.

So it did not have to feed her fear.

“Not you.” they wrote and gave that note to her.

Then they spent a while trying to figure out the rest of that thought. It did not go smoothly. They hadn’t explained vessels and they were not going to. They didn’t know how to explain being aware of different social affections but not reciprocating certain types of them. 

They gave it a try anyways.

“We are were”

This wasn’t going to work.

“ We are were 

They are like me rather than Hornet. We aren’t”

They stared down at their hand with its pen for a while before grabbing the page and crumpling it up.

No. It was not going to work.

So they just wrote, “Can not explain.” instead and left it there. They handed her the new note and made sure to shrug when she looked up from it to them.

It didn’t stop her from continuing to write about the idea and sentiment, but at least they knew she didn’t expect it back from either them or the vessel that was missing.

The entry that sat text-side down on the table by the next morning was multiple papers long. It hadn’t been there the evening before. They’d worked on it during the middle of the sleeping hours, while Hornet and Grimmchild slept oblivious to their lantern light. 

It had felt strange to work on. 

That was the point.

Things were feeling odd. They were feeling odd. And with how they had begun to live, they could not just shut the feeling off.

They had wondered if Hornet was right long ago and writing would help with it. 

Somehow, the void inside them still moved as if itching afterwards. Sleep hadn’t gotten rid of it. Walks did not make it go away. 

So they tried to shut it off no matter if it could not work, and they were successful enough in burying it down that they did not think to revisit the entry. 

It sat forgotten.

Perhaps it should not have been.

“Entry 92

Bretta asked about the other vessel, but she was asking about all of them. She does not know how many. She does not know what vessels are.

Dirtmouth thinks we are siblings. Three siblings. 

There were many more than three.

None of them were like these bugs. This includes me. But I have changed some. But I am still not as other beings.

They do not know.

How am I supposed to explain it? I do not understand myself. I do not want to. That part of me does not need to be understood. I cannot be understood without it. I spent a very long time not wanting to be understood.

Here is an update.

Nothing hurts. But something feels not right. My writing is smaller than ever now. This is improvement. It is also not right.

These entries are too easy now.

I can look back on them if I want to. Or this one specifically. What is there to see?

I, I, I.

It is not wrong anymore.

There is something wrong with that.

My beginning entries are uncomfortable with the entire process. I looked tonight. They do not include ‘my’. ‘I’. Not until the writer realizes it has to, because sister told it to. These come naturally now. Is it too naturally?

Too easy, too naturally now.

I feel strange right now. I feel not-right. It has happened before. It has been happening for some time.

People ask questions that keep being answered even when I cannot explain answers. I write, I draw, I say.

I think I am upset. People make me upset some times and they do not act like they expect me to be. And I do not show it. I do not know how to show it. I can not get rid of it like before, though.

It is not-right. I do not know what it is.

It pushes inside me. Not like void or — 

But it is there, somehow. Making it hard to stay controlled.

I am not required to stay controlled anymore.

Even the others are controlled. Certainly they are.

If they feel this sort of pushing, they would be showing it and it would be bad and I would not be near them. Control is better. I am told to express myself. 

Right?

I am happy now but I wish for more and the one I wish was here would not know this version of me and I do not understand how to view this

I do not know”