Chapter Text
The chamber was silent in the face of the god of pale light sleep. Not even a creak of the lifeful palace outside disturbed the peace inside the nest. The King slept on, with no dreams and no nightmares plaguing his overworked brain.
The claws that were precariously placed on top of the Vessels heads slipped down, still curling possessively. The Vessels did not move. Time trickled by, unstoppable even in the face of the gods.
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Nothing was said as the minutes dragged themselves across, languidly stretching into hours. The King curled himself more, tighter into the comfort of the nest.
Hollow looked down, towards the claws that slipped from its head. It laying down was not right. The King has put it on top of it. Did it drop the claws?
Hollow stepped to the claws and reached down. It grasped the claws and with only a bit of ungraceful struggle, managed to slide itself back under the heavy hand of the King.
Knight observed its sibling but didn’t move to mimic the behaviour. The claws slipped on their own. It was not its fault, therefore, it did not fix that. It could fix that but it did not harm anyone and did not serve a purpose.
Knight instead stared intently at the shelf lining the walls of the chamber.
There was grass in a pot there. It was tall, just like the one that the Queen ordered it to cut. Knight had the nail still.
The Queen didn't tell it to stop cutting the grass. It just ran out of grass to cut. And that there, that was grass. In a pot. On a shelf.
Knight stood up and wandered closer to the shelf. It was too high for it to just jump and reach. Knight needed a few stepping stools.
It turned around. The shelf was neighboured by two others, hanging lower but more filled. It would be a tight squeeze for Knight to jump it and not knock anything down. But there was also the desk. And a chair.
Knight jumped on top of the chair, which rudely rolled away from the desk. Knight turned around carefully.
Hollow observed from under King's claws. It also had its nail but it never gotten the order to cut grass. The Queen had it water the plants.
Should it go water the grass?
But it did not have a watering can. And the King told it to stay!
King told them both to stay. But Knight got up and was jumping on top of the desk.
Maybe King meant ‘stay in the room’. That'd make sense. Everyone wanted them to follow someone. There was no one other than the King in this room to follow. So staying in the room it was.
Knight jumped on top of the first shelf. It walked between some shining pieces and pieces of book silks. Its horns scraped against another shelf and it had to duck a little bit.
One last jump between Knight and the grass. It stood on the very edge of the shelf and angled itself towards its destination. It remembered, from how the two of them were taught on the leaves-
It missed.
It fell down to the floor with the lightest possible thump . It looked up at the shelf with grass. The grass swayed mockingly and Knight turned right around to the chair. One fall did not stop the mission. It had to cut the grass.
Hollow watched Knight fall three more times. The noise of its falling sibling was a surprising novelty- till that point, they made no sounds at all after all. But the King said they would be changing. Maybe their mass was growing to accommodate the Void in them.
Knight finally jumped on the last shelf. It waddled to the grass, careful not to throw anything else down and finally struck the grass down. It fluttered sadly to the floor, leaving only a half of its height in the pot. Knight turned around and jumped straight to the floor. The fall stumped it for a bit but then it straightened and walked back to the King.
But it did not sit down.
The room was just too interesting to just sit .
It went to wander around, inspecting shiny objects and silk papers. It didn’t know how to read yet. It assumed as it grew and fog of being newborn fades, it would learn or just know how to.
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It looked back to Hollow. The King curled even more in his sleep and the claw on top of its sibling seemed to curl even more possessively than before. And the second pair, the one he put on top of Knight, seemed to be searching for it.
Was that the King beckoning Knight to come back?
Can’t be helped then.
Knight abandoned his inspection and went back to the claws. It sat down close to the searching limb and soon enough, it got encompassed by the possessive hold. The King wasn’t holding Knight by the head anymore but by the body. It didn’t bother Knight much, it could still slump and wait comfortably. The claws made for a decent propping point.
They didn’t sleep.
The hours stretched and the King slept on. The Vessels didn’t understand sleep. It looked like what they were doing, relaxing the body and being still and quiet. But somehow it was intricately different. Sleep took the King somewhere far away, where he wasn’t aware of his surroundings at all. But the Vessels were aware. Always aware, even as they slumped and stopped their movements. Maybe sleep was something they’d be trained in, just like they had to be trained in nail arts and movement.
Sleep and dreams were something that just eluded them.
The sleep broke and the King woke up. The Vessels watched as the god shook off his limbs and slowly rose his head from the pillows. They didn’t move away as the King didn’t tell them to.
“What-”
He was staring at them as if he were surprised by something. They didn’t know by what, really. The King held them through his sleep and held them when he woke up- they were slightly closer to the nest, Hollow pulled so close it was leaning against the blankets but it was King’s doing! So why would he be surprised?
The claws left them, disturbing their little peace. They straightened out and watched the King diligently.
“I shouldn’t have…” The god murmured. “Lapse of judgement. That’s- can’t happen again.”
Knight wondered if that meant they would go back to the jumping and fighting arena. It still had its nail, it would do well. Or maybe it could go exploring.
Hollow wondered if the King really meant that this wouldn’t happen again. It didn’t mind being held in place by the King. Or being held up by the Queen.
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The King stepped out of the nest and started neatening his robes. He fluttered his wings and stretched his claws out, the light constantly emitting from his shell. The light…
There was something about the light. Something they should know. Something they should do.
“Come with me,” the King ordered.
And so they did. After all, there’d be plenty of time to learn of the light and what their purpose was. They were the Hollow Knight. That must have meant something, surely- but they were newborns still. They’d learn as they went.