Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's impossible to tell how long you've been down here. Down in this.... pit. You don't know how you're able to see, because there's no light- no sun, no moon, no stars. Even with sight, there's not a lot to see- just rocks, and rocks, and rocks, and eggs. 

Eggs like yours.

Yeah, that had been kind of a shocker! Waking up surrounded by darkness that even your weird darkvision couldn't see through, mostly because there really wasn't anything to see. Actually, that time, not just "monotony" like the pit. You'd been content to just exist in peaceful, encompassing darkness for a bit, until the part of you that feeds your screaming nightmares started to get twitchy about not being able to tell what was out there and you started moving around to try to find out what was going on- because you certainly weren't in your bed at home, though you couldn't muster up much care about that part for some reason. (Probably the depression.) Then you'd panicked for a wholly different reason, being that you couldn't move. Or, you could, but you were confined, unable to shift much from the fetal position you normally slept in. Moving as much as you could, you'd flailed at the hard surface keeping you captive, and felt something attached to your head bonk the inside of it. You'd felt more than heard the crack of the surface, and on sheer ancient dinosaur instinct you'd rammed your head back and up as hard as you could. Breaking free was primally satisfying, and climbing out of the shell of the- yes, the egg you'd found yourself in, soothed the part of you that had been shrieking about being imprisoned. 

Unfortunately, your fear of the dark was not assuaged, because all that had greeted you on the outside was more darkness. Thankfully, the type you could see in, though somehow you could still tell that it was dark, that you shouldn't have been able to see, because there was no light to see by. 

Turning on trembling feet, you had taken in your surroundings and had the faint, sardonic thought: 

Shit, I sure ain't in Kansas anymore.

So.

Yeah.

The pit.

Lots of rocks. Lots of eggs. Lots of darkness. Not a lot of shit to entertain yourself with.

You sigh and sit down on one of the rocks, despite the lack of anything resembling fatigue, and examine your new body. You've done so a good several times since…. hatching…. because clearly, very clearly and obviously, you were not in your old one. No human hatches from a fucking egg, that's human biology 101. Or maybe 102. Whatever, college class numbers aren't relevant right now. What's relevant is that you're pretty sure you're a bug, which would definitely make sense with the hatching-from-an-egg thing, but is super weird to actually experience. Especially because you're not a normal bug. Bugs aren't bipedal. Bugs aren't made of stuff that would swallow light if there were any- your darkvision just seems to cut out as soon as your skin- er, body, comes into view, making you dizzy with vertigo every time you look at yourself. Like you've become a cutout in the fabric of the universe, the black between stars. It's pretty neat, if… deeply unsettling. You look at your hands: three fingers and a thumb, all stubby and jointed only once, which feels really clumsy compared to the two-per you're used to having. Each digit ends in a sharp little point, which you idly trace over the carapace of your arm, shivering as you taste-feel yourself, which tastes like nothing multiplied by one- still nothing, but a process having occurred. It's weird you can taste through your body, now, but at least nothing tastes bad; something about being a bug, or maybe this specific type of bug, means that the actual tastes of the dirt under your feet and your own carapace are detached entirely from opinions on those tastes. Maybe that'll change once you taste anything else, but for now, tastes are mercifully neutral.

You're clad in something that might be grey, might be blue, might be green- it's impossible to tell without light. Colors, you remember reading about somewhere, tend to become indistinct when light is too dim, with eyes only able to distinguish between shades. The maybe-blue-grey-green thing is attached to you at the neck, almost like a cape, but it feels the same way that your fingernails did as a human: sensitive to pressure, but not much else. Maybe it's made of keratin instead of whatever your carapace is made of, because it doesn't taste things the way your carapace does, which you find weird, but whatever. You've had some fun swishing it around your body and twirling to make it flare out, but that got old kind of fast, with nothing else to do down here. 

Your head made you panic, the first time. It's awfully big compared to the rest of you, and dread had seeped in when you discovered you had no mouth, no mandibles, nothing at all that could serve as any kind of intake for food. For a moment, you'd thought gloomily that you've been incarnated as some odd bipedal type of moth that only lives for a few days, before your hands reached your horns and your figurative heart had stopped cold. 

Horns. The things attached to your head that had broken you free of the egg. Long, slender, pronged near the end, on the inside.

Familiar.

Your hands ghost over them now, your head bending to bring them in reach of your frustratingly stubby little arms. Yes, they're familiar, but not in a way your body would recognize as familiar to being- no, this was familiar to your memories, to your mind. You know these horns. They belong to someone you've seen and drawn and… pitied. They belong to the Pure Vessel- the Hollow Knight.

Except, you're not pure. Not in the way that the Pale King would want, even disregarding all of the other meanings of that word that you've definitely never fit. You're not his perfect tool to seal the Radiance, and that means that your time in this new world is limited. Either he'll kill you for being impure, or you'll be locked down here forever for being impure (at which point you'd probably kill yourself for lack of anything to DO), or you…. could pretend to be, and he'd mold you into something that could seal the Radiance, and you'd essentially be tortured by an angry goddess until such a time that your sibling returns from wherever they'd escaped to and mercy-kills you. Or…. whatever happens to the Hollow Knight at the end of the game. It's not clear, and you kind of really don't want to find out.

You really, really don't want to find out.

A plan begins to form.

Looking up, you examine the platforms above you. Just as in the game, they float, suspended by nothing you can see, and they spiral up, up, up, into the darkness, only distinguishable from the ceiling by the sharp silver spikes that line the bottoms. You get up and shuffle through the dust and dirt, looking for the one nearest to the ground. 

Okay. Go time.

Jumping to the first platform is easier than you expected. It's the landing that fucks you up, making you wobble and overcorrect and fall on your face with a smack that vibrates through your whole body and hurts like nothing your human body ever experienced. It's not the ache of a bruise, or the sting of a scrape or cut; it's like your whole body becomes a tuning fork and the frequency it vibrates is "dull pain". 

Again. Again, you jump, and again you fall, and again you jump once more. You climb and scramble up the platforms, determined to reach the top- only to fall right around what you believe to be the halfway point. Desperate not to die, you flail for the edge of one of the platforms, only to bounce painfully off of the spikes of one right below you, scoring deep gouges into your carapace and the flesh underneath and sending you spinning off into the abyss.

When you land, it's on your back, and thankfully, it seems like that part of you doesn't care much about the impact. Your head jars against the ground with a bone-sharp crack just after, and you curl up on the side that isn't mauled and start to cry.

Hey. Neat.

You didn't know the vessels could do that.

What are you even doing here? Why did you think you could effect any sort of meaningful change? You can't even make it to the top of this stupid bleeding pit. You're alone, you're in the dark, you're pretty sure making it home would never be an option even if you wanted to go back to your shitty parents and overpriced apartment and no friends and partner- the thought of him makes you cry harder, because what is he going to think? That you just ghosted him? That you've broken up? That you've died? You suppose you have, haven't you? You must have, if you've been flung into another world as something new, and God, you've fucking died and you're in another world and you're a bug and possibly the worst kind of bug because you're the Pure Vessel and you're meant to become a container for a goddess who doesn't want to be contained and you can't, you just can't, you can't you can't you can't- you're a stupid, trembling little coward, you just can't. You've never done anything important in your life, and you'll never do anything important in this one. It's better for everyone if you just curl up in a corner and let yourself bleed out and die.

Your spiral is stopped by the sudden realization that, while you're breathing more heavily and your body shudders and shakes, you're… not making any noise. You…. can't. You try to cry, to scream, to wail, and all that you succeed in doing is straining yourself and stretching your injuries open further. You lie there in mental exhaustion, if not physical, and try to just breathe.

That's…. that's. That's okay. You're… used to crying quietly. This is fine. It's fine.

Spiral broken, though, you push yourself up into a sitting position, fresh void tears falling down your cheeks and dripping away into wispy nothingness at the immediate and sharp complaint from your injuries. You hurt… quite a fucking lot! It's hard to maneuver your clunky, awkward head to look at your side; it's just too big and the section below your eyes is too large and in-the-way, so you can't see much of anything. Even if you could, would there be anything to see, given how your body looks?

Things to consider: sight-based diagnosis of injuries is going to be a bitch.

Your fingers tenderly explore the ruined carapace, and if you were physically capable anymore, you would wince. It hurts! Not much else to say about that, really. Pulling your hand away, you try to think. Ghost could heal themself with Soul, but how? There's no button to push that could fix this easily, and it's not like you have any prior experience with using magic as a human, since magic wasn't real. (Maybe it was? How else would you have ended up here? You're pretty sure you're never going to solve that mystery, so you don't bother keeping the question around, discarding it probably forever.) You vaguely remember reading something in the Soul Sanctum about… focus?

Deep breaths. Okay. Focus. That's something you can do. You've been meditating since you were a kid so you could quiet your mind and actually fall asleep, pretending your breath was sweeping energy up and down your body. Now you do the same, breathing (out of your sides, that shit is SO weird) deep and turning your mind inward. In…. and out.

In…

Out.

In………

there.

Deep in the Void of your body there's a glimmer. Not a real one, not of light, but of feeling. Like bubbles on your skin, like soda fizz up your nose, almost-pleasant but stinging just enough to make you careful. It sparkles to your mental touch, and you stop to admire it in awe. It's…. real. Magic is real, here, and you can do it.

Your bleeding side wound reminds you of its existence, lighting a fire under your ass.

Nothing for it but to do it, right?

You plunge your mental "hand" into the feeling of sparkling white and if you could, you would yelp. You have the distinct feeling of being set on fire, but it doesn't hurt, you're just hot all over and before the feeling can fade you urge it towards your side. The feeling concentrates, and fuck, that does hurt, like a brand has been set to the wound, cauterizing it, and it itches, it itches so bad like ants are sewing your body back together and crawling all over-under you to do it. You squirm and cry more Void, breath whistling out of your spiracles in the closest you can get to a whimper.

The wake of the healing leaves you exhausted in body for the first time since hatching, and your mind isn't doing so hot either. You lay on your back in the dirt and find that you can't even close your eyes because you don't have any god damn eyelids.

How are you going to sleep?

…. Do you even need to sleep?

Either way, staring up at the platforms is kind of boring. You roll over, gladdened by the lack of pain, and sluggishly push yourself up into a sitting position again. You cross your legs and lean over to draw in the dirt. 

The Pale King and his many-pronged crown-head. The Pale Fork, a couple people called him in fanfiction. The thought makes you laugh, breath silently huffing out of your sides and making your cloak flutter. 

Ghost. Your sibling. None of your siblings have hatched yet, made obvious by the lack of awful Baby-Skull Mountain, and you have to wonder why. Why are you the first? Why, out of all of them, were you put into the body of the Pure Vessel? Divine intervention? If so, what does that divinity want from you?

(You doodle a little picture of yourself- your new self- next to Ghost, holding hands with them.)

Hornet. Has she been born yet? If you've hatched, that means the Dreamer plan is in progress. Maybe you'll get to see what she's like as a baby. The thought fills you with warmth and bubbly giddiness. You bet she's adorable. If nothing else, getting to see her as a baby would make all of this worth it. You draw Hornets of various sizes, scooting around in the dirt to give yourself more space to work with. Hornet with you, holding her up on your shoulders. Hornet with Ghost, crossing nail and needle. Hornet with the both of you, showing you how to weave.

The Root. The White Lady. The Queen. You enjoy drawing her in her bindings, wrapped up like a burrito with a little face peeking out. You wish you had paint, or colored pencils, to color her pretty pale blue eyes.

Over and over, you draw figures, a tapestry of finger-doodles of people that maybe you'll see, here. You draw until you get bored of it- by that time, thankfully, you feel much better than when you started.

Again you look up at the platforms. 

Maybe you won't be able to change anything. Maybe you're not going to amount to anything. But you can try. You have a body that can't get tired, removing your biggest complaint about exercise as a human. You have magic. You can heal yourself when you get hurt, even if the process sucks almost as much as receiving the injury in the first place. You have time, even if it's finite. 

You start the climb.

Chapter Text

Up… and down. Up and…. down. Up. And. Down. Again and again, you climb the Abyss and then back down to the ground, getting better and better at balancing with your stupidly big head and not eating dirt every time you jump. It's pretty fun, actually! You like getting up and moving your body in a way that you never did while human. Maybe it's weird being a bug, but there's just as many upsides as downsides, even if the downsides are really… really big, considering your specific situation. You consider your plan while you work.

First: Make it out of the Abyss before any of your new siblings. You don't know that the Pale King will kill them for being impure, but you also don't know that he won't. So the best way to avoid the horrible Baby-Skull Mountain- you hope- is to make it out of here first, and be chosen fast enough that he'll just seal the door and leave your siblings be. Hopefully they'll find some way out; you know that at least a handful do, given the…. corpses, in the game. Three in Deepnest, one in Greenpath, and one didn't even make it a mile away from the White Palace- and then Ghost. They had to have gotten out somehow, so… you're betting on it. For their sakes.

Second: Pretend to be hollow. Not forever. You…. really don't think you could do it forever. You're good at compartmentalization, but not that good, and "forever" is synonymous with "eternity of torture at the hands of an angry moth goddess", so. No. Not forever. But long enough. Long enough to gather information, like the language used here, and to be trained to fight. You're not sure why the Pale King wanted the Pure Vessel to be the absolute pants-shittingly terrifying powerhouse that they were in the Pantheon. Maybe they weren't, and they were only added to the Pantheon for… kicks? Because the developers wanted a cool, harder Hollow Knight fight? But that wouldn't make sense- the Hollow Knight does know how to fight, in the Black Egg. It could have been the Radiance controlling their body…. you're simply not sure. Suddenly your assumptions feel a lot more shaky.

Second Point Five: Figure out if the Pale King intends to train the Vessel in combat. If not, find a way to train in combat in secret. 

…. Second Point Seven Five: Meet Baby Hornet. You need to meet Baby Hornet, she has to be adorable, and it's implied heavily that she grew up in the White Palace; you HAVE to meet her. You hate that you can't squee anymore, but that's probably for the best, since it would give you away immediately as impure.

BACK ON TRACK.

Third: Find the Dreamnail, or otherwise seek out the moths. They may or may not know anything about the Radiance, and they may already be wiped out by the infection. Either way, you need to find them and see if you can wield the Dream Nail. 

Fourth: Find Godseeker. Seek outside of the kingdom if necessary. Hopefully not. The idea is frightening; the lore implies the Wastes outside erase the mind, and you like having your mind, thank you very much. It's dogshit, but it's yours.

Fifth: Kill the Radiance. If Step The Third reveals information that would make you question whether this is a good idea…..

You don't know. You don't know how close this world is to the one you remember. You're working with limited information and a world much more complex than any 2D platformer could ever communicate. It's a crapshoot whether the map you only half-remember will be any use at all, or if any of the lore you know by heart is even true. Maybe Godseeker won't exist. Maybe the moths will be hostile to the idea of you killing their goddess. Maybe the Radiance is more sympathetic than you think, which is already a tough question, because…

Well, you can't blame her for being angry at the Pale Wyrm. He stole her worshiper-base, which seems to be similar to stealing a god's food source? Maybe? It's really unclear, from what you remember, whether she created the moths or what. Even if you know the lore by heart, the problem is that it's ambiguous. Is the Radiance a victim of colonialism on the part of the Pale Wyrm, or is she a petty ruler who couldn't stand a loss of power and decided to take that out on everyone, regardless of innocence? Is she both? Something more complicated than either? This is a real world, not a videogame with a clear end boss, and it's making your head hurt to consider all of the possibilities. 

Whatever the facts, you can't stand the idea of letting things end the same way they did in the game. Even the smallest changes can ripple outwards and create unexpected results. You have to try something. You can start with the first step of the Plan, and…. see where things go from there. 

When you get bored of jumping around and feel reasonably sure of your IRL platforming skills, you hop down to the ground and begin working on your magic. To be honest, the feeling of Soul earlier was… overwhelming, to say the least. You barely controlled it; it surged through you, did what you hoped it would do, and left. And it left you tired after just one Focus! Ghost either has really good stamina, or you wasted a bunch of Soul when you used it before. Now that you're not actively bleeding out- though, you're really not sure that's something that a Vessel can even do, now that you think about it- you need to practice.

Practice. Practice doing magic. Eeeeee! Your child-self would be freaking out like crazy with glee. As is, you hop in place for a few moments to celebrate before getting down to business. Okay, okay, you're cool, you're chill, okay.

Soul. It feels like a sparkler in your… well, soul. Bright and always moving, always shifting. It seems to have gotten denser since your healing surge earlier- there's no increased volume of it, it's just… more opaque against the background of your Void, is how you guess you'd describe it. Less like a glittering mist and more solid. You reach out to touch it more carefully than before, just a mental "finger" instead of your whole "hand". A shiver rolls through you at the sensation of heat, and then you just…. sit. With the feeling. Acclimating to it. Eventually (because you get bored and impatient) you add another finger, and get used to that. Instead of dunking your whole "hand", though, you stay with that much contact, and try to channel your Soul. Not towards anything in particular; you kind of want to see what it looks like when you just… let it out.

Light!

If you could, you'd blink, because you start to glow. In the Abyss, even a little light goes a long way, and you look around at your surroundings as they're cast into light and shadow, instead of the uniform greys from before. Or, well- actually, things are still really grey, but it's easier to distinguish between objects in the distance, since things are casting shadows now, even if they're very faint.

Well, this is very cool, but you kind of want to do more. You know Soul can do some cool stuff beyond healing and apparently light, so you stop channeling and start thinking. The Crossroads Shaman "gave" Ghost a spell of their own creation, so there's clearly ways to make spells, but how? You know next to nothing about the language of Hallownest or if the Snail Shamans have a different language altogether, or if their spellcrafting even involves languages?

You're getting ahead of yourself, you think.

Shaking your head, you move to a different section of dirt from the one you used to draw. Magic. So far, it seems to be about intent. There's obviously ways to structure it, given the spellcrafting in the game. Would it be easier to start with creating a structure of your own for it, or just…. freestyling it? Hm…..

Freestyle first, structure later, you decide.

Reaching into your soul for your Soul gets easier every time, though how much you draw on is still a matter of tenuous control. Before you can start glowing again, you try to form a little sphere of light, condensing the Soul into a ball with your mental "hand" like you would a piece of clay. It cooperates easily enough, probably because it's prone to glowing already. An inch above your hand- the real one, this time- floats a little ball of light, much brighter than the glow from before. As you draw on more Soul, the light gets brighter. Simple, easy. 

Eeee you're doing magic!!!!

Okay, serious face, gotta focus. Concentrate. You work on shaping the light. It helps to think of the Soul as clay to be shaped and molded; you don't have to hold the shape in your mind, which would Not work because of your dismal and complete inability to visualize. Instead, the Soul holds its form each time you work with it. A star, a triangle, a cube, a weird prism shape. Carefully, steadily, you shape the prism into a rondel: a dagger with a triangular blade. You don't bother with a handle, just a short tang, and practice moving it around above your hand without touching it. The first few attempts your make to throw it go about as pathetically as a lopsided paper airplane, and you spare a thought to be grateful you can't blush. Still… practice makes better. You keep at it, over and over, until you start to feel the burn of Soul exhaustion.

It sucks that you can't sleep. You'd prefer to timeskip through the arduous wait for your Soul reserves to replenish themselves over time. At least you don't have to go hurt things to get more Soul- you're not fond of the idea of murdering some poor innocent shadow creepers just to practice your magic. Though, that makes you wonder where you're getting the extra Soul from. Is it ambient? Innate, something that the Pale Wyrm's blood bestows upon you? You have no way to tell, but maybe you can experiment. Time to futz with actual spellcrafting.

In the dirt you start with a circle. It feels right: spell circles; alchemical circles; summoning circles; these things are famous in your world for being ideal for channeling magic. The circle creates either a boundary for an effect, or a channel for the magic to flow through, unbroken. Symbols added to the circle, whether those are on the outside, inside, or both, dictate what the magic does and where it goes. After some consideration, you create a smaller circle next to the inside boundary of the "binding" circle and press your tiny thumb into the dirt twice in the bottom half of that circle, creating a tiny picture of a mask- or, the main Soul container from the game. You repeat the process on the outside, flipped upside down: Soul without, Soul within. Then, you connect the two with a line that connects to the outer circle and draw several lines along the outside edge of the circle that terminate in arrows pointing to the outer Soul container symbol, as if the container is dragging Soul from outside the circle towards itself. 

It looks kind of barebones and silly, but!! Magic is belief!! You have to believe this will work. You're using the right symbol, you're telling the Soul where it needs to come from and where it needs to go. Taking a deep breath, you push the tiniest bit of Soul into the circle to activate it.

To your delight, the lines you've drawn in the dirt light up with a subtle silver glow. Within the bounds of the circle, tiny- infinitesimal- motes of light begin to form, and you'd bet dollars to donuts that they're made of Soul. You get to your feet, being incredibly careful  not to disturb any of the lines, and step inside your Soul-catching array. Simultaneously, you look inside yourself to watch how fast your Soul replenishes itself.

And you wait. And wait. 

Is there something you have to do, or….? The rate at which your Soul refills itself doesn't seem changed at all, and the motes of light surround you like fireflies within the circle. Where they land on your carapace you taste the Soul, and it tastes like a thousand things at once, all of them hot and effervescent. You shudder and shake yourself at the feeling, missing when you could just get goosebumps at things instead of having to sit with discomfort that has nowhere to go. Maybe you do need to do something? Ghost just absorbed free-standing Soul automatically from things like those glass beakers in the Soul Sanctum, but maybe that's a game mechanic? Maybe this is like channeling Soul- it requires effort and focus. 

Instead of reaching into your Soul reserves, you touch the very outside edge of them and imagine your body as a vacuum sucking up the Soul around you. It feels silly, but you also inhale deeply as you do it, and-

ACK!

BAD IDEA!!!! VERY BAD IDEA, inhaling while Focusing made the Soul go into your spiracles and now you feel like you've got a set of fireworks sparklers in your insides!!!!! You cough, but the Soul particles absorb into your body before the first exhale leaves you, leaving your insides prickly and uncomfortable. 

Okay! Not doing that! Ever again!!! Note to self: HOLD YOUR BREATH when Focusing Soul!!! That SUCKED!!!!!!

Plus, it didn't even really do much for your Soul reserves. Maybe the same amount as a single non-charm-boosted hit in the game would get Ghost. Ugh. Well, at least it's constantly drawing in Soul from the environment….. It makes sense that there probably isn't much Soul down here in the Abyss. Looks like you'll just have to wait. 

You are so bad at waiting. UGH.

Chapter Text

Waiting sucks. So you decide to stop waiting and go do something. 

You've exhausted your options with exploring upwards, as you don't see the Lifeblood Door and honestly wouldn't want to encounter the thing inside it even if you could enter. You've got no nail or needle, and your Soul-shaping and aim with your chosen rondels are both rudimentary at best. So…. ground exploration it is. You walk and walk and walk towards the far wall that you can see in the distance, and the bottom of your stomach drops out of you as you realize just how big this place is, at least compared to you and your tiny stubby legs' stride, because the wall doesn't seem to be getting much closer after several minutes. Picking up the pace helps, marginally, but it still takes an absurd amount of time to reach the wall. There's lots of ways to climb the bumpy, textured surface, especially with how small and sharp your claws are, but you've already gone Up a lot, so you ignore this for now. Instead, you let the wall guide you along. The Abyss seems roughly cylindrical, widening at the bottom into an oval; you reached the far wall near one of the peaks of the oval-shape, and you follow it towards that peak, lightly resting your hand on the wall as you go. 

Only when your hand hits air instead of the wall do you realize there's a tunnel. A large tunnel. Honestly, you're not sure how you didn't notice it- but then again, darkness in more darkness is rather hard to spot. As far as you're aware, there's only two tunnels down here, and it's really hard to tell which one it is. 

Nothing for it but to find out.

Your steps echo inside the tunnel, which is to be expected. Your…. feet are small and sharp, each one landing with a click against the rock. As you go, you take in the tunnel and its shape. It seems…. inorganic, in some places, like it already existed but was carved into a more convenient shape by something else, whether that thing be sentient or not. You thought you remembered there being a little hill to jump over here in the game, but there's nothing- nothing, that is, until your feet hit metal with a sharp, startling tink!

Ah, so this is the lighthouse tunnel.

Moving forward, you see the shape of the lighthouse resolve in the distance. It's dark, but you're not sure if that's because it's unoperated or if it's simply not time for it to be switched on yet. You creep closer, doing your best to quieten your footsteps. When you get close to the door, you can't hear anyone moving within, so… probably unoperated? You can't imagine any sane bug wanting to be down here for an extended period just to wait to turn on the lighthouse when it's only used very very occasionally. You relax; nobody is here to discover you.

When you approach the sea of Void, it burbles, lapping at the shore. You feel-hear the opposite of sound within your mind, silence shaping itself into a crooning call that beckons you in. There are no words, but the emotion within is clear: come home. Rejoin us. 

You scoot away. No, thanks. You like being a discrete entity. 

Unsure if you can brave the Void-sea without losing yourself, you turn around and explore more around the lighthouse. Other than some boxes which have been broken down and emptied of their contents long ago, there's nothing much. In the interest of maintaining the charade of your hollowness, you don't try to do anything with them, though the artist in you longs for more to work with.

On second thought….. they won't notice a couple planks missing, will they?

Testing the "hammerspace in your body" theory is a smashing success: you giggle silently while feeding a whole plank of wood into your wittol tummy, half-hysterical that This Is Your Life Now, and half manically gleeful at the idea of infinite storage space. 

Loot obtained, you trot back the way you came, much more cheerful than before. You have something to fucking DO!!!! Something to make things with! This will make the wait while your Soul recovers much more bearable. Of course, you still should practice your speedrunning of the Ascent, but having something to do other than climb and run around and draw gives you some much-needed peace of mind. Even as much as you love drawing, it can only carry you so far when in dire need of entertainment. 

Carving turns out to be a frustrating but fun use of your time.

You make a routine for yourself while you wait for the Pale King to get his ASS in gear, what the HELL is taking him so long?? The routine is such: practice the Ascent a few times; heal any injuries; draw in the dirt; practice your freestyle magic; carve some stuff into or out of the planks you pilfered. Rinse, repeat. 

You're…. going a little insane without a way to tell the time. In your previous life you were shit at telling the time without a clock, and it doesn't seem like that's changed in this one. Without something to tell you whether it's day or night, you're getting real crabby and restless. You're so used to having at least sleep or any kind of fatigue to tell you when to rest or do other things, but with a body that doesn't require sleep and apparently doesn't need to eat or drink or anything else you're used to doing for regular maintenance at semi-regular intervals, you're just left to kinda…. do whatever. Anxiety borne of constant deadlines whines at you to be productive with your finite time, but productivity is relative, and there's jack all to be productive for that you're not already doing the most you can about. 

In a stunning display of maturity and emotional regulation, you decide to flop on the ground and roll around and throw a tantrum about it. 

…. It does kinda make you feel better.

When you're all tantrumed-out, though, you're left with the same dilemma. Lucky for you, though, as you roll over onto your stomach, you hear a loud CRACK from all around you, as your siblings begin to hatch all at the same time.

It's go time!

Before the rest of your siblings can make it much further than falling to the ground or crawling into the dirt (you see some of the less fortunate ones just… wink out of existence upon meeting the ground, making the space where your heart was feel horribly cold) you are already in the air. Up you go, hopping and darting from platform to platform, leaving your drawings and carvings in the dust for your siblings to discover. Goodbye, siblings, farewell! Don't die, please! 

The Pale King's light has only shone down on the Abyss for a few minutes when you take that final jump and land perfectly, half-crouching to keep your massive stupid head from hitting the metal platform. He's been speaking- probably that speech from the Void Heart cutscene- but you've not been paying close attention, and you've cut him off in the middle of saying something, so his mouth just kind of…. hangs open.

"Well, then," says the first voice you've heard in this new world. It's soft, and smooth, and deeper than you'd expect from a being as small as himself. Against your better judgement, you immediately like the sound of it and want to listen to it more. "You're early." 

He steps forward- or, more like glides, and you see that he has a tail with many legs that trails behind him- though maybe that's just his body, and he's bent the first half of it upright to look bipedal? It's really difficult to tell, as his robes obscure all of him. In any case, his movement is smooth and his many legs skitter-skritch across the floor like a centipede's. He circles you, looking you up and down. You stay very, very still, only turning your head to keep him in your line of sight, as if fixated on his light. He's looking for purity, for hollowness, and you wish desperately that you knew what he expected that to look like. 

"I don't just want to accept the first Vessel to reach the top," he murmurs to himself, leaning closer. "But… it hasn't reacted except to my light." He waves a spindly white hand in front of your face, and you don't react, don't flinch at all. You can hear your siblings attempting the Ascent behind you and are grateful for your lack of eyelids, because you want nothing more than to clench your eyes tightly shut. Please, hurry up!

The Pale King leans over the edge to gaze into the Abyss, and hums in thought. "I suppose it having been the first to succeed in the climb is a good sign of potential," he says. Hurry up hurry up hurry up-! He turns back to you to take your hand, examine your carapace and head, touch your cape- all seemingly testing for any sort of reaction. Again you wish you knew what he was looking for, but it seems that he comes to a decision after an awful, indeterminable length of time, as he draws away and beckons to you to follow. 

"Come," he orders. You follow, out of your place of birth and into the wider world. The relief you feel at the end of your internment in that place prompts a surge of guilt as he stops you and takes a moment to seal the Abyss behind you. While his back is turned, you look back, just for a moment, and see the thing you were hoping most not to:

Ghost. At the edge of the platform, barely holding on.

Heart clenching, you turn forward before the Pale King can notice, and listen to the sound of their avenue of escape closing behind you.

Chapter Text

The Pale King saved his monologue for the journey to the White Palace, you find out. He tells you what you are: no mind to think, no will to break, no voice to cry suffering….

You've heard this before.

Your attention wanders from his dictation of your purpose to trail along the walls of the Ancient Basin. It's a curious place to build a palace, especially a white one. Everything here is dark: dark stone, dark steel, dark creatures. Maybe he chose it for the contrast? Or perhaps he chose it because it's the lowest point of the kingdom, the deepest one can get without encountering the Void; he is a burrowing creature, after all, and the back of your own mind purrs in pleasure at the thought of being buried deep, deep down. Safe. 

Hm. Interesting. You think you might have bug instincts now. Maybe alongside your ape instincts? Do you still have those? 

Void wisps through the air in the passages near the Abyss, but thins to nothing as you ascend. Unlike in the game, a set of stairs spiraling around the edge of the shaft leading up provides easy access to and from the site of the Pale King's most desperate experiment. For a sweet moment you revel in the fact that you don't get tired climbing them. Take that, stairs!!! Finally, you've conquered them!! 

Man it is boring to climb the same set of stairs for an age. You can easily keep up with the Pale King's brisk pace, at least, but it's a long set of stairs. You're relieved when he leads you up into a well-lit tunnel that has… bugs. Bugs! Your first time seeing any other bugs than your progenitor. They're so… shiny! Their carapaces reflect light in a way yours refuses to, and you admire the sheen and the colors. The game depicted most bugs of Hallownest with dim, dull, muted tones- which is fine, it matches the tone of the game itself! But the reality is that bugs are typically a lot more varied in color than that! In passing to the White Palace, you see a firefly, a ladybug, three different colors of darner dragonflies, a cluster of cockroaches with rich red-brown shells, and some bright orange bugs that you honestly don't know the species of. There's more, too, but your field of vision is restricted by the fact that you have to keep your head facing toward the Pale King, as he's the only thing you're supposed to pay attention to. Still, it's delightful to realize that you've not stepped into a word of drab colors. 

Until you enter the White Palace.

Oh boy, does the White Palace earn its name!

For your human self, the place would be blinding. White on white on white, the only difference in shades being the shadows cast by the furniture and decor. Your reflex is to squint, except you can't. Probably a good thing. The floor is white marble and metal, shot through with streaks of shining silver. All of the albedo reflects any light cast upon it a hundredfold- you're genuinely not sure how anyone navigates this place without sunglasses. 

You get your answer when you pass through the initial lobby-foyer thing. Receiving hall? Anyways. As you get deeper in, the whites soften to greys, and vines of white and deep grey begin to wind around pillars and creep up walls. The floor becomes granite of a gentle dark grey snowed over with white and light grey flecks that's genuinely very restful to look at. The palace still seems like it's come to life from an old greyscale photo, but it's not as…. aggressive, as the receiving hall. 

You wish you could reach out a hand to touch the flowers on the vines. They look soft. 

The Pale King leads you into a room that seems to be his laboratory, if the multitude of vials filled with Soul and Void and the many instruments of measurement, heating, cooling, and unknown purpose are any indication. Paper notes litter every available surface, including the walls, pasted up and connected with silk string and overlapping until the wall itself is completely obscured, in some spots. Everything has its own place, but those places are all in disarray, tools thrown haphazardly in their boxes and stacks of paperwork (complete with little superfluous ribbons of officiation!) slumping over on themselves. Ink spots and spills drip over the tables and papers. Samples of Infected tissue sit under what you identify with some surprise as microscopes, glowing with arcane symbols- to increase magnification, maybe? It's a mess indicative of exactly how frantic the Pale King has been. You peer closely at him from a spot he indicates you to stand in as he clears a table for further examination. His shoulders are slumped, and he carries some of the same signs of activity that the lab does: ink on his robes and the tips of his fingers; his clothes more rumpled than you guess that they're supposed to be; and his head dips every few moments, his eyes half-closing, like he's trying to stay awake and can't quite manage it for long. He's clearly deeply exhausted.

He pauses in the middle of his task, eyes closed. Thinking, or finally asleep? It's hard to tell, until he looks up at you suddenly, and it takes some self control not to flinch in surprise. He stares at you for a long moment, before he sighs and beckons you to follow once more. Out of the lab you go, following just behind him, around a corner and down another hall, until he stops in front of a door. 

"This will be where you will stay until I return for you," he tells you, opening the door and ushering you inside. It's a small room, no bigger than a walk-in closet, with a… bed? Nothing else, though, not even a top sheet or blankets on the bed, just a fitted one. "Lay down. On the bed," he hastily adds, as you slowly lower yourself to the floor in the most literal interpretation of his command. You get to your feet once more and lay down on the bed. It's… soft. More luxury than you expected for a thing such as yourself, but you're not complaining. He stands over you, though he's not tall enough to really loom, and nods to himself. "Stay here," he commands. "I will return for you when I have slept."

And then he… leaves. He locks the door behind himself, probably more for your security than anything; you're a valuable tool that he needs to make sure won't be stolen, after all. You're left alone, with no light, and nothing to do.

Fuuuuuuuck, this is going to be boring.

Well, hey. At least you can practice your magic in here, and do some carving, maybe? You still have half a plank of wood left to work with. You'll have to clean the shavings as you go, though. 

By this point, you've got enough practice shaping and controlling your Soul to make a hovering light for yourself. You position it above and in front of you so bending over your carving won't cast a shadow, and get to work. You're going to make a little figurine of Hornet- not as a baby, but as you know her, since you haven't seen her in person yet. The project will probably last you at least one sleep cycle for the Pale King.

Doo doo doo, killing time, doo doo doo….

————————

As in the Abyss, you have no idea how much time passes. When you hear the skittering clatter of the Pale King's legs approaching, however, your prediction holds true: you're only partly finished with the figurine. You rapidly sweep the last of the wood shavings into your hammerspace along with the carving, dismiss your light, and lay down on the bed just as he left you. He opens the door none the wiser to your activities.

"Follow me."

Back to the lab he leads you, and he finally finishes clearing off the table from your previous visit. He directs you to sit, atop the table, and you do. It's kind of amusing to play the game of "how literal can I get with my interpretations of instructions", especially because you can get away with it because it's what he expects now, after your initial stunt. You let your legs hang off the edge, and he moves them onto the table, so you're parallel with the table's length. He retrieves a small cart of tools and a pad of paper and begins taking measurements of your head, your limbs, your cloak, and your body. You resist the strange urge to hiccup when he sticks his hand into your Void up to the elbow, and shift things around to keep him from making contact with the wood in there. No need for him to find out about that! He seems to take the movement as part of the fluidity of Void, and pulls his hand out before cleaning it off with water at a spigot and drain over on the wall. He tests for reflexes, which you allow to trigger naturally without holding back; there's no reason a mindless thing would need to resist the reflex, after all. 

Playing to his expectations is more exhausting and nerve-wracking than you anticipated. 

He moves away from you to transcribe his notes into a stone tablet, ignoring you entirely as he mutters to himself. You resist the urge to sigh. Correction: pretending to be hollow to play to his expectations is boring. You try to satisfy yourself with looking at the things in your direct line of vision, but observing the same sconce, tables, tools, and samples gets old very fast. In a desperate attempt to preserve your sanity, in lieu of literally anything else to do, you start singing "99 bottles of beer" in your own head.

You loop around from reaching the end of the song three times before the Pale King decides he's done with his note-taking. His command for you to follow him could make you weep from sheer relief.

This time, the hallway he guides you down cedes to dirt and plant growth that slowly gains color. It's a lovely departure from the monotone of the rest of the palace, and you find yourself enjoying the taste of the soft, fertile soil under your feet; it just tastes like life, and it's a lovely sensation if you don't think about all the (literal) shit that is incorporated into it. You work very hard at not thinking about it- then forget entirely what you were thinking of as the two of you come into view of the White Lady. 

The game truly did not do her justice.

Her branches sprawl out above her and bloom with leaves and flowers galore, some pale like her bark and many of different colors: her leaves run the gamut from summer green to autumnal reds and yellows, and her flowers come in as many colors as one could think of and fill the air with a sweet scent. Like in the game, her body- trunk?- is bound with silver wrappings, but they end cleanly at her roots, allowing them to sink into the soil and anchor her there. Her eyes, so pale and faded in the far future, are a brilliant cobalt blue.

"My Wyrm," she calls, her voice clear and deeper than you remember, though you'll be the first to admit that your memory as a human was never excellent. "It is good to see you once more. Is this the Vessel that you described?" Her gaze shifts to you, and the underside of your shell crawls at her examination. "It is certainly… very childlike." She sounds… wistful. "Are you certain that this is the only one we could keep, My Wyrm? The…. the extras could not be salvaged?" 

He shakes his head, and though you cannot see his expression from your position, his tone is somber. "No, My Root. Void can act in unpredictable ways- I count myself as exceedingly lucky that this Vessel is as hollow as it is. I would not have you injured by an errant biological machine lashing out in reaction to something we would have no way of predicting or preventing." He steps closer, and she leans down to let him cup her face, even pressing herself into his tiny hand. "Perhaps, once this Infection is quelled for good, we may discuss potential heirs…?"

Her laugh shakes her leaves and sends flower petals drifting to the ground. "Only you would say such things in such a dry manner, My Wyrm," she chuckles, lingering for a moment longer before straightening up. "Would you care to join me for refreshments?" 

He joins her, and you stay in your spot and watch. They never quite forget about you, but they ignore you all the same, acting as if you aren't even present. A pang of loneliness pulls at your heart, a familiar and unwelcome companion. The scene is nostalgic in a way that would put a sour taste in your mouth if you still had one. This is how it will be, for the foreseeable future: seen, but not acknowledged, not heard, not granted even the barest of thoughts unless it's convenient or necessary. A ghost in your own home.

That's… fine. You weren't meant to have a normal childhood, anyways

Chapter Text

Your new cloak is white, and it covers you entirely. You feel like part of the furniture. The Pale King fusses over how it's arranged on your body for a bit, before deciding that he's satisfied. You stay very still through the whole process, going over the precepts he has "programmed" you with. To your own very great surprise, recalling each and every one is not difficult at all, and you even remember the exact order of them. It makes you wonder, and you begin combing through your memories since rebirth: hatching, climbing, injury, soul experimentation, carving; the walk to the White Palace, your new bedroom (if it can really be called that), meeting the White Lady, the fitting for your new cloak. It's all there, crisp and detailed, though only in sensations and emotions. Seems your aphantasia is permanent no matter what body you occupy. You don't mind much; it's not like you know what you're missing. Perfect recall, though…. that's something that you could only fantasize about, in your last life. Your memory was like a damaged seive at the best of times, and at the worst, it didn't catch anything at all. In keeping track of the guidelines of your new existence, it's a blessing. You're absolutely certain your facade would fail within days if you didn't have this ability.

The Pale King turns from you and walks away, towards the more public- and brighter- areas of the Palace. You follow, as you've been told to do when you have no other standing orders.

The heirarchy of priority in following orders is as such:

• The Pale King. Obviously.
• The White Lady.
• The Five Great Knights.
• Lurien, Herrah, and Monomon.

You are not allowed to follow orders from any other entity. You are also to follow standing orders involving the protection of the White Lady, the Dreamers, the citizens of Hallownest, and your own physical condition. He said- mostly to himself- you will have more instructions soon, but that this is enough, for now. A test run, he had said.

At least you know you're being tested.

The White Palace is bustling with activity, retainers and servants and nobles about their daily business. They give the Pale King a wide and respectful berth, genuflecting as he passes. They whisper when you pass by, speculating who or what you could be. Clearly someone to look out for, if the King himself is guiding you. The attention is uncomfortable, but you ignore them. There are more important things to focus on.

The two of you enter an antechamber to the throne room, one draped in silver and grey instead of more white. Inside wait two figures, both of whom you recognize. The Pale King nods in respect to Herrah, Queen of Deepnest, and you do nothing, because he has not given an order. From behind Herrah, a small bug in an equally tiny red cloak peeks out, horns delightfully familiar. She sees you and squeaks, but doesn't retreat. Herrah glances down at her, and then looks to you. 

"This is the Vessel, then," she says. Her voice is raspy and deep, and accented in a way that you can't quite place; whatever magic allows you to understand the bugs of this world does not give you familiarity with cultural differences. "It's smaller than expected. Doesn't look like much."

"It will grow," the Pale King says, and he gestures for her to take a seat at the table in the center of the room. "I thank you for coming, Queen Herrah, and for bringing our daughter. It is good to see how she has grown since her hatching. She seems a fierce huntress already, gathering information on her surroundings." Which is a nice way to put "hiding behind her mother". Herrah's pedipalps, located just under the bottom edge of her mask, wiggle in some unidentifiable (to you, at least) gesture of emotion. "I'm sure she will be very bored as we discuss arrangements for after the plan is executed," the King continues. "My thought was to give the Vessel its first mission, and have it escort the little one to My Root in her garden." 

Herrah's whole body twitches. She stares at the King, and then looks to you again. "It doesn't have a weapon," she points out. 

"It has not been trained in the use of one as of yet." Does that mean you will be? Relief sighs through you like a warm breeze. You won't have to procure a weapon and train in secret, then. One less complication.

Herrah bristles. "How can it escort her safely if it has no weapon?" She gestures to the Palace. "It's hardly any bigger than she is!"

The Pale King nods in acknowledgement of her point, and then looks to you. "Vessel." You look up at him. "Protect Queen Herrah's daughter at all costs. If you are assaulted, pick her up and find the nearest Kingsmould. It will protect the two of you. When the assault ceases, find The White Lady and shelter with her until I find you."

He doesn't need to tell you twice. You move from your position at his side to approach Herrah and Hornet. The little bug shrinks back briefly as you approach, but when you don't do or say anything, seems to grow bold and steps out from her mother's shadow to stand closer. She inspects you, and asks her mother, "Who's this?" Her voice is small, but clear, like she's practiced her enunciation. 

Herrah stares at you hard for a moment, like she's still not sure what to make of you, before she replies. "This is the Hollow Knight, my child. It is not a who, but a what. You saw the Kingsmoulds on the way in- those are constructs. The Hollow Knight is a similar type of thing, but more sophisticated."

"Oh." Hornet looks at you again, and tilts her head, like she's trying to see the similarities between yourself and the Kingsmoulds. "So- sofiss- sofis'cated? What's that mean?"

"Complex." / "Smart." The answers come from the King and her mother, respectively. 

Hornet considers this, and nods. "Okay! Th' Ho- Holwo- Holly Knight will show me where White Lady is?" You could squeal. It takes considerable effort not to. 

"Yes, my child," Herrah says, despite her clear misgivings. "And you will be safe with it." She glares at the Pale King, threat obvious in her gaze. 

Hornet grabs your hand and drags you out the wrong door. You still know where the White Lady is, though, so you lead her by the hand in the right direction. She coos in curiosity as the marble halls cede to dirt and plant life, her head on a swivel to take everything in. Her hand is slack in yours, and she tries to pull away several times to look at something or other, but your grip on her is tight enough to make up for her lack of thought. Instead of dragging her in the direction of the White Lady, and potentially making her upset and uncooperative, you let her take you on little detours to look at the things that pique her interest. She stops for bushes, for flowers, for little lesser-bugs that have made their way into the Palace to live in the Gardens- she drools a little over those, actually. But before you have to wrangle a hungry toddler-equivalent, you reach the gates of the Garden. You internally breathe a sigh of relief. The White Lady will be better equipped to handle a child's hunger.

Said Lady looks up from a book when the gate creaks open. She sets it aside as you approach, towing an absolutely fascinated Hornet towards her. "Well, hello," she coos, her branches curling. It's fascinating to watch wood bend and twist with such natural ease. "You must be Queen Herrah's daughter. Do you have a name yet, little hunter?"

Hornet- or, apparently, not Hornet yet- shakes her head and tightens her grip on your hand. "Nuh-uh. I haven' earned it yet. Gotta take a test and prove myself as a- as a huntress." She puffs up. "I'll be the best huntress."

Dear lord, she is adorable. You just wanna scoop her up and squeeze her and nuzzle her and-!!

"I'm sure you will be," the White Lady chuckles. "Now, I'm assuming your father and mother sent you to me for company while they discuss boring adult things? It's good timing- I just placed an order for a tea service to be delivered. I'll have some delicious treats for you."

"What about Holly?" Hornet tugs on your arm, as if trying to draw attention to you in counterpoint to the White Lady's exclusion. It's… heart-warming. She clearly doesn't understand that you're not a person to these bugs. "They should get treats too! They did a good job es- escorting me!"

The White Lady falters, blinking. "Er… I… don't know if the Hollow Knight can eat," she admits. "It… doesn't have a mouth."

Hornet- or, you suppose, the child-who-might-be-Hornet- immediately bends to look under your head for a mouth. "Huh! They don't," she confirms, her eyes wide. "How are they going to grow up big an' strong if they can't eat?"

The White Lady is quiet in thought for a moment. "I'm not sure," she admits. "I suppose we will have to ask your father when he joins us. He knows more about the Hollow Knight than anyone else; he will have an answer."

With that avenue of curiosity explored to its end for now, the child sits at the tea table with the White Lady, and they chat about small things: what the child is learning at school, what things she likes to eat (or doesn't, since she gladly rants on the nastiness of corpse creeper meat), and the fact that she wove the fabric for her cloak herself, out of her own silk. Pride for her suffuses your body, and you wish more than anything that you could tell her of it. Someday, you will. Not today, though. Today, you guard the two of them, facing away and toward the entrance to the Gardens, and stay silent and still.

The Pale King arrives long after the tea service does. He looks tired and worn. Herrah, notably, is not with him. You turn to face him as he passes, always directed towards his light. It's what he expects, after all. "Hello, my child, My Root," he greets, taking a seat at the table. "The discussion with Queen Herrah has been settled, for now; we've made as much progress as we're going to. Have you be-"

"Can the Holly Knight eat?? They don't have a mouth! How can they eat without a mouth??" The child interrupts, impatient to have her question answered. A breeze wafts through the gardens, allowing you to giggle silently without being noticed for how it makes your cloak flutter. 

The Pale King pauses with his mouth open, then shuts it and twists his body to look back at you. He opens it again, and nothing comes out; he shuts it. Finally, he says, "I… am unsure." Back on his feet he goes, and he examines you closely, leaning in. "It's curious how the imperative for voicelessness manifested," he murmurs. "I suppose there's a way of testing…. It will need food for its growth, after all." He gestures for you to follow. At the table, he holds out a pastry, and when you don't move, he orders, "Take it." 

You do.

"Eat it."

You look down at the pastry. It's fluffy and bready in a way that would make your human self salivate; you've always had a deep fondness for anything glutenous. You really want to eat it. But- no mouth, so how? Maybe…. You saw a piece of fanart, once…. Could it really work like that?

Lifting the pastry to your face, you… shove it in your eye hole.

Flavor!!

The burst of sensation hits you on a delay: first, nothing, and then something. The mild sense of taste from your carapace is magnified tenfold inside your head as the liquid Void inside absorbs the food and breaks it apart. The pastry is sweet and creamy and there's some taste that's like chocolate but isn't, couldn't possibly be. You find yourself holding back tears because finally, finally, FOOD! 

Then you have to hold yourself back from pouncing on the table and eating everything. Since you woke up, you've not felt hunger, but now you're overwhelmed by… it's not painful, not like the hunger of your human self. It's a deep, ravenous want, the desire to consume everything in sight. You suck in a slow, deep breath, careful to keep quiet, and stay. Still. Their eyes are on you, and if you fuck up now, that's it, that's the end for you. Struggling, you wrestle the beast of hunger and leash it. It howls in the pit of you. You're used to that, though. It doesn't even hurt, or make you so exhausted you physically can't stay awake, and you've lived through that.

"Interesting, if unsettling," says the Pale King, oblivious, thank fuck he's oblivious, to your internal battle. "A neat solution to the conundrum. Thank you for asking the question, my child." 

She beams, puffing up with pride.

And you stare at the leftovers of the tea service, kept company by a question as familiar as an old friend: when will be your next meal?