#AKDNDKDNXKDKDNCNDKDDNCNJD

[featherlouise]

[cracks fingers] lets DO THIS!! and since this has a lot of punctuation and my anon mark will mess it up i'll preface this by saying this is indeed evil anon. ichor is the blood of the gods in greek myth so that what i use instead of blood for *poeticness*, and also my interp of gijinka pk would still have four arms so thats why he's described as such

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The Pale King cannot breathe.

He's only felt like this once in recent memory, when the first husk was brought before Him and His court, and He'd recognised the burning light in it's eyes - undoubtedly, Her attempts at returning.

It's different now, yet exactly the same. He braces himself against a wall, trembling with ichor-loss and exhaustion and dread and pure *grief* as His vessel lets out a terrible, lurching scream from it's throat - no, their throat, they're alive, it must be true, She couldn't have taken them if they were alive - as their nail slides in and out of their chest, through carapace and chitin to the soft void-flesh underneath. Back in, back out, until the carpet underneath them is stained with their ichor.

And what's worse is that He can see Her infection briefly leave their eyes before they crumple to the floor.

After a few moments hesitation, He gingerly crept towards them, placing one of His hands on the wound while another supported their head and another their back. He cannot find it in Himself to speak, for He cannot even find the words. He could not say those simple placating mantras offered to wounded footsoldiers on the battlefield, the simple "You'll be alright" and "Everything will be fine" of the common dying bug, because in His heart He knows that it isn't true. His child - for that is what they were, His child, His baby, not just the bars of Her prison cell - was going to die in absolute agony, and it was His fault for not realising sooner.

But perhaps a small, desperate part of Himself had known all along. The fountain in Hallownest's Heart was proof. You do not create memorials for a tool, you do not erect statues in honour of an empty thing. You create them for a life, a living breathing being with thoughts and feelings and *hope* and-

A strange, hacking noise interrupts his tram of thought, and He realises it comes from the Vessel - is that really what He should be calling them now? - as they cough up a mixture of Void and Infection, night-black and orange dripping down their mouth and onto His robe. It streams from their eyes, too, Her cruel mockery of tears which He had never designed them to shed. Then, they begin to make a strange gurgling sound, and He looks at them in confusion for a few seconds before He realises they're choking on the foul mixture, too weak now to spit it out. Gently, He tips their head ever-so-slightly to the side, so the fluid can fall out with relative ease, and then back again.

And then it happens. The Vessel shakily removes His hand from their wound and onto the hilt of their discarded nail. Almost as if they were asking Him to.. no. He won't do it. He wouldn't dare, there may still be a chance, He *won't.*

The shaky, rattling breaths that they're still able to take begin to slow, and the King can only watch as it stops.

He sits there for a few seconds, staring blankly, before He begins to cry for what must be the first time in His life. The hall outside the door is suddenly rife with activity, before it opens and He is met with Hornet's shocked face. Then the Beast whisks her in her arms, burying Hornet's face in her neck so she doesn't see any more. Her face twists into an angry, accusing glare that not even He had witnessed before.

"What in the ever-loving *fuck* happened here, Wyrm?"

THE WAY I SCREAMED

I HAD to read this out loud and I'm genuinely crying holyyyy fucking shitttttt

I don't think I brought enough tissues imma be honest