#Ogrim and Isma would have been in the city together. Locked within.

[littlebittyhollowbugs]

Do you ever think about Hegemol and think about how he was probably ambushed in his sleep so easily by the maggot, because he had exhausted himself trying desperately to stay awake during the spread of the infection, he was probably sent to the crossroads soon after the infection came back, because that area is most definitely where it started up again. (the radiance being within the area.) And he was trying to help the people to escape, block and guard the travel routes and what not, and because the infection spreads through dreams/while sleeping, he was trying to keep himself awake, probably stayed up for days and his body eventually just gave in, and because of it he was murdered.

[thethrillof]

Hollow Knight time travel AU except characters go into the future instead of the past?

oh no.

(this bounced between headcanon and funky plot summary, as these things tend 2 do for me......)

let’s handwave this as an extremely mcfucked up experiment with soul and void with the pale royals trying to look into the most likely (and, they hoped, best) future way too hard.

everyone pretends not to panic while noticing everyone is panicking from the instant they notice what’s around them. they start from the white palace being gone to the void being uncomfortably barely-contained to, ofc, the entire dead hallownest thing. they try so badly to reason with the shambling infected guards and rich bugs they find once they get to the city, even though they know it probably won’t work...and then the white lady and the pale king absolutely blast those infected into ashes. for safety! and, to everyone else who were dragged along for the ride, exceptional trauma and grief that both are not letting themselves process.

lurien and monomon and the great knights, including hollow are probably there...

...but it’s too early for herrah, who has agreed and has placed her terms but hasn’t finished the deal completely.

this is a blow to hornet--who definitely noticed the terrifying white light that flashed through half the damn kingdom--and she is...not quite as helpful as she could be beyond tersely explaining the situation once she investigates. just there and gone again, watching as she did the little ghost from her webs above to see what happens. in particular, if the pale king fails and flees again.

“the situation” is solely the infection, the pure vessel’s failure, and everybody’s deaths. she does not explain much about herself and absolutely nothing about the fact that other vessels exist and there’s a strong one running around right now.

the pale king takes the hollow knight not being hollow badly, of course. because it’s terrible, the plan failed, and...he knew, on some level, but had been so deep in desperate denial and arrogance that he didn’t allow himself to think it through. tries to interrogate them but it goes nowhere b/c they’ve been acting hollow for so long they don’t know how to just stop--

--and they’re also horribly wrecked by the knowledge they failed and getting to see the ruins of the kingdom they were meant to protect before seeing the kingdom as it was living. they never left the white palace before, and would not gain the full knowledge of it until they were sealed within the Egg with the World Sense as a final gift. so for a long time they’re barely listening to more than the most direct orders, like “look at us” and things like that.

lurien wants to lock himself in his tower; monomon wants to go to the archives; neither of them do this because it is terribly dangerous to split up. this ratchets the tension up further. there is a lot of bickering that, again, everyone pretends is not bickering and is just discussion, because they are all too dignified and have more important things to be paying attention to for something so petty.

this doesn’t last, of course. they are reasonable enough not to storm off into the helltrap the caverns are, but everyone just gets fucking angry and starts flinging accusations at each other. and hollow. not the pale king because he’s the pale king and creator, and not the white lady because she is the queen and powerful, but quite frankly they’re both accusing themselves internally and every word flung at hollow is the same to the pale king as at himself.

dryya is defending the white lady as doubting the whole plan without quite saying so directly. ze’mer is incredibly loud and goes so far into her own language that nobody really knows what she’s saying. hegemol wants to go patrol the city and keeps nearly going off on his own anyway. ogrim and isma try to settle them down and fail.

(above, hornet is suddenly far less shocked in hindsight about everything going to shit for the kingdom. her childhood memories were maybe too steeped in nostalgia when she allowed herself to consider them.)

they do end up in the Watcher’s Tower just to get a better look in the city after all the arguing burns out for a bit (and calls infected their way). lurien suddenly doesn’t want to stay there anyway, since it’s wrecked and there are bodies of his loyal servants and also possibly his own self, dreaming. nobody learns anything of value and everyone just gets more upset! just what they all need amirite

the pale king decides the thing to do is to go to the temple of the black egg for a direct investigation. sort of in denial but mostly just floundering. the white palace is gone and so is his workshop. he knows only he could have done that. everything he ever built is gone, in fact. it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense, he’s latching onto something.

the theme of “everyone knows something is wrong but won’t directly call it out” continues! nobody else really has better to do. monomon is the most optimistic and tries to think of this as a chance to study the infection further, which she says aloud. she sees this as a chance to study the hollow knight as well, which she does not.

it’s not that hard to get through hallownest, all things considered. this seems like a good thing until the realization sets in: it’s only easy-ish (for these gods and knights) because most of the worst of it has passed. most of the potential threats died a long time ago.

quirrel! quirrel quirrel quirrel. he shows up at some point and it’s definitely freaky because he knows monomon but doesn’t, and this is somewhat stressful. on the flipside his lack of memory and having her mask unsettles everyone but her greatly. 

he doesn’t come with them. instead, he wrangles a promise from monomon and the rest to meet him at the archives (once they talk a bit and he remembers where they are) later to talk things through properly. he’ll see the kingdom as it is before discussing memories of how it once was.

the little knight gets a heads-up from hornet when she sees them nearly crossing the path of the pale court’s remains. she warns them away, specifically, but it’s their choice, and they choose to go look at them. they’re not at the level of knowledge yet to fully understand the significance, only that there’s a bunch of non-infected and hornet not challenging them to battle, but speaking to them? warning them? must be a huge deal.

can’t say all hell breaks loose once they show up. really, everyone freezes. more guilt for the royals! various degrees of dawning horror for the rest. 

hollow finally reacts, if only to step closer. they remember the little knight. oh, they remember.

the little knight does not remember them, but it doesn’t matter. familiar enough. and some answers, potentially, if they stick together now. so that’s what they do--once everyone starts moving again, the knight is there too, though they go off to wander fairly often.

the egg reveals nothing. watching the vessel reveals what they should have known already--impurity, or rather, that they are people. 

they end up in dirtmouth, where people still live, and try to plan further there. 

the knight basically abducts hollow to explore the kingdom with them anyway, after that takes a while. waiting is not giving them answers and hollow will listen to them as long as they aren’t given contradicting orders, and the pale king is suddenly unable to do that! 

hollow gets to learn to be a person, in their own little ways. it’s not easy, but being away from the rest and with a vessel that expresses themselves in minor-but-genuine gestures helps immensely. 

hornet shows up also for Sibling Bonding even if is not intentional on her part.

the future white lady is visited, eventually, and that goes rough. she’s glad to see the pale king and the rest, sure, but she can do little to help. it’s disturbing for everyone else to see how she’s bound herself, and dryya is extremely messed up by the fact she is dead and the white lady was unaware.

monomon and quirrel run the archives, sort of. quirrel tends to disappear for a while. monomon insists she’s fine with it. she’s not, but she’s certainly not going to discourage or stop him.

for the travelers, there’s no way home. the white palace’s tools are too important. all they can do is...rip their way into the Black Egg and end the Radiance. the pale king takes this upon himself, once this is apparent.

and once he bonds (barely) with the little knight, anyway, and they let him know about the dream nail. this takes a while, but not that long. the hollow knight of now still exists, and suffers, and they can be united in hating that if nothing else. 

they take her down together. 

the void drags them down together.

the pale king’s light and the knight’s power over void is enough to drag them back. the little knight, the king, the hollow knight of now and the not-pure vessel of then, and...

...there’s no running away. nothing else left to do. the kingdom is still dead, if not still rotting.

calling them a family is definitely incorrect! but all of them end up with a bond, and mostly choose to stay in dirtmouth, retrieving helpful things that still exist in hallownest and planning improvements to make it a better, bigger place to live. a good town, if nowhere near a kingdom. that’s for the best.