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pixelated-stories · 2 years ago

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Hollow Knight: Goldheart Edition

(A Hollow Knight x Dave and Bambi fic thingie lol)

After a strange dream, his heart burns with the desire to return, it almost hurts him physically, so he sets off. Tristan, once caterpillar, now butterfly, returns to Hallownest. There, he discovers the powers of his Heart of Gold, Hallownest's mysterious past, meets old and new friends, and after meeting a certain Knight, his revisit turns into a heart-pumping, heartbreaking, wild adventure, and find a cure for the raging infection.

Below page break is all of the 1st chaper cnp'd on to here, I recommend viewing the ao3 version here because of better formatting and stuff. Enjoy, and leave constructive criticism below if you have any!

“Tristan…” a voice, barely above a whisper, called out to him.

The caterpillar with an oversized, blue, fluffy cloak turned around at his name being called, seeing the mask of ████, his prosthetics shined, the lumafly’s light reflecting off of it. He responded with a trill, tilting his head.

“It’s time, let’s go.” The person said, picking Tristan up in his arms, “B████ I'll be back, I’m taking him to the place.” They called out to another bug it seems.

“Okay, stay safe you two!” Another, more accented voice yelled back, sounds like they’re in another room.

In the bug’s arms, he is carried outside their house, he feels like he knows this bug on a deep level, but he can’t recall who it is, their face is blurred out, but he is so sure he knows who this bug is. He wants to talk, but he can’t move, he can’t speak, at least on his own, he and this bug speak on their way to this destination. He can’t hear the conversation, it was silent, so he tries to look around as best as he can. He sees the bug walking on their metal prosthetics, their dark blue cloak and the back of the bug, he also sees lampposts passing by, lit up by lumaflies.

The wind picked up, his head automatically turned around, craning their neck to look behind him, there was a wasteland, he looked up to see the bug looking down at him, “This is the wasteland, the border of ██████████” They told him. All Tristan was nudge himself more into their arms, suddenly feeling drowsy.

The bug walked further out, the sight of where their home was quickly covered up by the dusty winds, they kept walking in a direction, as if it was no trouble. He felt them stop, looking to see what made them stop. It was a cabin; tiny, but strong enough to withstand the winds.

“This is the farthest of where bugs go before they lose themselves,” They- he looked at him, if Tristan looked closely, he could see the shadow of his face slowly starting to fade away. “It’s almost time for you to undergo metamorphosis, huh? No wonder you look tired.” He mused, as he went in the shack, closing the door behind him, he set Tristan down on a comfy feeling nest. “Look, before you sleep, can you do me a favor?”

Tristan sleepily looked up at the bug, mewing, fighting the sleep as best as he could.

“When you wake up, I’m going to need you to get away, okay? It’s not safe here.” He instructed.

Tristan’s eyes widened, waking back up a bit as fear and uncertainty shot through his body, “But what about you?” He was too distracted to notice that he actually spoke.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve lost 2 legs, and I’m still going strong, a puny sickness isn’t going to keep me down,” D███ chuckled, then he adorned a… what looked like a serious face from what little he could see, “But I don’t know if you’d be fine, after you wake up, you have to go, promise me that.”

Tristan looked down, silent, his vision began to blur, realizing he was now crying, “O-Okay…” He reluctantly accepted, “I promise.” He looked to the side, then up at Da██, “Will I be able to come back?”

Da██ nodded, “Of course you can, it’ll just be a while before you can.” He said, his optimism sounding forced.

Tristan sniffled, seeing the cracks of uncertainty on Dav█’s face, hearing it in his voice too, “How will I know when to come back?” He questions, voice cracking.

Dav█ is silent, unsure of how to answer for a while, he looks at Tristan for a bit, not at his eyes, but somewhere on his body, then he smiles, now making eye contact. “You’ll know when you’ll feel it in your heart, so-”

Tristan shot up with a gasp, panting heavily, his chest hurts as if he held his breath, but he knows it’s something else, he doesn’t know how he can tell, but he feels it, a strong desire to return. He looks down at his chest, he sees his chest glow with a faint golden color, something he’s used to by now… maybe that dream was a sign.

–

Now a young butterfly for a couple of years, he wandered these wastelands for a long time, his pale red abdomen was visible due his blue, fluffy cloak being open a crack, his face obscured by the hood of said cloak, and his wings were a were a translucent yellow, with some darker yellow lines along his wings, it looks like they spelt something if you looked closer at them, it looked like the word “wings” itself written on them. Tristan, the aforementioned butterfly, walked in the direction his gut- no, it felt like his heart was telling him to go, holding the rim of his hood with a tight grip to prevent it from flying off his head from the gusty winds. His legs were tired from fighting the wind, barely able to breathe with how strong it was, but he continued to trudge on, little by little, he could feel it, he was inching closer to where his heart was telling him to go.

It seems the winds have gotten stronger since he last remembered, he could feel it trying to push him back, if he was crazy, he could almost say it was telling him to turn back. Tristan shivered from how cold it was getting, his exhales could be seen as puffs of fog for a split second before they were instantly blown away by the wind. Out of nowhere, the way the winds blew changed direction, almost falling over at the change. He looked behind him, he stared at the strange sight that was the dust picked up from the winds going two directions at once, surely that must be a sign that he's near, right? He was now focusing on trying not to be pushed forwards too fast, looking side to side, as if he's searching for something.

Tristan saw something off in the distance, squinting his eyes so that he could make out what it was as he walked towards it. His eyes widened when he could see what it was, it was the cabin that the bug in his dreams told him to rest at, and run! He's surprised that the cheap little thing is still standing in winds like this, so he heads in to check it out.

"It looks like when I just left it," he murmurs to himself, he stares at the dry cocoon, surprised it didn't wither away after all this time, brushing it with his fingers.

He stayed for just a little while longer before he headed back out, shutting the door behind him, and walked the way he was originally going. He goes along, the winds settling, eventually, he stumbles upon corpses of large bugs, some round and plump, others thin and long. He stares at them solemnly, wondering what could've happened to them.

He moves on from the corpses, jumping over the cracks of the rocky roads, like a child would until he sees a lamppost… a lamppost! He's here! He's finally made it! His heart speeds up, he runs, jumping up ledges, racing past tiktiks, vengeflies and the like. He continues, panting heavily as he exerts himself, yet the feeling of excitement bubbling up in him doesn't go away. He stops at the edge of a very large drop, in the distance he can faintly see a lot of houses, it could be a village or a town!

"I found it…" He whispers to himself as he looks down at the village, he feels a mix of nostalgia, and relief, nostalgic as he feels like he's finally made it back home, relief as the strong desire that led him here fizzled out.

Tristan looked down at the massive hole, it was a huge drop! He backed away from the edge, a shiver running through his carapace before he steeled himself, donning a brave expression before he leaped down. He gripped his hood tight as he fell, as he saw the ground approaching, he flared his wings, instantly slowing his fall by a huge margin, he fluttered his wings to slow down some more before he landed gracefully on his feet. He let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, then he laughed as the adrenaline went away, that was quite a rush for him. He took a deep breath, relaxing his shoulders, fixing his cloak before he jogged forward!

The first thing he noticed were tiktik corpses, fresh ones too, some orange substance pooled around them instead of normal hemolymph, the second thing was that this place looked worse than it did in his memories, as fuzzy as they were; he could tell that this place used to bustling with life in the past, despite not having any memory of said past. Along the way, he is met with more corpses, more fresh than the ones behind him, he worries that someone… murder-y, so to say, may be just ahead. He figures he might wanna be slower, he doesn't wanna catch up to that bug now does he? He exits the tiny passage, his jog halting to a stop, looking up in awe.

"Wow…" He looked on, he already felt small and he's barely been here. He closed his open mouth, lowering his gaze, he continued onward at his leisure pace, walking up ramps, jumping up ledges and over platforms, narrowly dodging a falling spike, he would rather not get impaled through the head.

Just ahead said spike, some dark part of the walls lit up with a pure white color. It looked like writing the shape of this patch of the wall looked like an egg, gentle whispers overlapping each other around the butterfly, startling him a bit.

"What… is this?" He asks himself, getting closer to the strange wall.

He almost yelped out loud when he heard a loud whisper- not from around him, but in his head.

'Higher beings, these words are for you alone-'

Tristan put a hand on his head, it ached due the words being forced into his mind.

'Your great strength marks you amongst is. Focus your soul, and you shall achieve feats of which others can only dream.'

Tristan shook his head, blinking his eyes, these words felt strong too. Focus his soul… how does he do that?

As if reading his mind, the gentle voice continued.

'Reach deep inside yourself.'

Tristan squinted an eye in confusion, but he tried to follow nonetheless.

'Draw it out, and let it envelope you.'

Tristan tried to do it, his abdomen reacted instantly, it warmed up, then that warmth spread across his entire body.

'Let it mend any wounds on your body, and HEAL.'

He doesn't have any injuries, but does feel rejuvenated, stronger, more durable. He opens his eyes, and immediately sees the golden aura emanating from his body, "Woah… this is cool!" He exclaimed, feeling giddy. Suddenly, that feeling went away, replaced by exhaustion, it was like experiencing a very short sugar rush and still feeling a full powered crash. He just learned that he can do something like this, so he won’t be good at this immediately, but that’s what practice is for, right? He catches his breath, and prepares to move on, but is interrupted by the sound of a rock being kicked over, he spines on his feet, getting into a defensive stance incase is was the bug that murdered all those tiktiks. Instead of seeing some bug with a crazed look on their face, instead it was a tiny bug, shorter than him, somehow, by a couple of inches.

Tristan eases his guard seeing the tiny bug, it didn’t look like any other bug he’s familiar with, their body is entirely pitch black, no light bouncing off what looks like a very soft shell, a white mask with two horns curved inward, a triangle-shape carved out at the tips. After staring for a short moment, he gathers up the courage to greet the bug.

“Hello?” He waved, waiting for a response. All Tristan was met with was silence, making him nervous, so he tried again, in case the bug didn’t hear him the first time, “Hellooo?” He tried again. This time, he got a response from them, the bug glanced at him, at least from what he could tell, it was hard to guess from their blank stare, even harder when he couldn’t see a semblance of a face under their mask.

Tristan put a finger on his chin, they’re not a statue, they clearly responded to his greeting, but they didn’t speak, what if… “Can you not speak?” Their response was a shake of the head. “Ah, that makes things a bit difficult…” He thought of the next question to ask, eyes drifting to the strange wall beside him, he knew his next question, “Can you read this?” He gestured to it with an open palm and a tilt to his head. They answered with a nod, fantastic yes or no questions are really easy to do for now, he’ll try to stick to those for the time being.

“Can you focus?” Tristan asked, if this bug can read the words meant for higher beings, he assumes (because they were meant for higher beings alone, that’s what the wall said), then he must know how to focus, right? The bug did look injured, maybe they were about to heal anyways?

Well, his questions were answered when the bug hunched over, a white aura surrounded them, not unlike his golden one, it quickly went from a dim light to almost blinding, building up, rocks floating up from the ground due to the energy reaching its supposed climax before it pulsed, sending a slight shockwave out, Tristan stumbled back in surprise, caught off guard by it, squinting his eyes from the blinding intensity of it. He opened his eyes when the flash disappeared as quickly as it came, he looked at the bug, their injuries looked better, the scratches on their mask went away.

“Oh… my GOODNESS, that was SO COOL!” Tristan jumped in place as he clapped, child-like excitement radiating off of him like an infection. He stopped jumping and clapping, but he is still full of energy, all up in the bug’s face, hands balled up, nearly touching his chest. He realized he was up close when he saw the bug back up. “O- Oh, sorry, but that was different from mine! Mine was gold and I felt strong and full of energy, but I couldn’t keep it up, and it felt like a sugar crash and…” He stopped when he saw the bug somehow look overwhelmed, “Sorry, should we go?” He pointed behind him, where they were originally going. The bug hesitantly nodded, walking past him.

Tristan followed the bug right behind him, jogging behind them to keep up with their pace. Tristan watches as the begins killing of the tiny bugs, he starts to connect the dots that this bug was the murderer of all those tiktiks, vengeflies, and other very weak bugs around.

“Hey bud?” He called out nervously, when the bug turned around, he saw that Tristan treated him as if he had a 10 ft pole. They tilted their head, waiting for an answer. “Are you the bug who murdered all of the poor bugs at the beginning of this place?

To his horror, they nodded, seeing Tristan’s horror on his barely visible face, they quickly showed that by hitting enemies, he can get enough soul to heal. That explanation eased him up a bit, but he was still frightened at their lack of reaction, killing these bugs for existing harmlessly. Well, most of them, the vengeflies were aggressive, attacking the bug when they got close, but still, they’re most likely protecting their territories, no need to kill them, he thinks. He follows their lead regardless, they seem like they know how to wield that nail, as broken as it looks, he’s surprised that they can even kill with it, the sharp sides look as dull as a spoon, their swing must be that strong.

Ascending a staircase, Tristan almost bumps into the little bug, stopping just before he did, “Hey! Why did you-” He pauses, noticing a tiny glowing blue butterfly, it was really tiny, attached to a blue vine, the fluttering of their wings shaking the vine, “-stop?” He finishes his question, staring at the bug before them with his… partner.

Tristan heads on a head, skipping a couple of steps as he runs up to the top of the staircase, stopping at the top of them, looking to his left, he saw a glowing blue cocoon, the same color as the butterflies he saw earlier. He turns around, seeing his partner seemingly awestruck by the butterfly. “Hey!” He called, getting their attention, “Come check this out!” He beckoned, motioning the tiny bug to come over.

They ran over to where Tristan stood, following Tristan’s gaze with their own, seeing the same blue cocoon, it looked to be filled with fluid. The bug drew their nail, walking over to the cocoon, “Hey, what’re you doing?-” Tristan nearly panicked, he was going to stop them, but he was too slow as the bug swiftly, yet gracefully slashed at the cocoon, splashing both with a thick blue liquid substance. They stood there for a couple of moments, the bug shook the liquid off of them, picking up a tiny bug filled to the brim with a viscous, blue liquid, the bug looked at it for a couple of seconds before squashing it with their hand, the bug popped under the force of their crushing grip, squirting a blue liquid that hovered in the air before the liquid raced towards the bug like they were a magnet.

The bug shivered as they felt new energy coursing through their body, and it tasted amazing, they picked one up and offered on to their friend, to which Tristan quickly put a hand up, shaking his head, “N- No thanks, I don’t really eat bugs like thi-” He was cut off by their insistence, pushing the squirming bug in his face. With a defeated sigh, Tristan relented, taking the bug in his hands, “Fine, I’ll try it, but I won’t like it.” He pulled his hood back, revealing his face finally, he had no mask, his pale yellow carapace on full display, his head shape was a symmetrical circle, his eyes were misshapen, his right eye way bigger than the one on the left, his antenna protruded at the back of his head, curving up at the tip, he opened his mouth, revealing sharp fangs so unlike a regular butterfly.

He nipped at the bug’s sack hard enough that it would penetrate its soft shell, sucking the liquid out of it with his tongue, his eyes widened as a very delicious taste came across his taste buds, it was sweet, like nectar. He hasn’t even realized how fast he drained the bug’s juices until he felt the thing shrivel up like a caprisun (not that Tristan nor the tiny bug would know what that is), “Aw man, it’s gone… Are there any more of those bugs?” He looked at his partner expectantly, though his disappointment was obvious when they shook their head, “Aww… Well, that sucks, pun unintended. At least I feel way stronger and energized now, it feels like when I focused that one time!” He recalled, comparing the two feelings.

They continued on, Tristan trying to converse with his new (most-likely temporary) companion, it was very weird, as the bug couldn’t answer complex questions, but Tristan had introduced himself, to which the bug bowed their head in greeting, Tristan did the same back to them. Down a hole, jumping on stone platforms over some dangerous looking spikes, from both from above and below. They almost went up, due to the bug having already went another path, only to have it loop (Tristan felt proud of himself when he was getting used to communicating with the bug), when they saw another path behind them, his partner seemed to have missed it, so they went back to check it out.

They found a tiny corner, it paled in comparison to the other path his partner went through, it was a mild size, but it was like an ant to the other one. They were going to turn back when Tristan noticed something gleam in the corner of his eyes, he turned sharply to it, making sure it wasn’t just a trick of the eye, and it wasn’t. “What’s this?” Tristan asked out loud, bending over to pick it up, it was a brown stone carved into a shape, it was very particular too, there were markings of many many eyes engraved all around the rock, he showed it to his partner, “Do you know what this is?” He asked them, hoping they would get an answer from them. They shook their head no, it was an answer, but an unsatisfying one, he supposed. He puts it in a pocket in his cloak, telling his partner (He was going to keep referring to this small bug as ‘his partner’ until he gets a name from them if he does), to keep going.

After slicing a wooden support beam, the ground above them harmlessly drops on them, they jumped up, realizing that they had made it past the hole they had to drop down earlier! “Yo, we made it past! Let’s keep going–” He turned around, seeing a big, cracked door blocking the exit to this place, “Oh, that’s blocking our way.” Tristan deflated, he would’ve suggested to turn around, he saw his partner run up to it, “H- Hey, what’re doing, I said we’re blocked, we have to find a different way there!” He exclaimed, running after him.

He was about to grab them to make them stop, but he saw a black spherical object, looked like an egg, light up with mysterious engravings like that one earlier, on the wall. Layered voices sounded in his head again, stopping him in his tracks.

‘Higher beings, these words are for you alone. Beyond this point, you enter the land of King and Creator. Step across this threshold and obey our laws.’

Tristan didn’t have the chance to speak up on it before it continued.

‘Bear witness to the last, and only civilisation, the eternal Kingdom. Hallownest’

When Tristan came too, he shook his head, like he was in a trance this time. He turned to ask his partner about it when he saw them swinging at the door with their nail, the sound didn’t register until he turned to them, he was about to call out to them before the door broke away into a million pieces, “Oh… Wow.” he walked to the edge, it looked like there used to be some sort of elevator system here, he turned back to his partner, “You have a very strong arm for your size.” At that comment, Tristan could swear he saw an offended look from their expressionless mask, he giggled, laughed even, at their possible offense, maybe he was already losing it, but Tristan didn’t care all that much.

They both jumped down, more like Tristan floated down slowly, the cliff. He was astonished that his partner didn’t seem bothered, just the discomfort of landing from high altitude jumps. “Hey, look, I think that’s the town I saw all the way up there,” He pointed to the houses up ahead, “C’mon, let’s go!” They ran towards the town, stopping to read a large sign came into view, “Welcome to Dirtmouth.” Tristan read aloud, he glanced at his partner, it was a very… quiet town, he wondered if anyone was even here.

They continued on, this time they were walking, looking around, until they came across an iron bench. Tristan sat on it with a sigh to rest his aching legs, surprised to feel a rush of energy, then he relaxed as a warm feeling blanketed his body, “Woah, this bench is amazing, come try it!” He pat the spot next to him, inviting them to come over. When they sat down they were still for a moment before they relaxed back into the bench, almost flopping, they must’ve been tired.

“Oh, hey!” Tristan’s eyes widened, hearing a familiar accented voice greet him, he sharply looked over his shoulder, seeing a bug with a big green cap covering most of his head, his carapace was a pale green color, with his belly being white, a fluffy red scarf covering his neck.

They stared at each other for a few moments, as they felt like they recognized each other.

“Bambi!?”

“Tristan!?” They blurted each others names, startling the bug next to Tristan awake.

#dave and bambi #hollow knight #tristan fnf #bambi fnf #ghost hk #So sorry if anyone from Hollow Knight stumbles upon this and is wondering wth a dave and bambi is.#I got sloppy at the end because this chapter is 4k words holy fuck #what do you call when you merge 2 brainrots?#a brainplague

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