#even though the radiance is dead and the infection is gone.

[maddieandangel]

Theoretically, I think a run like this would be possible in-game, since you don't need to fight the Hollow Knight (or the Radiance) in order to unlock any of the Pantheons. But, the path you'd have to take for it is hilarious to think about, because you do need Uumuu and the Watcher Knights for Pantheons 3 and 4 respectively.

Quirrel helps Ghost defeat Uumuu and then waits for them in Monomon's room. But they never show up. Maybe he gets a little concerned about them, and maybe he decides to check around the rest of the Archive to see if they're still around somewhere. They aren't. Apparently they just-- Showed up, beat up Monomon's guardian, and then left before actually getting what they went there for. In the end he returns to where Monomon is, because hey, they'll need to come back for her eventually, right??

And that's when Monomon wakes up. She has no idea what happened. Quirrel knows even less. It's nice to see each other again, at least??? But also What The Fuck

Meanwhile, of course, Ghost has just completed the Pantheon of Hallownest and completely eradicated the Infection without ever even visiting the Black Egg Temple

Guys what happens to the dreamers of you don't kill them and get the embrace the void ending. Like we know thk wakes up but WHAT ABOUT THE DREAMERS?!

[newnevermind-sanity]

This is probably going to sound more like word vomit but I have a lot of thoughts on Grimm and the Radiance and I would love to get it on paper. The difference between the Nightmare King and the Radiance are night and day, and I find it fascinating that the one with control over NIGHTMARES is the one that's way more approachable and inviting than the main baddie who burns as hot as the sun. Maybe in seeing their differences too we can start to understand (though I doubt we'll ever get an answer) why the Nightmare Realm is now apart from the Dream one.

The difference is the willingness to come down to a Mortal's level.

Grimm has a mortal form. It's one that embodies the cycle of life and death. Burn the father, feed the child. I think however child is not a correct word for what Grimmchild is at first, but simulacrum. A vessel for the new Nightmare King. Much how we were supposed to be a vessel for the Radiance, Grimmchild is a vessel for the Nightmare Heart in a cycle of life and death that fuels it until the ritual fails one too many times and the final embers go out. Whether or not that's willingly is up for interpretation and there's a lot that can be played with here.

The Nightmare King is how he is in dream, with the Nightmare Heart being, well, his heart: his source of power, tucked away in a realm he allows only a select few in. But most won't see that. Only the ones chosen to aid the ritual get to see it. Most people just see a polite troupe master that, while a bit unsettling and creepy, puts on shows to wow crowd, bows before any opponent, and gives kindness to those helping him. He's the one that treats us with the most respect. He disarms our perception of a Nightmare King by coming down to a mortal's level, by being kind and approachable. It's through this method that he's been able to keep going for so long. While others reject him for his nature and for being, well, the Nightmare King, those who are kind and most likely outcasts themselves, are more than willing to help a fellow outcast.

He does show however his real power in dream, but by then you know damn well to expect it. You know this is where he thrives. This is him fueling the fire before you throw him upon it for the child you carry. He is still the Nightmare King, he burns hot and bright, almost untouchable, but he dims that fire in the real world. Instead of an inferno, he's a warm crackling fireplace.

Furthermore he's not an all powerful god, he's a scavenger. He takes the flames of an old dying kingdom and burns them for his ritual, allowing for something new to be reborn from the ashes. He cleans up the last of the mess and leaves a blank slate for the next kingdom that he will one day return to. It may seem as gross and invasive to some who rather peace for the dead, but to others, they're just glad it's gone and can move on in their lives to build something new.

The Radiance on the other hand, is a blinding, burning sun, that can never be touched without serious repercussions.

She doesn't have a mortal form, only appearing in dreams. As such, she requires people to worship her in order to keep her godly form. She needs people to remember her. We're not told too much about the Radiance before she began to infect everyone, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that her moths left her for a reason. The Pale King is a much softer, more gentle light, that encourages thought and free will. Who wouldn't want that, when your previous god is oppressive and intrusive to your own thoughts?

It's hard to forget something like that, even through the generations. Told in whispers around the campfire of the previous god, they unwittingly keep her on life support, enough that she could concoct her scheme of revenge.

She appears as a blinding, burning light in dreams, offering unity at the cost of free will and thought. It burns, it's hard to resist in dream. It smells so sickly sweet that you want to throw up, permeating the senses and blocking all else. Even Void beings that are heavily resistant to this light can give in with enough prodding. There's no sense of humanity or kindness in it. There's no turning it off once it's there.

It's also very clear that she would not have stopped, not until everything was hers in Hallownest, or perhaps even beyond. In her own terror of being forgotten, of facing death in every sense of the word, she clawed her way back violently, not at all caring for the mortals destroyed in her wake, not at all caring about the repercussions to her living jailer, or that she's taking away others autonomy for the sake of being remembered and worshipped like the old days.

She is blinding, intrusive, hot, and at a distance she's warm and radiant. Up close, it's too much for any mortal. It hurts too much to stare into her and become blind to all else. It hurts to try and hold her at bay.

The only thing that can get anywhere near her and swallow her up, is the very Void itself, and the Lord of Shades who controls it.

With all that being said, what we're left with is two very different gods who don't talk about each other. Whether it was because there was no good place to put it, or whether it was on purpose, this is what we got. So then, what happened to make Nightmare split from Dream?

There's three options here as to what caused the rift.

It was a mutual split between two sides that never liked each other or thought it better to not have it together. (Possible, but unlikely. We do not have enough information to know their previous relationship. Friends? Siblings? Lovers? Absolutely loathed each other from the start? No damn idea. They're just connected through Dream with two very different ways of doing things, and I doubt they approved of one another once those were set up.)

Grimm began a conflict leading to the split. (Also very unlikely, unless his personality was different back then and this humbled him into what we see now. Grimm does not pick fights unless they help his ritual, and the only other time he would fight is in self defense, most likely.)

The Radiance began a conflict leading to the split. (Most likely with what we know, unless her personality wasn't as controlling and overwhelming back then. We don't have enough information to be sure.)

In the end it's left to us to speculate, and there's a lot to play with here. It's just important to remember the distinct difference between the two.

TL;DR: Grimm is terrifying and powerful, a swirling inferno, but he dims himself down to be much more approachable and welcoming to mortals like a campfire would be. Radi is terrifying and powerful, but doesn't dim herself down at all, and is just a blinding, burning sun that will melt your face off if you look at it wrong.

[bluegekk0]

Will there be any vessels that come back from the dead like Lost Kin, moth wing vessels, or Deepnest vessels? Or just dead for good? Since we are on the topic of vessels, where the heck is Ghost? Is this AU Post Embrace the void or Dream no more?

Sorry for the multiple questions, they just all connected together.

i don't plan to bring any of the vessels back, and while i did consider having my vessel oc in the au, even if i went with that idea, they wouldn't really be present for the main chunk of it, since they live with sheo and the nailsmith. but they're not officially in it at this point, so as of now, there are no known alive vessels aside from holly in the au. maybe there are some that managed to stay hidden, or leave hallownest? not ruling out that possibility, but i'm not planning to explore that at this point in time

as for ghost, i talked about it before, but they're essentially gone. the au takes place after embrace the void, so they turned into the shade lord, defeated the radiance and then assimilated back into the void in the abyss alongside the shades of their siblings. i usually say they're dead, but i'm not sure if i'd really call that dying. i do think it's their version of moving on, though. why didn't they do that earlier? perhaps their unfulfilled goal was keeping them stuck in the mortal plane, considering they were made to stop the infection? or maybe they needed to be united as a single being before they were able to return to the void, as they weren't pure void beings? i'm not sure. either way, they're all gone now, including ghost. and those that died in canon, remain dead in the au

[chipper-smol]

*cracks my writing knuckles bc my artistic patience isn’t enough to fill the ambiance and tone properly*

2K WORDS. JUST FOR YOU GUYS

Was their ire and spiteful nature exclusively directed at the Pale King? Some retainers of the palace would say yes. Others would object and say it extended to the Five Great Knights as well since Ogrim had yet to hold onto his charm for longer than a day and Hegemol continued to wield a pole instead of a mighty hammer.

Well if you asked the source, they would simply stare at you silently, but you might get the impression that they had strong opinions (a wild thing for a vessel to have) on a few individuals other than the King.

Which is why the Feral Vessel is currently running for their life with the Great Nailmaster Sly hot on their back.

“Give it back you impetuous brat!” Sly roars behind them as he bounces off the walls at unfathomable speeds. Ghost, now going by Feral, is only surviving thanks to their knowledge of Sly’s moves from the Godseeker’s Pantheons. Sly’s jumps are still wildly unpredictable to them, but their now longer legs help them meet the speed needed to dodge the flea’s grabs.

Why are they doing this in the first place?

Well because when a rule is made that the Feral Vessel isn’t allowed a nail in the palace, or in any location in Hollownest, the only reasonable way to follow that rule, if you are said Feral Vessel, is to obtain nails of increasing ridiculous sizes. They first took their sibling’s old nail after the Pure Vessel grew out of it, and then they continued from there. They thought of borrowing Sheo’s nail for a day, but they quickly realized after finding the three Nailmasters that they were still the three Nailstudents. They were adorable but small and didn’t have their nails.

So Sly was there and Feral had some lingering rage left over from the Pantheons and well, the decision wasn’t hard to make. Two aspids with one stone. Now they were finding out that conceptualizing that plan and executing that plan were completely different things.

How do they get him off their back!? They already tried losing him through the maze that is the White Palace but they could not build any distance between them and Sly to make the endless corners and hallways useful. They need something- anything-

A-HA! One of Hornet’s web traps! (ingenious sticky things that clung ruthlessly to the clothing of the royals that walked this palace.)

Feral musters up their soul to push themself into one last burst of speed. They dash over the top of the trap just as they hear Sly zooming right at their back. With a twist of their leg and a firm grip on the oversized nail they spin at the last moment and swat the flea with his own nail into the poorly hidden nest of sticky silk.

The indignant yell of rage made that whole marathon worth it.

Not wanting to squander their momentary freedom from Sly’s wrath, they quickly turn and hightail it out of there.

Left. Straight. Left. Right. Straight. Straight. Up. Up. Right. Left-

That should be enough, right? Feral slows down and leans against a wall to catch their breath. Great Pale Beings they have not felt that much adrenaline since the first time they danced with Grimm. They were safe, for now. Feral straightens up, adjusts the greatnail onto their back and looks around.

...

They glance back from where they came.

Where... is this? They know the palace like the back of their hand, even without the buzzsaws. This corridor isn’t familiar. There is only one open doorway with a shining pale light gently leaking into the tiled hallway. Curious yet cautious they approach. They had a sharp greatnail after all.

They step into the light and freeze as they see the towering form of the Queen leaning like a drifting tree over a lush bush. Her back was turned to them, maybe they could-

“Vessel,” her voice, even though a whisper is loud enough to seem like she’s speaking at normal volume. Feral had noticed that with all of the higher and pale beings they’ve known. They all whisper.

Still, they had conflicting feelings toward their mother that they hadn’t yet put into words. They were avoiding her. They still want to avoid her.

“Come, garden with me,” she says, not lifting her head an inch from her work. Feral itches to disobey, but the urge feels wrong. It doesn’t carry the same gleeful note that comes with directly ignoring the King’s orders. They don’t have a solid reason to dislike their mother and it doesn’t feel right to force one either.

It’s not often they feel hesitant, but the Queen has a fae-like air about her. She could hide cruel remarks in what seem to be compliments. They had seen her pick apart arguments to the letter until her opponent had nothing else to say. She wields her words like she would a nail, and a battlefield of diction is an area Feral is massively lacking in. Hopefully she doesn’t want much. Hopefully she wants them to retrieve some confusing herb or something.

Carefully, they enter the room— a green house— and slowly make their way over to the White Lady’s side. They peer over at what she’s tending to. It looks like a bundle of dozens of little blue buds. Her hands glow underneath and the flowers respond by drifting up gradually and opening their delicate petals.

Feral watches quietly.

“They are not what they make themself appear to be,” she says after a long pause. Feral tenses. She reaches to her side where a basket of tools hangs from a kingsmould that Feral didn’t realize was there and picks up a humorously small pair of scissors compared to her massive hands. She carefully begins to snip the bases of those small flowers, collecting them in one hand as they fall, “My senses may be fading as things do with time, but I am not yet so blind to see that they know things that they should not.”

Feral never tried to hide their emotions and personality when they emerged from the Abyss, but they found themself smothering their nervousness before it could leak out of them.

“… they are nervous?” The Queen finally turns to look at Feral with her slightly glassy blue eyes, “I did not intend my words to be a threat, but their reaction proves my thoughts correct.”

Feral maintains as much eye contact as they can before turning their gaze to the floor. The full force of a pale being’s attention wasn’t a thing most bugs could endure. She watches them. Silent. Considering.

“It is odd. I have wanted children of my own for so long, yet what I have received from this world is curious,” she turns back to the blue flowers and snips two more into her hand, “one offspring that is meant to be empty, yet wishes to be a child, and one offspring that acts like a child, yet has experienced more than a child should have.”

Feral feels an odd twisting in their gut. They want to leave, yet they now also want to stay. The Queen is perceptive, that was never a doubt and perhaps another reason why they avoided her. The fear of being known. Yet… now they are known and it’s more of a relief than anything. They slowly look back to her as she places the scissors back in the basket.

“I have wondered why, but I cannot come to a conclusion that satisfies me,” she places three flowers in her spare hand and begins to braid the stems, adding flowers as the braids start becoming short.

“Why do they hold their branch as if it were the familiar handle of a nail? Even though they are forbidden from holding their own?” More flowers are added into the craft she is making. It’s beginning to look circular. Feral watches quietly.

“How do they know to get charms and spells on their own?” She glances over at them, but doesn’t meet their eyes. They sense her gaze on their horns. She looks back down at the flowers and makes some sort of adjustment.

"Why do they stare at things that are not there?” Feral’s throat tightens with that question- or observation?

The Queen finally finishes whatever is in her hands and takes a step over to the Feral Vessel and leans down with an alien-like grace. Feral blinks as she threads the circle of flowers over their horns to then rest right at the base of their horns. They do not know why she is doing this, but they would not dare fight it. They have no desire to.

Her hands drift down from their horns to their face to gently cup and hold. Their eyes gently flutter. The warmth from her root palms seep into their mask as if they were sitting in a hot spring. With the warmth comes a feeling of peace. Understanding. Their eyes close and before they can catch themself they lean into her touch. They miss how her eyes soften as she rubs one of her thumbs against their temple.

“I thought I had been mistaken before, but I have noticed that their pranks on my beloved Wyrm have grown half hearted,” Feral’s chest sags in a mock-sigh and, not knowing why, they nod.

“Has the novelty of his frustrated yells gone stale?” They shake their head, shoulders lightly quivering as if laughing. They crack their eyes open to catch the end of a smile from their mother.

“Why is it then? Why have they lost their fire?”

Feral stays silent as that was all they can do, but the tightening of their brow and the way they pull away from the warm comfort of their mother’s hands speaks hundreds of unspoken words. They glance at their hands, clenching and unclenching them.

When they re-awoke at the bottom of the Abyss surrounded by the thousands of masks of their dead siblings they thought they had dream nailed the black egg at the bottom of the Abyss again, though they did not know how. Soon they realized after getting to the top alongside their sibling that it was not a dream, but reality. To their delight, they could act on their spans of anger and spite they had toward the Pale King.

They thought that once they had their fun they would go and defeat the Radiance by finding the Godseeker in the trash pit. They would scale the pantheons and destroy the infection before the Pure Vessel was sentenced to waste away in the Temple of the Black Egg. It was simple so they didn’t think hard about it.

Until they realized they didn’t have the dream nail. They stressed for a bit, but then thought they could go find the seer and ask for it again! When they made their way to the Resting Grounds however, her little burrow was nowhere to be seen. They truly panicked then, scouring Hollownest for any moths they could find, but the few ones they found were not the Seer. When they held up their, admittedly, crude drawings of the dream nail they were met with confused stares.

They felt scared, frustrated, anger, desperation and then numbness.

They had been trying to run away from these thoughts, but now they were back and plainly showing on their face for the Queen to read like a tablet. There is a long silence between them before her melody-like voice whispers once more.

“Do they know how to write?” She asks.

They shake their head. No. They barely knew how to read and that was from noticing patterns in the tablets and signs they stumbled across in Hollownest. The Queen stands up and with her Feral’s eyes follow.

“I will teach you my child. Come, and perhaps while you learn you may give me your name. Feral is such a harsh word to be called by.”

Feral watches the White Lady as she walks deeper into the greenhouse. Did she just… say she was going to teach them how to write? They would never have a voice to speak on their own with, but to have the power of script in their grasp…

Excitement sparks their step as they quickly run back to her side, looking up at her with such strong wonder that she can’t believe she ever doubted her offspring weren’t hollow. The crown of flowers bounce on their head with each eager step.

“Now it will take some time for us to get the right writing utensils, but perhaps the first thing you could tell me when you can write is how you got that massive nail on your back.”

[draconixwingforged]

There's many evidence that PK gave the individual thought and sentience to the beetles, and maybe even to the moths. The Elegy of Hallownest, the White Lady's quote about the plague ("The first is inevitable on current course, regression, all minds relinquished to that pernicious plague.") and many lore tablets are dream nail dialogues (White Palace Lore Tablet: "The Wyrm becomes beacon, minds expanded, to yield, to devote.) especially in the howling cliffs. It seems that if you leave the kingdom, you let go of the intelligence that he granted.

The Radiance's worship links the worshippers into a hive mind, where the only true intelligence seems to be the Radiance herself, as every time you fight an infected boss, you hear her screaming when the boss is enraged, though it could be just that individuality is heavily suppressed.

Either way, your analysis of PK's character is pretty good, though I feel that both gods are equally at fault for the suffering they caused for the people, and honestly, their world might be better off with both of them gone. PK took something belonged to Radiance, and in return Radiance took even more(as Radiance originally was only the goddess of the moths, and she took over **everything** that belonged to PK and even more, and by the end, most everything was dead and gone, all thanks to them and their escalation of hostility.

it's always really weird reading fics or looking at art of hollow knight & specifically the pale king, because the interpretations of him i see are COMPLETELY different to one another.

one moment i might be seeing him as a flawed yet noble king, then others he's the scourge of the whole kingdom.

it's really odd for me because i simply cannot see any king ever as a "good guy" in any respect -- this comes from living in britain, under a very corrupt monarchy. unfortunately this then reflects onto how i see the pale king as well -- i don't really know how to feel about him because mostly what i feel is a hatred for the system in general.

there are very valid criticisms of him from a contemporary human pov: all the stuff with vessels & using a living creature to seal an Infection for the greater good; leaving the rest of the vessels at the bottom of the abyss after he picked the 'perfect' one; colonising hallownest in the first place when there were clearly natives etc; implementing the strong caste / class system in hallownest-- there may be more but that's what i think of from the top of my head

yet, a lot of people spin these things to make him a very positive force in hallownest. lots of people interpret his relationship with the white lady as something very loving, or the moment you see at the end of the path of pain is something that shows he may have wanted to care for his child but couldn't due to the duty of sealing the Infection. even the fact he built a monument in the centre of the capital city to his child is enough to show he clearly cared for the hollow knight.

i think something that aids the understanding of who he is is putting it all in the context of possibly being someone from hallownest: wouldn't you truly believe that the hollow knight was truly hollow & save everyone? i can't remember the source for it, but i think there was an inkling somewhere (correct me if wrong) that the public of hallownest didn't even believe the king's plan was going to work -- shows a degree that he didn't completely brainwash the entire kingdom into loving & worshipping him... plus in the sense of being a controlling & powerful king, he does everything majorly right -- basing my views on that of the medieval european feudal system etc (ive not much knowledge of other ways kingdoms ran, my history degree hasn't started yet).

either way, i think the pale king is certainly morally grey at best but he's got a code of conduct -- imagine him as lawful neutral if you will. in terms of alignment, it seems that most put him somewhere in the lawful category but evil or good, but that just doesn't feel right. a truly good person probably would not seal their hundreds of children down in a deep pit (whether they thought they were hollow or not) & a truly evil person would not go to the lengths & agony to save his entire kingdom.

therefore: the pale king has a set of morals & codes he abides by, but they can definitely be questionable! but he's as complex as any other person & i LOVE seeing interpretations where he's portrayed in a fairly positive light :D

(especially all compared to my uhh anti-monarchy stance)

[crystal-sylvestris]

Another question (OMG, this is so interesting)! What was their reaction to Dream no more ending? They knew it was thanks to Gosht? Trav, Pim, and Trail felt something? (It's just that I got the feeling that all the "siblings" joined in the final battle, although perhaps only the dead or with access to the dream or spiritual world) Any chance that you make an AU with Godmaster ending? (I really love an ending where Hornet, THK, and Gosht are alive)

When Ghost took on Radiance, the group wasn't present at Hallownest at the time but had to go deal with the rescue at Highgrove so they kind of missed out on infection dying, coming home to a surprise of it being gone. It's also a bit of an interesting point for some characters of it being a fresh start in a sense. :3

While THK was still sealed at the Black Egg temple, Trav and Pim could hear or sense their sibling inside but they were terrified of it and stayed away. Pim specifically, because they absorbed a bit of infection that was in Yonna at some point, reacted badly with them being in pain and hearing the Radiance so the group made sure to not get too close to the temple.

Elders like Rham and Mugo knew of the vessel who sealed the infection, they were somewhat present when the statue was erected at the city years back. They didn't know what the infection or the vessels are though. Years later, when they met other vessels, it helped them understand that their sibling was indeed used in an attempt to seal the infection away. With them kind of losing people to it, the realization wasn't a surprise but they were still sad about it.

There is a godmaster AU! It's tagged as noble!AU on both blogs and it's kind of a fun thing I did on the side with @furgemancs who owns Yonna and Pim :D It's the "What if Mugo showed up to meet Alyssum, realize they have a child together and she blackmails/force him to come to Highgrove with him". So most of the story doesn't even take place at Hallownest but once it does even Gambit is there! (Also Myla is fine adopted by Gambit, Rham and Loy! And Sylva, Yonna and Amalma are in a poly relationship! All the goodies~)

However, they haven't really met Hollow or Hornet in this AU and didn't had to deal with possible Lord of Shades coming loose yet, they kind of had to focus on other things :'D We paused the AU to focus on the original verse for a bit again.

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

[shimmersing]

Constellation

Part One | Part Two | Interlude | Part Three

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M, Gen Relationships: Female Jedi Consular | Barsen'thor/Male Republic Trooper, Jedi Consular | Barsen'thor/Republic Trooper Characters: Female Jedi Consular | Barsen'thor, Jedi Consular | Barsen'thor, Qyzen Fess, Yuon Par, Parkanas Tark-Lord Vivicar Additional Tags: Angst, Tython, Emotional, Mentioned Mutual Pining, Fluffy, Sad, Melancholy

Returning to Tython after shielding the last master suffering from Vivicar's Force plague, Aitahea is faced with more struggle in her efforts to heal the Order and keep the Force in balance. Tired, injured, and longing for someone she can't have, perhaps ever, the lines of her responsibility as a Jedi and her own convictions begin to blur. As Aitahea nears the end of her quest to save Yuon Par and the other Jedi Masters, she’s confronted with painful revelations and answers that only give rise to more questions. Shouldering the lives and minds of Jedi across the galaxy – alone – may prove to be more than Aitahea can bear. AN: Welcome back! This story follows shortly after the events in Best Intentions and closes out Chapter One of the Consular storyline for Aitahea (and Erithon, peripherally). The one-shot, first-person piece Impending occurs in the interim between Parts 2 and 3. Thank you and enjoy! *Now with paragraphs in proper order!*

Part One

Aitahea trembled next to Satele Shan on the bridge of the transport, fingers pressed to her lips while starlines streaked past.

“What troubles you, little one?”

The girl dropped her hands to her sides without looking at Master Satele, keeping her gaze focused on the soothing radiance of hyperspace. “Nothing, Master. How long until we reach Alderaan?”

“Soon now, Aitahea.” Satele dropped to one knee and placed a hand on the child’s shoulder. “You’ll be safe there. Your training will continue. We need you to be strong for the Order. For our future.”

She drew in a deep breath. “I know, Master Satele. I am strong.” But beneath her robes, her stomach flipped and flopped.

Aitahea trembled next to pilot Prelsiava Tern on the bridge of the Luminous, fingers pressed to her lips while they slipped from the grasp of Alderaan’s gravity.

“What’s got your head turned around, Jedi?”

The Jedi dropped her hands to her sides without looking at her friend, watching as the once-familiar constellations blurred out of sight. “Nothing, Sia. How long until we’re underway?”

As usual, her pilot’s concern was genuine, attending in a gently cavalier way that often left Aitahea feeling uplifted. “As soon as we clear the gravity well; just a few more minutes.”

Qyzen had no such compunction, his words blunt as a training saber. “Soldier remains forefront in your thoughts, but past also. Put these away so we may focus on Yuon. Both mate and memories will wait until dark thing is vanquished.”

“I have every int-” Aitahea choked at the sudden comprehension of Qyzen’s words, face flushing a bright rose. Sia craned her head around the pilot’s seat to grin at Aitahea with unabashed glee. Aitahea shrugged at the Mirialan woman and turned to Qyzen. “Excuse me… mate?”

“Herald’s Republic lieutenant, met on Taris. Thought perhaps you’d accepted as mate on Alderaan,” Qyzen mused. Sia whistled low and turned back to the pilot’s console, doing an impromptu and quite thorough safety check of the seat’s crash webbing.

The Jedi took a deep, calming breath, the carefully measured motion keeping her from bursting into terribly unsuitable laughter.

If Qyzen noticed her discomfiture, he gave no sign. “Human emotions strange; sad one moment, amused next.”

Aitahea primly lifted her chin, focusing seriously on her friend. “Forgive me; I apologize for the, ah, unexpected level of emotion. But no, Erithon-” She paused to frown and clear her throat. “The lieutenant and I don’t have… we aren’t what you’re presuming.”

Qyzen squinted in what she had learned to recognize as wry skepticism, usually reserved for someone they were facing in conflict.

Aitahea swallowed, nodded. “We have work to do.”

Sia waved over a shoulder. “Hey, call from Tython on the holo.”

Grateful for the diversion, Aitahea swiftly moved to escape the bridge. “Thank you, Sia. I’ll take it in the common room, please.”

After a few moments, Master Syo flickered into view, looking pleased when Aitahea entered the shared space.

“Master Sidonie just checked in. She seems well but very frustrated with herself.” Aitahea briefly wondered if her own demeanor was similar, though for distinctly different reasons. “She reports that you were able to prevent war from breaking out on Alderaan, however. You’ve once again done exceptional work in a tense situation, Aitahea.”

Despite the obvious praise, Aitahea winced. She had been painfully unsettled by Master Sidonie’s baseless accusations, despite their depraved falsity. They’d sounded conspicuously familiar, another voice confirming all the cynical criticisms Aitahea most dreaded. Unspeakable consequences lurked behind every failure, and Aitahea was certain she would fracture under the burden of responsibility, despite everyone’s blithe confidence. All so certain of her, save Aitahea herself.

And she would never breathe a syllable of it to the people depending on her. She couldn’t. Instead, she slid into a default stillness and bowed her head. “I relied on the teachings of the Jedi,” she insisted, voice trembling through the half-truth.

Master Syo beamed. “A mark of a true Jedi – being able to trust in the Force in all circumstances.”

Aitahea shuddered and hoped the motion wouldn’t be seen in the grainy holo.

Oblivious to her struggle, Master Syo continued. “Tell me, did you learn anything about the plaguemaster, Lord Vivicar?”

“I’m sorry. No new intel came from Master Sidonie.”

“She was the last of the lost Masters, and yet Vivicar still eludes us,” he mused, then waved a hand and refocused on Aitahea. “Return to us here on Tython immediately, and we will discuss what you have learned. Lord Vivicar cannot remain hidden forever.”

Aitahea’s heart leapt. She’d longed for the comfort of Tython for months; now, the call seemed almost too good to be true. Unable to trust her voice, she bowed, lifting her eyes again in time to see Master Syo’s benevolent smile. “Come home, Jedi.”

When her boots touched Tython’s sacred ground – even the metallic plates of the Temple’s shuttle pad – Aitahea felt suffused with new hope. The home of the Jedi never failed to welcome her, making her role in the galaxy apparent and her relationship to the Force simple and effortless. Even breathing felt easier.

Master Syo Bakarn, Master Jaric Kaedan, and Grand Master Satele Shan were waiting when Aitahea arrived at the Council chamber with Qyzen. The rest of the crew had opted to stay in orbit while the Jedi and Trandoshan shuttled to the surface.

“Welcome home,” said Master Syo, leaning forward to offer the greeting. Aitahea bowed low to her mentor, wondering silently if Yuon would be join the meeting as well.

Master Jaric was quicker to the point. “I wish we could greet you with better news.”

Master Satele nodded her own welcome. “Despite using every resource available to us, we’re no closer to finding Lord Vivicar.”

Aitahea, buoyant on the glory of Tython, took a bold step forward and offered her final, horrible theory. “Actually, I believe we are. A common thread binds all the plague victims: the loss of Parkanas Tark at Malachor Three. Vivicar’s influence forced the infected Masters to relive their failures on Malachor.”

The Council’s Force signatures and facial expressions were meticulously shielded with more years of experience than Aitahea could rightly grasp, but even so, emotion in the room spiked, rattling her earnest calm. She continued, her voice hushed. “This is revenge, personal revenge. Only one man would have that much anger and pain. The man who was left behind.”

She hesitated; her next words could unravel everything else she’d accomplished, but unless she spoke the truth, the plague would never end. “I believe Lord Vivicar is Parkanas Tark.”

Master Jaric shook his head in disbelief. “Jedi.” He pinned Aitahea with a steely gaze, and she was certain that her suggestion had indeed gone too far. “Parkanas Tark is dead.” Aitahea took a breath -

“Far from it, Jaric.” Yuon strode into the council chamber, feisty as ever. On the edge of panic, Aitahea broke into an enormous smile that her Master returned with a gracious nod. Even Qyzen, silent until now, uttered a brief growl of approval and welcome.

“Yuon?” Satele demanded, half-rising to address the other Master, exasperation coloring her words. “I told those Padawans to keep an eye on you. You must rest!”

“No. My pupil -” Yuon paused at Aitahea’s side, placing a hand on her last Padawan’s shoulder, “My fellow Jedi deserves to hear the truth about Malachor.”

Aitahea winced, noting the dark shadows under Yuon’s eyes; only one of the victims could explain the twisted path that lay both behind and before them. They all needed the truth. “Don’t speak more than you must.”

Yuon gave Aitahea a wan smile, then continued, turning to address the Council. “Malachor Three isn’t just strong in the dark side; the planet is the resting place of Terrak Morrhage. Our work on Malachor woke Morrhage’s spirit. One by one, we fell under his power. The things we did… still haunt me.”

Yuon shuddered; Aitahea reached for her in concern. Realization clicked into place, and she paused before laying a comforting hand on Yuon’s shoulder. “Somehow, you broke free of Morrhage’s power.”

The Master composed herself and nodded to her Padawan. “Yes. Together, we managed to break his control, but at a terrible cost.” Yuon’s voice grew soft, then broke over the last few syllables. She kept her gaze to the side, as if afraid to look into Aitahea’s eyes. “Parkanas was the youngest and weakest. We had to abandon him to Malachor’s darkness. His sacrifice allowed the rest of us to escape. But it seems he survived and took Morrhage’s dark path.”

“You couldn’t have predicted this,” Aitahea insisted in a pained whisper.

With fierce determination, Yuon shook her head. “I must make amends.” She seemed more vulnerable than ever, perhaps even more so than in the worst throes of her affliction. “I have a plan to help you find Vivicar.”

The Council looked worriedly at each other, and even Aitahea shook her head, uncertain how to respond. “How?”

“If the plague created a link between my mind and his, your shielding ability may allow me to use that link to find him.”

Master Syo stood, his disapproval and worry dimming the Force in the room. “No. You’re already weak from the plague, Yuon. This could kill you.”

But Yuon’s eyes, finally meeting Aitahea’s, were pleading. Aitahea wondered, had her Master’s suffering truly begun with the plague, or had it been long before that? She wasn’t certain she was ready for dealing with either answer, but her path, her role, was to serve. Releasing her Master, her teacher, her friend from this plague surely was of equal importance with stopping Morrhage.

If the work served both purposes, it would be worth it, more than worth it. “Vivicar won’t get the chance,” she said to both Yuon and the stunned Council. “I will stand between him and my Master.”

Yuon’s gratitude was palpable. She turned to the Council, earnest and energized. “It’s our best chance to find Vivicar.”

Qyzen spoke up. “Yuon is fearless and wise – a true hunter, like Herald.”

Aitahea wasn’t certain she agreed, but the Trandoshan’s support could only bolster their position.

Syo eased back into his seat. “Very well,” he said, sighing. “But we will monitor the ritual, and your former Padawan must stay at your side.”

“Of course, Master,” Aitahea said, and offered Yuon an encouraging smile.

“Thank you, Syo,” Yuon said, punctuating with a bow to the entire Council before turning back to Aitahea. “I will go to the meditation chamber to prepare. Please meet me there when you are ready.”

“I’ll be fine, Qyzen; it’s just a short way from the Temple. There’s no safer place in the galaxy.”

“Even from own thoughts, Herald?”

“Let her go, just as you always did for me,” said Yuon, smiling impishly at Aitahea as she approached. “This Jedi knows her own mind.”

“Master, I know you have much to prepare. I don’t intend to go far to meditate, just a little away from the temple, so I might not be disturbed.” Aitahea couldn’t quite raise her eyes to meet Yuon’s, glancing instead toward the tree-lined paths of the outer grounds. Since Aitahea had first arrived on Tython, the issues of refugees, Flesh Raiders, and rogue Force users had been mostly resolved. The forests surrounding the temple were secure, if not precisely safe. Aitahea had played no small part in several of those events and recalled them as experiences of tremendous growth as a Padawan. Yuon seemed to agree.

“Off with you now! I’ve enough for this old friend to help me with; you must make your own preparations,” she stated, ushering Qyzen ahead in a way only Yuon Par was capable of, while waving Aitahea away from the temple grounds. “Go!”

Yuon seemed uncharacteristically upbeat, perhaps even giddy. It’s just that we’re so close to the end of this journey. I’d feel the same, if I weren’t so… her thoughts trailed off as Qyzen and Yuon turned back toward the temple, good-naturedly chiding each other on the perception of stuffy behavior.

Aitahea chanced a smile and wave in reply, inhaling sharply to keep tears from spilling from her stinging eyes. She turned to one of the well-worn paths, tread smooth by the growing residents of the Jedi Temple, their minders and masters, and visitors such as herself.

No, this is home, she thought urgently. Master Syo welcomed me home. I am home. She raised her hood and quickened her pace, rushing by several curious initiates.

Aitahea dashed across the bridge and toward the stream just beyond the grounds. There was a spur of rock suspended over one of the smaller falls. She hadn’t been there in years, her training with Yuon so often off-world or in remote areas. There were usually a few uxibeast grazing in the shade, unbothered so long as they could eat in peace.

She was obligated to ford the shallows to the opposite bank of the stream in order to reach the outcropping. Aitahea considered a simple leap over the stream; a nudge of the Force would keep her robes and boots dry.

Instead, she left her boots with her outer robe folded carefully beside them and now stood at the water’s edge considering the communicator in her hand. She shouldn’t be needed for the brief hour she had to prepare for Yuon’s desperate ritual; who in the galaxy would need to contact her who wasn’t planetside? Was there anyone she needed to talk to privately? Tember? Her parents?

Aitahea fiercely dismissed the memory of Erithon’s smiling face that clamored for her attention, fingers trembling as she thumbed through her contacts to his entry. The hard lump lodged in her throat was the only thing that kept her from pressing the call button.

Cold water splashed over her toes; the nearest uxibeast lowed. Shaking her head, Aitahea unceremoniously shoved the commlink into one of her boots and waded into the water, gasping at the freezing temperature.  She splashed across, only slightly questioning her sanity, and padded gingerly up the rock spur on icy toes.

The perch afforded a stunning view of the Temple and grounds, but distance allowed a certain privacy. Aitahea sat at the edge of the outcropping, watching the practiced motions of lightsaber training, but the clashing sounds of those sparring were lost beneath the roar of water. Some in groups, others in isolation, all went about their various practices: meditating, channeling, seeking to understand more of the Force in myriad ways.

Everything will be fine, Aitahea assured herself, bringing her knees up to her chest and closing her eyes. We’re so close to finishing this. Maybe even saving Parkanas Tark if he can just be released from Morrhage’s dark control. Victory is close. Just a little longer.

Aitahea dropped her head into her arms and sobbed, the cries lost in the rush of the waterfall below.

Constellation: Part One | Part Two | Interlude | Part Three

[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.

[nonbinary-ghost]

More Hollow Knight drabbles! This one's exploring what might have happened if the Pale King was still alive when you find him in the White Palace. CW for character death and descriptions of illness - PK isn't doing too great

(Also posted to ao3 under nonbinaryGhost)

--

Ghost stood before the fallen kingsmould. They had stumbled across a few of the void-filled armors guarding hidden passages on their trek through the White Palace. But this one was dead – a motionless heap of pale metal leaking void into the stone around it. Ghost glanced around, spying others that were collapsed in a similar fashion. What had happened to them?

They followed the trail of bodies, their hand on their nail in case any of them were still animated and attacked. But none of the kingsmoulds so much as twitched at the vessel’s passing. The air around Ghost began to grow dark with decaying void as they moved deeper down the hallway towards a Soullift. It was the only way forward, and Ghost was unwilling to turn back, so they pressed on, their footsteps muffled by the thick shadows creeping in.

More kingsmoulds waited at the top of the lift, as broken and motionless as the others. There was almost none of the pale white light that filled the rest of the palace here. Only heavy darkness and flicking void particles. Even the white stone floor seemed duller, stained into a grey-yellow from the void. A tall dais stood ahead, and Ghost could just make out the shape of something sitting atop it, glowing ever so faintly. Reluctant to enter that familiar darkness, Ghost turned to kneel next to the nearest kingsmould, searching for any signs of damage to their armor. Had there been a fight? Something that had been here before Ghost, that had killed the kingsmoulds to get to whatever it was that sat atop the dais? But there was nothing – no scratches in the pale metal from a nail, no dents or torn joints. It looked as if the kingsmould had simply fallen where it stood, the void that formed its body losing shape to melt into the floor and evaporate into the air.

“Who passes through this forsaken dream?”

The muffled rasp jerked the vessel’s attention to the large room atop the dais. It had been some time since they’d heard a voice. The soft murmurings of the royal retainers had faded long ago as Ghost pressed deeper and deeper into the heart of the palace, until no other living dreams crossed their path. The heavy darkness that seeped into the air around them seemed to smother the sound, but after so long in silence even the soft voice felt loud. Hand resting on the hilt of their nail, Ghost crept deeper into the large room blanketed in shadow.

Ghost had been prepared to find their Father in the White Palace. But the sight of the small bug cloaked in faded white robes still made Ghost stop in their tracks. The Pale King was scarcely bigger than Ghost, cloaked in faded white robes atop a tall black throne. For a moment, Ghost wondered if this really was the Pale King of whom they’d seen so many statues. But the crown-like shape of his horns and the pale glow that surrounded his form marked him beyond any doubt as the God-King of Hallownest. The Pale King lifted his head to peer at Ghost now standing before him.

“Pure -?” The shock on the Pale King’s face faded as he squinted at Ghost. “No, another. So some of you did escape. I had hoped…but never could See…”

The King’s words dissolved into a wet, rattling cough and he buried his face in the crook of an arm as his light flickered. Ghost didn’t budge, their thoughts completely blank as they watched the Pale King regain composure. This was who they had been looking for, but now that they stood before him, Ghost could not summon the will to move. The Pale King looked down at the robe sleeve he had just coughed into with a grimace. He smoothed the sleeve and tucked it out of Ghost’s sight.

“I take it you are here for revenge?”

Ghost only stared and a rueful chuckle shook the King’s shoulders.

“You do not have to maintain the charade of emptiness, Vessel,” he said softly. “I know you are not hollow, though I cannot sense any thoughts or feelings from you as I do my subjects. The Void shields your mind from my Light. But I know that is not the same as true emptiness. If I had realized sooner…”

His voice had grown tight with some kind of emotion and he took a breath before continuing.

“You need not hide your feelings from me. I know you must despise me.”

Still Ghost did not move. Instead, they watched how the Pale King seemed to be trembling, ever so slightly, upon his throne. They noted how dim and weak the King’s light appeared, slowly smothered by the encroaching darkness. The King was being forgotten, just as the Radiance had, and he was gradually fading away. Ghost need not do anything, if they actually wanted revenge, for the King was already dying. What greater punishment could anyone hope to enact than to condemn the King to be forgotten and erased along with his kingdom and children? The King let out a shuddering sigh.

“I have done many terrible things,” he rasped. “Things that I should have never allowed to pass. And all for what? My people still died. My Kingdom still fell. My children…sacrificed for nothing. I was too late to do anything to change the course of fate, yet still I struggled to find a way and ended up causing even greater atrocities.”

Ghost didn’t move at this. They had expected many things when they found their father, but this had not been one of them. Haughtiness, pride, righteous anger, blind refusal of having done any wrong – Ghost had anticipated that. But not remorse. Not regret.

The familiar, cold emptiness that still filled Ghost’s shell smothered any anger or pity that might have been stirred at the King’s words. Ghost knew they should be furious, but they could not muster up even the phantom flicker of emotion. Factually, they understood that just because this bug knew what he’d done was wrong, that didn’t mean he deserved forgiveness. Least of all from one of the very children he’d callously cast away to die. But Ghost didn’t forgive him, just as they didn’t hate him. The Pale King just… was. He was just another pathetic being fallen from grace, and Ghost felt nothing for him. Ghost distantly wondered if the King’s remorse was less because he knew that he’d caused harm, and more because his plan hadn’t worked. Was his regret more for the fact that his plan had failed rather than for the fact that he had done it at all. If his plan had worked, if the Hollow Knight had successfully contained the Infection and killed the Radiance, would the Pale King still feel the same way? Or would he simply chalk it all up to ‘necessary sacrifices’ and never consider it again?

“I sense my words mean little to you.”

Ghost looked up at this and met the Pale King’s empty eyes. They found that there was some small flicker of rage somewhere inside of their shell – tiny and fragile as a lumifly’s wings. But it was there. Once, Ghost may have listened to the Pale King’s words without bias and could have been moved to sympathy. But Ghost had been to the Abyss, had seen the broken shells of their fallen siblings. Even if they still could not remember their own past there, the cold fury at what had been done to slaughter so many bugs still smoldered somewhere in their very soul.

“I cannot fault you for your anger,” the Pale King choked, barely smothering a cough that tried to rake through him. “We deserve neither forgiveness nor pity, and We could never ask it of you.”

He barely choked out the words before he could no longer suppress the cough. It tore through his small frame, his whole body shuddering as he clutched at his chest. Ghost watched in rising horror as thick, liquid void began to drip down the King’s chin. Ghost realized that the King wasn’t just fading from memory.

He was being killed.

Slowly and painfully.

Suddenly the heavy darkness that filled the throne room made far more sense. The Pale King’s light wasn’t just fading from being forgotten. The void was smothering the Pale King’s glow and slowly poisoning his body, the very same way the King intended for it to do to the Radiance. But unlike the Radiance, the Pale King lacked the resolve to survive. He felt remorse, now. He had regrets. And the Void latched on to those cracks in his mental barriers with a vicious tenacity that could not be burned away. The Void Sea had claimed him, and it was slowly tearing him apart bit by bit.

The Pale King’s rattling breath was loud in Ghost’s ears as the coughing fit subsided. His face was contorted in a grimace of pain, dark streaks of void staining his mask around the mouth and eyes, and all four of his arms clutched at the robes around his neck and chest. Only then did Ghost notice that the King’s hands were as void-black as their own shell. Ghost could feel something stirring within them, or, more precisely, within the void that filled their own veins. A sort of anticipation that was not their own. The strange thought that the Pale King would be returning home occurred to them and they pondered the premise briefly. The King was slowly becoming a being of void, and the Void’s song reached out to him now just as it called to Ghost. For the first time, Ghost felt an odd sort of kinship to the dying king. They got the impression that they had gone through something very similar to this, long, long ago. But even these feelings were distant and impersonal – mere phantom impressions of emotion quickly quelled by the cold darkness that filled them.

The Pale King carefully shook his head as his breathing slowed into shallow gasps.

“Why are you here, vessel,” he panted, the sound barely more than a whisper. There was nothing in that voice – just cold emptiness devoid of inflection. Ghost’s mask tilted at this. Why were they here? Then, they remembered the broken charm given to them by the White Lady. They reached into their void-soft body and retrieved the white shard, holding it out to the Pale King. It took a moment for the King to slowly lift his gaze to settle upon the broken charm. He went completely still at the sight of it.

“My Root…” he breathed, reaching out with a single hand towards the charm. He froze, black-stained claws a mere breath away from touching the white surface. Ghost nearly recoiled at the pained sound that escaped the King’s throat - an almost strangled wail that came out as a gurgling sob - and new black tears began to drip down the King’s mask. He took his had away to clutch at his horns as he began to shake, his other hands grabbing at the robes around his throat and chest.

“My Root,” he choked out in a moan. Ghost stared at this display, uncertain of what to do as the Pale King seemed to collapse in on himself, curled around his arms as he began to sob. The abject misery in the sound would have broken the heart of a normal bug. Ghost only felt cold.

“I miss Her,” the King wept, the words almost sounding like a confession. Ghost got the sense that the King wasn’t really talking to them. These words felt like the ramblings of a broken bug, spoken for the speaker alone. “I’ve no right to, and yet… I… I wish She was with me. I have been alone for so long… and now… I will never see Her again. She was so sad and angry when She left. She was right to be. And it is all my fault…Will she ever smile again? After all that I have done… have I killed her too?”

The King’s words strangled off into another coughing fit that sounded as if it was ripping the wyrm apart from the inside, and more thick void fell to the black-stained stone floor. The King followed, collapsing to the floor and curling into a tight ball as he convulsed against the stone. The Pale King was still muttering as he choked, but the only words Ghost could make out were “I killed her”.

Ghost didn’t know how to respond. The White Lady had been alive when they spoke to her. Or did the Pale King mean he killed her in a metaphorical sense? She had locked herself away in her gardens and placed herself under powerful bindings to atone for the part she played in the Pale King’s plan. She diminished her light and restrained her influence. She would eventually be forgotten. Ghost supposed that, in a way, the Pale King had condemned his wife to a slow death not all that different from his own. Her body still lived, but the Pale King had killed her heart, and broken her spirit.

Just as he’d done to himself.

Without really thinking, Ghost knelt next to where the King had fallen out of his throne and placed a small hand upon his shoulder. The Pale King clutched at their hand with the desperation of a drowning bug. After a time, the King’s breathing slowed once more. The pale glow that had clung to him was all but gone now, flickering faintly like a sputtering candle, and the Kings breath came slow and shallow, as if it took all of his will just to fill his lungs. His gaze found Ghost’s, confusion thick behind the fear that practically radiated from him.

“Why do you stay?” he whispered, each word taking a colossal effort. “You are free… this kingdom is dead…”

Ghost shifted to sit beside the King, moving their clasped hands to their lap.

The King didn’t deserve forgiveness.

But no one deserved to die alone.

Ghost resolved to stay here beside the King in his final moments.

A gift he had never given to his kingdom. Or his children.

[bugbeee]

Pyrrhic for Pale King or rubatosis for Nightmare King Grimm? Hireaeth for Hornet or liberosis for Hollow/Pure Vessel? Morituro for Ghost or scrosciare for Quirrel or Lemm? So many of these prompts are so good for Hollow Knight--I can't make up my mind which ones I like the most. Feel free to do however many you feel up to--don't feel pressure to do every single one. Pick and chose!

Cookie, you are the light of my life and I adore you. I hope you enjoy these! Prompt list from here!

Pyrrhic (won at too great a cost):

Sitting on his throne, the Pale King wondered if he should be happy. They had won. He had won. The Radiance was sealed, and the infection would no longer plague Hallownest. And yet, the roiling in his stomach would not cease. Abruptly, he stood up, unable to keep himself still any longer. The palace halls were silent save for the swish of his robes. His daughter had been sent to train with Vespa a scant few cycles ago, and Root...

Well. Root had left long ago.

Only his retainers remained, and even they grew quieter and quieter with each passing day.

Despite the sealing, he knew that something uneasy continued to lurk within his kingdom. In the end, he truly was a blind fool, despite his foresight. He had seen it when he first saw the Pure- the Hollow Knight before him, and he had seen it again as he sent it to fulfill their duty.

No cost too great, he had said. And yet, he could not stop himself from weighing the innumerable sacrifices he made for... for nothing. Root had left a scant few cycles before the Knight’s sealing, though she had confided in him that it was not because of love for her hollow child. After such a harrowing experience, she needed to retreat. She would return soon, she said.

Wyrm didn’t need his foresight to know that was not true.

The Gendered Child had been sent away for her own safety, and for his own sanity. She raged with the loss of her mother, and after the attempt on her life, she could not sleep without being plagued by nightmares. He knew that the palace was unhealthy for her, that every waking moment was torture-

So he sent her away. Despite the betrayal on her face as he did so. Despite her screams of abandonment.

But he had to. He had to, because the assassin brought rumours of an orange plague, because bugs were acting strangely and mentioning dreams of gold, because-

He had already failed once as a father. He would not give her a parent she didn’t deserve. Not when she already had the love of her mother and step-mother.

Unable to keep walking, Wyrm collapsed to the floor, burying his face in his hands.

This was meant to be victory, he thought bitterly. So why did it feel so much like loss?

Morituro (someone who is destined to die):

Elderbug had been the only resident of Dirtmouth for a long time now. He had seen travellers come and go, always waiting for a familiar face to pop back up and return. Hoping, that perhaps one of them would stay. But no. His town remained empty, and had done so ever since the cloud of sickly sweet rot and sickness had risen from the well on the outskirts of town, luring bugs in with enticing promises of riches and glory. He had never seen the city below that travellers spoke about with such fervent excitement, never felt the own tug of wanderlust pulling him down into the depths of the forgotten kingdom.

No, he was always happier at his home, welcoming those who came by, and hoping that perhaps this time, one of them would stay. Once upon a time, his town had been filled quiet contentment, bugs living in comfort and harmony. It had been a happier time, even with the quiet whispers of Hallownest’s fall. But the days of life within his village had been long gone, and soon enough, he was the only one remaining, waiting in vain for someone, anyone to return and stay. While he enjoyed the quiet, he preferred to spend it with another person. The loneliness and isolation that had spread across his village like an infection had changed that quiet into an empty silence.

And yet... that had slowly begun to change, all thanks to his small masked friend. They had introduced new bugs into his town, had rekindled the flickering life of Dirtmouth, had given him new hope. Shops began to reopen, people moved back in, and he was no longer alone. There was still the gentle quietness of his town, but no pervasive silence that gripped his very carapace. Just for that, Elderbug owned them a debt, yet they never asked for anything in return, instead being content to simply sit on the bench beside him and bask in each other’s’ presence. His fondness for the childlike bug was not unlike that of a grandfather, and he could not help the soft affection that rose within him whenever they returned.

Despite the stench below, despite the dead kingdom beneath his feet, Elderbug was content again. His town was full, gentle life having drifted back in with the appearance of his friend. He wondered when they would cease their wanderings in the caverns below, and finally join them all above. He would not keep them from exploring, but their increased disappearances made him worry all the same. He hoped that soon, soon they would settle down. Was a quiet life not enough? Was being surrounded by friendly bugs not an adventure in itself?

But it was not his place to give voice to these thoughts, not when his friend was so eager to travel. He gave a soft sigh, watching the gentle lights sway in the quiet breeze, eyes flicking between the well and the Stag Station. And then, finally, the door of the Station opened, and out hopped the little traveler, something small clutched within their claws. Relief and joy warmed Elderbug’s heart, and he eagerly welcomed them to the bench.

“Hello, my friend. It is good to see you in good health. I admit, I grew worried when I heard the screeching from below, but seeing you whole is reassuring,” he said softly as they approached him.

His eyes fell upon the delicate flower in their hands, and Elderbug blinked in surprise.

“Hm? What a beautiful flower!” he exclaimed. “Why are you carrying around such an exquisite bloom?”

They looked at him, eyes unreadable as ever, but there was a quiet sadness in their posture, lit up with the slightest hint of affection as they reached out to offer him the bloom. Elderbug choked at the gesture, tears springing to his eyes as he took the flower with trembling claws.

“Thank you, my friend. Suddenly, the world seems a little less faded. I will take care of this flower while you are gone, so we can enjoy it together when you return,” he said hoarsely, so touched by the gesture that he missed the hint of sorrow and regret within his friend. The little one carefully sat down in their usual spot, shuffling slightly as they became comfortable.

Elderbug smiled softly at them, and took up his usual position beside them, basking in their quiet presence, but they patted the bench.

“Oh? Do you wish for me to sit with you? I am quite happy standing, especially if you wish to rest after such an adventure,” he explained, but they shook their head, and patted the bench again.

“Very well, my friend. I would be happy to sit by your side.”

He let his old, weary body sit beside them, the cold metal a comforting balm on his aching limbs. They rested together until Elderbug could feel his strength returning to him and his friend’s slumped body straightened. They turned to look at him, tilting their head at the flower tucked close to his arm, empty eyes seemingly cataloguing every piece of him.

He chuckled softly at their examination, and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped as his friend placed a claw over his. It was a fleeting gesture, yet comforting all the same, and Elderbug was reminded of a child grasping onto someone close for a shred of reassurance. They leapt off the bench before he could respond; only turning to look at him once as they headed towards the well. His friend lifted their hand in a small wave, and he could not help but think they looked so sad as they did so.

As though it was a final farewell.

“Next time,” he muttered, despite the hollow stone sat in his chest. “Next time I’ll ask them to stay.”

(Perhaps, had he known, he would have clung harder.)

Scrosciare (rain pouring down or waves hitting rocks):

Quirrel stared out beyond the lake, the soft crash of water against rocks echoing within his emptied mind. His tired eyes caught on the shimmering waves illuminated by the distant glow of lingering lumaflies. How strange to think that after all these years he would be in Hallownest again. His departure had been abrupt, spurred on his Madam’s eternal slumber. One end began there, and today, it would finally reach its conclusion. Even now, his memories were disjointed, caught on fragments of confusion and fog, but she still shone like a beacon in his mind, a gentle light guiding him within the tangled memories. If she were still here, she would disapprove of his plan, he thought. But she was not here.

She had been gone for a long time.

The soft patter of footsteps broke his musings, and he tilted his head towards his little friend, though his eyes never left the blue shore. It warmed him to know that despite the slow, stumbling death of Hallownest, he had still made a friend, and a dear one at that. Their silent presence had been a comfort throughout his journey through the decaying kingdom, and he had found himself eager to see his friend in every new place discovered. And now, they sat by him as he spoke fondly of being able to relive the beauty of Hallownest, of being able to meet them. They stayed as quiet as ever, and he couldn’t help but smile.

There was a quiet sadness about them, Quirrel thought to himself, and he wondered if they knew what he planned. His friend sat unmoving next to him, staring across the waters just as he had done a bare few moments ago. Together, they let the time slowly drift by, only the gentle flow of the waves giving any sense as to how long had passed. He sighed softly, and turned to face their friend, words ready to spill, but he paused. They were looking at him, eyes as empty as ever, but there was a mournful air around them, and a part of him thought that, were they able to, they would be crying.

“Friend?” he asked hesitantly.

They did not look away, studying him as intently as his Madam had shortly before-

Ah. So they did know then. Or at least guess.

“Do not worry about me, my small friend. I have wandered this world for a long time, have been lucky enough to experience more wonders and beauty’s than most bugs do in their life time. Mourn not for me, my dear friend. My duty has been fulfilled, and now I shall rest,” he said gently, letting his claw rest uncertainly on their head.

They seemed unconvinced, and took his hand with their own small ones, mask shaking in silent disapproval. Quirrel chuckled.

“Even without a voice, your scolding is clear. Tell me, what is there left for me to see?”

For him to live, went unspoken.

They swept a claw to the world around them, before pointing up, up, upwards.

“Hallownest is gone, my dear friend, choked by this infection. The village above will soon follow,” he murmured gently, but they shook their head vigorously again.

They grabbed their nail and swept it as though fighting some invisible foe.

“Oh? Shall you fight off the rest of this sickness then? Do you even know how?”

Do you know what it will cost, he did not say, instead staring at the little fellow besides him.

They nodded, dropping their nail and grabbing his claws again, staring hopefully up into his own face.

Well then.

“I see you won’t let me go that easily. Very well, my dear friend. I shall wait until you fight off this infection, so that I may see a clean Hallownest again. And who knows, maybe there will even be life again,” he said begrudgingly, but a small part of him was intrigued. Perhaps even excited. His Madam surely would hate for him to waste his life, certainly before even giving the revival of Hallownest a chance.

Waiting wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Not with his friend by his side, not with the quiet hope they still inspired. Quirrel had long since forgotten how or where the infection came from, or even how it was contained, aside from the Dreamer’s Seal, but he believed in his small friend. If anyone could do it, then surely, surely them.

“If that is the case, then I shall meet you above in Dirtmouth, once it is all over. But for now, I will enjoy this moment for a while longer. You are welcome to stay, or continue your quest, but your company is never unwanted.”

The little Ghost plonked themselves back next to him, and the two of them watched the lake together until Quirrel could feel his eyes closing, lulled into a gentle sleep with the steady comfort of his friend.

The waves lapped gently against the rocks.

[transmogrified-in-the-void]

look im depressed have this “thk and ghost land in bleach” crack fic ok

Urahara honestly didn’t even know when it happened. It definitely started out slow, with Ichigo Kurosaki coming over more and more frequently for training. Eventually his sisters (terrifying and sweet, how fun) started to appear with their older brother. Soon, the candy shop owner found himself with a store full of teenagers. With rooms. Who lived there. Urahara doesn’t even know where the rooms came from in the first place, although he suspects that Tessai had something to do with it. Regardless, they all fell into a pattern, and, while none of the spiritually aware children lived there per-say (Ishida remained adamant that he would not be living with shinigami), they were around often enough that they could be.

Then Aizen happened, and Ichigo lost his powers, part of his soul, and the first thing that happened was everyone came back to the shoten for him. Urahara thinks quiety, in the back of his head, that had this small family not been made. Had his innocent candy shop not become home to so many, Ichigo could have been alone for a long time.

He did make the sword to return that missing part of his soul, of course he would. Because, as much as he tries not to show it, he genuinely cares for the band of misfits now under his wing, and damn it all if he doesn’t try to fix the pain he caused.

And they fall back into their routine. There are some bumps, namely Urahara finding out how Isshin “trained” Ichigo and proceeding to make the shoten a permanent home for the Kurosaki children. Not that anyone was complaining, Tessai loves talking with Yuzu, and Karin and Jinta compete to see who gets more work done. Meaning less for him and that is wonderful.

So imagine his surprise when two writhing sources of reiatsu, or something similar, suddenly appear at his front door. 

Urahara was in his lab when it happened, and he spent no time getting to the door. Sliding it open, he sees two creatures that look like they could be Hollows, but something’s wrong. Distinctly, profoundly, wrong.

The first thing is how human these creatures looked. One tall and thin, their black body writhing as they desperately claw at their face with one hand. A quick glance shows that their other arm is nothing but a stump. In front of the tall creature is a significantly smaller one who is trembling, but also trying to pry the tall one’s hand away.

The second thing is their masks. Where Hollow masks are made just to hide the face, these ones seem to be encasing the whole head. 

The third is the amount of terror pouring out of the tall one. It’s near suffocating, and yet they don’t make a single sound. Not one.

Urahara sees the small one signing something, but he’s not in any angle to be able to see what they’re trying to say. The tall one does though, and seems to grow more agitated before tilting their head back and shrieking. 

They start to claw at their chest (with no hole in it), then their face, then their stump, shrieking and definitely waking up at least Tessai and Ichigo, sensing them coming towards the source of the sound quickly. 

The small one suddenly turns to Urahara, a sudden spike in their reiatsu appearing as a many-layered voice cries out inside his head.

Help them! Help Hollow! It begs. Sibling in pain! Help them!

Tessai is the first to arrive, pausing at the scene, partially out of the mass amount of reiatsu

“This little creature wants me to help their sibling.” Urahara says. “Although I’m unsure how.”

Tessai nods, looking the tall one up and down. Then Ichigo arrives, and the small creature’s reiatsu flares more, and everyone takes a few seconds to get used to the sheer amount

Higher one! Help them! Help them!

Ichigo flinches, and Urahara tucks away what the little creature said for later. 

“Why can’t you help them?” He retorts. Of the three, Ichigo definitely was not the one to go to for healing.

The little one stills, like memories are coming back to them. 

Unifying Void. Killing Infection. Saving sibling. Can’t Focus. Can’t use SOUL. Help them! Help them! Higher being! Help them!!

Tessai steps forwards, going near the still-writhing tall creature. The small one watches with a dead look, although it’s hard to get much out of a full-head mask.

Help Hollow? Shell-less Shaman helps Hollow? Ghost thanks! Help them!

Tessai starts to heal the stump, which had started bleeding blackness. The small one’s thoughts continue to be impressed upon the trio, although Urahara’s almost positive they don’t know they’re doing it. Especially with how dark they start to get.

Green SOUL? Wandering Shaman? Higher being? Three higher beings. Danger to sibling? Kill them if danger. No Infection. Radiance dead. Squished. Hollow okay? Hornet okay? Lost sibling okay? King is dead. Kill mother. Shaman heal Infection? Where Shaman go?

More questions than answers, but the thoughts and immense amount reiatsu dissipate, leaving the two creatures. The tall one is sitting up now, looking around and analyzing their surroundings. The second one is signing, now where Urahara can see it.

Hollow! You okay? I killed the Radiance and now I’m here. Think she brought us here. They sign. Is she gone? Shell-less Shaman healed your stab wounds. How is your mask? Do you need a bench?

The tall one holds up their hand, signing the best they can with one arm. 

I am fine, sibling. Why do you call me Hollow? Is it a name? Have you bestowed me a name? What is your name, if you have one? It signs back, and the three shinigami (well, two shinigami and one part shinigami), watch in rising horror as the small one (Little Ghost, a name apparently given to them by their sister), is technically a god and a god killer, and a master of the nail, whatever that means.

Hollow does ask about the Nailsmith and the Nailmasters (what are with these names??), and Little Ghost talks about how Nailmaster Sheo now is a Paintmaster, happily with Nailsmith to make their own art and their own path. Hollow is not happy with how Little Ghost calls Sly a conniving bitch, though.

Once the catch-up is done, Hollow looks between Ichigo, Tessai, and Urahara.

You feel like Pale Being. They sign. Like Father and Mother (Little Ghost’s reiatsu screams hatred at the mention of their parents), like Radiance, like the Troupe Masters.

Little Ghost starts to flit at the mention of Troupe Masters, looking through a bag with fervor, but Urahara ignores them in favor of figuring out what is going on here.

“I don’t know what ‘pale being’ you speak of.” He starts. “But if they’re some kind of god, I can guarantee that we aren’t.”

Hollow seems to relax at that. Little Ghost sits down with a soft ‘thump’ and puts something on. Suddenly, there’s a chirp and a small creature that looks like it’s made of fire appears and nuzzles against Little Ghost. Hollow shifts at the creature.

Is that a... Hollow trails off.

Grimmchild! They sign excitedly before jumping and sprouting a pair of wings in pure joy. Didn’t think charms worked- You! They point towards Ichigo. Wield your nail!

They pull out what looks like some sort of sword, and things start to fall into place. Slowly.

Ichigo looks reluctant to fight this early in the morning, so Urahara gestures that he go back inside to sleep. He unsheathes Benihime, and Little Ghost lets him hit them.

Or so it seems because Urahara feels something go through his body, making his very soul quiver, and suddenly Little Ghost is behind him, and Tessai is looking increasingly concerned. 

“Urahara-dono, maybe we should do something.” He says, and Urahara almost agrees. Until he sees what Little Ghost is signing to Hollow.

You can be free, Hollow. They sign. Pale King isn’t here. You can feel things, you can finally cry and smile and not hide. You are free. Ghost emphasizes the last word, and in that moment Urahara knows he might just have to bring these two into the family.

[dragoler]

Embrace the Void - An Optimistic Outlook

This is a theory post about Hollow Knight and contains spoilers, so if you haven’t completed the game you should probably not read this post. This was originally posted to Reddit but i’m putting a copy here too. It is my belief that the Embrace the Void ending does not spell doom for Hallownest as is often believed, and here I want to present the evidence as to why. Much of this information will be common knowledge, but I've included it to support my greater point.

Firstly I want to establish that the Shade Lord (or Bill if you're so inclined) is indeed the Knight and not a dormant god or amalgamation. The ancient civilization that predates Hallownest is said to have worshiped no god, instead worshiping the void itself, taken from Lemm's comments on the Void Idol:

Inspired or mad, those ancient bugs. They devoted their worship to no lord, or power, or strength, but to the very darkness itself.

Lemm is not the most reliable of source, but this is supported by the Abyss statue that holds the void bowl when the Knight dream nails it before acquiring the Void Heart:

...Void... Power... Without unity...

Void here is considered a power, but without unity void becomes nothing more than a writhing pool of liquid with some very interesting properties. Now, I have seen it argued that void has a mind of it's own due to some of these properties, but the game actively tells us that it does not. The original description for the Hall of Gods reward statue depicting the Embrace the Void form used to read ‘Void Given Mind’, but ‘Mind’ was quickly changed to ‘Focus’ in a patch. This makes it clear that Team Cherry wants to avoid the association of void having a mind, at least when it comes to an ‘untarnished’ entity. So what causes that weird mind-like behavior? Well, lets talk about what it naturally does first. Void is naturally adverse to light, this is evidenced by a lore tablet found in the king's void workshop:

VOID, yours is the power opposed.

The king is a being of light, so it makes sense for him to consider it opposed to him. It is also evidenced by the lighthouse in the Abyss being used to suppress the void sea, preventing it from lashing out. Void also consumes soul, evidenced by the apparent need for the lighthouse keeper to be kept supplied with the stuff (though most bugs cannot utilize it for spells, if a bug were to become low on soul this may be a way to top up without the use of a hot spring), but also naturally shown by the Knight's capabilities (this could also be attributed to their status as a higher being) and how the shade cloak consumes soul projectiles that pass through it. The soul totems built by the civilization who worshiped the void are another possible avenue of evidence, they were likely constructed from void in its solid form and are used to contain soul. As soul is said to be found in the air, it's possible these totems would be able to extract it as well. From the Deep Focus charm description:

Naturally formed within a crystal over a long period. Draws in SOUL from the surrounding air.

Going back to the Abyss lighthouse, the strongest piece of evidence for the void having its own mind comes from the lighthouse keeper's dream nail dialogue:

...Turn it off?... Cannot...

My King. I'm sorry... The sea calls...

It is apparent that the void had exerted its will over this bug, but here I get into the most important property of void: void is impressionable. Void starts empty but it does not necessarily stay this way, the king used molds to shape void to his will for the creation of the kingsmoulds and wingmoulds, but it can do this organically as well. The most obvious example of this is the Hollow Knight who was "tarnished by an idea instilled", which is strongly hinted to be the bond formed between it and the king. A more extreme example of this exists in the Collector, a seemingly rogue, armourless kingsmould who for whatever reason spent a lot of time around another bug who imprinted upon it. Evidence for this comes from the dream nail dialogue of the husk you find the Love Key on:

Too long... spent together. We become as one...

This is all evidence for void being shaped by others, so what of the lighthouse keeper? Well, this bug was in the unfortunate situation of being right next to an ocean of the stuff. Husks found in proximity to void have void in their eyes, giving evidence that the void manages to get inside of them. Although usually it's just a small amount it is enough to kill them, and in this case, also influence them. Void is opposed to light - void vapor infiltrates the mind - void tells bug to turn the light off.

Okay that was a bit of a tangent but back on topic. After the Knight acquires the Void heart it gains control over the void. Shades no longer attack, tendrils no longer lash out and the Abyss statue changes its dream nail dialogue:

...Lord of Shades...

Furthermore, Bardoon has this to say:

Ohhhmmmm... Tiny thing... It evolves beyond that Wyrm. Such union in a single being. A strength before unseen. Would it too challenge nature? It could perhaps defeat it.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the Wyrm is a god, so if the Knight has truly evolved beyond the Wyrm, that should make it a god at this point as well. Gods in Hollow Knight are not very clear-cut from other bugs, they tend to be more powerful and longer lived, but still remain mortal and vulnerable to the ravages of time (at least when in the physical realm) and physical harm. The Godseekers in particular muddy the water on what can be considered a "god", but even without them there is a contrast in power between the higher beings. Despite not gaining any additional physical prowess, the Knight attaining godhood at this point, particularly as it was already the offspring of higher beings, would not be a far-fetched concept.

So if it is already a god, why did the Godseekers not notice? Because they weren't looking for it. The Godseekers attune through the dream realm by connecting to the minds of bugs, but the Knight is mindless. The Godseekers were only able to find the Hollow Knight because of the Radiance within:

O Gods of Hallownest, graciously thee open the way to this greatest of Pantheons! Thy voices grow closer and thy resonance draws Us ever higher!

Pray will We, Attune will We, until that spark of divine light shines from the deepest darkness!

And still they fear it for its silence:

O bound one, thy silence nearly deafens Us. Foolishly we feared thee, yet only by thine providence shall We find the one We seek. The God sleeping within...

Which is their deepest fear of all, taken from the tuner memory dream nail dialogue:

What gods, to save Us of Our silent mind?

So where am I going with this? Well if the Knight was already a god, then why should its behavior change so dramatically just because it gained a bigger, scarier form? I want to bring attention now to the Dream No More ending. The start of the cutscene that plays during this ending is very similar to the void breaking out of the Godseeker during the Embrace the Void ending, but here it comes from the Black Egg instead. If the scene had cut before showing the void dripping down from the lanterns then anyone would be forgiven for fearing the worst, but it doesn't. After the Black Egg dissolves into void, we see a pool of void disappear from around Hornet, then Hornet wakes up alive and unscathed. Why doesn't it consume her? Because the Knight is in control of it. Later, we see the siblings in the Abyss peacefully returning to their rest, giving us a bitter-sweet ending.

Now to add onto this i'm going to start analyzing the Knight's character. Not much direct characterization is given besides ‘it is empty’, and obviously everyone's Knight is going to act differently depending on how it is played, but there is characterization that can be inferred. Firstly, from what the Knight does regardless of what we want it to do. The Knight always slows to a walk when around Dirtmouth, NPCs and certain sites of significance, I interpret this as it being respectful (interestingly it also slows down around the Radiance statue at the top of Hallownest's Crown, so it seems to understand the religious significance of the site even though it is opposed to the deity). Also in this category are the endings, one of which I've already gone into and i'll get to Embrace the Void and Delicate Flower later. Next would be actions the player can chose to perform, and most players will for gameplay reasons. These include saving Sly, saving Bretta, freeing the grubs and placing the Grey Mourner's delicate flower on her dead lover's grave site. Lastly are choices you get that you don't have to follow and there is no benefit to doing so, these would include giving flowers to other NPCs and sitting beside Quirrel at the Blue Lake, and Marissa at the Pleasure House. The Knight is also a rather aggressive character, but with a few exceptions it only attacks creatures who are infected or insane. The exceptions to this would be if it is attacked first (Hornet, Dung Defender) if it challenges a boss to combat (Mantis Lords), is requested to attack (Nailsmith), it enters a non-lethal dream fight, or the one being attacked really deserved it (Millibelle).

The Knight is not incapable of performing bad actions however. It can leave Zote to die to the Vengefly King (though it cannot kill Zote actively), it can cause Hornet to be trapped with it inside the Black Egg, it can dream nail away passive ghosts and the worst crime of all - it can murder Menderbug! On balance however, the Knight is a generally benevolent character.

I think it's time to address the Vessels in the room, literally - the cutscene you see after completing the Pantheon of the Knight for the first time. This one is strange, it depicts the siblings as though they are alive alongside the Knight and young Hollow Knight before an exchange occurs - the Radiance roars, her light is revealed above, and then the void rises up to meet her. What is odd about this scene is that the Knight can see it without having the Void Heart, but I think I have an explanation for it. When the Knight defeats the Pure Vessel for the first time it becomes attuned with it, by proxy of relation this attunes it with the minds of its other siblings as well. in Godhome, characters attuned within the dream are represented in living form unless they become "gods" while dead, such as the dream warriors and various animated husk bosses. The Knight seeing the siblings together, followed by the void rising up to pursue the Radiance is an indication that they all share a common desire to snuff her out, even when the Knight doesn't have control over them. This can be taken as evidence that the shades are a part of the Shade Lord but I do not think this is the case. As mentioned above, characters attuned to the Godhome enter in best form and none of these siblings are attuned as shades, so they show up in Vessel form (The Hollow Knight presumably shows up in this second form only due to the Knight's attunement with it). Furthermore, no shades show up to assist the Knight in defeating the Radiance at the peak of the Pantheon of Hallownest, meaning the Shade Lord could only be composed of the Knight and the raw void you see rising up during the fight.

So now for the Embrace the Void ending itself. Upon defeating the Radiance we see the Shade Lord descend from above and wrap the Godseeker up in void tendrils, then the scene cuts to her physical body leaking void before the void bursts out of her violently. We cannot know exactly what the entity was doing here, but it's likely that embracing the Godseeker was a means for it to escape into the physical world. The Godseeker does not seem to be afraid of the Shade Lord but rather in awe of it, and there is evidence that despite how devastating its emergence appears, like with Hornet, she survived the ordeal:

Punish this shell, o God of Gods! Blast Our frail, worthless form to ash. We welcome thine fury! Desire beyond desire!

This dialogue is taken from the Godseeker game mode which is set after the Embrace the Void ending, she also thinks this in dream nail dialogue:

We bequeath our all. Our shell. Our mind. We are naught but vassal before thee, o glorious God of Gods!

The Godseekers are a collective hive-mind contained within the body of a single individual. The Godseeker you interact with in Godhome is the lead Godseeker and her shell is her own, so when she refers to ‘Our’ shell she is almost certainly referring to the physical shell they all share. Unless the Godseekers have lost all touch with reality and now only exist within the dream, this indicates that they still have a living body. Although their attitude towards the Knight has shifted... dramatically, they still appear to be perfectly aware of everything that is happening.

After the above mentioned scene we see Hornet watching the infection wither from the Black Egg temple, and then she is startled by the emergence of the Hollow Knight, now free from it's restraints. The Hollow Knight being alive as its own entity serves as further evidence that the Shade Lord is not composed of the siblings shown in the Pantheon of the Knight cutscene, as the young Hollow Knight was a part of that. At the end of this scene, the player gains the Embrace the Void achievement which has the description ‘Ascend the Pantheon of Hallownest and take your place at its peak’. Your place, it is the Knight specifically who is at the peak.

Possible counter points:

You cannot leave Godhome in Godseeker mode, which could be taken as evidence that Hallownest was destroyed. The Knight's physical form has been irreversibly altered, however just like Godseeker their dream form can be different, so they can only exist as the Knight within the dream world now.

Why did the Embrace the Void ending cut away from Godseeker when it did if not to imply something terrible happening? Dramatic effect, uncertainty, possibly you are meant to draw parallels with the Dream No More ending yourself. I'm only here to shed doubt on the Shade Lord being a malevolent entity, not to definitely state that nothing bad will happen.

Why can the Knight bring the Godseeker a delicate flower if not to protect Hallownest from what would emerge? The Knight doesn't know anything about the delicate flowers, as mentioned in dialogue from the White Lady:

There is rare power hidden in those frail petals.

To hold it so close, one must surely be unaware of its nature...

It is my belief that up until this point the Knight had been protected from the flower's power by its ‘holy shell’ born from the White Lady and Pale King. Upon shedding this shell and becoming one with the void, the flower reacts by banishing the Shade Lord along with the Godseeker who still harbors it.

What about the roar of the Shade Lord we hear in the scene after the Pantheon of the Knight? If it hadn't been pointed out to me that this was a roar and not just the noise of the void rising up I wouldn't have even noticed honestly. You have to take information found in the game files with a grain of salt, this can be foreshadowing or the ‘voice’ of void even when not united, though void having a ‘voice’ at all is a rather contradictory idea...

So in conclusion, given what we can extrapolate about the Shade Lord and the nature of the player character, I don't think there is good enough evidence for it to become a malevolent entity within Hallownest. Thank you for reading and please tell me if I've missed anything!

Tl;DR: Bill is the Knight, Bill is a cool guy, please don't be scared of Bill.

[angeliccynthious]

 ahh people seem to like this AU idea of mine, and for that I am happy hhh so,, why not-- whilst I have the time-- write out a bit more about it? sure. Those who seem to be dead, but are alive: Quirrel, Tiso, PK, Radi, Ze’mer uhh..Isma.. Okay okay time for explanation. Some of these have certain ships tied into them I’m so sorry I just am a shippy person hnggg -For Quirrel, the thing is, he did try to drown himself- but Hornet just loves stalking her younger sibling for some reason so she watched as Ghost sat with him, and left him, and she continued watching ghost when she heard a splash. Hornet knows somethings wrong, and she goes out of hiding just to pull this sorry fucker out of the water. Basically basically- the two talk for a while- recognize each other (Even with Quirrel’s limited memory of his past that he may slowly regain overtime),,, and she urges him to go to the archives to help Hallownest when it is time to rebuild it. (she also threatens him, Hornet what the hell) Either way, good boy obliges and heads off back to the archives, without his nail. Boy what are you doing? He gets there though, just takes a good ol rest too. -I don’t have a lot on Tiso, but I too know his sorry ass is gonna get saved by somebody. -PK and Radi get yeeted back to life by the power of Ghosts bullshit. Radiance takes the form of a somewhat normal moth, but, she still has her identifying features. She takes residence where Seer may live/may used to live (idk if I want her sorta.. dead in this. I love moth grandma but I really dunno). PK finds himself outside where the white palace once was and eventually is found by Hornet, Ghost, and of course good ol Grimmchild. - Ze’mer. It’s simple, Ghost doesn’t do the flower quest and Ogrim sort of.. lures her out of her home and the two catch up. Good buddies, since they are certainly TOTALLY the two remaining knights. -ISMA-- she is a special case here since..well.. in canon.. its-- its basically clear shes sorta most likely kinda dead. But no, I refuse to believe that- I shall let Ogrim have his plant gf back. It was a thought in my head for a bit, but also reading this certain fanfic amplified the idea, what if Isma was just dormant, in some sort of.. plant stasis. God I can reach the depths of my mind to remember if there is a word for this so correct me if I am wrong here. Either way, she’s done this in order to keep herself alive throughout the infection in a sense, and.. she.. she didn’t even tell Ogrim she could do this. In a good chunk of time since probably Ghost and Grimmchild grew, Isma finally breaks free from her own little stasis, utterly confused of what is going on in the world now. You see, plant lady doesn’t realize that the infection has long been over and gone. Ogrim is just sort of.. watching over these two chaotic bastards and just talking to them and being best boy when SUDDENLY- Isma. Isma shows up, not seeing Ogrim, thinking Ghost an infected bug. She gonna at t a c k A reunion ensues afterwards :> perhaps some good crying and some good huggos, god Ogrim has been lonely.Q

[cotillion-the-rope]

Not Hollow Chapter One: The Hollow Knight

A while ago now I had the idea for a fic along these lines that centered around Ghost and a silently older Grimmchild but unfortunately it failed, I just couldn't make it work. But then I had the idea to repurpose the general idea and have it centered around Hornet instead and so far it's working well. I should maybe finish this fic before I start to upload it to make sure but I'm getting impatient in part because I really like most of what I have so far *and* starting to put it up now should help give me the drive to finish it. So here we are. :)

Ghost stepped away from the now empty plinth that had once had Herrah laying atop it. She’d been the final Dreamer; the Black Egg should be open now. They could go do what they’d been called to do now which was… they still weren’t sure but it was important, vitally so.

There was more in Hallownest to explore and see, more lost memories to recover. But could they really afford to put off their quest any longer? They’d already spent so much time dilly-dallying around doing other things. And the longer they put it off the more they’d fear going because… once they went in, they would never come out, or so their instincts told them. Perhaps it was just a dumb fear but probably not. So, they should just go and get it over with already. … And yet their feet remained seemingly rooted to the ground.

Grimmchild let out a chirp behind, lightly headbutting the back of their head. They turned to look up at him. Before going into the Black Egg they’d have to figure out what to do with him, they couldn’t bring him in with them, it wouldn’t be fair. So… there was at least one more thing to do before facing their destiny. With that, they were able to take a step again.

 -

They searched far and wide but alas Hornet was nowhere to be found. Neither was Quirrel, he’d left his nail by the Blue Lake, which didn’t bode well but didn’t have to mean anything, did it? Maybe the Elderbug or Cornifer and Iselda would be willing to take on Grimmchild? … Probably not though, right? Elderbug lived too stationary a lifestyle and the mapmakers didn’t seem the type to be interested in kids, else they’d have their own, right? Which left no one who could care for Grimmchild.

He’d probably be okay on his own though, right? He could certainly defend himself and hunt for food. Ghost had already wasted enough time, they needed to stop making excuses and just do it before the Infection got any worse than it already was. … And before their fear grew too much and they began feeling tempted to flee from their responsibility.

Upon returning to the Black Egg Temple, Ghost took off Grimmchild’s charm and placed it on the ground just outside. They’d left him in places a few times before, never for long though. So, pretending this was just another one of those times, they gave him a quick pat on the head as he settled to rest on the floor before stepping into the Temple. A proper ‘goodbye’ would’ve been nice but… it was probably easier on both them this way anyway.

Inside, they strode right up to the Egg and let themself in through the now unsealed door. It was dark and cold inside, almost comforting as they made their way deeper and deeper in. Eventually they reached another room.

Chains suspended from the ceiling and anchored to the ground, wrapping around a figure suspended in the middle. A… familiar figure! Ghost had known them in their past life before the chains and cracked mask, before the orange of Infection filled their eyes. Ghost was here to save them, that’s what they’d been called to do.

They drew their nail and swung at the nearest chain anchor. With a few more strong hits, it broke with a loud clang that seemed to fill the empty air before dying out all at once. Ghost moved on to the next one, the figure in the middle… their sibling, tracking their movement with their head. How aware were they? Did they know Ghost was here to save them? … Were they suffering?

No answers were forthcoming as Ghost broke their chains. With the final one cut, they fell to the floor with a loud clatter. They lay there for a few seconds as if stunned or in too much pain to move. But then… they reached up and grabbed their nail, using it to help them stand.

The battle cry they released was… not right. It wasn’t their voice; they didn’t even have one. They swung at Ghost, their form good but subtly off… they’d been chained up for a long time and their arm was missing. This wouldn’t be a difficult fight.

It quickly proved to be an easy fight actually. Until… they started stabbing themself anyway. How could Ghost fight them when they were doing that? It was… too much to bear and yet they couldn’t look away.

Finally, at last they stopped and the battle resumed, more frantic than before. The root of the Infection used their body as if it were nothing but a lifeless doll for it to play with. It was time to stop this.

Ghost was careful not to kill their sibling which drew the fight and their suffering out longer but… it was better than them dying. Everything Ghost had done would be for naught if they died. It was hard but it eventually paid off.

Defeated but not dead, their siblings fell forward, their nail falling from their hand with a clatter. Void leaked out of them from numerous wounds, the most prominent of which was the one they’d inflicted upon themself. Thick orange mist leaked from the Infection boils that had taken their arm.

Instinctively, Ghost Focused, as if they were trying to repair and heal themself with soul. Instead of drawing in soul, they drew in the orange mist. It burned like fire but they persisted even when they were blinded by its burning light.

It would be fine. They’d saved their sibling. That had been their goal all along, they just hadn’t known it. So, it was worth it.

***

Hollow woke to pain and an empty head. … Empty of the Radiance anyway. Their thoughts and emotions were still there, the reason for their failing.

They were lying on the floor of the Black Egg. … How had they gotten there? Why was the Radiance gone? This wasn’t right.

Every movement hurt but they looked up anyway and… flinched. Their sibling was suspended in chains above them. … Hollow’s memories were hazy but they’d battled Hollow and took on the Radiance for themself. They weren’t hollow though, none of the vessels were or ever could be. And if they were, they wouldn’t have gone so far out of their way to not kill Hollow. Meaning they were suffering and would fail just like Hollow had. And… it was Hollow’s fault; if they hadn’t failed, this wouldn’t have been necessary.

Looking away in shame, Hollow reached for their nail laying a short distance in front of them. They used to help themself stand but only got halfway up before collapsing again. The void in the Black Egg had partially healed their wounds but not fully yet and thus they still hurt and leaked void.

Given enough time, they’d probably heal fully – except for the crack in their mask and missing arm, those seemed pretty permanent – but…  Hollow needed out of here. They couldn’t bear to look at the result of their failure when there was nothing they could do about it. And just the room in general was awful, they never wanted to see it again. They needed out!

So again, they used their nail to try to stand. But once more, an intense flash of pain in their abdomen where they dimly remembered stabbing themself in a vain attempt to stop the Radiance sent them back to the floor. Well in that case, they’d just crawl out. It was better than lying here beneath their chained sibling.

With only one arm and refusing to let go of their nail – it was the only thing they had – made it slow going and it hurt. They kept going though, not letting themself rest for too long lest they never move again. It took an age but they eventually dragged themself back into light, out of the Egg.

A distressed mewling and the sound of wings flapping drew their gaze upwards as a baby moth fluttered down to investigate. It settled on the ground in front of them, first to sniff at their nail and arm and then their face; a curious but harmless creature. Hollow let go of their nail and rolled onto their side a bit to lift their hand and lightly touch its head. It was warm and didn’t seem to mind, even pressing into their hand a little. How long had it been since Hollow had last touched another being? … It was impossible to even guess. So free of their prison but not their failure and too exhausted to go further for now, they lay there and let themself pet the baby moth.

***

Hornet watched as Ghost stepped away from the plinth where they stopped. Why though? They had stuff to do, didn’t they? Hornet wanted her moment to grieve without them there. And yet they didn’t take another step even as time went by.

She was preparing to jump out there and ask them what the heck they thought they were doing when Grimmchild bumped the back of their head. Finally, they moved, turning their head to look at him. After a second or two, they started walking again. Odd but… it didn’t mean anything.

As soon as they were gone, Hornet left her hiding spot. Herrah’s body was gone, dissipated into essence but Hornet settled by the plinth anyway, resting her back against it like she��d done so many times before.

She should say something, right? This was the only funeral her mother would get but… what could she say? She’d let it happen, watched it even, because what else could she do? Letting the vessel take the Hollow Knight’s place wasn’t ideal but what other way could the Infection be stopped? … If Ghost wasn’t hollow though it would only be putting it on hold again. …

They… no it, had to be though… right? Even if there were times that that didn’t seem to be the case like when it had stood still for so long after killing Herrah. It had to be hollow because otherwise Hornet was letting her sibling go off and… suffer basically for who even knew how long where they’d eventually crack too and the Infection would return again anyway. So… it was hollow and would contain the Radiance indefinitely.

[Sometime later]

The husks were empty and still once more and the Infection pustules that had taken over the Crossroads were dull and deflating, eventually they’d break apart into nothing. Ghost had done its duty, it was housing the Radiance now. Things were fixed… for now.

She really shouldn’t but… Hornet found herself headed to the Black Egg temple anyway. Just outside the door leading in was… a charm? She bent down to pick it up, giving it a better look. It had a likeness of Grimmchild’s face on it so presumably it had something to do with him. He didn’t seem to be here though so… Still holding it for now, she stepped into the Temple itself and froze.

The Hollow Knight lay on the ground just outside the Egg. It… they were leaking void from multiple wounds one of which was a crack on their mask. They appeared to only have one arm which they were using to pet Grimmchild. Both of them looked up at her gasp.

Grimmchild pushed himself off the ground and into the air. He mewled and chirped, flying in a little circle, clearly distressed about something. Ghost’s disappearance no doubt. Hollow just stared at her, silent and unmoving. Seeing them reduced to such a state after how strong they’d been last Hornet had seen them so, so long ago was… jarring.

She stared at them for a second or two before forcing herself back into action. She pinned the charm to her dress before approaching to crouch down beside Hollow, their head moving to follow her movements.

Hating that she had to do it but having no other choice, she carefully rolled them over to get a better look at their wounds. Their whole body went rigid, a clear sign of intense pain that they could never voice but they didn’t fight her and relaxed once they were lying flat again. … Thankfully though bad, their wounds weren’t immediately life-threatening so there was no need to worry too much yet. Their wounds did need attention as soon as possible though.

“There’s a hot spring not too far from here, can you stand?” she asked, hoping they could otherwise she’d have to…

They shook their head.

Welp that meant she’d have to help them get there but first… “Grimmchild, hush, it’s okay.” She tried to keep her voice calm and level because neither he nor Hollow needed her anger right now. But she needed Grimmchild to stop mewling and chirping and flying around in circles like it was the end of the world. “Your companion is fine.” A lie, a horrible, horrible lie. She should explain to him that it was hollow and thus just fulfilling the reason it was created and therefore there was no reason to worry or be upset because it didn’t even have feelings but she didn’t have time to right now. “So just… come with me and Hollow for now, okay? I even have your charm.” She wasn’t a babysitter but she couldn’t just leave him all alone just like she couldn’t leave Hollow all alone even if they weren’t injured.

Grimmchild chirped a bit more, sounding a bit unsure but she might’ve just been reading into the sound a bit too much – how intelligent was he right now really? But he did calm down, settling down to hover behind her shoulder like he’d done with Ghost.

With that handled, she turned back to Hollow. “This is going to be unpleasant but we have to do it, okay? And you have to help as much as you can, I can’t carry you, you’re too tall.” She should’ve been big and tall too but no she just had to take after the Pale King in that realm; one reason among many to hate his guts.

They nodded, a small motion but firm; they were as ready as they’d ever be.

With her guidance, they used their nail to help raise themself partially off the ground. Enough that when their legs inevitably buckled, they fell with their arm around her shoulders. Thankfully they weren’t too heavy, making it fairly easy for her to support their weight. What the raw void leaking from them might do to her or her dress she wasn’t sure and now wasn’t the time to worry about it.

With Hollow being half dragged, half walking on their knees the going was slow. And the fact they refused to let go of their nail made it a bit harder but she wasn’t going to begrudge them that, she’d probably have done the same with her needle. But after what had to be a rather torturous hour or so for Hollow, they did make it.

Hornet had never been more grateful to see a hot spring. She helped lower Hollow in before sliding in next to them. She’d deal with her dress getting wet later, hot spring water dried quickly anyway so it’d be fine. Grimmchild hopped in too, making a splash she might’ve been annoyed by if it wasn’t for how exhausted she was mentally and physically.

 -

A nudge woke her from a doze; she hadn’t even realized she’d fallen asleep. Shaking the last of it off – or at least as much as she could anyway, she could still easily fall asleep in this warmth – she looked up at Hollow. They were looking back at her, their gaze empty but somehow intense too. … Or maybe that was just her imagination and guilt making it seem that way.

“Do you need something?” She hadn’t intended to snap at them but it was too late to take it back now.

They looked away. Offended or indifferent? There was no way for her to know or even begin to guess.

She did a quick glance around for Grimmchild because he was no longer in the pool. He was on the edge of it, his wings wrapped around himself as he slept. Looks like she wasn’t the only one in need of a nap. “How do you feel?” she asked, turning to look at Hollow again. “Or uh… are your wounds doing better?” Because it was easier for them to answer yes or no questions.

They nodded. The crack on their mask was still there which was a bit worrying but it was no longer leaking void. Their arm was still gone too, though the spring being able to heal that had been a long shot anyway.

“Good, stand up so I can see.” She stood up too, getting out of the pool before she started drifting off again.

Hollow obeyed, standing up with ease, a good sign for sure. And their wounds were healed, wonderful. But at full height, they hunched forward… not in a way that seemed to indicate pain or discomfort though. They just weren’t holding themself proud and tall anymore. So even though they were physically healed, mentally they weren’t and alas there was no magic cure for the psychological damaged they’d suffered.

“Looking good,” she said in her best encouraging voice. It wasn’t one she used often though and sounded rather insincere. With a sigh, she bent down to scoop Grimmchild up into her arms. He made a soft chirp ad shifted a bit but otherwise didn’t stir. “Now let’s find a place to sleep.” Did the vessels sleep? Surely they did, right? Ghost had a way to entering the Dream Realm after all. Did that count as sleeping though?

Hollow didn’t respond but followed her when she left, dragging their nail behind them.

Normally, Hornet would’ve just found a small hole to hide herself in while she slept. But while she could easily hide Grimmchild the same way, Hollow would be far too difficult. Not that they needed to hide anymore but it was the principle of the matter and it was better safe than sorry. Besides after how long Hollow had spent in chains, they deserved a comfortable place to rest regardless of whether or not they were capable of sleeping. So she started towards Dirtmouth. There were plenty of perfectly good empty houses up there and Elderbug should have no reason to care if the three of them stayed in one for a bit.

[the-world-of-enterra]

A height comparison UPDATED!!! Some characters not shown before are shown now! From left to right Row 1 Dhevarru, Amara, King Zarkhan, Asterri, Kavuta, Vaesa, Vermelle, Khula, Hornet, Kiolos (Hollow), Aloka (Ghost), Vhearin (Grimmchild grown up), Meyrin (Not introduced yet!), Daemarus, Azmodeus (The Nightmare King), Grimm, Vherra. Row 2 Unnamed smol vessel for height, Anatha, Ventu, Rhava, Zherim *(In front of Ventu and Rhava), Mezra, Kuvela (In front of Mezra), Morri, Maya, Karasa, Valka, Jaedys, Ferus, Rhosyn (In front of Ferus), Erevoss, Zolnir Jr (In front of Erevoss), Drovus, Elaena, Malo, Lalia

Dhevarru - A higher being… sort of? He pissed off a bunch of Astrans and got cursed. He can not die. He is easily as indestructible as Deadpool, and just as vulgar. And just as much of a jerk. He likes mortal bugs, and tends to defend them.

Queen Amara - King Zarkhan’s wife, married for political reasons. The tyrant king, however, seems legitimately fond of her and is quite protective. She is a species that resembles Earth’s orchid mantis. She is tough and strong. She has a good heart and is unaware of the Shadowed King’s actions behind closed doors.

King Zarkhan - The Shadowed King. Also known as Blackwyrm. A true tyrant, he runs his kingdom with an iron fist, and only grew stronger while Hallownest was in its long stasis.

Asterri - Zarkhan’s sister. A leader of the Rebellion against her tyrannical brother, mated to Karasa, a rather good natured and goofy Warbred.

Kavuta - The former Pale King, dead and reborn.

Vaesa - The Radiance, Reborn.

Vermelle - Owns a small curio shop in a small town about a day’s walk from Hallownest. Rather awkward and shy at times, but very kind-hearted.

Khula - A curious little Vhessen, always running about and exploring.

Saersa - Also known as Hornet. She is not askable.

Kiolos - The Hollow Knight.

Aloka - Little Ghost

Vhearin - Aloka’s Grimmchild companion, all grown up. Vhearin is absolutely full of energy and known to run around like a cat with a case the 3 o’ Clock Zoomies.

Meyrin - A Dreameater that was from a failed ritual, he managed to survive even though Azmodeus, trapped in the Nightmare Realm, didn’t know. Meyrin will be introduced soon!

Daemarus - The Kind King, the Father of the Lost. A kind and gentle Dravhokonus with a heart of gold, ruling a vast kingdom that is quite successful. he’s diplomatic, takes good care of his citizens, and has many safe trade routes with surrounding kingdoms.

Nightmare King Azmodeus - An Astran, creator of the Dreameaters. He is sealed in the Nightmare Realm. While many mistake him as an evil being, Azmodeus is actually very beneficial, and helps keep the world safe from a mysterious being known as The Desolate One.

Grimm - The oldest Dreameater, infused with the Astran’s blood so he wouldn’t age to death. He was the last of his kinduntil Azmodeus was able to figure out a ritual to give him the energy to summon a second Dreameater. There are rumors that there may be a third living Dreameater out there somewhere, but not much is known about this. This new Dreameater, born in Hallownest and left there to grow, is named Vhearin.

Vherra - Often found in the collisseum. He is angry and bitter.

Anatha - Brain damaged, she doesn’t talk much. She is not from Hallownest, and seems to have come from outside around the time the Infection broke out. Nobody knows where she came from, and now, not even she has any memory of it. Oddly, she seems to have the ability to turn into a huge beast. She injured Vaesa in this state, as she saw the moth for who she once was and became afraid, since the Radiance’s infection nearly killed her.

Zherim - Tiny, Angry, but has a good heart. Zherim is often seen with Anatha.

Ventu and Rhava - Zherim’s two babies. They are little nymphs in blog, sired by Mezra.

Kuvela - Small, often fed up with Mezra’s crap.. But he cares deeply for his mate. He knows that Mezra mated with Zherim, and does not mind.

Mezra - Kuvela’s mate. Tall, kind of an idiot. Sweet.

Maya and Morri - The children of Kuvela and Mezra, they are tiny nymphs. Little babies often seen with their parents.

Karasa - A Warbred. Mate of Asterri. Has a great sense of humor.

Valka - A massive Warbred, recently running away from Zarkhan’s kingdom.

Jaedys - A perfect soldier, she was selected for breeding, and during this time several nymphs were born to her and taken away for training. She has since left Zarkhan’s kingdom, and has been wandering. She went through a heat after escaping the Shadowed Kingdom, and seems to have retained from her last coupling with Valka; and a small nymph named Chirp was born.

Ferus - Raised like a wild animal for the purpose of breeding and producing more Warbred, Ferus managed to get away when the Shadowed King tried to take one of his nymphs. He’d taken all his others, and the big Warbred had enough. Attacking the king, he managed to bite his staff in half and ran away with his nymph. Unfortunately, the two got separated, but the big Feral is now living in freedom, often seen with a normal Vhessen named Rhosyn, who is blind.

Rhosyn - Often seen with a strange Warbred named Ferus (Not pictured in this height comparison), she is blind.

Erevoss and Zolnir - Came into Hallownest from the Outside, raised his son in the safety of the kingdom for a time, just outside of the Radiance’s influence. Once the Radiance’s infection was gone, he moved deeper in.

Drovus, Elaena, Lalia and Malo - They have their own descriptions. They are a family. Drovus, Elaena and Lalia are in a poly relationship, Malo being their little baby. (He is pictured as an adult here, though in blog he is a baby)