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cloudyswritings · 1 year ago

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Yes… I am the silksong now!!

My thoughts and headcanons on Hornet. I’ll be real I’ve kinda been ignoring her because I’m terrified of having to tag silksong headcanons, I’ve seen the fucking Reddit. Anyway, enjoy my ramblings.

So I think that a Hornet qualifies as a pale being, she was born to one and has a pale mask of one. More than that she qualifies for being in godhome(a low bar ik, looking at you vengefly king).

She isn’t really a god per-se but definitely is a higher being on par or stronger than the great knights.

She obviously considers herself a spider but overall she inherited very little from Herrah.

Id say she only really got the fangs and dietary needs

Shes absolutely an obligate carnivore, so don’t expect her to be eating plant matter of any type. She does the whole inject her meal with venom to dissolve it and slurp it up deal

this is mostly because even though she’s got the full Wyrms arsenal of teeth and a Wyrms digestive tract her mouth is very small and she only has pedipalps and fangs externally. This means it’s very hard for her to eat any solid food/get it down to where her throat teeth can break it down

So interestingly her body color in combination with the vessels may actually tell us more about the pale kings- see both she and the vessels have black chitin suggesting it may be inherited from the king.

She also has both her fathers number of eyes and limbs, something that infuriates her deeply.

I don’t feel that the hornet we see in canon is her final molt, mostly because it seems like the sealing of THK functionally stopped time in Hallownest. I imagine once they’re free and the Radiance is dead she’ll probably undergo one last molt.

I think her missing limbs(she has 4 that we know of meaning she’d have 4 more as a spider) will actually end up growing into wings with said molt.

She also inherited her aptitude for mechanical stuff from the king. It seems like she makes all of her own stuff. Plus the crafting system and buzz saws in silksong support this.

She likes buzzsaws

I imagine if we could get a better look at the light she casts it’d be a lot like her fathers. She’d be a pale red light that falls far and deep but bears only a subtle influence on the world, like the strumming of gossamer threads.

Shes set down threads all over Hallownest, allowing her to keep track of a ton of things at once by feeling vibrations

She does have spineretes but uses soul to supplement and extend the amount of thread she can make.

She actually really likes the white lady, mostly because of good childhood memories from visiting the palace. She was the cool mom for a while. She’s more conflicted in regards to her towards the events of the game though.

Her favorite food is probably primal aspids, but she’s got a huge soft spot for honey because of her time in the hive. She also likes soups because they’re easier for her to eat(esp the ones Ghost makes)

She has very good eyesight from Herrah, but also has face blindness that she inherited from the king. She makes do, but mostly relies on clothing, scent, and body language to identify people.

As a grub she was the only one of her brood to survive, she was part of a large brood and likely spent her earliest days in a broodsack(that’s just how spiders do shit) but ate all of her potential siblings before hatching-she doesn’t know it but this is a wyrm instinct and her father did exactly the same thing.

She’d absolutely hate that if she found out.

She suspects but isn’t sure about why she’s territorial. Unsurprisingly it’s once again a wyrm thing

Her threads are far stronger and more durable than even those produced by the best weavers, in fact some of her silk may have been used for THKs seals- she probably doesn’t remember this cause she was too young.

Is mad she inherited the kings height. Honestly she’s mad about everything she inherited from him.

She doesn’t know it but she’s fairly resistant to void, especially for someone half mortal.

Sleeps in a giant mess of quilts, pilows, and silk. It’s held slightly off the ground. This is sorta a halfway point between a Wyrms nest and the silk hammocks of the weavers.

Shes a very fidgety and light sleeper, and realistically needs far less sleep than most beings.

Her venom is ridiculously potent, like to the point of being almost unanimously fatal to mortals and weaker higher beings. It would honestly still do a lot of damage to gods too. It’s a symptom of hybrid vigor, wherein the hybrid offspring of two species tends to be stronger, larger, and overall more genetically resilient than either parent.

Hybrids also tend to be sterile.

Hornet probably couldn’t have children if she wasn’t a higher being, even then I’m not really sure she could tbh.

Given enough time and soul she could pull a metamorphosis like her father did, though she doesn’t know how.

What she’d emerge as is unclear, but she’d likely either become a spider goddess in truth. Or even more likely she’d fully become a wyrm and abandon the mortal parts Herrah gave her.

For obvious reasons she won’t do this.

Her favorite color is a toss up between red and purple.

She weaves clothing for her siblings semi-regularly. Kinda gets frustrated at how often Ghost ruins their thought. They’re rough on clothing ig.

She didn’t inherit her fathers ability to burrow, but some of the instincts remain. She’s very frustrated at this.

She’s kinda bad at rembering names too, she gets embarrassed by this and it’s part of why she doesn’t stay anywhere long enough to get to know the bugs there.

Has a charm that was created from Herrahs regrets. It doesn’t do anything but give off the faint sense of a clawed hand on her shoulders and the faint whispers of the lullaby Herrah used to sing to her.

it’s still her single most prized possession

Her needles is a close second and was made of pale ore taken directly from the Pale Wyrms corpse. It’s the one thing her father gave her she loves.

he gave it to her as a gift for her being given a name. He likely used his foresight to figure out how large she’d be as an adult and made it in anticipation of that.

She can go an exceedingly long time without a meal. This was super helpful during the infection when uninflected prey was rare at best.

With age she is becoming more and more powerful as a higher being and will likely eventually become a goddess proper.

She has the lifespan of a Wyrm but doesn’t really know it yet and chalks her remarkable age up to the blurring of time during the infection. Despite this she’s still a child by wyrm standards and has many, many, many years left to live.

Most bugs are absolutely shocked to hear about her actual age.

Lace will be for sure, and she’ll probably live to regret threatening her.

Shes super fast, like almost impossible to track I’m combat at times, this is actually because of her use of both wind and soul magic along with the thread based spells of the weavers.

Her shell is covered with intricate and detailed carvings, this is essentially the weaver version of tattoos.

Im genuinely not too sure if her mask is actually her face like it is for the pale king or just a mask like for Herrah. I lean towards it being her face though.

The bell cult caught her while she was sleeping and that’s the only reseal they survived the encounter.

id say there’s probably a good chance of her ascending to godhood as a possible ending to silksong.

Doesnt really have a sense of humor but does find puns and dad jokes hilarious(they were the only jokes the pale king told when she was little)

Theorectically given enough prep time and motivation she could place webs all over the city of tears(or a similarly sized city) and pull all of the buildings down in one go.

She might also be able to do the whole puppeting corpses thing that happens in the beasts den.

She needs a certain amount of metal in her diet thanks to being part wyrm. It’s really hard for her to find in pieces small enough to fit into her mouth.

Some crack/non-serious headcanons

She’s absolutely a chain smoker on par with Grimm- you know why

When she says Shaw it’s because as a kid she couldn’t say saw, the king would be so damn proud.

She’d be so good at putting up Christmas lights. Like the best even.

secretly loves holidays, could pull of a mean Santa impression by just fucking hustling down peoples chimneys and stealing their cookies. She’d even have a big ass silk bag full of toys.

Maybe she does this for Hallownest once it’s built?

that’s it’s, this is how she ascends to godhood

Hornet is bug Santa.

#hk hornet #hk pale king #silksong #hollow knight #Hornet is bug santa #headcanon #Both cursed and not #speculative biology

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buglife · 4 years ago

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Ghost and Tiso? Maybe about how they became friends?

Depictions of injuries and some sad stuff ahead, but this the longest request to date! Apologies my eyes are bad lol.

Tiso didn’t know what to think when he first laid eyes on the little knight, sitting alone on the sole bench in Dirtmouth. They were one of the strangest beings he had ever saw, with their big white helmet-like head, their weird little nubby body, and the fact they had a nail. How could something this tiny hold a nail? It had to be someone’s lost grub, he was sure of it. There was no way this little squib wasn’t about to be ambushed by some angry parent, furious that they were carrying an actual nail. He waited a moment and looked around, but nobody came.

He supposed someone would come sooner or later, he had a mission after all. He had wandered the wastes since he came of age with just himself and his shield searching for some sort of purpose in life. Sure, he had over time, became a rather competent warrior, but he failed to find challenges that would actually test his mettle. Then, he heard tales of a lost Kingdom where many bugs have gone and never returned. Said Kingdom was rumored to have an arena where one could compete for glory. Tiso had already bested many arenas and moved on, ever searching. If there wasn’t an arena than he could at least look around and recount what he saw.

Maybe here, he’ll find himself, and find a measure of happiness.

His shield felt heavy as he sighed and looked at the well. The Elderbug, kind as could be, had warned him of the dangers below. Bugs sometimes lost their minds, trapped in a dreaming world where they couldn’t remember anything but a bright, burning light. Bugs died from the claws of the infected, most no more than empty husks driven by a malevolent will. The thought horrified Tiso, he had never heard of such a thing. The dead walking? Still, the old bug was serious as he let his old gaze drift around the nearly empty town.

Tiso was inclined to believe him.

So there he was, ready to take the plunge down below and took one last look at the grub sitting on the bench. He happened to catch their eyes, and the little grub straitened up a little. He was surprised to see them leap off and stride toward him quickly, waving their arms.

“What do you want, Squib.” Tiso had no mood to deal with any little kids.

He watched them move their hands out from under their cloak, their tiny paws and equally tiny claws making a flurry of movements. They then stared at him expectantly.

“Uhhh...the fuck was that?” He had no clue what the little grub was doing with their hands. They deflated a little and then brightened, reaching into themselves with a hand and suddenly, they had a little book and a pen.

“...what...did you, did you just reach inside yourself!?” Tiso boggled, the hell was this? What the hell was this kid?

He watched in stunned silence as the little being ignored him to start scribbling quickly, turning over the book once done to display their writing.

“Hello, please be careful down there. It’s dangerous.”

“Ppfft. Nothing dangerous for the likes of me.” Tiso couldn’t help but grin. Aw, how precious, they were worried about him. “I’m a seasoned warrior, I faced a lot and I am sure I can handle myself.”

The being frowned, at least, Tiso thought they did. They tilted their mask in a way to convey some measure of unhappiness and then started writing again. They turned over the book with a flourish once done, the ink smeared a bit in their haste to write it.

“I am also a warrior and there are things down there that can kill you without hesitation. I’ve seen corpses of better armed and armored warriors scattered below. All thought the same that you did. Please be careful.”

Of course Tiso ignored most of the writing to focus on the first part. “Oh, a warrior you say, you know how to use that nail you have there?”

They nodded, shoulders tense as they again, pointed to the part about the dead bodies. Then tapped it.

“Obviously they weren’t as good as me then.”, he huffed. “Say, if you do fancy yourself a warrior, I hear there’s a place for us, an arena of sorts. Maybe we’ll meet up there, and you can show me what you know.” He held up his shield, the metal glinting in the lights of the lumafly lanterns. “That is, if your parents let you, Squib.”

The grub sighed with their whole body, and wrote back to reply.

“I am not a kid. I’m probably older than you.”

Tiso couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. “Okay, okay, whatever you say. You got a name, little Squib?”

The being rubbed their face for a moment and wrote back. “My name is Ghost. You?”

“Heh, you’re speaking to Tiso! Remember that name, it’ll probably be famous.” He preened a little, slightly disappointing to find that the little Ghost was just staring at him. Once again they presented their scribbles.

“Or I’ll remember it to put on your grave marker.”

Bummer, kid. Tiso at first thought the squib was mocking him. He opened his mouth to call them a little shit, but he took a second look at them. They looked tired and weary. They looked like someone used to hearing bad news. Inside, he felt a little guilty at this. Clearly this thing...Ghost...was genuinely worried about his safety and he went and spit it back in their faces. It seems that foot-in-mouth disease is a reoccurring issue with him.

He sighed. “Look, I know you don’t believe me, but I promise that I know what I’m doing. If things are too bad, I know when to cut my losses and run, alright?”

Ghost brightened up at that and nodded. Tiso snickered to lighten the mood, reaching down to pat them between the horns (something they radiated a scowl at, but said nothing about).

“No worries, if anything, I do wanna see what you can do sometime!”

And with that, Tiso jumped down the well.

---

Well, Tiso should have listened to the little Ghost. Because he had to fight every inch of the way to reach this one stag station. He had learned the name of this wretched section, ‘the Forgotten Crossroads’, and he wished it could be forgotten. He had barely landed on the stonework below when an infected bug lunged out of the darkness, hissing. He had swiftly decapitated it, getting some orange gunk all over his shield. He had wanted to clean it off then and there, but the buzzing sound of vengeflies made him rethink his plan. The feral Tiktiks and Crawlids didn’t give him much trouble, except the time he stepped on one by accident and their spikes hurt like hell. The vengeflies were bastards like usual, screeching as they tried to dive bomb him.

And oh, the aspids. The fucking aspids. How he hated them. He felt so much satisfaction every-time he threw his shield and popped their horrible little glowing abdomens. The only problem was the orange that splashed out burned any exposed bit of chitin he had. Never before, had he been glad to own his armor. He would be extremely happy if he drove those little bastards to extinction. The husks though, were very horrible. Not in a fighting way, in there they were stupid in that they only knew how to run straight at him. He could take their heads off at a distance, shield returning to him with a flash of soul. In the end, he pitied them. They were once bugs, like him, but something had changed, and they became infected. He had been happy to find a hot spring that he could scrub himself and his equipment clean. He didn’t know if he even could be infected, but he decided to err on the side of caution. The orange...goo...he couldn’t call it proper hemolymph, didn’t seem to cause him trouble for now. But still, better safe than sorry. He made camp there for the night, but not only because he didn’t want to get out of the water.

He had braved the crossroads again the next day, ducking under aspids and slaughtering husks until he found the relative safety of the stag station. He sighed and sat on the bench, leaning backwards to rest a spell.

Then came the sound of rumbling. He was instantly alert, shield at the ready and his eyes trained to the tunnel. He expected many things to come out of that tunnel, but he didn’t expect to see little Ghost so soon. The stag they are riding slid to a stop, bending down to let the little warrior off. The stag spoke to him, Tiso didn’t catch what exactly, and watched the warrior wave goodbye as the stag took off down the tunnel again.

They turned and saw him and seemed just as surprised. They bounced a bit in delight and rushed over, waving.

“Hello to you too, little warrior. See? I’m perfectly fine.” Tiso gestured to himself with a grin. “Though I will admit, those aspids suck.”

Ghost nodded rapidly in agreement, going as far as to draw their nail and stomp a little. Tiso laughed.

“No worry, If you’re going up I have thinned their numbers a bit. Seems like having a big gross abdomen makes it easy for someone to cut you down. It’s the perfect target! You can’t miss!”

Again Ghost nodded in agreement. Remembering that he couldn’t understand those weird hand sign things, they took out their journal and pen once more. It was once of those fancy ones that held the ink on the insides but still needed refilling from time to time. They hopped up on the bench to join him, there was plenty of room after all.

“So,” Tiso began, “What have you been up to?”

“I’m trying to figure out a way past the fungal wastes.” They wrote. Tiso could easily look over their shoulder so they didn’t have to keep turning their book around.

“Fungal wastes?”

Ghost chirped, which absolutely did not make Tiso jump a little. They were just, so quiet. They were obviously mute but he didn’t expect them to make sounds. Tiso hid his reaction and watched as they fucking reached inside themselves again and pulled out a map. They opened it up, showing an incomplete map, each section in a different colored ink. Tiso whistled, impressed.

“You did that all on your own?”

They shook their head and wrote out. “Cornifer sells basic maps. I find all the hidden stuff.” They gestured to the various lines on the paper. Some of the ink was newer than others, which meant they back tracked and found new places. They even did little doodles of interesting things they saw. The sheer amount of drawn spikes and thorns make him question just how much fun he’s going to have traversing some of this kingdom.

“That’s still hella impressive for such a little grub.” He teased. He was arrogant, but he could recognize talent. “Maybe if being a warrior doesn’t work out, you could be a map maker in the future.”

Ghost just held their map for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. It looked like they wanted to write something, but passed it up to put on a more cheerful demeanor. “It’s nice you think I’m that good.” They wrote.

“Heh, I can recognize talent. By the way, since you’ve been all over the place, have you figured out where this arena is?”

“I hear that it’s called the ‘Colosseum of Fool’s. It’s somewhere near the City of Tears, I think.” They make sure Tiso read what they wrote before drawing a line with a claw from the stag station where they sit to somewhere east. They had a place marked ‘Crystal Peak’ and ‘Resting Grounds’, so it was probably near those places.

“Thanks, Squib. You probably saved me a lot of walking.”

Ghost innocently pointed to the stag station’s bell.

Tiso shook his head. “Oh no no no, true warriors don’t convenience themselves like that! True warriors make it to where they go on their own efforts alone.”

He was so full of shit and he could tell that Ghost knew. He honestly didn’t’ want to be in any dark, tight spaces. He couldn’t help thinking of the colony he grew up in. How dark and how crowded it was. You couldn’t find a moments peace to yourself and cave ins could happen at any time. How close the walls were to each other. How you never knew when the ground would rumble and stones would start to fall. No sir, he won’t take the stag way.

Ghost gave them the ‘whatever you say’ look before they rolled their map back up and tucked it away again.

“Where the fuck are you putting all that?” Tiso exclaimed as Ghost also put away their book and pen. They only shrugged in response and then gleefully bounced away with a wave goodbye. He heard the patter of little feet, and then the shriek of a vengefly, only to hear the sharp slice of a nail and the silence after.

Hrm...perhaps this was a warrior after all?

Tiso leaned back, determined to rest a little more before continuing his journey. With how big this place is, he wasn’t sure he’d see the little warrior again, and something about that statement saddened him.

---

Tiso had no idea there’d be an entire lake this big in Hallownest. Sure, water in caves was common, it’s how the caves were made after all, but this was something else. He sat on the sand, a campfire crackling softly as a tiktik roasted on a stick. All around him were fossils of shells, creatures long since gone and lost to time. One made for a nice seat and he wondered a bit to whom it may have belonged to. Some water snail, maybe. The water was clean and clear enough that he could take a dip to rinse off the grim of travel and found it most refreshing.

It had taken him a couple days to make his way here. Some paths were blocked off, either to cave ins or rusted closed, so he had to improvise. Moving through the Resting Grounds was eerie. It was full of graves, yeah, but once you fight empty husks for a while, tombstones start loosing their spookiness. There he had run into another stag station and swiftly turned back around. He took another pathway he didn’t try and ended up here, at this lake.

He thought of all the empty houses along the way. He poked inside to take a look here and there and only took things that he needed. The dead weren’t going to use them, he was sure no spirit would begrudge him for taking a few spices or a blanket. It did make for useful places to rest, as he could just shut the doors and windows to keep out husks. But still, he couldn’t help but feel like a trespasser in this dead kingdom.

He mused on this as he poked at the roasting tiktik. It’ll be done soon and then he can eat and continue his journey. A warrior needs their energy after all.

He poked up his antenna as he heard a distant noise over the crackling of the fire. He turned and looked over the lake, watching a white dot in the distance grow steadily closer. Water kicked up around bent air currents as the figure flew just above the surface. When close enough, he spotted the horns.

Oh, it was them. Small world, huh?

Little Ghost seemed to spot him as well. As soon as they reached the beach, they cut off whatever power they were using to run straight at him. They were all waves and ‘smiles’, tilting their head up to look at him in obvious glee.

“Hello, Squib!” Tiso grinned, he wouldn’t admit it but he was glad to see the little bug. “Still in one piece I see?”

They nodded and gestured to himself.

“Yeah, told you I’d be fine!” He took a moment to poke at the tiktik again and caught a flash of light on metal. Little Ghost had drawn their nail and was holding it out for Tiso to see. Oh, it seems like they got a new one, or they fixed up their old one. The other was dull, and this one had a soft pale light to it. Nothing fancy so far, but he could tell it was sharper.

“Nice.” He was impressed. “But I’m a shield guy. I don’t know much about nails other than that you shouldn’t get stabbed by them.”

The little bug ‘laughed’, huffing air in amusement as the reached over and pointed at his shield. They looked at it, and then back at him, titling their head.

“Sure, you can look, but be careful, because it can do this.” He attached his shield to his arm and squeezed his hand just so. There was a click, and the sides of the shield unfolded into blades, a perfect circle of pain. Ghost vibrated in response, the dark eyes within their mask shining brightly in the light of the fire. Tiso grinned and flexed again, withdrawing the blades to make a normal shield again. “And that, is how I deal with aspids. It can also come back when I throw it.”

He wasn’t sure why he was telling this to Ghost. Weren’t they going to fight sooner or later? If so it would be best to hold his cards close to his chest and keep his surprises as surprises. But there was just...something about this bug that made him want to talk about the things he knows. They were paying rapt attention, eyes scanning all the details made in the shield. Bugs that only wielded shields were not very common, he had found, so maybe they just never seen something like the one he has before. Maybe he wanted to be the one to cause the air of wonder and awe in someone else.

Maybe he just wanted a bit of attention that didn’t result in getting bruises.

Ghost touched the shield gently with a paw, feeling the metal a little before they withdrew, satisfied. They nodded their approval and sat down, looking up at him expectantly.

“Oh? What’s this? Do you want tales of how I used this shield?” A giddy happy feeling welled up in his chest as Ghost nodded rapidly. They moved their hands, signing a word he didn’t’ know how to understand. He could figure it either meant ‘thank you’ or ‘please’, either way they were polite. They shuffled and got comfortable and watched Tiso as he began to talk.

Tiso talked for so long that he forgot all about his tiktik.

–

Tiso sat on the bench, the roar of the crowd above him shaking loose the dust on the ceiling. It fell around him in motes of light reflected from the fires in the pit. There were other warriors there too, waiting their turn to engage in the carnage above. So this was the Colosseum of Fools. A crowded arena where a corpse sat as the seat of honor, empty gaze watching as the combatants did their damndest to kill each other. Geo was rapidly exchanged between hands as fighters either won, yielded, or died. Most died, but so it was in the way of the arena. He had taken time to watch to get a scope of what he was dealing with and concluded that the bugs in this kingdom were fucking insane. He was not used to this style of games, but he supposed he’d have to learn. He met the little fool chained up and dangling from the ceiling. He paid his fee and waited for his turn in the pit. There was a shriek above, and something big slamming into the ground. He imagined that he could expect to fight more beasts than warriors.

What he was not expecting, was little Ghost to jump down into the pit.

“Hey, you made it!” Tiso couldn’t help but exclaim as Ghost ran over to climb on the bench as well. “This is the place for us, I can feel it. There’s finally a challenge for me here.”

Ghost nodded, and in a flash held their journal and pen. “Are you doing the trials?”

He snorted, “Of course I am, and you?”

“Not yet, just exploring.”

“Hey what, are you afraid of being paired against me?” Tiso tugged his hood a little, smoothing down his antenna to try and stifle the intense smell of infected hemolymph. For a moment, he felt a flash of relief at Ghost’s prior statement. He didn’t quite believe that this bug was an adult, but they seemed to be a good sort. Did they really need to do this, taint their soul with battle just for the glory of it? For a bug like Tiso, he was okay with it. He was okay with it ever since he found himself alone with only a shield to protect him and bad memories to keep him company. He had to get tough, but did this little being who asked him for stories really need to get tough?

They shook their head as their shoulders shook with mirth. “No, I have things I have to do. I’ll fight you later and I’ll make you the one scared.” Their shoulders kept shaking, so Tiso assumed this was all said in jest.

“Bold words from a little shit.” Tiso was interested in seeing just what they can do, but later in a spar. Away from a place like this. This wasn’t a place for them.

They nearly rolled over, chirping in laughter and getting strange looks from the other waiting combatants.

Tiso rounded on them. “Mind your fucking business.” He snarled, and the combatants averted their gaze to go back to polishing their weapons. Good.

Ghost took a few deep breaths to calm themselves down. “You don’t have to be mean.”

“Sometimes you gottah be mean.” Tiso countered. “If they tried to throw you out or something, I would have cut off any limb that touched you.”

Woah, where did that thought come from?

Ghost looked at Tiso for a moment, really looking at him. Tiso felt like those eyes could see into his very soul and he suppressed a shudder. Ghost looked back to their book and wrote again.

“Why?”

Tiso gulped, time to bullshit and fast. “Well, because we were practically destined to battle each other. Hell, we keep running into each other in this dead fucking kingdom. What are the odds of that? What are the odds of both of us, meeting multiple times, and then meeting up here? It’s destiny!”

They tilted their head.

“If we are going to have a proper spar, none of us can get hurt before then. We have to be at 100%, right? So I won’t let anyone lay a claw on you until then.” There, nailed it.

They nodded and tapped their pen against the bottom of their mask in thought. They took a while to write, in which Tiso glanced around to make sure the other combatants weren’t about to get bored and try to pick a fight. Finally, they tapped his arm and showed him what they wrote.

“I understand. That means you have to promise to be okay until then.” They gestured above as more dust shook loose and rained down in a shower of gray. The crowd roared again, along with the sounds of something big screaming.

“Sure, I can do that. If I break my promise I’ll give you five thousand geo.” This was a prop bet for sure. He didn’t have that kinda money yet, he’d have to earn it in the arena. But he was confident in his abilities, he would be fine and he’d be able to take off time to have a proper spar with his little companion friend buddy fellow warrior.

They nodded and held out their hand, which he took and shook. Gods, they had such little paws. “Good doing business with ya, Squib.”

They did their odd version of ‘smiling’ again. “I got to go, gonna try and go up more.”

“Good luck with that.” Tiso watched them put away their book, and with a hop, skip, and a jump, vanished up the pit. He had time now, to sit and sort out his feelings. He had that weird ‘big brother’ urge, and it wasn’t because they were so small. Nah, this person listened to him and liked him. He figured he can try and do the same.

---

Tiso was in a world of hurt, agony seeped into the broken crack in his chest. Hemolymph kept flooding his lungs and dripping out the corners of his mandibles. There was a fog around him in his mind, his barely open eyes blurry and seeing only smudges of green and blue. Flecks of white occasionally crossed his eyes before vanishing again. He had long since given up on trying to move, each pull of muscle only made the hemolymph flow faster. He struggled to recall what was happening as the pain moved in and out, like it was happening to someone else.

Breathe in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breath out.

The only thing he can do was just lay there and breathe wetly. Each breath he had to mentally will and it took up all other functions for now. He had no mental power to spare on anything else, so when a bigger fleck of white took up his vision and didn’t leave, he had no clue what to make of it. What the hell? He took a breath, momentary forgetting too when he pondered the white. A cough tore into his chest and he could feel the broken edges of chitin rubbing together. Something was touching him. Something was trying to get his attention, but he couldn’t spare the thought.

Breathe in. Breath out. Breathe in. Breath out.

The white vanished suddenly and Tiso found himself unable to bring himself to care or wonder about it. He had to keep breathing. Something deep and hot within himself had refused to give up. He had something to do that was very important and he couldn’t miss it. He wouldn’t. The weight of his shield was his only current comfort. Just as suddenly, the white appeared again, with a flash of red and gray. He peered at the smudges as distant sounds tickled his antenna. Was he underwater? Why couldn’t he understand them? A flash of pain and suddenly his world twisted. Colors spun around and around and it made it hard to concentrate on breathing. More sounds. More pain.

Breathe in. Breath out.

Breathe in. Brea-

It seemed like only a second and he was consumed in fire. A burning ache spread over himself as he saw only darkness. The darkness and a shriek as round orange pustules throbbed and vibrated. The sickening sound of hot fluids spilling and the nasty pop as pustules burst in a shower of gore. He was there. He had his shield, as a giant thing of teeth and screams jumped into the arena. He could barely raise his shield and then there was so much pain.

Trapped. Trapped like the fallen tunnels as the air got stale and lungs burned. Instead of the cries of the dying there was the roar of a crowd.

Take my breath, his sister had said. A little tiny thing with a tiny heart. A stone had hit her. The cave was too crowded and there wasn’t enough air. She was dying. Tiso couldn’t move the stone or she’d die faster.

Take my breath, she said. Then she breathed no more.

She always wanted to be a warrior.

She wanted to help people.

She never got to grow up.

You wasted her breath, the mawlurk shrieked as it fell toward him. You wasted it. You wasted it to die like a Fool!

Then was falling and falling and falling and falling an-

He felt cool hand in his, so tiny and small. They held on tight and Tiso stopped falling.

---

Tiso cracked his eyes open, still blurry and still in pain. He felt odd. The pain was there, but a large portion seemed locked away, just barely felt on the surface. He felt a hand in his, and with a colossal effort he managed to tilt his head to the side.

He was in some hut, on a bed, and holding his hand was the little Ghost. They must have felt the movement, because their head snapped around and looked on his eyes. A rapid flash of emotions, anger, grief, relief, joy, and others he didn’t have the ability to process, cycled through their very being. His hand was gripped with both paws now and a dribble of black welled up in their eyes to drip down their mask. Tiso wanted to say something, but it was taking a bit to remember how to do so. A large shadow fell over him, and he instinctively turned his head up to look.

Standing over him was an enormous beetle with a nail the size of Tiso himself. They looked down disappointingly at him.

“You must be Tiso, eh?”

He could only nod in response.

“You have to be the luckiest bastard in this whole dead kingdom.” The beetle moved over to a table, clinking glasses together and pouring some liquid. “You landed in just the right spot for Ghost to find you and close enough for me to come get you.”

He returned and handed a glass of water to Tiso, waiting for him to grip it before letting go. “I am Nailmaster Oro and you are here because my pupil insisted. You are going to be bed ridden for a while. Be glad I am more patient than my brothers, because after a whole week of putting you back together, I’m going to be glad when you leave.”

Tiso gratefully took the water and sucked it down, letting the liquid cool his dry throat. Once hydrated, he looked down to the ocean of bandages covering his front and one of his arms. His shield lay tilted against the bed, in arms reach. A whole week was gone, just like that. Oro must have felt the questions in his mind, because be continued to talk.

“You nearly got crushed to death, you goddamn idiot.” Oro tutted, looking over the bandages with the bedside manor of a primal aspid. “The Colosseum of Fools is just that, a collection of fools looking to die for no good reason.”

Tiso opened his mandibles to retort but only managed a wheeze. His lungs felt particularly awful and Ghost patted their hand in sympathy. Ghost let go just long enough to run over to Oro, tugging on his cloak. Once Oro bent down, Ghost gently embraced as much as he could, which wasn’t a lot. He saw Oro sigh with the tiniest glimpse of affection, before roughly patting them on the head. He glanced back to Tiso, and scowled when he realized that the ant saw the whole thing. Ghost stepped back to return to Tiso, taking his hand again.

“You’ll be okay after a bit of healing and time in the hot springs.” Oro went to squat by the fire, stirring something that smelled wonderful in a pot. “But I hope you found what was so damn important up in the coliseum.

Yes, Tiso thought to himself, I did find something. He looked at Ghost in a new light, and smiled as best as he could. They couldn’t replace her, but maybe, he could learn to not be a colossal fuck up. Maybe in that way, he can be okay with himself.

Ghost patted Tiso again for a bit and then reached in their ‘whatever’ space to pull out a pre-written piece of paper. Seeing what was written on it made Tiso almost want to take back everything he had just thought.

“You owe me 5000 geo.”

#hollow knight #fanfiction #tiso #ghost #nailmaster oro #tw: injury #tw: suffocation #found family #the knight #big brother tiso #tiso doing tiso things #ghost adopts yet another random bug #tiso is a dudebro #Anonymous #my writing

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