boxfullofzeroes | there's so many things that you'll never understand

there's so many things that you'll never understand

MEMORIAL TO THE
HOLLOW KNIGHT
------------------------
In the Black Vault far above.
Through its sacrifice Hallownest lasts eternal.

There's a figure at the base of the fountain, bent double, yet still taller than most bugs that once wandered these streets.

The Hollow Knight was sealed before it was raised in the center of the City. In all their glimpses of the world through Infected eyes, they had never seen this--this figure of themselves, towering high above the Dreamers that protected them, sacrificed everything for them, only differentiated by the carving of each mask.

This should not matter.

The emotion that is their flaw screams it does. Why--?

--This figure of them should not have ever been here. The Pale King prioritized their image above the living. A memorial to a thing. A memorial to a failure, still standing tall, lie inscribed for the straggling remains to see.

They should not wonder why. They should not feel the wound in their chest throbbing with new pain. Do not think, do not feel, do not do not do not--

Gendered Child, sister, told them they may go, and they have gone.

And they are here, beneath the shadow of a false Purity, beneath pounding rain in an empty City.

Nothing about this spurs them to move. Their mask presses flat against fountain's base, hard enough to ache.

They empty their mind, and wait.

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They aren't injured.

...They aren't injured worse than they've already recovered from, beyond the exhaustion and the sparks of pain going through their face.

They let the tea balance where it is. Parts their cloak, to show him their scar, that it isn't bleeding, that they are not falling apart in the physical. Points to it, gestures limp-wristed to their entire body, and then to the door, and the Nail gleaming outside against the doorframe. They will not die if he demands they leave.

They may want to, but they will not waste what Sister and now Lemm has given them.

Their hand curls back around the teacup.

They need to do what they are told to do, pleasing or not. They shouldn't do anything else. They can't tell him this, with their limited gestures.

"Hm?" He follows where they point with his gaze, and it's a moment or two before it clicks. "Ah, no, you don't have to be ridiculous about it. It's really not that much of a hassle. Just stay here until you're ready."

While he's missed some nuance, it does cement in his head that the Hollow Knight is here and should stay here, contrary to whatever they think they ought to do. It is strikingly like they are, and have been, doing whatever they think he'd prefer.

Lemm thinks he's earned a little nosiness, and he studies their scarred torso with interest. Some fight they must have had. And he suspects they could still manage to crush him one-handed.

Sigh.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do for you." A beat. "Not that I plan on learning to be a good host this late in the game."

Lemm doesn't know why he instinctively reaches out to pat them on the shoulder. He manages one and the embarrassment catches up with him, so he hurriedly eases himself back up onto his feet and carries his tea back to his desk with him.

"I'm adding another shop rule, by the way. No dying on the premises."

The quiet returns, punctuated this time by the barely-perceptible sound of dust once more being brushed from the King's Idol.

Edited (weird mashed up sentence) 2020-09-01 14:49 (UTC)

It isn't ridiculous. They are ready now.

They should be. Need to be.

It's what they are.

...But Lemm's gone to such trouble for them. They are tired. Leaving now would mean leaving in this haze. Nothing would be found for a significant amount of time. Sifting through unsound buildings may end more terribly than spending a little more time, lying here.

This is enough doing for them.

When he pats their shoulder, they stay passive. It isn't unpleasant compared to the tea. They won't die, either, which is another reason to stay until their exhaustion passes by.

Once he returns to his desk, they shift their head just enough to watch him work.

Lemm dutifully pretends not to notice the shift of white in the corner of his vision that tells him he's being watched. Maybe if he's lucky he can forget they're here again, like he did when they were here last time and he wrangled them into sorting relics.

Speaking of, he's since made a couple of breakthroughs thanks to those ordered emblems, but it was wrong of him to make them do it. A waste of their time. He's starting to think the Hollow Knight is taking his suggestions a lot more seriously than he's used to. It doesn't sit well with him.

Lemm engrosses himself as best he can in cleaning the idol, and when it's eventually as clean as he's going to get it, he carefully sets it aside and stands again, opting to pick up the scattered journals from earlier. There are plenty of things on his floor waiting to be tripped over already, and he needs to catalogue these.

As he's picking up a journal, he mistakenly glances across the room at the Hollow Knight and meets their eye. Awkwardly hesitates.

"Thanks..." Ugh. Back to clearing up. He shakes his head irritably. "Hmph."

Watching him, at first, is counterproductive. The sight of the Idol in his hand, as inaccurate as its form is in detail, seems to settle a weight on their chest, opposite the tea. The King and all he stood for--they failed--that an image of him is only a relic--is not something they can brush off as Lemm brushes off the dust its collected.

The rhythm of the brush, simple working with hands, shifts to something else. Another sort of haze. Softer.

When he thanks them, they tilt their head just a little further. Another something they do not understand. They are resting in his home and gave him some of what he asked for, and some he did not and disapproved of; there is nothing to thank them for.

Lemm is definitely looking at them when they tilt their head, but he doesn't have anything to say, so he keeps picking things up. The King's Idol still rests where he left it, gleaming in the lamplight. It's partly obscured once Lemm returns the salvaged journals to the desk, though, and he seats himself back down after retrieving a new unbroken quill pen from a once-shiny holder made to look like wing scales.

The soft scratch of the pen is a little louder than the brush work, and it's punctuated occasionally by a sigh and the creak of his seat as Lemm sits back to figure out a stubborn bit of text.

After a while, as subtly as he can manage, he checks on the Hollow Knight. Just a little glance up. Because he can't forget they're here this time, he's-- he's not worried, none of his business, but. But they're not well and they're watching him and...

Lemm turns his face back down and forces himself to work.

"I'll be closing the shop soon. No need to move."

Closing--

Yes. Shops close. Bugs need breaks, to rest, to eat. Sections of the City--no, all Hallownest--had periods of time where shops and such places closed, and others that had been closed opened then, and the cycle continued once those had closed.

The Radiance (and they tense, merely thinking of Her, though they force their body to settle) had, in one of her calm phases, told them it was once dictated by the rise and fall of Her Light. They understood she was not lying, but they couldn't comprehend the idea of an entire kingdom resting all at once merely because it's dark above.

There are no other shops to open with this one closing.

Their troubled shift would be imperceptible if it didn't rustle the blankets.

Lemm understands clear signs, like deliberate head motions and passing out on the desk. He does not presume to be confident enough to figure out what a small shift means, but they're normally so still that he looks up anyway as if he expects to see them getting up.

They aren't, and he is privately relieved.

Lemm works a little longer. Just long enough to disguise the idea that the thought of closing only came to him on a whim.

When he stands, keys in hand, and crosses to the door, he stands there looking out into the corridor for a moment.

"I'll just bring your nail inside." It is large. "I think it'll fit." Maybe.

--Oh. This gets them to move--and almost quickly, twisting to lever up on their arm. They'd be up on their knees if they weren't immediately tangled up.

And knocking the tea down to spill all over the floor.

The Hollow Knight, defeated by blankets. They could tear through them, but that would be deeply unnecessary.

Despite its graceful appearance (--once-graceful, it's rather ruined now with all its cracks and bluntness, but it's still thin and bright beneath grime) their Nail is heavy. It would be worse if Lemm injured himself trying to lift in in.

"Oh-!"

Lemm jumps, whirling around to see them swamped in curtains. He steps back slightly and runs through the escape route in his head.

"What-? I won't touch it, then!" He holds up his hands in mock surrender. "I wouldn't break it if I did - but it can stay there. I'm leaving it! Watch me leave it."

He steps away, keys still in hand. He'll leave the door unlocked. He's a little afraid of what they'll do if they feel trapped. (Kick the switch, down the street, and into Fountain Square. Except the Hollow Knight isn't infected, might follow him there, might follow him into the Resting Grounds, has definitely been there already. He blanches as spilled tea pools around his feet.)

They've shown too much, even more--they go absolutely still.

He. He's. Afraid. Afraid? Afraid. They don't know the subtleties of voice, but back up, back away, surrender is something they do, scared hungry scared.

(Not all Infected attacked all things that moved; only Vessels were not spared from rage over instinct.)

They thump down on their chest and stomach. The wash of pain that hits is less terrible than being--frightening.

...They've dropped like a stone.

Lemm stays frozen in place for a long time.

What they've done around him - all of it, everything - is unusual and strange and not anything he understands. But he doesn't understand people, anyway, and they usually don't understand him either.

Lemm arranges himself into a less flighty stance. After a pause, when he's pulled himself together, he says:

"Hello?"

If they've died in his shop...

Slowly, they move their head from staring at somewhere to his left to point somewhat more towards him.

They know what emotion they're feeling, even the name of it: fear. One they've felt on their own and through others, one they learned from--somewhere, in the White Palace. A voice they've forgotten, speaking to someone else they don't recall, speaking of the fear rising in Hallownest as the Infection was growing, spreading in a way that most illness did not.

They do not understand the fear locking them up now. Fear of...fear of them. Fear of his fear.

The Hollow Knight attempts to flatten themselves smaller.

Lemm thinks he should pretend this isn't happening, leave with some offputting comment, and go to bed and wake up to an empty shop and a pile of curtains and no nail outside his door. Maybe even sleep in some other part of the city. It's their shop for tonight! He'll live! He has before. But.

...They've been...

They've been helpful. On purpose. To him specifically. At a cost to their health, maybe? And now they look like they're trying to be nonthreatening in the way that a tiktik might try to be nonthreatening.

That's a lot of variables that spell out the faint possibility that... he might be overreacting.

"I... think," he says haltingly and with a great deal of uncertainty. "I think I'll go for a walk first." He holds up his hands. "I won't touch your nail. Just an old Relic Seeker, leaving."

Lemm can do as he likes, and he can tell them to get up and follow, or leave, or whatever he chooses, as always, but--he will not.

An irrational urge rises through them, so powerful they shudder, to go get the Nail and fling it away.

But they've done something terrible, and that would be far more frightening.

He holds up is hands. They do not rise. They do not move. They do not breathe.

In truth, Lemm would like to say something, here-!

Lemm doesn't have a clue what he'd say that would resolve this. Instead he steps outside and shuffles past the resting nail while making a point of not touching or approaching it, hands in the air, the whole presentation. He keeps walking and steps onto the elevator.

There is something nagging at him about the Hollow Knight. It feels like he's missing something, like there's something he hasn't figured out yet, something crucial. Lemm can't read people but even he knows there's something very off.

"...I'll be back," Lemm calls over his shoulder.

He puts his weight onto one foot and punts the switch. He does not look over his shoulder.

They are stock-still until long after the sound of the elevator stops, trapped in another tight cycle of do not do not do not--

--until they notice the tea running lazily from the fallen cup towards relics resting on the floor.

Should not, do not, but they are the only thing here capable of stopping it. They have shown so much feeling already, and he is not here to watch them.

Before, they were tired, the world dropping from under them, the world and memory and terror crushing them. They still are, the heaviness of it bites at the edges of their every action, but the prickling need to do something, fix something, help drags their body from their blanket cocoon.

They don't know where the cloth they'd used for relics is, and it would likely be too small to work on the full cup's amount. They'd already soaked a hefty part of the...curtain, layered on the top of them. The rest of it can be used to mop.

They are furtive while folding it and doing so, though they would hear the elevator long before Lemm could get close enough to see their effort in scrubbing.

What to do with it next is--unknown. Difficult. Something must be done anyway, they cannot leave it in the main room, too much to ruin with the tea soaking and threatening to drip; so they creep into the next one, a kitchen, and deposit it roughly in the sink. The teacup, with only a minor chip to its handle, is retrieved as well, set delicately atop the curtain.

They crawl back. Hesitate. Make their way to the door, sticking their head out carefully, and nothing is different, the Nail is still resting where it was put.

The Nail. It was the root of the problem. Throwing it away would be a waste, however, and they would have trouble getting around when aches spread down to their legs.

They want to be certain he won't injure himself by moving it, and moreso to not fear them by the idea of attempting to move it, but there is so little room in the shop. They lie it flat beside themselves, right in the little corner that they have been placed in. The throw-pillow is clumsily set over the blade's middle, as though this will weigh it down or be a discouragement.

Then the Hollow Knight lies down as well, folds their body up as tiny as they can make it, drags the remaining blanket from the floor to cover their upper half, leaving only the point of one horn and curled-in legs sticking out.

They...should not be quite so frightening if they aren't watching his return.

They--

--they--

--they hope. They hope they are not. They cannot stop hoping, they never have, that was the Pure Vessel's greatest flaw, and they do not want to be frightening. Not at all, not to anyone, and particularly not to the Relic Seeker who has done so much.

Edited 2020-09-02 00:24 (UTC)

At some point after he left the elevator, most of that fear and bewilderment turned into an impotent kind of anger, and this is propelling him to walk fast, glower a lot, and generally lose his patience with obstacles.

Who are they, anyway, to come waltzing in and to drop like a dead vengefly without any warning? Who are they to taunt him with a cryptic statue and then show up in person and upset his routine? (...Who is he to upset someone who earned their own statue?)

Lemm stops on a long bridge (his running theory is that there were few wings in this district) and draws to one side, his hands resting on the crumbling architecture as he stares sullenly down at the dead city. His eyes fall directly on Fountain Square, and he sighs irritably. Of course he would end up here.

The Hollow Knight has tried to be helpful, has taken to all of his suggestions, dove into a dangerous place to retrieve relics and seemed less than eager when he offered payment. The knight should have read him like a Hallownest sign and known exactly what kind of bug he was from the start. He's not subtle. But they did not. They did not and they did as they were told and he-- he thinks - he is pretty sure they are still diligently following some kind of knight's code. Something that makes them do as they are told. Something that drives them to be helpful.

Stay there, he recites in his head. Stay here. Don't touch. Humour me. His fingers worry at a chip in the rail, made by a javelin maybe. Imperatives. It's all imperatives. Suddenly a lot of things make sense.

When the elevator finally activates again, a bedraggled Lemm steps off it and trudges casually into the shop. He evaluates the still-damp tea stain, the huddled knight under the too-small blanket, the disappearance of the curtain and teacup.

"Hm," he says, marking some of his theories as confirmed, and goes ahead with what he planned to say. "So. I might need to apologise, as it turns out. Are you listening?"

They are still. They wait, body curling inward like a bug's corpse when the sound of the elevator moving echoes down the hall--

--that is not still.

Their mask is nearly pressed against their knees when they finally are.

He comes in. He says apologise, which adds another layer of strange somewhat-shame in their chest. They don't--

Stop. Don't/

They're listening. They're listening.

The blanket moves with their nod.

"...There you are. Yes." He scratches his chin and tries to continue as if this is a normal thing for him to be doing. Relic Seeker Lemm does not usually apologise for anything. He never has to. It's everyone else's fault for doing business with someone who hates people, and that's on them. That's always on them.

(The Hollow Knight doesn't seem to understand this, and so it's cruel to say it's their fault.)

"I took a walk," he explains, "and did some thinking. You didn't mean to startle me, did you?" This is rhetorical and Lemm hurries on too quickly to leave space for an answer. "-I overreacted. Any bug would be jumpy living here. The City of Tears hasn't been the friendliest neighbourhood, and there's nothing wrong with a bit of caution! But I didn't understand you and I still don't, so I think that's water under the..."

Lemm sighs. It's a real deep one, and it's followed by him pinching his fingers above his eyes and glancing out of the rain-wet window. He wipes the past few sentences clean and starts again somewhere else.

"...I've noticed you doing things for me, and I'll repeat: I'm not your leader. Whoever told you what to do before is long gone, and I'm just a bug who likes relics. Understand?"

They answer anyway as he speaks on, shaking their head vehemently multiple times, more than the one back-and-forth they've done before. They did not want to frighten him at all, and his seeming to know this now loosens the something in their chest. A little.

And they...might. Nowhere in this kingdom was safe for so long. They, with a blade longer than the bodies of the largest Husks that were patrolling it, must seem even more dangerous. They did not realize this before, since they hold no more glow of Her.

They must be more careful now.

And they...do not respond. They know what he is, since he introduced himself as Relic Seeker. They know he is not their leader--he is hardly the King--but they don't understand why this matters.

Lemm has since learned better than to take a lack of response from them and run with it. He watches them for a moment, giving them time just in case they need a moment to think.

Curled up under that blanket, they remind him of a time long past when he was tired and afraid and debating whether or not to stay in this place of endless rain and husks. He beats the comparison down with a stick. It won't do to go soft.

"Do you understand?" he repeats sharply, when it's been long enough. "You just do whatever you want."

Lemm sets the shop key on a shelf. The door will stay open.

They are not incapable of lying or falsehoods--what was their entire pretending to be Pure, ignoring the signs, if not that? But he is asking them directly, and to lie in such a way does not occur.

They nudge the blanket from their head, just enough to uncover their functional eye.

They do not nod. They do not shake their head. They understand the words of some, but the concept is unthinkable, and they don't know how to answer this as they are now.

Lemm turns away from the shelf and regards them with a steely glance. Maybe they're clear now. He doesn't think so, somehow.

"Hmmh... We can talk about this later, if you're still here." He disappears through the doorway to the kitchen, turns, and is gone.

...And then he catches sight of the stuff dumped in the sink and he returns, peeking around the edge of the door very unsubtly with his beard trailing below.

"Use pen and paper if you need to say something. If you want to, I mean. That's not an imperative."

Lemm goes again and stays gone.

They--this might be--it would be helpful if they could make sure he knows, later, if he does not tell them to leave.

...Do--

--they can't--

--they are not supposed to want, do not want anything, but they do not...not want to stay. It does not feel a danger to themselves or him now, if they do.

They slink to the counter as soundlessly as they can manage. They're massive enough to bend over it without going behind it, trembling hand opening the drawers and compartments until they find another quill and inkwell, and retreat back to their corner and blanket.

(In their haste, they entirely forgot about closing any of it back up.)

there's so many things that you'll never understand

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whoops

as though muse or mun have a concept of time

time is relative. by which i mean its fake i'm pretty sure

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