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

[impure_void]

 


 

 





 

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.

Comments

[impure_void]

His words bring them sharply back to themselves, though they hardly show it. But he isn't speaking to them, and they nearly lose focus, part of his murmurs fading to white noise--a Vessel has no need to retain information not given to it, though it isn't entirely avoidable--until he again addresses them directly.

Once more, a question. They angle their head to look, and...it's another somewhat difficult query, but not in the same way that leaves their chest disgustingly full and horribly empty at once.

The Pale King was not one to give awards in person, and they were often with the Pale King or the quieter wings of the Palace, but they can almost recognize the shape of them, and the words. Fairly simple medals, but engraved with personalized symbols of Valor and the City, by the Watcher himself. A noble would not settle for less than something ornate and boasting how much of Geo donated from the troves they coveted so.

They do not wa--

--lifting the quill will likely end in another mess. A different solution must be presented.

Their hand raises, slow and careful to avoid bumping anything, and then lashes downward in a mimic of a Nail-strike.

[capitalcurator]

He watches the knight like a hawk, his quill poised over the paper like he's forgotten he's holding it.

He's had his theories, of course, but considering the material and the craftsmanship - well, that's his problem, he's too well-versed in the details by now and he knows things about these artifacts that probably didn't matter to their owners one jot, things that warp his understanding post-Hallownest.

Lemm realises this now, as the answer comes simply and without err. He doesn't reply at first, just pushes his chair back and stands up to go and investigate the shelf more closely. A hand runs through his beard.

"Well, of course. S'only right, now that I'm thinking about it. ...I'd have got it eventually."

Possibly not true, but who can say? He turns to look over his shoulder at the Hollow Knight and looks like he's considering something.

"I don't normally encourage this," he says, "but you couldn't sort those by rank or achievement, could you? I'd like to see how much you know, if you really are who you say you are." He holds up his hand very quickly to signal to wait, and the quill drips a single spat of ink that he doesn't notice because he is intently focused on Hollow. "With clean hands," he adds, and then, "-hand." Lemm takes a square of cloth from a drawer that might normally be reserved for cleaning lenses and sets it on the corner of the table, then sits back down and watches expectantly.

[impure_void]

Does he not--?

--he isn't certain they are what they are, and this stymies their movement. They...there is nothing else they could be. Few bugs are as tall as they, none have a mask such as theirs, or a carapace that reflects only muted light.

This...they don't understand.

But understanding is not their place, and they have finally been given a task, not a question, made into order by offering a tool.

The Relic Seeker said previous not to touch the artifacts, and so they will not with their hand. They pluck up the cloth, wiggling it until it covers most of the tips of their claws.

They barely need to shift to be halfway across the shop in front of the correct shelf.

They cannot be...entirely certain, though the fact he believes a Hollow Knight would be is--is mistake.

With delicate touches, they get to work still.

...And finds they know somewhat more than they thought.

Lurien--they know the Watcher's works to some extent. They know the ranks of the guard that still tried to keep the City safe after She claimed them. (The Great and Heavy Sentries had many, but the Sentries capable of flight had more, despite increased fragility, as they could see from the heights to keep watch...)

It won't all be correct, but it will be close, by achievement.

[capitalcurator]

No one can re-live history. Once everyone is dead and gone, so is their understanding of Things As They Are. Digging up the past later only gives you so much context, and it's the bane of every Relic Seeker's life to be reminded there will never be true context for this thing again.

Lemm puts down his pen and folds his arms, leaning back a little in his chair as he watches the Knight work.

Whether or not it's exactly correct, it certainly isn't random guesswork, which means the Hollow Knight knows what they're doing to some extent. Which means it's as correct as it's likely to ever be from now on. This thought is being turned over and over very carefully in Lemm's mind.

Eventually when the Knight seems satisfied with the order of artifacts, he speaks up.

"Remarkable, really - the wing insignias really were rank relevant. Thought it was just monarch flair, myself." Hard to know what to say. The Hollow Knight isn't acting at all like he imagined a gallant historical figure to act. He opts for using some rusty positivity. "I've never been happier to be wrong." And...? "...Good work."

[impure_void]

The Relic Seeker says the oddest things. Happy to be wrong. Good work.

For a moment, they angle a stare his way, unknowingly blatant about it with their head tilted to do so with their good eye.

The awards they've placed stand out among the rest, sorted and set perfectly straight, organized, unlike the entire rest of the room. This...was what they were told to do. Praise is unnecessary, why--

They put the cloth back on the desk and attempts to sit at attention for whatever comes next. Attempts, as they're still too tall to quite do so without knocking their horns against things.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm was very privately hoping they might continue of their own accord, though most of him is also relieved when they stop touching the merchandise. Just because they've occupied his thoughts every time he's visited the plaza doesn't mean they get a complete free pass on fiddling with the relics.

He lifts the pen again and scribbles down some notes on the new version of accolade hierarchy. When he glances up, it looks like the Knight is waiting for something, and he goes still.

"I'm not looking for an assistant," he says, somewhat clipped. "But if you want something to do before you head off..." A glance around. He jabs the feathered quill in the direction of the stone-carved memoirs. "Organising those would help. I know you know what Mosskin looks like, for one."

He deliberately doesn't state how they should be organised, and maybe that's a little mean of him, but he really just wants to know how the Hollow Knight will do it if left to their own devices.

[impure_void]

These are not awards, but tales of lives. Certainly some that moved into the City, becoming important parts of its function, but not all. Cursory examination tell of Moss Knights that traveled through Hallownest when it was almost new, a City guard that became a Menderbug, a failed warrior that attempted to challenge the Mantis Tribe and barely survived even making it to the outskirts of their village, a Nailsmith from a long line of Nailsmiths who uprooted his family across the kingdom for the sake of wealth...

Again, they pick up the cloth.

They cannot default to previous terms of achievement or rank. They attempt it at first--they set a Moss Knight near the start, as Knights are high-ranking, but the rest are mainly civilians. The Mosskin should be lower. Lower than the former Menderbug. No, as Menderbugs were nearly a secret, the nobles of the City did not want their existence to be known or celebrated, while Mosskin were each equally a part of Unn's dream of leaf and life--

They do not look back to the Relic Seeker for instruction.

Each would have been important to themselves and their own people, but they know not by which class or judgement these are meant to be graded.

And so they simply...stop. A Kingsmould deactivated, a figure still as their own false effigy outside, staring down at the words until they blur into incomprehensibility.

[capitalcurator]

This time, Lemm doesn't watch. He knows he'd be too engrossed and there's other work for him to do in the meantime, so he goes back to his translation of the single journal on his desk, and they both sit in silence for a time.

The pile of notes grows; every word translated might crop up again in a different tense or form, and he likes to be prepared. Idioms in particular tend to toss everything into the air until he can work out their meaning, and he's just about cracked one when he realises it's been quite a while and the Hollow Knight is... still here, firstly, and just generally still.

Too still. He doesn't know what to make of that.

"Are you stuck?"

[impure_void]

They stay frozen, thoughts bubbling, until they realize what they're doing, that they are being spoken to, and snap their mind flat. Too much. Too much of what they should not have been doing, and too many memories just below that of bugs long sick and dead. Wondering who and what and why, failing to complete a simple task.

Almost nothing has been done at all.

They twist their head, an automaton jerking with one sharp movement, to face him.

Yes. Stuck.

[capitalcurator]

"Hm." Maybe it was rude of him to ask more of this great knight, especially after they seemed to react so strangely to being asked what their knighthood was for. Finding other things to ask them is just... cheating, probably. "You don't have to do the rest," he says flatly. "You're not my employee."

Normally he'd be telling anyone else to get their sorry selves out of his shop by now. But Lemm has to admit it to himself, if not to the Hollow Knight - he doesn't want them to leave. Not before he knows just a little more. Just a bit. Anything! But he can't ask because he thinks it might be upsetting, so then what's the point? Is he being selfish and wasting their time?

...He continues to do so.

"Where will you go, I wonder?" He shuffles some notes around and pretends to still be working, not making eye contact or looking up, just breaking the silence for the sake of it. "There's a town up above here somewhere. Haven't heard word for a while, but I know someone's mapping the area. If you're looking for fame and fortune, you might start there. There's nothing here but what's left of other people's."

[impure_void]

There--they do not have to. They have not been condemned for not finishing, they do not have to, and still, a churning of emotion rises in the guts they don't truly have. It cannot be called burning, they know what burning from the inside out feels like in vivid detail, but it is warm and sickening.

Their knees scrape across the floor as they settle back again.

(They don't notice how they cling to the cloth like a lifeline.)

Fortune and fame are not for them, and upwards is where Sister lingers. They will not go there if not directed to.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm can't go much longer without admitting that there's something very off about the Hollow Knight.

When one spends so long looking up to a statue and wondering, one can't help but come up with a great deal of theories. The Hollow Knight today matches none of them, not even the stranger ones, and Lemm wonders briefly if he's got knighthood all wrong.

"Maybe you don't have any plans." This is actually what he's been thinking all along.

Because he found them at their own memorial, alone, what an unpleasant picture, but it wasn't something he was prepared to address for a while.

Lemm looks around his shop, thinks about how little space there is here, how not everyone can live like a lumafly in a jar, and sighs.

"Well, until you know where you're going, the City of Tears isn't going anywhere. There are a number of empty living spaces, you know. No one's but yours if you want it that way."

[impure_void]

The feeling does not leave their chest, this...sense of failure, this shame. What are they but a thing that can fulfill no purpose given to it, from the mundane to the kingdom-saving purpose its entire existence was built for.

None of this is a question, and so they do not answer, do not have to answer, do not have to think about it, do not think about it, do not think.

They are not meant to want. They don't. They are not being told to stay nor leave nor anything direct, they don't know what to do, and their arm slides back beneath their cloak, blindly pressing the cloth across the cracked scars. They will do nothing. Nothing.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm doesn't look at first, which is unfortunate. He is busy, pretending to work, pretending to write, pretending this is a normal encounter even though he isn't acting normally at all and neither is his guest.

When he eventually does look up, it's to the uncomfortable stillness the Hollow Knight has about them. It's to the grasped hand around the cleaning cloth, the tautness in the air. And Lemm does not know what to do but admit that The Hollow Knight isn't what he expected.

But what if they stay there forever? So he can't just sit and wait for them to go, either. He's spurred to stand up, approach, stand in front of them so that he has to draw their full attention - like an awkward child confronting another on a playground. Embarrassing and ridiculous. He's too old for this particular brand of awkward. One hand folds itself jauntily on his hip, as if that makes anything better.

"Aye." And then a repeat, slightly louder. "Aye, look! I can see something's bothering you, but it doesn't belong in my shop. I'm a Relic Seeker. Understand? A historian. My job is to give the past a proper burial." He folds his arms over his beard. "If you're not buried, you're not the past. So stop living in it."

[impure_void]

They heard him coming, but do not look (down, still well above his height even knelt as they are) until he speaks.

They don't understand. They're not bothered, they're nothing. It's nothing.

It should be nothing.

The Hollow Knight is in the past, of the past, a tattered piece of old Hallownest tangled in something from before Hallownest until they were forcibly ripped out by the hands of Siblings.

Perhaps they should be buried somewhere, set to rest as their Sister would not allow. It is not, as ever, meant to be their choice.

...A claw's punched through the cloth.

They hold it back to him.

[capitalcurator]

It's hard for him to read people at the best of times, and this one is a very closed book. But Lemm is starting to pick up little signs already, now that he's looking for them and applying that keen eye normally reserved for particularly detailed stonecarvings.

He takes the cloth and his thumb rubs at the fabric, worries at the frayed hole.

"...I'm not fond of repeating myself," he says a little less sternly this time, "but I'll make it clear: my shop is not a place for moping, if that's what you're doing. Up!" Lemm turns, and baps their shoulder harmlessly with the cloth as he steps towards the door, stands beside it, holds it open. "Up and out. Show that to the City, not my seal collection."

[impure_void]

They straighten to perfect attention. Their horns clank against the ceiling.

The tone, or changing thereof, is hardly noticed. Words spoken are most important. Vessels do not understand nuance, as the Pale King discovered early.

(Nor do children. But this was never allowed to cross either of their minds.)

If realizing what they are and are not (again, and again, and again, somehow freshly terrible each time) is moping, then it seems that's what they're in the process of. This action is incorrect; they have no further purpose here.

Their mind edges towards wondering where the rest of his questions are. They discard it.

Leaving is difficult, attempting to get out without knocking anything over or being too graceless, but they squirm from the shop as carefully as possible.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm has been having an internal debate since he said it. He shouldn't. He really shouldn't, they are strangers and he's a grumpy old relic collector with work to be getting on with and he has no business telling a knight what to do, never mind getting all chummy with them like either of them have any intention of seeing each other ever again after today.

...But the debate doesn't take long regardless, and Lemm follows quietly behind them like he realises he'd intended as soon as he opened his mouth.

"Back on the elevator," he instructs gruffly from behind them as he closes the door and turns the key. "Let's take a walk. No good ever came from sitting and stewing over anything." And he falls into step.

[impure_void]

The surprise that flickers through them doesn't show, alongside a twist of uneasiness. Plucking their Nail up and squeezing it more tightly than strictly necessary, they stiffly crawl back to the elevator.

(This may be where his questions are.)

They don't look to him until they're wherever he chose to go, shifting aside and lifting into a crouch, ample room for his lead.

assuming there are. other streets. wdym the world isnt actually 2d

[capitalcurator]

It's when Lemm takes his place next to the Hollow Knight and punts the switch again that he realises he's still holding the cleaning cloth. Well, at least it's something to do with his hands.

When they step off the elevator, Lemm keeps a liesurely pace - not that he thinks this looming creature with their lamp-post stride needs him to slow down any further. He does not lead the way to the plaza and its fountain - seems a little gauche - and instead heads the other way and out into the rain, turns down a side street, and just walks.

"Never sit around when you're stuck on something. A bug will stagnate that way." Lemm tries to make himself sound inconvenienced. Then, directly: "You're not what I expected. Not that I expected you."

[impure_void]

They stay behind him, half-a-step, at a guard's pace. As though there's anything left to protect from. As though they'd surely be capable of defending against something truly dangerous.

The Relic Seeker's words are committed to memory, spoken nearly like an order, though the scope of it is beyond their understanding. It's up to the ones around them to alter their terms to change them until they are not 'stuck'. Why--a Vessel has no need to be capable of change on its own.

They tilt their head to look at him.

The water from above gathers in the mask's crack and blinded eye. They know little of what they are expected to be, anymore.

They wait for a question.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm attempts to judge the amount of time he should wait before speaking again. The Hollow Knight reacts to things he says, which means it's a two-way conversation of sorts, but they only react sometimes and only in strange ways he can't read yet--

--In strange ways he can't read.

"What I mean is I thought you'd be more..." Lemm tilts his head pensively, still not making eye contact. "...Grandiose," he decides, flourishing dully with the hand that holds his door key. "There's nothing wrong with a knight being modest, but then I don't think you're modest, either." That's-- he doesn't mean it like that, but too late, it's said. He hurries to his point as he finally glances across. "I'm not your captain of the guard, and I'm no monarch, either. If you're looking for leadership, you'll find none with me. I'm just a Relic Seeker, understand? I'm no one."

No questions yet, unfortunately.

[impure_void]

They've barely moved.

Grandiose. That would be a better descriptor of the Great Knights, with their power, loyalty, and glory for the good of the kingdom. They were amazing people.

They are not. They never were, even as Pure as they had seemed, as masterful as their use of Soul had been, second to only the Pale King. They are not a person, they are not a someone as the Relic Seeker is someone. He claims to be of no importance--he may not have been in Hallownest's old days, though the pursuit of knowledge was encouraged--but now, he is a rare being that still exists, thrives, in what's left. He holds desires, he has thoughts, he has voice that enforces these things.

He may not want power, he may be no other Knight or royalty, but he is greater than they by virtue of being truly alive.

They dip their head more, barely, as he did pose a question. No. They do not understand.

[capitalcurator]

"Hmph."

Lemm is not sure what to make of that. He studies them carefully for a second, notes the little trail of water following that crack in their mask, thinks they're going to have to dry their face later, and irritably tightens his hand around the cleaning cloth.

He can't think of a sufficient way to rebuke an I don't understand, so he just gets his hackles up.

"Well, it's not fair to argue about who's more important than who until I know why your memorial is standing in the middle of the capital! Until I know that, I can't make my point. Maybe you didn't do anything at all, and some eccentric mason just thought you cut a dashing figure." He jabs his key in their direction accusingly. "But I doubt it."

[impure_void]

Well. This, at least, they hold understanding of, along with a flicker of...something they don't quite understand. A tiny mote of lightness--a missing weight, not a burn.

They were never a higher level of aesthetically pleasing than most things from the Palace did. The rare beings that learned of their existence seemed to have found them intimidating, not dashing.

The Hollow Knight shakes their head. The pool that's been gathering in their eye dumps out.