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]

Then the stone will be returned, right where they had found it, among the rest of the shattered gravestones. To be left, as it has no place in even this place of relics.

Modern dialect. They have no--

The word Infected spills into their mind.

The quill snaps.

They don't feel it.

They are not Infected. The Infection is gone. They felt Her shredded by Sibling beneath their claws, Sister disappeared and reappeared, telling them things they do not need to know but wanted, wanted, such as the Crossroads are clear, Greenpath is near empty but the diseased thorns are falling off, Crystal Peak is quiet, it is gone, it is gone, She is gone, She is dead, if She was not dead they would be dead, they would be rotting still, they are not, they should be, She is gone, She is, She they are aching, rotting, arm gone burning whispering stories grinding thoughts howling screams tearing their throat open for Her own Voice--

Their face is pressed down against the counter. The crack along their mask stings.

They do not remember falling.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm flinches, hands lifting off the counter instinctively as he leans back.

"-Eh?" he says helpfully.

They're unresponsive. Lemm glances over their bowed mask at the corridor beyond, as if half-expecting to see something there that has launched a spear or thrust a sword. There's nothing, and he stares back down at the Hollow Knight with his heart in his throat.

Maybe, he thinks, maybe they are infected, and this period of silence and the dead staying dead has been a trick, and now there's a long-dead shambler in his shop, maybe they're getting cleverer, and...

...But he already knows that's not it. He knows what the infected looked like. They've been his nigh-only company for a long time, give or take a few stragglers. The Hollow Knight doesn't, hasn't, fit the bill.

So what does a well-adjusted social bug do in this situation?

What Lemm does is slowly push his chair back and rise from the desk, gingerly plucking the broken quill pen from their hand while being very careful not to touch them directly. Just because they're not infected doesn't mean they won't react violently, and Lemm knows he'd lose that fight.

He's about to speak. Doesn't.

Relic Seeker Lemm's palm rests itself unprompted on the Hollow Knight's good shoulder. He's got no idea what he expects to happen.

[impure_void]

Void is not warm. Void is not cold. Void is nothing, unaffected by anything but the most powerful and purposefully-concentrated of Light.

The Hollow Knight is cold, soaked through by the rain they've been walking through nonstop for days.

Lemm's hand is warm.

Their frame shudders. Warmth is a terrible thing...

...but they are, suddenly, too exhausted to attempt to struggle, fight.

And they do not have to. Lemm is not Infected. They are not, truly.

If he wants to thrust a dagger into their back to be certain, is steadying them to be certain his aim is true, then so be it.

They lift their aching head enough to settle their chin on the counter instead of their face.

(They may have scattered their own finds with their horns.)

[capitalcurator]

Lemm shifts his foot to avoid as priceless things roll off the counter, thud to the floor on old carpeting and carapacian tiles. His hand is as still as he can make it, but not quite still, as he's stressed and overthinking every little micro-movement and so he makes more of them than he would if he were relaxed and resting on a table.

His hand is on the cloaked shoulder of the Hollow Knight, which is cold, and damp, and unsettlingly still.

Lemm considers for the first time that the mighty memorialised impossible knight may in fact have hypothermia or something.

"I'm not a hotel," Lemm complains, mostly to himself. They are a cold and damp and delirious stranger. This complaint has nothing to do with him leaning down and trying to put their faces on level with each other, seeking some kind of reaction or recognition. "Hey. How many?" He holds up three fingers, in what he hopes is their view. Some buried thought is that he would be well within his rights to toss them out onto the street.

[impure_void]

They don't understand his comment. Unless bugs often pass out in hotels--this is information beyond them. Dipping into knowledge of the other Infected would be a terrible error now, and so they do not.

He may or may not notice the darkness in the space where their eyes should be beneath their mask. The one without the crack is sheer black, utter Void, something Monomon herself said was unsettling. The other is bubbling with motes, contained behind the white, but ever-moving and utterly blind.

Their response is sluggish, but their hand only shakes a little when they hold up three fingers in reflection.

[capitalcurator]

He does, actually, notice. Perhaps it's his reliquary studies - he's good with small details. But whatever he sees, he keeps to himself. (Never mind that he's seen another incidence just like this, a tinier and more compact version, wandering in with relics and leaking particles of blackness into his air. He didn't say anything then. He doesn't say anything now...)

...Three. Good. Lemm nods, and then pats their fingers back down gently into a fist, pushing their hand down to rest on the counter again. He dumps the snapped pen into a drawer and thinks about what to do next.

Sigh. "Aren't we in a predicament." Lemm doesn't have a guest room, blankets, the time or the patience. Hates that he thought about it. Not his problem. Not, not, not. He doesn't take guests...!

"Fine," he says, and Lemm steps away and disappears for a long moment.

When he reappears again it's without any warning - and anyway he's just there to slip an arm under the Hollow Knight, a tiny old bearded bug trying to lift a semi-armoured beanpole three times his size, because he's dragged his only dry blanket into the corner and that's a better place than slumped over the counter. Nothing personal. Remotely.

[impure_void]

They feel like they're falling. Feel, only. The Hollow Knight is not moving, pressing the point of their mask into the counter to make certain of this fact. Do not make the damage worse. They've done too much already. Shown too much. Too much feeling when there should be none. Too much thinking.

Too much.

Distantly, they hear him moving, and speaking. It may be to them, or to himself. The words strike them with no meaning. Their body is manipulated without resistance.

They do not lean on him for more than a moment, even in their haze. They're emptier, physically, than a bug, but they are still too large to weigh little.

His hands continue to be warm.

They move when he moves them. They settle when he adjusts them. They stay still when he pulls the blanket over part of their body.

They are too tired to consider what purpose this may hold.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm was going to leave them to their own devices. Perhaps he'd walk off immediately, disgusted at having to harbour a traveller in his shop. A stranger causing setbacks. Uninvited, no less.

...What he does instead is pause for a long time and then drop into a crouch beside them, beard spilling against the floor.

If there's a thought that this is The Hollow Knight in-person in his shop--

He's sick of that already, much sooner than he thought. Never meet your heroes. Ruins your sense of awe. Really grounds you in an unpleasant way. (Not that they're a hero! Not that they're anything. They're just a statue he's seen, they might as well be nobody. Does that matter right now?)

He's been silent for a while. His mistake.

"Can't bring me any more relics if I have to throw you in the canal."

[impure_void]

Lemm stays close. Sister did, to examine their wounds. All that can be healed have been to their greatest extent, and the Relic Seeker has no need to check on those.

No memory of their own is similar. The Hollow Knight needs no-one near.

The Hollow Knight needs nothing but what they are given.

And they have been given a blanket.

It's a long struggle to hear what he says, and longer still to comprehend any of it.

They twitch their head in a tiny no, too exhausted to parse or even second-guess if he is asking a question. No, they could not, and no, he cannot. They're too large, and would most likely float more than sink, if being thrown into a canal was chosen to dispose of them.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm has no damned idea what to do with them. Having guests is for other bugs, and they aren't really a guest just because they're horizontal on his floor. He doesn't know how to treat whatever is wrong with them. They'd be better off anywhere else, with anyone else.

Lemm is many things, but he's not cruel. He heaves a deeply inconvenienced sigh.

"Stay there, then."

He straightens up somewhat stiffly, and remedies the anxious tightness in his chest by pottering around and adding more clutter to the situation.

A throw-pillow is at some point slipped under their mask, embroidered and scratchy and smelling a lot like several years spent under a couch. (He's careful when he does it, and lifts their head only by the far end of a horn, opposite side to the break.) The blanket is far too small and Lemm scavenges a curtain from somewhere, thick and weighted, that probably originated from some noble's study. He has nothing appropriate. He's never needed anything appropriate. The curtain is draped loosely over the Hollow Knight and is not adjusted again.

Lemm awkwardly disappears into another room, stumbling over some large carved mantelpiece trinket and cursing under his breath, and then there is the suspiciously kitchen-like sound of clinking utensils and pouring water.

[impure_void]

They accept the order. They move as he moves them, and lies flat as he's placed them.

It isn't completely comfortable, but they do not need comfort. Beyond sitting up or standing, they could not move even if they wanted, horns too large, stub too sensitive, to simply roll over. They are too tired to sit up. Lemm is not telling them to sit up.

They stay where they are, listening to whatever he's doing and staring into nothing.

The Hollow Knight was entirely not made to sleep. They may be wasting his efforts, even now.

[capitalcurator]

Out of sight, Lemm finishes setting out what he needs and waits for water to boil and... stares at a wall.

There is a lot to work through. He thinks about the little ghost, the one that visited those few times and silently dumped relics on his desk, and how the Hollow Knight did exactly the same thing in the same kind of silence. He considers what it means that he hasn't seen the little one in a while, but yet an impossible fragment of the past showed up unannounced practically on his doorstep.

He doesn't know what sickness they have... if it's a sickness at all. They could easily have faked the whole thing, could be robbing him blind right now as he stands staring into space -

Lemm rolls his eyes and pours water over tea he rescued from an abandoned cafe some months back, and unhurriedly carries two mismatched antique cups into the main room. He shoves an ancient rolled-up carpet with his foot, nudging it into place, and sits down on it beside the Hollow Knight. Lemm sets one of the cups on the floor, within view and reach. If they're even still watching. He can't tell.

"Don't know what I expect you to do with it," he mumbles, "but it'll warm your hand at least." Sometimes tea is less about drinking it, and more about it keeping you company.

[impure_void]

They don't have a mouth that can drink. Warmth--is bad, but they're capable of tolerating his, they should be able to tolerate this. The cup is plucked up, only to settle with their hand loosely curled around it on their chest.

It's warmer than his touch, enough it nearly hurts, and they subtly shift it around to keep it from resting directly on the middle wound that will not heal. Their cloak being caught in it before had caused more problems in healing than the burns alone.

The tea steams. They watch it drift upward until it's gone.

Lemm is still here.

Why--?

He--

--there is no--

...

Why?

They can't fight off wondering, the tiny amount of fortitude they'd built up since leaving Sister too fragile, cracking under pressure like their own mask. Why is he still here? Why is he allowing them to be? They're--they are broken. They cannot give him what he wants just as he wants.

And he...gave them a blanket. Blankets. Pillows. A drink. Nothing they deserve, or need.

Their chest rises and falls heavily. Though they do not need to breathe as most bugs do, it is a sigh, utterly silent.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm is usually compelled to fill silence with talk, especially when the little ghost hangs around and looks at him with a face he has come to think of as "expectant". (Then again, the little wanderer is about as easy to read as the Hollow Knight, which is to say not remotely.)

As much as he claims to hate chatter, he sure finds himself doing a lot of it. He sips his tea and falls into the same trap again quite willingly.

"I won't expect you to hop up and walk out of that door until you can be certain you'll make it more than ten paces. I don't look for company, but obviously I won't send a traveller to their death if I can help it. I'm not a monster."

Lemm flashes them a sidelong glance, appraising that small motion they made, and tuts.

"I would say whatever's wrong with you is none of my business, but why do I have this sneaking feeling you didn't go running off to hunt down relics just for the geo, hm? You know I'm not a social bug, don't you? Trying to get in my good books is a waste of time." Lemm makes a small gesture with his teacup. "Don't try to please everyone. You'll work yourself into the ground, and plenty of bugs can't be pleased with anything."

[impure_void]

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.

[capitalcurator]

"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.

[impure_void]

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.

[capitalcurator]

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."

[impure_void]

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.

[capitalcurator]

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."

[impure_void]

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.

[capitalcurator]

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.

[impure_void]

--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.

[capitalcurator]

"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.)

[impure_void]

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.