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

[capitalcurator]

"...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?"

[impure_void]

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.

[capitalcurator]

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.

[impure_void]

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.

[capitalcurator]

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.

[impure_void]

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.)

[capitalcurator]

Lemm doesn't bother them. He's in some back room, probably intended to be a storage closet and instead turned into a small and stark bedroom. His life's work is out in the shop. Bed is for sleeping and nothing else.

Not that he manages sleep for a long time. And it's not because he's donated his blanket, though that doesn't help. It's just...

There is a person out in his shop far bigger than he is and much, much older, they are strange and a stranger and familiar and a relic at the same time. And he's putting an embargo on asking questions and that's hard. And now he's virtually promised to talk to them again, which is a commitment, as if he's someone who has social interaction marked on his calendar, as if!

Maybe the overthinking is why he sleeps late.

[impure_void]

The Hollow Knight does not sleep. They cannot. (Though they've never been told to, and so never tried.)

They know many bugs slept beneath blankets--or had something like them suspending them in the air to rest on, as with the Mantis Tribe or the spiders--and Lemm had put it over them. This means this is what they should do, though they rest their back against the wall and their legs to semi-fold beneath them instead of lying fully down.

Sometimes they drift through a quiet haze of nothing, but they mostly--worry. Hold concern. They had never wondered what would come the next day, as they always knew. Do as the King decrees. Stand empty by his side. Train. Hold the Radiance. Fight. Suffer. Curl up by Sister. Be examined. Heal. Listen. Move. Find relics.

They w--are uncertain if he will be having them find relics.

...They still have a few stored away.

When Lemm is resting what he may qualify as 'late,' they quietly drop a few things on the counter, too.

A cracked start of a journal from one of the citizens on the poorer side worrying about the lockdown. A painting from the richer side, signed by Lurien himself, of a smattering of citizens wandering through the streets below, with an absolutely ludicrous number on the back for what it had been auctioned off as to boot. A sign that had been buried by a bit of fallen masonry detailing that there had been ongoing construction nearby.

It--they don't know why they do this. He hasn't asked them so. He may not want any of it.

The Hollow Knight can't bring themselves to take it back.

They settle back down and keep waiting.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm sleeps by no clock, since there's none that matters in the City of Tears. He eventually emerges groggily into the kitchen and stops to clean up the soggy remnants of cup and curtain from the previous night.

The cup is examined for its chip and then set gently aside. It's still a nice cup. Shame it's had a few hundred geo knocked off its value, but it will still hold tea.

The curtain is rinsed with cold water - the tea disappears among the wet fabric, though he knows it will be stained when it's dry - and then is carried in a bundle into the main shop.

The Hollow Knight might notice Lemm flashing them a furtive glance as he steps in, confirming that not only are they still here but also they are still alive and... Lemm is learning that "well" is relative in this case, but nonetheless!... And those are... a lot of interesting pieces on his desk suddenly.

He has a plan. He will address this later.

"I'm going on a walk to the Resting Grounds. Maybe you'd like to come," he suggests, somewhat flippantly.

He's had some time to sleep on it all. Things still don't make complete sense, but Lemm has at least found some semblance of initiative to take.

[impure_void]

They hear him rise. They--he may be making more tea. But all he has in his hands when he comes in...the curtains. They avoid looking down at the marks on the floor, or to the things that may or may not be relics on the counter.

He looks at them. They keep from wondering if he was expecting something for more than a moment, remaining, as they always attempt-to-and-should-be, impassive.

What he tells them holds enough substance to be read as order. They must return the gravestone, besides.

They pull the blanket off, setting it aside in a half-folded heap, and shift to their knees. Slowly. In part to keep from stirring his wariness--their Nail is still at their side--and in part due to simple stiffness.

[capitalcurator]

He was going to haphazardly fling the damp curtain over his desk, but there are things on there now that may very well be priceless. He eyes them sharply and then turns to the window instead and looks up at the empty curtain-rail.

He looks back at their tall self now kneeling in his shop like they're asking forgiveness or something. Then he eyes the Nail with some unreadable little look - and promptly lets his gaze slide smoothly off it as though it was never a problem to begin with, and looks back up at the tall window. Lemm hasn't flinched. He's realising he had no reason to in the first place.

"Before we go - do you think this curtain will fit on those hooks?" he asks. "Just curious. I can't reach."

[impure_void]

Lemm doesn't want to give clear orders...or orders at all. This could become a problem, if they miss a cue.

They may be doing so now, though they answer the most direct question with a nod--the hooks must be there for a reason.

Keeping their movement slow, achingly so--they know not what that glance to their blade means, though it remains far from their hand beneath its throw pillow--they reach out. They are greatly aware of their height, and how they had damaged to curtains in the first place.

[capitalcurator]

The pieces are fitting into place slowly and clunkily. The Hollow Knight does what they're told, what they're suggested, and - his eyes flick back to the Nail - what they think is best..?

Lemm holds out the curtain for them and, when they take it, immediately goes to pretend to be busy smoothing dust off a trinket. But he pays attention, and it probably isn't subtle.

[impure_void]

Their slow pace is negated by the sheer size of them, moving into place with a few shuffles of their knees.

While lifting the curtain to unfurl and catching a few of the hooks on the bar is simple enough, their single arm makes adjusting it a struggle. It takes an amount of time that some may consider awkward, and this is nothing that crosses their mind even slightly.

They sink back once finished, not quite glancing over to Lemm.

[capitalcurator]

He watches like a hawk. There isn't much information to be gleaned from watching someone put up a curtain, but Lemm is used to puzzling through context clues, and it's more about the fact that they're doing as they think they've been told.

How long it takes them is a source of minor embarrassment - because he's been inconsiderate again. You can't call social skills 'rusty' if they were never made of good metal to begin with. But when the Knight is done, he turns away from the ornamental lantern-holder he was pretending to dust, comes over to give the curtain a fake-first glance, and remarks:

"Yes. You're right, it does fit. Good thinking." Lemm scratches at his beard idly. "It might as well stay there, since it'll dry better hung up."

His hand reaches higher than is comfortable and pats them gently on the hip, because it's as far up as he can get.

"Good. Time for a walk, then."

He whirls around and walks away, trying to obliterate the fact he just patted the Hollow Knight from his mind because currently there is far too much going on in there.

[impure_void]

They hadn't--

They clearly had to think to piece together how to follow wordless instructions. It...doesn't matter. They have panicked. They have panicked him. It doesn't matter. It does not matter what he sees of them.

Good is a functional descriptor for fulfilling a task correctly. That is what matters the most.

They find his touch feels less of burning this time, and they hold control tightly enough to avoid an instinctive shudder.

The Hollow Knight has already ascertained they need their Nail to move about. They wait for Lemm to be several steps ahead before they take it up once more, and follow.

whoops

[capitalcurator]

Lemm doesn't wait long. [ or does he, did the player wait months to reply, we just don't know ] Not waiting long also means he doesn't stay long enough to watch for whether the Hollow Knight is picking up their nail or not, which gives them leeway to do so.

He's off by the elevator, waiting patiently with an umbrella he snatched from by the door, and when his strange guest follows he kicks the switch heftily again and...

...risks a glance up. It's stupid not to. He isn't looking at the nail, though, he's looking at the Hollow Knight's mask, really looking, like he's been too careful to do it properly until now.

The elevator creaks as it descends.

as though muse or mun have a concept of time

[impure_void]

They had a loose scrap of a thought that they didn't much resist: they would keep a distance behind at least the length of their Nail. Though they were fully capable of striking further if they so had to, they would not have to, and it would give an appearance of safety.

This thought immediately proves useless, as the elevator is far too small to keep any significant space between them.

The Hollow Knight slides in sideways, holding the blade away from Lemm as much as possible, and stare somewhere past his head.

Their mask is as blank as ever. The bubbling black in their ruined eye is the same, and there might be the slightest bit of fuzz from their hiding beneath the blanket caught in a crack they fail to notice.

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

[capitalcurator]

The cramped space of the elevator gives Lemm the excuse to do what anyone does in an elevator, which is to sheath his umbrella, put it under both hands, and use it as a lean-on cane while he waits for the lift to descend. As blank as the Hollow Knight is, Lemm is currently matching it. (Though not for nearly the same reasons.)

When the elevator clanks down to the lower pavement, Lemm leans into it and steps out unshaken. He takes this thing every day, and the clunky machinery is second nature to him now.

"Resting Grounds are this way," he says, already knowing that's stupid and the Hollow Knight has already been there. Foolishness. He pushes out his umbrella and holds it overhead. He could hold out his hand, but the Knight is much bigger and taller than him, and honestly if they go down, he's going down worse.

But he won't move until the Hollow Knight is with him.

[impure_void]

Keeping hunched in the shop and then elevator for a little while is no worse than being locked in seals and chains. They drag their body up properly with only a brief few moments of struggling with their nail, though they stop dead when the edge of their horn clips against Lemm's umbrella.

Inexplicably, the water falling outside seems louder.

--They cannot go to the Resting Grounds unmoving.

They jerk back to life, and in standing, find a tingling weakness in their arm that often persists in their legs even when they lack pain. A subtler type of this sensation is creeping through the rest of their form.

Yet it is not a burn, agony, or the sensation of foreign fluid. The Hollow Knight will endure.

They pause until he is out of the elevator to follow behind him, just a little further back than the last excursion.

...They will pass the Fountain on the way to the Resting Grounds.

Chilly emptiness sinks in their chest, unrelated to the wound, or the fact they are a Vessel.

They give no sign of discomfort; Lemm's direction supersedes their unnecessary desires to do or not do something.