boxfullofzeroes | voicetest the voiceless

voicetest the voiceless

They're not dead.

Less dead than they'd felt, at least. Their shell doesn't normally take so long to reform.

Then again. Their shell doesn't usually break of their own violation as they ascended in a boiling rage, ate at least one realm, a god, and all the Godseekers.

(That last point is debatable, actually. There's some odd sense, deep under their...shell? Void? Wherever they once stored things like Isma's Tear, much deeper now...that the sea-mind is still there, sluggish and held in a stasis. They're already adjusting enough, and they don't seem to be dying or trying to kill them, so that problem is neatly sorted as 'for later'.)

They push their body to stand. Their horn clangs uncomfortably loudly against the grate they've apparently woken up beneath. They're somewhere in the Royal Waterways. A quick check of the map--or, not so quick, as it takes time to locate where it had been--shows they've risen about halfway through, closer to the City of Tears than the White Palace. They'll go to the Stag Station in the City Storerooms next.

So they think. Complications arise on the way.

The Infection is gone, leaving dead Flukes, Pilflips, and Hwurmps in piles enough it takes time to force their way past. Their body seems too small. No, their body is fine--there's something wrong with perception itself. That will take time to adjust to.

Then, they discover the Monarch Wings now stretch and warp when used, twisting around the nearest pipes after landing before the Knight forcibly calls them back. Shade Wings, they decide to call these.

Once they're high enough to hear the rain above, they realize a noise they'd ascribed to water running in the distance is, in fact, something swirling behind their mask. Many somethings. All the fragments of Siblings with enough self left, staring out from their eyes. It's disconcerting.

By the time they actually get out of the Waterways, they're using their Shade Wings to grip ledges and drag themselves up, with those holding onto things better than their own arms are with the Mantis Claw.

The Knight faceplants awkwardly onto the floor of the building Lemm's shop is in. If the City is the same as below, there's little left to try killing them in the area.

They'll just take a moment here, thanks.

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Painfully stubborn! Yes, he's sure they are - not least from the history they've told him. Anyway he likes that.

Tutting (though not negatively) at the sudden flurry of movement, Lemm quickly moves to steady the hammock before it can swing too much.

"What are you doing? If you've the aim to rest I'm not about to take the Great Knight's bed. I'll be going home."

They don't answer, because they can't and don't want to. Passing through the Village, every time, they wanted to jump in those hammocks. They never dared for risk of ambush or offense. They have no such worry now.

Even so, they actually find something of interest! They grab what they thought was a pillow and crawl their way up, presenting it: a plush blade, poorly-sewn but obviously meant to be either one of Ze'mer's greatnail or a full nail-lance. Strange, but charming.

Lemm continues to steady the hammock with one hand, just as a precaution. If they wanted it to swing, they're out of luck.

He angles his head away when they suddenly flail something in his field of view. He's used to their tricks. (This isn't one. They're just trying to show him something. He feels a little silly.)

"What's that?" He will peer at it, at least.

He's got little interest in such things himself. He'd likely recognise an obscure piece of Hallownest symbology much faster than he recognises plush toy. The acknowledgement comes late, and with little ceremony. It gets the same evaluation either way, as if the Knight had walked up to his counter with it.

"A novelty, it looks like. Some would give these to the young. I can't imagine what it's doing here."

It's probably made to swing. They still shouldn't, for the risk of pulling it from the ceiling. The knots appear somewhat flimsy, though that could be an illusion of the lighter fabric it's constructed of.

The Knight hangs over the edge at the top, looking not unlike a grub's toy themselves. Waving it a bit, they put the plush blade under their head to free their paws to write a couple crooked sentences. A charming/cute gift. Likely one of her was too complicated to make.

Lemm puts hands wherever will keep the hammock steady. The better they write, the better he'll read. Regardless it takes a moment for him to figure out what the point is.

"A symbol of... common interest." Said like someone who's read about this kind of thing second-hand.

Lemm just drumrolls his fingers against the soft edge of the hammock and pulls back. There is distinctly no response.

"Keep it if you want it, neither of them need it any more."

The plush blade hangs in the air as they think about it. It's true, neither of them will need it, or be any more offended than by their hop into the hammock. But it was a gift. A gift from one to the other. From which to whom, they can't be certain. The colors are light and fabric is rough.

They don't need this, nor do they genuinely want it.

It still feels a shame to leave it abandoned in this mausoleum.

I might bring it to her grave another time, the Knight decides.

At least that's a more dignified place to rot into fluff. For now, though, they drop the plush back to where it came.

Lemm is barely paying attention. Toys like that aren't really in his specialty, and the information he can gain from them is little.

He looks up from papers to acknowledge their note with a vague nod. "If you like. I can't imagine what good it'd do her."

...He really doesn't mean it harshly. If he did, he wouldn't be so nonchalant about it - Lemm is good at being outright scathing, but all this gets is an offhand comment.

"Ah, this poem references the other Great Knights in passing. Very much in passing." He shakes his head. "Passing enough to be useless. I'll keep looking."

I would have thought the same of the flowers I repeatedly died to give, but did it anyway for respect of mourning and brought peace to both lovers. It's worth trying. Lemm's intentions aren't meant to be insulting, but that being brushed off so easily irritates them, and they leave this paper to flutter off as they turn their attention elsewhere.

They jump down from the hammock to bounce on the bed. There likely won't be anything of the Great Knights, but perhaps they'll find something of her lover's name here...

He snatches it out of the air instinctively. He wasn't done! Rude of them to throw it. He scans it again, just in case he missed something.

...

He still doesn't... get why they're upset, exactly, but a little of the weight settles on him because he's seen how others react to... death, the dead, tributes to such. He can understand he's made a faux pas, and they're annoyed with him. That he recognises just fine.

...It's not that that's biting at him, though.

Eventually, after some poking around through papers with theirs still clutched in his free hand, he looks up and fixes the Knight with a piercing look.

"Were you being dramatic?"

There are many shapes they consider Delicate Flowers here. Those get set in their own pile, which quickly grows into multiple. A few are scribbled out so badly they can't hope to decipher a word no matter language skill, and those get their own to the side as well.

They unexpectedly discover a set of quills in a flat box hidden under one of the pillows, all fancy and long. They pull a particularly shiny rose-tinted one out to examine. Perhaps they'll keep a few of these.

After a few extra moments of blatantly admiring the writing utensils, they pause to stare in Lemm's direction. They don't think jumping from the hammock was particularly dramatic, though some of the papers on the bed's edges did flutter around quite nicely.

He just stares. And stares. Are they ignoring him? He taps the top edge of the paper against his mouth, fidgeting. They're just... carrying on. Maybe it meant nothing, or they didn't mean to write it.

Their writing, though - it's still not something he takes lightly, and they are always so careful.

Eventually they look up. There is no expression to read, and he didn't expect one. But he knows what total distraction looks like. This is also a thing they've shown him. They do not seem to be thinking about the same thing as he is, at all.

Lemm's mind is working very hard to produce absolutely nothing he can use. He sighs behind the hand-fan he's made of their note, and opts to be straightforward.

"Repeatedly died," he quotes directly. "That's exaggeration." Isn't it.

What, they think first. Why is he asking, does he not know?

And then: no. He doesn't know.

The Knight stops.

He doesn't know.

He's never killed them, or seen them killed directly. Not as Quirrel has, as Hornet has, and they've never told him. There was never an opportunity. He hasn't asked anything that would directly lead to their discussing one of their own deaths, and they'd avoided it intentionally, for the sake of their own pride.

They hadn't thought how much they wouldn't want Lemm to know for the sake of him.

In the end, they remember to move, and gesture in a half-shrug before blindly returning to the quill-box. A lie would be bitter and potentially discoverable. Giving it with a manner of casualness might help it go through more smoothly.

It's not so smooth. He doesn't know what to do with that.

Even as he reminds himself you're not supposed to sit there blankly thinking while someone is watching... he pretends to move on and picks through notes with only a performative level of effort.

Someone more adjusted might take the dismissal for a hint that they should stop prying. Lemm is not that someone and he makes a business of prying. He can't let it go.

"Spiritually, you mean," he reasons, over the top of a letter he isn't reading. "Stranger bugs have said something similar. I didn't take you for the metaphorical type."

They pick out each quill methodically. Put them in place as they are, organized somewhat by size, and switch them into short rows by color instead.

They do not use any of these new quills even as they produce a new paper.

Their writing shifts back to clinical. If a Vessel's mask is broken fully, they die. Some ~~with enough~~ are capable of drawing themselves back together, as I am. They had no chance to meet any of those vessels, but their Siblings hold the memories of a few. They didn't last more than one or two falls before losing the will to try again. The Knight can't blame them. The Abyss is no place to keep going. A hostile Shade is left where the death occurred. The rest wakes up elsewhere. Likely in an area deemed subconsciously safe.

The way through the Queen's Gardens was particularly challenging.

Edited 2022-12-12 01:42 (UTC)

Lemm isn't even pretending to be doing something else any more, just coming to stand over the Knight and read over their shoulder. They are writing again which means he is about to learn something interesting about their personal philosophy -

- no he isn't. This is not metaphor, it's too straightforward.

Lemm is troubled. As anyone would be. He takes a little while to mull over what they've just told him.

A hostile Shade. Like Greenhorn? No, more importantly, dying and coming back... Impossible. But it's not the first impossible thing you've heard lately that turned out to be true, is it?

There are cleverer questions he could ask, ones that might tell him more about the makeup of a Vessel or about the Knight's journey. Lemm is more interested in a simpler question:

"Does it hurt?"

Does it hurt? Does it hurt to get one's self cracked open and a little of it peeled away to hunt down in its mad grief and regret? Does it hurt to get their head chipped away until broken? Does it hurt.

Lemm doesn't mean insult by it. It's only a question, presented plainly.

No lie, no dropping a truth's full weight all at once. Perhaps never.

Still looking at the paper, past it, at the pretty quills, the Knight nods.

Yes? Yes, of course. He supposes that was a silly question. Sometimes you have to ask those, just in case the answer isn't what you expect.

He expected this one. Lemm is as slow as before to decide what to say, and it's as lightly observational as ever.

"And you tried... more than once. For Great Knight Ze'mer and her flowers."

It hurts to die and they kept at such a task regardless. Telling them they shouldn't have done it would be pointless and diminishing. Just because he would have quit while he was ahead doesn't mean a thing.

There's more he can glean from this, even if he is wary of how quiet they are.

"There are... Shades left all over the Gardens, then?" No, go back further, everything they've told him of their impossible history. "Over Hallownest? I've never seen one."

One Shade. If (short pause as they consider softening it, but there's a line between being calm and being coddlingly condescending) I died on the way back to it, there would be only the recent one to find. My capabilities with Soul would be markedly limited, and it was uncomfortable to be without it.

I'm unaware if I would produce only the one, become the Lord of Shades, or separate, if it's to happen again.

"It had better not happen again."

Troubling. Just... very troubling. An anxious feeling has been rising in his chest and he knows himself well enough to know this makes him snappy and rude. He proceeds with caution.

Concentrate on the subject, then. Was uncomfortable. Past tense.

"You found your way back to it, then, the last time you..." They had to revisit a place that must be dangerous by definition - to fetch a fragment of themselves they lost trying the first time. Noted. Does not feel great to note that, but noted. "And it's... hostile."

...Lemm backtracks on that one.

"Hostile?"

I am stronger than I was, and Hallownest is far more lacking in raging husks. It's not a promise. They don't expect much left to best them, but that doesn't mean there's nothing. They know well they're their own worst enemy in leaping headfirst into deadly situations.

A nod.

It had the same ability with spell and nail as myself while being far more fragile. It would attack if I was noticed until I changed the Kingsoul to Voidheart, and the Shade became passive, as did my Siblings.

Edited 2022-12-12 09:44 (UTC)

There are so many questions raised by everything they've just written. Lemm's about hitting the point where he'd be barking queries at the Knight one by one, probably in a tone that suggested he vastly disapproved of every answer. What do you mean it attacked you! And your Siblings? You're putting Greenhorn and hostile in the same thought? You're telling me if you were injured enough there'd be a good chance of a hostile Lord of Shades roaming Hallownest? Ad nauseum, keep demanding until he pushed them too far and both of them had a nice spat over it and he'd get plenty of time alone to think it all through.

He strokes a hand down his beard and stares off at the floor, grounding himself carefully. He doesn't want that. Neither of them want that. He will have to let the anxious knot in his chest just sit there.

Small steps, then: first, the Knight is not convincing enough.

"Husks were never the only danger in Hallownest and we both know it," he scolds, mindful not to raise his voice or snap like he wants to. "If we're working together on this history project of ours I'll need you to be clearer. You'll do no dying over this, Knight. Now that I know it's possible I'm setting a rule."

Edited (pedantic phrasing) 2022-12-12 10:17 (UTC)

The Knight turns to look at him, actually taken back, though reflecting leaves them uncertain as to why.

I don't expect I will. I have yet to since ascending, even to threats that may have in the past.

I will not risk death for this project unless not doing so would result in yours.

"Not even then!"

The knot twists sharply, and Lemm recoils from his own outburst. He'd promised himself he wouldn't snap. He couldn't help it, they pushed him, suddenly it became so important that...

Ah. He thinks he might get it, actually - why they've been upset with him before.

"...No," he says, very careful now and far quieter. "You won't be flippant about that just because it's not final for you, Knight. We'll... We'll both just have to be very careful. Plan ahead. Come prepared. Mind where we go. I..." don't want to have to watch that either. "...Give me a moment, please. I'm sorry for losing my head. A moment?"

The Knight sets up immediately in challenge. Literally, as they were crouched, now they're standing straight and glaring as though he is about to attack.

But he asks for a moment. This is reasonable.

They give a jerky nod, and wait only until he's not staring directly at them to continue their thoughts.

Yes, then. I'll recover. You can't. This knowledge is not flippancy.

We are already planning. We are preparing. That is what this is for, to be careful and safe.

I don't believe this is likely to be necessary. But I refuse to swear a fool's oath on the chance that it is. You would not be the first ally in this kingdom I have had die at my side, and if I can prevent it, you will not be another no matter the physical consequence to myself.

Edited 2022-12-12 10:59 (UTC)

He's shaking a bit. They don't have to worry about being stared at any more, because he can't even make eye contact, he's just fidgeting and casting about for something else to look at. He needs to go for a walk.

But he waits, as he is beginning to think he always will, for the Knight to finish speaking.

"...I know all of this. You don't have to tell me what I..." This is cut off by a frustrated little growl, and he shakes his head roughly. They're letting him go. So he'll go. "Thank you," he belatedly course-corrects, stiff as a board.

The guilt at begging so much more of their patience - especially when he's tested it so badly before - is only a hair less important than what he needs it for right now. Lemm turns and strides straight for the door and disappears out into the hall.

His footsteps are brisk, but they won't take him far before turning abruptly around and heading the other way. It will be clear enough he's not walking anywhere with intent, he's just... walking.

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