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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His mind stays stubbornly blank for an amount of time he is altogether not keen on. Eventually he kicks himself hard enough that one unhelpful thought sprints to make itself known.

Oh, no.

Very unhelpful, but it does open the floodgates for a deluge of others, recalled pieces of information inked on pages, dots he now connects...

Lemm knows exactly who this is, and he is absolutely certain they should not be here.

The slow, unsettling motion is enough to give him half a heart attack. They're looking at him. He thinks. Anyway, he can't stand here in silence forever. Something should probably be done, or said. He should at least acknowledge them. After everything they've done, been made to do -

...The Knight doesn't like formalities much. Would probably be mortified, if they were here. Lemm abandons the thought of bowing, and hastily tries to come up with something more neutral.

In the end, the vessel is paid a polite bow of the head, a reasonable compromise by his reckoning. Lemm would afford that to few to begin with. He would afford the Hollow Knight quite a bit more than nothing at all.

Lemm's hand loosens around the umbrella to let it slip to its handle, and rests it point-down against the paving stones with a soft, wet tap. His heart has virtually leapt into his mouth, but he isn't about to let on. With a measured tone, he opts to be straightforward.

"Alright out here in the rain, are you?"

There comes a question, aimed at them.

They are capable of answering. They are more able to offer health-related responses after their time in the Distant Village, asked over and over for the status of their recovery.

If Herrah was only planning to let them go, they do not understand the point. Appeasing her daughter--

This requires no theorizing on their part.

Nor is there reason for wondering why this bug spoke this query. If he wishes to take advantage of their weakness, the great Nail laid flat on the ground under their claws will strike him down. Until then, it does not matter.

The rain is not damaging them newly. Their old injuries are less comfortable, but there is no pain, fresh or otherwise.

Still otherwise unmoving, the Hollow Knight bows their head.

At least he got a response at all. Last he heard they were severely injured, and in recovery. Shadelord help him if the Hollow Knight just up and kicked the bucket so near to his shop.

But they're responsive, if not very. This Lemm thinks he can press a little. He's not convinced their answer - if that's what it was - was entirely true, not when the Knight gave him such wholly concerning information before. (They had said their sibling was unlikely to die, though. Thank goodness. Lemm is jittery enough about this already.)

"Thought you'd..." ...be in Deepnest? Resting? Maybe that's revealing too much of his hand. He doesn't want the Knight to get in trouble, either; they'd been clear some things were confidential. "...Never mind." He clears his throat decisively. "I'm no one to tell you, but maybe you should get yourself dried out. You're soaked through."

He's soaked, but he's not the one with health concerns.

His words are taken. They will have to rise eventually.

...This is false. They do not have to. The City's Tears shouldn't kill them.

They have no-where to be. The only place they are truly aware of they have not just left is the Temple, and that does not require their return. The emotion that is one of their flaws rakes white-hot pain down their chest at the consideration.

They could stay here with the droplets crawling down their shell until it isn't so much. Until, like burning pain and crawling infection before it, they no longer notice it so. The Hollow Knight will survive in that case.

Water runs down their mask in a stream to its sharp bottom point.

They stay as they are.

A very unpleasant feeling is beginning to crawl through Lemm at the utter lack of a response this time.

He shifts slightly, the subtle motions of a bug in quiet discomfort in direct contrast to this vessel's eerie stillness. The Knight was so much more animated than this...

Wrestling with some mental fact-checking and a private inner debate, Lemm's head turns to stare off in the direction of his shop. He's thinking about the statue. He's also thinking about how likely it is that a delegation from Deepnest might come to meet the Hollow Knight here; and whether they'd take more offense at Lemm opting to meddle versus taking no action at all.

Well. He's not in a rush to figure this out, and the most obvious temporary answer is currently in his hand.

"If you're waiting for something, I've nowhere to be." This is true. "I'm not usually this neighbourly, though." ...Even truer.

Without much fanfare and even less of an explanation, Lemm turns and steps back to fall in line beside the crouching form of the Hollow Knight, shakes out his umbrella, and puts it up. He holds it over... most of them, and the rain patters a little louder against the treated material instead of their damp robe.

Lemm himself is quite content to keep getting rained on. That's basically what he came out for.

The Hollow Knight is passive. The umbrella is held over them. It is not over the other. This should not be done.

They are unharmed. The truly living require more upkeep than Vessels. Their comfort is not necessary for any, and particularly not a bug who does not feel beholden to them, despite--

--it is not their place to doubt.

Even as the words that follow inspire more. Is their presence--?

(do not think)
(it doesn't matter, their sister said, the princess said, the one who guarded the ruins as the failed and failed and failed--)
(do not think, do not, do not.)

Revulsion curdles behind their wounded chest. They do not believe they had shown weakness so openly; but they have been comforted by sister, by Queen that is not their own, by the sickened Little Weavers of Deepnest when they previously thought the same.

...They must truly be a pitiful sight, for a rare survivor of Hallownest, one that directly reports being rarely neighborly, to go out of their way to shield them.

Just barely, their legs fold inward, to keep more of their body beneath the umbrella. They do not need it, but they will not be openly ungrateful.

Lemm mistakes compliance for encouragement, not that it changes his decision either way. Whatever the nuance, they don't seem to reject the offer, and that's something.

He is careful not to stare, but he's stubborn enough to stay for a long while, if need be.

The problem is that he's not privy to any of the goings-on around the Hollow Knight beyond what the Knight told him - a while ago, now, and realistically anything could have changed. All he knows is they should be in Deepnest's care, and even that might be outdated information. Maybe the Hollow Knight heals fast, like the Knight. It would stand to reason.

...It's just the way they're huddled in the rain in a soaking wet robe that makes him doubt it, somehow. It doesn't look like they're going anywhere or running an errand of any kind. They're just here.

It's probably not his place to ask too many questions, with what he knows of Hallownest citizen etiquette - ah, but he'll have to nip that in the bud, because he's not a Hallownest citizen. And because even if this is the Hollow Knight, that era's over with. And because this is...

It's the sibling of a friend of his, and there might be something wrong.

Any lingering thoughts of following established historic social roles are set reluctantly but permanently aside. After a long silence, Lemm casts them a neutral look.

"S'anyone meeting you here?"

The Hollow Knight's cracked mask shakes back-and-forth. It would be a subtle movement if it wasn't half the size of Lemm's body.

None are meeting them here. None are expecting them anywhere, but seemingly Herrah anywhere that's out of her Den.

This stranger needs not stay with them, has he a meeting to make. But it is not a Vessel's--the Hollow Knight's place to judge how he chooses to spend him time.

It can be a Vessel's. It can be their sibling's. Their sibling their sister calls Ghost can judge all they wish, as their flaws became successes, and they have ascended past any expectations the Pale King's empty spawn ever should or could have had. But not their own. Their role, though outdated, has not completely changed. They are to follow the King's will. Even if the King is--

(wrong wrong wrong Father is gone, Father is)

(Their claws curl around the hilt of their Nail.)

--not the same.

Edited 2023-01-05 12:04 (UTC)

That throws him for a loop immediately.

If no one's coming, if they're not waiting here for someone, why are they here? Sightseeing? Nostalgia?

Lemm looks up at the spires of the dark, wet city and thinks: there's none to be had. It wasn't like this then. And there were bugs -

His thoughts fast-track to remind him where they are and who else might be around. How they might react. Good grief, Emilitia's door is just along the way.

"Have you anywhere to be? ...Only the rain here doesn't stop. S'just how it is, now."

The massive mask shakes once more.

They are here because it is not the White Palace. They are not at the White Palace because staying there would bring their ruin. (They are not at the White Palace because it is as gone as everything else intended to shine forever.)

To some degree, Lemm may be able to tell where they've been. There are shellwood splinters shed around their body and caught along the edges of their robe, unnoticed.

Shellwood does narrow it down, but he's too preoccupied with where they are and what they're doing now to worry about where they've been. Currently.

...Nowhere to be. That doesn't sound right, but Lemm has nothing else to go on.

It does give him an in, though.

"Ah. Well, in that case," he tries, "maybe you'd like to... rest -" he doesn't know if that's what they were doing, either, but they're not waiting apparently "- somewhere you might dry off?"

His umbrella arm is getting stiff. Lemm switches hands. And glances over his shoulder, subtly, just to make sure the street is still clear. Last thing he needs.

This is a query cushioning a command. Not by Princess or Queen, but one all the same.

The Hollow Knight eases back from beneath the umbrella.

The rain drums endlessly against their mask. The crack is filling the inside with water.

They have no need to refuse. They have no right to feel bitter or dare wonder over a bug's kindness. They are wanted to go and to rest somewhere dry; therefore, they will do this, and they cut their mind empty of all else but the action of doing so.

They slam their Nail into the cracks of the ground, making more of them with the force of the strike, and struggles to stand.

Oh, good. Lemm catches them start to shift and he swings the umbrella back to himself and out of the way of their horns. That was easy enough, convincing them. (And still he's torn about it, because does this class as the right thing to do? If they're still in recovery -)

The Nail jab makes him jump.

They are definitely still in recovery. Lemm feels a lurch of unpleasant surprise and awkwardly snaps out a free hand to hover it at their Nail shoulder like he means to steady them. Already he can tell this would be difficult. They're massive. He'd wondered if the statue had been exaggerated, but...

"Ah - slow!" he blurts out, "I mean, at your own pace! It isn't far. Think you can you manage...? Maybe this wasn't the best idea I've had..."

Even slouched, as they don't realize they're doing, the Hollow Knight looms.

Details may be more obvious than before. One sleeve of their cloak is sewn shut not far from the end of the stump that remains. Where there should be wings, hidden beneath, sweeping down their back, it all awkwardly bulges just below their shoulders where even Weaver-make couldn't disguise it.

Their pace will be any set pace. They are able to meet whatever expectations of movement he might require. They do not see this question as enough of a query to respond to.

Edited 2023-01-06 09:25 (UTC)

Lemm takes in the full sight of them with an anxious twiddle of his umbrella. Slowly, he takes his hand back as he not-so-expertly tries to assess their condition. Still, some things are obvious. It's probably a good thing he didn't close the gap. They don't look right.

He gives an uneasy, evaluative little hum. He doesn't like how much effort that took them, but what choice but to continue? They're both still liable to wait in the rain forever if nothing changes. Anyway, it seems the vessel might be as stubborn as he is.

"...On our way, then," he sighs resignedly, and gestures with the umbrella. Lemm takes a step, waits to be sure the Hollow Knight is following, and then he'll certainly set the pace. Which will be as slow as Lemm judges it should.

A spark of heat rises that they know intimately as anger. It was never their own, not until now, and they will not, they cannot, do not--it is ruthlessly crushed beneath chill apathy.

It does not matter the speed they travel, nor what the Vess--nor what the Hollow Knight could potentially match with their lengthy stride and functioning body. It is not their choice.

They were not made for choice. The only they ever dared make ended in failure upon failure. This bug may lead them wherever is wished, whether it be inside or into the streets that have drowned into canals.

Lemm is oblivious.

The pace he keeps is measured to match what he judges to be easiest. It's awkwardly set. He's not someone who is used to slowing to match anyone else. But he keeps half an eye on the Hollow Knight's gait, on whether it looks like they're struggling after it seemed they took such effort to stand up, and he'll err on the safe side. Well on the safe side. (Slow.)

Lemm wasn't sure he'd take them to his shop, at first, but realistically it's the only option. It's the only indoor space he's so familiar with that he can be any use if anything goes wrong. It's the only place that makes sense.

...He isn't really registering the statue any more as he steps back out into the open rainy square. The real thing is right next to him. It's really taking him out of himself.

The City once held a tall-but-simple fountain at its center.

The Pure Vessel had never seen this. They had heard of it, spoken in front of them between palace retainers, mentioning that it was too simple in design; the Pale King in all His wisdom had plans for making it more impressive once He had time to consider such things. The Vessel had no need to listen. They paid attention only for the sake of the King, if there were orders passed along, and after it was clear that was not the case, never a moment longer.

The Oldlight sank burning blades into their mind to better rend it to Her liking, and they were forcibly linked the other Infected, but the reanimated by their shattering scream had never wandered from their engrained paths through the square. The memories of they who saw it after its construction were too muddled by fear and simple-minded urges to have given them any functional idea of what it became.

Their final gift of World Sense became unreadable through the layers of agony, and remains so with their incapability to wield Soul, another side-effect of the sickness that tunneled through their being.

There is no warning.

(There never could have been enough, even if there had been.)

Passing the landmark by, the Hollow Knight tilts their head to check for something their horns might strike, and is met with another Hollow Knight unbroken staring into the ruins above their head.

They stagger sideways as though from a blow. This only brings into focus that there are other figures, faces staring in what even they can read as reverence, the Dreamers all, differentiated by nothing but their masks.

Staring up at the Pure Vessel, the Hollow Knight.

They're abruptly viewing the Fountain from lower, staring from upon sharp knees that spark with pain. There is no time to articulate their thoughts to make sense internally, only churning WRONG warping smothered anger and apathy into an icy shard plunged through their chest.

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

Blinded by nameless horror, the wreck of what the statue long since became frantically claws their heaving shell away away away--

In the quiet rain-noise and nothing else but their footsteps, it's easy for Lemm to pick up the sound of a stumble, and with his existing concern for the vessel's health he's quick to turn and check.

What he sees - panic, fear, something - is not something he's prepared for, but then he wasn't prepared for the Hollow Knight to show up in the neighbourhood in the first place. Woefully under-prepared for this interaction is what he is. This is not enough to stop Lemm from trying.

His shocked gaze flicks from their panicked scramble to the Fountain Square statue, and even as he looks back he's already thinking oh, you're an idiot. You're a tremendous idiot. Didn't think of this.

"What - ah, no, none of that-!" Lemm doesn't know what to do yet, he's just reacting blindly, but he approaches quickly with his free hand out to show he's unarmed, and errs far short of trying to touch them.

They're not the Lord of Shades, and he's not afraid of them either, but the valuable difference between being unafraid and being arrogant is knowing the danger you're putting yourself in; Lemm knows there'll be trouble for him if they react any worse to his presence. He does not reach out. Will not until he's sure it won't get his arm clawed off or a giant Nail through the rest of him. He is vaguely aware he still might.

"Stop. Stop - you'll end up in the Waterways, reacting like that..."

A glance over his shoulder. Lemm's mind finally produces an action that might be useful, and he sidesteps, putting himself in the way between the Hollow Knight and their statue, blotting out most of their view of it with the span of his umbrella.

He needs their attention, first. "Look here! At me. Here."

The Hollow Knight failed.

Every moment they heard Deepnest's empty echoing; every moment they ached from Her burns; every moment the melted memories of the dead and diseased ran through the the channels carved through their mind, they knew.

It was a part of them. Another thrum of pain. Another skitter in the webbing around them.

It was ever-present. Through this, it became a part of the background, ignorable in their spirals of unavoidable thoughts.

Through its sacrifice Hallownest lasts eternal.

The text cuts deeper than any other reminder or blade could ever come close.

This should not be. It should have been destroyed.

Their claws spasm around their Nail's hilt, a wild urge rising to do just so. Destroy the false monument that stands where Father's palace didn't. Fix it.

They must--

--they should--

--they--

--their vision is blocked. A clear order slices through internal chaos.

They look.

Their grip goes slack.

...There is no need.

The Hollow Knight was not intended to have emotion, and certainly never to act on them. That they are deeply flawed atop existing should be no shock.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. The memorial--the word alone is sickening--the memorial sickening them doesn't matter. The memorial standing doesn't matter.

The Hollow Knight will do what scraps of what they were made for remain.

They will not fail again, and bring further ruin two things that continue to exist for the sake of their emotion.

One: the Fountain, still functioning and a monument to the Pale King's design, no matter how flawed.

Two: the bug in front of them. Uninfected. Verbose enough to command. Observant enough to respond to their pitiful reaction. Alive. Alive. This one did not die from their failure.

The Hollow Knight is still. Their own actions have been continuous mistakes. There is nothing they need do.

Of greater importance: there is nothing they should.

The flurry of fear he'll be held accountable for the Hollow Knight somehow, the instinctive (no, learned) impulse to back off and declare this none of his business because he's just nobody, just running a business, just this or that, the surfacing wish that he wasn't the only one here to try and handle this - all of it is shoved roughly aside so that he can think on his feet. Fierce independence comes with certain caveats, good and bad, and one of the good ones is not letting indecision paralyse.

The Hollow Knight has gone static, but Lemm has never seen anyone 'recover' from a moment like that so suddenly. Privately doubtful, he keeps his tone measured.

"Good," he says, a little breathless, when they seem to be looking right at him. "Good. Back in the present, are we?..." He briefly glances away, to double-check the way is clear even though he knows it will be, and then back.

The Relic Seeker is uneasy, but he is not flooded with the same roiling inner turmoil as the Hollow Knight; he's detached from that, flustered maybe but far from panicking. As far as he saw, they had a bad reaction, and that's all. Lemm holds their gaze, steady as a rock, and opts to distract rather than make any mention what's bothered them.

"No one's rushing you," he tells them, "but I've a place very close by and it serves me well enough when I want to get out of this miserable wet. S'where I was taking you."

Lemm points up at a window over the square, trying to get them to look, mostly so he can tell if they're present at all. (He makes a note: curtains.)

"Just up there, d'you see? Really not far. We might get dried off there, how's that sound?"

Present. Yes. Their head jerks in a nod. They see him. They understand they are not with Her. This was different.

Do you see. They look up, but fail to. The City buildings are towering. It must have been--

--the capital was said to be beautiful, though paling in comparison to the White Palace. The shining windows, a number high above broken, glint and gape beneath the rain as though staring.

It is too much for one un-travelled Vessel to absorb.

It doesn't matter; that isn't a question that requires response. This bug will be leading them. They accept his terms: there is no rush, but neither is there enough need to keep him waiting in the torrent. They clamp down on their nameless emotion like a vice.

Standing goes no faster or easily than the last attempt. The Hollow Knight's functioning eye continues to be focused on Lemm the whole time.

He could damage them worse if he tried to help. They could damage him if they took dislike to being touched. Best not.

Lemm keeps eye contact, head tilting to track them as they rise. (It's like watching someone handle a particularly delicate artifact and worrying they might drop it. Only worse, somehow.)

"...Aye, there," he says, once he's sure they're stable. "Come then - with me. Lift's over this way."

Lemm steps out and walks backwards a little way to keep their attention, drifting off to the side so that if they keep eye contact they'll be looking away from the memorial statue. While he waits for them to follow, he falls back on a more comfortable habit: chatting.

"Now, I don't expect many guests, so I'll warn you now: you won't find yourself in the lap of luxury in my shop, and I'll not apologise for it. But you're welcome enough as long as you mind yourself. I know well who you are - but I'll not have anything knocked over, understand."

...It's easier to act this way if he forces himself to frame them as his friend's sibling and not The Hollow Knight. It's an active effort, nonetheless.

The Hollow Knight's eye remains fixed on his back the whole time.

They need to fold inward to fit into the lift, and later, the shop. They're used to it. Deepnest could not change its shape for one so tall.

They listen dully.

No, not dully. They simply listen. They may need knowledge to better excecated orders later. Another thing their time in Deepnest has primed them for, when Hallownest--could not.

They shrink further inward, away from the cluttered walls with many objects to potentially bump into. Their Nail is set flat beside their existent arm, its point protruding behind them through the door.

They are uncertain what the knowledge of who they are could be from. Few are alive enough to speak of them. Fewer still make their way outside of Herrah's domain enough to spread knowledge.

...Perhaps they're known from that memorial.

The Hollow Knight does not shudder, does not breathe, does not anything.

Edited 2023-01-10 02:24 (UTC)

Lemm allows them what little space he can afford, subconsciously watching that they keep their Nail within the confines of the lift on the way up, and chattering the whole time. (About rain. One time the lift got stuck. The building layout. Dull things, anything that feels inconsequential and fills the time.)

"Ah, as I've said, careful around my collection! I'm a Relic Seeker, s'my job to know - a few things," he seizes the tray of notes from his counter and tucks it sharply into a drawer, "so I've made Hallownest my business, might seem odd to you but that's... hm, the way things go..."

Most of his shop has been shade-child-proofed, in a roundabout, mostly-guesswork way. A lot of the pointier stuff has been moved elsewhere, or else to the very back of the higher shelves. The smaller Knight's aversion to Pale King imagery has been taken note of in the Relic Seeker's awkward, quiet way, and most of that has been moved or tucked into drawers. There are still pieces he missed here and there, but likely his visible collection would be saturated with spiky crown-shapes had he not tried. (None of this has yet proved its purpose, because the Knight has been busy and their siblings have stayed hidden when they've visited. It's a just-in-case measure. He has no plans to make mention of it, either way.)

...Lemm sets to transferring a messy pile of stone journals from a set of shelves by the door to the floor behind his desk, and swipes an arm over the cleared surface to sweep off most of the dust they left behind. It's flat, and about the right height for someone the Hollow Knight's size to comfortably sit down on by Lemm's estimate. (He's not having them sit on the counter. Slightly too low and anyway that's... someone else's place, in the back of his mind.)

He hums uncertainly, stepping back. "S'that alright for you? I've a cushion or two somewhere if you'd prefer."

Shadelord below he is being so hospitable. What's gotten into him.

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"half the size of Lemm's body" more like BIGGER THAN now that i think abt it

honestly didn't even catch that i just pictured it how it is. Engrossed(TM)

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Hollow's Fucking Pissed™️

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