voicetest the voiceless

[focusedvoid]

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.

Comments

[focusedvoid]

The Knight is motionless.

Seer had never seemed devout, and seeing it, even for a moment--watching her bow, not in respect, but supplication--they greatly dislike it.

They don't know how to react. Lemm's words reach them from a distance, and when she looks up, they jolt into head-shaking motion.

She's no Godseeker. Allowing her to act like it is an insult to them both.

They put a paper in front of them, but they're fully at a loss. They stare it down and desperately hope Lemm has more words to say while they try to form their own.

[capitalcurator]

That's. Unusual. Seer remains still, searching them both - mostly the Knight - for anything else to go on.

"...Ahh..." she tries after a moment or two, uncertain.

Lemm gives a sidelong glance down at their empty page, and comes to the rescue.

"Just Knight," he offers, flagging a hand at her in a way that is decidedly too casual. "Or whatever you said before. I like to go with bothersome little nuisance when they're being difficult. Which is often."

Risky, to go that far, and it's possible it might not go down well with the Knight themselves. But it seems to have the intended effect on Seer - this is not how one talks about a Higher Being, any way you look at it, and she rallies as she realises what's being communicated.

"...Ah? What a curious case..." They don't want veneration, then? She has to grapple with a few things here, but she attempts to make a save. "Higher Being or not, I suppose we are all something different to every soul we meet." That sounds appropriately vague. Seer nods, carefully. "To me... Wielder is a title worthy of my respect to you, though hardly worthy of a god. Maybe I would be better sticking with that, hmm?"

It's tentative, but it's a compromise.

[focusedvoid]

They leap on it like a lifeline, stretching out and swatting Lemm's hand with the soft half of their quill. Doesn't matter it wasn't at the Knight, it's a playful move without consequence for unimportant rudeness.

Ascending to become a Higher Being wasn't the goal, I only wished to find and rescue my sibling. I don't need or want to be treated as a god ^{or king or anything similar} and certainly not by (the briefest hesitation) my allies. I'd rather few know at all, if possible.

(With Lemm at their side, they nearly wrote out 'friends' rather than 'allies'. They don't believe they're such with her.)

Wielder is entirely fine. Thank you.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm is equally casual when he flutters his hand at their quill in response, shooing them off. Yes, no Higher Beings here, socially speaking - just the grubby little wanderer who comes to sell him relics.

Put the way they've written it, their Ascension seems almost... inadvertent.

Seer eases into this understanding slowly, scanning their page with barely a motion. But it's clear, at least - the Wielder apparently does not mince words. She settles the rest of the way back into place. The prewritten letter disappears inside her wings.

"It felt customary..." To bow to a new god she knows so little of, and introduced for the first time - technically - of course it did. But by her tone, it's nothing personal. She inclines her head. "I will keep your title to myself."

...On, then, as strange as it feels. Seer thinks for a moment, going back over what they've told her. Low and wilting, her antennae give a minute shiver.

"You carry a Dream realm inside you," she reiterates, just to bring that properly to light. "As many of us do, surely as we carry Essence... But you! You've managed to tangle another mind in yours, and how vast it must be now!"

She lowers her head, as if this next part might be insensitive - but at least she says it. Pragmatism is probably best, in the case of this new god who doesn't want the added decorum.

"How did you take her?"

[focusedvoid]

They nod shortly. No hard feelings, and her word is appreciated.

Oh, she has no idea.

They lift their quill to start to explain that part, but it's cut off with a question. A question that still won't make sense if they don't explain, somewhat.

Unpleasantly, they answer bluntly, first. As warning. And I cannot remember it all, but please ask as much elaboration as you need. This was stated already, but they stress it. They forget some things. Lemm is here to help, but some things even he doesn't know.

They explain first how they found Myla. How they had been furious. How they wanted her out and everyone that had hurt her gone.

That there was Void in place of Infection. That they had a form made of it, much larger now. That they had taken it from all those and destroyed them.

This is where they lose the thread. They carried her out of the Colosseum, as well as a few others--they hadn't realized it at the time, but these were others kept in cages, same as her. The world blurred and they blacked out until they were nearly to Dirtmouth, with Myla insensible in their hands. The others were there too, tangled in them. Their form is somewhat like a liquid. A Mantis Traitor, and a few others, left when they brought Myla to their home.

They started to realize it was more than her previous injuries and fear when she hadn't completely woken. She'd been afraid of the dark for a while, until they found her in Godhome again. They had internal assistance from that, from the other Vessels in the Void. They don't expect Seer to know about that, but they aren't sure what she's aware of.

Unpleasant indeed.

And they are trying to be tactful for certain things, but if the Seer knew the source of the Infection...it's possible to read between the lines.

I'm fairly sure I didn't use the Dream Nail itself at any point, they finish simply.

When they shift the paper for her to read, they make a point to, once again, tap the line about asking.

[capitalcurator]

Seer is quiet, unless you count the soft hum of contemplation now and then when they pass over a particularly prudent detail.

The part about Void gives her minute pause, and her head turns just slightly as if she might look over her shoulder at where the curtains lead deeper into her home, though she doesn't completely act on it.

She has said nothing of it yet, but she has had a few of her own suspicions before the Knight and their... and the Relic Seeker had come here. Now she has more pieces to the puzzle, and the shape it takes is much clearer.

Seer is, as she has been since they arrived, deeply thoughtful. Slow to react.

Lemm has been quiet, too, but there's a tension in him that wasn't there before they began their explanation. He keeps flipping between watching them write and fixing Seer with an unreadable stare - unreadable because he's doing his very best to mask what he's actually thinking. It's unfair to try to guess how she might react.

"The fury of a god is nothing to go unheeded," she eventually says, and it seems like she's choosing her words carefully. Still, there's no avoiding it now. "The fate that was cast upon this Kingdom is proof, as I'm certain you understand by now..."

She hesitates. Lemm is still staring at her, and some of the internal intensity has started to bleed out into his expression.

"By the shadow's hand Her light was extinguished," she says, simply. There. The boofly in the room has been addressed. "If you hold the same fury inside you, it may be a sheer thing..." Seer trails off, uncertain. This probably requires some input from the Wielder before she can continue.

Lemm clearly wants to say something. He waits, instead, with some effort; his hands have tangled themselves tightly in the fabric of the bag on his lap.

[focusedvoid]

The Knight doesn't care for the comparison. But in that moment, perhaps--they did tear the Fools apart from within in revenge for a wrong. It was simply not a wrong related to being forgotten, or against them at all.

I believe it somewhat less, they respond after a moment. At least more controlled. I didn't seem to reach beyond the Colosseum's bounds and it was finished quickly.
I know the Infection was reversible in early stages, but Myla is clearly not in early stages of anything.

Hopefully they don't need to die themselves to fix it. If it's the temporary sort, they will. If it needs to be permanent--well, they won't, and likely can't. What can drown a Void? Nothing that still exists, the Knight thinks. And they're not letting go what they have just yet. They'll find something else.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm does pipe up, now, before Seer can react. They have already said so themselves, but in case there was any doubt...

"It was accidental," he states, just to double down. "Reacted badly. Anyone would."

Seer inclines her head, the barest of movements. Be that as it may...

"Ah... But you or I could never back up our anger with such power, isn't that true?" The hand holding her teacup reappears from behind her wings and sets it aside, now gone cold. "As mortal bugs, we may only solve our problems from mundane angles." The Knight is flashed a semi-apologetic look. "It's not every day a deity asks you for counsel."

Lemm scoffs.

Seer gives a small beckoning gesture with the hand she's just freed up. "Come. Let me look at you. I don't have high hopes of seeing anything useful, but nothing ventured, hmm?"

[focusedvoid]

The Knight glances at Lemm. His reminder is--startling, somehow. They're unused to being defended. They lightly tip their head, indescribable emotion tightening their chest.

They stand and step in front of Seer, closer than their customary position, Dream Nail still held in their off paw.

Even if there's nothing to observe relating to help, they wonder what she'll see.

[capitalcurator]

He catches the look, though he doesn't react to it. Lemm is keeping rather a vicegrip on his thoughts and feelings right now.

Seer searches them as they approach. Her antennae give a barely-perceptible flag, just once, and she makes a soft noise somewhere between interest and understanding.

She reaches out with a slightly unsteady hand, and if they let her, she'll touch - just with her fingertips, like she's checking them over for something - the side of their face, the edge of a horn. Takes the front of a wing, lifts it away slightly, lets it slide off her hand all the way to the end. She will press at their chest with two fingers, firmly but not hard, where a bug's heart might be.

Lemm watches intently, stiff as a board.

[focusedvoid]

They allow it. They weren't sure what they were expecting, in truth.

Their mask feels like mask, if perhaps a little heavier than it should be. They allow their Wings to shift into what they truly are around where the tips of her fingers touch, the shadowy near-fluid of Void, though they keep tight control to avoid any clinging. Their chest has no heart that beats, but beneath the lightest coating of soft shell, the shape of the Voidheart is detectable.

Somewhere in the middle of this, the Knight is distracted and startled by a full-body shiver. Through the whole of their existence, the amount of times that's happened can be counted on a single paw.

[capitalcurator]

On the outside, Seer's examination could be mistaken for a healer giving an unfamiliar bug a short exploratory checkup. By the intensity with which she's peering at them, though, it seems unlikely that's all there is to it.

Her hands have a tremor or two caused by nothing in particular. She takes no notice of their shiver.

Lemm does, snapping to attention and going somehow even more tense than he already was. It passes too quickly to bait him into breaking his silence, but he's suddenly beside himself with the urge to put a stop to it. It is probably good that he's had some practice with restraint lately.

Seer is either oblivious or dutifully ignoring the crabby Relic Seeker glaring daggers into her from over the Knight's shoulder. (It's the latter.)

Her fingertips linger over the Voidheart, and she gives a contemplative hum before letting her hand trace the air along their arm to their hand - the King's Brand is ghosted over, just so, and she takes a quiet breath here, too. Seer traces next to where they're gripping the Dream Nail, and her palm hovers over the talisman thoughtfully.

She draws her arm back under her wing.

"Ahh... Wielder..." She sounds awed. "Such an expanse within you, what fathomless dark! For a mind to be lost in such a sea..."

"Can they sit down now," Lemm grinds out, about as measured as he can manage.

...Fair enough. Seer gives the Knight a clear nod to let them know they're dismissed from being prodded at.

"I've learned much. But it's as I suspected: I can't make clear sense of you. That darkness obscures all those minds, and there are so many..." She looks a little glazed.

[focusedvoid]

The Knight's hasty step back is mainly to give Lemm a quick pat on the hand. They're fine

They are fine, basically. A part of them is soothed, matched with strained. Confusing, contradictory. (As dreams and darkness can be.) They give the calm more attention as they settle down.

You might sense the Godseekers and my siblings. There are many of both. more of the latter. I don't understand what you're doing, but I can ask my siblings to 'move'? I'm not sure if it's possible.
I do not like asking the Godseekers for anything, and am unsure if I can 'move' them either, but I can try both. I'd need to leave and sleep for them.

[capitalcurator]

(He's a little flustered by it. Was he being so obvious? Yes! Extremely so!) Lemm does at least ease up when they're back on the floor. It is... probably rude to stare like that at someone who is trying to be helpful. He makes himself look at the floor instead.

"Precious little of you is anything I'm used to looking at," Seer admits, and shakes her head. "But I did feel that foreign presence there... A second sea within the first. Heavily obscured... I don't expect to glean more detail."

She sighs, thinking on it. It really is unprecedented. Still...

"The Dream Nail has grown powerful and precise in your hands, Wielder," she says carefully. "If a more likely aid exists, I don't know of it."

"Are you asking them to poke themselves with the thing?"

"...Ah..."

She doesn't look like she knows exactly what she's suggesting.

[focusedvoid]

The Knight holds it up in both paws, this time. They think...they wonder, if they focus on where Myla is within--

--that almost activated the Dreamgate. They quickly set the Dream Nail back into their lap.

Where is their last Dreamgate? Likely the Junk Pit, or whatever's left of it. They should fix that. Set one up in their house for now, actually.

The Dream Nail is precise, and I am getting better, but I'm still unpracticed in my own realm. I can try it more in there? It seems to work mostly as it does in waking.
I don't recall if I've tried it on Myla inside Godhome. I know I haven't in the Void outside of it. if she agrees to go. That could do something.

They offer a half-shrug to Seer and Lemm both.

[capitalcurator]

Seer's notice snaps to the Dream Nail when the Essence barely starts to flicker, though she says nothing of it. Lemm is obviously unaware.

Seer nods at their musings. "Intent will matter just as much as the talisman you're using. If your anger claimed this bug and hid her away, then whatever guides your use of the Dream Nail... Perhaps it must come from a place of calm?"

This is said with more confidence, at least. It is hard to give advice on something she has never witnessed before, but some things seem universal.

"Practice, at least, is always wise."

"None of this is tremendously specific, is it?" Lemm points out.

Utterly unoffended, Seer gives them both a tip of her head. "Ehh."

[focusedvoid]

They give another one-armed shrug, in Lemm's direction this time. I didn't come expecting step-by-step instructions.

Once again, their mind skitters to Hornet's cryptic threats and similar. The Knight's claws curl inward to poke lightly at the King's Brand.

No, it's never that easy.

They're less stressed than they were at the start, regardless. Seer is still acting mildly odd, but that's hardly as uncomfortable as bowing. They are odd. An odd being, an odd god coming to request her assistance. She could have panicked instead.

Beautiful/grotesque/confusing, they write with wry humor. And then: I'll need time to think this over. I need to consider 'calming'. My time in Hallownest has not been such often. I don't yet know what exactly to practice either.

Lemm has more mundane questions if he still wishes to ask. and Seer still wishes to answer. This odd bit of writing is presented away from their other writing, to them both. It's true, and a blatant subject change for the moment.

[capitalcurator]

The quip gets a little half-nod. "Hmm..." They don't seem like they want to tackle this with her input right now, so she makes her exit with another vague suggestion she doesn't expect an answer to: "You might try meditation. Now, Relic Seeker - "

Having been idly distracted by the Knight's writing, Lemm jerks to look at her.

"- you seem disoriented!" She sounds deliberately good-humoured. "I am curious... What questions do you have for a Seer?"

...As always Lemm isn't pleased to have that pointed out. He wonders, briefly, what she can see of him - that's not a helpful thought and is crushed quickly.

"They might not be for a Seer," he admits, somewhat gruffly. He loosens his deathgrip on the bag, now that he realises he's doing it. "For a Moth, though, I've quite a few. Depends what you're willing to share."

She doesn't fidget much in the first place, but there's a noticeable difference when Seer goes still.

"...Aah..." She's contemplative, at first. Eventually she asks: "A Relic Seeker... Your lot are historians?"

"This one is." There is an implied can't speak for everyone.

"Then I'll have to disappoint you."

Lemm frowns. "You said you didn't have secrets."

"Secrets are different, I think, from things that simply ought not to be remembered."

...Lemm has never looked more deeply offended in his life. Blindsided by that sentence, he can't seem to form a response. Seer in turn just stares mildly back at him.

The Knight may actually have to step in here. There is a solid chance Lemm is about to take that personally.

[focusedvoid]

Meanwhile, the Knight has quietly taken their map out. They're genuinely trying to look for a 'calming' place to start, though they expect it won't be that simple. It's a step into feeling like they're doing something.

(They give the Junk Pit a Token Marker. It might be worth seeing if anything's left there.)

Mato...Mato welcomed them to his home to meditate. They mostly used it as a time to relax in a friendly presence. That is, at least, a type of calming. But would it be safe? For Mato? He doesn't even know what they are.

...Yet. His devotion is to the Nail Arts, not any Higher Being that they can tell. Somewhat to Sly; that's not comparable.

The Shell Marker is chosen for its red, and they pin it on his hut and in their mind. Future consideration. Explaining to him wouldn't be any sort of calming, but it might work eventually, if they choose to. If.

Abrupt silence pulls their attention back up.

They review the words they'd just half-listened to, and the look on Lemm's face.

She doesn't have to answer anything, they remind him. But, to Seer: You requested I uncover much of Hallownest's history. Implied lightly: it would be only fair to share some of hers.

[capitalcurator]

It is a worthwhile reminder for Lemm - though he's still obviously incensed, he carefully withdraws from what might have been an unfair reaction. He's still too used to getting his information from objects, not people, and the rare times he did the latter it was from behind a counter that he owned. This is not that. He is in someone else's home, and he's asking favours. (Offering to pay her for this information seems... crass.)

Lemm gives an irritated grunt, though he directs this aside and to no one in particular. A hand flicks up to indicate give me a minute, and he glares at the floor while he thinks about how to proceed.

In the meantime, Seer offers a bit more context. "Old crimes are sometimes better left in the dark, I'm afraid! To commit it to history, to be remembered... Ahh, no. No, that wouldn't do." A thin, placating cheeriness runs through her tone. "I know what you'd ask, Relic Seeker. I don't say these things lightly."

Lemm lets a fresh wave of anger roll through him, and reels himself in again with an exasperated sigh.

"You're hitting a sore spot," he admits, which is about as far as he can safely explain. Then, in a last-ditch effort to excuse himself: "Apparently so am I. I'm not a fool."

Seer's bearing has changed minutely, everything held a little lower, attention a tad more fractured. She understood the Wielder's implication just fine, and of course they're right...

"The memories of my Tribe were always to fade with me. And now She is gone... It was a necessary thing," she adds, with a nod to the Wielder, "though I lament it all the same. Hallownest rests at last! But the memories I carry are tired, and I the same... Relic Seeker Lemm, do you understand what you ask of our history?"

"With... respect," he stiffly tries out, "I've wrestled enough regrets out of this old Kingdom to know exactly what I'm asking, and I can't make proper sense of them without yours." Lemm casts a muted look in the Knight's direction, and deliberately stays vague. "There're things that ought to be known."

"Ah..." Seer peers curiously between them. There is a tenuous possibility that there's good enough reason to tell, then, if it isn't just for a historian's sense of duty. But it still depends -

"Maybe I'll ask you as - as Lemm, first," he stutters out, suddenly on the back foot. He gives a light cough and begins fidgeting immediately. "What you said about being something different to different people - s'a different thing, isn't it? I'm just asking because I'm curious. And we'll decide later whether a Relic Seeker gets to handle the information."

To drop his title and his calling from the conversation removes the problem. Seer would tell the Wielder, would tell an ordinary bug; she only wouldn't tell a historian. It also strips Lemm uncomfortably bare of the impersonal rote and abstraction of his job. Not for history, or for his work: just because he is curious. Personally so.

He looks agonised.

Whatever exists between the Wielder and this bug is important enough that he would make what seems to be a fairly huge concession. And he's right; it does change things. Seer dips her head.

"Yes... Yes. Very astute!" Eyes gleaming, Seer gives an approving hum. "For you, then, not for remembrance... Would either of you care for tea?"

[focusedvoid]

Deliberately, the Knight keeps what Lemm would call quiet.

They would push. They're fairly used to watching such conversation from the outside, besides, their own understanding--or lack thereof--not holding influence. They could. They understand how they're important to both, in different ways, and it would be unfair to leverage that just now. It's an interesting exchange all the same.

No need to waste any on me. I couldn't drink it, is all they finally write. But thank you.

[capitalcurator]

"No." ... Ah, right, and then, as the Knight did: "Thank you." Lemm then keeps his eyes locked on the floor. Oh, Hallownest had seemed like such a straightforward idea a little while ago. How quickly his life became difficult and complicated and personally involved. (Alright. Maybe he's feeling dramatic.)

"Hmm." With no takers, Seer abandons the idea of getting up and instead gestures that Lemm should continue.

With a sigh that means nothing except to calm him down, he finally dips into his bag and pulls out the Arcane Egg, delicately peeling the cloth wrappings away until it sits in his hand on a nest of fabric.

"...First, then. How'd you come to have one of these?"

Her antennae twitch. Seer looks to the Knight. She gives a contemplative, wavering hum and scrutinises them oddly.

"Of shadow you are..." A pause. This is strange territory. She is not to refer to them as a god of Shades, but a god of Shades they are. "What do you know of your nature, Wielder?"

[focusedvoid]

More than I did before I returned here.
(-I left for a long time and lost memory of Hallownest in the wastes.)
I know I'm Void. I know I'm a Vessel. I know whoever made those Arcane Eggs worshipped the Void in ancient times, and that it's constructed of Void as well, but not how those people did that.

Straightforward.

(Refuse and regret.)

They wonder what she knows of those things.

[capitalcurator]

More for Seer to mull over, careful and slow.

"So much is forgotten..." She re-states, framing it simply. "There are details lost to me, as they were lost to the Tribe, and as it seems they've been lost to Shade. This we have in common."

She is quiet for a time. This must be said with care.

"Enemy of the Light. Long we had kept something of yours." Her tone shifts, subtly, as it sometimes does: the first part was ceremonial. This is entirely lighthearted. "It seems you don't remember! ...Well, neither do I. Still it felt right to give a piece back, since the opportunity was there."

[focusedvoid]

They nod lightly. I appreciate it, though not as much as Lemm has.

Lemm speaks so freely, they're primed to expect response without asking much. Seer hasn't asked much first, either. Reluctance? They consider whether or not to interrupt his questions with their own.

...Not yet. They want to see where this goes first.