focusedvoid: (shade of you)
the knight ([personal profile] focusedvoid) wrote in [community profile] boxfullofzeroes2022-10-31 05:57 am

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.
capitalcurator: (Default)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-15 03:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, if he'd been talking about being socially awkward, that would have been the highest point of hypocrisy he'd ever risen to. No, he's just... fidgeting at them. He won't say fussing. It's just to stop them sliding out onto the floor on their back like a discarded piece of paper and that's that. He's practical.

Lemm perches beside them (with space between, but only small) with his hands folded together, legs straight in front of him, and gives himself a short moment to stare into space and brave the next step.

(In the dim light of a lamp strung up overhead, the tea is a rich reddish-brown, with flecks floating around at the bottom that look like they might be bark. The cup is predictably antique, decorated around the handle with scratched silvery leaf; there's a painted Hallownest Seal on the inside, and Lemm has filled the cup appropriately to the middle line, as if by habit. It's part of a matched set, they might remember - someone might remember...)

"...Wait til the tea settles," he advises, quietly, as if this is a rule he's gone by before. "You'll know your hands are steady enough."
capitalcurator: (what.)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-15 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Lemm just sits there, mostly still, fidgeting a little with his hands. He gave the advice he gives himself, because that's what people do. Only later they might realise, which is a level of vulnerable he isn't comfortable with. Maybe they'll forget. That would be convenient.

At the motion out of the corner of his eye, he's drawn to glance at them, though he looks away and shakes his head just as quickly. Too wired. Or he won't while they're here. Or it'd be impolite. Or he isn't tired. One or several of these are true.

He should talk. Fill the silence. That'd be something ordinary.

"Thought I'd tidy." Obviously.

He scratches his beard.

"S'not going well." Obviously!

Lemm folds his arms, then, and slumps back against the pillows in a sulk. Fine, he's comfortable. The Knight might be jolted very slightly as the pillows shift.

"Not my fault everything I pick up is worth keeping. Can't fault a bug for that," he insists, sounding rather like he doesn't believe a word. "I'd say at least there's space to move in here but I know it's all coming back as soon as I let it. Remember well what ye'll see not again," he quotes from somewhere-or-other, and gestures to the empty floor. "Forgot the tiles were patterned."

Are their paws steady yet. He hopes so. He doesn't have many 'safe' options right now other than to talk about his own business and frankly it's no fun.
capitalcurator: (drowned capital)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-15 07:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Patterned, but not very clean. Lemm seems to be avoiding looking at the floor right now for this reason, though he seems to have resigned himself to the Knight being aware. It's not like they haven't seen worse.

Their words get a sharp look. Then he tilts his head back and studies the ceiling. (Which could also use a duster, now that he's looking.)

"I've thought about it," he admits. And it is an admission, an unpleasant one. It says too much about him. There are conversations to be had - that can only be had in private. "Bugs don't have to be quite as mad to live here any more - you'd be surprised how quickly it happens." With a sigh: "It's happening already... I didn't come here looking for neighbours."

He closes his eyes, rubbing the heel of his hand against the base of his horn like he's soothing a headache.

"No, I don't think I'm going anywhere. This Relic Seeker's found his calling. Hallownest's gotten into me you see, you know it when you find it. I was made for this place." Hallownest. The City of Tears. This shop specifically, even.

A pause. There are conversations -

"Anyway," he says, more quietly, "I don't trust my luck for you to find my shop twice in one lifetime, Knight. If I ever so much as up sticks to Greenpath you'll hear about it in advance."
Edited 2023-06-15 19:12 (UTC)
capitalcurator: (Default)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-16 06:00 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, they know. Well.

"I'd tell you first," he corrects. "It'd pointless to start without you. You'd be excellent transport." They would not be finding out via finding his bags halfway packed, so to speak.

Lemm watches out of the corner of his eye as they begin what looks like a very familiar false start.

"Events first," he prompts. Lemm locks his eyes politely fixed on the ceiling. "If you're struggling, go through it chronologically. Doesn't need context or details yet." This isn't a historical account. He alters the wording a bit: "Just tell me what happened."
capitalcurator: (...)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-16 03:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Lemm is still. He watches patiently, studying the way they stutter and redact and go quiet just as much as he studies what they're writing.

There is such gravity behind the mask of the Hollow Knight. That's what they're telling him here. And it shouldn't be a surprise with what he knows already, but there is something - he knows, as he thinks it, this is beyond naive, it's not like him - there is something to the image of the Hollow Knight standing upright in stone in a rainy square -- ugh. Now he recognises the bias. And he fell for it, as the sculptor and the client intended. Even with the context, the impression lingered at the back of his mind and it's been... colouring things. Rookie mistake.

Lemm does not say any of this. He sinks slightly into the pillows, thoroughly displeased with himself, and scowls at the far wall.

"Thought they were - quiet," he says, and feels like more of an idiot. "Figured it was their business, from what you said. Didn't ask." Should've, maybe? How was he, of all bugs, supposed to know that?

...Actually.

"Well, how were you s'posed to know?" he mutters. "Until they told you, I mean. Anyway it sounds - bad." Inadequate, that. But it sits kind of like an invitation, on the doubtful chance they want to tell him more.
capitalcurator: (what.)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-16 08:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"The -"

Ah, that is a lot of information at once, and spread out on a page with not much coherence. Lemm tilts a bit to read better. And he doesn't mean to loom, only the angle is awkward...

His line of sight is interrupted slightly by their fist.

...He slumps back into place when he's done, and folds his arms over his chest, thinking. This is a lot. None of it is remotely familiar to him, and he doesn't have good advice, here, not really, just second-hand...

It doesn't take long. He feels strange about leaving them in silence too long here, which might be why his answer isn't exactly thought-through.

Nor is it verbal at first. Lemm settles a hand on their head. Give him a minute. Give them a minute. But he's here, regardless.
capitalcurator: (don't touch the merchandise!)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-16 08:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Lemm almost jumps for his life as well. It's not like this is familiar, sitting next to someone and trying to -

- Unimportant, there is tea everywhere. It's all over the Knight and it's - liquid, so it's going to be all over his bed, he's going to have to sleep on that, but it's also all over the only guest he's got, all of this is bad at the same time -

The Knight will find themselves unceremoniously swept up under the arms and held, awkwardly, by a Relic Seeker who is now on his feet and didn't quite mean this at all. He is still in the moment. He is probably about to be horrified.
capitalcurator: (take off the defender's crest)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-16 08:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Lemm flinches his face away instinctively, though he also doesn't immediately put them down. This is a mess. He registers an unpleasant noise, one he's not remotely fond of. The moment settles.

The moment settles, and: he is standing, holding the Knight like some offending stray beast caught going at a pantry, and there is a bit of tea dripping from them, but really not enough to warrant this, now that he's entirely present and thinking about it.

There is tea all over his floor. Amid shards of shattered cup, because the floor is hard. He stares at that.

Then he stares at the back of the Knight's head, suddenly unsure quite what to do with them. (There is Void tangled at him, in places. Not sure what to do about that especially. Can he put them down, even?)

...He puts them down, slowly, just sinks them to the floor until their feet are touching and very, very gingerly lifts his hands away, flared out like he's making a point of not touching, any more, see. See how he's backing off from what he just did. See. Look.

His hands come back to clasp awkwardly at his front, rubbing. He waits for their Wings to recede.
capitalcurator: (...)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-16 09:51 pm (UTC)(link)
He's still standing there. They're looking at him. He didn't mean to do that. (He can't say.)

He's staring - at them, at the tea, spreading into the grooves between the tiles, he should do something about that.

No, first, the Knight. But either thing means leaving the room.

Lemm is too old to be paralysed by this. He presses a hand to his forehead and slides it up his horn, frowning.

"That was stupid of me," he says out loud. Sorry won't come. Most things don't. "Hold your thoughts, will you."

He determinedly disappears out past the curtain.
capitalcurator: (Default)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-17 07:43 am (UTC)(link)
Lemm is reminded when he exits into the main shop just how disorganised he is right now. Nothing's where it should be, and it wasn't to begin with. All the rain in the City of Tears and he doesn't even know if he has a towel.

He snatches up a cleaning cloth he left on the counter and tries to tell himself it doesn't matter it still smells strongly of metal polish. On the way back he also swipes up an antique scuttle, because he can't find anything better to put trash in.

When he hurries back in, he thunks the scuttle down on the floor and immediately waggles the cloth at the Knight to try and shoo them away from the mess.

"Let me. S'my fault. Here."
capitalcurator: (this isn't a museum)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-17 08:38 am (UTC)(link)
The cloth is lightly tossed at the Knight's proferred Void tendrils, and he gestures to them, at the tea. They should clean themselves up.

Lemm kneels and begins tinking the shattered wet ceramic piece by piece into one cupped hand. This is easier for it all being in one pile like that. They've helped enough, and anyway guests shouldn't tidy. So he's heard.

(He pauses briefly over a large fragment with most of the shiny handle still on it. Narrows his eyes.)

"Keep writing when you're ready. Didn't mean to interrupt."
capitalcurator: (Default)

[personal profile] capitalcurator 2023-06-17 01:00 pm (UTC)(link)
The pieces are dumped unceremoniously in the scuttle; Lemm is meticulous, plucking the tiniest chips of porcelain off the floor just to be thorough. He rises and comes to take the cloth when they're done, sparing a glance at the page as he wipes his hands off.

"Don't be ridiculous," he retorts. "Grabbed you like a tiktik. Not your fault."

He returns to the puddle of tea and kneels to mop it up with the cloth.

"Sounds like it was dumped on you like a pile of stone journals," he muses, distractedly thumbing the damp fabric at the edge of a tile and examining the result disdainfully. "Probably good to remember you don't have to go through it all at once. Probably best you don't."
Edited 2023-06-17 13:00 (UTC)

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