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

[capitalcurator]

As long as he isn't worrying about whether he's making a good impression, it seems he makes a better one. Mostly by keeping quiet. It's still hard to fall into the quiet routine of privacy when there's someone sitting right there. He wants to talk.

...Not as hard as he thought, with a journal to get engrossed in. There's a chip in the back, someone must have dropped this one from a great height - oh. Him. Anyway it's an earlier-era theory on Soul collection and written in a way a layman - or at least a particularly sharp bug with a lot of experience with dense text - can parse, which makes it fascinating. And a bit grim. Morbidly fascinating. It suits him well.

Lemm loses himself contentedly enough in the reading of it in the unusual warmth and dimmed light of the shop, and occasionally he glances up just to keep an eye on the Hollow Knight. Maybe this is more like a comfortable silence than a cold one? He can only hope.

Eventually he breaks it, but only because curiosity wins out.

"Anything revealing itself?"

[impure_void]

Spoken word snaps the Hollow Knight back to themselves.

No, the precise opposite. Out of themselves, cutting through the dull sensation that writhed behind their chest and mask in equal measure.

It doesn't show outwardly either way.

There are words made clear. Without hesitation, though it still has tarnish smeared about the top and bottom edges, the medal is set in front of the Relic Seeker to examine. There isn't another option, with their incapability to read it aloud.

[capitalcurator]

"Ah..." He'd have taken a nod, but they abruptly interrupted their work to show him so it must be of particular interest.

Lemm takes up the badge and holds it to catch the soft light. He can't resist a little chatter here, if only because they've passed a relic across his counter.

"For medicine," he mutters, and sounds appreciative. "And during such a time - I'd date this as engraved after the gates were closed. Fair acknowledgement for a difficult..."

Lemm fidgets with the thing. He hasn't forgotten who is in the room with him, as much as he's trying to let things be as ordinary as they might.

"...A difficult task," he finishes, and glances up from the badge as he turns it over in his hands, looking for... he doesn't know. Tells, maybe.

[impure_void]

No tells. No anything.

(Though that could be a tell, in its own way.)

Even after the end, even when She had been squirming through the minds of so much of Hallownest's people, prayer and hope echoed for a cure. That the infected were not dead, not dreaming, not yet. Don't give up yet.

There was never a chance.

The Hollow Knight's mask is angled somewhere between the speaking Relic Seeker and more relics on the shelves, prepared to take it back and finish, or to pluck up another if this is not requested.

[capitalcurator]

Nothing is difficult in its own way, but maybe it's alright to finish his thought. Lemm looks back down and says what he'd been going to.

"...Things like this mark tenacity in a way. Going to great lengths not to squander whatever perceived chance one has." He takes up a cloth, and sets to finishing this one himself. "I actually like this kind of thing quite a bit more than anything awarded for skewering things on a Nail. Something has to keep you going."

Finishing the polish can be done without paying massively close attention to his hands. Lemm tilts his horn at the shelves, subtly.

"A Relic Seeker is allowed to take history personally if he likes," he finishes.

[impure_void]

Perceived chance brings the twisted feelings again to the forefront. They tried. So many tried, and believed, and yet--

And yet.

They're here.

The Relic Seeker doesn't offer the medal back. The job will be finished innstead by his functional hands.

It must be strange, to see them, if...if all he had seen prior was that statue. He must realize that they've failed. They are not in the Black Vault. They are not whole, as that image is. Hallownest was not eternal, as desperate as it tried to be.

One would not seek relics somewhere that still stands.

With jerky, jolting movements, the Hollow Knight reaches to lift some sort of container with a sharp-looking top.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm is admittedly a little bit wrapped in his own thoughts all of a sudden, but not so much that he doesn't watch sidelong as they go for something with a point on it. He's been searching them for clues since he started talking again, and the strange, tremorous motion isn't subtle enough to escape the kind of quiet observing he's already doing.

It's not sharply spoken, but it certainly doesn't sound like a suggestion:

"Steady."

[impure_void]

Tone and word work together and throw them back to the past. Not identical to former commands, but close enough.

The Hollow Knight's arm whips back to their body and the whole of them snaps to attention, straight enough to clip their horns on the ceiling, gaze fixed above the Relic Seeker's.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm tenses back in his seat, hands slipping on the medal. It clatters loudly onto the counter. Could have damaged that-

Unimportant, because the Hollow Knight is - what are they -?

...No, that won't do.

Lemm rises as well, hesitantly, and holds out a hand to sort of flag it vaguely at them.

"Easy, I didn't mean... Slow down," he advises, and it's impressive how his voice holds considering the jolt of horror running through him. "Mind your..." Every time he's seen them move before it was so careful - oh, he's terrified, suddenly. Lemm finds himself moving around the side of the desk, just in case, hand still raised.

[impure_void]

They aren't--they can't--they--

They reacted. They responded, mindless, not emotionless or will-less, in--was it fear, or has the fear only risen after, or--

--they don't know what to do.

The Relic Seeker's hand moves, and then he himself; they do not shift their head to follow, but they can still see it from the edge of their working eye.

They've done something incorrectly. They cannot correct it without further order.

The Hollow Knight remains stiff and still.

[capitalcurator]

They're so still. Rigid. Not looking at him, that's not good, probably, and how would he know if they'd hurt themselves considering -

- considering the papers in his drawer, among which: "no mind to think/will to break/voice to cry suffering" -

- oh, he's really, and he'll allow the term this once, fucked this up.

Lemm comes in front of them, like he came between them and the Memorial. So that they don't have a choice but to see him. Doing anything out of view feels unwise.

"Easy, now. I meant nothing by it, just didn't want you poking yourself with a relic..." He drifts his hand closer to the shoulder of their remaining arm, halting a few inches away. "May I-?"

[impure_void]

He's going to claw them. No. He didn't want them injured. Not with the relic. Not with their waiting, hunched, beneath the rain that now fills their mask with its hissing and dripping outside. He--

They have no need to predict what he does. Only preservation of their life is priority. Relic Seeker Lemm cannot kill them with a single hand, even if that were his dearest wish.

The Hollow Knight's mask twitches in a nod.

[capitalcurator]

Something. Something is good. A nod is good.

Lemm doesn't rush. His hand comes to rest, just feather-light, against their shoulder. He doesn't know what's under the fabric, the extent of what's been done, so he errs on the side of caution.

"Here... Best if you sit, I think. Down. Slowly, mind."

He'll guide them down with his hand, if they'll let him.

"I'm sorry," he tells them. "Shouldn't have spoken to you that way." How unpleasantly familiar.

[impure_void]

His hand barely presses down against silk and wing. Remains of wing.

(They hadn't been listening. They hadn't been told to. They were too tired. Hornet's hands were steady. Herrah's voice was not. Their wings began useless and only shredded and stained worse by Infection. The Hollow Knight did not so much as twitch at their loss.)

They sink under the light weight until they reach to their usual hunched posture.

They shift to mostly meet his face as they go further, to sit. Their movement alters slightly at the last moment to partially land on the cushion rather than floor.

The look is not mindless. Helpless. They--he need not apologize. The Relic Seeker made no error. It was their own, and they can't begin to comprehend why it was made.

[capitalcurator]

"...There. Try to settle, will you? Didn't mean to give you a shock."

He lingers. He's not sure why, but he's doing it on purpose, leaving his hand where it is, staying where he is instead of drawing away like he might have a while ago. Something in him is telling him to, so he stays. Probably it's the same thing that drove him to Dirtmouth.

Lemm tilts his head, breaking uncertain eye contact to peer down at them. There's little he can see unless he asks them to remove the cloak. He doesn't want to do that, either.

He settles for plucking some fragments from the material with his other hand, sort of gingerly dusting them down a bit. Actions of a bug who does not really know what to do with himself. (Shellwood splinters, pale dust. Lemm can say little of it, but his shell crawls.)

"...Does anything hurt?"

[impure_void]

Shock. An apt descriptor, jolting their body into acting without other input.

This is an order they don't know how to follow.

His hand remains on their shoulder.

The Hollow Knight forces both shoulders to become less tense. This is the best settling that can be done without fully lying prone. They will if he requests it, through words or pushing them further, but as of yet, they continue to stay as they are.

The question is clearer. Yes. Several things hurt. It appears many will forever.

[capitalcurator]

He finds himself following his own advice when he feels their shoulders relax even a little, mirroring along with them. Seems he's stressed the both of them out.

Sitting is far better than kneeling all stiff like that, but their answer gives him a new flash of concern and this one manages to show itself on his face.

"Haven't... torn something, have you?"

This is a scary thing to ask, he's going to be in deep trouble if the answer is yes because Lemm has never learned that much beyond the most basic of first aid. He can splint a limb, maybe. He's not too sure about fix a rekindled injury originally made by the possible manifestation of a god. Not really something he'd ever thought to learn.

[impure_void]

Promptly, their head shakes. Simply straightening hasn't further damaged the Hollow Knight's shell.

Nothing new hurts, except, perhaps, the lightest sting in their mask, from where their horns struck the ceiling travelling to the crack. No scarred wound has freshly torn.

[capitalcurator]

He presses a hand affectedly to his chest for a moment. There is a mild sigh of relief. "Good," he mutters. "I'd have had to fetch someone. No good with injury, myself." He does not fancy explaining himself to whoever was in charge of their care in Deepnest. (And yet he would have gone, or tried. He thinks the Knight would dislike this immensely, but they aren't here to take issue.)

Lemm just barely gives the Hollow Knight's shoulder the lightest squeeze, shy of any solid action, and lets his hand drop away.

"But it..." Their answer had been yes, still... Oh, he sees; it should have been obvious. Nervous, he scratches at his beard and fails to meet their eye. "I've nothing for that. D'you - shall I make more tea?"

[impure_void]

The shape of his claws remain warm on their shoulder. Strange. It is more--more--satisfactory than the tea held within their own.

To the offer of which is given a shaken head. As well as somewhat in response to the rest, in a spike of unsettling daring. Neither tea nor fetching anyone would heal them more than they've reached now.

Much of their body aches. It hadn't been worth attention until the Relic Seeker mentioned it. Scars of burst and burn, always. Joints and feet, through so much leaping in their trek through pieces of Hallownest.

This new awareness does not show.

[capitalcurator]

He nods, accepting what he's taking as a no-thank-you just as readily as anything else they've indicated.

"Fine. But I'll not do that again. I'll remember." As much for himself as for them. He is getting better at minding himself around others, he'd be hard-pushed to deny, even with a healthy dose of pessimism. But the Knight isn't the only one he needs to practice with.

Lemm stills for a moment to give the Hollow Knight a further, uncertain once-over just to be sure.

"You'll... You'll tell me if I'm causing you discomfort," he tries. Better make it a rule, of sorts. Lay the line out. "Or..." A flick of the hand. "Act. I've no patience for you to sit there and endure. Especially not if you've been doing my work for me."

[impure_void]

The Relic Seeker doesn't nee--

They could have been damaged. Else a relic could have been damaged. To keep the response from recurring is sensible.

His actions are his own. They-- (do not hope)

--they cast this from their mind.

Past this, they have not been made uncomfortable. It's. It is fine. They are fine. They cannot tell him what hasn't occurred.

Yet--the tea--that had been...strange. They cannot lie to themselves about something so clear. The Relic took their refusal with ease. They should not--he is telling them to--

The Hollow Knight is, again, motionless.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm is learning to take the quiet as a neutral, not a negative. And ordinarily he does, but ordinarily bugs have not been so unresponsive as the Hollow Knight is, and it's... different. Their particular silence leaves room for worries he hasn't had before.

After a moment, then, he just nods to allow this topic to be dismissed, and goes past them, back to his desk. On the way his hand rises to land on their shoulder again and it falters halfway, still hovers in the air after he's out of their line of sight, comes to smooth restlessly up between his horns instead with a sigh.

Lemm picks up the badge. Tilts it, to check the minimal tarnish left over. Awarded for medical accomplishment in the midst of...

"Brave thing you did," he mutters, and slips back behind his desk.

[impure_void]

The Hollow Knight is...fragile. Compared to what they once were, depicted outside, where they cannot see but will never forget.

They feel this in their chest. Not the scar. Not only that scar. Behind it. Beneath their shell. If they pressed their claw against it, perhaps it would cave in, weak as glass that holds lumaflies.

Is this--?

--this--

--this is...discomfort.

And there is nothing that can be done about it. What is said is said. There is no way to protest praise the broken Hollow Knight does not deserve.

Their hand is not quite steady, but the movement is far slower when they reach for another relic. Something selected to lack a point.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm closes the distance to pass it to them as soon as he registers what they're going for, along with a new cloth, just to save them reaching so far. No particular fuss or meaning, he's just agreeing: there's little left to do but... go back to what they were doing, the Hollow Knight has got the right idea there.

Lemm picks up the forgotten journal, and in his other hand he takes up his cloth and toys with the badge through it, turning it over and over in the material and not worrying much about how well this actually gets it clean.

Apparently this incident - though it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth - has not caused them to go for the door. They're still at it, and he didn't ask them to resume, so... The Hollow Knight can share his space as long as they see fit and he won't make a fuss about it, or the opposite - try too hard to be likeable. Not upsetting them is more than enough.

He'll be quiet for a while, letting the time pass in peace. It feels like they both need the breather.