Old chains of God and Root cast away, the Void is never fully separate.
The Knight's body being their own again is still a buffer. The frantic fragments of emotion of their siblings are soothed once more. It's almost alone that they neatly step around the tall black-and-red bug to exit.
They'll be followed, or they're being deceived and won't. They'll find hints from either choice.
The Pale King's words whisper as they pass; as ever, they ignore it. Shadow Creeper shells decorate the way forward, dead where they walked or hung from the walls. A quick slash reveals a brown-black mess of Void and guts, no orange. At least part of that is as it should be.
...The tunnel seems oddly bright.
A long pause and examination reveals that, by technicality, it isn't. Absence of Infection is the only clear difference from before, and it should be darker for that lack. It appears their time at rest left them with mild disorientation.
The journey onward--to the Hidden Station, they decide--will be slower than they tend to go, considering they should reassess and rediscover their senses.
(That they're partly braced for claws tearing through their back is also a factor, albeit smaller.)
Grimm takes a liesurely walk just a little way behind them, wings cloaking him almost completely. With strides so much longer it's no rush to follow, though there is a distant, nagging feeling that he ought.
Perhaps the average bug might not notice something so subtle, but Troupe Master Grimm is acutely aware. He keeps his eyes down, thinking, and stays close. As they refamiliarise themselves, Grimm too is... familiarising.
He speeds back up to subtly close the distance again and glances at the dead Creeper as they pass. He has a feeling he knows what they half-thought they might see. His face is subtly downturned and his attention turned inward. He is barely in a position to lash out, not at someone who just loomed over him with the power of the Abyss. This, too, is frustrating.
He is rather more tense than he'd like. Never mind the rest - knowing so little is difficult to stand.
"Such is the manner, it is rare enough that fame precedes us," he probes conversationally. "I wonder what you know of me?" Did they choose their gift, or did she?
The Knight halts and turns. (This question is well-timed, as they've just come to a steep wall, and while they expect little challenge, they're still adjusting to their proper size. And they're not sure if the stranger's black-and-red cloak are also wings.)
A brief pause, and a small head-shake. They know nothing of this bug that they haven't only just observed, in form and in terms used. Including us, now.
Grimm suspected as much. It was her pick. Perhaps even a surprise, as much as he doubts she has any care for the novelty of that.
Very well.
"Then I must be introduced!"
A little of his flair returns, bit by bit, as he shakes off the shackles of sleep. Normally he would get some time to prepare. Normally he would be in the tent, or else surrounded by kin, either way a performance at the Master's choice and in familiar context. This is none of that, but the graces of a thespian endure.
Grimm takes another, far more theatrical low bow, bringing his face (and burning-coal eyes) closer to their level.
"I am Grimm. Master of the dread troupe, though of this arrangement it seems my kin were not a part. Alas the stage was never set, and the lantern never lit - a shame. The pyre of Hallownest would burn brightly..." A pause. He does not straighten up yet. "It is a strange kismet that brings you and I together at all." By the sound of a careful but sharp note in his voice, this is something with which he is none too comfortable.
The Knight is, unfortunately, a difficult being to read and to impress. Little of that means anything to them.
A troupe... They distantly recall the term for a wandering band of beings that sing and tell stories. The concept stands out in their mind only for merriment they supposedly brought with them that most wasteland travellers lack.
Grimm would be a poor singer. A storyteller, more likely. Or a concept they never learned of. They'd had only fleeting brushes with that type.
Less dramatically, the Knight dips their head back.
Strange indeed, yet no stranger than the rest of Hallownest.
They turn back around and briefly lift a paw. Up. A courtesy the Knight would rarely bother with, but he seems nearly as confused as they. A small warning before leaping.
The Mantis Claw is still there and functional. Their cloak--wings--Shade Wings--reach to grasp at roots and crevasses on instinct, leading their climb to be a jerky and graceless thing.
Grimm follows their gesture, and watches idly for a moment or two as they begin the climb. My, but it would be hard to forget they could tear him to pieces when their wings are doing that.
He would be glad of the opportunity to show off exactly what he can do, if not for the fact that most of what he can do is hidden away somewhere he can't quite access at the moment.
This also makes the next task somewhat more annoying than it should be. Grimm regards the high wall, expressionless.
"Trifling," he decides, though who this is for isn't clear.
Grimm is already learning not to reach for the flame. It is buried too deep wherever it is, and trying to throw himself into a teleport would not end elegantly. Still, he is to make an impression on this shadow, be it for better or worse - and it wouldn't do to fall behind. (Certainly not too far. The draw to follow is insistent.)
He flares his arms instead, sweeping the cloak of his wings away and behind, and leaps. With longer limbs and more of himself to throw into acrobatics, Grimm keeps pace easily, jumping to footholds the Knight struggled to reach without their Wings, and occasionally scurrying tight to the wall. He sails over the top edge only a moment behind them, wings catching the air and flaring out as he drops into a perfect pointed landing and snaps back into posture.
Grimm can keep pace. There's one point made. (What use have they for him, anyway? He isn't sure whether to dread the finding out, and for now there's nothing else to do but be compliant.)
The Knight tracks him by sound. Grimm's steps are less chaotic than the Weaverlings'. Fast. Keeping close. Their paw itches at his sharp movements, but he continues to keep from threat.
Up and forward, up and on, through the Ancient Basin.
The sign indicating the White Palace's former place falls once more to their Nail, bouncing against the wall to roll somewhere behind them. Their perception finds the area somewhat brighter than before as well.
...Or.
Not their mind and dark playing tricks alone, they fine, when they climb into the cavern and stop.
The White Palace's scant remains are more.
The broken gate that held nothing behind it is still standing crooked as it was. Past its rubble, a path. Farther back, towering walls of grey. Cracks crawl along broken spires (each curving upward in shape of the Pale King's crown, the Knight note with creeping annoyance), and black pours out in gushes and motes. Darkness. Theirs.
(The screaming buzz of circular blades, the distant dead denied grief of one who choked on the Void of his own volition, coward, place of pain, in what is theirs, in what is them--)
The Pale King's dream had been a silver splinter in their shell, and they'd flicked it out to land where it started.
Grimm forgotten, their path shifts to the (not-so-)White Palace's ruins.
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syntheid
no subject
Date: 2023-10-02 09:36 am (UTC)The Knight's body being their own again is still a buffer. The frantic fragments of emotion of their siblings are soothed once more. It's almost alone that they neatly step around the tall black-and-red bug to exit.
They'll be followed, or they're being deceived and won't. They'll find hints from either choice.
The Pale King's words whisper as they pass; as ever, they ignore it. Shadow Creeper shells decorate the way forward, dead where they walked or hung from the walls. A quick slash reveals a brown-black mess of Void and guts, no orange. At least part of that is as it should be.
...The tunnel seems oddly bright.
A long pause and examination reveals that, by technicality, it isn't. Absence of Infection is the only clear difference from before, and it should be darker for that lack. It appears their time at rest left them with mild disorientation.
The journey onward--to the Hidden Station, they decide--will be slower than they tend to go, considering they should reassess and rediscover their senses.
(That they're partly braced for claws tearing through their back is also a factor, albeit smaller.)
no subject
Date: 2023-10-02 06:35 pm (UTC)Perhaps the average bug might not notice something so subtle, but Troupe Master Grimm is acutely aware. He keeps his eyes down, thinking, and stays close. As they refamiliarise themselves, Grimm too is... familiarising.
He speeds back up to subtly close the distance again and glances at the dead Creeper as they pass. He has a feeling he knows what they half-thought they might see. His face is subtly downturned and his attention turned inward. He is barely in a position to lash out, not at someone who just loomed over him with the power of the Abyss. This, too, is frustrating.
He is rather more tense than he'd like. Never mind the rest - knowing so little is difficult to stand.
"Such is the manner, it is rare enough that fame precedes us," he probes conversationally. "I wonder what you know of me?" Did they choose their gift, or did she?
no subject
Date: 2023-10-03 12:32 am (UTC)A brief pause, and a small head-shake. They know nothing of this bug that they haven't only just observed, in form and in terms used. Including us, now.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-08 02:34 pm (UTC)Very well.
"Then I must be introduced!"
A little of his flair returns, bit by bit, as he shakes off the shackles of sleep. Normally he would get some time to prepare. Normally he would be in the tent, or else surrounded by kin, either way a performance at the Master's choice and in familiar context. This is none of that, but the graces of a thespian endure.
Grimm takes another, far more theatrical low bow, bringing his face (and burning-coal eyes) closer to their level.
"I am Grimm. Master of the dread troupe, though of this arrangement it seems my kin were not a part. Alas the stage was never set, and the lantern never lit - a shame. The pyre of Hallownest would burn brightly..." A pause. He does not straighten up yet. "It is a strange kismet that brings you and I together at all." By the sound of a careful but sharp note in his voice, this is something with which he is none too comfortable.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-09 10:07 am (UTC)A troupe... They distantly recall the term for a wandering band of beings that sing and tell stories. The concept stands out in their mind only for merriment they supposedly brought with them that most wasteland travellers lack.
Grimm would be a poor singer. A storyteller, more likely. Or a concept they never learned of. They'd had only fleeting brushes with that type.
Less dramatically, the Knight dips their head back.
Strange indeed, yet no stranger than the rest of Hallownest.
They turn back around and briefly lift a paw. Up. A courtesy the Knight would rarely bother with, but he seems nearly as confused as they. A small warning before leaping.
The Mantis Claw is still there and functional. Their cloak--wings--Shade Wings--reach to grasp at roots and crevasses on instinct, leading their climb to be a jerky and graceless thing.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-15 05:51 pm (UTC)He would be glad of the opportunity to show off exactly what he can do, if not for the fact that most of what he can do is hidden away somewhere he can't quite access at the moment.
This also makes the next task somewhat more annoying than it should be. Grimm regards the high wall, expressionless.
"Trifling," he decides, though who this is for isn't clear.
Grimm is already learning not to reach for the flame. It is buried too deep wherever it is, and trying to throw himself into a teleport would not end elegantly. Still, he is to make an impression on this shadow, be it for better or worse - and it wouldn't do to fall behind. (Certainly not too far. The draw to follow is insistent.)
He flares his arms instead, sweeping the cloak of his wings away and behind, and leaps. With longer limbs and more of himself to throw into acrobatics, Grimm keeps pace easily, jumping to footholds the Knight struggled to reach without their Wings, and occasionally scurrying tight to the wall. He sails over the top edge only a moment behind them, wings catching the air and flaring out as he drops into a perfect pointed landing and snaps back into posture.
Grimm can keep pace. There's one point made. (What use have they for him, anyway? He isn't sure whether to dread the finding out, and for now there's nothing else to do but be compliant.)
no subject
Date: 2023-12-30 03:44 pm (UTC)Up and forward, up and on, through the Ancient Basin.
The sign indicating the White Palace's former place falls once more to their Nail, bouncing against the wall to roll somewhere behind them. Their perception finds the area somewhat brighter than before as well.
...Or.
Not their mind and dark playing tricks alone, they fine, when they climb into the cavern and stop.
The White Palace's scant remains are more.
The broken gate that held nothing behind it is still standing crooked as it was. Past its rubble, a path. Farther back, towering walls of grey. Cracks crawl along broken spires (each curving upward in shape of the Pale King's crown, the Knight note with creeping annoyance), and black pours out in gushes and motes. Darkness. Theirs.
(The screaming buzz of circular blades, the distant dead denied grief of one who choked on the Void of his own volition, coward, place of pain, in what is theirs, in what is them--)
The Pale King's dream had been a silver splinter in their shell, and they'd flicked it out to land where it started.
Grimm forgotten, their path shifts to the (not-so-)White Palace's ruins.