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#they sibling pile her and Hornet is just so done when she gets back
mostlydeadallday · 10 days
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Lost Kin | Chapter XXXIX | What Must Be Done
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Fandom: Hollow Knight
Rating: Mature
Characters: Hornet, Pure Vessel | Hollow Knight, Quirrel
Category: Gen
Content Warnings: gore, body horror, panic attacks, dissociation, vomiting, flashbacks, referenced abuse, referenced self-harm, child death
AO3: Lost Kin | Chapter XXXIX | What Must Be Done
First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Chronological
Notes: Hornet and Quirrel address the remaining infection.
Hornet held her sibling’s hand until they stopped trembling and the awful rasping in their throat died away. Until they could see her again, the void in their eyes no longer twisting frantically, loosening enough to follow as she moved.
Panicking them just before she began work on their wounds was the last thing she had wanted. But it had happened, regardless—the strain of being asked to use the new signs piling atop the stress of being moved, tied down, and anticipating what she was about to do. Quirrel’s proximity had likely not helped them admit something they likely would have struggled with even had she been alone with them.
She finished checking the anchors fastened to the floor along her sibling’s side, wider points of silk glowing bright where they met the stone at regular intervals like the cables of a bridge.
They would hold, she hoped. It was a precaution she wished she did not have to take, but despite Hollow stating that they would communicate with her, she refused to trust in that alone.
Her pulse was quick, quick, feathering in her throat, and she kept her gaze on her hands so that she would not have to look at them laid out flat on the floor, limbs stretched out and tied down, their every breath pulling the silk-lines taut.
She had to do this, she had to, she had to—
“Hornet?”
Without raising her gaze from where her hands had frozen beside Hollow’s hip, she answered. “Get the tools.”
He did as she asked, with a murmured “One moment,” to Hollow as he left their side. She heard him rearranging things on the tray he had found and cleaned, the soft clink of metal on metal doing nothing for her fraying nerves.
She had made this harder on herself.
She hadn’t meant to. She had intended, this morning, to bind herself firmly into that cold, distant mood she could put on like a second shell, piece by piece, like one of the Five readying for battle.
That had not happened. She’d crawled out of that nightmare already wounded, with her shell already pierced, and seeing Hollow safe, alive, craning their head to peer at her as she stepped into the room, had finished her. She hadn’t been able to stop herself going to them, touching them, holding them, to be sure that they were real. A hideous relief had taken hold of her—relief that they were unharmed, hideous because that would soon no longer be true.
She could not deny that it had felt like, if they could, they would have reached out to hold her, too.
Quirrel reappeared, setting down the tray and pushing back the mattresses so that they would have more room. His hands were wrapped in a thin layer of her silk, a precaution he’d requested after she mentioned that, being fully mortal, he would not share her resistance to the caustic effects of void and infection.
Hornet laid her hand on Hollow’s again. Her claws were dwarfed by theirs, and her heart lurched when they shifted their thumb to touch her fingertips, brushing her chitin with the cool roughness of the pads set into their shell.
She looked up into their face, into the eyes of someone she had denied the existence of for so long, and saw acceptance. The acceptance she could not give herself: that there were things that must be done, painful and inexplicable though those things might be, and that they would obey her in spite of it.
No, she wanted to hiss, and stop it, stop it, I don’t want this, I don’t deserve it.
But she would not—not if it brought them peace, not if it helped them endure what she needed to do.
Choked with her own refusal, she couldn’t say any of the thousand things that crowded her throat, things she’d already tried, in one way or another, to convince them of. I’m sorry had already been said, and she did not know how many more ways she could find to say it. Hold on passed between them, silently, in the grip of her hand over theirs. And hidden somewhere deep, in a recess of her heart she had almost forgotten, frail and small and afraid but unsilenced, was—
I love you.
Was it folly, to admit to loving someone she had only just met? That she had no tie to, other than the cursed blood that bound them as kin? Someone so damaged, so broken, that she did not even know who they were? Someone she did not know if she could save?
It did no good to deny it. If that was folly, then she was the kingdom’s greatest fool.
She stood.
Her legs were unsteady still. They had been since she stumbled out of the kitchen, half-convinced that she would find Hollow dead and gutted on the floor in front of her. There was a cruelty to the way they lay there now, as if in deliberate echo of her nightmare, but she held to the sound of their breathing, the faint motion beneath their mask, to tether herself to reality.
She’d placed them on their back, with cushions to prop up their torso and neck, keeping their horns at a low angle off the floor. The blankets would insulate from the chill of the flagstones, although she did not know if that needed to be done—would they prefer to feel the cold, if the infection was still keeping their body from returning to its normal temperature? At least it would protect their shell from scratches if they struggled.
This would not be comfortable, not for any of them, but she’d done what she could.
As an afterthought, she spun one last web between their horns, thinner than the rest, anchoring their head to the floor—though with enough slack that they could move if need be. This one, she did not trust to hold, but it might give her enough time to move if they attempted to bite.
With one hand still on their horn, she spoke again. They likely already knew this, but she could not help drawing the boundaries once more.
“This may take some time. Quirrel is here only to assist me; he will not touch your wounds himself. Unless you are moving to sign to me, please—lie very still. I know it will hurt, and I… I must ask you to endure it.” She tightened her grip on their mask, pressing her fingers round its curves. “Do you understand?”
Their claw lifted, tapped out two faint beats on the stone. Yes.
No more reason to delay. Nothing left to do but what she had been dreading.
She moved to kneel at their left side, on a folded towel that Quirrel had placed within reach of the basin of water, the stack of rags, the tray of shining tools. Her head was swimming. The words stuck in her throat felt almost literal; something was swelling there nearly large enough to stop her breath, and when she pulled out the pouch of herbs from beneath her cloak, her hands were shaking.
Quirrel moved to sit beside her. Somehow without looking at him she knew the expression he’d be making—all hunched shoulders and lowered antennae, interest and concern that she couldn’t take right now. She pinched a dose of herbs between her claws and tipped her head back, shredding the leaves with her fangs and teeth until the bitter-sharp taste filled her mouth.
Better. Slightly. It gave her another thing to focus on, at least. She passed the pouch back to Quirrel. “I may need you to give me more of that.”
He answered with a brief word that she didn’t hear. Her mask seemed full of a deadly hum, like the warning buzz of the Hive, making her voice too close and his too far away.
She beckoned the lantern over, and when he brought it to Hollow’s side and shone the harsh light on their shoulder, she bent down to inspect the work she had done so far.
It was, plainly speaking, an ugly mess. But not a mess she could solely blame herself for. A few sharp edges of shell plate on their back and chest still protruded out into nothing, left behind as muscle and bone dissolved away beneath them. The sunken pit between was a twisted knot of scarring—some of it swollen, perhaps inflamed, though it was difficult to tell with their flesh so dark and their blood the same color as their skin.
It was difficult to tell anything. Especially with the empty blister sacs hanging in clusters on their withered shoulder, deforming the outline of their body into something barely recognizable.
She lifted one to peel it away, working her fingers under the ragged edge and loosening it, trying to pull as little as she could on the still-living flesh beneath. Flesh that was soft and pliable, springing back when she pressed against it, deeply exposed and unprotected in a way she dearly hoped her own body never would be.
 The empty pustule detached with only a little trouble, leaving her holding something that hung slack from her fingers like a limp, puckered seed-pod—something she did not look at too long before dropping it in the rusty bin procured for that purpose.
She breathed deeply for a moment, the tension still not abating, though her hands had steadied. Hollow hadn’t moved, shifting not an inch in their bonds, but then, she had not really hurt them. Not yet.
The second empty sac came away cleanly, and the third. With every one disposed of, she moved closer to the active infection, closer to the light-filled blisters crowding out through their skin.
Caught in the dread of it, fresh nausea roiling in her gut, she pulled too hard. The fourth tore free.
She felt it rip, felt the weak resistance of the still-healing scar give out. Her hands went cold. Void oozed up, welling from the ragged wound, tracking down through the snarled maze of their scars and onto the sheet. It spread as it fell, like blots of ink.
She forgot to breathe.
A warm, dripping rag was pressed into her hands. Her claws squeezed it automatically, wringing clean water down over her knees. Her own inhale sounded loud inside her mask.
Right. Right. Mustn’t fall apart yet. She had only just begun.
She took Quirrel’s unspoken suggestion, clamping the rag to the wound until it stopped seeping—surprisingly quickly. Their shoulder had bled very little the first time. The infection must have cut off the supply of void to the area, causing what remained to wither and shrink, acid and heat searing them down to the marrow.
“Sorry, sorry,” she heard herself whisper. Hollow did not respond. Didn’t even twitch as she patted the stump clean again, wincing every time she passed over a snarl of scar tissue or a hidden knob of bone.
Their strength was holding. That was good—it was, no matter that the lack of reaction made her want to ask if they were all right, if they could hear her at all.
She managed not to tear open any more wounds as she removed the rest, leaving their shoulder a slightly less horrific mess than it had been. Less misshapen, less grotesque, less like the dead husks she saw lying in the streets, corpses worn down and drained of life twice over.
And—more their own. All that remained was theirs, both what was still intact and the results of their body’s attempts to retake what belonged to it. With a muted sense of relief, she dropped the last deflated sac into the bucket, resisting the urge to wash her hands—the infection had not even touched her yet, and already her shell was crawling.
Quirrel cleared his throat as he took the void-stained rag from her. “I think you should remove the rest as we go. It may cause more bleeding than we want, but… the injuries will close with soul-healing, correct?” At her nod, he went on. “Then that would be best. It will save us having to return and finish later—and what’s left may be harder to reach once the infection recedes.”
“All right,” she breathed, and took a scalpel from the tray—fine, thin, with a sharp tip, weighing heavy in her fingers.
Exhaling shakily, she turned and picked up a hollow shell bowl, another thing Quirrel had discovered while raiding the cabinets, and set its edge beneath the rim of a half-filled blister. Then she pressed the tip of the scalpel in, just above the puckered flesh beneath.
The swollen surface dimpled slightly, then gave, spilling open all at once like the gut of a butchered animal, and a sludgy stream of rot gushed into her bowl.
Hornet tried not to breathe. The sweet, flowery reek of it surrounded her, pressing against her mask, into her lungs.
Hold the bowl steady. Hold the knife steady.
Widen the cut, deepen the gash. Watch the god-light seethe and steam.
Don’t think. Don’t think.
Quirrel was holding out a clean cloth when she turned to ask for one, taking the full bowl from her and emptying the contents into the waste. She kept pressure on the cut until he gave the bowl back. Then she set her hand on the sagging blister, resisting the urge to jerk back from the heat against her palm, and pushed.
It dislodged a fresh gush of yellow and two half-formed clots, one after the other, threatening to slosh over the side of the bowl. Hornet bit down on nothing, jaws aching, and pushed again, watching the stream of ichor wane. Until the blister was flattened under her hand, until the thin fluid that she pressed from the cut ran only black.
Quirrel had the scalpel in hand when she turned to reach for it.
Rather than pull at something that was not ready to come free, she felt along its base before she cut. Guessing at where the damage began, at the point where it became no longer their own. At where the light had forced its way out, swelling and stretching within their own skin until the damage was too great to heal and their body rejected it.
She guessed wrong.
Void welled freely beneath her knife. Dark, wet, shining; she shuddered, the inside of her mask still ringing with the screams of pain from her nightmares. She stripped the excised flesh away, fumbling for another rag to press to the wound, and held both hands against it, arms nearly weak enough to give way.
Hollow’s side shifted beneath the pressure, and she almost let go, resolve faltering, until she heard a long, deliberate scrape of air through their throat. They inhaled, deeply, and exhaled again, each measure precise, each respiration held and released beat for beat.
A pang of nausea twisted her gut. She recognized this. This was exactly what she remembered, exactly what they had done the first time under her knife, down to the very rhythm of each breath.
She did not look over toward Quirrel’s soft exclamation, did not look at her sibling’s face as they did their best to endure this. She looked at her hands again, black claws twisted into blackening cloth. At the movement, up and down, as her sibling took another long, intentional breath.
The feeling swirling in her chest was no longer dread, or anger, or anything in between—anything but hate. She hated that they had learned to do this, and she hated imagining why. She hated what the world had done to them—what the goddess and her father and she herself had taught them to expect.
That their life would never be their own. That they would always be suffering for someone else’s cause. That they would never have a choice. Always bound, by one chain or another, and always, always, hurting.
Dwelling on this would not help. It would not help. She had to go on.
She shook herself, roughly, ignoring Quirrel’s questioning look, and loosened her grip, peeling back the corner of the cloth to check the bleeding. The gash was not deep, but this lower point on their shoulder—past the worst of the scarring—was better supplied with void than the rest.
She would have given them soul to heal, but she did not wish to waste their strength unless it was necessary. Asking them to heal could break their concentration, sending them into a spiral that would be harder than ever to interrupt. Nor could she forget that giving them soul was tantamount to handing them a weapon. She had to take more care with Quirrel nearby; any one of the dozens of spells Hollow knew could easily kill him, if they panicked badly enough to try.
They had not done so yet. And it seemed unfair to assume the worst, when they were trying so hard, trying to do everything she asked of them. Even when they broke that pattern, it was only ever to protect, not to harm.
She did trust them, as much as she could. She did—but trust was as useless as geo, and she would give them all she had, but she did not have much.
Instead, she kept applying pressure to the wound, checking it occasionally as she waited for the bleeding to slow, and switched hands when the chill of the soaked bandage made her joints begin to ache. Quirrel offered her a second to place as a buffer over the first, though the flow had nearly clotted by then. She gave it an extra minute or so after lifting her hands away, watching to be sure the fragile scab would hold, before she moved on.
With the next, she took greater care. Watching, forcing herself closer, forcing her mind to focus on each detail. With every wary cut she made, with every halting press against the bloated thing, she imagined her own skin parting, her own blood welling, acid sizzling against her own shell, leaving pocks and craters even after she wiped it away.
The tools felt hot in her hands. Hollow’s breathing had changed the moment the knife touched them again—inhales becoming quick, shallow, as if they were barely holding their mask above water and any reckless motion would send them under.
She wished that they would stop. Every tiny sip of air, every crackle in their throat, was a reminder that they were hurting, that she was hurting them, and the measured, stifled movement making it easier for her to work only added to the pain.
She almost wanted to snarl at them, to snap them out of it—
Careful. Careful. The anger simmering in her was destructive, she knew; she could not let it boil over.
A long, careful slice, right at the seam where the blister emerged from their body. A press of her palm over a rag over the wound, to hold back the void that bubbled up. A tense silence while the wound clotted. This time she allowed Hollow three full breaths and half of a fourth, waiting until they had filled their lungs before she bent down to her work again.
The remaining sacs on their shoulder, the ones that had refilled after her first attempt, were easier. Less pressure—the infection had receded from this area—and once drained, they came away without much bleeding.
She handed the bowl back to Quirrel to be emptied, laying another bandage down to sop up a weak trickle of yellow from the last flattened blister.
He touched her. Just two fingers on her shoulder, brief, but she jumped, and before she’d fully turned to hiss at him he was already apologizing. “Sorry, I—sorry. Slipped my mind.” He laughed shakily, not meeting her eye. “I just—I need a moment to empty this.”
The waste bucket. It was nearly full already, sloshing unpleasantly as he lifted it, and she averted her eyes, unable to avoid the waft of metallic, putrid sweetness that followed as he moved. Like blood, like nectar, and at the same time like neither. Like the rot hidden at the core of a thing. Like corpses piled to burn, piling higher, higher, higher—
She swallowed a lump that burned all the way down her throat. Her whole body pulsed with remembered dread, with the constant live-wire terror running just under her shell. It had been an age since the height of the infection, since there were bodies still to burn, or anyone living left to burn them.
But that smell—it was inescapable. Like the dread. Like the slow-motion certainty that there was nothing she could do, that her entire world was dissolving, day by day, before her eyes.
Your mind is your own.
Her mind was, still, her own. By some miracle. By some protection from the divine in her heritage, some useless trick to ensure she remained sane to witness the chaos. Something her father had evidently been unable to extend to his so-called Pure Vessel, whose downfall he’d acknowledged only by disappearing, along with his entire court and the palace she had once wished she could tear down stone by stone.
Leaving her with a crumbling kingdom. Leaving Hollow to burn, and burn, and burn—
Breathe. She had to breathe, had to stay here, stay now. For them.
The air, when she took a tentative gulp of it, did not reek. It was cool and clean and still. Those terrible days were long behind her. She was—no longer as alone as she once was. Her sibling was here, freed from their bonds, far from unharmed but also far more alive than she ever expected. And Quirrel—
Quirrel was kneeling beside her again, murmuring something that sounded concerned. All her fingers were buzzing; when she looked back down at them, her claws were sunk in the cloth she’d been using, clenching hard enough to tear.
She opened her fists. Flexed them, coaxing the feeling back.
Over her shoulder, quiet and level, she said, “I think I need more of those herbs now.”
He obliged, passing her the pouch, and waited until she had bowed her head to swallow—painfully—before he said, “You’re doing very well.”
She scoffed.
“Truly,” he hastened to add, before she could argue. “And you too, my friend.”
Hollow did not reply—could not, with the options she’d given them—but, as she watched, their head tilted. Questioning. Barely enough to be noticeable, except that she had been waiting, breath held, for any sign from them. And this…
This was the first reaction they had truly shown since she began.
She reached to touch them, one shaking hand smoothing over the shell at the base of their shoulder, where no nail or burn wounds marred it. “You are,” she whispered, and meant it. “I’m sorry, I’m—it must hurt, but—”
She wished she could tell them it was almost over.
The void was swirling softly when she met their eye, in a pattern she did not know how to interpret. Perhaps if she had seen the signs, had listened to her buried instincts sooner, she would know what it meant. The best she could do now was offer them what she herself would want, if she were in their place.
“All of the cysts on your shoulder are removed,” she explained. “The bleeding has stopped. The next step is to drain the infection in your chest.”
That would be the truly delicate work. The first few single blisters were clearly visible, following the lower curve of their pectoral plate. But farther on, they were grouped in clusters, crowding together, protruding like a clutch of eggs from the fractured cavity carved out by their own nail.
Self-inflicted, she heard Quirrel’s words echoing, and shook the memory away before it could paralyze her.
Perhaps she was accomplishing what they could not. Perhaps, in some way, they had been trying to rid their body of this plague, by the only method allowed to them.
Gods. How deep would she need to go to remove them all?
She could do this. She could.
She had to.
Hornet slid her hand from their shell and clenched her jaw, holding onto the bitter taste in her mouth. “Syringe, please.”
Quirrel placed it in her hand, a heavy, shining thing with a thick barrel and a long, slender needle. He had tested it while she was readying her other supplies, ensuring that it did not leak. Rather than cutting into the difficult-to-reach cysts and risking the infection draining back into their body cavity, he’d suggested she use this to draw the fluid out, until the entire growth could be removed safely.
In theory, this had sounded simple.
In practice, the first time she pierced the skin of one of the bright, angry blisters in their chest, it sprayed molten light down her front, flinging an arc of infection across her mask and arm in a string of golden droplets that immediately began to burn.
She couldn’t help the sound that she made: a visceral, stuttering hiss. Hollow had not flinched at the sting of the needle but they did flinch now—a spasm jerked their chest tight as they attempted to lift their head, quickly halted by the silk round their horns.
Before they could panic and struggle, Hornet wrestled her voice and her own momentary panic under control, though the edge of a growl still crept through. “It’s fine, everything is—fine. Please lie still.”
It was not fine. Her heart was thumping hard, the heat of the infection seeping through the collar of her replacement cloak and dripping down her mask, pouring down Hollow’s side from where their motion had torn the opening wider. Dropping the syringe with a clatter, she snatched up a rag and pressed it close to soak up the fluid before it could reach their shoulder and scorch the exposed skin even further.
There was more, too much more. “Bowl,” she snapped, and then it was in her hand. She wedged it under a lip of warped shell, damming off the other routes for the infection to flow with her handful of cloth.
Hollow’s breathing pattern had broken for an instant, but they were back to it now, as rigid as if they’d never left it, though each breath warped and wavered like heat waves in the air. She couldn’t take the time to think about it, between emptying the bowl and sopping up the stray runnels as the flow dwindled.
This blister was in danger of collapsing into the space it had carved out between their chest-plates, and she very much did not want to have to dig it back out—but the only things in her hands were not helpful for this. She dropped the rag, then held out her hand to Quirrel. “Forceps.”
A pause. “Which kind?”
She whipped around and saw his hand hovering over the three options on the tray. “The kind that grab things,” she hissed, snatching up the closest one.
Snagging the blister with the tool, she fumbled for the scalpel until Quirrel pushed it wordlessly into her hand. She stretched out the soft, swollen thing as much as she could, reached into the gap and, holding her breath, sliced it free.
Packing a damp, folded rag into the space worked to slow the bleeding, but she could see that she’d need to ask them to heal soon. The farther she went, the deeper she’d have to reach to cut the drained cysts out, and soon there would be no easy way to apply pressure. And the sooner they did heal, the less she would have to worry about any of the previous injuries breaking open if they struggled.
They’d not given any indication that they would. In fact, they’d given very little indication of anything. Even with her observing more closely, almost nothing betrayed their pain, the occasional quick tremor in their throat muffled and subtle, easily missed. But—if she took time to notice—she could feel the tension in their body, each plate tightened and tucked close, corded muscle showing in their ruined shoulder and at the front of their neck, where their scales faded away into skin.
The lump pressed on the back of her throat again, the urge to gag taking her by surprise. The sickening stench of the infection was not helping, wafting up in hot, sweet waves and lingering on her mask from the cooling splatter.
She couldn’t release pressure on the wound yet, so she turned her face aside, tucking her chin over her shoulder and breathing air that was a touch cleaner. Enough—it was enough.
Quirrel made an offended noise when he saw her face. Before she could protest, he had dipped a clean cloth in the basin and was wiping the filth from her mask. His touch was brisk but gentle, the rag smelled of nothing but soap, and his sharp mandible-click of distaste brought her back to when her nursemaids would clean hemolymph from her jaws, while she’d still been growing into them and had been far messier about her meals.
He folded the rag over itself to dab at the spots on her arm, too, and she let him, still trying to breathe, to push away the dizziness.
“Perhaps it would work better at a different angle,” he suggested. “Or try drawing back slightly on the plunger when you breach the surface.”
She nodded, unable to speak yet. She tried letting Hollow’s steady breathing lull her, shifting with them as their chest rose and fell in the longer pattern they allowed themselves.
Had they learned this from undergoing their father’s experiments? He had made references to a laboratory, deeper in the Palace than she had ever gone. Had he made and remade them using the same process as the kingsmoulds and all his other inventions? How long had it taken to perfect them? How long?
She could imagine Hollow lying there, under the bright lights and the god-king’s scrutiny, while he wove seals through their shell with mind and soul and scalpel. She could imagine them trying to deaden the pain, draw their mind away, focus on something other than the welling void beneath his touch. Trying, in some way, to exert control over something, anything, of their own body, when every other impulse was caught and ground down to dust.
Anger simmered and steamed in her stomach again. No, no—she had to shove it back, push it down. She would not make Hollow think she was angry at them—she would not.
Exhaling faintly, she turned to face her task again, lifting the rag out away from the wound and checking that a clot had formed. She could move on to the next one, now—and then the next, and the next.
Quirrel’s advice worked, though it was still a demanding, messy process—a careful slide of the needle into the cyst, a measured pull of the plunger, a breathless wait as the glass tube filled with glistening yellow. Each one required multiple rounds to empty, and she had to switch between drawing out the fluid and stopping up the opening as she handed the syringe back to be drained into the waste bucket.
When the sac deflated enough that there was too little for the needle to draw, she pressed the remainder of it out with the back of the knife, then cut the entire thing free.
The horror of it dimmed in the repetition.
Pierce. Draw. Scrape. Cut.
Her back cramped from bending over her work. Her wrists and hands ached with tension, with the burning light that dripped from the soaked rags, with the void that beaded ice-cold on her claws.
Quirrel offered her another set of forceps, longer. Another dose of herbs that she gladly accepted.
Through it all, Hollow was motionless. Even as she worked inward, reaching deeper, cold metal sliding between the plates and into muscle and skin. They barely breathed while blade or needle touched them, seeming to sense when she needed their stillness the most. It was a horrible sort of synergy—an unspoken effort, born of long practice, to disturb her as little as possible, to maintain that iron grip on their control.
She shouldn’t wish for them to react. She shouldn’t want to see them wince, or feel them flinch away from her hands. She should not hope the pain would prove too much for them to hide.
But it was agony, not knowing whether they would stop her. Not knowing if they were approaching their limit. It was agony to keep going, to force the same motions from her hands again and again, imagining the pain mounting with each wound.
It was agony, and she could not do it for long.
Despite her best efforts, she came loose from herself again. She sensed it happen, sensed the cord tethering her presence snap. It felt almost as it did when she was dreaming, watching her hands move from above her own head. The same motions as before.
Pierce. Draw. Scrape.
But when she reached for the knife again, the cricket did not hand it to her.
Hornet blinked, shifting her jaw out of its tight clench to demand what she needed.
The look on his face stopped her. He shook his head, glanced across her outstretched arm.
At Hollow. At the way their claws had begun to scrape at the blanket. At the barest strain in their back, a struggle not to arch against the ropes.
One claw quivered above the floor, rigid, as if they were resisting the urge to use it.
“Oh.” The sound came out barely more than a whisper. She sat forward, lifting the pressure on the rag she was holding. The tension in their neck and shoulders had gone taut enough to snap. Even their heel-spurs were digging in and ripping ragged gaps in the blanket beneath them, leaving pale scratches on the stone.
She—she had missed it. She had been too far away to see.
Before she could speak, before she could even begin to reassure them, they moved, gasping one rattling breath that abruptly broke the pattern, and tapped the stone once.
Twice.
Three times.
“I hear you,” she said, removing her hands from them entirely. “I hear you.”
They gasped. Again. Faster. And again, sucking at the air through open mouth and vents both, beginning to tremble enough to set the silk across their body vibrating along with them. They were falling apart, and she—
It was all she could do to keep from following.
Her head was light, as knotted up and empty as her stomach. What should she do? What could she do?  She had known—she had known that asking them to do this would terrify them, but any plans she might have made had escaped from her head like lumaflies from a shattered glass.
She clenched her fists on her knees and tried to breathe while Hollow spiraled farther and farther into panic, their throat closing far enough that each gasp shrilled, tight and harsh.
“It’s all right.”
Both of them jumped at the voice, soft as it was.
Quirrel. Intervening. Trying to soothe them, when she could not—and any defiant thought Hornet had had about doing this without him died in an instant.
He did not reach to touch them, either one of them, but his hands, too, were balled into fists. “Stay calm,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over Hollow’s distressed wheezing. “Please, stay calm, my friend. It’s all right. Breathe. It will pass.”
Hollow shuddered. Hot tears began to prick at Hornet’s eyes. She knew who this was for, which one of them he was calling friend, but it didn’t matter: some foolish, desperate part of her was clinging to his words as if they were for her.
Useless. Useless. She was just sitting there, doing nothing while they were sinking into terror in front of her. Afraid, in pain, having been forced to the point of asking for the one thing that frightened them the most.
Stop.
Any attempt she made at reassurance would be thin, shaky—but they deserved for her to at least try.
Her fangs felt horribly clumsy as she parted them to speak. “It’s all right, Hollow, it’s—” Tears choked her words back, and she had to swallow and try again. “I-I—you’ve done what I asked. I asked you to—to tell me, when it hurts too much. And you did. You did well.”
This prompted a broken cough, perhaps an attempt at bringing themselves back under control, an attempt that rapidly gave way to a soundless, fluttering whine, a not-cry so despairing that she had to shut her eyes on a flash of white, on an image of the Palace walls racing by as their screams set the halls ringing.
“Please,” she found herself whispering, claws pricking into her knees as she fought to make the world stop whirling. “It’s all right. Please. Please stop.”
She was begging, pleading with someone she was not even sure could hear her. Their eyes were wide open, but the void was moving in sickening twists and jerks, erratic and unfocused. She leaned back, inhaling deeply, though it felt like breathing through honey. Something greedy grasped at her, dragging all her limbs down—a helplessness and despair that wanted to suck her under and never let her up again—
The string of soul vessels tapped against her chest. No. No, she was not helpless. She had this. She had the means to make their pain stop. She could allow them to heal.
If they were able.
They flinched when she touched them, the thready hiss of their breath breaking in two. Murmuring something vaguely like reassurance, words she didn’t even hear leaving her own throat, she pressed her hand to the silk-rune on their other shoulder, opening the conduit slowly, only a trickle at first.
Hollow jerked again at the influx of soul into their reservoirs. She tried to meet their gaze, to appear steadier than she felt.
“It’s all right.” Repeating herself, repeating Quirrel’s words, too, but it was the only thing she could think of. “It’s all right. Breathe. Please just—breathe.”
 Her sibling appeared to try, forcing a deeper breath into their lungs—wheezing all the same in spite of it, but she nodded encouragingly, acknowledging their effort. “There. Good. Keep—keep breathing. You haven’t—I am not upset, I just—”
No, she didn’t have an explanation, not one that they could hear now. She settled for repeating what she had said already, feeding them soul drop by drop, until she could feel that they would have enough to complete a healing spell. She did not miss the way the whistle in their lungs diminished and the shaking in their limbs steadied some; an effect of the soul, or of her attempts to ground them?
“Hollow.” It was an effort to coax her voice not to shake. “Can you heal?”
They twitched. Nothing more. No response, not even in sign—when she looked, their hand was bent stiffly under, straining against the silk at their wrist.
Still terrified. Still so afraid of the consequences of expressing their pain, of asking for the reprieve they had needed.
Cold dread crawled through her. If they were afraid enough to lose control… they could, perhaps, be afraid enough to lash out.
“Step back,” she whispered to Quirrel. She heard him rise and drop something on the tray, take two quick steps. Then, after a pause, a third.
It would have to be enough. There was not much farther he could go, unless she asked him to leave the room. He had enough distance now to give him an advantage—he was quick, and she still hoped that the precautions would not be necessary.
“Hollow, heal for me,” she said again, and watched their throat spasm as they choked back another sob. Watched their hand flex, claws scraping tighter, silk creaking as they pulled against it. Wanting to hide, as they’d done before? To curl their hand close, as if it hurt them—or even to scratch their own shell open, in remorse at having asked for mercy?
Nothing she said could fix this. She had already tried—she’d tried everything she knew. If they could not heal—
If they couldn’t, she’d have to go on anyway. With her sibling in pain, more every moment, mounting with every wound she lanced. Without knowing whether the next cut she made, or the next, or the next, would be what made them lose their grip entirely, striking out at her in mindless instinct.
She couldn’t. She couldn’t put them through that again. Not knowing what she knew now. Not knowing what might come after.
The gashes in their shell—the nail-wounds in their chest—
Self-inflicted—
A flicker in her vision. Bright white, sketching spell-lines in the air. Only for an instant—then gone again, leaving a prickling afterimage.
Hollow’s shoulders went slack on the cushions, their breathing falling back to that jagged double rhythm. Void still seeped from the last emptied sac, still shone slickly on the seams where she’d cut the others away.
That had been their healing spell. She’d recognized it—but they had let their focus slip before it could finish. Something she had never seen them do, something she herself had not done since childhood. It was a waste of soul, a waste of focus. Letting go of a spell before it completed—aside from aborting a casting for one’s own safety—was the first thing she had been taught to avoid.
It was the sort of thing a beginner might do. Someone untrained. Inexperienced.
Another spell blinked out in her memory.
I know what you are.
Soul shining, faint and desperate, interrupted by a slash of her needle.
I know what you’d try to do.
Hollow sobbed again, an ugly, ragged sound, and she came back to herself, all at once.
They were spiraling. The flash of memory had distracted her—and her stunned silence had gone on too long.
“No,” she whispered, fumbling for—for anything, any way to save this from disaster. “No, I—”
A pause, while she took hold of herself, dragged herself free, scraped up the last of her strength. The warmth and solace in her voice when she spoke again was not hers. It could not be, no matter how she tried; it was her mother’s, it was Midwife’s, it was every drop of comfort she could wring out of her faded memory. “It’s all right. I—I know. I know you can. Please… please try.”
Quirrel was silent, tense, behind her, as she reached forward again to transfer more soul.
This time, she kept her hand on them, touching lightly, speaking softly, offering the only comfort she could. Coaxing them to claw their way back, breath by breath, until they regained enough control to try again.
She felt tingling in her bones, the chill flash of spent soul, as they failed.
Little shoulders hunched, cloak trembling as they shook with effort.
Soul-runes dancing over soft shell—then a surge of savage triumph as the spell vanished, incomplete.
Her own voice, cold, distant.
“I can’t allow it.”
Shit.
Not now. Not now.
It was—
The other vessel. The one now trapped in the temple. They had done this—
In combat with her.
Combat. It was unjust to call it that. There was no honor there, no respect, no glory. Only blood. Only fear.
Only slaughter.
Nothing she hadn’t done before. Nothing she would not have to do again.
Or so she’d thought.
Her heart beat faster, thumping in her mask, her throat. She was beginning to shake again, a terrible cold swelling in her chest.
They could not know. She could not let them see, they needed—Hollow needed her—
She had nearly killed them—
Her own voice reached her hearing, distant and calm, as if it belonged to another.
“You can heal. You can.” She could not feel the sound leaving her throat. She could not feel the breath leaving her lungs. “Breathe. Try again.”
They were listening. They were, though their chest still heaved and their claws still clenched, though their eyes still writhed with fear.
Please, she begged, without knowing how to say it. Without knowing if she could.
When she opened the conduit and let her soul spill over, they seemed to steady. Seemed to pull together, again, somehow. They looked her in the eyes as she spoke praise she could not hear, as she stroked their shell with a hand too numb to feel it.
Please.
Pale sparks pricked the air. A low hum built beneath her skin, like a net of threads pulling taut. Light began to lick along the jagged edges of their wounds, tracing every cut in brilliant white.
Hollow stopped breathing. Their horns arched back. Plates bunched at their abdomen, muscle tensing beneath, knees coming up against the ropes at the shuddering strain. Hornet had just enough sense left to shut her eyes before the arc of the spell closed in around them, white light flashing murky blue-gray through her eyelids.
When they relaxed, they did so completely, only a small quiver still rattling through them as they fell fully back onto the cushions in relief.
They’d done it.
They’d healed.
She—she hadn’t thought—
Hornet blinked. Stared down at Hollow, at her hand on their stomach, rising and falling as their breathing slowed. Watched the shift of light across their shell, the subtle ripple of their scars.
She should be relieved.
Why wasn’t she?
She turned her hand over. It moved when she bade it to. So there was no reason for her to feel that she was not in control, that something foreign had hold of her. She had almost expected to see silk threading from her joints like strings.
Her throat ached all the way down to her guts. There was pressure building, building, in her lungs.
But she would not cry. She would not scream. It seemed like an easy decision, effortless. She would not buckle, grip her horns with her hands, wail and sob until she lost the voice to speak. She could not let it out now, and so she would not.
She knew this. She recognized it. It was worse than before. Bad enough that she could not stop it. Bad enough that the sharp twinge of her fangs grinding was as distant as a dying spark.
It was easy, too, to swallow down the ache in her throat. To force air into her lungs. To forget her fears, screaming in the back of her head. To bury them. She had done this, over and over, throughout the long years, until it became almost instinct, as practiced a motion as sheathing her needle or reeling in her silk.
Until she felt nothing, or as close to nothing as she could.
It seemed to take a long time, and yet only a moment.
Hollow was calm enough now to continue. She saw herself check her anchors, one by one, plucking the threads that bound her sibling down—and then check their wounds, methodically, testing each new scar to be sure that it had sealed over.
Nausea churned below her shell again, somehow easy to ignore. She did not ask for the herbs.
Quirrel had drawn closer, a quiet, motionless presence at her elbow. Perhaps he could feel it, too, the way that the world had withdrawn from her.
When she spoke, it was far-off, like a voice half-remembered.
“May I continue?”
The tap of their claw against the stone was clear, though.
Yes.
Without turning, without thinking, she spoke. “Lantern.”
He lifted it, high, shining it down on Hollow’s shell. The blister she had half-drained before stopping, larger than the others, was still blocking a large part of one opening, taking up the sunken space next to their sternum. These at the center were the only pocket left; she had drained and disposed of the rest.
The room was quiet, too quiet. Every sound she made seemed unnaturally sharp: the click of the forceps, the soft pop of punctured skin, the angry sizzle of the acid as it bubbled to the surface.
She drained and cut and staunched the bleeding, her motions nearly mechanical. This was the last surface blister to remove. The only light showing now was the glimmer at the center, partially obscured by the arc of their chest-plates, deep enough within their body that her shelling knife could never have reached it all.
She held out her hand for the syringe, and Quirrel supplied it with the hand not holding the lantern. He craned forward to see and an intake of air hissed between his jaws. “Hornet—”
“I know.” She did not need the distraction. The next blister was fully inside their body. She would have to reach into the hole in their chest, first with a needle, then with a blade.
“Be very still,” she murmured, and knew that Hollow heard her.
They were holding their breath as she lowered the needle and eased it in.
The first one went just like the others—painstaking and slow, drawing out the light from the places it shone through the cracks. Pressing a wad of fabric in against the bubbling gap, plugging it with a scrap of rag clamped between the tines of the forceps, as it was too deep for her fingers to reach. Waiting, hand outstretched, as Quirrel emptied and wiped down the syringe, until he handed it back to her.
One more draw, she thought. One more.
She discarded the fabric, reaching in with the forceps to hold the thing steady. Hollow held their breath again, and she could not stop to think about how still they were, how every sign of life went utterly out of them in an instant.
The syringe only filled halfway, sputtering, and she drew it back, trading it for the scalpel as she leaned over them, resting her wrist on their chest to keep it steady.
This cyst was anchored somewhere in the pectoral muscle, below the edge of their broadest plate, and she held her own breath as she reached in to cut it free.
Just another cut. Just another blister.
A tremor seized her hands as she lifted the thing out by its edge, dangling from the end of the forceps. Quirrel took the entire thing from her, his hand warm and steady around hers as he pried her fingers free of the looped handles. He was still holding the lantern, working one-handed to provide her with her tools when she needed them, and he took longer than usual to switch out for the other pair, so she leaned forward to inspect the wounds in the bluish, swaying light.
With the first interior sac removed, there were more visible beneath it, but she could count them, now—two, three, four, all clustered on the left side, around and above a dark, veiny mass as large as her doubled fists.
A thing that she stared at stupidly for a split second before she saw that it was moving.
Beating.
Slower than the pulse beneath her own skin, clenching and relaxing in a distinctive, unrelenting motion. Black on black in the murky cavern of their body, visible only by the hateful light cast in dawning golds and oranges around it.
Their—she was staring at—
Hornet went cold. All over, in an instant, sickening plunge. And then feverish heat rolled over her, too much, too fast, a wave of it closing over her shell.
That was their heart.
The air in the room fell away. Blood throbbed in her head, writhed in her throat, filling her whole world with her battering pulse.
She should have taken the herbs.
A convulsive retch lurched up her throat. She pressed her hands over her mouth, claws scraping against bone. Could not quite stifle what escaped: a hoarse, wrenching sound, half growl, half groan. Another followed it, a spasm that clenched her whole body tight. She was—she was going to—
She flung herself away, scrambling backward over the mattresses without a shred of her usual grace.
The blankets tangled with her legs, her knees, entrapping her. One hand caught her, slamming into the stone. The jolt rocked up her shoulder, and the pain made her retch again, venom beginning to drip and scald, hissing out onto the stone and scorching holes in the sheets she had dragged with her.
Clutching her mask, fingers wrapped around one horn in a death-grip, she heaved helplessly, eyes straining open, staring at the spots of light dancing between her and the room. Her fangs and jaws spread wide, cramping. Her claws ached where she dug scratches in the flagstone.
Screaming in her head. In the halls. In her head. In her dreams.
Dreams of waking up and feeling something wrong inside her.
Of pressing hand to shell and finding a pulse of heat not her own.
Dreams of breaking light in her reflection’s eyes, of standing helpless while molten gold ran down the cavern walls, pooling, pouring, suffocating, an endless sea of foreign rage.
And—
Dreams of black, black—liquid, shuddering black. Spilling from her veins in place of gleaming blue. Draining from her shell, her warmth drunk down by a sapping cold no life-heat could quench. Eyes opening in the dark, dozens of them, blazing white and pitiless.
Void pooling in her footsteps. Dripping from her elbows. Pulsing from each fracture of a crushed mask, from the stump of a severed limb, from a gaping, caved-in chest as she wrenched her needle free—
Killer.
Killer.
Kinslayer.
One life. She had spared one and could not dare to think herself forgiven. As desperately as she grasped at it, as much as every action she took was an effort to absolve herself, she knew it would never be enough.
Every pulse of Hollow’s heart, each time it beat beneath their shell, was in mockery of all the others she had bled dry.
They lay so still, so lifeless, like every other body she had buried—like every other vessel she had killed—
She choked back a last, shuddering retch and loosened her grip on her horn, dropping her hand to the floor to brace herself. It took longer than it should have to fold her fangs back into place, her mouthparts fumbling as waves of nausea wracked her. Her eyes burned, burned, burned.
At least she had not had to bite herself to make it stop.
Black. Black ichor on her hands. Gushing down their shell as they lay there, bound, silent. Black blood, dripping down the knife in her dreams.
She had to look. She had to look back at them, to see the damage. But she couldn’t—not now. Not yet—
“Hornet?”
Something clattered on the floor. Quirrel—what was he doing? She hunched her shoulders, clamping down on her fangs to keep them from flashing out. A surge of anger—and the rasping wetness in her throat—lent a guttural hiss to her words, a sound her mother would have been proud to hear if Hornet had managed it as a spiderling. “Wait a moment.”
“You may not have a moment.”
What—
That fear in his voice was not fear of her.
She turned, cold dread already closing round her limbs, and saw Hollow—
Hollow. With a hole in their chest and void staining their shell, with an entire web’s worth of silk tying them down, was fighting to sit up. Their elbow was wedged halfway underneath them, tarsals braced into the gaps in the flagstones, horns hauled awkwardly back by the taut length of rope.
The rope’s anchor flickered. Dimmed. Down their side, along their arm, each soul-light wavered, one after another, the vessel’s strength taxing them to their limit.
A single string snapped. Then a second.
“Stop,” she gasped, and scrambled back toward them. “Stop!”
They did as she ordered. Instantly. Remaining in their contorted pose, though their arm was already beginning to quiver.
No. No, it was not only that. They were signing, frantically, hand twisted hard against the restraints to turn it palm-up, fingers opening and closing at their side.
The sign for hurt.
Something was wrong. Something—she’d hurt them, somehow, worse now, perhaps the ropes were hurting them, how—
It did not matter. “I’m sorry,” she choked out, and snatched the first tool within reach of her hand—a set of shears—to slice the cords. “I’m sorry, I—I’m so sorry—”
The first cord parted. Hollow’s head came up, silk streaming from their horns like ribbons, and—
Pushed against her. Urgently, yet carefully, firm presses of their muzzle to her shell, across her chest, her arms, her face, where she’d frozen with her mouth half open. They nosed at the shape of her under her cloak, quick whuffs of cold air stirring the fabric as they searched for something.
She gulped a breath, holding herself still, the shears half-forgotten in her hand. Again, another breath, not quite a sob, but entirely too close. Hollow was shaking, obviously in pain—their breath hitched with each inhale, their claws jerking every time they moved. But they did not stop until, having fulfilled some unseen objective, they leaned back, relaxing into their bonds, staring at her intently.
Not knowing what else to do, she cut more threads, releasing their hand, their elbow, their shoulder. Her breathing was still not under control, coming in quick gasps between spasms of tension that clamped round her throat like a vise. She checked their wounds, once, twice, skirting around the hole in their chest, refusing to even glance inside.
It was the same. Everything was the same, except that another scar had torn open in their shoulder, and then stopped bleeding almost immediately. She reached up to take their pulse, laying her hands along their throat to feel them breathe, to reassure herself that their black heart still beat.
Black, it was black, she knew now, and it shone in the light like a chunk of obsidian—
“What—” she breathed, then had to stop. Had to wrestle down the numb, senseless sobs that wanted to emerge, the instinct to shatter into pieces in relief, to let out everything that was hammering at her insides. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
They looked at her, again, with that whirling darkness in their gaze. The dense shadow that she had once thought unknowable, an enigma, a blackened night so absolute that dawn would never come to it.
But they had reached out to her. They had chosen her, chosen to make themselves known, though it defied everything they were.
In two motions, Hollow signed their answer.
Hornet. Hurt.
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bubba-draws · 4 months
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Hello, could I ask you for some Radiant Vessel Hollow AU stuff? What's the general lore behind that, how did those two end up as they did and just general brainrot on the idea?
Anon this is the best birthday present ever bc i've been thinking about this au for a while now AND I WANNA TALK ABOUT IT AAAA
SO pretty much the au was born from the idea of "Wouldn't it be fucked up if Hollow ended up joining Radi?" partial inspiration comes from this song as well!
youtube
(There's a bunch of subtitles in different languages but I'm going with the english one)
To summarize, after years of fighting Radi inside their mind prison, Radi changes tactics and attempts to make Hollow join her, she promises to give them all that was taken from them, the life they deserved
Hollow doesn't fall right away of course, they try to ignore her, fight her, but after years of the same dance and song they start getting tired, no matter how hard they try Radi is never fully gone when they fight, their void not strong enough to rip her apart, and being the only one with them (The dreamers are also in Hollow's mind prison, but they're not anywhere nearby these two) they can't help but lean on her company
The closest thing I could get to describe their relationship at this point is an odd sense of solidarity, in a way both of them were done wrong by the same guy, and while it does take a lot for Hollow to understand this, deep down they knew there was a bit of resentment towards PK, one that grows in intensity the more these two spend together, and it erupts when they succumb to Radi and she turns them into a vessel for her
It's kinda like what Grimm and the Nightmare heart has going on (or at least the general HC most people got) Hollow made a deal with Radi, she will lend her powers and energy to Hollow for them to call anytime they want, to go back so she can see the world through their eyes (disclaimer: not all the time btw ASHFJKAS just when its necessary/Hollow calls her) there's no cycle of rebirth or anything here though, she's also no longer limited to Hollow's mind, she can see the whole Dream Realm now
So yeah, once Hollow is used to their new powers (and body, they got some changes in appearance) they take down the dreamers, escape the black egg, their presence making the infection spread like a wildfire and take down PK :3 (WL escaped, the knights... yeah they dont make it)
There's still some ideas I gotta clean up after this point, but I talked about this with some people and got the idea that yeah, Hollow does take over Hallownest and its people, everyone is infected to some degree? makes them more agreeable to what's going on but its not enough to make them feral anymore, some of the bugs that got modifications through the infection stay like that and while still a bit volatile, they can think enough to understand things
As for their relationship??? It's odd as fuck KJHSDFJKAH there's nothing romantic, that's for sure, it is definetely more similat to a Lord and their subordinate, but theyre like??? very close?? almost familial, when there's no job to do or Hollow needs reassurance Radi becomes the closest thing to a motherly figure they could get (Even if WL loved them there was no way she couldve shown them that) but its not enough for them to call each other family
as for the game events it would completely change, Ghost would arrive to a completely different Hallownest, where everyone is happy and nice, but the more u progress the game u realize shit's fucked up, Hornet is there as well and she came back to Hallownest to seek revenge for her mother
As to what happens to the abyss and pile of dead siblings, i'm still a bit unsure, part of me thinks Hollow wouldnt want to get rid of it but part of me knows Radi wouldnt let them have it open or even go in there, while still void the light she bestowed upon them would present a threat for the shades living there
and that's most of what I got! I still need to think of other things, but if u guys got other questions or ideas I would love love LOVE to hear them!! :D
have a quick doodle of them :3
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angeliccynthious · 3 years
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time to share m o r e things because I do suppose you guys who like this AU would like to know: - Lace do be here, and she does of course come here from Pharloom when Hornet (most likely) leads all these weavers to Hallownest. Lace doesn’t really know what to do with her life so she just spends her time casually doing whatever Lace does. She meets the void siblings and chaos ensues. not really though its more like they are curious of her and she too is curious of them. - Perhaps other characters from Pharloom come here too? All I’m thinking of rn is Lace just being here. Idk.  - Hornet occasionally helps Quirrel out in the archives, and when Ghost is not wandering around with Grimmchild, they help too. Ghost honestly does whatever the hell they want and goes wherever they want to go. You go lil buddy.  - Whenever Hornet basically gets kidnapped mostly everyone is goddamn pissed off. Ghost may be losing their shit but trying to keep cool, Hollow is just silently an g r y--- yeah. PK gets mad too because he does not like hearing her name, because it just makes him think of if he could of saved her from being kidnapped.  But it’s a good thing when she comes back since she gets tackle hugged by her siblings. PK is somewhat hesitant, but he just-- gives her a nice hug. Yes, a nice one. He’s trying to dad. But he is of course relieved to see her. - Radi and probably Hollow have seen each other, and Hollow just stares at her and shes doing a big “wtf.” because this is the poor child she tortured. Radi says no and she gets the hell out of there, leaving a surprised and confused Hollow I suppose. They’re just wondering why tf is this moth bitch here and if shes actually the Radiance- which she is. I don’t want her to be an outright bad character but shes mostly not the happiest all the time, Ghost and Grimmchild just sorta ‘mess’ with her often. They’re just trying to hang out with you smh. - PK is often carried by WL because she wants to and hasn’t seen him in such a while, and he lets her. Either way no matter how.. somewhat embarrassing it is- he loves it. - On the topic of them, everyone is surprised when they just have another kid.. thats.. of course- not void. PK is afraid that his vessel children will not take it the best, but he is proven wrong as Hollow actively wants to see their new little sister and be a good big sibling. Ghost on the other hand is a bit distant, but of course they and Grimmchild come around and Grimmchild, for the most part, comes and plays with her. In the future, Grimmchild may become a good babysitter lmao. This is all imma share for now I hope yall done mind these constant posts about my silly lil AU heh.
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chipper-smol · 3 years
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Vanilla 2 Chain
Prompt: Hollow experiences phantom limb syndrome 
is more angst time
( https://twitter.com/Perfidy19  )
Nothing lasts forever.
That was the last lesson the Hollow Knight received from their father upon being sealed away in the Black Egg Temple.
Nothing lasts. Not Hallownest. Not the Radiance. Not Father.
Not even the Void, as they had discovered during the time they were sealed away, watching as the Infection searing within their arm at last tore away the final, stretched strands. A silent snap, and the detached limb fell to the floor, sinking into the ground in a pool of writhing ink.
It was then that they had realised, finally, the irony of their predicament, the stump left behind burning with the searing rage of the Old Light.
If even the all encompassing Void did not last, then Hallownest’s perpetuation was truly an impossible wish.
They lamented the irony of it all once again, now as they sat hunched over in their current resting spot, in the corner of an abandoned village home. Ironic, how the very one who had wished the most fervently for an eternal kingdom, would also be the one to teach them the inevitability of the end.
The stump where the Infection had once burned now throbbed.
Yes. Nothing lasts forever. Not even the knowledge that they had once believed timeless meant much in the end. The court manners? Hallownest’s upper class was dead, rules hardly mattered anymore. The training their father, the Pale King, had bestowed upon them? Pointless. They barely even had the strength to stand up. The only, right way to deal with the Infection?
Clearly, that information had been wrong from the start, seeing as how their rejected sibling had found another way to do away with it entirely, while they had only managed to buy time.
“Do you want something to eat, Hollow?”
They raised their head at the sound. Hornet scuttled in through the door, her needle clenched in her fist, a bundle of… something wedged under her arm.
“I did not know what your preference was,” she tipped the contents of the bundle onto the floor. Two speared tiktiks and some baby gruzzers rolled onto a bed of dried nuts and grass. “So I brought a bit of everything. But the gruzzers need some treatment before they can be eaten, so-“
Hollow listened as she talked, her bustling, business-like manner reminding them strongly of the late Queen of Deepnest. Hornet had changed since they had last seen her. No longer the scampering grub that they remembered, she had grown up into a fine hunter, perfectly capable of defending herself.
To think that she had once been no taller than the hilt of their nail, wielding a toy needle made of shellwood. It had been amusing to watch her run around the White Palace, full of energy and free from the stiff formalities of the Royal Retainers around her.
Endearing. Inquisitive. A bit of a troublemaker, but her mischief never put anyone in harm's way. They fondly recalled the days when she would take their nail and attempt to swing it around in the same fashion as the Great Nailsage, her little legs teetering under its weight.
Father had never liked when she did that. While Mother merely watched in amusement, he would personally confiscate the nail, then proceed to sternly lecture her on the dangers of sharp, metal objects. Not that she listened.
Father had not liked it either when Hollow was about to learn the way of the nail. Clumsy, he had called them. Without a mind, he claimed, it would be difficult to teach them to properly balance and swing the weapon, let alone fight with it.
And he had been right too. A long time they had spent practicing alone in secret, repeatedly thrashing the heavy training nail up and down, up and down all through the night, trying to imitate the way the Great Knight Dryya had done it.
Up and down, up and down, the weight of the training nail dragging heavy on their arms, the pain of lifting it twisting at their spell hand, the strain tearing through their shell, through their Void, through the bright, bright orange light that-
“-can you even eat?”
Hollow twitched in surprise, shaking their head clear of the pained haze originating from the stump of their arm.
“No? Well…” Hornet stared down disappointed at the small pile of food she had collected for them. “I suppose I’d never seen the little ghost eat before.”
The look of hurriedly concealed distress on her face was familiar, and made them feel ashamed of worrying her. They raised their a- ... their other arm from where it had been resting on their nail, and picked up one of the nuts. Delicately, they pretended to nibble on it, then hid it away within the Void inside their shell.
Hornet visibly brightened up.
“Oh! So you can. I was worried for a moment there. I’ll go get some more supplies, make this place more comfortable. Then, once you’re well and rested, we shall find a way up the well for a more permanent residence.”
Hollow nodded, then slumped back into their thoughts as Hornet ran out the door.
Thoughts. It was frightening to think that they had been… well, thinking, this whole time despite trying their best to stay empty. The one expectation from their father had had towards them had been simple. Do not think. Yet the act of thinking had become so natural to them that the idea of not thinking had become a notion in itself.
Perhaps that was why their sibling had succeeded where they had failed. They had not been empty enough, not pure enough. Where the Radiance’s angry cries should have fallen on deaf ears, they had instead listened, endured, resisted.
And then when she noticed, oh, she had been so very angry.
And so very pleased.
They could almost see it now, the glaring orange dreamscape blazing with her ancient fury. The floating pavilions bathed in flames, the endless fall through the burning sky. Her booming voice screaming down at them from above, echoing through the infinitely stretching space. Cursing them for all the things their Father did, and Hallownest did, and the moth tribe did.
Through the burning hellscape, her cold, glaring eyes stared right into them, chilling like ice, bright like the lighthouse down in the Abyss. Her eyes shone such cold, piercing light into them, through them, exposing them and their falseness.
I WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
They lifted their arm to fight back, to chase her away. They conjured glowing daggers at their fingertips and thr- no, they didn’t throw the daggers. They tried again, but they couldn’t throw the daggers, the daggers were still there, at their fingertips, in their fingertips. They were right there, building up soul energy focused into their hand, but they couldn’t let go, and it was there, building up, that searing white bubbling to molten orange and burning and burning right up to their shoulder and the world was burning and they were burning a-
“Hollow?”
They were once again torn away from their thoughts and the pain in their stump by Hornet gently shaking their arm (Their sword arm. Their spell arm was still gone. Still gone yet it was still there hurting, but it was gone).
She was worried now, that was bad. How did she know, when they had never uttered a word, had never been able to utter a word? Their mask was still expressionless… perhaps their body language? They realised that they had been shaking this whole time. Simply distracted from that fact by the persistent, burning throb in their shoulder.
They dipped their head. How shameful. To think that they used to be able to wait through days of longing for Mother and Father’s company, without displaying signs of being anything but empty. To be able to continue through their training under a facade of normalcy, despite their mask being on the verge of cracking. They had been able to endure years of the Radiance’s torment, all her terrible dreams and her screaming voice.
Yet now? It was just a lost arm, an old wound nonetheless, but it was already tearing them apart to the point of showing such a weakened side of them.
“You seem upset,” Hornet’s voice was gentle, a tone that they had not heard in a long time. “Are you alright?”
They began to shake their head, then nodded. Then slumped over.
“Yes? No? I don’t know?” Hornet sighed. Then, to their surprise, came to sit down next to them. “Are you lost?”
A sigh.
“I certainly feel lost, Hollow. Hallownest was gone. Now so is the Infection. And the little ghost, I… I can’t find them anywhere.”
Hesitantly, they patted her back.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore.”
Me neither.
A moment of silence. Then she glanced up.
“But you’re back.”
Hollow tilted their head.
“And that’s good, isn’t it?
Nothing lasts forever.
“You’re not the Pure Vessel, and I’m not the Princess of Deepnest.”
Not Hallownest.
“You don’t have to contain the Radiance anymore.”
Not the Radiance.
Her voice turned shaky.
“I don’t have to… put our siblings to rest anymore.”
Not… Father.
“We can do whatever we want.”
Nor the mindlessness of Void.
...
But none of that really mattered in the end, did it?
“That’s right. It’s alright. It hurts. All of it hurts, but...”
Hornet smiled, and put a hand on their shoulder. For a moment, it did not hurt quite so much anymore.
“We’ll work this out together, won’t we?”
( @hawaiianbabidoll​ )
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( @alaska-ren​ )
Falling. Flawed. Forsaken. Forgotten. And that sickening, sweet glow of orange.
They deserved this punishment. Every damn second of this madness. It is their sin, it is their lie that caused all this. If they had come to their father and confessed, they would die. But death was a much better fate than ​this.
The irony. Their end was much like their other siblings’. Falling, eternal, until the inevitable crash.
They only wanted to save their father’s kingdom. Only wanted to make them all proud. Only wanted to be who they were supposed to be.
A failure.
It’s a sea. A constant sea of faces and expectations, with two becoming larger and larger as the years passed.
One pale shining light crowned with horns. One small shell with betrayed, black eyes.
It’s their fault. Gods, it’s their fault. It’s their fault they deserve this it hurts father pleaseithurtsIdon’twantthishelphelpfaultmyfaultmYFAULTIT’SMYFAULTFATHERIT’SMINEF ATHERFATHER F A T H E R
End        Me
                Fathe-
The Hollow Knight shot forward and reached for their nail, only finding a warm hand holding their wrist. Flowing, gentle red filled their vision and the warm hand placed theirs back on their lap.
“Sibling,” Hornet called out again, softer this time. “You’ve been dreaming.”
Hollow lowered their head, the void inside them pulsing and making their shell cold and trembling. Hornet hesitated, and with Hollow’s nod, sat beside them. Hollow stayed still, and would have placed a calm air if they could ever do it again at all. They had no more need to hide, so why...
“Sibling!”
“Troubled mind?” Hollow huffed and looked away when Hornet chuckled. “Care to let me in?”
My mind is a dark place, sister. I do not want you to be here.
Hornet’s eyes softened before crossing her legs and hugging her knees close. “Silent as ever, sibling.” The wind crawling through the dark caverns served as her only response.
“Do you regret this? All of this?” Hollow twisted their head and their wide eyes met tired ones. Their chest squeezed in anguish, sorrow, and grief. They were not the only casualty in this war between gods. They copied Hornet’s pose, and placed their head on their only arm.
... There are many things I wish I had done, but if I were given the choice to sacrifice myself once more for our future, I would do so in a heartbeat.
Perhaps it was their shared wyrm parentage, or their bond as siblings, or just pure intuition, but Hornet more than felt Hollow’s unspoken reply. “Oh, no,” she chuckled and shook her head, “No, no, no, I won’t let you do it again.” Hornet turned her body and fully faced the sibling she grew up with for so many years. “You will not sacrifice yourself again. Not to me. Not to any of us. Not to yourself.”
Hornet stayed quiet, eyes never leaving Hollow’s lowered head. Hollow didn’t have the energy to look at her anymore, to even lift their hand anymore. Both Hornet and they were born for a purpose. With that purpose stripped away, what are they?
“We were both children, sibling,” Hornet’s words carved through the silence, and struck right into Hollow’s soul. “Children are not meant to carry something as heavy as... this.”
“It is much easier to disappear, isn’t it?” Hollow’s eyes rose to look at Hornet’s cloak, too tired to look her in the eyes. They nodded, it is easier. If they disappeared, they wouldn’t think, wouldn’t feel. They’d be so much closer to being ‘pure’.
“You know, when you were sealed in the egg, when you disappeared... When... my mother disappeared,” Hollow swallowed a lump in their throat when a tiny crack shattered Hornet’s voice. She stopped her words and looked away. Hollow watched as she swiped at her eyes and took in deep breaths.
“I have watched this kingdom grow, fall, and die. I stayed when everyone left. I could have chosen to disappear as well, it would be so easy.”
“But that is not what it means to ​live.”​ Hornet moved and placed herself in front of Hollow, her red cloak billowing around her.
“Hollow, I want you to live.”
I do not know how.
Hollow’s silence was disturbed by the rustling of fabric. They watched as Hornet dusted herself off and in moments looked as the Princess Protector of Hallownest she always was.
“Then, do you think you can walk with me, sibling?”
The tilt of her head and bright determined eyes took hold of something in Hollow’s chest. Something warm.
I think... I can walk with you, sister.
Hornet stood and offered her hand, “Together?”
Together.
( @snakeyarts​ )
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( @nonbinary-ghost​ )
Hornet let out an almost imperceptible sigh as they reached the hot springs, the damp air warm against her shell. The journey from the Black Egg Temple to the Crossroad’s Hot Springs was not a long one, but it had taken her more than a day to reach it given her… charge. 
Hornet glanced back at her sibling, something twisting in her shell at the sight of their battered form leaning heavily on their longnail by their one remaining arm. Their whole body shook as they panted for breath, bits of void leaking from the deep wounds in their side and the crack down their mask despite the bandages of webbing Hornet had applied. They way they slumped weakly, like an old rag doll with the stuffing worked out of its joints, made Hornet’s heart ache. They looked scant inches from death.
Hornet did her best to mask her worry, trying to exude an air of calm confidence as she stood upright, ever ready to dart forward to catch them if they stumbled. She urged them forward with a hand wave, hesitant to touch them for fear of causing them more harm. Sometimes, when hurt so gravely, it was best for one to move for oneself if possible, since one knew what ways would hurt.
The tension in Hornet’s shoulders eased only once she helped lower the once Hollow Knight into the warm waters of the hot spring, offering her hand for support as they unsteadily waded into the water. She watched in wonder as they visibly relaxed into the warmth, the flow of void leaking from their injuries slowing as white flickers of light began to float around them. Hornet was relieved to see that the graveness of their injuries did not render them completely immune to the regenerative properties of the hot springs and she finally allowed herself the tiniest glimmer of hope. Maybe…maybe they would be alright. 
She glanced down at the hard, cloak-wrapped bundle clutched under her arm. Carefully, as if afraid she’d break it further, Hornet unwrapped the shattered mask from the tattered grey cloak she’d swaddled it in. That strange, twisting feeling again clawed at her chest at the mask cracked perfectly in half cradled in her hands.
Ghost…
When she had swooped into the Black Egg Temple to aid them against their sibling, Hornet had possessed little hope for any of them to survive. At best, she’d hoped to defeat the Radiance, to vanquish the infection once and for all. At worst, she knew a slow, painful fall to the void or infection would be their only end as the Radiance’s calamity continued to blaze through what little remained of Hollownest. To be perfectly honest, she had thought hardly anything at all. She only knew there was an opening for her aid, a way to give Ghost the chance they needed to enter the Hollow Knight’s dream as they had with her mother. Survival had been, frankly, the last thing on her mind. 
Yet, when she had awakened once more in that temple, soft white light seeping in through the shattered ceiling to replace the fading void and haze of infection, that traitorous emotion had crept into her shell. The veins of orange infection lacing the walls of the temple withered and died, fading to black before crumbling away. That almost painful stab of hope only grew sharper when she discovered her sibling, the Hollow Knight, sprawled across the cracked ground, void dripping from their missing arm and the deep pits in their shell, but somehow, miraculously, still alive. 
Ghost, however, had not been so fortunate, and the nail of remorse that had lanced through her at the sight of their shattered mask had nearly brought Hornet to her knees. It wasn’t fair. The three of them had done it. They had won. They had beat the Radiance and her infection. Together. So why, then, had she and the Hollow Knight survived, but Ghost had not?
Knowing it was futile but still harboring that foolish flicker of hope, Hornet lowered Ghost’s broken mask into a shallow edge of the spring. Maybe, if their mask was whole, Ghost could come back, as the Hollow Knight had.
The white shards stayed sharp and jagged in the murky waters, as inert and still as stone.
Hornet’s shoulders slumped and that childish hope sputtered and died in her chest. 
The quiet slosh of moving water brought Hornet’s attention up to the Hollow Knight, surprised to find them moving about already as they carefully, hesitantly, shifted toward her. She blinked at the way the glowing light of the hot spring coiled around them, and for the briefest of heartbeats she imagined that light held a more yellow tinge, splaying out behind them in the Radiances starburst. She could almost imagine their eyes again alight… but no. No, the light was white and wispy, nothing more than steam, and the Hollow Knight’s one uncovered eye was a steady, empty black. The Radiance was gone. Hornet’s sibling was cured. 
For a moment, Hornet put aside her disappointment over Ghost’s mask and allowed herself to revel in the relief and joy that zinged through her at the sight of the sibling she had long assumed lost to her alive, if not completely well. She searched their void-black eye for any flicker of light, as the mental image of their glowing-orange eyes seeping tears of infection refused to fade. She cringed as she recalled the way they had turned their nail on themself in a desperate attempt to cut that infection away, to prevent their body from being puppeted into hurting Ghost. She reached out a hand, not quite touching their white mask still half covered in bandages. She was not sure if her touch would be welcome, or if it would only cause her injured sibling greater distress. 
“Hollow –“ she choked, surprised at the tightness in her throat. She swallowed. What was she going to say? ‘I’m glad you’re alive’? ‘I’m sorry for everything that happened’? Somehow, everything that came to mind felt inadequate and she fell back on the security of practicality. “Are you alright? Do you still hurt?” 
Her sibling stared a moment, as if processing her words. Slowly, they lifted their sodden cloak to glance down at the bandages wrapped around them. Their right arm was still missing, long since eaten away by the infection and well beyond the hot spring’s ability to heal, but the dark void no longer bled from under the bandages. Hornet reached forward, intending to unwrap the webbing to take a closer look, to be certain they were no longer hurt, but the way their sibling went absolutely motionless at the movement froze her in place. She abruptly recalled that they were completely unaccustomed to such care, even prior to becoming the Hollow Knight, and the only sensation they had experienced for all this time since they was pain. Did they fear her touch, worried it would bring harm?
“I promise, I will not hurt you,” she assured them gently. “I wish only to remove the bandages. May I?”
Stare.
Then, ever so slightly, the barest nod of their mask.
Hornet carefully, oh so carefully, removed the bandages to reveal the scarred shell underneath. No longer open, bleeding wounds, the Hollow Knight’s injuries were little more than slightly duller grey scars along the perfect black of their carapace. However, when she unwrapped the bandage over the Hollow Knight’s eye, Hornet had to stifle a flicker of sorrow to find their mask still cracked. She gently cupped their cheek, staring into their eyes as a confusing swirl of emotions eddied through her. The sharp ache of hope in her chest was only sharpened by the dark coil of fear twisting and untwisting in her belly – the fear of doing too little, too late; of potentially discovering that her sibling was actually hollow after a fashion; the fear of them not. There was an uncomfortable itch of confusion somewhere in there too, at their shared survival, and a warm flicker of gratitude tainted with sorrow that they had, even if at Ghost’s expense, though it pained her to admit as much. But most of all was shame, and a steady, burning anger that pulsed in the pit of her belly at what had been done to her sibling, at what trials they had endured.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered. For what, she couldn’t quite find the words to say. How did one apologize for anything that had happened to her sibling? She knew none of what happened to them had been her fault – she had been far too young, too small, to prevent their binding. But she still felt the deepest shame at her continued inability – nay her refusal -  to brake those bindings herself, at the role she played in even preserving them. A cold, fracturing pain broke her heart as she fully comprehended just how much they had suffered in all the time that had passed. How could one ever adequately apologize for that?
She could feel the Hollow Knight begin to shake slightly under her touch, their shoulders trembling as their breathing became labored. For an instant, Hornet feared something was wrong, that she’d hurt them somehow, that they might vanish in a cloud of void just as Ghost had. 
But when dark tears of void began to spill from their eyes, and their quick breaths quickly dissolved into silent sobs, she realized they were probably only just beginning to process what had happened to them. She went to withdraw her hand, intending to give them space, but their own hand quickly covered hers and they leaned into her touch. Surprise pulsed through her at the motion, at the clear assertion of want without her prompting. An instinct Hornet had long thought dead had the spiderling wading into the water with her sibling and wrapping her arms around their shoulders. They were so much bigger than she that she had to stand to give them a hug, even as they remained seated. But the way they clung to her as shuddering sobs raked through them made them feel so small and fragile in her arms, and she blinked away tears of her own. She gently stroked their back as they cried, holding them tight as if her arms alone could keep them from falling apart. She found herself murmuring that it was okay, that they could cry now, they could let themself feel. The Radiance was destroyed, her infection gone. They had done it - they had kept their oath despite it all. She promised them they were safe. They were free.
For how long they remained like that, Hornet could only guess. Her back and arms had long since begun to ache at holding her much larger sibling aloft, but she steadfastly refused to be the first to draw away. Her sibling needed her, and this time wyrm damn it she was going to be here. 
After a time, the Hollow Knight’s breathing slowed, and their shaking lessened. She let them draw away at the slightest tug. The last thing she wanted to do was make them feel trapped. Their white mask was stained with dark streaks and she retrieved one of the bandages to wipe it clean. Her sibling pressed their mask into her hand as she worked and she got the sense that they were trying to express a form of gratitude. Relief and joy had begun to overwhelm all the other emotions that still twisted in Hornet’s chest – not quite replacing them but at least quelling them. Her sibling was alive, and this time they were free. It felt a wonder that such a thing could be possible, and some small part of Hornet swelled with pride at the knowledge that she had helped make this happen, even if mostly unintentionally. She vowed that this time, she would make certain they got to live fully and freely. 
Her thumb brushed the jagged edge of the crack in their mask and Hornet’s mind began to search for ways to make things better for her sibling, needing to prove to them through actions that they truly were safe now. That she cared.
“I wonder if the Mask Maker could repair this,” she mused, her thoughts drifting to the strange recluse who lived above her home in Deepnest. She knew he had been the one too craft the Hollow Knight’s mask as they grew up, since the vessels were incapable of molting like an average bug. If he was still alive, maybe the Mask Maker could help heal her sibling.
A thought occurred to her with a cold prickling across her shell and Hornet turned to Ghost’s mask still sitting broken in the water.
Perhaps…
Hollow let Hornet pull her hand away and she carefully plucked those white shards from the water, re-wrapping them in Ghost’s old cloak. Her motions were quick with a new purpose and the Hollow Knight stared at her, their confusion clear in the tilt of their head. 
“I have an idea,” she admitted, tucking the bundle in a silk bag under her cloak. A fragile hope had begun to rekindle in her chest. “There might be a way to get Ghost back.”
She paused, then asked, “Do you want to come with me?” 
( https://twitter.com/RannHKnight )
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( @enbeebo​ )
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( @jenmodri​ )
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( https://twitter.com/hakunoknight )
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( @lickthejam​ )
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Anonymous asked: I really enjoy your erudite and literary posts about James Bond in your blog very much. Your most recent post about Connery as best cinematic Bond and Dalton as the best literary Bond was brilliant. Although the PC brigade have been inching towards making Bond a woman or even non-white, Ian Fleming’s legacy of a suave but cold hearted English gentleman spy hasn’t been completely trashed. As someone familiar with Fleming literary lore can you also tell me where was James Bond educated? Was it Oxford or Cambridge? I was having a discussion over Zoom with friends and the Oxonians like myself thought it was Oxford because in Casino Royale with Daniel Craig it’s made very plain it was Oxford. Your thoughts?
I appreciate your kind words about my posts on James Bond and his creator Ian Fleming. It’s very hard to ignore the cinematic James Bond because he is very much an icon of our modern culture that needs no translation to transcend across cultures. Alongside Sherlock Holmes, another British literary and cinematic export, the name alone speak for itself.
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James Bond appeals to both genders very well.
For the men, Bond dresses well and lives in a care free way. He is both ferociously intelligent and resourceful to get out of any tight corner. He drives incredible cars (from the incredibly stylish Aston Martin DB5 to the incredibly awful AMC Hornet) and uses awesome technology (he is the archetypal boy with toys). He's not afraid to get down in the dirt to fight or engage in lethal gun-play and spectacular car chases. He sleeps with beautiful women, regardless how strong and independent they are (or even lesbian if we’re being honest about Pussy Galore).
For us ladies, while he's not averse to action, he's also a cultured gentleman with suave and sophisticated manners. He's also a generally pretty good looking guy. In many ways, he's a conventional male ideal. So while his conventional good looks and manners aren't for everyone, they hit right the sweet spot of what women like. For everyone, he's a spy! Not at a grey real world nondescript spy, but a cool spy fighting larger than life bad guys whose bland sartorial choices scream mad super villain. It's a very black and white world that James Bond lives in. These bad guys truly are villainous in the desire to re-order humanity, and we need a debonair British MI6 agent to save us from these mad men who want to harm us by laying waste to a bonkers Armageddon.
When all is said and done I think that what makes James Bond so iconic across gender and generations is what Raymond Chandler wrote back in 1959, “every man wants to be James Bond and every woman wants to be with him”.
That sounds about right. Men want to be him, women want to be with him.
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I know my first introduction to James Bond was through my grandfather on my  Anglo-Scots father’s side who was a dashing gentleman in his day with a long rumoured hush hush work for Her Majesty’s government firmly shoved under the carpet to avoid further discussion that he - being self-effacing and humble - would find embarrassing that would paint him in any heroic light. Years later he had bought his Bahamas beach pile in Harbour Island out in the Caribbean for the family to rest up from cold winters in Britain. Amongst his immense stack of books dotted around the place were (and still are) first editions of Flemings novels which a few were signed by the author as he on occasion met Ian Fleming when he would sail over to Jamaica (they were also OEs which helped). We were not allowed to touch these but instead picked up the dog earred paperbacks that still retained their 60s musty smell.
On my teen sojourns there I would spend time along with my siblings just reading anything we could find to take to the beach or lounge around in a hammock or a chaise longue. That’s how I came to read the Fleming books - really out of necessity to avoid boredom on a beach (which isn’t really my thing as I prefer the rugged outdoors). But I was pleasantly surprised how well written the books were and I actually enjoyed the stories; it was a refreshing change from the more heavy literary tomes I was trying hard to wade through. As for the Bond films, I watched them on film nights at boarding school; I remember having a school girl crush on Connery, Dalton, and Brosnan.
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There are many reasons for the successful longevity of James Bond in popular culture and literature but perhaps one of the most pertinent to our discussion is that James Bond is actually a blank slate and therefore malleable as a character and so he can capture the current zeitgeist in time.
This ability of the film to adapt to different generations while remaining relevant is an important factor for its longevity. For example, the early James Bond films were unashamedly sexist with characters using women as objects and discarding them. In the most recent James Bond films, certainly starting with Timothy Dalton, there is a subtle change in attitude with a few chauvinist attitudes.
James Bond today is more serious, seduces fewer women, and is more respectful towards women in his life, including his boss. This shows how the film changes concerning the rise of feminism in the West. For example, Miss Moneypenny used to be a minor character in the very first James Bond films. Today, she is more formidable and doesn’t tolerate sexist remarks.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this blank slate malleability that has allowed different actors that have been cast to play James Bond their own way - rather than get a straight like for like Scottish sounding actor to replacing Connery for example the film producers went across to Moore via Lazenby for example  - and letting each actor imbue the super spy with different moods. They each added their own colour from the same broad palate to create different tones. However, each of these characters maintained the essential character that defines James Bond. The actors have broadly stayed true to the inherent mix of character and class associated with James Bond.
For this reason I have some empathy towards your concern that Bond would be held hostage to the current zeitgeist of white washing or genderising everything so as to avoid being a victim of cancel culture. But it’s only empathy because I feel there is a danger of misunderstanding just who James Bond is and what he represents.
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What do I mean by this?
I mentioned James Bond is a malleable character to the point he’s presented as a blank slate. This is ‘literally’ true - certainly as far as the books go. Ian Fleming doesn’t tell us much about Bond other than his appearance in his books. Indeed - as I mentioned in my past blog post on Connery as the best Bond - Fleming wasn’t convinced by Connery as Bond. He was reported to have said, ‘I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stuntman’ and even dismissed Connery as “that fucking truck driver”. Fleming has good reason to rage. His Bond as written in the books was someone like him.
Like Fleming, Bond was an Eton educated Englishman; an officer and a (rogue) gentleman who was a lieutenant-commander in Naval Intelligence. As Connery began to wow and win over Fleming as Bond, Fleming had a change of heart. Fleming in his later Bond books re-wrote a half-Scottish ancestry for Bond as a tribute to Connery’s portrayal. Bond’s Scottish father was a Royal Navy captain and later an arms dealer, Andrew Bond from Glencoe; and his mother, Monique Delacroix, was Swiss from an industrial family. Bond himself was born in Zurich. Bond isn’t English at all but half-Scots and half-Swiss according to literary canon.
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So I mention this because the question who can play James Bond is not as straight forward as it might seem.
But clearly we now have a canon of work, both cinematically and in the literature, where we have base line of who Bond is - or what audiences could possibly suspend their disbelief and go with what is presented to them as James Bond.
I do vaguely remember the hullabaloo and hand wringing around Daniel Craig playing Bond because he didn’t conform to the traditional tall, dark, and handsome trope of James Bond super suave spy. People couldn’t get past his blond hair. Some still can’t. But in my humble opinion he has been an outstanding James Bond and has reimagined Bond in a fresh and exciting way. Craig is in fact mining the Fleming books for his characterisation of Bond as a suave, gritty, humourless killer of the books. Dalton got there before him but that’s a moot point. To our current generation Craig has modernised Bond and dusted 007 down from being a relic of the Cold War to being a relevant 21st Century super spy.
Can anyone play James Bond OO7? Yes and no. It’s arguing that two different things are one and the same. They are not. James Bond is separate from OO7.  
Can a woman play Jane Bond or a black woman or non-white man play Black Bond? Respectfully, no. That’s not who James Bond is.
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James Bond is a flesh and blood character with a specific genealogical history - whether in the books or on the screen. This Bond has literary back story that is canon and makes him who he is. Bond does transcend time - he can’t be 38 years old for over 75 years in the real world - but at the same time his character only makes sense when rooted in a specific historic context we know existed (and still exists) and not some wishy washy make believe fantasy of British society. He’s an Old Etonian and therefore an upper middle class male product of the British establishment that is identifiable in a very British cultural context.
Jane Bond would have to have gone to Cheltenham Ladies College, Benneden, or Roedean I suppose if we are talking about equivalence - but such girls’ boarding schools were not the breeding ground for future spies (more likely they married them or became trusted secretaries in the intelligence services as well as flower arranging in their Anglican parish church).
I believe they are letting in black pupils on bursaries at Eton these days to be more inclusive but again it’s an an exception not the rule and Eton doesn’t even get public credit for the inclusive work they try to do because it’s not well known.
Moreover we know Bond loses his Scottish-Swiss parents in a skiing accident. I don’t mean to sound racist but I ski a lot in Switzerland and I can say you don’t really find droves of non-white skiers on the slopes of Verbier or Zermatt. Of course there are a few but it’s the exception and not the norm. Again, I’m not trying to be racist but just point out some obvious things when it pertains to the credibility of character that underlines who Bond is. You pull one thread out of the literary biography and the danger is the rest of the tapestry will unravel.
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Of course one could try and go for a Black Bond on screen and then hope there is a huge suspension of belief on the part of the audience. But I suspect it’s a bridge too far. It just doesn’t fit. Audiences around the world have an image of who Bond is - British at the very least but also male (damaged and flawed in many ways) and coming from a specific British social class background that serves as an entree to a closed world of English gentleman clubs, Savile Row, English sports cars, and the hushed corridors of Whitehall.
Any woke film maker with an ounce of creative vision and talent and one who is invested in this would be better off creating a new character entirely - with their own specific biography that is both believable and relatable. Can you imagine an American James Bond? What a ghastly thought. Or worse a Canadian one? Canadians are far too nice and far too apologetic to produce a cruel cold eyed killer. But look what clever film makers like Spielberg and Lucas did with Indiana Jones and even later Doug Liman did with Jason Bourne - both fantastic creations that are part of the cultural zeitgeist now.
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Or look at Charlize Theron who plays a MI6/CIA/KGB triple agent in Atomic Blonde or Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust in any of the Mission Impossible movies. I would eagerly watch any movies with these two badass women on the screen. All this talk about making Bond a woman or even coloured is just lazy thinking at best and at worst kow towing to the populist tides of PC brigade.
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But I firmly believe one can have a female and a person of colour portraying 007. This is because James Bond and OO7 are two different things entirely. Many mistakenly believe 007 is Bond’s own code name and specific alias to him alone.  
007 is a license to kill for a very specialised kind of intelligence officer. Bond has that privilege for as long as he serves at the service of Her Majesty’s pleasure. His 007 license can be revoked - and it has been in the past Bond films - and he’s back to being a just another desk jockey civil servant in Whitehall. So my point is OO7 is not sacred to Bond’s identity. Bond could continue to be Bond even if M took away his 007 license to kill.
The origins of the Double O title may date to Fleming's wartime service in Naval Intelligence. According to World War Two historian Damien Lewis in his book Churchill's Secret Warriors, agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) were given a “0” prefix when they became "zero-rated" upon completion of training in how to kill. As part of his role as assistant to the head of naval intelligence, Rear Admiral John Godfrey (himself the inspiration for M), Fleming acted as liaison to the SOE.
In the novel Moonraker it’s established that the section routinely has three agents concurrently; the film series, beginning with Thunderball, establishes the number of OO agents at a minimum of 9. Fleming himself only mentions five OO agents in all. According to Moonraker, James Bond is the most senior of three OO agents; the two others were OO8 and OO11. The three men share an office and a secretary named Loelia Ponsonby. Later novels feature two more OO agents; OO9 is mentioned in Thunderball and OO6 is mentioned in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
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Other authors have elaborated and expanded upon the OO agents. While they presumably have been sent on dangerous missions as Bond has, little has been revealed about most of them. Several have been named, both by Fleming and other authors, along with passing references to their service records, which suggest that agents are largely recruited (as Bond was) from the British military's special forces.
Interestingly, In the novel You Only Live Twice, Bond was transferred into another branch and given the number 7777, suggesting there was no active agent 007 in that time; he is later reinstated as 007 in the novel The Man with the Golden Gun. As an aside, in Fleming's Moonraker, OO agents face mandatory retirement at 45 years old. However Sebastian Faulks's Devil May Care (an authorised Bond adventure from the Fleming estate and therefore arguably could be considered canon) features M giving Bond a choice of when to retire - which explains why Roger Moore (God bless) went past his sell by date.
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In the films the OO section is a discrete area of MI6, whose agents report directly to M, and tend to be sent on special assignments and troubleshooting missions, often involving rogue agents (from Britain or other countries) or situations where an "ordinary" intelligence operation uncovers or reveals terrorist or criminal activity too sensitive to be dealt with using ordinary procedural or legal measures, and where the aforementioned discretionary "licence to kill" is deemed necessary or useful in rectifying the situation.
The World is Not Enough introduces a special insignia for the 00 Section. Bond's fellow OO agents appear receiving briefings in Thunderball and The World Is Not Enough. The latter film shows a woman in one of the 00 chairs. In Thunderball, there are nine chairs for the OO agents; Moneypenny says every 00 agent in Europe has been recalled, not every OO agent in the world. Behind the scenes photos of the film reveal that one of the agents in the chairs is female as well. As with the books, other writers have elaborated and expanded upon the OO agents in the films and in other media.
In GoldenEye, 006 is an alias for Alec Trevelyan; as of 2019, Trevelyan is the only OO agent other than Bond to play a major role in an EON Productions film, with all other appearances either being brief or dialogue references only.
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In Casino Royale with Daniel Craig’s first outing as Bond, we see in the introduction the tense exchange between Bond and Dryden, a section chief whom Bond has been sent to kill for selling secrets.  
James Bond: M really doesn't mind you earning a little money on the side, Dryden. She'd just prefer it if it wasn't selling secrets. Dryden: If the theatrics are supposed to scare me, you have the wrong man Bond. If M was so sure I was bent...she'd have sent a Double-O. Benefits of being Section Chief...I would know of anyone being promoted to Double-O status, wouldn't I? Your file shows no kills...and it takes - James Bond: - two. (flashback of Bond fighting Dryden's contact in a bathroom.)
The OO is just a coveted position and nothing to do with who occupies it. Ito use a topical comparative example it’s like a football team in which a new star player would be given an ex-player’s shirt number e.g. Messi wears Number 10 for Argentina which is heavily identified with the late great Maradona. So conceivably there would be no problem having a woman or anyone else play 007. I think it would be an interesting creative choice to have a woman or someone else play OO7 and Bond is out of the service and yet he has to work together with this new OO7 - the creative tension would be a refreshing twist on the canon. 
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Your question about James Bond’s Oxford or Cambridge education is more easier to answer.
It really depends again which Bond one is talking about. The literary James Bond or the cinematic Bond.
In the Fleming books, James Bond’s didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge or any of the other great universities of Britain. In the books Bond’s education is not gone into much detail. We know he was raised overseas until he was orphaned at the age of 11 when his parents died in a mountaineering accident near Chamonix in the Alps. He is home schooled for a time by an aunt, Charmain Bond, in the English village of Pett Bottom before being packed off to boarding school at Eton around 12 years old. Bond doesn’t stay long as he gets expelled for playing around with a maid. He is then sent to his father’s boarding school in Scotland, Fettes College.
Bond is then briefly attends the University of Geneva - as Ian Fleming did - before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel. In 1941 Bond joins a branch of what was to become the Ministry of Defence and becomes a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, ending the war as a commander. Bond applies to M for a position within the "Secret Service", part of the HM Civil Service, and rises to the rank of principal officer. And that’s it.
In the cinematic Bond universe things get more complicated and even contentious as you alluded to in your question. It’s never made quite clear which of the two - Oxford or Cambridge - Bond attended because it depends on how much weight you attach to the lines being spoken in each of the films where it is raised.
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In Tomorrow Never Dies, Bond is up at Oxford (New College to be exact since his Aston Martin DB5 was parked in the courtyard at the entrance). He is seen bedding a sexy Danish professor, Inga Bergstrom, to brush up on his Danish (to which Moneypenny on the phone retorts ‘You always were a cunning linguist’). But it’s definitely doesn’t mean Bond studied there as an undergraduate. 
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Casino Royale is the film many think yes, James Bond went to Oxford because it is mentioned by Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) as she sizes up Daniel Craig’s Bond on the train. Here is the full quote as said by Vesper Lynd, “All right... by the cut of your suit, you went to Oxford or wherever. Naturally you think human beings dress like that. But you wear it with such disdain, my guess is you didn't come from money, and your school friends never let you forget it. Which means you were at that school by the grace of someone else's charity - hence that chip on your shoulder. And since your first thought about me ran to "orphan," that's what I'd say you are.”
The thing to note is that it’s Vesper Lynd taunting Bond and even then she takes a wide stab by saying ‘Oxford or wherever’ because she doesn’t really know and Bond doesn’t oblige her with an answer.
That whole scene struck me as strange because she’s guessing by the cut of the suit it must be Oxford (or Cambridge). Bond is wearing an Italian suit (Brioni to be specific) and not and English Savile Row one that presumably someone of Bond’s taste and background would be sporting.
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A more plausible answer if we are going by the cinematic Bond universe is Cambridge. Indeed it is stated explicitly by Bond himself. Can you guess?
You Only Live Twice which is has the distinction of being the only Bond film (as far as I can tell) from being set in just one country - Japan.
You remember the scene. Lieutenant commander James Bond has just had a briefing with M on board a submarine and is naturally flirting with Moneypenny on his way out. Moneypenny playfully tosses him a Japanese phrase book, saying he might need it.
“You forget,” Bond responds with an expression just short of a smirk as he tosses it back to her, “I took a first in oriental languages at Cambridge.”
So it seems James Bond is a Cambridge man.
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A first means - as any British university student would know - first class honours. It’s the highest classification grade one can get in their undergraduate degree ie a ‘first’. Although at Cambridge, like Oxford, you can also get a double first in the part I and part II of the Tripos. Both universities also award first-class honours with distinction, informally known as a ‘Starred First’ (Cambridge) or a ‘Congratulatory First’ (Oxford).
Another oddity is he says ‘oriental languages’ when one got a degree in ‘oriental studies’ at the Oriental Faculty at Cambridge. That is until 2007 when Cambridge bowed to public and student pressure and chose to drop its Oriental Faculty label and instead adopted the name the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Oxford still hangs on to its name the Faculty of Oriental Studies.
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My only reservation about crowing over an Oxonian is how truthful was Bond being with Moneypenny in this scene?
Is this line meant to be taken seriously or ironically? Most people seem to take it seriously, despite much of Connery's dialogue being obviously ironic and playful. Certainly, Bond is shown to have never been to Japan before and is incapable of saying anything in Japanese other than the odd "sayonara" and "arigato." But then again Bond does know the correct temperature sake is meant to be served at. So there’s that.
Or it could be Bond was speaking a half-truth. I know speaking from experience as someone who very nearly read asian languages instead of my eventual choice of Classics that ‘Oriental languages’ at the ex-Oriental faculty in Cambridge can mean many other languages e.g. Sanskrit, Hindi, Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic as well as Korean, Japanese and Chinese. It opens up so many other delicious possibilities for Bond. If he read Arabic then perhaps he’s being deeply ironic with Moneypenny (after all she would have drooled over read his MI6 personnel file).
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If you think I’m losing my mind then ponder on the fact it was Roald Dahl who penned the screenplay of You Only Live Twice. Dahl was not above snark. Indeed pretty sure he would have got a starred first in snark at any university.
Of course the most obvious explanation is that it’s plot armour as a way for Bond to just get on with the story by suspending the audience belief. Why wouldn’t Bond know Japanese? He seems to know everything else imaginable.
However if it ever was it’s now become canon as EON - the production company behind the Bond films - have stated officially for the fandom that Bond’s official bio has it that he went to Eton and Cambridge, where he got a first in oriental languages. So that seems settled then.
In hindsight it makes perfect sense that Bond went to Cambridge since historically Cambridge has provided the bulk of the spies not just for Her Majesty’s service but also for the other side, the Russians - the so-called Cambridge Spies of Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and Cairncross, and a host of other traitors. We seem to be an equal opportunities employment service.
I’m sorry to disappoint you and other Oxonians that despite what you might think James Bond didn’t attend Oxford. Believe me as a Cantabrigian it gives me no pleasure to say this…..too much.
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Thanks for your question.
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buglife · 3 years
Text
Terra Lumina
A hollow knight au guide that I keep writing in. You can read all my writings and art stuff in the #terra-lumina tag. Mostly so I can just point to this post when explaining things awee. :3 Post subject to edits and changes.
Terra Lumina is an au where both Ghost (the little knight) and Quirrel are together and are the new rulers of Hallownest. So it's a royalty au! Pretty much it's slice of life where they do their best to be a better ruler than the Pale King ever was, ruling with kindness and intelligence. Seriously, like, the Pale King could have just talked to the Radiance instead of letting things snowball like they did. They both live in the new palace which is pretty much like the White House in that it's mostly dedicated to government with an apartment for the rulers to live in. It's where the old palace used to be, but now it's much greener and 100% less buzzsaws. It is post embrace the void ending and an everyone lives/nobody dies au where the only characters that are dead are those that were found so at the start of the game. Takes place about 5-7 years after the end of the game.
The two romantic rulers.
Ghost:Now taller than Quirrel and is the Shade Lord, god of void and dreams. Sovereign of Hallownest and rightful ruler due to king's brand. Can use telepathy but only does so with family/friends, as they are nervous about scaring people so uses sign language with them. Is very happy to have family/friends and overall liked by most folks. Is still scary to some and is sad about that. Married Quirrel. Considers Mato their adoptive father and calls them such. Still enjoys fighting (but for fun now). Since dreams are now their aspect, they gather up nightmares to help the population (and gives to their adopted grimmchild, Allegro, and Grimm themselves.)
Quirrel: Now called the Scholar King, rules alongside Ghost. He still has trouble believing that this is his life. Chaotic Good. Mostly deals with the logistics in running the kingdom. Adoptive mother is Monomon who found him when he was teeny tiny. Did not attempt to drown themselves, instead isolated himself when he thought Monomon was dead so Ghost had to find him. Still fights and can practically teleport. Spends free time in the palace library where a copy of all the surviving books were moved to and is free to the public to check out and read.
Family/Friends
Hornet: Still the Princess of Deepnest and was happy to have her mother Herrah rule again. Is officially Deepnest's ambassador and works closely with her sibling to be sure things that need to get done, get done. She won't admit it but she loves spending time with her siblings. Also randomly jumps Ghost to keep them on their toes and make sure they don't lose their skill. This can happen at anytime, anyplace. Is a close ally with the Hive and is helping the new Queen get used to her role. Also demands spars with Quirrel all the time because she does like her brother and law and the fact she doesn't kill him is proof enough in her eyes.
Mato: Dadmaster. Pretty much raised Ghost in between the end of the game to present day (and did a damn good job). Still lives in the Howling Cliffs and teaches students still, especially knight candidates. Is always on hand to cause trouble if needed. Is so proud you guys can't even. Keeps his home open in case Ghost and Quirrel need to hide for a bit. Officiated Ghost and Quirrel's wedding because of course.
Hollow: Part of the new great knights of Hallownest and is known as Hollow the Kind. Still likes to help people, and after having lots of care and therapy, is now more expressive and open. Is pretty much free to do what they please, and they choose to mostly patrol the kingdom and help when needed. Is constantly sneaking frogs into the palace because Hollow loves them. Can only use telepathy with other void beings and uses sign language to communicate otherwise. Is still missing an arm but had a magical prosthetic built. Loves to be in cuddle piles.
Tiso:Big brother figure and part of the new great knights of Hallownest. He is known as Tiso the Daring. Is actually a badass Captain America type fighter, just couldn't dodge a house sized mawlek and nearly died back then. Taught Ghost all the swears and often invokes 'Big Brother Rights'. Is also Captain of the Guard and has matured a lot since the end of the game. In a relationship with Myla and Cloth.
Cloth:Part of the new great knights of Hallownest and is known as Cloth the Strong. Makes sure people behave. Has healed from her near suicidal want to join her late lover, and now has a more positive outlook on life. Tends to organize tournaments that aren't fucked up and fatal like the Coliseum. In a relationship with Tiso and Myla.
Myla:Was saved from the infection, but it left her prone to sickness and a little weaker than most bugs. Compensates for still being cherry and wonderful to be around. Actually wicked smart and has helped Ghost restart the mining industry. Enjoys going to musicals/plays in her free time. Still loves being a geologist and provided most of the geological samples in the Capital's museum. Is in a relationship with Cloth and Tiso.
Ogrim: The only surviving great knight of old Hallownest. Is part of the new knights as Ogrim the Defender. Is the leader of the new knights and is a brilliant tactician. Has moved up from the Waterways to a new home and no longer lives in exile. Likes to plan parties and is generally doing better. He deserves it.
God Tamer: Real name is Xena (I seen it used around and I like it.) Part of the new great knights of Hallownest and is known as Xena the Tamer. Still works alongside her beast, ‘Pickles’. Has an uncanny ability to befriend dangerous beasts and pacifies them. Now has a small zoo’s worth of ‘friends’ that come and go for pats and treats. Dunks on Tiso a lot. Is surprisingly a conservationist. Will beat the shit out of people without hesitation if needed. Often fights new recruits to judge areas needing improvement. Has no tolerance for idiots. Was saved from the infection, but was not infected long enough to cause long term damage.
Allegro: The Grimmchild. Has chosen female pronouns. She is now past the grub stage and has left the kingdom to travel with her father, Grimm, to learn how to take over the Troupe. Still keeps in contact with Ghost through dreams and loves Ghost very much as their ‘Ren’. Was and still is, a little shit. Ghost misses them a lot but is comforted by her visits. Ghost saves nightmares to give to her so she can get big and strong!
Grimm: Considered a friend at this point, and taught Ghost about the dream realm. Visits through dreams. Ghost saves nightmares to give to him. Often has advice when needed.
Sheo/Nailsmith: Uncles. They both run an art school with Sheo teaching fine arts and Nail(Smith) teaching forging. They also run an art gallery. Are up to cause trouble whenever needed.
Oro: Uncle. The real sour one. Teaches new recruits and tends to weed out those that can make it from ones that can’t. Pretty much a drill Sargent. Ghost pays him not only in geo, but candy. Special, custom made candy just for Oro. It’s the only way they could get him to do this job. Oro won’t admit it’s also because he loves his former pupil no sir.
Monomon: Quirrel’s adoptive mother and currently is the royal researcher. Teaches classes as well. Ghost pretty much told her to do whatever as long as it will improve the lives of bugkind and she loves them for it. Is always down to cause trouble. Chaotic Neutral. Has some type of explosive with them at any given time. Tends to ‘vanish’ people who have wrong her or her son. Embodies chaos. Craves gossip. Former Dreamer and woke up when Ghost took the pantheon approach to defeating the Radiance.
Herrah: Queen of Hallownest and considers Ghost one of her children. Is happy to be Queen of her own people and is making up for lost time with her daughter. Likes to meet with the Hallownest rulers for a good shit-talking session. Is made of sass. Former Dreamer and woke up when Ghost took the pantheon approach to defeating the Radiance.
Lurien: Watcher of the Capital. Disaster. Will stay up for days on end working on things to accidentally invent new things in the process in sleep deprived delirium. Often gets drunk or high and contemplates the universe. Has the best edibles around I tell you. Is actually good at his job, which is finding suspicious things and investigating them. Former Dreamer and woke up when Ghost took the pantheon approach to defeating the Radiance.
Lemm: Runs the Hallownest museum and works in the back where he catalogs and studies findings and doesn’t have to talk to anyone and is the happiest he could ever be.
Seer: Holy shit she is old. Still lives in the resting grounds. Ghost visits often and brings tea and snacks. Grandma energy. Is currently working with Quirrel to recount as much as she can about moth legends and society so it can be preserved forever. It’s slow going because she is old, but it’s going.
The siblings: Are now at rest.
Everything else
White Lady: Is still alive and has left the gardens. She resides in a little hidden cottage outside the palace where she grows flowers. Is often called in to overlook agriculture efforts. Has long since revoked her crown and is content with a quiet life. Is not considered a mother by Ghost, and Ghost will not forgive her for her role in things. She is okay with this and hopes to atone someday for what she did.
The Pale King: Still fucking dead. Rest in Pieces you shit.
Eternal Emilitia: Is a member of the new noble class and takes her job seriously. She mostly keeps the other nobles in line when she can and helps delegate orders to places where they need to go. It’s like herding cats but she’s getting better with it the longer she’s around. Is respected by Ghost since she knows what it’s like to hit rock bottom and is quite sensitive to the needs to the people.
Radiance: Dead. Was going mad and in pain by the time Ghost got to her. Is now at rest.
Greenpath/Queen’s Gardens:Given back to the moss-kin and Unn. Unn has started to awaken more now that the infection is over and her children are freed from it’s influence. Is considered it’s own ‘kingdom’. Is in good relations with Hallownest.
Fungal Wastes: Still thriving. A hivemind made up of everything from microscopic spores to the entire fungal waste itself. The mushroom tribe trades with Hallownest and is in good relations with them. Still considered weird to most but they are good and peaceful people.
Mantis Tribe: Is in a good relationship with Ghost, Hornet and Quirrel, and not much else. Has complete independence but was asked nicely if they could help train the most dedicated of new guards/knights. Did not pass up the opportunity to be allowed to beat the shit out of willing Hallownest citizens who wanted to train.
Deepnest: Ruled by Queen Herrah and Princess Hornet. Good relationship with Hallownest and enjoys full independence. The beasts that reside are no longer hassled by Hallownest encroachment and thus does not push back into it. Exports silk products and is now a very prosperous nation.
Dirtmouth/Crystal Peaks: Still the same, but with now more people. All our favorite Dirtmouth folks are doing well. Elderbug is delighted to have a full town to be a mayor over.
City of Tears: Now called the 'Capital'. Plants are now on the ceiling to redirect water and stop the constant rain. It's much more pleasant now.
Colosseum of Fools: Left alone mostly. Ghost cannot stop people for wanting to go there if they are of sound mind to make the decision.
The Hive: Is now ruled by the new Queen Apis. Is fully independent and enjoys a cushy trade agreement with Hallownest and the rest of the various nations. She wonders if she will ever live up to her mother, Queen Vespa, but has many friends to help her grow into the role. Hive Knight is her loyal friend.
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fascinatedhelix · 4 years
Text
Some updates to the HK/NSR crossover AU, since the original was made pre-release (the following does contain spoilers!):
Ghost
Ran away from the Trankil Adoption Agency due to finding most humans too restrictive on their freedom; they’re accustomed to being able to come and go as they please, and the agency doesn’t really approve of trankil running around unattended. BBJ are more relaxed about it, leading to the little one being along the lines of a latchkey trankil.
Mayday and Zuke earn their trust by buying them food and helping them clean up in the restaurant’s bathroom, rather than just grabbing them and dragging them back to the agency. Aunty, for one, adores them, due to their sweet little face and how eagerly they eat her cooking.
Has pulled a knife on Kliff, multiple times, because he’s creepy as hell and sets off all their alarms, much to the exasperation of Zuke and Mayday. He tries bribing them with toys and snacks up until his betrayal, after which he almost gets stabbed again before BBJ drag Ghost with them to stop the fans.
Zuke doesn’t let them draw their blade in the sewer or on the streets, normally, but he doesn’t necessarily ban them from sharps entirely. He can tell they know how to use them, though he opts to let them use a kitchen knife instead of the haphazard scrap of metal they’ve been swinging around on the streets.
Zam has attempted to conduct interviews with Ghost before, but finds himself mostly just perplexed at their answers. "Okay, I’m looking at what appear to be, uh, hieroglyphics of some kind. I can see something that kind of looks like a rhinoceros beetle head... They’re shaking their head ‘no.’” The little section where he interviews them is nicknamed Ghost Tour.
Comet
They were sleeping in DJ Subatomic Supernova’s apartment at the time of the battle, since he didn’t think he’d need their help. They’re too small to be asked for a whole lot, anyway; he mostly has them around to keep himself company and have someone to talk to (or at, as the case may be).
Their sound energy absorbing powers would probably be enough to deactivate some of NSR’s robots; it comes in handy when the rogue robots are getting in the way of reinstating their guardian as charter.
Their favorite stuffed animal is a toy dolphin that DJSS calls Delphinus, though Comet calls them Splashy when they learn how to write.
As they grow older, their horns begin pointing backward and eventually curling into a similar shape to ram’s horns.
DJSS secretly relishes in the opportunity to have a legacy in the form of taking care of Comet, though he doesn’t know that they are probably more likely to carry his name farther into the future than any drones he sends up to space.
Bunny
They live with Remi, the artist and leader of the Sayu team. He treats them much like a little sibling, in the nice way, and gets them to watch some of the more family-friendly anime he watches; they’re particularly fond of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, even if they keep dismantling the figures he gets them. They’re much gentler with the plushies, though.
It takes a few weeks of watching Dodo and Sofa work on machinery to get them learning how to build stuff as well as break it. They make it an entire thing when they grow older, working on machinery.
They eventually grow cheek spines, not unlike some depictions of the adult Ghost, and otherwise heavily resemble Hornet as an adult. Much taller than her, though.
Sayu’s kind of reluctant to attack Ghost because they resemble Bunny so much; “You’re too cute to fight!” Zuke doesn’t like the idea of Ghost acting like a trankil shield in fights, but it does help throw off her aim.
Thorn
Yinu’s mom specifically chose the former Broken Vessel because they were the only trankil that expressed any interest in Yinu’s infodumping about classical music. They even responded to questions with head shaking or nodding.
They come to Yinu’s side after her piano breaks, letting go of their fight with Ghost quickly enough; they don’t fault their sibling for doing what they thought was right, even if they don’t understand it, but they believed Yinu needed their support more.
They’re taking violin lessons, as it’s a touch easier to adjust to playing with four fingers on that then on piano. They get pretty good at it as an adult, though in the modern day their playing is a touch mediocre.
After their performance at Yinu’s concert, fighting in her defense with a stolen machete, Yinu’s mom at first grounds Thorn for stealing and playing with sharps, but concedes to put them in a fencing program to “get it out of their system.” They turn out a lot more competent than the instructors were expecting, and intimidate the crap out of their peers. When they’re older they take up a proper swordfighting class.
Yinu does wind up joining them in learning fencing, after her mother gets a recommendation to get her to get more exercise to avoid literally rooting herself to her piano (not an unusual issue for plant folks; they have to move pretty regularly or else they get stuck in one spot and have to be cut out). Her mom worries that she takes to it a touch too eagerly, perhaps because of her relative helplessness.
Thorn acts fairly stoic and polite most of the time, but they can be quite the handful when something piques their interest. They get banned from at least one Renaissance fair due to playing with the swords or poking the roasting pig. Yinu starts covering for them after they start bribing her with extra sweets.
Scotty
Neon J initially treated them like a trainee when he got them, but it quickly slipped into adopted child territory when he realized just how young they were. He did want kids back when he was human, so he took very quickly to the role of adoptive father.
Scotty is very good at learning language and patterns, so they wind up learning English writing pretty quickly for one of their kind. Because of this, Neon J becomes one of the few privy to the nature of the vessels, though he is uncharacteristically quiet about it.
1010 adores Scotty, occasionally posting about them on social media, making them a bit of a fandom darling, though the band does have to put out PSAs about not getting a trankil irresponsibly.
Scotty’s favorite food is cheese tarts and cheese danishes, which they tend to be awarded for good behavior.
Scotty is a very active child; they dance, they run around the mansion, they swim in the pool (and just about any fountain they run across, much to Neon J’s embarrassment), and they can’t be brought within 100 feet of a dog park without trying to pet every animal in the vicinity.
They try their best to comfort their adoptive dad when he’s suffering from phantom pains or flashbacks, though they don’t know the techniques very well. Their usual method is gently patting his hand or leaning against him (among vessels they’d be leaning against each other in large groups, leading to one big cuddle pile; they can’t do it here by themselves, but they’ll sure as hell try).
Much to Neon J’s embarrassment, they become quite the potty mouth (er, hands) when they get older. He’s a sailor, he slips up every now and then!
Riley
The former Greenpath Vessel is rather happy to leave behind the harsh life they lived back in Hallownest, though they find the most success in recounting their old life through art.
Eve tends to be a very dramatic teacher, but quite gentle with her little friend. She couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic student, though.
Eve’s quite protective of the little thing; she’s not quite as heartbroken about Zuke’s abandonment due to the company of her apprentice/adopted child, but the thought of them being taken away tends to scare her quite a bit. As such, she tends to spoil them rotten, though they’re still quite sweet.
Riley has a degree of PTSD from their experience in Hallownest; they’re very sensitive to sounds and movement in their peripheral, and have bitten and scratched people on more than one occasion for getting in their bubble without proper warning or consent. Eve’s pretty good about avoiding their blindspot and having her footsteps make noise they can track.
Eve’s among the first to learn about the Lord of Shades and the dream realm due to her teaching her magic painting to Riley. With her help, they created the Dark Mirror, which allows people to enter a sort of waking simulation of the dream realm, though it tends to seriously disorient people not accustomed to messing with reality (musicians tend to do fine, but normal folks? Not so much). It becomes a very useful communication tool when discussing Hallownest and how it functioned.
Sterling
The former Hollow Knight views themselves as deeply indebted to Tatiana, though also viewing her as a friend. She gave them a name, a new purpose, and an opportunity to live again without the constraints of their failed duty; of course they’re going to feel kind of guilty about it.
Only the NSR artists and a few select NSR personnel have seen them in person, and the first thing people tend to notice is their sheer size. Tatiana worries how much renovations will have to be done to accommodate the rest of their kin once they grow up, if they wind up matching their eldest sibling.
They tend to have a reasonably positive relationship with the artists, due to their kindness towards the vessels and generally respectful attitude towards the behemoth of a trankil.  DJSS tends to rant about space in their general direction as his idea of small talk, and they tolerate it. He also not so subtly squees when he sees Comet interacting with their elder sibling. Sayu’s team thinks they’re anime hero levels of cool, sword and all, and Bunny tends to agree, trying to challenge them to fight. Yinu’s mom tends to scrutinize them as reference for Thorn’s later growth, though Yinu herself and Thorn tend to climb the adult trankil like a tree for fun. Neon J respects them deeply as a knight and technical prince, though Scotty’s pretty content to try and get them to play when they visit. Eve appreciates their good manners and willingness to listen, and Riley rather likes showing them their drawings.
Tatiana tends to treat Sterling as something of a confidante, due to their quiet nature and strong sense of loyalty. She worries they idolize her a touch too much to be healthy, but knowing what she does about their past, she’s not sure if a human therapist would help.
The wings grew in a couple weeks before the Rock Revolution; evidently they hadn’t developed quite enough to develop them before they had been sealed, leading to serious back troubles during their fight before their rebirth. It was a pretty chaotic affair helping them through their last molt, considering the other trankil who’ve been molting had a lot less to shed.
Tatiana tends to scold Sterling for digging through her old rock cassettes, though she comes to regret it after the whole debacle with BBJ.
Sterling’s way more ruthless than Tatiana asks for or is fully aware of; they tend to take threats to their new life, siblings, and new companions very, very seriously, and god help the poor soul who convinces them to act. Kliff doesn’t last long after the Rock Revolution, because of this, not that anyone notices.
Misc
The vessels were united under the leadership of Ghost to create the Lord of Shades, and upon killing and absorbing the Radiance, they’ve essentially become the collective gods of the Dream Realm as well as the Void and probably Death too. The level of focus and cooperation needed to fully activate these powers is incredibly high, especially after the vessels begin developing individual personalities, so there won’t be any casual appearances of the Shade Lord any time soon.
Vessels don’t need to eat to grow for the first five or six years of their life, as they have a lot of soul energy stored in their bodies from birth to facilitate growth in the Abyss (their “yolk”), but once that’s expended they won’t grow any more until they gain a stable food source and a safe environment to molt, hence why Ghost spent such a long time being so small, despite being the same age as Sterling. While not eating won’t kill them, humans don’t know that.
The average height for an adult vessel is 8 feet, from the bottom of their feet to base of their horns, whereas a newly hatched vessel (like Comet) is about the size of a tennis ball curled up.
People who aren’t accustomed to the otherworldly presence of the trankil tend to freak out when they’re nearby; the sheer emptiness of their eyes, the expressionless faces, the inhuman size and proportions all give anybody not used to it the heebie-jeebies. Of course, Vinyl City locals stopped caring pretty shortly after they first got the trankil.
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Jazz was struggling to process the weird things going on in her life. While she was far more interested in psychology than parapsychology, she /did/ offer a ghost a bit of therapy now and then and he seemed to be doing better for it. That was all the ghostly interaction she really needed. the giant hornet in school apparently disagrees with her on that. It truly amazed Jazz what the mind could conjure up during stressful events. For instance, it occurred to her right this very second how odd it had been to cool even slightly down from the argument days before over ghosts with her parents only for the ghost of the infamous Sydney Poindexter to show up in the library seeking comfort and a safe person to vent to. The topic of Sydney’s guilt had been hard to stay objective about, but between his clear and honest regret, his admitted decades of hell in a replica of Casper in the Infinite Realms (and wow, she shouldn’t be surprised that ghosts had a name for the world they manifest in but there she was) and the fact that Danny had befriended him led her to feel Sydney was, while not at all justified in what he’d done, not as bad a person as he’d been making himself out to be. When she asked questions he responded much more clearly than when he spoke unprompted, she’d noted, and so she’d asked right away if there was even one person he could remember who didn’t hurt him. The green and sepia bleeding into his form nearly vanished as his older brother, his little sister, and the school nurse came to mind. His brother hardly cared about the things that he was being bullied over, doing his best to keep Sydney looking toward the future and making amazing things to lift his spirits. Apparently, he was a genius like Tucker and Danny, a compliment that made Jazz smile at the time. His little sister didn’t know enough to really understand it all but she was unerringly sweet and a source of sunshine that he never ever mentioned at school. The nurse, however, had been the brightest of those three lights in the dark for him, as the nurse wasn’t family and had no pre-established reason to be nice to and patch up the gross, nerdy queer kid that everyone else had shown nothing but contempt for. She did it anyway though, and he’d aspired to be a nurse like her one day. This aspiration led to more bullying, of course, but Jazz suggested he try learning how to heal people up the same way that nurse had him, and a look of realization and hope crossed his face before he hugged her, waved, and flew off. That had been a very good ghostly encounter. The giant hornet casting a sinister green glow over the hallways as a long, slimy black tongue curled around her entire skull and sharp mandibles the size of said skull extended to their most open was distinctly not. Jazz would never look at bugs the same way again. Before she could even manage to get a scream out of her though, the whining charge of one of her parents’ weapons filled her ears and the hornet jerked back with a sound that could’ve been pain, could’ve been fury, and mixed the kind of clicking hissing one expects from a bug with a very human voice. There was a burn mark on its center dripping ectoplasm that smelled awful , and it turned big black eyes to the same ghost boy she’d seen before. But now Jazz knew he was dangerous because that was a Fenton Plasma Rifle in his hands and his eyes were torches, hair flicking between cloudy wisps and crackling flames. “ Did someone call for an exterminator? “ “Oh, you think you’re funny!” The fucking hornet said, starling Jazz into motion - backing away slowly so as to not draw its attention. It flew like a blur at the boy, stinger cutting a gash in his suit and up his arm that leaked a thick green fluid and the rest of it’s lower half crashed into him with enough force to slam the boy into a few lockers with a bang. “Swat this , big boy.” “ Buzz off ,” the boy growled and the lights flared up brighter around them. He swung the rifle at the bug and the green ectoplasm shone a blinding white as it fired, burning a hole straight through the hornet and drilling it through the wall between the school and its yard. The boy flew after it and Jazz took a deep breath. There were ghosts fighting in her school, one with her parents’ weaponry. That one had saved her though and Jazz also had Fenton weaponry on her. She rushed outside to help, determined to keep her savior from being skewered by a hornet. Jazz poked her head out from the hole that the boy had made and froze. He was smacked out of the air by one of the long hairy legs of the hornet and into a tree and his head cracked loudly against bark. As he slid down his body was enveloped in light that retreated inward to his center and left behind Black hair, tan skin, a nyan cat hoodie- “Danny?” Her whisper went unnoticed in the face of a green ray piercing the hornet’s left wing. Bleeding ectoplasm in three places, it curled in on itself into a mass of green goop that dove into the ground and everything was still. Danny looked around with bright green eyes as he clutched his head, before growling and punching the tree. He stood up slowly, closed his eyes and grew difficult to look at, to even see as the light within a foot of him grew intense like a halo. He let out a breath and slumped against Tucker when the other boy made it to him, checking him over. Jazz stepped back away from the hole and took deep, shaky breaths. My brother is a ghost. That thought played over and over in her head even as a teacher gently guided her to her feet (when had she sat down among the debris?) and to the nurse’s office. It was only when Danny appeared in the nurse’s office, wrapping her up tight in a hug and rambling a mile a minute to ask if she was ok in every way he possibly could that her brain shifted focus even slightly. “Well, I didn’t get stung. Just licked by a dad sized hornet and saved by a ghostly teenager.” She hugged Danny back just as tightly, and tears began to flow as his argument to their parents before he blacked out in the hospital bed came back to mind. If the portal accident had killed me, would you have comforted your child or attacked the ghost in your lab? Danny’s arms went slack for a moment but Jazz clung tight to him. “I just. I just need a moment. Please?” Instead of pulling away and cracking jokes about gross sibling feelings her blessed baby brother hugged her back again and nodded into her neck. “Of course, Jazz.” “I swear to every star that listens,” Danny said behind his bedroom door where Jazz really shouldn’t be listening in. “Next I see of that smart-mouthed, rancid piece of protoplasmic filth I’m going to turn him into a smear and burn him.” That certainly sounded more like Dad than Danny. “At least save me a little bit to beat up,” Sam’s voice called through the speakers of his newly upgraded laptop. “I just commissioned your Mom for a ghost fighting melee weapon and Sydney’s healing me up pretty fast.” So Sydney knew about all of this. “There’ll be some of Spectra left to beat up with that once the Peeler has finished its work.” What?! “Probably. Maybe. It’s made to weaken the target not kill them.” The scoff she heard was definitely Tucker and definitely in the room. “Yeah, you’ll leave a scrap of shadow that none of us can distinguish from our own shadows, that’s something Sam can beat up.” Shadows? “I think the ectoplasm is enhancing your emotional response.” “You’re right Tuck, if someone threatened Jazz’s life normally I wouldn’t try to shoot them into a pile of goo. I’d only beat them up with the gun.” Jazz would normally admonish such a violent reaction, and aloud she might if she was in there and not eavesdropping. But truly, if someone hurt Danny they’d find out what a 1st degree blackbelt can do to them. “I think Sam will be good to go either tomorrow or the day after.” Sydney’s voice crackled over the speakers like static. “I think your healing powers mesh better with living beings than mine can since you’re halfa human.” Danny sighed and Jazz moved back into her room, sitting down to process. She pulled out her notebook and set it on her desk, mechanical pencil already in hand. “Organize all my thoughts and maybe it’ll make sense. What information do I have?” Danny was in an accident involving the ghost portal and it changed him. Danny was vehemently against their parents’ anti ghost genocide plan The ghost boy she’d seen at school the other day was clearly the one that had attacked the hornet thing when it attacked her Danny had all the access to the Fenton Armory as she did with their porta pockets, which was effectively full access. Danny was too smart to give any unknown entity their only model of plasma rifle Danny had directed Sydney Poindexter of all people to her Sydney knew Danny on a personal level that he wasn’t willing to fully disclose to her. Sydney had called Danny half-human and Danny hadn’t corrected him, nor had Tucker nor Sam. Jazz saw the mystery ghost boy transform in a flash of light into her brother, who proceeded to hug her and act much the same he had since the portal accident. Her conclusion? Danny had died in the portal when it turned on, and now he was a ghost, fighting off ghost robots and giant bugs with their parents’ weaponry. Sam and Tucker knew about it, and he had befriended at least one ghost. This was, of course, the most ridiculous thought to cross Jasmine Dana Fenton’s mind in her entire life. But then, her parents had opened a portal to the afterlife and she’d just been attacked by a giant glowing green hornet. “Ok, Danny is a ghost. He didn’t tell me that, but for obvious reasons,” she muttered to herself. “That must be what he was going to tell Mom and Dad before and now he doesn’t have the courage to try again. Oh god Danny died. ” Jazz picked up Bearbert Einstein and hugged him close, deciding right then that she was going to hug Danny a lot more from now on. Just to make sure he was still there. That was a silly thought, but she needed to be sure.
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mythandlaur · 3 years
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Burai here on anon, rip Side-blog personal blog. Anywhoo-- The Will of the Swarm, Children of the Archives, Light Unseen, and are ya winning the tournament son. If you don't mind.
The WIP Tag Game
@buraidragon​ You should know these--you were involved in at least two of them.
Lots of text under the cut!
The Will of the Swarm (working title only) - Spiral Knights - 2018
A collaborative project with friends Burai and apprenticeNerd; a roleplay adaptation that would’ve made for a multichapter fic. Knight-Elite Ixtharion and his protégé, the slightly pyromaniacal Ashoza, are called on for a cryptic rescue mission in the Wildwoods, only to find the person they’re rescuing is none other than Parma, reconnaissance specialist of the lost Alpha Squad, who bears worrying information from the Core and evidence of her claims in the form of a dark miasma that appears to have eaten away her right arm. Ix has some knowledge on prosthetics, and takes over the effort to get Parma set up with one, facilitating interaction and camaraderie between the trio--and it’s them who chase after Parma when she delves back into the deepest layers of the Clockworks upon word coming back of the fate of the Alpha Squad’s technician...consumed by the Swarm and working for Herex.
I still really enjoy this concept tbh??? Like I don’t know if I could WRITE write it but if you guys still wanted to poke at it after all this time I’d be game. I don’t have a snippet, but I do have some nigh-incomprehensible notes from a document dated August 2018
Events:
Parma needs to recover a little bit, explore Haven when she can (her arm’s definitely going though)
Ix dinner party
Discussion of important things/she lets them in on what she found
Vanguards find Shadow Rulen in the depths and Parma immediately runs off looking, Ix and Shoza having to follow after her
Other ideas and stuff:
Scout slowly becomes a Seraphynx
Drunk Ashoza happens at some point
Concepts:
Shadow Rulen/Technomancer Rulen:
Is possessed/corrupted by the Swarm and taken in by Herex
Speaks in the plural in this state
Creates a very large mech (possibly named “Omega” something for irony?)
Swarm turret gatling gun
Shard bomb launcher
Tears out bits of the world and slams them down on enemies
Weak to overheading
Last ditch attempts to escape deeper into the core
Potential concept of Rulen losing his body to the Swarm and becoming a spirit who possesses/manipulates technology
Grantz’s Sword:
This dude took his oath way too seriously and stuck around even after dying, possessing his sword which remains around the core
Doesn’t realize he’s dead
Inadvertently possesses whatever knight holds the sword
---
Children of the Archives - Hollow Knight - 2019
Another collaborative project between the same trio, an AU affectionately referred to as “Monomom”. There isn’t so much a plot summation for this as there are a bunch of concepts; basically, in this verse, a very large amount of Vessels find their way out of the Abyss and into the Teacher’s Archives, becoming mainstays around there long before the Infection starts to take hold. Though Monomon still fulfils her duty, she isn’t happy about it or the Pale King’s plan, and Quirrel stays behind to take care of the Vessels after she’s gone, though becomes infected as a result. Several events in the game go differently, partially because Hornet is aware of the vessels and is more open with Ghost because of that awareness. Was meant to probably be a verse with a lot of domestic nonsense going on overall.
I don’t have a snippet, but there’s a doc with a lot of concepts, including about three pages’ worth of Vessels created between the three of us. Have some favorites:
Trio - Early model, has three arms. Acts like the older brother to other Vessels. Probably has three small Nails. 
Ase - Broken Vessel, stoic leader, mature, has been wandering longer than the others, cares about siblings more than themself - Insists they’re strong and independent and don’t need help, try to get to the void, fail, several others from the Archives sneak out to drag them back to the Archives badly injured and scare the living daylights out of Quirrel
Lantern - Likes putting lumaflies in their head. Yes, the eyes glow depending how many there are. Theoretically if they Consume the shock ones, they could have laser beam eyes? 
Vault - Taller and thicker vessel that likes storing stuff inside of them. Not a fighter. They fight by flinging stone writings at people and running.
Spite - Seven horns, is upset about that, breaks one off that forms the core of their nail, always down to fight. Will probably stab you if you insult a sibling.
Ink - Gets really good at making ink, their shell’s always stained, loves learning, pesters the students. Probably carries brushes instead, and would hang around Sheo for art.
Legion- One Shade spread over five Vessels. They act as a collective within a collective. If threatened will pile into a very stable tower and initiate a five-tiered Loom. Highly skilled in combat, as you need to take all five of them out within a short time period to fully incapacitate them. You might find one of their Shells roaming Fog Canyon, too keep a scout’s eye out for any potential dangers. If nothing else, they’re bouncing off of jellyfish because it’s fun. Each Shell of Leigon’s has a pentagon inked onto the back, with a dot in each corner responding to which Shell it is. Legion’s shade is as large as Hollow’s. 
Smith: Slightly-large Vessel, missing a leg, really wants to be a Nailsmith. Alters between studying under The Nailsmith and practicing Nailcrafting on sibling’s blades. Keeps them in shape, if nothing else. Has a metal peg-leg they are perfectly willing to take off and smack you with if they’ve lost their nail.
---
Light Unseen - Destiny 2 - 2019
A backstory oneshot for Kaira, a blind Guardian only capable of seeing traces of Light where it’s present, and her Ghost, Nel, who acts as her guide. This particular bit of writing was meant to be Kaira and Nel’s first meeting, and Kaira’s first (and second) revival, as Nel tries to figure out how to accommodate her and help her escape from a Cabal ambush in the EDZ, eventually assisted by more experienced Guardians Irina and Elara-4, who become Kaira’s good friends.
I really, really love this character and I really, really want to do something more with her, but D2′s writing has gone in the crapper since Forsaken and I don’t agree with basically anything Bungie’s done with the game in the last year, so I’m in a bit of a pickle. I do have a snippet, though. Trigger warning for a brief description of an extremely long-dead corpse/skeleton.
Other Ghosts do this for years, he’s heard. But for him, it only takes a few minutes.
Sticking out of some bushes, the Ghost finds a leg. Not much of a leg, of course; the flesh has long since rotted away, and the elements have left just the barest scraps of fabric from the deceased’s clothes. As he delves into the bushs, branches scraping and poking at his shell, he sees the rest of the remains tangled inside are similarly skeletal. The skull is the worst, mangled and caved in around the eye sockets. He wonders how they’d come to be in a place like this, in a state like that. Had they fallen? Had someone, or something, tried to hide their body?
There’s no way for him to know, and he doubts he ever will. But it doesn’t matter, because what he does know is that this is it.
He doesn’t know in any logical capacity, but he knows because he can feel something inside of those bones reacting to his presence, like a pair of magnets drawn to each other’s polarities. He feels...warm, and whole, and his shell is buzzing as if with errant electricity, except it is not electricity, it is Light, his Light, the Light the Traveler had given him with the sole purpose of passing that wonderful gift on to another.
Their body isn’t really in an ideal position for resurrection, and he can’t do much about that given his lack of both size and limbs. But that doesn’t dampen his growing excitement, as he looks at those bones and wonders not for the first time what they’ll be like, what sort of adventures they’ll go on together.
There’s only one way to find out, he knows.
The red-shelled Ghost hovers there, relishing this moment of anticipation for a few seconds longer. And then, he can’t contain it any longer.
He opens himself up to the gift of the Light, and it all but consumes him; his form expands, a little blue sun with little metal planets orbiting around it, and every mechanical sensor cuts out. The part of him that isn’t mechanical reaches out, and from the tiny floating solar system comes a beam that bathes the lost bones in Light.
Flesh reforms itself in the wake of shimmering waves, and clothes over that. The skull rearranges its broken, twisted parts and knits itself back together. After what feels like an age to him, his sensors come back online as his shell wraps around him again, and he drifts back to check his handiwork.
They wear the cloak, hood, and mask of a Hunter, hiding their face. Their shape is vaguely feminine--he’s going to assume until they tell him themself. Her chest rises and falls slowly with her newly-restored breathing, as if she’s not yet fully awake, and she doesn’t seem to realize the fact that she’s lying in a bush.
“...Guardian?” He quells his excitement, trying to keep his voice soft as he flies in closer to her face--then quickly back as he realizes he may be too close. The branches rustle with a slight movement of her arm, and her head turns sluggishly. “Guardian, wake up. I’m sorry, I couldn’t move you--you’re going to have to get up.”
She tilts her head slightly upwards towards his voice. For a moment, there’s no other reaction, but then the words seem to register and she starts pushing herself into a sitting position. Branches snap and crack as she pushes against them, struggling, before she seems to realize a better way and starts sliding her feet along the ground, dragging herself out with her knees little by little until she can sit up unhindered. Once she’s up, she crosses her legs under her and sets her hands in her lap, chin dropped towards her chest as he hovers around her to make sure she’s all in one piece.
He can hardly believe it. His Guardian, living and breathing once again, right here in front of him. The Ghost flies around to hang in front of her face. “How do you feel?” No response, no acknowledgment. He guesses she’s still a little rattled. “Not much of a talker? Okay, you don’t have to talk right now, but we do need to get moving, there’s--”
The Hunter abruptly raises her head, and he stops talking. In the silence, a loud rumbling can be heard, gradually growing louder. Seconds pass, and he turns his eye upward to see a shadow in the sky above the trees--a very familiar shadow, as he’s seen several of these during his scouting missions.
“...Maybe they’ll pass us.”
The dropship stops in the air, almost directly overhead. The side of a wing is all he can see, but he can hear grunts and shouts all too close nearby, feet hitting the ground hard.
So, he’d been quite lucky to find his Guardian so quickly and easily. But apparently, he’d used up all that luck at once, and now a Cabal scouting party is here, for whatever reason.
“You know what I said about moving? We’re going to need to start on that right now.” The Ghost quickly disappears in a shimmer of light, still keeping an eye out around them. “I’m still here. I’ll explain everything later, I promise, but right now we’ve got to run. I’ve got a marker up for you, just follow that and don’t stop. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”
The Hunter stumbles to her feet, holding her arms out to steady herself. The Light is still waking inside of her; she probably doesn’t know how to control it, and without a gun, running is their only chance. She glances about wildly, and then takes off--not exactly in the direction of his marker, but he trusts she’s got a plan. If she’s a Hunter, she’s likely got impeccable instincts.
---
are ya winnin the puyo tournament son (doc name) - Puyo Puyo - October 2020
You know I had to do it. This is a oneshot based in an AU where Sig’s ancestor, Ajisai, is reconstituted by the deus ex machina duo themselves, Ecolo and (much to their chagrin) Satan. After spending a few weeks living in the middle of nowhere, Ajisai hears about an upcoming Puyo tournament and decides to participate in the festivities, using it as an excuse to endear themself to varying degrees to the students and visitors. Eventually, they confront Satan about his unacceptable behavior, and get a hint that Satan’s actions may be a bit more tragic than merely pathetic.
Basically this is just ‘what if Ajisai lived because I want to write more for them and I want to see how they’d interact with more characters’. It’s mostly just me goofing in 15th anniversary’s style and I don’t know if people would be interested, but I’m getting some enjoyment out of it.
Looking down on Primp Town from the ridge is rather like watching a beehive--except instead of honeycomb, the excited bees are rushing about building a network of colorful streamers and decorations hanging between buildings.
“You certainly have a lot of celebrations here, don’t you.”
Sig gives the barest of shrugs, not even bothering to glance up from the caterpillar that’s made itself at home on a finger of his claw. “Guess so. It’s fun, though.”
“What is it this time? The Primp Festival wasn’t too long ago. It can’t be that again, can it?”
“Puyo tournament. The school’s running it.”
“Ah, I see.”
“They did it last year, too. Bunch of Arle’s friends showed up.”
“You do realize I was there for the last one, yes?”
Sig finally looks over, and they patiently wait for him to arrive at the realization. “Oh, yeah. Right.”
Ajisai chuckles quietly under their breath as their descendant goes back to admiring the caterpillar. It is easy to forget that they’d been present during many of the major events in Sig’s life, if only because they look and act so different now that they have a whole body to themself again. It’s a small price to pay for their freedom, of course, and they owe Ecolo a great deal for the service.
Well, not just Ecolo, they suppose. There had been...others involved.
“It’s different playing in it yourself, though,” Sig continues after a pause. Ajisai shakes their head to dislodge the loose thoughts before turning back to him.
“Are you going to be joining in this year, then?”
“Yeah.” A tiny smile comes to Sig’s face, though he still doesn’t look up. Nothing more needs to be said, so a comfortable silence stretches on between them, as Sig watches the caterpillar climb his arm and offers his right hand to crawl on instead so he doesn’t lose the little thing. Meanwhile, Ajisai can’t help but glance back down towards the frenetic party preparations, slight fangs poking at their lower lip in thought.
They’ve been alive and well for at least two weeks now, and only four people even know about it; they’ve either been staying at Sig’s house rereading the collection they’d passed down to him or wandering about the Forest of Nahe aimlessly, occasionally slipping into town at night to have a look around before quickly leaving again. But...they’d like to go into town, if only to visit the library. There are so many of Sig’s classmates they’d never gotten to meet properly, too. After so long isolated, they finally remember what it’s like to feel a need for companionship.
There’s only the question of if they deserve it. If they’ll be welcome there.
Ajisai takes a deep breath. “Is this tournament only for the students?”
“No,” Sig replies without missing a beat, “Bunch of other people are probably gonna play. Arle’s friends, Ringo’s friends, the space guys, Ally…Dunno who’s coming, but I’d be surprised if those guys didn’t.”
“Hm.”
“You wanna play too?” Sig takes his attention from the caterpillar, looking over at them with half-lidded, questioning eyes and pursed lips. “You’re really good.”
“Well…” Leave it to their ‘nephew’ to see right through them. Ajisai looks away, hair flicking in slight agitation. They’ve picked up a thing or two about Puyo over the years, it’s true--they’ve even given some of Sig’s classmates a run for their money in the past. Though that only brings up the circumstances of those battles, which were...less than ideal. “Do you think they’d be willing to have me?”
“You’d have to ask Ms. Accord.” Typical Sig--doesn’t even notice their internal struggle, or perhaps he does and doesn’t think it’s an issue. He points down at the town with a clawed finger. “She’s probably down there helping set up.”
Ajisai narrows their eyes, considering it. They suppose the worst that can happen is them being told no and having to go back to the forest, but the idea of just walking into town as they are is a bit unnerving. Still… “Would you mind if I went down there now, then?”
“Go ahead,” Sig says, focus returning to the caterpillar. They can’t help but chuckle a bit under their breath at their nephew’s fascination, the same all-consuming interest that they had for books and stories. 
Ajisai stands, shaking the grass out of their cape before resting a hand on Sig’s left shoulder and squeezing slightly. “Don’t go running off,” they say with a wry smirk, fully aware that Sig will probably still be watching the caterpillar twenty minutes from now.
Sig knows it too, and huffs a little, amused snort through his nose. “Yeah, I’ll try not to.”
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everyonesomething · 6 years
Text
Session 21d
Malkas: "There's a shortage of benches, here."
Pepper: "I'm fine with that, they're trickier than they look. I fell off one the other night."
Malkas: "How'd you manage that?"
Pepper: "I was upside down and I moved my arms too much."
Malkas: "Probably sitting right-side-up would help."
Pepper considers that. "Yeah, but it gave me a story to tell."
Malkas: "Hey, I was upside down and fell off a bench."
Pepper: "See, now it's a conversation."
In this session, Mal and Pepper kill some time together.
The set-up: A few days later, the group has stopped at a roadside farmer’s market.
The Game: Driving is tiresome, so everyone’s taking the opportunity to stretch their legs. Mal and Pepper are at a fruitstand, perusing the wares. Pepper buys a few things, but Mal is getting sick of fruit and endless fields of produce by this point. He looks around to see if he can spot Edith--he thinks he sees her in the corn maze.
The farmer’s market nightmare will be neverending.
Pepper: "I'd like to say there aren't too many ways to get in trouble in a place like this but. Well. If any group could." She gestures with the fruit.
Malkas: "Well, if we're lucky, she won't just burn the maze down."
Pepper: "If it was my corn maze, I'd make it fire proof."
Malkas: "Like that'd stop her."
Pepper: "Wouldn't it? I didn't think Edith was one for public vandalism."
Malkas: "Sorry, like that COULD stop her."
Pepper awkwardly tries to make small talk with Mal asking if he’s been sleeping okay and how long it’ll be before they get to Edith’s folks’ place.
Pepper snorts then slides down the wall to sit on her heels. "Do you at least wanna warn me what kind of hornet's nest we're heading to, here?"
Malkas: "Imagine if somebody asking 'How are you?' is an insult."
Pepper doesn't have to imagine, but this is Mal time so she just nods.
Malkas shrugs and starts on the other hunk of bread. "Doesn't matter."
Malkas: "It'll happen, it'll be over, we can continue on."
Pepper: "I guess if there was some way to skip it, it would've come up by now, huh."
Malkas: "Hm, it's ... complicated, I guess."
Pepper: "Go on," she says, stretching her legs out in front of her.
Malkas: "Edith wants to see her family. Even if she'd rather skip going there."
"I'm sure she can go into more depth."
Pepper: "Oh. No, she told me that much. Family obligation, etc. I guess you just made it sound more interesting, there." She closes her eyes, soaking up some sun.
Malkas: "Complicated for me because I can't just hide in the camper. Or hide at the last gas station we pass."
Pepper: "Maybe they'll be too distracted by the rest of us clowns." She smirks for a half second. "Probably not, though."
Malkas: "Red attracts attention."
Pepper looks over. "Is that like. A thing people say?"
Malkas points to his hair.
Pepper: "Ah."
Mal wonders aloud where Syd and Cap might’ve gotten off to and Pepper not-so-subtly asks if he wants to try climbing a building to look for them. Mal tells her to fuck off.
Rightly so.
Malkas: "Gonna go wait in the car."
Malkas extinguishes his cigarette and pockets the butt.
Pepper gets up and dusts herself off.
Malkas starts to wander back to the car.
Pepper: "Well. Thanks for trying to put up with me, anyway. I know I don't really make it easy."
Malkas: "What?"
Pepper: "What."
Malkas: "I feel like you jumped into a different conversation there."
Pepper: "We were. Hanging out here, then I ran my mouth off, and now you're leaving. That happened, right?"
Pepper just looks confused now.
Malkas: "... I ... guess? I'm just leaving because I'm tired of sitting in dirt."
Pepper scratches her chin. "Oh."
Way to read the room, Pepper.
Mal hangs back and they end up talking about his family growing up: him and his two older brothers Fergus and Lemuel. Pepper’s curious, elves don’t usually have siblings close in age to each other.
Malkas: "Sometimes there are people who are willing to jump out and beat you up for any reason."
Pepper: "Oh. Well I got that without siblings, so maybe it's for the best I was an only child."
Malkas: "They will, on occasion, do things that when you get older and do it, will get you in less trouble."
"And sometimes they'll beat up whoever is bothering you."
Pepper rubs her chin. "That would've been useful."
Malkas: "And sometimes they'll help you sneak out of the house. We had a kind of coalition of lies."
"Yes, mom, I was in my room studying all night. Lemuel and Malkas saw me." "Yes, we did."
Mal tells her she reminds him a bit of his siblings: nicer than Ferg, about as boistrous as Lem. He genty tells her Lem doesn’t know when to end a joke, either. Pepper takes the criticism, she knows she’s been a jerk.
Pepper: "Just didn't think I'd be sticking around so what was the point, y'know," she shrugs, snapping a low-hanging branch off a nearby tree with mage hand.
Malkas: "I'm glad you did."
"Hey, how do you do mage hand?"
"Edith's explanations are a little ... oblique."
Pepper looks up surprised.
Pepper: "Uh. Hm." She tilts her head to the side.
"I guess the best advice my dad gave me about it was don't think about doing it, just think like you've already done it? It made more sense when he said it," she frowns.
"Piano analogies were involved."
Malkas picks up a peach, but when he mage hands it, he hucks it clear across the market.
Malkas: "That keeps happening."
Pepper tries to explain again, but she doesn’t have any more luck than Edith did. Mal figures he’s just too stressed about the trip and everything else to focus on magic right now. Monsters and liches and an impending visit to somewhat hostile territory has a way of piling up on you.
Pepper then apologizes for keeping her wild magic secret from the group. Mal says it’s not that big a deal, then ribs her about her part in the country fair uproar. Pepper maintains it was good fun and even helped her and Grim come to an understanding with each other.
Pepper: "Even Grim found a For Her! And to think we were gonna leave her in the car."
Malkas: "There mighta been less property damage if you had."
"But less For Everyone."
Pepper: "And my face would've remained un-socked, but it all worked out for the best, I think."
Malkas: "You got socked?"
Pepper: "Twice!"
Malkas: "Hm."
Pepper thumbs her nose like a prize pugilist.
Malkas doesn't need to ask why
Pepper: "It's how come me and Grim came to a mutual kind of understanding."
Malkas: "She punched you?"
Pepper: "What? No." She looks offended he would ask.
Malkas: "Who punched you, then?"
Pepper: "I got a carnie to do it."
Malkas: "Hm."
Malkas thinks that makes sense with what he knows of carnies.
Pepper: "It's like how she offered your horns to that shop owner. Sort of. Bounty hunter stuff."
Malkas: "Makes sense."
Pepper: "Also: Revenge. Just the tiniest bit of revenge."
"But in a good way."
Malkas: "Revenge for what?"
Pepper: "Strongly suggesting that Knock business to Edith. Which, I'm just gonna remind you, I've taken a beating over and have learn't my lesson." She points.
Malkas: "Well now I'm a little worried about Edith being in the corn maze, because I don't see Grim anywhere."
They’ll be fine.
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