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roadkill-punk · 2 months

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First au post yippie

This is Hornet! Maybe a little bigger than usual, but she doesn't seem particularly bothered.

These are some doodles connected to my most thought out au, proper name pending, Queen Hornet au. Au stuff below, if you're interested!!

A brief CW for injuries and Radiance infection related stuff!! It's not too graphic, but do keep that in mind :3

Long after Hallownest falls, Hornet is still there, standing watch over the dying lights of what remains, keeping those unworthy from finding what they shouldn't, and watching with long since faded hope for something, anything to bring peace to this deserted kingdom.

She waits, and waits, and waits, but nothing comes, nothing changes. More die, more suffer. There's nothing left for her in this wasteland any longer.

Except for one thing, one person. Locked away sealed within a black temple just below the surface from which darkness and plague oozes and agony ripples like waves upon long rotted corpses.

That is not a place she can enter, not only is it sealed tight, bound by spells even she wasn't skilled enough to unweave, but the darkness within would be devastating to her mortal body. She would unravel at the seams of her very existence in this physical realm and be nothing but faded ribbons to be consumed by the abyss infused into that desolate prison.

But truly, at this point, what did she have to lose by trying? Everything else she had at one point was lost, her mother in eternal sleep on her deathbed, the last of the weavers slowly succumbing to the all consuming infection, her father... well. He deserved the death that came to him. And finally her sibling, their suffering echoing in her mind, calling from within the very temple she stood before. Whether they knew they were reaching out or not, she heard their forever unspoken pleas, their cries of pain.

She pressed her hand to the side of the black egg, feeling along its intricate spellwork. She did not understand the sigils and bindings used, a strange mixture of soul magic and weavers spells, all too complicated for what she learned from either of her parents before they passed. But she could find patterns and vague familiarity in the etchings of soul and silk. And she had time, so she sat and looked and felt until she could pull at the delicate ends of the binding spells.

And then with patience long acquired and a steady hand born of her weaving culture, she pulled. She would not allow the threads she grasped to snag or break, she would not. She would be slow and she would be steady and she would wait. She would wait just a little longer.

And she waited then, hours or days she couldn't say as her focus was narrowed beyond the bounds of time. Eventually though, the last mask unraveled, the last seal was broken, and the door cracked open. It took much of her strength to pull it open, it wasn't built to be unsealed, after all.

Already the darkness felt cold and unrelenting on her carapace. She hugged her cloak tighter around herself, but the feeling only crept deeper beneath her shell, into her blood and the very air she breathed. Regardless, she pressed on. It ached and clawed at her mind and body, but she held fast. They were close, she could feel their mind close. Breaking through to the chamber they were held in was like suffocating. She gripped the wall to keep herself from collapsing. They stared at her. She stared back, unable to otherwise move.

They were hung from cold, white metal chains keeping their body suspended above the floor. She could see where one shoulder was pulled far too far outward and the other was so rotted and grotesque it hardly looked like an arm anymore. Infection seeped from every crack in their shell and the eyes of their mask bled sickly orange.

Hornet choked on the thick smog clouding the room, eyes squinting hard against the haze and mind reeling from the absolute force of the influence of beings much more powerful than herself. She would not give in, she couldn't, not now.

She reached out, hand finding the chain closest to her quivering form and giving it a tug. It barely budged, as was expected, though there was a soft wheeze from its captor.

"Sorry," She whispered, voice coarse and raspy from breathing the rancid air of infection for so long. "I'm sorry." And she hoped it got across that she meant her apology for much more than just the chains.

She found where the chain attached to the wall, and tried so, so hard to look it over, to find the spells and undo them like she had the seals outside, but she couldn't see. She stumbled then to the knight hanging from the middle of the room, knees buckling as she got to them. No matter, she could reach the chain in the floor here, just.. just a little more effort and she could get them out.

She looked up at them, bound by their arms and body and mind, and cried. How unfair this was, how vile and pointless and endless all of this suffering was. They didn't deserve this, they never had, their prison didn't even do what it was meant to and they were hurting for nothing, for no one, for a dead kingdom and a dead king and his dead subjects. Fire burned in her heart and blood, anger rising in her throat and spilling in hot tears.

She forced herself off the ground, she reached up, to the largest chain on one side of her sibling, and coiled her claws around the construct, forcing all her rage and hatred and intent into the biting force of her grip. She felt the spells crack under her touch, sealing magic groaning and weakening as she squeezed it harder and harder.

She did not notice how her knuckles split and her hands began to bleed. She did not see the way her arm cracked at the seams of her carapace and she did not feel the burning in her chest. The chain broke, the Hollow Knight jerked to the side, falling half limp, awkwardly hanging from one side. They watched her still.

She moved to the next chain, her own blood drifting in and around her wounded arms and burning back into her flesh. She split apart as she grabbed the other chain, her body doing everything it could to keep her alive despite falling apart. Her organs seared apart and the fire burning through her veins stitched them back together. It was agony. She broke the second chain. Her sibling fell to the floor. She fell after them.

Her body glowed hues of red and black, the infection surrounding her recoiled from her flames. Her shell cracked, her body shifted, and the building around them crumbled. The last conscious thing she remembered was a cold, clawed hand on her shoulder, pulling her closer.

And so was the birth of a god, in desperation and agony.

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cloudyswritings · 1 month

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Okay but why do all of the best fanfic ideas pop up when you’re trying to sleep.

Me: Nearly snoozin

My Brain: okay but what if we made a fic following Herrah after Embrace the void as she tries to run a crumbling deepnest, figure out what exactly happened, and try(and fail) to connect with the person her daughter has become.

Me: no, big eepy time!

My Brain: (starts creating scenes and dialogue), also what if it was the first in a trilogy, with the second being Monomon working on preserving the records and remains of the kingdoms and helping Quirrel through his depression, and the third following Lurien and Hollow as they work together to rebuild Hallownest, and then Hollow ends up making Lurien king(mfer was already basically running the city) and he has a whole breakdown over taking the Pale kings places(he’s so freaking gay + hero worship) and then Herrah beats his ass and helps him through his trauma. Also let’s have hollow change their name to Atlas halfway through the fic because they don’t want the association to their old title but they do feel their burden is worth remembering. Also…

Me: please… enough…

My brain: well if you don’t like that how about this!! Ghost, but their adventures before Hallownest and how they helped liberate an ant kingdom from an imposter queen who killed the real queen and supplanted her, but also that’s not what it really is about because it’s actually about ghost becoming a world class chef and then their adventures to other kingdoms and building their cookbook. Also maybe we see them after canon too, like a book 2 type thing as they and hollow stop at a few other kingdoms on the way to pharloom to rescue Hornet.

Me: Fuck it, this is gonna be a tumblr post(fumbles around and knocks over lamp while looking for phone).

#hollow knight #headcanon #hk fanfic #ideas ig #anyway good night #honk shoo mimimimi

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vulturereyy · 2 months

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My writing for @hkhallowzine is now on Ao3! Please check out the amazing zine as well, but if you'd like a serving of the Rey Special (old man tragedy), here's some coming right up!

#hollow knight #hk fanfic #ao3 fanfic #ao3 #fanfiction #zine #hk last stag #hk the last stag #the last stag

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basilbellona · 1 year

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It brings me so much joy to post this, because not only has reading this fic been one of the wildest rides but it's also the work through which I really got to interact and connect with @grollow / @ashyronfire — a wonderful, terrifying writer and equally wonderful friend. I commented quite a lot on that story, ahahaha. And although it's ending now, it's a good one and definitely not the end of those characters' tales. I hope I did this chapter (multiple chapters, actually) justice with this cover :]

So if you want and get the chance to, go read this time-travel, angsty, funny, angry Hollow (Batman) fic and be prepared to cry. Find it here on Ao3!

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astorichan · 4 months

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Covered In False Images

Fandom: Hollow Knight

Rating: Gen

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Radiance, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Pale King

Summary:

The Pale King's plan was flawless: his vessel was pure, flawless, reliable.

The vessel did not share that opinion.

Additional Tags: POV Third Person Omniscient, Past Tense, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Fanfic of AU, Fanfic of fanart, AU: Radiant Vessel

For @quirrel. Happy New Year!!

Text under readmore!

▪──── ⚔ ────▪

(They say that praying to be loved is a sin.

It has such a sweet scent.)

▪──── ⚔ ────▪

Shadows and light: two opposing forces.

Such was the idea behind the Pale King's ultimate weapon. When all else failed in subduing the Radiance’s rampage, weapons of Soul ineffective and healing properties of lifeblood useless, he turned to the darkness that slept beneath for aid.

Shadows and light: one meant to subdue another.

The shell of a child desecrated by the choking twilight listened to his every command. The only light it would ever follow was his, as was the only light that it could not overpower. He trained it to perfection, eradicating every flaw of its mortal design and preparing it for its eternal vigil.

When the day of the Sealing came, he was certain his plan would work. The vessel marched on with even, steady steps, its empty gaze cast forward; in his wake were left joyful Hallownestians, their reverent whispers rising as wisps of silver luminescence to tail him like a second cloak.

Shadows: bringing the kingdom much-needed shelter from the light.

If you weren’t there on the day that heralded Hallownest’s salvation, you would not know of the battle raging just outside of view. Life went on as though no plague had ever bathed the narrow caverns in haemolymph and rot, as though no smell of decay had ever wafted off bloated corpses strewn across the capitol’s streets.

But light would not surrender to the suffocating shadows so easily.

Within the pitch dark temple, beyond the offerings left on the threshold glimmering with Soul, two enemies as old as the world itself clashed once more. Their blades crossed, each wound, each victory and each loss quaked through the voided vessel’s shell that hung limp in its chains, eyes bored into the black egg’s inner wall forevermore.

And slowly, ever so slowly, the first flickers of lurid orange clawed their way into the fathomless darkness of the Hollow Knight’s gaze.

Shadows and light: unable to co-exist.

From the outside, the strenuous war was not visible, lest we count the first pustules full of scorching rot that sprouted from the vessel’s chest. But on the inside...

Its mind, the one it was not meant to possess, was flooded with the dawn’s whispers. The light wove its lies through the shadow in golden thread, unravelling streaks of silver and black alike. Frayed ends of collapsed lies stuck out, ugly and unseemly; the vessel’s trust in its King was giving out inch by painful inch.

Light: branded into shadows.

Why let yourself and your kingdom burn? the dawn asked over and over, when you can save everyone in truth?

And the vessel cracked under the unbearable weight of truth and rage. Golden ichor seeped out of the fissures left behind by the light’s onslaught, in its gaze the Old Light’s radiance and on its mask a fiery brand covering the Pale King’s spellwork. It would get back all that had been denied to it; it would get its revenge on the world that betrayed it.

Shadows: embracing the light.

The vessel let the dawn’s power course through it, the oppressive shroud of Void that had cornered the Old Light in a far-off corner of the Dream dissipating into nothing. All doubts thrown aside, it rose from the ashes of its former glory, shaking off the chains of deceit that had bound it for so long – and it incinerated the jailors holding it in the Temple.

If you didn’t know exactly what to look for, you would never notice the seals fizzling out like smoke from a fire. The morning following its treason came, and the denizens of Dirtmouth were no wiser as to the battle that came to a head mere hours ago.

From their eyes, though, surged golden luminosity.

Light: unbound, no longer held down by the choking shadows.

The infection spread like wildfire, in the Hollow Knight’s footsteps blooming twisted vines that carried disease within. Adorned with beautiful flowers, they invaded the shade of Hallownest’s caverns, and it was too late to do anything to stop the traitor’s descent.

Not that they didn’t try, of course.

Hallownest’s most powerful champions rose to defend the kingdom from the plague. But the vessel had been trained to perfection: it was infused with power beyond mortals’ understanding, prepared for an eternal war with the goddess of dreams.

Shadows: entwined with light.

The Hollow Knight brought down the kingdom’s greatest knights, its weapons infused with sunlight. It tore through chitin and flesh in primal, cold fury, its claws and mandibles tearing its former allies to shreds. Not even all their prowess combined was enough to resist two forces old as the world itself.

With the final obstacle gone from their path, the two gods stood before Hallownest’s crown jewel. The White Palace gleamed with familiar, though no longer welcoming silver; motes of Soul swirled around the Hollow Knight as it treaded paths of its former home. None was fool enough to stand in its way – none, except the Pale King himself.

Shadows and light: allied against a mutual enemy.

Soul and blackened Dream clashed in a violent battle. The Palace’s walls creaked and lamented the sacrilege taking place within, on them left sprays of Void, godly ichor and infection alike.

But even the King could not hold out against the joined forces of unknowable darkness and luminous dawn. The radiant vessel cornered him, though its shell was littered with wounds deep and shallow, though its mask wept black miasma and its arm held only by the virtue of the Old Light’s strength; it cornered him, and as he stared into his perfect creation’s eyes, he saw only the raging pyre of fury and contempt.

Gone was the love it had once carried, the Hollow Knight wanted so desperately to believe as it plunged its nail through the Pale King’s chest. Gone was the unfulfillable wish to prove itself that ate it alive, it convinced itself as chitin snapped and silver haemolymph pooled at the feet of Hallownest’s new ruler. Gone was the conflict that tore the kingdom apart, clawing its way free from Hallownest’s very heart.

Gone was the reason behind its suffering, and so its anguish should’ve been gone as well. But was it truly so?

Shadows and light: finally reaching a truce.

When the Hollow Knight embraced her, the only one that had ever understood and accepted it, it could almost believe that the price it had exacted for its needless pain was enough. In her light, the reassurance she extended to it soothed every ache, every doubt that it could ever have.

Sometimes, though, in the darkest corners of its mind – those that still held, if by the thinnest of threads keeping the tapestry of its mindscape from coming undone – a wail like that of a wounded animal resounded, no end and no beginning to the elegy for the life it had taken with its own hands.

Shadows and light: ancient enemies.

It wondered, on those days, if someone heard those cries, muffled as they were. If maybe, just maybe, someone would come to enact the final act of vengeance long overdue.

But then, the Radiance’s gentle glow shrouded its fractured mind as she extended the same mercy to it as to the entire kingdom, and those thoughts were no more.

Shadows and light: ruling side by side.

Until, inevitably, someone would try to take what was rightfully its once more.

▪──── ⚔ ────▪

(My rage and other such things vanished long ago

But though I perform my act, I’m ignorant

Yet this story is still going

Because I wish for it to reach you)

#toriswriting #hollow knight #hk fanfic #hk au #hk thk #hk hollow #hk radiance #hk pale king #loved working on this so much #thank you for giving me a breakdown of the au :3c

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ashyronfire · 3 months

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pride

Title: pride Rating: T Characters: The Knight, Hornet, Grimm, Grimmchild Warnings: Injury, Recovery, Fluff(?), Humor (?), Second Person POV

Author's Notes: For @aewrie <3 This was meant to be something...else. But the Knight's POV always ends up being "why are you so inadvertently hilarious" and I can't stop them anymore lmao

pride on AO3.

“Where was she?” the specter asks, tone gentle, and you do not answer, because you cannot—and he knows that.

Grimm is regarding the disheveled, unconscious form of the spider – your sister, you remind yourself, though it feels more like an afterthought than familial affection.

You found her, collapsed and covered in her own sticky hemolymph, outside of a cave-in in the Crystal Peaks. You don’t know why she was there, and the fact that you happened upon her at all was nothing short of miraculous. You do not venture into that region often; there is little reason to that you have found so far, despite your fondness for exploration.

But you heard the collapse all the way from the Temple of the Black Egg.

You heard it when the infection ripped up the cavern, spreading like blood in water, tinging stone in molten gold. You heard it when the thick vines, like arteries, coursed along the stone walls and gave it a pulse. And you heard it when the stones dislodged themselves and shattered, breaking on the ground.

The child helped you bring her back here, to Dirtmouth, where you went to the only person that you thought might be able to help.

In retrospect, perhaps Iselda would have been a more appropriate option. You are fairly certain that Hornet would have preferred that. By nature, the spider is fiercely independent, and the idea of anyone seeing her in a weakened state will grate her nerves. That the person seeing her this way is someone who could potentially outlive her, who will never forget, is not lost on you. She will find that infuriating, but—

But you trust him. You trust him and you want her to be okay, even if that means earning her ire at a later date.

(You suspect it will be aimed more at him than you, though. How much the spider views you as capable of processing emotion and thought varies on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, you are left with the distinct impression that she would have much preferred for you to leave her to die beneath the rubble, rather than wound her pride by asking another to aid her. That you know this and make this choice despite that fact is, perhaps, telling.

Pride comes before a fall—and it is not you who is injured, so what care have you?)

The god-in-mortal-flesh tilts his head down and shifts Hornet’s mask from side-to-side. “She does not appear to have been fully crushed but she has definitely suffered contusions, with potential internal injuries,” he observes. He glances at you, then paces across the room to a large cabinet. When he opens it, you catch sight of folded blankets and pillows, which surprise you: he does not sleep on those things, favoring hanging, so what purpose do they serve?

Comfort, perhaps.

Other bugs like that sort of thing. You must constantly remind yourself that you are an exception who has little interest in things that are without proper function.

“Do me a kindness, would you? The table—can you move it?”

You nod. The nymph on your shoulder glides over to the table, as though to indicate what its father is referring to, and together, the pair of you push the old wooden thing to the side. It smells of varnish and the intricate carving work tells you that it was probably expensive—or custom. Much of the Troupe Master’s belongings are like that: old, heavy, seemingly valuable, or custom tailored to his rather eclectic tastes.

(He has a lot of things. No sensible person needs that many things.)

You do not need help. Though your frame is small, the void within you is a veritable tempest; there is no little that can withstand your might when you choose to call it to you, and that includes furniture. Your friend is eager to be of assistance, though, and you find the earnest effort endearing; you pretend that you are struggling more than you are to make it seem like the child is doing more than simply headbutting one of the legs. The dark cherrywood gives a little creak as the base of the legs drags across the ground, and it almost drowns out the sound of rustling fabric. Almost.

When you turn around again, Grimm is behind you unfurling a mountain of fabrics and blankets. They are threadbare and a jumbled mix of fabrics haphazardly stitched together, with little regard for presentation, and yet… you find it charming.

He lays a pillow down, then turns to you. “Thank you. Let us move her here and see how extensive the damage to her carapace is.”

‘Us’ here means him. You barely managed to drag Hornet to Dirtmouth on your own. It involved void tendrils that you were cautious not to touch her shell with, and frequent breaks, with Grimmchild chattering the entire time as an anxious bundle of nerves.

(The spider may not appreciate the child, but the feeling does not seem to be mutual. The nymph seems to greatly enjoy using her as target practice, in part, you think, because she dodges so deftly.

You should likely discourage this behavior. You do not.

You somewhat hope it manages to set her on fire. You may be family, but you are not entirely friends.

You also would find this very funny. Your sense of humor is not the kindest thing ever.)

Grimm carefully gathers Hornet’s unconscious form and moves her to the pile of blankets. He is delicate in each movement, mindful of her wounds, and he uses the pillow to keep her head elevated. You do not miss that he also kicks her needle very far out of reach, so that should she wake, she cannot immediately eviscerate him. This is a good decision because you suspect that she will wake up violent. You cannot pass judgment. If you woke up injured, in a strange place, you would also feel an inclination to start swinging your nail.

You perch at the end of her feet and Grimm unfastens the brooch on her cloak, carefully settling it around her. There is a very vivid split in her shell, black breaking to ooze with transparent fluid.

“This is the source of the stains on her cloak,” he tells you without looking up. Grimmchild alights next to part of the discarded fabric and gathers it into its maw. Grimm looks up at the larva and thumbs with one finger toward the door. “Take that to Brumm, would you, please? He will be able to clean it for her.”

The child nyehs affirmatively and then bundles the fabric in its vestigial wings. You are not entirely sure how it manages it, but it does carry the cloak out of the room. Grimm watches it go with an affection that would make you uncomfortable, were it anyone else. As it is, you find the unusual relationship between father-and-child to be fascinating. They are the same soul, split into two, and there is an undeniable connection shared between them. They are individuals, too, though. Where the father is macabre at times, easily amused, and of a black sense of humor, the child is excitable, enthusiastic, and genuine. You enjoy both.

(You are very close to the child, though, and of the two of them, it is your favorite. It is one of your favorite people altogether.)

To you, Grimm instructs, “There are numerous jars in the cabinet at the back. We will clean these injuries and glue them shut—and she will likely molt them out once they are closed. Go. Open the cabinet and I will tell you which ones we need.”

You nod, while Grimm shifts slightly to rest Hornet’s horns in his lap. This allows him to curl over her, drawing attention to how malleable his shell seems to be; he bends and twists in ways no natural bug ought to be able to. You cross the room to the cabinet and then pull a small box over to use as a stepping stool, so that you can reach the handles.

When you open the cabinet, you are presented with a myriad of colorful glass containers, each sealed with glass and labeled immaculately, strings tied around the top and dates marking each one. You look over the different names, but they are in a language that you do not speak.

“The amber one,” Grimm says from behind you. “And… there is—do you see the square jar with the white powder? Those two. And then the fabric roll, if you would be so kind.”

You nod. The amber jar is very large. Its weight is less of a problem than the shape, which you struggle to hold onto. You are slow as you step off the box and bring it over to Grimm’s side. When you set it down, the fluid within sloshes, and you catch brief sight of his reflection in it—

(Doesn’t match. Pink and red instead of black and red. Too bright eyes. Too much fire. Obscure lines, blurred shape. Not really of this world. Reflections of the truth. This is an illusion. The Nightmare’s Heart in mortal flesh.)

—before you turn to grab the square container.

“This is antiseptic. And that is corn starch.”

Corn starch?

You angle your head to the side in silent question as you carry that particular case back to the Troupe Master. He sets it aside while unfastening the lid on the antiseptic and, in answer to your unvoiced inquiry, he explains, “It is to be our glue. We will clean the open splits carefully in order to avoid… infection.” The word is not lost on him, and you catch a brief smile that registers as amused. “Then I will have you hold her plates together while I mix the cornstarch with water and then use it as a seal on the wound. That will stop her bleeding—this is not enough for a half-wyrm to bleed out, but she is not going to feel very good when she wakes up.”

“I already do not feel very good,” Hornet answers, voice croaking, and Grimm jerks above her. She angles her head toward him. “You.”

“Hello.”

“Of course it is you,” she groans, attempting to sit up, and he puts one hand on her shoulder to force her back down. “Don’t touch me.”

“Too late,” Grimm murmurs.

You go back to the cabinet to retrieve the rolls of fabric. You hear shuffling behind you and when you turn back around, two more legs have come out from underneath Grimm’s cape, to hold Hornet’s arms down. “Do not make this harder than it must be, Princess-Protector; it is not my aim to cause you further injury.”

“I do not need your help. I would rather have been crushed than rely on you.”

Grimm scoffs. “Then perhaps you should have been several steps further back, my dear.”

He releases his hold on her, Hornet stilling enough to make it justified, and then he returns to assessing the damage.

Corn starch. You tune out the pair of them bickering, laying the bandages down at Grimm’s side, to open the container of powder and swipe one hand through it. Corn starch. You would never have guessed that to be used for first aid, but it does make sense.

You put one paw underneath your mask, void shifting and twisting into a mouth to ‘taste’ it off of your fingertips.

You have no idea whether or not you consider it to taste good. You do not think it is meant to be consumed this way.

Grimm and Hornet ignore you.

Hornet stills, though the look she levels on Grimm is one of positively murderous intent. As you expected, it is he that she holds completely responsible, and you would argue that this is your fault, if not for the fact that you are incapable of proper communication. It does not seem to bother Grimm at all, though; if anything, he seems to be fueled by her reactions, his head inclined to the side in obvious amusement.

“You mustn’t struggle so. Your wounds remain open. You were near crushed. You should be thanking the vessel for its kindness in rescuing you.” He takes one of the strips of fabric and then dips it into the antiseptic. Rather than touch her with it, he holds it out for the spider to scent. “Antiseptic. It is a combination of witch hazel and grape seed extract. It will clean the wounds.”

Hornet bristles. She takes a long, slow sniff of the fluid, as though to verify that she is not being lied to, and then exhales.

“Very well.”

It is obvious from the rigidity of her posture that she does not trust Grimm, but you do. You do not believe that he would harm her. Not like this, anyway. That would be rude.

(And not nearly theatrical enough. Grimm likes his showmanship.)

As he goes to clean the large crack with the rag, you decide that you do not like the taste of the corn starch and proceed to excise it from your body—still in powder form—all over the floor of the tent. You can feel Grimm and Hornet both staring at you, but you do not look their way. You look at the flap separating the chambers instead, because you can hear the beating of wings, and sure enough, Grimmchild returns a heartbeat later.

With a metal bucket carried in its maw, the fluid within sloshing to-and-forth.

Good child. You dart to its side to take the bucket and it flops between your horns, panting. You would pet its back to reassure it, but it takes both of your hands around the handle to lug the bucket over to where Grimm and Hornet are sitting. She is sprawled against his chest, her own head tilted down, and it would be an incredibly familiar position if she did not look like she was about to spring off the ground at any moment.

You set the bucket before them and incline your head to the side in silent interest. Your gaze follows the way that Grimm cleans the gouge in her chest, mindful not to pull the broken shell too hard.

“You will molt this off, yes?” he verifies.

“When next I molt, yes,” she agrees. Her gaze slants toward you. “… You went to great lengths to retrieve me from the collapse. Know that I will return the favor, should the opportunity arise.”

Grimm bursts out in a harsh laugh. “That is as close to a thank you as you are going to get, my friend.”

If looks could kill, he would be lying flat. As it is, Grimm does not so much as acknowledge the spider’s discomfort. He finishes dabbing the witch hazel onto her chest and tosses the rag aside, then uses a fresh one to clean around the wounds.

“You will want to visit a hot spring to accelerate the process of healing,” he murmurs. “I assume that you possess your sire’s ability to channel Soul to some degree?”

“Not at the level that it does,” Hornet answers, glancing at you. You bob your head to the other side pleasantly, as if to say, ‘That I do!’ and she ignores it, explaining, “But it will do more good than harm. How long was I unconscious?”

Grimm looks at you and you hold up your hands, counting out on your fingers idly, before settling on just three of them up. That’s a good enough estimate. Three or so—

“Days?” your half-sister asks, appalled.

“I expect that it means hours, Princess; do calm yourself.”

She snatches the wet cloth out of Grimm’s hands, and he holds both of them up as if in surrender. “I am plenty calm,” she insists, though her tone is anything but, and you want to point out to her that she sounds wound tighter than a drum. You can tell from the way that Grimm’s fingers twitch, animated, that it takes every bit of willpower he has to also withhold such an observation. “I can do the rest myself. Stop touching me.”

She really should accept the help, you think. She is badly wounded. Not mortally so, no—she will not die from these wounds—but they cannot be comfortable, and their position means that she won’t be able to accurately see what she is doing. She also should not be walking around, but you know the futility of trying to inform her of that. Grimm clearly does, too, for he untangles himself from around her, his second set of arms going back beneath his cape. He shuffles past you, easy on his feet, unbothered by the spider’s agitation, and you watch her as she never takes her eyes off of him. It is the look of a wounded predator expecting to be put down. It is unmerited. You remain convinced that if Grimm wanted to harm her, he would be far more flamboyant in the attempt. There would be fire, there would be spectacle, there would be a show.

(Grimmchild, on the other hand, might bite her shell off for the doing.)

“Forgive an old bug his whims,” Grimm hums without turning back. “It is good that you are spirited.”

Grimmchild mewls on your head and then, as if in defiance of its father’s words, spits a fireball right at Hornet. She narrowly manages to wiggle her way away from it.

Master of mixed messages, that.

A sharp clink snares your attention, and you look away from Hornet, who is moving to mix the water from the bucket that Grimmchild brought into some of the corn starch. She clearly has experience with doing so, and you suspect that this is not the first time that she’s glued part of her shell back together. You are sure that stitches are her favored method of treatment, though you do not ask whether one is more efficient than the other. That is not your problem.

Grimm is making tea. You recognize the pot.

“I am not at all fooled by your disguise, Nightmare King,” Hornet hisses.

You draw away from her. She is in no danger of sudden collapse; she will not die today, and despite her agitation, you know that she is in good hands with Grimm.

“I know very well that though you say one thing, your actions say another—”

“You would blame me for my child’s actions?” Grimm quips back.

“Your child is you—”

You leave the pair of them to bicker, the last of Hornet’s statement being lost to you as you start back through the tent. The musician at the front offers you a polite nod, continuing to play his accordion, while Grimmchild hangs onto your horns, draped over your mask like a doll. It makes a low noise in its throat as the pair of you depart.

You have places to be. Your task remains unfinished.

Your sister will be just fine.

#ashe writes #hollow knight #hk fanfic #hollow knight fanfic #hk ghost #hk grimm #hk hornet #hk grimmchild #one shots

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akirameta84 · 2 months

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Summary:

Hollow is still not the greatest at making personal decisions, and requesting its sister call it...well, an it again is not one it predicts going over smoothly. It still wishes to try.

it is 1 am. have this that i wrote in the span of about an hour. was having too many thoughts to not write it

#akira scribbles #hk #hollow knight #fanfiction #writing #the hollow knight #thk #hk fanfic #hollow knight fanfic

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grollow · 4 months

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watch you lose

Title: watch you lose Rating: M Characters: The Hollow Knight, The Radiance Warnings: Disturbing Content, Trauma Bonding, First Person POV, Prequel (sort of) Author's Notes: This is canon to White and Gray, technically, and was written as a gift for @astorichan for Elegies of Hallownest's Secret Santa. Happy holidays, my friend! <3

watch you lose on AO3. “At the rate that we are going, we will die here together like this, you and I,” she says.

I ignore her, drifting in a state somewhere between waking and the anguish of sleep. In this state, she cannot reach or touch me, but her words are an insidious whisper that brushes under my skin like the diminutive scales that so resemble fur. She would have the world think that she is soft, but I know better. She is the edges of claws that scrape and scratch, and she leaves everything bleeding underneath them.

I prefer this state. I can see the world around me, a witness through the windows to history unfolding, but never a participant. This has always been my role. Never a participant, always a spectator. I have watched Hallownest crumble around me, bits and pieces rotting away as proof of my flaws. I have watched my king’s palace vanish under the weight of his own failure, disappearing like a mirage; sometimes, I can even glimpse it in the distance, and she says that is because it is here, because he has joined us in this eternal prison.

Like us, he is a spectator.

Like us, he is dead without truly dying.

We are corpses that have forgotten what it means to be dead. We are animated not by the essence that inhabits our body but by the spite that drives us: emotions like blood strangling out whatever light might have remained in the two of them.

I have always been a dark thing. I suppose that is to my benefit.

“You could end the pain we are both enduring,” she tells me.

My reflection is a passive thing, void obscuring it on the shell that makes up the floor. The chains that bind us in the air have long lost their shine. Like my armour.

(Like me.)

She deludes herself, as I often do, that we might some day see freedom outside of these halls. Were I to be set free of my binds, I doubt my body would animate properly. There are great crevices in my carapace where infection has boiled over, eating away at tempered void. The most egregious of these is a great hulking furrow that jots along my shoulder where my missing arm should be. It drives down deep and is, at times, painful. I can see the illumination of pustules growing in place of where the void has been burned away. They unsettle me, raising bile in a stomach that I did not know that I possessed.

(I have a mouth. I have always had a mouth. Mouths are conducive to stomachs; they are used to consume food, though I have never needed any—

Hunger notwithstanding.

I have ever been starving.

The void within me longs to devour all that it sees. I hold it in check, as I always have.

Would it be void that came up, if I succumbed to the writhing in my guts, like invisible claws twisting them to-and-fro, tying what insides my third parent did not destroy into tense, tight little knots?)

I cannot feel my legs. I have not been able to in a very long time.

“Let me set us both free, my shadow,” she pleads, drawing me back. I can feel her wings like the soft of feathers wrapping around me. “It needn’t be one or the other. I would miss you—”

I do not answer her in words, but in a feeling: a hot rush of stubborn refusal that manifests like ice through me. I drown her light in my shadows, and she recoils, hissing shrilly.

“I will miss you,” she finishes.

There is nothing to miss, I say without words, pulling my void like a noose tighter around her throat. She struggles, fighting back, and the course of sunlight through me makes us both scream in mutual agony—her from my freezing darkness and me from the searing that rips through me, settling in welts that fill with fluid within my eye sockets.

It is a scream that reverberates through the void. All creatures of my kind can hear it, but none can answer. I am alone.

(I made that choice when I left them behind. I am selfish. I was willing to climb out of the Abyss over the corpses of my siblings, no matter the cost. And I was willing to sacrifice it all—

Hallownest. Myself. The lives of thousands of bugs.

I wanted his acknowledgment. I wanted to be seen.

I wanted to succeed—)

“You never could have. The fact that you wanted to is proof of that. But fine, fine. When death takes you, I will be free. I can be very patient when I need to be.”

The light of my eyes pulses in time with her heartbeat. The arteries that sprawl across the cavern ceiling are perfectly in sync with them.

She has never been patient in her life.

From the moment of my conception, I have been wed to her. The ties that bind us are far stronger than that of matrimony and impossible to break. I was molded to be her creature. Try as she might, she can never escape a shadow that bears her shape—and that is all that I will ever amount to.

Still, it is entertaining to listen to her wish that it be otherwise.

She would no more choose this than I, she claims. But she forgets.

I did make this choice. I told myself it was for him. I told myself it was for the Pale Gift that I left behind. I told myself that I had enough strength within to succeed.

We are both fools and liars. I am, at least, aware of my failings.

They are all that make up what remains of me.

Failure. Failure. Failure.

NO.

There is another like me.

There is another and it has come for me; it has answered a scream from the two of us to set us free and I recognise it, I know those horns, I know, and I do not deserve, I do not want, I do not want to be saved—

There is another there is another there is another

Kill the empty one.

There is another like me there is another like me there is another

Kill the empty one.

It is her voice, I tell myself. It is her command issued to force her slaves, mindless as they are, animated by her power, to attack.

I would never.

(I want to. I want to rip it apart.

She is mine, she is mine, she is mine. This is my task, this is my burden, these are my shackles to bear, and I would not have her be taken from me, not like everything else, I have never had anything that is mine, I have never had anything, she is all that I have—

Go. Go. Go.

It should have died.

Like the rest of them.)

The frenzied feeling inside of me is a swelling thing. It shivers in my guts. It settles in as numbness at the tips of my fingers. He has cursed me. He has left me to watch the world, watch it die around me, watch my failure unfold on the stage, the curtain raised in a final act, Hallownest’s requiem in harmony with my screams. I cannot look away. I cannot stop myself from watching my sibling’s journey; I cannot tear my focus to something else, anything to ease the terror that surges through limbs that have long stopped aching because I no longer feel anything physically to begin with.

Run, I want to scream.

Leave, I want to beg.

(Save—

Save who? Me?

I don’t deserve it.

If it comes here, I will fail—

If it comes here, it will take my place and I do not want to—)

I cannot see her. I can feel her writhing within me, though. I can no longer tell where I end and she begins and that is for the better.

I think, perhaps, that I love her. She shaped me into something else; she moulded me into her creature, and she has always seen me. Where others bore witness to a monster in the shell of the king’s misbegotten offspring, she saw the writhing shadows and knew the potential that lay within. She sees me.

I think, perhaps, that I hate her for all of that, too. For how dare she look into my eyes and know my secrets—how dare she rummage through my mind to find where my scars are—how dare she reach out with tenderness.

“I know what it feels like to be abandoned by family,” she’d whispered one day, when we were newly acquainted, as if she could understand my pain.

She knew nothing about me.

She knows everything about me now.

She knows that I will bite every hand outstretched in kindness. She knows that mine are words edged in nails, that my heart is wrapped in razor wire and that to love me is to drown. She is caught in my maelstrom, as I am in hers. She burns everything that she touches. She convinces herself that she has been abandoned, but I know—for I know her secrets, surely as she knows mine.

One who burns down their house cannot complain about a lack of home.

But she loves me, she thinks, in the only way that she has ever known how to. She would break me into pieces to fit her shape and she would see nothing wrong with that. That tendency is why she is alone, I know.

But void is without form, and I can bend, I can twist, I can adapt.

I will never break.

This is the kind of love that I deserve.

For being a failure. For being selfish. For choosing to believe in a lie, to perpetuate it, to walk knowingly into a task I could never succeed at. My false faith has cost Hallownest everything. Who would dare love someone so wretched? Someone equally so.

We orbit one another. We will both kill the other given a chance. And then we will mourn the other’s absence horribly. We cannot exist without one another.

I would die with her. I want to die with her.

(I want to die. But not alone. No, never alone. Come with me. This is our tomb—together.)

Kind, gentle Isma falls first, of the Great Knights, and that is both heart wrenching and unsurprising. Ever has her nature been one of kindness, of compassion, of consideration; ever has she been the warmth that seeps through the Palace when none else could reach. As Hallownest withers beneath a rot so deep as to infect the very soil, its blossom turns her blooms to the ground, and she is consumed by the very vines that she once commanded.

I mourn her.

It is noble Hegemol who falls second, in the service of our king. The infection lays claim to him, ravaging his shell. He is buried in his armour high above the kingdom, to watch over from above; his is a sacrifice mourned by all.

I mourn him.

She tells me that she loves me as we watch my home fall apart. She tells me that this is not my fault; she reassures me that I am not to blame for failing, for no living thing could ever do what was commanded of me, and I do not respond. Her wings hold me tight, embrace warm, and the shadow within me surges, aching to devour.

Dreams are life essence, and the void will always long to smother out life, until nothing but itself remains.

Until it is whole again.

It can never be. Too many fragments have been broken away, stolen, thieved in the night—

I am one of those pieces.

I want to rend her with my maw. I want to bury my face in her feathers and sob.

The whole world knows that I have failed now. The whole world knows that I am flawed. Only death comes for them now.

She hates me, she tells me, whenever I refuse her. She reminds me of my failures, of the things that I have wrought upon Hallownest. “Your fault,” she reminds me. “You chose this. You could have done something different.” Never the same argument but it is the same thought in essence, and it needn’t really be voiced. She is right. I chose this. I caused this.

Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure.

I do not long for freedom. My sibling comes. My sibling means to set me free, regardless of what I feel—or it means to join me in endless torment, a storm of shadow to drown out the world.

What would I do if it succeeded? What will I do, when inevitably it breaks through the seals?

(Teacher, I have failed. All of your studies on void with the king have amounted to nothing. I am a craven thing, desperate. All the knowledge in the world cannot save you from that which you wilfully ignore.)

…kill it.

(Watcher, forgive me; you will never be given the chance to reunite with your Knight and it will be for naught—for I chose my own whims over your sacrifice; I chose to let you die for nothing. Noble Hegemol, forgive me; I have taken the person most dear to you from you, and for what?)

I would kill it.

(Beast. Oh, Beast. We have both left the Gendered Child behind in our ruins, to mourn us, and when we both are dead, she will be alone.

For I have failed. I have failed. All of this has availed us nothing.)

I tremble.

(Leave, sibling, I beg.

Leave, because you cannot withstand this. I see in you something alive. I see in you something with potential to survive.

Leave, because if you come here, I will kill you—and it will not be her command that makes me do it.

I have never been a good loser.)

Dryya falls third, far later than her other two companions.

Some of the honourable Mantis Tribe willingly take in the infection—their strength of will is too great to be consumed on their own, but their pride is their downfall, and they would do anything for strength. They do not understand that in bargaining with her, they seal their own fate. They do not understand that in choosing this path, they are condemning themselves to torment.

The fiercest of the knights falls to their blades in service of her queen, but she does not go alone. Her grave is composed of the bodies of the infected, her armour stained in orange. She goes down fighting, claws, and blades.

I do not think the White Lady is even aware of the moment that she dies.

Perhaps that is for the better. This torment should not be anyone’s to bear but my own. It is my fault, after all.

My captive no longer attempts to convince me otherwise. She is not cruel to me, but she need not be; I am vicious enough for us both. We are a shattered, tangled thing, and she regrets nothing of her choices.

Will they all die? I ask her, voice strangled from the pain that paralyses me, like the chains that hold us fast in the air, higher still.

This is an ascent with a great fall at the end.

Our shared body will break before we hit the ground.

“Yes,” she answers. “They all deserve to die.”

I do not agree, but my ability to stop her is hindered by the fatality of my flaw.

I do not want them all to die, but I do not care if they live, either.

Who among them mourned for me?

Leave, I command. It both is, and is not, my voice. Hers lays over it, a second skin, resonant and clear. My own is a rattling thing, hoarse to my ears, for so little do I bother to make words. I sound like a thing dead. I am a thing dead. The command holds force, though it goes ignored by the smaller figure circling me, its nail raised to shatter the old, rotting chains. Metal shouldn’t decay, but the passage of time is a brutal thing, and void corrodes what it encounters. This place is thick with it.

It jumps over the cracked, charcoal gray shell that was once my arm. The black stain around the discarded limb is a pool, rendering it unrecognizable. I can identify spots of mottled brown where infection has dripped from my rotting carcass. I am a sick thing. Perhaps it means to grant me a merciful death, but—

I am also a possessive thing. I have ever-been. I do not share well. So few things have ever truly been mine. But she is.

Leave, I reiterate. This time it is my voice, hers having faded back. I can feel her contemplating in the back of our shared mind, analyzing the threat it poses. She thinks in its small form, she might yet find salvation; perhaps it will set me free, and she can use me, macabre puppet that my wretched body has become, to enact her own terrible fury.

She is hope. She has yet to give it up.

I will never her go. This is my burden to bear, and she is mine. She is only mine.

Leave.

Its nail clashes into one of the blades. Metal screams in agony as it is shattered—or maybe that is the sound of the voice that I am not meant to have.

It circles. It means to release me from my bindings.

(It means to set me free. It means to shoulder my task on its own.)

My binds shatter one-by-one. The void within it purrs, melodious, through my own. I can feel it like blood beneath the shell, testing the waters, touching me, verifying that I am still here—that I am still alive.

I do not answer. I am not alive.

My chains fall away and I collapse to the ground, a pathetic caricature of the noble grace that I once possessed, and the infernal light of my eyes reflects back at me.

It probes again, gentle and reassuring, as though to remind me that it will stop at nothing to see me set free. It knows not that there is nothing left within me to save.

Very well. It will learn through pain, if it must.

Kill the empty one.

(We will.)

#ashe writes #one shots #hollow knight #hk fanfic #hk thk #hk hollow #the hollow knight #w&g #posting this on main and then reblogging to my writing blog dw about it

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braisedhoney · 11 months

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am become. Bee.

somethings wrong with this bee

#hollow knight #hk #hollow knight fanart #hk fanfic #hollow knight oc #hk oc #sona art #ney's art

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suminoze · 1 year

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Shade Lord, Shadow of Hallownest.

God of Gods, Devourer of the Light.

King of Shades, God of Void.

They have so many titles in my fic.

They also look so good with their cape.

#hkartist #hollow knight art #hollow knight #hollow knight fanart #hk #hk art #hollowknight #digital art #lord of shades #shade lord #hk fanart #hk fanfic

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hollowknightinsanity · 5 months

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Safety (Hollow Knight AU oneshot)

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Hollow Knight (Video Games)

Relationships: The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel/Original Character(s) (Implied), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Hornet, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Pale King, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Original Character(s), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & Quirrel

Characters: The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel, The Pale King (Hollow Knight), Hornet (Hollow Knight), Quirrel (Hollow Knight) (mentioned), Original Character(s)

Additional Tags: They/Them Pronouns for The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, The Pale King is a good dad for once, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel is named Holly, and i gave them a fankid because i love being cringe

Words: 1,587

Summary: The Hollow Knight (Holly) and The Pale King have some father-child bonding time.

Notes: This oneshot happened when I decided that the maladaptive daydream I was having was too good to not share on the internet.

And also, this was partially inspired by the song Rain Clouds by The Arcadian Wild.

Thank the Goddesses for blorbo thoughts. That writer's block was getting unbearable.

AO3 Link:

Calm and quiet air nestled in the room. They’d just gotten home after sparring with their sister, as some simple training — they’d felt the need to work on their talent as a knight, though retired and disabled as they were.

It escalated a little too far, though, and Father stepped in to prevent them from getting injured further by their own recklessness.

Strange, that he’d do that. Normally, he would allow them to get hurt, and learn from their mistakes. They could heal themself easily enough.

But, times have changed — they’re older, weaker. Not what they used to be. They no longer produced Soul at a pace steady enough to heal properly. They hurt when they moved. They’re old. They’re disabled. They’re tired. They’re not what they used to be.

“Sit, child. Let me remove your prosthetic,” Father spoke, his tone calm as usual, though with a new touch of… kindness? Tenderness? They couldn’t place an exact label on it. But to them, it felt like how a father should speak to his child.

When did he begin treating me like his kin, and not simply a tool?

When did he begin caring?

Holly sat on the couch in their modest Dirtmouth home. Their knees were weak from straining during the spar. It felt nice to sit down and rest.

They shouldered their cloak out of the way, letting it drape over the back of the couch, and removed their top, allowing Father to properly detach their complex prosthetic arm. This process always hurt, but they were used to it by now.

The pain, at least, was bearable. On the other hand, they certainly did not enjoy nor care for the feeling of having things placed or removed from inside their body, and that is exactly what had to happen in order for the arm to be connected or removed.

Holly sought comfort in another physical interaction. They angled their head to call for Hornet, standing in the kitchen.

“Little Hornet? Could you bring Somber for me?” they requested, mock voice rasping and tired. Their Void was acting up, as it did not like being anywhere near Father, and they struggled to use it for their speech.

“Yeah, sure,” she called back, setting down whatever she was holding with a glassy clink.

“Thank you.”

Holly could hear her claws tapping on the floor as she walked to the bedroom. A few moments later, she returned with the squeaking infant in her arms, and gently handed them to their parent, then returned to the kitchen. The child’s squeaks quieted when they felt the presence of their mother, and they grasped at Holly’s chest with small, clawless hands.

“Yes, hello, little one,” they spoke, voice barely above a whisper, rubbing the back of Somber’s head with their thumb. They squeaked quietly in response, purring against their chest, snuggling into their swaddle. Holly purred as well, glad to be with their child once more.

Of course, it hadn’t been that long since they held them, but still. Too much time away from this fragile little thing, and they’d panic.

I suppose this is the life of a new parent, though. Especially one that struggles to understand that they’re even alive.

“I could make you a baby carrier, if you need one,” Father said, still working with the pale prosthetic.

“I’ll take you up on that offer. Thank you in advance, Father,” they returned, flinching when he removed one of the connecting wires from within their torso. “Heavens above, that still feels so strange…”

“I know, Holly. Just a few more, then you’ll be good to rest. Should only take about a minute.”

…

Such a kind response gets them thinking again.

…When did he become so… gentle? they wonder. Has he been like this my whole life? Or did he just start now?

…

When did he decide he wanted to be my father?

They flinch again as he removes another wire. He is still kind with how he handles them. He’s aware that their scars are sensitive, and he’s aware of how the wires cause them discomfort when being put in or taken out.

Why is he so kind now? Why does he no longer hurt me?

Does he fear it? Fear that he might hurt me again?

Is he afraid of hurting me?

They decide to ask.

“...Father?” “Yes?”

“...Why are you so gentle all of a sudden?”

The old King pauses, stilling his hands, processing their question. He looks towards their face. They do not look back at him.

“What do you mean?” he questions, not fully understanding.

“When I was younger, if I had this same prosthetic, you would’ve removed the wires as fast as possible and not cared if I flinched, if I showed signs of pain or discomfort. Why is it that now, you take care to not injure me?” They look down at their child, sleeping peacefully in their hold. The Wyrm blinks.

“...I certainly would not do that to you, even if it were with a younger you,” he answers, keeping his gaze directed at their head. “Not then, and especially not now. You’re older, and I know that even at a slow pace, placing and removing the wires still hurts. Those scars certainly don’t help in the matter.” Momentarily, he looks back down to their prosthetic arm, and the connections sunken into their body. Holly’s scars are still only partially healed, and that makes them very sensitive to physical stimuli. The Wyrm does not wish to inflict any more pain on the child he’d already hurt so much. It really seemed to him that they’d been through every terrible thing in the world, and none of the good.

He looks back up at their face, still turned away from his own. “You deserve better. I’ve already hurt you enough in the past. I promise you, I will never do such things again. You have my word, child.”

Finally, they look down towards their father, their one remaining eye expressing confusion, shock, and… relief. Their father’s expression tells them that he means it. They look away again, returning their gaze to their sleeping child.

Had they had the facial mechanisms to smile, they would have.

“Thank you. I really needed to hear that.”

“Of course, my child.”

They don’t speak another word to each other until the King finishes removing Holly’s prosthetic. They sigh and roll their shoulder, forming a tendril to reach up and massage where they were sore. “Thank you again, Father,” they say, voice quiet and gentle so as not to disturb the infant sleeping in their hold. The King nods.

“No problem. Anything else you need?” he asks, standing from the couch and stretching his arms, one pair reaching above his head and the other behind his back.

Holly moves, twisting their form to lay down on the cushions. “Could you put on a record for me?” they request, yawning at the end of their sentence. “The one with the sailing ship and waves, please.”

The Wyrm hums in affirmation, and walks over to the little desk holding the record player and steadily growing collection of vinyls. He kneels down to the shelf beneath the tabletop, shuffling through the various records in search of the one the tired Vessel had requested. Lifting it carefully and removing the disc from its casing, he places it atop the player and turns it on. Soft acoustic begins to emit from the speaker, and Holly settles into a comfortable position, wrapping themself in their cloak, using it as a blanket.

“Oh, one more thing, Father,” they say, looking at him with a tired eye.

“Hm?” “...Could I have a hug?”

He seems surprised by the request. They genuinely wish for my affection?

“Oh, goodness, of course!” he responds, walking over to their spot on the sofa, reaching down to wrap his arms around them. They gladly accept the gesture, and they begin to purr, moving their head to rest their jaw atop his shoulder, simulating a return as best they can, still using their only arm to hold Somber.

And they’re purring. They’re being held by their father, and they’re purring. They’re content in his hold.

The thought that they’re finally getting comfortable with his presence brings tears to his eyes, which he blinks back harshly, nuzzling his face into one of Holly’s horns.

The last time they requested his affection was when Quirrel passed. They were sobbing then. They were still afraid of him. Afraid that he might hurt them. That he might kill them, as they so believed he would decades ago. Now, though, they know he won’t do such things. They know that, for the most part, they’re safe.

He knows that they’re still instinctively wary of him, and that they will be for a long time, but at least they can take comfort in his touch now, instead of fearing for their very life whenever he so much as got close.

He’s glad that Holly no longer cries themself to sleep every night. They don’t need to be afraid anymore. They’re finally safe.

Hesitantly, he releases them from his grasp, standing up once again. “You get some rest, now, okay? You need it after that session,” he says, running his hand through their hair before turning away. “If you’d like, I could make you some tea.”

“Please do,” they respond, wrapping their cloak tighter around themself and their hatchling.

They’re glad that they’re safe again. They missed being at peace.

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