Chapter Text
They have never asked for anything, but they ask for it now, a childish prayer.
In this kingdom that has already seen so much death, so much regret, so much pain
let there be someone they can save.
They fall, they shatter, they die. Again and again and again. It is a common thing, now, in Hallownest; the will to survive glues their broken pieces back together, and they remember little of what destroyed them. The echo of their death haunts them, rages against the force that stole their voice and sealed them in this lifeless mask.
This death is
different.
Their consciousness fragments; they dream of painful light, of fire and blue water and a thousand different fragments they have no possible context for. Voices both living and lost shake them to their core, blending into something discordant and terrifying.
(They don’t understand.)
Something in them, outside them, holding them in its claws says you will and they slip under and drown in darkness-
When they wake, they are surrounded by howling winds at the edge of the wilds, half-buried by sand, and they claw their way out of their resting place with a sudden fervour.
They don’t know why they’d drifted off to sleep here, of all places - though it had been a long and dangerous journey, and they were tired, even with their endurance. But, at least, they’d reached their destination, the source of that mysterious call that haunted them in sleep.
They don’t know what calls them, only that they must go; so they do. They find their way through the ruined paths with a dexterity they didn’t expect from themselves, as if they’ve come here before.
They stand before the ruined door.
Hallownest awaits.
The kingdom. Hallownest. Lost, ruined, eternal. Cursed and sacrificed for.
(Why does that name sound so familiar to them?)
They go on.
A lone bug stands by a bench, cloak pulled tight to shelter from the ceaseless wind. Lumaflies flutter in their crystal cages, providing flickering light to a town that seems almost completely vacant.
Dirtmouth.
The name of this quiet, dusty place leaps to their mind, though no sign is there to announce it. There is a feeling of warmth, of safety; nothing will harm them here-
(They have never seen this place before.)
You have been here before.
- but they do not pause. they go straight up to the old, bowed bug, to greet him. It’s only polite.
He looks down at them with sunken, tired eyes; they note the dusty colour of his cloak, the way his shell seems to be a weight he can’t quite bear, how he himself seems to have faded along with the town. He speaks to them about the travelers who have disappeared and the kingdom far beneath, that subterranean place full of decay and danger.
They don’t wait for him to finish, in a rare moment of impoliteness on their part. Instead, they tug insistently on his cloak.
“Hrm? What is it, little traveller?”
They dig in their cloak. They think they have something left, from their long journey.
It is a little thing, some trinket they found eyecatching enough to pick up and take along with them. A brooch made of some foreign, smooth stone, marbled prettily, carved into the shape of a butterfly’s wings.
They offer it to him. A gift for someone they’ve just met.
A gift for someone lonely, who was warmed by a flower.
He is surprised, and then delighted, taking it with a slightly-shaking hand.
They sit with him a while, before they depart for the underground. He speaks to them of a slowly emptying town, a sickness, a temple where bugs once sought peace in prayer
My sibling. Their prison.
(why does it make their chest ache to think of?)
but something changed.
The plague. That sickness. Her.
“You have a way about you that makes me want to talk,” the old bug suddenly says, and his tired voice is apologetic. “I do hope I’m not bothering you.”
They shake their head and reach out for his hand. After a moment, he takes it.
It’s a small, shared moment of comfort in a cold place. It gives them a warmth they didn’t quite realise they were missing.
Eventually, they let go.
"I hope I'll see you return."
They squeeze his hand in a sudden moment of impulsiveness, sealing the promise as best they can.
Eventually, they stand at the edge of the well and leap down.
They’ve faced greater heights than this.
Hallownest
the place you once fled, the place you’ve come back to
awaits.