Chapter Text
Dark... Very dark... And warm? No, not warm... But not cold either. It's... comfortable.
Sleeping? No, I feel awake... WaitWhy'sItSoDarkWhyCan'tISee-
She flailed in a panic, expecting to feel her blankets(?) but nothing met her arms. Nothing but some sort of... resistance? Like dragging your hand through water but more... gooey? Okay, don't freak out, just- just-
She waved her hand through the goopy blackness, looking for something, anything to touch or grab. Her persistent flailing caused her whole body to spin and, ohgodsamiupsidedownahhhhhhhh
Now she was really panicking. Her brain registered her as being in water, goop, whatever. She started kicking and flailing more aggressively now, trying to right herself and find the surface. No luck, until her foot (It feels weird) struck something hard. It felt like it was below her so she kicked off of it, hopefully propelling herself towards the surface.
Crack! Ow!
Her head (feels too tall) had struck something (Ice!?). She tried to pull back but she was stuck. She raised her arms above her head and pushed away, floating back downwards. She had to try and break through. She pushed off again (wherever she was, it wasn't that big), feeling for the crack she had made. Her hand felt a small hole in the ice(not cold?) and felt around it. It wasn't very big, but she could work with that.
okayokayokayokayokayokay-
She struck the cracked surface with her fist and felt it give. She, mostly out of panic, started relentlessly punching at the ice(?) above her, breaking a hole that she could hopefully pull herself out of. She reached her hand upwards and broke the surface (PanickyRelief).
She wasn't able to get far out of the water(not water, way too viscous) before her head contacted something else (ahhhh!). Luckily she had enough room to pull her body mostly above the water-goop-stuff. The goop which didn't feel cold...
A memory of people getting so cold they couldn't feel how cold they were popped into her head. She wrapped her arms- (were they wider?) -around herself in an attempt to regain some warmth. It felt weird, but not numb like she expected. In fact, she could feel just fine. Only, her body felt off. shorter, and softer, almost?
She lifted her hands to her face. It was dark, but not as dark as it seemed before. She could make out her hands in front of her. There were three short fingers and a thumb on each, but if that wasn't weird enough, she then noticed the other pair of hands. They looked just like her other(upper?) hands (and arms). Oh gods she had four arms??
Okay, gotta put that aside for now. Focus! Where the heck am I?
She explored her body with her hands, all four of them. She expected them to be clunky and awkward but they moved with just as little concentration as her usual two. Two of them met her face, which felt hard and smooth. Reaching upwards, she felt two horns extending up from either side of her head.
Okay, this was all seriously weird, and terrifying, but she needed to escape whatever she was in. She wasn't particularly claustrophobic, but she was not happy about being in a tight space against her will.
Using her lower arms to stabilize herself, she pushed against whatever was above her. It felt solid, but not like rock. It was too light, and a quick exploration with her hands revealed that it was actually many solid masses all on top of one another.
They gave way when she pushed upwards, though there were so many it was hard to keep them from filling in any gaps she managed to create. It was like the world's most evil ball pit and she was at the very bottom. She didn't realize at the time just how spot-on her analogy was...
Her hand eventually broke the surface, and the rest of her quickly followed as she clawed her way out. The ground shifted under her weight, so she just lay on her back for a moment to catch her breath.
Wait, am I breathing??
In her struggle she had completely forgotten about breathing(how??). She sucked in a breath and promptly choked, her lungs still filled with whatever she had been swimming in. She sat bolt upright, but nearly toppled over from how heavy her head felt. After a few moments of hacking and coughing she managed to clear her airways, though she now noticed something else odd; she was breathing through her sides.
Her hands shot down, confirming that she was, in fact, breathing through a series of small holes on both sides of her torso. Another memory popped into her mind, though she had no idea where it came from.
Spiracles? Right, these would be called spiracles. They're like the insect equivalent of noses. Well, they don't smell through them but-
She shook her head. Figuring out what was going on was the most important thing right now. Standing up and turning around slowly, (she was still getting used to her top-heavy-ness) she observed her surroundings. She was in some kind of cave or pit made out of those strange, white, round things. A tunnel led off to her right and she figured it was the best option.
Stumbling over the uneven (and unnervingly crunchy) ground, she eventually found herself in a larger (though not by much) chamber. Sitting at the back near the wall was a round... thing. It was totally black, and had a shiny outer surface. It was nearly one and a half times taller than she was and had weird strands (wires?(ropes?(she could use those for pits(veins?(eugh.))))) connecting it to the wall behind it. There was a hole in the side of it, near-ish to the top. It almost looked like...
An egg?
She stumbled over to the large black egg and placed her hands on its surface to steady herself. Getting a good look at her reflection, she finally realized just what she was.
I'm a vessel. Like, from Hollow Knight. (duh(was that too mean?(never mind that!)))
(Lena Raine - Ancestry)
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After getting over the shock that came from the realization that she was in a video game (it didn't feel like a video game). More specifically, a video game that she had be enthralled with. (She hadn't actually played it herself but tomato-tomato). She had watched speedruns, theory videos, read fanfictions about it. Heck, she had even considered writing her own at some point. With all this came a more important realization; she'd gotten freaking Isekai'd!
How did I die? I can't remember... Okay, I can already feel the panic attack coming on, I'll unpack... all of that... later.
She took a deep breath (through her sides(weird!)) to calm herself. Sitting down, she took stock of what she knew as of right then;
A. She'd been isekeid (don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutit)
B. She was now a vessel (not one she recognized. That seemed noteworthy.)
C. She was currently in the void, next to the Knight's egg. (So he's already hatched then)
4. (wait no, D.) Uhhhhhh
Frell. She'd lost her train of thought. She tried to go over it again but... Nope, train's been totally derailed. Darn it, of all the things, why did her dumb scatter-brain have to carry over. Then again, it was her scatter-brain, so she guessed she wouldn't really be her without it.
She stood up and turned towards the egg again, taking a closer and longer look at herself in the reflection of its shiny black shell.
Ah, right! D, that weird thing I was in earlier (how long had it been?) was an egg. My egg. That's... weird to think about. So am I like, a kid now? Or whatever the bug equivalent is. Larvae? No, larvae lacked limbs, and she had six of those. Wait, some insects, like termites, are born fully formed, legs and all! They look like miniature adults and are basically helpless. So was she a- No, she was a vessel. Maybe all bugs are like termites (in that sense(of how they're born)) in this world.
Though, she didn't really feel helpless. A bit top-heavy, yes, but she could get around well enough.
That's probably a vessel thing, right? I don't know. Anyways-
Refocusing on her reflection, she took note of her body. Her head was the typical squarish mask that young vessels had (seriously, this whole baby-but-not-baby thing was hard to get used to). She had four horns (rad!); Two large ones on either side of her head that were slightly curved and came to single points. They reminded her of Hornet's, though hers stuck out a bit (sleeping on her side just got a bit trickier :c ). And two much smaller horns in between her larger ones. They were a bit further back on her head and curved towards each other slightly, like mandibles.
I'm not a vessel I recognize from the game.
She had two sets of arms; one attached at the shoulders and the other just below that. It seemed like they might get in the way of each other but they actually folded up against her body really comfortably. Speaking of, she was able to see her arms so clearly because she lacked the blade-of-grass cloak-but-actually-it's-a-body-part... cloak... thing that other vessels have. Feeling around where her skull met her neck, she could only find small flaps. They sort of felt like fingernails, only way more flexible. It took all her willpower to not pick at them (even after discovering that doing so hurt like a mother-trucker, dude).
Not sure if bugs have a thing about wearing clothes (hornet seemed to wear some kind of red dress-thing), but I definitely don't want to be seen before I can find something to at least cover up with.
She had also noticed while she was examining her arms that she had four sets of spiracles. Four of them near where her arms joined her body (her armpits?(ew, glad bugs don't sweat)), and two more pairs below those; one above the other in a sort of line running down each side of her torso.
When she bent them, she found that her legs were digitigrade, like a dog or cat or therapod dinosaur (frick yes, no more judgement for walking on my toes) and were each tipped with three hoof-like claws made out of chitin. She also had a fourth dewclaw on the inside of her feet. She really hoped she wouldn't have to worry about trimming it. She did, in fact, have toebeans, she checked. They weren't as noticeable as she thought they'd be but they still made her footfalls quieter so long as she was careful to not let her claws hit the floor.
Most noticeably however (to her at least), she seemed to lack any significant exoskeleton. She had some chitinous plates, sure, but they were all soft and flexible. She felt bones in her legs and arms when she squeezed them, but bugs didn't have endoskeletons, not usually anyways. She wasn't exactly sure how Hollow Knight bug anatomy worked yet, let alone vessels, which were made out of void and roots and Pale-whatever. She would have to figure that out later, but first, she needed to find a way out.
She turned around and made her way back into the pit she had come from, being careful of where she stepped (she know knew that the white things were in fact, skulls. Baby skulls. So, so many baby skulls. (hhhhhhhhhh-)). Looking up, she saw a few spots where the skulls (still not over that) jutted out enough to where she might be able to climb them.
Not a big fan of heights but anywhere is better than the baby skull pit.
She jumped (woah, high!) up to the nearest ledge. It held her weight so she clambered up to the next one. It took longer than she had hoped (due to her falling multiple times. Though on the bright side, no fall damage!), but she eventually made it out and into a much larger area after pushing her way through a pile of skulls blocking the top of the pit.
Definitely the world's most evil ball pit.
The floor was still littered with the skulls of the other vessels, piled in a macabre mound of sadness. It skeeved her out even more now that she could see a bit more clearly so she hastily made her way off the heap and onto normal stone.
Hugging her arms around herself, she slowly turned around to get an idea of where she was. She was standing at the side of a cavern so tall she could barely see the top. The edges of the space were littered with giant, sort of disk-shaped rocks. Looking up, she saw the walls of the cavern were oddly uniform, as if someone had carved them. Multiple layers atop one another, with round shapes seemingly imbedded in them. A ways off to her right was the mouth of a tunnel leading off to somewhere else.
Skirting around the edges of the heap would have been easier if it weren't for the uneven terrain. Those giant rocks (which looked suspiciously similar to fossilized ammonites) were everywhere, even imbedded in the walls in some places. She eventually made it to the tunnel and peered down it. Not even here was the ground flat. The whole thing was up of more of those fossil-rock-things and there were platforms jutting up with pools of a pitch-black substance between them. She figured it was void and carefully approached.
It didn't react to her presence, but being near it caused a tugging sensation in her gut. There was no way she'd be able to jump to the other side. She considered trying to swim across the void pool but there was still no way she'd be able to make it up the outcrop. Just as she was about to turn back, an idea struck her.
She reached for that tugging sensation in her gut with her mind and tugged back at it. The void in front of her rippled, confirming her theory. She stood at the edge of the pool and focused on getting the void to help her across. Taking a step forward, she landed on a solid mass. The void had surged up, creating a ramp across. She could almost make out tentacles in the mass.
She didn't take any time to examine it further though as she wanted to see what was on the other side. With her newfound ability, it took her no time to traverse the rest of the tunnel. At the end was a semi-large cavern. On one side was an area about the size of a soccer field (how big was that again?). Most of it was taken up by more of those round rocks, but some places were flat enough to stand on. In the other half was a wide pool of void. And right in the center of it all was a pile of broken rock, piled on what seemed to be the remains of some kind of structure. Something about it felt familiar but she couldn't recall anything off the top of her head.
She had barely gotten to take in her surroundings before she was mobbed by a sea of whispy black forms.
She hissed out of fright (that was new (was it?)) and tried to back away only to feel her back hit the wall. She vaguely remembered the shades dealing damage when you came into contact with them in the game. Had they been actually hostile though? She was unsure of what to do. Should she run, try to talk to them?
Her frantic thoughts were cut off by something she couldn't describe. Like someone was talking right into her mind, but with more feelings and ideas than words.
[Curious Query (sibling-born-new?)]
One shade moved closer than the rest, staring at her with wide, inquisitive eyes. She cautiously reached out a hand to it, to which the shade drifted forward. It reached out a limb(?) to meet her hand. It felt odd, like a blanket made out of swirling mist. At the same time it almost felt like it had a smothering, yet comfortable, weight to it.
[Curious Question (sibling-born-new?)]
They were barely comprehensible as sentences, yet she found she was able to understand them with relative clarity. They wanted to know if she was their sibling, and if she'd just been born. She tried to respond but found herself unable to speak.
Oh gods, right. The Pale King made us without mouths. I'm really starting to understand the horror of that one book (or was it a video game?(both(the artstyle is so cool))) on a deeper level. Hmm... Hey! can you hear me?
The shades gave no indication that her words had been heard. She could hear (in her brain?) whispers among the group in front of her. Maybe she had to tap into whatever thing was going on between them. She concentrated on imagining her mind as a bubble, and the shades' minds as lots of bubbles, all connected. Her bubble stretched out until it touched the shade in front of her's. Its eyes widened (Yes!) and she could hear what it and the other shades were thinking more clearly now. She tried reaching out in the same emotion-thoughts that the shades used.
[Unsure Whisper (am-new-just-born) (sibling?)]
The shades surged forward, making her heart skip a beat. She was overwhelmed with thousands of jumbled thoughts all directed at her. There were so many all at once that she could barely make out any one thought. Though one seemed to be being echoed throughout the whole group:
[Elated Exclamation (just-born-sibling-hello!)]
Surrounded by hundreds of shades, all excited to meet their new sibling, she couldn't help but feel a warmth surge in her chest. She felt right at home.