Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A wingmould watches passively as the pale king storms into the hidden back entrance to the white palace that the great knights have affectionately named ‘the path of pain’. Clearly, the noble bugs were crowding the front door again; nothing new. Say what you will, but the path was very effective at keeping nosy bugs out of the palace.

The creature’s lazy hovering slowly pivoted to look at the small figure toddling behind the pale king. That was new. What the hell even was that?

The pure vessel stared right back at the wingsmould.

“Vessel,” spoke the pale king, glancing back and forth between the path and the literal newly hatched almost-bug who could barely walk in a straight line. This seemed to be a slight logistical issue.

The king inspected the vessel carefully. It… didn’t appear to have wings. That ruled out flying straight to the top, then. Nor claws for wall clinging. Or… well. Anything. Hmm. Tricky.

“Right then. I present unto you my personal nail. Carry it proudly,” said the king. It was more of a trinket sort of thing that the wyrm had honestly forgotten he’d been carrying around, rather than an actual useful weapon. He favoured soul spells anyway— doesn’t matter. Hopefully the nailsmith apprentice wouldn’t be too upset with him handing it off.

The vessel staggered under the weight of the nail, which quite frankly was much longer than the vessel was tall. With a slow, almost painful certainty, the tip of the nail gradually teetered down as the creature’s limbs shook with the exertion. With a soft clink the tip of the nail hit the ground. The vessel looked back up at the king with empty eyes.

There goes the nail bounce idea. Unless..?

Apologising mentally to the nailsmith even more, the king took back the nail and began using blades of soul to shave great ribbons of metal right off its surface, reducing its size and weight. The awful screeching echoed loudly as the first wingsmould continued to stare unabashedly.

This, honestly, was turning into much more of a hassle than just going through the front gate would’ve been. But the pale king had honestly forgotten how difficult the path was, given the whole... indestructibility thing. Plus, the ability to fly freely made the path a breeze; the walls and platforms and wingsmoulds and things were really only there just in case the knights wanted to use the path themselves.

Oh, speaking of, there was a distant sound of clanking metal. One of the knights must be approaching now.

With a little flourish, Isma landed in front of her king. The two bowed lightly to one another.

“My king, you have returned so— CAREFUL, DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

The king whipped around just in time to see his pure vessel startle, right where it was about to touch a buzzsaw with an extended hand. How odd, he hadn’t commanded it to investigate the— OH SHIT. THE SAWS.

Aghast, Isma and the pale king could only watch as the vessel flinched back away from the buzzsaw at the loud noise, tripped over a shard of metal on the ground and toppled forward, face first... right onto the saw. With a shearing sound, the vessel exploded into a shower of void sparkles.

The two stared in horror at the mask on the ground, cleanly shorn in two right down the middle. Vaguely, the pale king could feel the presence of the vessel’s spirit, hovering invisibly above its mask. Or perhaps he was imagining it.

“Was… was that the pure vessel..?” asked Isma.

The pale king couldn’t find it in himself to say anything. Literal months of effort, gone just like that. The wingsmould too, didn’t speak. Probably because of shock.

It later occurred to the king that there were more vessels probably still trying to make the climb back in the abyss. Sheepishly, he returned to the entrance that he’d sealed before with the King’s brand. He winced at the phrasing he’d carved into the tablet; ‘we shall enter that place no longer’. Well, how could he have known? His foresight was for long term planning; how could he have known that the path was too much for his perfect vessel?

“My lord,” muttered Isma, “children shouldn’t be anywhere near... buzzsaws. Why did you not just carry it up in your forelimbs?”

That… was a good idea.

“I have my reasons,” muttered the king. There were reasons he couldn’t have done that, yes. Did he know those reasons? Left intentionally ambiguous.

This door was taking quite a while. Maybe he sealed it too tightly.

The two stood there awkwardly as the door finally melted away to reveal...

Ah.

A good five vessels looked up at him from where they’d been sitting patiently right behind the door. Well. That complicated things.

Isma watched in horror as off in the distance, another vessel tried to make the final jump onto the ledge and whiffed it completely, plummeting silently.

“Don’t worry, they’re not really alive in the usual sense.”

“They really look like children though,” murmured Isma, limbs twitching at her sides.

The pale king looked grimly over at the abyss. “This infection… it’s too much. No cost is too great. We do what we must, and so will they.”

He paused.

“Some backups probably wouldn’t hurt.”

Together, the knight and the king scooped up as many vessels as they could and turned to begin the journey back to the palace. The two vessels in tucked under the king’s arms were quite content to hang perfectly still, while Isma’s two wriggled fiercely, trying to approach the light, via climbing Isma herself. The fifth one toddled behind the king determinedly.

They hadn’t even made it to the second tunnel when there was a loud crack from behind them. All four vessels twisted around to look, forcing the king and knight to look as well.

Casually as you’d like, an abyss crawler scuttled along as if it hadn’t just ploughed straight through a vessel, killing it instantly. A mask laid on the floor conspicuously.

Isma was having an awful day.

Oh well. They carried on. This is why they had the backups, after all.

The vessels being carried like luggage continued to stare back at their fallen sibling. Or perhaps, more accurately, at the space above it.

Chapter Text

“My lord, why are we back in the path of— the normal path. The really normal one. The dangerous one.”

The pale king sighed. It appeared that force of habit had lead him back to the rear entrance again, instead of going for the front door as agreed. He really needed to get his head in the game.

For instance, he was now hallucinating that the vessel that had cracked in two earlier was ambling towards him.

The sound of Isma’s gasp, beside him, alerted him to the fact that no, he wasn’t hallucinating. What in the world—

“Oh, I see now,” muttered the king, guessing wildly. “The vessels must have an instinctive ability to teleport when harmed. Ingenious.”

Nice one, pale king.

Isma glanced at him with concern. “But… we saw the mask?”

“A mask is just a mask, my knight. There was no body, was there?”

“I suppose…”

The first vessel stared up at the two non-vessels, its mask showing no signs of having been violently cut in half mere hours ago. Puzzling, but ultimately not important. A bit of a shame that they’d gone all the way back for spares since the original was clearly just fine.

The pale king looked down at the vessels tucked under his arms. Hm. He might have to name them at some point. Keeping them separate was going to become confusing.

“Well, to the front gate then. Isma, go forth and clear the way, if those damnable nobles are still there. The vessels can walk from here.”

Tenderly, Isma set down the two vessels she was holding and bowed, leaving to go follow her orders. One of the vessels, with three horns at odd angles, began to toddle after her, following her outside. Isma didn’t seem to notice as she strode out.

The pale king sighed and ignored it. If it wasn’t following him, that probably meant that it wasn’t really pure. Another dud. Perhaps Isma could keep it as a pet, or something. He supposed that if you got past the creepy silent staring they could be considered cute.

The door to the path of pain creaked open, and a vessel slipped inside, toddling straight towards the king. Ah. The Isma's vessel must have--

...This wasn’t the three horned one following Isma. This was the one that had been hit by the Abyss crawler earlier. Right. Of course, they could teleport upon taking damage.

It had made its way up all by itself? Quite impressive, considering the lack of mobility they seemed to have. Perhaps this was the purest one?

Shaking his head, the king put the thought aside. He could test them more rigorously later. There was still plenty of time before they were projected to grow to their full potential. Maybe once they stopped teleporting away with every hit. With a sigh, he began to lead the vessels into the castle. He was definitely going to need more beds once they all grew up.

There were supposed to be 6 vessels.

It was the following day, and he was introducing the vessels to his most trusted knights. His idea had been simple; he had five knights, and there were six. He’d take one to train for himself, the original one, and each of the knights would take one each as an apprentice. The tiny crowd of vessels had obediently toddled over to their assigned guardian one by one, with the first to ascend standing diligently by the king’s side.

The problem was that there appeared to be two left over. That made… eight vessels. And not a single pair of them shared the same horn pattern. He didn't remember which ones he had yesterday, and the vessels also seemed to have no idea what he was talking about.

So they had clearly multiplied in some way. Problematic, to say the least. He only had five knights.

“Does anyone want to volunteer to take a second apprentice…?” he asked, weakly.

Luckily, both Ogrim and Isma were enthusiastic about taking on a second, with both Dryya and Ze’mer also expressing an interest in training a set. Hegemol had spaced out again, for whatever reason. His hands were twitching as he stared intently into space. Hopefully nothing to worry about.

The door creaked open, and a ninth vessel wandered in, much to the glee of Isma.

A feeling of dread washed over the pale king.

He’d forgotten to close the abyss yesterday.

*

By the time he reached the entrance to the abyss again, a crowd of about fifty vessels had formed, all scrabbling at the first wall jumps to get out of the entrance tunnel and clambering over each other. It was at this point that the idea of actually naming these vessels properly died a solemn death, and the idea of just painting numbers onto their masks was born in its place.

This was getting ridiculous. He absolutely did not need this many spare vessels.

He didn’t understand why so many were successfully making the climb. He’d intentionally made it difficult, most of them should’ve failed. And he’d watched them fail, toppling over the edges of the platforms on their way up, the lower floor of the abyss already littered with broken masks long before he’d even commanded the vessels to climb to the top.

Wading through the crowd of vessels swarming him (he really should’ve made his bug form taller, damn it), he pushed his way to the edge of the abyss and stared down into the darkness.

Ah. Oh dear.

The amount of broken masks had decreased. And some of them were getting back up again. It wasn't teleportation at all.

The ‘survival of the fittest approach’ doesn’t really work when all of the subjects are apparently immortals. A million eggs had definitely been overkill.

The pale king ran a hand down his mask. Oh dear. A million vessels.

Genuinely, he had no idea what he was supposed to do about this. The palace simply wasn’t big enough to hold all of them. And he didn’t really want to start casting the ones who’d successfully made the climb back down into the bottom. They’d worked hard for it, after all. It seemed unjust.

They weren’t supposed to be immortal.

...was that one down there nail bouncing off its sibling's heads? Where’d it even get a nail? Oh, nevermind; it was just a bit of broken mask. Not disgusting at all.

With a sigh, the king released the compulsion that made all the vessels try to approach him; the compulsion to climb and seek the light. Maybe this would work to make them stop crowding upwards.

In the distance far below, he could see that some of the vessels down at the bottom simply laid down and went still. Ominous, but probably okay? The crowd of vessels bumping him began to thin as some of them began to try and climb back down, to reunite with the void, or something. Who knows how that void stuff works, honestly. Being a god of knowledge only tells you so much. But on the bright side, it did seem to be working.

After about an hour of standing still, it became clear that the seventeen remaining vessels up here with him had absolutely no interest in heading back down and were staring at him blankly. He shifted to the side slightly, and all those empty eyes tracked the movement. Creepy.

He spread his wings and began flying back to the palace. Let’s see how many made it out of this tunnel. Hopefully none.

And in doing so, he entirely forgot to seal off the abyss. Again.

All 17 vessels made it out of the entrance chamber. Plus three extra ones which came along later. This was getting out of hand.

Chapter Text

“Pale one, what in the world do you call this?” Shouted Herrah, holding her daughter at arms length above her head. The wriggling thing squealed with delight as it tried to escape her mother’s grasp, to join the throng of squirming vessels crowding Herrah’s feet. “What happened to ‘one pure vessel’?? Get them off me-- why are they so cold!”

“Oh, feel free to kick them away or whatever,” muttered the pale king, distracted by trying to hold away one particularly mischievous vessel from snatching his set of hallownest seals right off the table, while he was trying to sign a treaty. Absolutely no manners, none of them. “They’re apparently immortal. They can take it.”

Standing against the back wall, a pair of devout stalkers exchanged a wary glance with Ogrim.

“They don’t feel pain?” muttered Herrah, kicking one straight through a window with a crash. In her mother’s arms, the gendered sibling laughed in delight as the vessel sailed away emotionlessly. They were sturdier now, which the pale king had initally wanted after seeing so many just explode into void particles, but hadn’t really thought would lead to all the chaos that now embroiled his palace.

“Eh. Not really sure,” muttered the king. “No voice to cry suffering, and all that. Will you actually stop that? Please?” he demanded the vessel.

The vessel stared for a moment with huge, dark eyes, and then tried to jump onto the table again.

“They AREN’T TOYS. Leave them alone.”

Herrah was having a similar experience. “Is this a bad time? In general?” asked Herrah. “Daughter, stop moving!! I can see she gets it from you.”

“Wow, okay. When she throws a needle into a tiktik she’s your daughter, but when she pulls your dinner off the table? I see how it is.”

Over in the corner, with tens of vessels draped over her, was the pale queen, the white lady. “My love, be not so serious. The daughter is the best of you both.”

Both Herrah and the pale king glanced flatly at Hornet, and then back at the queen. For some reason, that felt like less of a compliment, and more backhanded; like an insult. But the queen wouldn’t do that, right...?

At last the king gave up and just handed the vessel a single hallownest seal to get it to stop, and it wandered off happily to sit on the roots of the pale queen. Ignoring the pleading stares of the vessels, the king quickly finished signing the treaty (really hope there wasn’t anything sneaky in there) and stood up, handing it back to Herrah’s lower set of arms.

“If that is all, you may go now if you wish. Or perhaps my daughter would like to spend some more time with her—”

They’re not children. Not her siblings. Don't forget.

“…with. The vessels.”

Herrah gave him an odd look.

“You can say siblings, you know. It won’t offend me.”

“They’re not siblings. The vessels aren’t alive. Not truly.”

The pale king said all this while keeping two arms on two separate vessels, stopping them from gnawing on his robe. It kind of detracted from the whole serious and solemn atmosphere he was angling for.

“Regardless, the—” a vessel sprinted into the room, holding a stuffed tiktik above its head as it ran from a small throng of other vessels. The pale king’s thought process stuttered. For a brief moment he found it cute before he remembered he didn’t give the vessels any toys and that there shouldn’t actually be any in the palace. What on earth--“HEY, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT. PUT IT DOWN.”

The running group froze guiltily.

“Put it down. Now. Don’t you dare..!”

The whole group of vessels, as one, slowly pointed at a window with blank expressions. Much to the pale king’s shame, he actually glanced at the direction pointed (why was that window broken?) and the vessels took that opportunity to run off.

“They’re very obviously children, are they not?” said Herrah. "Just look at them."

“They’re not. They’re just… pretending.”

They both watched as another vessel which had been pacing out a small circle for the last five minutes fell over and bonked its head. It started shivering (with clear emotion) and immediately ran straight to the pale queen, who started cooing over it.

“Well then. If they’re pretending to be children. Then pretend to love them,” sneered the Queen of Deepnest. “Seems straightforward to me.”

“It’s not.”

“You cannot expect them to develop normally if you’re so cruel.”

“You threaten to eat your daughter every day, don't talk to me of cruelty.”

“You will never understand our ways,” chuckled Herrah, glancing up at her empty hands. Why was she holding her hands in the air again? Oh right. The Daughter.

The daughter. Who very distinctly was not in her hands. Damn it.

In the distance, there was a squeal of delight, followed by the echo of a retainer screeching ‘WHERE DID YOU GET THAT??’. Followed by the thundering of tiny footsteps as a stampede of vessels ran past the open doorway, led by Hornet.

The vessel that had been kicked out the window earlier came flying back through (did someone kick it from the other side?) landing right in front of the king and Herrah. It immediately started headbutting Herrah’s lower legs repeatedly. Bonk. Bonk. Bonk.

“I think I’m going to go now.”

“Yes, do that.”

When the mantis delegation arrived the following week and saw the sheer exhaustion of the pale king, they quite gleefully handed over the six vessels they’d caught meandering about in their territory, dumping the sack onto the ground in front of the king. The sack wriggled.

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep them…?” the king asked, pitifully.

The mantises laughed in his face, and returned home. Which, as it turns out, was where some vessels which actually behaved well and liked fighting still remained.

Of course, the pale king had been given the troublemakers only.

Chapter Text

On the bright side, the economy was stimulated by the need for a second white palace (the expansion of the existing palace was deemed 'not enough'). On the downside, the treasury was really feeling the cost. At least the vessels didn’t need to eat in the traditional sense.

Actually, they were mysterious for a multitude of reasons. The king had managed to figure out that they consumed soul (his personal hotspring was now dry, and the totems in the palace were almost always dead these days). Sometimes, ones that died didn’t come back, and yet some others refused to stay away. Some had apparently gone out exploring Hallownest proper and came back with a lovely variety of stolen items which had to be painstakingly returned.

And one of them had become a miner? In the crystal peaks? To each their own, he supposed.

So yes. At this point it was fairly clear that they did in fact have distinct personalities. Even the ones that Hegemol had somehow turned into an elite platoon of mini knights, waving around little sticks in sync and only dropping them sometimes. Them too. Maybe someone should look into that actually.

At first the citizenry was overjoyed to learn of the new heirs running around. Within weeks, when they couldn’t stop tripping over them, they got very, very tired of them. Shops selling secure lockboxes and door locks began making a killing, as the vessels didn’t seem to understand the concept of personal property. It was not uncommon for a vessel to 'gift' you 'just what you needed'. Except that in this case, 'what you needed' was your own damn belongings back.

The pale king’s desk had basically nothing on it now, except for quills and ink. The vessels weren't content just robbing all the trinkets and charms he’d accumulated in his whole reign; the little rascals had taken even the paper. For unknown reasons.

The Colosseum of Fools (which the pale king definitely didn’t know about at all, of course not, it’s super illegal) now had a whole separate trial called the Trial of the Horde. In which they just put you up against waves of vessels until the vessels themselves felt sorry for you and stopping hitting your curled up body with their tiny sticks. It was hard to say if this trial was more or less popular with the audience than the other, more structured challenges.

In an almost hypnotic way, the king watched as the most stubborn vessel he’d ever seen attempted his path of pain once again, using nothing more than nail bouncing and wall kicks. It was getting fairly far, to its credit. Very odd to see it wander in from outside and start attacking the thin air above its own corpse, though. The king could sense something void related was going on, but it wasn’t terribly clear what.

Even watching this singular idiot throw itself to its death over and over wasn’t enough to clear the king’s bleak mood.

Basically, the hollow knight plan had completely fallen through.

It was now blatantly clear that the vessels were not, in fact, empty, despite him designing them specifically to be that. The temple of the black egg had to be scrapped too, which was a shame, because he’d put a lot of effort into its design.

Worse still was that he now had absolutely no plan to deal with the Radiance.

His current attitude to the issue was more or less to just see what happens. Both Lurien and Monomon were busy trying to come up with alternative plans to try, possibly involving splitting the Radiance up and into multiple vessels. But how would they even begin to do that? The Radiance isn't going to just sit there and take it. It was a bad situation all around.

Plus, there was the noise.

One of the vessels had somehow learnt how to cast a spell, who knows where it'd found someone to teach it. And not just any spell. Soul shriek. Incredibly noisy and loud, and had startled the hell out of him the first time he’d heard it.

Perhaps not giving them voices to cry out was a mistake, because now they had found a different way to do so. Within days, every single vessel knew how to do a soul shriek as they taught it to one another. One vessel in particular did nothing but sit in a hot spring down in Deepnest and shriek over and over until somebody came along and killed it. Then it would come back and just start over. The pale king was very glad he didn’t live near the east border of Deepnest right now.

Sitting alone in the path of pain was basically the only way to get any peace and quiet these days. If you don’t count the buzzsaws. Which, personally, the king doesn’t.

The vessel smacked into a wingsmould and tumbled down, dashing through the air sideways to avoid a buzzsaw. That was new.

It hit the ground, and instead of trying the course again, it began dashing around on the floor. Of course.

The king knew that within a week, every single vessel would be dashing around and smashing furniture. Didn’t even need his foresight to confirm it.

The door creaked open, and the noise of soul shrieks outside spiked as Lurien the Watcher poked his head in.

“Is… is this a bad time?”

“Hello Lurien. Come sit with me. And close the door.”

Lurien closed the door behind him, suddenly blinking at the quietness.

“So. The Infection,” said Lurien, sitting down quietly beside the king.

The king grunted, staring at the vessel dashing around and hopping with glee.

Oh, to hell with it. Not just a vessel. His child.

“I’ve been monitoring cases, and they seem to have tapered off, recently.”

The king sighed. Previous times, when they thought it’d been fading away, it’d turned out to be the Radiance saving up energy to try and infect a being of greater will. The unexpected turning of Xero mid-meeting still haunted his thoughts. If the knights had been any slower...

“Shall I send out the order to brace for a stronger assault, then...?”

Lurien hummed. “The cases appear to not follow previous patterns, or so Monomon tells me. It may be that the vessels have done something, or that she’s turning her attention onto them.”

The king gloomily stared forward. The vessels were purposefully designed to hold her, but only after a specific ritual. He had no idea what would happen if she got her hands on thousands of immortal, troublemaking beings. It could be the end of hallownest. And there really wasn’t anything he could do about it, either.

“Oddly, the infection is actually… withdrawing from some of those already infected. The recently infected, that is. Those who have been found weeks too late are still… shambling.”

The king straightened up. “The infection.. receded? That has not happened before.”

“We shall just have to see how the situation develops,” replied the Watcher, as if that wasn't his reply for basically any situation to ever occur.

Together, they sat quietly, as the vessel, armed with its new move, attempted the path again.

The seer searched through her tent, high up in the resting grounds.

She could’ve sworn she’d put the dream nail here somewhere.

The pale king was very displeased to see a vessel toddling around with what appeared to be the damn Grimmchild in tow. Despite the pleading looks of the vessel, the pale king stomped up, ripped the charm right of its cloak, and crushed it under his foot. His kingdom is not dying today, thank you very much. The whole point is that it's meant to be eternal.

How the hell did the child even get the charm? The Grimm troupe wasn’t even here. And such a fully grown Grimmchild, too…

Much later, a hand made of pure shadow reached out from a wall and handed the fully repaired charm back to the vessel, who hopped around in excitement as it hugged the life out of the squawking Grimmchild.

One day, all the vessels suddenly vanished without warning. Nobody properly noticed at first, simply too relieved by the peace and quiet, and mentally apologising to their neighbours for whatever was undoubtedly happening to them instead. It was only after a couple of hours had passed when Hallownest as a whole realised that not a single vessel was to be found, anywhere.

Hornet was understandably upset, and spent the rest of the day curled up in her mother’s arms.

The king sat in his (first) palace. And he worried.

And quietly, the orange glow in the infected began to fade.

The Radiance was having a very bad day in the dream realm.

Millions of vessels and shades swarmed the platforms, continuously coming back and smacking the radiance as hard as they could, with even just their bare hands. The moth goddess shrieked as she blasted away huge swathes of them with sweeping, grand attacks.

She’d been doing this for literally fucking hours.

“STOP IT!! GET OFF ME YOU FOUL THINGS!”

She kept being bombarded by thousands of spells. Despite being at the literal peak of her power, having withdrawn all of her strength that she possibly could, stopping the infection entirely to try and conserve energy...

It wasn’t working. She was getting tired. These vessels… most of them didn’t even have nails. Some of them were drawing soul just from grubsong, or from smacking other vessels. And they just kept coming back.

It was… ridiculous.

With a final cry, the Radiance gave up and dispersed, scattering herself into essence, casting herself across dream realm. She’d just regroup somewhere else. Hover somewhere that those damn platforms wouldn’t reach. Everything would be fine. She wouldn’t be forgotten. Never.

She reformed somewhere on the vast edges of the dream realm, at the border between Dream and Nightmare. She took a moment to catch her breath.

Oh. That was the Nightmare Heart’s host. Grimm, she thought he was called.

(Really, it shouldn't have been so hard to remember. All of the hosts are named Grimm. That's how it works.)

“Hello, dear sister. I hear you’ve been causing… problems," crooned the Nightmare King.

The Radiance scoffed. First of all, she wasn’t the sister of some… mortal. The audacity to stretch the definition of the nightmare heart to that extent… honestly. And second of all, why should Grimm care? Fallen kingdoms are his bread and butter. Really, she was helping him.

She told him as much.

“Hmm, yes, I suppose, but I’m not here for personal reasons, really. I’m more… repaying a favour.”

From behind Grimm, stepped a vessel, wielding a pure nail. The radiance, along with the whole of Hallownest, had stopped looking for identifying features on the vessels long ago. But this one… felt different. Felt darker.

“Who is that?” asked the Radiance.

“Why, my dear sister, you didn’t think all those vessels learnt their little revival trick all by themselves, did you? Someone had to figure it out first.”

The radiance peered into the void in the vessel’s eyes. And the Lord of Shades stared back.

“NO--!”

The darkness lunged.

“So the infection’s stopped,” said Monomon, to the pale king.

The pale king just groaned from where he was lying on his wife’s roots.

“I’m so sorry, madame,” said the queen. “The little ones learnt ‘desolate dive’ today. This palace has a lot of balconies, too.”

“Ah. I see.”