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Ghost wasn't sure what had drawn it back to the Blue Lake.
A desire for a moment's respite, maybe? To let themself sit at the shore, allow themself to be lost in the faint blue glow and the waves lapping at their paws? To be given a chance to simply forget what fate awaited it in that temple, if only for a short while?
They had broken all the seals. Killed its half-sister's mother, had killed its… well, had killed Monomon, whatever she was to Quirrel, ( and whatever he was to it.)
Ghost had killed Lurien, too, of course, but that held only the distant ache of having had to kill an innocent. They hadn't met anyone who considered Lurien dear to them—not anyone who hadn't lost their minds to Infection, at least.
But, regardless of the reasons why and the actions leading to it, Ghost had felt called to the Blue Lake all the same.
Only for a few moments, they had told themself, plucking lightly at that void-thread in the back of their mind that connected them to their siblings. To the sibling—the Hollow Knight, their egg-mate, their twin—that had finally broken under the weight of a millennium of nothing but torture and called out, begging for an end. Only for a few moments on the way to the temple.
Seeing the figure already sitting at the shore, staring out at the water with no sign he was paying any attention at all to his surroundings, Ghost reassessed how long it would be here, and hoped its twin could hang on a little longer.
It would not leave without a final goodbye to Quirrel.
Stepping forward—purposefully letting their paws hit the sand harder than they would otherwise, shifting their arm so as to rufffle their cloak-fronds no matter how their instincts screamed at them that they were meant to be silent, because Quirrel looked lost in his thoughts and they would not startle him, not now—they tilted their head in greeting once Quirrel glanced at them.
"Again we meet, my short friend." He held their gaze a moment longer, then turned back to the lake. "Here at last, I feel at peace."
Folding its legs under itself, Ghost sat beside him. There was a weight to his words, an ages-long exhaustion buried behind a voice that suggested, behind his mask, a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
Ghost had no voice, least of all one to cry out their suffering. They didn't know what they would sound like if they did. But that? That core-deep exhaustion? That they were intimately familiar with. They had heard it, even if from their mind and body and not their own voice, screaming it at them from practically the moment they hatched, after all.
"Twice I've seen this world, and though my service may have stripped the first experience from me, I'm thankful I could witness its beauty again."
Could, Ghost noted, Quirrel had said that he could witness it again, and not that he can witness it again. A slip into past-tense, in a sentence like that, held meaning.
Or maybe it was overthinking things, as it so often did. One didn't survive nearly a thousand years alone without picking up the small details, the subtext in others' words and body language, but that meant just as often picking up things where there was nothing. They were torn from their slow spiraling as he turned back to them—
"Hallownest is a vast and wondrous thing, but with as many wonders as it holds, I've seen none quite so intriguing as you."
Freezing for half a moment at that, Ghost felt as though their heart (or whatever Void-born mimicry of a bug's anatomy they had in place of one,) skipped a beat. It quickly shoved those feelings back down. Pointless, pointless, no chance to ever act on them, no point in feeling them.
(It wanted, so very deeply, to act on them. To know if Quirrel wanted the same.)
(…It wanted Quirrel. Fate's noose, tightening around their neck with every step they took closer to that temple, cared not for what they wanted.)
"Ha. My flattery returns only silent stoicism. I like that."
Quirrel turned back to the lake.
"…I like that very much."
A moment passed, and Ghost thought him done speaking, until he whispered, barely-audible, "…Incredible…"
He was lost in thought again, staring out at the water as though it was calling to him, a siren-song leading him into the depths.
It knew that might as well be the case.
Over their thousand-ish years of life, Ghost had hardly ever grown close to anyone. It was hard to—constantly traveling, knowing that most anyone they could come to care for would only live for a fraction of their own lifetime.
Not to even mention what they were. Regardless of if anyone could pin down their exact species or not, (and it was almost always not,) it didn't take a very keen eye to notice they weren't a bug in any way—and hardly counted as plant-kin, although that came up far less often. In many kingdoms it'd been to, that led to it being seen as an oddity at best, and a hatchling-eating demon at worst.
Still—they'd had a few traveling partners, and fewer friends. Often bugs too lost, too hurt, (physically or emotionally,) to care what the creature offering a helping hand, an extra nail, a companion, was.
Bugs hurt like that? Quirrel wasn't the first it'd seen stare out over a precipice like this. Wasn't the first they'd heard speak to them with this quiet, bittersweet sense of finality.
That experience told Ghost that it would never see Quirrel again when it left. It knew that. They would lose him to this lake. He would take that dive and would never—could never—return.
Never before had they wished so deeply to have a voice to cry out with. To sob and scream and beg him not to leave. To stay with them.
(A different part of it, that part of it that was a Pale, ancient, covetous thing, wanted to drag him away and keep him safe regardless of his own thoughts on the matter. That part screamed that It was something Higher, was a God; It had claimed this land, Its birthright, for Its own, burned the mark of King upon Its shell. Who was he to deny Its will when It knew best? When It wanted him safe?)
(They had long since learned to ignore those instincts, to shove them into a deep, hidden part of their mind to be forgotten.)
Ghost would not stop him. Would not try to change his mind. To do so would be nothing short of hypocritical, (and it refused to take after its sire in that way, would not follow in the footsteps of the one who was fully willing to sacrifice millions of His own children to the void but abandoned His kingdom the moment He might have been the one at risk.) It would not stop him when it knew a similar fate was its own best-case scenario.
Truly, they should leave now. Let Quirrel have his peace, his long-earned rest.
…Selfish. Staying here, now, was selfish. Denying him an end, (or forcing him to drown himself in front of them, something they were quite sure he had no intention of doing, and were in no way sure at all they would be able to prevent themself from stopping if he did decide to do it,) was unbelievably selfish.
…It was a Pale Being, through and through. Selfishness stained Ghost's blood just as thoroughly as the Void they'd been hatched in. Let no one say they had ever claimed otherwise.
Ghost was selfish. They were selfish—and covetous, no matter how they forced that side of them down, down, down where it was little more than a whisper. A coward, perhaps, if one saw them sitting here as a way to postpone meeting their own fate. But it would not let itself be a hypocrite.
It would not stop Quirrel, no. Would not try and find some way to make him change his mind.
But they were selfish, and they wanted, so very badly.
With a shaky breath, Ghost let its head fall against Quirrel's shoulder. He jumped, slightly, startled out of whatever thoughts he'd been lost in, whatever honey-sweet promises the lake was giving to him. Then, slowly, wrapped his arm around them.
They would indulge themself. For just a few moments longer, they would indulge themself. It would prolong this final memory. Would let itself think of the what-ifs.
Sometimes, Ghost wished they had inherited more Foresight than the barely-there, uncontrolled scraps they had. Wished they could look and See if there was a timeline out there where this wasn't a final memory. Where the two of them didn't have twin blades above them, just waiting to fall. (Where the feelings weren't pointless because there was a chance to act.)
What Ghost wanted had never mattered. It wouldn't start mattering now.
A half-hour. It would give itself a half-hour of indulgence, and then it would leave. They would leave and grant both Quirrel and their twin the ends that they had earned many times over.
(Maybe Ghost would be granted an end, too, though they knew better than to hope.)
That soul-deep exhaustion, its most loyal companion, made itself very, very known. It wanted so badly to sleep. (Ghost would not let themself sleep, would not waste any of their precious little time left unconscious.)
They didn't sleep.
…
It had surely been half an hour by now, they knew, but it took a few minutes more to leave that dazed, half-present state they'd found themself in.
Pressing, ever so slightly, further against Quirrel, and then standing. Taking a few steps away, then turning back and lingering.
He was looking at them the same was they were him. Disoriented, still halfway lost in his own mind. Not quite processing the permanence of both their actions. None of this feeling at all real, yet.
Good.
If it did, if they gave themself time to process all of it, they might break and not be able to put themself back together.
Ghost turned around and left.