Archive of Our Own

They’re not quite sure what to do with themselves.

Ascending to Godhood was quite the high. One they’ll likely never reach again, though one they don’t entirely remember the event. The clearest part of the end of Godhome was waking up in the pit next to a quivering Godseeker with a newfound sense of power within them. They left quickly because the experience had unsettled them. Never had they forgotten a dream, and never had their body been annihilated like it had in that one. They were just grateful that it had remained intact in the waking world.

Wandering back up, the halls of Hallownest were at last empty and still. But even if they weren’t, the thrill of battle is gone. The typical mortal bug is no longer a match for them, and the local higher beings are not of a fighting persuasion. They could try to spar with their sister, but she’s busy.

The Hollow Knight lives. They are not good at living. She is set on fixing that.

The first major hurdle is communication. Lack of facial expression with Vessels made typical clawspeech nearly impossible. So much of tone is dependent on body language and expression and the clicking of mouthparts. With how little Vessels emote, either from preference or simple inability, speaking with the language was more than frustrating. This could have been endured if the Hollow Knight were able to use both hands and had a mouth at all, as being without tone is not necessarily a complete roadblock. Evidently, that is not an option. Too much struggle in such a fragile time. Too much modification needed and no support to help.

Instead, Hornet decides to teach them to write. She begins with silk parchment for the skill required to properly carve stone tablets seems beyond their capability. Years inactive and unlearned in more delicate pursuits gave them a few issues with picking up the quill. 

The Knight had dropped in during one of these lessons, having just returned from bringing Ogrim to meet with Mato. After witnessing Sheo and the nailsmith get along so well, they had hoped the two jovial warriors would be a good match. In the meantime, they wanted to give the two of them their space and see how their siblings were doing.

The Hollow Knight froze at their entry. They always do that, and they’re not quite sure why. They just go still and stare. Maybe it’s the fact they’ve never been around another Vessel before. Or the dropping them from the platform as grubs, even though they don’t care about that anymore. Maybe it’s the vague ‘resemblance’ they have to the former King. Personally, they do not see it, but then again, they were never close to him, either. To them, the reason doesn’t matter too much. They unnerve their sibling and that’s that.

“Back from another adventure, little Ghost?” Hornet subtly greets.

They nod. She pats a spot next to her at the table.

“I know you can draw and read, but do you know how to write?”

They didn’t. Mapping, sure. Faint, simplified forms of structures to serve as a way point. Reading signs and tablets and inscriptions, fine. But actually forming the characters? The strokes required? The Knight did not and until this moment had felt little need to. They got around well enough with looks and the occasional gesture. They shake their head.

“Come on then. I will teach you both.”

The Knight attempts to sit, but finds they are too short to reach the table, only their horns being visible across the top. Hornet huffs and lifts them into her lap, but even that is not enough. Their head cleared it now, but their arms remained too short to properly write.

She hums unhappily before turning to their sibling. “Knight, might you be willing to hold them? Little Ghost is… little.”

They could sit on the table, but they have a feeling she wouldn’t like that. The Hollow Knight hesitantly nods.

“Do you really want to, or are you simply obliging me?”

They seem to shrink a bit before eventually reaching across the table to grab them. And by grab them they do truly mean it; the Knight fits in their hand even as it wraps around their small body. They are reminded of the time they were strung up in Deepnest, in how thoroughly and tightly they were held. They were injected with some venom and had some digestive enzyme put in with them, but Vessels are apparently immune to poison and bear shells indigestible. A lucky break, if they’re being honest.

Outside of their musing, they are settled on the Hollow Knight’s pulled up knees. They don’t particularly like the position. God or not, having something much larger than them looming behind, out of sight, is uncomfortable. But if their sibling was going to do anything, they’re sure Hornet would intervene. By the way the Hollow Knight shifts, they’re uncomfortable with the arrangement, too. They can see the tabletop and can reach far enough to write. The proximity may not be comfortable, but it is practical and that is what matters.

“Good. Now, I was going over simple and pertinent characters. I’ll allow you a moment of catch-up, Ghost, and a moment of review, Knight.”

She pushes a new blank paper at them and they pull out their mapping quill. After that, she lifts up her own with various symbols on it. She points to the first one, a swirl with a line poking out of where the swirl begins on the outside. It reminds the Knight of a snail shell stripped of nearly all detail.

They write it; a neat swirl and a pokey-outy bit. Easy. Kind of like drawing.

“This is the character for home. If you wanted to say house instead, you’d place the character within a box. Small modifications like that are what most characters are made of.”

The Knight nods. Seems reasonable enough. They push their paper to her and she hums.

“You have a very firm script, Ghost. Surprisingly legible. How are you doing, Knight?”

The Hollow Knight’s hand trembles. They grip their quill tightly and incorrectly, like a nail rather than a pen. Their character is shaky and smudged in the middle of the swirl. The nubby bit supposed to be at the end is more of a small pool of ink than any real stroke.

Suppose that’s what happens when you’re left hanging for… centuries? However long it’s been. The Knight has no way of knowing.

“Much better,” Hornet says and they shudder to imagine what ‘worse’ would look like. “Shall we continue?”

The lesson goes by in a similar manner. Hornet gives a simple character with a simple definition and has them write it. ‘Home’, ‘go’, ‘me’, ‘you’, ‘sister’, ‘sibling’, ‘where’, ‘what’, ‘why’, small things for conversation. The Knight finds it a little too easy. The Hollow Knight struggles the entire time, however, so they don’t make that known. They just try to keep their script even and clean and commit the characters to memory. Maybe they’ll get a chalkboard and have more in-depth conversations with Lemm. He’d probably be fascinated by their findings throughout Hallownest.

It’s when they finally get to the character for ‘want’ – a thing that sort of looks like an open claw, if one were to tilt their head and squint – that the Hollow Knight throws down their quill and shoves the Knight off their lap before curling in on themself.

“Knight!” Hornet rushes to their side as the Knight pulls themself up. “What happened? You were doing so well.”

She turns to grab their paper.

“See? Compared to when we first started, you’re doing splendidly. We can take a break if you’d prefer, but don’t be discouraged.”

She starts gathering up the materials and sorting them, staring long at the Knight’s set. For lack of anything better to do, they pat their sibling’s leg but all they get is a shudder.

“Little Ghost, can you help me put these away?”

They don’t think she needs the help, but they scoop up the inkwells anyway. She marches the two of them to a small cupboard in the hallway where she quietly places them in.

“I think you upset them,” she murmurs.

They give her an unimpressed look.

“Not intentionally, mind you! But you had a much easier time with it and I believe that made them more volatile than it should have. I think we should have separate lessons from now on, if you’re willing.”

They shrug.

“In the meantime, though, it would be better to give them some space.”

That’s one way to ask them to leave. The Knight promptly crystal dashes out. The door may be broken through, but that’s alright.

They wander about a bit. Leg Eater is dead, so is the Seer… They could try to go see how the Colosseum is doing without infected participants, though they suspect most to have perished alongside the rest of the plagued inhabitants of Hallownest. They could go see Emilitia, but they doubt she’d move from her perch high above the bodies of her fellows. She seemed mad in her own way, unique from the Infection, and long before the City had fallen, too. They were never that fond of her, but they did find her pitiful enough to warrant their occasional visit.

Mother is always an option. She’d likely have much to say about what they’ve become and what they’ve accomplished, but they’re… putting that off, for now. For a little while longer, they’d like to play at being a bug.

Oro’s home is – by law as he unhappily admitted – open to them. But they don’t really want to hang around their father’s corpse more than necessary anymore, especially now that it is unstable. That crosses Bardoon off their list as well, even though he’s one of nicer, more helpful bugs they met.

See me.

The Knight stops in the middle of where they were wandering about the crossroads. That sounded uncomfortably close, but there’s no one around. Just corpses and dust. They don’t particularly like the idea of having something within their mind or shell. There could be someone projecting their thoughts, but they had yet to meet with someone with such an ability. Perhaps it would be better to meet with someone who can see beyond their mask.

Mask Maker it is, then.

Not too far from the stag station there, and certainly not as dangerous a trek with most of the wildlife dead. It is only tedious and cramped and lousy with webs. The Mask Maker, for her part, seems unperturbed by the state of things. As always they destroy her false face and let her say her piece.

“It arrives. Does it strain? It should. The face concealed has changed, but the mask does not. Strange. It is usually the other way around. Such a thing bodes ill.”

The Knight flips over their map and scribbles ‘voice inside me’. The Mask Maker gives it a passing glance before continuing her work.

“Hm? The face within speaks? It had not seemed so separate before. Great change will finally come to pass, it seems, or already has. Though your visage remains hard to parse even for those such as myself, I don’t doubt that it will at last sprout into something new. When it does, seek me out. A face, I shall provide.”

The Knight can’t yet communicate anything more, so they only nod and leave.

A face within, separate now. A great change to pass? The Knight doesn’t want to change much. An eternity spent in this form has left them more than attached to it. The thought of leaving it behind… They have to go meet with their mother. She’ll likely have something to say about it. Maybe a way to help? A way to root it out, to purposefully diminish like the Godseekers had said she did to herself.

Luckily, Deepnest connects to her Gardens. Another long trek is demanded. Hopefully this will be enough time for them to return home and tell their sister of what’s to come. They doubt she can help in any real material way, but they do think she ought to know about their business.

The Gardens are perhaps the place most unchanged about Hallownest, at least the Hallownest from their journey. The small critters that once roamed are back to their beastly state, albeit weak. Seems without the two lights, most bugs are back to what they were or are simply dead. Smaller, simpler lifeforms weathered it well, but those who were expanded or pulled into thrall tend to be very, very dead.

A bit of a shame, but that is life. It does nothing but go on and on and on regardless of the individuals in it.

Realize.

They stop and swivel again. The voice rings out from nowhere and holds no characteristics. Not feminine nor masculine. Not smooth or gravelly. Not deep or shaky or confident or any other thing.

I am right here.

Don’t you see me?

Look in the metal.

It’s me.

It looks into the gates and sees only themself. Whatever it is, it is only a voice, ringing from within, ringing from nowhere.

They make it to the bench in the station there, equip sprint and dashmaster, and keep going. Without any mantises to impede their path, maneuvering through the thorns proves a task much simpler. Silently, they bow to Dryya before entering.

She is as she ever was, still and subdued. Her expression does not change upon their entry.

“It returns. The news it heralds is not shocking, though the method employed is. Dim in my vision and markedly different from what it once was. That piece of me within now suffers, and is silenced. May it be plain: I no longer feel the heated haze of fell plague, and the power within is opposite my own. Why then does it come?”

It stands silent. Her gaze will not see their writings.

“Commentary, perhaps, for the new existence it now bears?”

Faintly, they nod.

“An odd, bisected thing you appear to me as. Before, you were… blended. A stark contrast, but whole. Does it feel fractured? Pained? The squirming thing inside, the thing conceived but not yet born, strains itself. How strange, to see my spawn in such a state. An unliving thing desperate to yet gasp a first breath.”

That makes it feel worse. Much, much worse. They leave before the Lady can continue and take the stag home to Hornet. She won’t be able to help, but she’s steady and reliable and likely has a way to distract them. She sits on the sofa while the Hollow Knight lays flat on the floor for some reason. Considering they have no reaction to their appearance, they’re probably asleep.

“Hello, little Ghost. When I said space, I hadn’t meant disappearance. They feel terribly about hurting you,” she whispers and that only confirms it.

Their sibling is awfully sensitive, then. The Knight has taken worse tumbles, including one altogether more devastating at their sibling’s hands, or rather lack thereof. Had they cracked their mask against the table, they could be a little more upset. But at most it was a brief fall that amounted to nothing. 

They step over their sibling and pull themselves up to sit next to Hornet. They mimic writing and she hums.

“Found something interesting you wish to share?”

They wiggle their claw and she nods before bringing out the paper from the cupboard. The lack of anything firm to write on will probably make their writing worse, but they just have to tell her. 

‘New voice inside me. Different now. Different later. Feel bad.’

They feel frustrated that they can’t tell her more directly. That they don’t have the words for what is happening, and those that do are cryptic and working on guesses. A ‘change’, a ‘growth’, something that needs to be born from them.

They don’t like it.

“Ah,” Hornet says as she reads. “I’m not quite sure I understand. You feel bad because of a voice inside of you? And what about being different?”

The Knight struggles to rephrase with their limited vocabulary.

‘New inside me. Different body later? Different mind? No know.’

She stares for a long moment.

“Are you going to molt? Is that what is happening?”

The Knight shrugs. Technically, that could be what happens. It could also not. They’re not quite sure what having a God in their shell would do in the long term. They were not really planning on becoming one. They mostly just wanted a way to reach her and through the Godseekers was direct enough.

“In that case, we should ask our sibling about it. They’re our best source of information about these things. Even if it’s not, they could know more about growing pains common to Vessels.”

She then kneels down and rubs the top of the Hollow Knight’s head.

“Sibling. Little Ghost has returned and with some exciting news. We think a molt may be in their future. Might you be able to guide them?”

Their sibling very slowly drags themself up. Turning their gaze to the Knight they stare for a long moment before making a ‘come here’ motion with their hand. The Knight heeds their call and their bigger sibling begins to feel about the area where their arms meet their thorax. Odd presses in places, seemingly looking for something. Whatever their aim is, they don’t find it and go back to lying down.

“Well?” Hornet asks.

The Knight slides the paper and quill to them and the Hollow Knight softly sighs before finally beginning to scribble.

They make a rather crude approximation of the Knight: a square with two squiggles coming out of it and a vague cloak-less body. An arrow to the area they were touching with a ‘no’, then an odd small picture of what looks to be a bump or a hill or something. When they’re done, they shove the paper from themself and curl up into a ball, facing away. Hornet examines the message for a long while before managing to piece together whatever it was they were trying to convey.

“Ah. It’s not a molt, then. If it were, then your glands would be noticeable. Since they found no indication, it’s presumably not happening, or at least not imminently. That’s one avenue closed. Thank you, sibling.”

The Hollow Knight emits something they think is supposed to be a hum like hers, but it's more airy than anything. It’s rather obvious they don’t want to be woken up, so the Knight is content to let sleeping Vessels lie.

“What ails you, then, Ghost? This mysterious voice, could it be your own?”

No. Not their own, they would know if they were talking to themself! Frustrating, they scribble again.

‘Talk mother. Talk mask.’

“Talked to them both about it… I suppose I’ll have to ask them myself. I know the Lady’s condition would make communication difficult, and the Maker’s focus rather contentious. That would mean leaving the Hollow Knight alone. Could we do it in a week, once I’m sure they can handle being on their own for a prolonged time?”

They nod and promptly leave.

It’s not like they resent their sibling. They feel nothing in particular for them, except pity. But it is grating how they’re always… chosen.

Chosen by the King, chosen by the Godseekers, chosen by their sister.

It stings a bit, having to do everything on their own. They had to bludgeon their way to Godhood to be recognized by the Seekers. They had to fight their sister twice to finally earn her respect. They had to bounce off of spikes and buzzsaws just to look their father in the face and spit on his corpse and take his throne. It’s a little bit unfair how they have to constantly scratch and claw and forcibly assert themselves over and over again, especially considering they both made it to that platform. Not that their sibling is a very enviable creature, but they do not have to justify their own existence at every turn.

Then again, they weren’t expecting their sister to do much. Mostly just be a real voice they can listen to instead of

Me.

Why not me?

I am with you in the dark.

I am the dark.

Why not me?

The Knight stops in the middle of town and shudders. They situate themself on the bench, pull off sprintmaster and put on Grimmchild. Happily, he wordlessly coos and they breathe a sigh of relief. Have to go down, back down. Who else to visit? Who now to help? With nothing new to see, there has to be something to do.

Lemm kicks them out when Grimm nearly burns one of the pieces they were asking about. Some old records about the population of the city. Useful for historians, but nothing particularly interesting to a young child.

The Shaman allows them respite, but mentions a ‘new resonance’ to them that has them on edge. He gives them a request to gather certain herbs from Greenpath and to give his cousin who lives nearby a hello for him. That’s enough to take their mind off it.

Oro endures their presence with the same gruffness he usually does, but recognizes their attempt to write and humors them, stiffly teaching them new words. Eventually the pretense of a lesson dissolves and they have simple conversation.

‘Sibling big. Sister small. Father no. Mother away.’

“You’ve met my brothers and master. I’ve only met one like you before when I was much younger and still a pupil myself. They did not mention any relatives. That is unsurprising when you consider that they, too, lacked a voice. Is that normal for your kind?”

They nod. It’s interesting that he’s met a sibling, though nearly impossible to determine who considering the sheer amount. Perhaps the one in the Basin? Or one of the many strung up by the Nosk? The few that litter the landscape, alone and dusty in their small corners of Hallownest that now serve as their grave?

“Hmph. What a strange sort. Why is it then that you seek out the company of your master rather than your kin?”

The Knight hesitates.

‘Love other more. Not me.’

He sighs.

“I am no stranger to difficult relations between blood. But a warrior cannot be a coward. I recommend going to them and making known your upset. If nothing else, they will give you good reason to stay away.”

A soft sadness colors his expression, but his tone remains severe.

‘Later. Feel different. New thing inside. Looking.’

He looks confused at the message.

“I don’t quite know what you mean.”

‘No know also’

“Well, continue your search. I’m not quite sure what you’ll find in this kingdom’s corpse, but the dead are known to fertilize the new. Hallownest is ripe for something like yourself.”

‘No know where looking’

“Be measured about it. Start in one place and go from there. Be open to new paths as they reveal themselves. Hopefully, they will lead somewhere away from me.”

The Knight supposes there’s no reason to stall. They get up and pull out their map, trying to decide where to start.

“And take your little creature with you!”

They scoop up the Grimm from where he was sleeping on a pillow set out for him and wrap him around their shoulders. He coos softly before snuggling deeper and resuming his nap.

They silently slink away into the shadows and slowly inch their way along the Wyrm’s shell. The Knight hadn’t been back since Hornet had saved them from the collapse. Maybe there would be something to learn here. Something new to take from their absentee father. It’s the least he could do, with the meager inheritance he left for it. A burning brand and a broken charm and a dead kingdom. 

The section they had entered was destroyed, finally collapsed. The husk fallen in on itself. They walk alongside its remains instead, dragging a claw on his old, sharp shell. So thick, so strong, why would he discard such a form? The strength, the power, the world…

… It must have seemed so small to him, like that.

The Knight thinks they know why he would do it. The reason is the same as to why they keep this one. This small one, this lesser one, this one that can only do so much. This one, understandable. This one, able to be grasped, to be known, to be loved.

He did want that. To be worshiped and seen, even if not directly. His presence known and felt and revered. While a Wyrm could have accomplished that, it would have been indelicate. It would have seemed so little. To birth a kingdom instead, to be a bug instead, to be a king first before a God…

But he is on the opposite end. The Knight wishes to remain a Knight. A Wyrm had wished to become the King and had little obstacle in doing so. In fact, the squirming, bisected existence was necessary for him, was intentional and wanted.

It would be so much easier if he were here. It’s not often that they wish he was, but being a newborn God makes them feel lost when they were not before. They exist in a new way and they’re not entirely sure they want to be that new way. They were happy as they were. The change was radical and they were lucky it only occurred within the dream.

Maybe they should go to the White Palace.

Grimm nuzzles them, having sensed their rather dour mood. They appreciate him and his company. Seems the Voice doesn’t like to come out in the presence of others. Or maybe a fellow God? It doesn’t particularly matter. The thing is unsettling. 

So they scamper down the canyons of the Edge and scramble into King’s Station. From there, to the Hidden one, and next to that is the remains. The ruins, the remnant. The Kingsmould crumbled. Whatever power his half of the Kingsoul had, when it was stripped from the dream that power was taken with it. Once entered into the Palace proper, they pull off the Grimmchild. The spikes and saws strike them as a little too dangerous. That, and a little too personal. They’re willing to risk dealing with the Voice just to get some privacy.

The way back is grating like it always is, but not nearly as hard as it used to be. They can’t help but wonder what sustains this place. The Kingsmould? That had collapsed, reduced to even less of a corpse than it was before. The King? Dead. The retainers? Considering how they dissipate into nothing, how they lack awareness, the Knight is of the belief that they are constructs as well, though ones of Essence rather than Void.

… themself?

They have no memory of the place, no attachment, no dedicated will to preserve it. At most, they simply expect it to be there because… it’s just something that is there. If it were to disappear, that would be that. Maybe because they look for something within it, because they seek it out, it is there. Maybe the intention is enough. Nevertheless, the Knight makes it to the throne room. He is gone. About time, really.

But there upon his throne remains an imprint. His shadow cast long by his blinding light. God of things forgotten, the Knight supposes they could dredge out… something.

What appears is a faded tone. A transparent, shifting silhouette that speaks in whispers.

“I am here,” he says.

They stare up at what is left of him. It seems impossibly small, smaller than even his fallow corpse. Less of a thing and more like feeling given form. What regrets he had that sunk deep, given focus. 

He shifts on his throne, maybe uncomfortably.

“I was afraid of the dark. That is why I made a harness for it. Things are less frightening when you can measure it. When you can reach out and touch it. Know it. See it.”

He returns their stare. No lights shine from his eyes. They are sunken, a deeper dark than the wispy mist that comprises his body. Hollow, now.

They could almost laugh.

“You resemble the other one greatly. Falsely, you resemble. What you are now… While I am no gambler, you have seen where my luck tends to get me, I would wager that not even you know.”

That extinguishes whatever derisive mirth they had at finally meeting him. Even now, they are compared to their sibling. Always in their shadow. Always something attached. A footnote in a story about them. A detail that one’s eyes glazes over except for when it connects to that tragic, compelling figure.

They stare.

“I was afraid of the dark,” he repeats. “Afraid of what it meant. What it could do. What lingered within it. I coveted its power, and feared it for that same reason. Yet, with you here I feel… relief.”

He looks away from them. Gazing out beyond the room. Maybe beyond the walls of this dream, maybe gazing at the future with eyes unseen. The Knight doesn’t know and they don’t need to. It wouldn’t amount to much in the case that he is.

“I am not alone in the dark. You are there. And you do not feel cruel. Do not feel malicious. Do not feel domineering, like I am. Like how you would have been, had we…”

He brings his claws to hover in front of him and they wonder how he perceives himself now. If he even can. If what they speak to is him in any meaningful sense.

“If I may burden you once more… If I can lay yet another unfair yoke upon your small shoulders, I would like to know what happened to my Knight.”

Slowly, they nod.

He lowers his claws back into his robes. What would be his robes. Perhaps nothing now.

“Are they why you are here? Did they set you on this sorry path?”

They shake their head.

“Your own volition,” he murmurs, downtrodden. “By your own will, your feet find me. Is it my humiliation you desire? Retribution? To make me as dark and dead as I had made you? To make me face my mistake even after ages past?”

They step closer and fiddle with their cloak. They bare their Heart to him, because he can do nothing to them now, is nothing to them now. No god of theirs, no king of theirs, and certainly no father. Just some distant figure who might be able to help. His gaze is long and the only truly discernible part of him.

“So you are my successor and Hallownest’s savior. You have stolen back what I had unjustly stripped from you: divine birthright. This is not a meeting of sire and spawn, but of peers.”

They let their cloak fall back and obscure them.

“I have nothing left to give. Not direction, not wealth, and not even my favor as worthless as such a thing now is. You accomplished what I could not, and I hold you now to no standard. Your audience with me was in vain. I am less than a husk, merely a ghost.”

The moniker stings worse than the comments others would idly prattle. The regality of their form, the resemblance to the missing king, a presence similar. Even the designation given by their sister is not free of his lingering presence, of his unending afterglow.

They stare at him even as he begins to waver.

“Divinity is a fickle thing, ascendant” he at last rasps. “Ruled by our nature as we rule over others. Could you be the lone exception? Or have we unleashed a new, darker future upon the ruins of our small world?”

You have made me.

The room rattles.

You cannot unmake me.

He breaks apart, dissipating into smoke. A ghost, an imprint, an illusion, a reflection of what they thought? A thing immaterial now, unreachable now, in any case.

The dream tears at the seams, the room fading entirely rather than crumbling. Black splotches their vision, eats away the dream, and the Knight wakes next to empty armor alongside a shrinking puddle of Void. They strike the less-than-corpse, but it cleaves no hidden mind.

Gone, then. Well and truly gone. About time.

The Knight wanders to the station and takes it to Dirtmouth. Rather than meet their siblings, however, they march to Confessor Jiji.

The room is smoky as usual. They briefly ponder where she got those candles, and if the Hive had anything to do with it. Now with Vespa dead and most of the Hive’s population having been infected, whoever remains down there will likely die out slowly without a Queen to lay any more eggs. A sad fate. Nothing the Knight can do for it. God they are now, but a miracleworker? That they are not.

“Hmm? Who– Ah! My apologies! Little one, in such low light and with a new bearing, I nearly hadn’t recognized you. Are you in need of my service?”

The Knight nods. 

“Very well, let me peer into you…”

She stares for a long moment before skittering close, closer than she ever had before, and squints from beneath her great shell.

“Ooooh. What a wondrous thing you hide. My masters would be infatuated with your likes. To not just wade through the waters, but to metamorphose so… I suppose that was something long overdue, no? It’s unusual for something to remain small for so long. But seeing that, you have no need for my services.”

They shake their head.

“Eh? You have no regrets, little one. To draw such a thing out… I fear that would end not how you want it to.”

Maybe. A shade is passive enough. The thing emergent is something with demands and wants. To unleash it in Dirtmouth may be a bit hasty. So, somberly, they nod.

“Don’t look too sad! Aren’t you excited? You’re going to be something new. That’s not a thing many can claim in this land of laments!”

Terror seizes their faintly beating Heart.

They rush out.

They don’t want to be something new. They want to be the Knight! The Wanderer! Shadow! Squib! Wielder! Sibling!

They slam open the front door and Hornet jumps from her place at the stove.

“Little Ghost!”

She takes the pot she was tending off the stovetop and puts her claws on her hips.

“You keep disappearing! Do you know how long it’s been?”

They run to the cupboard and try to grab a paper, try to grab the ink. With shaking claws, they miss and the parchment scatters, the inkwell shatters, the dark

Look.

Reflected in the liquid is something they don’t quite recognize. Something larger than the Knight. Something that runs deeper.

It’s you.

“Ghost!”

A quiet bump from the Hollow Knight’s room sounds from behind them.

They look to the wall and find their shadow contorts. Limbs they do not have wind and extend, horns that are not their own sit on what can only vaguely resemble their head. A silhouette not their own, a thing not themself.

It’s you.

They point at the wall, at the shadow, at the thing emerging. 

“You’ve made a mess. A very expensive mess, sibling. I expect you to clean it up.”

They point again, motion to it as much as they possibly can. Hornet looks unamused as their sibling walks out of their room, looking around for something. Their head tilts as their gaze settles on them.

“I know. You got it on the wall as well. I can see that.”

Why can’t she see it?

Frantically they dip a claw in the spilled ink and begin to draw, to write, to communicate anything please please see it please help me

She lifts them up.

“Wash your claws. It won’t be legible if you write it like that.”

She deposits them by the sink and begins to gather the spilled parchment on the floor and brings it to the table. There, she sits seeming rather annoyed. The Hollow Knight, meanwhile, pokes their head into the washroom before wandering to the window and pulling the curtains to look out at empty streets.

The Knight tries not to panic as the ink slips away from it. As the water pollutes. It’s not their shell. Their shell is intact. It is not falling away, it is not dissolving, it is not being eaten from the inside out.

Silently, cleaned, they leap up to sit on the table and write.

‘Thing inside me. New thing. No stop. Help.’

“Is this about the voice? I’m of the mind that it’s your own internal monologue. Most bugs have one or something similar, nothing to be afraid of. We can look you over again for signs of a molt, but things would be easier if–”

They throw down the quill and sprint out. A strand of silk strikes out to stop them, but they dash through it even as the shadows make them nauseous, as their head suddenly becomes heavy with an extra set of horns and the world blurs with new eyes to see it.

They keep dashing and do not stop before taking the elevator up to the peaks. They hear Hornet trying to catch up, so they launch a Shade Soul behind them even as it pains them to do so. It knocks her back and steals her wind and that’s enough to have them able to charge up and dash over the large swathes of crystals they know she cannot cross.

Faintly, her voice echoes behind them, but the humming of the glittering stones soon drown it out.

The Light here is nice. Bright. Reflecting and refracting and intensifying itself over and over. Suffocating, nearly. The machinery here keeps moving along, but the desperate, mindless clinking of pickclaws against crystal has ceased entirely.

Far away from everyone and everything. They have to get out. Have to find some way to preserve themself. So they climb up and up and further up. Up until strange tablets shine in forgotten languages and blowing wind makes their cloak thrash. She stands, of stone, at the edge. Wings outstretched. In her own time, she surely would have embraced the sunrise. In her own time, she surely would have been radiant.

Now she is naught but dust, blowing away. Dirt and gale will wear her down and, at last, her very last mark upon the world will disappear.

They sit next to her.

Maybe sometime soon, they will join her. Join her in being whittled away by the dark. Swallowed whole, made nothing, unmade. 

The thought terrifies them.

The Knight did not particularly fear death. For them, the destruction of their shell simply meant a kind of release. Their siblings who wade are not dead, merely at rest. But now? Their shade is gone. Something new, something not them has supplanted it.

What would happen to them, with the emergent thing finally does emerge?

They gaze down the cliffside. Farther up, father away, not even the lights of the town make it up here. There is only the dark sky, swirling clouds, the howling wind, and her.

Why her?

Why not me?

Why her before me?

They don’t acknowledge it.

She is nothing now.

Too long lingered. Too long sputtering and blinking.

Gone now. Quiet now. Still and silent.

About time.

They contemplate leaping from the cliffside and… 

They don’t know what that would accomplish, other than hurting a lot. It’s an irrational call. To jump into the darkness and never surface. One that surely cannot be their own. They may wade, but they can never dive.

Something shuffles from behind them. Silent, not sister. If it were, she would have called out to them by now.

No, it’s the other one.

Slightly, they turn their head to see. The Hollow Knight stands a good distance away, staring up at her. Surprised? Upset? Intimidated? Their mask betrays nothing, and the Knight returns to staring off the cliff at the nothingness that greets them.

The dust swirls. The open air, so different from the dark below. Is this a different kind of Abyss? A gaseous absence as opposed to their own liquid nothing? Nothing to parse, nothing to see, nothing to do. Empty, like things have been. Empty, like they are now with purpose fulfilled.

Is this what it will be like?

It will be like nothing you have ever experienced.

It is the absence of experience.

There is a tapping, metal against rock, rapping. The Knight turns again and the Hollow Knight sets their nail to rest against their hip. ‘Come’, they beckon with one hand.

They look away.

They can do nothing for them. What are they now… a sibling no longer? A Knight no more? A bug no more? Nothing anymore. A thing dressed up in shell and memory. The thing beneath squirms, ready to be born. Can it be blamed? Can one hold such a desire against them? For a nonexistent thing’s wish to exist?

I don’t hold it against you.

I don’t hold anything.

They hold the heart, the first one of many they received, and channel it. Behind them, the light makes their sibling flinch.

Away, they blaze. Into the rushing winds, away. Sharp points stretch beneath them, light and music and memory crystallized. One day they too will be worn away by the wind. Into dust, into nothing, forgotten at long last. This version of them, at least.

They drop down in Dirtmouth. The ground shakes with their landing, but they pay it no mind. They walk to Jiji.

“Hm? So you’ve returned again, little one. Have you a need?”

They nod.

She squints at them before tutting, “I don’t think so. As far as I can see, you’re still settled. Why would you want to rip it out? Rip yourself out in so horrid a fashion? Defile my ritual and service so?”

They only nod again and shovel out all the remaining rancid eggs they have. All they have and more. A verifiable mountain of Geo topples out, their tram pass, their lantern, their maps, their Hunter’s Mark, their nail, and even the Godtuner which pitches out a high, sharp ringing tune in their presence.

They nod again. 

She stares at them, pallid. Inert, useless. A metallic scraping sounds from behind her and a large, strange face of silver reveals itself.

“... it. Strange, strong it. Frightens friend of Jinn. Leave. Friend of Jinn should not touch the shadow too deep.”

They could almost tear their own heart out. Could that work? Could that unspool the thing that’s wrapped around them? 

A claw slides underneath their cloak and grasps the Void Heart.

It beats, silent and slow.

One is not supposed to take charms on or off anywhere except on a bench. It’s too easy to hurt yourself with the sharp pieces. Also, quite a few do fundamentally change one’s being to whatever degree it can. It’s better to do it while sitting down and at rest to get over the shock of it.

The Knight pulls.

A sharp pain laces through the seams of their being.

You cannot.

And pulls.

A strand being frayed, slowly tearing them apart.

You cannot.

And pulls.

It would be worth it, if only so that if they have to die then it can be as themself.

You cannot unmake me.

And–

Something grabs them and lifts them high into the air. The Hollow Knight stares at them.

“... big It,” Jinn stares up at the two of them, dispassionate and impassive as Jiji cowers behind her. “Similar in make. Take the deep shadow away. Too dangerous for friend of Jinn.”

They sag in their sibling’s grasp.

It hits them all at once, the exhaustion. Running won’t help. No one will help. They just have to… lie down. Let it happen. Maybe some part of them will be preserved. Maybe they won’t and they’ll simply cease to be. That, at least, won’t be painful.

They are dragged to the house.

The Hollow Knight stands idly in the middle of the entryway before sitting them down on the sofa. Hesitantly, they step away and look to the door. Hornet is not here, likely trying to track them down in Hallownest proper.

Their sibling does not leave, but lets the door remain open and goes to sit stiffly beside them.

It is decidedly awkward.

They try to reach out to the thing. To acknowledge it. What they find feels visceral and viscous. Thick and clinging, that paints the inside of their shell. Sharp points and flowing streams. A quiet humming underneath its filmy skin. Almost like breathing. A rising static that eats away sound then abruptly falls and leaves the soundscape bare and empty.

They shudder.

Why perceive only ghastliness?

The Hollow Knight jumps.

They turn to look at them. Can they hear it? Slowly, their sibling reaches up into their cloak and pulls out a small bound book. Its pages have long, untidy scrawlings on the first few and several scribbles of rough sketches.

They write: ‘Was that you?’

The Knight shakes their head before stopping and abruptly nodding.

It’s you.

The Hollow Knight tenses again before continuing, ‘What is that?’

You. It’s you it’s you it’s you it’s you

Why can’t you see that?

Why can’t you see me?

Their sibling stares at them long and somehow palpably perturbed.

‘How do we get it to stop?’

Cannot. Cannot unmake me. Let me out.

Let me in. 

Let me into the world.

The Knight shrugs.

They really don’t think there’s anything for it. No way to counter it. Now that it’s here, there’s nothing to make it disappear. Can’t uncarve the stone, can’t unbreak the egg, can’t unbloom the flower. What’s done is done. They quietly lay down and decide to wait for whatever will happen. They’re tired, they think, though that’s a sensation they’ve rarely felt physically. 

The Hollow Knight tears off a piece of paper, places it delicately next to them, and then strides out the front door. The Knight spares the note a glance.

‘Do not leave’

They’re not planning to.

Time comes to a stop, at least in their perception. It is always dark outside. The wind is always blowing. Nothing moves in the house aside from dust particles in the air. The Knight is especially adept at being statuesque.

How it should be.

The silence would be deafening if they were thinking. They are not. Sensation slides over them unexamined and unacknowledged. Perhaps a particularly strong gust rattles the door. If it does, the Knight forgets it happens the next moment. Dimly, somewhere quiet and ashamed, a piece of them that has only continued to dwindle asks if this is what their father had meant by Pure.

Pure never existed. Not in the way he conceived it.

Pity for the illuminated scholar whose light only served to cast the shadows he sought far away from him.

Pity, and derision.

Cosigned to oblivion.

Their siblings eventually arrive.

Hornet walks in as the Hollow Knight skulks in her shadow. She comes and kneels next to them.

“Are we done running?”

They don’t move.

Hesitantly, she brings a claw to their shoulder and softly nudges them.

They don’t move.

“Are they asleep? It’s hard to tell with you two.”

The Hollow Knight shrugs.

“Helpful,” she huffs and sits them up, holding their face to peer up at her. “I would like to apologize. I was not treating this as seriously as I ought to.”

They stare.

“I spoke with the two in your stead. They were… cagey. Something now takes root inside of you, and I take it that you didn’t consent to the occupation of your shell.”

She won’t be able to help.

“I have little expertise in these matters, and she who does remains as idle as ever. She advised to let nature take its course. From what I’ve seen of you, I don’t think you’d be content to let that happen.”

Maybe earlier. Definitely earlier.

Too little. Too late.

Careful not to linger.

I indulged this longer than I would have liked.

The Hollow Knight perks up and begins to write before showing it to Hornet. She reads it, narrows her eyes, and then coldly speaks.

“You. What business do you have, parasite?”

I do not need a host to live. I am already made.

Right now, the body is only a formality.

A barrier. A cage.

The Hollow Knight shudders as they relay that and their sister scoffs.

“What are you then, if not a parasite?”

The thing shifts somewhere inside. Perhaps their heart skips a beat. Perhaps not.

God. Neonate of Nothing.

Vessel. Sibling.

‘Little Ghost’.

“Lies,” she hisses. “A tormentor, more like. I will find some way to purge you, I swear to it. Gods can fall, recent happenings only further serve to prove that.”

It was me who felled her. It was me who disappeared him.

It will be me who unmakes you.

In time far or scene soon.

I come to claim all things.

The Hollow Knight struggles to write past its admittance of guilt. Of the murder of the maker.

The Knight cannot fault it. He was the one who placed a harness upon it. Isn’t it natural for one yoked to long to cast it off? To rise up with viscous claws and bared fangs to tear apart the one who dared to burden them so? If they thought about it, the Knight cannot say that they wouldn’t have done the same had he been alive and intact when they had met.

Hornet hisses.

“Hubris is all I hear. It will serve to hasten your demise, parasite.”

She does not need to believe me. It will come to pass eventually.

We can wait a little while longer.

The difference between now and then is nil.

She huffs and silk flares. The Knight is promptly trussed up and bound. They do not struggle against the indignity.

“Watch them, Knight,” she says. “I’ll look for what’s been left to us. Lucky are we, whose family is in the business of binding Gods.”

The Hollow Knight meekly nods and she steps out into the endless night.

If they had to wager a guess, she’d be looking into the incomplete seal of binding in the Weaver’s Den. Perhaps she’ll complete it herself, or find some way to retool it so that it doesn’t do the titular binding in such a debilitating way. They can’t imagine she’d do anything with the ruins of the Palace, and with the dream collapsed she definitely has no way to scavenge from it.

The Hollow Knight picks them up.

They wonder what triggered their change of heart. What finally rid them of the cowering? Maybe they now see the Knight as the Knight rather than the second coming of their father. Maybe they see them as a thing smaller and in a moment of weakness. Maybe they finally got over some strange jealousy they had, if they ever had one at all. While their life had been no bed of roses, in comparison, they must have been living the dream. To travel the world, to forget the responsibility placed on them since birth, to come to the kingdom and tread its every inch, to kill her instead of imperfectly imprisoning her.

To them, they might have been seen as a figure most intimidating.

To them, in this moment, they might be seen as a figure most pitiable.

Their sentimentality makes the air between them thick, and the Knight finds that strange in and of itself. Really, their closest bonding moments were writing together once and the Knight helping their sister wash off the dried pus and gore off the Hollow Knight’s body once they were stable enough to actually take a bath. They don’t think they’re particularly close in any meaningful way. But the Hollow Knight sits them on their lap and wraps their hand in the Knight’s waist.

It won’t work, the Spider’s web.

I know what it’s made of.

Thread, spun of soul.

A Vessel it might keep, but I am that no longer.

The Hollow Knight taps the side of the Knight’s head, right underneath their horns.

I hold no ill will.

Empty you are not, but I am.

Your efforts are in vain, yet I find no need for retaliation.

The Hollow Knight then fusses with something in their cloak. The Knight feels their notebook being placed on top of their head and written in. They humor their sibling and purposefully remain still.

‘What do you want?’ they ask.

The Knight feels the emergent thing shift again. The Void within, perfectly still, now twists and jerks. A malformed limb is molded, but presses against their shell uncomfortably before it dissolves.

Want. A thing unfamiliar.

Focus bestowed but inexperienced.

I think…

I think I want to live. To become familiar with the things that will be mine.

The Hollow Knight does not respond in any way for a very long time. The Knight sags in their silk bindings and wonders if they can go to sleep now. If they can sleep at all now, without the aid of another dreaming for them.

(One has to wonder if the thing constrained can dream, and if they were to sleep, which would be the one dreaming.)

But they do eventually reply just as the Knight inclines their head.

‘What will happen to my sibling if you are let out?’

The shell would be abandoned.

It already was.

They are already me. As I am them.

It would only be plainer to see.

Abandoned. A rather distant way to put it. The thing has no attachment to their body, and the Knight can understand its distaste for the thing keeping them contained. But the shell is the only way to mark them as separate. The shell is… them, to a degree. Or maybe not? If their siblings remain their siblings regardless of their broken shells, isn’t it the same for them?

But they don’t have a Shade anymore. They’re something else now.

The Hollow Knight asks something sensible.

‘Are you lying?’

Naive to do it so directly, but a reasonable question nonetheless. 

No.

Lying is an invention. A creation.

I do no such thing.

I simply am as the truth simply is.

The Knight wiggles in their silken strands. This floundering is stupid. These questions are useless. This thing already happened, is already them to whatever extent that is meaningful to say so, and there is no getting out of it. They’re going to do this. Whatever this is, whatever it requires, they’re ready. They’ve never liked being idle and the state of Hallownest left them with a distaste for stagnation.

If this is what is required, if this is what must be, then let it come.

They sink deeper into the silk. Curl up tighter. The Hollow Knight attempts to get their attention, but the Knight instead cocoons themself. Slowly, something they think is a tendril emerges from them and begins to wrap itself around them too.

Bit by bit. Tighter and tighter. Darker and darker.

Hornet comes home eventually.

The Seal is hard to transport due to being incredibly intricate and delicate. Jostling it too much might ruin some part, so that took the stag off of the table. She had to trek all the way from Deepnest while avoiding all the hazards Hallownest had devolved into. At least she didn’t have to worry about the infected anymore.

She arrives to see the lights turned off. Her Knight is asleep on the floor next to some… black blob. Hornet nudges her sibling and they flinch when they see her.

“Where is Ghost,” she asks.

They stare at her for a moment before hesitantly pointing at the blob. Wordlessly, she crouches down to get a better look. On closer inspection, it seems to be a chrysalis, though of what species she can only make a very good educated guess.

“I don’t remember you pupating.”

They scribble out: ‘I did not’

“Then what is this? My own silk is there, threaded in black… Not a natural occurrence for your kind. Was this my doing?”

The thought that she may have unintentionally forced this upon her sibling makes her uneasy. Whatever may crawl out of it unsettles her more. Is she too late? There’s no way she can cut it open now, because that will more than definitely kill Ghost. Putting the seal on now would bind them to the incomplete metamorphosis. Forced to either remain in the chrysalis or to be stuck with a half-form. Not ideal.

The Hollow Knight shrugs.

‘I do not know.’

“There’s no undoing it,” she murmurs. “We just have to hope that whatever crawls out is more Ghost than parasite.”

The Hollow Knight only settles themself again, curling around the chrysalis. She’s unsure if that’s an attempt to position themself so as to grapple any malignant being that may emerge, or if there’s some latent instinct that demands them to safeguard their sibling. She supposes it doesn’t matter much either way.

The two of them stay up and watch. She knits in the meantime, a nervous thing to give her hands something to do. Ghost will likely be not so little anymore, so she gives herself a headstart in crafting them something new to wear. With how tattered their old cloak was, it is long overdue for a replacement.

“Do you think purple would be flattering on them?” she idly asks. “I don’t believe they’d be too fond of donning white. They really ought to branch out to something other than that dirty blue, though. Red might be a bit hubristic of me, but a fine purple would be sensible, don’t you think?”

The Hollow Knight scribbles, ‘Green’.

“To match, hm?”

They purposefully avoid her gaze and tuck their jade cloak a little tighter. It’s by far the largest piece she ever made, but she’s happy with how it turned out.

Hornet never had siblings before and she still doesn’t think she’s very good at being a sister. This whole affair with Ghost is a testament to that. Despite that, she finds herself happier than she has been in a while as she stumbles through it. Raw and uncomfortable as it may sometimes be, it is… nice. She likes the Hollow Knight. She likes being their sister.

She hopes Ghost comes out of it intact. While she said she’d spare no sadness for a weakling’s demise, they’ve long since proved themself to her. She’d spare no expense to avert a sibling’s death, now that she can afford to. She wants to be a sister to them.

The Hollow Knight does, too, if the way they crowd their chrysalis is indicative of anything. While she attempted to interrogate them on why they insisted on so much distance between the two of them initially, she could never get a straight answer. Just jumbled characters that would bleed over each other until whatever message they were trying to convey was lost in the ink. They’d be upset for the rest of the day, so she learned to not pry about it.

Whatever the reason, it inspired a lot of emotion in them. That’s more than what most can say.

She rubs her eye after missing a stitch. A large neckline is complete and so is most of the body, though she struggles to put together any sort of bottom considering she does not know their soon-to-be new dimensions. As good a place to stop as any.

“How long has it been?”

‘Two days since you returned. Four and a half since they pupated.’

She does not strictly need to eat and drink as routinely as others, and sleeping is more of a luxury she can choose to indulge in. Given how much progress she made and how focused she was, it’s not too surprising that time slipped away from her. Earlier, she would have kicked herself for slipping like that. Now, these things can come and go as they please. No looming responsibility to a dead kingdom. No brand to protect, no scavengers to rebuff, no sickly population to beat back.

“Should be any minute now.”

The realization fills her with apprehension and she tugs her needle a little closer. She does not like the thing. It is condescending and presumptuous. At least the Lady and her Father had the decency to be tactful. The Old Light, a thousand more deaths upon her, was exceedingly direct with what she wanted: utter annihilation. Unn is… passive and faded. Even if she wanted to do more, Hornet is unsure if she can bring herself to wake.

This new thing is steady and uncaring about everything. So certain of itself and its ability to prevail. She finds herself eager to prove it wrong.

The chrysalis wiggles.

“Move! Give them space.”

The Hollow Knight swiftly scurries away to a more respectable distance. She stands up and grips her needle tightly. Even if it is only Ghost that emerges, they might need her help in breaking out. She needs to be ready for whatever outcome.

It thrashes again and a large split opens itself. Pitch oozes from it, but the crack is not yet large enough for whatever it is to wiggle free. Instead, it continues to shake and sputter and leak until the gash widens.

What slips out is generally amorphous. Its limbs are tangled within itself, and its body is curled. She cannot get any good grasp on its form. The Hollow Knight creeps closer to it and reaches a hand out to touch them. She smacks them before they can do any damage.

“No! They’re still wet!”

Her sibling whines apologetically.

The thing whines back.

What is most likely its head lolls back and several eyes open and close. Each individually roll in their respective socket and she shudders. That cannot be a pleasant way to perceive the world around it.

“Is that you, Ghost?”

It pulls itself up. Its form is… large. Larger than the Hollow Knight. Broader, more limbs, more horns, and yet gangly all the same. A hand – one of four – reaches up and grabs its face. A single claw is set to delicately trace its new mandible, while another moves to grasp a horn. It seems entirely unaware of the present audience, or simply too caught up in its new body to notice. Tentatively, it lifts up one of its legs and attempts to walk. It very quickly ends up tilting to the side before going still and righting itself.

She tries again, “Ghost?”

It blinks and then finally looks at her. It does not show any indication that it understands or recognizes her, but the Hollow Knight begins to scribble something.

‘Do you still intend to bind me?’

Hornet steadies herself.

“Depends. Are you my sibling, or something that ate them?”

It tilts its head. The Hollow Knight’s hand shakes.

‘Would you be able to tell?’

A biting rebuttal that makes her seethe, painfully impotent.

She wouldn’t.

She does not know them that well. Two fights and a handful of one-sided conversations do not necessarily make a strong bond. Even with the newfound peace she found herself… distant from them. Busying herself with her other sibling. At the time, she thought it prudent. Ghost is strong, independent, and has a penchant for exploring. She thought it fine. That they liked it. That she did not need to reach out because they could handle it.

She thinks maybe she was wrong for that.

“As long as you do not hurt others, I find no reason to quarrel with you, sibling or not.”

It makes her bitter, watching it gaze at her impassively. One way or another, Ghost has changed irreversibly and she… She might have just missed her chance with them.

‘What makes you think I want to hurt others?’

She does not know.

Maybe she is simply used to it. Used to having the unknown lash out at her. Having to always be on guard. Maybe she is holding its nature against it. By that logic, it has every right to attack her, pale instinct is seldom benign.

“Ghost did not want to be you,” is what she says.

It stares long at her, with eight eyes. Thin and sharp and inscrutable. The Hollow Knight does not write anything down. Either it has nothing to say, or what it is saying is so repulsive that her sibling cannot bear to pen it.

Eventually, though, they manage something.

‘You cannot blame me for existing.’

“I can blame you for taking away another’s!”

It glares at her, and finally opens its mouth. It is full of fangs.

“The same can be said for you, Daughter of Herrah.”

She laughs, “My mother wanted me. More than her own life, she wanted me. You have no right to speak of her.”

It only shrugs.

“Still, she is dead for it. Your clan, too, dead or deserted for her absence. All she made, turned to dusty halls and tattered webs. There is only you. And I cannot say if that is legacy good enough for a figure such as her.”

She plunges her needle into its chest.

It goes in easy. Far too easy. There are no insides to run through, no real flesh to rend. Wet is not accurate enough, it is water and whatever sharp edges are ice. The thing placidly looks down to its impaling and seems in no way moved.

“They may have put you in a palace, but what you are is plain to all.”

She slides her blade out and only a small plume of gas emits from a wound easily sealed and fast disappearing.

“And what am I?”

“A beast. The world is simple and as you see it. There is no ambiguity in your light. I either am what you want, or I am not. The world is wider than you. There are things in it you cannot understand.”

It leans in and she becomes aware of how sharp its claws are, how its tendrils hold a serrated edge, and eyes are bereft of any warm glow. How different it is now. How scarce any resemblance to Ghost is.

If it is them, to any degree, it is a side she had never known.

That may be her own fault.

“I am one of those things. Leave me to my existence, and be content with yours.”

She holds back a sneer. Condescension is not something she takes easily, or willingly. But she may admit when something is beyond her. What stands in her home is something she does not know and has no tangible way to stave off. It could simply choke her to death on its Void and there would be very little she could do about it. Pale and Higher she might be, lights are things to be extinguished.

“Fine. If you wish to run away now that you’ve done what you needed, feel free to be at your leisure.”

“I always was.”

It turns its head to the Hollow Knight and speaks in silence. Whatever farewell they are given, she’s not privy to. It is relatively brief. Before long, it takes out its dream talisman and disappears in a flash of light.

She sighs when it is gone.

The Hollow Knight attempts to lean into her, but she waves it off.

“I’m not one for closeness, especially when in duress. I don’t think I handled that as well as I should have. I am sorry.”

It was right, she loathes the ambiguity, hates being unsure of herself. Did she just run off her sibling in a moment of acute vulnerability – right after a pupation – or did she manage to drive away some hideous monster of nothing and entropy? 

Horribly, it could have been both.

Her sibling, the one remaining, slowly leans down and picks up the remains of the chrysalis. They look at her.

“Throw it away.”

It stares at her for what feels like an eternity, and then drops it outside.

The shell is quickly caught by the winds and promptly torn apart.