Archive of Our Own

The first thing he does upon re-entering existence is choke. Thick, cold syrupy darkness fills his throat, fills him. All he sees is dark, he feels nothing, and yet intelligence, sapience has returned to him. Cruelly returned so that he may know and languish in being completely and utterly lost.

The second thing he does is heave as it is abruptly ripped out of him. From his lungs, from his eyes, from his claws, all of him. He finds even the stains he had gained from creating the Wingsmoulds and Kingsmould to be stripped from him.

With his vision restored, the third thing he does is lay eyes on a Vessel. 

It is small. Painful to look at, familiar in aching ways. While its horns are thinner and curved, the resemblance is uncanny. To the Hollow Knight, to him. The look in its eyes is the same he saw whenever he looked in a mirror. Dark and compelling set in white shell. Distant and determined, shining in the light.

He gathers himself.

They are in the Abyss beside the Lighthouse. It seems to have reeled him in.

“I won’t ask how you fetched me from my mortality. I do, however, wish to know what you want of me.”

It does not answer in any conventional way, instead turning around and walking. With nowhere else to go, he follows. The shells click and crack beneath his feet and it is a testament to his will that he does not flinch. It leads him out, and by the fact that there is a way out, he knows that the little one that he trails behind is his successor. By the fact that there is a pulsing emptiness settled within its shell, he knows that they have succeeded him in more ways than one.

The world has changed much in his absence. He expected that, though. It was why he left in the first place.

The Vessel does not acknowledge him. Never once does it turn its head to ensure that he is shadowing its steps. Never once does it halt after making a leap or more intensive maneuver. It walks ahead of its own will and it expects him to follow regardless of the obstacles. 

It is right.

The two of them pass by the Palace Grounds and he stops to stare for a moment. He never saw the aftermath of his absconding. It is a Void in space. An aching wound in the world, his absence had tore into the very earth. A presence made palpable only by its lack of presence. His old couriers lay huddled on the ground. Clinging to each other. Clinging to foolish faith. Though, perhaps not. He did return, like they had undoubtedly hoped.

While he said he would not ask the Vessel how it had brought him back, he does have some ideas.

The Void spat him out. Chewed him up and regurgitated him like some misbehaving pet. That makes it the owner, the beast master, one who brought it to heel as he tried in vain to do. The feat alone makes it more than worthy to take the mantle of King.

A more terrifying option is that it simply unmade his unmaking. Rendered his nonexistence null. A negative working on another negative, restoring what was. The implications of such a power are… unfathomable. It makes a pit open in his stomach and his regrets increase tenfold. He was a fool to think he could have ever mastered such a thing.

He snaps himself out of his thoughts and notices the Vessel is gone. He hurries to the Hidden Station and finds it sitting on the bench, shuffling its sizable charm collection. It shucks off one and replaces it with two before hopping off and ringing the bell. He stands silently by its side and feels the familiar rumble of a stag approaching. An old one, but seemingly still reliable. 

“Hm. A new traveller you bring me, little one. Another with striking resemblance. From your  initial lone treks, I hadn’t expected you to have such a large family.”

It nods and then points somewhere on its map.

“Of course. Board as you are willing.” The stag then bows his head to him. “A friend of my friend is a friend of mine. Even if it were not my duty, I would gladly serve you and your kin.”

Something bitter wells in his throat. He does not spit it out.

“Thank you, sir,” he murmurs.

The ride is silent – barring the stag’s sprinting – and he can’t help but make note of the Vessel. It carries itself with his same assurance, though it lacks his practiced grace. It inspires devotion. It looks like him. Like an uncanny mirror. Himself, contorted. Himself, made small and dark and cold. Like his Knight. His Knight, small and young and delicate. His Knight, before he had impressed upon it his will, his purpose, his designs for it. His Child, before he had ruined them.

The two arrive in the gardens.

Ah, the Queen. Of course.

The walk is silent. A single mantis with pockmarks and sagging shell staggers out to confront them. He rears back, flaring his wings in obvious threat, but the Vessel springs into the air and crashes into the ground in a potent, near uncontrollable blaze of Soul and Void.

The mantis dies instantaneously, and it walks over its scorched body without further pause.

It does not strike fear into him, its display of power. It does not, but he compares it to his Pure Vessel and wonders if that fraction of its ability would be enough to be considered their equal. His Knight was refined and dedicated. Their lethality honed to a sharp, precise edge. The Vessel is strength unbound and uncaring. Raw, unrelenting force directed only by focus. He thinks it would be more than their match. The thought does not frighten him.

The two arrive through thorns and overgrowth. Her cocoon is thick and hardened. The entrance is big enough for only the Vessel. Intentional, he knows. She would only want to see one thing.

The Vessel lashes at it with a gleaming, pure nail and cuts a jagged gash big enough for him to make his way. The roots sticking out between bonds begin to shift and retreat, pulling back what they can to make room. But they cannot do enough, and it continues to slash at her until they make it to her chamber.

Her, beautiful as ever. His Lady, splendorous even while faded and bound.

“My beloved, is it true? Does your Light fall upon my Roots once more?”

His mouth is dry.

“Indeed, it is truly me, as you know me to be. I… apologize for my tardiness. I hope my absence was not too aching.”

“Aching it was, but over now. Returned, my love. Though time has stolen from me my sight, your Light remains clear to me.”

Her blue eyes have gone cloudy. Dulled, like so much of Hallownest’s spark. Without him there it’s been left to dim. To sink away in afterglow. To be reigned over by the dark.

The Vessel stares up at her.

“This one is what did it,” she says. “To swallow down the plague. To join us in our higher echelon. To save Hallownest.”

He didn’t doubt it, but he appreciates having it confirmed.

“I suppose a thank you is more than necessary,” he says. It feels stilted, even to him. “You have my eternal gratitude, Vessel, and my esteem for whatever worth that may be in this age.”

It tilts its head to look at him and then begins to fuss. It pulls out its map and points to a small scribble at the top of it. The Hollow Knight, handdrawn, in their temple.

“I do not know what you are asking of me,” he sidesteps.

“Does it desire a reunion, and so brought you to me?” His Lady asks, a soft note of hope in her voice. “To play at family after so long?”

It steps back. Stares long and hard at both of them before leaving the cocoon.

“I do not believe it holds us in the highest opinion, my love,” he says.

“I cannot imagine it would. Still, we have time in abundance. Us three, especially. If nothing else, it will learn to tolerate us.”

“I hope so.”

It is quiet for a long moment and he softly exhales before stepping closer. His claw once again feels her bark. Feels the warmth and life of her form. Her gentle gaze, now unseeing, blankly slides over his weary body. He sits in her lap and breathes in her scent. Earthy and of sap. She leans as much as she can and he meets her half way. At last, their cheeks touch and she breathes out a sweet sigh.

“I missed you,” she whispers.

“I am sorry I left you to such a fate.”

“You returned. Apology accepted.”

Easily. He does not think others will be so forgiving, but he nearly weeps at how loving his wife remains even after ages passed. Devoted still. Soft for him, still. He allows himself a moment to let it hang in the air. To be warm and intimate and let the world shrink until it comprises only of them and the cocoon.

“What are we to do now,” he murmurs.

“Two paths, I believe. To the right, we let ourselves fade into the annals of history and hand over the reins of the future to our children. To the left, we try to carve a place for us in the present, wherever that may be.”

“Being dead was easier.”

“I’d imagine so.”

“Will you unbind? Walk with me again?”

She sighs softly, “I have been secluded for so very long. We should go into the new world together. Perhaps it still holds some wonder for us to discover.”

He steps back.

“I will give you room to uproot. Then, we may have another stroll through the garden.”

Her smile is soft and bittersweet.

“Blind to the greenery, I may have to scale back the extent of these lands. Unn will be happy to hear that, if she still remains.”

“An audience with her may be in the future.”

“Perhaps.”

The perfunctory answer is the signal for him to leave. He crawls out and it is only when he is free does the cocoon begin to tremble and shake.

The Vessel stands, staring.

“Ah. If I had known you were waiting, I would have been more timely.”

“We both know that is a lie.” He turns around and is met with his daughter. Red and sharp, the spitting image of her mother. “If it weren’t for Hope dredging you from the depths, you would have been content to spend eternity missing.”

She is correct, of course. He likes to think at least some of her brilliance came from him.

“Hello, Hornet,” he says.

“Hello, Father,” she spits his title. “I didn’t believe it when my sibling said it was going to bring you back. Seems the darkness holds unending miracles and undeserving mercies.”

The darkness may very well hold all things. All things, rendered imperceivable. He tries not to linger long on the thought. 

“I apologize to you as well, as meager as it must be to your matured sensibilities. I am happy to see you’ve grown into a capable bug despite the many burdens placed on you.”

“It is not for me that you’ve been granted a second chance. You are lucky Hope is not just willing, but capable of moving heaven and earth for those it loves. You are here to meet with your Knight, in whatever capacity they want you.”

He suspected it. The Vessel, Hope, how terribly accurate, held no love for him. His daughter had every reason to resent him. Clearly, it cared little for his wife as well, and would not have brought him to her for solely her own benefit. For some reason – one in particular he can so clearly imagine and pitifully longs for – his Knight wanted him.

“Of course,” he says. “Are they well?”

Hornet huffs, “As much as they can be after being subjected to such a fate.”

Then, shuffling. His Lady emerges.

“Oh. Hello, dear spider. I see you’ve all been making your pleasantries.”

Hornet inclines her head in her direction, and he already knows his daughter favors his wife more than him.

“We’ve been catching up. How have you been?”

“Just fine, dear. Obtaining my balance again. Might you help your old lady?”

Hornet slides to her side and takes her arm. Giving her something to do, some task to focus on instead of picking fights. While he was no stranger to diplomacy, his wife held more social acumen than he. He can admit it. She was his better half, after all.

“Thank you. I suppose we are heading off now. Lead the way, you two.”

Hope turns around and marches. It does not turn around to check if anyone follows.

Everyone does.

They take the stag to Dirtmouth. The old stag comments on the new face and the four of them endure his commentary. At the station, Hope gives his horn a pat and immediately forsakes the elevator entirely by leaping up with wings – like his – and climbing the wall.

“It does that all the time. It was brought up by no other than the winds of the Wastes and its own will. Do not expect manners,” Hornet dryly supplies.

“There’s always time to learn,” his Lady gently says.

Hornet hums but otherwise offers no substantial reply.

The town is… not empty by any means, but certainly not bustling. A pair of beetles sit painting a house. One has a stutter and the other blushes whenever she sees Hornet. An old bug stands beside the bench at the center of the square.

“Miss Hornet, my precious Hope, it is good to see you two. I hope your journey down was pleasant. Who might these new faces be?”

“Our father and his wife,” Hornet replies.

“Another family reunion, eh? Seems your tree’s branches extend deep in those caverns.”

At his side, his Root hides a laugh. Coincidental, but apt, nonetheless.

“It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir.” She bows her head. “Call me Lady.”

There is a beat after she speaks that he knows is left open for him. On cue, he clears his throat. “Techne.”

“Pardon the rudeness, but we do need to make haste. My sibling has been anxious for their return,” Hornet says.

“Of course. Give Faith my love.”

Hope nods and they approach the largest house in the town. He can feel fire and essence in waves. A drawn curtain is tussled, but whatever was doing it lets out a muffled squawk before it could reveal itself. Hornet fishes out a key from her cloak and opens the door. The moment it cracked, a pair of claws wedge themselves in and fling it open. A short, young, scarlet moth stares up at them.

“No soliciting!”

Hornet snorts before walking in.

“I’m happy to see you as well, nephew.”

Grimm sticks out his tongue at her. She only tsks.

“Keep up that attitude and Entel Faith won’t babysit you anymore. You’ll have to go with the Elder and the rest of the grubs.”

“No!” he wails as they pass by him into the foyer. “I don’t want to be stuck with the grubs! I want to go with you and Baba!”

Hope pulls out a fractured fossil and Grimm drops his tantrum entirely to coo over it.

“See? Baba always finds interesting things.”

“When you have more stable legs, we'll take you on a walk through Greenpath, how’s that?”

The little spitfire preens.

“Great!” Then he turns to him and his Lady. “Who’re you supposed to be?”

“Your grandparents,” Hornet says with notable slyness.

He turns to look at Hope, his Baba. “The ones that cast you off?”

Hope nods and he tries not to let that hurt too much. He doesn’t expect it to spare his vanity. Grimm’s eyes narrow as his heckles begin to visibly raise.

“Why are they here?”

Lady kneels down and despite his hissing, she speaks gently.

“We are here to mend what we can, but specifically for the former Hollow Knight. You know them as your Entel, correct?”

Grimm begrudgingly nods.

“We mean to harm. We love them like you do, even if we made a few mistakes along the way. If they are willing to have us, we would like to be part of your family.”

Hornet scoffs quietly and Hope lacks any reaction. She’s putting it lightly, perhaps too much so, but Grimm is young now. An opportunistic omen his kind are, but if they’ve already arrived and completed their ritual it means Hallownest is well and truly dead. His Hallownest, in any case. What new incarnation Hope is sowing the seeds of may yet only be in its infancy.

It makes him a little bitter, passing the baton. Hallownest Eternal, ended. His part in it, ended.

Hope walks deeper into the house, down a hallway and disappears.

“Put yourselves together,” Hornet says. “Hope is fetching them. I have no say in whatever occurs, and I leave this solely to those who you have scorned. Nephew, you’ll come with me in the bedroom and I will show you how to play my needolin.”

Grimm beams and flaps over to her, excitedly bouncing in place when he touches down.

“Yes! Thank you, auntie! You’re the best!”

She smiles faintly.

“Don’t go saying that in front of Entel Faith. They’ll get jealous.”

He cannot imagine his Knight jealous.

A door opens. He sharply inhales and holds it for three seconds. The tightness in his chest is explained away.

The pair walk out of the hallway. His Knight runs their hand along the wall as they walk and then proceeds to softly sway when there is nothing else to lean on. Hope hops onto the table itself and his Knight – Faith, what a painful thing – sits at the table. They pull out a slate and some chalk.

“Right. Come on, Grimm,” Hornet says and the pair disappear into a different room. 

He’s nearly envious of their escape.

His Knight does not look either of them in the eye, blankly staring down at their writing slate. Hesitancy or confusion may be the motivator. They could be overwhelmed. It’s impossible to tell and he could kick himself for it. All empty on the outside, but full of life on the inside, the only place where it mattered.

Hope slams its fist into the table.

“Ah,” his wife softly exclaims. “Are you alright, dear?”

It makes an abrupt, sort of cutting motion with its arm. Faith looks at it, then looks at them, and writes: ‘Do not call Hope that. Do not like it.’

“Right, my apologies. That was too familiar.”

It lapses into silence again and he piteously tries, “How have you been since I had… taken leave?”

Faith shifts their cloak and reveals a stump where their spellcasting arm used to be. Hope taps its shell, where a faint fracture line runs through its own mask, now much more visible in the better light of the house and with it not moving. While Hope does not elaborate any more, Faith wipes away their previous statement and continues: ‘Hard to move. Dizzy. Getting better. Slow.’

“That’s good,” Lady says. “It will be slow, but you will be whole again in time. Especially with the company of those who love you.”

They nod their head.

‘How are you?’

“Faded in a way not dissimilar to yourself as I find my legs again. I hope that we can struggle together. And you, my love?”

Her eyes do not see him, but she turns her head to his light all the same. Root, all the way down.

“Well enough as I suppose. I might still have some of those wretched shadows in my lungs, though.”

Hope shakes its head.

“I will have to take your word for it, authority you are on all things dark. Regardless of my cleanliness, I still find myself chilled. I do not believe that will be going away any time soon.”

Hope shrugs. The silence is his fault, he knows.

“I will not impose ourselves upon your home. You are all grown enough to build your own nests. We only wish to… be allowed a place in your life.”

Faith stares at him.

‘You can. I missed you.’

“I am sorry,” he says. “That is not enough. But I truly am.”

‘I love you. I am happy I can tell you that now.’

His throat constricts.

“I love you too.”

Life is slower. Certainly, less stressful.

No infection to worry about, no trade relations (yet), no court to hold, no reports to go over…

Life is stunningly slow.

He’s not too sure if he likes it. He has a purpose, yes, a defined niche he’s carved out as Techne, resident mechanist. But it’s not the Hallownest he had dreamed of, worked for, once had, lovingly and painstakingly made. He misses his old authority. The town answers to the Elder who acts as unofficial mayor, and Hope as a sort of social focal point. It is who everyone knows, and it routinely dips back down bearing letters and missives and materials from the small groups remaining. He is a King no more. Techne, everyone calls him.

His children do not particularly enjoy his presence, and he does not blame them.

Hornet has matured and become jaded and bitter. There’s no need or even room for a father in her life. Too long spent her own bug under her own will. They are cordial at best, testy at worst. The closest they ever come is when one of them requires spare parts the other has, or perhaps wants a second pair of eyes to look over a particular mechanism.

Faith does seek him out, both him and Lady. Their relationship is more complicated. They love him, but they have to reconcile what he did and did not do. He sealed them away and let them rot. He left them and did not intend to ever come back. He loved them like a father, but he was not one. Did nothing a father is supposed to do. Finding out how they are supposed to work together now, what they can do, what they want from this relationship is hard to parse.

Hope is inscrutable.

It is who he is fascinated with, admittedly. The other two are defined in relation to him. He knew them from before. Hope is something entirely new and entirely uninterested in his prodding. Perhaps it is his natural curiosity getting the better of him. Perhaps it is his nature as Light to want to illuminate the Dark.

Sometimes he steps out of his workshop– a new, smaller, less sophisticated one– and goes to the bench when he notices it out and about. He sits and makes it clear that anyone can watch him work. Sometimes it watches. Sometimes it sits next to him and fiddles with its items and charms and nail while making no move to indicate it is even aware of him. Sometimes it walks straight past him without even a passing glance.

There is no pattern to it, at least none he can discern. Inscrutable.

Someone knocks on the door.

His new home is nothing near a Palace, but there’s no way he is getting that back. Even if Hope deigned to do so, it would surface in the Abyss. There’s no force remaining with enough capacity for the labor to disassemble the Palace and reconstruct it. And if there was, why not build a new one entirely? It is not too terrible. His new residence required some fixing, a few cracks around the foundation, a hole in the roof, new windows. He handled the exterior while Lady made the inside to her tastes. Plant fiber curtains, white sheets accompanied by an accenting green and dark purple. She always had a better eye for small details like that, as ironic as that statement might now be. Though, with how profoundly his plan had failed, maybe they were more alike blind than ever before.

Lady answers the door and it is Faith at the entryway.

“My love, will you accompany us?”

He stands up from where he was attempting to reorganize his toolkit. A fruitless endeavor as he already knows he’d never let go of even the smallest of scrap parts. They could always be useful in a different project.

“The winds seem tempered today, no? Perfect for a stroll," he says, mostly to himself.

His Lady and his child typically walk hand in hand. Leaning on one another. Stumbling together. Her soft laughter rings as she relishes their company. She did not witness their first steps, but she is there now, to witness this, and maybe that is what matters more in this moment. He walks at Lady’s side and steers her away from any obstacle. His beautiful gate, shattered and fallen, litters the path and he feels a soft misery seeing its state. While he did not see much of his kingdom, he does know that this is more than likely reflective of the whole of things.

Then, there is a flapping of wings. Something large circles overhead. Its wings buzz incessantly.

“I think we should end this prematurely,” he says.

“I agree. Whatever that is, it should be allowed to pass us by.”

The three of them begin to turn around when the thing smashes into the ground. It kicks up dirt, cracks the rock, and the wind picks up with its wings.

A wasp, a wild hunter left to grow large in the Wastes from picking off bugs. Given its size, it's likely female. There’s a fair chance she’s come to lay her eggs here, or to steal one of them to serve as food for her young. There’s a multitude of reasons why he built Hallownest deeper down, and predators like her are one.

He is not a fighter, admittedly. Powerful, bright, but not a fighter. His strength lies in his strategy. How he uses and refines and structures his power, not the rawness of it in and of itself. Neither is his Root. His child is not well enough to put up proper defense.

Hornet’s needle flies by them and nails the wasp in one of her legs.

“What are you doing? Get inside!”

Their fastest speeds are not impressive. Luckily for them, the wasp seems entirely occupied with Hornet as she zips about. When they pass by the well, Hope serendipitously hops out and watches the commotion for a moment before scurrying over to Faith’s side and draws its nail. An escort, how courteous. They are ferried inside and Grimm motions for Hope to join them.

“Let auntie handle it.”

Hornet cries out and his heart clenches. Grimm’s face drops.

“Nevermind, Baba, go help her out!”

Hope dashes away and Grimm closes the door, waits a moment, and then locks it. He breathes out a small plume of smoke. He then spins around and runs to Faith. He jumps repeatedly until they crouch down and let him crawl onto their shoulders.

“Old guy!” he yells, looking at him.

“Yes?”

“Do you know how to beat someone up?”

“Theoretically.”

“Then you and I are on the front lines! If anything happens, I want you to cover me. My flames are hot, but they don’t go too far.”

Faith sits down on the sofa and brings their arm up to rub Grimm’s head.

“Hope and Hornet have it covered, but if things come to that, I will aid you as I am able.”

Then, there is a loud cracking noise and the ground trembles. A shelf falls clean off the wall, but the sound is strangely muffled. Lady raises her head and roots wrap around the room, forming another neat cocoon. Despite her Light, the shadows are deeper than they ought to be. He makes his way to her and leans his head on her shoulder.

“The thing inside of it has been let out,” he whispers. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Cold,” she answers. “Massive. Rippling. We’ve spawned something terrible and grand.”

Silence settles over Dirtmouth. Thick and heavy, a presence in its own right. It coils around everything, every lamppost, every house, every bug, and every mind. Even thoughts are choked as a pervasive sort of primordial fearfulness takes root in the blasphemous beating of their hearts.

Someone knocks on the door.

Warily, Lady strides across the room as best she can and prunes her tendrils enough to make an opening in the cocoon for the front door to be exposed. She opens it and nothing is on the other side.

Nothing, as in a wall of indecipherable darkness. It writhes, melts and melds. There are… shapes in it, forms bordering on discernable, but too distorted to resemble much of anything at all. Except for an emerging red cloak and white shell.

Lady gasps. Hornet twitches.

“Stung me,” she grits out. “With a paralytic. Parasite.”

Lady rescinds all her roots and lays his daughter flat on the sofa. Grimm leaps off of Faith’s shoulders and onto the backrest, staring down at her with watery eyes.

“I am fine. Just have to wait.”

“What about Baba?”

She cringes.

“It… tore itself.”

He turns and sees large, gleaming eyes staring through the door. Hornet doesn’t bother to look and instead shouts.

“Go to the Maskmaker! Don’t dally!”

The eyes disappear and the shadows follow shortly after.

Faith kneels next to their sister and delicately moves aside her cloak to look at her wound.

He finds himself paralyzed as well.

He is a maker, an inventor, a schemer who takes the pieces the world is composed of and creates a new one entirely. What he has just seen is something of his make, but entirely beyond his vision.

Hornet recovers quickly. The wasp in question was a spider hunter. Stinging its prey and placing its eggs within to hatch and devour them from the inside. The prospective mother had likely come to Hallownest due to its infestation of arachnids, picked up their scent, and found prey with his daughter. Hope had cast off its shell when she was stung, likely infuriated. He wonders if it was painful, or more akin to his own rebirth. A death of one body and a transformation into another. In the meantime, it is entirely absent and the town is smaller for it.

Faith does not deal with it well, he notices. They are shakier when they walk and much more antsy. They wake up early – if they slept at all – and sit at the bench near the well. The time varies. Sometimes the young Grimm accompanies them and attempts to build a tower of rocks before knocking it over or swinging about a pruned branch from Lady in mimicry of his missing parent. Sometimes Hornet gives the excuse of stretching her legs as she hobbles out to sit beside them. His Lady goes on her usual walk and invites them. 

They decline. They wait patiently for their sibling.

His heart aches to see it. He does not know their relationship, nor the depth of it. He knows they waited the same for him. So he sits at their side and lets the silence settle familiarly between the two of them. A comfortable nostalgia fills him and for once he does not feel out of place and out of time.

Hesitatingly, Faith grazes his claw with their own.

He takes it.

The wind is howling. It’s a nice morning.

Hope arrives abruptly. It simply reappears as if it was never gone at all, and slips back into its routine. The crack in its mask is more noticeable now, deeper. He reckons if it breaks again, it might not be able to be put back together.

Hornet smiles softly at it, but it is more wry than gushing.

“Next time, we should do without the theatrics. I’m sure you could have handled it without cracking yourself open.”

Hope shrugs and leaps up onto the worktable before making one of its rare hand motions. He doesn’t understand what it means. His daughter puts down her screwdriver.

“Faith is asleep. I’ve since recovered. Grimm is trying to get the Elder’s wet wood to light. He left it out overnight again.”

It nods and hops off, leaving the workshop entirely.

“How do you do it?” he asks.

His daughter returns her gaze to the snare she’s halfway into making, requiring him to serve as extra hands while she works out the small details. He’s happy enough to oblige.

“Do what?”

“Talk to it.”

“With my voice.”

The conversation putters out. He does not feel like explaining himself and she does not feel inclined to prod.

His Lady kneels next to Hope.

“You seem to be doing well, though, I cannot help but notice your wounds. It won’t fix it, but I offer you my sap. The cracks will never fade, but you will be much sturdier for it.”

It’s because it is so small, he thinks. Small and lively and very, very pitiful looking.

It nods.

She turns to him.

“My love, can you help us?”

He nods, faintly and sick, he nods.

The three of them enter his workshop. Hope looks disinterested. Like it has seen it all before. Considering it ate his Soul, it likely has in one way or another. It leaps onto his table and sits with folded legs.

“We’ll have to wedge it open a small bit if it is going to work effectively. Do you mind that?”

It stares blankly for a long, frightening moment before softly nodding its acquiescence.

“Wonderful. Still, if it becomes too much, make it known.” She turns to him. “My love, can you hold it open?”

He picks up his wedge tool and tries not to think too hard about this.

It’s to help it. It wants this.

He brings his claws to its face – mask, he knows there’s something beneath – and as gently as possible pushes in the edge. There’s no noise, no further cracking, and he holds in any relief. His Lady’s roots come in next, and her lifeblood begins to slowly congeal.

It must make her happy, giving herself like this. That this is something she can do for it.

He makes the cracks wider.

With how insulated the settlement is, there’s much ado when someone new comes. Five arrive, astonishingly.

Triplets as is obvious by appearance. Two of them are unsteady with a tense air between them, while the third, an artist, is accompanied by his lover. The fifth, however, is another Vessel. The one with a stern expression and bad manners, Oro, keeps them at his side. Their name is Esmy, and they have a large, unseemly crack in their shell covered only by the bandana Oro is missing from what appears to be a uniform set of dressings the triplets share.

Sly, the greedy little fly, for once leaves his shop to welcome them.

“My students, it has been far too long since you had given your old teacher a visit. I trust you three have been taking care of yourselves?”

They all bow to him, even Esmy.

“Of course,” Mato says, the kindest of the bunch. “I have been working to further hone my mastery of your teachings.”

“I’ve been busy,” Oro gruffly excuses, and leaves it at that.

Sheo looks the most content out of the three of them and says, “I have been living, Master. I might not make use of my nail anymore, but your discipline still holds true in my newer endeavors.”

Hope, the one who led them here, turns to look at him as he gawks at the scene. Its gaze is inscrutable.

He goes back inside.

Hope continues to bring new Vessels and the occasional new bug. All his children carry cracks and dismal injuries. The slow trickle ends with eight in total, counting Esmy. One runs off to be with Mato, one lives with the Elder to aid him in his age, two with Cornifer, Iselda, and their grub, and three go to live alone with each other in a small house on the outskirts of town.

Lady tries her best to be there for them, to make her presence known and their company welcome should they choose to grace her with it. He is… less proactive. They will come to him if they want, and keep their distance if not. It’s not his place to insert himself where he is not wanted, and he does not think too many of them are in want of him.

Faith loves them.

Palpably, without words, without expression, happiness radiates off of them like how light shines from him. They are beautiful when they glow like that. He has never seen them so wonderfully handsome as he does when they walk around the perimeter of the town with their siblings forming a small line behind them, playing some game he does not know.

It makes his throat constrict, his heart race, his everything sting. 

He was so profoundly foolish.

Hope sits next to him. For once, it is not hounded by its siblings or Grimm, though with the new assortment of potential playmates the latter is more occupied than ever. It pulls out its map and stares long into it. Hallownest has been faithfully charted and exhumed. Every inch– or at least every inch relevant to its quest and quite a few that were not– carefully explored. Marked.

It taps the Kingdom’s Edge before throwing a meaningful glance his way.

“Do you wish for me to elaborate on the events which took place there, or for me to accompany you for a visit to my corpse?”

It walks away to the stag station and does not bother looking behind it.

He follows.

The winds here are as unmerciful as he remembers. Ash has since the place. The cliffs remain perilous and have only eroded into worse shapes since he was last here. Which was quite a while ago. It manages well enough. A belfly is bounced off of with its nail – a terrifying innovation – and its wings serve it well. The two of them crawl deeper and deeper until they are faced with…

Him.

The old him. His face sunken in, at last torn apart by time and dust. Cracks stretch out of his old shell and only now seem to grow deeper.

“Why do you bring me here?”

It brings its claw to him and he sees where the Brand has burned itself into it.

“This marks you as my successor. You seem to be doing fine so far, though I did not leave you with much to inherit.”

It lowers its arm and lets it fall back into its cloak.

“... I never apologized to you, did I?”

It does not react. He isn’t sure it would like an apology, let alone accept it. He must deliver one anyway, if only for his own sake.

“I am sorry. For all of it. For what I did to you, and what I made necessary for you to do. At the time, I thought it worth the suffering. I thought that it would be a pain only I– we would suffer. To lose our children, to poison our marriage bed, to live with that loss. I hadn’t thought…”

It does not matter now what he thought. Who cares about what his intentions were. He saw the bottom of the Abyss.

“It does not matter what I thought. I may have paid, but you and your kind were the cost. I am sorry.”

It does not take his hand. It does not offer any comfort, as cold as it might have been. As he softly weeps and the winds carry away his words, it offers only its presence.

It watches him with a gaze experienced with witnessing shame and secrets. How many hidden truths has it borne? How many regrets – countless, undoubtedly countless from Eternal Hallownest – has its emptiness been made to host? How many are others and how many are its own?

It fusses.

Its small claws scrabble at its face–

– and then the mask pops off.

The thing emerges. Large and writhing and indescribable. Perhaps it wants to kill him. This was a lure, to drag him out to where he won’t be seen or heard. Maybe it was fond of poetry and brought him here to die where he did before.

It does not do any of that. Its size does not eclipse his old body, but it is a very near thing. It is hard to even begin to measure or estimate. The world loses coherence around it, the details are muddied, the colors drained, the silence thick. Mist emanates from its form, obscuring what little discernable features it has in the first place.

It hurts.

He startles. Is that it?

“What does?” He says haltingly.

Being small. How do you do it?

“I… remade myself this way. Reborn. I am not cramming myself into an old body, this is a new one. Designed, intended–”

Diminished.

That prickles.

“Diminished, yes, one could say. What do you want of me?”

I do not know. It hurts.

The shadows shudder around him, and he can almost make out breathing in it. Wet and gurgling, rattling and dry, clear and hacking and strong and weak and so, so much. Much and more than he can begin to grasp.

But it is hurting and it is his child and it turned to him for help.

He does not know how to.

“I could try to… to train you. Your shell to…”

Would that even work? Would being as large as Faith even help? There is a degree of physicality to the crampedness of its shell, but there is more, more, more than that. The Void, ever encroaching, ever eager. Holding that in a shell regardless of size seems… undoable.

The Light. Your Light, imbued. It hurts. Hurts in a way I do not know.

He is hurting it. Should he remove himself? Can he? His Light, smothered as it might be, is part of its shell. Is it incompatible now? A Vessel that can no longer contain the darkness within it? He could make a new one, but all his work is in a Palace that no longer exists. All his work is in containing the Void, not…

He could…

Could what?

“I am sorry. I do not know how to help you. I desperately wish I did, but I… I simply do not.”

It is bitter and stinging and does not go down easy. He does not know what to do and the sinking sense of helplessness makes him burn worse than before. Before it was his kingdom crumbling. But then he had solutions, plans, possible avenues even if they did not work. The illusion of agency. Now it is his child that suffers silently and imperceptibly and he has no way of alleviating it.

Should I… I do not…

Hope closes its eyes.

I do not want to leave. But it hurts to stay. What do I do?

“Come back home,” he croaks. His selfishness curdles in his throat. “Lady and I will figure something out. We will, I promise. I am–” his voice cracks and it is just as painful to hear as it was to speak. “I am proud of you for telling me this.”

I do not want to go back in.

“I know. I know. It is only for now. I will make you a new body, if you wish. I will make you tens of bodies until you find one that does not hurt. You need only to come home.”

He does not wait for an answer. He isn’t sure he could bear one. He turns around and walks forwards and hopes that it follows.

It does not repair their relationship. There is scarcely a relationship to be repaired. But it does result in spending more time together. It skulks about his workshop and watches him with little comment. It does not offer help and very rarely does he require it.

The plan is simple enough.

Roots require light and water and a stable place to grow. By virtue of being the smallest among its siblings, Hope lacked all three of these things. Briefly, he wonders where it ended up to cause such a deficiency. Most of the others managed to sprout at least a little bit. Regardless, it is to stay in his presence and at regular intervals go to the hot springs to take in the water. It will grow and hopefully the extra space will give it enough room.

He will be doing this with the other siblings as well, but Hope needs his attention. The others will grow at their regular paces, ambient light is more than enough. Presumably, it will follow a similar pattern as Faith did. An incomplete metamorphosis, shedding the molt until it reaches maturity with little changes in its physiology.

That is not what happens.

Faith knocks at his front door. Grimm screams through it, “Open up! Fast! Get out here, Gramps!”

He hurries.

“What happened?”

“Baba formed a chrysalis,” Grimm explains. “Entel said that’s not what’s supposed to happen, so what did you do?”

A chrysalis?! He puts a claw to his head and tries to wrack his mind as to why it would undergo that. He comes up blank. There is no biological reason. It is practically identical to every other sibling, to Faith at that stage in their development. Is it the thing inside? But why would it do that? How could it do that?

“I do not know. There’s nothing we can do. Opening it prematurely would kill it.”

Grimm pales and presses his cheek into Faith’s leg. They wrap their claws around his shoulders.

“Let me see it. I would like to record this in case this happens with any of the others.”

He is no longer sure of anything. Was Faith the outlier here, or is Hope unique in its constitution? Will all of them be different to differing degrees? How? Why? They all share the same conditions of their creation, why would they be different?

Faith takes him to their home and he finds Hornet aggressively punching a small needle through fabric. Embroidering.

“Do not talk to me,” she says and he decides he’ll leave her be.

Briskly walking down the hallway leads him to a bedroom. Well, bedroom in name only. Seems Vessels are predisposed to nesting behaviors. There is a large pile of blankets and old cloaks and a dent in it that is suspiciously Faith-shaped with a smaller dip right next to it. The chrysalis itself is in the corner of the room having affixed itself in place via several protruding tendrils which have burrowed into the wall and floor. Esmy sits next to the chrysalis, nail laid across their lap. They glower at him.

Grimm skitters over to them and softly nuzzles their side. “It’s okay Entel Esmy, Gramps is going to give Baba a look over and make sure it's doing okay. Help me make lunch for when it breaks out! Maybe it’ll have a mouth when it's done!”

Esmy clutches their nail a little harder, but obliges Grimm and the two of them scurry off to the kitchen. That leaves him, Faith, and the chrysalis.

He sighs deeply.

“I do not understand what you are asking of me. I know just as much as you do. Presumably, it is undergoing a complete metamorphosis, as compared to your incomplete metamorphosis. You went from a hatchling to a nymph to an adult. There was very little change in your appearance, you only became bigger with maturity.”

He runs a claw gently down the side of it. Smooth, cold, and beating. 

“Complete metamorphosis is a different process. In species that exhibit it, the larvae are highly active and ravenous. I suppose eating a God was an indicator that we all missed, but I digress. Once a larva has had its fill, it spins itself a chrysalis to undergo its radical transformation. A butterfly does not resemble a caterpillar very much, does it? I suspect something similar will occur with your sibling.”

Faith tentatively reaches out and rests their hand on it. They pet it with much more affection than his more inquisitive touch.

“Whatever emerges, it will likely be very different from what it was before.”

It takes a very long time. Several of his children have a molt in the meantime. Esmy already had one prior to this, and they have firmly wedged themself into the final stages of nymphood. Faith is excited all the time. They have taken to scratching their sibling’s heights into rock in order to keep track of their growth. The tallest they are now, but perhaps not forever.

Hope remains in its chrysalis.

It is visited several times. Grimm once attempts to warm it like an egg, but is swiftly shoo’d off and scolded by his aunt. Grimm has grown as well, entering into adolescence. As for himself, he does not visit Hope, because that feels… inappropriate, somehow. Like trespassing in a place he has no business being. With Faith, he is their father. With Hornet, he is her father. As for the other Vessels, he could be seen as a father in some cases and more of a distant but accessible figure to others.

To Hope, a Vessel no longer, he patently is not. Never was and likely never will be. That stag has left the station. It lived its whole life without him, pulled the dregs of power and history and importance from the smoldering remains of his life’s work, and concentrated that into something new and entirely without his input. It was grown and competent and his presence unnecessary since the moment they had met. It is his successor, while others are his children.

(But it cried out to him, once. He failed then, too, and that cements it.)

It takes a long time, but not nearly long enough. Soon, Grimm sprints through the town shrieking.

“Baba is wiggling! Hope is coming! Come on, come on!”

Lady grazes his leg with a root.

“We should be there. If not because it is our child, but in the case of something hungry and empty emerging.”

“We should,” he says, and does not move.

That thought had frightened him. Hope was powerful, but was tempered by love. It would not lash out at the world that had cruelly made it and pained it. It would not, because it loved the world and the bugs in it. A complete metamorphosis might… change that, among other things.

His Lady flicks him.

“I know,” he says.

“Then we should be on our way.”

The house is full. Several bugs mill about in the parlor, speaking softly but excitedly about Hope’s pupation. He and his Lady are permitted entry into the bedroom. It is choked with siblings. Faith sits in front of the chrysalis and rocks slightly in place. Esmy stands in the corner and glares at him. Their nail remains in its sheath, however. They’re an overprotective and nearly aggressive sort, he’s since realized, and their sibling’s prolonged vulnerability leaves them particularly agitated.

Speaking of particularly agitated, Hornet. She’s made a very light and unfashioned bolt of fabric for its modesty when it emerges. Apparently, it's some kind of Weaver tradition. She clenches it tightly with both her claws and pointedly keeps her needle obscured under her cloak. He decides not to push his luck and let Lady sit next to her and begin soft small talk.

Turning his attention to the task at hand, he sees Grimm is right. Hope is wiggling.

The chrysalis twitches, and while it is still opaque, he can see the smallest sliver of movement within it. He can scarcely breathe. The air feels stale and whatever warmth lingers from the gathering is slowly leeched out.

Hope writhes.

A crack forms and the room goes grey, goes still. Faint mist flutters up from the puncture, and liquid nothing bleeds from the wound. Everyone is silent, except for Faith. Faith begins to pat their leg. Hope responds in turn and something sharp juts out from the chrysalis. A tendril, a sharp, serrated, cruel thing. It bobs gently in the air for a moment, floating up and up until it is pointed straight at the ceiling.

Then, it does a swift dive downwards and pierces the chrysalis. It wiggles and tears and the more it cleaves the false shell, the more tendrils emerge and descend to shred it from the outside. It is by far the most aggressive emergence he’s ever witnessed. He grabs Faith by the shoulders and pulls them back.

“Room,” he rasps, excuses. “It’ll be wet when it emerges. Wet and soft. We’ll need to give it room to dry. We can’t touch it.”

Faith stares up at him with an inscrutable gaze. They wrap their arm around his waist and pull in closer. Fear coils in his chest, unbidden, as an unpleasantly warm, bitter nostalgia clashes with the coldness building up within him. They have not been small in a very long time, but now they are in his arms and there’s nothing to stop him from holding on as tight as he can. For their sake and his.

He feels hysterical. Paranoid and on edge, even as his instincts scream at him to flee, to run, to get away from that voracious, uncontrollable thing. He doesn’t. He holds onto Faith a little tighter and relishes the feeling of their cloak fronds in his claws. From the corner of his eye, he sees Lady’s roots shift around Hornet. Not caging – not yet – but primed to defend if something is to happen. Grimm stands next to Esmy, hiding his face in their shoulder.

It devolves quickly into a thrashing pile of limbs ripping at themselves. He’s not even sure if there’s any shell remaining, or if Hope is just… He needs to do something for it. He gathers himself and it pains him to do it, but he lets go of Faith.

“Everyone, avert your gaze.”

He gives them all a moment and then shines. Brightly, but not blazing. Like a lighthouse over a storming sea. It will settle, he knows, underneath it. Slowly, the limbs go from flailing to twitching to still. At last, the body is revealed, and he lessens his glaring Light.

Hope is curled up. Its long legs with gleaming, pointed claws are wrapped by two sets of arms. Its head is bowed and nearly all possible distinguishing features are unidentifiable. Its horns are longer now with extra points along them. There are more than its previous pair, several now sprouting from the side of its face, its shoulders, its back. From a certain angle, they are not too dissimilar from Lady’s roots in how they branch. Tendrils emerge too, but they are less coherent. Flicking and shifting their lengths, their shapes, how many pointed ends they have, and their curvature all seem to change depending on how the light falls on them. Some recede into the body entirely while others surface from new places along its form.

Most notable is its lack of shell. Pale shell, at any rate. It doesn’t look like him at all anymore.

He clears his throat.

“Hope? Do you require any assistance?”

Weakly, it turns its head and a single, white glowing eye cracks open. It offers no response.

Faith pats their leg again. Hope lets out something that would probably be a huff but is far too watery to name it such. It slowly unspools itself and slithers to its sibling. There is an unnatural grace and fluidity to its movement. Like water itself is swimming through the air. Faith does not seem to notice as Hope rests its chin in their lap, and they happily put one delicate claw to its face. Barely even a graze, he doubts it qualifies as physical contact at all.

Hornet pushes herself forwards despite the obvious tension in her limbs and kneels down next to Hope.

“We’ll dye it when you’ve grown more used to your new shell and then we’ll make you a new cloak,” she says as she lays her bolt of silk across their body.

“Can I go to Baba now,” Grimm whispers rather loudly to Esmy. They nod and he lets out an ironically quieter cheer.

He settles in at Faith’s side and softly pets Hope through the silk. Something underneath it undulates seemingly in response.

“Hi, Baba,” he says. “I missed you. Look! We’re both tall now.”

Hope slowly blinks, revealing more eyes on its face and along several of its limbs, and subtly nods. More siblings begin to crowd Hope despite his previous warning, but it seems that his successor has a truly unique constitution. He doubts that whatever bumps it receives from this will be permanent, watery as they are.

With a soft, tired sigh he moves next to his Lady.

“How long has it been, do you think, since the last time we saw another ascend to our holy caste?” she asks.

“Descend, more aptly,” he answers. “I doubt the nature it bears is similar to ours, even if the power held is equivalent.”

His Lady brings a root to his face, and he rests a claw on her tendril.

“The future our spawn has wrought is dark, but that does not mean dismal. Potential lies within it, even if obscured from us.”

“Do we have a place there, in its shadows?”

“I like to think so. Would you care to find out?”

Techne stares at his children, his family, curled around each other in an easy embrace he imagines they had not experienced in the time since their cursed conception.

“I do care to.”