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fandomweekly2023-02-03 04:47 pm
laurelwisp) wrote in fandomweekly2023-02-03 04:47 pm
Entry tags:
[#166] A Lonely Kingdom (Hollow Knight)
Theme Prompt: #166 - Loneliness
Title: A Lonely Kingdom
Fandom: Hollow Knight
Rating/Warnings: PG - a lot of melancholy and talk of death, spoilers for most of the way through the true ending's path
Bonus: No (intended to, but it only wound up in one sentence)
Word Count: 760
Summary: Who in Hallownest is not lonely, even the defective vessel?
On its second trip into Dirtmouth, Elderbug had asked it if it knew hand signs or letters. It had indicated it could read (old Hallownest runes inscribed inside its mask marked its every action, its every thought) and Elderbug had seemed pleased by this. The next time it had come back to town, Elderbug had presented it with a small, flat piece of stone and a chunk of chalk.
It hadn't had anything it particularly wanted or needed to communicate back then (no voice, no words at all) so it had ignored the tools for a while. The first time it wrote anything for another to see had been just after it had returned from the Kingdom's Edge.
what is a ghost, it had asked Elderbug. It knew of the word Hornet had used to describe it, but the meaning escaped it.
Elderbug had hemmed and hawed for a while, before telling it that ghosts were the wandering spirits of those who had died (not unlike the Dream Warriors, it had thought). He'd described them as 'lonely creatures', and the knight had asked, what is lonely.
Elderbug had pondered that for a few seconds.
"...Loneliness is the feeling you get when you're alone, but you don't want to be."
A feeling. Something it didn't understand back then. Something it still doesn't understand, because it was never meant to.
But going to the Abyss had shaken something inside of it, made it aware, just slightly. And now it knows what that feeling is, because it sees it everywhere it goes. It sees loneliness in Elderbug, in Iselda waiting at her counter, in Bretta hoping for someone to save her, in the Nailsmith and the Nailmasters, in Quirrel and the Dung Defender and the Mourner and the Queen.
It sees loneliness in Hornet.
It sees loneliness in itself.
The Void is not a lonely place, it remembers now. The Void is nothing and everything at once, a sea of primal feelings and thoughts, the observations of everything that hid in the darkness, and it had always been one being, one entity, one unit--until pieces had been torn out of it, made into shades, placed into shells and then destroyed for naturally having every emotion the world has ever known and never understood at once.
It had realized what loneliness was, when it had sat in the Abyss with shades hovering around it, so close and yet so infinitely far from itself in a way it doesn't think it can ever fix, even with the Void Heart firm in its chest.
It feels it now, sitting on the ridge looking over Dirtmouth on one side and the Howling Cliffs on the other, staring into the yawning abyss beyond the kingdom where the stinging wind had once taken its memories from it. It wondered if it had felt lonely out there, if it could feel anything at all. Perhaps loneliness was why it had left in the first place, seeking something outside of this empty kingdom.
Or perhaps loneliness had brought it back. A scream of agony so familiar to the Void at its core that it could not help but feel that pain, and follow it back here. A sound that was not sound that meant something like it still existed in this place, and was suffering.
Being alone when you don't want to be.
It...doesn't want to be alone, it thinks. The Void Heart makes it miss its home, its birthplace, with a yearning that aches through every fiber of its being. The closeness of its siblings. The comfort of the dark. A thousand voices in a sussurus that levels out to nothing.
The thoughts are strange, considering it isn't supposed to want anything at all--but it had always wanted, since the moment it had crawled out from under the shells of its siblings and seen a light far above.
Was its sibling in the Black Egg lonely?
Had it always been?
It does not want anyone to suffer this. It will free its sibling and itself, and return to the Void from whence they came. This broken kingdom must fall, and perhaps the lonely souls still living in it will find peace then. It does not know.
(It does not even know if it, the shade, 'the Knight', will be the same when it returns. It does not know if it will be able to find its own peace. But it can hope.)
(A strange idea, hope. But it's the only thing it has left to it, now.)
Title: A Lonely Kingdom
Fandom: Hollow Knight
Rating/Warnings: PG - a lot of melancholy and talk of death, spoilers for most of the way through the true ending's path
Bonus: No (intended to, but it only wound up in one sentence)
Word Count: 760
Summary: Who in Hallownest is not lonely, even the defective vessel?
On its second trip into Dirtmouth, Elderbug had asked it if it knew hand signs or letters. It had indicated it could read (old Hallownest runes inscribed inside its mask marked its every action, its every thought) and Elderbug had seemed pleased by this. The next time it had come back to town, Elderbug had presented it with a small, flat piece of stone and a chunk of chalk.
It hadn't had anything it particularly wanted or needed to communicate back then (no voice, no words at all) so it had ignored the tools for a while. The first time it wrote anything for another to see had been just after it had returned from the Kingdom's Edge.
what is a ghost, it had asked Elderbug. It knew of the word Hornet had used to describe it, but the meaning escaped it.
Elderbug had hemmed and hawed for a while, before telling it that ghosts were the wandering spirits of those who had died (not unlike the Dream Warriors, it had thought). He'd described them as 'lonely creatures', and the knight had asked, what is lonely.
Elderbug had pondered that for a few seconds.
"...Loneliness is the feeling you get when you're alone, but you don't want to be."
A feeling. Something it didn't understand back then. Something it still doesn't understand, because it was never meant to.
But going to the Abyss had shaken something inside of it, made it aware, just slightly. And now it knows what that feeling is, because it sees it everywhere it goes. It sees loneliness in Elderbug, in Iselda waiting at her counter, in Bretta hoping for someone to save her, in the Nailsmith and the Nailmasters, in Quirrel and the Dung Defender and the Mourner and the Queen.
It sees loneliness in Hornet.
It sees loneliness in itself.
The Void is not a lonely place, it remembers now. The Void is nothing and everything at once, a sea of primal feelings and thoughts, the observations of everything that hid in the darkness, and it had always been one being, one entity, one unit--until pieces had been torn out of it, made into shades, placed into shells and then destroyed for naturally having every emotion the world has ever known and never understood at once.
It had realized what loneliness was, when it had sat in the Abyss with shades hovering around it, so close and yet so infinitely far from itself in a way it doesn't think it can ever fix, even with the Void Heart firm in its chest.
It feels it now, sitting on the ridge looking over Dirtmouth on one side and the Howling Cliffs on the other, staring into the yawning abyss beyond the kingdom where the stinging wind had once taken its memories from it. It wondered if it had felt lonely out there, if it could feel anything at all. Perhaps loneliness was why it had left in the first place, seeking something outside of this empty kingdom.
Or perhaps loneliness had brought it back. A scream of agony so familiar to the Void at its core that it could not help but feel that pain, and follow it back here. A sound that was not sound that meant something like it still existed in this place, and was suffering.
Being alone when you don't want to be.
It...doesn't want to be alone, it thinks. The Void Heart makes it miss its home, its birthplace, with a yearning that aches through every fiber of its being. The closeness of its siblings. The comfort of the dark. A thousand voices in a sussurus that levels out to nothing.
The thoughts are strange, considering it isn't supposed to want anything at all--but it had always wanted, since the moment it had crawled out from under the shells of its siblings and seen a light far above.
Was its sibling in the Black Egg lonely?
Had it always been?
It does not want anyone to suffer this. It will free its sibling and itself, and return to the Void from whence they came. This broken kingdom must fall, and perhaps the lonely souls still living in it will find peace then. It does not know.
(It does not even know if it, the shade, 'the Knight', will be the same when it returns. It does not know if it will be able to find its own peace. But it can hope.)
(A strange idea, hope. But it's the only thing it has left to it, now.)
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Thank you, that was the goal~