Work Text:
The little ghost had fought through so much, but it was worth it knowing what else would be awaiting it inside of the dark temple beneath Dirtmouth. Its long estranged sibling, desecrated by infection to a point where it was unsure if the festering remnants were still the same being or not. So to avoid having to face this, Ghost had defeated an entire world of gods and then gone and done it a second time in the trying pantheons of Godhome.
Its tiny chest heaved with labored pseudo-breaths, physically incapable of controlled respiration but cursed with the ability to feel breathless despite this. It clasped its gleaming nail tightly in its small hands, trembling slightly as it waited in a moment of tense limbo to see if the Soul Tyrant would rise again or if it had fully defeated the manic bug. It breathed a false sigh of very real relief when it heard a familiar tone and the arena began to brighten until there was nothing visually discernible beyond stark white in all directions.
That had been the last one. It had now defeated all of its most dangerous foes a second time and could ascend, it could reach that ultimatum within itself and save Hallownest by commanding the full power of the void against the Radiance. But when a space faded back in, Ghost did not find itself outside of the pantheon’s foreboding door. It was instead in a chilled chamber, the walls blackened and intersected by silvery runes pulsing with divine light. Before it stood the Godseeker, guised face tilted upwards in an incessant gaze into something only she could perceive. A low hum filled the room, its source indiscernible, but a good guess was the Godseeker as it stopped once she noticed the little ghost and tilted her head down to it.
Ghost could of course not see her face, but somehow it sensed elation from her static, metallic visage. It could vividly imagine her eyes, blown wide and glimmering with the light and knowledge of an entire universe. What did she know that it did not, and why was it making her so happy?
“You are very fortunate to have persevered thus far, speck, in spite of Our earlier wishes for your swift extinguishment,” a rasping came from the mask, seeming completely unmuffled. “We’ve been waiting to see this for a long time. Never would We have guessed that Our key would be so minuscule.”
Key? Ghost did not feel well, both from the ominous mystery of whatever lay ahead and the particles of Soul rising in the stagnant chamber’s air stirring something within it. But stopping was not an option. As it started slowly stepping to the luminous opening at the opposite end of the chamber, the Godseeker turned to watch in stark contrast from her usual attention to only the gods above.
Again the shrill white consumed it, but no amount of light could have floored Ghost the way the next chamber did. In some ways it was similar to those before; the Godseeker sat in her throne observing from a seemingly unreachable plane, though none of her disciples were with her. Only one mask looked on at the poor vessel trapped on its little platform, though the area was cavernous to a creature as minute as itself.
And it had to be, considering what it contained. Large chains stretched in a lattice from the ceiling to the floor, allowing the arena a simultaneous atmosphere of oppressiveness and dangerous vulnerability. More runic totems towered in the dark beyond the Godseeker, but the biggest and brightest thing in the room drowned them out by far.
It was them, the Hollow Knight, facing away with a silvery cloak guising their awe inspiring form. They were not as Ghost had known them; a vessel just as small and insignificant as itself in the Abyss awaiting a chance at redemption from the dark stains of their birth. They were immense, pristine, a monument adrift in this fickle realm of dreams and gods.
The little ghost managed to raise its nail after a stretch of thick, deafening silence, though it had yet to process that things had still come down to killing its own sibling even after all the work it had put in to avoid such a fate. One hesitant step of one small leg was as far as it got with its task, however.
Its far superior sibling reached up with a sprawling, spidery hand to their thin and graceful neck, effortlessly tearing through the gleaming metal pauldrons atop their shoulders as if their fingers were expertly smithed nails slashing through strands of weavers’ silk. The bright cape fell, revealing the more fibrous natural cloak below all vessels wielded to guise their dark forms. Hollow’s seemed to have not grown at the same pace as them, now only reaching the bottom of their thorax in a mockery of the safety a vessel’s cloak should provide. It was washed out as well, the panels of vestigial wing tissue bleached to a light grey.
The little ghost could truly move no longer when its sibling turned around to face it, massive nail in hand glinting platinum around its intricate carvings. In a rushed display of true power swallowing all that was lesser it was being grasped around its abdomen and lifted into the air an instant later; Ghost’s tiny plaything of a nail clattering to the ground. Hollow only needed one hand to carry this out with ease, being so colossal in comparison to their opponent and with Ghost still limp from shock. Even when it felt like it could move again, it didn’t try to, caught on a precipice of fear and apprehension as it waited to see what would happen to it.
Hollow’s face was empty, just as it was designed to be. A smooth white chitin shell with two dark openings where a typical bug’s eyes might be. Ghost couldn’t sense anything beyond them like it used to be able to. Sealed away in the Abyss, the Pale King’s spawn had developed a language among one another. A language without words, without expressions, without movements. Not a trace of understanding remained now; it was in the grasp of a perfect deity as blank as the kingsmoulds that once stalked the perimeter of the White Palace. Of course, that’s why they had been chosen instead of it or any of their other forsaken siblings now centuries ago.
Hollow held it just long enough for the tension to start to ease, Ghost wondering for a moment if this wasn’t going to end the way it thought, but something happened before the notion had a chance to get its footing. With their free arm, Hollow lifted their undersized cloak to reveal the entire length of their abdomen, the tar colored segments of their shell seeming to exude darkness in the same way something bright would glow. The aphotic aura was soon to coalesce, gathering and elongating into a dense cluster of writhing strands. Many coiled together to grow larger still, two new appendages reaching out to the little ghost and coiling around it. One spiraled tight around its shoulders and short arms, pinning them to its sides while the other did the opposite further down, holding it around its hips before splitting in two. The smaller tendrils wrapped tight around each of its legs, pushing them wide apart and locking them there.
Now having secured their speck of a sibling through other means, Hollow moved their hand up to clamp the long digits down around Ghost’s skull, preventing it from moving its head. With the sharp tip of a thumb hooking around the rim of one of its eyes, Ghost finally accepted that nothing good could ever come of this; fighting back couldn’t be denied or delayed a second longer.
But it didn’t work.
The strength of the tendrils and hand holding it completely counteracted its own and far beyond, what should have been violent thrashing coming into being as strained trembling instead. Unable to move even slightly, there was no hope of being able to utilize its void-infused cloak in a crafty escape back to its nail. After the fight with the Soul Tyrant, Ghost had used most of its accumulated Soul to repair the damage it had sustained, but if it focused now, it might have just enough left for one spell.
It focused on that energy, the flowing light of vitality it had leached from its enemies and stored within its own vacant core, willing it to intertwine with the properties of its void and emerge in a burst powerful enough to set it free.
This, as well, did not work.
Having sacrificed the last of the energy it had in a desperate attempt of self-preservation, the spell did not come into being as an attack, but rather it felt like Hollow’s much more refined control over their nature allowed them to simply take away Ghost’s Soul and add it to their own stores. The power visibly pulsed through Hollow’s being, their tendrils growing larger and somehow dimming to an even purer blackness.
Now completely physically drained, Ghost had stopped trying to struggle whatsoever, but its fear at the same time reached new heights as it spotted a new tendril emerging, mostly indistinct from all the others except it was a little harder to make out, blurred around the edges. But the location of this new tendril gave Ghost all the information it needed to understand what was going to happen.
The very thought of it was sickening on many basal levels. Experiencing a violation like this, enough to have poisoned and ended the lives of so many bugs in the aftermath. The true panic only set in, however, once Hollow had lowered the little ghost enough for their new tendril to begin to lap at one of the pointed tips of its legs like a vile tongue. If Hollow was truly determined to do this, it would be plainly impossible through any normal means; vessels were not designed to mate.
It had no sexual organs or space inside to fill, the shell between its legs completely smooth. A feeling that regular bugs who had a stomach and mouth might call nausea filled it as the unthinkably revolting appendage moved higher to stroke the featureless chitin of its underside, almost languidly. Maybe this was all that would happen, maybe Hollow would simply rut against its unmoving body and then it would all be over. Or perhaps a lesser mercy would come and Hollow would choose to flip it around and pick one of its vacant eyes to use. This would of course hurt, but be physically recoverable.
Ghost never really believed either of these fleeting thoughts, knowing the truth of the situation. It was going to get broken, one way or another. The tendril moved to snake around the thin seam that connected one of its small legs to its abdomen, and Ghost pondered if it would be better to be torn limb from limb and defiled through those openings or for its main body to be shattered inwards to paint a twisted illusion of real mating. The former sounded far more permanent in the damage it dealt, but the second was visceral and upsetting in ways it hadn’t previously known of. It waited, feeling as Hollow played with both of its legs and pulled hard enough on each of them to feel dangerous but not enough to injure. But as the little ghost suspected, the tendril soon moved back to the shell between its legs, coiled to have more surface contact against it, and then started to push.
It was a gentle sensation for all of a second before it quickly escalated to unbearable. The force was too much and the little ghost could swear it felt its own shell creak as its desperation to hold itself together proved inadequate. Another creak, audible this time, then another that was accompanied by fracture lines beginning to spread. After that it didn’t take much time; its form was forced to give completely and sharp pieces of its shell were forced deep into its own body as Hollow immediately invaded the space they had carved. Its dead-eyed sibling didn’t seem to care, feeling no pain from the jagged edges of the opening they had already started to buck into with what felt like their full strength.
Ghost wondered why it hadn’t woken up yet. Damage far less severe had forced it out of dreams before, but it was bound here now, it had to stay and endure the evisceration. But it couldn’t, the pain was far worse than Ghost could have ever anticipated. Feeling itself melt away in pools of acid, impaled on the gleaming protrusions of metal that filled so much of Hallownest, being crushed into puddles of viscera by the machinery of Crystal Peak; all of it had felt like ecstasy in comparison to this.
Perhaps ‘pain’ was simply the wrong term for what it was feeling. This was different, redefined, incomprehensible and paralyzing and so, so much worse. The cracks in its shell spread further and further up its body, creeping towards its midriff in patterns like cobwebs or mycelia. Droplets of liquid void beaded at them and slowly trickled down, but it had been bleeding rivers of it from its new hole from the very first instance of its creation. The fluid thickly coated Hollow’s hips and legs, flowing down into a growing puddle of gleaming darkness beneath them.
It should have run out by now, all of its insides fucked out to leave Hollow frantically thrusting into a vacant shell, but it just kept pouring from the wound with no signs of calming. Would it ever run dry? Kenneled in time and bound tightly still by much larger tendrils perhaps it could bleed seas, enough to fill the vast chamber until it drowned them both. Silently, it prayed to every god it could think of, friend or foe, to let this become its reality. Let it be taken away back into mindlessness where the wickedness of autonomy and thought could never get near it again. If any of them heard, none responded.
Hollow violently jerked Ghost into a slightly different position, never slowing their assault. The new angle redefined pain for a second time, Hollow reaching even deeper within. Its shell cracked further, more rapidly, past its tiny chest in only seconds and easily reaching the end of the line where provenly weak black shell turned to the much thicker and paler chitin of its head. There was no way for Hollow to break through that without completely splitting it into unusable pieces, which the little ghost was far too gone to feel any solace from.
It could see the Godseeker again now, watching the grotesque scene with a mix of cold apathy and the highest bliss. She knew this would happen, and she wanted it to. Ghost did not know why; it missed when the emblematic figure had discarded it like filth that had clung to her. Being a part of this had to mean at least something though; Ghost suddenly felt as a smothered echo of realization behind the pain. If not the Goodseeker would undoubtedly be bringing the most terrible wrath down upon it for daring to stain and slander a vessel this pure with its blood.
Confused and fading, the little ghost also distantly noted that its body wasn’t the only thing breaking anymore. The room around them had started to crumble, the empty blackness above wounded and bleeding light. It glowed warm, sickening to behold but anything was a comfort to turn its eyes to when all else it had was the sharp, impassive visage of its estranged sibling as they continued to brutalize its small frame.
Mercifully, both sights were soon obscured as it felt drops of void gather at the rims of the openings where its eyes should have been in a mockery of tears. Vessels could not cry, vessels could not scream, vessels could not speak or breathe or beg for mercy. Something they evidently seemed to perform quite well at, however, was to be mutilated badly enough to bleed their own innards out from their eyes as the world looked on, willfully blind to the torment such an insult to natural life was made to endure. The cold darkness fell first in fat droplets and then in flowing rivulets, though it still made hardly a difference to the ocean below.
Hollow began to speed up, growing erratic in their movements as each thrust put further strain on all of the wounds snaking Ghost’s frame. One of the worst parts was the sound as well, jarring and wet as their shells cracked together with the quieter creaking and groaning of a body being used improperly filling the gaps.
A final and brutal movement, taking the tiny bit of numbness. Its flawless sibling’s light filled it in smothering bursts, traveling along all the faultlines of its injuries and sparking new waves of acute, permanently altering pain to its breaking mind. Hollow’s cum behaved as soul did, growing and filling it so thoroughly that it started to leak from its eyes as well as pouring out around the jagged edges of its new hole. After leaking out of the small, barely intact vessel the bright fluid evaporated and floated up like the steam above Hallownest’s hot springs, further brightening the crumbling room.
With what remained of its vision the little ghost discerned that the Goodseeker wasn’t watching them anymore, but she still looked ecstatic as her gaze was turned up to the increasing glow from the top of the chamber. The light swelled, sick and warm until it felt like it burned on its fractured shell. But now it didn’t have to face this light anymore, the little ghost had already played its part. It was spent.
Hollow pulled Ghost off of their body in a sudden show of regained composure and dropped it carelessly to the ground, having already turned away by the time it cracked against the floor and nearly shattered into pieces.
This, at least, was familiar. Beaten and broken and tossed aside after a devastating loss. But the little ghost had always come back from all of those. This, now, felt so much different. It had been torn apart and destroyed down to the last remnant hundreds of times in its journey, but the lesions it wept from now were so permanently and fundamentally violating that it wasn’t sure if it would be able to wake up again. And it wasn’t sure if it wanted to; what waited for it outside of Godhome couldn’t save them from this.
With the last seconds it had, Ghost endured another lifetime of pain to weakly lift its head enough to gaze at Hollow one last time and seal its fate as their discarded alternate. The massive vessel had retrieved their nail, drawn and ready to face the Radiance. But they looked back in the last second they had before battle and the little ghost might have seen something in their face. Was there pain there? An apology? As the darkness swallowed it and the light swallowed its sibling, Hallownest’s ghost distantly pondered if that was enough consolation to want to stay alive.