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When Grimm first hands you the Grimmchild, it quickly becomes apparent that the little one has no idea what to make of you.
The feeling is mutual, really. You don‘t know what to make of it either. You don’t need to eat, or sleep, or rest unless you get hurt. The child has to do all of those things, regularly.
Sure, it eats nightmare essence, and it can sleep just fine nestled on your head between your horns while you keep moving, but still. It‘s quite the adjustment for you. Both of you.
You also aren’t used to travelling with company. You have friends (or at least you like to think of them as such) that you meet on the road from time to time, but before now, no one has stuck with you permanently.
Suddenly, you are more aware of every too-close leap you make. Every unknown corner you round with your nail heavy on your back, ready to be pulled and strike at a moments notice. Of every husk you cut down with trained precision and just a bit more urgency.
The Grimmchild isn’t defenceless (anymore, the first moult has bestowed it with the power to spit fire), but it is still a child. A wilful, stubborn, too-curious-for-its-own-good child. You feel a stab of panic every time you lose sight of it.
Why Grimm thought it a good idea to entrust you with his child, you cannot fathom. You have no clue what you‘re doing. You are on a mission to save your sibling, who you heard soundlessly crying out. They are called the Hollow Knight, at least according to your half-sister Hornet, and also that giant memorial down in the City of Tears.
You summoned the troupe on accident! The big corpse had just looked so different from any you had seen down in Hallownest before, and sometimes enough essence lingered that the Dream Nail could pick up on it. You had just been curious…
But you can’t explain that to the Troupe Master. Curse your father, curse him for a thousand things, but especially for denying you the amenity of a voice.
You are still learning sign language. Iselda is teaching you, and you‘re making progress, but it is still an entire language you have to learn. The process is a slow one.
She is also trying to teach you to write, but that has proven to be much harder. You can draw pictures and maps, and you can read just fine. But writing seems to escape you.
When you look at written text, you don’t actually see the letters. You understand their content without even trying, but the individual symbols hold no meaning that your mind can grasp.
Charades aren’t good enough to convey that concept though. As a result Iselda keeps trying, and you don’t want to disappoint her, so you keep trying too.
Grimm hasn’t really left you with enough time to even begin trying to communicate beyond nodding and shaking your head. Not the first time you meet him, when he basically throws the Grimmchild Charm at you and disappears in a poof of red smoke, and not the time you bring the child back for its first moult. Actually, you‘re pretty sure he hasn’t even noticed you are mute yet.
So, without any other options, you simply continue collecting nightmare flames. The child seems to be enjoying itself now that it’s gotten used to you and the way you operate (which is, admittedly, very task oriented and probably not all that great an environment for a child to be growing up in), and you do your best to keep it happy and safe.
Fighting Grimm is exhilarating. It’s been a while since you’ve had this much fun in a fight while also struggling to keep up this severely. The two of you seem pretty evenly matched!
Grimm calls the fight a dance, and you think you understand. There’s certainly a rhythm to it all, a beat that you feel in your nonexistent bones that has you slashing and jumping and dashing and firing spells in a frantically fast but still controlled and concentrated manner.
Grimm keeps coming at you viciously, but there’s elegance in it. He‘s mesmerising to watch, and in comparison your own rather blunt fighting style feels lacking.
But then, Grimm doesn’t seem to mind. He‘s grinning widely, and if you could, you think you would be as well.
Is ends all too soon, with you landing a nasty hit on his abdomen that has him doubling over in pain. Combined with all the other wounds already inflicted, it leaves him too exhausted to continue, and he bows to you the same he did in the beginning of the fight.
Back then, you had only stared at him puzzled. Now, you try replicating the gesture. He bows differently to the Mantises.
You end up overbalancing and only save yourself the embarrassment of falling over by wildly swinging your arms around until you‘re standing straight again.
You hear Grimm chuckling, and quickly look back up at him. He‘s still standing slightly hunched, leaning on one side, and his breaths sound wheezing and exhausted.
You’re not faring much better. Your mask is cracked in places, your soul pool is as good as empty and still feels overly warm from the rapid fire of spells, and your cloak is signed at the tips. Still, you close your nonexistent eyes, Focus, and use the last drops of soul you have left to mend the biggest cracks in your mask, the ones your void was leaking out of in lazily floating motes.
You know you will be completely alright after some rest and maybe a dip in a hot spring. But you also know that other bugs, others that aren’t like you, need longer to heal. (Hornet had still been limping when you‘d seen her again in the City of Tears a few days after your battle in Greenpath, even if she had tried to hide it.)
You point at the remaining cracks in your mask, then at Grimm, and tilt your head questioningly.
He blinks, confused for a moment. "Are you… asking if I will be alright?"
You nod once, decisively.
"Do not worry for me," he reassures you. "This body… I will not have need for it much longer. After all, you seem to be doing a remarkable job raising our child."
He clicks his fingers, the same way he does constantly, and in a burst of flame the Grimmchild appears beside you again. It circles you excitedly, and you take note of how it has grown, of its further elongated body, which has taken the same rich red colour that you now know Grimm‘s body to be under his cloak.
It cries at you, happily, and settles down between your horns again. You reach up to pat its head, once, twice, and it responds by purring contently.
Grimm is staring, you notice, when you look back up, a complicated expression on his face. You can’t fully grasp it, but there‘s some amount of surprise in it, as well as sadness and wonder.
"Yes… a remarkable job…," he whispers, and you feel like maybe he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
The look in his eyes changes, into resolve and something almost hopeful, and he leans down and asks: "Would you like to stay for a bit and rest with me?"
It’s at this point that you start wrecking your mind for the signs Iselda has been teaching you for the past six weeks, and after a few uncomfortable seconds of silence (stillness? Since you’re always silent?) you finally remember how to sign 'Me, Sleep, No'. Here’s to hoping that Grimm knows sign language.
Luckily, he seems to be familiar. "You do not sleep? At all?"
You nod again (carefully this time, as not to dislodge the child), to confirm he understood you correctly. Then you notice the way he droops slightly, and quickly wave your hands before signing again, 'Stay, Yes'.
(You know the sign for 'Stay' very well. You must have directed it at the child hundreds of times by now. There’s no way it doesn’t know what you mean. It still only listens about two times out of three.)
Grimm perks back up, then grimaces when it clearly makes pain flare up in his side. "Ah, why don’t you two go ahead and settle down. My room is right through there, you can’t miss it. I will go and see Brumm about my injuries, then I will join you."
You decide to go do just that. You lift the curtain of the tent where Grimm had pointed, and are met with a cozy looking room. The floor is covered in blankets and pillows.
The child flings itself from your head with another cry and burrows down into the blankets. Bemused, you follow and sit down beside it.
The blankets are fuzzy and comfortable, and when you lean back you sink into a big, squishy-soft pillow. It almost feels like the blankets try to swallow you, but its comfortable, and the softness of it all makes you feel safe.
You stretch a bit and pat the space right next to you. The Grimmchild responds immediately, chirping contentedly as it wiggles over to you and snuggles into your side.
You pat its head again and idly let your hand glide over its back. The child purrs and leans into your touch, but otherwise remains where it lies.
Eventually, after what could have been minutes or hours, you weren’t keeping track, Grimm joins you in the blanket nest. He sits down opposite to you, so the child lies in the middle, cradled between your bodies.
It‘s weird to see him like this. Usually, he stands tall and straight, moving elegantly and with purpose. Now, he’s just lying there, clearly tired, covered in bandages and not at all caring about how he looks.
Somehow, it seems more… honest, this way. You don’t like seeing him in pain, but you can admit that you like seeing him relaxed and comfortable like this, not putting on a show for the audience.
He‘s also warm, you notice. Incredibly so. It makes sense, you muse, with Grimm being a creature of fire. But more importantly, it‘s comfortable.
Extreme temperatures don’t bother you at all, but there‘s something wonderful about warmth like this. If feels safe and cozy, and despite the fact that you do not need sleep, you find yourself drowsing.
You know your own body feels cold to other bugs. It‘s the nature of void to consume, and warmth is no exception.
The Grimmchild is used to it by now, having spent half the time on the road cuddled up to you in some form. You hope Grimm isn’t too bothered by it.
He doesn’t seem to be, though. You can‘t quite tell if he‘s already asleep or simply lying there with his eyes closed, but he seems comfortable and hasn’t complained yet. You‘ll take that as a win.
Eventually, you fall back into the drowsing state that is your preferred form of rest. The fight has taken a lot out of you, and though you feel great about winning, some quiet to recover sounds perfect.
