#writingwords

Was their ire and spiteful nature exclusively directed at the Pale King? Some retainers of the palace would say yes. Others would object and say it extended to the Five Great Knights as well since Ogrim had yet to hold onto his charm for longer than a day and Hegemol continued to wield a pole instead of a mighty hammer.

Well if you asked the source, they would simply stare at you silently, but you might get the impression that they had strong opinions (a wild thing for a vessel to have) on a few individuals other than the King.

Which is why the Feral Vessel is currently running for their life with the Great Nailmaster Sly hot on their back.

“Give it back you impetuous brat!” Sly roars behind them as he bounces off the walls at unfathomable speeds. Ghost, now going by Feral, is only surviving thanks to their knowledge of Sly’s moves from the Godseeker’s Pantheons. Sly’s jumps are still wildly unpredictable to them, but their now longer legs help them meet the speed needed to dodge the flea’s grabs.

Why are they doing this in the first place?

Well because when a rule is made that the Feral Vessel isn’t allowed a nail in the palace, or in any location in Hollownest, the only reasonable way to follow that rule, if you are said Feral Vessel, is to obtain nails of increasing ridiculous sizes. They first took their sibling’s old nail after the Pure Vessel grew out of it, and then they continued from there. They thought of borrowing Sheo’s nail for a day, but they quickly realized after finding the three Nailmasters that they were still the three Nailstudents. They were adorable but small and didn’t have their nails.

So Sly was there and Feral had some lingering rage left over from the Pantheons and well, the decision wasn’t hard to make. Two aspids with one stone. Now they were finding out that conceptualizing that plan and executing that plan were completely different things.

How do they get him off their back!? They already tried losing him through the maze that is the White Palace but they could not build any distance between them and Sly to make the endless corners and hallways useful. They need something- anything-

A-HA! One of Hornet’s web traps! (ingenious sticky things that clung ruthlessly to the clothing of the royals that walked this palace.)

Feral musters up their soul to push themself into one last burst of speed. They dash over the top of the trap just as they hear Sly zooming right at their back. With a twist of their leg and a firm grip on the oversized nail they spin at the last moment and swat the flea with his own nail into the poorly hidden nest of sticky silk.

The indignant yell of rage made that whole marathon worth it.

Not wanting to squander their momentary freedom from Sly’s wrath, they quickly turn and hightail it out of there.

Left. Straight. Left. Right. Straight. Straight. Up. Up. Right. Left-

That should be enough, right? Feral slows down and leans against a wall to catch their breath. Great Pale Beings they have not felt that much adrenaline since the first time they danced with Grimm. They were safe, for now. Feral straightens up, adjusts the greatnail onto their back and looks around.

...

They glance back from where they came.

Where... is this? They know the palace like the back of their hand, even without the buzzsaws. This corridor isn’t familiar. There is only one open doorway with a shining pale light gently leaking into the tiled hallway. Curious yet cautious they approach. They had a sharp greatnail after all.

They step into the light and freeze as they see the towering form of the Queen leaning like a drifting tree over a lush bush. Her back was turned to them, maybe they could-

“Vessel,” her voice, even though a whisper is loud enough to seem like she’s speaking at normal volume. Feral had noticed that with all of the higher and pale beings they’ve known. They all whisper.

Still, they had conflicting feelings toward their mother that they hadn’t yet put into words. They were avoiding her. They still want to avoid her.

“Come, garden with me,” she says, not lifting her head an inch from her work. Feral itches to disobey, but the urge feels wrong. It doesn’t carry the same gleeful note that comes with directly ignoring the King’s orders. They don’t have a solid reason to dislike their mother and it doesn’t feel right to force one either.

It’s not often they feel hesitant, but the Queen has a fae-like air about her. She could hide cruel remarks in what seem to be compliments. They had seen her pick apart arguments to the letter until her opponent had nothing else to say. She wields her words like she would a nail, and a battlefield of diction is an area Feral is massively lacking in. Hopefully she doesn’t want much. Hopefully she wants them to retrieve some confusing herb or something.

Carefully, they enter the room— a green house— and slowly make their way over to the White Lady’s side. They peer over at what she’s tending to. It looks like a bundle of dozens of little blue buds. Her hands glow underneath and the flowers respond by drifting up gradually and opening their delicate petals.

Feral watches quietly.

“They are not what they make themself appear to be,” she says after a long pause. Feral tenses. She reaches to her side where a basket of tools hangs from a kingsmould that Feral didn’t realize was there and picks up a humorously small pair of scissors compared to her massive hands. She carefully begins to snip the bases of those small flowers, collecting them in one hand as they fall, “My senses may be fading as things do with time, but I am not yet so blind to see that they know things that they should not.”

Feral never tried to hide their emotions and personality when they emerged from the Abyss, but they found themself smothering their nervousness before it could leak out of them.

“… they are nervous?” The Queen finally turns to look at Feral with her slightly glassy blue eyes, “I did not intend my words to be a threat, but their reaction proves my thoughts correct.”

Feral maintains as much eye contact as they can before turning their gaze to the floor. The full force of a pale being’s attention wasn’t a thing most bugs could endure. She watches them. Silent. Considering.

“It is odd. I have wanted children of my own for so long, yet what I have received from this world is curious,” she turns back to the blue flowers and snips two more into her hand, “one offspring that is meant to be empty, yet wishes to be a child, and one offspring that acts like a child, yet has experienced more than a child should have.”

Feral feels an odd twisting in their gut. They want to leave, yet they now also want to stay. The Queen is perceptive, that was never a doubt and perhaps another reason why they avoided her. The fear of being known. Yet… now they are known and it’s more of a relief than anything. They slowly look back to her as she places the scissors back in the basket.

“I have wondered why, but I cannot come to a conclusion that satisfies me,” she places three flowers in her spare hand and begins to braid the stems, adding flowers as the braids start becoming short.

“Why do they hold their branch as if it were the familiar handle of a nail? Even though they are forbidden from holding their own?” More flowers are added into the craft she is making. It’s beginning to look circular. Feral watches quietly.

“How do they know to get charms and spells on their own?” She glances over at them, but doesn’t meet their eyes. They sense her gaze on their horns. She looks back down at the flowers and makes some sort of adjustment.

"Why do they stare at things that are not there?” Feral’s throat tightens with that question- or observation?

The Queen finally finishes whatever is in her hands and takes a step over to the Feral Vessel and leans down with an alien-like grace. Feral blinks as she threads the circle of flowers over their horns to then rest right at the base of their horns. They do not know why she is doing this, but they would not dare fight it. They have no desire to.

Her hands drift down from their horns to their face to gently cup and hold. Their eyes gently flutter. The warmth from her root palms seep into their mask as if they were sitting in a hot spring. With the warmth comes a feeling of peace. Understanding. Their eyes close and before they can catch themself they lean into her touch. They miss how her eyes soften as she rubs one of her thumbs against their temple.

“I thought I had been mistaken before, but I have noticed that their pranks on my beloved Wyrm have grown half hearted,” Feral’s chest sags in a mock-sigh and, not knowing why, they nod.

“Has the novelty of his frustrated yells gone stale?” They shake their head, shoulders lightly quivering as if laughing. They crack their eyes open to catch the end of a smile from their mother.

“Why is it then? Why have they lost their fire?”

Feral stays silent as that was all they can do, but the tightening of their brow and the way they pull away from the warm comfort of their mother’s hands speaks hundreds of unspoken words. They glance at their hands, clenching and unclenching them.

When they re-awoke at the bottom of the Abyss surrounded by the thousands of masks of their dead siblings they thought they had dream nailed the black egg at the bottom of the Abyss again, though they did not know how. Soon they realized after getting to the top alongside their sibling that it was not a dream, but reality. To their delight, they could act on their spans of anger and spite they had toward the Pale King.

They thought that once they had their fun they would go and defeat the Radiance by finding the Godseeker in the trash pit. They would scale the pantheons and destroy the infection before the Pure Vessel was sentenced to waste away in the Temple of the Black Egg. It was simple so they didn’t think hard about it.

Until they realized they didn’t have the dream nail. They stressed for a bit, but then thought they could go find the seer and ask for it again! When they made their way to the Resting Grounds however, her little burrow was nowhere to be seen. They truly panicked then, scouring Hollownest for any moths they could find, but the few ones they found were not the Seer. When they held up their, admittedly, crude drawings of the dream nail they were met with confused stares.

They felt scared, frustrated, anger, desperation and then numbness.

They had been trying to run away from these thoughts, but now they were back and plainly showing on their face for the Queen to read like a tablet. There is a long silence between them before her melody-like voice whispers once more.

“Do they know how to write?” She asks.

They shake their head. No. They barely knew how to read and that was from noticing patterns in the tablets and signs they stumbled across in Hollownest. The Queen stands up and with her Feral’s eyes follow.

“I will teach you my child. Come, and perhaps while you learn you may give me your name. Feral is such a harsh word to be called by.”

Feral watches the White Lady as she walks deeper into the greenhouse. Did she just… say she was going to teach them how to write? They would never have a voice to speak on their own with, but to have the power of script in their grasp…

Excitement sparks their step as they quickly run back to her side, looking up at her with such strong wonder that she can’t believe she ever doubted her offspring weren’t hollow. The crown of flowers bounce on their head with each eager step.