anonymous-utility
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Latest Posts by anonymous-utility
An AU in which through multiverse shenanigans Sburb and SURVEY_PROGRAM get switched
This results in a doomed session for both games as Jade would be unable to close the dark fountains due to her physical separation and the deltarune crew would be lacking in a space/time player.
[Also Kris is a Derse dreamer, not a Prospit dreamer, I just had a specific idea for an image in my head and drew it without considering the implications, and I'm not redrawing that pic again. Let's just say that when the games got swapped Kris received a prophetic dream intended for Jade, okay? Okay.]
Reading the When They Cry series blind in reverse release order was a trip
I so desperately need Hornet to have some cringe moments in Silksong
Wanted to make a silly doodle for Jarlyk's Happy Couple TAS but it uh... got out of hand
A uni project for an adaptation of Three Little Pigs
Silksong is taking so long to release that I decided to learn a whole new skill to make this song in anticipation.
This was supposed to be done early last year before the supposed release date but life got in the way and it didn't. I even remember feeling bad that I wasn't going to finish it and wishing for more time and it seemed like my wishes got answered... So I guess you guys can blame me for the delays.
I spent months learning music composition just so I could make a song about Hornet's no good very bad first day in Pharloom.
High quality version of the thumbnail under the cut:
Umineko doodles I made while in Music Theory Hell
Ah yeah of course
Here's Face Theif before they lost their face (the rest of their design is the same, their hood is just down)
Hey guys I am working on a little project and I was wondering if any of u would like their vessel oc to be in it? They gotta be in their tiny form though!
Pls reblog with a reference :>
Drew a quick reff for my little guy Face Theif for this
Hey guys I am working on a little project and I was wondering if any of u would like their vessel oc to be in it? They gotta be in their tiny form though!
Pls reblog with a reference :>
Hey, remember this comic by @slimeel ? Yeah, I accidentally became stupidly enamoured by the concept of mail delivery bugs and then this happened. This started off with me wanting to make a reference to the mail lady from Homestuck but quickly grew into an excuse for drawing a couple of environmental pieces.
The whole idea is this: A network of bugs exists in the wastes, an old one but still far younger than Hallownest, which is why none of their offices ever appeared near it. No one knows where they have come from, though rumour has it that their first office grew alongside a civilisation born off the corpse of a great beast. All of its members appear to be mortals, but they bear masks with foreign etchings on them, protecting them from having their minds swept away by the winds, keeping all of them connected, something that no mortal could devise. Despite this they worship no power, directing all their devotion to one thing: Mail.
Just a small comic based on my fic 'Funeral Plinth' honoring the tumblr post that inspired it
My thoughts on the size debate
Bonus:
super rough Tiso doodles that I love too much to leave un-posted
I like the theory that Lace is the Pharloom version of a kingsmould, but made out of stuffing instead metal.
Get yourself a woman who will treat you like a science project
I be having thoughts
Funeral Plinth | One Shot
Fandom: Hollow Knight Rating: Mature Characters: The Knight, Nailmaster Oro, Broken Vessel | Lost Kin Category: Gen Content Warnings: grief, mishandling of a corpse, denial of death Notes: No matter its attempts it could not heal the other. Not only were the solutions it came up with inadequate but was it. But another bug resided nearby and maybe he’d not be so.
-
The trip to the tram was a long one, longer than it would be typically, but that was to be expected with the weight it was dragging behind itself.
Once it made it into the tram, setting the weight upon one of the seats it did not stop to observe it, to see if the other would recover as it usually did, for it has already done so on the previous bench.
It had set it down and sat down next to it, observing.
It had come across another like it, much earlier, in the lush caverns far above. But that one had been still, so still in fact that it had barely registered it as anything but part of the environment.
But this one moved, even after it had banished those orange parasites from its shell. So one would assume that if it could move once it could move again.
It did not.
The bench was inadequate.
It had stopped to process this fact.
The other could not focus, else wise it would have done so already. Focusing was inadequate.
Pinning charms to the other’s cloak, such as that of Joni’s would not allow the other to equip it. Charms were inadequate.
If a bench would not allow the other to heal it was unlikely that a hot spring would help, and even if it were, there are none nearby. Hot springs were inadequate.
It was unable to think of any solutions.
It was inadequate.
It processed this.
It was inadequate.
But another bug may not be. Cornifer had vacated the area a while back meaning the closest living bug was Oro. This conclusion is what lead it towards its current destination.
Oro may be able to come up with a solution, and if not, the various tools that were contained in the bug’s place of residence may allow it to come up with its own.
It input its destination into the tram’s navigator and sat back down next to the other. The trip in the tram was longer than normal, but that’s to be expected with the additional weight it carried.
-
As was typical for who knows how many waking cycles Oro found himself meditating in the central room of his hut.
Well, meditating may be a generous way of describing it, meditating typically referred to emptying one’s mind to focus on the tasks ahead, becoming unburdened by prior events.
There were no tasks ahead that required his focus, and this place in which ash fell never ending the past was all one could dwell on.
-
Others may more accurately describe what he was doing as brooding.
-
Regardless of how one may describe it, he had found himself in that room, and there was something on his mind.
A particular someone.
A particular traveller has made a habit of making a nuisance of themselves. He had thought he’d see their pestering would come to an end once they had learned his nail art but despite that their pestering continued.
He had gone so far as to lock the door, something that he had never done before, what with his home being hidden in a nook unreachable by hoppers (and nothing to with how a Nailmaster must always have their doors open for potential students), but all that resulted in was the traveller sitting at his doorstep, patiently waiting for the door to unlock.
Needless to say, he gave up on that quite quickly.
So when that meddlesome brat barged into his home he was not surprised. What did surprise him was what they had dragged along with them.
That being the body of another traveller.
The traveller before him (the one that was living that is) stared him dead in the eye for 5 whole seconds before he found his words.
“Wha-” he didn't get a single one out of his mouth before the little brat dropped the body face down and ran across the room to one of his cabinets.
He was about to give chase to see what they’re doing when he caught a closer glance at the body before him. One side of the head was caved in but the other bore two horns that curved upwards.
He didn't have much time to process that thought, as just before he could move forward to examine the body more closely the brat rushed back to it, having managed to pillage a roll of bandages from his cabinets, and sat up the body.
That’s when he got a full view of the face.
It was of a very familiar traveller.
It was who knows how many waking cycles ago when this particular traveller had made it to his home, acting much alike this little one now haphazardly wrapping their face with gauze, though they were much less stiff and much more prone to falling flat on their face due to the weight of their horns. They had followed him to his home, watching him from afar as he worked and eventually gained the confidence to pester him to his face, demanding that he teach them his nail art, and eventually, he’d told them he’d not teach them without a hefty sum in return.
In mere hours they returned, geo in hand.
So he taught them, and very soon after they left as if they were never there to begin with.
-
He remembers something echoing down the caverns the cycle that they left, the sound driving many of the lesser beasts into a frenzy and filling his mind with a foggy haze making him unable to think much less hunt.
In his idle moments, he wondered if it had been what had called them away.
-
It didn’t matter he supposed, either way, they had met an end.
And a strain of annoyance began to form, as he watched the short one pull another roll of gauze that they had taken from him and begin to practically stuff it in the other’s head cavity.
“You’re doing it wrong” was the first full sentence that came out of him during this whole exchange.
The little brat’s head snapped towards him, so fast you would be forgiven to think that their neck snapped with it, staring at him, shoulders squared.
He stepped forward.
“If you’re going to take from me you might as well use what you take correctly.” He positioned himself next to them to which they set the second roll of gauze down.
He begins to unwrap the gauze around the other’s head. “You can’t stuff their head full of gauze and expect them to heal correctly.”
When he finished unwrapping them and peered down the cavity he had expected to see their innards. Smashed in and likely decayed innards, but innards regardless. Hemolymph stains at the very least.
Instead, he had found nothing, the inside of their head perfectly clean and empty.
Somehow that made him want to gag more than if he had found rotted remains.
He continued regardless.
“You need to secure the gauze around the horns and neck to prevent it from slipping off.”
As soon as he finished the brat tore the other’s corpse out of his hands and wrapped their own arms around it.
Something curdled in his stomach.
He went over to one of the cabinets, all the while feeling the brat’s eyes bore into him and pulled a thin futon out of it, before going back over to the brat and laying it next to them.
The brat continued to stare at him.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Put them down, they’re not going to heal if you keep mishandling them like that.”
This only made them grip the corpse tighter. He felt his eyelid twitch.
He turned away towards his own bed chamber, eager to have a wall separating him from this mess.
“Do not stay for longer than you need to.”
He can’t say for sure why he humoured the little brat, he only hoped that playing along would get them to leave faster.
He made sure to lock the door to his bed chamber this time.
-
To say the next few waking cycles were arduous would be an understatement. Unfortunately playing along seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of the brat thinking that the problem has been solved and leaving with the corpse in tow, it seemed that while they didn't understand that what they were holding onto was a corpse they were aware enough to know that the problem with them was very much not fixed and become more and more desperate to fix it.
The first cycle or so involved them rummaging through his belongings, digging for any medical supplies he had on hand and haphazardly using them on the corpse the same way a child may feed a doll pebbles pretending it’s medicine, and with him having to take them out of the brat’s hand and explain “No that won’t help” or “You’re doing that wrong”, etc.
On the third cycle, the brat had gone out prior to his waking and left the corpse behind. He had almost taken it outside to discard it, thinking that he had finally gotten rid of the nuisance when the brat strolled in with a bucket full of hot spring water.
He didn’t even know there were any nearby.
The brat had then unceremoniously shoved the corpse’s head into the bucket, sat down and stared.
After what must have been only a minute or so but felt like centuries, the brat had judged the water non-functional, for it took the nail off their back and sliced their own palm open and shoved it into the bucket as well, before taking it out, fully healed.
Oro, at this display, had very quickly made his way out of his hut, wanting nothing more than to be harassed by a couple of aspids so he could take his mind off this mess.
On the fourth cycle the brat, with some strange trinket in hand, managed to lure a swarm of lifeseeds to his hut.
He had stopped them at the door.
Lifeblood was taboo for a reason, He knew of the way those seeds took over the bodies of those who used them, making them dependent and unable to heal their wounds, some even saying that with overuse the seeds would eventually eat away at the user’s body, from which those strange gelatinous butterflies would hatch. That’s not even to begin with the rumours that the lifeseeds were the spawn of a creature that sleeps far below the kingdom.
Either way, he’s not letting those things inside his house.
This of course didn’t deter the brat as instead they simply dragged the corpse outside and tried to stuff it full of those things. However, the lifeseeds would not stay still, appearing to be uninterested in a drained cadaver, with the brat eventually dragging the corpse back inside.
The next two cycles the brat was gone again, and though he was tempted to, he resisted the urge to discard the corpse this time around, knowing that brat would return, and instead shoved the corpse and the futon it lay onto the farthest corner of the central room, just so he could avoid looking at it.
When the brat finally returned in the early hours of the next cycle, just as he awoke from dreamless slumber, barely dawning his cape, unwilling to tear his eyes off them to fully dress himself lest they do something foolish.
In their arms, they carried a small parcel wrapped in silk, which was already an oddity seeing that getting silk was a borderline impossible task what with the majority of the exports of it in the city has long rotted away due to exposure to the elements.
As they moved the corpse out of the corner he had shoved it in and he stepped closer out of some absentminded curiosity, the brat began to unwrap the parcel, and he found himself stiffening up, baffled at what he was looking at.
The parcel contained a chunk of pale white clay, free from any sediment contamination.
Mask clay.
He had never seen mask clay with his own eyes before, what with his work as a Nailmaster being far removed from that of a Mask Maker, but he needn't be familiar with it to recognise it immediately.
If you lived in Hallownest prior to the infection you either bore a mask or knew someone who did, so whether you were conversing with an expectant parent preparing masks for their children or an over-eager warrior having lost a chunk of their own face, you would have eventually come across the topic of mask clay and the difficulties those who wished to get ahold of it faced, what with Hallownest’s rapidly rising population.
To think that any usable samples of the material remained felt ludicrous.
Yet there it was, in the brat’s hands.
Speaking of which, they clumsily scoop out a chunk of the clay and begin applying it to the chasm in the corpse’s head.
That’s when his temper runs short.
Mask clay dries quickly, that being one of the reasons it is so difficult to come by, typically kept in airtight containers for long periods of storage or wrapped in moist silk for shorter periods of time. This meant, that if the brat had their way they would permanently defile the corpse’s visage.
“Stop that.” he growled out, but this time the brat ignored him, continuing to try to fill the hole in the corpse’s head, their work gauche and uncoordinated, the clay now bearing very obvious fingerprints, disrupting the smooth sheen of the corpse’s mask.
“Stop. That.” he growls out again, stepping closer, but the brat continues to pay him no mind.
He grabs the brat’s arm making them jerk back and drop the clay they were holding.
“What did I tell you, stop that-” as he spoke the brat in one swift motion took the nail off their back with their other arm and stabbed him, cutting him short.
At first, he did not register what they had done, what with his armour typically protecting him from such things, but as he felt pain bloom in his midsection he quickly recalled that he did not put it on this morning.
He dropped the brat’s arm, clutching the wound they just gave him.
“You lil shit-”
And with that, the little traveller quickly fled.
-
The trip from Oro’s hut to the coliseum and back again was longer than it would be typically, but that’s to be expected with the weight it carried.
It hadn’t even bothered to find itself a bucket this time, instead taking the helmets of a pair of discarded fools and overlaying them on top of each other to form a makeshift container, scooping out some of the hot spring water and making a beeline for the exit, making the chained little fool call out after them, presumably for having stolen more of the hot spring water for the second time this week.
It could not stop however as it was on a time limit.
Oro was not like them, he bled green rather than black and was a wielder of nail, not soul.
If he fell still… If he fell still…
He will not fall still.
It would not allow him.
It rushed into the hut, however, in its haste, it tripped on something unseen and spilt the contents of the makeshift container on the hut’s floor.
It lay there, processing what it had done. It had spilt the hot spring water. It carried nothing else that may heal Oro’s wound. It had failed to heal Oro’s wound.
It was inadequate. It was inadequate. It was inadequate-
“Will you stop bringing rubbish into my home” a voice spoke from further ahead.
Oro’s voice, though it seemed like it lacked its usual energy.
It bolted up, forcing itself to stand up and face the bug they injured.
Here he was, sitting at the end of the room nearby where it had positioned the other (which it notes has the clay it placed peeled off, but the package has been wrapped back up next to it so at least it has not been discarded). He was still armourless but now with his midsection bandaged. He eyes the spilt hot spring water and suddenly it feels the need to be anywhere else but here, however, he doesn't squint the way he usually does when he’s annoyed and turns back to face it.
“Did Mato teach you to stab like that? ‘Cause you barely cut through the first layer of chitin.” He lied.
It knew how deep it cut. It stared at him, his eyelid seemed to twitch at its lack of response and he patted the ground next to him, grumbling. “Come, sit.”
So it did so, positioning itself between Oro and the other. “You’re mopping up the floor after this” he spoke, his tone softer than usual.
It began to stand up.
“After. Not now” He cut, some edge returning to his voice for a moment but still far too soft.
It sat back down.
They sat in silence for around 15 seconds. It counted. “I didn’t know there was a hot spring nearby, how was your trip?”
It stared at him. He stared back.
He then slowly brought up his hand forming it into a fist with the thumb sticking out, causing it to stiffen, but only slightly. “Point your thumb up for good and down for bad.” he spoke, far too slowly.
It stared at the makeshift container now laying on the ground. It had not achieved its goal.
It pointed its thumb down.
Oro nodded, not fully looking at it.
Another stretch of silence, 20 seconds this time. “How have… you been doing?”, he spoke up again, hesitant.
It did not know the meaning of that question.
It witnessed other bugs voice this line of thought when asking about each other’s health but he surely was not asking about its vitality, for it bore no visible injuries, and there is no reason for Oro to suspect that it bore any and were hiding them from him.
It ran over the question once more.
How has it been doing? How has it been doing?
It zeroed onto the usage of the word “doing”. Perhaps Oro was not asking about its health but about the state of its affairs, what it was doing.
Oro noticing that it did not reply for 25 seconds spoke up. “You don’t have to answer-” It pointed its thumb down.
“Oh-” Oro began. It pointed its other thumb down. One didn’t feel enough after using it to describe its failure to deliver the hot spring water.
“Alright-” Did the distance between the thumb and the floor correlate with how badly it was doing? It assumed so.
It jabbed its thumbs against the floor.
“Ok kid I get it.” Oro cut it off, voice gruff again.
“Kid”, a synonym for “child”. That’s what Mato called it. Strange.
“So I guess you don’t mind me asking-” Oro began, seeming to have regained his energy before quickly losing it again. “-if the one beside you is… your kin.”
It stared at him, then back down to the other laying beside it.
The term kin is used to refer to those to those it was related to. The other was the first like it that it ever met, the first one to move, the first one to reach out to it, to recognise it even if it hadn’t…
It decided to nod, a gesture it was already familiar with having utilised it while bartering with the various shopkeepers around the ruin. But despite being practised in the motion it found itself shaking, as if it was attempting to carry a nail far too big for itself.
Oro sucked in a breath, and it snapped back to face him.
Had Oro aggravated his injury, or was the wound worse than Oro let on? It knew he had lied, why didn’t it confront him about it-
But when it had turned Oro was not clutching at his midsection, nor was his expression pinched with pain.
He just looked exhausted.
“I.. should have guessed. When you first barged in I thought you were familiar but I had dismissed it as my mind playing tricks, but the longer I saw you two together the harder it became to ignore.”
Another stretch of silence, but only 5 seconds this time. “I’d gone through something similar you know, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone in Hallownest who hadn’t.”
It stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
10 seconds, Oro let out a breath, looking away. “Esmy was one of the Great Nailsage’s older students, from before we entered his tutelage, and later became the Nailsage’s assistant, a mighty warrior and Nailmaster in their own right. Though we were not of the same brood the five of us were a family, of sorts.”
Oro took in another breath, gathering his thoughts. “After the first wave of the infection the Nailsage had lost a great number of students, but the five of us survived, driving us closer still, we thought we saw the worst of it.”
A pause.
“Then the second wave hit, and we lost Esmy.”
It heard the sound of mandibles clicking from what it assumed to be under Oro’s mask as if wanting to form words but being unable to.
“I… remember how foreign it was to see them so still. We carried them to bed so they could rest, hoping despite knowing better that they’d recover.”
He took another breath, straightening up, and the next words that came out of him were steadfast, like the rhythm of a hammer striking stone.
“I also remember seeing them rise up again.”
Oro turned back to look at them.
“That’s why I urge you to accept that your kin will not move again.”
It stilled, and that of which ran in its veins, the kind that makes it run cold when the other bugs around it ran hot, froze alongside it.
“It’s the infection that reanimates, nothing else. If you wish to honour them you must allow them to decay. If you insist on waking them you’ll only defile them as the pestilence does.”
Oro stopped, steadying himself, his voice turning slow and his tone now again strangely soft.
“You must give them their funeral rites, to do otherwise would be disrespectful, they have earned it, have they not?”
-
Oro made a point not to mention that he had been the one to carry Esmy to their bed chamber.
Oro made a point not to mention that when Esmy fell still again having been cut down by the Nailsage himself that he had fled, hiding himself away like a child.
Oro made a point not to mention that when they took Esmy away to be burned he did not attend, unable to bear seeing Esmy’s carapace flake into ash.
Oro made a point not to mention that when Mato had barged into where he had hidden, demanding to know why he had not attended Esmy’s funeral that he did not look Mato in the eye.
Oro made a point not to mention that when Mato told him that family stick together that he had spat back that they were not family and hadn’t been for a long time.
Oro made a point not to mention that regardless of what he said that night, he would do anything not to see Mato go still.
Oro made a point not to mention that when he left he didn’t leave so much as a note.
-
It didn’t understand what was being said to it, but it knew that those words meant an end, quickly finding its arms wrap around the other. Oro then stood up, making it clutch the other even tighter, but Oro made no move towards it.
Instead, he regarded it, the angle making his eyes look sunken in, and turned away.
“Think about it.” was the last thing he said to it before secluding himself to his bed chamber.
So it did, more than it had ever done before.
-
The next cycle the little traveller was gone, though the corpse of their kin remained, to which he resigned himself to have been unable to get through to them. Perhaps when they come back he’ll try to convince them to keep the corpse somewhere else besides his hut, that would get rid of the ghoulish sight at the very least.
He doubted his words would be heard, however.
On the second cycle, dread began to set in, whatever the little traveller was doing it required preparation time and he was unsure if he wanted to be there when they returned.
On the third cycle, he became agitated and unable to rest, going out to hunt though he knew he was already fully stocked on hopper meat, unable to stay inside with the corpse any longer.
He made sure not to stray too far, however, constantly looking over his shoulder to see if he could catch the little one in case they try to sneak past him.
On the fourth cycle that agitation turned into a hot pit in his stomach, tempted to throw the cadaver over his shoulder and go out to burn it himself. That’s when he heard a loud scraping sound outside his hut.
He practically runs out of the door.
It’s the brat out there, but that’s not what surprises him. No, what surprises him is what they’re dragging. That being a large slab of stone.
An ordinary slab of stone at that, looking like it was used as a tile at one point based on the uniform shape, perhaps in the City above.
He can only stare, and the brat only glances in his direction as acknowledgement and then continued on to their task.
They don’t seem to be dragging it towards his hut (he’d thank the king and his knights for that, but after the king’s disappearance during the second wave many who survived gave up that habit) but rather towards the training grounds beside it.
The action was painfully slow, and at many points during which he wonders if he should offer assistance, but he was too baffled by it all to know how he’d help.
Eventually, after what felt like a millennium of hovering over the brat, they reached one of the walls of the training grounds, cutting away at the vines that grew there revealing a nook in the wall he had somehow never noticed in all his time living on this side of the caverns and pushed the slab into it.
Crouching down next to the shorter side of the slab sticking out of the nook they had pushed it in, the little traveller took out their nail and began to chip away at the edge.
He continued to stare having not uttered a word during this whole exchange. It wasn’t until they had chipped away a quarter across the first edge of the slab that he caught on.
“Are you trying to carve it? …with your nail?” He asked, unsure of the words that were coming out of his mouth.
They only stared at him, and then slowly, the nail pointed to the ground and held by the hilt, they held it out to him as if asking if he could do any better.
“I-Im not- I don’t even know what you’re trying to do?” desperately trying to grasp what the brat had gotten in their head this time.
They stare at the slab before them for a long time, long enough he thinks to ask again, before they begin to climb on top of it, laying down and crossing their arms. It embarrasses him to say that he doesn't get it for a long time, trying to wrack his brain for answers for what this gesture could mean until he goes over their conversation from four cycles prior.
Funeral rites.
He had told them to give their kin their funeral rites. And here they are, creating a plinth.
In the olden times, prior to the infection, some bugs would honour their dead by setting them on a decorated stone plinth and then sealing them alongside gifts that they may take into the afterlife, sometimes in their own bed chambers.
He even heard that’s how the dreamers were kept (“at least those with legs” he remembers a nobleman snickering during that short-lived peace between the two waves).
However, after the dead began to scratch and pound against the doors of their former living spaces it was to no one’s surprise that after the first wave, the citizens of Hallownest quickly transitioned over to graves, and then pyres after the second.
Just minutes prior he had the mind to burn away the corpse, to remove it from his sight. However now his agitation has faded (or at least a substantial amount of it) he admits that he isn't all that enthusiastic about the concept, remembering the way the smog hung around the major towns during the second wave, burning bodies en masse in a desperate final attempt to rid themselves of the blight.
-
The way that on the cycle of Esmy's funeral, even as he hid himself away he could still taste the ash in the air. How funny then that to escape that sight he sought refuge in the place in which the ash falls endless.
-
Disregarding all that he was still not fond of the idea of keeping the corpse out in the open.
“Why not-” he began, running over his next words in his head as the traveller climbed off the plinth, “-bury them?”
Their head snapped towards him, eyes appearing for a moment wider than usual. They bored into him, though he couldn’t tell if their gaze was accusatory or dazed. Then he began to notice a tremor in their stance. Their entire body trembled as they shook their head so hard it looked as if would tear off.
He stopped himself just short of grabbing them by their shoulders in an attempt to get them to stop, knowing how poorly they reacted the last time he tried to grab them.
Instead, he stepped back and crouched, the gesture foreign but necessary, “kid, I get it, I get it, settle down will you.”
They did, in time, cease their shaking, but it left them disoriented, causing them to fall over on their bum. However, the moment they hit the ground they don’t give themselves a moment to catch their breath, immediately standing back again, feet far apart and looking him directly in the eye.
That look was definitely accusatory. Too bad he was about to confirm their suspicion.
“You don’t have to bury them, I frankly don’t care how you put them to rest, but does it have to be on my property?”
The traveller’s hand seems to reach for the hilt of their nail and he feels his temper flare up. “You manage to stab me once and suddenly think you can threaten me?” They step back, looking startled that he had caught on, but to his surprise, their hand falls back down to their side.
Huh.
He sucks in a breath, forcing himself to cool down. He should count his blessings and be glad that the brat is laying their kin to rest at all, but the thought of having the corpse so close to his home unsettles him. Sure, he could easily cut them down if they ever rise up again, but that thought isn’t much comfort.
He makes a note to himself to cover up that nook with vines as soon as the little traveller leaves.
Feeling drained despite having done nothing he heaves himself up, making the traveller move further away, their back pressed to the plinth.
He pays them no mind, already heading back inside.
“Do as you wish.” he tells them, leaving them to their task.
-
During the next few hours, the little traveller hacking away at the slab outside, Oro simply sat by the corpse, regarding it. He’d only realised it now, but he doesn't think he had looked at them as a whole in the time that they have been kept here, as whenever he was forced to observe them closely he had always focused on one aspect of them.
They were larger than the traveller outside, and certainly older, though still far too young, no older than they were before they departed, their carapace still soft as he could recall from the last time he held them.
He won’t pretend to be upset for the traveller’s sake, and he didn’t believe that they’d want him to, for there were many children that met similarly gruesome ends, but something nagged at him.
What had caved in their head, was it the thing that called them or something else entirely? He wished, not for the first time, to have never seen them again.
Eventually, the little traveller makes it back in, and before they could even attempt to drag their kin to their plinth he picks up the body himself, cradling it with both arms, subsequently agitating the little brat who tries to grab the corpse out of his arms despite being far too short.
“Oh hush you,” he says, not caring for the irony of telling someone who has never said a word to him to ‘hush’, “I’m doing you a favour, you should thank me for not charging you for this. Now show me where to put them.” The brat clenches and unclenches their hands, clearly annoyed at this, but thankfully complies.
-
It’s crude. The upper edges have been hacked away and just below a line wraps around the plinth, clearly scratched by someone dragging their nail across it, filling the space in between where various horizontal lines cut through the stone, the spacing inconsistent. Their attempt at decoration having gone as well as it would if you gave a mining automaton a brush and told it to make a painting. It would honestly look better if the brat had just left the slab of stone as it is. Despite all this, it was still better than what most bugs got. It was probably better than what he’ll ever get.
He crouched and slowly set the body down, making sure that the head faced upwards rather than being pulled by its horns, and carefully set its arms over its chest, crossed.
He then stepped back, letting the traveller step forward, closer to their kin.
Not breaking eye contact with the body the traveller slipped a hand inside their cloak and by the thumb and forefinger they pulled a pale bloom out by the stem, one with a striking similarity to the bloom that refused to wither back in his hut, still in its vase under the skylight, and placed it in the corpse’s hand.
He’d almost spoken up then, almost asked the little traveller before him if they kept a stockpile of those things, but he held some restraint and remained silent.
Eventually, the traveller sat down next to the plinth, and he wondered if he should ask if they wanted him to read out a prayer, though he quickly realised that he did not remember any, the funerals he attended during the first wave now a distant memory, and eventually after the silence became too heavy, excused himself.
The little traveller stayed like that for many cycles afterwards, scarcely moving, becoming a statuette of themselves. He’d offer them food occasionally, trying to avoid having two corpses littering his property, though they’d never accept, eventually deciding to let them starve, hopefully, the hunger would eventually drive them away from the corpse.
After seven cycles of this, he decides to pretend that none of this has ever happened, avoiding the nook in which the traveller and their kin now reside, and finally returning to his normal schedule.
That is until one cycle he wakes up with the brat’s face filling his vision. He practically launches them off him.
The brat and the scoundrel that broke into his room (he’s sure he locked the door) invading his privacy were unfazed by this, picking themselves up not minding his fuming and took out a large roll of parchment, climbing back onto his bed despite him launching them off it seconds prior and un-rolling it, holding it out for him to see.
They jabbed their finger against one corner of the map which he, squinting, eyes still bleary from sleep, examined.
Just in that corner of what he now recognised as a map, he made out his hut, crudely drawn, and just above it he saw the symbol of his nail art.
The brat then pointed to another corner of the map, with another hut drawn, now with the symbol of Sheo’s chosen nail art drawn above it. Then just a bit further above Sheo they pointed to another hut, this one seemingly built into the walls of the cliffs and above it was a swirl.
Mato’s nail art.
And lastly, right to the cliffs, they pointed to the rough depiction of a small town, in which the Nailmaster’s Glory charm was pinned, a charm that could only be bestowed by the Great Nailsage.
He has no time to process this information however as they then pointed to him directly, took their fingers and walked them across the map from his hut to Sheo, to Mato and to the Nailsage.
He stared. They stared back.
Now it was their turn to be perturbed by his silence, as they reached out and tried to pull on his hand.
He slapped their hand away. “What do you think you’re doing?” his voice harsh with morning breath.
They tried to reach out again and he pulled away. “I said, what do you think you’re doing?”
They jerked their index finger towards the map and then back to the door, now having gotten off his bed.
He squinted, “I’m not going.”
The brat proceeded to grab his arm, now digging their claws into it as they try to drag him away with them. But their carapace is far too soft and so are their claws, him having no trouble shaking them off him, causing them to hit the ground hard.
“I told you I’m not going, what do I have to do to get that through your thick head.”
The brat snaps back up, and they point back to the locations of Sheo and Mato and the Nailsage.
He stands up himself, glaring down at them. “What gives you the impression that I want to visit them?”
He steps forward.
“What makes you think that I’d care to see them again? What? Do you think we’re alike?”
He takes another step forward, and they begin to step back. Good.
“Unlike you, I’m no lost grub, I chose to walk this path.”
He stepped even closer, cornering them against the door, as he felt something build up in his gut.
“If Mato-If they were to fall I’d not drag their corpses into a stranger's home and drive them into a tizzy.”
His hemolymph bubbled, the words spilling from him like a cauldron boiling over.
“Like a rotten limb any connection we may have had, any semblance of ‘family’ has been severed. I’d care not if I found their husks among the many that litter this cursed kingdom and they’d say the same of me.”
He leaned closer still.
“Now get out before I toss you and your kin out of my home myself.”
The brat stared him in the eye for a few moments, long enough that he’d not be surprised if they’d try their luck with threatening him once again, their stance low, but instead, they took a step back.
And fled out of the door.
He was alone again.
The air tasted of ash.
-
AUTHOR NOTE:
I know the ending looks rather bleak from Oro’s pov but trust me from Ghost’s pov they’re stomping all the way to the howling cliffs to drag over Mato instead. They’re reuniting this family if it kills them.
This is my first fic in around 4 years? So my writing may be a little off. I was mostly inspired by feelings of frustration towards the nailmaster family while playing, what with them being one of the very few families that survived the infection but still refusing to talk to each other.
It was also inspired by how Ghost is put into the position of putting others to rest, the funeral director in charge of putting the corpse of Hallownest in a casket, but they're still a kid, and kids have a tendency to struggle with these things. I kinda just wanted to give them a moment in which they struggle with this role, and refuse to allow someone to pass on.
Also, while not intentionally inspired by I did stumble on TheRechercheRambler’s ‘These Are the Days That Bind Us’ halfway through writing this so I’d be remiss not to mention it, it's really good! (and a lot happier)
Thought I'd spice up pose practice by doodling my OC Ubi
Hornet's no good, very bad, horrible road trip.
I caved in and made a vessel oc, though they are more of shade than anything. I was reading @ashyronfire fic White & Gray and got intrigued by the concept of void beings inhabiting masks that aren't theirs and what resulted is this little guy called Face Theif.
I'm not completely satisfied with it since I feel the concept would benefit from creepy crawly energy rather than sad clown energy but I tried.
Facing down a being of pure power
Initial bug Miku concept
Comic commission for @thethrillof!