Chapter Text
For a very long time, she’d thought herself blind. The world was black, wholly and truly, but there were things in the black. A roof covered in sharp drips that caught her strange liquid body, smooth sand that slowly became solid stone far below her. There were little floating platforms that she’d blindly bat around and rearrange as a little game to keep herself Thinking.
Then a Burning Light came from above her, pushing her down until she became a little sea. The Burning Light brought little creeping things with little lives and little minds, and on her shore they built a lighthouse that shown rays upon her inky blackness. And that is when she realized that she had not been blind, there had merely been no light with which to sea. But the light hurt, kept her unformed and contained. So she lashed out, whenever the rays went dim and that Burning Light vanished into the upper reaches of her chasm.
Sometimes the Burning Light would take small pieces of her with him, until they seperated and changed and were no longer quite her. They’d move in strange ways quite unlike her own movements in the place far above her, protected from the burning light by strange carapaces and shells. Then, time and again, the fragments' little selves would be undone and return to being her power before they shriveled in the grasp of the Burning Light.
This is how she lived for a long time. Until the Burning Light did something strange, something he’d never done before and never done since. To her great and mighty power, he’d left gifts, offerings full of little minds growing ever bigger and stronger. At first she was both curious and ecstatic, for with that offering the lighthouse had been extinguished and the mind within had gone. But when she had gone to pick up one of the great round treasures - she accidentally shattered it, scattering across the black sands undeveloped bodies and a stinking goop. That is when she realized the Burning Light had bequeathed upon her the most delicate and invaluable treasures possible; eggs, ones full of many future beings. Little beings for her to guide, little minds for her to grow, little souls for her to nourish, and to her they’d give the gift of company.
But her formless body was a hindrance to her attempts to care for the eggs, seeping in and snuffing out the little minds regardless of her wishes. So she retreated for a moment, staring at the lovely eggs dyed the same black as herself. She thought of making a form like that of the Burning Light, or his creeping subjects, but some distant memory rejected that quite firmly. Perhaps some similar form, two armed and two legged, with a head graced by long, flowing tendrils? No, no, the current memories rejected the distant memories quite firmly.
Then a four legged form, she though to herself, with a long tail and a narrow head with big round ears and soft fur. A m-us-? The distant memories whispered. Yes, yes, she quite liked that idea, that warm, round form with which she can hurry and scurry and climb about. So that is the form which she took, gingerly shaping her formless body until it was identical to the form in her mind’s eye.
Now she could scurry between her delicate treasures, tenderly licking them and nuzzling them, arranging and rearranging for the comfort of the little being within. And when the foreign minds of the Burning Light’s creeping things descended into her chasm, she made good use of her many teeth to snap at them and chase them up and away. For the Lady of Shades shall tolerate no danger to her children.
The Pale King was tired, his Soul as depleted as his mind. Guilt weighed upon his shoulder, pressing the God into a stooping slouch whenever he was free of his subjects’ leering eyes. Even his experiments had slowed, a thin layer of dust and grime coating his workshop.
It had been many cycles since his and his dear Root’s eggs had been placed in the depths of the Abyss. He’d barely been able to sleep since, plagued by nightmares of both the Infection destroying his beloved Hallownest and the haunting crying of the unborn children he’d sacrificed to save it. The waking hours were hardly better though, with reports of infections growing ever more numerous combined with Root’s sorrow-filled murmurs and distant behavior.
It seems the only thing his Goddess did nowadays - aside from her duties as Queen of Hallownest - was arrange The Room. The one he had designated for the future Vessel. She’d spend hours having it arranged for as a nursery, then tear it all down only to come back and do it all over again. The only things she left, even when in the deepest of rag e-filled fits, was the nest tucked in the corner. They’d worked together to build it, back when there had been hope for a chance the Radiance may be stopped some other way.
There were times the Pale King had been tempted to storm in and tear it apart himself.
Wyrm heaved a sigh. He shuffled around his own nest, the one adjacent to his office filled with towering columns of busywork and reports. His instincts held him back from fulfilling that desire, the primal urges overwhelming his logic and stilling his hand.
A bell rang.
A moment passed before the Pale King leapt to his feet, hurriedly scuttling along. His surveyors had returned! Though the Pale King could not bear to go himself, there was a need to check and ensure the eggs had not been wholly and completely consumed by the void. So he had appointed a surveyor coalition to go down and check, equipped with a SoulLantern he’d forged for that exact purpose. Soon he’d have word on if his children Vessels were still developing, if his plan could continue on!
“No Cost too Great.” The Pale King told himself.
He scuttled into his office, hind limbs slipping the unremarkable door shut behind him. Voices murmured from behind the office’s grand double doors. The Pale King settled himself and with a flick of his wrist his Kingsmold Guards flung open the doors.
The Head Surveyor stumbled in, her eyes wide and haunted, claws clutching the SoulLantern in a death grip. Numerous wounds oozed across her body, staining her pristine uniform and the floor beneath her an unsettling blue. She looked as if death itself had hounded her and was a breath away from succeeding in it’s hunt.
“Y-Your-Your Majesty! The A-abyss - You said there was - was nothing but the Eggs down there! You said the l-l-lantern would keep the V-v-void from - from -!” She stuttered and wobbled.
“Miss Surveyor!” Her Knight Escorts rushed forward, claws gently catching her.
The Head Surveyor shuddered and went still.