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Lyng Yewteus | Final Fantasy XIV

Sanguis

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Overflow: The Hollow Knight

[eyesofazure]

[instilled]

continued from here

The Hollow Knight gathered up the paper scraps in its hands, holding them like they were liable to crumble apart and fritter away in a breeze that wasn't present. It took them over to the coffee table and carefully laid them out. It sat down on the floor beside the small table, looked at the map, and then swapped Deepnest's position with the Queen's Garden. It shouldn't have mixed those up.

It looked up at its scaled companion and tapped Greenpath, then gestured to him. It was only fair, as far as it understood conversations, that he speak about his Black Shroud. Perhaps it wasn't as wondrous as Hallownest (how could it be? The Wyrm had crafted such a beautiful Kingdom), but it was his home, and it was only polite to let him speak of it.

[eyesofazure]

Lyng was cautious while setting the tea pot down, keeping it as far away from the map as he could. He set the small tea cups on either side of the table, one in front of the Knight, the other closer to himself, and gently poured the tea - a green tea - into each.

When the Hollow Knight pointed at him, Lyng gave a puzzled look, then glanced back at the image of Greenpath.

"Me? Oh, 'tis a fair bit funny; I learned my fighting style from the forest dwellers but I prefer less temperate climes. I grew up in the deserts of Thanalan, listening to stories about the deserts of Gyr Abania." Lyng smiled as he sat down on the couch side of the coffee table, taking his tea into his hands. "Green never suited me. But you like the forest?"

[instilled]

Being asked if it liked anything was unusual to it. The Hollow Knight considered the idea, turning over the concept of like in the emptiness it cocooned itself in. Like. Did it like forests?

After a moment of staring, it flipped over the piece of paper that had Queen's Gardens. It picked up the pen again, and drew a rough scribble of the White Lady's face, with her twining mass of roots growing up from her head in what it considered a passable visualization of branches.

It considered for a moment, and then wrote The Queen enjoyed the green places in its same character-less hand. It presented that to Lyng, and then gave a very small nod of its head.

[eyesofazure]

What a curious image he'd drawn, something almost akin to a deity more than a true creature. The Queen? So she was his Queen.

"You respect her opinion, then?" he asked with a smile. "I imagine as a Knight you must have traveled far and wide across the Kingdom by her side. Or perhaps you were helping others, or attending meetings of great import. Though I've known my fair share of Knights in my time, I'm a bit hazy on their duties beyond battle."

Even having been Azure Dragoon - a knight by all definitions - he had never been trusted fully with that role. As an Au Ra, the staunchly conservative people of Ishgard would have never stood for it, and so he'd kept his involvement a secret and left the duties to Estinien.

oh my text change must have been messed up there pffft

[instilled]

The Hollow Knight nodded in answer to the first part of that question. It did respect her; She was the Root, a life-giving tree, beloved by the Wyrm and the people of Hallownest. That She chose to diminish herself after She saw what had become of one of Her many children was no business of its; it could respect Her regardless of that. She had had Her Dryya to help Her when She left, Dryya and the rest of the Five.

It had had one duty, after all.

Flipping over one of the pieces of paper that made up the City of Tears, it quickly scribbled an approximation of The Pale King. Fathe- it began to write, and then scored it out with a neat slash of the pen it had been given, and instead continued The Pale King.

It considered for a moment, then added: To learn, to attend, to obey.

I hadn't even noticed haha

[eyesofazure]

Lyng had noticed it hastily scratch out a word there, though he hadn't had time to understand what it had been writing before it was too illegible to make out.

It was strange, to see the creature so otherwise straightforward and direct, change its mind for what Lyng had noticed was the first time. It must have been difficult, to have been made to perform its duties so staunchly, only to be ripped from its home to a strange new land.

"You were more a guard to His Majesty than anything, then. The Sultana of my home has a menagerie of knights known as the Sultansworn who protect and serve Her Majesty." Lyng leaned back as he took a sip of his tea, thinking about it further. "... I'd long forgotten, but, my mother also used to serve the Royal Family of Gyr Abania as a member of its army. 'Twas a time before I was born, though. I've never served a royal myself."

[instilled]

More than anything, the Hollow Knight wanted to say no. No, it was not a guard to His Majesty. It was the hope and future of Hallownest in His stead, and it had failed Him so dismally that the place had turned to ruin.

Its hand trembled, just a little, and it covered the action by picking up the mug of tea. The Hollow Knight had no mouth to sip the tea with, but the heat of the cup was soothing, and it held it there politely as the other spoke of his homeland. In itself, that topic was soothing, and the Hollow Knight listened attentively, some of that desperate self-depreciation fading.

It gestured to the lance that the other had, asking silently what he served now, or had served before their arrival.

[eyesofazure]

The subtleties in the Hollow Knight's behaviors were mostly missed by Lyng, though he did pick up on some amount of unease in the way it moved. Lyng followed the gesture when the Hollow Knight pointed, looking at his lance. The implicit 'what do you fight for?' was at least something he could comprehend, and he smiled.

"I'm a member of an order known as the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Initially, we were fighting only to bring peace and order to our home region of Eorzea. Since then our fight for peace and order only grew broader. I've been fighting for peace for my whole world, and now peace for other worlds as well. Really all I seem to be good at is fighting for peace wherever I go..."

He gave a sad grin. "It's a bit ironic, to be fighting so much for the goal of no more fighting."

[instilled]

The word 'Dawn' was not one it liked. The Hollow Knight lowered its head, looking back down at the map, its gaze trained on that one bump in the upper right area of the crossroads. It hadn't marked the Temple of the Black Egg on the map, but it was hard not to look at it now. DAWN WILL BREAK, She had promised, and Her fierce light had shone from its eyes.

The Hollow Knight touched the crack in its mask briefly. She was not here, and this dawn that Lyng spoke of was not the dawn of Her controlling love. This dawn fought for peace, and Lyng spearheaded it. It was a noble goal, much like the goal of the Knights had once been.

When Lyng smiled sadly, the Hollow Knight nodded, and though there was no change in its expression, it was a nod of sympathy.

[eyesofazure]

Lyng noticed the Hollow Knight's unease at his words, though he couldn't comprehend exactly what he'd said that was wrong.

And so Lyng asked.

"I'm sorry, if I said something out of turn. I know little and less about you and your customs, don't hesitate to let me know if my words offend."

[instilled]

The Hollow Knight shook its head. It also raised a hand, holding it up as if deflecting the apology away. Lyng had nothing to apologize for; his world was not the world the Hollow Knight had failed to protect. The dawn that he and his friends had inherited was not the burning, blazing light of the Radiance, in all her brilliant majesty.

It was its own fault for not being able to keep its... its fear, it supposed, down and away. It could not fully submerge those feelings in the void within it. No one's fault but its own. Not even Hers, really, for all the wicked hate and infectious disdain She had had for it as Her prison.

The Hollow Knight flipped over the paper it had scribbled the crossroads on and quickly wrote: Hallownest is night eternal. It is passing strange to hear of the Dawn in any but an ominous way.

[eyesofazure]

Night eternal? It sounded like the Void to him - the Thirteenth, which had fallen to darkness.

And, truth be told, after his adventures on the First, it was also somewhat difficult not to think of the Dawn as anything but ominous. Lyng frowned as he thought about the blinding day that covered Norvrandt, about how it was his fault when he couldn't contain the light within him and had so crushed the people's hopes.

"I think I understand what you mean. Light can be..." He let out a small, nervous laugh. "Daunting."

He motioned to himself, though, his expression turning happy again. "The 'Seventh Dawn' doesn't refer to a breaking of day over night in a literal sense. About seven years ago, our world experienced a catastrophe that left a deep and festering scar across the land - Eorzea changed in the course of only a few hours. In the course of history, it was the seventh such calamity, and so the Scions rose from its ashes into the time that followed - the 'Seventh Dawn.'"

[instilled]

At the word 'daunting', the Hollow Knight touched the crack in its mask. The sun shone out of my eyes, it considered writing, but it forced its hand to stay. It was not Lyng's business to know of its failure. Nor was it his burden.

Besides, there was history here. Something to learn. Something to absorb. The Hollow Knight could be good at that, and so it sat, listening curiously, its hands coming back to settle around the warm mug of tea Lyng had offered it.

It nodded to show that it was listening.

[eyesofazure]

"Oh," Lyng seemed a bit surprised by that attentive reaction, by the way he'd seemed to have captured the Hollow Knight's full focus. "You want to know more?" He hadn't intended to lecture it on his world's problems, merely offer enough context to ease its worries.

But Lyng wouldn't refuse, painful as the memories were.

"There were once two moons in the sky - one white and one red. The red moon, Dalamud, was called down from the heavens, and broke apart, raining fire upon the land. We discovered, too late, that the red moon had been created by men from an age long past as a prison for a monster known as Bahamut which sought to wreak havoc upon the world."

Lyng gripped tighter to his mug as he recalled the sight of the sky that day, of the fires that fell and destroyed his home. His mouth tensed. "The creature was stopped by great sacrifice from a great mage - but the damage had already been done. Much of the Black Shroud was scorched and shredded, the seas had churned and boiled, Coerthas's region was so elementally damaged a never-ending winter fell upon it. And anywhere the pieces of the moon fell, twisting structures of corrupted crystal grew from the earth. We still have yet to fully recover."

[instilled]

The Hollow Knight listened with rapt attention, its blank face never turning away to look at anything else. Two moons in the sky... it had seen the sky before, black and coldly shining, the stars so pale and far away. The moon was gone, but it had heard tales of it, a cold reflection of Her burning light.

To have two mirrors to reflect the being that was their sun... and to have one house a great and terrible power within it itself... it was difficult to imagine.

The Wyrm would never have stood for it.

But it was not here to think better of its Father's kingdom than anyone else's. It was here to learn about its neighbours, and this was such a sad, interesting tale.

The Hollow Knight lowered its head, reacting, it assumed, with respect to the world that had been so badly harmed in Lyng's tale. The moon had fallen. Their dawn, their kindly dawn so hard won, was to rise pale and staggering, guided by these Scions and their mission.

A worthy cause, it supposed.