Work Text:
You turn the iridescent scroll over and over in your hands, its pale colors shimmering in the light, catching it like a pearl outside of the ocean. The crest of the Pale King has always seemed decorative when it hangs from merchant awnings and the bells in the market, but in your hands it felt more alien, such an ornate thing shouldn’t be in such proximity to your lowly state.
You got the summons yesterday, the message from the king was brief and not all that informing. All it instructed was your presence at the palace for a day, in the audience of the Pale King and included some strange hand motions to memorize. They seemed strange and foreign to you, but the letter demanded none the less with you forced to oblige.
The thought of the Wyrm sets your heart pounding faster, there was no indication he knew you existed, yet he summons you now, what could he possibly want from someone of your stature and standing?
Folding the summons into your pocket and walking through the city, anxieties swim through your mind like fish in a bowl too small. As for most common bugs, this will be your first time in the palace, there is no telling what you are to expect. They didn’t send a carriage for you, nor could you afford to take the stag, but that just gives you an opportunity to walk the paths beyond the city.
It is not often that you are in the part of the kingdom where the Palace lies; the streets are the same as they have been for years and yet not the same at all: cleaner, perhaps, but that was not the only change. There is a sense that this part of the city has been pressed and smoothed by some careful hands — lanterns tidier, stalls aligned with a precision you have not noticed before in the city of tears where you reside — your own breath slows in response. You decide to keep your head down, as if your very gaze might dirty up the organized and purposeful world around you and get you scolded for it.
By the time the White Palace rose into your sight, you had rehearsed your curtsy twice in your mind, and felt quite foolish during both rehearsals. The movements are foreign to you, too formal for the life most people like you live, and yet that is what is to be expected in the presence of the king, correct? The palace presents itself as a bright thing meant to be looked upon.
As you step across the threshold, the noise of the world seems to slip away leaving you in silence.
Beyond the grand palace doors and into the entryway, even footsteps become private sounds. Servants move with an economy of motion that softens their presence until they are almost a part of the decor: efficient, discreet, never brash, and always silent. You don’t hear them move as they lead you through the hallways of the palace, but you hear your own steps echoing down the long hallways.
The corridors are wide, impossibly so, lined with marble as pale as pressed moonlight. You try not to gape at the carvings: spirals, winged sigils, repeating shapes that evoke both order and strangeness. Light, white and artificial, stream from vast windows in shafts so clean and absolute that dust dares not move through them. It feels as though you were walking into a sanctum, not just a palace.
You think of how merchants described the King — vast, distant, an intellect from another age. A God who chose to become small and walk among mortals. What place do you, an apprentice, have within the halls that he commands?
The servant leading you pauses at a set of tall doors, pressing a palm to them they slowly push it open; the hinges do not dare to creak. Beyond is the throne room. There he sits like a statue, like he never moves from this spot. Not to eat, not to sleep, not to wage war or enjoy pleasures of life. The Pale King sits upon his throne like a shard of the very light that filled the place, his form compacted to something nearly fragile, yet emanating a density of presence that pressed against your ribs. You bowed, stooping low before your knees simply gave out.
He is magnificent, far more grand than any painting or poem could dream. His voice is quiet, though it filled the room easily:
“Rise.”
You do, though your legs tremble unsteadily beneath you.
He doesn't seem to notice, or doesn’t seem to care. “You have been summoned,” he continues, “for a matter most particular. You will find it… unusual.”
You do not dare speak until he gestures faintly. Even then, your voice cracks like a novice’s. “Your Majesty, I am at your service.”
A pause, his gaze upon you unreadable. “There is one within these halls who requires companionship. Instruction, perhaps. You will provide it.”
Companionship. The word unsettles you more than anything else. You had imagined scrollwork, or tutoring in numbers and letters, some formal structured task. You are not a teacher per say, but at least a tutor has a set goal, to build knowledge. Companionship implies something stranger. Broader and less defined. Yet you nod, refusal is unthinkable.
“Follow,” he said, and when he stands the room itself seems to lean with him.
He leads through emptier passages, smaller and less open to servants, until we reach a courtyard enclosed by white walls and arching glass. A garden, though unlike any you have seen before now. Pale blossoms opening to the filtered light, their petals edged with the faint iridescence covering the palace. Trees rise with bark smooth as polished bone, their leaves translucent as dragonfly wings. The air is hushed, yet alive with birds no larger than a fingertip darting between branches, their songs like struck glass singing in the air.
And in the midst of it stands a figure next to the Queen Root; a tall and thin bug, mask smooth and expressionless save for hollow black eyes. They stand with hands folded, utterly still, as if awaiting some signal.
“This,” the King says, “is one of mine. The purest of my children. They will be… entrusted to you.”
Your mouth went dry with his expectations. “I will do my best, Your Majesty.”
He does not further elaborate on your duties. He does not need to. His gaze was command enough, you would do this role to the best of your abilities. It wasn’t for discussion.
For a long moment you simply stare and the Vessel stares back, or perhaps not stared — their eyes reveal nothing — black void that did not flicker. Then, slowly, they raise a hand, fingers curling awkwardly into a shape. A gesture. One you half-remembered from your studies of the included materials, the White Lady’s sign language. Greetings.
The White Lady makes a quiet sign though the rustling of her branches and then translates, “They greet you,” she hums, her voice like wind through small leaves.
You kneel, aware that posture matters in rooms built for respect. Rooms such as this. “Hello,” your voice is thin in the space; raising your hand you carefully make the sign for friend. Your hands feel clumsy doing the motion, your lack of practice showing in front of all present royalties. Embarrassment burns at your cheeks but you try not to show it with shaky hands.
The Vessel looks at your face, then at your hands, before tilting their head as if weighing the small inconsistency between gesture and speech. They did not sign anything for a moment, before repeating the motion. Friend. There isn’t thought behind it, only the repetition of motion.
The White Lady’s presence braids the hush of the Queen’s Gardens into something softer than solitude. She stands immense and delicate, a body of root and pale vine that bent and rearranges the light around her. For a moment the three of you were arranged like a strange family in a painting: the King, a compact brilliance contained in white robes; the Lady, broad and patient as a root; and the Vessel, pale and still as carved bone; and you standing, the new ‘tutor’.
The Pale King lingers only long enough to cast his bright regard across the scene. His voice came clipped, deliberate, each syllable honed to a purpose.
“It has no voice to speak. I expect patience. I will address you further at the end of the day.”
He gives the smallest nod toward you, a signal that was both instruction and dismissal, before turning to go. The sound of his footsteps diminishes quickly, swallowed by the vastness of the palace corridors until the hush folded back in on itself.
The White Lady moves closer, vines swaying faintly as though stirred by an unseen current. Her hands uncoil like branches that know the rhythm of sun and rain. She begins to carefully sign the words included with the summons, glancing at you makes it clear this is for both the vessel’s and your sake. Her motions are slow moving, like the growing of grass, as though she has all the time in the world to cast meaning into visible form.
First she presses her palm outward, curling her fingers back to her chest - greeting. The Vessel repeats it precisely, movements spare and exact. The Lady’s leafy fingers spread like a blossom unfurling - flower. She lifts a pale hand above her head, fingers splaying like rays spilling between branches - light. Then she traces a slow wave with her palm, her arm flowing with the languor of rivers - water. At last she lays her palm against her chest and circles outward, enclosing an invisible space - safe.
“We shall start small, with simple things.” She murmurs, voice rustling like leaves caught in the wind. “Presence will teach them what my voice cannot.” She inclines toward you, and the motion feels like a benediction. “You will walk them through the garden, show them what I cannot, let them touch what you touch. And please, let your hands speak.”
Then, roots rustling in a sound like distant rain, she withdrew into the deeper hush of the gardens. The silence she leaves behind was not empty but expectant, and it settles around you and the Vessel like a veil.
Left alone with the Vessel, you are suddenly very aware of every small sound around you: the glass-winged birds’ tiny steps, the soft clink of water, the whisper of leaves down a corridor. The Vessel turns their head, and in the dull black of those voided eyes you see nothing. A pureness is the only descriptor that you have to attribute to its eyes. You step forward, and your hand brushes the nearest pale petal as you did.
The silk smooth petal stops your hand, it was cooler than you expect and smooth like the interior of a shell. Plucking it, you pick it up and hold it out to the vessel. Slowly, you spread your fingers and make the sign for flower, letting the motion be deliberate and visible for the vessel.
“Flower …” you quietly mutter, hoping they catch on.
The Vessel copies you without hesitation, following the motion, exactly and identically. They reach out and gingerly touch the blossom with a cautious finger, the petal curves like it was answering to the touch. You say the word aloud again, soft and small, your voice like a secret in the vastness of the garden.
“Flower…”
Making the sign again, slower. They match you — one motion to another — until the gesture stops being mimicry and feels more ... deliberate. More like language.
You watch their hand linger over the bloom, two fingers pinching the petal as if measuring its thinness. The light slants through the glass canopy that hangs over the gardens, laying long silver bars across their mask. For a moment the pale surface shines bright enough it was difficult to tell where the Vessel ends and the light begins. Its father’s iridescence shining in it. Then they turn slightly, head canted as though hearing something inaudible, letting the petal drift to the earth. The small, soundless fall as punctuation on the moment.
Breathing once, deeply, you instruct, “Come,” and begin to walk deeper into the Queen’s Gardens.
The Vessel tilts its head in acknowledgment before following when you start down the winding path that spirals deeper into the underground’s depth. The stones underfoot are pale but worn, weathered by time and roots that push through their seams. The further you go, the softer the light becomes until there isn't so much brightness, as it is a wash of pearlescent haze.
The gardens are not still, beneath the hush there is a murmur; the trickle of unseen water, the pulse of sap through stems, the crisp clicks of tiny carapaces moving in the moss. You find yourself slowing your steps to that rhythm, listening as you walk. The Vessel follows, stepping precisely so that their feet never once scrape against the stone. Steps that mirror those in the palace of the servants, stepping to be unheard.
Past a grove of trees reaching to the light like hands to god, you reach a set of narrow stairs that lead downwards. You hesitate at its lip, glancing back at the vessel. It waits, unreadable as ever. “Lets go further down,” you say quietly, pointing downwards beyond the stairwell.
The steps curve inward through marble walls, shot with veins of pale gold. Roots thread the stone, their thin ends glowing faintly, providing a little extra light for the path. You smell the earth for the first time in the palace — real soil — silty, loam heavy, dirt with moisture. The air grows warmer as you descend, and at the base of the stairs the path opens into a hidden hollow.
Here the ceiling was cracked in half a dozen places, each fissure a narrow wound admitting sun. Shafts of light fell through in long white columns, reflecting off a small pool of water, barely more than a puddle. This light wasn’t white like all the lanterns of the city that illuminate the street, nor do they hold the harsh artificialness that helps the plants of the gardens. Pale and clear the sunlight pushes through the cracks in the Earth. Dust motes float in the beams like tiny slow-moving stars. The sight steals even your words away for a moment, the still beauty of the scene.
The Vessel steps forward into one of the sunbeams, water rippling from their step, and gingerly reaches up towards the crack, bathed in the light. Their armor catches it with a gleam and scatters it in a hundred directions, a prism made alive. You see the edges of their form blur, and in the blur, a strange delicacy. They lift a hand, turning it as though weighing the beam’s warmth against their palm. Then they shape a slow, uncertain sign: light.
You mirror them this time, making the motion broader, tracing the way the Lady had done it earlier. “Light,” you confirm aloud.
The Vessel simply stands there in the light, breathing it in as it glimmers on its body. Then, almost imperceptibly, their shoulders loosen. They make the sign again — light — but this time there is a small flourish at the end, a flick of the wrist that wasn’t in the White Lady’s careful and clear vocabulary. It took a moment before you realize it was in imitation of the way the light curves when it touches the water pooled below. Its own unique mark on the word.
“That’s right,” you mutter, surprised by the tenderness in your own voice. “Light.”
The Vessel steps closer to one of the cracks. Sunlight haloed their mask; through the fissure you can see the distant shimmer of Hallownest’s city-spires, white and perfect. The Vessel moves without waiting for you, crouching, fingers brushing the moss, then pointing upward to the distant sky. Their hand opens, five fingers spread — sky, perhaps, or beyond. A sign that wasn’t included in your summons. Then, after a pause, they touch their chest, the soundless gesture for me.
You swallow, a lump growing in your throat. “You,” you say softly, repeating the sign. “You like the light?”
They straighten, looking at you, and though their eyes are void, you feel something inside them focusing — a kind of inward brightness that has nothing to do with the sun on their mask. They repeat light again with the flourish, this time twice, then add the sign for friend.
You smile, unsure if they can read it behind your own mask. “Yes,” you whisper. “Light and friend.”
The Vessel’s head inclines, and they turn their gaze upward once more. The beam cuts across their mask, across the soft rise of their shoulders, you watch as they lifted both hands, slowly opening them as though releasing something invisible back into the air. In that moment, they seem not like an empty thing molded for a god’s purpose, but a creature learning to marvel.
The Vessel turns their mask toward you again, slow, like a flower following warmth. Then, without prompting, they kneel and dip one pale hand into the water. The ripples distort their reflection into shivers of white and gold.
When they raise their hand again, droplets fall and catch the light, scattering it between you both. They trace one of those droplets midair with a fingertip, then move their hands, hesitant and halting, but certain enough that you know they are trying to say something.
A palm outward, fingers curling inward, then pressed to the chest. You recognize it immediately from earlier. Safe.
You blink, uncertain for a heartbeat. The sign had been one of the White Lady’s lessons, but you hadn’t thought they’d memorize it so soon, nor that they- it would make the connection on its own. The concept was far more abstract than something like flowers or water. You make the sign too, mirroring them, slow, deliberate, and with both hands this time. The moment the gesture completes, something in the air shifts, the Vessel stills, tilting their head as though listening, and then — so small you might have imagined it — they give the faintest nod. You realize they were not merely practicing. They were confirming. Asking.
“This place?” you ask softly. “Safe?”
They repeat the sign once, then again, their motions fluid now. A beat passes before they lower their head, almost reverent. Yes. The word doesn’t need to be spoken. You understand.
A hush falls again, though it feels different now, no longer the sterile silence of the palace, but the soft quiet that follows an exhale. The light through the cracks brightens and dims with passing clouds, and you both stand within that rhythm, bound by it. For the first time since your arrival in the White Palace, you feel the knot of anxiety in your chest ease. You hadn’t realized how much you needed that word too.
You glance around — the crooked walls, the water glimmering faintly with reflected gold, the faint scent of moss and clean air — and whisper, “Yes. Yes, it is safe here.”
The Vessel’s head turns toward you, and though their face is unreadable, something gentle radiates from them, something that does not belong to cold perfection. You find yourself smiling, quietly.
The two of you lingered there a long while, sitting where the light pools. You trace the motions for flower, water, light, and safety again, letting each one flow into the next until it becomes a rhythm of hands instead of words. The Vessel repeats them with growing ease, sometimes changing the pace, sometimes inventing a tiny motion of their own, blending the meanings.
When at last the sunlight begins to thin and the hollow dim, you rise.
“We should go.”
It's not that you want to, but the day must end sometime. The Vessel looks upward once more, then turns toward you and nods. Their movement holds more grace now, less like something built and more like something born.
As you climb the stairs together, the air cools, but the warmth from the hollow seems to cling to you both. Near the top you glance back and catch sight of the last slant of sun spilling through the cracks. It strikes the Vessel’s back for an instant, outlining them in a thin rim of gold.
When you reach the upper halls again, the quiet has deepened. Dusk lay over the White Palace like a veil of pearl-gray, and the light that has once burned through the corridors now seems to drift softly, uncertain, like breath against glass. Servants emerge from the dimness to meet you, bowing low before gesturing that you follow. The Vessel does not come with you this time; when you turn to glance back, they are still standing amongst the lilies; watching you for a moment they again make the sign for friend, adding a small flourish. A unique flourish. One just for you.
They don’t get to go with you as you are led through the long corridors, past rows of tall doors that shimmer faintly, until the scent of steam and citrus oil reaches you. The servant stops before a smaller, more intimate chamber than you have yet seen within the palace. It is no throne room, nor the vast dining halls rumored to host royal banquets of hundreds, but a room giving host to a rather long white table of carved stone, lit by hovering orbs that glowed like captured stars.
At one end sits the Pale King and White Lady. He is as you saw him earlier that day; a being composed of symmetry and silence, the delicate lines of his robes glowing faintly, every movement distilled to its essential grace. Everything is carefully crafted to make him look larger, grander, brighter. Beside him, the White Lady was soft brilliance incarnate, her vines coiling and uncoiling like breath. Between them lies a spread of rich foods: bowls of nectar, small glazed fruits, a dish of translucent roots that shone faintly from within, and meats from countless animals.
You hesitate at the threshold.
The King looks up, tiredly. “Sit,” is all he says.
You obey, lowering yourself to the nearest chair. The surface of the table is cool beneath your hands. You don’t dare eat at first, but a smooth gesture from the White Lady across from you seems to give permission.
The food is far more delectable than anything you have experienced before, fresh fruits from the gardens right outside, slow cooked meats prepared by expert chefs, breads from the best bakeries. You try to restrain yourself, but it wasn’t long before you were preparing a third plate.
For a time, there is no sound except the faint, deliberate clink of the King’s fork and the slow, uncoiling whisper of the Lady’s movements. It is not silence so much as the sound of thought being given shape. You try not to look too long at either of them, afraid that staring might feel like intrusion, but your eyes keep drifting back to their hands, the King’s sharp and immaculate, the Lady’s fluid and soft as tendrils in water. Both bugs seemed so alien to this world, like they belong to something grander.
Finally, the King sets his utensil down. “You have spent the day in my wife’s garden with my pride child,” he says, his voice was not loud, but it carries perfectly in the space, as if it needs no air to reach you.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And?”
You hesitate, feeling the weight of the word before you could answer. “They are… attentive,” you begin. “Quiet, but not absent. They listen, even when they do not seem to. They learn quickly, though their learning feels more like reflection than memorization like one might have expected...”
The King regards you steadily. “Reflection?”
You nod. “They mirror signs, and then, sometimes, alter them. It feels-” You stop, uncertain how to describe what you’d seen without stepping into sacrilege. “It feels like they understand more than they show.”
His gaze does not soften, but neither does it condemn. As good a sign as any. “Understanding is not their purpose,” he says with a sigh. “And yet it will still serve.”
The Lady’s voice unfurls beside him, warm and lilting. She quietly adds “They are drawn to the light,” she says softly. “And to you now, it seems. It is rare for them to linger in company unbidden, and they had not dared alter signs for me. You’re a curious bug.”
You glance up, startled. “I only followed your instructions, my lady.”
Her smile, or what might have been one, carves through her tone. “Following instruction can still plant roots, dear.”
The King’s fingers steeple before him, each joint perfectly aligned in front of his face. “You will return tomorrow,” he says, as if it were already decided regardless of response. “I expect you to be here early and prepared. You will continue their instruction then. During this time you will remain in the gardens until dusk, do not remove them from the gardens. There are other matters that do not concern you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
His next words are quieter, though no less precise. “The Vessel must be given shape through repetition, not meaning. Meaning complicates things. You will refrain from philosophy, from talk of gods, or of the city. Speak of what is before them, the facts of the world around them, and no more. The stone, the leaf, the light.”
“I understand.”
The King gives the faintest nod. “See to it that you do.”
Then, as if to signal the end of the matter, he turns his gaze toward his untouched goblet and away from you. The light from the hovering orbs bends around him, softening the stark edges of his form until he seems more like an idea of a thing than a being of flesh and shell.
The White Lady, however, leans forward slightly, one vine brushing against the table near your hand. “You are weary,” she says, and her voice carried neither pity nor reproach, only recognition. “Do not mistake fatigue for failure. The palace just seems to consume energy, even from those who mean it no harm.”
“I’ll rest,” you promise, unsure what exactly she means.
“Good,” she murmurs. “Then return, rested, tomorrow. The Vessel will expect you.”
For a moment, the word expect hangs between you all like a thread of gold. They will await your arrival, expecting you.
When you rise to leave, the King does not dismiss you with a gesture this time. He only inclines his head, faintly, as though granting permission to continue a task already began. You bow low, a practiced curtsy, and murmur your thanks, before turning away. The servant waiting outside leads you through the long halls once more.
The corridors glow faintly now, their marble veined with blue light. As you walk, you still feel the quiet pulse of the gardens beneath your feet, as though the entire palace was breathing in slow unison with something deep and unseen. At the great outer doors, you pause to glance back, the light from the dinner chamber spilled faintly into the corridor behind you, thin as a ribbon and golden at the edges.
You don’t get a final look at the Vessel, but tomorrow? Tomorrow, the King had said you would return. You step into the cool night, the air outside the White Palace carrying with it the faintest scent of lilies and rain.