#deepnest vessel my beloved :(

[queruloustea]

a sketch i did for the things of deepnest :) i find it a rather pretty area, ignoring the well-known creepiness and the fact that i'm being chased by many-legged creatures through small tunnels most of the time i'm there

it seems that once again tumblr has mercilessly slaughtered the quality, so apologies for that; as compensation take my five minute hot spring quirrel™, arguably the best part about deepnest:

[jeffdrawssometimes]

mm postgame hcs. extended info under cut. (some are slightly dark, so heads up)

Knight (Hornet went with the most neutral name possible)

-Loves the cold & by extension Kingdoms Edge -Fears the void & the Shade Lord -Fights in the colosseum for soul to sustain themselves -Deeply shameful of their existence but desperately craves admiration & affection -Very slow to regain mobility. But a blink in the eye of them & their immortality spent in the temple. -Communicates in sign language. The Radiance 'gave' them a throat & mouth, but it sealed as they healed. -Horribly scarred & permanently lost half their body mass to the Radiance.

Lace (We don't really know a lot about her, so this is just tiny details)

-Very much not a natural bug. -Horrifyingly attractive by bug standards. Close to the Uncanny valley. -Glows a pale gold ambient light. -Big into wedding motifs. (Kind of canon due to the bells & roses in Pharloom) -Has no mouth & emanates sound from her horn hat headdress thing. Voice like a million bells from a long distance.

Hornet (This doesn't capture half the thoughts I have about her btw)

-Immortal unless directly killed. Dealing with it poorly & has an ongoing existential crisis in relation to her semi-divinity. -Slightly corrupted by void by being in extended contact with the Pale King's void-related experiments. Only made her body pitch black & ice cold. -Big, buff, hairy tarantula & can easily intimidate mortal bugs with little effort. Also has the most toxic venom in Hallownest. (excluding the orange infection juice) -Deeply resentful & regretful of her role in the preservation of the stasis of Deepnest & Hallownest. The final death of Herrah was the tipping point where she decided to assist Ghost to end Hallownest & kill the Radiance. -Can partially see into the dream realm, enough for its inhabitants to hurt her, but not enough to do anything. She saw the Radiance during Ghost's battle & was nearly mortally wounded by Her. It was fairly traumatic on her body & mind.

Grimm (fucked up bat thing my beloved)

-Separate consciousness from the Nightmare Heart, but heavily influenced by its will. Not malevolent, but seeking to preserve his god by any means possible. Same Consciousness is preserved throughout the cycles. -The Nightmare King is the Heart's projection of itself in Grimm's mind & is kind of the final confirmation of the ritual when it is defeated. Its defeat kills the current incarnation of Grimm & brings the next Grimmchild to Troupe Master status. -The Grimmchild starts as sewn-together parts of perished mortal Grimm Troupe members & with a mindless, feral brain. As the ritual progresses, Grimmchild's body morphs into a more effective vessel for the Troupe Master's mind. -Very polite & courteous to those who like his ritual; physically & verbally roasts anyone who doesn't -Thinks that Hallownest is by far the most interesting dead kingdom the Troupe's visited. - Would like to find Hornet in Pharloom.

Damn that was a lot. These are just my hcs but i have thought too much about these freaky bugs.

[illmoraineakoi]

So I had a funny idea the other day, and I thought you'd all enjoy it

(Read More bc this this is long)

The Abyss is canonically not as air-tight as PK thought it was, and I personally headcanon the Vessels as having a craving/obsession/hunger for light (specifically the Radiance's; they recognize pale light as “their own”.)

What if PK was minding his business one day, and just stumbles across a Vessel that's infiltrated his Palace? And he's like “Where the HELL did you come from?!” Like he legit double-checks that the door is still sealed. It is. And he’s just so Confused.

And now he's just got this second Vessel that's randomly shown up. That he has no idea what to do with. He only needed one, they're meant to be tools, but at the same time, he can't quite forget the fact that these were supposed to be his children. He can't quite bring himself to just get rid of it, even if it doesn't have a purpose.

He ends up just sitting on the issue, trying to think of a 'solution'. It's fine, it's not even really that big of a deal. It's just one extra Vessel. He’ll figure out a use for it eventually.

A few days later, he walks past both Vessels in the hall – only to stumble a step because "Wait a moment – those aren't the right horns!" And sure enough, he double-takes, and they're not. They're completely unfamiliar. These are two new Vessels.

He's so flabbergasted he actually tries to ask where they came from. And of course they just stare at him. He's so confused.

He's even more at a loss for what to do with them. It's getting hard to even remember to double check if the Vessel he's interacting with is the Pure one. He's stressing out about already accidentally fucking up their ‘hollowness’.

It just keeps happening. The White Lady corners him with a very disapproving look on her face, going "Did you forget to tell me something, my beloved?" while pulling out a Vessel from her robes. Herrah arrives unannounced and plops one on his desk, “I think you’ve lost something, Wyrm. Keep your cursed spawn out of my tunnels.” Ogrim and Isma attempt to stealthily deposit two of them in the ‘Vessel Room’ without him noticing, but the seal work on the door was designed to alert him every time a Vessel left or entered. He doesn’t even ask where they found them, he just looks at them with resigned acceptance and shuffles them into the room.

When Lurrien arrives for his bimonthly meeting to discuss the growing infection rates with a cracked mask and heavily bandaged hands, a tall tri-horned Vessel absolutely seething in a tight bundle of rope, the King honestly just wants to lay down in a ditch at this point. He can't figure out where they're coming from. He doesn't know WHY they're coming to the Palace.

He didn't even think this many had survived.

And he still doesn't know what to do with them all, aside from shoving them into the “Vessel Room”. It takes so much of his concentration just to try to keep them occupied or distracted with something, because if they aren't, they turn to the rest of the Palace, and they are somehow even more of a chaotic nuisance than Hornet was. Nothing was safe; if it existed, a Vessel was going to find it and get into it. And potentially steal it, he discovers after an eventful game of "What are you putting in your mouth--nO COME BACK HERE-"

And then Ghost shows up.

And if he thought the other Vessels were menaces, the King had no idea what he was in for. Ghost is easily the worst of them all, combined. Nothing is sacred to Ghost. Ghost is basically a honey badger: they do not give a fuck.

Ghost is the first Vessel the King accidentally gives a nickname to when he calls them a 'Little Nightmare', a title that Ghost only seems to take on with pride. The King regrets.

The King is beyond exhausted. Trying to juggle the Vessels, training the Pure Vessel, dealing with the increasing number and severity of Infected, rising tensions with Deepnest, the Hive and the Mantis Tribe, and the futile search for some other way to deal withe Radiance that he knows he won't find, because he's already out of options. He's sleep deprived, barely eating, constantly stressed, and more times than not forgets to bathe. He's in a downward spiral, he knows it, and knows he can't continue as he is. But he has no choice. He just has to keep going, while hoping, praying, that he doesn't mess up and doom his kingdom, his people.

And just when the King thought he couldn't handle any further stress...

The Vessels go missing. All of them. They just vanish.

It takes a while for anyone to even notice, but it’s the White Lady who does first.

And at first, the King doesn't pick up on his wife's worry when she tells him she can't find them. It's only when she repeats herself, insisting that they're nowhere within the Palace walls, the guards and Great Knights have looked everywhere, twice, and she hasn't personally seen them since last night, that the implication finally sets in.

The Vessels are missing.

The Vessels are missing.

He's never put together such a massive amount of city guards so quickly before in his entire Kinghood. The order is simple: find the Vessels, bring them back to the Palace. He doesn't understand why his body was shaking so much as he watched nearly every guard in the city leave to search. It must be the stress. Or he just forgot to eat again.

He expected the Vessels to be found quickly. As small and indistinct as they are, they tended to stick together as a flock or in groups. They were also not very sneaky or subtle about their presence, most of them being little terrors on stubby legs, so some bugs must've seen them. They also couldn't have gotten very far. At most, a couple of hours, he tells himself as he paces the entrance hall of the Palace, waiting for news or a team to return.

He wonders how they got out of the Palace, and resolves to find the weak spot and patch it. Without another exit, the Vessels wouldn't make it past the Guards if they tried to leave again. Perhaps he should place detection seals around the perimeter of the Palace...Just in case.

News does not come. Nor do any of the guards return for over half a day.

And when they do start trickling back, they're all empty-handed.

They give reports, of bugs seeing the Vessels, of their possible movements throughout the Kingdom, but the Vessels themselves were elusive. None of them had even caught sight of a single one.

The King is angry, enraged actually. He's also terrified. He feels like he's in pain, even though he's not wounded. He wants to burn things. Break things. Claw his workshop to pieces. He wants to scream, to seethe. To sob. He's so overwhelmed with so many conflicting emotions, he doesn't know what to do. The shaking has returned. He feels like he can barely breathe past the rock in his throat. His body feels oddly numb. He’s only ever felt so helpless when confronted with the Infection itself.

The order still stands: Find them. Just find them.

He's restless. he feels anxious for reasons he doesn't understand. He searches himself, even though he knows it’s a risk to his own life; the Radiance would take any shot she had at him. He scours the Kingdom, looking for even the slightest traces of Void. He finds signs of it all over the place, small amounts, but not a single whiff of the Vessels themselves. He cannot even tell what they were doing, if anything, because they seemed to have gone quite literally everywhere.

Days pass.

With each hour that goes by without any word of them being found or them returning (by the Stars and Fates, does he hope they just walk back through the front door. He wouldn’t even be upset, he just wants them to come back.) the King becomes more and more distressed. More despondent. More hopeless.

The Kingdom, outside of the City and the villages, is not safe. So many viscous, infected creatures that would willingly try to feast upon a tiny Vessel. Food was becoming scarcer; the icy black of their bodies wouldn't be a deterrent, even if their toxic Void would most assuredly kill whatever consumed them eventually. The acids were so caustic they'd easily eat through the thin, small maskshells, leaving not a single trace. So many perilous places to fall from. So many unstable caverns to be crushed or trapped in.

The King wondered if he should alter his order to include looking for any signs of their corpses as well. He cannot bring himself to do so; to voice such terrors aloud would make them unbearably real.

Every day is the same: There is no news. There is no news. There is no news. We have not seen them. We have not found them.

Until suddenly, there is news, but it’s not the news he expected or even needed.

The Infection was dying. Rapidly. Just...shriveling up, into gnarled vines and sunken pustules. The bright glaring neon orange was dimming to a lifeless murky brown. Those ensnared in the waking dreamsleep woke up, came back to themselves.

Everyone was dumbfounded. What did this mean? What could have possibly happened? Did the Radiance...give up? Or did something happen to her? What could possibly affect the Radiance enough to disrupt her power so quickly, so thoroughly?

The entire Kingdom looked to their King for answers, and he had none to give. He didn’t know.

He could only work to prevent panic and hysteria, and hope that someone comes back with answers soon.

Through the efforts to assuage the public’s concerns, the King continues to wait, desperately, for word on his Vessels. In the evening, he waits by the front gate. Watching the bridge, for hours. Hoping, even as he’s growing hopeless. There, yet not.

The King is just about to give up for the night, to return inside, to curl up in his chambers and fall into a restless sleep that fails to rejuvenate or ease his stresses, where the images of dead and mutilated Vessels terrorize his nightmares, when voices call out, alarmed, catching his attention. He turns.

He freezes. Stares.

The Vessels were right there, huddled in a group as they slowly walked across the bridge. All of them. Together. They were there.

They were safe.

They were all scuffed up, splattered in the orangeish brown muk and smelling of ash, nicks and dents on their tiny dirty shells. Some of them looked worse for the wear, being supported or carried by others, leaking void from various injuries. The taller tri-horned one with an overgrown cloak had a nasty crack on it's head, their shortest horn just outright gone. It was messily bandaged, and they seemed to be in pain, but they were alive. Another, with two short pairs of horns on the side of their head, was clutching their chest, limping along with another who was missing half their curled horn.

Ghost supported the Pure Vessel, who looked utterly ravaged. cloak torn and stained orange, a deep crack through their right eye socket, empty space where their tiny left arm used to be. Ghost, Little Nightmare, supported a nasty crack down the middle of their mask, deep grooves in their horns like blade wounds and scorch marks searing their tattered cloak, nail shattered completely in half.

The Vessels stop when they see him, staring back. The King doesn't even realize he'd approached them until he was almost on top of them, staring down.

And then he realizes they were carrying something between them, but they're moving, shifting, spreading apart--

And presenting him with a large blade still wet with neon orange ichor.

A familiar blade, he knew was once attached to the Radiance.

He can only stare, as the Pure Vessel steps forward, dipping a tiny claw into the slowly congealing orange and writing slowly, "We ate the Light. No more sick dreams."

And it hits the King right in the gut that the Vessels had been listening to him talk about the Infection, heard him complain and worry over it. Had listened, and taken it upon themselves to try to get rid of it.

And they'd somehow succeeded. Somehow managed to find, to trap, to fight, to defeat her. Not unscathed, not without a cost, but without loosing any of their own. They’d all challenged a God, and killed her.

Had ripped out her gleaming blade, the symbol and embodiment of her power to cleave through dreams and minds, to take it with them.

To give it to him.

The Vessels push the bloodstained blade into his hands, and he stares at it for only a single second, before dumping it to the ground beside him without a care.

A twitch of surprise goes through the Vessels, and air of confusion and outrage, but he doesn't care; he lunges forwards and wraps his arms around as many of them as he can reach, pulling them tight to him and grabbing for yet more until he’s somehow got them all in his arms. Clinging to them. Burying his face among their stained shells and nicked horns, and sobbing.

Of course he cares about the death of the Radiance. The severity of that will hit him later, after he's had time to absorb it properly.

For now, the only thing he gives a damn about is the fact that his children are all safe, back home. Dirty, busted up, and in a world of trouble once he's done weeping with relief, but alive.

Nothing else mattered.

[dropout-ninja]

Quirrel, Elderbug, Myla? :3

Quirrel: What was your favorite thing to discover for the first time?

Every new map, I swear. I feel like I actually really got a thrill out of entering Crystal Peaks for the first time, even though it proceeded to be my least favorite map platforming-wise until I got better at gameplay. Same goes for the City and for Kingdom’s Edge (my beloved? For some reason?)

Or maybe my favorite thing to discover for the first time was just the stag station in Deepnest so I could stop my new player sobbing trip down there.

Elderbug: Do you stop to talk to all the NPCs? Who is your favorite?

I do. I must. It simply would be illegal if I didn’t. Unless I’m doing a speedrun and then the brain has decided it is illegal for me to talk to Elderbug so he gets run past and left to make his sad noise. Guilt. 

Quirrel is a good dude, he let me sit on a bench with him. I love Cornifer so maybe it’s him. I was half convinced he was actually a higher being in my first playthrough because he was just so unstoppable, up until Deepnest. I’m tempted to say Divine just because she’s unhinged.

Myla: What’s your favorite song from the soundtrack?

NO

NO I CAN’T DO THIS ONE

(maniac who has gotten the sheet music now for every song in the soundtrack except for two so far)

I guess White Palace. I guess. If I had to pick. But agh. I’m also partial to Pale Court but after much time going back and forth on it, I think the og White Palace OST beats it. Combat music wise, Sealed Vessel is the song of all time, but Broken Vessel and Nightmare King are responsible for pushing me into buying the game.

[fauxbia]

I just found your ghost of the nest au and oh BOY did i love it so much. I just. ADORE the concept of the twin protectors of hallownest, and herrah squinting sideways at pk re: ghost's obvious personality, and hornet forcefully rescuing ghost from wandering the ancient basin. It's so good. Thank you so much for creating. (Also if you have any further ideas/want to ramble more, PLEASE do because i am so invested now too)

AAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!! You have no idea how elated I am that people like this silly little au I made aughhgjgj,mgjk Also evidently you shouldn't have encouraged me to ramble bc i had to put it under a readmore smh smh (/lh)

Like, this is the whole idea: Hornet and Ghost are both my beloveds, but they are terribly unhealthy individuals in canon. They deserve to have a real, loving family, so why don't I let Herrah (aka the only good mom in hallownest /j) stick around a while longer and also let Ghost have Hornet as a sibling in their early days and vice versa. none of this is coherent but ANYWAY The Point Is as a result of their altered upbringing and the wonderful benefit of having a Good Mom™ results in them being healthier individuals overall. That's not to say they don't end up seriously messed up from the whole Twin Protectors gig because that's a terrible situation for anyone to be in but at least they're not alone and at least they know how to deal with all the overwhelming guilt and encroaching loss of hope! This is hurt/comfort damn it they've got to know how to comfort each other Oh also just to clear things up Hornet found Ghost in Deepnest! There's this concept of there being a way to access the Abyss from Deepnest and I've incorporated it into the AU. Ghost uses it to escape and ends up in the deepest reaches of Deepnest, and Hornet finds them while going probably way deeper than she probably should! (Like. they were in the middle of nosk territory when she found them. they both have no idea how lucky they got) She sees them, notices that they look similar to Hollow (who she's seen like 3 times total) and makes the wild assumption that they, too, are her sibling. She turns out to be right but Hornet you can't just go around assuming everyone who looks like the one (1) sibling you know you have is Also a sibling asjkfhasjiuofh AND YEAH HERRAH GETS REAAAALLY SUSPICIOUS OF PK'S WHOLE OPERATION And that's why she gets to spend more time with her children in this AU! Basically she leverages the fact that the Dreamer plan is set in stone at this point so PK needs her cooperation, and essentially goes "seeing as I'll be sacrificing myself for your kingdom it's only fair I should have some agency in this, so I'm not going into the Dream until I figure out what I need to know (re: her suspicions abt the vessels and pk's deal) or the Infection progresses to the point to where it forces the issue." but like. in words that better reflect the fact that she is Talking To The King Who Is Also A Higher Being so like more tact and stuff idk BUT THE POINT IS SHE GETS TO RAISE HER KIDS AND BE IN THEIR LIVES. *WILD CHEERING* but hm she wouldn't want a whole bunch of people to die so it wouldn't actually take that long for the infection to go and force the issue. but i do still want her to be able to be there for her children especially because if Ghost were to go to the white palace it very probably wouldn't be a good situation. whatever i'm the one writing this how about the infection progresses slower during the first wave in this au because i said so. maybe the smaller-scale infection containment/eradication efforts were more effectively utilized and executed in this au. maybe radi went on vacation or got into a particularly good netflix series idk we're moving on I'm just,,,, so glad that people are as invested in this as I am. I'm trying to write this but motivation is proving very very fickle. I'm working through it though!!!

ANYWAY THANK YOU AGAIN!!!!!!

[vivifrage]

Archivist!PK AU Headcanons

Okay so I’ve written a few things in the Archivist!PK AU, either here or in Elegies, Memories. And it sometimes lives rent-free in my brain, so I’m going to make that y’all’s problem too.

Despite being head of the Archives, PK is kind of the campus cryptid. You might catch him skulking around the halls, or deep in one of the libraries. Allegedly he’s in his office sometimes, but what few things he keeps in there are... odd. In all likelihood, though, if he doesn’t want you to see him, you won’t.

Yes he was cleaning the chalkboard. No he doesn’t see this as unusual. It was dirty, he was there with a free hand. What other bugs see as “below his station” is a rather ridiculous set of standards.

Ghost, Hornet, and Hollow all drop by from time to time. Hornet intimidates everyone, both by reputation as the ruler of Deepnest and by being Hornet. Hollow used to intimidate everyone, too. Ghost got cooed over a lot. Over time, though, people learned what happened at the end of the infection and now Ghost intimidates some people, and Hollow gets cooed at.

Hornet visits if she needs something, be it from a scholar or her sire. Though most of Hallownest is now governed by various councils, she still checks in to make sure things are going all right, and her sire freely shares advice with her about rulership.

Ghost visits their friends. Quirrel’s one, of course, but they’ve come to befriend a few of the students and new faculty. They’re fantastic at listening to whatever someone’s working on, and more than one person has had a problem-solving realization while talking to them about something.

Hollow, of course, goes to visit their dad. Both were shy around each other at first, but now if you find Hollow on campus, you’re bound to see PK with them, often stroking their head as he works.

Once people started to realize Hollow was a big, traumatized sweetheart who’d been sacrificed to save Hallownest, they’d motivate each other to do things “for Hollow.” Especially because the big Vessel seemed to like being told about the wonderful things folks were up to. The motto “for Ghost” also caught on soon enough. For a certain contingent, “for Hornet” also works.

Hollow also apprentices under Midwife, and has been getting involved in fostering young hatchlings, particularly ones that need a little extra help to survive and thrive. They bring the worst off ones to their dad, since he has Soul healing.

After one of the hatchlings died despite his interventions, PK was a wreck for weeks. Hollow began bringing the healthier ones to show him after that, so he could see the ones that are doing well. He’ll tuck them under his chin and rumble absentmindedly, to various degrees of success at actually soothing them.

Once he and the White Lady reunite, he’s in her gardens almost every week. He shied out of her territory for a time, but she said he was welcome any time. (He still mostly just goes right to her, and certainly doesn’t try to be any sort of authority in the Queen’s Gardens.)

Don’t ask him to try to do anything the day of his trip to the gardens, and possibly a bit before. He’ll be too busy thinking about his beloved Root. He straight up won’t hear you, he’s drunk too much I Love My Wife juice.

He rarely teaches classes himself. He’ll help provide material or guest lecture sometimes (if the teacher can find him and drag him in), but he doesn’t teach. When he does, it’s because he’s found a small contingent of students he likes and are interested in the same thing, so he’ll teach some tiny upper-level class just for them.

He’s a pretty good, patient teacher, though he’s still figuring out how to be casual, so at times it takes a bit of decoding noble mannerisms to get at what he’s saying. He does sometimes need his students to help him figure out what’s an appropriate amount of work and what can fit in a single lecture, too. But he’s good about taking that feedback.

The Radiance is still around, though on the opposite side of the kingdom! She had A Time when she learned the bitchass wyrm thief had survived, too; she thought she was the only one. He doesn’t know about her and she’d rather keep it that way because she swears she’s going to punch his kingslight out if she meets him.

She has a mini heart attack whenever she sees one of the scholars around, though thankfully they don’t seem to recognize her, between her multiple layers and mortal form.

Is she a little smug she’s the one teaching Ghost how to handle godhood? Why yes, yes she is. She’s still mad at them but kind of proud of her little apprentice. She’s quietly ignoring the painful guilt at how determined they are not to misuse the dream realm.

[hollownest-queen]

Hornet Ref Sheet *UPDATED DESIGN*

Dream Realm

Am I dreaming or this reality?As Hornet stuttered as she looked around.

*A familiar shadow drawn close to Hornet as the closer shadow has came ,hornets eyes began to water*

Mother?...Hornet stuttered as her mother appeared and put a hand underneath her mask.

Hornet you’ve grown so big my princess . you brought the kingdom from the brink of extinction and United bug kind however ..solemnly herrah spoked then pauses as she used her thumb to Ceress her daughters face.

My daughter here to warn you about the great devourer that lies below your kingdom seeking to take full control of the realms including the mortal realm which you reside in.This wretched Wrym has taken your half kin to become soldiers for thier upcoming invasion.

However.... herrah spoke as she began to wrap the red crystal around her head.

It’s preventable if you watch for a vessel who is a spy from thier kingdom of knight mares.Defeat them convert them to your kingdom loyalty and use them to close the nightmare realm permanently to bind them and thier soilders.

I see mother as Hornet pondered however whats this crystal for mother ?

Hornet .... it’s ...herrah pauses trying to bind her tears from escaping.

Hornet I’ve been loosing my dream body ever since my seal has been broken to protect the knight.Am turning my essence and the remainder of my mind and soul To this crystal and to prevent me from dispersing to the realm of the unknown.Bear my mask and this crystal to have the rights to become the new ruler of Deepnest and hollownest.Take care my beloved as her body was consumed by the scarlet gem.

MOTHER NOO Hornet wailed as her mother and the floor disappear before her very eyes.

Mother*GASP*As Hornet flew sitting up in her bed...It’s just a dream Hornet sputtered as she put her hand on top of her forehead and felt something hard.As she grasp the foreign as she looked it was a red crystal.

[ganymedesclock]

I had an upsetting realization on my most recent Hollow Knight playthrough:

It’s actually pretty likely, given the dialogue and framing of your first arrival in the City of Tears and the fountain cutscene in particular, that Ghost actually had no idea what had befallen Pure after the latter left the abyss and they fell back down.

Before this point, I’d always assumed that Ghost knew Pure had been sacrificed to seal Radiance and came back to the kingdom because they knew Pure was close to dying. However, the likelier implication is that while Ghost is able to ‘hear’ Pure, faintly, they weren’t actually aware of why Pure was screaming and what had happened to them.

It’d explain why the initial cutscene of Pure crying out is so shrouded, and it would also explain why one of the earliest things you encounter, the only way out of the Forgotten Crossroads, is the signpost for the Pilgrim’s Way, that tells you to head to the city where “all wishes will be granted, all truths revealed.”

Ghost came to Hallownest with a question, and a wish- to see their sibling again, and to know what had happened to them. That this sign is what leads them deeper into the city tells us that’s what they’re looking for- that they continually work to remove obstructions and fight their way deeper.

It’s around the point that you get to the City of Tears that the relatively linear path falls away and leaves you with a much more open world. Yes, technically, you can break off much earlier than that, but, the dialogue options clearly have a certain expectation- you get to the bottom of the Fungal Wastes, but climb back up and go to the city before facing the Mantis Lords- if you went there in the first place instead of immediately deviating from your exploration to chase Hornet into the city.

The cutscene that shows us the fountain in full is incredibly mournful and bleak- the fountain itself is revealed very slowly, pieces of it focused on, but it only ends on the statue of Pure, on which the rain falls in such a way as to create a specific tear in one of its eyes. It’s immediately after that Hornet rappels down to talk to Ghost, where her dialogue heavily implies Ghost is in the process of finding out new information they were not privy to before:

It's no surprise then you've managed to reach the heart of this world. In so doing, you shall know the sacrifice that keeps it standing.

If, knowing that truth, you'd still attempt a role in Hallownest's perpetuation, seek the Grave in Ash and the mark it would grant to one like you.

This is a meaningless thing to say if Ghost already knew Pure’s fate and was just finding it out. There’s also that examining the fountain imposes Pure’s silhouette onto the map of the Black Egg temple- Ghost will update their map with any information they’re aware of, but they didn’t mark down Pure’s location- they may have lingered outside the egg due to curiosity, but not realized Pure was there.

(Then again, Ghost also doesn’t mark down the Abyss before you get there, even though they know its interior, but, it could also have been a long time ago; it’s entirely possible given the Vessels are cast into molds, in a way, that they physically can’t grow up unless they’re bequeathed a bigger body- hence why Pure and Ghost are the same age but Pure is the only one mature while Ghost hasn’t changed at all- it could well have been years to decades since Ghost left the abyss, which would explain how decrepit their nail is, and it’d also reflect that their memory is not perfect- so having not returned to the Abyss in a long time, they’d have forgotten its layout. This would furthermore explain how we don’t know how Ghost got to the surface, since we can’t find any way out besides the door- that could have closed a long time ago)

The real kicker is, again, the game has certain expectations about where you go next even if you aren’t obligated to follow them. After the City of Tears, two NPCs who you follow throughout the kingdom, Zote and Cloth, both relocate themselves to Deepnest, and the way Quirrel’s comments outside the Mantis Village frame things, you go to the City to get a nail upgrade so you can come back and face the Lords- which opens the path to Deepnest.

So right after Ghost hears- seemingly for the first time- that Pure was sacrificed to seal the Radiance, in much clearer words than the Pale King’s speech to Pure at the mouth of the Abyss, and what that means...

You go into Deepnest. And what happens the first time you’re in Deepnest? Nosk.

Nosk, the siren that preys on grieving people. Dream nailing the corpses along Nosk’s lair tell us that most of these people are chasing after their lost beloveds who they thought they would never see again.

The last time Ghost saw Pure, they were desperately struggling their way to the top of the Abyss, only in time to see Pure leave without them. It’s very likely that Ghost spent a long time after that stuck on the idea that if they’d been faster, they would have caught up to Pure- that they wouldn’t have been separated.

Ghost’s apotheosis in every ending besides Hollow Knight and Sealed Siblings comes by gathering all of the Vessels’ spirits to them, and even those first two endings focus heavily on sibling bonds. The fate of the other Vessels means a huge amount to Ghost- they are motivated highly by their family, at least, those they acknowledge as their family. (Kind of raises some questions about their feelings towards Zote)

It would suggest timeline-wise, Ghost finds Nosk exactly at the point when Ghost is the most vulnerable to Nosk’s suggestion- either they’re still reeling from hearing Pure might be dead, or actively in denial. Either way, catching a faint, distant glimpse of something that looks like Pure, it makes sense the normally perceptive Ghost would drop everything to run after them. They’d feel like they can’t allow themselves to make the same mistake they did the first time, where they were separated from Pure because they fell behind.

And then it’s a dead end, the sight of several dead Vessels, and Nosk revealing itself in full.

Ghost can only have been a combination of miserable and absolutely furious. It’d even give new context to the fact that the Hunter’s notes on Nosk almost feel like consolation they’d give to Ghost after that upsetting encounter:

In the deepest darkness, there are beasts who wear faces stolen from your memories and pluck at the strings in your heart. Know yourself, and stay strong.

“Stolen from your memories” and “pluck at the strings in your heart” are rather poignant phrases. And it’s unlikely Hunter is speaking personally; his various notes about family and siblings suggest those connections are very distant to him, things he muses about from time to time but isn’t actively haunted by very much. Also because Nosk likely wouldn’t threaten him that much, since he’s of a size he could simply snap Nosk in half in his jaws.

This would also lend some terrifying context to the winged Nosk variant that emulates Hornet instead- suggesting that Ghost is at least partially terrified of the idea of chasing and losing Hornet the same way they lost Pure. Actually, that just makes me wonder if Ghost took to Hornet in part because she reminded them of Pure; they have a similar headshape and what we can discern of Pure’s personality suggests they are a very dutiful, talented, and precise individual, and one of impressive psychological fortitude considering how long they held against Radiance, even clearly having doubts about their objective and training from the start.