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comradekatara · 2 months

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sokka, katara, and the paradox of “the gifted child”

something i’ve noticed is a tendency to (mis)characterize sokka as someone who is dismissed due to being a nonbender, when that’s only partially true. sokka is certainly dismissed by some for not being a bender (namely, by benders), but i think there’s a key difference between being dismissed and not being valued in one specific way. katara was valued by her tribe for being a waterbender for the very crucial reason that she was the last one left. had she been a dime a dozen in her tribe, which would have been the case were it not for the systemic extermination of her people, she would not be valued as highly for possessing this skill. that said, while sokka clearly does hold some resentment over his lack of bending ability, calling himself “the guy in the group who’s regular,” i think it’s folly to assume that this means that sokka was dismissed and discarded as “average” while katara was put on a pedestal for being special. because while katara obviously was considered special, sokka is also clearly considered special by his family, merely in different ways. and if anything, sokka embodies the archetypal struggle of the so-called "gifted child” far more than katara does.

while sokka clearly believes himself to be disposable and intrinsically worthless, i don’t think that he was actively neglected by his family. even if katara was clearly marked by her bending as embodying the last hope of their tribe, that doesn’t mean that she was seen as more gifted than he was or was designated as her family’s obvious favorite. for example, the way hakoda talks about sokka (saying he trusted him with leading and protecting the tribe when he was thirteen, calling him a genius, and other such insanely high praises to heap on a child) shows that he clearly views his son as particularly exceptional and has never been shy about showing that. sokka is distinctly insecure around his father for assumptions he makes regarding hakoda's faith in his abilities and his insecurities when it comes to his perceived failure in not measuring up as a man, but from the second we meet hakoda, it's evident that these insecurities are entirely internal and completely unfounded, at least in terms of his father's perception of him. hakoda is nothing but incredibly proud of sokka, constantly emphasizing just how capable and brilliant he believes him to be. whether or not sokka is capable of internalizing it is another story, but it's clear that hakoda is not stingy in his praise and affection, not even a little bit.

moreover, while katara is clearly kanna’s favorite on an emotional level, she nonetheless affords sokka far more respect. she admonishes katara and tells her to do her chores, and notably, she also impresses the importance of “listening to her brother,” and backs up sokka’s decision to banish aang from the village. you can claim that sexism plays a factor in how sokka views his own supposed position of authority, but kanna is a woman who traveled the entire globe as a teenager because she wanted to escape patriarchal impositions dictating her life. she’s simply far too smart to treat sokka as any sort of authority within their village if she did not fully entrust him with that responsibility. she treats sokka almost like a peer, as if she is legitimately co-running the village with a fifteen year old boy.

katara is only a couple years younger than sokka at most, but her dynamic with kanna is very different. on one hand, kanna clearly sees more of herself in katara, can identify with her sense of adventure and rebellious spirit, but on the other hand, it means that she views katara as a child to be taken care of, who needs to be reminded to do her chores and bailed out when she gets herself into trouble. sokka doesn't want to be viewed as a child, and so he does everything in his power to position himself as kanna's equal rather than her grandson. he takes his duties and responsibilities very seriously, and is obedient to a fault whenever he is submitting to any authority he actually respects, especially his father and grandmother. to be honest, a lot of what katara considers coddling is probably just sokka never being bossed around by their grandmother because she never actually has to tell him to do his chores. because despite katara's claim that he simply faffs about "playing soldier," sokka's problem is actually that he takes himself too seriously for her liking. and with the exception of kanna saying "be nice to your sister," which is the kind of teasing a parent says to their child, she clearly respects sokka's position in the village. when katara tries to run away with aang, kanna takes sokka's side and forbids her from acting impulsively, but when sokka is the one who packs supplies and plans to save aang, kanna gives them both her blessing.

katara is the only person who takes umbrage with the notion of sokka running the village and telling her what to do all day. and those frustrations have likely accumulated up from a lifetime of being told to “do as her brother says” and “why can’t she be smarter and more responsible and levelheaded blah blah blah.” she clearly thinks that she’s punching up when she yells at or mocks him, which may seem crazy to anyone who understands that sokka’s entire identity and existence revolves around being katara’s protector, but katara doesn’t actually know this. in her mind sokka is merely the perfect child who has always represented this impossible standard of “genius.” and what's more, he's absolutely insufferable about it.

and to be clear, this isn’t to say that katara herself isn’t highly intelligent, capable, competent, and skilled. she’s not only an incredibly talented waterbender, but also clever, quick, witty, creative, resourceful, practical, mature, and thoughtful in other ways. at one point, toph calls her a genius (“a stinky, sweaty genius”). and she is, indeed, an extremely powerful and innovative waterbender, both due to her hard work, but also because she is genuinely brilliant. that said, she’s smart in the realistic way that a kid is smart; she works hard to be good at what she cares about (and she has an existentially devastating reason to care about being a good waterbender, mind you), and she’s also good at thinking on the fly when she needs to. however, unlike sokka, or even toph, her intellect may be impressive, but it isn’t astonishing. sokka’s mind functions completely anomalously. i wouldn't say he's unrealistically intelligent, because i do know some people in real life who are similarly adept at processing all kinds of different information with the ability to deftly apply it near-immediately, but it is certainly abnormal, both for real world standards and within his universe.

i normally bristle at this term and its applications (for multiple reasons), but since it is explicitly stated multiple times across the show, it is important to acknowledge that sokka is referred to as a genius multiple times, including by his father. katara is referred to as being a genius by toph for using her own sweat to waterbend (which, as hama points out an episode later, isn't even that clever because you can literally bend water from the air around you); conversely, sokka is referred to as a genius for helping to invent hot air balloons and for figuring out multiple escape routes from the world's most secure prison in less than a day. we don't know the exact timeframe under which katara trained with pakku and earned the title of master, but she clearly worked incredibly hard to earn that title, not only as a master, but as the greatest waterbender in the entire world. i assume it was any time between a few weeks and a little over a month in which zhao would organize a fleet to arrive at the north pole, which is, of course, extremely impressive in itself and a testament to her passion and determination. however, on the other hand, piandao claims that sokka has basically mastered the sword and is ready to make his own within less than a day. it's important to remember that katara is also brilliant in her own way, and possesses great skills that sokka lacks: not only bending, but also midwifery, and an ability to locate her own emotions and allow herself to be vulnerable with others, two skills which should never be looked down upon for their association with womanhood and femininity, and are also particularly impressive considering just how young katara is. she is brilliant in her own right, and in any other family, katara would easily have been "the smart one." and yet, sokka is simply in a league of his own.

so, yeah, he can stand to get thrown around and yelled at; everyone her entire childhood just kept on impressing how special and perfect and brilliant he is, he can handle it. she has no idea that he is depressed, depersonalizes, loathes himself, and thinks he’ll never be good enough, because he never actually communicates any of that to her. the closest he ever comes is admitting that he’s jealous due to not having bending abilities, and even that shocks katara, even though it’s such a small and obvious admission in the scheme of things. she has no idea what’s going on with him psychologically, how he views himself in relation to others, and specifically in relation to her, so she kind of just assumes he’s entitled because surely he must know how special he is and thus feels owed accolades by the world at every turn. he deserves to be humbled, and she is in fact righteous for humbling him.

when she makes fun of him for being stupid or miserable or paranoid or cynical, she thinks she’s owning him the way a righteous underdog fights against an oppressor. it's similar to how zuko wants to "put azula in her place." in katara and zuko's minds, they are both the valiant underdog siblings who had to fight and struggle against the siblings for whom everything came so easily. and in katara’s mind especially, she is always punching up, and she always has a moral justification in lashing out at anyone she pleases. so she couldn’t fathom that the reason sokka puts up with her antagonism without complaint isn’t because he’s so above her that he can simply ignore her taunts and gibes without a care (if that were the case, he wouldn't bother to taunt and gibe in return), but rather that he feels so detached from his own personhood that he would never think to actually explain his feelings to the person whom he has defined himself through since childhood. and if he did ever, somehow, communicate that to her, she’d have to reevaluate their whole entire lives and dynamic. but he never will communicate that to her, so she’ll never actually have to do that.

moreover, even though katara often does tease sokka and cast doubt upon his competence and abilities in low-stakes situations constantly, whenever they are actually facing a real problem that requires an immediate solution, katara seems to forget that sokka is supposedly an unhelpful, lazy, immature idiot because she immediately turns to him to fix all their issues. and then once that issue is resolved, katara goes back to finding his existence bothersome. sokka, on the other hand, falls into this role of problem solver instinctually, with the one exception that when they actually name him as the idea guy, he jokingly complains that it’s a lot of pressure to be one who is always expected to come up with solutions. and while he is joking during that conversation in “the drill,” he’s being honest to an extent, because his perfectionism and fear of failure is truly dire.

when katara is faced with failure, whether as the consequences for her own actions or otherwise, she simply gets back up and tries again. she can’t be knocked down, she can’t be deterred from achieving her goals. she has a very healthy approach to making mistakes, and while she doesn’t always learn from them in the longterm, she does always try her best to fix them and amend the situation as immediately as possible. katara is someone who is incredibly resilient and is constantly demonstrating the sheer magnitude of her inner strength, especially in particularly difficult moments. she has the ability to fail as many times as it takes without letting that failure affect her own self-esteem or desire to keep striving for what she believes in.

sokka, on the other hand, is very physically resilient (he gets beat up a lot), but his emotional resilience is actually quite pathetic. he has no tools for coping with failure. from even the slightest mistake, like not actually being able to open the doors at the fire temple with his makeshift explosives, to a catastrophic one, like his failed invasion, sokka immediately retreats inward. in “the boiling rock,” sokka demonstrates how his first ever real failure that rests squarely on his own shoulders is so devastating to him that he becomes totally irrational and suicidal in an attempt to “rectify” the situation. he does not know how to cope with failure, because he expects himself to be perfect at all times. and it’s not because sokka is overly proud, but rather that his guilt complex is so profound that he blames himself for every single thing that goes awry at all times, even when it isn’t actually his fault whatsoever. so that guilt and shame is magnified a thousand fold when sokka is actually culpable for those losses.

one of many ways in which it is evident that sokka is the older sibling is that he clearly lives with the mentality that if katara messes up or gets herself in danger due to her own impulsive inclinations, it’s always actually sokka’s fault for not being a better, more attentive brother. when she sets off the booby trap in the banned ship, sokka banishes aang from the village so as to protect katara from herself. when katara experiences the consequences of heedlessly blowing up a factory, sokka gets mad at her for her recklessness, but also immediately finds a way to help her fix this situation, because that’s his job, and in fact, his primary purpose on this earth. this is a dynamic sokka has probably internalized even before he was assigned the role of her sworn protector, because that’s just how being the eldest is.

sokka’s tendency to take responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes and his desire to shoulder everyone else’s pain at all times, coupled with his implicit belief that he, uniquely, cannot afford to mess up ever (if other people make mistakes it’s fine and he can help them fix it, but if he makes mistakes he no longer has a purpose on this planet, goodbye cruel world), definitely indicates that he was held to an incredibly high standard all his life. he expects himself to be able to handle a lot of responsibility with perfect ease because he always has. he isn’t used to making mistakes of any kind. if he puts his mind into learning a new skill, he always masters it within a couple of days, whatever that skill happens to be. unlike katara, sokka is used to things coming easily to him, and what he isn’t used to is failure.

katara and sokka are both exceptional, of course, but in very different ways, and for very different reasons. katara grew up with a lot of external pressure to excel as a waterbender, because she needs to embody her cultural legacy and prove that her mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. it’s an unfathomable burden to place on a child, and the rate at which she improves her waterbending once she is actually given the resources to hone her skills is a testament to her perseverance and untiring dedication. katara becomes the greatest waterbender in the world not because she is a natural prodigy (which is something she bristles at when aang does display prodigious skill), but because she is incredibly determined and no one can outmatch the strength of her heart and unshakable commitment when she is pursuing a goal. as pakku even says, raw talent isn’t everything, and katara’s abilities prove that despite not being “naturally gifted,” hard work and determination is far more important when it comes to excelling in any given domain.

however, if katara’s motivation to be excellent is externally imposed by the tragic circumstances of her life, sokka’s motivations are, at the very least, internally maintained. as aforementioned, i have no doubt that he received a lot of external validation and praise from the adults in his life as a child with a dazzling, brilliant mind. as has been established, sokka is constantly displaying an ability to synthesize new information at a staggering rate, which likely means that before katara had even discovered her ability to waterbend, sokka was probably being fawned over for the impressive rate at which he was picking up new skills as a baby. since pretty much everything (cerebral, at least) comes easily to sokka, i can only imagine that hakoda, who never hesitates to express to his children how proud he is of them, would constantly affirm sokka’s intellect. and by boasting that sokka takes after himself (hakoda also refers to himself as a genius, completely sincerely), he unwittingly plants the first seeds in fostering sokka’s belief that he must be exactly like his father in every way, and that any deviation from hakoda’s image would prove him unworthy. but he will never be the spitting image of hakoda the way that katara is "the spitting image of kanna" because sokka is already the spitting image of kya, if not – perish the thought – his own person entirely.

unlike katara, who spent her whole childhood trying to waterbend by herself with little success (beyond, of course, isolated instances demonstrating her sheer raw power when her bending was being influenced by her incredibly strong and passionate emotions), sokka always felt like he could handle the amount of responsibility he was given, because everything came easily to him. until the day that his life changed forever, and suddenly the stakes were no longer abstract, but tangible and personally devastating. sokka had never learned that it was okay to fail as a child because he never had a reason to, and then suddenly, he could not afford to fail under any circumstances. failure of any kind went from being a (purely hypothetical) blow to the ego, to being something that could directly endanger the lives of his loved ones. and so sokka decides that the only way to not be culpable for his potential failures is to be a martyr.

of course, there are instances in which sokka is proven to be inept, such as on kyoshi island or with piandao, wherein his humility and open-mindedness are put on display and sokka puts aside his own standards of perfection to learn from a master, but i don't think these instances qualify as failures. for one thing, sokka happens to master the forms he is being taught in less than a day, at an unprecedented rate, and thus these initially humiliating blindspots in his knowledge become victories as sokka absorbs new knowledge. sokka is always eager to learn, and willing to acknowledge his lack of expertise in area, humbling himself to learn from others any chance he gets. no, what i mean by "failure" as it relates to sokka's self-perception and ego is not a lack of knowledge, but an inability to protect another. to sokka, his existence is defined by his ability to provide and protect, and thus, a failure is, specifically, when someone gets hurt under his watch. that is what it means to not be able to afford to fail. he is not overly proud (if anything he is overly insecure), but he also understands that the stakes of failure – real failure – are tangible.

so when it comes to failure that carries grave consequences, he would rather be dead than fallible (or, responsible for not adequately protecting his loved ones), one million times over. and so every time someone makes a sacrifice for him, he feels as if he has failed on a fundamental level, because simply being exceptional is not enough, he must also bear the entire world’s suffering alone – as (in his mind) hakoda instructed him to when he left him behind to protect and provide for the village. otherwise he has failed in his promise to be needed, which is his raison d’être. sokka’s complex is very obviously not informed solely by his upbringing as a “gifted kid,” and in fact largely informed by the dehumanizing logic of war as it necessitates sacrifice, but his inability to accept his own fallibility as a product of his self-dehumanization is, at the very least, compounded by his debilitating perfectionism.

thus, katara and sokka's dynamic within their family isn’t “gifted kid and neglected kid,” but rather “two gifted kids who are gifted in different ways, one of those ways being valued more on a cultural level due to its scarcity as a byproduct of genocide.” while katara was put on a pedestal her entire life due to her ability to waterbend, it doesn’t mean that sokka wasn’t put on a pedestal in other ways. if anything, the reason hakoda entrusted a child with the burdens he did was specifically because he put his son on a pedestal. sokka assumes that hakoda didn't think he was capable enough to join his army, but that couldn't be further from the truth. hakoda trusted his thirteen year old son so much that he genuinely thought it best to leave him alone with this duty to defend his village and protect katara at all costs. he didn't leave a single man behind, not even the other teenage boys, because that's how much faith he had in a child to take his responsibilities seriously and perform them competently. and if that decision gave sokka one million different complexes and fucked him up for life, it wasn’t because he wasn’t valued for his abilities, it’s because he was overvalued and given too much responsibility at too young an age.

both he and katara struggled to live up to the expectations placed on them, forced to fulfill the roles of their parents instead of being allowed to exist as children. but crucially, katara sees the injustice in that, and clings to her childhood even as she strives for greatness, and sokka simply doesn't. he's long accepted that injustice, and in fact feels guilty that he cannot better live up to the impossible portrait of an idolized father, an idealized masculinity, an illusory model of the infallible, unshakeable warrior. despite all his achievements and natural giftedness, he nonetheless feels totally inadequate, deeply flawed, and ontologically worthless. perhaps, in a world beyond the pressures of war and its dehumanizing logic, sokka would have internalized the praise he was constantly receiving his whole life for his gifts. but since he was only ever a prodigy in ways that didn’t matter (within that colonized paradigm), he doesn’t actually care about how clever and brilliant and creative and talented and unique and special he is, because that would first require him to see himself as fully human, and he can’t even do that.

#analysis #sokka #katara #katara&sokka #hakoda #kanna #kya #hakoda&sokka #kanna&sokka #kya&sokka #kanna&katara #whew...! 20+ paragraphs about sokka and katara’s childhood. it’s more likely than u think (highly likely at all times)#see but this is why sokka is so clearly a mirror to azula to me #like not just in terms of crippling perfectionism and devastating fear of failure and being a child prodigy who is put on a pedestal #but simultaneously dehumanized etc etc #but also the fact that like. zuko treats her the same way katara treats sokka #he clearly thinks his immediate hostility and aggression towards her is like. him nobly fighting the battle against his tormentor #when that is literally his little sister and she is struggling so much and desperate for support from LITERALLY ANYONE #katara and zuko are like ‘let’s put azula in her place’ and high five #and that’s just so fucking apt because they truly do believe that it’s their duty to put their perfect prodigy siblings ‘in their place’#but those are truly two of the most miserable people on the planet #so to any outside observers it’s just like………. why are you being mean to them they’re literally suicidal and shaking like a leaf #but also everyone already knows that azula is the prodigious gifted sibling bc zuko says it like one million times #so there’s rly no need to argue that #whereas katara loves calling sokka an idiot so i do believe that some clarification is in order #but like. yeah there’s no way sokka was dismissed or neglected as a child #he’s dismissed and neglected by the world at large #but within his tribe he’s like a mini celebrity . he’s their young sheldon (sorry)#anyway im running out of room to write tags but um. perfectionism is a disease get well soon xoxo bye

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slimeshade · 4 months

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Alone

Chapter 1 - Dream

(AO3 link)

–colors swirled chaotically in its field of view, gold against white pushing at one another in an endless war – yielding and formless yet never truly blending into one another, never giving in to the opposing tone. The brightness of this clash pressed and coursed through it, pounding, crushing, filling it to the brim with a blazing hot rage and a flooding terror that left it choking, choking, choking-

The pressure was ripped away as colossal walls of darkness rose all around, trapping it into a barrier of deepest black. Only a few little motes of light remained alongside, floating with no aim and flickering out one by one.

Then, the motes and its surroundings screamed.

Everything shook in turn with that mighty, agonizing sound. Uttering a shrill cry that could easily be its own, made audible in the gloom by the sheer strength of long sharp claws ripping, shredding its chest with the desperate hunger of a starving hunter while more clawing joined from its heart, trying to carve a way out like a caged and terrified beast.

Its own claws struggled, longed desperately to join the battlefield in its thorax. Ached to tear everything apart so the frantic beating and the slicing stopped, so it all stilled into the nothingness that should have been, that should have lasted eternal. But they could do no more than tremble and twitch feebly, bound in place by chain, by spell, by faded strength, by a barrier it could not pierce-

Both stopped at once, abruptly, the moment the last of the lights flickered out and plunged it into complete darkness.

The heat, once a constant companion, bled out of the carved hole in its torso, trickling out like the searing hot liquid that had run under its shell until only a heavy chill remained, shaking it down to its core. Dragging it down, down, down under its increasing weight and freezing touch.

It felt a rush then, and realized that it was falling down in this world of black. Its body attempted to brace itself for the fall futilely; wings long cut off tried to spread, limbs numb and weak from disuse tried to move, and the rest of itself was frozen stiff by the deep echoing emptiness in the gap where its heart once was-

Another massive shake, then lights and shapes and textures and pain, pain, all-consuming pain slammed into its entire being at once, blindingly, overwhelming, spreading the coldness further-

Its breathing rattled a discordant note, doing little to dissipate the black curtain that had descended on its eyes and thaw the spikes of ice embedded inside. Yet it latched frantically on the awful sound, onto each stutter and shake as if it would bring salvation. Release. Peace.

So it breathed the strange air, each inhale battling the weight on its back and each exhale giving out under the pressure. Both producing more of the hissing and clattering noises, in a rhythm that repeated itself on the chamber that was its mask, bouncing, echoing there.

As it remained there immobile save for its breathing and unthinking save for the sibilant sound in its head, the ache in its body dulled, little by little, until it was no more than a dull soreness in its limbs and a single touch of ice on the center point of its chest.

Slowly, painfully slowly, the black curtain lifted away to grant it a view of the world as that world began making sense again. Not completely, for it was in the dark – still so, yet not as purely as before – and no lights shone at all. The air was light and clear, as unfamiliar as this dimness, and it-

It was not hanging. There was a hard surface pushing against it. Or rather, it was pressed against this surface, dulling new pains and waking old ones up from their stupor.

It had…

It was on the floor. It…

It had broken from the seals?

It-

The coldness coiled tighter around its thorax, freezing its vents.

Something had happened. Something had just happened. To Her, to it, to-

Her warmth and Her light had ceaselessly filled it, a constant reminder of Her presence in its eternity. Yet this gloom looked nothing like Her endless realm of gold and the forever warmth was gone, gone, gone-

Alarm rose in its head, tearing the tatters of its mind away from the false lull it had fallen into and waking its limp body up, urging it to stir, to move.

It was bound, still. Its limbs fumbled against the tightness of looping chains, pushing feebly – for it was a feeble effort that nonetheless was like dragging boulders – with a single arm barely given space to move a fraction.

Fitting, that it could not break free from something as simple as the chains put in place to prevent that from happening in the first place.

No, no, it could not give up, should not give in to its weakness and stop here. It needed to get up, to see what had happened. To do something- anything more than lie here weak and broken.

The cold spread further, to its limbs in tune with the beats of its frantic heart, a current rushing with the speed of breaths that pulled at the chains to constrict it, to squeeze the air out and imprison it-

It shoved again with all its might, before the chains squeezed the air out of it. One chain snapped, the resulting lash deafeningly loud against the floor. Another snapped in a similar manner, then another one right as the constraints released around it.

Gone, gone, the pressure was gone and it could breathe, could move-

It was dallying, useless. It had to find Her. It had-

Without the chains to restrict its limbs, it slid its heavy legs underneath itself, and with a push of a single arm, it pushed to sit up in the dark. Old pains flared up as it took up a somewhat more familiar upright position, slumping, head lowered and panting. Its surroundings were a brief dance of dark and light not unlike before, where the only thing that barely stood out in the chaos was its pitch black hand.

(Its mind began drifting away, perilous, into what had caused the pulsing pain and the lack of response in its right arm. But no, it could not get lost in such futile musings.

It needed to act fast. And yet here it was, struggling with each movement as if its body was a stiff foreign thing, never used.

It needed-)

The lights receded into the black like a ghost of something it could not parse, and its vision became clear once more. Rather than dwelling on that –useless, futile– it turned to its left, its body protesting the shift of the plating on its right and the heaviness on its neck and back. Sure enough, there was the faint glint of the greatnail planted beside it.

(-its nail.

It needed its nail.)

A heavy swing of its arm, and its hand reached the cold metal, the blade blunt against its fingers. It turned the rest of itself around to kneel while facing the nail and slide its hand up to grab the handle. The nail seemed stable planted there, so tightening its grasp on the hilt, it pushed itself up to stand with a great heave, one leg first, then the other. Immediately, they threatened to give out, knees and ankles nearly bucking under its weight.

It could not stop, should not stop-

Keeping its grip on the nail gave it a semblance of balance and strength, the pale ore far sturdier than its wielder.

It had to look at its steps as it nearly tripped over the rusting links of chains that had hung from the chamber ceiling, laced once with shining white lines of power, now dull and worthless as they lay strewn across the floor.

(The void ached to run, to act, to do more than shamble around like a dying thing.)

Darkness surrounded it in the outer chamber, just as foreign. A light from the exit served as its lone guide to the outside, beckoning it with every slow and stiff step it took.

Dark, dark, too dark and wrong, so wrong-

Lights from somewhere above assaulted its sight the moment it crossed the threshold of the chamber. But it could not wince, could not cower the way a part of it weakly pushed for. Instead, it looked up directly at the source.

Sources, it quickly realized, as they came from multiple glows scattered on the black ceiling like motes. Only brighter, far brighter, like…

These… was this Her light?

Was this…

No, focus. It had to find Her, that these were there could be a sign of Her presence or could mean absolutely nothing.

Tearing its sight away from the pale lights, it resumed its search.

Nothing since it woke up on the floor of the chamber made sense. Why was it cold? Why could it not sense Her like it always did? Why-

Alone.

Was it alone, now?

It…

It soon enough found that it was not alone in the Temple; a shadowy figure stood ahead and over the surrounding light, small and indistinct in the distance, with only a wash of color preventing it from blending with the dark of the floor and walls or the pale blue from above.

A memory prodded at its mind, one it kept away from – it could not stop to ponder the new figure. Not when the world had shifted greatly, when it had turned into a sharp, alarming opposite of Her realm and Her siftings though its memories, permanently tinged in Her warm gold tones.

As it approached with dragging steps, the figure became clearer against the veil of light, turning to-

It stilled.

The figure- no, this was no regular figure. This- the Princess. It was the Princess who stood across from it in the passageway. The protector of what was once a glorious kingdom, a kingdom that now lay crumbled to dust and irreparable pieces.

It tensed under her steely gaze, limbs stony under the faint glint of her needle and of her silk on the lights from the lanterns.

(Under Her light? Were these specks above Her eyes too?

It did not know. It did not know and it was being foolish in seeking Her glow when-)

Why was she here? Why?

Why-

She should not be here. Not here, not in the Temple of all places, where she was especially vulnerable to Her influence. It tried to hiss at her in a warning, in something that would have been a sign of everything that was wrong with this place. But no sound other than a frantic, stuttering wheeze from its vents came out, too low to be truly threatening.

Even with everything else shattered into a million pieces, it was still without a voice.

(One of the last shreds of loyalty to Him, clinging stubbornly in disgraceful mockery of the knight it had made itself to be.)

One leg gave out under the strain, shaking it at the impact of its knee against the floor. Its nail held planted steady between the stones, its hold turned crushing on the handle to prevent it from falling down on its front. That did not prevent its body from drooping under the weight of its own armor, of its horns and the freezing pain coursing through as its void writhed and thrashed underneath.

(Would this not be a right position? To kneel to the members of the royalty as a greeting?

She was not to be here, not her, not here.)

The Princess Knight took a slow step closer, claws tapping at the cobblestones as she took another and then another. Cautious, eyes never leaving it and tense like her taut thread of silk, which glowed visibly with each movement.

It raised its head to hiss at her again before she got too close, the effort draining what little strength was left too fast, rushing out of its neck like cut strings and letting its heavy head droop pathetically. Making the hiss too inaudible to deter her too, utterly worthless without a mouth to display the danger she was unknowingly walking into.

All because...

Because it was too willful. It was too alive to be what she surely would desire of it, too broken to be of any further use.

It was not the Hollow Knight, and it was not the Pure Vessel that she might have once known before. It was only a warped and traitorous thing, a failed monstrosity that no amount of time and effort would fix.

Even with all of its many lies, its many other failures, it had no voice to scream at her this time. No way to warn her, no way to tell her to leave.

Leave.

Leave, Child. Leave for your own safety.

Leave, or draw your needle and slain the monster.

There was no value in its cracked mask and broken mind, no dignity left in its tarnished nail and its deceitful existence. Nothing to deem worth salvaging, for it was completely unsalvageable.

But the Princess was unaware of its silent pleas, or perhaps unwilling to heed them; she was getting closer still, practically next to it, muttering faint intelligible words as her hand-

It recoiled from the hovering hand, a jerk of its head that made its mask bump against the blade of its nail with a quiet clack.

“Sibling?” was her voice, so oddly low, quiet and almost… gentle? “It’s alright; I’m not here to fight you.”

It was not alright. Nothing was alright and her presence here made everything worse, nearly as much as its own presence was doing.

(It was not her sibling, regardless. The bug that would have been was dead before it was even born.)

The hand –her hand– had retreated back into the pleats of her cloak. “Let go of your nail, if…”

No, it would not. Must not. Must be able to stand again.

So it attempted that, pulling itself up with its lone responsive arm. But it was not enough; its legs twitched, slid, yet its claws could not find purchase on the rough floor. The arm gave up, and the weight of its armor and its existence dragged it down once more, mask almost touching the stone below, its vision filling with grays and blacks.

(Its complete disobedience was further proof of its damnation.)

The Princess- her voice, just her voice, rang muffled between the obscenely loud hissing of its pants for thinned air. “Here,” she continued, shuffling noises following closely. “Let me help.”

It winced at her voice, retreating from that and from the meaning of the words that almost brushed at its cursed shell.

Why would it need help? This was not her battle, but its and its alone. This was solely its role, its existence, and she had no role of her own to play in this all.

(Even through it had lost resoundingly, had lost Her and-)

Leave, leave.

“I won't hurt you, it's alright.”

No. that was a lie. It was not alright, nothing was alright to begin with.

(If it was revenge or a punishment that she had come to impart, it would have walked right into her needle. But this? This help, this tentative offer for an aid better given to a properly living being?

Undeserved. It could not, should not let itself fall into her arms-)

It once again tried to push its limp and numbing legs under itself, for it had to stand up, must stand up. The shell protested every shift and every movement along with its arm as it reassessed the grip on the handle and on the floor.

The Princess-

She had stepped away from it, keeping a wary distance as it finally managed to stand on its feet without succumbing again. Her eyes, dark and glinting, remained strictly on its shaky form and her white mask gave a faint glow under the lights above both.

White mask, white glow.

White, white.

Every part of it tensed under that glow, as realization crashed upon its head like the clash of steel against steel.

She had always manifested as a sun, always trying to bathe it in Her soft, gentle touch, or scorching it under Her mighty, wrathful glare. Sometimes doing both at once, if provoked enough.

It was a fool for believing that She was dead, for believing She had escaped into reality when this was just another of Her conjurations.

Another slip, another mistake. It had failed again and the dawn would sooner break, would soon be freed-

“Sibling?” her voice – or Hers? – drew it back. It did not look at the Princess, did not look at the brightness of the sun, weakened as that currently appeared to be.

It would not. It would only endure Her, for as long as necessary.

Stay still.

Do not react.

Do not give Her anything.

Do not let Her light out.

Why would She dream Her own death? Why create a vision of Her own end, when She strove so strongly to live, to break free from Her constraints with or without it?

That did not make any sense. She would not have done that, not like this or-

She loathed the dark. Found it repulsive enough to have tried, more than once, to separate it from the dreadful black sky in an effort to save it, as well as Herself.

It was the dark, it was not to be saved for anything or anyone else, for it was the grave specifically tailored for Her.

(And yet it was not fit-)

“Hollow Knig-”

The words, steely cold words that drove nails into its heart, remained unfinished as it lunged towards their source, void boiling and pushing and pressing to tear, to claw and smother the title that should have never been placed upon it-

The red and white blur was faster, of course she would be, and so she – She, she, that was the sun disguised in the Princess’ form – avoided the mindless swipe of its claws, and remained out of the way as the floor greeted its body with a deep embrace that crashed and shook its armor, its mask, its shell until the world was nothing but a great wall of white, flaring pain consuming it entirely.

(Shell melting, inflamed flesh pushing, nerves scalding, liquid sunlight pouring and flowing and burning, burning, burning it all-)

The blankness receded in uneven patches across its sight, giving way to blacks and blues and then to indistinct shapes and forms. One quickly stood out, pushing it to lunge and crawl away at once. Opposing forces, clashing in its core and leaving it trapped in a storm of its own making.

(Why was it even doubting? This was Her, She was back and this was not a new trick.

This was its chance to set things right, to drag Her back into the chamber and into its seals and never let Her out.

And yet, and yet-)

All it managed was to lift its head. Even that single movement proved to be a struggle; wobbly, neck stiff and threatening to bend down, it watched Her – or her? – fall from a restless motion and into a silent, seemingly calculating pause that captured it, pinning it down.

(-it could not act, soaked in a thick, cloying layer of dread.

Dread of…

Of…)

The pause stretched on and on then, catching it in a frozen moment unperturbed by anything as the world thinned out at the edges of its sight until-

She turned away, sharply snapping the stillness, and threw her needle with more strength than it deemed necessary, before then disappearing with a yank of silk into the white from the outside. A clear and perfect imitation of what it had only seen through Her peeks into the world beyond.

She…

She was gone.

It was alone again.

(No, not really. It never had been.)

The void retreated in a great rush, its strength rapidly blotting away, draining out of a neck that could no longer hold the weight of its head. It let its trembling form lie down on the cool floor, too weary to do anything else. It did not need to; it was over, she was gone, gone, and it-

... wait.

Cool?

Its ragged awareness, forced into a halt by the sensation, turned solely towards the cobbled path underneath. With a jerking motion, it turned its hand palm down to run it over the rough surface, ignoring the pain that simple movement caused in its wrist. The pads of its fingers and the tips of its claws felt the vibrating roughness of the bumps, the depth of the cracks and the dents in the stone that did not burn or even warm it.

The floor was, indeed, cold. Almost pleasantly so.

This... this was new.

She had never liked the cold. Everything around Her was in varying degrees of warm, often suffocating and inescapable, only becoming gentle in the moments when She tried to be kind to it.

The sun did not exude coldness, ever. Why was then...

First Her demise, now Her lack of warmth.

Was this a new trick of the light? Or...

Its heart lurched.

Was this-

No, no, this had to be a dream. This had to be a new twisted creation of its mind, a new weakness She had found, ready to exploit any moment.

(If it was not, it had then driven the Princess away due to its faults, exercised its will over hers, tried to hurt her for wrongs that were only its own.

That was for the best. That was for her own good, her own salvation.

She would not come back. That was better, she was better off without it-)

It took a deep breath, enough to put pressure on the plates of its thorax, to set the wounds scoring it ablaze. The coolness below was no longer a curious thing. That was a taunt, was another attempt to break it and it was falling, falling into Her trap.

So it-

It remained there. Not as a surrender, no, but instead as an act of resistance.

It could not be impassive, not anymore - it was too damaged to do that. But it could resist Her, could still give Her nothing, until the true nothingness of death claimed both at last.

(That admission had hurt, once in the past, and doubling as the final proof of everything that was wrong with it.

Now? Now that realization gave it strength; it might be too alive to be truly bring about Her death, yet they both had been buried together in a larger grave. She belonged to it to keep here, until both their lives turned to dust and their cores were completely emptied.)

It ignored the cold, the multiple lights, the muted hiss of its slowing breathing, and waited. For the darkness to come – the true darkness, the one only real death would bring.

The darkness that, it briefly hoped, came for it in a blanket that clouded its senses and shrouded it into black.

#hollow knight #hornet #the hollow knight #slimes art #slimes writing #happy valentine's day to those who celebrate‚ I bring... this #(I wasn't aware of the day until today jdjfbdjf my bad)#uh... how to tag this one?#unreality cw #suicidal thoughts cw #ask to tag

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