My Post Infection AU [Hollow Knight]

Part 6: Broken Horns

Vessel knew this must be a dream. There was either no way all the stuff that had happened to her that she remembered recently happened or this was a dream.

She was staring into the Blue Lake, at her old face, a face that didn't spark respect or fear. Just... her. The Vessel no one really liked much.

Looking around, she noticed the waterline was significantly higher than it was the last time she thought she had been there. It was quiet, peaceful. A peace she knew couldn't last.

"I thought I'd find you here." A familiar voice behind her said.
Vessel turned to see the Seer, smiling at her. "I didn't think you would want to go anywhere else right now. Not after what happened recently."

Vessel didn't say anything and turned back to the waterline. She felt she remembered having this conversation.

"Are you alright? You're not usually this quiet." The moth came and sat down beside Vessel, staring at the blank shell that was her face.

"I'm just thinking." Vessel looks up at the ceiling, with long stalactites on it. Like teeth looming over them, almost. Just waiting for the perfect moment to fall and crush the poor soul underneath them.

"Well, you certainly have a lot to think about. With all that's been happening. The Infection running wild, your father gone, your mother missing." The Seer looks up as well, trying to figure out what Vessel was looking at, "Them being sealed away."

"That's not it." Vessel lays on her back, to stop straining her small neck. "I feel like there was something I had to do, but I don't remember what it is now. It won't stop bothering me."

"Well, yesterday you seemed excited about," the moth looks down at her and Vessel suddenly had a sharp pain run through her head, making her unable to hear what the Seer had said.

"What?" Vessel rubs her head lightly.

"How could you forget something like that? You seemed so passionate about it!" The Seer laughs.

"I don't think I heard what you said." Vessel grips on of her horns painfully.

"Well, I should probably let you get going, wouldn't want you to be late." The moth stood up, and headed back into the Resting Grounds.

"What?" Vessel asks the room, she doesn't know where she was planning on going. So she stood up, and started across the lake, on a bridge that had been fixed many times. Strangely, Vessel didn't remember it being there.

The pain in her head only felt it was increasing as she walked over to the Crossroads. Many people were trading in shops around and transporting goods in wagons, all seemed a little more wary of their surroundings than what Vessel could remember. Many moved out of her way when they saw her, mumbling to themselves as she passed.
Her pace was slower than she felt she usually went, and she found her feet had dragged her to the temple of the Black Egg and inside, where the Seal over the door and emblems of the three Dreamers, Moromon, Herrah, and Lurien, was. Her head felt it was going to split open and for a moment she thought she saw the Egg surrounding in Infection, and open. Hornet standing beside the opening in the corner of her eye.

She decided to go somewhere else. Finding her legs dragging her through the Fungal Wastes, many mushrooms plagued with an orange substance that was unmistakably the Infection and most avoiding her as she passed, like the people in the Crossroads, but more in the unified way the mushrooms behave. She found herself in the Queen's station, people bustling passed, desperate to move quickly rather than stay and chat, they too, avoided Vessel as she moved through the crowd.

She waited at a stop for the King's Station, which was rather crowded seeing as people wished to get into the City rather than stay out here. She could've sworn she heard somebody eating something.
The Stag that she finally boarded looked rather familiar.