#you better believe poor Damien is getting poked and prodded by science and magic to determine how he survived

[blue-mood-blue]

With the understanding that this idea has an extremely limited cross-section of people who would both understand and be interested in what I’m talking about, let me share with you an idea:

The Second Citadel has fallen. Most of the surrounding land has fallen along with it - not, for once, because of the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between humans and monsters but to an infection of light spread by a false god. Or a true one. The answer to that is a matter of theological debate that the survivors don’t have time for.

Rilla is only as exiled as everyone else is. Arum is desperately fighting the sickly light away from taking the Keep. And Damien is still in the Citadel.

When they find him, it’s past a locked door - the last, fevered attempt of the people within to defend themselves from a threat that doors wouldn’t lock out. He has his bow in hand and light streaming from his eyes, his mouth, his words. He’s alone; his loyalty has tethered him in place. He’s praying while he fights, blindly, and maybe those prayers and his saint’s protection are the only reason the light hasn’t robbed him of his mind yet - or maybe those prayers are infuriating the false god, shining out through him and ravaging him. It’s not apparent if he knows that the Citadel is in ruins; he defends it as if there’s still something to defend. Damien’s words repeat themselves, over and over, like unwound tape in Rilla’s recorder: things he must have said, and thought, and did on the last day he remembers, tracing around the scar tissue of a wound in the universe. 

Arum has a knife to his throat. Damien lowers his bow. The burning light in his eyes, haloing him, dims into something… quietly alive, not alive again.

A ghost stands next to Rilla. She whispers, “My knight… at last you are freed.” And then, turning to look Rilla in the eyes, Queen Mira commands: “Take him with you.”

#the penumbra podcast #second citadel #tpp #hollow knight #in other words: Damien as the Hive Knight #i just think it would be interesting! #Damien’s duty outlasting its purpose… his prayer saving him from the infection of another god… #and finally - being taken away from there #this time with more survival after the fight! #and of course they take him with them #you better believe poor Damien is getting poked and prodded by science and magic to determine how he survived #it’s faith mostly #not that prayer would necessarily save anyone else… but it did for him