Chapter Text
It sure wasn't a gasp that Xero woke up with. It was quiet. A silence he hadn't truly felt in a long, long time.
The world was lighter… or was it just him? His feet didn't touch the floor, did they?
He turned to face the memorial that stood behind him. A grave.
"That one's yours," a voice said. Beside him stood a moth with purple fur. Her long antennae drooped behind her. She was barely an adult compared to the long lives Xero had seen, but she looked as if the weight of the world fell on her shoulders.
He bowed, but it felt empty. Weightless, compared to her. His cloak rippled through the air at the movement as if it didn't know how to follow, just as confused as he was. "G- greetings, ma'am."
"Yes, yes, greetings to you too." She nodded. Her attention momentarily fixated on the dirt scattered among the mask-shaped bricks.
"Where am I, if I may ask?"
She heard him. He saw her nod. But Xero couldn't hear himself. His words didn't so much as flutter the dust specks falling in the stale air.
"The place you witness is the Resting Grounds, but yourself? Dead, I'm afraid."
Dead? The Resting Grounds? He'd been a few times. His parents used to take Xero every once in a while to visit his grandparents' graves. He'd been too busy to make the trek with them recently. It was a serene place that, though barren, could be appreciated for the streams in its upper caverns that fed the Blue Lake.
"This all didn't used to be a cemetery. It used to be peaceful. A place to release burdens. Now, it's simply too crowded with them all. Our doing, and our undoing."
"I… see…"
"Well go on now, spirit. Pass on, if you can. Nobody comes around to visit these days anyway."
And, so he was dead. He watched the lady hum for a little while. She stared at the floor and muttered about sweeping, before sharing a brief goodbye with Xero and making her way to the cavern's exit down the path. Her feet barely made a sound on the cold stones, but at least there was something to hear.
"Hello?"
He tried to call out. Nobody was around to hear, if his silent words would even reach them.
Why had he failed? He was fighting for the greater good. They could have stopped the infection. There had to be another way.
For the little one to grow up comforted.
What words could he even say to it now?
"Let them make fun of me, then." Xero considered himself an introvert. It was okay if the other knights made fun of him for taking extra patrols on his allotted off time. What did they know? It was pleasant to watch the sights, and it was for the security of Hallownest. "I don't need their approval anyway."
Now, there wasn't much going on in the further areas of the Ancient Basin. It was the King's wishes, for whatever reason. Small villages dotted the caves along the occasional traveler or carriage. Although subdued, the region certainly made up the difference with its quaint charm. It helped enforce the grandeur of the Palace. If Xero didn't make his home in the barracks beside the castle, he would have sought one around here.
His muttering ceased at the acute sound of scraping from further down the way. The warrior was planning to head to the next station and remind them to submit their report on time, but it couldn't hurt to stop and clean up the wild pest. It was most likely a shadow creeper, which could dangerous to the unprepared and certainly a bad look so close to the palace.
He slowed and softened his footsteps so as not to startle the thing before he could strike the killing blow. Thinking about it now, it would be annoying to carry its corpse to the next waste bin. Xero's right hand settled on the handle of one of his nails when he found the thinner tunnel where the sound originated. A short offshoot road branching from the throughway.
The lamps were more sparse, but his practiced awareness had little trouble tracking the sound. Partially though another curve in the road, and he found it. A fragile stretch of wall marked by cracks and a long trail of broken stone - except shadow creepers weren't burrowers. Had a dirtcarver found its way this far out from Deepnest? It wasn't unheard of.
Such dust and rocks scattered on the ground… this was fresh. The scraping was clearly that of a burrower not more than his nail's length past the bend, though perhaps too rhythmic. The knight grabbed a nail in his other hand as well, and prepared for whatever attempts to fight or escape the creature would make when he turned the corner.
For just a moment, his assumption led him to trust that the curved white horn was indeed the tusk of a dirtcarver.
So imagine Xero's surprise when he found himself staring face-to-face with the mask of a child.
He truly didn't know what to think, the child now having paused its twisting into the wall. If it was unsure of whether to retreat into the dark crevice it was digging, run, or even bite him, Xero had no way to tell.
"Hello, little one. Are you lost?"
It said nothing. It didn't react whatsoever. It just continued to stare. The mask reached around its entire head, bearing one long and twisting horn emerging from near its left eye-hole, with a shorter one beside it towards the center and a little nub of one to match on its right side.
Xero sheathed his nails. What do you even say to children? Especially one that seems to think it's a dirtcarver?
"It's okay, I'm not going to do anything to you. I'm here to help."
It stared. Or did it? Xero couldn't actually see it's eyes. Oh, he was not equipped to deal with this.
He bent down and opened his arms. The kid just stood completely still, enough for Xero to wonder if it was even breathing. It did not come to him.
After another long while, it turned back to scraping at the wall.
"Child, where are you going? Where's your family?"
When Xero's words went unanswered still, the knight reached out and grabbed the little dirt-covered body. It went limp as soon as his fingers brushed it, exercising his quick reflexes in order to keep the child from toppling over and cracking its mask.
It was so squishy, so fragile. Certainly a youth's developing exoskeleton, direly missing the enthusiasm of most other children Xero had met. He tucked the child into a wing and soon regretted the action as he quickly became quite dirty with caked-on pieces of wall flaking off of the child's shell.
He strolled back to the main path, and the young he carried under his cloak still didn't move. Out of habit, he resumed his journey to the outpost, passing a few people here and there along the wat. It was only at the next town, after all.
Stone steps passed by and refreshing cold blew through the tunnels. A yawn made its way from his helmet when nobody was around to see.
"Welcome, sir," a familiar greeting from a guard standing by the small town's entrance.
"Ah, good day to you as well." Xero reached into the bag at his waist for his Hallownest Seal. The identification was quickly accepted by the guard, and he was given directions (that he already knew, of course) to the administration building.
A warrior Xero knew somewhat well caught him at the entrance. Anit, a sturdy bug who Xero studied lance-wielding under briefly before he found nails to be his calling. Despite having surpassed their status a while ago, their informal language persisted.
"Ah, Xero! How have you been?"
Xero nodded back, only in half for his senior of age. The other half of the acknowledgement was to the bug carrying cleaning supplies across the hall. "I've been in good health. Have you also been well?"
As usual, Anit started talking. The long extension of his mask over his head bobbing as he spoke with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm that the higher ranking warrior now standing before her did not share.
"Well, I could be better. One of the trainees managed to rearrange the fridge so that the perishable items…"
As usual, Xero ignored him. He just wanted to ask about the report and spend some time looking at the contents of their small library.
"So, how's the palace these days? Got a little gift there for us?"
"…hm?" Xero tilted his head. "No, I came te remind you that your area overview is due." A lie, but with their track record it was needed.
"No, it's not due yet," they said plainly. "I was asking about what you had wrapped up in your wing there."
And then Xero panicked, unfurling his wing. He hastily took the child in his arms instead. The tiny thing was still there and oh, by the King's Light, how could he have forgotten? Was it still alive? What had he done out of his foolish inattention, carrying a baby around like a sack of vegetables!?
His eyes were almost fogging up with how much breath escaped him upon feeling the tiny adjustments of its muscles reacting to him turning it around.
"Xero. Is that a child?"
He deserved to be subject to more than just informal speech. This was absolutely unacceptable behavior for a knight.
"Ah- yes- it- I found it alone on the road…" The knight found himself stuttering for the first time in quite a while.
"And you thought to take it with you? Is it dead?" Anit approached quickly. Xero's arms weakly grabbed for the little one snatched out of his arms. His old mentor turned the little body around just as her new superior did just moments ago. He had carried it for a good chunk of the journey - it was alive, just an odd one. They didn't know that, repeating their prior words. "Oh, my King, is it dead?"
Xero shook his head. "I found it like that. It was digging through the wall, and I approached the sound thinking I would take care of a pest, but found this one in its place. It barely recognized my presence even then, and appeared just as lifeless as soon as it quit its poor attempt at burrowing."
"I suppose that would explain the wear on its long horn," Anit ran a hand over the little one's roughened mask, scraping away larger crumbs of grime that Xero's wing hadn't yet. "Perhaps it is starving. I assume it was separated from its family?
"Yes, where I found it wasn't a residential area. I had not seen any travelers for a while, either."
Xero scratched at his helmet, claws itched oddly to have the child back. It certainly wasn't his, and he already proved that he wasn't fit to care for it.
"Well, let's get it some food. Are you leaving soon?"
Xero shook his head.
"Good. You can find a place for it, then, once we get it fed," she said, as if she was in any place to order him around.
Feeding the little bug turned out to be another ordeal that Xero was not prepared for. He was half tempted to just leave. Technically, it was still his day off, though the palace did know he was out here. He shouldn't force himself to waste his energy on some child. Anit seemed enthused enough about it, anyway.
While his old mentor made himself busy trying to get the others in the building to find a high chair for the child now propped up against the back of the kitchen counter (a hopeless task, in a military establishment), Xero made just as fruitless attempts to actually feed it.
The little one was of no exact species the knight could ever recall seeing, though it did almost look like an odd bridge between the extremes of Hallownest's residents. On one hand, the contrasting empty eye-holes and pale mask struck him with the blasphemous thought of the little one bearing the likeness of the great King of Hallownest. On the other and far more likely hand, some travelers would come by the surface settlements with similar masks. Perhaps this child was just a lost thing that somehow made it all the way down.
Residents and visitors to the Ancient Basin were recorded with precision. If this kid belonged to any family and was starving as so, the palace knights would have been notified by now. If it was just as malnourished as it seemed, it was probably some child of a merchant or such who managed to wander down behind wild beasts and end up here.
Xero's best guess about its diet produced a disgusting looking bowl of mashed up fruit. He held it up to the child, earning only a slight movement as its gaze followed him.
"Ah, kiddo. Would you eat this for us?"
Xero gently tilted its head down toward the bowl. It only maintained the position.
…On second thought, did it even have a mouth? It never spoke. Could it not eat, and that be the reason why it was seemingly abandoned?
…Wasn't that a depressing thought.
The knight set the bowl aside for now.
The little one didn't make a sound as he traced the underside of its mask for a moth. His search bore results, as much as it disturbed him that no reaction came of him sticking his hand in the kid's face. He tilted it up to the light to see. The enigma that was this child had a mouth just as inconclusive as it's face - only almost built for chewing, as if an afterthought.
"Please just eat…"
It didn't. It still didn't move.
Anit walked in to see Xero pacing about. Following him was the outpost's manager, Sallen. An unassuming short bug, but respected for her quick thinking and skill with daggers.
"I take it you've been unsuccessful?"
What do you think?
"Indeed, the child hasn't moved."
Sallen bent over the counter to the child. Anit seemed eager to follow and pick it up, but made a small effort to keep herself from doing so before the bug that assigned her work. Xero reminded himself now that he was freed of sole responsibility for the tiny burden of his actual reason for being here.
"Your report is due."
Sallen sighed, and took a towel to the somewhat dirtied spot they had set it while holding the child in her other arm. "Goodness. You couldn't have given it a wash first? This is a kitchen."
Logic would probably say that they should have washed it, yes, but Xero was - embarrassed - tired and worried. He still was. The director handed the baby to Xero, who quickly passed it over to Anit.
"That one's certainly malnourished, but it's still far from dead. Wash it and keep offering it food until you leave for the Palace." At the words, an unpleasant stare between Xero and Anit. Sallen left the room without another word, much less about their upcoming submission.
He almost pulled rank. He was a visitor, and their superior. Bathing a child was certainly not on his list of responsibilities for his status. It was, however, quite the appropriate punishment for forgetting about it for half the distance from the palace.
Anit looked thrilled to return the infant, giving up another chance to insert themself into someone's life. Surprising.
Xero hoped his helmet shaded his tired eyes and left to search for the bath.