AN: Okay, so as you probably guessed, I'm a fan of Hollow Knight, and just this month I discovered the fanfictions, I read most of the longer ones, and got inspired myself. I hope you'll like this dear reader.

Chapter 1:

She never wanted this. She wanted to get her kingdom back, her people liberated, yet the Pale bastard managed to stop her.

It shouldn't have gone like this. She was supposed to give the bugs power, and the idea of revolution! But, when his light mixed with hers, the ideas she gave became muddled, and her subjects' minds became empty, only raging mindless beasts. She tried with different bugs, but each and every one of them her power entered, it mixed with the Pale light, and the affected became nothing more than husks.

And now she was imprisoned, in this supposed "Pure Vessel", she would scoff if she had a real face to her body, but in this case she just settled on a mental one. If you asked nicely, she would tell you: It isn't pure. Not by a long shot. The emotions are repressed, true, but that would only mean that they would take more work to bring up to the surface.

But she was an impatient goddess. She wasn't like her brother, who could wait for thousands of years for a kingdom to fall, and she really respected him for that, yet she could never do the same.

But what could she do? As of now, she was chained down, in the mind of the Hollow Knight, and it would take a couple years before she could really affect the outside world once more.

Well, there was one thing she could do, but it was a big gamble. The Knight had Void within them.

Void was an interesting substance. It was like the domain of a non-existent god, it had the tint of a higher-being, yet it had no conciousness, nothing to hold it together. If she ventured into the Void within the Knight, she may not come out again.

So she avoided the possibility, didn't think about it at all, and kept trying to escape, despite knowing that right then and there, it was worthless. But with every cycle, she could not stop her mind from wandering: What would she do when she got out? Higher beings didn't die from old age, and the Wyrm's hold on the people's mind will only become stronger with age. The next time she goes against the Wyrm, she will probably be even more easily defeated than the first time, and she may even be killed. If that happened, the domain of dreams would become free, and a new higher being would take it up. The Wyrm would perhaps make some new children, just to take it for himself. She didn't even want to think about the possibility, but her traitorous mind lingered on it, making it worse and worse, until she decided, that if she were to die in the Void, then at least her domain would be free of the Pale King, since the Void would consume it with her.

It was the time, she realized, everything hinged on what she was about to do next. Her brother would call her 'foolish' and 'impulsive', saying that patience is a virtue that she always lacked, and 'why can't she just use her head for once, it's clearly dangerous to go parading into the Void', her own mind helpfully supplied the warnings that he would give. Yet she could not care less about warnings, she has decided her course of action, and stubbornness was not a trait she lacked.

With this last thought, she flung herself into the Void that was in the vessel, and immediately felt herself leaving the body that was once her prison, swimming in an ocean of darkness.

It clawed at her, tried to tear her apart, drown her in the darkness, but she would not give in. Come hell or high water, she would survive, she would not fall to a mindless beast that was the Void without a master.

She realised, that just defending would mean certain death. If the Void was an ocean, then she was sinking, and sooner or later she would run out of oxygen, and be consumed. She needed to get to the surface, to swim up from the sea of Void.

So she began to fight, tried to force her limbs to swim, tried to remember how she did it thousands of years ago, when she was just a little godling playing in the Blue Lake, before the Wyrm ever came near Hallownest. Back then, even the Void had some form of intelligence, though that had long since decayed.

She remembered these memories, like a dream filled with nostalgia, and with them she managed to swim. It wasn't like in the clear water of the lake, if she had to draw a paralell she would say it was how she imagined what swimming in mud would have been like. Not that she ever even thought about such a thing, (even though she did), it was completely theoretical.

Finally, after what felt like an endless struggle, she emerged, and quickly jumped onto the ground near the Void she came out from.

After a couple of long breaths, she decided to look around, to try to asses her surroundings. She appeared to be sitting on the bottom of some kind of shell-like ground, and she came out from what looked like a lake of Void.

Just after looking around, had she noticed that the ground was much closer than it should have been. After looking through herself, she noticed that her body has shrunk down. She was smaller, and had a moth-like body, not unlike those of her old followers. She was still beautiful hovewer, just because she was smaller didn't mean her standarts have also dropped.

She started walking through, as she recognized, the

Abyss. She only ever heard tales, of brave warriors who came down to defeat the darkness, and based on those she recognized the design of walls. As she went, she got into a different room. This was the entrance, she realized. She looked up, seeing the endless darkness that was the sky there. No speck of light. While she could see in the dark, it wasn't the best, so she decided that a little lighting would be in order, and so she created a small light in her palm.

She never expected to see what she saw. There were vessels on the ground, smaller than the Hollow Knight, just laying there, completely dejected and numb. Just waiting for their deaths, for the Void to claim them, to end their worthless existence. These were the last ones, she realized, seeing the ground, seeing the hundreds of broken shells of those who have already gave up.

"So this is what happened to the vessels." she thought. She knew that the Pale King did something, but she didn't know what. She felt the hundreds, no, thousands of little Higher Beings being born, and yet, all of those were extinguished, save one, who became the Hollow Knight. She assumed that the others were dead, but standing her made her realize their fate: To slowly die, wallowing in sadness, at failing the only thing that ever mattered to them, the thing they were created for.

A part of her remembered of times long past, when she would give good dreams to sad moth children, to light up their mood, yet this level of sadness was not one that she ever saw before.

"Useless." "Failure." "Worthless." She could almost hear their thoughts, and it pained her, to see all these children, all of them created for the Wyrm to keep his kingdom, keep it from her. On some level, she was to be blamed for their predicament, were it not for her, they would never have been created.

And this broke her heart a little, because she tried, she really tried to be emotionless, repeated the motto of the Pale King ("No cost too great."), but she couldn't lock her heart. She felt guilt, endless guilt in her chest, at seeing all of these poor children, who never had the chance to live, to see wonders of the world, to love and be loved back.

No more, she decided, she would take care of them, love them, and make sure they became happy, and maybe, they will forgive her in the future.

"Little ones." her voice was strong, she was a Higher Being, after all. Yet, she did not want to intimidate them. She wanted to help them. So, she did want she didn't in more than a millennia, and made her voice sound like a mortal's. "I will give you a purpose." She would do that, and more. She will save them.

"I will love you all." With these words, she gave them her light, the one they needed in their dark existence.

- POV change -

The vessels noticed the bug that came there. Yet, they didn't care. What was there to care about anyways? Nothing mattered. They were nothing, just failed, worthless vessels.

"Little ones." she called out to them. Her voice was strong, it reminded them of the Pale King's. They did not call him father, for they were not worth to be called his sons. If they cared about themselves, they might have felt, scared for themselves, but they didn't care about safety. It didn't matter what happened to them.

"I will give you a purpose." Her words strung a chord within the vessels. A purpose would be nice. Something to do, something to succeed in, only if they weren't such failures, but it was meaningless, they were worth nothing, no matter the purpose she gave them they would fail.

"I will love you all." These next words, the warmth that came with them, the vessels liked it. The light that shone on them, made them feel nice, not like the one the Pale King casted, which made them scared. Even if they were worthless, for this light, they would do anything. They would try, even if nothing happened. The vessels slowly started getting up. She went to the ones closest to her, and helped them standing up, giving them hugs and kisses. These vessels went around, and helped their siblings stand up.

After a while, all of the remaining vessels were standing. All but one. This one, the one who has fallen from the highest, the one most pained by their failure, they could not believe in themselves, they would only burden anyone who they went with. But she didn't care about that. Even as they just hung limp, she took them, and hugged them, and all of the vessels joined.

Her light shined through them all, giving them love, filling them with happiness. They didn't care about the Pale King anymore, didn't care about not having emotions. It wasn't important anymore.

Even the failed vessel, the one who was the one deepest in failure, was shined on by the light. And all of the vessels decided, this was their new purpose. This light, they would defend it with their lives, because it was there for them, lighting up the dark.

The one with the strongest conviction, was none other than the failed vessel. If the light saw something even in them, the one who was the biggest failure, they decided then that they would give everything for the light.

- POV change -

The Radiance felt happier than in a very long time. These vessels, they accepted her, without question. She would give them everything, she decided then, no one would stand in her way, not the Hollow Knight, not the Pale King, not even all of Hallownest combined.

AN: By the way, this is my first fanfiction, so if there are any criticisms you have, please tell me, I would like to improve myself.

This isn't a oneshot, but I'm not sure when I will continue this, since inspiration comes very randomly. Hovewer, I'm sure that I will continue this, so maybe check the follow box. Or not, your choice. Hopefully I see you the next time I write a chapter.