Location: The Abyss

Julia was tweaking with her communicator, it had gotten damaged somehow when the 'vessels' as she learned they were called, named Hollow and Ghost kidnapped her. Julia had recovered from her last escape attempt, she took time to collect herself, and went right back into trying to find a way to escape. It was clear just walking out the door wasn't an option, Hollow would stop them, and they had taken her gun away when they had first entered the 'Abyss' with her, without her knowing.

Luckily however, the communicator wasn't too badly damaged, just some broken wires, and luckily, they didn't take her repair kit. The plan was to fix the communicator, send a call for help to the Bunker, and they could send a force to collect her. She just had to make sure the 'void' creatures didn't catch on to her plan. It was a good thing that they didn't know what a communications device was.

Julia was torn from her thoughts when an icy cold hand… claw? Doesn't matter, slapped her on the back, with the voice of a vessel yelling "Tag! You're it" with the vessel running off before it even finished yelling.

That was getting annoying, the vessels and other void creatures would very often try and coax you into a game of some sort, usually giving up after a while seeing as she were not playing. This was not one of those times however, and the vessel came back.

"What's that you got there" The little vessel said curiously. Julia recognized this vessel as Greeny, because he was found in a place called Greenpath, the Shade Lord really wasn't clever when he came up with names as it would seem. Greeny in particular was a very curious vessel, and right now it looked like he wanted to know what could be so important that it took precedents over the all important play time.

"Its… uhm… well… a toy?" Julia said, trying to come up with a story to get the vessel of her back. She then realized that saying that may have just brought more attention to the communicator, as these were basically children, and she just told children that she had a toy.

Fuck.

"A toy!?" Greeny yelled in excitement, his sister brought a toy they could all play with. How wonderful, now all he had to do was get her to play with him.

The shout alerted other vessels and shades.

"Toy!?"

"Sister bring a toy?

"Sister wanna play?"

"I want to play with toy too"

"Well fuck" Julia thought

A few moments later

Julia was running away from a horde of excited shades and vessels. They all wanted to play with their sister, and they all wanted to play with the new toy she brought with her. It was clear to them that she was playing keep away, how fun, their sister was finally playing with them.

Julia was not enjoying this, she was desperately trying to think of a way out of this, when suddenly a black tendril wrapped around her shins, and she tripped and fell flat on her face. A crack could be heard, and the siblings stopped.

The fall had damaged Julia's helmet visor, not enough to fully break it, but enough to leave a very noticeable crack going across it. The Shade that had tripped her was crying, and panicking.

"Imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry" The shade cried, clinging to Julia's back, in what was apparently a hug. Other vessels joined in, and Julia was dogpiled with crying vessels and shades.

"Sister ok?!"

"We sorry!"

"We didn't mean to!"

"Please be ok!"

Julia struggled to get out of their grip, put it was in vain, when Hollow captured her in her last escape attempt, he was able to keep hold of her purposeless thrashing, she found that she was in fact physically stronger than him, however, when he learned this, he created a system for the vessels and shades to dogpile her. It had happened several times when she got even a little close to the door. The escape attempt had caused a bit of paranoia about her trying to leave among the various void entities.

There were too many vessels for her to overpower, and so Julia remained pinned there for a while, until a rumbling was felt. The Shad Lord had been alerted by the large amount of crying.

"Children, I heard crying! What happened!?" The Lord of Shades said frantically, and turned to where Julia was currently being dogpiled, and beckoned the various shades and vessels to get off of her.

Julia got up, and attempted to walk away again, she took a look at her communicator, thankfully still in one piece, and wasn't damaged by the dogpile. However, the Shade Lord picked her up before she could get far. Julia struggled in the grip but it was futile, the Lord of Shades' grip was too strong.

The Shade Lord Brought Julia up to his face, and noticed the large crack, his many eyes widening. The roughhousing must have caused damage to her shell that would need to be fixed. The Shade Lord opened his hand and let Julia stand on his palm.

"Julia, are you alright" The Shad Lord asked in a concerned voice.

"Yea, im fine, my helmet just cracked" Julia responded, this confused the Shad Lord, what did she mean by helmet?

"Is that… not your shell" The Shade lord asked

"No, for the last time, i'm not one of you, when will you believe that" Julia was getting fed up with this crap. The Shade Lord chose to ignore that last part, and looked closer at the crack, it looked like glass, maybe she was like a kingsmould.

"You know what, let me show you" Julia said suddenly, she unclasped the latches, and her suit let out a hissing sound as it depressurized. Julia took the damaged helmet off, revealing her smooth, soft face to the Lord of Shades.

The Shad Lord looked at her puzzled, this was one weird looking vessel. Perhaps it had something to do with her diluted soul. The Lord had to admit that she looked adorable though, however the amount of heat she was throwing off couldn't be healthy.

"Hmm, you look much different compared to other vessels, but I do not judge, in fact you look kind of cute" At these words, Julia face palmed, seriously, what the fuck was going to convince this eldritch abomination that she wasn't a fucking vessel. The Lord just seemed hell bent on keeping her there, no matter how much evidence she showed that she really wasn't void.

The Shade Lord brushed her cheek with a cold tendril, marveling on how squishy she was, but there were also hard parts of her face, the Shade Lord wasn't really sure what the physiology of this vessel was, if she was even a vessel. She could very well be a new form of void organism that bastard the Pale King made, and then decided to dilute not just with his essence, but the essences of other higher beings. The Shade Lord would have to find a way to make the void win in the current equilibrium that the Void, Soul, Nightmare Flame, and Essence held in Julia's soul. He would find a way, he always did, and his child was depending on him, even if she didn't realize it yet.

She would feel all better when he was done, she would finally accept that this was her home.