Chapter Text
It was over in an instant.
Horace collapsed on the smoldering waters of the lake. Then, everything ended. The clashing of swords, the shedding of blood, the cries of sorrow.
Life vanished from Horace’s body quietly, as if a soft breeze had spirited away his soul during a peaceful sleep. He'd made no sound as the sword pierced his exposed neck. There had been nothing, not a grunt nor a scream.
It all simply stopped.
This is death.
The Ashen One basked in the beauty of the silence, in the harmony that had followed violence, in the stillness of the lifeless shell that had once been Horace as it lay on the shallow, watery surface.
This is peace.
They wished it would never end. They wished for that moment to become forever frozen in a beautiful eternity where only them, Anri and Horace’s corpse existed. A quiet world of three, a bliss devoid of sound and movement.
Their happiness was fleeting. Anri’s mournful scream shattered the illusion and set the gears of time going anew.
Shaken from their ephemeral epiphany, the Ashen One saw the scene they had loved tainted by the influence of their own grief. The sigils on their torso cried Humanity in rivers, compensating for the tears their eyes refused to shed.
A cold and endless darkness.
A consciousness spilling over the abyss.
In the distance, voices reached him.
“Kill them. Kill them all! Let us leave no trace of this disgusting world!”
“ Mangled wench! How dare you betray your goddess? How dare you betray Fina?! An eternal curse upon your filthy soul, mortal! A defective, forsaken wretch shall not defeat me!”
A shriek, inhuman, shook him from the stupor of death. The thoughts and sentiments that had scattered in the darkness became a unified whole.
Oscar.
His name. He woke up to the darkness and it became real. The awareness of himself brought with it the dread of foretold disaster. The peace of his awakening withered and gave way to the gelid fear he’d felt before his demise.
“Stay away!”
He screamed at the empty nothingness of death. It was not until he tried to escape that he realized he lacked a body. The sensation, unnatural and morbid, was like firewood to his already unchecked panic. Yet, being a soul lost in the abyss was the least of his worries.
The serpent.
The Chosen Undead, the Hollow from the Asylum.
Although he couldn't see them, Oscar knew they lingered nearby.
Somewhere.
“Stay away from me!”
He screamed again, but no one could hear him in death. The voices that had awoken him were gone. No help would come his way, no miracle would spare him from his fate.
He was dead, and the Hollow would come to claim his soul.
“Solaire! Solaire!”
“Enough of your pathetic cries! No knight that respects himself wails and cowers in fear like some defenseless wench! Gather your wits and behave as a knight must, you pitiful Astoran!”
The scolding, so unexpected, served its purpose well. Bewildered and trapped in his confusion, Oscar recognized the voice that had saved him.
“Executioner?”
Smough’s foul presence was a blighted blessing, one sent by a treacherous entity and not a merciful god.
“I see you have yet the strength and mind to speak the obvious and ask questions to which you already know the answer, like you idle and worthless humans always do.” The executioner said bitterly, a cruel chuckle adorning his words. “Perhaps even such weakling could prove to be of use.”
“What is this?” The fear that had been stunned by Smough’s presence began to return to Oscar, diminished and weakened, but potent still. “Death… the Abyss?”
“ The Abyss? Ha! You would fancy that, would you not? So stupidly eager you are to recreate the myth of Sir Artorias the Abysswalker? How fitting, how expected from lowly dogs like yourself. You… you morons who revere that fraudulent mongrel and his flea-ridden mutt! Keep your self-indulging fantasies and false idols for when you are free of this foul darkness, knight of Astora, for you are a prisoner not of death, but of Fina.”
“Fina?”
“Are you deaf or are you a nitwit? Repeat not my words like a blabbering child! We’ve not the luxury of wasting our time. Now listen and do as I say, and perhaps we shall break free from this dark hell.”
A faint melody of wailing voices interrupted Smough’s speech. The broken chorus, reeking of melancholy and anger, was a mist of disease. It engulfed Oscar and silenced his thoughts with its cries.
“KILL THEM ALL!”
The rageful scream was like a shower of molten metal pouring over him.
Amidst it, Oscar sensed another presence.
“Stop it!” The tenderness of it did not belong in that realm of darkness and despair. “Quelaag”.
“Away with you and your mournful cries, cursed wenches!”
Oscar only became fully aware of how deeply he had sunk into the pit of voices after Smough freed him from it. He emerged from it blinded by a rage he wished to unleash upon the Executioner. It faded away before he could act on it, but his cruel intentions, even if motivated by a wrath that did not belong to him, were something the Executioner wasn’t willing to easily forgive.
“Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.” The reprimand shamed Oscar in a way he had not felt since his days as a clumsy page. “ Not even the knightess succumbed so quickly to the fire keeper’s rage. Yet, she did in the end, just like you. Perhaps I should have known better than to trust a mortal in the first place.You are feckless beings, frail beyond belief. Alas, what choice do I have? I have always made the best of the bad hand fate has dealt to me, and this will not be the exception. I shall make a useful man out of this feeble knight.”
The Fire keeper.
Oscar had stopped listening to Smough at the sound of that title.
“Liar.”
“What?”
“Liar!”
A new rage surged in Oscar. This one belonged to him entirely and burned fiercely.
“The fire keeper is not to blame for any of this!” Oscar’s fury translated into bravery. He unleashed upon Smough without hesitation. “She is but one of the victims of that merciless coward of Carim and his evil goddess! Lautrec, Fina! They are to blame for all that’s gone wrong!”
“No creature that brings forth chaos and destruction can be called a victim, knight of Astora. The tongueless fire keeper surrendered her innocence the moment she decided to give in to her darkest desires. She is as guilty as that golden-clad bastard and the divine bitch he so adores.”
“She would never.” Oscar inistsed, unable to ignore how clumsy his voice had turned. “The fire keeper of Firelink Shrine would never do this. She-”
“She would. She has and she shall continue to do so unless she is stopped. I care not about her reasons, her pain or her past. She betrayed her duty by allowing herself to be killed. She became a traitor to the gods when she chose Fina over Gwyndolin. You may pity her if you wish, as a sentimental fool like yourself would so obviously do, but an idiot you’d be if you think she will show the same compassion and understanding towards you or your companions. A rabid animal knows no loyalty.”
It was more than what Oscar could process. His indignation for Smough’s treatment towards the fire keeper clashed with an evident truth.
The fire keeper, the silent, ashen woman from Firelink Shrine. A sad presence trapped in a forgotten cell, the unseen soul that gave life to the bonfire that had healed Oscar and Solaire when they had needed it most.
It was her and not Fina who lusted for death and blood.
“Why?”
He refused to believe it.
The voices came to him again.
“Kill all of those who’ve done me wrong!”
The fire keeper screamed in death what she could not in life.
“Why would she do this?”
“Because she wants,” Smough replied “And above all, because she can. Since the dawn of fire, humans and gods have seldom needed any other reason to act.”
The need to contradict the Executioner was not enough for Oscar to come up with a reply. His desire to defend the fire keeper was silenced by the woman’s raging cries.
“ Enough we’ve pondered about the lost and the damned. ” Smough said, devoid of any other feeling other than amusement. Oscar’s disgust did not match his shock as Smough became real among the shadows.
Unlike himself, the Executioner was a physical, tangible presence, a living body instead of a shapeless soul. His golden armor, a marvel of the grotesque, appeared before Oscar like a god fallen from the heavens.
Perhaps, he had always been there, and not until then had Oscar noticed his presence. He could not tell. The scattering of his being and the loss of his body’s senses gave him an existence that felt unnatural and incomplete.
The foul giant became Oscar’s entire world. His smell, his shape, his voice, even the beatings of his merciless heart. They were all that were real in the darkness.
“ The time has come for us to act .” Smough moved slowly, as if invisible chains kept his ankles and wrists tied to an unseen wall. “ I shall not lose myself. I refuse to surrender to Fina or that tongueless wench. Smough the Executioner has bested greater foes than a pack of mournful mortals. I will come out victorious from this trial. I shall rid the world from this disease, and you shall aid me in my quest, mortal. LIsten carefully, pitiful and weak-minded Astoran: somewhere amidst this place lingers the body and soul of Gwyndolin. Find them and guide me to them.”
“Gwyndolin betrayed us.”
The memory of the true nature of the so-called prophecy that had shaped his and countless other lives was a tender wound ripped open anew. It ebbed against Oscar’s being, wearing down his already dwindling spirit. It was perhaps a blessing, he thought bitterly, that he had not his body and the Darksign branded on it, for he feared his latent Hollowing would swallow him whole.
“Betrayal is a luxury of the cunning and the mighty.” Smough answered. “ And trust me when I say that Gwyndolin is neither.”
“ Is it true, then? ” It hurt to ask the question, but it was nothing compared to the pain Oscar knew would come with the answer. Yet, he needed to know. “The prophecy of the Chosen Undead, the promise of gods to humankind. All this time, was it all a lie?”
“ Ah, incredulous and melancholic… certainly the most desirable traits in a knight. If your heart still deludes itself and longs to find another answer, then ask Gwyndolin and not me. After all, it is the gods’ duty to answer the prayers and musings of their beloved mortals. “
It was futile, that much was clear. The executioner would give Oscar nothing but orders and insults. Perhaps he did so because he genuinely had no answer to give him, or perhaps he simply found it amusing to torment him further in that abyss.
Gwyndolin.
If Smough had been right in something, it was in how necessary Gwyndolin was for their own survival. Regardless of the low opinion the Executioner had of the youngest child of Gwyn, or how close Oscar’s distrust of the deity was to becoming hatred, Gwyndolin was still a god.
In the dark of that abyss, the presence of a deity was a soothing light.
“Pray to the gods, mortal. And shall they refuse to answer,” Smough said in a whisper “we’ll force them to.”
He could hear it. It was the cries of lost lambs. They rang distorted and diabolic, like a frightful cry echoing inside a cavern. They were senseless sounds boiling from within Fina, wordless laments he could not understand.
But that which can be felt does not need to be understood.Oswald was forced to accept this fallacy as his body became numb with the reek of emotions that filled the air and tainted his lungs.
There was sadness, there was fear, there was love.
But above all, there was hatred.
It was an invisible fog that left him with an ecstasy that was as savage as it was ephemeral. It faded, and the burdens of his injured body returned to him immediately after. He gritted his teeth as he struggled to not stumble down on the floor like an old man.
The numbing effects of his miracles would pass soon. And when they did…
When that comes to pass, I shall deal with it accordingly.
Oswald regained his composure and cast off the shivering that plagued his limbs and wormed at his heart. He had not the pleasure of being alone to lick his wounds and ponder on his fears, like he often had done in Carim in the dark of the night, when only the burning hearth of his lodgings and scattered ink-stained scrolls were the witnesses of his musings.
Right there, trapped in the corrupted church of Anor Londo, he had allies to guide, victims to save and enemies to punish.
A wayward cough that tasted of iron betrayed him. He spat out the crimson drops and gazed at the defeated figure next to him. Solaire emanated none of the imposing aura that his height and chiseled body should exude. Whatever power he retained was hidden by his tattered clothes and hideous injuries.
The cut that had blinded his right eye was deep. It revealed a gash of pulsing muscle that throbbed like an exposed, beating heart. A rush of phantom pain paralyzed Oswald’s face and made him flinch.
Fight. Rise above.
The order died in his lips. Solaire was already giving his all. To ask more of him, to push him beyond the limits of what his injured body allowed, felt so childish and tyrannical that Oswald couldn't help but to be ashamed of himself.
Empty encouragement and pedantic wisdom. That was all he seemed capable of offering to those in need. Not ill-intended, but futile, like offering water to a disemboweled dog in the middle of a road.
“Solaire.”
He said the name without realizing it. Solaire raised his head and looked at him with his only eye.
“My lady?”
Before any words could be spoken between them, a concerned voice filled the fallen church. The anger Oswald held for the man was like healing balm for his wounds.
“My lady!”
His screams of fear did not match the merciless and heartless disposition he had shown so far, but Oswald knew well how the hearts of vile men worked: they cared not about the pain they inflicted on others, but they were often unable to withstand it when they were the victims of it.
“Who’s done this to you?!”
Lautrec, a former knight of Carim.
The sight of him, whimpering to a fallen goddess like a prisoner begging to his executioner to spare his life, was as disgusting as it was pathetic. Humiliation stung Oswald sharply.
How had he allowed such a pitiful man to overpower him?
How could a failed excuse for a knight become such a menace?
He was no rageful god with a lust for destruction. He was not an unstoppable force of nature. He was not a hero of legend with the skills to justify his reputation.
All that Oswald saw was a man without purpose.
I shall not lose to such scum.
Fina and her plague of crying souls were a matter for another time. Lautrec and the dark miracle that was starting to coat his own body became Oswald’s entire world. The sinner was too busy crying over his unresponsive Fina to care about the enemies that surrounded him. Oswald would not allow that chance to escape him.
The time had come for the sinner to face the strength of karmic justice.
As the miracle finished to cover the last part of him, Oswald found his body disobeying him. Even if he was willing to throw away his life in one last attack and drag Lautrec to the dark pits of death with him, his body, maimed and pushed to the limit, refused to so easily throw away its existence.
Perhaps, Oswald considered, it was not merely a matter of instinct and survival, and his body simply could not carry out the order he had given it.
It was too weak.
And he was scared.
The last thought disrupted the miracle and caused it to vanish away into nothingness.
No.
Enraged, Oswald tried to cast the miracle anew, but his power had been drained by exhaustion.
And fear.
No!
All of his hatred found a new target.
Himself.
A pardoner of Carim knows no fear!
The recurrent thought of sacrificing all that he had for the sake of his duty came back to him, but this time, it was but a weak shadow without meaning. A fallacious chant that no longer felt so inspiring now that the prospect of death was not a concept, but a reality standing just before his eyes.
I stand ready to throw my life away!
Oswald could not move. The memories of the moments he spent alone in the darkest parts of Sen’s Fortress, surrounded by headless demons that lurked in the darkness like hellish guardians, charged at him and with their giant horns.
I fear not facing the everlasting depths of death!
The smell of his blood, the taste of the murky waters that had served as his dying bed, the roars of the demons, the stench of their obsidian bodies, the burn of his ring of sacrifice as it broke and breathed new life to him.
Above it there had been a thought.
Lord Gwyn, I am scared!
The church became a sea of fire from which he escaped. The voices around him transformed into the screams of charred knights.
Lord Gwyn, Lord Gwyn!
And Oswald was no more. In his place, was a fleeing silver knight.
I do not wish to die!
Unable to escape the memory even long after it had faded, Oswald stood paralyzed in the church, his gaze fixed on a god only he could see.
A god he had forsaken.
Freedom felt not like a gift, but as a punishment for her sins and misdeeds.
With no way of escaping it, the Knightess silently endured the pain it brought to her.
A part of her, the most cowardly and petty, wished she still had Fina’s hand clawing at her mind, for blaming a goddess was easier than accepting the weight of her actions.
I betrayed my god.
Her ragged breaths hurt her dry throat and brought new life to her body.
I harmed those I was meant to protect.
What body?
The rotting, deformed carcass hidden underneath her brass armor could hardly be called a body. And she, the weak woman whose spirit it hosted, could not be called a knightess.
I attacked my fellow blade.
Acknowledging the memories of all she had done while under the influence of Fina, recalling the names of those she had betrayed, it held the same feeling as the butchering of her fated knight. Her uselessness and her cursed gift of getting those around her in harm’s way, stole from her any desire to live.
It was not born from pity or defeat, but from a thirst for justice that had not been quenched since the pardoners of Carim had ripped out her knight's beating heart from his open chest.
She deserved death. Her actions, or maybe the mere act of existing, were sins beyond redemption.
“My lady?”
The voice of the knight broke through and reached her. She felt for Lautrec the Embraced none of the hatred he deserved. Instead, there was only gratitude. Her fellow countryman and knight, the servant of Fina, the fire keeper slayer.
Across all the lands and the passing of time, he was one of the counted few who had shown her kindness and understanding regarding her past. Whether feign or sincere, his compassion still resonated within her.
She could not remain idle when his horrified voice reached her.
“My lady! What are you doing?!”
Dark figures slowly took the shape. A monstrous being held Lautrec with her claws. He struggled with all his might as the creature dragged him closer to its gaping maws. Humanity dripped from the grotesque imitation of a mouth like fresh blood from a beast’s fangs.
“Stop it!” He freed his arms just in time to keep the goddess’s jaws from severing his head from his torso. “FINA!”
The struggle continued, the screams of Lautrec combining with the growls of the monster in a hellish cacophony. Fina’s sounds were senseless snarls, devoid of meaning or logic. In them, the Kightess could not hear even the faintest trace of a voice, godly or human.
Loneliness took over her, the absence of Fina and that of her fellow fire keepers becoming too real for her to ignore. To have no voice in her head other than her own was disconcerting and blinding, as if her eyes had been gouged from their sockets and she had been tossed in a pitch-dark maze.
Lost and afraid, the Knightess clung to the one thing she could.
You listened to me.
Lautrec’s cries were her only guide. She followed them and allowed them to show her the way through the darkness and the confusion that plagued her.
You did not judge me.
Fina’s eyes widened in pain and shock at the realization of the knightess sinking her blade deep into her head with a strong leap. The weapon pierced through the ashes of the dwindling bonfire that had become one with Fina's head during her transformation.
Humanity gushed from it instead of blood, the injury serious enough to make the goddess flinch and let go of Lautrec.
As Fina roared and covered her wound with her claws, desperate to remove the unwanted blade, the Knightess rushed to where Lautrec had landed. He was already recovering from his fall, his knees and arms carrying his weight as he fought to catch his breath.
My fellow Carim-born, my fellow knight.
A familiar happiness that brought with it the memory of a giant clad in dark armor came to the Knightess, and she embraced it dearly.
You understood.
She offered her hand to Lautrec. He, in return, nimbly got back on his feet and seized her by the neck. With inhuman strength, he lifted her up until the knightess’ feet departed from the floor.
“Bitch!”
Lautrec’s ruthless grip deprived her from air. Awful cracking sounds came from her throat there where his fingers touched her.
“It was you! You conspired with that Astoran fire keeper! Now look at what you’ve done! Fina… my Fina. Is this how you repay our kindness? You rotten bitch! Bitch!”
Her eyesight darkened and her mouth became warm with blood. The knightess heard a loud stomp, like that of metal against the grass, and then she became free of Lautrec. Her limp body collapsed to the floor before life was snuffed out completely from her being.
“Still you resist?!” Lautrec said, so intoxicated by his own wrath that he sounded more like an animal than a man. “Astorans, Astorans! You vermin, you scum! It is always you!”
A roar of Fina echoed Lautrec’s cries. Together, they were like the voice of a sole being.
“It has always been you, from the very start!”
The touch of swords alerted the Knightess from the new battle between Lautrec and Solaire, the Chosen Undead.
Even after all I did…
Half awake, with her crushed throat allowing only the shallowest breaths to reach her lungs, the Knightess shivered at the cold touch of marble against her naked cheek. It smelled of blood, ash and darkness, a scent no different from that of a bonfire.
You saved me still?
She caught a faint glimpse. It was the gentle glow of an incorporeal soul. Tarkus. He talked to her, the same way the souls of the fire keepers, Fina and Lautrec had done during their time together.
“Knightess.”
“I am no knightess.”
“Come to me.”
“I am but a foolish woman.”
“And I am a mere illusion.”
“Yet, you are better than I. You are a true knight.”
“As you are, if you allow yourself to see beyond your pity and regret.”
“Waste not your time with me, Tarkus. It is too late. Enough suffering I’ve caused with my failure.”
“And much of it you can still mend.”
“I was too late for my knight. Too late I was for Gwyndolin, Oscar of Astora, my sister fire keepers and Solaire.”
“You live, do you not? As long as you do, it is never too late.”
“I don’t, and neither do you. I am a corpse, you are a shadow.”
Tarkus gave no reply.
Regret immediately weighed down the Knightess.
“That we are, dear friend.”
His quick compliance broke the Knightess’ conviction on her defeated claims. Though she knew she would have refuted Tarkus if he had tried to convince her otherwise, the fact he had failed to do so felt like a new betrayal, one that had left both of them both stranded at a dead end.
If a conclusion had been reached, one with which both agreed, then there was nothing left to be done or said.
Except, if the fate was merciful, dying and leaving no trace left of their existences.
And she…
Her arms crawled to her front and dragged her along clumsily, like an injured slug. Solaire’s voice boomed across the dark church. He spoke something the knightess failed to understand, but it stuck with her as she continued her slow journey towards Tarkus’s soul.
The living energy of Solaire, warm and ruthless, brought to her the image of her former knight.
He had not been a good man. If he had held any affection for her, it had been well concealed under cruel words and crude manners. Yet, he had died for her sake, bearing the blame of the mistake they had both made.
We wished to be free.
Tarkus, the man of flesh and bone, resurfaced from her mind. He had been different in all ways to her knight, but he had offered her the same choice.
“Once I’m done with this challenge, will you join me in my quest?”
Had Tarkus not died at the Executioner’s hands, would she have joined him in his travels across Lordran?
She would have been free to do as she wished. Lord Gwyndolin would not have kept her chained to them and Anor Londo against her will.
Lords, the god would have approved of the idea. It would have been her sacred duty to protect Tarkus, the never-to-be Chosen Undead.
Even in such a scenario, the Knightess knew which answer she would have given.
No.
Freedom was a scary thing. To have no one to watch over her, to guide her actions and oversee her deeds, to have none to turn to when things went awry, filled her with so much despair that it deprived her of all courage and hope.
We wished to be free, but we did not know how to be free. After all this time, I still don't know. But–
“Knightess?”
Her armored fingers caressed the ethereal essence of Tarkus’ soul. It was warmer than a bonfire’s flame, and so much gentler.
“My fellow knight,” she said out loud, “I’m here.”
Fina’s screams would not cease. They boiled inside him, poisoned his insides like hemlock. So distracting they proved to be that he failed to dodge Solaire’s incoming attack. The coiled sword charred Lautec’s face from his jaw to his temple, searing his flesh into a burning wound that spilled no blood but blinded him with pain.
Solaire showed him no mercy and attacked again. This time, he aimed at his heart. Lautrec’s broken armor and Humanity-tempered skin would not be enough protection to spare him from a lethal injury. With drops of sweat dripping down from his brow, he blocked the coiled weapon with his shotel sword. The clash of Humanity and sacred fire created a shower of sparks that sent a brief wave of light across the dark church.
It died quickly, but many more followed as the battle waged on. Meanwhile, Fina kept on crying.
It is only a small blade!
How could the damage of the knightess’ pitiful attack have injured his goddess so severely?
Lautrec could make no sense of it. It was a puzzle that filled him with embarrassment the same way his increasingly losing battle with Solaire did.
The idiot Astoran, covered in awful wounds, stricken with grief at Oscar’s death, with one eye slashed shut and all his dreams and faith shattered by Gwyndolin’s confession, was winning.
But I am Lautrec the Embraced. I am the knight of Fina!
The Humanity Fina had gifted to Lautrec, his powered-up equipment, his unbreakable conviction, none of it seemed to matter now that his goddess was wounded and he had lost her support and protection.
“Fina, Fina! Do not forsake me! Stay with me! Fight, my goddess, I beg of you. I cannot—”
Lautrec reached for his goddess just as he barely escaped the explosive aftermath of one of Solaire’s miracles. Its power was chaotic and erratic, almost as if Solaire could not fully control his own power correctly, but it was still highly dangerous.
After violently landing on his back, Lautrec crawled away from Solaire as he struggled to get back on his feet. The cloud of dust and pulverized marble faded slowly to reveal Solaire’s towering figure approaching Lautrec with an uneven but determined gait.
“Fina!”
Lautrec screamed in his mind.
“I cannot do this without you!”
“Your goddess cannot hear you, murderer.”
The voice froze Lautrec’s chest. She spoke above the other voices not as a part of a chorus, but as an entity on her own.
It was the tongueless fire keeper of Firelink Shrine.
“You stained your hands with my blood. In return, I shall do the same with this fallen deity. Then I will kill you. I’ll make you pay, I’ll make you suffer, just like you hurt me. No one will hear you scream, no one shall come to your aid.”
She became a threat greater than Solaire, and more real too, even if she was but an echo hammering in Lautrec’s mind, sinking her teeth into his heart as if wanting to tear it apart.
“I’ll make you know the pain your lady felt as she was tortured by the elite knights of Astora and the clerics of Thorolund.”
“Petrus?” The annoying child called for him. "Is something the matter?"
Hiding his annoyance, Petrus looked at Reah.
"Not at all, my lady."
The dark pits of the catacombs were a sinister contrast to the memory he had allowed himself to get lost in. With some effort, and clinging to remnants of that glorious day, Petrus smiled.
"I was merely lost in thought."