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leftalexwithnoneart · 3 years

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Dark Souls 2 Chain

Original Prompt: Backstory of how Lucatiel managed to land in Drangleic.

@irnbruforthetrue

A Knight of Mirrah

Lucatiel stood in the rose garden looking east. Ever since her first days in the High Citadel of Mirrah she’d been fond of the view from this spot. From the balcony you could see down across the shingled roofs, marbled towers, and sweeping boulevards to the great walls of the city. On a good day you could make out every edifice, statue, and memorial etched into those walls; yet none ever caught her eye quite like that which held its vigil above the resolute gate.

12 feet tall, yet only a third as tall as the wall itself, stood Mir’s Triumph. The first, and greatest, Knight Valiant stood with her right hand on the hilt of her blade, its tip planted in the stone at her feet while the left was held out, inviting those in in friendship who she had never been able to call anything but her enemies. She had been the one to forge this kingdom out of a rabble of counts and barons.

Mir was garbed in the same silk and leather as her order; yet Lucatiel knew that to be a modern assimilation. She had seen the remains of her armour, cold iron swathed in dark cloth. The only truth of her statue was the mask she wore; the same mask that every Knight Valiant was sworn to wear in her honour for as long as they claimed her mantle as a defender of the realm.

Even her blade, Lion’s Bane, held little resemblance to that which towered over her subjects. The length of steel that hung at Lucatiel’s side was by no means an elegant weapon yet felt as delicate as a rapier in comparison to that which dwelt in the vaults, hung on hooks in a dark corner. Every time the knight gazed upon her most beloved statue; she could not help but wonder how much else was not but fiction.

Lucatiel’s gaze ranged further, following that of the statue across the river Arnos to the far mountains. In the setting sun they were not but shadows in the growing darkness but Lucatiel had stood here on those days where it felt like the sun could cut through even the shadowy clouds that held perpetually over Drangleic of old.

The mountains, though unseen, were a beautiful veridian at this time of year. The Forossan Pine forests clung to the slopes with great valley fields of wildflowers that seemed to glow in the summer heat. The royal blue rivers that lazily flowed would be full of golden loach and barbel by now. The Forests themselves would be ringing with the cry of Mirran Finches; graceful birds that inspired the colours of the kingdom’s heraldry. Those same colours made up her livery, the crimson showing in her trousers whilst the blue, almost as dark as midnight, had been dyed into the clothing she wore under her black leather armour. The silver streaks on the bird’s crest decaled her armours proudly.

Lucatiel always felt it odd that the colours so prominent and beloved to her people came from so slight a creature. She felt that it would make more sense to mimic their neighbour, and greatest rival, the Forossans. They idolised none but their god of war, Faraam, and rightly chose his lion as their visage to reflect that. Here in Mirrah there was no such unity in worship. Evlana, Nahr Alma, Kremmel, Caffrey, Nehma, and a hundred other names escaped the lips of her brothers and sisters in arms before they drew their blades.

Lucatiel had tried to mimic their words; to find something meaningful to say to those above who held such sway over her life. Yet no such appeal ever felt righteous from her lips. Nothing she could utter rose above a mewling appeal for protection to a distant parent in her eyes. She now stayed quiet in those tremulous few minutes before the roar of battle filled her ears; her thoughts reserved for her family.

That is how it had been three months past.

Rebel lords, grown arrogant on the words of sycophants and the gold of their subjects raised their blades against their countrymen in a vain attempt to create their own petty kingdom. She had marched in lock step with over fifteen thousand other knights through the bastions, encampments, and towns of these recalcitrant nobles until finally she had stood in their very halls.

She remembered every waking moment of that last siege. The smell of burning pitch as it was hurled over the curtain walls of the keep. The glow of flames curling above those same walls that night as the constant bombardment overcame the spring rains and set to torch anything wooden in reach of the mangonels. Most of all she keenly remembered the look in her brothers’ eyes as the lion helms of Forossa lined the walls to bellow their defiance against their Mirran opponents.

Forossa had fallen not long before Lucatiel had ascended to stand beside her knightly siblings. Even a full score of years later you would find it difficult to find a Mirran, be they noble or peasant, who had not known loss at the hands of Faraam’s chosen.

Lucatiel was no exception.

The eastern mountains had only one route for an army to cross through in cohesion yet for a small party of raiders there were uncountable channels of ingress that could be exploited to circumvent the ranks of those appointed to guard the Forossan Pass, the Knights Resilient.

In the twelfth year following the sacking of Forossa; such a party had set upon Lucatiel’s home. Her mother had been absent, helping her ailing father some days travel away, yet her father had remained to work the mill as he always did. When her mother returned, she was greeted by naught but ash and decay.

Back then no one gave thought to the plague of undeath; there was word the exiled king of Forossa had fallen to it in the northern lands yet for it to have arrived in Mirrah was unthinkable. Even so, the years began to grow colder while the lanes and fields that Lucatiel spent her youth in were corralled and left as a festering purgatory for her father and her friends and her neighbours to wander aimlessly.

She had seen them. She had stood on the palisade looking in at the aimless wandering undead. She didn’t recognise any of them, any shred of who they were had been torn out of them, consumed by the dark, all for the sake of vengeance by people who saw them as nothing but enemies. Aslatiel had been there too, her brother was a man of few words but seeing this? Not knowing if you were staring directly at your neighbour, your childhood sweetheart, or even your own father had put a hard light in his eye.

That same light burned hot in his eye as they met Lucatiel’s over the camp ground of that siege. And like a fire it spread to every Mirran there be they Knight Valiant, Resilient, or any of the other score of chapters present. That night had been profoundly quiet save for the rasp of sharpening blades. As they rose in the morning the air gently rose with the whispers of prayer. Lucatiel held her silence.

The assault was a bloody affair; as was the want of the Forossans. They let their paymasters exhaust their levies on the walls and in the redoubts constructed from the still smouldering wreckage of the town that had once existed within the walls. Lucatiel could feel their eyes on her and her siblings as they mercilessly cut through the traitors before them.

As the last of the men fell; the lions joined the fray.

The men of Forossa were hulking, brutish, men wielding blades, hammers, and polearms befitting the warriors that held them. Their armour looked worn nearly beyond use; the crimson paint dobbed over the snarling visage of their war god was cracked and the iron underneath rusted.

The first few crashed into their reforming lines but fell quickly; a score of blades meeting each of theirs. Lucatiel planted her blade through the throat of one of the ogre-like men as he pressed his advantage on a downed Knight Resilient. She took pleasure as she ripped the blade savagely from the mortal wound, a spray of blood slathering the already drenched leather of her armour.

On instinct she raised her shield and felt the wretched numbness as the tip of an iron spear rammed against the boss. She swung her arm out, throwing the spear tip away and thrust hard. A miss. The snarling lion knight brought his iron-clad fist in a feral swing, catching her in the jaw. Lucatiel tasted blood as she spilled to the ground. Three of her brothers drove back the wild spearman as she recovered and rose again.

The golden-haired Knight Valiant drove into the thick of it and found her quarry again, a fresh wound in her side. The Forossan was distracted as one of her brothers pushed the advantage yet with a feint and thrust, she severed the strands of his life.

Lucatiel let out a feral scream as she charged with her shield, driving the rim into the cheek of the blood slick warrior. Their head snapped to the side and stumbled into one of their own brothers; the camaraderie seemed lacking as the other violently shoved them back. On to Lucatiel’s shining blade.

She held the man close and twisted the blade through his guts. He let out a pained whine as the last of his breath drained from filling lungs. Through her rage all Lucatiel could focus on was the stink and filth of leather that had not been cleaned in many moons. She released the corpse from her blade for fear of being dragged down with his dead weight.

There could not have been more than three hundred of the lion knights but even with so few they held the line for nearly an hour. Lucatiel herself claimed the lives of three more of the hulking warriors before fatigue and her own thirsty brothers forced her back behind the lines. She had to watch as the last of their cursed warriors fell beneath the cold steel of Mirrah.

By the time Lucatiel stepped foot in the keep; the place was aflame and the battle was won. The wooden rafters obscured with curling smoke as the livery and trappings of these lords conflagrated all around. The lords had barricaded themselves on the upper floors and so, like the gods of old, the price for a few more moments of life was a death by fire.

The keep had burned for hours and the knights of Mirrah claimed their dead from the field. Each would rest in glory in the crypts of their chapter hall; a name to live on in glory until the world fell into darkness. As the work ended, Lucatiel found herself alone in the fighting field. The rain poured down like a sheet of ice over her and the dead at her feet.

She removed her mask, a forbidden action in the face of the enemy yet they were dead, their eyes saw no longer. The rain weaned from a flood to barely a drizzle as she stood there, surveying the carnage that she and her battle-brothers had wrought. She was at peace with the hell that had been unleashed on these traitors yet seeing their faces here; frozen in pain, fear, and desperation chafed at the surety of her convictions.

Lucatiel’s eyes settled on a man, propped up against the remains of the torn apart redoubt. He was maybe… 40, his russet hair had thinned to almost nothing and the lines had begun to grow more prominently on his face. His left arm was almost severed at the collar by a savage slash. In the other held a thin shattered knife, no doubt trying to defend against the blow that had claimed his life.

Her lips twisted in disgust as memories of her father returned to her. There was little resemblance between the two men. Maybe it had been the hair, or the wrinkles… Lucatiel drew in a ragged breath between her teeth as she forced down the unbidden emotions. She fastened her mask back into place and began to make her way back to camp.

She stopped; something had caught her attention. It was quiet, something you’d barely notice usually. The soft grind of iron on iron. She turned and drew her blade from its scabbard, her shield held at the ready. Nothing moved as her eyes scanned the ground and each of the hundreds of corpses still piled there.

She doubted her brothers had left anyone alive; with the ferocity she had seen them laying into their opponents there should be nary a corpse with anything short of a truly grievous wound inflicted. All the same one of those supposed corpses rose from their grave.

Lucatiel advanced. This fool would rue his mistake with another taste of Mirran geisteel. The knight marched towards the oblivious levy over his fallen comrades with as much steel in her eyes as she held in her hands. The fool noticed too late, turning the same moment the tip of her sword passed between his ribs. His ragged breath left him in a choking gasp as he choked up the blood, he had cowardly tried to save from being spilled.

He collapsed on his side; his blood finally mingling with the traitors brave enough to meet the royal army on their feet, eye to eye. She cleaned her blade on his still corpse before retiring it to her scabbard and rolling him on to his back with a strong kick.

Fear crushed her heart.

This wasn’t right.

It couldn’t be here.

The man’s skin was a sickly, pale, green. His eyes had begun to cloud over with cataracts. What must have once been a thick beard and head of hair was falling out in patches even as he lay there dead on the ground. The ragged hole that she had rent in his body was joined by four broken arrows riddling his torso; the tip of one no doubt still buried in his heart. With trembling fingers, she tore open his tabard and thick overshirt. The fear turned her blood cold as she gazed upon the dark sign; its true darkness swirling around the shaft of the arrow.

Lucatiel tore herself away from the fallen undead. Striding through the fallen, focused like a hawk for even the slightest hint of movement in the dead. One did try to rise but with a handful of desperate strikes she separated its heads from the shoulders that held it up.

She heard shuffling behind her but Lucatiel would not look. She needed her brothers and sisters alongside her to face this new threat. She tripped on a Forossan’s separated limb, taking it in stride and moving onwards. She was unbalanced now and one more misplaced foot brought her crashing to the ground on the bodies of her fallen foes.

Lucatiel rolled over and finally looked back the way she had come.

Seven of them stared back at her through the same set of milky eyes. All flowed with different emotions. Confusion, fear, pain, all coruscated across their faces before all settling in the same place.

Rage.

In the precious seconds she had before the first started moving she cast her eyes around for anything to help her. One of the bodies around her had begun to writhe under the corpse of a dead Forossan who was by the grace of gwynevere still unmoving. Her eyes settled on a horn strapped to the side of the Forossan and dove for it.

The undead were prowling towards her, makeshift weapons in hand. Lucatiel had enough time to wrench free the horn and savagely swing her blade around, gutting an undead with a sickle raised over his head. He let out a whine as he collapsed backwards.

She forced herself on to her feet and tore off her mask with the tips of the fingers clasping the horn. The six were nearly upon her as she put the horn to her lips and blew as hard as she could.

They faltered, unsure of what to do. Lucatiel tossed the horn to the side and hefted her blade in both hands, the mask of Mir forgotten at her feet. She stood her ground against the dead; daring to let a confident smirk crack her cold visage. The first to charge, not so cowed by the horn as his men, met the edge of her blade with his wrist, the blacksmith’s hammer in his hand thudding to the ground with unfeeling fingers still wrapped around its haft.

He screamed like a newborn as she stepped forward, reversed her grip, and drove it backwards into his spine. The next had already charged in, slipping momentarily on the ground where the mud had turned to water under the feet of two armies. In his vulnerability, Lucatiel turned the tip of her blade on him, driving it between his neck and shoulder. She cursed as his body went limp and pulled the blade from her grasp.

She whipped out the dagger from her belt and locked eyes with the next undead the same moment he drove his fist straight into her nose. She crashed to her back with the undead pinning her done. Her blood choking and blinding her as it began to flow. Lucatiel frantically stabbed her blade into the man’s side again and again and again.

The blood cleared from her eye just in time to see a sharpened blade driving down towards her face. She jerked aside as best she could yet felt the searing cold of the blade biting into her cheek. The undead finally keeled over, slumping over on to the pile of dead beside her. Gasping for breath Lucatiel forced herself on to her knees.

A foot slammed into her lightly armoured gut and knocking her back. She let out a deep grunt as the 4thman treated her to the same treatment again and again with wild abandon; shouting every curse he could down at her with almost child-like glee.

Right as she felt her ribs would break and her consciousness fade; Lucatiel heard a handful of soft impacts and a pained groan. Through the still flowing blood, Lucatiel blinked at the three shafts, feathered with crimson and blue, buried neatly in the undead’s chest. He crumpled as another three found their mark, one after the other.

Lucatiel struggled to her feet and retrieved her blade as a dozen of her brothers and that number again of their siblings in the Knights Vigilant, the best archer’s in Mirrah, charged to her aid. By the time she rejoined the fray, hastily snatching her mask up as she went; the small skirmish had grown to a pitched battle.

Most of the undead were felled before they could rise from their hands and knees but those that did were starting to number nearly a hundred strong. More so, the small horde was interspersed with the vast bulk of Forossan lion knights. No more than a handful had risen yet they were just as dangerous as they had been when they breathed the air as true humans.

Lucatiel refused to back off from the line, slicing and stabbing at every body, every milky eye, every patch of green skin. The last of the Forossans was cut down and the remaining undead broke and ran. The golden-haired knightess grit her teeth and tore after them with a beastly snarl. She was surrounded by her brothers, her knights, her family and she was not going to let these bastards get away.

Those that were too slow fell beneath merciless Mirran Geisteel yet those that survived scattered like rats into the charred remains of the keep. The thirty or so Knights Valiant spread out; slowing as they traversed the still collapsing, and still scorching hot, building.

Lucatiel heard the occasional cry or scream as the undead were hunted down one by one. She found herself in a small corridor, the light from above painting the soot black walls like a lurid dream. A sound, broken wood clattering to the floor, drew her attention to the end of the corridor. In a small room, the burned remains of a bedroom all she found.

She let out a grunt as a sharp pain tore through her side. She reflexively drove the pommel of her blade backwards and into the face of her foe. Lucatiel growled as she turned and smashed the undead, a frail young man, in the face with her gloved fist. He collapsed back and she wasted no time, driving the tip of her blade between his ribs.

She had stumbled out of there; the undead’s knife still buried in her side. She kept it steady, as she had been taught, and despite her want to pull it out she refrained from doing so. Her brothers quickly found her and brought her to the surgeon’s tent. Her wounds were stitched and she was left to rest, forgotten in a corner of one of the many tents set aside for the wounded.

She didn’t remember falling asleep. She just remembered the night being cold in that filled tent, the moans of the wounded seemed to deny her sleep. Yet she found it, or that is what she presumed for so long.

Despite the imminent summer months, she did not feel them as keenly as she should. Food began to taste more and more of nothing; like gravel in the mouth. The days spent as the walking wounded, then in the royal hospital while the cut in her side healed, became more and more tedious. The pain settled into a constant dull throb.

Eventually, Lucatiel could not ignore the signs any more. In her heart she knew she should reveal herself to the grandmaster; yet she knew her fate from that moment on would be decided by those she should trust. A cell, and then when she had lost her mind, she would be driven out of the city she loved and into the hovel that had once been her village.

Yet, every day was a reminder of her fate. Her hair, once golden like her brother’s, had grown pale. Now closer to the greying white of her mother. A mark had formed around the cut driven into her cheek by the undead. The surgeon shrugged it off as a bruise in the early days and dismissed her after a few weeks.

It was spreading, now down over her cheek and up towards her eye. The other knights had begun to notice the mark; lingering glances and second looks followed Lucatiel through the High Citadel like an evil shadow. Eventually it grew too much and her mask became her armour against it. Lucatiel sowed the straps and clasping into the lining of her ceremonial hat, keeping the visage of her order’s founder as close to her face as she could. Even when she ate she refused to remove the mask, often choosing to sit alone and as far from others as she could.

Yet she knew it was a simple stalling action. As the days grew longer, so did the mark, and so did her fears. By the time the grey had eclipsed her eye; the once deep blue eye there had begun to cloud over in milky white.

Lucatiel grew withdrawn from the other knights, even Aslatiel. On patrols through the streets, she would not talk beyond recognition of orders. In the keep, if she was not on guard or training then she would be in her quarters, polishing her weapons or mask so she could see her reflection, though at that point it felt more like a punishment to be reminded for even a moment of her fate.

This morning she had been summoned. She was a fair and capable commander and Lucatiel had always been on good terms with her. Yet now, her eyes were full of questions and insinuations dripped from her words. Lucatiel listened attentively, as was her duty, though every sentence seemed to mean nothing to her. Then it came.

“It seems, your brother Aslatiel has been lost to us.”

Those ten words had done more to rouse Lucatiel than anything had even come close to since the curse had gripped her. What felt like a thousand questions tore past her lips before she could halt herself. Her commander was taken by surprise at the vivacity of the knight’s outburst; she even had to dismiss other knights who came to check on the sudden disturbance.

She answered each question as best she could. Lucatiel hung on every word like to miss even a simple article would be the death of her. As she ran out of question, and her commander ran out of answers, they sat together in silence. She left, marching out with a curt request for dismissal yet not waiting on an answer.

She tore through the keep like a woman possessed; her pack quickly filled with a weeks’ worth of salted rations, a map of the area Alsatiel had last been seen, and anything else she could foresee the need for.

Lucatiel cast one last look to the statue of Mir overlooking the Eastern gate. She thought to herself how it was nice to feel so close to herself again, even if it was over concern for her brother. A smile even cut her stony exterior for a moment.

Lucatiel turned west.

She strode through the halls of the High Citadel past the members of the Knights Valiant, Resilient, and Vigilant that called it their home. She no longer felt like their sister truth be told. She was, and in her heart would always be, a loyal knight and daughter of Mirrah. She would not betray her oath to the grandmaster and to Mir herself for anything.

Yet her brother took precedent.

Without question.

The western gate was far less resplendent than the east.

No one travelled west anymore.

A statue to the first king after Mir, she forgot his name, stood in the same stance as his predecessor over the gate. His statue was shorter too… worse quality as well. This side of the city was quiet, few people liked to be out of the streets even in the hours leading up to darkness setting in. With a nod to the guard as she passed; Lucatiel left Mirrah behind.

She passed between the legs of the silhouette of the past king with a deep breath; the risen moon shining down on her back. She knew few would remember her passing from the order, she would become another name on a golden plaque that only the neophytes like she had been would see. Sitting in silence in a crypt. She pushed the thoughts from her mind; the last thing of use to her was nostalgia or doubt.

She was Lucatiel, Knight Valiant of Mirrah.

Aslatiel needed her.

She would forge a path into the flame itself for his sake and she would do so without hesitation. Her eyes, and heart, were set on the west as a rolling bank of shadowy fog rose to meet her. As if the darkling skies of Drangleic had come to welcome her to their domain.

“Hold fast dear brother,” she whispered like a prayer to the cool, damp, air that swept towards her, “You will find there is ardent steel yet in this knight of Mirrah.”

And the darkness consumed her. @leftalexwithnoneart

@acebladespades The words were fading.

Wear and tear had outmatched her diligent maintenance. The engraved promise on her sword would soon be lost forever.

“Have you ever heard of Elizabeth of Oolaclle? I wish she was here right now.”

The sudden confession snapped Lucatiel out of her morose musings. She looked at the man sitting at the other side of the bonfire. She drew her sword along the whetting stone one last time before giving him an answer.

“I have. Elizabeth’s tale is well known in Mirrah.”

She stopped, unsure of what the Bearer of the Curse intended with that conversation.

Bearer of the Curse. What an eerie and lofty title for such a simple man. A good man, and a skilled warrior as well.

“I too wish she was here.” Lucatiel continued. “She was a woman of great wisdom. Her talent with medicine and potions is said to have been legendary. She could offer us great comfort in this putrid and toxic hell-hole known as the Black Gulch.”

“Great comfort indeed! They said that a man’s maypole exploded as soon as he fixed his eyes on her bosom, and that her rack was blissful.” The Bearer of the Curse whistled and closed his eyes. “Lords, if only my imagination was more vivid, I’d do a lot more daydreaming than I do fighting, let me tell you. Oh Elizabeth, why heal me with potions, when your beauty alone would be enough to lift in me a lot more than just my spirits?”

Bearer of the Curse… more like Knave of the Slums!

“Of course.” Lucatiel rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her whetstone and sword. “I don't know what else I was expecting from you.”

Meanwhile, the Bearer of the Curse lay down on his back with his eyes still closed. He raised his arms up in the air and started making squeezing motions with his fingers.

“Elizabeth.” He purred like a kitten, his words distorted by the lewd kissing noises he made with his lips. “Oh, Elizabeth. If only you were real…”

A vulgar and foolish man!

“Enough of that!” Lucatiel picked up a pebble and threw it at the Bearer. It hit him right at the center of his forehead.

He screamed in agony, as if Lucatiel had pierced his head with a knife.

He doesn’t wince in pain when he gets his bones broken in the heat of battle… but Lords forbid he trips over his feet and scrapes his knees or that someone accidentally steps on his toes, for he starts whining like a child.

“Lucatiel! But Lucatiel...” The Bearer of the Curse straightened his back and stared at Lucatiel as if she had betrayed him in the worst way imaginable, “I thought we were friends!”

“It is exactly because we are friends that I stopped your irreverent mouth from spewing any more vulgarities against Lady Elizabeth.” Lucatiel said firmly. “Mocking a figure of old with your boorish fantasies… You have no shame.”

“And you have no sense of humor.” The Bearer of the Curse snapped at her. He removed his hands from his forehead, revealing the very tiny and invisible wound the pebble had left on him. “It is not my fault those cursed historians decided to describe Elizabeth in such a lusty fashion! Besides, it’s not as if Elizabeth cared about my fantasies. She’s been dead for much longer than either of us have been alive.”

“It matters not if she is nothing but a bundle of bone dust buried in an unmarked grave, she deserves your respect. Only a fool mocks the dead.” Lucatiel continued whetting her sword, but the quick glance she gave to the Bearer of the Curse made her smile.

Pouting and folding your arms on your chest are proper reactions of a toddler, not of a warrior.

“I apologize.” The Bearer of the Curse bowed his head to Lucatiel with feign repentance.“I swear I won’t do it again, mother. Please don’t get mad at me, mother.”

“And still you mock me. You are incorrigible, Aslatiel.”

Lucatiel’s arms went numb. They became heavy and unresponsive, as if a curse had turned them to stone.

“Aslatiel? Who’s Aslatiel? It sounds like a horse's name. Is that what you named your stead back in Mirrah’” The Bearer of the Curse laughed without malice, but Lucatiel was deaf to his voice.

Lucatiel stared at him.

This man…

He is...

Her eyes darted to the words engraved on her sword. Her mind saw no letters, only blurry symbols without meaning.

This promise.

“Lucatiel?”

Lucatiel looked at the man that spoke her name. There was concern in his voice and worry in his gaze.

Who are you?

The question echoed inside her. It came close to escaping her lips, but the memory of the man’s identity returned to Lucatiel as abruptly as it had faded.

You’re not Aslatiel. You’re not my brother. You are the Bearer of the Curse. My fellow Undead, my companion.

“Forgive me,” she said softly, not allowing a trace of her distress to show in her face, “I was lost in thought.”

My friend.

“That’s a gigantic understatement. You looked as if you were poisoned and were having too much fun with the hallucinating side-effects.” The Bearer of the Curse shrugged. “Anyway, what was I saying? Oh right! Come on, you aren’t going to tell me you’ve never fantasized with some hero of old, are you?”

Lucatiel blinked, disoriented and confused. Though she was glad the slip of her brother’s name was of no interest to the Bearer of the Curse, his childish question made her want to grab a handful of pebbles and throw them all at his cheeky face.

“Of course not.”

The Bearer of the Curse was not so easily convinced.

“There are plenty of good choices, if you ask me,” he said,” The Abyss Walker, the Sunlight knight,…”

“I do not fantasize with legendary heroes!”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“ I only blush because your lack of respect for those admirable men and women of the past infuriates me.”

“Admirable?” The Bearer of the Curse laughed. “I agree with their legendary status, but saying any of them was admirable is a bit of a stretch. Oh well, to each their own, I guess. Now, if you excuse me, I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up before you wander off on your own again, all right? You always leave before I can say goodbye and that makes me feel like a rude ass.”

“Sure, because you are the personification of chivalry and good manners.”

“You know it.”

With that, the Bearer of the Curse lay down on his right side, pressed his head on his arms and closed his eyes.

Leave it to you to fall asleep in this putrid cave, as if our battle with that rotten abomination had never happened at all.

A sharp twinge of envy emerged from Lucatiel’s heart. The Bearer was always also so laid-back, so unaffected by the world around him.

So careless and uncaring of this everlasting nightmare that is the Undead curse.

It wasn’t that Lucatiel was petty, but it felt unfair to allow the Bearer of the Curse to fall asleep so peacefully while her mind remained restless and disturbed.

“How is it a stretch, exactly?”

The Bearer’s eyes sprung open, as if Lucatiel had poured a bucket of ice-cold water all over his body.

“Lucatiel, really? I was dreaming of Elizabeth. Things were about to get interesting… in bed.” He moaned before straightening his back and letting out a big yawn. “Say again? I didn't hear you.”

“Why is thinking that olden heroes and heroines were admirable a stretch?”

“The hell are you talking about—Oh! I remember.” The Bearer of the Curse crossed his legs. He cleared his throat and spat. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Underneath all the sugary nonsense of tales and myths, those legendary figures were only people. Plunderers, reavers, thieves, tyrants, strumpets, assassins, savages and Lords know what else. Heroes and saints my ass.”

Lucatiel put her whetstone on the ground. Soon, both her hands clung tightly to the hilt of her sword.

She wondered if the Bearer of the Curse noticed the pain his words were causing her.

I don't think he does, but if he notices, I doubt he cares. Aslatiel was the same… he never thought before he spoke, nor he ever regretted what he said, regardless of who he hurt.

“True, many of those stories and tales are exaggerated, to say the least. It wouldn't surprise me if some artistic liberties were taken to fill in the blanks.” Lucatiel granted. Her thumb caressed the uneven surface of the fading promise on her blade. “But to think it was all an invention, that there is no truth nor goodness to be found in the lives and stories of those people… that’s as childish as thinking they were all saints that never committed sin. Yes, they were only people, but they were kind and noble despite their flaws. That’s why they are remembered, that’s why their memory transcends time.”

For once, the Bearer of the Curse remained silent. Lucatiel at first believed he was pondering on what she had said, but when his eyes looked at her with pity, her illusions crumbled.

“They are not remembered. Whoever they truly were died with them; all we have left of those fools are lies and fairytales.” For the first time since they had met, there was no trace of mockery or knavish vulgarity in his voice, only seriousness. It made him sound like a completely different man. “Just stupid nosense people made up about them to make themselves feel better about their own weaknesses. Oh look, Artorias saved a princess from the Abyss. His strength of will and his pure heart allowed him to overcome the darkness. Maybe I could be like him someday. Maybe, if my faith is unwavering and I never stop trying, I too can become a fabled hero!”

The Bearer of the Curse chuckled with so much bitterness that it sounded more like a grunt. “What a load of horseshit.”

“Artorias died fulfilling his duty. He did not shy away from danger, his bravery never faltered.” Lucatiel rushed her words to the point where they were almost unintelligible, but she couldn't help it.

The Bearer of the Curse had gone too far.

He was her friend, but she wouldn’t allow him to continue with his blasphemies.

“He was a hero.”

“He was a reckless moron that died without a good reason.” The Bearer of the Curse replied. A deep frown appeared between his eyes. “The poor bastard probably overestimated his own skills and died like a dog after barely succeeding in his mission. Princess Dusk was never the same after that little adventure of hers, was she? Perhaps it would have been more merciful of Artorias to leave her to die… but alas, the only thing heroes care about are their own egos and reputation.”

“You speak as if what you’re saying was an absolute truth.” Lucatiel’s heart beat hard against her chest. “But you’ve got no proof to back such bold statements.”

“True, I have no proof.” The Bearer of the Curse accepted graciously, “But neither do I have any doubts. And if you want to play this game, then let me remind you that you have no proof either, Lucatiel. You cannot claim Artorias was the unbreakable hero the legends claim. You cannot say that I am wrong or that you are right.”

Lucatiel was stunned briefly, unable to contradict the Bearer of the Curse.

As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. In the end, all they had was an old legend. Other than that, there was no evidence.

The Bearer of the Curse grinned. Unlike Lucatiel, he was starting to enjoy the conversation and he had no intention of letting it die.

From his abundant equipment scattered around the cave’s floor, he grabbed a small parma. On its surface, a simple painting depicted rays of sunlight and the silhouette of a knight with his sword raised towards the sky.

Lucatiel recognized the image and its meaning.

The Hero of Sunlight.

“The Hero of Sunlight.” The Bearer of the Curse echoed Lucatiel’s thoughts. “A righteous knight, a member of the disappeared Warriors of Sunlight covenant. Look at him.”

The Bearer of the cursed traced his fingers along the parma’s surface. “So kind, so committed, so brave. The most outstanding warrior that benevolent and selfless covenant ever saw.”

Without previous warning, he threw the shield away. Lucatiel watched as the small parma crashed against the cave’s wall and fell unceremoniously to the floor, splintered and broken.

“What a sentimental and ridiculous way to remember the most violent savage among that legion of battle-obsessed murderers. The Hero of Sunlight… more like the Pillaging and Blood-thirsty Knight.”

“Enough!” Lucatiel exclaimed, but the Bearer of the Curse ignored her.

“They were warriors, Lucatiel. Human or not, they were simple mortals. It is only logical that the most despicable interpretation of their lives is also the most accurate. That is the only truth we can extract from their tales. The kinder the legend, the crueler the reality that bred it.”

“The world is harsh and vile, as are the people in it. But there has always been as much goodness in it as there has been wickedness.” Calmer, Lucatiel looked at the Bearer of the Curse. “Is it really so foolish to think that Artorias, the Knight of Sunlight or Elizabeth were who the legends claim they were? My friend, is it really so difficult for you to believe that good men and women have existed in this world?”

The Bearer of the Curse’s features mellowed. He opened his mouth, but he said nothing. Ashamed, he looked away for a long while.

Why?

Lucatiel held on to her sword as if her sanity and life depended on it.

Why am I so bent on making you adopt my point of view? Why am I so set on rejecting yours? Why did your words so much disturbed me?

Before Lucatiel could find her own answer, the Bearer of the Curse shared his own with her.

“It is not difficult for me to imagine so.” He was smiling, but there was no joy behind his smile. “It is impossible. Lucatiel, look around us. Look at the people we’ve met, the places we’ve been, the monsters we’ve slain. How am I expected to look at this world and believe goodness exists in it? Stories, legends, myths and prayers often talk about it. They talk of hope, beauty, love and honor, but I’ve never seen any of them exist in reality. I wish things were different, I wish I was wrong, but I’m not. Of this, if nothing else, I’m sure.”

“What about your old life?” Lucatiel insisted. “The life you had before the curse took hold of you. Was there nothing good in it?”

Nothing worthy of being remembered?

“The life I had is long lost.” The Bearer of the Curse said without emotion. “I have no memory of it, but it wouldn't surprise me if I was nothing but a despicable vagabond or a lowly ruffian. I can’t expect anything else from myself.”

“I don’t believe that, and neither do you. I know you were a lot more than what you think of yourself, so much more than this uncaring man you pretend to be.”

“Even if I was, what does it matter? That man is dead. He perished together with my memories. The person you see before you is all that is left. This is who I am, who I’ve chosen to be.”

“But—”

“You don’t know me, Lucatiel.” The Bearer of the Curse interrupted her without mercy. Yet, underneath his harshness, Lucatiel heard sorrow. “And I don’t know you. We are only a couple of zombies, two loners without a past that cling to each other in a desperate attempt to recall what true friendship and fondness felt like. But we don’t know each other. How can we, when we barely remember who we truly are?”

A lump formed in Lucatiel’s throat.

When was the last time she had cried?

It was when Aslatiel…

Who?

My brother.

Brother?

Her hands moved from the hilt to the blade of her sword, right to the fragment where the engraved words were.

The sharp edges of the blade cut through the leather of her gauntlets and reached her skin. Thin streams of blood ran down the sword as Lucatiel’s grip became tighter.

Promise.

Promise?

What promise?

“But that in itself is a great comfort, don't you think?” The Bearer of the Curse smiled. “Since we don't really know each other, we can pretend we are comrades, and by pretending, our comradery becomes real. If we have forgotten our lives, then we can lie to ourselves and pretend there was a time when we were happy. We can imagine our pasts in any shape and form we want. Everything is allowed, everything is real if we deceive ourselves well enough. That’s the greatest freedom an absence of truth offers. So if you want to think those heroes were saints and admirable people, it’s valid.”

The Bearer of the Curse joined his hands behind his head and rested his back against the wall. “And if I want to believe Elizabeth was the hottest wench the world has ever seen , it’s valid too.”

He laughed.

Lucatiel struggled to hold back her tears.

“That’s how you’ll remember me?” Her question brought an abrupt end to the Bearer’s pretended merriment. “As some stranger that meant nothing to you?”

“Lucatiel.” Her name was everything the Bearer of the Curse said for a long while. “We won’t remember each other at all. We’ll forget one another and the world will forget us too; I couldn't ask for any other outcome. Better to fade away into oblivion than to live on as a fabricated lie for all time.”

Lucatiel stood up. She was crying, but she couldn't remember why. All that she knew was that something inside had shattered, and that she no longer could remain in the other man’s presence.

“I must leave.” She said, more to herself than to the man sitting at the other side of the bonfire.

Who are you?

“Lucatiel.” He stood up and approached her. Lucatiel walked away from him before he could rest his hands on her shoulders.

The man did not follow her.

She left him and her whetstone behind. She didn't come back for it, as any memory of it had been erased from her mind.

Why weren't you who I thought you were?

Her endless and aimless wandering eventually led her to an open field. A dark and starry sky unfolded above her. She couldn't remember how she had arrived at that place, or when she had taken off her mask, or when she had sheathed her sword.

But... who did I want you to be?

She kept on walking. There was nothing left for her to do other than moving on, even if she was lost and no longer had a path to follow.

Why did you have to shatter my illusions?

Why did you have to tell me the truth?

“Aslatiel.” Lucatiel said. “Aslatiel… our promise, the memories we forged together, they are fading away from. I can’t recall your face, and it scares me to think my memories of you are only wishful fabrications.”

Lucatiel fell to her knees and unsheathed her sword. She saw only scrapes where words had once been.

But even so, even if it’s been forgotten, I know our promise was real. I remember you, and you remember me. My memories of you are true, they are not something I made up. I have to believe this, even if I have no proof of it… if I don't, how am I going to look at you in the eye once we meet again? Aslatiel, can you hear me? Aslatiel, my brother.

“Promise me you’ll remember my name.”

Lucatiel got no answer, for there was no one else that could hear her.

Amidst that empty wasteland, only her fading self was there to keep her company.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucatiel died in his arms.

He found her again in a shack just outside Aldia’s keep.

There had been no chance for him to say goodbye or apologize for all the stupid things he had said.

“Who are you?” Lucatiel asked him as soon as she noticed his presence.

It wasn’t until then that the Bearer of the Curse realized Lucatiel was gone.

Her true self, that which made her the woman she was, the only real friend he’d had on his journey, had died long before Lucatiel took her own life before his eyes.

“Promise me you’ll remember my name.” Lucatiel had told him with her dying breath. Her sword pierced her chest. Warm blood soaked her clothes and the Bearer’s arms. “Aslatiel.”

Then, she was gone.

The Bearer of the Curse remained on his knees, next to Lucatiel's dying spot. Only the bonfire was there to keep him company. Then, after discarding his sword in exchange for Lucatiel’s and making sure her mask was secured in his belt, he continued his journey.

To that bonfire, he never returned.

“So it was you.” The Bearer of the Curse said the moribund shadow of his attacker. Just like Lucatiel had done, the enemy faded into the wind and became nothing after his death.

And just like Lucatiel, the enemy left behind his sword.

The Bearer of the Curse picked it up.

On it, only one engraved word remained legible.

“Aslatiel.”

The Bearer of the Curse dropped to his knees. Lucatiel’s sword, still wet with Aslatiel’s blood, escaped his hand and fell to the floor.

For the first time since he could remember, the Bearer of the Curse cried.

“Lucatiel, I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you. I’m sorry I wasn’t the friend you deserved.” His voice echoed across the building. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more for you.”

Lucatiel, you were right. This world and its people are dreadful, and I am the worst of them all.

The Bearer of the Curse untied Lucatiel’s mask from his belt and held it carefully in his hands.

But there are times when this is not the case. As ugly as the world is, there is goodness in it. As rare as they are, truth and beauty are real. You existed, didn’t you? What other proof do I need to realize you were right and I was wrong?

“Lucatiel, all of us will be forgotten. Our true selves die with us. Time erases our names, deeds and lives.Whatever legacy we leave behind, if we leave any, is a false echo of who we really were. But you were real, Lucatiel. Whether you are remembered or not, you existed. You lived in this world. You were alive, you fought by my side, and for what little worth this selfish idiot you called your friend has, he’ll always remember you. Lucatiel, can you hear me? I’ll remember you.”

His only answer came in the form of a whisper. The Bearer of the Curse tricked himself into believing he’d heard Lucatiel’s fading voice, when all he’d heard was a rush of wind.

Or maybe, he told to himself as he picked up Lucatiel and Aslatiel’s swords, it wasn't a lie

It was real.

All was true.

Wherever she was, Lucatiel had spoken to him one last time.

I have no proof.

Underneath his helmet, the Bearer of the Curse smiled.

But neither do I have any doubts. @lefrustemangaka

@fateoftheundead

“...and please, I hope you forgive me. I did not intend to be rude,” said Lucatiel, stunning a dead-eyed berserker with the rim of her shield impacting his face. This was followed by an economical strike of her greatsword, the downward arc passing through the berserker’s leg unimpeded.

Her companion turned briefly away from her own exertions, having executed a curious spinning maneuver with her unwieldy halberd. It was nothing like Lucatiel had ever seen- not the lithe saber-dance of Carthus, the efficient swordplay of Balder’s knights, or the frenzied hacking of those blood-drinking dragon warriors. There was a torturous twang as the crossbow of one of the berzerkers was sundered, falling to the deck of the ship that was their battlefield.

Nothing about her companion made much sense. Her weapon was a grisly skull-topped staff, whose blade and enchantments made it suitable as both fetish and pole arm. The thing positively dripped with dark magic but Lucatiel could not deny its efficacy. Lucatiel herself wore the smart outfit that constituted the garb of a Mirrah knight. Fine but not ostentatious, though an argument could be made that that latter described the cocked hat she wore. Her companion’s garb was just as mystifying as her fighting style. Barefoot, with faintly luminous amber anklets. Though Lucatiel had yet to see her face, and her companion likewise, a long tight gown stretched over a curvy frame gave it away. The gown was purple, deep purple befitting a witch instead of the royal shade of a princess. Lucatiel’s clothes were dusty with travel but her companion’s were spotless somehow.

Lucatiel pictured the dress dusted with chalk as those hips erased the slate walls of a Melfian lecture hall. Or knocking over the intimate candles of a boudoir, or…

A deep breath. Light-headed. Thoughts foggy. She felt the floor beneath her buck and roll and she barely managed to flop down on the top of a nearby barrel. It reeked of stagnant water but that was better than fainting onto the slimy boards of the deck. Her companion grabbed another barrel and scooted it over before sitting across from Lucatiel. Close, and perhaps too close. The tip of the halberd’s handle slipped across the planks for a moment, but a casual gesture from its owner brought the damned thing upright and standing straight on the floor with no visible support. Then her companion scooted closer. Then closer again, perhaps uncomfortably so.

“Your mask. I have never seen its like.” This was true. “My own is traditional, the uniform of errant Mirrah. You must think me the odd one to wear a steel mustachio. It is the face of our ancient forebear, and the unified mien we traveling knights present to the world.”

Her companion stared but said nothing. She was as solid as Lucatiel herself, but as silent as those spectral intruders that infested these lands. Lucatiel’s spell of vertigo passed, but was replaced by something worse.

Her companion’s mask. Did it clash with the deliciously tight-fitting purple gown, or match with it too well? Lucatiel had no head for these things but the mask itself held her attention. It was the skull of some extinct ungulate, or an ungulate-headed demon. Probably this, as not only was the skull studded with rough-cut gems but the horns… There were too many of them, and they twisted in an evil helix, looking more like the cruel tentacles of a kraken than any kind of horn.

“Thank you for humoring me. I feel better- battling upon a ship is new to me. Your mask…” Lucatiel whispered it. “My knightly duty is to keep my own on in a foreign land swollen with enemies. Perhaps we shall fight again. We may become sisters-at-arms. I will let my mask drop then. It would please me if you would do the same. I would see your face.”

Her companion held Lucatiel’s gaze- with whatever inscrutable stare the horrible mask allowed. Lucatiel was not afraid of wizardry. Mirrah’s knights were trained to fight them, and Lucatiel had even hunted them. Mirrah’s own thaumaturgists confined their magics to the utilitarian, enchanting fortifications and defending against enemy sorcerers.

Lucatiel was afraid of the powers wielded by someone who took up that mask.

A thump and creak from below decks brought her out of her reverie, and the horned mask turned away. Their presence at this crumbling wharf was not just the whimsical slaughtering of empty-headed undead. No one sane was in Drangleic for any reason than to collect souls. Even the most hollowed-out wretch carried a wisp of the world’s own vital forces. Larger creatures were made stronger by accumulating souls, and the remains of veteran adventurers were often haunted by motes and whorls of the same stuff. The funeral pyres of saints and sages often held tiny crystalline souls amid the ashes, but even these were nothing compared to the true lure of this place.

A consecrated spring in Mirrah cured every ailment from gout to apoplexy, but not the curse of undeath. Only souls could fill that hole.

The moment’s respite was effective- Lucatiel found herself standing with rekindled confidence. After a brief stretch she quickly wiped off both blade and shield and was ready for action. Her companion’s grisly halberd enjoyed no such niceties- the blade and skull remained coated in the thick fluid that spilled from an undead’s desiccated veins. Was it blood? Ichor? Funerary balm?

The mask turned its gaze back to Lucatiel and nodded. A thumping and low moaning issued from the narrow door that led below decks. She could feel it even better through the wood of the deck, into her feet and reverberating in her shinbones. Her companion moved towards the opening without a word and Lucatiel hustled behind her, into a cramped dark turn of wooden steps, where she was assaulted by the thick, humid miasma of an evaporating tide pool, mixed with… something.

The floor of the lower deck was flooded with the murky water that lapped around the pilings all over this wharf, and the bestial noises intensified, coming from the next room. The two stopped for a moment and as Lucatiel tightened the straps of her shield, her companion hefted the halberd over one shoulder and produced a delicate wand of black branches, resembling nothing more than the switches her hard-nosed grandfather was always threatening her and her brother and their cousins with.

Sorcery, the dark kind. Favored by unsavory magicians seeking a shortcut to power, but also by those brilliant outcasts who had already mastered what other mystic arts had to offer. Mirrah’s martial culture frowned on something seemingly dishonorable, but was not victory as honorable as sorcery was not? One might as well flip an electrum piece.

Soaked to the knees. they moved as one through the doorway into the chamber beyond, the womb of a watery hell.

Before them lurched a great beast, the source of the thumps and groans. It staggered the imagination as to what purpose such an abominations served- for it was most certainly a creation of some twisted power. No natural creature appeared to be a twisted synthesis of armored giant, lizard, and baluchithere. One half wielded a pair of bludgeons, the other a pair of curved swords. Was it sentry? Prisoner? Two shadowy figures flanked it- their presence could support either theory.

The beast roared and stomped, bringing a spatter of water dripping through the hull, and the water began to rise. Lucatiel's companion swished her wand in the air, a curiously whimsical gesture considering what magic she unleashed. It was a vaporous sphere of intensely luminous darkness, like the afterimage of staring into the sun, as some devotees of the sun cults did. The sphere was in existence for only a moment before it launched itself at great speed towards one of the shadowy rogues. It impacted with the force of an avalanche, blasting fragments of the enemy all over the far wall. Lucatiel’s ears popped.

She was already moving in a low run slowed considerably by splashing through the foul water, and stopped herself from instinctively performing an evasive roll as one of the scimitars slashed her way. Instead she threw herself backwards in an uncomfortable bend. The scimitar missed and the thing growled in displeasure as it followed through clumsily. Lucatiel barely righted herself before something flashed through the air.

It was fast, but Lucatiel was faster. She batted it away with her shield, but it didn’t deflect- it was stuck in the shield- a wicked looking dart, and no doubt poisoned. She looked at the dart, then towards the rogue near her. A pair of deep-set eyes widened in surprise, but he couldn’t even react before Lucatiel had closed the distance with a leap out of the water, bringing her greatsword through the air in a pattern of swings that should not have been possible with such a long blade. Horaria, as the technique was called, “the hourglass.”

The rogue’s sand had run out and it fell into the water in pieces.

Self-satisfaction was the bane of the successful combatant, and everyone knew what the fables said about overconfidence… Lucatiel recalled that platitude as the beast performed a surprisingly acrobatic spin and the dense head of a mace landed on the small of her back. Flung against the wall, Lucatiel experienced a blast of pain and heard a wet crack that she was sure was her spine snapping. Looking up from where she had fallen in the water, she could see now that the crunching was due to a compressed spot of splintered wood where she hit.

The undead were curiously dense. Something about the darkness that suffused them. You could incapacitate an undead by kicking them off a cliff into a deep enough river. It explained their ability to lift and wield weapons fit for a giant, and their propensity for smashing helpless barrels and crates. In her last few days in her homeland, Lucatiel had felt a brief vertigo and leaned against a bookshelf. It had immediately broken apart with her weight and dumped her on the floor. When Lucatiel had risen, she’d caught a glance at herself in the mirror and started. There was something she would never have seen in the copper mirrors at barracks, but it was all silvered glass and gilt frames in the world of a knight. She had seen a tinge of gray on the skin of her face and the faintest beginnings of a dark spiral around her eye…

Lucatiel jolted from her reverie. The density of undeath did nothing to stifle pain. She was a knight. Of. Mirrah. She stood, raising her greatsword with both hands, shield having floated away somewhere.

Her companion’s wand had suffered a similar fate and she was now wielding the halberd in both hands, trading blows with the beast and darting backwards from the beast’s answers. There was sizable patch of wet darkness on the front of her gown that seemed to widen even in that instant.

The mask turned towards Lucatiel and in that moment she knew what had to be done.

The beast began to pivot slightly to build momentum for new strikes, and as soon as it presented a portion of its flank, the two warriors attacked. Her companion brought the skull blade down into the middle section of the thing, roughly tearing a chunk of flesh and gout of blood as she swept upwards. Lucatiel felt as graceful as a dancer with her own fluid cuts at the same part of the beast. It roared in pain and staggered on its ungainly legs, and they continued their assault until it was two beasts connected by strings of Volgen’s traditional delicacy, minced raw beef.

The two warriors panted in mutual exhaustion across the huge dead bulk half-covered in foamy water. Lucatiel remembered her drills and forced her breath into a regular cadence until she could summon it for speech.

“This place. So strange… the rumors truly did not prepare me. Even when-” She stopped as the slain beast began to give off a rill of steam.

No, not steam. Souls.

Souls were the reason so many undead thronged this land of Drangleic, not only from neighboring countries, but also other times and other worlds. Lucatiel lost count of the aggressively mindless former humans she had dispatched, but even the lowliest gave up their vital force upon their destruction, where it broke free to settle upon the architect of that violence. This fast, furtive sprite would be barely visible, even to those cursed undead whose lust for the stuff lent a keenness to their vision.

There was no mistaking this soul, though- the body seemed like one of the sun cult’s toroctonies, hot blood steaming in the cold dawn air. The bulk of it immediately blew on some silent wind toward Lucatiel’s companion, but a noticeable fraction of it came towards Lucatiel herself. Her body absorbed it, and then she felt… more.

The rush of a large souls was like standing in a geyser of euphoria- no, ecstasy. A dose of paregoric or a swig of estus let one feel the pain of consciousness disappear, but this- for moments Lucatiel felt as if she had never hurt at all.

Then just like that, the oily water and rotten planks reassembled themselves from the blurry edges of awareness.

The horned mask was turned her way and her companion moved close. Very close. Lucatiel saw her companion’s hands reach out to clasp her own. When one of them moved away, there was a sizeable pile of those funerary crystals, so full of vital essence. A precious gift from one undead to another. “This- I-” Lucatiel could no longer speak at all.

Her companion’s free hand reached slowly up Lucatiel’s front, through her collar and to the back of her neck- where the grip tightened just on the edge of being uncomfortable, the thumb slipping beneath Lucatiel’s mask. She gasped at the touch. A long moment, mask to mask, then the grip released and her companion spun about, retrieved both wand and halberd, and disappeared up the stairs.

***

“The longer I remain in this land, the more madness I discover. A wretched place!” Lucatiel was only slightly short of breath as she and her companion shuffled and danced in a circle around a terrifying figure, moving like the hands of a clock wound widdershins.

This warrior they faced was a discovery in madness as well. The lanky figure loomed over the two despite its hunched posture. It bore a pitted, chipped sword the length of a lance, and between a morion and rags and chains it offered no trace of identity, other than the energy of one who once wielded the power of the ancient lords, but was overwhelmed by insanity. Like a great golden idol submerged at the bottom of an algae-choked tarn.

The prisoner was still powerful. When engaged at little distance it would leap out of the fray and across the wide chamber with the lightness of a cricket. It swung its huge blade with great speed and moved in unpredictable ways. Lucatiel and her companion bore the cuts and nicks of having lost the upper hand multiple times. Their secret weapon had not manifested itself yet, as it had in earlier fights.

Lucatiel parried a truly crushing strike from the prisoner, her right arm reverberating like the gonging of some sinister bell. Then her companion parried a similar blow with the butt of her staff, though the force of this had staggered her and she almost fell. They needed to rally.

There was a creak of leathery muscles and the faint odor of funerary spices as the prisoner bunched itself and leaped away. Strange, but…

Lucatiel and her companion locked gazes- through masks, of course- and then their weapon revealed itself. The prisoner leaped again, in an arc designed to land right on them with a devastating downward strike.

The duo waited still until the last moment, then leaped forward toward the spot where the prisoner was due to land. The collision happened in an instant. Lucatiel’s companion buried the blade of her halberd into the back of the prisoner’s head. Lucatiel’s right hand thrust her greatsword up through the gnarled flesh of the prisoner’s torso, going right through and out the other side, where it momentarily and bloodily skewered the skin at the top of her companion’s neck and tipped her mask off.

Lucatiel was not able to see any more, as an awkward angle had allowed the prisoner’s sword to come down, severing Lucatiel’s left arm through simple force of gravity.

***

Lucatiel woke to a curious sensation- numbness and agony, the sensation of both being under a blanket and being the blanket. As her consciousness resolved she could see that only one part of each pair was true. They were still in the wide, vaulted room where they’d slain the prisoner, though all trace of that was gone. Her companion had built a fire in the center of the room, and Lucatiel lay not from it. Under a blanket.

On top of the blanket, straddling her, was her companion, doing something to Lucatiel’s shoulder. Lucatiel turned her head slightly and through a film of pain saw that her companion was deftly weaving a large curved through the skin that once covered an intact shoulder, and was reattaching her arm. But-

Lucatiel had seen something but some part of her hadn’t been able to understand it. Her companion’s mask was off.

Her features were somehow not what Lucatiel had expected, based of course on no information at all. She wasn’t some goddess of love- an unhealthy moon-tan, dull hazel eyes, black hair slicked down from being beneath a horned mask, a neck crusted with a ribbon of dried blood, but Lucatiel was full to bursting as she took her companion’s face in, and was glad her severed arm preventing her from making any untoward moves. A distraction was just what she needed.

“I was trained in war from childhood. If your family was poor, then that meant you were taken to the children’s barracks, and only the best students were allowed to try for distinguishing themselves on the battlefield. Of those, only the best were granted knighthood. My brother and I did just that, and suddenly it was if our family had been a proud noble house all along. One day my brother disappeared, and I…” A jolt ran through her as a stitch pulled too tight. Her companion looked at her with eyes widened, expression unreadable.

“The knighthood had scarcely seen skills such as mine before, but my brother Aslatiel was something else. We trained together, mastered the battlefield together, but I could never beat him. He received all the glory, was allowed to practice one of the forbidden fencing maneuvers, and given an ancient traditional greatsword. It was a worthless relic, compared to my newly made geisteel blade, but…” She stifled a laugh, barely, and a wave of pain synchronized with a thin hissing moan that escaped Lucatiel’s lips.

Her companion’s lips. One side of her mouth partly turned up in concentration. Life was a tunnel and her companion’s lips were the light at the end of it.

The surgery over, the hips atop hers shifted, and her companion reached a hand beneath Lucatiel’s neck, but gently this time, fingers settling against sweat-soaked hair. She brought Lucatiel’s head up slowly and with her other hand pulled up Lucatiel’s mask just slightly, before pressing something to her lips. Lucatiel drank.

Warming, healing estus. After a healthy swig, vision clearing, Lucatiel started to acquire more details. Her mask was on, but looking on the ground next to her were Lucatiel’s sword, shield, pack, and… clothes. Hastily mended clothes. So her companion had cut her clothes off her but left her mask on. Out of respect?

Her companion set the flask down and lowered Lucatiel’s head back down to the floor. Lucatiel could do nothing but gaze into those eyes, and could not even begin to articulate what it was she was feeling then. Even overwhelmed, Lucatiel went to speak again but her companion set one finger firmly over Lucatiel’s lips, shushing her and allowing the mask to slip back down.

The warmth of the estus and the exhaustion of the procedure began to overwhelm Lucatiel, and before her eyes slammed heavily shut, she saw her companion lay next to her on top of the blanket.

When Lucatiel woke, her companion was gone.

***

“I’m not sure I trust all what that wizard promised,” Lucatiel said. She didn’t like this place, how it muffled her voice and how the shadows seemed to creep about. “I’m not sure that one can fight darkness and also receive darkness? I do appreciate the challenge these wild chases offer.” She and her companion were squared off against two spectral warriors, with a spectral archer far behind them. The three were clearly another from another world- they appeared quite strange in the queer light of the chasm. Were they solid statues of obsidian, or insubstantial indigo illusions? Lucatiel knew that the answer was complicated, but there was an answer.

An uncomfortable silence dominated the rugged cave environs. None of the combatants wanted to be the first to move. Lucatiel- confident but not overconfident- spoke with a loud, clear voice. She wanted time to study

“You’re far from home, gentlemen. As are we. Your garb is not familiar to me- I suppose the garb of Mirrah I wear is not to you. And the color of your auras? Hmm.” The warrior she faced wore the fine clothing of royalty, but was tough stuff intended for combat, including the metal helmet that obscured his features. His hand rested calmly on the basket hilt of a rapier.

The archer wore strange and unfamiliar garb, but the warrior opposite her companion was not someone to be trifled with. The army was bulky and concealing, enormous plates everywhere, and a crested helmet, but it was all made of stone. Lucatiel had seen this before- in the Capitol Armory. It was so ancient it defied any conclusive dating, and it was so heavy it took multiple men to move even one piece. The strength this warrior must have had to wear it- and to wield his giant club made from a stalactite- would be staggering.

“You have heard of Mirrah, I believe? A land of proud knights, of veteran loremasters, and constant war.” The two warriors across from them looked at each other in what might have been confusion. “Thousands of years at war. It’s not possible for any nation to remain intact through that. But Mirrah… the secret of our success is also the reason for our bedevilment. Our loremasters discovered the key to a door that opened on other worlds, and to visit them, and receive visitors… Who could withstand an army that doubled or trebled in minutes, sellswords and myrmidons appearing out of nowhere? So every nation outside our borders came to steal our secrets, and they were all eventually defeated by it.” Tension built and she wanted to keep them on the hook long enough to discomfit them.

“…silvery dragon-headed foes. Red phantoms from worlds of violence. A golden army of sun-cultists bent on mute alliance. But I do not recall much about your hues. The codices surely have record, but I am ashamed to admit that I often shunned the library to spar on the proving grounds.” She unsheathed her greatsword and held it high. Her companion twirled her vile halberd around- showing off. The purple gown showed the movement of every curve and muscle and Lucatiel refused to be distracted. The fop drew his rapier with a flash, and executed a series of truly fast jabs and cuts in the air. Lucatiel laughed out loud. “Enough words, miscreants!”

The stone-armored warrior had raised his club, and slamming it to the ground, shook all of them, the vibration of the stone floor rattling Lucatiel’s shinbones. Then the fight began.

An arrow whistled past Lucatiel’s head from farther back in the chasm. She’d have to be careful of that. She started to close on her foe, who bounced lightly on his feet.

“A fencing-master? Well-trained. Lightly armored. A finely crafted blade. You must be sure of victory. But I am a knight of Mirrah. I have mastered six of the seven sword-arts, so I am sure as well.” Was she? For a moment she wondered if all this lore was remembered correctly. Or was it even real at all? The rapier snaked out to probe her defenses. “I see. You’re a fool. You expect your speed, your dancing movements to tire me as I swing a huge blade about? I am a knight of Mirrah. As children we practice with wooden swords- carved from an exotic wood. Not cheap.” She dodged another series of probing cuts from the rapier. He was good, and he was fast. “They call it ‘axe-breaker.’ Harder than steel. And heavier! This blade’s geisteel is half as heavy.” She let loose a series of thrusts and cuts to the air, exactly as her opponent had done before.

“So let us fence!”

***

The knight stirred where she had fallen, slumped into the corner of a drafty shack. A fire burned in the center of the shack, ringed by stones and lighting things a warm orange. She hadn’t lit it, she thought, and doubted she had the strength to at the moment. Then who?

She looked up and a queen of demons loomed over her, with a face of bones and devilish horns. The knight started, and felt a stomach plunging wave of fear that seemed like it should have belonged to someone else. She closed her eyes, the darkness behind the lids dancing with strange colors, her head swimming.

The knight opened her eyes again, and looked up. A woman in a dark dress stood over her. After a moment the face became clearer- it had moved closer or the knight’s vision was returning.

“Who are you? Who-” The details of the face continued to appear, their positions and proportions starting to make sense. “Oh- my dearest one. Of course it is you. Come closer.” Her companion crouched lower, face flickering between intense glare and bittersweet smile. Lucatiel reached up to touch her face- or tried to, the limb not quite obeying her will.

“Dearest one, how is your journey? I don’t know the goal that brought you to this horrible land, but I hope you have fared well. Perhaps we should journey together?” Lucatiel smiled and the room spun. “Oh, I… I must have told you once. If I did not, I should have. You are the sweetest balm for me in this poison place, but I have battled so long not to lose myself. To no avail… and have become desperate. So caught up in the idea of myself, of losing my memory and my mind. Avoidance of loss is no reason to live.” Her companion knelt beside her and cradled Lucatiel in her arms. Lucatiel’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. “If I were told the cure to this curse was to cut your throat, your sweet throat… I would do it.” Her companion held her still. Tears streamed down Lucatiel’s face.

“Why would I come here? For souls? No, not only… there must have been something.” Her eyes darted about, barely focusing, until her gaze came to rest upon a curious object. “A boy! No… a man. He looked just like this. But… why?” The object was a metal mask, cast in the image of a man’s face with beard and mustache. “Who?”

Lucatiel scrunched her face together, closing her eyes as hard as possible. The flickering colors pulsed behind her eyelids, and she chased the thoughts and words that floated just beyond her brain and tongue. Lips brushed her forehead and she relaxed her face, and after a moment opened her eyes.

“Your journey is not finished, dearest one. I can barely stand to see you go, but I pray for your safety.” She gestured vaguely at the metal mask. “Perhaps if you see this man, tell him I seek him? Tell him…” The knight wept again, soundlessly, sinking heavily into the arms and breast of her companion, forehead brushed by lips and strands of black hair.

“Lucatiel! My name is Lucatiel. Please remember me… for I may not remember myself.” She said nothing more, but closed her eyes, thoughts fading.

The knight opened her eyes. She first saw a fire across from her. Her head was resting on a rough haversack, and she was covered in a blanket. The knight turned her head and a queen of demons loomed over her, with pale skin and dark hair. The apparition didn’t frighten her, and she felt this might be someone she’d seen before. The knight smiled.

“Your mask…” A hoarse whisper. The knight gestured to her face. “My knightly duty is to keep my own on in a foreign land... perhaps we will meet again. We may become... sisters-at-arms. I will let my mask drop then. It would please me if you would do the same.” Her vision blurred. Time itself wavered. Memory faltered. She looked at the fire. She looked around, and was alone here. The knight closed her eyes, to rest, just for a moment.

“I would see your face.”

#dark souls 2 my beloved♡#good job everyone!! i really enjoyed everythin on here 😭

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