Yearn do I for years long past whence once I wore such splendid finery. Bedecked in silks and linen, so pleasing to both eyes and skin, I strolled through the tapestry hung halls of the realm regal and full of grace. Yet were thou to presenteth to me the most squalid rags of the poorest beggar, t’would be snatched from thy grasp by crooked fingers with such greedy haste as to debase even the most vile wretch or cur. And perhaps it doth seem strange to thee that one who wore such splendidness would crave the soiled attire of the destitute, but such thoughts arise from lack of circumstance and scene. As thou hang there, with thy roving eyes and fear wracked mind, I shall regale thee of the cause, and thou shalt be enlightened in thy final hours.
T’was the consequences of another’s act and time’s unending grinding passage which hath brought me to such a state as thou behold me now. Gaze upon me. Doth thou see a maiden full of such a fire as to set ablaze the passions of the lusty and light a burning jealousy within the bosoms of the beautiful? Doth thou see elegance, exquisite in both form and mind?!
Doth thou!?
Thou needst not speak. I behold thine answer in the gaping wreckage of thy ruined visage. Thou see’th me, not as I was but as I am. Naked. Bare and ugly. My skin blackened, my hair limp. My eyes sunken pits from which glinting jet orbs gaze out of a charred face. A once luxurious body now reduced to the skeletal timbers of a building consumed by fire, lacking even the decency to be hidden from the world by layer of cloth and fabric.
Perhaps now thou might possesseth the faintest ember of understanding as to why a goddess might clutch the trappings of a filthy slave. Crude and tainted as they would surely be, I can but only feverishly fantasize what comfort it might bring me to have my form be draped when whatever brethren of thine should next stumble into my domain. T’is but a delusion though. Made all the more perversely poetic by its seeming simplicity, such a dream is no less impossible than thy chances of witnessing it.
However tempting it may be attempting to strip thy coverings from thy desiccated flesh before I strip thy soul from thy gristly bones, I know t’would only bring equal pain to our existences. Thine likely less existential than mine, but if thou haddest lived in longing for so long as I, thou too might come to prefer such quaint discomfort. T’would however be for naught, for it is clear even by the light of these dreary flames that thine armament and attire are as decayed as thee.
These unimpressive relics flake with rust as much as they reflect the glimmer I so graciously deign to cast upon undeserving scraps. The straps and leather lashings more dry and brittle than mine own voice. The most light-fingered of my handmaidens past would hath struggled to remove them without irreparable collapse, let alone alight them on her lady. Even if by some miraculous marriage of dexterity and chance should thine armor be removed and placed upon me t’would yet crackle like an eggshell from the jittery skitterings of my ungainly blighted form. Moreover what is not metal would merely burn away soon enough.
In truth t’is not so disappointing as thou might expect, for I always much preferred the flowing gowns of womanhood to the accouterments of battle. Admittedly there is a sort of charm to such regalia. Might I add war to my portfolio, and appear at the forefront of a glorious army? An awful armored avatar of assault and conquest, feared yet exalted by both friend and foe! I suspect it might be diverting for a short while to slay and slaughter such lesser beings with every strike.
Still, one need not wield a weapon to give an imperious command. The blood of witches is the venom in my veins, and sorcery better suits my style. I need not cut them down to bring one to their knees before me. As thou hadst seen for thyself not so long ago.
Perhaps I should have speared in lieu of spared thee. For as thou hang there I am reminded that as of yet thou hast not been the most amusing guest. One might even, were they given to flights of fancy, harbor suspicion that thy silence and thy stares stem from discontent at the honor I bestow upon thee with this audience. Compounding thine embarrassment, though thy conversation is apparently so rare a treasure that thou canst bring thyself to share it, thou hast brought nothing else of great worth to offer me as rightful tribute.
Indeed, the only item thou lay claim to which hast even the most meager value is thy lovely surcoat. Faded, alas, and stained. Oh, but what a color! Of late the only paints upon the palette of my life are the ruddy hues of Hell and so many ghastly grays. But thou bringeth to me a splash of blue, so brilliant I see its shade with all my eyes. Rest assured I have no small measure of experience in jewels and gems, yet even I can not decide if what I behold is more sapphire or cobalt. I want it. More than song. More than spring. I want to feel that azure apparel on my skin. I want it!
...
It is a cruel gift thou hast brought me. See how the lightest caress of my fingers leaves sordid streaks of soot. Even if I endeavored to tear this garment off of thee with all the care a fresh mother uses to wipe the wisps from the brow of her babe, t’would still be befouled. Nor may I ever wash clean these hag’s claws. For although my domain is far enough from poor parched Izalith, the waters here are as murky and diseased as the spittle of a plague-bearer.
And we're all of that not flaw enough, thou lack mine divine stature. This tabard would scarce suffice to cover both the peaks of even my chared breasts at once, costume akin to the most tawdry of palace dancing girls.
No matter. Even in the throws of my lust to lay that scandalous scrap of fabric upon my body, I yet recognize the futility of such a gesture. Whose eyes aside from thine behold me indecent or demure? Those scattered stragglers of thy kind which venture into my domain are far too distracted by the teeth and talons and spindly twitches of my more monstrous facets to leer at my exposure. The demons notice not. For they have no notion of clothes nor, as thou may have observed, anything which needs polite concealment. And my darling sister, for all her chaste innocence, hath long since lost the sight of all save morphous banks of shifting fog.
Such facts reduce my fondest wish to frivolity. There is, after all, only thou. By now I suspect the flirtatious mystery of our bodily details hast long since evaporated for us both. But still I find myself desirous of thy dress. As thou seem committed to thine insulting silence, perhaps I shall instead leave thou hanging on the walls of my demesne. Decorating my chambers, as whist and stoic as the pretty painting thou strive to emulate. I would prefer a songbird, but thou art as recalcitrant as men always are. A portrait shall have to suffice.
What’s this? Thou grimace at the suggestion like a child with his medicine. Be honest with thyself, how many other women in this crumbling landscape would offer thee a place in their homes? Ballads ought be composed of my saintly virtue and patience. Thou swung thy sword to wound me, yet have I flayed the hand which held it from thy mongrel corpse? Thou hath trespassed across my borders. Thou hath slighted me with thy stone tongue. Thou hast yet to once avert thy shriveled eyes to preserve my modesty. My more impetuous reflection in the mirror of the past would have set thee ablaze yet kept thee alive for so long as my considerable magics could manage to prolong thy just punishment.
Time tempers us all, as my joyless tutors were wont to say. Of late my flames are as likely to smolder as leap in fury. Be not fooled by my youthful radiance. There resides within my bosom a flicker of The First Flame. However much a minor sliver of that blaze it may be, it can never be extinguished by the mere fallacy of mortality. Were one of thy kind to live and grow and breed ‘til his children had bred children of their own, then do thusly again tenfold, t’would still not number the years that I have breathed. Even alongside those walking deities of storied Lordran was I amongst the eldest.
Yet what is any sum of summers and winters but an arbitrary accounting? In truth I am as much a maiden as many born generations after. Courted often and twice betrothed yet never married nor burdened by child. Princess and sorceress yet never queen nor arcane teacher. To dominate and to rule is my birthright and upbringing, yet in all those ages I have never been matriarch to anything more than that miserable menagerie of maggots who skulk in the shadow of my sister.
Am I a venerable elder? Do the troubled turn to me for sage wisdom drawn from the well of my centuries? So think not me old, for was it but only a moon or two ago that I strolled through the gardens and galleries of my palatial compound? I will forever be unsure, as I have allowed myself to slip loose from the tracking of time. In these twisting tunnels there are no festivals. No caravans to await the return of. No blossoms to watch bloom. No infants transitioning from crawl to totter. Tell me not how long I have stalked this place, to know t’would only bring me sorrow.
Thou art familiar with this temporal uncertainty, are thou not? As thou die and wake and die again, doth thou know in thy heart how many days thou lay unmoving? Doth thou ever slowly raise thy head, rolling the stiffness from thy shoulders, wondering if thou hast been destroyed and remade or if t’was nothing but a nightmare as thou dozed by the fire? Doth thou know with what scribblings the astrologers demarcate and denote this year? Insignificant inquires of course. The more exigent question is, doth thou care?
Thy silence speaks volumes.
Chronology aside, there is perhaps another branch of the root from which my leniency stems. As unlikely as I would have held it, there exists the possibility my sister’s influence is a factor in our rapport. The waif always has been unseemly compassionate towards her servants and slaves. It is degrading for one of her heritage, yet she would embrace the lowliest of untouchables. And so she has, denying both my orders and all rational thought.
As oft is the case, thy kind are to blame. Some time ago even more pitiful specimens than the norm wormed their way close to my domain, where the far reaches of what thy kind now imaginatively calls "The Great Swamp" laps like the tongue of a toad upon my shores. Mewling and pathetic, unwanted and cast out even by their own brethren. They lacked thy undeathly resilience, and swiftly succumbed to all manner of foulness from the bites and bubbling brew they wallowed in. Disgusting pustules, not even a demon would consume them.
One, fractionally more fit than the rest, managed to drag its way out of the mire into my domain. Unfortunately my sister chanced upon it before I did. Instead of retching the milksop actually wept for the thing. The spoilt girl lacks even the foundations of the healing arts, but somehow got it into her pretty head to drain the protuberance from the sickling. The moment I discovered this I lanced the little boil immediately and flung it whence it oozed.
Expecting to refute her protestations, I returned instead to wheezing gurgles. It was far too late, for lacking any surgeons tools the darling simpleton had sucked the puss from the excrescences. I tried to cleanse her body with my most finesseful fires, but it was in vain. With every skipping beat she grew weaker as the puss began leaking into her heart. Frantic as my most sophisticated magics failed me, I thought then sought to examine the abscess this affliction seeped from for some clue or revelation towards a cure.
We! Blessed Daughter of Chaos. Descendant of the First Flame! Fishing in a swamp. Trawling for carcasses in sodden sunless darkness! My arms, my face, smeared with oily muck and stinking grease. Never before nor hence have I debased myself so. Yet when I finally found what I sought, the leeches and worse had already reduced it to such a state as I could barely discern if it was even the correct corpse. It was in that moment I believe I came to the very threshold of madness. Screaming blasphemous oaths of rage and retribution I raced still dripping to my sister’s chamber.
She lay as if already dead. A splinter of a Lord’s soul was not enough to burn away the encroaching purulence. Only something older and more powerful could save her. In desperation I did the unthinkable. I wrapped her limp fingers around the hilt of the ceremonial dagger she’s carried since childhood. A blade never before used in anger or fear, and together we plunged it into the very stone before us. I spoke the ancient rites, mere memorized words even one such as I barely understood the meaning of. Thy look of horror tells me thou know of the ritual I speak.
T’was the consequences of another’s act and time’s unending grinding passage which hath brought me to such a state as thou behold me now. Gaze upon me. Doth thou see a maiden full of such a fire as to set ablaze the passions of the lusty and light a burning jealousy within the bosoms of the beautiful? Doth thou see elegance, exquisite in both form and mind?!
Doth thou!?
Thou needst not speak. I behold thine answer in the gaping wreckage of thy ruined visage. Thou see’th me, not as I was but as I am. Naked. Bare and ugly. My skin blackened, my hair limp. My eyes sunken pits from which glinting jet orbs gaze out of a charred face. A once luxurious body now reduced to the skeletal timbers of a building consumed by fire, lacking even the decency to be hidden from the world by layer of cloth and fabric.
Perhaps now thou might possesseth the faintest ember of understanding as to why a goddess might clutch the trappings of a filthy slave. Crude and tainted as they would surely be, I can but only feverishly fantasize what comfort it might bring me to have my form be draped when whatever brethren of thine should next stumble into my domain. T’is but a delusion though. Made all the more perversely poetic by its seeming simplicity, such a dream is no less impossible than thy chances of witnessing it.
However tempting it may be attempting to strip thy coverings from thy desiccated flesh before I strip thy soul from thy gristly bones, I know t’would only bring equal pain to our existences. Thine likely less existential than mine, but if thou haddest lived in longing for so long as I, thou too might come to prefer such quaint discomfort. T’would however be for naught, for it is clear even by the light of these dreary flames that thine armament and attire are as decayed as thee.
These unimpressive relics flake with rust as much as they reflect the glimmer I so graciously deign to cast upon undeserving scraps. The straps and leather lashings more dry and brittle than mine own voice. The most light-fingered of my handmaidens past would hath struggled to remove them without irreparable collapse, let alone alight them on her lady. Even if by some miraculous marriage of dexterity and chance should thine armor be removed and placed upon me t’would yet crackle like an eggshell from the jittery skitterings of my ungainly blighted form. Moreover what is not metal would merely burn away soon enough.
In truth t’is not so disappointing as thou might expect, for I always much preferred the flowing gowns of womanhood to the accouterments of battle. Admittedly there is a sort of charm to such regalia. Might I add war to my portfolio, and appear at the forefront of a glorious army? An awful armored avatar of assault and conquest, feared yet exalted by both friend and foe! I suspect it might be diverting for a short while to slay and slaughter such lesser beings with every strike.
Still, one need not wield a weapon to give an imperious command. The blood of witches is the venom in my veins, and sorcery better suits my style. I need not cut them down to bring one to their knees before me. As thou hadst seen for thyself not so long ago.
Perhaps I should have speared in lieu of spared thee. For as thou hang there I am reminded that as of yet thou hast not been the most amusing guest. One might even, were they given to flights of fancy, harbor suspicion that thy silence and thy stares stem from discontent at the honor I bestow upon thee with this audience. Compounding thine embarrassment, though thy conversation is apparently so rare a treasure that thou canst bring thyself to share it, thou hast brought nothing else of great worth to offer me as rightful tribute.
Indeed, the only item thou lay claim to which hast even the most meager value is thy lovely surcoat. Faded, alas, and stained. Oh, but what a color! Of late the only paints upon the palette of my life are the ruddy hues of Hell and so many ghastly grays. But thou bringeth to me a splash of blue, so brilliant I see its shade with all my eyes. Rest assured I have no small measure of experience in jewels and gems, yet even I can not decide if what I behold is more sapphire or cobalt. I want it. More than song. More than spring. I want to feel that azure apparel on my skin. I want it!
...
It is a cruel gift thou hast brought me. See how the lightest caress of my fingers leaves sordid streaks of soot. Even if I endeavored to tear this garment off of thee with all the care a fresh mother uses to wipe the wisps from the brow of her babe, t’would still be befouled. Nor may I ever wash clean these hag’s claws. For although my domain is far enough from poor parched Izalith, the waters here are as murky and diseased as the spittle of a plague-bearer.
And we're all of that not flaw enough, thou lack mine divine stature. This tabard would scarce suffice to cover both the peaks of even my chared breasts at once, costume akin to the most tawdry of palace dancing girls.
No matter. Even in the throws of my lust to lay that scandalous scrap of fabric upon my body, I yet recognize the futility of such a gesture. Whose eyes aside from thine behold me indecent or demure? Those scattered stragglers of thy kind which venture into my domain are far too distracted by the teeth and talons and spindly twitches of my more monstrous facets to leer at my exposure. The demons notice not. For they have no notion of clothes nor, as thou may have observed, anything which needs polite concealment. And my darling sister, for all her chaste innocence, hath long since lost the sight of all save morphous banks of shifting fog.
Such facts reduce my fondest wish to frivolity. There is, after all, only thou. By now I suspect the flirtatious mystery of our bodily details hast long since evaporated for us both. But still I find myself desirous of thy dress. As thou seem committed to thine insulting silence, perhaps I shall instead leave thou hanging on the walls of my demesne. Decorating my chambers, as whist and stoic as the pretty painting thou strive to emulate. I would prefer a songbird, but thou art as recalcitrant as men always are. A portrait shall have to suffice.
What’s this? Thou grimace at the suggestion like a child with his medicine. Be honest with thyself, how many other women in this crumbling landscape would offer thee a place in their homes? Ballads ought be composed of my saintly virtue and patience. Thou swung thy sword to wound me, yet have I flayed the hand which held it from thy mongrel corpse? Thou hath trespassed across my borders. Thou hath slighted me with thy stone tongue. Thou hast yet to once avert thy shriveled eyes to preserve my modesty. My more impetuous reflection in the mirror of the past would have set thee ablaze yet kept thee alive for so long as my considerable magics could manage to prolong thy just punishment.
Time tempers us all, as my joyless tutors were wont to say. Of late my flames are as likely to smolder as leap in fury. Be not fooled by my youthful radiance. There resides within my bosom a flicker of The First Flame. However much a minor sliver of that blaze it may be, it can never be extinguished by the mere fallacy of mortality. Were one of thy kind to live and grow and breed ‘til his children had bred children of their own, then do thusly again tenfold, t’would still not number the years that I have breathed. Even alongside those walking deities of storied Lordran was I amongst the eldest.
Yet what is any sum of summers and winters but an arbitrary accounting? In truth I am as much a maiden as many born generations after. Courted often and twice betrothed yet never married nor burdened by child. Princess and sorceress yet never queen nor arcane teacher. To dominate and to rule is my birthright and upbringing, yet in all those ages I have never been matriarch to anything more than that miserable menagerie of maggots who skulk in the shadow of my sister.
Am I a venerable elder? Do the troubled turn to me for sage wisdom drawn from the well of my centuries? So think not me old, for was it but only a moon or two ago that I strolled through the gardens and galleries of my palatial compound? I will forever be unsure, as I have allowed myself to slip loose from the tracking of time. In these twisting tunnels there are no festivals. No caravans to await the return of. No blossoms to watch bloom. No infants transitioning from crawl to totter. Tell me not how long I have stalked this place, to know t’would only bring me sorrow.
Thou art familiar with this temporal uncertainty, are thou not? As thou die and wake and die again, doth thou know in thy heart how many days thou lay unmoving? Doth thou ever slowly raise thy head, rolling the stiffness from thy shoulders, wondering if thou hast been destroyed and remade or if t’was nothing but a nightmare as thou dozed by the fire? Doth thou know with what scribblings the astrologers demarcate and denote this year? Insignificant inquires of course. The more exigent question is, doth thou care?
Thy silence speaks volumes.
Chronology aside, there is perhaps another branch of the root from which my leniency stems. As unlikely as I would have held it, there exists the possibility my sister’s influence is a factor in our rapport. The waif always has been unseemly compassionate towards her servants and slaves. It is degrading for one of her heritage, yet she would embrace the lowliest of untouchables. And so she has, denying both my orders and all rational thought.
As oft is the case, thy kind are to blame. Some time ago even more pitiful specimens than the norm wormed their way close to my domain, where the far reaches of what thy kind now imaginatively calls "The Great Swamp" laps like the tongue of a toad upon my shores. Mewling and pathetic, unwanted and cast out even by their own brethren. They lacked thy undeathly resilience, and swiftly succumbed to all manner of foulness from the bites and bubbling brew they wallowed in. Disgusting pustules, not even a demon would consume them.
One, fractionally more fit than the rest, managed to drag its way out of the mire into my domain. Unfortunately my sister chanced upon it before I did. Instead of retching the milksop actually wept for the thing. The spoilt girl lacks even the foundations of the healing arts, but somehow got it into her pretty head to drain the protuberance from the sickling. The moment I discovered this I lanced the little boil immediately and flung it whence it oozed.
Expecting to refute her protestations, I returned instead to wheezing gurgles. It was far too late, for lacking any surgeons tools the darling simpleton had sucked the puss from the excrescences. I tried to cleanse her body with my most finesseful fires, but it was in vain. With every skipping beat she grew weaker as the puss began leaking into her heart. Frantic as my most sophisticated magics failed me, I thought then sought to examine the abscess this affliction seeped from for some clue or revelation towards a cure.
We! Blessed Daughter of Chaos. Descendant of the First Flame! Fishing in a swamp. Trawling for carcasses in sodden sunless darkness! My arms, my face, smeared with oily muck and stinking grease. Never before nor hence have I debased myself so. Yet when I finally found what I sought, the leeches and worse had already reduced it to such a state as I could barely discern if it was even the correct corpse. It was in that moment I believe I came to the very threshold of madness. Screaming blasphemous oaths of rage and retribution I raced still dripping to my sister’s chamber.
She lay as if already dead. A splinter of a Lord’s soul was not enough to burn away the encroaching purulence. Only something older and more powerful could save her. In desperation I did the unthinkable. I wrapped her limp fingers around the hilt of the ceremonial dagger she’s carried since childhood. A blade never before used in anger or fear, and together we plunged it into the very stone before us. I spoke the ancient rites, mere memorized words even one such as I barely understood the meaning of. Thy look of horror tells me thou know of the ritual I speak.
Yes, I sacrificed her to the First Flame.
The bonfire will not let her die. Until the world turns to ash and all is still, she shall be a Firekeeper and the fire will keep her... enduring. Staving off the poison, it does no more than that. And so she must remain huddled before it, weak as a cripple and pale as the weeds under a fallen log. Yet alive.
Is she grateful? Of course her courtly manners insist she profess as such, and I detect no overt trace of insincerity in her whispers. Still I wonder... Her form is now even further from what it was than after the fall of our city and bloodline. Her banishment from the former made worse by abject imprisonment in a squalid cell. Was altruism truly the only reason she deigned to aid that hopeless heap of disease? An unpleasant and unflattering insinuation, yet it houndeth me as I pace and ponder...
I can think of no other reason why she persists in giving succor to the scum of thy kind. The most charitable explanation is that she merely recognizes such actions will be negated by the link that now defines her soul. The First Flame is not inextinguishable, but it shall by no means ever succumb to any earthly illness. Doth prolonging the inevitable rot of those lepers bring her comfort? Some semblance of purpose? I disapprove of both, yet either is preferable to the creeping notion which clings to my psyche that she is trying to drown the dwindling embers of her existence through a slowly dripping deluge.
Perhaps I should not elevate her to such lofty philosophical heights. She is a goddess, however humbled of late, and it must please her to be worshiped. Heedless of the grim fate of that first pioneer, others eventually crawled to her feet, begging and weeping. She can not see the reverence in their ugly faces nor understand the language of their profuse praise. But I am sure she knows. At first I thought to stifle this, but I am not ever-present and they rather difficult to punish unfatally. I desire not their putrid tongues to touch my sister’s name, so have withheld it from them. Thus they hath given her an epitaph, The Fair Lady, while they glorify the temporary stallment of their forthcoming deaths as holy salvation.
I despise them all. But in a moment of pique I savaged a few with a lashing of their backs and their ears. Those perished of course, however the others latched onto the discovery that their snivelings are comprehended and groveled before me. Against my wishes I was added to their pantheon. T’is a bleak religion I imagine. Their savior and guardian give them nothing in reward for their devotion. I provide no food nor leadership. My sister doth not teach them nor restore their lost strength.
Not that I find them worthy of such endowment. The only passing use they have is on occasion feebly driving away the weakest scavengers from her slumbering brood. I considered unleashing thou near their hovels and caves, in the hope thou might rid us of them without my sister chastising me. Sadly such deceitfulness is beneath me, though t’was a pleasing thought. Thou might also have escaped to later stumble across her chambers, and it is my steadfast commitment that thou never meet her.
That said, I do rather hope thou come across my other siblings, if thou hast not already. Oh, art thou surprised? Indeed, I have far more than the sole I have spoken of so. Seven daughters and a son did my illustrious progenitor give birth to. Every one boasting of a different father, for Mother was as discriminating in her affections as a fire with what it burns. Such men meant nothing to Mother, and little to us. Few lived as long as we and none escaped lost Izalith on that disastrous day.
Mother ever was arrogant, long before she became a Lord. A trait we all shared, in our different ways. T’was Old Man Gwyn that truly feared the usurpation of the Gods by thy kind. For Mother, such was secondary to the terror of losing The First Flame. Thou canst ever understand. I was there. I beheld the First Flame in all it’s untamed majesty with these very eyes. To lose it. To live in a world without its light and warmth, is worse than the loss of even thy soul.
Mother believed none existed that understood the First Flame better than her. She was correct of course, but the knowledge of a child doth seem impressive to a babe. Granted, it was a straightforward premise. Fire spreads, doth it not? And a small blaze originated elsewhere might yet grow equally as large and bright as its parent. Thusly Mother intended to create a second flame from the fraction within her gleamed from the first. A seemingly simple plan, and who better to execute it than she?
Thou bare witness to the results. And I the most whole of all in Izalith. Most of thy kind perished forthwith, their souls rent and consumed by the new inhabitants which rushed from the chamber of my mother’s failure or warped before their eyes from the bodies of those more attuned to the flame. Those on the fringes which fled were later hunted down and killed by Gwyn's silver knights. A reasonable precaution, they likely were touched by evil in less obvious ways.
Such swift mercy was not the destiny of myself and my kin. In honor of her memory I’ll spare thee the details of Mother’s fate. Suffice to say that attempts have been made to kill it, but it scuttles into cracks and crevasses too small for me to follow.
Two of my sisters remain in that chamber, in a manner of speaking. They were more loyal than we to the prudence of Mother’s designs. Acolytes and assistants in her grand ritual, as we all haddeth once been so long ago, ‘fore the Age of Fire. The Chaos stretched them into ashen dryads, turning those priestesses of flame into the most common of fuel. I am of the opinion this was malicious mockery, though I could not say whence that intent sprung. They guard Mother to this day, the faithful fools, though I doubt they are capable of any true thought. I had not the heart to burn them.
Our brother, anomaly that he was, I always viewed as unseemly weak and emotional for his gender. His incessant sobbing persists to this day, though the calls for Mother thankfully ceased when his tongue sloughed off. I wish thou to meet him, for no other reason than that thou might better appreciate my grace. Take a moment to bathe in the glow of his blood and molten tears, and be illuminated as to the poise with which I bear mine own sorrows.
Kill him then, if thou would be so kind. I would be grateful to thee, for sparing me the echoes of his moans rippling through my domain whenever the dumb hulk staggers closer than usual to my chambers. Fret none, his death would not trouble me. I might yet take the task upon myself should blessed silence outweigh the risk of leaving my sister alone for an extended period.
If alone she would in fact be. At times another of my sisters seems to drift through these very tunnels, though I can never be sure. I had thought her dead, once even stumbling across her corpse before I settled here. Naturally it was too ravaged by the tragedy of the hour to be familiar, but it was yet still smothered by those unfashionable rags she was fond of cavorting about in. Tell me, doth a hem of gold bring beauty or worth to a dirty shroud? I would rather present my own black skin than cover it with those black folds, for all my talk of urges I refuse to don the garments of that traitorous slut.
I digress. Now and again, I sense what might be another divinity flickering near. Yet all my searching and sorcery findeth nothing. If the little whore doth slither just out of my sight, then she has lost the touch of true flame magics. The pyromancy of thy kind is but a shadow, for all that the sister I speak of once practiced something similar. Her ghost, should it endure, is no less an echo than our brother’s weepings. Exorcise it in my name if thou stumble across it, for the uncertainty agitates me.
The bonfire will not let her die. Until the world turns to ash and all is still, she shall be a Firekeeper and the fire will keep her... enduring. Staving off the poison, it does no more than that. And so she must remain huddled before it, weak as a cripple and pale as the weeds under a fallen log. Yet alive.
Is she grateful? Of course her courtly manners insist she profess as such, and I detect no overt trace of insincerity in her whispers. Still I wonder... Her form is now even further from what it was than after the fall of our city and bloodline. Her banishment from the former made worse by abject imprisonment in a squalid cell. Was altruism truly the only reason she deigned to aid that hopeless heap of disease? An unpleasant and unflattering insinuation, yet it houndeth me as I pace and ponder...
I can think of no other reason why she persists in giving succor to the scum of thy kind. The most charitable explanation is that she merely recognizes such actions will be negated by the link that now defines her soul. The First Flame is not inextinguishable, but it shall by no means ever succumb to any earthly illness. Doth prolonging the inevitable rot of those lepers bring her comfort? Some semblance of purpose? I disapprove of both, yet either is preferable to the creeping notion which clings to my psyche that she is trying to drown the dwindling embers of her existence through a slowly dripping deluge.
Perhaps I should not elevate her to such lofty philosophical heights. She is a goddess, however humbled of late, and it must please her to be worshiped. Heedless of the grim fate of that first pioneer, others eventually crawled to her feet, begging and weeping. She can not see the reverence in their ugly faces nor understand the language of their profuse praise. But I am sure she knows. At first I thought to stifle this, but I am not ever-present and they rather difficult to punish unfatally. I desire not their putrid tongues to touch my sister’s name, so have withheld it from them. Thus they hath given her an epitaph, The Fair Lady, while they glorify the temporary stallment of their forthcoming deaths as holy salvation.
I despise them all. But in a moment of pique I savaged a few with a lashing of their backs and their ears. Those perished of course, however the others latched onto the discovery that their snivelings are comprehended and groveled before me. Against my wishes I was added to their pantheon. T’is a bleak religion I imagine. Their savior and guardian give them nothing in reward for their devotion. I provide no food nor leadership. My sister doth not teach them nor restore their lost strength.
Not that I find them worthy of such endowment. The only passing use they have is on occasion feebly driving away the weakest scavengers from her slumbering brood. I considered unleashing thou near their hovels and caves, in the hope thou might rid us of them without my sister chastising me. Sadly such deceitfulness is beneath me, though t’was a pleasing thought. Thou might also have escaped to later stumble across her chambers, and it is my steadfast commitment that thou never meet her.
That said, I do rather hope thou come across my other siblings, if thou hast not already. Oh, art thou surprised? Indeed, I have far more than the sole I have spoken of so. Seven daughters and a son did my illustrious progenitor give birth to. Every one boasting of a different father, for Mother was as discriminating in her affections as a fire with what it burns. Such men meant nothing to Mother, and little to us. Few lived as long as we and none escaped lost Izalith on that disastrous day.
Mother ever was arrogant, long before she became a Lord. A trait we all shared, in our different ways. T’was Old Man Gwyn that truly feared the usurpation of the Gods by thy kind. For Mother, such was secondary to the terror of losing The First Flame. Thou canst ever understand. I was there. I beheld the First Flame in all it’s untamed majesty with these very eyes. To lose it. To live in a world without its light and warmth, is worse than the loss of even thy soul.
Mother believed none existed that understood the First Flame better than her. She was correct of course, but the knowledge of a child doth seem impressive to a babe. Granted, it was a straightforward premise. Fire spreads, doth it not? And a small blaze originated elsewhere might yet grow equally as large and bright as its parent. Thusly Mother intended to create a second flame from the fraction within her gleamed from the first. A seemingly simple plan, and who better to execute it than she?
Thou bare witness to the results. And I the most whole of all in Izalith. Most of thy kind perished forthwith, their souls rent and consumed by the new inhabitants which rushed from the chamber of my mother’s failure or warped before their eyes from the bodies of those more attuned to the flame. Those on the fringes which fled were later hunted down and killed by Gwyn's silver knights. A reasonable precaution, they likely were touched by evil in less obvious ways.
Such swift mercy was not the destiny of myself and my kin. In honor of her memory I’ll spare thee the details of Mother’s fate. Suffice to say that attempts have been made to kill it, but it scuttles into cracks and crevasses too small for me to follow.
Two of my sisters remain in that chamber, in a manner of speaking. They were more loyal than we to the prudence of Mother’s designs. Acolytes and assistants in her grand ritual, as we all haddeth once been so long ago, ‘fore the Age of Fire. The Chaos stretched them into ashen dryads, turning those priestesses of flame into the most common of fuel. I am of the opinion this was malicious mockery, though I could not say whence that intent sprung. They guard Mother to this day, the faithful fools, though I doubt they are capable of any true thought. I had not the heart to burn them.
Our brother, anomaly that he was, I always viewed as unseemly weak and emotional for his gender. His incessant sobbing persists to this day, though the calls for Mother thankfully ceased when his tongue sloughed off. I wish thou to meet him, for no other reason than that thou might better appreciate my grace. Take a moment to bathe in the glow of his blood and molten tears, and be illuminated as to the poise with which I bear mine own sorrows.
Kill him then, if thou would be so kind. I would be grateful to thee, for sparing me the echoes of his moans rippling through my domain whenever the dumb hulk staggers closer than usual to my chambers. Fret none, his death would not trouble me. I might yet take the task upon myself should blessed silence outweigh the risk of leaving my sister alone for an extended period.
If alone she would in fact be. At times another of my sisters seems to drift through these very tunnels, though I can never be sure. I had thought her dead, once even stumbling across her corpse before I settled here. Naturally it was too ravaged by the tragedy of the hour to be familiar, but it was yet still smothered by those unfashionable rags she was fond of cavorting about in. Tell me, doth a hem of gold bring beauty or worth to a dirty shroud? I would rather present my own black skin than cover it with those black folds, for all my talk of urges I refuse to don the garments of that traitorous slut.
I digress. Now and again, I sense what might be another divinity flickering near. Yet all my searching and sorcery findeth nothing. If the little whore doth slither just out of my sight, then she has lost the touch of true flame magics. The pyromancy of thy kind is but a shadow, for all that the sister I speak of once practiced something similar. Her ghost, should it endure, is no less an echo than our brother’s weepings. Exorcise it in my name if thou stumble across it, for the uncertainty agitates me.
Heh...
Behold! I command thee as if thou were some knightly champion of mine. Ha! How easily we slip into the roles we know best. Not an hour past thou attempted to murder me, and here I stand casually ordering thee to slay mine own kin. The web of intrigue that I once spun so many years ago has seemingly left cobwebs in the corners of my mind.
For a moment I forgot thou are but a fly, not a weaver such as I. I thank thee. Thy repeated attempts to ring that bell I scavenged from the temple I was once worshiped in might unknowingly be a bulwark against the temptation to sew shut mine own eyes. To think the poetry and pageants and plays of my past hath been replaced by playing with thou. Though mayhaps it is more pain than play to thee, in which case I would wonder what madness motivates thee to continue this game.
It must frustrate thee, that I stymie thy quest for the destruction of my entire culture. Surely thou doth not think of it so, but thou lack the perspective of a greater being. I care not whether thou seek to usher in a new Age of Darkness for noble or selfish purposes, neither are compatible with the Age of Fire I am sustained by.
I do not condemn thee for thy goals. Was not I born in one Age, yet present at the start of a different one? I act not in hypocrisy, for I killed and destroyed so that I might then bask in privilege and pleasure. Our conflict is not a matter of politics nor morality nor obstinance. I hinder your sacrilegious pilgrimage but for one simple reason. I do not want to die. Or worse than death, to fade into nothingness.
I find it unlikely thou truly grasp the implications of thine own deeds. Thou art a puppet, dancing to the tune of usurpers and monsters who long predate thee. I am the fire, yet they and thee would have me become the fuel. Thou fool.
Doubt flits across thy face.
Thou wondereth how I could claim to know such things, sequestered as I am within this drab cavern. Thou asserts that thy destiny is thine alone, that any seers or advisers which might cajole thee are but sycophants and their words mere suggestions. Thou wagers I would say anything to save mine own shriveled skin.
Or doth thou fear there is a spark of truth in what I say?
I may kill thee. Rip thee asunder. Burn thee. Entrap thee in a net thou could never escape from. Taunt thee, torment thee. I have, thou may recall, already done all those things and so much more. But I have never spoken falsely to thee. Nor shall I ever.
When one lives as long as I, the truth is the only thing which protects one from delusion. If I lie to thee, lie to my sister, lie to her slaves, lie to the demons in my heart, lie to the eidolons of all those people I have met, then how could I avoid lying to myself? Should I start lying to myself, how after seven centuries could I keep track of so many disparate versions of reality?
Lesser beings need not live with the consequences of their falsehood for long. I am not so fortunate. I will oppose thee, stop thou from traversing though my domain with all that I can do to prevent it. But I will do so openly. Honestly. We owe each other that, little mortal, do we not?
Though perhaps what is most owed between us is an apology from thee. Worse than even thy murderous overtures is thy rebuff of my guidance and lessons. Were thy tongue as quick to lash out at me as thy sword arm, thou might learn so much of this world thou art seeking to upend. But I sense thou art skeptical of both these suggestions.
What do I know of the world thou ask? Have I not wrapped myself up in a blanket of dreams? Unengaged with that which changed. My perspective warped and shattered. Tinted, tainted, antiquated.
Bah.
Thy mind is as narrow as the tunnel thou entered life by. It should come as no surprise that I stalked the ruins of Izalith or Lordran, now and then over the years. I found nothing but pain and grief and anger and misery in them both.
In Izalith the demons are drawn to my soul as moths to a more base flame. I am swarmed, hounded at every step by every deformed and demented nightmare which runs, crawls, or flies. Such excursions are exhausting, and the tedium of violence distracts from any quaint reminiscing I might do in the shattered and blasted skeleton of that crumbled city.
Lordran was faint improvement, though at least more pleasant to behold. What little of it I could discern, that is. Thou might find this ironic, but for all my many eyes up there my vision is almost as poor as my sister’s clouded sight. For thou see the sunlight blindeth me, even mine own flames cause me great discomfort should they grow too vibrant.
Oh, but I manage well enough at night. And what was there to entice me, in that abandoned and forsaken realm? I could barely walk ten paces without stepping on one of thy kind, reduced to such a hollow emptiness as to lack the gift of sentience. Some areas are infested by the irksome spawn of the Gravelord, others overrun by the zealots and fanatics of Gwyn or his children, and yet more by the twisted minions of that insane freakish wyrm. All of whom attacked me on sight, merely for approaching.
And the reward for my intrepid journey? Vine overgrown graves, vistas of decay, silence where once music played, not even a market or merchant where I might purchase fine food or drink or trinkets to adorn myself with. The novelty wore thin swiftly and nostalgia is a fool's fare.
I see thy thoughts. Thou inquireth why I do not simply leave these dark and hate filled tombs, to roam those foreign lands I once heard tell of? There are other nations neighbor and far, entire continents even if ones ken contains them. And what, pray tell, would thou have me do once I am there? Present myself as the princess I am at their courts? Ha! It certainly would cause a scandal. The demon debutante. Imagine the fine debates we might have, their priests and scholars and I. The screaming and clash of arms would be fine accompaniment to the dances and weddings I might attend as guest of honor.
Or perhaps thou suggest I become a humble traveler, wandering from humble village to village? Shall I burn their fields and devour their livestock until at length entire armies are marched against me and I at last persist as nothing but a bogeyman mothers speak of to their children in the hopes they might behave?
For that I abandon my identity. My history. My family, my homeland, my purpose, and my heritage. Oh, I freely admit that a change in scenery can be refreshing, but there is also comfort in familiarity. Our tussles, diverting as they may be, are infrequent. Most of my time is whiled away in reflection, prayer, and rest.
My tainted half is insatiably hungry regardless of what or how much it consumes, so I do not bother feeding it. The true me has not needed to eat for survival since the day I was born. I need not sleep, which is fortunate as I no longer can do so with these lidless eyes. Down here, the sun does not rise, the watchman does not decry the hour, and I am alone.
These things give rise to unending wandering through the halls of my domain. Hours uncountable walking speechless and without destination, until some interloper gives me reason to halt. I feel neither bored nor tired, my mind alert but not particularly active.
Such routine gives me succor. Heresy yes? We! Blessed Daughter of Chaos. Descendant of The First Flame! Ha. Repetition and patterns and order are against everything I was raised to believe in. It manifests even now in the randomness of which tunnel I traipse down at a crossroads. But how much freedom and variation can be found in a confined, unchanging labyrinth?
I accept my banished fate.
But what of thee? Thou seem disinterested in hanging there for longer than thou already have. Blame me not for thy condition, it was thine own weakness that allowed me to capture thee without needing to slay thee outright. That thou art unusually difficult to kill, thus suffering more before succumbing, hast nothing to do with me.
I know thou will not beg. Feeble and ignorant and childish thou may be, but thy pride is steadfast. My dignity is not diminished by thy presence. While I might struggle to view thee with respect, I can and will acknowledge thee that. Besides which, it is not natural that we remain unmoving. Even a caged flame flickers.
What doth it matter if I release thee? Thou will return.
Hmmmm...
Perhaps I was too swift in my condemnation of my mother’s dubious standards, for I find it brings me a ghoulish delight to consider myself the object of thine erstwhile affections. Ours shall be a courtly love, for I suspect the difference in size would render satisfaction unlikely, if thou even possesseth properly functioning equipment at all. Still, know that I am a generous mistress, who sees fit to grace her loyal paramours whatever favors strike her fancy.
Go on. Go on ahead. These bonds I free thee from are but gossamer to the strands around thy heart. I give thee leave to wander for a spell that sun haunted ruin thou seek to demolish.
Disrespectful louse! Bow before thou turn thy back on a goddess!
...
I imagine this to be one of thy more agonizing deaths of late, but of course no pain is worse than to be apart from the one thou love. As thy world fades to black yet again, know also this. There are none in Lordran, or any other land, that understand better than I the feeling of flame in the darkness. We are as one, thou and I, for no covering or lack thereof could obscure our true natures from each other. I see that... dark sign of fire which brands thy skin and thy soul. Thou art as inescapably cursed as I.
Thou shalt return to my domain. Thou must, just as I must remain here. Unaccompanied... and unclothed.
In Izalith the demons are drawn to my soul as moths to a more base flame. I am swarmed, hounded at every step by every deformed and demented nightmare which runs, crawls, or flies. Such excursions are exhausting, and the tedium of violence distracts from any quaint reminiscing I might do in the shattered and blasted skeleton of that crumbled city.
Lordran was faint improvement, though at least more pleasant to behold. What little of it I could discern, that is. Thou might find this ironic, but for all my many eyes up there my vision is almost as poor as my sister’s clouded sight. For thou see the sunlight blindeth me, even mine own flames cause me great discomfort should they grow too vibrant.
Oh, but I manage well enough at night. And what was there to entice me, in that abandoned and forsaken realm? I could barely walk ten paces without stepping on one of thy kind, reduced to such a hollow emptiness as to lack the gift of sentience. Some areas are infested by the irksome spawn of the Gravelord, others overrun by the zealots and fanatics of Gwyn or his children, and yet more by the twisted minions of that insane freakish wyrm. All of whom attacked me on sight, merely for approaching.
And the reward for my intrepid journey? Vine overgrown graves, vistas of decay, silence where once music played, not even a market or merchant where I might purchase fine food or drink or trinkets to adorn myself with. The novelty wore thin swiftly and nostalgia is a fool's fare.
I see thy thoughts. Thou inquireth why I do not simply leave these dark and hate filled tombs, to roam those foreign lands I once heard tell of? There are other nations neighbor and far, entire continents even if ones ken contains them. And what, pray tell, would thou have me do once I am there? Present myself as the princess I am at their courts? Ha! It certainly would cause a scandal. The demon debutante. Imagine the fine debates we might have, their priests and scholars and I. The screaming and clash of arms would be fine accompaniment to the dances and weddings I might attend as guest of honor.
Or perhaps thou suggest I become a humble traveler, wandering from humble village to village? Shall I burn their fields and devour their livestock until at length entire armies are marched against me and I at last persist as nothing but a bogeyman mothers speak of to their children in the hopes they might behave?
For that I abandon my identity. My history. My family, my homeland, my purpose, and my heritage. Oh, I freely admit that a change in scenery can be refreshing, but there is also comfort in familiarity. Our tussles, diverting as they may be, are infrequent. Most of my time is whiled away in reflection, prayer, and rest.
My tainted half is insatiably hungry regardless of what or how much it consumes, so I do not bother feeding it. The true me has not needed to eat for survival since the day I was born. I need not sleep, which is fortunate as I no longer can do so with these lidless eyes. Down here, the sun does not rise, the watchman does not decry the hour, and I am alone.
These things give rise to unending wandering through the halls of my domain. Hours uncountable walking speechless and without destination, until some interloper gives me reason to halt. I feel neither bored nor tired, my mind alert but not particularly active.
Such routine gives me succor. Heresy yes? We! Blessed Daughter of Chaos. Descendant of The First Flame! Ha. Repetition and patterns and order are against everything I was raised to believe in. It manifests even now in the randomness of which tunnel I traipse down at a crossroads. But how much freedom and variation can be found in a confined, unchanging labyrinth?
I accept my banished fate.
But what of thee? Thou seem disinterested in hanging there for longer than thou already have. Blame me not for thy condition, it was thine own weakness that allowed me to capture thee without needing to slay thee outright. That thou art unusually difficult to kill, thus suffering more before succumbing, hast nothing to do with me.
I know thou will not beg. Feeble and ignorant and childish thou may be, but thy pride is steadfast. My dignity is not diminished by thy presence. While I might struggle to view thee with respect, I can and will acknowledge thee that. Besides which, it is not natural that we remain unmoving. Even a caged flame flickers.
What doth it matter if I release thee? Thou will return.
Hmmmm...
Perhaps I was too swift in my condemnation of my mother’s dubious standards, for I find it brings me a ghoulish delight to consider myself the object of thine erstwhile affections. Ours shall be a courtly love, for I suspect the difference in size would render satisfaction unlikely, if thou even possesseth properly functioning equipment at all. Still, know that I am a generous mistress, who sees fit to grace her loyal paramours whatever favors strike her fancy.
Go on. Go on ahead. These bonds I free thee from are but gossamer to the strands around thy heart. I give thee leave to wander for a spell that sun haunted ruin thou seek to demolish.
Disrespectful louse! Bow before thou turn thy back on a goddess!
...
I imagine this to be one of thy more agonizing deaths of late, but of course no pain is worse than to be apart from the one thou love. As thy world fades to black yet again, know also this. There are none in Lordran, or any other land, that understand better than I the feeling of flame in the darkness. We are as one, thou and I, for no covering or lack thereof could obscure our true natures from each other. I see that... dark sign of fire which brands thy skin and thy soul. Thou art as inescapably cursed as I.
Thou shalt return to my domain. Thou must, just as I must remain here. Unaccompanied... and unclothed.