Work Text:
The parish had nearly become a sanctuary, nearly returned to its original function. Rhea had knelt before the altar and prayed. For Nico, for Vince, for herself. And for that hero, that great knight who had rescued her from that pit where she had lost her companions.
That knight Cyno, who Rhea’s thoughts kept returning to. She had had such a lovely smile when Rhea had trained her in the casting of miracles in that emptied Chapel. Crooked and cracked teeth, a gap between her incisors. Not something Rhea would have lingered on in Thorolund. But in this blasted land, that smile had meant everything to her. Especially since all else had been stripped from her.
Rhea sat in the cell where the Channeler had thrown her after his latest round of experiments. Her will had been sapped and she was waiting to hollow. She was useless. Her miracles had been spent; she’d transferred all she had, all her faith to that hero who'd saved her from the darkness. She had failed in her task and her companions had been left in the dark to hollow and die. Now it seemed she would share their fate. It had just taken longer for the darkness to catch up to her. She'd rather hollow than remain a prisoner of whatever took her.
Footsteps down the hall. Her body ached, and her joints were stiff. The hollowing, surely. She had never felt so tired before, even as she had born the Curse of the Undead. Still, she willed herself to stand. She would face her captor standing, a true priestess of the Way of White, for as long as she could still claim that title. As long as she remained unhollowed.
It was not the Channeler who stopped in front of her cell to stare at her. A hollow soldier, their face hidden behind a bascinet, stood stock still on the other side of the bars, head tilted to the side as they peered down at Rhea. They were much bigger than her. And armed - a straight sword was sheathed at their side. Their hand was resting on the pommel.
In silence, the two stared at one another.
“Well?” Rhea barked at last, unable to stand the quiet any longer. “How has your master decided to torment me now? Surely his next experiment is not simply to have you gawk at me.”
A short laugh echoed in the soldier's helm. Rhea started. She resisted backing further into her cell. A hollowed should not have laughed - she had underestimated what she was dealing with.
The soldier raised their hand from their sword’s hilt and lifted it to the visor of their helm. They lifted the plate back, revealing their face. Purpled and collapsing, the last stages of hollowing. They smiled, lips curling up in a rictus. Cracked and crooked teeth. A gap between the front two. Recognizable still, but so different from that dashing knight who had saved her.
Rhea gasped. “Cyno? Oh, great hero, what has led you to this state and this place?”
“I've chased the sun to this damp place.”
Rhea was again taken aback. “You speak still?”
“It is not as bad as it looks.” Still, they closed the visor back down over their rotting face.
“How can you speak still, hollowed as you are?”
Cyno stiffened, causing her armor to creak. “My body may be hollowing, but my spirit remains unbowed.”
“How can that be? How can you experience the hollowing but not be Hollowed? How has your spirit held while Vince and Nico’s withered in the dark?”
Cyno was quiet, thinking.
“I still have a task at hand.”
“But so did they.”
She shrugged, armor creaking again. Rust came off in flakes. It did not suit her as much as the leathers she had been wearing when they had first met. It fit her form awkwardly, hanging off her body in a way her earlier armor had not.
“Would you like me to let you out, Rhea?”
Rhea gripped the bars. Of course. She did not want to stay under the Channeler’s thrall. She would be outside his grasp, but what then? Should she return to the parish she would still be rooted in place. Still be without purpose. Still slowly hollowing.
“I can circle back, after my work is done. If you are frightened.” Cyno’s hand had drifted down towards their weapon handle again.
Rhea was frightened. “Yes. I do not want to get in your way.” Rhea let go of the bars and crouched down. What if the knight did not return for her?
Cyno, armor clanking, managed to lower herself down as well, matching Rhea’s eye level. “I'll be back soon. Let me open the door for you, though, in case I do not return.”
“The bonfires will let you return.”
“Perhaps.” Cyno unhooked a great keyring from her belt and jangled through the keys she had picked up during her battles. The sound echoed off the cold walls of the prison. No guards came. Killed by Cyno already.
She found the correct key, undid the lock, and swung the door open.
Rhea looked up at her. “Please return.”
Cyno turned, and left, armor creaking, weapon still sheathed.
Rhea looked through the open cell door. The shadows that the bars cast on the floor were so different from this position, no longer cast across her body.
She sat, and waited. Empty. Cyno did not return quickly. Neither did the Channeler. What if neither of them returned? Rhea pushed herself to her feet, and slowly nudged open the cell door. The hinges squealed, loud and shrill against the silence.
Without a weapon, without her miracles, she left the prison cells, and ascended the stairs. Oh to be back in that green place overlooked by its giant avian guardian. It had seemed so foreign when she had first arrived, so different from Thorolund. But now she longed only to return to that spot. It's quiet pools and woeful inhabitants. She could not return the the parish. It had become tainted when the Channeler took her. There was nothing left for her there.
She carried herself carefully up the slick steps. She would not take another fall. She kept her hands in front of her, though she knew she could not win in a fight with just her bare hands.
Perhaps, if she managed to return, she would visit the fire keeper. When she had first arrived she had wanted so badly to speak to someone, she had crept down to the fire keeper’s cell. But then the two had only sat in silence, Rhea’s nerve having failed her. She was glad of it now, that she had not added more burdens to the fire keeper’s share. But perhaps Rhea could tell her of other things. Lighter memories. Or the two could sit in silence again. Rhea at least would be glad of the company - she hoped the fire keeper would be as well.
Above her, there was dim light. The corridor grew tighter around her as the light grew brighter, in degrees. She kept on, though the crumbling walls and mortar threatened to trap her with their closeness. She did not remember the way she had been brought in. Surely this was not it.
She slipped on loose cobble. Falling forward, she caught herself with her still outstretched hands. Something snapped, and her left arm collapsed. Shooting pain, but the Channeler had done worse than a broken wrist.
Rhea lay in the grime, taking deep breaths. The air was stale, and the light so far away. She should have waited for Cyno. Everything smelled of stale, stagnant water. The scent would cling to her robes, should she even manage to leave this place.
She held her broken wrist close to her body as she clambered back to her feet. She had failed in her holy task, but she could pull herself out of this corridor. She did not need Cyno to walk her through this. She could get out into the light herself.
The corridor did not come to an exit; the structure had long collapsed. Rhea at last had only to clamber over the loose decay of the past.
Her destination - the crow and the pools and the bonfire- was still before her, but she stood in in darkness that was less than what had come before. She did not know which direction to go, but she headed out. If Cyno failed she did not want to merely wait around for the Channeler to recapture her, idling outside his domain.
All around her were the remnants of a once great city. Water stood in great bodies, lapping at what remained of mortar and stone. Rhea sloshed through it, trying to hold her robes above the water line. Small, sickly beams of light filtered in through a broken ceiling. Less dark than the archives and the cell. Rhea vowed, on Vince and Nico’s memories, that she would not become trapped in the dark again.
She tread carefully, avoiding the shattered stone hiding in the brackish water, wary of any movement in the distance. Who knew what still lived in the dark corners of this abandoned city.
There was a shout behind her, and Rhea threw herself behind what remained of a pillar. Footsteps kicking up water. Rhea yanked up a moldering log that lay in the water beside her, perhaps a beam long ago, and hefted it like a club in her uninjured hand. No good against the Channeler, but she could at least try. She would strike and run, hope the deepening water was as much as an obstacle to the Channeler as it was to herself.
The footsteps grew closer, just beyond the ruins Rhea crouched behind. Rhea drew herself into a crouch, prepared to attack and bolt. The figure rounded the pillar, armor clanging. Rhea swung.
“Hey, now,” Cyno took in a sharp breath as she caught the club hurtling towards her stomach. The force made her take a few steps back, armor-clad feet splashing up small waves.
“It's only me.”
“Oh, Cyno!” Rhea nearly rushed the knight in a hug. It would have been improper, so she held back, merely drawing closer. Cyno pulled up her visor to look at her better, flashing Rhea a smile.
Her face was restored, smile charming and roguish again, rather than a rictus. The hollowing had been reversed. Rhea extended a shaking hand to rest against the knight’s breastplate, allowing herself at least that touch.
“You are unhollowed.”
“Yes.” Cyno did not explain, but instead merely brought an armored hand up to rest under Rhea’s palm. “I thought you were going to stay in the cell a bit longer - I ran out after you. Why did you hide when I called?”
“I did not recognize it as you.” Rhea resisted the urge to step closer when Cyno increased their contact. A small thing, not worth making into something larger than it needed to be.
Cyno noticed the way Rhea kept her other hand crumpled up near her side. She reached out to take Rhea’s arm, as gentle as she could in her heavyweight, ill-fitted armor.
Not gentle enough. Rhea sucked in air through her teeth, trying not to make a sound.
“Ah. I do not know how to mend that.”
“I gave you my miracles, did I not?”
Cyno stared at her.
“They are more than fancy lights.”
“Ah.” Cyno looked back to her broken wrist. “Ah, of course.”
Cyno’s hand still beneath Rhea’s grew warmer and began to emit a soft light. Rhea watched, bemused. She had given her miracles to someone with no natural talent for it, it seemed, for as long as it took Cyno to get started. The light guttered and choked. Cyno sighed.
“Give me just a moment.”
The light rekindled and Cyno reached for Rhea’s wrist.
Sloshing in the water, and the light extinguished as Cyno turned to look.
“Perhaps we should do this somewhere else. Let us find a bonfire first.”
Rhea nodded. The two walked side by side. Had they been still in Thorolund, and Rhea not been a noble, or Cyno been a little cleaner, Rhea would have linked their arms as they walked. She would very much have liked that, to still be in Thorolund and to merely be out on a pleasant walk. In between her classes both of them still alive and unmarked by the Dark Sign. But they were here, undead, and Rhea did not reach out for Cyno’s arm. She was sure Cyno would have accepted the gesture, at least. She had smiled so tenderly at her after all.
Whatever crackled in the water was not interested in the two passing women, or feared the sword Cyno had unsheathed and held, tip down before her as she walked.
They returned to Firelink Shrine, emerging from the moldering ruins into the sunlight of the shrine.
The lamenting knight was still there. Petrus was gone. Rhea looked to Cyno but did not ask about the absence. Cyno glanced away, but her eyes roamed back to the place where the cleric had once waited.
“Cyno, the bonfire has dimmed, look.” The fire was low, the glow of hot metal not even creeping halfway up the sword thrust in its middle.
“Yes.”
“You rescued the fire keeper’s soul, did you not? Has she been harmed in my absence?”
“She is as fine as she can be.”
“Then the fires are going out.” Rhe had not wanted to believe it, even as she had embarked on her holy task.
“Yes.”
Cyno knelt before the bonfire and pulled Rhea down to sit with her. She again took Rhea's hand, with another jolt of pain as her armor knocked against Rhea’s aching wrist. The holy light glowed around her hands again and radiated to Rhea. Slowly, the pain numbed. Very slowly, as the two sat in silence while the sun refused to set above them.
“I would have imagined you would have been able to practice on yourself. What with the heroics you get up to.”
Cyno laughed, a barking harsh sound.
“I would not call my actions heroics.”
Rhea regarded her, trying to read her eyes, the lines in her face. When she spoke again her voice was quieter, cowed. “Your rescues of me have been very heroic.”
Cyno pulled away, taking the holy light with her, and from the way her hand ached, Rhea did not think she was yet fully healed.
“You know I used to rob girls like you.” Cyno’s lips had pulled back, the first quirk of a sneer.
Rhea stared.
“Did you think I was some pure and godly knight?”
Rhea regarded Cyno’s ill-fitting armor. Grave-robbery. And her leathers before, the spider-shield still strapped to her back, only a bandit prowling high cliffs would sport such an emblem. Rhea had not wanted to see before. A good and kindly knight with a gleaming shield had rescued her from the dark places. Not some murderer.
“I gave you my miracles.”
“And I used to rob pretty rich girls like you. Out on the roads.” Cyno smiled her rictus smile again, cracked lips pulling back over yellowed teeth. What an ugly smile she had, Rhea now thought.
Rhea wanted to scream, to bat her away. She had always let herself trust too easily, tricked once again by a supposed ally. She was too tender for this cursed place and its dimming light.
“But you don't do that anymore. You don't rob.”
Cyno shrugged. “You already gave me your miracles.”
Rhea yanked her hand from Cynos grip. A jolt of pain shot through her arm - of course Cyno had been unable to properly wield miracles. Cyno leaned forward, following Rhea, but did not attempt to touch her again.
“I left them alive, when I could.”
“Oh, what a solace you offer. You left girls like me alive when it was to your liking.”
Cyno winced. “Apologies. It was a moment of cruelty, to tell you this. They grow in frequency in me. Like thorns bursting up through cobble.”
Rhea wished that violence would burst up through her so easily. Would that she could lash out at this woman who she had once felt so tender for.
“It was a moment of cruelty that led you to rescue me then!”
“But-”
“It would have been a kindness had you left me to rot. No more days of this world getting its teeth in me!”
“I could not have left you down there. In the dark. It frightens me so.”
“Why were you there, then, in the catacombs? Surely it was not purely to rescue a girl so like the ones you used to rob?”
Cyno lowered her eyes towards the fire, looking away from the anger in Rhea’s eyes.
“A happy coincidence. I did not know you had fallen there.”
“You ought to have left me.” Rhea snapped, surging to her feet.
“I did what I had to do.”
Rhea didn't respond. Instead, she backed away, creeping back towards the elevator, where she had once made camp with her companions. That seemed so long ago. She nursed her aching wrist, and did not glance back towards the fire.
----
Cyno had left, chasing who knows what. Whispers, fragments, some vague and ill-defined hope. Murmuring about serpents. Lunacy.
Rhea sat by the dimming fire and did not think about Cyno. The recalcitrant knight sat farther away, where the fire could cast no shadows on him.
Soon the fire would be nothing but cinders. Cyno had not yet returned from her journey, but Rhea refused to think about her. The sun had dimmed, but not moved, but Rhea was sure many days had passed. The firekeeper slumped even lower in her cell, her face grown pale, eyes sunken. Rhea could barely bear to sit with her anymore.
The twisted metal of the sword in the fire had cooled, nothing more than iron.
Perhaps the Fire would go out. Rhea had begun to shake, staring into the fire, sparks like stars dimming in the night. She got to her feet and walked down to the firekeeper’s cell. She did not bother to look at the knight as she passed; he would not acknowledge her.
The firekeeper was prone in the dirt. She did not even bother to lift her head as Rhea approached.
“Hello,” Rhea said, immediately regretting the sound. The firekeeper already knew she was there. Rhea said no more. She folded herself down into a crouch and reached her hand between the bars into the cage. She found the firekeepers hand, nails dirtied with filth and blood, and she took it in her own. A slight twitch in the firekeepers hand, and the smallest curling of fingers around Rhea’s.
“If she had left me to him,” the fire keeper did not turn her head out of the dirt, and Rhea struggled to hear her stilted voice “then I would not have to be here for this.”
“For what, dear keeper?”
“The darkness.”
Rhea clutched the other woman’s hand tighter. She tried not to think about the guttering fire.
“Perhaps she will break, though.”
“Cyno?”
“Before she sends us all skittering down into the dark.”
“I thought she sought to restore the flame.”
The fire keeper withdrew her hand and said no more. Rhea sat with her a while longer, before returning to her vigil by the fireside.
She kept an eye out for Cyno, waiting until she at least crested the hill. She did not want to believe the fire keeper. But she had already trusted so much and so many, why should she not believe a fire keeper’s warning?
Cyno appeared at last, still in her oversized armor. Her gait was slower, and Rhea could not tell how far hollowed she was, beneath the armor. But she crested the rise, and raised a hand in a slow, lazy wave.
Cyno did not look broken, yet.
She came and sat by the fire, breathing deeply. The metal across her shoulders groaned with her movements. In the crook of her arm, where her armor did not quite meet, Rhea could see rotting flesh, slowly mending itself. Returning from a hollowed state to that of a regular undead.
Jealousy flared hot in Rhea’s stomach. How could Cyno, of all people in this place, have found such a boon? Even now, Rhea could still feel herself going hollow. She did not think she could return so easily.
Rhea followed her. Nothing was left for her at the shrine.
Cyno turned to look over her shoulder at her but kept moving. She did not slow down, and Rhea did not speed up to catch up with her.
“You should not follow me.”
“I will not wait to fall to whatever you seek to do.”
“I seek to stop the cycle, Rhea. I can not go on like this. Hollowed and unhollowed. The light will go out regardless. Better to be quick about it.”
Rhea ran then, crossing the space between her and Cyno. She pushed her, slamming her hands against the armor covering the other woman’s back. Cyno pitched forward, but did not fall. She whirled, not the measured motion of a trained swordsman, but the wild and brutal movement of a bandit.
She grabbed Rhea, and pulled her into an embrace. It stopped Rhea from lashing out again.
“Do not follow me.” Cyno pulled away.
Rhea obeyed, for a moment, watching the sight of the Chosen Undead recede until she was almost out of sight. Then she followed again, slowly. She had no other point or purpose anymore, her world had shrunk to Cyno and the light.
She followed Cyno down and down. Into a deep, fiery place. Her skin burned, it was so hot in whatever kiln at the center of the world Cyno had lead her to.
The beasts of knights who stood guard here were something out of nightmare. Rhea hung back and hung back until she could no longer see Cyno. she followed by sound, listening after the sounds of Cyno’s sword, the crack as her shield held against blow after blow.
At last, the sound reached such a cacophony, Rhea felt she would give out from the noise alone. The sound went on and on, and Rhea waited.
Rhea waited in that fiery place. So much like a kiln. In the distance, clashing metal and shouting. Great terrible battle cries. Rhea waited, watching the embers kick up dancing shadows. She must be at the start of things, the beginning and end of the world.
The sounds quieted, and the fiery air began to cool, almost imperceptibly at first. Rhe crept closer to the source of the now-silence. She did not know how she would feel either way, if Cyno had been victorious, or if she came upon her broken body at last dead on the ground.
Cyno had her sword embedded in the dirt and was leaning on the hilt, panting. Before her lay a great, broken body on a bed of cooling embers.
Rhea gasped, but could not bring herself to say his name.
She looked instead to Cyno.
“Did you complete my task? I was searching in the dark for the Rite of Enkindling.”
Cyno continued to pant and made no attempt to respond.
“Did you find the way to keep the fires burning?”
“No.” Echoed out from Cyno’s helm. She did not raise her visor to respond, as she once would have.
Rhea knew Cyno was lying, but she would not challenge her here, at the start and end of all things, the broken body of the Lord of Embers at her feet. Cyno had not yet sheathed her sword.
“So the fires will go out.”
“Yes.”
“And then? What becomes of us after this?”
“The darkness comes. Did the Faith not tell you what should happen should your holy mission fail?”
“My holy mission? This failure at least is not mine.”
Rhea regretted how hot and angry the words came out of her mouth. Cyno still had her sword out. They had been friends once.
Cyno took a step forward and Rhea took a step in retreat, raising her hands in front of herself.
The bandit sighed, and sheathed her sword.
“Forgive me.”
Cyno turned and began to walk from the chamber, away from the extinguished fire. Rhea watched her go. She limped. Rhea wondered if the hollowing would take Cyno of if her undead body would merely collapse to the Dark Sign first.
Rhea crouched near the extinguished bonfire. Weeks ago she would have cried, but not now. She reached out and raked her hands through the ash, as if she was seeking coals, although she knew she would find none.
Surely Cyno had found the true Rite of Enkindling. How else had she staved off the Hollowing? It could not be as simple as she had said, that she had a task to accomplish and so remained whole.
Rhea scooped up a handful of the fire’s remnants and let the loose ash trickle back down between her fingers.
If Cyno had found the Rite why hadn’t she used it? She was cruel, but not evil, and had been so gentle with Rhea in the past. Why had she turned away from the light, when given the chance to save it?
Rhea sighed, the puff of breath sending the remaining ash in her hand scattering. Some still stuck under her fingernails, and her fingertips had been stained black from the residue.
She hated Cyno, now, in this moment. But they had been friends once. Rhea could not leave her to the darkness alone.
She stood, wiping her hands on her stained robes. They had not carried their original white color in a long while anyway.
Cyno’s footsteps were visible in the cooling ash of the kiln, and Rhea followed them. She briefly tried to walk in the bandit’s footsteps but quickly abandoned the endeavor. Cyno had a much longer gait then she did.
Rhea traced Cyno’s other out of the cooling kiln and found herself at the entrance to a great dark chamber. Voices came from within - deep and ancient sounds. None of them were Cyno’s voice.
Rhea drew in a deep breath and entered the chamber. Without light, she could barely make out what spoke around her. Dim, towering shapes in the darkness.
The smell of wood smoke, a cracking sound and a light went up in front of her. It briefly consumed the ink dark of the chamber, so all Rhea could see was the light. It faded, receding to a pinprick - a torch held aloft. Cyno was standing on a long narrow bridge, facing Rhea, holding a torch aloft.
“Cyno-” Rhea started to call to her, but her voice caught in her throat. Her voice had sounded so loud in the chamber, echoing off the walls. And she had seen the serpents, out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head, just slightly, and then immediately looked back to Cyno. She was a much easier sight than the toothy grins of the looming serpents.
Rhea hoped the serpents wouldn't speak. She could not bear to hear the sound again, now knowing the shape and size of the mouths it came from.
They kept silent, and Rhea kept her eyes on Cyno. She kept her arms stuff at her sides, though she was struck with the urge to extend a hand to Cyno. Her hands trembled.
“Rhea-” Cyno responded with just a name as well. Her body jerked and she rapidly turned away before she could let herself finish. The flame on her torch swayed.
“I did what I had to do.” Cyno began to recede, walking away down the stone bridge. Her outline grew dimmer in the descending darkness, the flame from the torch not bright enough to keep the darkness at bay.
Rhea was left with the dark and the still silent serpents. She could return to the land above, or keep after Cyno. She took a step forward, careful of her footing on the narrow bridge. She would not abandon Cyno to walk alone.
As she walked, Rhea felt a warmth in her body that had been absent since she had been marked. One of her miracles had passed from Cyno back to her.
She held her hands before herself and had to blink rapidly to clear the afterimage from her eyes when her hands lit up with holy light once more.
Cyno did not turn. The lights at Rhea’s fingertips did not falter.
Rhea followed her down into the dark.