The flame is.
Anastacia of Astora has stared into the depths of the fire long enough to etch the flickering, rising and falling pattern into the backs of her eyes.
When it grows too high, she takes branches away. When it withers, she feeds brush into it. Where this brush comes from, that she does not move from her spot at fireside to gather it, does not matter.
The flame is.
She feeds it, quells it, time falling away around her. The ash has long since painted her skin and dress and hair gray, and she wonders sometimes if even her breath will turn ashy, puffing little clouds like it does in the winter. The smell of old char and woodsmoke stains her, follows her stumbling, limping steps.
Those steps are few. She is alone much of the time, and is thus safe. When others come, never men and women, but undead, all of them, she lurches back down to her cell, slipping through cracks in the mountainside that only she knows.
The bonfire is still close here. Directly overhead, sword thrusting down into the earth like to pierce the top of her skull.
Her cell is dark and quiet and cold, like dying after being so near the flame for so long. Though she will not die. The humanity that roils beneath her skin, the infinite life that comes from being one with the flame. She could no more go out than the ocean could go dry.
XXX
Time passes.
The flame is.
She is.
She kindles and smothers, nursing the flame to a steady burn.
And one day, an undead comes to visit her.
This is not unusual. There have been others. Even an uncommon event will become common in an unending stretch of time. She has nothing to offer them. No advice. No tools or trinkets to aid their journey. If they want those, there are merchants, or she has heard there are, lurking above the shrine in the burg.
This one is hollow, its flesh the same sickly, rotten pink as all its fellows. But this one knows it. It sees her look, and the gnarled scrap of a hand vanishes into the folds of a sleeve. The rest of the hollow is similarly shrouded, garbed in loose, concealing robes and hood.
The act is enough for Anastacia to look again. Hollows are as many as birds in the sky, though she can't recall the last time one was self-aware enough to know shame. Most, when they reached the point of desiccation, were already lost to sense.
"H-hello." The word is rasped, the tongue speaking it long unused. A woman's. "I am Ragnhild."
Anastacia nods back. And then, forestalling any chance of confusion, points to her throat and crosses her hands in an 'X.'
Ragnhild's cowled head tilts for a moment, and then she steps forward, nearly pressing against the bars. "You do not speak?"
Anastacia shakes her head. This is the point where every other conversation has trailed off or gone silent, but from the set of her shoulders, the thoughtful tap of a finger against the opposite elbow, Ragnhild seems more intrigued than anything.
"Are you trapped in there? The man above- the surly one, you know him? He said you tend the bonfire."
Nod.
"Yes as to mean you are trapped, or yes to mean you tend the fire?"
She can't stop the sigh that escapes her. Her solitude has been all-encompassing for so, so long, and this interloper can't seem to take a hint.
Anastacia holds up two fingers.
"So you tend the fire." Ragnhild nods, sounding very satisfied with this answer. Her voice has smoothed slightly, gaining momentum the more she talks. "Perhaps you can aid me then? My journey here was… not entirely voluntary, and I find myself adrift. There are… bells, I've been told. I believe I'm to ring them. I'd have asked the man above, but he is poor company."
Anastacia finds herself rigid against the wall of her cell, suddenly staring indecorously at the woman.
A Chosen Undead. It has been so long since the last. There are always undead, and some seek the cure, but so few walk the proper stations.
She rises, limps over to the bars. Her breath hisses between her teeth, quick little puffs in her excitement.
Ragnhild stays silent as Anastacia points.
Once, downward, to the stairs leading below. Blighttown is far, far from her shrine, but she knows there is a bell there. And then again, to the church on the mount, high, high above.
She only stops her efforts when Ragnhild is able to adequately confirm that she understands the directions.
When the Chosen Undead finally walks away to begin her journey- begin the journey, Anastacia bows.
When Ragnhild turns back, she is still bowing.
"Vestal." Anastacia rises. "Would it be a burden were I to visit you, now and again? This region is very strange, and my sense of direction has always been lacking."
Anastacia finds herself nodding.
XXX
She does not see Ragnhild again for several days. The span of time is normally insignificant, the length of a few burnings and kindlings, the fire bright in dusk, but still just the sky changing shades as it always has.
But the disruption in her routine, her monotony, brings a mindfulness she doesn't enjoy. A sudden flicker of wonder, where the woman would be now. She hadn't made it to the bell yet- there has been no rolling peel to signal the world that change had come. No indicator that this was truly the undead of legend.
Anastacia burns her fingers three times the first day, and worries a hole in her dress with absent picking on the fourth. The crackle and pop of wood burning, the gentle rush of flame in air, do not ease her cares as they once did. She is distracted.
When someone finally draws near, they come with a clatter, the sound of metal armor rattling. Anastacia flees back to her cell, heart throbbing. The guest had caught her day-dreaming, the sound of boot on stone nearly upon her before she withdrew from her reverie.
The steps rattle and clank across the pavilion, and Anastacia sighs with relief as they stop above.
There is a rush of warmth, the flow beneath her skin surging, some slipping away as the visitor fills their flasks with ambrosia. A pause, the undead resting a moment before beginning to feed souls into the flame. Most of the souls come back to her and rejoin the first flame. Some stay with the undead, an aggregate, the soul greater than the sum of its parts. It is a process of tempering. The undead's soul strengthened and tuned, a fire fed on the lives of others.
A cycle without end. Souls never truly created or destroyed; just reshaped or divided or fused. Anything she lost would be regained in time.
There is silence and stillness after that. She has just enough awareness of the area around the bonfire to know that the visitor is lingering, likely resting or just enjoying the fire.
And then the steps begin again.
Coming down the staircase toward her. Anastacia stiffens, head cocked to listen. The steps are confident, moving steadily down the path.
Another visitor so soon? Or perhaps the woman- Ragnhild had brought trouble in her wake?
Clank. Clank. Clunk. Like a pocket full of coins, jingling away.
A silhouette fills the barred window of her cell.
"Vestal."
A familiar, rough-coated voice. The garb is different now. A chainmail hauberk and hood over leather trousers. Worn boots, too big for her, with what look to be rags stuffed inside to keep them tight. A small, dented buckler, and a sword, long and thin, a duelist's rapier.
Anastacia's gaze rises, unbidden. A tiny gasp escapes her.
A hooked, aristocratic nose cuts down the center of a face sharp enough to crack stone. Angled cheek-bones and pointed chin. A few strands of blonde hair escaping from beneath the chain hood. Ash-gray eyes.
The first human face she has seen in a long while.
Ragnhild sees her looking, and a flush appears in her cheeks, revealing freckles dappled all across them. "I- twas unseemly to appear before you as a hollow."
She shifts, boots scuffing, face turned away.
Anastacia crawls forward. Not close enough to reach, but near enough that were they able, they could converse comfortably. She taps on the bars to catch Ragnhild's attention, but the other woman has already turned back to her.
"I'm not troubling you?"
A vehement head-shake. She's finding herself frustrated for the first time in a very long time that she hadn't had a chance to learn hand signs before her silencing. That there could be grounds for misunderstanding here, that the woman might confuse her surprise for rudeness. These things are unforgivable.
After another moment of hemming, Ragnhild sinks to the cobbles in front of the cell, folding her legs under her. A moment later, she adjusts, shifting onto a patch of dirt just beside the stone for a softer seat. The chainmail pools around her knees like an odd dress.
"It's heavy," Ragnhild murmurs, tugging at it. "I'd never worn armor before I came to this land."
Anastacia gives an exaggerated tilt of the head, her version of a query. Pantomime is so crude, but it's the only option she has.
"I traveled from Balder. It is- it was a lovely nation. Not as mountainous as here, but with naught but forests and hills for leagues. And our horses were legendary. Have you-?" Ragnhild trails off, asking a question with her silence.
Nod. Anastacia taps her ear. I have heard of it.
"Is Lordran your homeland?"
Shake.
Ragnhild's eyebrows rise. "You're not of Balder. Are you perhaps from..." What follows is a flurry of names at Anastacia. Names of places and regions. Some she knows, some she does not. She answers in the negative to each, but is fortunate enough that Ragnhild names Astora on her seventh try.
Ragnhild's face lights up when Anastacia nods. "I see! I traveled to Astora once with my father on business. The capital is a treasure. Were you ever fortunate enough to see the Astoran Guard?"
Head-shake. It takes a moment of thought before Anastacia mimes at herself, then presses her hand flat against the air beside her, like she is patting a child's head. Then she motions to the cell around her.
"You were… little when you came here?"
A tilting, wavering hand-motion.
"Somewhat?"
Nod. Anastacia rewards Ragnhild with a smile for her patience before flashing her fingers. All of them once, then two. Twelve. Just a gangly, stripling child, third daughter of three. With no dowry to her name, she'd been destined for apprenticeship. But her soul had opened itself to the Flame. Or had it been the opposite? And her fate was sealed.
The moment, Ragnhild studying her, lingers slightly too long for comfort,. Anastacia finally points to the other woman and motions questioningly.
"Ah. Well… If you haven't seen them. The Astoran Guard are elite soldiers, the king's swords. We got to see them march down the center of the city, all in formation." Ragnhild's eyes are far-away, her tone softening into memory. "They were… practical. Not as flashy as some knights I've seen, but no troupe of barbarians either."
The wistfulness tickles something at the back of Anastacia's mind. She points again, this time at Ragnhild's sword, following it with a head-tilt.
"Was I a knight?"
Nod.
That earns her a soft laugh. "Oh, no. Recall, I'd never worn armor before I came to Lordran. It is… rather a childish impulse, I know, but this armor was for sale, and I just thought that maybe… Maybe I could try being like a knight?"
Ragnhild pauses, eyeing her again, seeming to search for something, but Anastacia has allowed herself to press against the bars, one dirty cheek pressed to cold iron.
The carry on motion she makes with her hand is sharp and quick with curiosity.
The other woman relaxes. Minutely, a softening around the eyes, in the arch of her neck.
"My family were wealthy. Not terribly so, but enough that, when I was young, I entertained fantasies that if we became rich enough, I could become a knight." Ragnhild sighs. "I was rather a tomboy at that age, always dreaming of silly, quixotic things. My father used to jest that I gathered more wool than any sheep shearer."
Anastacia snickers softly. It's been so long since she has made the noise that it escapes her before she even realizes it is coming.
But Ragnhild smiles, one side of her lips quirking. "I grew out of it. Or… I imagined I had. But here we are… in a far-off land, with none who would know my face, and..." Raghnhild drops her gaze, the words faltering, but Anastacia knows what she wants to say.
A silly, self-serving urge. Something done precisely because it eases the pain and soothes wounds. Some of the hollows in the past have done something similar. But it helps them. Anything to ground, to hold back the gnawing oblivion that threatens all hollows. Ragnhild has done it because it helped.
And there have been days where even Anastacia has played at sword-fighting with the bonfire blade, not a maiden, but a warrior who rescues maidens. Not crippled or weak, but a fighter. Someone who wasn't alone in a desolate land, far from home.
At least she had chosen to come here. Ragnhild had not.
She nods slowly, solemnly.
XXX
Raghnild talks of other, more pleasant things after that. Her explorations into the burg. The endless swarm of other hollows. A red drake glimpsed in the distance. Knights. True ones at one time, now corrupt sentinels lurking in the dark. One even that Anastacia remembers: A giant of a man in armor that weighed more than the both of them together, toting a club of bone.
Ragnhild does not mention her deaths. Though there is no question there have been many. The flickering emptiness, a bleakness in Ragnhild's eyes when she trails off, staring at nothing. The twitch of a hand toward the blade at her side. She can taste the scent of another bonfire on the woman. Lesser than hers, echoing imitations of her own pale shadow of the First Flame, but bonfires all the same.
But some of the hollowness has gone out of her gaze when Ragnhild runs out of topics to speak on. She rises, forcing herself not to linger any longer, though Anastacia catches the way the woman's eyes hesitate, her fingers shaking minutely, constantly.
"There's a demon. A bull creature up on the battlements. I- I think I've a chance at besting him this time."
Anastacia nods. The motion is not enough. Because she suddenly understands that playing at knighthood isn't the only selfish decision Ragnhild has made lately. That perhaps this reprieve is all that has staved off hollowment.
It is not enough.
Ragnhild turns away once again.
Anastacia bangs her knuckles on the bars. It hurts, but she has no nails to tap with- long since melted away.
The would-be knight turns back.
She crooks a finger at her through the bars. Points up. Not at the burg or parish, but straight up.
To the bonfire.
It takes a thought. An exertion of humanity. Something she's never done before, not deliberately, but knows now that she must. Not just as firekeeper, but as a human. So that this woman would live another day.
She kindles the flame. The sound of crackling heat comes from above, wood snapping, a sudden plume of smoke rising.
Ragnhild's eyes are wide beneath her tawny bangs. "Vestal. You-" Her voice hitches. She glances up. Then back. "Thank you. And-" Her fist tightens. "I'm going to return with its head in hand, and then tell you all about the battle."
A real smile, not the worn, patched one from before, but a ray of blessed sun breaking through clouds.
Ragnhilds turns on her heel, one hand on her sword hilt.
Looks back over her shoulder. Grins.
"My friends call me 'Rags.' When I come back, I'll bring parchment, and you can tell me what yours call you."
The pure cheek of it is enough to make Anastacia wilt against the bars.
The other woman might be feigning knighthood, but she is certainly an expert at being a scoundrel.
XXX
It's nearly a week before Ragnhild- Rags reappears. Anastacia is napping, dozing in her cell during a rainy day. Her sleep is fitful, the bonfire above could never be quenched by rain, but that doesn't mean she enjoys it.
The rush of life cycling through her wakes her. Someone using the bonfire.
There is a moment of waking confusion, then a hope she finds rather shameful. The shame redoubles when familiar footsteps make their way down the cliff to her.
Rags appears. She wears the same armor as before, and Anastacia is about to pronounce her the same overall, when she catches sight of the blade at her waist.
Straight as an arrow, long enough that Rags rests a hand on the hilt to keep it from dragging in the earth.
"From the parish," Rags says with a smile. She draws the blade a hand's width from its scabbard. "A sword of Balder. I never imagined I'd see its like here."
Head-tilt. She'd made it to the parish?
Anastacia motions for more information.
"You're asking about the sword?"
Head-shake.
"The parish?"
Nod.
"Oh. I'd intended to keep this brief, but…" Rags folds her legs under her and sits before the cell.
She begins with her triumph over the taurus she had mentioned last time. Anastacia has heard its bellows on the air before, and could only speculate as to the size of the beast, but it's woefully daunting to hear tell of Ragnhild plunging off battlements to stab at it.
The woman has much more to talk of this time. An undead blacksmith, of all things, had set up shop at the bridge to Sen's Keep. Rags met an… onion man? Oh, no, an onion knight. Anastacia has seen them before. Rags grumbles about the fortress, and Anastacia interrupts to gesture in the direction of the two bells, before miming ringing them.
"The gate opens then?"
Nod in reply. The testing ground of the gods opens only to the worthy.
"What a strange design."
Anastacia has wondered on what lies within before, but this is the first time she's ever truly desired to know. To grant foresight to the other woman, some form of aid beyond tending the fire. If nothing else, to ease her deaths.
Rags frowns, lost in thought for a moment before a small smile replaces it. "Have I told you of the other knight I encountered? Sir Solaire of Astora."
Anastacia gasps. Rags looks at her. They exchange a glance, and then they're both thrusting arms into the air, Rags on her feet, Anastacia rising to her knees.
"Praise the sun!" Rags yells.
Anastacia mouths the words.
They've both begun laughing, though she's not sure when. She has one grubby hand over her mouth, the other clutching the bars for support, raspy breaths whistling through her fingers.
"I would-" Rags wheezes, words escaping between laughs, "assume you have made his acquaintance before?"
Anastacia responds with a soft smile. The stories she could tell. Solaire had been part of her escort when first coming to Lordran. He'd ridden with her party all the way to the border, and his cheerful words and sunny demeanor had lightened her steps immeasurably.
She had not known he had come to Lordran, but that he is well and hale eases a weight in her breast that she hadn't realized was there.
It is several moments before their laughter subsides and the conversation returns to its normal flow.
Rags begins to sit, only to stop. "I brought you a gift. A pittance, but mayhap it will make the view-" A shrug toward the vast valley beyond the cell. "A bit more pleasant."
She fishes in her bag, items within clinking and clacking, before withdrawing an odd set of tubes. The item is maybe as long as her hand, two black leather tubes running parallel, attached with copper bandings.
"Binoculars." Rags holds them out, and Anastacia, catching the glint of glass, scrubs her palms on her dress before taking them with utmost care. "They're a looking device. How such a rich tool came to be lost here, I know not."
Anastacia lifts the looking glasses to her face. Squints. Both eyes at once, but- she tries it, recoiling instantly at the blur of colors that jumps out at her.
Rags chuckles. "Careful now… ah. You..." She winces, brow furrowing. "I was so enamored with those that I forgot to bring ink and paper. My third time darkening your door, and I still act the churl."
Anastacia motions carefully, waving the words away. She cannot be too airy or dismissive with her gestures, not when she could give offense where none is meant.
After all, firekeepers did not need names. They had their duty, and the first flame did not require such earthly things as names.
She thinks this. She knows this. The truth of it curls around her bones, hotter than blood, smoother than oil.
But she finds herself setting the binoculars aside and bending forward. There is a small patch of soft dirt outside the bars to her cell, not like the hard-packed soil within.
Slowly, dragging a finger through the dirt, Anastacia writes. Ragnhild goes utterly silent as she works, sliding back to allow her more room.
The first word she ever learned to spell at her mother's knee.
A name that has not been spoken to her for so long that she finds herself doubting the spelling, second-guessing herself.
Rags mouths each letter as it is scratched out. When Anastacia finishes, she sits back, disobedient hands retreating to her lap to seize handfuls of her skirt.
The other woman mouths it once more, then murmurs it aloud. She pronounces it wrong, a hardness on the 'c' that is echoed in Rags' other words, a consequence of a Balderan accent.
Anastacia points to the letter in question, then makes a flowing motion with her hand.
"Oh." Ragnhild looks up. She's smiling again. "Anastacia."
Spoken in Rags' gentle voice, the word is poetry. An enunciation with the same care and wonder that Anastacia had given the names of gods when she had tongue to pray with. Her heart lurches, humanity trembling her ribs with a sudden surge.
She wishes she had given her name sooner.
The word makes her feel human again.