For a long time, she wondered when she had begun to despise her duty. To curse the role into which the bell and the world had so crudely thrust her.
Perhaps the hate had begun when she first met Hawkwood, what with his crestfallen ramblings and his claims that Unkindled were incapable of fulfilling the roles set out for them. She remembered that she'd been angry then. She remembered her indignation to his words, a desire to prove them wrong. And in time, she did.
Hawkwood had seen her accomplishments, been invigorated. And for that hope he had paid with his life, slain by his very inspiration's own blade over those foolish, accursed stones.
Perhaps the hate had begun it had been as she had handed Greirat the bone of that woman Loretta. She'd heard the grief in Greirat's tone then, and as she looked back, she could see that it had never really left him. With retrospect came clarity, and she understood why he'd gone out to scavenge for her.
When she'd found his mangled, twisted corpse on a roof of the Grand Archives, she had instinctively understood the what and why. And she could only hope he'd found his peace.
Perhaps the hate had begun when she had met that young man named Anri for the final time. Or rather, what was left of him. The two had only met a few times, but he'd seemed a decent enough young man. She'd felt his sorrow when he had lost his companion, that wordless knight named Horace. But despite that sorrow, he'd pushed on, trudging through Irithyll, past the Pontiff and through the defiled city of the gods. She had stood with him, side by side, facing down the monstrous devourer of men and Gods called Aldrich. He could barely contain his elation when the cannibal cleric had fallen once more.
Ludleth had told her not to try to find Anri. But she hadn't listened, and when she'd found him, he was well and truly gone.
Perhaps the hate had begun as she'd gone to face Yhorm. By her side had strode Siegward, that funny little man in the onion armor. He wasn't possessed of the sharpest mind, no – she'd known that from the moment he'd stepped off the lift in the Undead Settlement. But he was kind, and that was truly rare in this dying world. As Yhorm had fallen, she had hoped that the giant's final defeat wouldn't be the end, that she and Siegward could continue travelling together and facing the world together, no matter how many times she had to rescue him.
She still treasured the memory of the final toast they'd had together. And she hoped that Siegward, a man who lived only to uphold his promise to his friend, could finally rest for good.
Perhaps the hate had begun as she entered the hall of Prince Lothric. She had heard his words, his resentfulness and his refusal to go to his throne. Felt the wrath of his brother, a knight who could not stand or speak, yet still fought with all of his might to protect his dear sibling. Heard Lothric's whispers as he clung to his brother, asking him to stand again.
He had been right, of course, that defiant young prince. She was exactly what he had claimed in his dying breath, doomed to be forever so by the bell that tolled for those unfit even to be cinder.
Whenever their origin, whatever their cause, she had come to loathe her duty. And as she'd watched Ludleth and the cinders of the Lords burn, she felt no elation.
Every bit of the inexhaustible drive she had once held so close to her soul now felt drained from her. Weakened and ground to powder. As she stood in the ashes of the Kiln, surrounded by the ruins of countless kingdoms, she felt no real will to continue forwards and face whatever horror might await her in the Kiln itself.
But the sight of another bonfire, just feet from the one she had arrived at, aroused one last ember of curiosity in the ash.
She hadn't been surprised when, upon touching it, she had been warped somewhere new. What had surprised her was that someone else was near where she had appeared at.
The old-stumped hag, like her, was no one special. Just an observer, watching as the world drew itself to its own conclusion and the kingdoms of ages past piled up. But the hag was aware of one thing that she wasn't.
When the hag had regaled to her the story of the Ringed City, with its walls as high as mountains, she'd been mildly incredulous.
But the hag's words made that ember of curiosity begin to burn a little brighter.
So she had worked her way down, making titanic leaps and praying that the ash below would cushion her. She had ducked and weaved out of the half-destroyed tower in a poisonous swamp, desperately trying to avoid the hateful light of the angels in the sky above. Fought her way past a pair of demons, one of whom's power suddenly surged just as it had seemed to die. Dragged her battered and broken wreck of a body out of the shrine and out onto an outcrop overlooking a vast drop.
When two new demons, white in color and lacking eyes, plucked her from the stone overlook, they did so with a feather-like gentleness. They had flown her down, and she'd nearly fainted dead away when she saw it.
The hag had exaggerated nothing about the Ringed City's walls. Their unfathomable mass surrounded the city, gripped and protected it like a snake. And the one part of the wall that was open appeared to be a simple void.
Her welcome had not been a warm one; the Judicator at the other end of the wall upon which she was placed saw to that, what with his titanic army of ghosts who he could call up at a whim. But even as she ducked and ran, barely dodging death at every turn, she could plainly see the city's beauty.
And then, as she'd worked her way down from the wall, through a tower-like cathedral and onto the city's streets, she'd come across a door.
She hadn't known there was someone behind it when she'd stopped there. Her only goal had been to catch her breath. Yet someone was behind that door, and she'd nearly jumped out of her skin at her demand.
It was an odd request, to speak the "name of God", one she doubted that many would have been able to answer. Yet she had studied more than her fair share of miracles, and she knew the name the woman wanted.
There had been a subdued ecstasy in the voice of the woman named Shira as they'd conversed, an ecstasy she did an excellent job of hiding as she made her request.
She hadn't seen the dragon of which Shira spoke, but she agreed to slay him regardless. She wasn't entirely sure why she did so, even as the accord was reached. A goal, perhaps? A reason to keep working her way through the city?
Or perhaps it was the ember of curiosity and drive, burning just the slightest bit brighter with every step.
Whatever the reason, she had found the immense beast soon afterward. Along the cliff past the blackened swamp that had cropped up in the lower part of the city, the dragon called Midir had attacked with virtually no warning.
She'd barely been able to escape into a catacomb built into the side of the cliff.
She wasn't entirely sure how she had survived the ordeal. Yet survive she did, and she'd met him once again as she emerged from the catacomb. He'd tried to land on the bridge that separated the catacomb from the wall she'd initially come in on, but it simply wasn't wide enough, and Midir was left clinging to it instead, barely able to take swipes at her and blast her with jets of flame as she cut at him with her blade.
Even as the dragon had tumbled down, down, down into the pit beneath the bridge, she knew that that wasn't the end of it.
And so she had sought him out. Looked for him, to face him in one final confrontation.
When she had told Shira that the deed was done, the woman behind the door expressed no elation. There had only been relief that Midir, a dragon she nonetheless called her friend without hesitation, had not forsaken his vows.
As she'd listened to Shira, and been given the latter's blessing, she felt that ember burn brighter.
And she'd kept going, past the knights of the city whose skill put Lothric's to utter shame. Past the beasts and the monsters and the stone-weighed clerics. Kept going, all the way to a particular church.
The voice that greeted her, warned her to stay away, made her jump, but it did not stop her. The ember was blazing now, brighter than it had in a very long time, and the very words that were meant to warn her away only emboldened her.
She had been greeted by another of the giants, a being who called himself "Argo". He had criticized her in that subterranean voice of his, but she was undeterred even as he began to conduct the expected summons.
What he summoned, however, wasn't what she was expecting.
The young-looking man in the white robes who appeared before her was no ghost, but he was as dangerous as he was vulnerable. His katana, infused with magical energies as it was, burned her skin even beneath her thick armor, and he easily found tiny gaps in the same.
Eventually, however, her raw experience, skill and strength simply proved too much.
As the man Argo would later call "Halflight" lay bleeding out in her arms, he had begged her to not keep going, to turn back for the good of all in the city.
Neither he nor the weakened Argo could stop her, however. The ember had become an inferno, and it demanded to be sated.
She glimpsed Fillianore that day, locked in her eternal slumber with the half-broken egg. And very nearly made contact with her, nearly awakened her.
But at the last possible moment, her gauntlet-clad fingers stopped. Her arm pulled back.
As if not in control of her own body, she turned, and through the stained glass, could just make out the parts of the city that hadn't been drowned by the abyssal swamp. And suddenly, every single piece clicked together.
The city was all held together by the woman's slumber. Somehow, some way, the Princess Filianore's sleep was all that kept the Ringed City from joining the endless pile of kingdoms.
And in that instant, the inferno turned. It did not extinguish, but it turned. The fuel that it had wanted so desperately just a moment or so before was suddenly of no interest to it. It burned brighter than ever, but it no longer wanted to awaken the princess.
She understood the fire, now, and understood her next movement with perfect clarity.
She had stepped away from the First Flame. She had stepped away from the duty the bell had given her. She had seen the beauty of the Ringed City, even with its evident hostilities. Met one of its inhabitants, whose only desire was to keep the city intact.
And she could not bring herself to destroy the last thing that anyone in this world might care for.
She swallowed once, then twice.
She turned and walked back down into the church below.
When she had bowed before the exhausted Judicator Argo, he had been confused. When she made her wishes known to him, he had been incredulous.
Yet she spoke only the truth in her desire to take up the role of the one called "Halflight". To become a Spear of the Church and defend the Princess Filianore's sleep until the end of the world.
Argo had not been particularly happy about the arrangement, and to some degree, she suspected he still wasn't. But for lack of anyone else, he had agreed. And now she stood alone, the last Spear the church would probably ever know.
Sometimes she spoke with Shira, who'd been surprised but quite happy about her sudden change of heart. Shira never left that room she'd first found her in, and she never saw her face. But that meant nothing to her. Shira was a friend, a calm and wise voice, and that was enough.
Other times, she spent alone. She felt little need to interact with the sane inhabitants of the portions of the city not yet devoured by the abyssal swamp.
Yet from time to time, Argo would call for her, and she would find herself within the church that she once helped defile.
She lost track of how many intruders, how many would-be disturbers she slew. It didn't matter to her, she supposed; they were people who would destroy this city, the last in the world that could ever allow life to thrive.
As time passed, she thought less and less often of her old, hated duty. And in time, she ceased thoughts of it entirely.
Because it didn't matter if she'd stopped, did it? Someone else, some other Unkindled, could handle whatever awaited them in the Kiln. She had left the way open enough. Her place, this little role in the world she had carved for herself, was here, in this city of mountainous walls.
And as she stood there, facing three interlopers simultaneously, she was content with this. Truly content, as the bell had never made her.
And as the bodies of the intruders lay at her feet and she cleaned the blood from her sword, she felt the fire burn, hot as it ever had been.
So yeah, this was inspired by my character, who I recently managed to achieve Divine Spear status with. The out-of-universe reasons for why she acts the way she does are self-evident, but I was a tad curious as to why she might join up with the Spears of the Church in-universe. That's how the idea that her duty to the First Flame has worn her down came about.
Second, I know that in-game, Argo dies after summoning Halflight. I changed this to have an explanation that makes more sense from a writing perspective. Praying to a monument and offering ornaments to the void is perfectly fine from a gameplay perspective, but it doesn't work all that well for a written story.