It's suffocatingly empty here, she thought as she sat at the bonfire. Even when she had first arrived at Firelink Shrine there had been at least one face not mad with grief, someone willing to talk to her- What was his name? Had he ever told her? She couldn't remember. Whenever she thought of him he was simply 'the chainmail man', or 'the first', or 'the crestfallen warrior'.
It didn't matter. He was dead and hollowed now, along with everyone else. She racked her brains to try and remember them too- someone had to remember, surely- but couldn't. There was a wizard… no, three wizards? No, two. Logan and Groggs. It was definitely Groggs. Ah, and Rhea. Innocent Rhea, who was sheltered from birth and promised the world only to find it was full of snakes.
She thought of snakes, and thought there was someone else. She took out a beaten, leather bound book and skimmed through the pages. There they were drawn; all of the people she met were named. Yet she could only vividly picture a few. There was someone simply named as 'Tarkus' and despite not remembering his significance now he had obviously made an impression at the time judging by the proud way he stood on the paper, legs apart with a colossal sword hung over the left shoulder.
Solaire was there too, drawn in much more detail than the others because- this memory was vivid- in Anor Londo after falling to Smough's hammer for the hundredth time she had thrown her pack down in frustration and the book had fallen out at Solaire's feet. He took it and- to her embarrassment- read the entire thing. To her surprise however, his only comment was that in her drawing of him the sun on his armour was askew. He then offered to stand up and let her do it properly, because 'My dear friend, the Sun demands proper respect!' The two of them sat there then, in comfortable silence as her quill scratched away.
Some memories like that one were vivid and painful with hindsight, but other ones, important and not so important were being replaced by black spots, and it worried her. There was only so much loss a person could take before they went hollow.
And how much loss did she need to take? She had done everything right, no? She had rung the bells and braved the fortress and killed the guards and knelt before the princess- the shining princess, so close and yet so far from her reach- and she had took the lord souls and-
The Lord Souls. That was one thing the woman could remember. Four Lord Souls belonged to her, taken by right. These souls would open the way to the Kiln, where she would relieve Gwyn from his duty. That was the purpose that stopped her from going hollow. The only thing that held meaning.
Unsteady feet, clad in steel, made for Frampt.
Frampt was hard to forget. He was pompous with bad breath and was clearly using her, but at that point she was so utterly desperate to hold onto something, anything that wasn't corrupted, she heeded his words without question out of fear he would leave too.
"Chosen Undead, you have returned! And… ah, with the last Lord Soul" He held is head in reverence "The death of the Witch of Izalith lessens us all"
His pity was as empty as Firelink; a half-hearted attempt to keep up appearances because he knew she would not reply. The serpent stared hungrily at the souls clasped at the undead's breast.
"You have completed the final trial. I will take you down to the Lordvessel. Offer the souls to it."
Frampt took the undead to the Kiln, and eagerly watched as she reached for the Lordvessel with trembling hands. This was an end to it, for good or ill. The fate of the undead would be decided, and she could finally die in peace, as a human. After the things she'd done and seen in Lordran, she desired nothing more.
Before she gave the souls to the vessel, she looked to the door. It was a slate grey, with ominous red markings scratched through the middle and branching out. Cracked here and there with age (Age, she wanted to think, certainly not something more ominous), and at least three times taller than herself. It made her think of the door to her cell in the asylum for a moment, and thought this entryway in front of her was a good representation of how the rusted one in the asylum felt to her all that time ago.
Huge, foreboding and unwelcoming. Such a grand door could give one pause.
Nevertheless, the souls went into the basin and shone the same glorious white that graced Anor Londo and sometimes haunted her dreams. It passed to the door, the red cracks brimming with energy as they opened the way. And finally meeting into a ball at the centre and casting the great doors aside.
A grand door indeed, even when open. She looked to the primordial serpent for guidance, for he was the only other soul in the lonely abyss.
"Do not falter. Go, Chosen Undead…" Frampt began to heave his body upwards, to leave the woman to her fate "Go to your destiny."
And now there was one. Uncertainty plagued her every step. She hadn't been able to help any of her other friends, not even a small group of people and apparently she couldn't muster the courtesy to remember them, either. She'd stopped eating months ago, deemed herself unworthy of the luxury because she was worthless, and denied herself other pleasures such as bathing long before that.
Then again, what better way to punish herself than go where she didn't want to? Then to leave the Fair Lady behind forever? The thought of her final goodbye to her mistress as she handed Eingyi the Old Witch's Ring was too much to bear.
With that in mind, she continued into the barren dunes of ash. Although the more she walked, the more something felt wrong. Not because of the growing sense of dread in the pit of her stomach, but because of her link to her bonfire. It felt muffled. Weakened, somehow, and it was worrying because before no matter how far she walked from the last place she rested at it had never felt as if she was leaving it at all.
But this, this was wrong and made her sick. She couldn't feel her darksign burning in tandem with the fire. No, no, no, she needed to go back. This wouldn't do. She'd worked too hard now and walked too far into the Kiln for it all to go wrong.
Without standing on ceremony the undead span on her heel and began running back to the Lordvessel, to check that it was there, that Frampt hadn't betrayed her, that it was just her frayed mind playing tricks on her.
Breaking into a sprint, she almost fell into it. The basin was there. Alight, as it should be. It didn't make sense. She was standing right in front of the damn thing, yet it felt so distant. She touched the fire, to make sure she had definitely made it back and had not been killed along the way and was simply hallucinating in death.
It was there, and yet it wasn't. She felt sick. Where was the fire? It wasn't there. By the All-Father, it was almost transparent.
Hands in the vessel, she didn't even have time to scream as the same white light that opened the path to the Kiln reached out and pulled her in.
