It didn't last forever.
For a while, though, she dreamed. She saw gilded armor, the curved blade. But then there was more; she also saw the great serpent Frampt, the one who called himself Kingseeker. He was an imperious creature, the only being who had inhabited the shrine for longer than she had, and he often spoke to her in dreams and visions, not unlike these now.
This time, however, he paid her no mind – instead she saw him speaking earnestly to another. He devoted all his attention to the quiet knight who had held the Estus flask, who had held the soul of another keeper. Frampt was commanding, urging the knight to do something. The knight, for his part, was unreadable, saying nothing. He looked up at the primordial serpent with the same reserved, expectant look that he had given her. On his hip the firekeeper saw the emerald bottle, glowing with the souls of her long-lost kin.
The flask jostled with sudden movement, and as she watched the setting changed from the shrine into an enormous castle hall. Sunlight streamed in from great glass windows on all sides, reflecting off a curved blade. At the center of the hall, the quiet knight was plunging his sword clear through the chest of the man who had killed her. Metal arms wrapping around a golden breastplate were painted a deep red, and a menacing laugh fell silent. She watched as the quiet knight knelt down beside the corpse and retrieved something that shimmered with a dull black-and-grey light…
…And then she found herself dragged away from the warm surreality of the dream, and back into the cold dark world of the living once more. Her vision swirled, and fuzzy details slowly resolved into the familiar cracked granite and rusty old bars of her prison. Something felt wrong, though. An incompleteness, like a piece missing from a puzzle, but the keeper couldn't quite tell what.
Standing before her once again was the quiet knight. The last wisps of magical light from her resurrection faded away around him, and she knew it was he who had returned her soul. He might have even meant well, although she thought it more likely she was simply still of some use to him. Perhaps he had the souls of more keepers for her to defile and feed to the bottle at his side. It did not matter either way. She sighed and hunkered down into a familiar kneeling position – and then she realized what was missing.
The pain was gone.
Her legs felt… normal. Stiff perhaps, but not broken. She moved experimentally, perhaps more in a few moments than she had in months. There was no wave of splitting pain that came back up in response.
And if her legs were repaired, that would also mean…
"Th-thank you," she said to the quiet knight, her voice feeling strange and foreign in her mouth. Her restored throat felt like it moved on its own, shaping the words she herself had forgotten how to make long ago.
"I am Anastacia of Astora. Now I can continue my duty," she paused briefly, imperceptibly, "as a keeper." The knight remained impassive as ever, studying her. "But," she continued, "I only hope that my impure tongue does not offend." The reprieve from pain was a relief, but it still felt bizarre, almost frightening, to be speaking after such a long, forced silence.
He took a small step closer, a bit of sunlight gleaming off his polished helm as he moved. Anastacia instinctively shied away, suddenly very uncomfortable. "Forgive me… I am impure," she repeated, "my tongue never intended for restoration."
It felt like too much. For so long, all she had ever wanted was to die, but even that was taken from her. Her body had been restored to the way it was before, but she wanted to move on, not go backwards. She bowed her head – too much, it was too much. She just wanted to be left alone.
"Please, if you have any heart, leave me be." She felt her eyes glisten underneath closed lids. "I wish not to speak."
A long moment passed, but the quiet knight obliged. He turned and walked away from her little cave without a word.
In time, Anastacia heard again from the primordial serpent Frampt. He showed her a vision – she saw the altar that lay deep underground, far beneath the shrine.
It was a grand subterranean chamber, old and empty and illuminated here and there by firelight. On three sides was an audience's seating area, cut into stone with an architectural style nothing like the ruins of the shrine above. It looked ancient and foreign, the remains of decorative carvings adorning walls and columns alike. The roots of what must have been unfathomably large trees pierced the chamber from the top and sides, making their own curving paths through the stone.
The fourth side was marked by an immense pair of doors, hewn directly into the solid rock. They were enormous, craggy things, five times the height of a tall man. Before the doors was the altar proper, with a short stone pathway leading up to it from the opposite side. Between the pathway and the audience's area was nothing but open air, a steep drop-off into a dark abyss.
It was a hall that had laid undisturbed for an age, since the very shaping of the world.
The altar itself was shaped from the same ancient wood as the mighty roots that curled through the chamber. It lay in the center of the stone pathway, and looked like a tree which had been cut at the base and hollowed out in the shape of a giant wooden bowl. And as Anastacia watched, she saw a great stone vessel cradled within the altar. Inside, it held a flame like the one in her own bonfire.
Standing before the altar was the quiet knight, enigmatic as ever.
He is the Chosen Undead. The Kingseeker spoke directly into her mind. The successor to the Great Lord.
The fire within the vessel grew larger, its crackling hum louder. The one who will link the Fire, cast away the Dark, and undo the curse of the Undead.
The vision began to fade. You must aid him in his journey, no matter the cost.
Back in her cave once again, Anastacia traced lines in the dirt, turning the revelation over in her head. Reversing the curse of the Undead… in a way, it was all she could remember wanting. A chance at ending her everlasting atonement. A chance to avoid the fate that befell an unspeakable number of hollows the world over. A chance to move on.
The firekeeper considered the knight who had restored her body, who had wordlessly brought an end to her endless suffering. Perhaps I have misjudged him. She had thought him no different from all the rest – those who took and took with no thought for anyone but themselves. But this…
She reached out to touch the prison bars and felt the cool iron, the flakes of rust. She had never dared to hope it would be possible, but if the Chosen Undead could truly break the curse, then the Kingseeker had the right of it.
For the first time she could remember, Anastacia had something she could hold on to. Something she could look forward to. She clenched her hands and peered out over the ruins in the distance, thinking, No matter the cost. What were a few more souls to pay the price for her freedom? She had waited so long and sacrificed so much. She could afford to press on just a little further – with someone's help.
"Frampt has told me of you," she said, the next time the knight's path took him past her cave. "That you have agreed to link the Fire." He kept his characteristic silence in response, and Anastacia felt a curious spark of realization. I never in a thousand years would have expected to hear my own voice again before I heard his.
"I thank you, sincerely," she continued. "Finally, the curse of the Undead will be lifted, and I… can die human." She looked up at him, and the faintest trace of hope touched her eyes. "I am powerless, but I will do all that I can. Please, save us all.
"Please."