QUELAAG'S DOMAIN
After rescuing Hatless Logan and introducing him to Hanser, the Archives group had split up. Arnalt stayed with the sorcerers as a lookout, and the onion family warped to Firelink. Siegmeyer had taken the news of his wife's death hard, and while Jeremiah's presence had helped, the old knight needed some time alone. With nothing else to do, Jeremiah and Priscilla headed at last to Izalith. Thanks to the speed with which they reached the inner Archives, they passed through Anor Londo before Velka's treachery, reaching Andre's old church as the first of her Darkmoon Blades entered Sen's abandoned Fortress.
Priscilla had kept quiet, only speaking when expected, since her conversation with Seath. The Ducal shard of the Light Soul, which had made her father an honorary deity, weighed against her from its hiding place in her voluminous robes. She tried not to think about it, but she'd already thought too much about it – what life would be like if she weren't a crossbred monstrosity. It was one thing to call a dragon a god out of respect. It was quite another to be a god who also happened to be half dragon.
If she took that soul for her own, would she be welcomed in foreign lands? Would she at last be able to sit at a place of honor? Would her brother acknowledge her, even as a less important sister than the Princess of Sunlight, bless Her name? At the same time, it felt like cheating, and perhaps worse, she'd be playing into her father's hands. How would she be any less monstrous than he was if she craved after such power?
She spoke only briefly with Quelaag, still guarding the Bell tower. Jeremiah and his daughter had something to discuss, so Priscilla tiptoed away to keep from disturbing them. Unsupervised, she descended the belfry and wandered by mistake into the formerly-hidden bonfire room. Eingyi had grown used to the frequent intrusions and so said nothing, though he eyed the Lifehunt Scythe with horror. In that room, Priscilla found an existence more pale and fragile than her own.
Quelaav was not so desperately sick as she had been a short time before. Sen had been willing to part with some humanity he would have used as trap bait, and Vamos had some lying around for reasons he wouldn't disclose. Still, her illness was bad enough that color might never return to her wilted body. Seeing the spider sisters, Priscilla felt a little guilty at having complained.
"Duke Seath, is that you? Or maybe Sir Ornstein? So many people are sharing souls, it is hard to tell sometimes."
Priscilla jumped at the mention of her father. Once she recovered, she looked closer at the ill girl. She had heard that some learned in the arts of the soul could discern one from another, but using such a rare skill to overcome blindness was new. She scrounged around in the back of her mind, trying to remember the specifics of Izalithic.
"I am…" the crossbreed hesitated, "…his daughter. He gaveth his fragment of Lord Gwyn's soul to me. I have told no one, and it doth weigh heavily on me."
"Don't worry!" Quelaav squeaked. "Your secret is safe with me!"
Though her voice was loud, she lacked much of the motion that typically accompanies such enthusiasm. Her head bobbed a little bit as she shouted, and that was it. She was too weak to move her hands from their clasped position. Priscilla winced.
"Forgivest me, Your Grace. I am Priscilla. I was exiled from Anor Londo long ago and spent many years as warden and prisoner of Ariamis' Painted World. Prophet Lex didst say my skills wouldst be of use here."
"Please, there is no need to be formal. We all have a place we belong. Even I can help by tending the fire. I'm sure you'll have no problems, Priscilla. My name is Quelaav, by the way."
"Oh, no!" Priscilla said quickly. "Of course I would recognize the third princess of-!"
"Please. I am just Quelaav. My elder sisters like to pretend, but there is no need for princesses when the people are gone. Treat them with respect, but don't indulge their bad habits. We all need to move on."
Priscilla was dumbfounded. Quelaav had taken her situation much more gracefully than Gwyndolin had. The crossbreed wondered if it was just their personalities or because Izalith was so irrevocably lost while Anor Londo still stood. She swallowed.
"If thou wouldst not mind… Thou seemst at peace with all that has befallen thee. Could I trouble thee for advice on a personal matter?"
"Of course! Don't hesitate to ask me anything. It has been so long since I had someone to talk to besides my sisters. My knight, Kirk, visits with me, but he doesn't speak. Oh, I'm sorry! Do go on."
Priscilla fidgeted to herself, unable to decide on a comfortable position for her hands.
"Thy sister and thyself do not seem… uncomfortable… for the strangeness of thy forms. How didst thee become so confident when others may looketh upon thee in disdain?"
"Should I be ashamed? I am still Quelaav. Sister only lets through those she trusts, so there is no reason to fear judgment from any of them."
"I see," Priscilla murmured. "Then if thou wast to obtain a means of curing thyself, wouldst thou use it?"
"I would not. Quelara's mutation eats away at her from the inside, and Quella has been deformed since birth. I would give them such a precious thing before taking it for myself."
Priscilla's eyes bored into the floor. She had met the Princess of Sunlight once, bless Her name. Quelaav was much the same, and she wondered if there weren't traits shared by great princesses.
"I see. My father gaveth me his bequeathed soul because of his insatiable lust for knowledge. He wished to see if a strong soul couldeth produce a true deity from half of a half. He knew that I could hardly resist the chance to be… normal."
She reached into the billows of her robe and withdrew the golden, flickering ball of Flame.
"Please, takest this burden from me. I am hardly worthy to bear it. I know not if it holds the power to heal thy kin, but mine own purposes for it would be selfish."
The soul had begun to whisk back and forth like a fire in the wind.
"You would give away such a treasure?"
"If it pleaseth thee."
Priscilla moved forward, extending her hand, but as the soul passed the bonfire, it sputtered and jumped, flinging itself into the flame like a living thing.
"What-?"
As the healing fire erupted into a pillar that slagged the stone around it, Quelaav shrieked in agony. For the first time, she unclasped her hands, clawing blindly at the air. The dull, shriveled exoskeleton of her spider's body shuddered and cracked, gouts of flame erupting and tearing the shell apart. She convulsed as lava began to flow out of her mouth and eyes. Priscilla tried to freeze over the bonfire with her crystal breath despite the overwhelming heat, but it did nothing.
"The Fair Lady!" Eingyi cried, unable to approach lest he be consumed.
Priscilla didn't hesitate to rip the tough leather of the bottom of her dress, trying to physically pat out the magical flame. She recoiled, her hands blistered and turned to her last resort, readying the scythe that focused her power of Lifehunt. As she swung to snuff out the bonfire, the weapon was knocked out of her cracked hands, flipping back and wedging itself in the ceiling. Her own body followed, smashed into the cave roof by a Quelaag who threatened to outshine the Lord soul fragment.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
Priscilla struggled to speak as Quelaag's powerful grip crushed her throat.
"The soul… felleth into the fire."
Quelaag quickly tossed Priscilla against the far wall and rushed to the bonfire. Her eyes burned red, and her hair came alight as she flared up her own fire and grasped the sword at the center. She grew brighter and hotter, trying to smother the bonfire with the overwhelming power she'd drained from the corrupted Artorias. Quelaav's spider legs grew longer and more disjointed, wrapping around her her lower body. Their shells cracked, and thorns erupted along with the flame, digging into her sides.
The screams of agony were loud enough to be heard throughout the Ruins, and by now, the others had made it to the doorway.
"Quelaav! Quelaav! Not again! I'm not losing anyone again!" Quelara shrieked as Quelana and Vamos struggled to hold her back.
"Sister, you can't! Only Quelaag can handle the heat!"
"That's not quite true," Sen chuckled.
The half-machine Tarkus stepped into the hallway without hesitation and lumbered into the central chamber. He walked past Quelaag without flinching and stood in front of Priscilla, at once shielding her from the heat and preventing her escape. Having already been pushed aside by the golem, they didn't immediately realize that another had entered the burning room. Kirk sprinted through to the bonfire. His armor sparked and turned red-hot immediately, and his thorns quickly caught fire.
This being his second time utterly overwhelmed by Chaos fire, he was strangely calm through the pain of his body being simultaneously destroyed and rebuilt. He wasn't mutating this time, and that was a start.
"Quelaav!" Quelaag shouted as she focused on the bonfire. "Send all of this away if you can! Use the Lordvessel!"
There was no response. She remained as she had when this had first started, stock still with her head tilted up at the ceiling in agony. Kirk stared at her.
"Quelaav!" he bellowed, speaking in her presence for the first time in his centuries of service.
There was no response.
"Laav! Laav!"
He tossed his helmet aside. Between the Chaos infesting his body and his Undead state, he hadn't aged a day since the fall of Izalith. Still, he was a well-worn veteran with graying black hair and lines on his chiseled face.
"Love, it's me! It's your Kikurinus!"
Quelaav still didn't move, but the agonized wailing quivered and changed tone. Kirk forced himself to step forward, aware that each move might be the one that took him away from the healing of the oversized bonfire. The twisted, broken spider legs had continued growing and had formed a tangled weave of thorns about the Fire Keeper. This wouldn't stop the Knight of Thorns, who at last left broke away from the healing and climbed up to her even as his armor fused with his flesh. Atop the wreath, he leaned forward to take her hands, not letting go even as his vision grew dark from suffocation in the raging inferno.
At last, the bonfire grew too strong, casting Quelaag away with a massive crack of power. Tarkus' upper body spun around to catch her, and she bounced back toward the wall of golden-red power. She was utterly immune to the power of fire that had made her, but this was neither fire nor Chaos flame. Golden Sunfire ran over her, causing her to hiss and recoil lest she lose an arm trying to push through.
"Quelaav!"
The howling had changed and now sounded almost like humming. The fire cracked, and Quelaav's exoskeleton cracked, and the scream turned to song. The tune of an ancient Izalithic hymn rang out as if she were singing in their midst. As she reached the refrain, Kirk's voice joined hers, despite his body hanging limply from her still shell. The bonfire gave one final spurt before returning to a normal, if fully-kindled state.
Quelaav's body had always been ashen as a result of her illness, but now it was literal. Kirk, too, had turned to a dusty gray-white. As the Fire Keeper shuddered, his body collapsed into the ring of legs, breaking her arms at the elbows and taking them with him. Her body leaned one way, then the other, rising slowly. Soon, the motion broke her frail neck, and her head rolled off into the cinder.
"Quelaag… I'm stuck…"
In a blur of motion, Quelaag was in the ring of thorns. Talons jutted out of the bottom of the spider body. Kirk, still alive apparently, was struggling to push the immense form of the demon arachnid. Quelaag shook off the fatigue of having spent so much power and quickly tore the spent shell upward, tearing off a massive chunk of the brittle, cracked chitin. With her legs free, Quelaav used the extra leverage to hurl the empty exoskeleton overhead.
It struck the wall and shattered morbidly. Within the thorned nest stood the reborn Daughter of Chaos atop three clawed bird's legs, a pair of brilliant pennant-like tailfeathers rising above the rear leg. From her back spouted six scarlet-feathered wings. From her head sprouted the twisted horns of a demon, though the style was rather different. She was still very pale, but rather than deathly so, she had a sort of luster to her.
"Th-thou lookest like my father…" Priscilla said faintly, the heat having taken a toll on her.
Indeed, from the pattern of the horns, to the number of wings, to the strange tripod on which she stood, she did resemble the Duke. In fact, she was still blind, her eyes having fused shut like the dragon's. Somewhat uneasy in her new body, she fluttered out of her nest and approached that side of the room.
"Please excuse me, Golem Tarkus."
The mechanical knight nodded solemnly and left to return to his work outside.
"Quelaav, don't get near-!" Quelaag started.
The Fire Keeper turned around. Unsure of what to do with her hands after having held them in that clasped position for so long, she pointed at her sister with both.
"Sister! You have been incredibly rude to our guest! What happened was an accident, and she did her best to save me. You'll be lucky if I don't tell Brother Prophet what you've done. Now, apologize to poor Priscilla, or I shan't speak with you for a whole week."
Quelaag's eyes widened.
"I, ah, apologize for jumping to conclusions."
By now, the others had rushed into the room and were pushing to get through the narrow hallway.
"Please," Quelaav said. "I am fine, really. Priscilla is the one who is hurt." She turned, smiling gently, and continued, "Would you give me your hands?"
The crossbreed extended her burnt palms. Quelaav held her own hands close together until a faint golden flame formed between them. It rang a high, clear tone and pulsed with energy. As each wave washed over Priscilla's broken skin, her wounds knitted themselves together until there was no trace of injury.
"Just like Princess Gwynevere," the exile said dazedly.
With that done, the others began to approach. Sen and Vamos had already left to return to their work and Quelana stood at the back awkwardly. The normally confident Quelara was still out of sorts and sobbed quietly while hugging one of Quelaav's legs, sniffling as lava ran down her nose. Jeremiah was at a loss for words, having been absent for much of Quelaav's time as a spider, so he settled for a hug. He continued, hugging Quelaag for facing the danger and Priscilla for being caught up in all of that.
As everyone finally started to settle down, Quelaav walked over to pet Eingyi on his bald, flaking head and turned to Kirk, seated on the edge of the thorned nest.
"I believe you have some explaining to do, dear."