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Chapter 69: Gwynevere.
🕑 Added 2023-02-05 20:10:25 +0000 UTCNice
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I sat in front of Gwynevere crosslegged with my hand on my chin. Although I could kill her as easily as a mere thought and an application of umbra I also wanted to chat with a god, someone with at least some insight into the situation of the world.
"Alright then, I want to ask. Why fight Ornstein and others? You don't seem to really have a reason for robbing people other than fighting the knights."
"Simple, I just decided to wake up(I would never actually choose to wake up if presented with the opportunity) and choose violence one day. As for robbing people I just enjoy doing it and the monetary benefits it gives me."
I closed my eyes, now that I had answered her question it would only be fair if she were to answer mine.
"My turn, why did you REALLY come up here?" I knew the first reason she gave me when she approached me was a half-truth. Hearing my words she seemed taken aback. But I was still staring into her soul, her waiting for an answer. I also used soul sight to determine if she was lying.
/If I sensed any falsehood her head would come off./
She relaxed and leaned into the railing in an exasperated fashion. Looking kind of embarrassed while doing so.
"Well, it's just that you looked so... lonely, and you may call me stupid but I just wanted to ask you what was wrong. And... I was just, lonely. I just wanted to talk to someone who doesn't see me as the "Our Great Venerable Goddes of Sunlight" is that so bad?"
She let out an exasperated sigh at the end of her rant and looked away embarrassed. Kinda sad how she was so frustrated that she vented to s stranger that she not only just met but also whopples her royal knights like they were fodder daily.
"You know, I don't know if you are very brave or very stupid to just go up and vent to someone who is very willing to give you a height reducement treatment on the spot. Regardless, you have proven yourself to be considerably less horrible than the rest of your kin so I will leave your head in its regular place."
Somehow completely ignoring my obvious threat she folded her arms and puffed her cheeks out and looked offended.
I'm... threatening her right...?
We ARE having the same conversation right?
Just how nonchalant can someone be!? /I'm having a fucking aneurysm./
"Hmph, I'll have you know I am quite smart!"
"...For some reason I highly doubt that."
After a solid minute of my deadpan staring she dropped her pout and turned back toward me.
"Now Im curious, how DO you know the rest of my family? I'm sure if Gwyndolin saw you he would tell me. Same with my late father and my older brother." She asked while putting a finger on her cheek. While her question was born from innocence the rage it brought me was still very real.
"/Right. Let me ask you something. Would you believe me if I told you I was from the future?/" My voice regained a dangerous tone as the sight in front of my eyes changed from the night skyline of lordran to a dead city with a giant centipede woven from over a thousand corpses slithered around the buildings.
But Gwynevere, somehow seeing how much the conversation meant to me, stared into my eyes to convey honesty, /Not like she could have lied anyway./ {Unless she didn't value her life that is.}
"...Alright. You haven't given me a big reason to distrust you. And it would also explain how I never heard of someone of your caliber."
"/Then this will be easier to explain. I am the Chosen "Undead", the culmination of the sin Gwyn committed. I am the consequence of this dammed fake age of flame. I am the man doomed to live an eternal life with the only goal to extend this age of flame. I am the one who was led by the nose by your brother and forced to fight his horde of puppets and illusions/"
With every word, I uttered the space around me shook as soul release activated on its own. Gwynevere held her head down but I didn't care. The air around us was blotted in darkness.
"/I am the sin the gods have created in their foolish and cowardly blunder. Taken from my good life and turned into an undying slave of the gods. By your very kin. That's why I resent you and the gods. The world is thrown into shit and it's my problem now./"
How is she going to react? Is she going to get mad at me for insulting the gods like the prideful bunch she is a part of? Is she going to run away like a coward? Is she going to blame me?
/I can't wait./
"I... I'm sorry."
...
/.../
{...}
"I know I can't ease your suffering nor can I understand it. But I am truly sorry for the actions of my family."
A god? Let alone one of Gwyn's direct descendants directly apologizing to me? Is this a joke? What will your apologies do? Do they revive every death I had? DO THEY REWRITE THE PAST?
But the next words she uttered were the ones that stopped the sharp shadow blade millimeters away from her throat.
"C-could I try helping you? I know I can't do much I want to at least try to help you with anything I possibly can. Please?"
I gave her a death stare, boring into her very being, I felt vessels burst from pushing soul sight too much. Yet I could sense any falsehood or malice in her statement. Only sorrow and little hope.
Turning away I stepped off of the roof, I didn't trust myself enough to keep my composure. And as I fell she leaned over the railing.
"Please come back tomorrow!!!"
...
Unable to keep his curiosity from overcoming his boredom he visited the rooftop the next night after throwing hands with Ornstein again. And unlike what he expected she was patient, that made sense she should be quite old. Nor did she try to open the topic, she just chatted with him. Avoiding any real topics.
Talking about the street vendors, the local goods, the cathedral design. She seemed rather interested in the general world.
"I never get to go out much if at all. With the absence of my father and elder brother, people started looking at me as a symbol. Even though in the eyes of the public I run Anor Londo it is actually Gwyndolin who handles all of it."
"It is so tiring and stressful, I feel like a prisoner in a golden cage. Even my interactions with others are maintained. I can't leave the cathedral. I feel more like a symbol than a person. I just, I just wish I could leave it all behind."
She didn't really have much goodwill toward her siblings. Although she liked them somewhat her relationship with them had grown cold. Gwyn was overall just a piece of shit. Sen just dipped. Gwyndolin wasn't much better, being obsessed with maintaining order and their images as gods.
It also answered his question of how she trusted him so easily. She already knew their personalities, how Gwyn would anything to keep his age of flame going, and how Gwyndolin would trick people into thinking gods were still in power.
Besides the world already was starting to deteriorate and the first of the undead were starting to emerge. So that gave John even more credit. So she believed him.
At first, they chatted absentmindedly, John watching her every move like a hawk for any deception. But after a week he started dropping his guard ever so slightly around her so she started getting more bolder. She offered him lap pillows and custom-made food. Trying her best to help John in the only way she could. Comforting him.
To John, it felt... weird. Awkward. Unnatural, he hadn't saved her, he hadn't done a mission for her she just... wanted to help him? Him? The one who managed to kill gods? He hoped that she was just deceiving him so that he could end this conflict of feelings.
She reminded him of memories. Although blurred.
She almost felt like a mother. A big sister. A friend. So he decided to trust her, ignoring the voice screaming in his head, telling him to kill her for Gwyn's sins.
He told her tales, much like how he did with Priscilla. But he didn't sugarcoat them but he still hid details.
He would be caught dead before he opened up to someone.
But regardless, Gwynevere helped clean up his head a little, able to think slightly more clearly without a fire-tinted lens. But he still had a job to do. Without emotion or expectation, he turned to Gwynevere
"I want to ask you something. Gwynevere, what do you do against an enemy you can't beat? One so strong that you have no hope of defeating it without losing a part of yourself?"
She hummed, contemplating as she sensed the unusual seriousness of his voice.
He didn't know if this question was even for Manus at this point. But he heard something he didn't expect.
He just expected her to give an answer like: Couldn't you just run away or something? But it felt like she understood a meaning to that question that even he didn't.
"Do you have to fight it?"
'...What...'
The air fell silent. No sound came into his ears. Even as Gwynevere tried to gain his attention.
'Not fighting?'
He closed his eyes. Thinking of the feeling he got when he first neared the portal. Longing and Melancholy. A connection. One that got stronger and stronger as he neared Manus.
Unlike the hostility that he expected like from the game, the tear felt more like an invitation. No hand grabbed him and forced him here. He came here out of his own volition. Manus never tried to hurt him.
In fact, he felt a vague sense of familiarity. A longing. An invisible string that tied them both. A slight magnetic force attracting each other. Like two halves of a whole.
It clicked.
He turned to Gwynevere and took off his helmet for the first time since he came into the past and gave her a genuine smile. The moonlight illuminating my face.
"Thank you Gwynevere."
She seemed almost frozen as she stared at his face unblinkingly. Before her thoughts caught up to her brain and she turned a bright red. She almost choked on air before she regained enough composure to answer.
"Y-eyear sure n-no problemo!"
'She is imitating my mannerisms that's cute.'
She seemed to be looking at everywhere but John as she slightly fidgeted, but fortunately or unfortunately for her John stood up from his perch.
"Alright then, I have a job to do. Ill be back, hopefully, sooner than later. Ciao!"
Before she could even remember to say anything he homewarded out. Leaving Gwynevere there as she fully comprehended what just transpired. Slumping onto the railings and pouting as she drew a small circle with her index finger.
"It's not fair to play with a maiden's heart you know..."
Comments
Greekfirefly
Nice, this is a good chapter
James French
Nice
