, just as a fanwork. First thing I've written in several years, and it was based off a game I know nothing about, but I feel good that I managed to motivate myself to write this much in the first place.
Gwyndolin watched the Undead continue his relentless approach, and he knew that his death was inevitable.
They had been playing out this deadly dance for what seemed like days now, rushing backwards inside the endless hallway Gwyndolin's magics had conjured. No matter what arcane spell he threw at the interloper, it was either effortlessly evaded or it impacted on one of the columns fringing the sides.
There was no hesitation in the Undead's movements, almost as though it had fought him before. Every new strategem was foiled, and no amount of power could stop it.
It was unthinkable!
The mortal now lunging at him through the moonlit hallway with Occult club in hand, who had conspired with that accursed Kaathe, defiled the image of his beloved sister which he had spent such a length of time on, doubtless many other acts of depravity, and most importantly had failed to accord with the plan, the plan that would save the world his Father had laboured so hard to build, that he had unfailingly maintained even as everyone abandoned it - his uncle, his sister, his brother, everyone save neglected Gwyndolin, the unseen Dark Sun.
He had patched up crumbling walls so that they stood strong as ever, replaced failing sentinels with illusions of smoke and light, replaced the sun itself with a pale mockery that still gave out a semblsnce of light and heat, all for appearance's sake - he had even replicated Father's knight Ornstein and his executioner, for all the good they did against this interloper.
And all for naught - no matter how much Gwyndolin extended the hallway, it was not infinite, and he was coming to its end. The burns his body bore from the Occult club ached with anticipation for more to be inflicted.
Even as his thoughts ran endlessly downward inside his mind, the voiceless warrior leapt forward again, only to hit nothing save air as Gwyndolin spirited himself down the hall for the final time. Illuminated by a beam of moonlight, he conjured bolts of the same substance in his frail hands and flung them at the intruder more for the sake of pretense than any actual hope at stopping the unstoppable bulwark given human form. It effortlessly dodged the initial salvo and ducked past the second, as it had all those times before, as Gwyndolin knew it would.
Now within striking range, the Undead approached slightly closer, spreading its arms out wide and striding toward him, it's entire being radiating contempt, it's gilded armor gleaming in the sunlight shining through the windows. Gwyndolin could do nothing but watch as the club that was bane to him was raised high above the head of the Undead, glistening cruelly in the rays of golden light illuminating this false knight.
The club came crashing down, and the impact shook the world, blinded Gwyndolin even through his helm. But when he woke it was not to face the infinite dark of whatever hereafter remained, but a sight a million times more bizarre and terrifying.
Gods stood in Anor Londo once more.
Their appearances were varied, far more so than the gods he had known before the Flame dwindled, but by the luster of their souls he could see that they were indeed gods. Light poured off of them to his eyes, gathering around them in great billowing auras and cascading about them all in a great silhouette that would make the very air around them warp to mortal eyes.
They stood, legion - a man with a bull's head that radiated incandescence alongside a proud hawk-headed god, an old man in shining chain mail and a helmet with great wings clutching a spear of terrifying power beside a dark-eyed one with bright red hair and a great shaggy beard who clutched a fearsome hammer in one hand, what appeared to be a mortal man carrying a quiver full of blood, a man with eyes made out of electricity and hair the color and texture of clouds clutching a spear of lightning, and more.
And at their head was one who eclipsed every one of them, a figure Gwyndolin had looked upon with such a great sense of finality for the last thousand years that he could almost not recognize him.
Gwyn.
Father. Father was home.
The Undead slowly clambered to its feet and started to go towards Gwyndolin again, only to be halted by a voice of piercing clarity and angry radiance. It said, "And who are you, that you would lay hands upon my child?"
The Undead did not respond to the question; Gwyndolin doubted it could. For the victims of the curse, what they chose to accomplish was all that mattered to them. For this Undead, all that was desired at the moment was the destruction of the Dark Sun, but that fate was sealed off from it forever when Gwyn's armored fingers closed about the midsection of the warrior and lifted it high into the air.
The Lord of Sunlight, staring intently at the interloper, curled his face into an expression of disgust. "Kaathe. I should have crushed you beneath my heel long ago, but your tool will aid you no longer in this instance."
His other hand casually caught the free hand of the Undead in the middle of attempting to Lifedrain the great Lord and snapped it in half with a twitch of his fingers. Deeming him not worthy of any further examination, Gwyn cast the Undead back down the hall, straight in front of the legion of gods that had come with him.
He spoke once more: "Honored friends. The creature you see before you has come into my home and attempted to murder my child Gwyndolin, in accordance with the schemes of a vile beast that has plotted to topple the Age of Fire since time itself began. I would ask that you mete such judgement out to it as you see fit, that I might attend to my child."
The gazes of the gods turned to the Undead, and their justice was swift and terrible.
But Gwyndolin did not see any of that, nor to his surprise did he care, though he had commanded an order dedicated to meting out vengeance for millennia, none of that mattered for the moment because Father was home and he was holding Gwyndolin in arms that seemed to hold the distilled essence of every smile he had ever received.
Gwyndolin found himself crying as Father took off his sun-shaped helm and he looked upon Gwyn with his malformed, pale eyes, crying real tears born of ten thousand years of rejection and a thousand years of total isolation, his frail, disgusting form collapsing into Father's strong arms.
For a moment he was overcome with shame for defacing his Father this way, but Gwyn did not seem to care, murmuring platitudes in his ear as a fresh bout of sobbing overtook the Sun's son.
And though his discussions with Frampt had inured him to the concept of an Age that could only be sustained, not fixed, for the first time in a millennium Gwyndolin felt that things would be all right again.
Father was home.
If you know Dark Souls stuff you'll probably facepalm about whatever details I screwed up, but whatever.
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Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 314018 times)