Unmasked [Dark Souls II]

You are dead on your feet by the time you make it to the gardener's shack outside the great mansion, sword black with blood and a string of fractures screaming through your ribs and hip where the ogre by the gate sneaked a punch past your shield. The most that you were hoping for here is a place to rest and catch your breath, but it seems the gods are feeling kindly today: as you approach, you catch sight of warm orange light glowing through the doorway, and you know that at last you have a chance to catch your breath.

Up the path, ignoring the strange, shapeless dogs that flee at your presence. Do your best not to lean on your sword. Better to let your body break than your blade; the flame will knit up your cursed flesh, and you only have so much repair powder on hand. You nudge open the door with your shield arm, sword ready in the other in case of trouble – and immediately settle into a combat stance, shield forward, sword up.

"Hello again," says the undead by the fire, looking up. "Gods have mercy, friend, you look awful. Please, sit down."

You do not. You keep your guard up and open your mouth, though it takes you some time to remember the words.

"Who … who are you?"

The undead smiles. Her face is like yours, the green rot of hollowing creeping inexorably across her dark skin.

"Ah, I'm afraid I don't remember," she replies. Trace of an accent. Familiar, but you don't recall where from. "But I remember you. Your name is―"

Lucatiel. Your name is Lucatiel.

"Oh," you say, as the memory returns. "No, forgive me." It's getting worse. New memories fading now, along with the old: your entrance to Drangleic, your mother's face, the creature you killed in Black Gulch, the name of the man who taught you to fight. "I know you," you assure her, dropping your guard and half-falling to the ground by the fire. "Yes, of course."

The warmth is delicious in the chill of the evening air. You set down your weapons and hold your hands out toward it, letting the estus do its dirty work down there among your broken bones and torn cartilage. Across the fire from you, the undead's smile broadens, showing teeth gone green with hollowing or herb-chewing. You think she looks the same as last time, but it's hard to be sure; when you try to bring the picture into focus in your mind, the details evaporate, leaving you with an impression of dark spells and flashing steel.

Concentrate. Yes: that's her, the one you first met in the old wharf with the creatures of the Abyss. You remember her kindness, though you don't remember what kindness it was she showed you.

"How goes your journey?" you ask, hoping to conceal your weak memory with the vagueness of the question.

"Well enough." The undead – no, your friend – reaches out and dips that curious green bottle of hers into the ashen bones at the base of the fire, filling it with glimmering estus. (A flash of insight: she gave you a drink from that, back when the two of you put down the ancient witch locked away in the Bastille, and your wounds melted away as if you were right there by a bonfire.) "I found the King. Hollow as his realm, would you believe." King? Which king is this? You can't remember, but you don't get a chance to ask: your friend shakes her head, braids tumbling about her face, and carries on: "Something of an anticlimax. But that nice lass from Majula told me to head east, so east I go." Sharp grin, teeth flashing orange in the firelight. "Fate of the undead, eh? Do this, do that, don't ask any questions."

Her speech moves so quickly, skipping easily from thought to thought like a gargoyle across castle battlements. It's all you can do to keep up, to nod as if your mind still works like that of a real human woman.

You hate yourself for it, but you can feel the bitterness welling up inside you, a sour chill that almost drowns out the warmth of the estus. How does she do this? What sorcery is it that keeps the thoughts running true within her skull?

She doesn't deserve this. You keep feeling it anyway.

"Ah, well." Your friend stops up the flask and tucks it into her coat. "You have your quest too, my friend. You'll find souls here, I'm sure. I hope they help."

She remembers. Of course. You sigh and take out your sword, rubbing down the bloody blade with an old rag. Movements that your fencing master drummed into you many years ago – that your body remembers, independently of your failing mind. You're no hollow yet; you won't hate your friend for her strength of will.

"Thank you," you say. "I pray for your safety on your journey, as well. Whatever it is you seek in this far-off land."

She laughs. The sound is high and clear and rare as hen's teeth, in this cursed place.

"Aye, well. Cheers, friend. I don't know if any gods care about the likes of me, but I'd rather have them on my side than not. Won't turn down well wishes from a fine knight like yourself, either."

A wink – dashing, ebullient, her hollowed left eye flickering like the white flash of crystal sorcery. (You remember a drinking-house, many years ago during a war posting whose details escape you; you remember kind eyes and full cups, a woman who winked like your friend and tasted of bitter Carim gin.) You can't hate that. It's impossible to hate anyone who wears her undeath with this much panache.

"Hey now." You blink. Where are you? There's a fire, a woman, but this isn't the drinking-house― "You all right there, friend?"

She looks earnest, worried. You snap back to the present moment like a bowstring: the gardener's shack, the great mansion, eastern Drangleic. Your friend before you.

You feel yourself hunching, as if over a gut wound. From the depths of the bonfire, a shattered skull stares up at you with eyes of ash. It seems like a question, but you don't know the answer.

"My name is …" Think. Think, damn it, you know your― "Lucatiel," you say, looking up sharply at the woman beyond the bonfire. Do you know her? You think you might have had a brief dalliance with her during a campaign, but then again maybe not; maybe that was a seamstress you met drinking. You feel some affection for her all the same, whatever its root. "I beg of you, remember my name," you say, voice low and urgent. "For I may not myself."

The woman looks at you with eyes like open graves, dark and expectant.

"Oh, my friend," she says sadly. Yes! That's how you know her – she's a friend, your friend, the one looking for a king. "Of course I will, Lucatiel." She stands up, the edge of her coat grey with dirt and ash, and comes around the fire to kneel at your side. "Here," she says, reaching into her coat and coming up with some twisted little effigy, thrumming with Dark. "D'ye remember?" she asks, holding it out. "Like I showed you."

It looks familiar. You take it from her, turning it over in your hand. It's warm in a way that doesn't feel like it has anything to do with the heat of your friend's body – a strange, crawling warmth, soft and seductive.

"Look closely," says your friend, kneeling by you. "Who is this?"

You look. The black wires of the effigy twist and shift like ropes under tension: an oval face, sharp eyes, a long braid. You know this face. This face belongs to―

"Lucatiel," you murmur, and blink: the effigy is gone, melted away to nothing in your hand.

"Aye, that's it." Who―? Your friend. The memory comes easily this time, like blinking. You face her and yes, you recognise those eyes, that coat, the blade of eerie blue steel on her hip. "I'll leave you another for later," she says, handing you a second effigy. "In the meantime, friend – Lucatiel – I'll remember your name as long as this curse lets me."

She starts to straighten up, ready to leave, but you grab her arm with a sudden strength and speed that surprises you as much as her.

"Wait," you say. "I have to … I need to thank you." You cast your eye around and spot a sword lying on the ground next to you, long and sharp and with a curious hooked hilt. Your friend is a good swordswoman; that might be of use to her. "Please," you say, snatching it up. "Take this."

Your friend pushes your hand back gently.

"I'll not take your sword, Lucatiel," she says. "A knight shouldn't surrender her weapon until she's beaten, eh?" Yours …? The blood drains from your face: yes, of course. Yours. How could you have forgotten? You've trained in the use of this blade since you were a child. "Still, my memory's not what it was; I could use something to remember you by." She rubs her chin with stained fingers. "Tell you what, how about this?"

She takes the ceremonial hat from your head. Long past its best now; the feather is almost naked, the edges frayed and torn. But still instantly recognisable as the mark of Mirrah's elite.

"The mask," you say, clutching at the hollowed part of your face – horribly, horrifically exposed. "I need my …"

"Of course." She detaches the mask from the hat and hands it over; you strap it back around your head as quickly as you can, fingers stumbling on the clasp. "Now each time I put this on, I'll think of you. What d'ye say to that, eh?"

You nod. Anything, so long as you are remembered. While your name persists, the hollow you'll become has not yet triumphed.

"I pray for your safety," you say, though now that your head is clearing, you suspect that you might have already said that. "Good luck on your search."

"And you, Lucatiel." She takes your hand for a moment. Squeezes gently, warmth seeping through the soft leather of your glove. "We'll meet again. When we've found what we're after."

She's gone, the tail of her coat swirling around her as she sweeps out of the shack. A moment later, you hear the eldritch scream of the summoned Dark, and know she must have found some foe to flex her heretical arts upon.

You stay sitting there for a long time, turning over the little effigy she gave you, letting the heat of the bonfire sink into you down to the marrow. Then you tuck it safely into your shirt and stand up, sword in hand.

You wish you could remember her name. But for now, you need to press on while you still have your wits about you. Even if you can't remember where it is you think you're going.


This place was built for pleasure, but it's been a long time now and the ornamental fountains around which the front steps loop are dry, clogged with moss and pitiful bundles of flesh that might once have been bodies. A couple of lifegems, too, glittering down among the corpses. You prise them free and carry on without stopping; the last time you tried to pray for the dead, you realised you no longer knew the words.

The doors are wide open, broken half off their hinges. Beyond is a short, dim passageway, doubtless intended as a chokepoint in case the manse ever came under attack. You move carefully, past a ruined carriage left to rot with the skeletal remains of a basilisk still inside, and see―

Red up ahead. You've seen this before: the bloody light of someone from another world, another time, come here with a hollow's furious appetite for the humanity of others. You pull back sharply into cover behind the carriage, hoping to get the drop on whoever it is – but it's too late; the red silhouette is charging down the passage now, a greatsword slung over their shoulder.

Fine. You step forward, let your body find its balance. Weight centred, sword arm ready, offhand poised to move into position for a block or a parry. Your opponent passes the carriage – you see their sword hand shift―

Is this a knight of Mirrah?

You're almost too surprised to meet the blade as it swings towards you; your block is awkward, shaking your bones loose inside your arm, and it's all you can do to cover your backstep with a low sweep of your sword. Your opponent snarls like a hollow, red light curling off their ceremonial hat, and lashes out again and again, great flowing blows that drive you back and back again beneath your shield. Whoever this is, the curse hasn't taken their knowledge of the Mirrah sword; you haven't faced an opponent like this since you last sparred with the elite knights back home.

An opening. Your opponent lunges into a low thrust, aiming to get beneath your guard; you step aside and drive the edge of your shield into their exposed wrist, smashing their arm aside and leaving them wide open for a heavy blow across the back―

―that completely misses. You see your sword strike the flagstones, the foe beneath it gone, and look up wildly to see your enemy rising from a swift forward roll, their sword a meteor of glowing red steel flying straight for―


Your eyes open to orange light and thin smoke. For a second you lie there, confused – and then you draw in a sharp breath and roll to the side. But there's no sword coming for you, no black phantom wreathed in crimson light, and a moment later you sit up to find yourself beside a bonfire.

Your name is Lucatiel. Remember that.

It comes back to you with your name. You were bested by a master of the Mirrah sword. Like your … like who, exactly? There was someone, once, another elite knight, who you never learned how to beat. A man, maybe. The name escapes you.

Unimportant. You have to go back, try again, cut the swordmaster down. This place won't be your grave. (It may be.) It won't. You climb to your feet, adjust your mask – didn't you have a hat? Ah, but of course, your friend has it now – and make your way back up the stairs to the entrance passage.

It's all just as you left it: the broken carriage, the worn flagstones. The only addition is the great red-black gout of blood sprayed across the floor and wall, surface sizzling with loose souls. Yours, presumably. You kneel briefly to touch a hand to it, and rise a little more clear-headed, the blood fading to an old stain beneath you.

Down the passage – red, just barely visible around the corner. This time, the knight won't have the advantage of surprise. You charge their position at the other end of the passage right away, determined to kill them before they can take the upper hand. A wordless roar rises in your throat, the old battle cry lost to the green decay in your skull, and as they raise their blade you drive yours forward – only for it to go awry, brushed aside on the edge of the shield as delicately as a lover wafting a fly from your face.

It's only for a moment, but it feels like forever that you stare into the carved eyes of the knight's mask. Seeing nothing and everything in the blank steel, in the notches hiding a human face, in the moment before a blade rips through your neck like a scythe through ripe corn.


Your name is Lucatiel. Remember that.

The third attempt goes better. You go more cautious, more defensive; you hold back the knight's sword for a full ten minutes before they seize an opening and kick your kneecap into a firebomb of pain.

You try your best to keep standing, to retaliate. You really do. But you end up on your knees like a common criminal before the block, and the knight is only too happy to play headsman.


Your name is Lu … Lucatiel. Lucatiel. Remember that.

Again. You rise from the bonfire without really knowing why, remembering only that there is someone waiting out there. Only when you reach the passageway and see the knight waiting do you recall who. There's something you can do to help your memory, but unfortunately you can't remember, and you don't get a chance to think it over before the knight draws and launches themself at you, sword first.

Your body responds before your slow, crumbling mind – your body, which will remember this when Lucatiel of Mirrah is no more than dust on the floor of your skull. Which echoes the parry that killed you a couple of attempts ago and bats the oncoming blade aside. Which strikes back across the knight's shield arm and is rewarded with first blood.

If first blood means anything when this fight has killed you so many times already. The knight howls like a mad dog, the sound ripping from their – his? – throat like an arm pulled brutally from its socket, and strikes back with a hollow's wild abandon. You just about hold beneath your shield, arm burning with the impact, and retaliate with a sly thrust to pay him back for … for something, some low blow you don't recall.

You pull it from his calf, slick and red, and your heart swells; this is the time, this is the engagement that will see you through―

You're not fast enough. The edge of his shield smashes into your mask, drowning your vision in a wash of pain and blood, and while you're still retreating, trying to clear your eyes, you feel a brutal sharpness hooking beneath your breastplate.


Your name is … It begins with an L. You know that much. An old Mirrah name, something that makes people think of their elderly great-aunts.

Lucatiel. Your name is Lucatiel. Remember that.

When you wake, clutching at a wound that the bonfire has already burned away, your fingers find something soft inside your shirt. You take it out and see some odd little knot of black wires, warm and pliant between your fingers. Feels like the Dark, though you don't recall exactly why you think that. A useless trinket, as far as you can tell, but you put it back anyway. Your past self thought it was important. She probably knew better than you.

You take your sword. You get up. You go outside, into a grey, rain-whipped night, and are unsurprised to find yourself before a huge crumbling manse, looming before you like a giant's skull. There's a man in there you need to kill. Because … because you need to get past him. Leave the details of why for later. You'll figure it out.

You don't, as it happens. This time, he kills you before you've even found your stance.


Your name is … is … Lu … ca … Luca? Luca … tiel. Lucatiel. Remember that.

There is a space between death and bonfire, a darkness that separates the soul and the flame. Deep and peaceful and full of strange stirring images. You dream of soldiers with heavy steel helms and flame-bladed swords, of an old witch chained up in the dark, of poison-spitting statues and a great crawling mass of living corpses. Flashes and flickers, little glimpses of things that might be and might have been.

There's one that you come back to again and again: a long journey on a crewless ship sailing across black water, your only companion a tall, handsome woman wrapped in a grimy black coat. You don't know if this happened or if it's just wishful thinking, but this is the kindest dream, the one your fragmentary self clings to in the brief moments before it reforms beside the fire. In it, you test your blades against each other, or she recruits your help to try and make something edible in the wreckage of the ship's galley, or you swap stories of what you still remember. (You can't make out the words, but that doesn't stop you straining every sinew in your body to hear them.) No violence here. No killing. Just two women, two bearers of the curse, persisting.

Then you open your eyes and it all fades away. Nothing left in your head but that nagging sense of loss.

Sometimes you think you die just so you can dream again, but somehow you're never able to make the thought stick.


Your name is …

You know this. You have to know this. If you lose it, then you have nothing left at all; your name, your self, is all that stands between you and the furious husk the curse will one day make of you. And you aren't that, not yet, so you must still have it – so you know your name – so your name is …

Loretta. No. Lorraine? No, that's not right either. There's an L, though. It's an old name. A Melfian name? A – a Mirrah name, that's it. Maybe a -tiel or a -riel. Londoriel? Laphatiel?

You don't know. You leave the shack not knowing, swing your sword with all the energy of the horror flowing through you. Your ignorance makes you frantic, dangerous; you drive the knight back up against the ruined carriage with a series of desperate high strikes that damn near break his guard and sweep his legs out from under him with a savage kick that surprises you as much as him.

He falls, and you atop him. There's screaming; it might be you, might be him. Might be some other hollow, somewhere else in this ruined castle. Your mask has fallen away, the hard metal beard digging painfully into your chest, but you barely notice, sword slipping from your hand as you rain blows down on the knight's head and shoulders. His mask gives way to your tearing fingers and now at last you see the bastard: a long oval face, blank, hateful eyes. You roar and smash his nose with the heel of one hand, digging your nails into his hollowed face like you could rip the curse right out of him, like a wild lion tearing at her prey.

The knight struggles feebly, uselessly. Moans and whines beneath you, unable to get his hands free to fight back. You hate his weakness in a way you've never hated anything before, a spiteful, vicious sort of hate that sublimates instantly into violence.

"Luhhh," he groans, wriggling like a trapped bird. "Lu … ca … tiel …"

You freeze, fingers still hooked into his skin.

"Lucatiel," he wheezes. "Luca – Lucatiel."

Your name is―

You don't resist when he throws you off, or when he pulls the knife from your belt. He pins you, blood dripping off his ruined face onto yours, and you're still trying to remember why that word means so much to you when he slips your own blade into your neck.


There's something you've forgotten, but you don't know what.

A masterful parry. A feint and its follow-up. A foot stamping down with impossible precision on the flat of your thrust blade. You hold onto each death for as long as you can, until the next wipes it from your mind like a scribe smoothing over a wax tablet. You climb the steps and die, and you climb the steps and die, and you climb the steps and die.

The dreams come short and fragmentary. A face. A sword. A lantern. You don't know what any of it means. This has how it has always been: those steps, that passageway, the dance of swords and the red blossom of pain in your chest as you fall once more. Your life is a circle, like the twisted black brand on your shoulder.

You get up. You climb the steps. You die.

You get up. You climb the steps.

You die.


One time, you find an odd black lump inside your shirt, a little clod of dirty wires in the vague shape of a person. You look at it for a second, then throw it away into the grass outside the shack. Whatever it meant to you, it's nothing now. Swords win fights, not trinkets.


You think sometimes, when you think at all, that you aren't actually a person – that perhaps you're just half a person. The phantom knight you fight, the one who looks so much like you with his mask and breastplate – maybe he's yourself, your soul, and you're nothing but his body, seeking after union the only way it knows how. Repeating the movements it once made when the two of you were one knight, leading the charge across the valley.

There's nothing you can do with this information. You just climb the steps and hurl yourself at yourself, at your true and long-lost soul, and hope faintly that one day he might take you back.


You get up. You climb the steps. You take your position, as the knight takes his. The two of you have your rhythm, as you always have done for as long as you can remember. You'll come at him, he'll defend, you will fight until he outwits you, knowing you better than an empty thing like you ever could.

Find your balance. Weight centred, able to move forward or back as required. Sword up. Offhand poised for a block or a parry. As a good fighter's body should be.

You charge; he sidesteps your first blow, punting it aside with the boss of his shield, and swings his sword towards your exposed head. But the angle is poor, hampered by the close quarters, and though he opens up your shoulder and stains your shirt you're still in the fight. Shield up, creating space with a quick bash and slice; he jumps back, weight collecting on his rear leg and bouncing forward again like a spring, sword-first. You see the point come toward your face―

A strange, eerie shriek, and the knight stumbles, curls of hungry black energy rippling over his shoulders. The second ball of darkness screams into the back of his head, knocking him into the wall – the darkness reforms into a vicious, scything sword – the knight's head rolls away from his shoulders and comes to rest at your feet.

You stare down at it. It stares back up at you, the mask's empty eyes reflections of your own, and then it fades away into the air like a forgotten dream at dawn.

You look up again. See a woman standing in front of you, dressed in black and brandishing the tarnished, Dark-eaten remnants of what was once a fine blade of blue steel.

"Oh, my friend," she says softly, her eyes full of pain. "I'm so sorry."

She wears a crown – black, barbed iron, knotted into her braided hair to keep it securely on her head. In her offhand is a hat like the one the knight wore, only scorched and threadbare as if it's been dragged clear through the Old Chaos and back again.

You don't know what to do. You've never been in a situation where you didn't have to duel the knight. But this woman has a sword, so perhaps it just means that she's the next person you have to kill.

You lift your sword, and see the pain in her eyes curdle into horror.

"No!" she cries. "No, not you!"

You step forward into a thrust; she steps back, lifting her ragged sword, and the space between you thickens into a transient darkness, dashing your blade aside.

"You have to remember," says the woman, her voice low and urgent. "I'll not see you hollowed, Lucatiel."

That word. You've heard it before. Did the knight say it once? No matter; you'll fight. That's who you are. You swing and she darts back another step, cloak swirling around her like crows' wings. Blade at her side, yes, but her arm is tense. She clearly knows how to fight with it, even if her first choice is to hex.

"I remembered, Lucatiel!" she cries desperately, bringing her sword up to parry your next blow. "I've been so far, forgotten so much, but I kept my promise."

She dodges to the side as your sword hisses past; you follow up with a shield bash, trying to pin her against the wall, but whoever she is, she has deft feet, and the boss of your shield clashes loudly and uselessly against the stonework.

"I went to Shulva," she says – behind you now, a dangerous place to be, though she doesn't press the advantage, just backs away down the passage. "And to Eleum Loyce, to the Old Iron King's metalworks, to the true throne. Kept your hat the whole time, Lucatiel, like I promised."

Your sword meets hers with a ringing clash of steel on steel; you lean in hard, trying to overpower her, but she's stronger than she looks, and she has her hilt too firmly locked with yours to be easily dislodged.

"I remembered," she insists, staring at you through the narrow V of clean air between your blades. "Lucatiel. My friend. I don't know who I am, but I remember your name."

Your …?

Your name is Lucatiel. Remember that.

It hits you like fire from heaven, splitting you from skull to toes in one long brutal motion. Your name is Lucatiel. Your name, it's … and this is …

You drop your sword, let your shield hand fall. You open your mouth. It takes some time; the words are not where they once were, have retreated somewhere cold and distant. But the woman in black is very patient.

"I know you," you say, and watch as a smile spreads across her half-hollowed face.

"Aye," she says, reaching out. "And I know you, Lucatiel."

You take her hand as she offers it. Her fingers are square and rough, heavy with rings, and at their touch you remember something: you fell, and this hand reached out to help you back up again.

There was a time before you fought the knight. You remember now, sort of. It's hazy, muddled. But there are flashes: this face, that sword, these hands. A boat. A witch. A broken statue.

"Who am I?" you ask, wary, almost hopeful.

"Lucatiel of Mirrah," she says. "Won your way out of poverty with that sword, if I remember right. But then the curse got you, and so you came to Drangleic, like we all do." She hesitates, then bends to pick something up from where the knight's body was. "Here, he should have … ah, there you go. I've never tried it as far gone as that before, but – maybe this will help."

It's an effigy of gnarled black wire, or something like it. You think you've seen its like before, though you're not sure when or where.

"What is this?" you ask, taking it from her.

"Look closely," she says. "Who is it?"

You think you trust her, and anyway you don't have the strength of will to disobey. You look. You see.

You gasp, and the effigy melts away in your palm like a cracked lifegem.

"Oh," you breathe, taking a step back. It's her. You never really thought you'd― gods, how long has it been? Her ragged old coat is gone, replaced with dark geisteel armour and a heavy cloak with a fur collar; her sword looks like it was left to rot in the Abyss for a good few centuries. And the hat – your hat – looks a thousand years old, its feather naked and the brim a dense thicket of fraying threads. "You came back," you tell her, which is not what you want to say, but it's what comes out of your mouth.

"Aye." She grips your hand tight. "I said we'd meet again, didn't I? I don't remember a damn thing before I crawled into the old fire keepers' hut, but I remember saying that, and meaning it."

You blink slowly, the thoughts working their sluggish way back into your head and finding that their old homes are now mere heaps of ruined brick. You remember that. You remember fighting at her side, and travelling by ship. But the why and how is all smoke, melting as you try to grasp it.

"I don't remember either," you say. "I remember you."

She nods gravely, like this is the most important thing that has ever been said in the history of the world. Maybe it is. You're not even sure what lies outside this mansion's walls; you have no idea what people might have said out there.

"I'm glad there's some of you left, Lucatiel," she says. "I've been searching all over for you. Never thought you'd still be right here where I left you at the gate to this blasted old manse."

The image flickers like a dying flame within you: this face, a little less hollowed, a little more innocent, glimpsed across the bonfire. Yes. You made her promise – promise something, you're not sure what – just before you came inside and met that phantom.

"The knight …"

"Aye, the knight." She scowls. "I think I met him too, on my way through here. Can't say that I remember all that clearly, even now." She takes her hand from yours, taps the crown on her head. "This, you see. Where to start … well, there'll be time to tell the full story later on, but I finally found the King – the real deal, back before he whipped off his britches and started running round the crypt with his meat hanging out. He gave me something. A blessing, I guess you could say. He never found a cure for the curse, d'ye ken? But he found a way to ignore it."

You clench your hand tight, digging your nails into your palm to keep your concentration. Even now, with your friend back, trying to tell you something important, you can feel your mind wandering. Only several seconds after she's finished speaking do you really understand what she's said.

"You can ignore it?"

"Aye." She taps the crown again. "It's these. Trinkets of the old kings. For as long as you wear 'em, they'll freeze the curse in place. Can't restore what you've lost, but they'll stop it getting worse. And," she adds, reaching into her pocket, "while I need one to stop myself trying to chew your face off, I still have three spares."

She takes out a slim, intricate tiara of silver and ivory.

"We came all this way together, Lucatiel," she says, holding it out. "Looking for an answer to the Darksign. I'd not forgive myself if I didn't share what I'd found with you."

You look at the crown, a glowing spot of gorgeous silver in the rounding gloom. You look at her face, most of its living beauty lost to the curse.

Even if your thoughts were clearer, you're not sure you could decide which is the sweeter sight right now.

"Go on," she says, pressing the crown into your hand. "Don't be shy. It's yours, Lucatiel. No strings attached."

Your hands know what to do, no matter how clouded your head. They rise of their own accord – and a moment later, you feel the fog roll back, as calmly and swiftly as a sea mist driven off by the rising sun.

"How is it?" asks your friend, peering anxiously into your face. "Lucatiel? Are you all right?"

You draw in a breath. You feel your chest filling up, the weight of your shield, the chilly movements of the breeze gusting down the hall. You feel it all. You feel … alive.

Your name is Lucatiel. That's all you know. But by the gods, you will remember that.

"Yes," you say, catching her eye. "Yes, I – I exist."

Her face splits open into a great green grin, scabs cracking off her hollowed cheek. It's hideous. And it's the most beautiful thing you've seen for as far back as your ruined memory goes.

"That's what you told me you wanted," she says. "Back in Black Gulch." She sighs. "I'm glad I could give it to you. Only sorry it took me so bloody long―"

"You've stopped the curse." You take a step forward, but something in you baulks at contact, and you don't quite manage to take her hand. "I won't take any apologies from you―" What's her name? Gods, of all the things for this damned curse to take from you. "I'm sorry," you say. "I don't know your name."

She smiles sadly.

"Nor do I, Lucatiel," she says. "It's all right. I think I lost it long before we ever met. I'm just another bearer of the curse."

You shake your head.

"More than that," you insist. It's getting easier now. You reach for words, and there they are, right there inside you. A few more days wearing this crown and who knows what else you could do? "You … you remembered me."

The concept is bigger than your reclaimed words can articulate, but you know she understands you. She's like you. She knows exactly what it means to remember.

"Well, maybe so," she murmurs, voice thickening slightly. Is she embarrassed? She doesn't seem the type. "You're, ah … a memorable lady, Lucatiel."

You shrug.

"So are you. I don't remember much else."

"Ah." Yes. Definitely embarrassed; she turns away a little, rubbing her nose with the back of one knuckle. "I – well, maybe more will come back to you. I know since I started wearing this, I found my memory stronger. But I guess that's a story for another time."

She turns again, taking in the mansion with a wave of her hand.

"All this," she says. "I'm done. I did it, you know, I went all the way to the end, met the man who built this place and had it out with him. I finally figured it all out. I'll not repeat the first sin, not take my curse and give it to some poor bastard a thousand years hence. But I'm no Dark Lord either. I'm undead, and there's an end to it."

Back to you. Now she meets your eye, steely as anything.

"I'm going back to Majula," she says. "I've seen enough kings now to know I'm not one of 'em. Might have a soul as big as Vendrick's, but I'm gonna build a community on it, not a kingdom. Bring Majula back to life. And when the undead come to Drangleic, as we all do, they'll find a home there."

She pauses there, as if waiting for an answer. You aren't sure you understood all of that; some of these terms seem familiar, but if you ever knew what Majula or a Dark Lord were, you've long since forgotten. What you do know is that you're undead, and so's she. That the curse has taken whatever home you once had away. And that you wouldn't wish the last few lonely months of your life on the most miserable hollow in the world.

"What of me?" you ask. You think you know the answer, but you're not sure of anything any more. You get the feeling that certainty will be something that takes a long time to come back to you.

Your friend hesitates, shifting nervously from foot to foot. It's rather sweet, in its way. Shyness isn't what you'd expect of her; in your remaining memories, she's downright brazen. But you get the sense that it's been a long, long time since she's known any deeper companionship than a wink and a nod tossed across a bonfire.

"Well." She scratches her rotten cheek, shedding little bits of decay. "I, ah … I sort of told you that 'cause I was hoping you'd come with me. Though of course, you're free to keep fighting out here if you want."

You laugh. Imagine that – you, laughing, here. It seems impossible, and yet here you are, and here's the woman who made it happen.

"I came here to fight my curse," you reply. "It's thanks to you that I even remember that much." You touch your crown, the ivory uncannily warm beneath your fingers. "I think I've had my fill of blood."

She starts.

"You'll come?"

You shift your shield further up your arm to free your hand. You pick up your sword and slide it home into the scabbard on your back. And you slip your fingers through hers.

"You'll have to show me the way," you say. "I fear I've forgotten."

Her eyes shine like lifegems, warm and bright and irresistible.

"It's a long way," she says, a little edge of disbelief in her voice. "We'll have to walk. I don't think the feather I had of Shanalotte will take two."

"I think I'd like a long walk. I don't even remember what lies outside that gate."

She tilts her head towards the entrance.

"No time like the present, eh?"

"No," you agree. "None."

The two of you walk out into the drizzle and the sighing wind, sending a pack of low crawling beasts fleeing into the long grass. Maybe you knew what they were once. Maybe you will again. It doesn't matter. You noticed them this time, as you noticed the rain and the wind, and that will do, after all the empty lives in which you didn't.

You can feel something coming back to life inside you, something small and soft struggling gamely through layer after layer of bone and muscle. You recall a woman laughing, a bitter taste on her lips. Did you kiss her? Is that a thing that you do?

"Am I reckless?" you ask, glancing at your friend.

"No, I wouldn't say so." She doesn't seem surprised at the question. You imagine she must know all about trying to reconstruct one's personality. "You're blunt, but you're a cautious one."

Wise. You'd do well to follow your past self's example. There's a long journey ahead of you, and a place to hang up your sword and rest, and maybe a few more memories that might resurface. There's time to think this through. And a kind woman whose intentions you mean to delve right down to the root.

You look up, into the grey threads of the falling rain. And the small soft something inside you bursts free of its bonds at last, bright and brilliant as a flame butterfly at dusk, and you tear off that damned mask and hurl it away into the mud.

The rain patters against your face, cool and free. You draw in a deep, damp breath, eyes closed; you turn to your friend and open them again. She's still here. Like you.

"I wish I knew your name," you tell her.

"Maybe I'll find a new one," she replies. "You'll be the first to know. For now, though …" She draws her sword and points it down the path. "Shall we go home, Lucatiel?"

You incline your head. It feels lighter now, without that hunk of metal strapped to it. Light enough, maybe, to believe in what she's saying.

"Home," you repeat, testing it out and liking the flavour. "Very well. Home."

The two of you walk side by side through the overgrown grounds, the little dog creatures watching warily from the undergrowth. There's a gate down there, you realise. Is that how you came here? You truly don't know. It hurts, walking right through the memories you've lost, but it hurts a little less to know you're not walking through them alone.

Your name is Lucatiel. Your past is dead now, buried beneath the green spreading across your face. But for the first time in all these long days of dying, you might just have some small fragment of a future in its stead.

You are damn well going to remember that.