I come back to this one every so often, and it's easy to see why. This is the single best piece of Dark Souls fanfiction ever penned.

You are able to do so much in so little time - paint a vivid picture of our Chosen Undead as a spoiled young girl growing into hardened cynicism, tell a horror story about Logan's loss of identity, give us a love story about two unlikely people, show us the end of the world in haunting prose.

I loved so many of the little touches in this story, like turning Patches into Quelan's unwilling mule or her bitter inner monologue about the way the pampered gods of Anor Londo looked down on the witches of Izalith. Even Frampt came across as an interesting character, torn between talking up the new Age of Fire and knowing it's all a lie. You breathed so much life into this world and these characters before you killed them off. Except for Nemeta. Poor Nemeta.

It really speaks to me that you were able to take the story of Dark Souls in such a wildly new direction, but you also kept true to its major themes. The Light and the Dark. Burning forever with a fate worse than death or dooming the whole of humanity to the shambling horror of the Darksign. What kind of choice is that? No matter what you do, how do you live with yourself after that?

This story gets so much right.

I see you also have an Emerald Herald story, and you can be sure that's next on my To Read list.

I selfishly wish you would trot out another Dark Souls story, whether that means finishing off the trilogy with a DS3 yarn or going back to the one that started it all. But even if you never touch this setting again, I hope you are proud of yourself. Old Soul is a triumph.

I don't know what I expected from Dark Souls story but tragedy. And tragedy you delivered. I could literally hear plin plin plong at these final lines and no parry skill would be able to deflect those feels. Well done, sir/madam.

Well, that went downhill. This sort of highlights what I don't like about Dark Souls: nothing can ever be good again. The best days have past and all anyone can do is eke out a mean existence with the shreds of what's left.

It was a good story.

It just isn't a good story I particularly enjoyed by the end.

probably the best dark souls fic.

WHAT WHYYY, that ending was so unsatisfying, but it was such a good dark souls themed ending Ugghhhg I'm legit crying

Fuck man, I really wish you put in the tragedy tag along with that romance one, because I wouldn't have read it if I knew it was going to have a downer ending. The entire story was pretty somber, so I guess I should have seen it coming. It was a pretty unique twist to have the romance be a very BAD thing though, Quelana's insistence that she not link the fires and that she not go back to the past screwed everyone over, and it almost seemed kind of toxic by the end. Quelana was being incredibly selfish, and she should have encouraged Nemeta to do it at the end, but instead she went off and died, leaving her all alone.

Christ, what a downer ending. It certainly fits the franchise though, so excellent job there.

Holy fucking shit.
The ending of the chapter before was so nice... and then came this chapter.
You just had to follow in dark souls’ footsteps and make the ending as depressing as possible.
Whyyyyyyy
I find it both humorous and maddening.
I might ‘forget’ about this chapter and then they’ll get a good ending... heheh.

That aside, I very much enjoyed reading this story, I didn’t like Nemeta at the beginning, but she grew on me. And the interactions between her and Quelana were great.

Thank you for writing this!

Generally very well written, but there's a massive problem I can't get over.
The ending.
Allowing the Fire to fade does not lead to an "Age of Grey". It leads to an Age of Dark. These are NOT the same thing, unquestionably so.
Light and dark are diametrically opposed; one cannot exist without the other. The moment the First Flame came into existence, these became the only natural states of the world. The Age of Fire begins and is either prolonged via the Linking of the Flame as Gwyn did or ends with the Fading of the Flame, only to begin again when it sparks back into life as the Fire Keeper says in Dark Souls III.
To claim that the Fading of the Flame would lead to the Age of Grey would be akin to claiming that when a person dies, any and all physical effects they had on the world cease to be. Just because a person dies does not mean they did not exist, and just because a fire fades does not mean the concept of fire, and by extension disparity, ceases to be.
Arguably even worse, you completely disregarded a fundamental part of that state for the sake of playing up Nemeta's angst. The implication that she will suffer eternal torment until a spark exists goes completely against the fact that in the Age of Grey, TIME DOES NOT EXIST. There is no eternity, moments do not happen and Nemeta would be completely incapable of any thoughts at all. The eruption of the First Flame is equivalent to the Big Bang of our own universe; an inexplicable, unexplainable occurrence that led to the sudden existence of everything simultaneously.
If you want to use the Fading Flame to create drama and regret, you're perfectly capable of doing so. The Age of Dark was feared by Gwyn because it would lead to human's becoming more powerful than Gods, so show Quelana's power fade away with the passage of time while Nemeta's grows. Change the dynamics of the relationship, the student becoming the master! Especially with the way Nemeta already proved herself more knowledgeable in living in the outside world, have the roles from the beginning of the story reversed as Quelana, who initially guided Nemeta, grows to rely on her more and more, and then eventually less and less as the two become equals in the relationship, as any two people in a relationship should be.
Fuck's sake if you hate happy endings so much you can still go for that angle too! Maybe Quelana's fading power and the loss of her Pyromancy drives her insane, so she drags Nemeta to the Kiln and reignites it with her body. And then, when she comes to her senses she succumbs to despair and joins her in the fire. That way, you aren't just flat out disregarding the canon of the story, and you can still get your angsty, torture-boner, visual novel bad-end in there at the end to make all of us sad forever. It's a win-win for you!
Overall, a good story. Solid writing and interesting explorations of characters. The relatively short length helps in a lot of ways and prevents it from becoming an angst-ridden slog, but the ending is just so much of an issue for me that it honestly sucked away any enjoyment I might have derived from this.

They killed Fungo! Bastards!

...the ending is not only dark, it's stupid. SPOILERS Queelana just 'mkay, time to die', knowing that Nemeta'd be left totally alone; then Nemeta just 'hmmm, nah, I won't use the time loop de loop', knowing that the fire'd fade soon and there'd be nothing left. I mean, how about loop time and just live, without burning?

Apart from that - yeah, it's sad. But the empathy is diminished by stupidity.

The ending was supposed to be sad, but Nemeta lost any and all of my sympathies in Chapter 1. RIP Fungo

God Damnit! Why that tragedy?! :'((((

No plz do an alternative end. This is just too sad to bear.

I love the character development here so much!

How in the world girls are able to write such romantic and natural fanfics?

I love it!

Ah man. I'm not so good at writing and expressing things so I'll try to be straightforward. I'm so glad I read this book. I'm playing through dark souls 1 right now, it's my first time playing any souls game, and I don't know. It's like I can cleanse the world in ice, and purify the land or I can condemn countless more hollows to suffer as I did and my mind will be destroyed. My companions will live on but I will be in eternal hell. The lines are blurry but I think I'm going to have to suffer. Poor crossbreed Pricilla living peacefully in the painting or poor quelaan withering away in her whole alone with no sister (why didn't you go see her quelana!) or poor fire keeper of firelynk shrine or reah of the white or solair finding his sun! I love the people in the world more than I hate the cruelty of it.
I hope this wasn't to jumbled and incomprehensible.
Tldr: I love this story, I think I'm gonna pick up pyromancy

Good story, quite bitter sweet. Very Dark Souls. In a way it's add to condem them for their choice, but in another one life for millions more, maybe they could have found another way, another person to sustain the fire.