Chapter Text
“To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right, the un-rightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star”
“This is my quest, to follow that star!” the man’s cheerful voice bounced around the high ceiling and white marble walls of this peculiar, mostly empty room. The furniture had been neatly pushed towards the walls, and a bonfire crackled at its centre. Two knights sat around it - one a young woman, brightly shining in the characteristic onion-like armour of Catarina, the other older, his armour more threadbare and worn, but the hand-painted sun on his tabard freshly touched up all the same. The painted sun stared out and smiled indiscriminately at the world.
“No matter how hopeless, no matter how far -”
The girl’s derisive snort echoed through her onion-shaped helm, and her companion paused his song, placing his mandolin (emblazoned with a hand-painted sun, just like his armour) on the ground beside him.
“Not a fan of the classics, Miss?”
“Oh erm, forgive me please Ser Solaire… that song. Someone I used to know would sing it. A fool who has caused my mother and I a lot of trouble.” she replied - her expression unreadable through the small slit in her visor, but her tone tending towards sorrowful “what good is a dream if it’s impossible? It’s absurd.”
“Well,” Solaire said, and she just knew he was smiling a big stupid smile under that helm “Although I can’t speak for this fool of yours of course, aren’t impossible dreams the best ones? Imagine, if you achieved your life’s dream. What next? Why, you’d have nothing to do! No, a man needs a hobby to keep his wits in this world, my friend. Shoot for the stars and land on the moon, as it were!” He punctuated this with a laugh, as he did with most sentences.
In truth, the idea that he might never achieve his dream had brought him great sorrow from time to time, but his natural optimism had always resurfaced, an innate buoyancy that kept him afloat in a world of tears. He didn’t mention what exactly his dream was - it seemed his companion was in no mood to hear something so fanciful.
“Perhaps you have a point,” she conceded “Forgive my… uncouthness. I sometimes forget how you Undead must strive to keep from going hollow.”
“Mmmm,” Solaire replied, nodding vigorously.
“Well,” she rose, sword in hand, the segments of her armour clanking in tandem “I’m going to see if there’s a Sagrada Madre I can pray some rosaries to,”
“Pardon? I cannot say I’m familiar.”
“The ahh… Sacred Mother, The queen of light.” Linde replied, somewhat apologetically “She has many aspects, a lot of things you can pray to her for - at least in Catalina we do. The statues all have different decorations. La Rosaria Madre Sagrada del Renacimiento, La Santa Reina del Sol Celestial, Fina Reina del Amor - but listen to me, I’m getting sidetracked. The rosaries are prayers for rebirth, for the undead.”
“Oh, Gwynevere!” Solaire chimed in “The Queen of the Sun?”
“Yes, if that’s what you call her here, she sounds like one and the same,” she nodded her large onion-shaped helmet at him.
“I’ve heard tell that she has an altar here to the northwest, a radiant chamber in a great hall.”
“Marvellous, then that’s where I’ll go, then it’s on to find my father.” she said, resolute.
“Call me if you need me,” the knight said, waving his soapstone and chuckling merrily - Linde did the same in turn, laughing a little despite herself.
“And what about you?”
“I seek the altar of sunlight,” he said, solemnly.
“The -” the ones that were all destroyed? Sieglinde thought to herself “Dreaming the impossible dreams indeed.”
As she reached for the doorknob, she paused, turning back to her companion.
“Where I come from, we have a saying,” Sigelinde said quietly “It roughly translates to don’t chase after waterfalls . Do you know what I mean, Solaire?”
“Oh yes,” he chuckled, “I’ve been to Blighttown, young Miss, and I don’t intend on going back any time soon.”
“Ah… yes, sure.” she let out a long sigh.
Click - the door swung open, and Linde stepped out into the… wait, no. Something isn’t right.
“It’s night?!” she cried, quickly covering her mouth, or rather the piece of metal about a foot from where her actual mouth was. She didn’t mean to be so loud and possibly wake the silver knights. She repeated, to Solaire, much more quietly “It’s night.”
“Oh.” He replied, perplexed at her surprise “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you Miss?”
“No,” she hissed. She wanted to grab him by the arms and shake some sense into him, but demurred - it would be rather rude after all “It’s not been night for days.”
“I,” the knight of sunlight stopped and started several times “Well yes, Miss Sieglinde… it’s only ever night at night.” Poor thing, all the stress must be getting to her. He stood, and made his way to the long marble corridor, to look out into the courtyard with her. It was bathed in a pale blue light, still and beautiful.
“No Ser Solaire,” she shook her head “That’s not what I mean. Haven’t you noticed the sun has not moved the entire time we’ve been here? Usually I plan out my days based on its movements but… it’s always been noon. And now it’s night?!”
“I think that you might be pushing yourself too hard, young Miss.” He touched her shoulder kindly “Pray, rest a while before your prayers. I’ll keep watch, and you can sleep soundly.”
“Hmmm,” she blinked, staring the moon down, as if challenging it to reveal its secrets, before sighing and realizing how ridiculous she sounded “You’re right. Thank you.”
She clanked despondently back into the room, sitting down in the exact way that onions don’t. Solaire smiled fondly, as if at a child who wanted to stay up past bedtime. He took one last look at the moon before heading back inside to the bonfire.
Solaire had to admit, although not grossly incandescent, the moon was beautiful.