Chapter Text
Sunny ran without thinking, a storm was raging all around him, but he didn’t care, he was far too focused on the storm raging inside of him. He couldn’t believe how stupid he had been, he had decided to go ahead and break his violin after everyone worked so hard on getting it for him, all just because his sister was annoying to practice with. His sister screamed and cursed at him when she found out, but he couldn’t blame her for it. Still, as soon as she got done with her verbal beat down and went to call their parents, Sunny ran out of the house and never stopped running. He wasn’t sure where he was going, he just wanted to get away from her. He knew it would have been just a matter of time before she would feel bad and try to apologize to him, which would honestly make him just feel even worse. He supposed he just wanted to be alone right now so he could sit and think about just how dumb he was.
The rain pouring down all around Sunny made it almost impossible to see what was ahead of him. This wouldn’t have been too bad of a problem if he was at least trying to pay any sort of attention to the world around him, but unfortunately for him, he wasn’t paying attention to anything besides his thoughts. So Sunny, without ever noticing, began to run across the road. Sadly, being a very young and small boy made him difficult to notice even on a bright and clear day, which meant he was just straight-up impossible to see in this terrible storm. This all led to a very tragic, yet incredibly common accident. Sunny got hit by a truck.
Thankfully for Sunny, the driver was going far above the speed limit, meaning his first death was so incredibly fast he never even got the chance to process anything beyond the initial impact. His friends and family didn’t take any solace in his quick death, since it led to them having to have a closed casket funeral.
Sunny wasn’t sure how long he was stuck in the dark. It could have only been a few minutes, or maybe it was a few years? Sunny wasn’t even sure how he got here, one moment he had been running in the middle of the storm, then he felt something hit him, then he ended up here. To say he was scared would be a massive understatement, he was downright terrified. He kept trying to scream, hoping that someone would find him and explain where he was, but he couldn’t speak. Not only that, he couldn’t see or feel his own body at all, he couldn’t even cry.
Sunny was eventually dragged out of this darkness when he heard something crashing right in front of him. His eyes shot open, finally liberating him from the darkness that had been imprisoning him. This should have been comforting to him, but the fact that he found himself sitting in a cold and dreary dungeon that was barely any brighter than the darkness he had just left kinda had the opposite effect. Oh, and the fact there was a dead body mere inches away from him didn’t help things much either…
Sunny screamed and immediately began crawling away from the dead body once he realized it was a dead body. Once Sunny had managed to crawl to the opposite corner of the small jail cell, he simply stared at the body in horror for what felt like forever. Eventually, his brain slowly began to start working again and he started asking himself where he was. It didn’t take him very long to realize he was in a prison, so his mind turned towards why in the world he could have been put in prison. After thinking about this for a few minutes, Sunny ended up deciding his parents must’ve sent him here because he broke the violin. Now one might find the idea of anyone’s parents sending their child to what looked like an abandoned, midevil, torture, dungeon because they broke a violin to be rather absurd and kinda stupid. But please remember that Sunny is only eleven, so in his mind, that seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing for a parent to do.
Sunny sat there, not sure what to do now. He probably could have kept panicking about the dead body in front of him, but he had unconsciously decided to just pretend it wasn’t there for his own sanity’s sake. “What do prisoners do?” Sunny tried thinking of every movie and show he watched that involved prisoners, and he quickly concluded that prisoners were supposed to try and escape prison. Sunny frowned slightly. “How am I supposed to escape then?”
Sunny pondered this question for Lord knows how long. He came up with a few different ideas that all ended up failing until he eventually noticed a key was clenched in one of the dead body’s hands. “…That can’t be the key to the cell, nobody would be that dumb.” Sunny thought to himself in disbelief. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try, so he bent down and did his best not to vomit as he pried the key out of the dead body’s hand, (it wasn’t enough). Once he had the key, he walked over to the cell door and tried unlocking it. He smiled when the door unlocked and he was able to open it.
He stepped outside of his prison cell and began to walk forwards, doing his best not to make too much noise. He didn’t wanna risk getting caught by whoever was supposed to guard this dungeon since he highly doubted they would put the key with him in the next jail cell they threw him into. He had only taken a few steps forward before he began to hear something in the dark ahead of him, it sounded like someone was… crying. Sunny stood there, frozen and unsure what to do. He couldn’t see the crying person thanks to the dungeon being so dark, but by the sounds of things, they couldn’t have been too far away from him. His natural instinct was to see if there was some way he could help them, but he was scared. What if the crying person told one of the guards he was trying to escape? “Maybe I should go back to my cell and wait until they fall asleep then try escaping again.”
Sunny considered that idea for a moment before throwing it away. He couldn’t just leave this poor crying person alone, what if they were hurt or could help him escape? So he marched forwards, doing his best to bite back his fear. As he got closer, Sunny was able to see a figure standing in the darkness. Sunny guessed this was the crying person. “Hey… Are you ok?” Sunny asked quietly. The figure said nothing, so Sunny repeated himself slightly louder, yet the figure just kept crying. Sunny frowned and walked closer to the figure, but soon found himself staring at the figure in horror and disbelief. It was… It was a zombie!
Sunny unconsciously started to walk away from the zombie. He briefly considered running back to his jail cell, because all of his plans about dealing with zombies boiled down to letting Hero handle it. But Hero was nowhere in sight so it would probably be best for him to just run and hide until the older boy would show up to save him. Before he could run away though, he realized that there was a dead body in his cell that could turn into a zombie at any moment and eat his brains, so it would probably be a bad idea to lock himself in a room with it.
Having a lack of any better ideas, Sunny’s panicked mind decided that if he couldn’t run and hide he should just run, so he did exactly that. He ran past the zombie, passing by a couple of other ones as he did so. None of them moved at all or acknowledged his presence at all, but he was too scared to notice, much less care. Eventually, his running brought him to a ladder. Normally Sunny’s fear of heights would prevent him from climbing it, but he was too scared of the zombies to even care about that. So Sunny climbed the ladder like his life depended on it, reaching the top in just a few mere seconds. He was now in a room that led to an outdoor courtyard.
If he was a tad bit calmer he might have noticed the bonfire in the middle of the courtyard, or the fact the dungeon he had just escaped was underneath a castle. But he was terrified for his life so the only thing he noticed or cared about was the large door at the opposite end of the courtyard. He immediately ran towards it and flung himself at the door. The door swung open and Sunny crashed onto the floor on the other side. Sunny quickly pulled himself off the ground and started to desperately look for another door to run through. It took him a moment, but he spotted a doorway that led into a dark room. Sunny was about to run towards it but he hesitated for a moment. “What if there are more zombies in there?”
Unfortunately for Sunny, he didn’t have the time to hem and haw about the possible dangers of running into a random dark room, since a giant, incredibly fat, stupidly ugly, monster jumped down into the middle of the courtyard. This monster had a massive club in its hands. Sunny figured it was probably planning on using said club to smash him into a red smear on the ground, based on the fact it was currently roaring at Sunny and looked just about ready to charge at him.
Sunny stared at the monster in disbelief and terror, his brain desperately trying to understand what the heck he was looking at. Then the monster actually started to charge at him, which was enough to shake Sunny out of his shock. Sunny jumped up to his feet and began to run towards the next doorway just in time since the monster swung its club right where Sunny had been just a few seconds ago. Even though it never hit him, the impact it made on the ground sent Sunny sprawling back onto the floor. Sunny began to cry in pure terror as he desperately pulled himself back off the floor before resuming his run towards his escape. The monster tried to smash him to little pieces a few more times, but thankfully he managed to avoid that horrible fate.
Sunny was just about to reach the doorway when the monster swung the club just a few inches behind him, sending him sprawling back onto the floor again. But thankfully it was just the push he needed to get to the other side of the doorway. A metal gate came crashing down behind him, meaning the monster had no way of getting at him. Sunny smiled at this, despite the pain his head was in from hitting the cold hard stone floor twice in just a few minutes.
He groaned in pain as he pulled himself off the ground and began to look at the room he was now in. It was yet another dark room, but this one had a giant sword stuck into the middle of the ground. Once Sunny was certain that there were no zombies in this room and the monster wasn’t going to try and chase him into here, he took a moment to start to think rationally. He now highly doubted his parents sent him here because even though he was just a child, he knew it would have been incredibly excessive for his parents to send him to a dungeon full of monsters just because he broke his violin. So if his parents hadn’t sent him here, that only really left one theory in his mind, someone had kidnapped him and put him in here. He had no idea why someone would do that, but it was the only thing he could think of.
Still, just because he was a kidnapping victim instead of a prisoner, that didn’t change the fact he needed to escape… if anything it probably made escaping even more important. Now that he was a tad bit calmer, he was able to realize that just running through this dungeon like a madman was probably a horrible idea, so he needed to come up with a plan. Sunny glanced down at the sword stuck in the ground. “Having a weapon would probably be a good idea in case any of those monsters get too close” A few images of him cutting the heads off some zombies while Aubrey swooned over him popped into his mind, causing a smile to pop onto his face. He reached down to pull it out of the ground, but as soon as his hand touched the hilt of the blade, the sword became engulfed in flame. Sunny immediately pulled his hand back, took a few steps away, and stared at the flaming sword in shock.
As he stared into the flames, Sunny suddenly realized just how cold he was. Without thinking, Sunny slowly leaned closer and closer towards the fire, eventually sitting in front of it like it was a campfire. Being so close to the fire made him feel warm and comfy like he was back in his bed and wrapped up in a bundle of blankets. He could almost hear Mari telling him a bedtime story. Sunny sat there and stared at flames for what felt like forever until it eventually occurred to him that he shouldn’t be staying in one place like this unless he wanted to risk some monster finding and eating him… which he didn’t want… for obvious reasons. So despite how much he wanted to stay by the fire, he forced himself to stand up and leave this room behind.
As soon as he did so, all the warmth left his body, leaving him feeling completely and utterly freezing. Sunny gave a very quiet and pathetic groan and he was severely tempted to go back to sitting by the fire, but he forced himself to ignore that desire. He needed to get back home to his friends and family, they all must’ve been really worried about him right now.
Sunny began to walk down a well-lit hallway… ok, so technically it wasn’t really well lit, it just didn’t have a roof, which meant the sun was able to shine on everything. It was thanks to the sun that Sunny was able to spot the zombie on the other end of the hallway. He stopped, unsure of what to do now. He couldn’t go back since this was his only way forward… He glanced at one of the empty prison cells right next to him, maybe he could find something useful in there, like a weapon that wouldn’t automatically burst into flames as soon as he touched it. Not having any better options, Sunny searched the jail cell for any sign of a weapon, and he quickly found one. Sitting on top of a pile of debris was a rusty old dagger. He picked it off the ground and looked at it. “I guess it looks long enough to get to the brain...” He thought uncertainly to himself.
He looked back over at the zombie at the other end of the hallway, his young and creative mind creating all sorts of scenarios that would hopefully lead to him killing the zombie. He knew it was going to be hard to get this knife all the way to the brain, but after sitting at the fire for a while he wasn’t that scared anymore. In all honesty, he was actually feeling a little bit excited, he couldn’t wait to tell everyone about how he killed a zombie once he got back home! Sunny took a few steps towards the zombie and quickly noticed it had something in its hands he couldn’t quite make out. He strained his eyes a little to see what it was as he kept walking forward. Sunny finally realized what it was holding just a few seconds too late, it was holding a bow and it was pointed straight at him.
Sunny never even got a chance to scream before the arrow came flying across the hallway and straight into his throat. Sunny promptly collapsed onto the ground and slowly choked to death on his own blood.
Sunny screamed in fear and pain as he opened his eyes, desperately clutching at his throat where an arrow had been lodged just a few moments ago. It took the boy a bit longer than he would have been comfortable admitting to realize he was no longer in the middle of dying. He sat in front of the bonfire in confused disbelief as he greedily gasped for air. Eventually, Sunny’s mind offered him an explanation for what just happened. “… I… I must’ve just been daydreaming again” Sunny started to laugh a little at the thought, but he still felt on edge. He did daydream a lot, and his imagination was far wilder than anyone else he knew, but he had never had a daydream that felt so… real. Plus, there was the fact he still had the knife in his hands…But it had to have been in his head since if it had happened he would have been dead right now.
Still, Sunny needed a few minutes being comforted by the warmth of the fire before getting up. He walked down an eerily familiar path and froze when he reached the hallway again. He stared at the zombie at the other end of the hallway in shock and horror. He was punished for having an existential crisis by having an arrow hit him right in the eye.
Sunny kept stabbing the zombie repeatedly, even after it stopped moving. It had taken him a while to get used to the whole concept of repeatedly coming back from the dead, but treating it like respawning in a video game made it a whole lot easier for him to wrap his head around. It didn’t help with his fear and newfound trauma at all, but it allowed him to think rationally enough to be able to finally kill this thing… after being killed by it at least a dozen times. Once he was sure that it was absolutely dead, Sunny wiped away his tears and stood up. He needed to get out of here, he needed Mari to hug him and tell him that everything was alright.
There was only one path forward, and it brought him back inside the dungeon. He slowly crept through it, making sure to double-check every corner for any potentially hidden monsters. As he finished climbing some stairs, he noticed a knight of all things laying on top of a pile of rubble. Sunny was about to stay incredibly far away from the knight, because if it turned out he was a zombie too, Sunny doubted his ability to take down a fully armored zombie, but then the knight waved and called out to him. “Hey… You… Come over here… I have something for you.”
Even though Mari and his parents had instructed him not to listen to strangers offering random gifts to him, Sunny was just too relieved to hear someone else’s voice to care about their advice. He ran straight to the knight and knelt by his side. He had so many questions to ask him, but before he could ask any of them the knight spoke. “Oh… You’re a whole lot longer younger than I expected... I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of such a young undead before.”
Sunny frowned. “Undead? Like… those zombies that tried attacking me earlier?”
The knight coughed a little and Sunny noticed the large bloody dent in his armor. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard the term zombie before. By undead, I mean the dead who refuse to stay dead.”
“Oh… We just call them zombies where I come from.”
“Well, you must be from a distant land as well. I’m from the kingdom of Astora, where do you come from?”
“I’m from Faraway,” Sunny mumbled as he tried to remember if he had ever learned about the kingdom of Astora in school.
“Hah hah… I guess it’s only fair that you don’t tell me where you’re from when I haven’t even told you my name yet. My name is Oscar of Astora… If you haven’t been able to guess it by now… I’m dying. It’s just a matter of time now, and I’m afraid that when I come back it will be without my sanity.”
It took Sunny a moment to process everything Oscar had said, but once he did his brain immediately latched onto the thing he said about coming back after dying. “Wait, you can come back from the dead too?”
Oscar nodded. “Yes, we’re both zombies as you would say. So as part of our curse, the bonfires will bring us back endlessly. I’m afraid that I’ll come back hollow like the rest of the undead here since I failed in my mission before it could really…” Oscar coughed for a moment before continuing. “Begin. I know that this is a lot to ask for someone so young… But can you please finish my mission for me?”
Sunny was silent, he was far too busy trying to get over the fact that he just said they were both zombies to answer him. “Oh… Pardon me, I never even explained to you what my mission was. You see, my family has a saying… Well, it's more of a speech than anything else now that I think about it. ‘Thou who art Undead, art chosen... In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords... When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know…’ Well… Now you know. I suppose it would probably be for the best if you don’t tell me if you’re going to fulfill my mission for me or not; I would rather die with hope in my heart that you will do it. Oh, one more thing. Here, take this, it's an Estus Flask, an Undead favorite…”
Oscar handed a still incredibly confused Sunny a glowing orange bottle. It kinda reminded Sunny of that one disgusting orange drink that his friend Kel loved to drink all the time, called orange… Josh? Sunny frowned, he knew that wasn’t what it was called, but why couldn’t he remember the actual name of it? Sunny pondered this question for a moment before forcing himself to focus, he had far bigger things to worry about, like escaping this place. He could worry about apparently being a zombie and not remembering the names of disgusting drinks after he got back home. “Hey… Uh… Mr. Oscar… Do you know how I can go back home?”
Sunny waited for an answer but none ever came. Eventually, it occurred to him that Oscar was probably dead. Sunny stood there in silence for a moment, unsure of what to do, before looking at the sword and shield grasped in Oscar’s hands. If Oscar was right about losing his mind the next time he came back from the dead, it would probably be a good idea if Oscar wasn’t armed. Besides, Sunny could use a better weapon than the pitiful rusty dagger he was using. So Sunny pried the sword and shield out of Oscar’s hands, cringing as he did so. They both felt heavy and unwieldy in his hands, but he still smiled, feeling more confident than ever in his ability to escape. He glanced behind him, there was another staircase leading higher up. He supposed it would maybe be a good idea to get to the top of this dungeon so he could see everything from above. Sunny walked towards the staircase, and after only climbing up a few steps a giant boulder came
crashing down the stairs and flattened Sunny like a pancake.
Sunny couldn’t believe it, he had finally managed to do it! Lying dead in front of him was the giant monster. It must’ve taken him hundreds of tries to kill it, but it was all finally over and he could escape back to his home and see his friends again. He walked up to the head of the fat monster and pulled Oscar’s sword out of its eye. The sword had ended up being too heavy for him to use in combat effectively, so he just stabbed it into the monster's eye as he jumped down at it. He then switched over to slowly hacking away at it with his knife whenever he wasn’t busy trying to dodge its club. Once he reclaimed his sword, he walked over to the gate the monster had been guarding and pushed it open.
Sunny wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see on the other side of the gate, but he had been hoping for his house despite knowing that wasn’t very likely. Still,
he was pretty sure he would never expect to see a staircase leading up to a cliff, he definitely wasn’t hoping to see that. He walked up the stairs, hoping that maybe he wasn’t seeing things from the right angle and he hadn’t died all those times just to find an empty cliff. His hopes were dashed as soon as he reached the top and realized that this was indeed just a cliff overlooking a seemingly endless void. Sunny blankly stared into the distance, in a mixture of massive disappointment and disbelief.
Thankfully, before he could start having a mental breakdown that would probably lead to him turning hollow, a giant crow came flying out of nowhere and grabbed him.
For the first time that Sunny could remember, he laughed. He laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and why shouldn’t he? He had just been part of something truly hilarious! He had fought his way through an entire town full of zombies, dying at least a couple dozen times along the way, all because some really rude guy told him that he should ring two bells to get back home. After all of that, he eventually reached a small narrow bridge with another giant monster.
Sunny had been prepared to die hundreds of times in order to kill this thing, but as soon as it tried charging at him, it ended up tripping on some of the debris laying all over the ground and fell off the bridge into the seemingly endless grey void below them. Once he got over his initial shock, he started laughing like a madman and still hadn’t stopped. His laughter came to an abrupt end when two lightning bolts went flying above him and he heard the telltale screaming of some zombies. He quickly lifted his sword and shield and looked wildly all around him for where the lightning could have come from. Eventually, he spotted the culprit standing on the opposite end of the bridge. It was a knight wearing white and green armor, with a large emblem of the sun in the center of their chest.
Sunny was nervous for a moment, but then the knight waved and called out to him. “My name is Solaire of Astora. I assume you’re the one who sent that demon crashing into the abyss?”
Sunny sighed in relief and sheathed his sword. “Uh… Yeah… I guess I am…” he muttered.
Solaire stared at him silently for a moment before calling out again. “I’m sorry but I’m afraid I can’t hear you from here. Do you mind getting closer?” Sunny started to walk up to him. “Oh my! I didn’t realize you were so young. I suppose that makes your recent victory over that demon even more impressive.”
Sunny blushed a little and looked away. “Oh… Uh… Thanks, but it kinda just tripped on one of those bricks and fell off on its own.”
Solaire laughed, causing Sunny to feel almost as warm as the bonfires made him feel. “Oh, so that’s why you were laughing when I found you. That must’ve been quite the sight… But still, even though you didn’t slay that demon, the fact someone as young as you hasn’t gone hollow yet is quite the feat. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, what is your name?”
“Sunny…”
Solaire’s laughter grew louder. “Really, your name is Sunny? I suppose that makes our meeting rather fortuitous. You see, I’m an adherent of the Lord of Sunlight. Now that I’m undead, I have come to this great land, the birthplace of Lord Gywn, to seek my very own sun!”
Sunny stared blankly at Solaire. “Does he mean the sun in the sky, or…”
Solaire tilted his head a little and cut off Sunny’s thoughts. “Do you find that strange?” Sunny glanced down, embarrassed about being called out like that. “Well, you should! No need to hide your reaction. I get that look all the time! Now, why is someone as young as you, fighting demons and hollows?”
“I… I’m just trying to get back home to my family… but I don’t know how…”
Even though he was wearing a helmet, Sunny could feel Solaire looking at him sadly. “Oh… Where do you come from, perhaps I can offer you some directions?”
“I’m from Faraway.”
“You’re going to have to be a little bit more specific than that, Sunny.”
Sunny was confused for a moment before realizing how that could have been misunderstood. “I mean I’m from a town called Faraway.”
“What an odd little name for a town… Hmm… No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a town called Faraway. What nation is it in?” Sunny went to answer him but realized he couldn’t remember the name of his homeland. He stood there in silent shock, desperately trying to remember the name of the country he came from, but no matter how hard he tried it wouldn’t come to him. “I suppose your silence means you can’t remember, correct?” Sunny nodded. “Well then, there’s no need to worry. Memory loss like that is unfortunately common among us undead, but I would recommend trying to focus on remembering everything you can, it can help stave off hollowing… I would start by calling yourself Sunny of Faraway, it would be hard to forget where you come from if you include it in your name.”
“Is… Is that why you call yourself Solaire of Astora?”
Solaire nodded. “That’s exactly why Sunny of Faraway! Now, I have a proposition for you. I believe our fates may be intertwined. In a land brimming with hollows, any meeting between two sane undead is clearly not just a result of mere chance. So, how do you feel about helping each other out on this lonely journey?” Sunny’s eyes widened in excitement, he wouldn’t have to travel alone anymore and wouldn’t be forced to die hundreds of times. He nodded his head like an excited puppy. “This pleases me greatly! Well then, take this.” To Sunny’s confusion Solaire handed him a slightly pointy white rock.
“We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land. The flow of time itself is convoluted; with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure. There's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact. But, use this, to summon one another as spirits, cross the gaps between the worlds, and engage in jolly co-operation! Of course, we are not the only ones engaged in this. But I am a warrior of the sun! Spot my summon signature easily by its brilliant aura. If you miss it, you must be blind! Hah hah hah!”
Sunny stared at Solaire, feeling both confused and disappointed. All the talk about worlds and time hurt Sunny’s head, but he understood one basic point. Solaire wouldn’t be helping him all the time. Sunny was shaken out of his thoughts when Solaire spoke back up. “I suppose since your so young you probably could use a little bit of training on how to fight.”
Sunny’s eyes lit up and he pushed all those thoughts about being alone out of his mind. “Yeah… I could use some training.” So, the pair began to train together, Solaire explaining whatever questions Sunny had about being undead and the nature of the land he found himself in as they trained. By the time their two worlds drifted apart and Sunny was left standing there all alone, Sunny had come up with a simple theory that he absolutely hated. The theory was that this wasn’t his world. He had somehow been dragged into this horrible decaying world because some dumb fire was starting to fade. Sunny hated this theory because it meant the chances of him getting back home were slim to none.
He hated this theory so much that he decided to push it to the back of his mind, lest he start to turn hollow. For now, he would focus on ringing those bells in the hope that they could give him some sort of better answer, it wasn’t like he had any better ideas.
Sunny yelled out all sorts of curses his sister wouldn’t appreciate him saying as he barely managed to dodge Smough’s giant friggin hammer. The hammer barely missed his head and instead smashed a nearby pillar to pieces. All the souls he had gathered throughout his journey had made him unnaturally strong, but despite his best efforts, his sword would just bounce off Smough’s and Ornstein’s armors. He had lost count of how many times these giant armored bastards had killed him, but he now had a plan that he hoped could turn the tides in his favor. He just needed to trick them into knocking down a couple more pillars.
So Sunny just ran around the arena, doing his best to avoid getting flattened by Smough or impaled by Ornstein. Slowly, the two giants knocked down more and more pillars until they had finally done it! A loud cracking noise resounded throughout the great hall and the roof began to collapse all around them. Sunny had already taken cover in a corner of the room, but the two giants weren’t nearly as lucky, being crushed under the weight of the roof. Sunny knew he wasn’t lucky enough for that to be able to kill either of them, (he learned that from previous attempts at killing the pair) so that’s where the next step in his plan came in. He dug into his deceptively large pockets and dug out his gift for whatever giant he could find first.
Almost as soon as the roof stopped crashing onto the ground, Sunny sprung into action. Seeing through all the dust was hard, but eventually, he was able to find Smough trying to dig his way out of the rubble. Sunny ran up to the giant and stuffed his gift into one of Smough’s eye holes, (believe it or not Smough actually looked through two eye holes located on the neck of his armor, the head of his armor was just pure decoration)
As Sunny did this, there was a brief awkward moment where he made eye contact with the giant. Smough seemed to be more confused by Sunny stuffing a bag into one of his eye-holes than annoyed by the fact he was mostly buried under a massive pile of rubble. Sunny decided that he should probably start running before he put the next step of his plan into action, so he did exactly that. Once he put a little bit of distance between himself and the trapped giant, Sunny turned back around to face Smough, prayed to God that this would actually work, then sent a small fireball hurtling towards Smough (he had learned some basic pyromancy just for this plan). The heat of the fireball was just enough to ignite the gift he had given Smough, that gift being a bag full of firebombs.
Sunny smiled as he watched the smoke slowly pour out of Smough’s helmet. He was fairly certain that had killed Smough, now he just needed to deal with… Before Sunny could finish his thought, a spear stabbed right through his chest and poured about three gigajoules of electricity into him. Just in case you were wondering, that’s how much electricity it takes to completely vaporize a person.
Sunny collapsed onto the ground and began to desperately gulp for air. His sword lay on the ground next to him. Despite all of the fights he had been through and all the souls he had absorbed, he still couldn’t win. Solaire, who was still standing, chuckled. “You’ve got a whole lot stronger, Sunny of Faraway. You almost managed to disarm me a few times. Give it a little bit more time and I think I’ll be the one on the floor gasping for air.” Sunny smiled a little at the praise but was too tired to say anything. “I’m guessing you’ll want to rest a little before we take on the knight and the executioner?” Sunny groaned, which Solaire took as a yes.
Solaire picked Sunny off the ground and began to carry him to the nearest bonfire. Sunny was far too tired to be embarrassed by this. Once they were at the Bonfire, Solaire laid Sunny down next to it. The warmth of the bonfire rejuvenated Sunny and got rid of any aches in his muscles. He glanced up at Solaire and offered him an embarrassed smile. “Thanks…”
“Oh there’s no need to thank me, I’m sure you would do the same if our situations were reversed.” They were both quiet for a moment, but then Solaire broke the silence with a simple question. “Do you have any family back at home?”
Sunny nodded and started telling Solaire everything he could remember about his family, an excited smile slowly creeping upon his face as he did so. While he didn’t remember his parents too well beyond some simple facts like his dad being strict and his mom being a tad bit overbearing, he did remember quite a bit about his big sister. He spent at least a couple of hours telling Solaire just how amazing and perfect his big sister was. Solaire listened patiently to him, only interrupting every once in a while to ask him questions about unfamiliar concepts, like cars. Sunny did have a few awkward moments where his memory temporarily failed him, like how he somehow got Kel and Basil mixed up, but those were few and far between.
Overall, Sunny was enjoying himself massively, it was almost like none of this awful stuff had ever happened to him. Eventually though, while he was telling Solaire about how his sister played the piano, he remembered something he wished he hadn’t. That being his final moments spent with Mari. Any joy he felt withered away as he remembered the way she screamed at him. “What’s wrong?” Solaire asked.
Sunny sighed sadly. “The last time I saw her, I messed everything up. We were supposed to play at this recital together, but I could never play my violin perfectly like she could play her piano. So I smashed my violin just a few hours before our recital, wasting all of my sister's hard work… She probably hates me now… She’ll be better off witho…”
Solaire interrupted Sunny before he could finish that sentence. “No, no she wouldn’t. I have a little sister back at home, and I could never hate her no matter what she did. If your sister was going to hate you just because you broke your violin, she doesn’t deserve to be called your sister.”
“But…” Sunny began to protest before being cut off by Solaire.
“No buts, my friend. I can promise you that she’s worried sick about you right now, hoping and praying that you’ll come back home. So stay strong my friend, for your sister, the rest of your family, and you’re friends.”
Sunny didn’t say anything for a while, he was too busy taking in what Solaire said. He desperately wanted it to be true because if it wasn’t and his sister really did hate him, all of his suffering would have been pointless. Eventually, Sunny forced himself to just trust in Solaire’s words, because if he didn’t it would have just been a matter of time before he went hollow. “Thank you,” He murmured.
“It’s my pleasure, Sunny. Just make sure to talk some sense into me if I start saying silly things like that.” Solaire then stood up. “Now, let us go and deal with that knight and executioner, we don’t want to keep your sister waiting.”
“So… Uh… Your sister told me to ask you how I could get back home?” Sunny couldn’t help but feel a little bit silly talking to a fog door like this, but the princess told him her brother was behind this door and could answer any questions he had. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he was incredibly relieved to not have to talk with the princess anymore. She had been an incredibly nice and pretty lady, but according to his mom, ladies that dressed like the princess did were some sort of monster called a Skank. Skanks liked to trick men and steal all of their money, so his mom said he needed to stay away from them. Then again, she told him all of this after drinking a few glasses of wine while watching reality tv, so he wasn’t sure how much of that was actually true. Still, he couldn’t help but be slightly nervous around the princess, since souls were pretty much money in Lordran and he didn’t wanna risk the source of his newfound strength being stolen.
The prince was silent for a while. Since Sunny couldn’t see him standing on the other side of the fog, he couldn’t help but start to worry the prince wasn’t really there. Thankfully, the prince eventually dispelled those worries by speaking. “Thou are just a child, how have thou managed to speak to my sister Gywnevere?”
“Like this,” Sunny joked.
“Like what?” The prince asked, sounding genuinely baffled.
Sunny frowned, it looked like the joke flew over the prince’s head. He doubted explaining the joke would achieve anything besides ruining it, so he decided to just move on. “Never mind. I’m guessing you’re asking me how I got past Smough and Ornstein?”
“Yes, I’m assuming thou had found a way to sneak past them?”
Sunny blinked in surprise, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid. “Wait, was that an option?”
“…Not legally, but I would imagine there would be some way for a child to sneak past them. But I’m guessing based on thine reaction that wasn’t how thou got past them.”
“Well, I tricked them into knocking all the pillars down and caused the roof to collapse on them. While they were buried under the rubble, I ran up and threw some firebombs through the eyeholes in Smough’s armor, then used some pyromancy to ignite those firebombs, blowing him up from inside his own armor. Then my friend Solaire helped me deal with Ornstein.” Sunny felt pretty proud as described how he beat the pair, but as he finished his story, it occurred to him that telling the prince that he had killed his executioner and one of his father’s knights was maybe not the best of ideas, especially when his story involved pretty much destroying an entire section of the palace.
“…Is thine friend, Solaire, a child too?”
Sunny was relieved by the prince’s question, he figured it probably meant he didn’t care that much about the destruction he had just caused. “No. He’s a full-grown knight from Astora. He’s been helping me along my journey and teaching me how to fight.”
“Oh, well that’s a relief. Thou see Sir Ornstein and the executioner Smough were there to test any undead to see if they were worthy to be my father’s successor.”
Sunny raised an eyebrow. “You’re his son, shouldn’t you be his successor?”
“…If only father saw it that way…” The prince muttered to himself. Sunny decided that was a can of worms that he probably shouldn’t open. The prince was quiet for a moment before answering his question. “I did not mean a successor to his kingship, I meant a successor to his position as Lord Of Cinder. The fire is fading despite father’s best efforts, so we need a new Lord to defeat him and take his mantle. Then, the fire will be reignited, purifying thou humans of thine curse and restoring proper order to the world. The task of defeating father will be difficult for anyone to accomplish, so I’m relieved that this task will not have to be given to a child. Now, do thou mind retrieving thine friend and sending him to talk with me? I need to inform him of his quest. Once thou does this, thou can rest in the palace. A child shouldn’t have had to go through all the perils thou must’ve gone through to get here from the asylum.”
Sunny shifted his feet awkwardly. “Uh… I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that’s not really possible.”
“Why not?”
“Well, Solaire kinda faded back into his world after we beat Ornstein and Smough. So I don’t know when and where he’ll fade back into this world.”
“Oh… So this isn’t his world to save… Meaning thou art our chosen undead?”
The prince sounded incredibly disappointed and frustrated by this realization. “…I’m sorry.”
The prince sighed. “There is no need for thou to apologize, if anything I should be the one apologizing. The quest thou will have to embark on will be far more perilous than thine previous journey to here.”
Sunny glanced down at the floor. “I just wanna go home.”
“Thine home shall cease to exist if the fire dies out, alongside the rest of the world… I shall do everything in my power to make sure thou are returned to thine home after thou link the fire.”
Sunny glanced up at the fog wall, a little spark of hope reigniting in his chest. “Really?”
“…Yes, I promise.” Sunny was far too excited at the prospect of having a prince do everything in his power to help return him home, to notice just how guilty and ashamed said prince sounded.
Sunny continued blocking Solaire’s strikes. There were all sorts of openings in Solaire’s defense that Sunny could have taken advantage of. If this had been just another sparring match, Sunny could have easily won by now. But it wasn’t just another sparring match, Solaire was actually trying to kill him for reasons Sunny couldn’t even begin to understand. Sunny didn’t want to hurt Solaire, so he just focused on defending himself and trying to reason with him.
Despite all of Sunny's words and tears, Solaire continued to attack him relentlessly, ranting and raving about how Sunny was trying to steal his sun. Sunny was starting to grow tired from blocking Solaire’s furious assault, it was just a matter of time before Sunny would become too tired to defend himself anymore. Turns out it only took a few more minutes for that to happen. Solaire swung his sword at Sunny’s sword arm and Sunny wasn’t able to block it in time.
Thankfully his armor prevented Solaire from actually doing any sort of damage, but the surprise from being hit caused Sunny to let go of his sword. Solaire took advantage of this and tried stabbing Sunny in the chest. Yet again Sunny’s armor prevented any actual harm, but the force of the attack sent Sunny sprawling onto the floor. Solaire then began to wildly swing at the now defenseless Sunny, occasionally managing to pierce Sunny’s armor and give him a couple of deep cuts. If Sunny wasn’t already crying because of Solaire trying to kill him, he would have started crying about now because of the pain he was now in.
“Solaire, please stop it, you’re hurting me!” Solaire ignored his pleas and kept swinging and stabbing at him. Suddenly, it occurred to Sunny why Solaire was attacking him. His friend and teacher, the one who had encouraged him so much never to give in, had decided to just give in and turn hollow. This realization hurt Sunny far more than anything Solaire’s sword could have done to him. Sunny felt completely and utterly betrayed by Solaire, and this sense of betrayal filled Sunny with rage. Without thinking, Sunny reached out for his sword, took hold of it, then stabbed Solaire right in the throat.
Solaire’s sword dropped out of his hands, and he began to choke on his blood. Sunny shoved Solaire off of him and crawled away from his hollowed friend. Sunny pulled himself back up to his feet and drank an Estus flask, healing all of his wounds. Sunny looked down at the dying Solaire and all of his anger immediately left him, being replaced with horror. Sunny ran back to his friend and knelt beside him. “Oh God, Solaire I’m so sorry! Don’t worry though I can make this better, I promise.” Sunny took out his estus flask and tried getting Solaire to drink it, but his friend refused to open his mouth. So Sunny was forced to pry his mouth open and force him to drink the Estus flask.
Once the flask was empty, Sunny waited for his friend’s wounds to heal, but that never happened. After a few minutes of waiting, Solaire’s body vanished. Sunny knew what that meant, he had died and gone back to his own world, more than likely doomed to be a hollow for the rest of time. Sunny sat there in numb shock for a moment before screaming and crying in anguish and frustration.
Sun stood in front of the fire. Sun didn’t remember a lot, but he knew these dead lands were not his home. His home was far away from these terrible lands. It was a lively and warm place, full of friendly people, like the flower boy, the hero, the nice boy, the pretty girl, and most importantly of all, his sister. He couldn’t remember any of their names, their faces were little more than blurs in his mind, and his memories of them were fuzzy at best, but he knew they cared about him, and that was enough reason for him to want to see them again. He didn’t remember how or why, but he knew this fire would help him return home. Now that he’s finally slain its guardian, he was able to reach out to the fire. As soon as he did so, his whole world became engulfed in flame.
Sun wasn’t sure how long he burned, but it hurt, it hurt so much. He screamed and screamed, and screamed until his vocal cords burned away. Eventually to his relief, the burning stopped and the bright light of the fire faded away, leaving him in a cool darkness. Sun would have thought he was dead, but he felt more alive than he could ever remember feeling before.
Sun just laid there and rested for a while, enjoying the sheer bliss of the cold darkness covering him like a blanket, but eventually, he remembered it, his goal, his purpose, his quest, he needed to get back home. Sun tried to stand up but quickly realized the room he was in was far too small for him to do anything but lay down. Sun tried crawling around, but he quickly realized he didn’t have enough room to do that either. Sun tapped the roof that was mere inches above him, it sounded like metal. Sun then felt around for any signs of an exit, but all he found was an odd seam around the roof of the room. Sun pondered this for a while before realizing that he wasn’t in a room, he was just inside some sort of metal box. Theoretically, he should be able to just push the roof open then figure out where he was. So Sun did exactly that.
What Sun didn’t realize was that the metal box he was inside of was actually a casket located around six feet underground. Such a situation would be downright impossible for any normal human to escape without any outside help, but Sun wasn't just a normal human anymore. Sun pushed the top of the casket open, shoving a good amount of dirt out of the way. The rest of the dirt above his casket began to pour in, but thanks to wearing a helmet, Sun didn’t run any risk of choking on the dirt. He then set about the task of digging himself out of his own grave, eventually managing to pull himself back up to the surface.
It was bright outside, but to Sun it was nothing compared to the all-consuming light of the fire. He slowly stood up and began to look all around him out of curiosity. Based on all of the headstones, Sun figured he must’ve been in a cemetery. He instinctively reached for his sword, he had died one too many times in cemeteries for that not to be his first reaction upon finding himself in one. But then he stopped himself when he noticed an incredibly odd sight, a small group of seemingly normal humans were all staring at him in shock. They could have just been fellow undead, but Sun doubted that since none of them had any weapons on them as far as he could see.
There were five humans in total, all standing by each other’s side. The first one was a rather short boy wearing the oddest clothing Sun had ever seen, it was all orange and white and it barely covered anything, the poor boy was so vulnerable to any potential attacks. The second one was another boy, or on second thought, was actually a full-blown man. This young man was taller than the boy but was still a good foot or two smaller than Sun. Then there was another boy with strangely colored hair, most of it was pitch black, but the roots of it were a sandy blonde. Then there was a girl with even stranger colored hair than the boy had, hers was just straight up pink. Sun couldn’t even remember the last time he had seen the color pink. The final one was a young woman, she was lanky with sunken eyes, her black hair was overgrown, reaching all the way down to her knees.
Sun could have almost mistaken her for a hollow if it wasn’t from the sheer warmth radiating off of her. This warmth was nothing like the burning heat of the fire, it was comforting and familiar to Sun. He tried remembering where he had felt this warmth before, then it hit him. This was the warmth his sister used to make him feel, meaning the woman in front of him was most likely his sister. Sun stood there and stared at her in silent disbelief, after all of his struggles, he had finally found her, he was back home. Eventually, he realized if this was his sister, the people standing beside her were probably his friends.
Sun had been looking forward to this moment for so long, but he had no idea what to do now. Sun couldn’t remember a lot about himself from before he had become undead, but he knew he had changed a lot. They may have cared for him before, but would they still care for him after they found out how much he had changed? The thought that they wouldn’t care for him anymore was honestly more frightening to him than any foe he had ever fought. He stood there silently, fear and uncertainty holding him back from doing or saying anything.
“Uh… Mr… Are you ok?” The short boy nervously asked him. Sun honestly didn’t know the answer to that question, he supposed it would depend on all of their reactions to him…
“I guess they need to know who I am before I can see how they react...” Sun thought to himself. Still, Sun barely remembered the boy he used to be, so how was he supposed to tell them who he was? Sun kept trying to come up with the right words, but eventually, he realized he couldn’t come up with them. Since he couldn’t find a way to explain who he was with words, Sun figured he would have to hope that they could recognize his face. Without saying a word, Sun lifted his helmet off his head.
As he lifted the helmet off his head, some ash poured out of it. His sister and friends stared at him in confusion for a moment, but that was quickly replaced with shock. “…Sunny?” His sister murmured in disbelief, not trusting her own eyes. She slowly walked towards him, the rest of their friends too shocked to do or say anything. Sun stood there nervously, not sure what she was planning on doing. She reached up to his face and wiped some of the ash off his checks, she giggled a little as she did so. “You’re actually real… I’m not dreaming.” She then wrapped Sun up in a hug.
At first, Sun had no idea what to do, but eventually, his instincts took over and he hugged her back. The simple action of hugging his sister filled Sun with so much warmth, any fears of rejection were driven far away from his mind. He knew in his heart that no matter how much he may have changed, at least his sister would still love him. Knowing that was enough to make Sun feel like that just maybe, everything was going to be alright later all.