#🥀 {{ ​full of suffering // ic }} 🥀

[remorseless-goat-bastard]

so uh, what happened to Oswald after he failed to get Fran ? Did you do anything to him?

“ Oswald was a means to an end. He had a talent for causing misery and suffering, I’ll give him that. But clearly his usefulness for that is no longer present. Thus I ended our… Contract. As to Oswald’s current… condition? Well that would be spoiling the point of the punishment. ”

( Click image for better quality & do not claim as your own art )

[a-real-chicxulub-vibe]

Heyo! This is a bit out of the blue, but I am missing Ciaran and the Knights of Gwyn these days, so since I know you are a fellow Ciaran stan, I wanted to ask if you had any favorite headcanons for her? :)

Oh man!! Lots! Thank you for asking, the Lord's Blade is a seriously compelling character and I'm always happy to talk about her. :>

Here's a few to do with her pre-Knighthood days.

🥀🥀🥀

🗡️ Ciaran remembers when the world was young. Orphaned and friendless at a young age, she spent her childhood among the ghettos of New Londo, built underground to help withstand the frequent dragon attacks.

🗡️ Ciaran is indeed a full-blooded Medial, or one born of Gwyn's race. Her parents likely died in the war, though as a girl she always secretly suspected they abandoned her. All the other adults of New Londo were shady, dangerous. Her parents must have fit right in.

🗡️ As a child, Ciaran developed a passion for theater. Ciaran would eventually weaponize this to become anyone she needed to be as the mission demanded. But as a child, it was innocent, and for a time she and the other children would perform shows in the evenings. Perhaps she had always wanted to be someone else.

🗡️ Ciaran loves flowers. As a child in New Londo, sny artifacts from the surface were treasures. The glowing Darkroot Lilies became particular favorites, as they grew best in the dark.

🗡️ As a young woman, she too volunteered to fight in the Dragon War, and eventually became a Silver Knight. As a New Londo urchin, who was familiar with the humans and the shadows, she was already an outcast. She also became known for forgoing any shield on the battlefield, preferring dual swords.

🗡️ The snowy-white north was a deathtrap. The Dragons still ruled there in Ciaran's time, and the territory was of little value. Still, she and her company were assigned to go, and serve under an unproven captain.

🗡️ Those years in the north were the hardest she had ever known. Endless ice, blizzards, snowfalls higher than the top of one's head. People starved. People died. Ciaran was a recluse. She twisted orders. She broke off from formations. She was ungovernable. She was hopeless. She was going to die here. And for who?

🗡️ A great dragon ambushed the meager camp one day, and Ciaran predictably became separated. She was ready to accept her fate. But the captain leapt from the side, and misdirected the deadly strike. Shielding her with his body, he suffered horrific scars, before the dragon moved on. There, they were abandoned in the snow, left to die.

🗡️ Ciaran came to terms with the betrayal of her peers slowly. Not that she was shocked to have been forgotten, per se. She had already seen herself as unlikeable, unknowable. But the fact that one specifically of their number -- the strange young captain -- had almost died for her. And now they both lay injured and dying and alone in the snow. And with nothing else to do but wait, they talked.

🗡️ Ornstein, he said his name was. His family destroyed by the dragons, just like hers apparently was. But somehow the moron managed to twist his tragedy into a misguided sense of honor and duty. How sad. Didn't save his life, now did it?

🗡️ She heaved him onto her back that day, and they trudged through the snow. They rendezvoused with the rest of the contingent days later, where the poor captain was wheeled away by a gaggle of priests. Surely he wouldn't make it. It all was surely for naught. Everyone was going to die, one day. She couldn't understand why she had even bothered to help.

🗡️ She deserted. They could search all they want--Ciaran knew disappearing like no one else. Her next years were regrettable. She drank, she gambled. The terrible memories of the north stuck to her, like starvation to one's ribs, like frostbite to the toes. It was vital that she forgot. It was vital that she find out how to live again. It was vital she that she forget she never knew how to live at all.

🗡️ Years later, she received a plain-stamped letter. A letter of thanks. An invitation to a warm meal and a warm bed, courtesy of a nameless benefactor. How could she refuse? And indeed, how could said benefactor not find and repay the woman who long ago in the terrible North had saved his life?

sorry, I you said "favorite headcanons", but,,,

[remorseless-goat-bastard]

“Foolish mortals, all of you, why would you grant me purchase in your minds? What are you hoping for? It will bring you nothing but madness… but I suppose that is not so terrible for me.”