Spoilers for: The Old Hunters DLC (up to the Astral Clocktower), the Honoring Wishes ending
Warning: References to sexual situations and gore/violence
Disclaimer: Don't own Bloodborne
Wheels creaked as they rolled over the cobblestones. Two figures, the Hunter in a chair and the Plain Doll pushing her, made their way up the slope and up the stairs and into the Workshop.
The Plain Doll wheeled the Hunter into the corner, where the overseer of the Dream sat during the long night.
The Plain Doll stood before the wheelchair, her hands clasped in front of her and her head bowed.
"Doll." It was a sigh, from the wheelchair.
The Plain Doll looked up. "I know not what I feel. The Hunt has begun again, as it must. Without it, I am nothing more than a doll. And yet, it is almost as though… I do not want the Hunt to continue."
"Do you mourn Gehrman?"
The Plain Doll shook her head. "He is in the waking world. I am sure that, ignorant though he is now, he is better off for having left the Dream."
"And yet, you seem sad."
"Oh," the Plain Doll chuckled, "is that what this is? Sadness? Such a human thing, emotions… And yet, I seem to have been fashioned with them…" The Plain Doll tilted her head. "You had three third Cords. Did you not know what to do with them?"
The Hunter lowered her head. "I knew."
"Then why did you not overcome the Moon Presence?"
The Hunter did not look up. For a moment, the Dream was silent but for the sound of the slight wind that ruffled the hem of the Plain Doll's dress even within the Workshop.
"Because… I deserve this."
The Plain Doll stepped towards the Hunter and kneeled before her. "Good Hunter, why would you deserve this?"
The Hunter clenched her hands on the arms of the wheelchair. She scrunched her eyes shut.
"Because… I killed the one I love."
~{bloodborne}~
The Hunter materialised in front of a set of heavy double-doors. There was a thick escutcheon in the middle of the right door, but she had the key to fit it.
Beyond was a set of stairs leading up to an open doorway. When she passed through it, she was faced with a large room. A huge clock face imposed upon the space. The light filtering through the gaps between the hands and the numbers illuminated the broken wooden slats covering the floor. There was a single chair facing the doors from the far side of the room, and in it, a slumped figure.
The Hunter expected the woman – for it was a woman – to move as she approached, but no such thing happened. She didn't even flinch.
Perhaps she was dead.
Yet as the Hunter reached out to her arm, the woman jerked to alertness, grabbing the Hunter's hand and pulling her close, their faces so near that she could feel her breath on her skin.
"A corpse… should be left well alone."
The Hunter raised a brow. "And a dead Hunter should be in the waking world."
The woman tilted her head, her hand still wrapped in a tight grip around the Hunter's arm. It took a moment, but she chuckled.
"Is that so?" She drew her hand away, sitting back in her chair and slowly pushing herself to her feet. She was tall and held herself with an elegance not befitting one who had spent the long night slumped to one side in a chair.
The Hunter took a step back, her hand at her side and ready to grab her weapon. The woman's lips twitched.
"You do not trust me."
"I do not trust anyone."
The woman laughed. "Now, I do not believe that. You are a Hunter. You have been to the Dream. There is someone there you trust. Who every Hunter trusts." She spat the last out. Her eyes darkened.
The Hunter stood her ground. "And therefore I should trust you?"
"I have not yet tried to kill you. Is that not enough?"
"There is still time."
The woman smirked. "Indeed, there is. The night is long and full of horrors. It has been… so long." The woman sighed, and her shoulders sagged in an almost kind of defeat. She approached the Hunter, and the Hunter did not back away.
"Tell me, Hunter," the woman purred, reaching up to the Hunter's face, "are you lonely?"
The Hunter gulped, tense and unmoving as cold fingers brushed against her cheek.
"There are so few you can call friends in this world. So few who can make you feel safe."
"I know a whore." The Hunter still did not move away.
The woman laughed. "And I do not. I know no one, except for you. And I ask nothing in return."
The woman leaned forward, slowly, her eyes fixed on a point decidedly south of the Hunter's eyes.
At the first touch, the Hunter gasped. At the second, she closed her eyes. At the third, she gave in entirely.
The Clocktower was cold without her attire. The Hunter hadn't noticed at first, her body warmed by things other than clothes, but now that she was just lying there not alone, the chill began to seep into her bones.
She stood, got dressed, and gazed for a moment at the figure of the sleeping woman still on the floor. She was almost as still as she had been in the chair, except for the slight movement of her chest.
The Hunter smiled, feeling a tug within her. She was going down a slippery path, and she knew it, but she did not care.
She turned to the open doorway, to the staircase going back down to the lumen flowers, and sat upon the top stair. The bodies of the Living Failures had long gone, leaving only their floral creation behind.
It was quite possibly one of the most beautiful things the Hunter had seen in the Nightmare. One, because there was another lying a few feet behind her.
Only when she started at a hand falling on her shoulder did the Hunter realise that she had let her guard down.
She turned, looking up at the woman now awake and clothed. At some point during their tryst, her hair had fallen from her ponytail, but she had not remedied this: her long silver hair flowed down her back, reaching further now that it was unhindered.
The woman took her place at the Hunter's side, on the step, looking out at the lumen flowers.
"Did you know that was there?" the Hunter asked.
"I did not. For the longest time, I have known only the Clocktower: the chimes and the ticking."
The Hunter nodded in understanding, though she doubted that she would ever – could ever – truly understand.
The Hunter turned from the lumen flowers to the woman. A moment passed, and the woman looked at her. The Hunter's eyes flicked downwards.
"May I?"
The woman's lips twitched. "You may."
The Hunter leaned forward and pressed her lips against the woman's.
In minutes, they were wondering why they had bothered to get dressed.
They did not make the same mistake again; not until the Hunter's face ached from smiling and her chest ached with from feeling.
Until she was reminded that she was still in the Nightmare.
She woke to see the woman dressed. Her own clothes had been draped over her.
"You should go."
The Hunter sat up.
"The Hunt continues."
The Hunter scoffed. "Fuck the Hunt. Fuck the Healing Church. I'll get to the bottom of their crimes."
The woman looked at her with sad eyes.
"And how do you suppose you'll do that?"
"I was told how."
The woman smiled. "Were you told to kill me?"
The Hunter made to speak, to deny that, but then something clicked.
"Maria?"
The woman gave her a low bow. "Lady Maria, of the Astral Clocktower."
The Hunter's heart dropped like a stone within her.
"I have to kill you to receive the information I seek?" The Hunter got to her feet.
"Indeed."
The Hunter blanched.
"But… I love you."
Maria laughed, a cruel and mocking sound. "There is no love in the Hunt. There is only the blood."
The Hunter stammered, taking a step back. As Maria made her way back over to her chair, she pulled on her clothes.
Maria retrieved a Rakoyu.
"Oh, I know very well. How the secrets beckon so sweetly."
Maria turned to the Hunter, breaking the weapon into two separate blades.
"Only an honest death can cure you now. Liberate you, from your wild curiosity."
Maria surged forward, but the Hunter ducked to the side, drawing her own weapon.
The battle was long, but the Hunter whittled down Maria's strength until she saw her chance. She shot Maria, sending her to her knees. In one bound, the Hunter plunged her cleaver into Maria's stomach.
Maria looked up at her, a thin trail of blood oozing from the side of her mouth and glistening starkly upon her pale skin. Maria reached up, brushing her cool fingers against the Hunter's cheek.
"I'm sorry," the Hunter gulped. "May you find your worth in the waking world."
Maria pulled her hand away, her eyes filling with rage. The Hunter wrenched the cleaver from her, and she groaned like she had before. Her back slammed into the ground, and her body disappeared in a plume of pale green smoke.
~{bloodborne}~
The Plain Doll stared up at the Hunter. She had not moved once during her retelling.
"Did you find what you searched for?"
The Hunter did not look up. "I satisfied my curiosity."
The Plain Doll looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. "Yet your heart still belongs to Maria."
The Hunter gave a soft exhale. "Last night I loved Maria. This night, I leave the Hunt."
The Plain Doll nodded once. She rose to her feet.
She turned her back on the Hunter and left the Workshop, ready to welcome the next Hunter.