Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence. A bit of vomiting. Some mindfuck.

My eyes opened to a field of white moonflowers. A calm, home-like feeling settled into my bones. There was a warmth here, a sense of belonging. This was a haven.

Not too far away, a small chapel sat upon a gentle hill, the surrounding landscape covered in gravestones. The condition of the gravestones varied, some appeared almost brand new while others were crumbling with age.

For a hopeful moment, I looked up to the sky searching for what had gone missing, only to find it just as barren of the moon's graces as any other place in Yharnam.

After a moment, I realized I still held Aydan's hand. Dropping my grip, I returned my hand to my side, bashfully.

The scholar ignored me, however, instead striding forward towards the small building. I followed her, having re-discovered the ability to walk competently.

I almost expected her to start lecturing me or something, but she did not acknowledge me even when we reached the cobblestone path.

"Welcome, mistress."

I jumped at the voice, having focused so closely on Aydan that I had not noticed the woman near the stairs. Wait... I blinked, taking a closer look. There were hairline cracks along her cheeks, her hands clearly connected with ball-joints. This... was a very lifelike doll, then? She spoke?

Aydan walked right past the Doll, ignoring her like she wasn't even there.

I gave the Doll an apologetic smile, but she averted her eyes and bowed her head, as if repulsed or shameful.

My brow furrowed, but I continued to follow Aydan's lead up the stairs to the church.

What surprised me, however, was that the interior was not that of a church. An exact replica of the Hunter's Workshop where mother had spent her declining years was before me, and I could almost feel her warmth, even though she had certainly never been here. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, smelling the sharp iron scent of blood chunks, the familiar musk of leather and mixed with a hint of moonlight.

To drive the stake in further, I could swear I heard that distinct creek of her old wheelchair-

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," an old man snapped.

I opened my eyes. A... crippled old man was sitting in some replica of mother's wheelchair. Or perhaps... Was it hers? If as many years had passed as Aydan claimed, surely someone would have salvaged it and reused it. The whole idea of someone else using it, though, bothered me. How could some random old hunter understand the history in that chair? How much it meant to her?

"That wheelchair... Where did you get it?" I hissed, accusation in my voice.

The old man raised an eyebrow. "I've had a lot of people angry at me, boy, but this is the first time my wheelchair has been a concern. The question is... Why?"

"It belonged to Vicar Iuliana, a cherished keepsake of a passed mentor. A meaning that you couldn't possibly understand."

His brows pulled together. "Iuliana... I do recall that name... Ah, yes..." He leaned back, looking up at the ceiling as he remembered. "The little orphan girl, always running around the workshop... A vicar, you say? She did well for herself," he chuckled, "Started hunting for the church, did she? Probably why she needed this old thing, eventually." He paused, a light sigh escaping him. "She's dead then? Old age?"

A hard ball of emotion tightened in my throat as I listened to this man talk so casually about her. "What do you care?"

"You don't know who I am, do you, boy?"

My hand twitched for my sword. "What does it matter?"

The old man narrowed his eyes at me as I did, straightening his posture. "Stop acting like a beast, boy. Or would you attack a curmudgeonly old man?"

"I will relax when you answer me," I said through clenched teeth.

The old man scoffed. "Have it your way, boy. I am Gehrman. The damned wheelchair was mine first. Does that calm your boiling blood? Does it bring peace to your rage-addled mind? You have your answer, was it worth all this argument?" Gehrman frowned and glared at Aydan. "And you… of all the hunters in Yharnam, you chose this child?"

Aydan said nothing, tilting her head curiously.

"I am no child," I protested, ignoring that this man was apparently my mother's long-dead idol. "I am the son of the Great Executioner Logarius and the Exalted Vicar Iuliana!"

"Where we come from does not define us. Helps shape us, perhaps, but has nothing to do with who we are. Just because your parents are great people does not mean that you follow in their footsteps. Their glory is not yours to leech off of and claim as your own. If you want to prove yourself to me, boy…" his eyes flickered over to Aydan, "... Survive this hunt." He raised a finger, pointing to the Byrgenwerth scholar as a tone of warning leaked into his voice. "Survive her."

Aydan's lips turned downward as she turned and walked away, striding over to the workshop bench and picking up a whetstone to run it along the edge of her threaded cane.

I huffed. "What's that supposed to mean?" Aydan wasn't dangerous, as far as I could tell. She'd obviously taken care of me during the time I was asleep. I figured that anyone who could be trusted to tend to a half-dead body for twenty-seven years could be trusted in nearly any other situation.

Gehrman, however, ignored me. "Nearly three decades now, girl, and you're still keeping this up? Isn't that cold shoulder getting a little frosty?"

Aydan looked back at him, a blank, emotionless face persisting. It struck me, suddenly, how strange the expression looked. For a moment, I wondered if she was similar to the doll outside, but dismissed the thought.

As my companion remained silent, I cleared my throat. "Whatever the case," I interrupted, "I… apologize for my outburst, sir, I-"

"Lael," Aydan said, standing up suddenly.

"Yes?"

"I have finished weapon maintenance. It is time to depart."

I glanced between her and Gehrman, feeling the hostility from him, mainly, but not so much from her. If anything, she radiated a melancholy indifference. "But-"

"Do not linger where you have no purpose," she finished, lifting her cane and walking out of the chapel, expecting me to follow.

I took a step to follow her, but Gehrman stopped me. "Boy. I knew your parents. I'm sorry for what happened to them, but your mother and father are the least of your problems tonight. Remember that."

Still trying to process the flurry of new information, I nodded, even though I didn't quite understand what he meant. Something happened to father...? He likely fell to the beast blood shortly after mother, to be honest, or maybe the Vilebloods did him in. I wanted to be positive and hope that he died of old age, but optimism had begun to feel foolish in this strange dark future.

Again, I tried to access the hole in my memories. I couldn't have possibly spent all of twenty-seven years asleep underground. No way could Aydan have procured and maintained the necessary stores of food and water required for that stretch of time. That, and she couldn't be a day over twenty-seven herself. I hadn't aged, she remained young, the numbers just didn't match up.

Aydan didn't make any sense, really. Gehrman had warned me to survive her, and with his annoyance towards her, I interpreted the statement as an expression of frustration.

I turned to see her standing in the doorway, her petite silhouette framed against the moonless sky. I realized how odd her appearance was, with her silvery hair and bandages over her eyes like she had the beast blood. I would have to ask her about those.

Bidding Hunter Gehrman farewell, I followed my mysterious benefactor out to the graveyard.

In Aydan's presence, the Doll from before had made herself scarce and I kind of wondered where she had found to hide.

The scholar took my hand again and knelt before a tombstone. As I peered closer, I could see that the names of various places around Yharnam and the surrounding villages were carved into this line of markers. Aydan did not hesitate to press her hand to a set of glowing words labeled "Byrgenwerth," and I had little time to peruse the other available locations before we were simply there.

We appeared in a deserted, forested area and I decided that the time was as good as any.

"Miss Aydan," I said, stopping her before she could start advancing forward without me again. "How is any of this possible?"

She stopped and turned towards me, but otherwise didn't acknowledge what I'd asked. Her face remained blank.

"How am I alive? How could you have taken care of me for twenty-seven years and remain so youthful?"

The scholar made no reply, only tilted her head in that slight manner. Completely disregarding me, she walked forward, lifting her face in a way that implied she was sniffing the air. Which it turned out she was, as I realized when she readied her threaded cane.

She ventured forward, stepping out cautiously as monsters slinked towards her, the gigantic insect-like beings prowling out of the underbrush.

I pulled out my blade, but Aydan lifted a hand, motioning for me to hold my ground.

Reluctantly, I obeyed. What did she plan to do against a small horde of beasts? Perhaps her actions would give me some clue as to her origin.

A clicking kind of growl rippled out of the gathering creatures, but the scholar held her ground, planting her feet and tossing her cane aside.

The cane clattered as it hit the ground, the sound causing the monsters to agitate and leap at her, claws and teeth bared.

However, at the very last second, Aydan curled in on herself, fingers curling into subtle talons as she let out a piercing beastial shriek.

The beast roar sent her assailants tumbling away, a few of them turning tail and running back into the woods while the rest recovered and leaped at her. Taking my cue, I rolled into the fray and started stabbing and slicing things.

Aydan must've retrieved her threaded cane, because during the fight I heard the crack of the whip and the cries of the beasts as the blades cut into their festered flesh.

I darted for the monsters' thin waists and when that wasn't an option, I hacked through their necks. Not as easy as it could've been. Twenty-seven years of sitting on one's ass didn't do much for flexibility. At every turn, only narrowly did I dodge a razor sharp claw or a gaping, toothed maw. Strangely enough, the weakness that had plagued me before - when I had first fled the cathedral - had waned. The inhuman speed and strength had returned in some quality. However, that increased ability only just gave me what I needed to defeat beasts and the reduced capabilities certainly made the battle much more difficult. In a way, what happened was not increased ability, but reduced weakness.

We fought together, blood blossoming from fresh lacerations gleaned from gleaming talons.

I struggled, barely escaping from beneath a monster that would otherwise spell my doom. Losing blood fast, I rolled away, quickly slicing at the beast in a desperate hope to end the fight.

As the foul creature roared and shrieked its death cries, I felt something return to me. My wounds had ceased bleeding, some even closing up as if time had reversed.

Breathing heavily but thankful for the mysterious regeneration, I looked around for Aydan. The scholar had knelt on the ground, her bladed whip resting beside her.

"I did not expect to be so weakened," I commented, taking steps towards her. "But the way appears to be cleared. Why don't we continue on?"

Aydan rose, shaky. As she turned, I saw her entire front was soaked in a pale substance, like quicksilver diluted with milk. Before I could really inspect the fluid, Aydan ripped her cape from her shoulders and tied it around her torso, hiding mystery ichor from view.

I didn't press the subject. She didn't seem worried, so I paid it no head.

The scholar snapped her whip back into a cane and passed me with a hurried stride. I followed, wary to keep up with her gait after such a tiring battle, but I found that my stamina had returned faster than usual. Perhaps twenty-seven years of rest had more beneficial effects than I thought? Whatever the case, I kept up with Aydan as she approached the school entrance.

The entire building was deserted except for the occasional monster outside. The interior remained fairly safe. A single scholar sent the two of us a wicked glare but otherwise left us alone and we did the same to her.

It occurred to me. "Why are we here?"

Aydan did not answer, instead, she opened a pair of ornate double doors, revealing an outcropping of stone brick that overlooked a glorious lakeside vista.

To the side sat a man in a rocking chair, his appearance something I felt I should know.

I watched the scholar carefully as she approached him. For a moment I felt like she would kneel before him, fall to her knees and grasp his hands, but almost the exact opposite happened instead.

The scholar stood before the Provost, her stance indifferent as the vacuous elder reached out towards her, gnarled hands brushing against her robes. Incapable of words any longer, Provost Willem's choked cries crescendoed as Aydan lowered her hood to reveal her pale, silver hair.

Not hesitating, she turned from him, leaving the blind old man grasping pitifully at air as she approached the edge of the balcony.

I stepped out from the threshold, unsure what to make of the scene. Halting my procession beside the Provost, I looked down at the withering old man. Some said he was the most enlightened of us all. If so, then what was enlightenment? This shriveled, mindless old man, dressed in decadent robes and exalted like a god amongst men?

What was someone like that if not only a doll? A puppet?

At least mother had free will and a mind of her own before she died.

The Provost forced himself forward, dropping his staff and falling out of his rocking chair. Sprawled out on the stone floor, he reached for something with a boney hand.

Aydan. I knew he grasped for Aydan and somewhere deep in my gut, I understood and dreaded why he did so.

My gaze turned towards Aydan, silhouetted against the moonless sky. "It's no use," she said after turning her blindfolded gaze from the water beneath us. "Without the moon, he has gone dormant."

Willem tried to drag himself towards her, his tiny, withered body shuddering with the strain of movement. How old had he become? He'd been elderly before my slumber, what ancient age had the schoolmaster reached, sitting outside and longingly contemplating the empty cosmos?

Aydan moved from her lakeside perch, looming over Provost Willem with her head tilted. "I must seek alternative methods."

And thus, with silent horror, I watched the tiny scholar lean down and almost lovingly caress the Provost's face before she ripped his head from his body, spraying blood that wasn't quite blood all across the stone balcony.

She didn't stop there. Taking a strange, curved knife from the pockets of her robes, she carved open his skull, the sickening crunch of bone splitting reaching my ears and churning my stomach.

Aydan remained completely expressionless throughout this entire time and stopped only after she threw aside a slab of flesh and bone, rended from the old scholar's head and tossed aside, bloody with that strange quicksilver goo.

I retched and turned away.

"Lael."

Glupping and steeling my will, I reluctantly lifted my eyes, dreading what I would see.

Aydan had turned the deceased Provost's head so the hole she'd carved out faced me. Nothing was red as it should have been, everything turned milky white by forces I couldn't yet comprehend. I could barely see any brain, the entire inside of his skull had been lined with bulbous, now lifeless eyes and nestled in the center of this mass of queer eyeballs was what looked like a brand.

The Caryll rune for "eye" looked out at me from the back of Provost Willem's gored head.

Pain split my own skull and I heaved, falling to my knees as I vomited, spraying red blood and that same strange silver substance across the stone. My head felt like it would explode, like pustules were forming on my brain and -

Bulbous, hideous eyes.

I may have screamed as it overflowed, the stars returning to the sky only to flicker and fade and I wasn't sure if they'd decided to take up residence inside my skull or my veins because it hurt just as much either way.

My vision distorted and Aydan became very thin, her ribs protruding from her torso like they were about to burst from her as her hair flowed in the breeze. The sight hurt me further, intensifying the heat of whatever was happening to me.

I screwed my eyes shut and after a moment I realized it would all be solved if I removed them. I reached up to try to do so, but gentle hands stopped me.

"Shh…" she said, brushing my hair from my face. "You're doing so good, it's going to be fine," she cooed.

"Vicar Iuliana… Mother… Mother, I…. I don't want them, my eyes are… killing me!"

My mother didn't respond, but something did for her. It held me in its pale embrace and I floated with the absent moon reflected on the water while the pain in my blood worked its blazing path through my veins.

When it ended, it ended like a band of rubber, snapped back into place.

Tremors wrecked my body for but a few moments as a sort of renewed vigor came to me. My breath heavy, I looked up at my companion.

"Aydan, what the hell was…!" I gasped.

The scholar stood before me smiling lightly, not as thin as my vision had made her, but still thinner. The silvery ichor soaked through her Byrgenwerth robes. However, the blood didn't belong to Willem.

"... He's crying, Lael… They're all crying…" Aydan whimpered before she collapsed from blood loss.

My heart rate picked up. No. I owed her my life, and even after that…

Her comforting hands, brushing against my face and holding me in serene embrace.

I lifted her slight form and ran.

A/N: I'm going to try to keep from doing author's notes in this work. The gore is going to get worse from here. Like... Outlast: Whisleblower levels of squick for about the same reasons except with actual ladies. I'm basically saying this fic is going to have a lot of pregnancy horror so if you can't stomach that, it's time to jump ship now.

On the other hand, my next OCs should both be introduced in the next chapter. Bertram Yeats, the (definitely not Irish) foreign hunter, and then Isolde, an old friend of Iosefka.

A lot of fecking fun it's just goin ta be.