Heart humbled, I left the workshop with head bowed. While it was obvious that not every tragedy in Yharnam had come to bare due to the moon's beckoning, Gehrman took on the guilt for all the city's sins squarely upon his shoulders. Clearly, he had begun to buckle under that weight.
I made to move towards the awakening altars, but a tug at my pant legs held me back. "Why, hello," I greeted the curious little messengers.
They moaned and grunted in that way they do, clamoring for my attention in such a way that alarmed somewhat. I had not seen them so energetic since they siphoned the eyes from my mind. One held some odd object in its hand, reaching it out as if to give it to me.
"What is it you have there?" I squatted down to their level, extending a hand and letting the tiny white men deposit the dessicated eyeball into my hands. Oh, well. I was disgusted but not surprised. "Ah… A present for me?" I asked. "How lovely. Thank you kindly."
Patting one of their heads, I dropped the diseased eye into the pocket of my cloak. Perhaps Aydan would have a use for such an odd thing. It was a bit of a weak apology gift, but it was better than nothing.
I returned to the awakening altar. Aydan and I hadn't reached a lantern in Hemwick, so I would have to travel a bit to get back to her. Oddly, I found the Grand Cathedral lantern unresponsive. Perhaps my trip would take a bit longer than expected, then. I pressed a hand to the markings that would wake me at Oedon Chapel and steeled myself for awakening.
Nothing could have prepared me for the bloody sight I arrived to. "By the blood…"
Bodies were strewn through the chapel, that alcoholic man, the loony old lady, both painted across the floors and walls. Incense jars were shattered and the bones within exposed but still burning. Enough lingered that beasts were repelled, but the smoke on the floor had risen and now I practically swam in it, the haze reaching up to my chest. The whore was nowhere to be seen. Wasn't… wasn't there someone else here, too?
"Hello?! Is there anyone here?" I called out, wading through the smoke.
A sob pierced the silence. "Oh, oh, Master Lael, is that you? Oh, Master Lael, it was just horrible… just horrible…"
I looked down at the deformed church dweller. If it weren't for the red robes of a Healing Church janitor, he would have been lost beneath the clouds, concealed. "What happened here? Where's Bertram?" I demanded.
"Oh, Mister MacConmara hasn't been seen since you and your sweet girl were here. Sorry about the Mister's behavior, he's been through alot, Master Lael, please forgive him if you see him. Tell him about the lady. The lady's been taken. Your friend, the one Miss Eileen wanted, she… oh, Master Lael, it was terrible." The little wretched thing started weeping, its grey face buried in its long, spindly hands.
I stared, absorbing what it said. The lady... The prostitute? Taken? By...
Isolde.
My eyes narrowed. I'd known we couldn't trust her.
Ignoring the dweller's cries and pleadings, I flew out of the chapel into the square, determined to hunt down the infidel...
... Only to come to a screeching halt as I laid my eyes on something horrifying.
I killed them.
Lael disappeared in a moon-scented mist and I turned around and slaughtered the village militia. The older Executioner, Alfred, did not hesitate to join the bloodshed. In fact, he did so with glee, cackling about how the villagers deserved it, with their ancestral ties to Cainhurst. They brought it upon themselves by aiding the nobles in times passed.
We waited in that blood-soaked glade for Yharnam's young light to return. Huddled around a fading campfire, I coaxed stories out of the senior, tales of Lael's youth and his adventures as an adolescent. I absorbed this new information with a solemn demeanor, but deep inside I did feel that foreign warmth Lael so often instilled inside me.
The Executioner provided rations. I nibbled curiously at the cured meat and dried fruits, unsure of my body's reaction since I'd lived off of blood and the Dream for the better part of a century, it seemed. Thankfully, my stomach accepted the nutrients without much fuss.
"..." I noticed the Executioner take a breath as if to speak.
"Share your thoughts," I demanded.
Alfred squirmed in discomfort. "The boy has been taking quite some time. Perhaps we should advance without-"
I cut him off. "No. We wait."
And we waited. We waited for hours. I knew that night would not pass while Mensis still conducted their ritual. The Hunt would last until the Nightmare was ended. Despite what I'd told the others, we could afford to waste time.
Alfred had other ideas. "Is it wise to linger like this?" He inquired after an hour.
"You will wait. Lael is more important than your revenge."
He balked at that. "To the point, are we?" He sniffled, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his nose. "I meant no such implications, my fair lady. I care about the young master just as much as any of us-"
"Oh, I truly doubt that."
"You would doubt my faith? Who are you to accuse me? Some scholar from Byrgenwerth? It's your ilk that broke off to form that twisted, disgusting cult in the valley. I wouldn't be surprised if you did away with him to further your plans, wench," he spat.
Ah, so the true colors came forth at last. Fortunately, he had his little outburst while Lael was absent. It would displease me greatly to see my ray of sunshine upset.
I smiled, feeling the radiation of cold light from within me. "Would you like an answer? I am-"
"Aydan! Alfred!"
My head perked up. I rose, leaving Alfred behind by the fire as I ran towards Lael, only to stop as his form manifested strangly in my mind.
His breath came with difficulty, but I could sense gentle Insight in his head. Pride surged in my chest only to be replaced with suspicion. What had happened in such a small amount of time to make him accept something he had previously so vehemently rejected? The amount of enlightenment, as well... he must have encountered one of my... relatives? At least, relatives was the closest concept I could name that translated.
It was difficult. I had so many ideas and thoughts that swam and tickled at the back of my mind. Actions and words had meaning I could not completely comprehend beyond knowing that I was correct; plans and words preordained and reflexively put into place by the consciousness I could no longer comprehend.
My silence must have concerned him, because Lael reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. I misinterpreted it, as he pulled me close and pressed his lips firmly to mine. Relief. The human tendency to be thankful for life.
He no longer wore Executioner garb. I could feel fabric that fit him more tightly, less voluminous.
A new weapon was on his back. I could tell because I could feel it. Moonlight.
A memory blazed, piercing as a new cyst of insight ate through whatever brain matter remained in my head. A sword.
We resonated, the sword and I, but I hid my pain. I refused to let Alfred see any weakness.
Speaking of whom.
"What the hell are you wearing," Alfred growled without question.
Lael stiffened against me and pulled me closer like a security blanket. "I've taken up my aunt's burden. I don't expect you to understand," he answered softly.
"What is that supposed to mean? That does nothing to explain why you're running around in a filthy vileblood's clothes!"
Lael's eyes steeled in a way they never had before. He stood tall, posture pin straight as he managed to look down at the taller man. "That's no way to speak to the Lord Executioner, is it?"
Alfred met his challenge, puffing out his chest and maintaining a steady glare. They stood like that a moment, Lael giving a strong state of his own. Eventually, Alfred backed down, conceding command to his superior.
I could feel the echoes of blood in Lael's veins, far more intense than before. If I listened close, I could hear the a second child join in Mergo's chorus of cries. Just what had happened in the short time we parted?
"Scout ahead," Lael instructed. "I need to speak with Aydan in private."
The executioner narrowed his eyes but complied, stalking off into Hemwick Charnel Lane.
As soon as the third wheel was out of sight, Lael's arms wrapped strongly around me, a half-crazed laugh bursting from his mouth.
I let him have his moment. He set me down, laughter tapering off.
"Where were you?" I asked.
He smiled at me. "Have you been eating? You've gotten so thin."
My brow furrowed. "It has been but two hours."
"It's been... It must have been days."
I frowned. "... A new Delusion?"
He shook his head. "No, no. It had a host. My Aunt Maria. I-"
"A corpse..."
Her porcelain-white hand gripped my wrist like a vice.
"... Should be left well enough alone."
I had never seen someone more beautiful. She was the mirror image of the Doll given agency, given a weapon and a body capable of fighting. Perhaps my mother looked like this once, long ago.
Maria let go but I did not back away. "Aunt Maria? What are you doing here? What happened to all those people in the tower?"
She paused. "... You are Iuliana's son," she stated, voice soft. Her head tilted. "My nephew. You are not dead? How strange."
The slight heel of her boots made a distinctive sound against the old floorboards. I backed away, eyeing the double-bladed weapon in her hand.
I readied my weapon, seeing the intent in her glassy eyes. "I don't want to fight you. You're family; maybe the only family I have left."
Maria laughed, a delicate thing as her Rakuyo separated with a clang. "Then you should not have come this far."
I reached for the weapon Aydan had so painstakingly crafted for me, the Sunburst Blade. I swung the wicked, spiked flail at Maria, the slight blue glow turning golden the moment it hit her statuesque, marble skin.
"Sunlight. How distasteful."
Her hand twisted in the spike, blood spilling out over the enchanted steel. I tried to pull it back, wrench it out of her grip to no avail.
Maria's head tilted curiously. "Though, appropriate, perhaps..."
A sharp crack sounded as she flexed her fingers. The blade broke in two, Iuliana's sword falling to the floor as it was freed from its shell.
I stood, dumbfounded, a now useless chain held in my hands.
"But in the end, futile."
Damn. Damn damn damn. I scrambled away from her, dashing to the far end of the clocktower. My mother's sword laid purposelessly on the ground, out of my reach. Without a blade, I stood no chance.
I needed a new plan.
Groping behind me for anything, a shard of wood, a metal pole, anything - my hand hit the wrinkled flesh of a cluster of messengers.
They offered me a relic I'd stored with them for safekeeping.
Taking Ludwig's Holy Moonlight Greatsword in hand, I met my maternal aunt blow for blow. Training from years ago returned to me, remembering the feeling of a Holy Blade in my hands, of my father teaching me, standing besides my fellow students, my comrades-in-arms, as we took part in our sacred duties.
Ludwig, with his dying breath, asked me if the hunters of the church were the stalwart protectors he'd envisioned.
In my arrogance, I told him yes. The Yharnam may have fallen, but as long as I drew breath, the Healing Church had honor, no matter how small.
How wrong I was. Those women, their heads bulged into masses of formless flesh as they screamed for my aunt or pattered around rambling of dripping, of water and lakes and reflections and eyes. Heartbroken and humbled, I knelt down in the muck and helped a young woman search for her eyes.
"I'm sorry, sweet lady," I'd apologized after aimlessly searching with her for a time. "It appears your eyes are lost." I reached into my pocket and took out the strange eye the messengers had gifted to me earlier. "I know it is not the same, but mayhap you may find some solace in this."
Her spindly fingers reached out shakily and cradled the eye of a blood-drunk hunter. "Oooh. A golden boy has given me an eye. What a sweet sunspot he is."
I bid her farewell and watched her curl up with her newfound eye, rocking back and forth as she sang wordless hymns and lullabies.
It was for that woman and all the rest that I would defeat Maria and make sure all their suffering wouldn't be for nothing.
The fight was long and arduous, especially with her speed against my heavier weapon. But I won. Scorched and bloodied, yes, but victorious.
Looking down as Aunt Maria dissolved around my blade, a shiver ran up my spine. The echoes of her life, faded and distorted, dusted over my mind like cobwebs before dissipating into the already-present cacophony of consciousness.
How many more times would this happen? How many more people I cared for would die by my hands? Mother, Amelia, Maria.
And for what? The church? My path to Maria had revealed the church's true face to me. I barely could stomach the title Lord Executioner after witnessing the inhumane work Maria left behind.
Then for what? Why was I still fighting? Why did I force myself to face foe after foe after foe only to save no one?
I watched the clock face rotate to reveal my path.
Taking up the Holy Moonlight Greatsword, I continued on.
The only way to find answers was to move forward.
"The Hunter's Nightmare," I realized, reaching out and pulling Lael back into an embrace. "I am sorry I could not be there for you."
Lael smiled, a slightly bitter undertone within it. "My eyes are opening, Aydan. I do not believed you would have felt comfortable. I heard the Orphan's cries at every moment. Your kind heart would have drowned in his sorrow. It is better that I braved it alone."
Our foreheads touched and a strange, foreign shock tickled my chest. I could feel his enlightenment, a pressure that mixed with and penetrated my own. He surprised me with the rapidity of his growth. I had not expected our minds to mingle so freely.
I would have to exercise caution as we proceeded.
"Tell me of him."
"The Orphan?" He puzzled.
I nodded. "Yes. What was he like? Did you see his mother?"
Lael took a deep breath and described the Orphan of Kos. He detailed for her his grotesque birth, the spindly, humanoid form that gazed at the sun and sobbed. He told her how the Orphan metamorphosed, growing wings and taking to the sky. He recounted Kos's face, the peaceful expression of the majestic sacrificed deity.
And he held forth how he put the Orphan out of his misery.
I listened, enraptured. Dampness spilled down my face - ah...
Tears.
"They sound so beautiful," I said, voice cracking.
Lael held me close as I cried for reasons I could only speculate. I felt such immense sorrow... yet so much joy. Hope. I felt hope.
Hope for a family.