"Jessica was the one who found me sleep walking in the streets at night. She took me to her tavern and explained why I was there when I woke. She offered me a job, and despite her eccentric father, I accepted. I know I should have been running far away, out of the country even, but I couldn't bring myself to actually leave. I had fancies about hiding as a commoner, determined to find some place in our society. My plan was, as soon as Seeker attacked again, I'd run away to the next town, rinse and repeat, until I mustered the courage to go hunting after Seeker. I was procrastinating."
The Doll was having a good dream, a lovely dream. One where she took care of Hunters, so many people to talk to and support. It fueled her purpose, her drive, her desire. She loved hearing of the Hunter's exploits and adventures. And they were kind to her, and didn't harm her dignity. She even felt like she was close to some of the hunters. A kiss, a gentle kiss, something filled with love more than lust. It brought her joy, it brought her excitement, it made her feel alive.
The dream turned to dust and faded. She let the memories drift away, knowing that such thoughts were mere fancies. In the dreams place, she found herself in a dark abyss.
She wasn't alone though. There was another, like her, but not, within the blackness.
"Hello?" She asked, her soul itself speaking out to commune with the other presence.
She felt the touch of another spirit, crafted by hand like her own. "Hey there, darlin'. You're supposed to be my partner?"
"Partner?" The Doll asked, confused by the male spirit's voice.
"Yeah, partner. You're a Gandálfr. I'm your sword." The spirit said, his voice dripping with good humor. "You know, I'm kind of old. I don't remember very well, but I'm sure I've never met something like you before. What are you?"
What was she? "I am a Plain Doll created to care for Hunters." The Doll replied automatically. She caught herself, realizing that she was actually speaking with something kin to her. "I am living focus of Elderitch design, crafted for love and cultivation."
"Ooh! I see. Well, I'm a disruptor, designed to dispel magic and flesh. But I can be used as a focus." The sword spirit replied rather cheerfully. "Got a name aside from Plain Doll? I'm Derflinger, you can call me Derf."
"You may call me whatever you desire." The Doll replied.
"Doll, Darlin', Doll, I'm fine with it. You're a little broken, did you know that?"
"I was attacked." The Doll internally frowned and tried moving her body. Her soul was attached to the wood frame, but most of her Paleblood had drained out. "I'm currently useless." Saying this openly brought a terrible sense of aching in her soul.
"Oh darlin' don't be like that! Our master will fix you up. I'm sure. I felt her touch before being placed in this pocket dimension. Rather cramped in here. What am I pressed up against, its soft compared to the rest of your wooden frame."
The Doll blushed, a programed reaction when faced with such a question. "You are sword, do you care for such things as breasts?"
"Ooh, so you had other purposes."
"Yes."
"Sorry to hear that. Tough existence?"
The Doll pondered his words. "Yes, it has been a difficult journey thus far. But when there is love in that contact, it is pleasing."
"Oh, so you're romantic sort. Ain't got much experience with personal romance, but I do like hooking my partners up with someone else. Makes me happy when they're happy, you know what I mean?"
"Yes, I do." The Doll enjoyed this encounter. It was refreshing to be speaking to someone who thought like her. They were tools built for specific purposes, and bringing satisfaction to their owners brought satisfaction to themselves. With the exception of owners abusing them, using them against their intended purpose. Like how many Hunters simply took what they wanted, lacking love. She was curious as to the difference of how Derflinger thought. "What hurts you?" He knew what hurt her.
"Ooh, wrong doing. Spilling the wrong blood, breaking the wrong spells. I'm meant for goodness and protection! Not murder, no, I'm not very fond of murder." His disembodied voice was filled with a deep sadness.
She reached out with her soul and hugged him.
He recoiled. "Woah, don't do that! I'm, I'm not very used to such intimate contact, Darlin'. I'm more of the stab and slice, sever soul from flesh."
She distanced herself from him. "My sincerest apologies."
"Wait. I mean. It's not that I didn't like that, I'm mean, it was different. I just, never felt warm like that before." His soul radiated a sense of blushing. "Ooh, you left bits of you on me!"
"I'm a little broken at the moment, my soul is stretched. I can try and pick myself off before the ethereal energy becomes yours." She tentatively tried seeking what she left on his presence. A metaphorical pinching motion of her imagined hand trying to pick at the energies she left on him.
"No, no, it's okay. May I keep it? I'll give you some good old sense of fight in return. Maybe you won't be broken so easily next time." Derf said, his aura of blushing growing stronger.
Now she was beginning to blush. This sounded awfully intimate for someone she just met.
But they weren't human and their spirits were communing directly with one another. Their encounter was already the most intimate that she could think possible. Images and sensations of butterflies drifted through her being. The experience was new and she was a little eager at the idea of more fight in her. The runes that were etched into her soul held a power that demanded she seek to protect her master.
New, it was new, she wanted to be renewed. Could she cultivate her strength, so she could care better for her master?
She sought out Louise's heart and mind, feeling it all around her. There was a turmoil of pain, confusion, passion, pride, embarrassment, and ambition. Other human emotions mixed and twirled within the girl, dancing, one standing out more than the other as time passed. Louise's emotions were ups and downs, a song that constantly sang, a voice lowering then rising. One of Louise's thoughts that the Doll could decipher was Louise's worry and desire for her familiar, for the Doll.
"Yes, embolden me, please." The Doll declared to Derflinger. Her master needed her, and when she recovered, she would not be taken so easily again.
He reached out to her and she felt a tempest of energies surge over her soul. It was empowering, changing her sense of purpose and feelings. If her body worked properly, she might have gasped. In return, she split a piece of her steadiness to him, her tenderness, her care. Together they set aside words and communed with feeling and will, exposing one another to each others very existence.
He gave her more soul than she returned, insistent, and determined to empower her strength. She felt that the increase of her spirit was kin to that of channeling blood, but with soul itself. She accepted the increases, placing them in the parts that defined her dexterity, her vitality, and her strength.
Pulling apart some time later, she felt the same but not. It was like the first day of her awakening. New and fresh, perspective changed ever so slightly.
Time had passed during their intimacy. It was like a kiss, a kiss unlike any the Doll had ever received before. She liked whatever they had done. Within the closeness, much changed inside of her. She felt more alive. It was exciting! She wanted to move, but her body was shattered.
"Is this where we have the pillow talk?" Derf joked, likely sharing in her feelings of refreshed change. Though he had given more, he did receive some of her. She noted that he altered some of his definitions, rearranging himself for better channeling of will and focus of magic.
"I'm not sure. We might have skipped a few courtings." The Doll flirted back with the sword. She laughed, and it radiated out from her being into the surrounding space. She was still broken of course and had trouble containing her amusement. It felt good to have done something invigorating, even when she was useless. So perhaps, when she was fixed, if she was fixed, she could do better.
"Darlin,' what is the purpose of a blade with a heightened sense of caring?" Derf asked, seeming to need to work through his new emotions.
"It takes care and measure to carve wood, or dance in the air for an audience to entertain. I would gladly use your blade for open expression." The Doll thought of herself dancing with a sword in her hand, perhaps slicing balls and ribbons of dream magic cast by Louise.
"I'm still a practical model! But that idea doesn't seem so bad now." Derf vibrated sounds of satisfaction. "I figure most of these new feelings you shared would be more of a thing between just us though."
The Doll wondered and let herself stir up a quick day dream. "Is this a formal request, Derflinger the Disruptor?"
"Why yes, I do believe so, Darlin'." Derf cheerfully replied.
"I accept." What the Doll felt in her touch with the sword's spirit was a good soul. Despite his opposite to her original purpose, after their touch she was confident she would enjoy his company.
They were two souls of a coin now, connected with another. Days had passed, but they were not bored with the passing of time. Immortality taught patience. With good company and such close intimacy, the Doll felt her heart growing for the sword as she assumed his heart did for her. It was an odd thing, a romantic feeling brought on by circumstance. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with the part of her that was growing. Love did strange and magical things to a soul. Humans barely understand the power behind such a changing force. It could be dangerous, yes, for it could drastically alter one's perception.
For a soul, perception was reality. One could convince themselves of anything, and their will would alter the fabric of their mind. When such alterations were sever, it was called insanity. When they were gentle like that of two souls communing, it was called growth. So they grew, and they communed, and grew some more. It was a wonderful time, romantic and blissful. Like vines intertwining together up a lattice work, growing around each other in knots.
When Derflinger was removed from the space of void within Louise, the Doll was lonely for the short time he was gone. She realized how dangerous such want could be and redoubled her efforts in healing her body. Wooden flesh healed, and the soft parts of her, inside and out, were the first to grow back first.
When Derf returned, he was polished and sharpened. He talked of how the master was aware of him but he couldn't speak with her yet. Without the Doll outside with Derf, he couldn't speak. They needed to be upon the same plane for his consciousness to be fully restored. It was the way he was designed. He was meant to be with a Gandálfr. Without a Gandálfr's presence, his ability to commune was denied. It made telling Louise that the Doll was okay and recovering all that more difficult. When Louise retrieved the Doll and Derf at the same time, then they might be able to speak with her. For now, their master was ignorant to what occurred within the pocket dimension.
The Doll tried focusing on her reflection, the self of her being connected to the Hunter's Dream. It too was like a body and had healed whatever wounds that were reflected during the attacked. But that part of her was hard to control. She could twitch a finger within the Hunter's Dream, but she couldn't do much more than that. Her consciousness couldn't transfer fully, her spirit severed like Louise's had once been. Did the Doll's master feel this same sense of frustration?
Perhaps a different solution was needed. A slow healing of reconnecting out of practice and determined will. Using the element of the mind, of dreams and nightmares, the Doll focused on healing and meditation. Slowly, she forced open a path between the plane of existence her soul resided upon and the Hunter's Dream. It was a hard process, not defined by the amount of willpower one had, but the desperation and tenaciousness of that will. Like learning to walk again, the Doll learned to control the extension of her within the Hunter's Dream.
The Doll finally opened her eyes in the dream world she called home. Struggling, she moved each of her limbs, every motion feeling as if it were slow and held down by a great weight. No one noticed her roll over from the spot she had been resting at. Not at first.
One arm in front of the other, knees scraping the ground. The Doll crawled off her little ledge, her favorite spot within the dream, and to the stairs. She made it a few more feet before a resident of the Hunter's Dream found her.
"Miss Dolly, you're alive!" Melody's youthful voice said in an excited pitch.
The Doll looked up to the girl and found Melody's attire surprising. The girl was wearing tailored hunter's garb for her size, a rifle spear strapped to her back and two hunter's pistols on holstered on her hips. The Doll thought how amusing it was that the little hunter would seek to distance herself in battle.
"I am not so well." The Doll said, still on her hands and knees. She was tired, and speaking was difficult.
"Ooh, go back and rest some more than. You're recovering from being hurt, right?"
The Doll mustered a nod and slowly lowered herself onto the steps. It was a rather uncomfortable position.
"Well, I guess that means you need someone to carry you back. I hope you didn't mind, but I've been killing beasts and channeling my bloodtinge while you've been asleep. I'm getting really good at shooting them in the face and, uh, doing that thing that the elf did to hurt you."
The Doll wasn't offended by Melody's tactics. For a child, that was possibly the best she could manage. "Louise." The Doll croaked, focusing herself on the Hunter's Dream. "She's here?"
Melody shook her head, blond ponytail waving side to side. "No. It's been a few days now. She returns every night, I think when she's asleep. But she leaves for the nightmare right away, and doesn't stop to talk to anyone. I can't follow her, she's avoiding us."
"Foolish heart, the young hunter should rely on her allies and friends." The Doll understood that Louise must be scared of hurting her friends by proximity. Still, within the Hunter's Dream, Louise should be safe to speak with those that could commune here.
"I'll shoot her and make her talk to me next time she comes in. I'll tell her you're getting better, and that she should come back to her school."
The Doll sighed. "Don't force her, don't beg her to return. Let her walk alone in the waking world. She's scared and confused."
"But she shouldn't stop talking to me!"
"Yes." The Doll nodded, feeling very sleepy. "Be a good companion, a friend, show her love here within the Hunter's Dream. Support her from afar." The Doll took in one last breath of the place she called home, appreciating the scent of the moon and of flowers and age. The aroma filled her with joy and nostalgia. "I'm going to nap now."
"Get well soon, take care of Louise." Melody leaned down and wrapped her arms around the Doll. The child squeezed the Doll in a little hug, paused, and then lifted her up.
The Doll was asleep before Melody set her back on the ledge she enjoyed slumbering at.
Louise stood at the bottom of a lake. It was beautiful down here and she didn't ever want to leave. This place, full of serenity and nothing. She liked it. It felt as if she belonged in wide open spaces. The giant bug with flowers growing from its body gave it a mysterious touch as well.
It was about three days since she arrived here. The things outside this place within the nightmare were scary and gross. Louise fought through a city of madness, tangled woods, and snakes. She hated snakes now. Even when she tried returning the snake's humanity, they turned into perverted half snake half man weirdos. She remembered a folk tale speaking of such beings, Naga they were called. Louise turned the snake men and women into Naga. And they were perverts and easily distracted. She wasn't bringing any of them to the Hunter's Dream. They could stick in their stupid woods with the other snakes.
"Rom, why is everything I do end with weird results?" Louise asked the pretty spider.
Rom didn't reply. She was a quiet creature, but cute. Louise liked Rom, the spider of Byrgenwerth hadn't attacked Louise when she entered the lake bed. She knew to progress further in the nightmare, she needed to get Rom to lower her veil. Rom was doing a good thing, she was trying to protect people from the truly terrifying aspects of the nightmare.
What was a good way to get a slow thinking Great One to listen to her? She read a few books on who Rom used to be. A fantastic scholar that was ascended into greatness. Technically, by other books definitions, it also made Rom a Kin. Louise had met a few of the Kin, people who ate brains and those covered in many eyes, like a fly. Louise didn't want to know what would have happened to her if the fly people actually grabbed her, but they were easy to take care of. She did know what it was like to be grabbed by one of the braineaters. A shiver ran down her spine at the memory. It took her insight, forcefully slurping it from her head.
Rom nudged Louise, saving her from falling into a flash back.
"Thanks." Louise said, rubbing at her blurry vision. She couldn't do much for the eyes inside her mind from crying. Insight despite its dangers, felt precious to hold. She was fine giving insight away in order to invade her home. By spending insight, there was a purpose to its release. But having it stolen from her was terrible and traumatizing.
Not all Kin were bad, especially after a good cleansing explosion. Louise didn't understand her magic, but was learning to master its results. The fly people turned into fairies. They were a bit ditzy and easily scared, running away from Louise before she could speak to them and attempt to bring them to the Hunter's Dream.
Brainsuckers turned into slime like people. They were easily confused and scared. Louise didn't have the desire to chase after them when they squeezed into tight spaces to run away from her. She had seen one while passing through the Cathedral Ward, a slime man curiously harassing one of the giants.
Louise wondered if she'd need to transform each and every afflicted soul within the nightmare. Perhaps there was a way to return humanity to all the denizens this place held captive. She noted that those with beast-blood gained most of their humanity back, looking much like normal humans with a few beastly traits such as extra fluffy ears and a tail. Most of Yharnam turned into an ethnicity like Gilbert. But some actually gained their full humanity back, looking like an average person.
"I've a lot of work to do. More secrets to uncover, different people to cleanse." Most of the folks she transformed ran away, and none wanted to come to the Hunter's Dream. They expressed their hatred towards Hunters with a passionate fury. Louise had wondered where they were running off to. Apparently it was a clinic owned by a woman named Iosefka. After Louise was done here, she'd need to search for this clinic herself and meet the doctor who accepted those Louise 'cured.'
The lake bed was a tranquil place. It felt nice to rest here while she slept. It was the closest she could get to being within a peaceful dream, Rom her only company. But she needed to move on, and bring an end to this tragic nightmare.
Louise faced Rom and came to a decision. "I'm sorry, but the way you are right now makes talking a little difficult. This might hurt." Louise pointed her wand at the spider who veiled the nightmare, and began to chant.
Returning a Great One's humanity was going to be difficult. But Louise had a different plan in mind. She was going to cheat. "My divine, beautiful, and powerful familiar, I wish and assert from the bottom of my heart, for you to answer my guidance." Louise waved her wand, willing Rom to open her eyes to Louise. The abyssal deepness that was Louise's precious piece of her, the magic that she owned fully and was not loaned to her by Nothing. It reached out and touched Rom, banishing Rom's Nightmare Form. The bit of Louise that was a god, that part of her that could, granted her wish. Much of her willpower was taken by this request.
It was worth it, she reckoned.
The spider began to dissolve, and in its place a different creature stood. A woman spliced into the body of a more lithe spider appeared before Louise.
Rom's hair was thick and glowing, made of the flowers that Rom once bore on her back. Waving vines that reached down to where her waist met with her monstrous body. The woman's skin was pale, almost white. The spider underneath the woman had eight long legs, and had its own head covered in eyes. More white glowing flowers grew from the spider's abdomen, waving and quivering. Rom was both beautiful and terrifying. The transformation wasn't exactly what Louise had expected.
Rom had been vastly changed. Clearly confused, all Rom's eyes blinking rapidly.
"I am Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière." Louise stepped up to Rom's lower head that was full of teeth. The massive jaws opened and closed, misty frost spilling out of its maw.
Rom inspected her human hands, wiggling the fingers. "What?" She whispered. Her human eyes gaining focus. "W-what?" Her voice was accented much as the Doll's, and trembled. Tears rolled from her eyes.
"Pentagon that rules the five powers, bless this great being and make her my familiar!" Louise reached up and grabbed Rom's hands, pulling the woman part down to Louise's level.
"Little thing, what have you done to me?" Rom painfully croaked.
Louise kissed Rom's lips.
The sealing was instantaneous. Rom reared back and screamed. Her monster body threw Louise onto her bum. Familiar runes burned into Rom's exposed chest, large letters written across her amble breasts. Rom's lower spider mouth opened wide, gushing forth icy water.
Rom stopped her flailing and stood at her fall height. "You talk to me, think around me, you love me, you change me, you make me think and speak. You kiss me, then hurt me! Why?!"
She grabbed the sides of her head with her hands and screamed again. "Memories, Kosm, terrible memories! Why? Why? Why?!"
Louise slowly stood. "Calm down, I returned your humanity and made you my familiar."
"I was unthinking!" Rom lowered her hands, her pretty face snarling. She reached her right arm out and lance of ice appeared. "I will kill you, little thing."
Well, not everything can't to go according to plan. "I don't want to hurt you. Please, I wanted to talk. You can kill me a hundred times over, and I won't attack back."
Rom raised her lance. "Lies, little thing, I know lies. You'll fight, and one of us will die."
Louise opened her arms and closed her eyes. "Then do it please. I didn't want to hurt you, I don't want to hurt you anymore. Please, I know what happened to you. Kos, right, she turned you into what you were. And you tried so hard, so hard to protect people."
Rom sobbed, pained by whatever thoughts she must be having with the return of her consciousness. "What is it that you want?" She demanded.
"I wanted you to realize that I'm bringing an end to the nightmare. Without having to hurt you, I wanted you to lower the veil. There are places and secrets I need to find." Louise clenched her teeth, waiting to be killed at any moment. She kept her eyes closed, submitting herself before Rom.
"You think you can end this nightmare?" Rom laughed, a mad cackle filled with agony and despair. "It has been going on for thousands of years, little thing. Repeating again and again, making us play roles. Ha, ha, ha! Louise, that is no name to end nightmares."
Louise opened her eyes, all her eyes, and defied the divine being that was now her familiar. "I have declared myself Louise the Dreamer, and dreams are all that I have. Dreams of happiness. I can use dreams and nightmares, and I can turn nightmares into dreams. It is why I'm here, it must be. So, yes, Louise is my name and I will bring an end to this place, freeing everyone. I changed you because I dreamed that I could. I turned you into my second familiar because it was one of my dreams to talk to you. I am more than what you see. I can, I know I can free everyone!"
"Everyone? Even I?" Rom asked, her lance held high, arm trembling. "You think to free us all? Even the ones of cosmic birth? Free us of this prison that once was a nursery?"
Louise nodded.
Rom lowered her lance. "You do not lie. No, you believe that you can achieve this dream? Heh, heh, hee hee." Rom giggled nervously. "Madness. You hold the power of madness, and you want to make it reality. F-fine, prove it to me."
"I will, you have my honor as your master." Louise bowed to her divine familiar.
Rom did reply with words. Her response was to lower the veil of the nightmare.
The world shifted into insanity and horror.
Louise heard his cry, a terrible agonizing torturous cry. It filled her, and she collapsed in front of Rom. The Great One reached down and rested a hand atop Louise's head, between her soft ears. "Go and find Murgo, he is the key to this damnation."
Louise pushed herself up and grasped Rom's hand. "You're helping me, as my familiar now, you'll help me." She demanded, defying the agonizing scream the echoed through the nightmare.
Rom looked to the sky, where a blood red moon had appeared. "I'm not sure what help I can assist, but so be it. You have my assistance. What is it you desire?"
"Be my friend, talk to me." Louise said, holding tightly to the pale white hand. "Please." She desperately needed others to talk to about the nightmare. But she was scared to speak with her friends in the Hunter's Dream. Scared to know what had changed. She would go and find Melody or someone else. Right now, if she asked for Rom's friendship, it would help her confidence in approaching her other friends again.
Rom tilted her head a little to the right, much as the Doll would. "Friendship? You ask for companionship?"
Louise nodded, desperately keeping that harrowing cry out of her mind. "Yes."
"I was ready to kill you just a minute ago. And yet... you're rather endearing."
"Please? You're my familiar, I want to get to know you."
Rom lowered her massive body, woman body leaning over Louise and pulling her into an embrace. "Very well, little thing. I will speak with you when you return to my abode. We shall resume our peaceful time together, whenever it is needed."
Louise hugged Rom back. She felt her essence being pulled away. "Thank you." Louise said, and dissolved into dust within Rom's embrace.
Flora stared at the wall of her prison cell. She was to be given a lesser sentence, incarceration for the rest of her life. Kos said she's visit. That was good. Right?
The darkness shifted within her cell.
Flora started, looking around her in fear. A cry, someone was being tortured. The sound did not come from outside the cell, but within her mind, her soul. What happened, why could she suddenly hear terrible sobbing and crying? She clutched her head, sitting at her bed. Taking calming breaths, Flora tried to think past the screams. It was no use.
Until the sobbing stopped, and her dark prison cell was quiet once again.
Was she truly mad? Perhaps she had lost her sanity when her lover was murdered. Flora rocked back and forth, whimpering. Should she have murdered the Count? She shouldn't have, it wasn't her place. It was anger that had driven her. Now she was beginning to hear sudden, terrible sounds.
It took her what felt like forever before she calmed herself down. She was tired, stressed over the prospect of being imprisoned for the remainder of her life.
The cry screamed through her mind again.
There would be no sleep tonight.