(Author's note: popskipandajump on tumblr asked: For the whump list 22 for Djura or 19 for the Blood Crow of Cainhurst? c:
19: Blurred Words
This is on the shorter side, because it is more a conversation between two characters. Bloodborne is a very complex game and I like to think that the characters in it are complex as well, so I explore this in here a little bit. I am going with the theory that the Bloody Crow has been Eileen's student.)
Eileen found her student sitting on the edge of Oedon Chapel, overlooking the graveyard. She frowned at the bottle in his hand, from the form and colour it was obvious that it wasn't filled with water.
"What are you doing?", she asked. "Where have you even found this? To my knowledge, there isn't much alcohol being produced in Yharnam."
"Doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.", he replied. One time he might have had a name, but it got shed when he took up the mantle of the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, though, it wasn't like he stepped into a great bloodline of knights, Cainhurst had been wiped out years ago. He still had been a child in training, having managed to flee the massacre somehow. Eileen had found him and taken him as her student, intending to show him the way of the Hunters of Hunters.
"Still doesn't explain where you got it.", Eileen retorted, leaning against the wall, thinking about how slow the Bloody Crow had grown. It was the effect of the blood in his veins, the tainted blood of Cainhurst. Even though he should be around forty years old, when he removed the mask, he would look like he was starting his twentieth year.
"I just have to walk around.", he snapped. "And they throw it at me from their windows. I can hear them talking. iVileblood/i, they say. iCainhurst is not welcome in this town./i They show me their disdain by giving me what they think is lesser. They engorge themselves on the blood and have only their scraps left for me."
Eileen waited for a few seconds before replying. "So you decided to drink your brains out with some cheap booze that got hurled at you from some window?"
"Not exactly. And I don't believe for one second that you don't know why."
He got her there. Yharnam was known for being wary of outsiders, and they were downright hostile to anyone from Cainhurst. Walking around in the signature armour of Queen Annalise's elites was an open invitation for their harassment. Eileen didn't agree with them of course, she just couldn't convince her student to take his garb off to not ignite their rage.
"You are worried about the hunt.", she said, her arms crossed. "Or more, about our line of works."
Hunters of Hunters... it wasn't an easy job, but someone had to do it. Someone had to take the Hunters out that had gotten blood drunk, that would slay friend and foe alike, the Hunters which had become a danger to the Hunt.
There was a faint nod of her student's head, or maybe he had just twitched when she had spoken, Eileen wasn't too sure. He took another swig of the battle and the next time he spoke, his words were blurred, and she didn't know if it was of the alcohol or because of something else.
"What if it happens to me? I can feel it, the blood inside myself. The blood they call vile. What if it overtakes me? What shall I do then?"
"It isn't even said that it will happen.", Eileen said. "Your people-"
"Weren't the honourable knights that the stories try to make them out to be. I have seen it, Eileen, the lavish feasts they have held. That was nothing more but a bloody massacre. They did it in honour of the queen. I was about to become one of them. That is why I sometimes fear the blood in my veins..."
"Look at you talking, you almost sound like you want to say that the church was right about Cainhurst.", Eileen said, kind of interested if she would hit a nerve. The way he clenched the bottle, she certainly did.
"Of course not! That was another kind of massacre! I would have been caught in it too, if I wouldn't have been able to flee..." Another swig of the bottle, making his next words a bit slurred. "It's just... all of them have been awful. My people, the church. There is no black or white. They all thought they did the right thing. They were convinced it is the right thing. Who even tells you if you are doing the right thing? The Hunters we hunt, do you think they are glad that we killed them?"
Eileen needed a moment to collect her thoughts. For apparently being drunk, her student had quite deep thoughts about the whole situation. In the end, she decided to answer him: "It doesn't matter if they think if we have been in the wrong or in the right. The hunting of Hunters is our job and we are the only one who are doing it. If we start to think about the why, we will only get qualms."
Eileen stepped over and snatched the bottle out of the Bloody Crow's hand, he hissed in discontent, but in the end, let his hands fall down on his lap, murmuring something.
"Can you repeat that?", Eileen asked, sitting down next to him.
"I said, if my blood overtakes me after all, and all I want to do is have lavish feasts with my prey, what will you do?"
"Then I will hunt you.", Eileen said without hesitation. "For the hunting of Hunters is my job, and I can't stop solely because my student is involved. I expect for you to do the same thing should my blood lust overcome me."
A long silence stretched between them, a silence in which Eileen started to gaze at the bottle and ask herself if a little sip would hurt, when her student spoke again.
"Thank you.", he said.
Eileen felt herself smile under her mask. "Come then.", she said. "The night is still young and we still have Hunters to hunt. Because the hunting of Hunters should be left to us."
(Author's note: We don't know much about Bloody Crow of Cainhurst and in my timeline Cainhurst has been wiped out decades ago, so I like to think that the Crow in game was a survivor who somehow managed to get picked up by Eileen, because he wears the crowfeather mantle as well.
That have been all the prompts for the March of Whumps! I may fill out the others with my own ideas and characters, but we'll see. For now I will close this series.)