Chapter 11 - Fate's entrapment

Annalise looked at the slumped figure at her feet with slight amusement. In days long past she would have thrown the girl out into the cold as punishment for daring to fall asleep in her presence, but humiliation and especially loneliness had taught her the value of patience. Yes, the longer she gazed upon the blonde on the floor, the more fondness filled her shrivelled heart. It was as if she was in the presence of a resting pet, grovelling at her feet where all things belonged.

Besides, would those babbling servant creatures even be able to lift the moon-scented hunter with their spindly arms?

Pah!

Slowly her freshly healed hand reached out to the mop of unkempt, damp hair and caressed it. For her, who had been dressed in the finest of silks and luxuriated on the softest of pillows, the unrefined sensation of such a messy object was a foreign one, yet secretly she revelled in the liberating experience, so different from her accursed prison.

"How ghastly... Such uncouth appearance in front of us..." she whispered to herself, trailing a finger over the grimy face of her newly appointed knight.

What was her blighted blood doing inside the hunter's body right now? Was it gleefully corrupting every piece of flesh it touched, spreading itself throughout her being to rebuild her into something greater? Or was it ripping the young girl apart at the seams, dragging her mind into a red-hazed slumber of thoughtless thirst?

Such questions...

How interesting...

How delightful...

Already in the few minutes that she knew this stranger she had brought so much intrigue and novel entertainment into Annalise's unlife. This certainly had to be a sign of the gods. Maybe her wish for a child was not yet out of reach…

The girl stirred in her sleep, instinctively searching for the nearest source of warmth by hugging her leg.

Such disrespect!

But the queen could not find the will in herself to kick her underling away entirely. They were now blood-kin, related in any way that mattered as the last true Vilebloods on this earth. Elsewhere some craven worms who escaped the church dogs massacre might still be hiding, however none of them had searched for her. They had abandoned their rightful monarch and as such they only deserved her contempt. Cowardice was wholly inappropriate for a proud noble of Cainhurst!

Only the murderous little blonde clasping her foot at this very moment was worthy of her attention. Indeed as their essences had combined for the briefest moment, Annnalise had sensed the strength of countless fallen foes coursing through her blood. Seldom did she have the pleasure of tasting from a more accomplished killer. There had to have been thousands of beasts finding their end on her knight's blade, each of which certainly consumed others beforehand, adding to the sanguine cacophony of voices whispering of the past and giving her servant strength.

Blood was power in its purest form and knowing that her trusted kin possessed the skill to spill such quantities of it, filled the undead queen with grim satisfaction. It was only fitting that her only worldly representative should be strong. There was no place in Cainhurst for the weak, as the invasion of those damned zealots had proven. Grown fat and lazy, her people stood no real chance against the savage mainlanders. A folly she would not repeat.

"Ahh..." groaned the hunter, obviously returning slowly to consciousness. About time! Annalise might have felt the faintest inklings of attachment for the girl who had sworn to further her cause, but customs had to be upheld somehow. Her royal pride could not permit being ignored by any one of her subjects.

Encouragingly she leaned forward and shook her knight's shoulder.

"Hath thee rested enough? We find thy constitution lacking..."

After a few heartbeats of silence, alarmed blue eyes suddenly stared up at the queen through the slits in her mask. Hastily the girl rolled away and smoothly jumped to her feet. One hand lay on the handle of her weapon while the other gripped something inside her pocket.

Excellent.

"Can thou sense the change within? Hath our vigour strengthened thee?" Annalise asked mildly curious.

Understanding flashed inside her visitor's eyes as her stance visibly relaxed.

"Yes. I believe so. My injuries..." she checked herself over, "... have healed. I thank you, queen Annalise."

"Then begone. We think we have indulged you enough, knight."

Bowing her head – as was customary – the girl nodded quietly, folded her hands and dissipated in a cloud of pearly fog.

Annalise couldn't help but chuckle for the first time in many years.

The gods had truly delivered her a fascinating helper.

~\\∞۞[ ]۞∞/~

'Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!' Tanya chastised herself angrily.

To let herself be overcome with bloodlust like a dirty beast! Blacking out in the presence of a clearly supernatural stranger was unacceptable! Dying was not an issue for her, but who knew what that mysterious woman could have done to her! Maybe perform some sick experiment or ritual on her still living body like that damned lunatic Iosefka – or whoever had taken the doctor's place.

Had she been slipping in her vigilance despite all the sweet lies she told herself to keep sane? Was she actually losing her mind? That was the only explanation-

"Good Hunter, what troubles you? You are pacing agitatedly."

Oh, right. She wasn't alone.

To be fair, with how motionless the doll tended to stand in the corner and observe her, it was easy to forget that she was there. Her soothing presence made her ironically quite unlike any human in Yharnam.

"Forgive me. This excursion into the real world has been... stressful to say the least. Many things happened that I will have to think over carefully."

"Why don't you tell them to me, Good Hunter? I might be only a plain doll, but many others who passed through this dream felt the burden of knowledge lessen when they could share it with another."

Tanya knew that of course. Since she had understood that she could not really talk with anyone else in this crazy world she had been sharing her thoughts with living construct. Not everything, but enough so that she could feel like she was doing something different than either killing or planning to kill.

Even back in the Empire she had a diverse set of duties, from training new recruits to writing scientific papers on combat doctrines or organizing supplies. Every day was unlike the last, clearly progressing towards the future with new trials and options to look forward to.

In Yharnam however the night seemed to stretch on endlessly as if the space time continuum was painfully twisting back on itself constantly. At every corner waited only more madness and no matter how many enemies she disposed of, her bloody work never seemed to truly accomplish anything. Under the suffocating nightmare of blood and beasts, where was her time to simply be human?

"Well... would you be so kind as to prepare another pot of tea? I could use one."

The ever dutiful doll smiled and went to work.

~\\∞۞[ ]۞∞/~

She thoughtfully nodded and listened, not interrupting the swell of words pouring from the Good Hunter's lips. Many curses and angry explanations culminated ultimately in a story of frustration and regret that she couldn't help but be moved by.

Death was a concept foreign to the doll, but she believed to know why humans feared it. Ending a process, destroying something so that it may never recover must be hard for creatures bound to the material plane. Theirs was a limited existence in both time and space, with a defined beginning and end, quite unlike the maker of this dream or even herself for that matter.

She was a tool and no one would really mind discarding something so basic like her. However, she in contrast would still do her best to care for her owners. Such was the way of things.

The waking world had hurt her charge again, the one who taught her joy and other... deeper sensations that she lacked words for. Tanya had made her shed a clear crystal tear with the pretty gift of a long lost hair ornament, which should have been impossible... How could a doll cry? With eyes made from glass and insides stuffed with cotton, where was there space for tears?

For that stunning revelation she would forever be indebted to the Good Hunter. To dream – if only for a short moment – of being more than a useful object had been incredibly exciting. Such forbidden delusions kept her in a blissful trance until Tanya inevitably returned to her.

"Good Hunter..." the doll softly spoke as silence settled over the tea table. "You were deceived and now feel responsible. You made a mistake, because you believed the lies of a despicable woman. I can see your heart aching... Yet... don't you think it had to be this way?"

Tanya's expression was one of subdued shock and confusion, sending the doll into doubt.

Did she speak too much? Sharing her own thoughts freely was a privilege that she had perhaps abused too liberally. It was just too addicting.

"Forgive me-" she began, only to be immediately interrupted.

"No, no! What do you mean by that?"

"Good Hunter, I still remember your regret when you brought back that red-dripping ribbon for the little ones to play with. You called it a cruel waste what happened to that poor child, but did she not venture out alone into the dark on her own volition? Did you not warn her to stay indoors? Was she truly unaware of the beasts that prowled outside her doorsteps on the night of the hunt? Could it not be that she chose to embrace whatever was waiting for her down in the sewers?"

Fresh anger tinged Tanya's tone as she hissed: "That has nothing to do with all the helpless people who fell prey to that mad doctor's scheme!"

"Yes. But was there any other choice for them? Some time ago you spoke of an old chapel filled with incense smoke, where a strange man claimed to care for all in need of aid. Could you honestly tell if he was not going to betray you as well? And the desperate people of Yharnam, asking for your knowledge... were their circumstances not dire enough to flee their homes? How much longer would they have been safe there if no one had given them hope for a safer place?"

"All hypothetical. I couldn't have known any of that!" glowered the woman on the opposite side of the table.

"Then how can you blame yourself, Good Hunter? I see the doubt in your eyes, but could have things happened any differently if you were not exactly the person you are? The choices you made and the choices they made... Were they not all rational and just? Mortals cannot influence everything and even those that some consider gods fail and struggle."

"I know. It's just..."

Uncharacteristically at a lack for words Tanya merely furred her brows and blankly stared at her cup. The ethereal wind swept across the vast cloudy sea of the space surrounding the Hunter's Dream, carrying with it some stray petals from the moon flowers in Gehrman's personal garden.

Something stirred within her chest at the beautiful view...

"I will be going to the Cathedral Ward. Collect a few trophies for that queen." the Good Hunter mechanically stated, rising from her seat without looking at the doll.

And she simply nodded and smiled sadly, because that was all she could do.

If only she could have been created to be more than a simple puppet; a being with real flesh instead of cold porcelain, so she may properly comfort her Good Hunter whose life was the focal point of her personal universe.

The infinite planes of reality might resonate with cries of uncountable agonies, yet for the doll only Tanya's quiet suffering was of any relevance. After all, even if she had been made without love for the living, how could she ignore the pain of what was, for all intents and purposes, her god?