(Author's Note: I'm not as familiar with ffnet's policy on NSFW content so a chapter of hunter/bloody crow action has been cut. If you want to read it, I recommend shifting over to ao3.)

The hunter felt far more relaxed (and clean) after their time in the bath but they were now left with a logistical problem. Their hunting garb was torn and slathered in blood. There was not a change of clothes within the chamber and they had last seen the large robe draped over the chair of Elaine's mirrored vanity. Elaine's quarters were nearby; the hunter could bundle up in one of the large, fluffy towels and raid her wardrobe once more for clothing. It would be awkward and they would have to contend with the frigid air of the hall but it would have to do. The hunter only hoped that no one would be in the hallway to see them in such a state.

They left the lukewarm water of the bath, dried off, and began tucking the towel around themself as a robe. Shock jolted up their spine and they nearly dropped the towel when the door to the bathing chamber slammed open.

"Oh, are you quite done?" Elaine asked, and she bustled into the room with an armful of fabric. "I needed to see you to decide between the gray or the blue." She set some of the clothes aside and held up a ruffled blouse. "Goodness, yes, certainly the gray. I just don't know what Irene was going on about with the blue."

The hunter pressed their lips in a thin line. "Do you happen to have anything… of a thicker fabric, perhaps?"

Elaine repeated the question to herself in a whisper as she squinted at the shirt. "Of a thicker fabric. What is it that you want? Canvas?"

"It's freezing," the hunter said.

"You've only just gotten out of the bath is all," Elaine said, and she shoved the shirt into the hunter's arms. "Wear this. You'll look splendid."


Once dressed, the hunter followed Elaine into the hallway. She walked briskly and grasped at the hunter's sleeve to ensure that they kept her pace.

"You're to meet with the queen, yes? That's why I had to make sure you looked your best," she said as she patted the hunter's elbow. "Your hair is still quite a mess, but I suppose that's fetching in its own way."

"You sit near the queen at the banquet," the hunter said. "Are you two close?"

"Close to her?" Elaine said. "Family, we are. Distant, yes, but our blood once flowed from the same font." She sighed; it sounded a bit rapturous. "Now, though…" Her gaze seemed glazed and distant. The corners of her mouth twitched. She glanced at the hunter and the distraction passed. "Ah, well. If you must know— the queen's mother, Calista, had fifty siblings."

The hunter balked. "Fifty?"

"Perhaps more," Elaine said with a shrug. "The king of the time had many wives. And as you may imagine, with fifty siblings comes many nieces and nephews and so on. So, while many may claim shared heritage with the queen, I know for a fact that at the very least, our forebears came from the same mother. My lineage is that of Dia, sister to Calista, daughter of Cyllene and Lycaon." She leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. "And if it is to be believed— Cyllene was not quite of human ken." She paused. "'Tis why I have such high cheekbones, you know."

The hunter furrowed their eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Elaine turned a corner and began ascending a winding stone staircase. "Well— that is history well before my time, really— but it was King Lycaon that led his knights into the depths of the earth in search of glory. He lost all his knights, but he returned with another wife." She fell silent, winded by speaking while climbing the steep stairs. She brushed back a few stray hairs that stuck to her sweaty forehead. When she spoke again, she was still slightly out of breath. "And to be called vile— the Church may lob such a title at us like dung for daring to drink what they may not— but as long-time collectors of misfortune—"

"Lady Elaine," Annalise stated. Elaine's head snapped to look up the stairwell; Annalise stood at the upper threshold. Elaine curtseyed as deeply as she could within the confines of the stairs. The hunter bowed their head in recognition.

"If thou'rt to lecture so, the good hunter and I shall have naught left to speak of," Annalise said, her tone lightly chastising.

Elaine nodded so fervently that the hair she had pushed back shook forward and stuck to her forehead again. "Yes, your majesty. Of course, your majesty."

"Thou mayst let the hunter decorate thy arm at a later time," Annalise said. "For now, We have need of them."

Elaine nodded again and urged the hunter forward. They sidled carefully around her and glanced up at the queen as they finished ascending the staircase. Behind them, they heard Elaine hurrying her way back down.

"An excitable one, she is," Annalise said as the hunter entered the hall. "She has taken good care of thee?"

"I do think she wishes that I was instead some sort of lapdog," the hunter said. "But yes, she's attentive. I greatly appreciate her hospitality— as do I yours."

"And the crow," Annalise said. "Still, thou'rt treated well?"

The hunter faltered— and in faltering, they were sure that they had given her the answer she was looking for, if she did not know it already.

"Yes," they finally said.

The helm tilted. "Good."

The hunter cleared their throat. "We are to discuss more of my past," the hunter said.

She began her customary slow pace down the hall; the hunter followed. "Indeed. Though it seems thou'rt interested in Our past, as well."

"I know very little of this land on account of being an amnesiac," the hunter said with a slight shrug. "What little I've been able to glean of Yharnam's past may as well be a full library compared to what I really know of Cainhurst."

"Then we shall delve deep, indeed," Annalise replied. As they rounded the next corner, the flickering torches on the walls illuminated a great wooden door that was opened to the outside. The hunter realized that it led to the great stone path that arced across the entrance courtyard and connected to the highest part of the central keep.

The hunter stared up at the false dawn and frowned.

"I am glad thou'rt not overly fatigued from the day's exertions," Annalise said as she walked outside. "We have higher yet to ascend. Tell me, good hunter— which topic enthralls thee more? Thy past, or mine?"

They chewed on their lip. It would be polite to answer that her royal lineage fascinated them more, but they considered Annalise insightful enough to not value such simple flattery. "My past," they said honestly.

"Then we shall begin with the bad news," she replied. "Thou'rt from a small village eradicated by a plague— not that of beasts, but of unclean waters. Thou'rt the sole survivor, though once, thou hadst been just as sick as thy fellows. When all around thee were dead, thou availed thyself of the fortunes of the deceased and so purchased passage to Yharnam. Thou arriv'd in the city crouched upon the doorstep of death. If thou hadst taken even an hour longer to do so, thou wouldst not be speaking to me now."

The hunter stopped walking. Annalise turned to face them. Cold prickled up the back of their neck and they stared at her.

"There is no home for thee to return to," Annalise said. "I am sorry."

The hunter clenched their hands into fists, then loosened them to press their fingers flat against their thighs as they leaned forward. They took a deep breath. "No need to apologize. It's not your fault," they managed to say. "I should have expected that, really."

"If there is any detail that may be a comfort to thee, thou needst only ask," Annalise said.

"A family," the hunter said. "Parents, siblings— anything. What were their names?"

She said them, slowly, with attention given to each title and with time between for the hunter to truly hear them.

The hunter sighed, approached the stone wall edge of the bridge, and leaned against it. They peered down into the courtyard below with a blank expression. The wind whipping by at their height made them blink, but no tears fell. "My own name was so familiar as to spur no reaction in me when I saw it," they said. "And to hear these ones now— again, they are familiar, but they do not—" the hunter bit back their own words as they dug their fingertips against the stone.

Annalise stood silently as the hunter struggled to gather their thoughts. "It is a loss that I no longer have a way to feel," they said with a weak shrug. "I've been robbed of my mourning. I'm grieving a lack of grief. Damn!" they exclaimed, and they clapped their palm against the stone. "I am sorry, your majesty, to complain about it so— and I thank you for— for this insight that you have offered me. Truly."

A hand, soothingly warm, was placed upon their shoulder. The hunter closed their eyes and for a few long moments they did nothing more than appreciate the touch.

"Come, now," Annalise said. "Let Us distract thee with tales of other tragedies."

The hunter nodded and followed her to the tall stone keep.


"Lady Elaine told thee of King Lycaon and Cyllene," Annalise said as she led the way down a dim but vast hallway within the keep. The stained glass windows had been covered with thick curtains and the only light came from the candle Annalise had lit and carried with her. The hunter could tell that the walls held more painted portraits and some tall tapestries, but in the flickering candlelight it was difficult to discern any further detail.

"She did," the hunter replied. "As well as the fifty or so children."

"Of course," Annalise said. "A prodigious progenitor, he was. He had a surplus of sons. Perhaps that is why he decided to offer one up to the gods."

The hunter pursed their lips.

"The old king found his wife deep within the caverns of the earth," Annalise said. "But he found a child there, too. A wretched, stillborn thing, steaming with blood, and set upon an altar that Cyllene had long been praying to. When he held it in his hands, he felt the faint and fading tether of something umbilical— while the babe had been born of Cyllene, it held kinship with something far greater that lurked only at the edges of the thin firmament, and it drifted further away the colder the babe grew. Lycaon remained utterly entranced by it even as the corpse went cold and rotted to filth once brought up to the daylight."

"He had four children by Cyllene, in the hopes that one would emerge in such an accursed state," Annalise said, and she paused to dip her candle towards a sconce upon the wall. "To his dismay, they were all quite healthy and happy children. Three daughters, Calista among them— and then the fourth, the only son that Cyllene bore. Weak, he was— but he lived, and soon, he thrived."

"Lycaon had lost many fine knights delving back into the deep in search of another child like he had seen. Cyllene was also of a delicate composure and would not be able to bear another child. Still, he was beholden to his obsession. This final son was as close a replica of what he had seen as he could manage." She sighed as the flame in the sconce sputtered to life. "Thou mayst well know that Cainhurst has long been a collector of misfortunes. But oft have We also considered them to be delicacies. The motions of the gods are obscure and unknowable, but man is built to interpret even the most scattered of patterns. Wouldst thou like to guess what the old king thought the gods desired of such a child?"

The hunter shook their head.

"To consume it," Annalise stated. "His final son, Nyctimus, Lycaon offered as a meal. He was roasted until the blood was steaming and set upon the altar so that his essence offered succor to the distant god." She turned to the next sconce and lit it. "'Twas with that banquet that Cainhurst experienced its first truly long night."

The flames flickered high. The hunter stared up at a tall tapestry. Beasts were locked alongside beasts in writhing patterns, teeth biting at ankles, wild eyes pale and gleaming. They circled one another in an unending frenzy. At the peak of the monstrous dance was a far greater beast with jaws stained red and a stomach struck through with a sword.

"The old king incited the anger of the Great Ones with his offering," Annalise stated. "Every child of Lycaon not born of Cyllene was turned into a beast. On that night, the royalty of Cainhurst ate itself."

She drew close to the hunter. "Calista was the eldest of the survivors— and the one that drove the sword through her father's belly. The throne went to her. She vowed never to marry and to let Lycaon's accursed blood end with her, and she entreated her sisters to promise the same. They did— but it was Cyllene's blood, not Lycaon's, that made them break their vows. For the sisters, it was their long and robust lives— centuries long, if the accounts are to be believed— as well as a yearning for the family that had been taken from them. For Calista, it was the attention of the gods. Slicing her father open had given her a taste for the hunt— but the hunt had brought her closer to the thin veil of the night. She could hear shapeless whispers drawing closer, and feel a strange stirring in her blood, and as the night drew long and the moon grew close— it terrified her. She couldn't bear to carry the bloodied thing that had obsessed her father so. So, she took a common knight as a consort and conceived a simple human child as quickly as she could." Her helm tilted. "And so, I was born."

"To her relief, the gods went silent," Annalise said. "She had chosen mundanity over greatness." Her tone grew sour. "A beastly stupidity over transcendence. It didn't take many more long nights for her to succumb to the same thirst for blood that had consumed her father. She was slain by her favored circle of sworn knights. Her pelt hangs in another hall," she said, and she turned to face the hunter. "If thou holdst any small interest in seeing it."

The hunter frowned. "Your mother—"

"Had dearly wished for her line to end with her, and she made quite sure that I knew it," Annalise stated. "As did my aunts and their many progeny. They had their eyes set upon the throne. It would have gone to their children once Calista had passed. There was to be war between them all for it, I have no doubt. But I was there to take it, and so I brought them a dreadful peace." When she spoke again, the hunter knew that beneath the mask, she must have been smiling. "Every terribly frivolous member of my bloodline I love quite dearly— but never shall they sit upon that throne."

The hunter slowly nodded.

"Cainhurst had lost governance of much of its territory with the massacre of the feast," Annalise said. "The kingdom clung to a few scattered outposts but much of the worldly glory had been lost. There was still gold and silver and countless treasures dredged up from the deep earth, and we had our own arcane secrets, too, all saved from Lycaon's expeditions. Thus, I decided that the future of Cainhurst lay in loftier lands— in fixing the fallacies of my forebears."

The helm inclined as if Annalise was staring up at the tapestry. The hunter wanted to take her hand in some attempt to comfort her, but as the silence stretched they also felt a crawling at the back of their neck, a slow surge of adrenaline in their limbs— a muted instinct to run.

"There was a college not far from Us in dire need of funds. When I sent my first student to Byrgenwerth— couldst thou guess what they reported back to me?" she said wryly. "The provost had four of the things embalmed and stored in jars. A fifth had been splayed open for dissection, the body soaked with blood and still steaming."

She grasped the hunters hand. "Let us talk of lighter things," she said. "And let us do so in lighter locales."

After a long moment of consideration, the hunter nodded. They held her warm hand in their own as she led them through the keep.