It was less a recital of poetry and more of a dissection. Or a butchering, if the hunter was feeling as unkind as Alanna's audience. It was a complicated and epic-length affair, and for each line there was much debate to be had as to if the emphasis should go here or there or not at all. Alanna had already had a row with Sofia about how often she had been interrupting while Irene, who was a little more tactful but not wisely so, had then interrupted them with a few of her own delicately phrased suggestions.
The hunter had watched them argue with an amused horror— they were treating Alanna rather harshly as she struggled through her lines and her cheeks had gone a blotchy, frustrated red. But when it was Sofia's turn to pick up a stanza or two, Alanna tore into her diction with such fervor that the hunter wondered if the two would actually come to blows.
Elaine didn't participate in the recital, but she did keep careful balance of who complimented or slighted who— the hunter could see her gaze flitting from person to person as she worked out some internal calculus that the hunter was sure would sway all sorts of petty decisions in the future. Who would have a ribbon borrowed and never returned, or who would find an auspicious seat so luckily left open at the banquet. The hunter couldn't call it cutthroat, not when they had experienced exactly that several times on the hunt, but the ladies all interacted with such a ferocious yet bloodless intensity that the hunter couldn't help but feel intimidated.
The reading shifted to Irene. Where the others had ranged in dramatic delivery, her affectation was so steadily flat that the ever-critical ladies were stunned to a silent and blank boredom. The hunter caught Elaine stifling a yawn.
They felt the drag of sleep upon themself, as well. It was odd, now that they thought about it; for all the long night, adrenaline had pushed them forward as effectively as a blade to the back. They dreamed but did not sleep. Within the castle, however, they had drifted off after the banquet, and here, facing the relentless drone of Irene's recital, they had to fight to keep their eyes open.
The hunter leaned against the wooden arm of their chair and looked out the color-warped panes of a stained glass window. Beyond the glass was an oblique view of the coast across from the castle; the hunter could spot the looming hillside shamble of the witches' abode if they squinted. The tall spires of Yharnam cut up into the sky, but much of the land was barren and rocky, crumbling its way down into the surrounding water. There were trees further past the curve of the bay, a crooked shadow shape of branches and the distant silhouettes of windmills. Away from the rocky coast, then, there must be richer soil— farms, surely, for the great city could not support itself on blood alone— could it?
The hunter wondered how far away their place of origin was— how many mountains, how many valleys, and was it distant enough that Yharnam's long and twisted shadow was out of sight?
They could ask Annalise, and she would surely answer, but what would be the point? Why know where they were from if there was nothing to return to?
The hunter stiffened their shoulders and bit at the interior of their cheek. They felt as if their misery wouldn't weigh so heavily upon their mind if they would only be willing to relinquish their grip upon it. But it was easy, so easy, to let every thought circle back to returning home. And it wasn't all out of nostalgic indulgence— when the night really did end, as surely it would, where would they go? They had asked Elaine that earnestly and while her sympathy was appreciated she had not offered the hunter an answer. Not that they blamed her; there was no answer. Yharnam hated outsiders. The hunter could attempt to wedge their way into the life of the city, but it would be a long and hard road to calling it home. And with what they had seen of this night of the hunt, with what they had seen of the Healing Church, there was hardly a guarantee that the city wouldn't collapse before the sun rose.
They could wander, then. Take the skills they had, learned from hunting or from whatever they had done in their past life, and travel until they found a place that was home enough.
The hunter stared out at the water as a pang of loneliness struck them through.
There was one possibility, one wrapped up in a hope that felt entirely too fantastical, and so they pushed the thought away.
Irene droned on. The hunter let their eyelids settle closed.
They did not sleep deeply. The hunter's mind drifted in and out of a dim, thoughtless grayness. Something pricked at their awareness after some stretch of time— Irene had paused in her recital and Elaine was sending someone off for tea.
The hunter blinked back to cognizance and looked out the window once more. Surely not much time had passed, but they had no way of knowing here. The sky was still locked into the dawn, and the ladies seemed entirely unaware of the sunlight's strangeness.
Movement caught their peripheral attention. They leaned closer to the glass and craned their neck. Near the base of the castle, they could just barely see a corner of the entry courtyard leading out to the bridge. They glimpsed two horses stamping at the rocky ground. A carriage was being prepared.
"Leaving the nest again," Elaine said from over their shoulder, and the hunter startled.
"The crow?" they asked. "The crow is leaving?"
"Of course," she replied, and she arched an eyebrow. "Goodness, don't you look rather lonesome. I thought this little farce of a reading might have cheered you up." She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at the distant carriage. "Or is something else the matter, now?"
The hunter, surprised, tried to school their expression back to a plain impassivity.
"You are fond of the crow?" Elaine asked. The other ladies all suddenly busied themselves with looking very much like they weren't listening in.
"The crow has been very kind to me," the hunter carefully admitted.
"Good," Elaine said. "Good, good. And the crow will return, you know. Always does."
"…Do you know much of the crow?" the hunter asked.
She raised both eyebrows. "Not personally."
The hunter allowed themself one last wistful look out the window. "The crow, to me, seems to be a rightly good and honorable knight."
Elaine tried to stifle her laughter very quickly. The hunter turned and gave her a wide-eyed look.
"How romantic!" Elaine exclaimed as she waved one hand hurriedly. "Yes, yes, all of our honorable and chivalrous knights."
"The crow especially," Sofia snickered.
Alanna nodded along. "Especially."
The hunter furrowed their brow.
"Our hunting knights tidy all sorts of messes," Elaine explained. "Some are nobles in their own right, descendants or proteges of Calista's dearest hunters, and they deserve the full respect of their name. Others are… of a different class. We are generous patrons to them, and they do well to prove their worth."
The hunter frowned. "Then the crow is—?"
"A special case," Alanna said.
Sofia smiled. "A maven of a raven."
"If rumor is to be believed, that one started quite lowly— a nameless pauper child, some unintended product of a droll drama between a scullery maid and a Yharno," Elaine said as she leaned forward with a conspiratorial look.
Irene tilted her head. "I thought it was a liaison with a wayward Hinterlander."
Alanna frowned. "I think that was the old one."
Irene squinted. "The old one…?"
"Does it matter?" Eileen said with a sniff. "It's always the same with a crow. They migrate around, claim some territory, and pass the coat down to whatever other stray they find suitable enough. Some other old odd outsider took this one under their wing, and I'm sure that some time soon," she said, and as if suddenly realizing something she gave the hunter an odd glance. "Some time soon, another apprentice may be found."
"So there's been…" Irene said, and her usually blankly pleasant expression twisted slightly as she thought. "…more than one crow at the castle?"
"You never noticed?" Elaine exclaimed, and Alanna muffled a laugh.
"Why— why would I?" Irene stammered. "The crow— crows always keep to themselves, and certainly seem to act the same, and I—"
Elaine stared at her. "We've had five in our time!"
"I thought the crow was just very good at surviving the long nights," Irene said, pouting.
"Crows generally are, but they're also very good at having a replacement lined up and ready to go," Sofia said. "It's not a role that one would want to leave vacant."
Irene's face flushed. "They all wear the same coat then, do they? And the Queen grants them all the same fine helms, just like that? Not even some of the best of the hunting knights receive that honor."
Sofia sighed and slumped back against her chair. "Gods, Irene, you wouldn't be able to tell the old kings apart because they all wore the same crown."
"We certainly wouldn't have them all wearing those ghastly beaked things," Alanna grumbled.
"Of course some of the castle's highest honors are bestowed. The Queen makes great use of the crow," Elaine said, and then she paused. "Crows."
"Still, why would I need to know if we've had one crow or twenty?" Irene insisted. "I've never mingled overmuch with the likes of the—"
The look Elaine gave her would have sent her to a deep and defaced grave. Sofia pursed her lips and let out a hollow whistle.
"Honorable and chivalrous knights the hunters all are, and some nobles in their own right," Alanna repeated as she picked at the lace hem of her sleeve.
"Of course the hunters are," Irene said. "Present company excluded. Er, included. Um."
Sofia sighed and leaned back. "Don't think about it too hard, dear, you'll strain yourself."
A servant, hunched shyly as if to avoid any gaze despite the ladies paying him no mind, placed a delicate tea set upon the table and began distributing the cups. After a brief pause, he retrieved a folded bit of parchment from a deep pocket and slid it onto the table besides the teapot. A red cloth cap slumped over his face, hiding most of it from view, but the hunter caught a glimpse of a gray and scraggly beard before he scurried away.
Elaine snatched up the paper and read it through. The other ladies gathered their drinks and the hunter noted that there were not enough teacups for them to partake. A simple oversight, and they didn't really mind, but the warm steam wafting up from the tea made them recognize the chill that had seeped into their limbs.
"Our hunter is invited to the upper loft for further document organization if they feel so inclined," Elaine recited aloud. "Tea will be served."
The hunter quickly stood.
"I'll walk you there," Elaine said as she re-folded the letter.
"Oh, you don't have to—"
"I'll walk you there," Elaine repeated, and the hunter nodded.
"That—that daft woman," Elaine snapped, and as she strode along the exterior balcony she left slippered footprints on the smattering of frost that had formed upon the flagstones. The hunter, baffled, decided that it was best to let Elaine stomp out her anger without their input.
"Thoughtless! Just thoughtless," she said. "As if there's any shame in marrying down, and it's not marrying down, it's elevating the other party, this has been well agreed upon ever since— it's established! There's precedent! Would she look down her nose at the Queen? I think not!"
As if finally remembering that the hunter was her sole audience, she turned on her heel, and her livid expression began to soften.
"I know you are... a hunter that is of no formal class, but you are our guest, and so that honor is bestowed upon you," she said. "But there are common hunters, and there are common knights, and then there are Knights, see, but she would have them all together in one single rabble as long as she was considered somewhere above it, as if they were all no more than mere servants—" She huffed and frowned. "She's never even been courted. Who would want to? It'd be as engaging as courting a— a— a stupid thing."
"She's never had to wait by the door," the hunter murmured.
Elaine flattened her hands against the ruched fabric of her dress. "Exactly. So what does she know?"
The hunter nodded absently and crossed their arms for warmth. Elaine stood idly, now, less angry than she was merely restless. "You've your own tea to drink, yet," the hunter said. "The path to the upper loft from here—?"
"Oh, it's back the way we came," Elaine said, and she gestured towards the archway leading back into the library. "The first set of steps to the right, and then out to the balcony. You'll see where her majesty usually sits quite easily."
The hunter ducked away and hurried up the creaking stairwell. So, they concluded, it was okay for Elaine to speak flippantly of the hunter knights because she had been married to one; for the same sentiment to come from Irene's lips was an insult of the highest degree.
And while some of the hierarchic regulations had been clarified, others were still as clear as mud: the crow had the queen's favor (and here the hunter wondered if their presence was welcomed into the ladies' circle not because they were a guest, but because they had spent so much time with the queen), but the crow also seemed to have the lowercase-k knight demarcation, as defined by Elaine. A special case, Alanna had said. Based on the typical function of a hunter of hunters, this specialness could perhaps be understood. After all, the crow could essentially become the headsman at a moment's notice and execute hunters that had fallen to bloodlust before they could turn on fellow knights or nobles. It would be better to cultivate a clinical distance than to rub lace-laden elbows with Cainhurst's upper crust.
One could try to bestow as painless a death as they could, but a battle with a hunter-turned-beast was surely not an honorable-looking affair to an outsider. To defeat monsters, one had to cling to any advantage they could find, no matter how dishonorable or unbecoming.
For example, it hadn't been honorable when the hunter had wound up the little box, tormenting the beast with recollection just to earn a split-second opening that allowed them to gouge him from neck to waist.
He was falling apart. It had to be done.
The hunter held no envy for Eileen's position. But if what Elaine had insinuated was true—
The hunter paused in their ascent of the stairs. This had never been a mere celebration of the coming of the dawn. They had been invited to the castle for a reason.
If they really were meant to become the crow's apprentice, if this really was to be a place to stay—
Hope could hurt, they knew, but they took the last of the steps lightly.
