Quincy had never made the trip from lantern to lantern so fast. The Dweller tried to greet him as he burst into the Chapel, but Quincy ran past him, unhearing.
Something inside him knew Alfred would be at the Altar, where they had first met. Huntsman howled and grabbed at him as he flew past, boots echoing on the cobbles.
"Please, gods, please." Let Alfred be alive, unhurt. Why did he let him go? Through the chapel, down the stairs, then Quincy felt his heart stop at the sight.
Alfred lay slumped before the Altar, curled up as if sleeping. His face, however, was unnatural in death's cruel mockery of life- jaw slack, green eyes unfocused, staring at nothing. His hands were still clenched around the handle of the Kirkhammer's blade, buried into his middle. His golden curls trailed on the cobbles.
"Why, why did you do it?" Quincy sobbed. He knelt by Alfred's body, remembering the abandoned corpses he had encountered all through the night. He had never given them much thought-faceless, anonymous cadavers, but now his dear friend had joined their number. Well, Alfred would not be one of the forgotten and uncared for. No beasts would be allowed to desecrate him by feeding off his body. Quincy would surround him with the jars of incense all over the Cathedral Ward, and when the sun finally rose, would give him a proper burial, no matter what obstacles lay in the way.
Quincy knelt by the body, lost in the heavy aroma of the incense and reek of the vileblood gore that stained Alfred. The night had never felt so silent, the cries and moans of the beasts seeming to fade away, leaving behind an emptiness to fill with tears.
Rustling and uncouth giggling disturbed Quincy's quiet mourning. Through tears, Quincy looked up to see two guantletted hands clenching the spokes of the stone railing just beside him. The Bloody Crow gracefully heaved himself up to the Shrine, leading next to Quincy with despicable flourish. The Crow looked even more disheveled, feathers coming off his cape in clumps, the silver hair on his helmet tangled and frizzy, but despite that, the man was lost with triumph.
"Victory for Cainhurst!" He laughed breathlessly, looking over Alfred's body with an exaggerated air. "And I did not even have to lift a talon! The last Executioner, dead at my feet!"
"Get out of here, you damned pest!" Quincy snarled. His axe left on the ground several feet away, Quincy readied a throwing knife and his pistol instead. The Crow laughed madly.
"Oh, you poor, bleeding heart. He died quite happy, didn't he? He thought he wiped us all out! If anyone is the villain here, it's him! Executioners-murderers, the lot of them." The Crow kicked Alfred's Ardeo with a sabatoned foot, laughing madly when it clanged loudly against the wall, rolling over with a visible dent.
"Of course, it's not a total victory, is it? No. Not with you hanging about him all the while-in fact, I'd say that you are practically an Executioner at this point as well." The Crow slowly unsheathed his sword. "I just need to rid the world of you, and I'll be the last man standing."
"You idiot-your Queen is alive! She's immortal!" Quincy snapped, slowly backing away towards his axe. "She's pulling herself back together as we speak!
"Is that so? Then why did she not let one of Cainhurst's last sons return home before she let that miserable oaf in? No, no, my friend. I don't follow bratty princesses who only got the throne because mummy and daddy died too soon. I'll rebuild the Vilebloods myself-on top your corpses." The Bloody Crow charged, Quincy threw his knife-and Eileen the Crow descended like a graceful shadow from the chapel roof behind the charging Crow, blades of mercy drawn. In the split second of the Crow flinching back as the knife pierced him, Eileen closed in on the opening, dispatching him in one elegant stroke.
The Bloody Crow, the last son of Cainhurst, died besides his detested enemy, an enemy that never knew he existed.
"I'm glad you were hanging around." Quincy gasped, his words suave but his voice shaken.
"I'm glad you threw that knife." Eileen replied. "What a mess you've gotten yourself in." She gestured to the two bodies. "Your friend?"
"Yes. My dear friend."
"I have seen him before. Bright, enthusiastic young Hunter. It's a shame that he did not leave Yharnam when his friend did." Eileen shook her beak. "Men like him fall the easiest into the hunt's madness."
Eileen had the same idea that Quincy had, and they both went to work-dragging the weave urns of incense to that balcony, creating an invisible wall against the beasts.
"We can give him a sky burial." Eileen said softly, pushing the last urn into place. "It's what I do for all the fallen Hunter, unless he had a different wish."
"Alfred?" Quincy asked.
Eileen's beaked mask nodded. "Both of them."
"What is a Sky Burial?" Quincy asked. It sounded quite romantic-the notion of being buried in the sky, along with the celestial bodies rather than the common muck. Perhaps Alfred would have thought the same way.
"We will take him out into the forest, to return to the earth, and the birds will take his remains up to the sky, to the Hunter's dream." Eileen looked down at the Bloody Crow's body somberly. "He was once a student of mine. I trained him to succeed me once I was unable to carry on my work. And yet, here we are, discussing his burial. Another one of life's cruel jokes."
"I-I don't think Alfred would like to be sky buried next to a Vileblood." The tears were starting to come again, but Quincy owed a debt to the dead.
"There's an old crumbling tower in the woods, open to the sky and quite close to the Executioner's workshop. We can take him there together, come morn'."
"Alfred would have liked that." Quincy reflected on the fact that he was the only one that could speak for Alfred. It had only been one long, supernaturally stretched night, but his friend had been utterly alone long before he had arrived in Yharnam. Quincy knelt by Alfred's body, shutting the man's already paling eyes, and arranging his head so his mouth would no longer hang agape.
Eileen nodded. "Dignity in death. You would have made a fine student." She sighed bitterly, looking down at the Bloody Crow. "It's a damned shame. He was an admirable protege, but the path of Hunting Hunters is not for all who tread it."
Thinking, she added. "I do not think that he would like to rest near an Executioner, even if it is for a night."
"I will help you move the Crow." Quincy said, rising. Taking the Crow's legs, while Eileen took the Crow by the shoulders, they carried the limp body inside the chapel, where no Incense would need to be moved for the body's protection.
There was only one more thing to take care of-the squirming flesh that was writing in his coat pocket, and ending the night. Then, then he could finally mourn, and weep till he was but a husk.
After Eileen left, Quincy took aim at the Executioner's shrine statue, cracking the stone Ardeo with his bullet. The stone dust stung his eyes along with his tears.
The old bastard in the wheelchair had hounded him over and over about ascending to Oedon Chapel. Quincy hated that man. Whatever Gherman's relationship was with the Doll, it raised the hairs on Quincy's neck. Just like how the flesh in his pocket was now speaking in the back of his mind, a calling without words.
But Ascend Quincy did, and he had found a strange place, indeed. A strange stairwell turned workshop swarming with maddened hunters was expected, but the inner sanctum of the Choir was not. He was swarmed by a horde of the blue creatures much like the ones that had lurked in the Imposter's shop. Uncaring, Quincy cut through them.
Stained with the blood of malformed, celestial beings, and barely realizing he was in the upper level above the Chapel, Quincy had stumbled upon something truly otherworldly.
Something had snapped inside of him when he saw the creature, all slimy appendages, grotesque, pustule face lined face with two gooey, weeping eyes. It hunched over a corpse of what appeared to be the Byrgenwerth Spider. It did not even shudder a skeletal wing as he drew close.
" Here it is…" The flesh whispered in his mind. " The altar… "
"You miserable bastard" He had hissed. Was this the bloodlust of the hunt? The voice of the Vileblood queen, in the limbo between life and death?
Quincy felt nothing but hatred and rage as he beheld its form. Everything, everything he had read, heard, and connected together led to one thing. The gods Yharnam worshiped, the Great Ones, were the cause of this mess. They played with humanity like a cruel child may play with insects, grabbing them, pulling their legs off, burning them with glass. The foolish Church, the maddened Choir, the wicked Menses Scholars, had whined and begged for ascension, for evolution. Well, they received it. The Scholars had melted into miserable slime, Menses was nothing more than a collection of mummies, and the Choir had vanished entirely, and the Church, and Yharnam, were cursed to become ravenous beasts.
This surely was one of the Great Ones, no doubt scheming what misery it would put mankind through next. The old, dead gods of Quincy's homeland had been similar, toying with humans before humanity had destroyed them all, and their land in an apocalypse of darkness. Mankind had been reborn, flourishing on this foriegn continent, and life and man had slowly returned to the place of humanity's victory over the Gods who had long mistreated them, enjoying their own age.
Quincy strode forward, righteous anger in his heart. His axe crackled to life with Electricity, and he swung at the disgusting creature. No matter how many times he died, no matter how many defeats, he would destroy the monster.
As he cast the last few blows, as he placed the writing, pulsing flesh on the altar that the monster had been weeping before, he realized how alike he and Alfred had become.
The vile monster-it had not attacked until it had to defend itself.
Quincy did not know what he was to expect when he returned to Cainhurst. Something told him that the Altar would restore the Queen at an accelerated rate then her own natural healing, but other than a restored Queen, what lay ahead was a grim mystery. The room swirled around him dizzyingly, coming to a halt as he stepped away from the Lantern, settling his gaze on the seated Queen.
"The Hunter." she said, lifting her masked head at his approach. Her voice was muffled under her metal mask. Did the Executioners force such a thing on her? Somehow, her death and rebirth had not removed the contraption.
Quincy took off his hat, bowing humbly.
"I'm dreadfully sorry, miss-uh, my Queen, my-"
"My Lady will do. Dost thou know what you have done? You, a Hunter, a hand of the church, have brought the greatest foe of the Healing Church back to life." Annalise folded her hands in her lap. "You have rekindled the war of the Executioners and Vilebloods, and you have undone not one, but two men's acts of Martyrdom. Why, we ask."
"It wasn't right."
"Oh? What was not right?"
"Well, Miss-My lady, The Church-and Alfred, spoke such horrible things about you Vilebloods, but once I came here, well, the only wicked things I saw were what the Church and the Executioners had done. Those poor bound women, wandering all alone..."
"Sympathy for our plight." Annalise leaned back in her seat. "Thou art a strange hunter, indeed. We assume you are here for our blood."
"I will abstain, my lady. I only came here to do what is right." Quincy knelt, extending his arm in an expression of deep respect. The Queen nodded her approval of the proper gesture.
"You do not wish for our blood. You claim to have only come to do what is right. If this is true, thou art a strange, and rare creature, perhaps conjured by this strange night."
"Miss, I mean, My lady, It's not justice to go and kill everyone who's using the wrong blood, or using it the wrong way. The Healing Church had its own load of crimes, as they went and messed the world up. If they condemn someone, I'll take it with a grain of salt. I haven't seen any wrongs here, other than then your people in better times sitting around a big fancy castle, throwing big fancy parties n' wearing clothes with more jewels than threads." Quincy froze, wondering if he had gone too far.
A soft chuckle sounded. Annalise tipped her head back, hand covering where her mouth was under her iron mask and gave out a soft, tinkling laugh. Quincy gave out a nervous chuckle in response.
"We have never conversed with someone as...salt of the earth as thou. In better times, thou would have been taken to the dungeons for thy uncouth tongue." She said, her hidden smile apparent in her voice. "Thou shalt be forgiven, if only for the fact that thou hath not only freed us from our captor, but saved us from our assassin."
Quincy made to rise, only to be interrupted.
"The assassin was thine friend, was he not? What of his fate? We suppose you are foes now."
Quincy bowed his head silently. Annalise nodded.
"Our foes, The Executioners, believe in martyrdom. Suffering and pointless death make them holy. We assume he has passed, then." Annalise stated flatly.
Her statement seemed to open the floodgates. What had happened was finally beginning to process.
Alfred lay still before the altar.
Setting the incense so the beasts would not find him before morning came.
The promise to lay him at rest.
Tears trailed down Quincy's cheeks, falling onto the wax stained carpet.
"You loved him." The Queen observed.
"I did, My Lady."
"You undid his work, what he suffered for, what he strived for, what he ended himself for."
"Yes, My Lady. Alfred was a Zealot. He was obsessed, murderous, and yet." Quincy's arms were shaking too much to hold out. He planted his hands on the carpet, digging his nails in. "He was kind, loyal, and one of the only friends I had in this damned place. I only knew him for this long, horrible night, and I loved him with my whole heart."
"A pity." What Annalise meant by that, Quincy could not even begin to guess. Pity for him loving Alfred? Pity for Alfred's doomed life and pointless end? Pity for the whole sorry situation? Whatever it was, Annalise gave no answer as she sat back on her throne, head held high.
"In the End, Cainhurst is Victorious, but a hollow victory it is. There will be other Hunters, greedier then thou for our blood. A Child of Blood will be born, and a new era of Vilebloods shall start. All thanks to thyself, and your beloved, bumbling assassin, without whom, you would have never stepped foot on our forsaken grounds."
Quincy rose silently, turning without a word. He walked past the statues of royalty, past the stone horses that lined the stairs, never once turning back to look at the Queen. The fact that he was mirroring the last time he saw Alfred alive hurt him more than any bullet or beast.
From the seat of the dead Martyr, he stared out into the night.
He held Logarious's Crown off the side of the high roof, and watched it fade to a faint, twinkling speck as it fell.
"Good Hunter."
"Hello, Miss." Quincy looked up from his seat on the ground to see the Doll standing above him, her face placid as always.
"Your heart is heavy, Good Hunter." She observed. Quincy went back to staring out into the distance. The Garden of the Hunter's Dream dropped off abruptly after the fence, as if it was a lone island floating in a sea of primordial clouds.
Quincy had headed back on the 'correct path' that he had been on before Alfred had set him far off course. Yar'Ghul village was the next logical step as he graduated from a Hunter of Beasts to a Hunter of those who had started the nightmare.
It was a miserable place, filled with petrified corpses and chained mummies-victims that Quincy was sure had been living, breathing people before the Mensis ritual had started. The clattering coffins of miserable, undead bodies, the foul beasts and monsters that lurked in the accursed streets had proven to be a great challenge, and Quincy found himself sent back to the dream more than ever. This time, he would take a moment to catch his breath before going back out into the night.
"What's out there, beyond the dream? Out in the fog, beyond those pillars." He asked. She smiled.
"I do not know."
"Probably for the best." Quincy sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I've had it up to here with forbidden knowledge and ancient mysteries. It's only gone and messed the world up."
He rubbed his eyes. It seemed he had cried out any remaining feelings in the garden after resurrecting Annalise, leaving behind a dry emptiness. If morning ever came, if he ever had a moment to process anything, Quincy was sure that the weight of everything that had occurred during one night would crush him.
"Your spirits are low, Hunter." The Doll observed.
"I doubt they will ever rise higher again, Miss." Quincy said.
"It is my duty to raise them."
"I thank you. But this isn't something blood echoes can fix. I lost someone dear to me."
"So did Gehrman." The Doll said pleasantly. Quincy did not reply, not wanting to know.
"Is...is it foolish to love someone, even though you've only known them for a night?"
"I love you, Hunter."
"You were made to." Quincy sighed. "Sorry-I didn't mean to be rude."
"You are kind to me. You brought me a gift." The Doll held the comb in her jointed hand for him to see. "But perhaps, all love is foolish."
Quincy nodded, laying back in the grass and flowers. He had no motivation to continue on wards. He knew the night needed to end. He knew he wanted to leave, to see his family again, but knowing that leaving the dream meant once again facing the constant death and pain, without a friend or any sort of companionship left him unable to move forward. The doll was a comfort, but he needed a fellow, flesh and blood human. He cared for her, but she was an enigma.
Finally, the obligation of the situation he had been forced into moved him. Tired muscles, weary bones, aching, broken heart-all worked together for him to rise.
Quincy, with the Doll following-walked back to the Workshop, passing the many tombstones that littered the Dream.
"What are the gravestones for?" Quincy asked. He plucked one of the white flowers, twirling it between his thumb and forefinger.
"Hunters who have left the dream." The Doll replied. "To recall their sacrifices."
"So, once I leave this place for good-will I leave one behind?" Quincy placed the flower in his coat's button hole. He plucked another, and offered it to the Doll. She looked surprised before her face molded back into its usual expression of placidity. She tucked it carefully in her bonnet, adding it to the roses that were already there.
"Yes, Good Hunter. I shall tend to it well. More have been appearing tonight."
"More?" Quincy asked.
"Yes, see?" The Doll gestured to a row of headstones. "Gascoigne, Henryk, Madras, Yamamura,…all lost their connection."
"Through death?"
"No, Gascoigne became a beast. Such creatures cannot be allowed here, so he died for the last time. Henryk became maddened and attacked his fellow Hunters, and thus lost his fellowship with them. Madras murdered his own brother-"
"What about Alfred?"
"Alfred?" The Doll tilted her head. "A strange one…Saints do not hunt…"
"Well, Alfred did." Quincy was starting to get frustrated with all this 'Blood Saint' nonsense.
"I told you, his connection was fraught. Those the Formless One claims usually do not Hunt, and therefore do not dream. His connection to Oedon interferes with the dream, and he has severed the connection himself, unknowingly. Alfred can never return again, and will perhaps wake with the morn."
Quincy's head snapped up.
"Wake? He's not dead?"
"Yes, his last death severed his dream connection-but not his life." The Doll continued in her gentle monotone. Quincy took the Doll's wooden hands desperately.
"Alfred is alive?!" He asked.
"Not while the Nightmare lasts." The Doll said, seeming unfazed by Quincy's excitement
"So if I end this night-I can see Alfred again?" Quincy asked desperately.
"There is a good chance."
The chance was all Quincy needed. He would move forward, dying over and over, cutting a bloody path to the end of the nightmare, if it meant even the faintest chance of seeing Alfred again.
Snow fell all around him. He could still feel the iron weight in his guts, stopping his breathing, but somehow, he lived and saw, but was unable to rise from his kneeling position. Somehow, he was once again on the Cainhurst Roof.
"Brother." Those familiar eerie tones were unmuffled by the phantom snowfall.
"I destroyed you."
"We are undying." Annalise said, unbothered. She stood before the rooftop throne, her dress shining in the moonlight. In her hands she held a curved foriegn sword, sheathed in bloodied silk. Despite the snow, she was still barefoot. The only difference between then and now was that despite all sense, the Queen now lacked her mask. Her hair streamed a honeyed brown, falling in unkept rivers past her shoulders. Alfred now realized that the white hair was merely a part of her mask, much like the wigs the Vileblood knights wore.
Her face was young but gaunt, her eyes a bright amber below heavy lids. Despite her naturally dour face, she wore an expression of unbelieved triumph.
"Our parents made a deal with the gods. They were terrified of the Executioners destroying all they had built, so in return, they received an undying child. If we die in any way, whatever remains of mineself will lace together and return." She laughed hollowly. "The Altar merely expedites the process. They never realized they condemned us to a life of misery once the inevitable happened. Trapped in a castle we could never leave, with only mine father's twisted creations and the insane ghosts of mine mother's court for company."
"You realized, didn't you? The evil of the Executioners, once our blood was on your hands. That you killed someone that was more like you then you ever knew. Of course, perhaps you regretted that you only caused your Master's complete failure." Annalise turned to the shattered throne behind her. Logarius's Crown lay in the rubble, battered and dented.
"Perhaps, both…" Alfred managed out. The crushing metal blade in his chest felt like the physical manifestation of his heartache.
"It was inevitable. It was cruel and evil, unnecessary. But inevitable. Empires and Kingdoms must fall, especially when the kindling for their fire is the souls and lives of those below them. You were unexpected, however."
Annalise looked down at Alfred with what could have been a smile.
"I spoke to you of the pain of being the last of One's kind. However, neither of us are alone anymore, Brother. Do you feel it?"
Alfred gripped his chest. The metal weight was gone, but there was a new sensation. His veins felt alight, almost like receiving The Blood, but this time, it felt almost fiery, corrosive.
"Your blood is no longer Holy. It is the same as mine. Forbidden. Corrupted. The same as Queen Yharnam's, when she fell out of Oedon's favor."
"A Vileblood?" Was all Alfred could manage out. The absolute worst fate had befallen him. He had become twisted, corrupted, defiled, and yet...somehow, all he felt was a deep emptiness, the inability to feel. The deep fires of passion that had burned inside him for years had shut off, damped by the realization of the purpose of the wicked engine they were fueling.
"Otherwise, we would have not rested until we would have you destroyed." Annalise's voice was light. "But instead, we are now the closest of kin. The last two Vilebloods on this Earth. What do you say, Brother?"
"I do not believe-" Alfred managed out. "Does this matter? Any of this? I am dead. My life is over. If the blood I…" He swallowed hard. "If the blood of yours I ingested, indeed did turn me, then I shall never be martyred. This...this is all some dying dream." He attempted to gesture about the snowy roof, but found his arms heavy as lead and refusing to move.
"Of course, what does it all matter? I've made a right mess of things." The clarity of death was as sharp as glass shards. "I caused Master Logarious to be killed, he attacked Quincy who was only trying to help me. I destroyed all the Good Work of the Executioners, but...Gods, Philip was right, our work was not good at all, was it? The Cainhurst Royalty needed to be usurped but...we went the wrong way about it."
Alfred squeezed his eyes shut, but in his liminal state he could already see them appearing along the rooftop just as clearly. The tortured, bloodied ghosts of the woman that the Executioners bound and killed, their slit throats weeping blood.
Men appeared behind the woman, battered and bloodied. Glassy eyed children peeped between the gaps between them. Most strangely, surrounding Alfred and Annalise, was the forms of Blue robed Executioners, sans Helmets. Alfred gasped at Bernice's strong face, looking down at him impassively, Colin peeking behind her.
"This one." Annalise said softly. "Killed my Father. She pounded him to a pulp, very much like thyself. But when Logarious drew his blade to kill my mother and I, she protected us. She said that it was only the King who needed to die."
"She and her comrades turned on the others, in our own defense, and were killed by Logarius himself. Now, you know the truth of the siege. The truth of our shared, same sad fate."
Alfred had always imaging the Siege to be a glorious, holy thing. Now, he knew that it was a scrum, a confusion of conflicting sides and views. Something about Logarious's holy mission ending in confusion and infighting seemed fitting.
With a wave of her arm, the ghosts vanished, leaving the two of them alone on the rooftop. Annalise looked down on him, taking the crown of Illusions in her hands.
"Our blood is a gift. Oedon no longer has a hold on you. You can live as a normal man, not a Saint anymore. The both of us were both the products of a grudge centuries old. Leave, my brother. Go far from here. We will let you live, and live well, but we want nothing more to do with thou. Awaken."