Balyn took one step into the Hunter's Dream and pitched over onto his face, collapsing flat on the ground. He managed not to smack into any graves in his fall and the grass was nice and soft, with the faint scent of crushed moonflower petals.
Surely the night of the hunt could wait while he took a short nap?
Soft footsteps and the swish of skirts interrupted Balyn's attempt at sleep.
"Good hunter, are you well? You did not lose your step, did you?"
"I did not trip over a grave," Balyn protested into the dirt. He was slightly offended at the slur on his coordination. "This time," honesty compelled him to add.
"Then what is wrong? It does not appear that you are recovering from death. I sense the ancient echoes. They surround you like an aura, heavy with the permeating will of lost years and the force of those who have gone before you."
Not for the first time, Balyn thought that the Doll did not see the world in the same way that he did.
"No, I'm just exhausted."
She gave him that head-tipped-to-one-side look of curiosity that sometimes seemed to be her default expression around him.
"I had thought that when you returned to this dream, all of your hurts were soothed, and the weariness from your sojourn in the waking world swept away."
"…Mentally exhausted."
There was a moment of silence.
"I can see how you could exhaust your intellectual resources."
That…did not sound quite like how I meant it. He did not press her to clarify her comment. Some things wise men understood they were not meant to know.
The Doll, for her part, did not fear to cleanse her beastly idiocy, for she asked, "What was it that has rendered you so troubled?"
"Seventeen attempts. It took me seventeen attempts to finally get past those things."
"That sounds unpleasant."
"Very much so. Seriously, do they not have dictionaries in Yharnam? Because given how much trouble it took to beat them and the fact that they're dead now, I don't see how they qualify as either living or failures."
~X X X~
A/N: While thankfully I am nowhere near as bad as Balyn's player at dealing with those guys, I seriously hate those blue fraggers.