A/N: We take a time-out with this chapter to cut away from Balyn's experiences in postgame Yharnam to look back at the night of the Hunt. Perhaps he's revisiting those memories in his dreams…or the Doll's nightmares.
~X X X~
"Byrgenwerth…Byrgenwerth…Blasphemous murderers…blood-crazed fiends…"
Those sentiments, Balyn decided, were ones that he really couldn't argue with.
Mind, he probably would have appreciated them more from someone who didn't look quite so creepy. The figure was taller than Balyn even without his high, peaked hood, and even though he was hunched forward, supporting himself on a thin, gnarled staff that looked like a long spar of driftwood. He didn't so much walk as he shuffled his feet, leaving little splashes as he moved shakily through the shallow water towards the clocktower.
Maybe it was the hood that was the problem, that made Balyn nervous around the fellow instead of seeing him as just an extremely ugly old man. There was just something about it, the way it was high and pointed, that reminded him of a pontiff's miter, and ever since he'd awakened after his transfusion in Iosefka's Clinic, he'd had some real…issues…with religious authority.
Usually because religious authority was trying to eat him.
"Um, that's all well and good, but could you tell me, maybe, where this place is?"
He stepped well to one side, making sure the man or priest or whatever had plenty of room to pass.
"Atonement for the wretches…by the wrath of Mother Kos."
"Kos?" Now there was a name Balyn didn't like the sound of, mainly because the last person who'd mentioned it had been Micolash and that guy had been bad news. Probably the entire mess Yharnam was in that night had been Micolash's fault. So yeah, people talking about Kos were definitely on his list of people to give a wide berth.
Making that thought literal as well as figurative, Balyn took a step back to allow the priest extra space.
He probably should have checked where he was putting his feet, because he stepped clean off the path and plunged into the water. He'd likely have drowned, except the fishing hamlet wasn't a real village, but a slice of nightmare sitting directly above the twisted version of Yharnam where the blood-drunk were cursed to their endless hunt, and he kept right on falling out of the bottom of the sea into the sky above the River of Blood.
He had the satisfaction, at least, that his plummeting body flattened one of the bloated tick-things that had caused him so much irritation on his initial trip downriver.
~X X X~
"Welcome home, good hunter," the Doll greeted him politely, then ruined the mood by adding, "That was surprisingly fast. I do not believe it has been five minutes since you left for the Astral Clocktower."
"Yeah, but time works weirdly on the night of the hunt, so can you really say that it's only been a short time?"
"…Yes."
"Darn it."
"Did you meet with unusually strong dangers?" the Doll asked. Her whole manner reminded Balyn of someone who was nervous about what she was about to learn but could not resist the morbid curiosity of finding out.
"Well, I'm not really sure. Truth be told, I got a little too careful and got myself into trouble. But I still think I was right."
She tipped her head to one side.
"Even though you died?"
"Well, not in my specific actions, but in generally being cautious. I don't know what that priest guy's story was, but there was definitely something fishy about him."