If there was one thing which made Balyn aware that the nightmare realms were eldritch planes of existence rather than just somewhere physically separate from Yharnam, it was the Winter Lanterns.

It wasn't merely their horrific appearance. Yes, certainly, a giant brain-like mass of flesh seemingly composed of hundreds of Messenger-like bodies mashed together, studded with eyes and champing maws in place of a head, was…disquieting, to say the least. But the fly-like Gardens of Eyes in Byrgenwerth were every bit as outlandishly disgusting in their appearance. And the tattered skirt and bodice they wore was an outfit very reminiscent of the clothes worn by a certain doll of his acquaintance, and Balyn had to consider the Lanterns the less imposing figure who wore that uniform-like outfit.

No, the thing about Winter Lanterns that was truly eldritch was not looking at them. It was when they looked at him. When a Winter Lantern focused its attention on Balyn, the sense of wrongness that their existence represented was forcefully thrust in upon him. Like once when an Amygdala had scooped him up outside of Oedon Chapel and fixed its full awareness upon him, he was brought fully into contact with the idea that this was something whose consciousness itself was too vast, existed on too many levels to be confined by the three dimensions plus time Balyn could even perceive. It was as if their myriad of eyes could see things within him that even he was unaware of, and the eldritch elements that had been transferred into his blood via ministration were agitated by the searching gaze, boiling up in his veins until, if left long enough, they would burst from his flesh like calcified spears.

Even the fiercest beasts Balyn had fought had merely sought to tear him limb from limb into bloody gobbets. The monstrous Rom, made brethren to the Great Ones through the power of Kos, had hurled arcane meteors and blasts of raw power, a direct connection between the attack and the harm it caused. But the Winter Lanterns didn't bother with such things.

Which was why, after somehow making it past three of them on a narrow walkway, Balyn had been struck with panic when he felt the burn in his blood that could only come from falling under the gaze of another of the fiends. Out of the sedatives that could temporarily stave off the frenzied agitation, all he could do was to rush it down and kill it before its hellish stare finished him off. But where…

There!

There it was, on the far side of the room, across a gap spanned by iron beams. The girders were narrow, but wide enough for the hunter's feet, and he acted with uncharacteristic resolution, charging at once at a dead sprint towards the Lantern.

Only, it was too late. His blood tore itself from his body in a nest of hedgehog spikes, and he reeled. It wasn't quite enough to kill the supernaturally enhanced hunter; he might still have gotten to the Winter Lantern and cut it down with his saw cleaver before it could finish him off, except that the pain made him sway…

…he missed his step…

…and the next time his foot struck the ground it was over a hundred feet below, where it shattered just like the rest of his bones when they impacted the tiled floor.

~X X X~

"Welcome home, good hunter," the Doll said when Balyn appeared once more in the Hunter's Dream. When he didn't answer after a few moments, she added, "What is it you desire?"

"Hmm?" he murmured absently.

She could have left it at that. Indeed, experience had taught her that in such situations discretion was often the better part of valor. However, the Doll had been created to be an aide and support for the dreaming hunters, and it was not in her nature to shirk that duty, no matter how much she might have wanted to.

"Good hunter, is something amiss?"

"What? Oh, I'm sorry; I guess I wasn't paying attention," Balyn said, coming back to himself.

"You seem preoccupied with something," she pointed out. "Are you well?"

"Yeah, I am. Well…maybe not? I don't know," he concluded.

The Doll did not remark that she was also confused as to his mental state. In fairness, this confusion was more of a long-standing issue of hers rather than a reaction to his present, specific behavior. Even so, she politely refrained from comment.

Or perhaps "fearfully" was a better adjective. After all, the more she asked, the more likely she was to get an answer.

Unfortunately for her, Balyn took no notice of her reaction or lack thereof, getting lost in his own thoughts as he was.

"I sort of assumed that I had pretty average taste in women," he went on. "I mean, I don't have any memories of past relationships, but I never got the impression that my opinions were out of the ordinary. But now…I'm not so sure."

Romance was an area the Doll had no experience with. On the Hunt, the hunters had little time for relationships, and rarely discussed such things. Curiosity, therefore, fatally overcame good sense and hesitation. Perhaps there was a little of the spirit of Byrgenwerth in her as well.

"Why do you think that?"

"Well, I was out there on the hunt, when I came across a woman who was…well, while she does have a nice singing voice, she's definitely not what you'd call a classic beauty. But she took one look at me, and right away I fell for her, and hard!"

~X X X~

A/N: Did I seriously just drop a crunchy lore theory about how Frenzy works in-game into an omake written for the sake of subjecting the Doll to yet another dad joke?

(The way the Lanterns work in terms of game code is fascinating; their Frenzy gaze is actually a projectile attack being fired by a second, invisible enemy leashed to the Lantern and coded to die when the actual Lantern does. And the reason you keep getting Frenzied after they die is because each hit of Frenzy does "X" amount of buildup damage, but rather than you taking X immediately upon being hit, you instead accrue X over time so you have the opportunity to quaff a Sedative. So Frenzy keeps building up because you had already been hit by the attack that inflicted it before you killed the Lantern. It's a little more obvious with the crucifix-carrying Church Servants outside the Grand Cathedral, because the Frenzy-inflicting hit is actually a visible melee attack, so you can see how the single blow causes Frenzy buildup over time. I have mad respect for the datamining community for digging all this up!)