After an unknown amount of time on her knees, screaming at the thought of her mother… doing… well, no need to mention it, Maria had to admit she was starting to feel a little childish. Of course mothers did that sort of thing. With humans or Great Ones, it was how children came to be, after all.

And after all, she, the current her, Maria Campbell, existed. While her father's participation was questionable, as she was likely a bastard, her mother would definitely have… have…

An unknown amount of time later, throat strangely not raw from screaming, Maria returned to her bridge of thought after the dragon setting fire to it had gone away.

her mother would definitely have done… anyway, Maria was here, so her mother must have. Yup.

Maria felt the stranger's eyes on her as she continued to kneel on the path, but they didn't seem judging. Merely… passive. Very, very passive. Also hauntingly beautiful in a way Maria couldn't quite put her finger on. It wasn't merely she was an ethereal beauty seeming to glow with her own moonlight from within, like Sophia. There was something about her features, something that called to Maria. It was like she was the most beautiful woman she had ever set eyes on, her features physically perfect in every way, though she couldn't quite say why.

But then, she had just been told she was dreaming (or having a nightmare, same thing). Perhaps this was one of those erotic dreams she'd heard about? There didn't seem to be enough blood for that though…

"Are you well, ailing one?" the strangers said, and Maria realized her she'd been staring too long. "Has your madness been remedied?"

Maria took a moment to seriously consider the question. "No," she said, then pushed herself up on from her knees. She swayed slightly, her body feeling strangely unfamiliar. As she stood, she realized she had somehow overestimated the stranger's height. She had seemed very tall while Maria was on her knees, but now that she was standing, she saw they were the same height, and so the woman must only be as short as Maria herself. "I apologize for the screaming. I wish I could say it will not happen again, but I cannot."

The beautiful stranger nodded magnanimously. "This is a safe place, ailing one. Be at ease. If you must scream, then scream."

"I do not wish to be so rude," Maria said. "But I am… troubled, and can only scream in my helplessness."

"Do not fear," the stranger said. She had an accent, Maria realized. It was a familiar, one that recalled… things. "Liberate your voice, and pity those with no mouth, but must scream."

"Thank you, stranger," Maria said. She glanced up longingly at the stone building, the workshop. The door was open, and she could see a small glimpse of what lay foot moved forward to climb the steps, then paused. This seemed so familiar…

Yes. Yes it was familiar. She remembered a chair, in an empty room. A room she had died for the last time, hiding herself in dreams, running away from…

From what?

From the truth. That in running away to stop being one sort of monster, she had become another sort of monster. And then run away from that… only to become another sort of monster yet again.

Was she a monster still?

She looked down at her hands, and was surprised to not see them as a beast's limbs, after the logic of dreams. Instead, they looked perfectly normal, and covered with the sleeves and gloves of a hunter. Was this not that kind of dream, then? Or was a hunter the most monstrous thing she could be?

And she was still running away…

Maria turned around, facing the other way from the path, leading down. Surprisingly, it didn't lead to the familiar archway into the tower that led to the rest of Cathedral Ward, but rather a wide, sloping field on which grew flowers. The edges were filled with old, worn gravestones and seemed to from off to some impossibly steep cliff. In the distance, there were only clouds, fog and towers. It was as if she was atop a pillar in the bottom of the world, beneath the realm of The King Below, staring at the archtrees through the fog of before disparity.

The field was empty. That… surprised Maria. She expected a dream-like depiction of her mother's house, some sort of manifested incarnation of her conflict and turmoil for her to symbolically open and enter, not… nothing. Just flowers and graves…

She blinked, and tilted her head. No, not just those. Fallen on its side, beneath the spreading limbs of a large tree at the top of the slop of the field, was a wheeled chair. It was old and seemingly long-disused. She turned around, looking perplexed. What a strangely boring dream, this was.

She was tempted to sit on it and slit her wrist, but with her luck, some fool would stumble by and she'd need to fight her to the death.

Instead, Maria Campbell sat on one of the roots of the tree and, steeling herself, thought.

Her mother had… her mother had…

A scream threatened to make its way up from her throat.

Grimly, she stood firm. She had committed atrocities upon helpless fishermen. She had betrayed those who had trusted her as they became twisted into headless horrors of the cosmos. She'd been so ignorant she'd allowed a woman with the mind of a child to be unprotected among her molesters for most of a year. She was inured against what would disgust and horrify most people. She could think the unthinkable.

Her mother had… been na–

Maria shuddered. Then she took off her gloves, put them in her mouth, and bit down hard as she forced herself to think the unthinkable.

Her mother had been naked and ravishing Anne Shelley.

Maria's gloves fell to her lap, confusing her even as her throat vibrated with screams trapped within. Then she realized she'd bitten through her gloves.

She kept her teeth clenched as the scream of anguish ran its course, before spitting out the mouthful of leather. Then she took her gloves, rolled them up, put them in her mouth once more, and thought again.

Her mother had been naked and ravishing Anne Shelley.

Her mother, her sole remaining parent and bloodkin, had been ravishing Anne Shelley, her squire's trusted maid.

Her mother, a middle-aged commoner, had been exploring the chalice of Anne Shelley, the private maid of a duke's daughter.

Her mother, who had been reticent, reserved and private with people for as long as Maria had known her, had been physically, carnally, lustfully intimate and intertwined with Anne Shelley, who she knew reasonably well from her time at the academy and the fact she was often by the side of Maria's good friend Squire Claes.

Her mother had been pleasuring herself with a maid.

Her mother had been using a maid.

Her mother… maid…

By the time Maria became aware again, she was lying against a gravestone at the bottom of the flower-filled slope, and her mouth tasted strongly of glove. She stared up at the strange clouds in the strange sky as she spat out a much larger mouthful of glove leather.

"Mother," she enunciated carefully, even as her insides felt they were twisting, "was naked. With Anne Shelley. Fornicating. Enthusiastically."

Her teeth clenched, and she shuddered, but she didn't actually scream, even if she did make a few sounds like a kitten being kicked.

She tried to scowl at herself. "This is silly," she muttered to herself once the kitten sounds stopped. "Of course m-mothers lay with m-maids."

It had happened in Cainhurst all the time. Maria suspected some her own maids had been pilfered when her mother's had run out.

So why had it still been so shocking to actually see?

"It was my first time," Maria found herself saying, as if answering her own question. "My first time seeing mother so…" Did she have to say it out loud?

It was silly. Of course mother wasn't some kind of untouched virgin who gave birth to Maria by the divine impregnation of the Great Ones. Of course she'd lain with father and whichever noble that resulted in Maria… and apparently Anne Shelley, as well. Who else? Who else had she–

Maria decided that was something she'd rather not know the answer to.

Anyway, while Maria's mother Alice had of course done… things, Maria had never actually seen them. It was the sort of thing that she had on some level been aware off but not really understood. Never seen… until now.

At some level, Maria had thought this life was… pure. That it was a life with no orgies of blood. No terribly debauched pleasures of blood. That her new mother, Alice, had nothing in common with the woman who had birthed her and taught her and used her in Cainhurst…

The shock that it did, that her mother possessed a carnal taste for maids as well…

What if that wasn't all they shared? What if… what if…

She thought of the children in her house. She thought of all the women under her protection, so beautiful and exotic and…

Maria took that thought, walked behind it, drew back her arm, speared it through the back with her bare hands and ripped its heart out.

No.

No, she refused to believe her mother, her weak, gentle, loving mother, was capable of such depravity. Taking pleasure with a maid did NOT make her a monster. Perhaps… perhaps… PERHAPS SHE'D BEEN SEDUCED! Perhaps her poor, innocent mother had been taken advantage of by Anne Shelley, with her worldly maid mind, familiar as it was with who knows what kinds of depravities nobles practiced in the halls of the Claes manor…

Even as she tried to build up a charged attack upon Anne Shelley's character, she was preemptively parried as she realized this was Katarina's maid she was talking about, her squire, the woman with the innocent mind of a child and the unerring ability to lure any lustful predator who so much as shares her air. If she were truly so depraved, than Katarina… yeah. No.

Unless… unless Katarina had fooled her all along. Unless Katarina Claes wasn't as innocent as Maria thought, and that she was truly a depraved, lustful woman who used her seemingly innocent whiles to seduce everyone around her…

Maria found herself staring up at the sky, the thought so absurd that… that… that there was nothing she could compare it to. It was the epitome of absurdity, a massive, incomprehensible Great One of an absurdity to which all things were but ephemeral insects, motes in the eyes on the inside of the universe.

No, Katarina might be unintentionally charming, but there was no way that girl was some kind of secretive schemer who controlled people's hearts through their lusts.

And since that was the case, her maid must surely be either a dutiful, moral person or one who had long since fallen for Katarina and was secretly in unrequited love for her. As she was… intimating… with Maria's mother, the latter could not possibly be the case. Therefore, Anne Shelley must be a woman of strong morals, integrity and compassion.

And such a woman would not wantonly seduce and take advantage of a woman in her care, a woman she had helped rescue and a woman who had, most importantly, seen what blood and carnage Maria would inflict on those who harmed her mother so, any more than she would have felt inclined to take advantage of a similarly vulnerable, impressionable and trusting woman like Katarina.

So, that left some sort of approach by… by her mother. Who was NOT a depraved, lustful, hedonistic monster who would take advantage of little girls or defenseless, beautiful maids. She was kind. She was loving. She was strong. She was enduring. Her hugs were so warm and good and peaceful and made you feel so safe...

Not tight. Not constricting. Not possessive. Not painful. She didn't make you feel trapped and helpless and tearful and disgusted…

Maria blinked, suddenly sitting up. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to recall that scene. The door, slightly ajar. The sounds she hadn't understood, drowned out by the rain…

She'd opened the door.

The clothes, discarded on the floor. A simple dress. A blouse. A dark dress. A frilly apron. And on the bed…

Maria's limbs were shaking, but she forced herself to her feet. This was no time to be… where ever this place was. She had to know!

The porcelain-pale, beautiful stranger turned to face her as she ran up the path. "Hello, ailing one. What is it you desire?"

"I desire to leave," Maria said simply. "I thank you for your hospitality, and I regret my abruptness, but I must go. I cannot be here."

The stranger titled her head. "As I said, this is a nightmare. Have you never had one before? Surely you know the way to leave?"

Maria tilted her head in thought. Then she nodded.

She held up her hand, and it was there. Her dear, old friend, commissioned in secret from the smiths of Cainhurst. A fool girl's foolish dream, a tool for her world to be bigger than one horizon, to live adventures instead of just reading of them. A little noble who'd wished to be a heroine. Every groove and curve was old and familiar. Taking hold of the short sword gently, she wrenched the halves apart.

And then she turned her blades upon herself.

Nightmare Slain

"Farewell, ailing one," she heard as darkness engulfed her. "May you wake without harm"


A beautiful stranger stared at the empty spot that had not been empty a moment ago. Then they turned and walked towards the basin filled with the little ones, who seemed a bit more cramped together than usual.

Strange but delicate hands reached into the water and drew out a small, smooth form, a strange, unknowable, unspeakable, eldritch, chaotic, otherworldly, incomprehensible being of great and terrible power, which shivered slightly as if in fear.

"She is gone," the beautiful stranger said. "You need hide no longer. Are you cold? Oh, Good Hunter."