"Gehrman, can we talk?" Gehrman hid his surprise, turning to his protégé with a raised eyebrow. Forcing the sigh from escaping.
The boy looked lost; the man he had seen him grow into nowhere to be seen. If Gehrman hadn't known better, he would have thought something had turned back time. Yet, the uncertain confusion tined with fear that had clung to him like a cloak was nowhere to be seen. A confusion he had watched with a mixture of pride and apathy the boy put behind as he grew more into himself.
It was loss.
It clung to his features like a heavy mist, clouding his eyes, weighing down his shoulders.
The boy looked at him, but he didn't see him. Gherman didn't quite know what he saw, only that the emotions dour and heavy danced over his face. Everything and nothing at all using his face as a canvas.
"Why don't you roll me to the tree." Gehrman said, the boy nodding and moving behind him. The old hunter not showing anything as his old and rickety wheelchair rolled over old and overgrown bricks. Letting the boy gather his thoughts on the way. Using the time to do the same himself.
Leaning on what authority and power he had over the dream to lull the girl and the ghost to sleep.
This wasn't for their ears.
Sending a subtle glance towards the doll, she grabbed the hems of her skirt and gave them a courtesy bow. Taking a step backwards and phasing out of the dream. The following conversation not something for her ears either.
It was between them. Master and protege.
Much as Gehrman hadn't put much thought behind it when he extended the offer. Not acting his title when the lad came for help would be a disservice to everyone he had taught, and everyone who followed. It didn't help that the boy had wormed his way into his heart. Becoming the last hunter of the founding workshop. Allowing Gehrman to relive old memories one more time as he taught.
The lad was a quick study, even if he was on the slower side when it came to putting things into practice. Yet, he absorbed everything Gehrman taught like a sponge. From weapon fortification, how to hold and administer blood infusions, blood transfusions, blood mixing, and the hunting practices of the workshop. Everything the healing church had known, all the knowledge from Byrgenwerth, the first workshop that sprawled an entire legacy. The boy had devoured it with hunger and gusto.
Living up to the legacy of the workshop.
Gehrman even went so far as to teach him about the arcane. The only thing that the boy really had struggled with was quickening. While he had learned the theory quick enough, there had been a disconnect between the boy and the art.
Simple, efficient, and ruthless. The corner stones of both of their fighting styles. Yet, Gehrman had pioneered the art of quickening. While the lad on the other hand had gone down a completely different path. Where he could trade blow for blow with beasts thrice his size and come out the victor. And mostly unharmed. Usually. Mostly.
He dodged, Gehrman hadn't skimmed his duties, watching the boy hunt every now and then. Yet, it wasn't the graceful and elegant movement of quickening. Hiding the user, while also giving them the supernatural edge in both subtility and speed to cut down beasts their size.
No, the boy had made himself an expert of minute dodging. Moving just the smallest of bits, angling his chest slightly for a crushing blow to instead skid over his aura. Moving his shoulder and turning a blow that should have torn of his arm into something that glanced away. Sticking close to his enemies, never letting go, and drowning them under an onslaught of precise and ruthless blows. The lad as usual straddling the edge of being an instinctive and a technical fighter. Planning five steps ahead yet also trusting his gut and experience above anything.
A style of fighting that followed another ethos than using quickening to dodge. One just as effective, but one distinctively his.
'Out of all the people the dream could choose. Why did it have to be an idiot?' Gherman snarked to himself. The boy was a golden retriever given human form. He had taken one look at the boy, and some part of him just knew the boy had licked things to claim as his own while younger.
'Out of all the people… why someone so kind? Why someone so giving?'
His plea was never answered.
A soft airy breeze tickled his locks, bringing with it the faint hint of moonflowers and elderberries.
Gehrman huffed. Leaning back into his wheelchair and resting his hands on his cane. For if it was one thing the boy did, it was to overflow with love. Freely sharing it with anyone he came across. Not at all caring for who it was. A whore, a child, an old woman.
'I wonder how many of you could have been saved.' Gehrman frowned. Eyes roaming over the dozen hundreds of grave markers that dotted the clearing. He could hardly remember the name of most who came through the dream. They were just faces, drunk on blood and completely forgettable. The ones that stood out he could count on one hand, yet he could still barely remember them.
He could remember that there had been a crow. A man that smelled of ash. A man who used the claws of beasts as his weapon.
The wheels of the wheelchair turned, moving with an impossible ease up the little hill. Ever so gently, the boy turned around his chair. Allowing the wheels to roll the slightest bit backwards into one of his many nooks.
Humming to himself, he took in the shade for all it was worth. Not bothering to start the conversation. Knowing that the lad would talk when he was ready. Emotions were a touchy subject on the best of days. And the boy had just been having a bad day after bad days for the last few weeks.
Taking a heavy breath, his portage leaned forward. Resting his elbows on his legs as he twiddled his thumbs. The silence only broken by the lad's breathing, and the rustling of the large oaken tree. Invisible and soft winds tickling through the old branches.
"My family is dead." Jaune bumbled out awkwardly. A frown instantly pulling his features even further down. Anger twitching through his eyes before being slammed behind lock and key. Leaving only loss, confusion, sorrow, and a burning resolve. "No. That's wrong." Bile and venom crept into his voice. "They were murdered… slaughtered… like beasts."
Gherman grunted, nodding along. Choosing to let the boy vent what churned in his chest without his input.
"I know who did it."
That got a raised eyebrow out of him. "Oh?" He asked. Clicking his tongue and shaking his head. "Lad. If you have come here, looking to use me as some moral compass. You must surely be mad. You want to kill them? Go ahead. I will not decry you."
Maybe some other master would try and steer their pupil from violence and revenge. If Gehrman had met a hunter that did try and meddle in their protégé's life like that, he would beat them black and blue with his cane. A protégé only had one duty, and that was to learn. Just in the same way a master only had one duty, to teach. Meddling in their students lives was going against the essence of being a teacher.
Students were meant to learn, to make mistakes.
'Maybe if we weren't hunter's, I would try and steer you away.' Gehrman thought idly. The cynical part of him calling a hypocrite. The jaded part didn't care.
"I already know what I'm going to do." The lad snorted, rolling his eyes. The tension creeping out of his shoulders as he huffed. "It's just…" Choking on his words as he didn't know what to say. Coulndt bring himself to say it.
"You never got to show them." Gehrman answered for him. Momentarily wonder if humouring his protégé was worth it. Feeling an old ache rear it's ugly head in his chest. Old memories and emotions coming bubbling up. Something he had thought he had gotten over all those years ago. Yet, here he sat, finding that being to not be so true after all.
His lad nodded emotionlessly. Biting down on his lips, sitting up and staring mindlessly up at the moon.
He coulndt look any more lost even if he tried.
"Yes." His upper lip wobbled. Voice dead, completely hollow. "Why coulndt he ever say he was proud of me?" Voice breaking, heavy with loss, and an innocent childlike confusion. Asking the sky yet knowing it would never answer.
"Why… why did he always look so disappointed?" Jaune continued, confusion and loss turning into anger as he snarled. "I joined Beacon! Sure I might have cheated my application, but I completed the initiation! I did good! I put in the hours. I got better. I taught myself. I caught up, I leaned on my teammates. I was always there for my sisters-"
Gehrman let the 'why was none of them ever there for me' pass soundlessly between them. Not going to so obviously poke at the lads wounds.
"I am proud of you." The boy startled. Turning to him with unshed tears in his eyes.
Gherman for his part felt just as confused as the boy did. Not having realised he had spoken out loud.
"I… am proud of you." He said again, this time putting some weight behind his words. "You have… grown. It has been… wonderful to see you grow into a man I am proud to call my protégé." Gehrman whispered, meaning every word.
"I have seen you grow from a boy into a man. When you first sat step inside the dream, I had thought the dream wrong. You were a child; you still had some baby fat on our cheeks. You waved your sword like it was a stick, some toy, not giving it the respect it deserved. I will admit that I thought you had forgotten how to walk. Or at least were unable to, with how much your knees were shaking."
Gehrman turned to him, seeing none of that in the man beside him. Innocence having been the first thing he shed on the streets of Yharnam. Yet, no matter how cruel the streets were, the boy had protected what made him him with such strength and rabid ferocity.
He had earned the hope in his chest. Protected it from everything that would harm it. Even when he had died, beaten and broken. He still clutched those empty embers and forced himself back up again and again.
It was something Gehrman knew he coulndt do. He was a petty man; he didn't take kindly to setback. There were only so many times he could change his approach before he gave up.
"I… you always make me wonder." Gehrman continued, looking up at the silver clouds that cradled the moon. Knowing that he would see another woman sit beside him. He coulndt help it. They were as similar as they were different.
Maria had been with him from the start. Structured, calm, polite, efficient. And oh so kind. She cared; cared maybe even too much. Able to look at people, seeing them for who they were, not what they looked like. Seeing both the bigger picture, and the small details he and Lawrance overlooked. Like a candle, she had given her kindness, her warmth, her love and affection out like a caring mother. Until she had nothing more to give. The steel in her chest not able to hold against the darkness as the fire burned cold.
Having thrown away her weapons in that accursed hamlet. Taking her life in her clocktower not long after. Leaving nothing but crushing guilt and realisation in his chest. Together with a hole of loss he never could fill.
The Doll was just that, a Doll. She wasn't Maria, and she would never be Maria. No matter he had hoped and wished. In his desperation, in his despair, he had thought that by making the Doll would somehow bring Maria back from the dead. To right one of his wrongs, the list already feeling impossibly long.
He had been wrong. On both accounts.
"…" This time it was he who found himself lost for words. Old memories and guilt making it all but impossible to talk.
An old key he hadn't given much thought about in what felt like forever suddenly felt burning in his pocket. Ever so slowly a harrowing realisation raced to the forefront of his mind.
'The upper ward.' It was still young, or it had been at the birth of the dream. He hadn't been there himself. Having completely locked himself away from the world after Maria's suicide. Yet, he knew of the Church's arrogant and self-justified belief. In their eyes, no sacrifice could ever be too great. Morals and ethics just the two first things that had been thrown out.
'It will be like the fishing hamlet all over again.' He didn't know what was in the upper ward, only that it would tear at the lad's heart like nothing before. The cold breath of fear raced down his neck as he turned to look at the boy. For a moment they didn't sit in the garden. Instead Gehrman found himself transported back to Maria's clocktower. His boy having followed her steps.
His head resting in his lap. Chest torn open. Heart somehow still beating, resting in his hand. Pumping air into blood. Lounging carefreely in a chair as blood pooled out of him. Sunlight peering through a window.
"What if we had done things differently." He finished, hiding the way his breath hitched. Running the finger over his vest. Feeling like the key burnt a hole through it.
The lad gave him a long look. Looking to say something, before thinking better of it and shaking his head.
"I think I'm going to take a walk to clear my head." Jaune mumbled instead of announcing. Sounding not quite sure of himself. "Alone." He continued, throwing a quick glance to where the child and ghost rested. "Just… me, and anywhere my feet take me."
"Some fresh air might be of help." Gehrman added airily. Still completely caught up in his own world. His own words echoing in his mind on loop. The vision of his boy following in the same footsteps as his predecessor burned into his mind.
It hadn't happened yet, he knew that. That didn't stop it from feeling inevitable.
A man, even one as resilient and defiant as the boy had proven himself to be. Was still just that. A man.
And Jaune was chasing secrets like a bloodhound. Uncaring for what he found, fully aware it would hurt him. Yet unable to stop himself. Streaking through Yharnam like a shooting star.
Gehrman didn't imagine for even a second that he wouldn't find a way into the Upper Ward. He had one of the keys, that was true. But there had to be what felt like a thousand shortcut's through Yharnam. Something had to lead up there. And even then, the boy only had to find a key. One of many. Or a door that wasn't looked.
He could reach the upper ward from inside the Grand Cathedral if he put his mind to it. A place he knew the boy frequented.
Watching the boy leave, disappearing down the misty cobbled path. Again, he coulndt help but run a finger over the pocket. Feeling more trapped than he already were.
Only this time it wasn't by some Great Old One's misplaced love for a child. His home, his most cherished place, become his prison cell. Instead it felt like he sat before a crossroad. Where both path's led to disaster.
One would lead to history repeating himself. The boy stumbling, eventually falling and cracking under the weight of Yharnam's many sins. While the other would lead to breaking all trust he had with the boy. Trampling on what other bonds the boy had and possibly pushing him straight into the deep end.
'Yet…' Gehrman coulndt help himself. Feeling the rust and invisible shackles over him. Wondering how many of those came from the dream, and how many were his own creation.
{-ooo-}
"What happened here?" Jaune coulndt help but wonder aloud. Scratching his chin as he looked around in honest confusion. Staring blankly up at the moon. An eye staring back down on him.
Jaune blinked. The eye in the sky blinked back.
A tickle of pinkish blood ran down his nose, his brain partially melting and turning to slurry in his head. Only for his absurd regeneration to kick in, keeping him from blacking out entirely as it put the brain matter back into place.
The moon had grown a crimson pupil. Blanketing the stone pavilion he stood in with both milky silver light and sickening crimson blood. Taking a deep breath, he tasted blood on his tongue. The otherworldly haze he was bathed in, looked, smelled, and tasted like blood. But it was made from light. Not blood.
"How?" He mumbled, knowing he himself was the culprit. Pretending he didn't see something flittering through the crimson crack. Insight deepening just a tad again. An echoey baby's cry rang out from the depths of the city. His eyes drawn back to the moon. Whole and beautiful. Inexplicably trailing back to the crack. The pupil and iris never leaving his mind for long.
Another baby's cry rang through the city. This closer, far to close. Accompanied by a woman's soft sobbing. Lighting rushed through him, even as broken and wracked with sorrow as the voice was, Jaune recognised it. Turning on the spot and all but throwing himself out of the stone pavilion.
Racing past the Gascoigne family grave and up the stairs. Stepping into the aqueduct under the chapel was like running headfirst into a wall of hot stale air.
Water splashed around his boots. Eyes darting around madly until he saw them.
There, in the corner of the little aqueduct she sat. Her red dress striking against the grey and dour colours. Laughter, mad, raving laughter rang out from her. She cried, weeping and sobbing into her hands. Jumping from one extreme to another.
"It can't be. It can't be." She laughed, moaned, and cried into her hands. Rocking back and forth in the old rocking chair like a hyperactive child.
"Arianna." Jaune called out, sheathing his weapons, not realising he had even drawn them, and kneeling by her side. The damp and murky water clinging to his knees. But he didn't care. Ever so gently reaching forward. Taking her hand in his with an impossible gentleness.
Arianna startled, howling like an animal in surprise. Blue, purplish midnight eyes raced up to his. Red and heavy with tears. Cracks raced through the iris like spiderwebs. Some sharp and jagged, others impossibly clean and straight. Just like her spirit.
In a flurry of movement, Arianna threw herself at him. Wrapping her arms around him with all her meagre might. Crying, howling, laughing into the nook of his neck. Shivering like a leaf as he held her. Smelling like sweat, shit, piss, and blood.
Jaune didn't care, instead only pulling her closer. Running gentle circles with his hand on her back. Her crying turning into soft sobbing.
Something touched his leg.
"Who aren't thou? Whose hands be stained by death and sorrow, to cradle mother." A nasally, innocent voice boomed in his mind.
Acting on instinct, Jaune reached down. Feeling something soft and moist, mucusy seep through his gloves. With a little lift, he held the being up by the scruff of the neck like he would a hissy kitten. Only, it wasn't a kitten he held up, but something weirder.
It looked like a half-birthed embryo, yet it was also a living infant. Moving its two tentacular arms like angry grippers towards him. It had a sluglike body, ending in one tapering tail that waved through the air. While it's face had four weird growths. A mix of ears, teeth's and eyes gathering into the same growth.
With an angry shriek of indignation, the little thing growled in primal toddler anger. Opening its mouth. A cross, growing larger and larger, trailing down it's chest, and stomach, revelling a hungry and angry maw of blackness. Wherein a large, blackened eye stared back at him, cradled in teeth.
In an instant, Jaune wasn't in Yharnam. He wasn't in the aqueduct. Standing instead alone surrounded by nothingness. The light of the last star winking out of existence. Ice and cold surrounded him. Creeping and crawling up his legs, up his arms, drilling into his chest, into his soul as he lived the heat death of the universe.
A tiny, tiny, part of his hind brain kicked into gear. Screaming into life. Tearing at his spirituality. Sending it lurching, and half collapsing in on itself. Shattering the illusion.
Something warm tickled down his leg. He couldn't see.
He blinked. Once, outlines and shapes returned. Twice, depth and faint colours returned. Thrice, and his eyes that had burst like grapes had grown back in his sockets.
"Huh. So that's the heat death of the universe." Jaune mumbled, staring back at the creature in his hand. The eye in it's mouth staring unblinkingly back at him. A large yawn escaped the babe. For that was what it was. Not a child, not even a toddler, but a newborn babe.
"Mother." The voice boomed again in his mind. "I'm cold." The newborn babe cried in his mind. "I want to be held."
"Sure little buddy." Jaune replied, moving his arm to rest the slug like babe in the crock of his arm. Instinct screaming at him a second later. Arianna's hand shooting forward like lighting into his coat, an angry and hissing sound of cooking flesh drowning the aqueduct as she tore out Mortem ignis from her holster.
The world stood still for a moment. The desperation, the madness, the everything in her eyes screaming at him. The sluglike child already screamed. Cried out in infantile love. It's voice crashing through his ears like knives. Leaving rends through his brain that exploded into small surges of blood.
He could barely think, let alone act. Even as his soul screamed at him to do something. The child's crying, the mad desperation for release in Annalise's eyes, everything burned into his mind.
The barrel rested against her jaw, Mortem Ignis groaned in protest as her trigger was pulled. Thunder boomed through the aqueduct. Jaune felt his aura scream, protesting with all it's might as the bullet struggled for all it was worth. Eventually loosing it's momentum, falling with a little splash into the aqueduct's waters.
A soft angelic glow surrounded Arianna. His aura making her look like an angel walking the earth.
"Why." She whispered hoarsely as she lost what little strength she had left. Collapsing into his chest. Shivering and crying. "Why?" She sobbed.
"Because I am cruel." Jaune whispered softly. "Because the thought of you dying in my arms tears my heart in two." His voice wobbled as he spoke. "I…I… 've already lost my family. I can't lose you too."
"Mother! Mother! Mother!" The childlike voice boomed in his mind again and again. It's gripper like tentacles arms reaching desperately for Arianna. Only for the woman in question to recoil away from it. Disgust, anger and confusion palpable on her face.
The sluglike babe's gripper tentacles falling down slowly, confusion, turning into an emotion he knew all too well.
"What happened?" Jaune tried asking, eyes darting between the newborn child, and Arianna. The clearly unwilling mother. Caught between needing answers and consoling the child.
Arianna didn't answer, Mortem Inis falling from her hands and splashing into the aqueducts stale waters. Her hands red with blisters.
The crack of a slap echoed through the aqueduct.
The sting on his cheek didn't burn close to what he felt. Arianna clutching her broken wrist. A maddening, petulant, anger burning through her spirit. Another fist shot forward, her knuckle's breaking instead of his nose.
"Why can't you allow me to die!" She whisper hissed. Three voices echoing from her at the same time. The cracks in her eyes growing wilder by the second. Until a pair of them grew out of her pupils, spreading like a cancer out onto her face.
"Because I care for you." Jaune replied sincerely.
Arianna recoiled as if stuck. "Then why. Why does pain and suffering follow you everywhere you go?" The words hit him harder than any mortal blow ever could. "Violet, whose head you have filled with dreams. Does she even know what future awaits her as a hunter? What about Aurora? Who is dead. Because of you! And now… and now…"
"I know." Jaune breathed heavily. Throat feeling parched. Something that should have been impossible given his abnormal vitality. Staring down at the small and frail woman before him. Shaking like a leaf, keeping herself awake through sheer force of will.
"I hate you."
"I hate me too." Jaune whispered back with heartbreaking sincerity. His words bringing some semblance of clarity into her eyes.
Arianna stared at him, blinking once, before her knees gave out on her. Fainting where she stood. Jaune catching her before she could hit the water. The child began wailing not a second later.
A heavy sigh escaped Jaune as he looked down at the mother and child in his arms. "What should I do with you?" He wondered softly. Not holding her word against him. Knowing that she had been far from a right state of mind.
Looking down at the crying child, a lullaby made it's way to his lips.
"Come little children, I'll take thee away. Into a land of enchantment." He hummed softy. "Come little children, the times come to play, here in my garden of shadows."
Ever so carefully bending down, he snaked his hand behind Arianna's thighs, making sure not to take advantage of her. Lifting her up and into his arms. The haunting lullaby escaping his lips as he began walking. Disappearing out of the aqueduct and through the graveyard.
{-ooo-}
Arianna woke up with a start. Heart hammering in her chest so hard it hurt. Her hair matt with sweat, clinging to her forehead. A shiver raced through her. Both for the cold sweat she felt drench her back and the bed she found herself, and the fear that momentarily spiked through her as she found herself in a tight and homely bedroom.
Falling back into the bed with a whisper of relief, when she saw Jaune sitting on a chair seemingly asleep. Coat draped over himself as a makeshift quilt.
"Was it a dream?" She mumbled to herself, sitting up. Sending Jaune a cautious glance she knew he didn't deserve. It wasn't that he didn't trust him, it was just… she had had more than one bad experience with hunters as customers. The aggressiveness, the glee, the wanton sadism. There was a difference between selfish customers, and customers who took pleasure from the roughness and aggression.
Shaking her head, she forced those memories down and back into the darkness where they belonged.
Instead letting her eyes wander around the room. The walls were neat, decorated with a clock, some painting, while a desk and chair sat off to the corner. Her reflection staring back at her from a floor length mirror. Knuckles white from clutching the quilt tight.
"Is… is the hunt over?" She whispered, not daring to believe. Not even daring to get her hope up. Ever so carefully, she got out of the bed. Swaying as she stood. The feeling of weakness still clinging to her. Just lifting the covers felt like an exercise I futility.
Taking a tentative step forward she felt rivers of sweat race down her back. With another step, the budding hope she had felt took a swan dive of the roof. A hauntingly beautiful moon laid cradled in soft clouds. A red crack running down it's centre. Spilling sickly red light over the city.
"What?" Arianna warbled. Taking a step backwards. Legs betraying her.
"I got you." A familiar voice called out. Out from the corner of her eyes she barely managed to catch him move. Three blistering quick steps, and he was behind her. Gently catching her and allowing her to lean on him.
Arianna had always thought of herself as a strong woman. She had to. Yharnam was a cruel city, cruller still when you were a woman. She never wanted to be a whore, she had always dreamt of being a musician, maybe even a painter. She wanted to create, to give, to leave her mark on the city in some way. Yet desperation and necessity had caused her to spread her legs when her pantry dried up. Especially with the landlord hammering on her door demanding ever increasingly steeper sums.
'This is nice.' She thought, feeling herself relax. Allowing herself a moment of indulgence. Where she could let down her guard. Something she had been unable to do since she had heard the first howl echo through the night.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Jaune sighed out. "It's not like you were wrong. Standing where I am now, I know I have done wrong. I should never have allowed Violet to convince me to take her as an apprentice. No matter how bad my mental health was, I should have sat my foot down. The same is true for Aurora. Maybe if I hadn't been so weak, maybe if Violet hadn't been my apprentice, she wouldn't chase out after us, getting irreversibly wounded in the process."
"Weak?" Arianna mumbled, having some difficulty connecting the image of the man she had seen blur and perform magics like they were child's play and the word weak together. She had seen the swaths of blood that trailed behind him. She had climbed up to the chapels tower, braving the danger, and witnessed the carnage he was capable of. "How can you ever think of yourself as weak?"
That got a low rumble of a bark out of him. "There is more to being strong than just being able to kill people." Jaune said softly. "Sometimes, the exterior can be beautiful but rotting inside. And sometimes, the opposite is true as well. Just think of the dweller. He might not have been blessed much in life, yet, he is one of the noblest souls I have met in this rancid city."
"Isn't that the truth." Arianna mumbled. The chapel dweller having freely offered shelter and beast repelling incense to strangers. Asking for nothing in return.
"Where are we?" She asked, pushing off Jaune. Stumbling slightly before standing properly. An unease she coulndt put her finger on running through her. Being vulnerable something so foreign to her that she felt queasy.
"This was Gilbert's home." Jaune answered softly, breath hitching slightly. Something she had found he did more and more recently. Even if their interactions had become fewer. It always felt like he had aged a decade every time they last talked. A new man walking in and out of the chapel every time. The man who had guided her and Aurora to the chapel nowhere to be seen. "He was… I would like to think he was a friend."
"Was?" Arianna asked. Mentally chastising herself for letting her mouth get the better of her. She was usually better than this. Knowing what to say, when to pull back, and when to be just a pretty face and nod. Now she felt like a bumbling fool for poking at the most obvious scar a hunter could have.
"He was sick." Jaune said with forced nonchalance. His casual words sending ice running down her back. "He wanted to die human." His beath hitched, shuddering ever so slightly. The words coming out sharp and raspy. "And I complied."
"That-" Arianna started, turning to him. For once moment the cracks in the façade screamed out at her. The glimpse into the man he was. The hurt, the love, the kindness.
Ice ran down her back, the only reason her bladder didn't betray her because it to was frozen in fear when a monster right out of children's tales flickered through his eyes. Cold apathy judging her, finding her lacking. To quick, to easy. Hunting her would be too easy. No sport, no challenge.
And then it was gone, leaving Arianna to breath reeling for breath. The monster in human skin right by her side in an instant. Catching her in strong arms that made what she just saw feel like a particularly cruel hallucination.
"There, I got you." He smiled sweetly, blue eyes crystal clear and a smile filled with gentle sunlight staring at her.
'Is that what Aurora saw?' Arianna coulndt help but think. Not blind to the similarities between the two. Auroras nose might have been a bit rounder. And Jaune's ears had larger earlobes, while he also had higher cheekbones. If she hadn't known better, she could have taken them for a brother and his sister. "I apologise if I brough up bad memories."
"Think nothing of it." Ever so carefully he let go of her again. As if she was a glass statute in his hands. As if she could shatter at any moment. "And before you ask, no, you are not in danger. This place is safe, there is incense, and everything is clean. The beast plague won't touch you."
Licking his lips, his eyebrow twitched in a nervous tick. Eyes quickly darting behind him. Wanting to say one thing but needing to say something else.
"It wasn't a dream. Was it." Arianna said. Feeling lightheaded. Hand instantly shooting down to her abdomen. Pulling the quilt tighter, seeking warmth only to find none.
"Maybe." Jaune whispered softly, running his tongue nervously over his teeth. "Maybe it would be easier to show you."
Her world twisted; her heart hammered in her chest. Cold sweat raced down her back as she lurched. Stomach twisting and turning. The cobbled stones far under the windows sang to her. Their song stirring the mania she had forgotten about.
A river of memories she had forced herself to forget crashed into her. Forcing her to relive her own sanctity violated again. The kick, innocent enough on it's own, her worst nightmare came to life.
She had never wanted for a child. Furthermore, she had taken multiple precautions just to prevent the chance of it in the first place. For her to suddenly have child in her womb, it was a violation of her in the most intimate of ways.
She barely remembered it. Everything had felt like a blurry haze. The darkside of the moon come to life, bathing the city in gentle crimson light. There had been pain, stumbling, bleeding, she had begged for answers only for no one to answer. She coulndt even remember if she had given birth, or if the thing had crawled out of her womb off its own accord.
A strong and sturdy hand touched her shoulder. "Breath." Jaune whispered softly. Arianna blinked, her lungs screaming at her. Tears welled up in her eyes, while she barely could see through the dimming haze. Breathing in, her shoulders fell in relief. The burn in her chest disappearing.
"Please." She warbled. Putting a shaking hand on his chest. "Please don't." Mustering what courage she had to try and push him away. Doing everything in her power to not look at the thing wrapped in a lucky green blanket. "I can't. I won't. Please. Please don't make me."
Jaune looked at her, face carved from stone. The bundled thing in his arm thrashing against the blanket. A single drop of blood trailed out of his nose. Two chubby little arms poked out from the blanket as it fell to the side.
It's skin was grey, two empty eyeholes stared at her. Then, as if a mirage, colour and life washed over it's from. Grey scales sprouted soft, downy, golden hair. A bulb grew on it's face, twisting and twirling into a nose. While a pair of lips suddenly emerged on it's face, wrong in all the ways they could be. To thin, to long, to thick. Yet the worst of all was it's eyes. Blinking, two soft blue eyes stared back at her.
"No." Arianna warbled. Staring at the living abomination that had stolen her eyes. Something she had never wanted, nor wanted to bring into this world. "No." Turning to Jaune with hope and desperation in her eyes.
"You… you are a hunter are you not? It's your duty to kill beasts and monster's, isn't it?" She didn't know what courage ran through her. Mania gnawed at her chest. Eyes darting from blue and stolen eyes, to blue and oh so beautiful sapphires, before darting to his chest. Where she knew he kept his revolver. Hands shivering as phantom fires licked her palms. "That… that thing, is an affront to life. It should never have been born."
At her words, Arianna felt an invisible tether break. Knees giving out on her as blessed release came. The pains, the burdens, the horrors, everything was washed away by a calm and gentle river. Ever so gently a spectral hand appeared on her shoulder.
"No!" A hoarse bellowed. A golden light no different than the first rays of dawn, pierced through the haze. The skeletal hand on her shoulder disappearing into the ether. "no." The voice whispered ever so gently. Warmth flooded her body, washing away old pains and aches.
The wail of a child, innocent and pure, rang through the room. Lulled to sleep by a soft and gentle song.
Her head smashed against the bed's railing. Thumbing loudly against the bedrooms floor. The gentle golden rays never leaving her form. Jaune collapsed to his knees before her. A mouth appearing on the side of his chin, singing while his teeth fell out like raindrops from his mouth.
The first drop of reddish pink blood landed on the floorboard. Sizzling like cooked meat. A second drop trailed out of his nose. Not red, neither was it pink. Looking closer to peach. It landed in the sizzling blood pool. A third drop of blood trailed out of his nose. A colour that coulndt be called human. The lightest pink of lightest pink. Closer to white than anything. Pink in name only.
The babe in his arms tumbled out, yet even as wracked with pain he was, singing two different songs from his two cheek mouths, he caught the thing before it could hit the floor. It's small arms waving, a mouth splitting it's face down vertically. Cooing as a garbled mess of words tried singing with him. It's eyes having changed to another shade of blue. It's cheekbones having grown more pronounced and taller.
"Why." The words tumbled out of her as the yellow light stopped surrounding her. Lacking any real heat, only filled with an honest confusion. The child wrapped up tightly and pulled in close to his chest. "Why can't you let me die?"
"Because you are alive." Jaune replied softly. Coughing as the two mouths on his cheeks turned into slits. Looking like scars. "Because if you die, there are no more happy ever afters. There is no hope. No change. It… it just is. But if you are alive, you can change. You can heal. You can grow. You can outlive this night. Travel away from Yharnam. See the world. Do what you have ever wanted but lacked the courage to try. Just because Yharnam can feel like a prison, don't let it become one. Life is beautiful. There is so much to see, so much to experience. There is no reason to lose hope."
"How?" Arianna mumbled. Never taking her eyes away from him. The young man's smile so radiant, so soft, that she nearly wanted to believe. Believe that things could change for the better. Even if she knew it was nothing but lies, the poison tasted sweeter than anything she had ever tasted. "How can you still be so filled with hope."
A snort escaped Jaune, shuffling slightly and sitting down on the floorboard's. Leaving back against the bed and throwing her a little look. "You speak of hope as if it a fleeting little thing. No different than dew under the morning sun, gone in the blink of an eye. That is it ethereal. But that's not hope. That's a wish."
His words bounced off the walls. Fire burned in his eyes. His back sat taler, he felt lager. His presence drowning out anything in the room. Lulling the bad memories and mania she had just felt into a gentle sleep.
"Hope." He said the word gently. Tasting the syllables in his mouth. "Hope is not something you have; it's something you create for yourself. She is someone you fight for, she is a dream, she is spite, she is determination, she is of love, of kindness. Hope, hope stares death in the eye and tells it to step aside. Hope is an ashen ember; she doesn't need to blaze bright. She is the gentle warmth in your chest that you can keep tight when night come. Someone who is by your side, pushing you on as you spit out a tooth and get ready to fight whatever fresh horror the city has created in its bellows."
"You make her sound so beautiful." Arianna whispered airily.
A chuckle escaped him. "The most beautiful thing alive." He smiled softly.
Ever so slowly, he moved his hand towards her. His skin was fair, soft and delicate. Nothing like the hands of a hunter. There were no callouses, no dry or chapped skin. They didn't feel like chalk running up her leg, or like the paws of a dog.
His hands were a healer's hands.
His hands were just as filthy as hers. Just, where her hands were covered in semen, smegma, filth, grime, and vaginal fluids. His were covered in blood, gore, and death.
"But… Arianna. Who killed your hope? Was it the city? Or did you forget how to dream? To dare hope of better tomorrow's? It's never too late to try."
"How?" She asked again, running a finger around on the back of his hand. "How can you so unashamedly love life? How-" 'can you say that knowing what you have done?' she wanted to say, only for her tongue to betray her. The words drying in her throat.
"Because if I didn't love life, if I didn't try and be my best… then I could never get out of bed in the morning. If I didn't have love, if I didn't have other people to live for … I would have rotted away inside out a long time ago." His word's, soft as they were, hung in the silence. Two pearls of quicksilver trailing down from his eyes. Carving beautiful lines down his face. "It's… for me… it is just so much easier to live for others. I need to help someone, to be there for someone. For I can't be there for myself. No matter what I try… I can't seem to live for myself."
The words were said easily enough, yet they rang like a bell in her ears. Echoing true in ways she coulndt explain. 'He is like me.' She thought. A gentle warmth of understanding, of companionship, what she had thought herself underserving off flowed through her chest.
Moving her eyes to the foot she saw herself. What felt like a thousand hands of all shapes and sizes groping and grabbing her. Dressed as she where, phantom sensations of her dress being torn of, of her breasts being groped and grabbed refused to leave her.
"Do you ever feel dirty?" Arianna asked, twiddling her finger's around his. A gentle warmth spreading through her. Washing away the disgust and repulsion she felt at herself.
"When don't I?" He snarked back with a little bark of laughter, intertwining his fingers with hers. "There are days I can't touch Violet because it feels like I will stain her. There are times I bathe for an entire day, and I still feel dirty when I get out. If I'm lucky my reflection scream and shouts at me. If not… it's me. Just me."
"I can't sleep in bed at night. Even if I accept coin, it still feels like I'm being violated." Arianna shared with a soft hum. "I hate sex." She chuckled a moment later. "Ironic isn't it. A whore who hates sex. And yet I spread my legs every time a customer comes knocking on my door demanding my services."
"It's not weird to hate things you despise." Jaune replied gently. "I hate murder. Can't say I really love violence either. When I dreamt of being a hero growing up, it was always something I shied away from. And… here I am… violence my bread and butter." Sending her an impish little smile, masking the hurt that drowned out his eyes. "Ironic isn't it."
Arianna closed her mouth, deciding to hold her tongue. The question of 'Then why did you become a Hunter in the first place?' burning through her mind. Knowing better than it. She had long lost count of the number of outsiders who came to Yharnam, having heard rumours of the healing blood and desperate enough for a cure. How many like that had entered her bed? How many like that had end up dead, just another corpse on the sidewalk.
"Why do you have a gold pendant in your palm?" Arianna asked, fingers moving over the half metal half flesh bulb in the middle of his palm. Golden chains sprouting out from it and wrapping around his hand like angry veins.
Jaune sighed out heavily. "Isn't that the question of a lifetime." Giving her a little look, he shook his head with a good-natured smile. "Well. As usual, it started with me doing something stupid."
Arianna didn't notice the little smile that appeared on her lips. To caught up in his story. Feeling warm and safe in the first time in forever. The scars on her heart from losing Aurora still there. And so where the sleeping mania. But for now, she let herself relax. Loosing herself in the fantastical tale Jaune wove.
'This is nice.' Arianna thought idly, wondering why madness felt so comfortable.
{-ooo-}
Note: Gehrman is wrestling with becoming a more active participant in the story or being to continue being as passive as he is.
Note: Jaune killing either Arianna or the Celestial Child is something that goes against the very core of his character. Even with how I have built(read tormented) him through Yharnam, there are still some lines he would never cross (even if I have had him cross them before, when I was less experienced and developed as a writer.) A newly born child, and Arianna, are both innocent in his eyes. And something he would never rise his hand against. So i had to get creative with how he got the umbilical cord out of them. So leaning fully into the more spiritual and obscure, together with the connection between Arianna and the child, it's perfectly reasonable to say that if Arianna whole heartedly deny the child, that the connection between them would break. Thus killing both, without Jaune having to pull the trigger. Him pulling them back, well that is a quintessential part of him. Making it a win-win situation.
Note: Is it early to have Jaune gain the second umbilical cord? Maybe. Especially with him getting his previous powerups from killing the Queen. However it also ties neatly into with the ritual murder thingy, cracking Rom's illusion over the moon. Also tracks with some of the eldritch beings taking a more proactive role. Plus it introduces Jaune to baby squids before heading to the upper cathedral ward.
Note: Maybe should've put a warning on this once.
Note: And as for why I haven't been updating as frequently? Am job hunting, is tough.
