Excoriate

by IamAmoreVirginali

Summary:

Your ego twirls in twain with mine.

Delirium is best experienced shared—shared between an outcast Vileblood turned into a hunter against her will, and a sadistic hunter of hunters.

Notes:

For a bit of background:
Anais is a vileblood that joined the Hunt after experiencing an injury (like in the canon Bloodborne beginning: you kill beasts to pay off your medical bill, humorously speaking), so she is the Hunter as tagged. The other character is a hunter too (also not from Yharnam, but has been there way longer than Anais), but I tagged her as simply an "Original Character." I feel like I should add one of them is 35 and the other is 39.

I have no set cycle for updating this fanfic, but I don't think I'll take longer than a week to add a chapter, or add something to the previous one (or so I'll try; unmedicated anxiety is hounding me).

Chapter 1: Dreamer

Yharnam was a gelid, devouring vortex. The thing they’ve called a “dream” was nothing more than a crippled man’s last hope.

Despite the disgust Anais wielded, she knew there was no way to flee it — the disdain of hers quelled by realisation — other than fulfilling her duty; duty for which she’d never asked for. For her, it was also a way of avenging the violence inflicted upon Cainhurst… a good Yharnamite is a dead one after all.

The “dream” was an exceptional place of rest: quiet, desolate, with no observers to distort her rest — as she could never sleep with people around, whenever there was noise, especially spoken words, her brain focusing on deciphering the plans rather than resting — but it trapped her, making her nauseous after she’d rested. Well, the rest… For her it spanned like a gunshot but did its job. She could never rest outside. But there were times when weariness befell her, made her legs weak and twisting, two poorly made logs of sponge, and she collapsed right there, on the “dream’s” ground, tired enough to stop pondering about the ground or possible voices in the still wind. The “dream” worked as such.

Though, the more time she’d spent at Yharnam, the more endurance she’d built. Days could tread into wee numbers with no rest. Some idiot would say it’s immortality building up. Anais always laughed at the asinine scholars in her head, ones that stood on their wits trying to unriddle the weaknesses of the body… as if they could, poor ghosts in an echoing head… People said she was mad back in Cainhurst.

 

The streets crawled with blood and superstition, and her ears were ringing, and the red velvet of her knightly garb was riddled to the last of threads. A visit to the dream and the cloth would be brand new. Except… except she couldn’t recall where the lamp was. Something tripped her and made her fire a useless bullet. Befuddled, she stared into the empty cobblestone before her, spiritual anathemas suddenly arising, white flags torn side to side… Then they vanished… riddled next to her ears, so then the mad rustle got louder: a high whistle; cold breeze puncturing the brain.

Consciousness returned to her when the firearm she’d held fell to the ground. In an instant, quicker than her wit, she bent in order to retreat it, and then her eyesight warped. Shaking but not yet fallen, she forced her position to be straight. The dull noise of static reached past her ears and took her eyes.

This has happened before. Yet someday… it had a sort of… introduction before assaulting her like that.

If she were to give in to the sickness and fall asleep on the street, then she’d wake in the “dream”, if anyplace at all… Beasts turn into ball-jointed dolls when killed… For the Queen’s sake, could it all end? Paranoia settled in the creases of Anais’ mind, and she stood confused, careening from left to right.

Via the use of suddenly inhumane and impossible forces, she walked back, not forward, as even a rat could kill her in such a sorry state. Shackles have closed around her ankles and dragged her back to some lighthouse… A ray of light appeared for the slightest of seconds and vanished after the next blink… the eyes, they were closing on their own… Unruly eyelids, just give in into the blindfold already.

Each step that she took brought out twice the previous force, and it felt like stepping on searing coal with rubber soles… everything went quiet, save for the static in her head, the panic tiring her out even more. She was cold, excessively cold. It reminded her of the homeland winters and bequeathed the urge to cry. Strange… strange indeed… she was stepping on Hell’s very ground but was cold…

A house manifested before her eyes so surreally one could witness it growing from the ground. A hunter — knight… cursed terminology — should check whether the place is empty. But this hunter-knight was stupid and couldn’t tell colours apart if she was told to. It was dark inside, with no holes in the roof, but cold. Anais stepped on something that cracked like knuckles under her step, and acid rose to her throat.

Not bothering to check but convincing herself she stepped on a dead humanoid’s hand, she staggered around the apartment until she saw an outline of an oil lamp. She lit it and winced.

It seemed like a bedroom, a quite pleasant one to that. The lamp stood on a nightstand, and with it a small knife, a framed picture of a smiling woman in a pale dress, and an ashtray. The second thing amazed Anais inexplicably, and she sat on the bed, staring at the photo like her eyes got suddenly glued to it. She unsheathed her weapons and put them on a drawer before taking off her outer garments.

When she lay down, she felt as if someone injected chloroform into her bloodstream. The surroundings vanished as her eyes shut.

 

---

 

Some time passed, unclear just how much, as the windows had wooden planks hammered onto their frames, and there was no noise to signal anyone approaching. Anais tried to open her eyes, but the action took abstract effort — a needle was inserted into her brain at each assay of consciousness — and, after a few more laughable tries, she gave in. Something urged her to feel if she wasn’t dead — this she surrendered to, running a hand through her numb torso. High chances it was still attached.

She lay still and straight, scarcely breathing.

Her brain fell in and out of consciousness, head plunged underwater for five seconds then bent back for ten. Then some strange noise reached her ears, and her eyes finally shot open, bloodshot and exhausted. Someone was walking around the house, heavily… big leather boots, someone tall and possibly heavy… too calculated to be a beast, a human? What kind of human thrived in this deserted habitat?

A hunter… yes, a hunter! Anais sat up so hastily her head spun. At the very moment she was gathering the strength to sit up, the door opened nonchalantly, and a brown tricorn peeked through, spanning from left to right before stopping at her. Anais’ cerulean eyes met with incomprehensible ones. Something primal took her, and she’d done the following: launched herself at the drawer, seized her firearm and shot a few bullets (ones that the stranger dodged masterfully, or the walls of rationality fluttered so quickly they rendered the eyesight comically faulty), hit her leg on the footboard, called out for the person to leave, then finally launched herself at the very person. The last thing she regretted the most.

The stranger had an axe conjoined to their coat, and Anais tried to reach out for it, but her hand not only got swatted away but also twisted, making her yelp and thrash even harder, scratching at the material covering the stranger’s face in order to punch it… albeit fighting with one hand, especially the non-dominant one, was a folly, so thus overpowered she got, by the “hunter” smelling like blood and rot and basically all features of the cursed soil which held the town of Yharnam… When Anais tripped and plunged headlong into the very spot in which she slept a few minutes ago, she realised the sheer power of her idiocy. The stranger was laughing at her.

They turned out much stronger and bigger than her; one of their gloved hands shut her mouth, making her taste the leather unwillingly, whining and trying to bite down at it — successfully, her fangs punctured the material, and the stranger huffed. They rolled their eyes, brown and narrow, ones that later creased in a mocking smile.

“What are you still fighting for?” They laughed and bent their head, closer than before. Anais could make their faces meet if she snatched off the facial cover; she could feel reciprocation for her accelerated breaths. A pinch of lust crept through the scarlet curtain of anger.

“Unhand me, you dog,” she snarled, muffled, kicking the attacker’s own leg. When that was unsuccessful and all she received was a theatrically pitiful glare, she repeated herself: “Now, you cursed thing!”

Surprisingly, they listened, launching themselves off her. Anais sat up, now fully conscious and fuelled by adrenaline, struggling to catch her breath. In the dim light of an oil lamp, she could pick out details from the flurry of malicious stenches and towering arms: she ran her eyes through the stranger’s form, realising they wore a hunter’s garb, the same one she once retreated from a corpse, identical down to the tight seams. Something as akin to fear as pity struck her heart.

“You’re a hunter,” she marvelled before standing up and circling around her discarded garb. The stranger raised an eyebrow and lowered the cloth over their face.

“And who are you?” They asked cautiously.

Anais passed the question unanswered, dressing herself back together (as she suddenly felt ashamed for conducting a fight in only a shirt and petticoat), but looking constantly past her shoulder. Her paranoia amused the hunter, the strange one who hadn’t averted their eyes, even from the monotone action of tying a cravat.

They scoffed when the ensemble came together. “Oh, a vileblood,” they gasped. “Is that why you bite so much?”

“Do you think I’m your friend?” Anais scowled.

“Doubtful you have any with that attitude.”

She listened to their barking laugh, unfazed. Whoever that was, they weren’t sane in the head; a beast or beggar dressing itself as a hunter gets to lecture her about attitude – how amusing. Her fingers enveloped around her rapier’s hilt… what if she thrusted the blade into the stranger’s throat? They must have some precious things at hand… Yharnam is more than demanding, and this lunatic is experienced, and killing them would be a great achievement. A smile outstretched her mouth.

The lunatic was aware, although: they glared at Anais through half-lidded eyes. Understanding her chance was long over, Anais’ smile faded, and she sheathed the rapier.

“Good choice,” they uttered, resting their hand on the footboard. It seemed they could tell every move of Anais’, even the embryonic ones — to fool them became her objective.

“You won’t ask who I am again?” She only asked pridefully.

The stranger smiled again. “Vilebloods don’t appear here out of all places just because. You’re a hunter too — only a bloodhound thrives in such habitat.”

Oh! Not only were they tall like a horse and could prophesise their death, but they could also tell the roots of a woman they’d seen for the first time in their life. A sullied hound, perhaps, but a smart one. Anais nodded phlegmatically. “Do me a favour and tell yourself the rest of the story, hunter,” she said. “I have places to be. Farewell.”

She strutted to the door, already weaving a plan to forsake that lunatic… alas, they’ve stopped her by seizing her hand, and she hissed. The limb wasn’t broken, didn’t even hurt that much anymore, but the way the hunter’s fingers closed around it made it sear with warmth and pain, like it was being twisted again, if not broken. Anais looked at them, pyretic, hoping to decipher something in their mad glare. But they only lowered the mask and revealed not only a cruel smile but also a vile scar over the side of their mouth.

“You won’t thrive here for long, vileblood girl,” they exclaimed as Anais’ stare jumped from one feature to another, surprisingly feminine sharp curves on brown skin, one arched eyebrow furrowed and the other raised. Strands of straight black hair tied into a careless updo collapsed over their temples, slightly carving out a slope or two.

Anais snapped from her trance and immediately freed her hand from the stranger’s hold — the stranger which she deduced to be a woman after all. “A beast won’t lecture me,” she sneered. “You don’t know who I am.”

“For now,” the stranger answered. Anais once again glared at her grin, one revealing sharp teeth. “You seem to tell yourself a lot about me, though. Might as well just help you out of your… whirlwind. My name is Mihir: that’s all you must know.”

Mihir smiled and put the cover over her face again, leaving before Anais did. The latter followed her until she couldn’t anymore. Something told Anais they’d meet again, perhaps even sooner than she first considered. After a few other minutes of stillness, she turned down the lamp and left.

Though the stench of death lingered in Yharnam air perpetually, the one that Anais had experienced was fresher, mixed with smoke and steel. She began walking deeper into the perils, discovering beast after beast, lacerated with injuries only an axe could create. Something incomprehensible in their lanky forms amused Anais: she sneered in their lifeless faces, poking at their already deep wounds with the edge of her rapier.

Those kills were Mihir’s. The beasts rarely killed one another, and there was no axe wielder in those parts, never mind such a swift and experienced one.

They’ve only just met, and the eccentric mistress couldn’t leave Anais’ mind.

Anais pushed forward until the line of Mihir’s kills narrowed and finally closed. She could already hear a wail in the distance, could see her reflection in the flimsy remains, and could feel the needle puncture her thigh, in a quantity so high the vials ran out more than often.

The adrenaline within her increased, about as much as when she tried to shoot Mihir dead. There she was again, with her right mouth’s corner torn to flesh, the cruel hunter with an odd accent and a growling voice. Was some spell cast on Anais in a moment of unconsciousness?

Oh, of course not — Anais thought and shook her head with a haggard expression — spells are for fools.

And she was no fool. One with an echoing head and overdose of rage, perhaps, but no fool; her rapier found a victim and stabbed it, undetected, then slashed twice until the beast turned into a ragdoll. Then, as she gazed at the still corpse, a realisation struck her: Mihir saw the corpses Anais left beforehand, from which she had to decipher the existence of another hunter, additionally a noble one, as few swing a rapier around.

Let it be a playground, then. Let her pursue and fantasise.

Chapter 2: Heiress

Notes:

[THE POVs CHANGE EACH CHAPTER!]

I am *terribly* sorry for this late update. My life has been like a boat repeatedly drowning and returning to surface. But I am back to writing now, and no more stupid breaks.

Mihir didn’t dream anymore.

There were no dreams, no signs of retribution, only the withered warzone that was Yharnam, the beasts and the men. Carrion crows rattled in the same tone as they did years ago.

The beasts were one, but their hunters were another. Mihir soon learned that the border between them wasn’t too strong.

Very few get to flee Yharnam; those who indeed do mark graves in the Dream, and those who don’t meet fate of insanity and beasthood. A wretched job it was to suggest burial to the latter — a wretched job it was to befall on Mihir.

But then may one forget their real enemy, blurring the outline of a sane form, and become the very plague one hunted. 

The dreamers were mostly extinct, either liberated or insane. So a terrific sight it was to see a dreamer pristine still.

---

Rapiers weren’t a popular choice of weaponry. As lightweight and agile they might be, it was simply a folly to use it without prior experience, if at all — or so Mihir thought back then, recognising marks of slashes and thrusts on beastly bodies. Then it was: the curious stench of the dream, carving a path in twain with narrow blood trails. It almost made her smile. 

The mixture led her to one of the abandoned houses — the lock was destroyed, replaced by clumsily reattached chains. Only the opening door allowed a glimpse of light inside; illuminated torn tablecloths, collapsed chairs, and a rotten corpse. The floorboards were painted by dark blood, and so was some of the furniture and walls. Past the main scene, there were three other rooms, all empty, save for the last one, where the dream was most detectable. 

A beautiful, light-haired dreamer deciding to rest between holes in a warzone. Such a sight. 

Past her unpredictable behaviour and an urge of stealth-killing, the dreamer had a sound mind. It was just that Mihir couldn’t envision her on the battlefield for too long. A matter of time until she meets a fate like her fellows.

---

The dreamer reappeared, leaving corpses as a mark of recognition: always the same, almost linear slashes of the rapier. Slaughtered beasts were made into lengthy letters for the stalker to read; for the slashes have told a story, a story of polished mastery, yearning for a kingdom long collapsed, rebellion, and the complicated wish of: “Seek me.”

Mihir recognised the path the dreamer had been carving out. It was the same one she’s walked before; the perils of the Cathedral Ward, the unwinding maze, marked with tragedy. If it weren’t for the dreamer, she wouldn’t come back there even if threatened — but, for a thing so princely, she was willing to try. 

Numerous empty blood vials laid on the cobblestone. Mihir kicked one of them with the vamp of her boot, watching it shatter under a wall. No reaction from any corner. Her eyes narrowed. 

Vexation slithered under her skin at every recognised corner. While it was good to be aware of where she’s been walking, the fear conquered her pride. One distant sound and her eyes shot open. 

For the duty she’s been made to fulfill wasn’t always in the plan. On the very first night of the hunt, back as a spineless foreigner, a rejected researcher, there was someone willing to turn their head to her. The leather, crow mask, and the feathered cape, smelling about the same as Mihir does now. If it wasn’t for Eileen, the nights could’ve ended quicker. Alas .

The hunter rune she’s carved into the back of her hand never healed. No other weapon fit in her hand as much as Eileen’s blade did — this old, small thing that she never cut herself on. Be it axe or blunderbuss, agile or strong, archaic or virginal, nothing came close. Gunpowder began to cause cough and rash; bigger trick weapons were too slow for her to savour. There was an extraordinary beauty in the blade of mercy… or maybe it was Eileen’s face reflecting in the dead of night. A long, aged face with features like spires, profile like an adult crow. Mihir constantly hoped it would finally leave her. And, to some degree, it blurred, yet only when the dreamer stood before her. But what effect did that have, if it appeared in the steel’s reflection; Eileen’s scent still lingered over the feathered cape, the mask almost mended to the shape of her head. If she survived, she would’ve disapproved of Mihir’s uncommon fascination over a young dreamer — a vileblood . 

Whenever the term appeared in Mihir’s head, it brought wonder. The vilebloods were a forsaken case — all of them slaughtered at the altar of their Queen, by the executioner’s nonchalant gesture. Indeed, some survived — some Yharnamites spoke of a Cainhurst whore somewhere here, in the Cathedral Ward, though Mihir has never seen her, nor bothered to check her existence. The dreamer must have been raised in the old teachings, few against collapsing Yharnam, but for some absurd and comical reason, she became the next heir to beastly madness. Perhaps fate decided to laugh in her face, trace its arrowlike tail over her feet, hard enough to draw blood, blood sick and too cloying to ignore, then lead her to this burning shed of glory, already plotting to end her in a way ghastlier than an executioner would. Or perhaps Mihir thought about it far too much. Matter of fact, she shouldn’t have thought about the dreamer in the slightest, accusing fate from the position of its very prisoner. Oh, well. Her biggest flaw was overthinking those she was hunting down. 

Watching the corpse of a beheaded beast, Mihir quietly thanked the aforementioned fate for briefly staggering her away from this job. Blooddrunk hunters were much more princely — and she vowed to continue Eileen’s pursuit all the way until death; until a rabid vileblood reaps her life. She bent to see the clean beheading scar. Quite a wistful way to die, but slightly overrated. Mihir would’ve rather torn the dreamer apart than kneel at her wake, awaiting the deathblow. The prey can’t magically become the hunter after all, unless it undergoes metamorphosis. And Mihir was more than sure for that to happen.

She left the remains as they were, continuing over the familiar corners. It was saddening to admit she was much rather used to patrolling Old Yharnam, alternatively stalking young foreigners from the Central part — the beasts changed slightly, and some weren’t even animals yet; they were human. Their appearances haven’t distasted Mihir at all, for they were a common, unexplainably irritating sight in Central Yharnam, even if they were a chance for the beginning hunters to display their flimsy skills.

She snapped out of a trance before the grand cathedral’s door. Then the memories annihilated her head like sharp-edged traumata: the stench of blood, strangling gunpowder, Eileen’s cries — it all came back to her, causing panic, a sudden urge of unsafety, hooves of terror pressing on her larynx. Before her petrified eyes, the situation unwinded once again — she could see herself running to the altar, assaulting the silver-headed mask with whatever ammunition this soil gave, to no avail or triumph, only a gaping wound and that man vanishing into the night. Eileen died with her head on Mihir’s knees. The latter’s gaze sharpened. 

Even though she barely breathed anything other than her own polluted breath, she staggered forward, for there was something that beckoned her inside, an eerie light upon the altar, perhaps even a whistle in some corner. Her steps hailed and stared frozen on a glowing lamp. 

“I always wondered how many of you are here.” Someone said from behind; Mihir’s spine was stuck. “Hunters of the maniacs. But so it seems only you remain, wretched, one for the entirety of Yharnam’s sins, the Church’s unswallowable desire to devour all in their god’s blood, this impeccable blood, annihilation of science, turning men into beasts. Not only those poor, ugly men, but those whom you share a rune with,” the voice continued, tainted with a rough, eastern accent. Cainhurst. Mihir heard her breath tremble. “The hunters. Heirs to the old ones’ will and their madness… that woeful woman I once heard of, though very little, only some comparison. Apparently, we are kin. Hang me by my spine, I won’t recollect her name. There must be some kind of purgatory for her and her masters to rot in, swallowed by eternal night… or so I like to imagine. I begin to see much more, maybe there’s an eye erecting from under my skin, or maybe I just despise this place so much I imagine everyone swallowed by the moon. But back to what I was saying. Rest in peace to your mentor, Mihir. The cape must still smell like her.” 

Mihir finally turned around, seeing another form in the shadows, tainted by the dream’s imprisonment and burning beastly blood. Her hand reached under her coat, gripping the blade’s hilt. 

“You wonder far too much,” she snarled. 

The other woman came into the only source of light — it collapsed its cold over her pale face, igniting her eyes to an even brighter shade of blue. One of her hands haphazardly swung a tricorn, and the other marked circles over her own blade’s pommel. “A hunter always does,” she said with a smile. 

“You brought us here only to debate the hunters’ fate? Mutter some fancy epitaphs for my mentor? She would come back to life if she heard what a vileblood has to say about her.”

“Oh, maybe I should continue, then. I assume you miss her. Maybe if I talk sweetly enough, she will return!”

Mihir’s ears wanted to wither at the sound of the other woman’s laugh. Prey wants to outsmart its hunter, that’s virtual. Vitriol is the beginning of ammunition. 

“You wouldn’t look so nice torn from arm to abdomen,” she muttered. “You would tie your knees together upon one final breath in order to be found in a dignified pose, despite the convulsions of death. Blood-clad velvet isn’t quite the fashion anymore.”

The hunter rolled her eyes, her movements more impatient and rapid. Mihir couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, trying to envision the form of pure Cainhurst beauty with her guts eviscerated. What a caricature. Maybe she’d look like her mother or aunt in their last moments. 

“Nor are blood-clad feathers, but I don’t suppose you like recollecting your old woman.”

True wrath cleaved through Mihir’s veins, and reflected in her wide-open eyes. How come anyone knew about Eileen’s death? Indeed, she vanished, but Mihir made sure everything that had her name on it also vanished. Even her blood was scrubbed clean from the cathedral’s floor. Unless that “bloody crow” managed to tell his tale before submitting to bloodlust. It was only a matter of time, and Mihir fantasised about tearing him apart, from limb to limb, like cattle meant for slaughter; his poisonous flesh would become the most exquisite meal the carrion dogs had before dropping dead from the toxin. 

“I never had an occasion to watch you fight,” the dreamer said, briefly cut by the sound of an unsheathing blade. “though you’re absurdly easy to aggravate. I don’t think she was only a mentor to you.”

Mihir failed to bridle her anger. Before the dreamer could take another step, a bullet missed her cheek by a hairlength. Her surprise was so fulfilling Mihir swallowed back the gunpowder allergy. “Shut your mouth, you blood-thirsty parasite!”

Fear briefly reflected in the vileblood’s eyes when Mihir leaped towards her, armed with both blades, threading over her hand with one, missing her nose with the other. 

“ I am blood-thirsty?” The other woman dodged, pointing the rapier’s edge at Mihir. “Cursed hypocrite. Yharnam fumes are melting your comprehension.”

Mihir choked on her own laugh, gunpowder clawing at her throat. “Keep dancing. If you win, I’ll tell you more about her. If I do, you’ll sing everything I desire to know.”

Notes:

If you have any feedback, let me know. I love receiving comments and kudos on my works, they make me very happy! I once cheered so hard I got lightheaded for a few minutes. Oops.

Chapter 3: Hyperdontia

Notes:

Two chapters in two days? Impressive!
[This specific chapter contains more violence than the previous ones; features a character's temporary death.]

Anais’ ears still rang from the shot, and the hairs on her cheek still stood upright. The blood from the slashed hand kept pouring on the cathedral’s floor, increasing its glisten. The other hunter’s movements were quicker than her own — Mihir kept dodging a majority of attacks, though she required closure to cast any hole on Anais’ coat. At once, she was caught in a miscalculation. Interrupting her attack, Anais fired a bullet at her arm, later staggering her into an embrace. Mihir hissed as the rapier’s edge punctured her abdomen. Before clawing it out, Anais faintly twisted it. 

“It’s a shame you’re seeming to lose,” she mused and removed the weapon. 

Mihir’s blood had a strange scent: cold, almost like cobblestone. It wasn’t what Anais anticipated to experience, even as her eyes feasted on the pool before her, and hunger lingered over her tongue. Something unexplainable chased her away from the liquid. 

“Loosening your ego for once won’t be a sin,” Mihir breathed out, shakily touching the injury. She met Anais’ trajectory of view— and bursted laughing, somewhat like a dog would. “A crow’s blood disgusts you? Good to know.”

She stood up quicker than Anais calculated, lunging onto her right foot, and stabbing at the stomach’s height. Their fight increased in ferocity, blades clashing against one another, blood amalgamating into one on the floor. Mihir was right — that wasn’t a fight, it was a dance. She swung Anais from one corner to another, quickstepping, at times aiming for her face; cutting through the velvet coat, unreleasing threads of warm, cursed blood. And Anais ensured to reciprocate this rabid court — switching between the rapier’s features of both melee and firearm, tearing asunder the leather of Mihir’s dark garb. Closer and greedier, the vision blended into one; ignorant of her health and endurance deteriorating, only to come out victorious, even at the price of blood pouring like fountains. 

“Few are able to resist the hunt’s intoxication,” Mihir said brittly, vivid sparkles reflecting in her dark eyes. “You’re no different than them all. The only thing that differs you is the velvet on your garb, and the pallor of your face. There’s too many of you, vile drunkards, your greed louder than rationality…” 

She laughed; the sound ricocheted between walls, finally hitting Anais’ whistling ears — and it hit like a headshot. One slashed spot on her arm kept bleeding more than the other. Through the possessiveness, fear crept. Anais realised what she denied since it all began — she was going to lose.

“Only I remain to end this mania!” Mihir continued, rapidly leaping from one side to another, cutting new holes in the material until Anais managed to shoot her chest. She leaped to the vileblood’s backside, pushing two other stabs therein. Anais dropped to one knee, her vision first spinning, then going bleak; her head hit the ground. She couldn’t stand, but nor could she lay still — thus she laid, convulsing, grinding teeth. When Mihir’s footsteps stopped right next to her head, Anais forced her eyes to open, witnessing the other woman illuminated by moonlight — she stood over her with an unreadable expression, both pity and enjoyment, definitely triumphant. A pistol slowly arose to the level of Anais’ head. 

“Sweet dreams, hunter .”

Then everything faded as quickly as a bullet punctured her forehead, like an oil lamp being put out, and she drew a strained breath. 

 

The next surface her numb tongue grazed wasn’t from the waking world — it was the dream’s cobblestone. Anais raised her head to see the myriad graves, stone stairs leading to the workshop, and a tall, porcelain form — all that was most memorable in this place. Past its context, it could make a fine painting. Unfortunately, it was ugly no matter how much Anais twisted her point of view. Beauty was but saccharine poison for the eyes.

“Welcome home, good hunter,” the doll said, catching Anais’ attention. 

The latter didn’t respond. She stood up, scanning her garb for any scarring — fortunately, death always washed away blood and injury. It must’ve been a reverse placebo that caused her to feel like Mihir’s bullet was still inside the skull. 

Still silent, Anais approached the lamp, later vanishing in thin mist. 

 

Another surprise awaited her, this time in the cathedral — Mihir sat on the ground, unfamiliarly still, only rotating a dagger in her hand. Anais recognised the dagger as the one once on her garb. 

“You could’ve told me we were duelling for death. I dislike deception,” she began, stopping before Mihir. The latter looked at her with glistening eyes. 

“It’s good that you do,” Mihir responded, gesturing for Anais to sit down as well. “then you’ll think twice about lying to me about your past.”

Anais first denied the offer, but strength still hasn’t fully returned to her limbs. Ultimately, she plopped down, resting her spine on the cold wall. She felt Mihir’s eyes drilling into each spire and cavity of her face. 

“Who were you before arriving here, in Yharnam?” Mihir asked.

Anais’ throat kept loosening and tightening. “I don’t remember too much,” she choked out. “Only some vignettes from my childhood. I wasn’t born in Cainhurst. My mother fled from the castle and gave birth to me way beyond Yharnam. She was the one to teach me about our homeland… from her, I have learned how to use this,” she moved the rapier to Mihir’s view. “for she was once a hunter too. As for Yharnam… I was researching it, and Cainhurst. My thirst for knowledge led me here, and ultimately devoured, I suppose. At one point, I stopped remembering. I must’ve strayed too close and by some brute, astral way, got dragged into the hunt. It feels like my psyche was in a dichotomy at times.”

She stopped upon realising she revealed far too much. Her eyes opened to Mihir’s interested glare and one-sided smile.

“Your psyche is in a dichotomy at times. How intriguing,” Mihir beamed. There was something strangely alluring in the way she dug into each of Anais’ features, much stronger than at their first meeting; impaling with a ghost scimitar. “What about this?” she poked at her own tear trough. “How did you get it?”

Right there, under the right eye, Anais had a narrow, short scar. It was old, much older than Mihir’s. “It happened a long time ago. My mother injured me during a fight.” She had an urge to address her companion’s partial grin, ignoring the previously proclaimed vow. For the thing was most strange indeed — too linear to be an accident, most likely an intentional act. But just who, or what , how, and when caused it — this Anais couldn’t guess. She hoped for her stare to be hard enough to make Mihir talk. 

And briefly, it almost did. Mihir’s gaze softened and so did her expression — the scarred side of her mouth collapsed slightly lower than the other. Suddenly, she switched to her usual, reserved demeanor. She fled Anais’ curiosity like a battle-trained hare. 

“How many questions are you willing to have?” Anais twitched in her seat.

“As many as you owe me,” Mihir chuckled. “You lost after all, and I showed you mercy.”

Anais clenched her teeth until they hurt. No one has executed her like Mihir did. Be it beast or man, none stood over her bleeding corpus, intoxicated by triumph and the vehement urge to show “pity”; stood illuminated by near holy moonlight, a halo cast over the head of a blasphemer, waiting for a “special” time to shoot a bullet into her prey’s head. To imagine the madwoman calls it mercy .

“Oh, curse me! I just remembered something.” Mihir suddenly sat upright, joy burning in the eyes she hung on Anais’ jaw. “I must’ve forgotten to ask for your name… or title. Is ‘hunter’ fulfilling, or do you have any objections?”

The huntress pondered her answer for some time. “ Anais ,” she recited, irate. “My name is Anais.”

Mihir repeated the name multiple times, gradually quieter. From her mouth, it sounded oddly melodic. 

“Sounds better than hunter ,” she finally voiced. “though unfitting for Cainhurst. ‘Anna’ would’ve been easier.”

“My mother loved my name.”

That seemed to shut Mihir’s mouth. She directed her attention to the dagger instead. “Intricate,” she unsheathed it. “I have never seen anything like that. Though I fear it’s rather useless — one would hate to waste such a beautiful thing.”

Anais snatched it out of Mihir’s hand, hanging it on the back of her garb. “That’s because it’s decorative.” She turned back to the other woman. “Keep asking questions. I have affairs to complete, and none of them include a night with you.”

Mihir gazed at her dumbfounded before bursting into laughter again. “You won’t get rid of me that easily. Of course I won’t ask for a sermon about your life, idiot. We’ll meet again, and again, and maybe once you’re sharp enough, we’ll switch places. For now, deal with what I tell you. I have one final question, and then I’ll leave you to your affairs that don’t include a night with me.”

“Then get to the point.”

“What lies beyond the waking world?”

Anais narrowed her eyes in acute confusion. “Hunters are the heirs to madness — this you’re right in,” Mihir continued unfazed. “But I’d like to know, what about those who failed to awaken? The graves in the dream are empty, I checked. This moon you’d like to swallow all of Yharnam — does it shine someplace else? Do you know that yet?”

Despite her befuddlement, Anais tried to give this question real thought. For there must be a purgatory for those who caused this nightmare (plagues don’t break out on a whim after all). Between the dream — like her — and wake — like Mihir — there must be something . But Anais couldn’t come up with an answer — it was beyond her comprehension. 

“I— I have no idea,” she stammered. 

“Alright.”

Then Mihir stood up, sweeping dust off her coat. The injuries Anais previously caused have closed — must’ve been the healing blood. Quite unwise for a hunter of hunters to intoxicate herself with blood, no? She must’ve been more desperate than Anais first considered. 

“I leave you to your whims,” Mihir threaded. “Fear where you thread, Anais.”

Anais watched her leave, then looked down at the cathedral’s floor; at the blood now dry. The words Mihir uttered before slaughtering her were haunting — “there’s too many of you, vile drunkards”; “only I remain to end this mania”. Perhaps it was her tone, intoxicated with thrill and hysteria. Whatever it was, it sent shivers down Anais’ spine, and rang in her ears as she sat, living through the spar once again. The hunt’s intoxication… greet louder than rationality…

What thrived beneath the brown skin, slithered through the overworked nerves, was poisoned by grief, lust for revenge, and hatred. Anais smiled as soon as this realisation crept to her membrane; as soon as she realised just how little differs them. Her life was woven from the strings of mourning, detailed with a torrent of terrible emotions, including the need to ravage something much above her. When Mihir stood over her, Anais could see her own ego dancing in the enveloping moonlight. 

Jigsaw.

Notes:

To clear up a few things:
— Anais fights with a Reiterpallasch through the entire fic; Mihir has Eileen's canon weapons.
— I take *many* liberties with Cainhurst lore.