It was too fast; it was always too fast. The world whirled and churned unending. It was enough to make a man sick. He tried to close his eyes, but there was only endless night.

He was on his hands and knees, everything throbbing. His fingers felt as if they would burst with each beat of his heart. There was a weight in the pit of his stomach and a burning in his chest. There was something in his throat that wouldn't dislodge no matter how he retched. The taste of blood, not sweet but bitter like a hunter's blade, filled his mouth.

Half-asleep, gloved fingers scrabbled in the dirt until they clutched at something, a flower. It shone like the moon. He struggled to rise. Did he now wake or dream? He had prowled in a bloodstained fugue for longer than he could remember. There was but the briefest glimpse of lucidity, a pair of hunters and the gleam of moonlight.

His arms gave beneath him, and he collapsed to the dirt. It was cool but dry, unlike the hauntingly warm slickness of blood. He tried to rise again, dragging his long, noble nose away from the soil with only heroic effort. Long, flowing silver hair dragged over his face. He tilted his head to one side, and it fell away, save one crooked strand.

Giving up on rising, he settled for flipping onto his back. The sky above should have been night. The moon was plainly visible, shining silver as always, yet it was bright as day. Great, dead trees, stripped of their branches and ready for the lumberyard, lined his vision. There was something unsettlingly familiar.

"What…bloody…here?"

He heard voices. He'd heard them before, in a dream, maybe. There was anger, accusations. He could feel the familiar sting, even if his mind wasn't quite focused enough to tune in on the words. He groaned faintly and tried to tune it out before his mind wandered to unpleasant memories.

Then came lecturing, worry, relief. There was love in voices, more now than he could count. It reminded him of long ago, before the night had grown so dark and the blood so thick. It reminded him of when he had been a mere newblood, an apprentice hunter under-

"…Lady Maria…"

He must have imagined it, because he thought he heard her voice in reply to the stranger's mention of her name. It was no surprise that whomever had rescued him might talk about her, surely. Though the Healing Church had been forced to move on without her, he doubted she could ever be truly forgotten. They must be new recruits, Healing Church hunters who had been recruited while he was away.

Only, how long had he been away? Why had he been away? His head throbbed in tune with his heart.

He let his head fall to one side. His hair drooped down again, but he hadn't the energy to deal with it. What he saw through the strands was peculiar. It couldn't be. The old workshop had been condemned and sealed, until such time that its equipment could be properly disposed.

Again, he struggled to rise. He clawed the dirt and strained, dragging himself into a slumped seated position. Lazily, one eye opened.

"…?"

Ah, she was calling his name. No, it couldn't be. Lady Maria was long dead, yet two women who bore her appearance stood among the crowd. Perhaps more runaways from that debauched castle. Ah, what was its name again?

One, the one who had called his name, ran to embrace him. Truly, she was just as he remembered his master, the last time he had seen her, bloodstains on her…

Impossible. She was dead. Was he?

Now that he thought about it, it made sense. Of course, the good hunters would find rest beneath the moon. It would not be surprising for their paradise to resemble where they had spent so much of the last days of their lives. He would not question it further. He was too simple for such things, and he didn't want to know… not really.

"Lady Maria… was it enough…? Did I do the Church proud…?"

His voice sounded so strange. The last time he had spoken with her, he had been hardly more than a boy. Now, he looked many years her elder, forehead creased and voice noble of bearing.

He could hardly hear what she said to him, but it didn't matter. He remembered those days before the nights were quite so dark, before they hunted prey stranger than mere beasts. Yet he found his eye drifting.

He had never given much thought to the echoes, but here, they were stronger than ever. He felt something in his blood stir. He slouched deeper, not from fatigue, but because he was too weary to bow like his body wanted.

A silver hand shone brilliantly in the moonlight. It was large enough that it made him feel a child again as it pat his head gently.

"If no other were, I would be proud of thee. I could not have wished for a better successor. Only, I wish I could have saved thee from befalling a darker fate than mine own. Thou'st earned thy rest. Only, if thou wishest to continue thine fight with the beasts of the Abyss, I would have thee joinest me."

It was not as if he had never seen a man bloated and made larger by blood, but this one seemed different, somehow. The figure which stood before him was hardly the largest he had seen, but there was something purer in the shape.

"Milord, surely you approve?"

Something twinkling emerged from the crowd. It had the shape of a man, but with his eyes half-closed, he could see the glimmer shining within.

"Ah," he sighed, pushing Maria away. "My true mentor. My guiding moonlight!"

They had come not as common hunters. They were not pale shades drawn in by the moon's tides. They had come deliberately, with the fire of the Hunt.

Their fires had burned away the Dream like flesh and fur. What had been a holy sanctum of the gods, inviolate, they tainted with the ways of the lower world. Pale, even moonlight was outshone by a flickering flame.

Even old Gehrman, who was used to the Hunt and the flame, was frightened. So he had watched them go. These were not mere whelps, blind pups. They saw the doll for what she was, and they didn't care.

As for the doll herself, she had felt a prickling. There was something old in the hunters, older than Gehrman or his master. Something that danced in the sarcophagi of the labyrinth. Something that the Keepers guarded with secrecy greater than Byrgenwerth could unearth.

She felt the ancient echoes, old enough that the world would crack like an old garment.

"No. The blood echoes just remember what nothing else does. The world changes, but its bones are the same. You see what's left of them, the archtrees all around you. Even stone doesn't last forever. But soul memory does. The blood is just a medium for souls."

The doll simply smiled and nodded. How different were souls from a dream, really? Phantoms were called from higher or lower planes, and time turned upon itself. But indeed, if not their blood, their souls were mighty indeed.

Those few sane left in Yharnam came to be gathered, first at the Chapel of Formless Oedon, then at the forsaken Castle Cainhurst. They did not stop there. The abandoned Ebrietas, the helpless Master Willem – every last thing which retained some vestige of identity came to be collected at the frozen keep. Even the long dead, those whose spirits were trapped in nightmare realms, were gathered alive, restrained if necessary.

The last Hunter of Hunters and the mad Beast-Eater of legend watched over their menagerie as it grew. It was not long before their collection was complete, even the dead Great One, Mergo, restored to life and in the arms of his long-bound mother. Humans hopelessly lost to beasthood were human once more – or a blasphemous approximation of such.

"I better get more than a diploma for catching 'em all. Wait, no. Do you think I could get an honorary doctorate from Byrgenwerth in xenomurdology?"

The man-creature which had overcome Gehrman and his master had followed in the hunters' wake. Only, while their flame was wild and maddening as the Paleblood Moon, his was steady as its phases. The Dream should have dispersed with neither host nor divine guest, but his presence upheld it, echoes streaming from him like water.

More had followed him, servants truer than the old knights of that ancient castle. Together, they watched as the serpent-god stirred the Dream like the tides.

"Was't worth it, Mother? To survive all and live in this world without Fire?"

A vengeful raven's cry was his only answer.

The hunters returned, and they spoke with the man-god for a time. At last, it seemed, the long night was coming to an end. Yet what would become of her, without the hunters to attend and the Dream? Somehow, those hunters had brought their full collection to the astral workshop.

"Right, so, you've got three options, just like the ending. Option one: again like the ending, we return you to Yharnam, and you figure out what you're going to do with the rest of your life. Option two: we take you away from the blood, to the distant past, and leave you in the middle of nowhere with some supplies and money. Option three: you come to work for my wife or for the Daft Punk reject here.

The choice is yours. Except for Brador – he's literally going to hell. Let's see how much you enjoy ringing bells after some quality time with Velstadt."

It was hard to imagine. How long had she slept? How long had she closed her eyes to the madness? She had ignored what was right in front of her for so long, in the name of some nebulous greater good. Taking her life for atonement only let her close her eyes again. It did not stop the experiments, and it only placed her burdens on frailer shoulders.

Of course, on closing her eyes to the mortal world, she merely opened them to the Nightmare. She could not escape her sins. Yet she tried, oh how she tried. For an eternity, she would try to convince herself of her own death, lying motionless atop the Astral Clocktower. She would guard the passage of time, so that no one might turn back to that darkest of secrets.

That too had been selfishness and a feeble attempt at preserving the Church's honor. She had forsaken her heritage and spurned blood blades to show her own skill. How proud was she, that she would use the technique not to hunt beasts and save lives, but to protect the dignity of graverobbers?

Yet for all her crimes, now she was free. That one-eyed judge had proclaimed her debt paid. The nightmare had broken, but instead of an afterlife of condemnation or rebirth into suffering, she simply walked away. Worse, she was offered power in the new world in which she found herself.

Rather than a grim duty to which she could dedicate herself, she found reward when she deserved none.

She sighed and slumped in her chair, an all-too-familiar position. Though it served few, her new home did have a public house. She felt more at ease staying there than at the palace, but she dared not drink. She had known intoxication too intimately before.

The door opened and a pair of boots thudded across the stone floor. There could be no mistake that the stranger had come for her. She cracked open one eye. Peculiarly, it was another pale swordswoman with a feather in her cap.

"Maria, I've heard a lot about you. I am called Lucatiel. Do you mind if I have a seat?"