Chapter Text
The cold wakes her up.
It isn’t quite like Cainhurst, not as raw with its chill, but it’s familiar.
Lifting her head takes some doing, it feel hollow yet heavy at the same time and its taking the rest of her senses longer than she’d like to catch up.
The Hunter is in an unfamiliar room, surrounded by more people than she’s seen maybe ever. Beasts don't count. They seem fully human but are aggressive enough towards her to be trapping her in a wall of swords, a very unsubtle threat should she try and move. She couldn’t even if she wanted to, they’ve tied her up very well to the ground with something metal. Their armor looks nothing like she’s ever seen. Not even in Cainhurst. The style looks more similar to Alfred and his executioners, but that can't be. All the Executioners are dead. Alfred is especially dead, she made it sure of that herself.
She hopes she's right. Otherwise... well... she doubts these Executioners would be overly fond of a Vileblood.
Her musing is cut short as the doors to the room swing open. She only then notices how large the room actually is, how intact everything here is. It reminds her vaguely of the Lecture Building, only more barren.
Two distinct figures march towards her, tension clear in their eyes and shoulders. Only one wears armor, the other seem to be garbed in light purple robes. Religious garb? Briefly The Hunter thinks back to Amelia, but the colors are wrong. Not bright enough. She isn’t begging on the floor in a desperate mantra as her face painfully stretches to impossible dimensions. Bright white, yet dirty, fur. Sharp jutting fangs, horns gnarling on her head. A great keening yowl as the fire mercilessly engulfs her body. She never did understand why the beast clung so desperately to the pendant. The thoughts are briefly banished as one of the two women, the angrier one with short hair, shoves her face her her own and speaks to her.
“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you right now?”
The armored woman is seething. Her companion is merely observing it seems like, but her eyes are no less cold and angry. Briefly, The Hunter thinks of what she could have done to warrant such malice. Many beasts have died by her hand but she has saved every person who still clung to even a tiny bit of their humanity. She tried to anyways. Even if anyone had lived who she had wronged, this is so much effort for a simple revenge kill. Time and energy are both so precious in Yharnam, why waste them like this? Or perhaps they think she’s a beast? But beasts don’t hold knowledge. They retain nothing of their former humanity, there would be no purpose to this. It would be more worthwhile to just burn her, wouldn't it?
She’s scrabbling for any explanation, grasping at anything to help her understand what is happening here, but she’s taking too long and her new companions don’t appear pleased with that.
“The conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”
The armored woman punctuates her last word with a sneer, bringing her face closer than before. Effective to be sure, but the action loses some of its effect as The Hunter focuses on her words and her thoughts become more jumbled.
Conclave? Also what did she mean by everyone? Were there even more people here? She tries again to recall something to help her make sense of this situation but there’s nothing. This is worrying. For all the ways The Hunter excels at quelling beasts, she’s not as skilled at besting conversations. The way these two women glare at her with open malice, yet devoid of any bestial scourge, makes her oddly anxious.
The two women become more agitated. All her thinking has made her lose time for a proper response again. Best not to make a pattern of this.
She sees the armored woman lunge for her hand but she cannot evade it, her body bound as it is to the ground.
“Explain this”, the armored woman ground out, brandishing the glowing hand at The Hunter’s face.
While she feels very stupid for not noticing her own hand glowing such an unsightly green color, she does her best to shake out even more surprise and confusion. She cannot afford to let these things paralyze her again. Her captors cannot have much patience left. She cannot explain her hand, but this is not the first time she’s dealt with something eldritch. Surely she'll find out at some point. For now, she does not know the answer, but she needs to say something for sure this time.
“I don’t know what this is either, it wasn’t there before”, she manages to breathe out.
“You’re lying!”, the woman snarls, tossing the Hunter’s hand out of her grip in anger. She raises a hand, but the hooded woman stops observing and reaches out to her companion, halting her before she could strike.
“We need her Cassandra”
Now that was worryingly familiar. Aggravating too, The Hunter’s no less scared but definitely more annoyed now. She needs answers too.
“I don’t understand anything that’s happening here”, she calls out.
The two women turn their attention back on her, but this time, the hooded one is the one to address her.
“Do you remember what happened? How this began?”
Granted, The Hunter did not ask a question, but it almost feels like her confusion and inquiry are being actively brushed off. Even if this woman wasn’t with the Healing Church, she certainly was acting the part through sidestepping her questions alone.
“How what began? I don’t know where I am or who you are. Whatever you want me to remember I can’t.” She tries not to sound exasperated.
The two women look at each other briefly, then Cassandra hauls The Hunter to her feet roughly.
“Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.”, she addresses her companion as she tugs the manacles off of The Hunter's hands, replacing them quickly with rope. The Hunter eyes the metal and rope, they seems clean and free of blood and rust. She has no exit point and cannot reach her weapons. No point in fighting when they won’t kill her yet. She’d like some answers however.
“Are you going to answer my question?”
Her captor looks her in the eyes briefly.
“It will be easier to show you”, and with that The Hunter is hauled through the open doors into the unfamiliar brightness.