Blood/Lust

The martyr Logarius had put up a long, grueling fight. By the end of it, the hunter was limping and battered, the powerful effect of the blood she'd been forced to employ to carry her to victory hammering in her ears and drowning out her most coherent thoughts (the only thing left was lust, the drive to kill, to feel blood on her hands, the clenching heat between her legs urging her towards it). Never before had she slammed the needle of her blood vial into her thigh more than twice in a such a short span of time; always prior she had been able to find a moment's respite, some time enough to flee the stalking terrors of the Yharnam night for the calm perpetual twilight of the dream, where Gehrman kept his lonely vigil and the gentle doll was ready to soothe away the dread of the waking world with her bloodless porcelain hands.

A few times, the hunter had found herself overwhelmed -- savaged by the beasts whose jaws splintered her bones and crazed men who tore into her flesh with sickles and stakes and even their bare fingers at times, not yet twisted into claws, digging out scraps of meat as she wavered in that momentary space between woman and corpse.

(And once she'd stood over the dead form of a man -- another hunter like herself, or so she thought, and felt that drive to destroy a living body and thrust her fingers, her tongue, her muzzle into the searing red. Felt it, and turned away -- though the sense still haunted her.)

Every time she had died, the hunter had found the subsequent times easier to bear. As she had learned in the long days of her wasting illness that no healer could seem to ease, human beings could grow used to a shocking degree of things.

The effects of the blood, though, never became less striking. The pain she suffered in battle and even death disintegrated before the powerful fervor it inspired in her; while it would not knit her ravaged body back together -- at least not until she made her way back to the dream where she always arrived whole no matter her prior state -- it banished thought of injury from her mind. With every step something in her leg shrieked in protest at being forced to bear weight, and every breath sent fire arcing through her lungs, but the howling in her veins urged her forward, up the staircase towards the woman enthroned there as queen of the hated Vilebloods, whose name she had never heard spoken without scorn.

The queen awaited the hunter patiently, though she must have been imprisoned by Martyr Logarius's vigil for untold years. Alfred's words echoed in her ears -- may the good blood guide your way -- as she approached the reviled monarch's throne. The hunter had hidden the summons from Alfred, though only the distant gods knew why. Perhaps his tales of his immortal master's unending vigil, had instilled in her a kind of compassion, a desire to let the poor enthusiastic fellow rest a moment and let another fulfill his dearest wish in his place.

(Or at least, that was the most charitable, the kindest explanation she could find in her heart for the deed. She knew the truth, in her heart -- the sealed letter was an invitation to some forbidden, secret form of that same blood that surged in her, and she could not bear to let another claim it. Or perhaps, now that she had died enough times that she no longer kept count, she wanted to meet this woman who supposedly could never die at all, her opposite.)

For a long moment, the hunter stood in the queen's throne room, blood dripping down her leg from where the syringe had torn her thigh, ribs aching, and she wished she'd sorted out her thoughts on what to do before coming here.

The queen, as was her right, was the first to break the silence. Even after what must have been a long imprisonment alone, she addressed the hunter as easily and imperiously as though she were still the ruler of anything that mattered. "Visitor... I claim no subjects, but here lieth Our throne. Kneel afore us... or get thee gone."

The smell of blood near to the throne was everywhere. Sweet, heady like wine, strange and exotic and warm. Alive. The scent of it was so powerful it struck the hunter like the slash of Logarius's scythe. The blood she carried always had the strange effect of heightening the hunter's senses, especially her sense of smell, and she found herself sniffing the air like a dog before it registered that the queen had actually addressed her -- and offered her a choice. Bow, or flee.

The queen was frail-looking, dressed as though for the boudoir in an off-white shift and loose hair -- at least the hair that could be seen. Her entire head was encased in a strange iron mask that concealed her face, the purpose of which the hunter could not begin to fathom. The hunter estimated one slice of her threaded cane could cut the woman in half at the waist.

(And the thought lingered in her mind -- the fountain of blood that would result, the spray of viscera, the howl of agony echoing inside the queen's mask. The hunter ignored the sting of pleasure that shot down her spine, straight to her groin, at the thought, because that too was something the blood did to her, or so she told herself.)

The queen chuckled lightly, a strange sound inside her iron helm. The hunter got the distinct impression that the woman was amused by her response, or lack thereof. This impression came at the same time that the hunter realized she had been sniffing at the air to catch the queen's bloody scent.

She must have been the first human creature this queen had laid eyes upon in gods knew how long, and the woman was laughing at her.

"I'm not here to bend my knee," she hissed.

"Perhaps, dog of Yharnam," the queen said, archly, "thou wouldst prefer then to crawl upon all fours."

(Was it the blood raging in her veins that made her take violent offense to the remark? Or was it fear -- not of what the queen could do to hurt her, because at that moment the hunter was not sure anything could, but a fear that her grip on humanity might be so slippery it showed upon her face.

The scent of that vile blood -- her blood, the very thing over which the woman claimed queenship -- had masked the true danger (or was it the screaming of lust in the hunter's ears that blinded her to anything but the desire to strike down the imperious figure before her?)

The hunter's hand flew to the handle of her cane. In that moment, she was still not sure what she intended to do -- Attack the queen? Intimidate her? -- but the gesture was noticed, somehow. The woman inclined her iron-bound head and agony exploded in the hunter's left thigh, as though the wound where she'd slammed the needle into her flesh had been suddenly torn open with a probing finger. A fresh flow of blood, far more than should have come from such a small wound, spurted out and soaked the fabric of her trousers, trickling down her leg. She cried out more in surprise than pain and staggered, dropping to one knee. Blood pooled around her shin as it drained from her; she tried to struggle to her feet but found that her injuries had piled up too high and the leg was no longer physically capable of holding her upright. No matter how she ignored the pain, she simply couldn't stand, like a house whose wooden structure has rotted through.

Annalise (the hunter remembered that was the queen's name) stepped from her throne. She was taller than the hunter had expected, her form unfolding from her seated position into a strange, elongated elegance that struck some deep unsettling chord within her soul, as though she were gazing upon a blind creature older than the stones itself. Nothing about her betrayed a shred of emotion.

"We shall not give audience to an ill-mannered beast, but We might still have some need for a dog well trained."

The hunter attempted to move again, but the blood soaking her clothes became stiff as steel when she tried, encasing her in a shell of hardened crimson. The unexpected resistance made her overbalance, falling forward and catching herself on her hands with a rough thud. Her weapon was knocked from her grip by the impact, and the queen bent to pick up the cane, hefting it in her hands as though it were made of gossamer. "Thou hast dared to bring a weapon of the hated Church into Our presence," she said, as though chiding an errant child -- or a recalcitrant pet.

If it was a Church weapon, the hunter was barely aware. A stranger to the city, and one who had spent as much time dreaming as awake inside it, she had simply taken the blade offered to her. She opened her mouth to protest the assumption of affiliation, but before she could so much as get out a single word she felt a searing pain and a sensation that was indescribable.

In time with the beat of her heart, something pressed against the inside of her skin. The hunter's mouth twisted in a silent shriek of terror. There were men outside the castle twisted into bestial forms like huge ticks, their bellies bulging with the blood they'd lapped up with their long tongues...did this queen have some control over phantom insects that had now been set to crawl along the hunter's veins? Would she be devoured from the inside out?

Then, with a horrid sense of relief like an abscess lanced, needles of blood (her own, the blood of beasts she'd imbibed one way or another, mixed inextricably) burst through her skin -- rigid as thorns as they tore through her thighs, her tongue, the curve of her bent back, only to splatter on the floor as liquid again.

The hunter slipped to the bloody ground, her arms no longer able to hold her up either. Lacerated all over, weak from blood loss, she was vaguely aware that her clothes had been shredded by the eldritch burst that had rent her flesh. (Some stray sense of human modesty, perhaps, or some perverse thrill from exposure.)The queen circled her, cane in hand, and made a hollow, brittle sound of approval at the display before her. As she did, the hunter could feel the blood that coated her body sliding across her exposed flesh in defiance of gravity and sense, probing into her wounds as though it were a living thing that wanted to force itself back inside her veins. It slid along her exposed skin, caressing the underside of her breasts, the edges of her wounds, the curve of her lips until she could taste iron on her tongue. The insides of her thighs were drenched in blood and sweat and the slick of the arousal that always accompanied her injections, responding to the presence of pain (hers, others, inflicted, suffered).

Something cold, metallic, prodded at the entrance to her now-partially-exposed cunt. With a thrill of fear or arousal (the difference barely mattered, it hadn't mattered for so long) the hunter realized it must be the tip of her threaded cane. She felt the hard instrument prod at her groin, grinding against her clit in a manner more painful than arousing (though she could feel her grasp of the distinction eroding with every ragged breath she took, slipping further and futher away like a distant memory) before jamming into the sides of her entrance, prying her open like she was being inspected.

The hunter wailed, angry. The queen ignored her protests. "Thou shalt perhaps," she mused, "make a fine hound, after some instruction." The tip of the cane entered her slowly, as though the queen wanted her to feel it milimeter by milimeter -- before she put what must have been most of her weight upon the end, thrusting the full length of it inside her with one powerful blow, strong as a punch to the gut. The metal tip of the cane battered the end of her cunt, sending a bolt of agony deep inside her belly that twisted her stomach. Again, again -- the queen fucked her relentlessly, drawing a helpless whimper from her with each thrust.

"Go then, dog -- die, and when next thou appearest before Us, arm thyself with a weapon untouched by Our betrayers." The queen dropped something onto the hunter's head, which slid down to the floor to rest in the spreading pool of blood surrounding her. Eyes blurry, the hunter slid her hand to touch the object, nerveless fingers grasping at the strap of leather.

And then, the hunter heard the click of the threaded cane being activated with the dull finality of a crypt's door slamming into place. The rigid shaft inside her snapped into a snake of razors.

The pain barely registered, so quickly did it send her to the waiting arms of the porcelain doll, but the sound of her vitals spilling out over the queen's chambers, the obscene and lewd wetness of her cunt turned into a mess of meat and blood, would haunt her nightmares until she dreamed no longer.

When she woke in the dream, she was lying on her back. The wounds were gone, and with them the siren song of the beast in her veins, but her thighs were still wet. Clutched in her hand, however, was a leather collar sized for a man, adorned with the emblem of Vileblood royalty.