[center][h2][b]Ophelia[/b][/h2][/center]

Ophelia listened attentively as the Queen spoke, luxuriating in the ancient wisdom dispensed to her. At last, something she--no, they--could truly work with. Once Annalise finished Ophelia permitted herself to laugh, a musical and rich thing like the dulcet fragrance of honeysuckle late on a summer's night. Like she used to when she would walk the path to the shrine in the woods, where all the birds would join her and the world was simple and small. The kind of laugh that Torquil might've heard from behind his arboreal nooks as he wandered the woods, that Ophelia hadn't uttered since they first awoke in Rebirth's Rise what felt like far longer ago than it had been.

"If he is but kin, then I believe he can be killed without consequence? If that is true, Your Majesty, then he is already dead. Between ourselves and the Moonborn Hunter, we have as many tries as we like--he will have to get lucky every few minutes for the rest of his exceedingly short life. We need only do so once. We will not underestimate him, however, nor shall I squander an opportunity to wrest his power from him and use it to serve that which he so desperately feels contempt for. To know of this Cael is also a tremendous boon, for which I am eminently grateful. It would seem that the 'Golden Bastard', as my companion so accurately if crassly refers to him, is not what we are fighting--the awakening of his master is... but he has tampered with our minds, and for that he will die an ignominious death. For us, for Divine Queen Yharnam, and for you, Your Majesty. For a world where your child may burgeon and blossom without the rotten influence of Gold." Ophelia spoke, reverently and powerfully. For what felt like the first time in the entire night she felt like they had a real chance, a modicum of understanding enough to not be entirely unmoored in the vast world they'd awakened themselves to.