Tuujaimaa

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

"It's already ruined, Farren. Has been since long before you came here. I don't know how much it's worth trying to save a ruin." Ophelia replied, something in her shifting again. So much loss and destruction hung over this place like a pall--it wasn't like Yahar'gul, where it was obvious and tangible and palpable, but kept behind a very thin barrier indeed: one that Ophelia was starting to feel like she could see through. Ego... or perhaps those at Yahar'gul, would penetrate it soon enough unless they stopped it from happening. It did have to be them, she reckoned, for all the reasons Farren had mentioned--but it struck her in that moment that even though attempting to stop such a thing from happening would cost any mortal their lives, it was only an agent of Ego that had urged them to do anything about it. None of the mortals of this city, that she'd seen, had been lining up to rebuke the possibility of another Blood Moon--and if they weren't willing to lay down their lives for it, if they weren't willing to suffer for it, why should she? She'd felt so noble earlier, a proud protector of that which she valued, but recent events had caused her to question that value--what had Yharnam ever done for her? What had its people done, really? All that she'd held dear had been ripped from her in one way or another, and she ached terribly to fill that loss. Was that how the Great Ones felt too? She half-remembered a saying, perhaps from a dream, that the gods inevitably lost their children and sought out surrogates to fill that void... or perhaps that was just the workings of a feverish mind.

"... after this, we go to Cainhurst and get the chalice. The labyrinth must hold secrets of ascension, relics of gods past--things we can use. If this world will offer us no succour, then we will transcend it." Ophelia said after a moment's pause, looking at Gerlinde with some glimmer of determination behind her eyes.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

"Who knows what we might do to get what we want? Especially if what we want is to become a god... The world didn't survive the last Blood Moon, Gerlinde, not really. You never saw Yharnam as it really was, before all of this... Though I am in agreement with you that becoming a god sounds like the best outcome we might hope for. We as true Palebloods, that is, I don't know enough about the false Palebloods to say for sure whether it's possible for them." Ophelia replied, waiting a few seconds before she continued.

"Ascending... We need to know how those who came before ascended, don't we? The knowledge of the past is crucial, love." Ophelia added, taking on a tinge of animated feeling but still retaining much of the morose and still qualities from before as she spoke. Ascension... she had no idea what one had to do to become a god - the way that the Shopkeeper had described their experience sounded quite unusual. She supposed that the category of "gods" was, itself, perhaps merely a function of their paltry understanding--there were scant few sources to consult on such a matter. More reasons to understand how those who had come before had done it, she supposed.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia didn't look Farren's way, nor did she respond to his praise for fifteen or twenty seconds. She simply stared up at the Moon, her pace slowing slightly, and finally let out a heavy sigh.

"I can't guide us, not to salvation. Not to a world where you wake up one day and all of this is behind us. I usher in an Age of Light beneath Mother Moon or I stay in the Dream forever. The Waking World... what does it have to offer me now? How much more must I lose? My parents wandered into the woods and never came back, and my mentors were slaughtered by the almost-god who shepherds the Dream. I have no friends or family left in the Waking World, nobody that would give me purpose... I only have this. All that is behind me is ash, and all that is afore me is light... is that the path you want to walk?" She spoke, softly and resignedly. Gerlinde was the only one in remotely a similar position to her, really. She knew nothing substantial of Farren or Torquil's past, nothing that would give her some hope that they wanted what she wanted. Their paltry insight and lack of familiarity with the Arcane led her to assume that they did not seek connection with the other worlds, did not seek to ascend this base level of reality to something greater and brighter--they were experiments who'd turned against their creator, and it wasn't like any of them had ever discussed how this ended before. It had only been a couple of hours, though Ophelia could swear that it felt like days or weeks.

"I suppose we've never given any thought to what comes after. After our purpose is done and the Dream no longer has need of us... If there is an after at all. I... don't know if I want to leave and come back here. Come back to being nothing..." Ophelia added after a few seconds, turning to look at Farren only for a passing moment as she did so before she cradled her head to the Holy Moonlight Sword and lost herself in her thoughts once more.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

"I wish I was convinced." Ophelia replied sullenly, otherwise not adding very much to the discussion at all. They were both right, after a fashion, but their collective power and agency was very highly conditional--they had the power to make whatever moves on the proverbial board that they liked. They just couldn't see all of the board, nor intuit where their enemies would move their pieces--and thus it wasn't their power that bottlenecked them: it was assessing the strategy of where everyone else could move, and what everyone else wanted. Farren's rebellious streak was motivating, certainly, but more than that it was dangerous. Defiance... he didn't even know what he was defying. He'd felt the warping touch of Ego and thought himself learned in what that mysterious being wanted, but they knew virtually nothing of Ego's desires or abilities or plans. They had only a cryptic message and vague impressions, little tidbits given to them by the little ones--and while any information was better than none Ophelia knew they were still acting in the dark.

"What we are hasn't changed--we think, we feel, we judge, we act. Our means of action have expanded, but the other bits..." she began, but trailed off to imply the negative rather than stating it outright. She joined Gerlinde in gazing up at the moon and sighed wistfully, at least finding comfort in the light of Mother Moon and the gentle embrace of the Holy Moonlight Sword.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

"Could've been me. Just chance that Byrgenwerth found her first." Ophelia replied, lacking her usual animated musicality and instead being just... flat, dejected. She didn't break her gaze with the road, didn't adjust her pace, just... kept on as she'd kept on. For all the content that the words conveyed, she seemed strangely listless and unaffected by the whole thing as though dissociating from it... but to watch her walk and muse to herself it was clear to see that she was still herself and in control of her faculties. This was perhaps the first time any of them had seen her like this, though spells of depression had been increasingly common in the past few years as her body betrayed her and her circle of close friends grew ever smaller. She turned to gaze upon Farren and spared him only a blank look and a very wan smile indeed before she focused on the road ahead once more.

She'd snap out of it soon enough, she knew, as she always had. All things passed in the fullness of time... or when the demands of their new and dangerous world demanded it, she supposed. For this mercifully calm stretch of their journey there were no such burdens placed on her yet... though a part of her did remain tense and vigilant, and it was likely that part that Farren was observing in her. He was much the same, after all. She supposed that she didn't really begrudge him his past actions, not in the way that he might expect... he had his world, and it had shrunk to the point he'd done things that were desperate. That seemed to be the thread that connected everyone in Yharnam, those born here and those who came from afar--desperation clung to them all, sanguinary desires in a less-than-sanguine people soaking everything crimson ever since that damnable Blood Moon. She supposed they, the architects of that happening, were to blame more than anyone else--and that if any of them still lived, they had paid their prices... except Ego. Ego was their price to pay now, and she did think of Farren in a softer light when she considered that.

"But it wasn't you that made the choice, not really. They'd have found another if not you, stopped at nothing to get what they wanted. We're all just poppets, aren't we?"

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia listened to the back and forth and was suddenly overcome by an epiphany of her own as she considered all of the perspectives at play: it was truly only the luck of Byrgenwerth not being aware of her Paleblood or otherwise dissuaded by some hazy remnant of a distant past that it had been Gerlinde and not her. It could've been her, and Farren wouldn't have batted an eyelid then like he hadn't for her--or if he had, he'd given her over to the scholars there anyway. Condemned her, indirectly, to this madness... and thus equally willing to have done it to her. It almost scared her, though she wasn't scared of him--at least, not who he'd appeared to have become after his transformation. Gerlinde was truly and utterly mad, and Ophelia had begun to doubt whether she might have their best interests at heart. Well, that wasn't true, Ophelia could tell that Gerlinde was at least somewhat in it for herself and her novelty... but she wondered what their price was in Gerlinde's mind, and how readily she might offer them up as sacrifice if the opportunity arose.

It was an awful mess. The only one who seemed not to have a terribly complex past was Torquil, and even that was an assumption on their end. His silence left them to fill in their own blanks about who he was, and he seemed to be just as content to leave that portion of himself undelved as he was to follow along and do what everyone else was doing. Fellowship seemed a rather dark and distant prospect with their bonds apparently fraying at the edges, and Ophelia felt a sickening disinclination to do anything to stop it in that moment. She tried to look for the good, but... it had mostly been a mad scramble. Ophelia supposed that things were worth clinging on to in the long run - they would never be far from one another while linked to the Dream and contactable by the little ones, always a scrawled word and a nap away. But not now. For now, she stewed in her thoughts and nursed her fragile psyche as she jogged lightly--this was the first chance she'd ever gotten to try vigorous exercise for picking at the weft and weave of her mind.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

It was with an eerie stillness that Ophelia had gone about her business in the Dream before returning to the Waking World, her face mostly blank and expressionless as she went into the shop and retrieved another Bulward for Farren, as he'd asked. She immediately handed it off to the little ones, returned outside, and conferred with everyone just enough for them to agree on their plan and execute it. Ophelia didn't hand Bulwark off straight away, though, just giving Farren a slight smile and a nod as greeting as they went on their way. During the walk she mostly seemed to focus on navigating and getting lost in her thoughts--about how, when it came to it, the only things she really had left of either of the two lives she'd lived was knowledge and now the runebrand... and how when things had gotten tense and those two things had felt called into question she'd crumbled almost immediately. With how much they'd done and how much they'd learned it was easy to forget that they'd woken up transformed scarcely three hours ago--and she let some darkly prideful self-flagellating feelings go after examining them for what they were. She was permitted, she thought, to have those moments of personal crisis given the circumstances. There was no alternative: the fraying fabric of the life she'd had before the treatment was gone, and this was all she had now. She would have to forge herself a new identity to reconcile the parts of her that still ached with grief and loss, to find who she wanted to be and what she wanted to put herself to... to find whatever purpose had drawn her into the Dream in the first place, she supposed.

Farren's sudden line of inquiry broke her from her reverie, and she paid close attention to it. It all seemed rather ghastly, though Gerlinde was cheerful enough when recounting it that Ophelia reckoned that her suffering had been buried very deeply indeed to permit her such levity. The seeming lack of empathy did weigh on Ophelia's mind heavily, but it paled before the welcoming embrace of conviviality that only two practicioners of the arcane could have... and it was useful to have someone blindly attacking things with no regard for their safety, it turned out. The thing that intrigued her the most was why Farren had asked, though, and she waited diligently for his response to begin to piece it together in her mind before she opined verbally.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Deo’Irah

Irah nodded along to Sir Yanin and Caleb’s words, and was going to correct Yanin before Caleb beat her to it–and then again at Freagon’s words she nodded along. Once Kinder had been summoned into the makeshift body they’d made, Irah waited for them to finally face her and gave the iriao a small and sincere smile before speaking.

“Welcome back, Kinder. I’m sorry for earlier–we’re all on the same side now, though, trying to save the townsfolk. If you could go with the others, please make sure they’re all hale and whole.”” she near-whispered, before waiting for Caleb to summon Weriz into her. The way the Thalk summoned the angels was indeed very curious to her, though she still felt too duly chastised from earlier to attempt to read his soul and ponder over how the energy was manipulated.

Conversation with Weriz was much easier, and much safer, as the others could not speak with them… and Irah knew it best that they not get the opportunity to ask the swaigh too many questions. Not only would it likely unsettle them, it was too intimate to reveal to what were essentially still strangers. Her other secrets… those she could bear coming to light, because they were merely facts that were attached to her by association. Speaking with Weriz… well, there would be tales there of fates worse than death that need not come out of the shadows. All of her communication with the swaigh would be mental, and that brought her a certain sort of comfort.

“Welcome back to Reniam, Weriz. Of course, you’re right, but I only ever summon you when I’m doing something scary… though I’m not usually the one being scared. Oh, I know you act coyly, but there is much fear for us to sow here in the hearts of the deserving. Let us revel in their sweet agony together, my friend.”

For her part, Deo’Irah had very little indeed to actively do. She would simply try and keep pace with Lhirin and Freagon while they mowed down the unsuspecting and soon-to-be helpless bandits, knowing that barring perhaps literal divine intervention there was virtually no possibility of any of them suffering so much as a scratch. She and Lhirin had waded into combat many times before this and knew what to do to best protect one another, and though she longed to join in with her elementalism and show off too she truly hadn’t the energy to spare for vanity’s sake. It was enough for her to know that her angels would come in useful, enough to watch the faces of these deplorable people freeze in a grimace of terror and be trapped within the worst parts of themselves while their very essence dripped out onto the fields. The Wanderer would be busy here today indeed. Some part of her truly did regret that they had to die, knowing there was a better path where they instead devoted their lives to undoing the harm they’d done… but this was their choice, and not hers. She merely acted as the hand of fate, the consequences that followed their actions.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia let out a final shaky breath and gave a small smile to Torquil--who she recognised mostly by process of elimination--and sniffled loudly as she collected herself enough to be able to actually speak.

"Ah... I'm sorry," she began, pausing for a few seconds to try and find the right words. "He didn't deserve that, and... Gosh, why do I just push people away whenever they strike a nerve? He just... reminded me that they're really gone. Again. Two sets of parents lost... and it seems like I can't even keep friends close either. Why do we push people away when all we really want is to be close and to be loved? Ah, but here I am babbling away--I... I don't want Farren to come back, to change the Dream again, in case something happens. I..." she continued, the words spilling out nervously and frantically like a child being scolded and coming clean before trailing off to a reflective quietness.

She knelt down to beckon the little ones and once again had them retrieve a scroll for her, which she quickly wrote on with her outstretched finger and bade them send the message therein to Farren:

I'm sorry. Can we just... put this behind us? We mean to join you at the Workshop and travel down to the Industrial Ward, let us know when you're ready. We can walk separately if you feel like space is a good idea.

"Well, I've written him; let's see what he says."

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

With her wrath spent and only an aching void of loss and sadness left within her, Ophelia didn't even really hear or register any of Farren's words as hot and bitter tears cascaded down her face. Whatever she'd felt about Farren's outburst fell away beneath the sorrow, her world consumed by the torrent of feelings, and she merely slumped to the ground in front of the headstone openly weeping. It was true that she felt deeply and gravely insulted by Farren--for one who supposedly valued the sanctity of his own mind and the ability to make his own choices, it was an outrageous hypocrisy to prevent her from making her own choices with what to do with her mind... and she was incapable at that moment of looking at the situation logically to realise that those feelings were not, in fact, emblematic of reality.

As she heaved and sobbed and sniffled, gently cradling her blade, she turned her head up to look at the light of the full moon in the sky only to find that it was not there at all, only the dying rays of golden sun. It did nothing to allay her tears or slow her racing heartbeat, and there in that moment she felt closer than ever to being truly alone like she so desperately feared might happen to her after the Witches were gone. It took her a few moments to gather enough of her wits to even stand, and she did so with all the grace of a newborn foal--uncharacteristically stumbling over herself and taking a few attempts. She dried the tears from her face with her sleeve and finally turned back around to face everyone--having virtually no awareness of what had happened over the past few moments she was not sure who it was she'd turn around to see.