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Warning for a very brief, non-graphic discussion of physical abuse and sexual assault, starting when the hunter asks about the doll and ending when the hunter stands up, along with another mention in the paragraph after the hunter slides down the ladder. Also, there's a couple brief mentions of historical atrocities such as colonialism and patient abuse in the paragraph after Djura says "You are thinking!"
When the hunter realizes that the passage out back behind the gaol it had been unceremoniously tossed into leads to Old Yharnam, it decides to bring a peace offering.
It works, more or less. Djura turns from his gatling gun with his blunderbuss aimed at the hunter, but is too taken aback to fire immediately.
The hunter gasps with exertion as it lets the cannon it had picked up from the windmill in the woods fall to the roof. Maybe it should have invested some of those echoes into strength.
Or maybe climbing a ladder surrounded by smoke while carrying a heavy load is just a bad idea in general.
“What is that?” Djura asks.
"For you.” It wheezes in a few more breaths. “To shoot anyone who tries to climb up here — ” two more wheezes, "— off the ladder.”
Djura is silent for several seconds, and the hunter braces for a stake to the head.
It gets a barking laugh instead. “Well, you’ve got spark, I’ll give you that.”
"Thanks.” It slides to the ground. “I’ll just… be down here for a bit.”
It lies with its face against the stone roof, and eventually feels Djura slide the cannon away from it.
There’s a few minutes of metal clinking and two deafening explosions as Djura practices firing.
After a while, it hears fabric shuffling, and what sounds like the ashen hunter sitting down next to it. “I take it you’ve given some thought to the hunt, like I told you to?”
The hunter peels its face off the stone. “I’d been considering it. But I’d been told there was a holy chalice down this way. I was stuck, and it seemed the only way forward.”
“So you just came down here for the sake of plunder?”
“You should know—” the hunter groans as it pushes itself into a sitting position, "—That I only ever killed two beasts in this place. The first had cornered me, and I panicked. The second was guarding the chalice, and… its skin was flayed off, its blood replaced by poison. It was starving. What I did was a mercy.”
Djura lets out a long sigh. “Well, I suppose what’s done is done. What matters now is, if you try to hunt any of the beasts here, I will hunt you first. You understand?”
The hunter makes a gesture like it’s speaking into a handheld radio. “Loud and clear.” Djura gives it a confused look.
Oh, Yharnam’s been isolated so long, it’s likely nobody here knows what a radio is.
“I won’t hunt these beasts. I got what I came for.”
Some tightly wound tension seems to release inside Djura’s body. “Yes, very good.” He starts fiddling with the mechanisms on the cannon again. "In case you've failed to realize, those things you’re hunting aren’t beasts. They’re people.”
"Is there a difference?”
"You are thinking!”
It tries to collect its thoughts—famines and plagues started purposefully to clear land for new settlers—the things it had seen its colleagues do to those who came to them for treatment—the constant generation of new excuses to strip someone of legal personhood—it’s easier to just defend the beasts. "Well, the beasts aren’t hunting for sport.”
"That’s true. You know, I no longer Dream, but I was once a hunter too.” And that’s why it really came back.
It tries to speak, and coughs on the smoke for a second. “You were a hunter… before the Church established its own workshop and started hunting in the open, right?”
“I was. A proud Powder Keg. The Church thought us heretics to the rest of the workshop, but still made use of our innovations.”
The hunter thinks of the Church’s signature explosive blunderbuss, the cannons in the woods, the ubiquity of molotov cocktails.
“Did you ever meet Gehrman? Before the Dream, I mean.”
"Nah, he was before even my time. When it was my turn to Dream, he was already a cranky old man. Spent most of the time he was supposed to be training me just yelling. I would assume he’s not gotten any better.”
“Wait, he trained you? He didn’t even tell me how to use my weapon! I had to figure it out from the messengers, and I’m assuming you know how bad they are at charades.”
That gets another laugh out of Djura. “What’s he even doing, then?”
“He just shows up, says something cryptic, and vanishes off to who-knows-where for the next few hours. He’s the one who told me where to find the chalice, but apart from that I don’t think he’s been helpful once this whole night.”
“That does sound like him.”
They both chuckle at that.
The hunter swings its feet off the side of the tower, and thinks about what how to change the subject. Well, Djura’s blunt enough, it might as well just go for it.
“By the way… there’s something I’ve been investigating, kind of. I’m not entirely sure what it is, to be honest, but there’s… it’s like a hole, I guess. The absence of a thing. Do you mind if I ask you some more questions?”
Djura hums. “Well, I can’t promise to answer everything, but you’re welcome to ask.”
The hunter nods. “Do you remember the gravestone at the workshop, right next to the upper exit?”
“…I think so.”
“Was the name carved off by the time you saw it first?”
“Oh! That grave! Yeah, it was actually the center of the rumor mill, back in the day.”
“Really?”
“By the time I came along, most of the other hunters who’d gotten to meet the old man in life were nearing the ends of their ropes. If they were still around. Your profession is not one that lends itself to a long lifespan, you know.”
It does know.
“Most of them were pretty tight lipped, but some of the hunters from the generation after said they’d been told that Gehrman went a little crazy before he vanished. The basic idea was that he’d gone mad with grief when his hunting buddy died, and didn’t want anyone else to know who it was over. The speculation was wild. Lots of people thought the doll had belonged to whoever it was. You know, grave goods. You had your standard parent, lover, child, regular old coworker… but some people said it was for one of the old Pthumerians they’d dug up, like the ancient queen or something, or even that it was his own grave he’d set aside for himself, and removed his name from when he learned he wasn’t going to die!”
“Wow.”
“We weren’t the most academically disciplined bunch, in case you couldn’t tell.”
“Hmm.”
The hunter takes a few moments to scribble down the gist of what Djura had said.
“And… what of the doll?”
Djura winces. “You know, it was a bit strange, come to think of it. Lots of other hunters, when it was their turn to Dream, would brag about what they’d… done to her. Not most, not even many, but enough for it to be… ah, what’s the word…”
“Normalized?”
“Yeah, thanks. Anyway, you could do whatever you wanted to her and she’d always treat you the same. I guess a lot of us wanted a safe outlet for anger, or helplessness, or something. By my night, I was so scared I barely ever talked to her, just got away as soon as I could. Cowardly, I know, but it was hard having a face to put to the stories I’d heard.”
So he’s always had a big heart. Such a tragedy that he’s been taught to frame it as cowardice…
“But here’s where it gets strange. No one, not even the worst of us, would ever lay a finger on the real one. As far as I know, it’s never been moved since the dream was created. Even the hunters who were starting to lose their minds avoided it. I don’t know how everyone else felt, but to me, the real one was more… permanent. If you broke it, the evidence would be there forever.”
“Violence without consequences. An acceptable target. Something you can tell yourself is below you. I can see why hunters would do that.” It wasn’t expecting its voice to sound so bitter.
Djura seems to look at it with respect for that, though.
“Did Gehrman… ever say anything about any of this?”
“As far as I’m aware, he never gave a shit.”
“...That does sound like him.”
It takes a moment to breathe. Its heart is pounding and it feels slightly ill. When did…
It stands. “I should be going. It’s a long night.”
Djura nods. “You have the whole night to Dream. Make the best of it. Here, to pay you back for the cannon. I have no use for them anymore.” He hands over a few sheets of paper with the Hunter’s Mark written on them, and a small badge that has a texture like gunpowder.
The hunter notices its hands are shaking as it reaches out to take them.
“Thank you. This means a lot to me.”
“Well, be on your way, then.”
It nods, and slides back down the ladder, shawl floating around its shoulders.
It had suspected that other hunters may have… hurt the doll. But the tremor in Djura’s voice as he talked about it… the fact that they’d apparently boasted about what they’d done… It should do something nice for her.
Well, it has plenty of time to think.
