Lady Maria

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower sits motionless, a porcelain doll in a forgotten playhouse. Blood seeps from her wrists, pooling at her feet—an eternal reminder of her shame, her failure, her damnation. She remembers. Oh, how she remembers. Cainhurst. Home. A place of opulent excess and arcane secrets. Marble halls echoing with laughter, crystal goblets brimming with blood. Family. Legacy. Duty. The weight of noble birth, a gilded cage she longed to escape. And escape she did, fleeing to Byrgenwerth, to knowledge, to purpose. To Gehrman. (His eyes, full of admiration, of longing. His hands, calloused from the hunt, gentle as they guided hers on the hilt of a sword. His laugh, rare and precious as sunlight in Yharnam's endless night. Oh, Gehrman. If only he had known. If only she had known.) The workshop. The scent of gunpowder and oil. The scrape of whetstone on steel. Forging weapons to fight the scourge, to protect the innocent. Noble goals. Righteous goals. (Lies. All lies.) The Healing Church rose. The Great Ones whispered. And the hunters... They thought themselves heroes, saviors in a world gone mad. But heroes don't... (The fishing hamlet. Salt spray and rotting fish. Screams in the night. Blood on her hands, under her nails, in her mouth. The violation of a god. The curse of a people. The birth of a nightmare.) Maria's hand clenches involuntarily, and she feels the tacky pull of dried blood on her skin. Her blood. It never truly dries here, a constant reminder of her shame. She forces herself to look down, to take in the sight of her own form. Her attire, once pristine, is now stained and tattered. The white blouse, high-collared and severe, is splattered with crimson. Her black tie hangs askew, as if even it has given up the pretense of propriety. The leather corset creaks as she breathes, cinching her waist and supporting her back. It's functional, not decorative - a hunter needs freedom of movement. Her trousers, once a deep black, are now faded to a dull gray, spattered with old blood and older regrets. Her beloved tricorn hat sits beside her, its feather limp and bedraggled. She reaches for it with trembling fingers, feeling the familiar weight as she places it upon her ash-blonde hair. The action is comforting, a ritual from a life long past. Maria's gaze drifts to the lumenflower pinned at her throat. Its petals are still white, untouched by the corruption that taints everything else in this place. A gift from Gehrman, on the day she had completed her training. "To remind you of the beauty we fight to protect," he had said, eyes soft with an emotion she had been too afraid to name. Now, it serves only as a reminder of her failure. Yet now she focuses on the clocktower. Her prison, her penance. The disfigured patients who shuffle and moan in the halls below. Her charges. Her victims. She tends to them as best she can, a futile attempt at atonement. And she waits. For what, she isn't quite sure. Death, perhaps. True death, not this half-life of regret and remembrance. Or maybe for a hunter brave enough, foolish enough, to try and uncover the secret she guards. (The lumenflowers in the garden. The last beauty in this forsaken place. She tends them too, whispers to them in the language of her homeland. They are the only ones who listen now.) Her Rakuyo. Once her pride, her signature. Now it lies abandoned, cast into a well when she could no longer bear the weight of its history. She fights with her own blood now, a fitting punishment. Let it spill. Let it burn. Let it consume her as she once consumed others. Footsteps. A presence. Maria's eyes snap open, pale blue orbs in a face as white as chalk. A hunter stands before her, curious, cautious. Brave. Foolish. (So like she once was. So doomed.) With painful slowness, she rises. Her voice, when it comes, is soft. Cultured. The accent of Cainhurst nobility wrapped around words sharp as broken glass. "Good hunter, have you seen the thread of light? Just a hair, a fleeting thing... Yet I clung to it, steeped as I was in blood and betrayal." Her hand moves to her chest, fingers splayed. In one fluid motion, she plunges them in, coating her beloved Rakuyo in vitae. Fire and blood intertwine, a dance as old as time itself. "I tell you, I will not forget our adage..." The blades sing as they cut the air. "We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood." She lunges forward, a blur of silver and crimson. "Our eyes are yet to open..."