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Ghale scraped Maria off the grounds of death, kicking and screaming and clawing her saviour bloody.
She had not wanted to come back, was happy to wallow in her grief and then lay in the ice grip of the beyond, but the hunter had other plans.
They wrapped her body in white linens, pulling Maria into the dream, placing the suddenly frail woman into the waiting arms of her copy.
Almost copy, the doll was different in ways they neither could expect.
The doll, with her straw blonde hair bright and pale in the moonlight. Maria, with dull hair greyed from stress and the shackles of being trapped in a never ending nightmare for aeons.
The doll, face slight and classically feminine, cheeks blush and lips painted. Green eyes the hue of the sea, missing any other colours beyond the one. Maria, face gaunt but strong, with a straight nose and a scar on her lip, eyes green like the sea but flecks of gold and brown mixed in like sediment.
The doll, hand crafted perfection, from the tips of her toes to the hair on her head, from the swell of her breast to the pointed tips of her ears. Unscarred, unmarred, no freckles or moles or scrawling tattoos.
Maria, imperfect, ugly scars scratching along her chest to meet under her arm, freckles only showing in the brightest moonlight, and a small chicken scratch on her left ankle that read the byrgenwerth motto.
The doll, who loved too hard, who was made to love and care, who was loved rarely in return but now bathed in the glow of mutual affection.
Maria, who loved deeply, but never showed it, and was never loved openly in return.
The doll took Maria, gentle in her porcelain hands, careful of the self inflicted wounds that bisected her being and soul, placing her on a bed made by moonlight. Pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of her head, and held her tight enough that the hunter couldn’t slip out of her bonds and end her life once more.
They spoke.
For days on end, when Maria was unable to sleep due to the terrors of what she had done, they would talk about whatever topic came to mind. Biology, theology, wine making and cooking. They rarely agreed, Maria with her cynicism and the doll with her naïveté, but they never argued.
When Maria was thoroughly exhausted, the doll would once again wrap her in white linens and lay her in bed, letting the woman curl into the wooden and porcelain of her body, like a cat seeking the warmth of its friend.
Maria was a lot like a cat, actually. She loved warmth, could laze about in a heated moonbeam for hours on end, stretching and purring as the doll laced her fingers through her hair. Maria would spit and hiss at discomfort, shaking and bunching up to appear more threatening when Ghale would appear to them in beastly form.
She also had a strange fascination with knocking mugs off tables.
There in the dream, under the watchful eye of its caretaker and the good hunter themself, the two could relax, laying in moonbeams and lumenflowers for hours.
The doll was all to happy to oblige these traits, the woman had been broken by years of captivity within the worst reaches of her mind, a scratch under her chin while she slept on the pillow of the dolls thigh was a comfort they could both afford.
The doll liked having Maria close, liked holding her and feeling the warmth from her body, liked tracing over the raised scars on her arms and trailing a fingernail down the crux of her elbow, loved watching as gooseflesh appeared in her wake.
Most of all, the doll liked how Maria would change. Her hair grew, pale blonde at the roots and an even lighter white at the ends. Bags under her eyes would ebb and flow with a lack or excess of sleep, her lips would become chapped one day and softer than silk the other.
Her body would change too, once the doll began feeding her hearty meals from Gehrmans youth. Fat, healthy fat, grew along her lithe stomach, filling over the gaps between her ribs visible even under clothing, padding her bony wrists and cheeks, taking years from her face and sadness from her eyes.
Maira would sigh with happiness when she finished eating, sleepiness calling to her as the doll carried her to bed, chuffing like a panther into the crook of her shoulder.
The good hunter, Ghale, pale blooded moons child, helped the doll stitch the broken pieces of Maria back together again.
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The childhood memories, the beatings and the bleedings, harsh words in a harsher climate, a noble mother and her bastard child who’s blood burned like the queen but not purely enough to sway those above her station. A child with pale white hair, tending to the hundreds of fireplaces, walking barefoot through the castle and sneaking through rooms lest she draw a guards ire.
Running along corridors with her fellow lowborn children, as much as her mother didn’t want to admit such a creature could crawl from her womb.
The teenage memories, an uphill battle, struggling to prove herself despite the clear skill she displayed in combat. The beatings lessened as she began to allow her wounds to burn even along her own skin, the guard sneering as red flame splattered up his arm, the noble mother screaming as her bastard child was taken in by the knights instead of her older son, the child she had borne with a noble husband.
Loyalty pressed upon her, the queen smirking as the bastard child bled herself dry for no reason but to watch that blood burn away. No matter how many times she would cut into her flesh, the fire would return like the dawn on a new day.
Adulthood memories, running away from Cainhurst, a promise to return broken as fast as her horse galloped through the woods. The bastard child welcomed into the warmth, dressed in the robes of a scholar, arms wrapped in white even as the red flame licked across the fabric. Companionship, friends, a mounting crush she would never act upon. Training to delve beneath, dragging her less athletic fellows along as they wrote down passages and fought beasts the same.
Hunting, blood sickly sweet on her tongue but addictive like opium, calming that fire within her that wanted to burn through her veins. A dear friend, a father really, holding the bastard child as she grappled with her nature.
Gehrman bringing her soup on a cold night, the day before they left for the hamlet.
Younger memories from an older adult. The hamlet, the innocents, the orphan child and the mother who whispered kinder things than her own mother ever had. Jealousy burning like the vileblood flame, hands shaking as she took in exactly what she had done.
Throwing her blade down the well, becoming a caretaker, helping people only to watch as they twisted and morphed into monsters worse than the beasts.
Adeleline calling her name so sweetly, even as she swallowed the sedatives and held the dagger to her throat.
Waking again, shackled to a nightmare, believing she deserved it all. The mother of the orphan whispering in her ear again, still kinder than the mother of the bastard.
A god, a great one, not cruel but kind, crafting a dream from the mind of that which killed it. A shame, then, that Kos had chosen one so damaged as her.
The mother of the orphan, murdered by the bastard child, wished nothing more than to care for her murderer like a mother would her child.
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Ghale took those broken pieces, the fractured bone and glass like powder, and stitched them together with moonlight thread, cradling her face as she wept with the memories, blood burning on her tongue.
The doll took her again, feeding her soup and holding her tight as she raved with mania, trying to end herself once more, exhausting the hunter before crawling into the bed with her, arms wrapped around the scarred flesh of her body.
Maria, tired and scared and so so upset, slept easily with her head on the swell of the dolls breast, purring in pleasure as the hand once more laced through her hair. A nip of teeth to the shell of her ear, jointed hand clasped around the hunters waist, eyelids fluttering into rest.
She was despondent upon awakening, catatonic almost, breathing and blinking but barely present. Her pulse beat but her brain refused to do more.
Ghale returned, and whisked the woman away to see their revived friends, the doctor and imposter, to understand what had happened.
No one had reacted to badly, but then again, no one else had taken their own life.
It was Iosefka who helped the most, prescribing sedatives, drugged herbal tea enough to calm Maria down on her worst days, and chamomile for her best. The doctor mourned how Yharnam didn’t have proper psychiatric care facilities, but Ghale would have never left Maria to an asylum. Iosefka gave them recommendations for a few of the new fangled doctors who specialised in mental disease.
The impostor spoke of insight, growling frenzy lapping at the corners of the mind, how humans were not built to commune with great ones let alone live with them for years on end. She prescribed less volatile sedatives, ones that would dull her enough but not send her to slumber.
Gehrman had never died in the real world, taken away by the moon presence that was now Ghales mother. The surrogate child to the great one, father to the dream.
Maria had died in the real world, plunging that dagger into her throat until she expired on the steps of the clock tower. Kos adopted her the same, placing guardianship of both her terrible past and the orphan left behind unto her.
The impostor sent Maria to looks at Ghales form, unbidden by their wants to look human. It would either break her once more, or bring some semblance of peace.
Maria had fractured at the sight, muscles buckling at the view of pure unadulterated moonlight, teeth scraping the bones in her hands as she bit down hard to avoid screaming.
Then she looked again, and saw Kos.
She blinked in the moonlight, rays of pale washing over her, and fell to her knees.
“I’m sorry”
The mother of the orphan moved closer to the bastard child, the murderer, the vileblooded hunter and the lady of the astral clock tower. The mother moved closer with her face in a soft smile and her approximation at arms outstretched in a hugging motion.
They wrapped around Maria’s form, like the white linens of her death shroud, of her living raiment. She sagged into it, limp and pliable in the mothers arms.
“I forgive you”
The bastard child wept. And Maria smiled.