Chapter Text
Eileen knows the Hunter has arrived before she even turns around.
Despite the years and against all odds, her hearing is still as sharp as when she was young, and she can hear her footsteps clearly, even when the Hunter tries to be quiet. She still remembers the first time the Hunter found her, there in her small refuge in Central Yharnam, right by the sewers. She’d all but crashed through crates and barrels and all but faceplanted at Eileen’s feet, and Eileen had stared at her with eyebrows raised as she scrambled to her feet, her only eye wild with terror.
The Crow is forced to keep herself from smiling, even though she knows Mia Hawke won’t see it behind her mask, and remains still as the Hunter walks up to her, letting the heavy Hunter’s Axe she carries fall to the ground with a sigh. From the corner of her eye, she sees her take off her hat and shake her head. Her hair, smooth, black and absurdly long, with a single white streak, falls over her shoulders and face even when she tries to push it back.
“Rough night?” Eileen asks dryly, unable to help the mocking tone in her voice.
“Shut up” Mia all but growls, making her snicker.
“How many times?” the older woman asks. The young Hunter purses her lips. From where she stands, Eileen can’t see her expression: the left side of her face is covered in scar tissue, and a cobweb of silver scars has sealed shut the empty socket of her eye. Eileen never has asked about it and doesn’t intend to: she’d rather not get too acquainted with Hunters, since there’s a good chance she might have to get rid of them eventually.
“Eight” the Hunter mumbles after hesitating for a moment, and Eileen chuckles, unable to help it, earning herself a fierce glare as she turns to look at her with her only eye. It’s a very pale grey color, that Eileen has seen very few times before in Yharnam.
“That Cleric Beast is a tough one” she offers, to appease the younger Hunter. Eileen’s not intimidated by anger, specially not the one of young ones, and particularly not by the anger of young ones who are barely tall enough to reach a grown man’s shoulder. Eileen’s known her share of female hunters, of which a good bunch were smaller women, but Mia Hawke is small enough that Eileen wonders sometimes how she’s survived for so long. If she isn’t lying, the Hunter is around 30, and assures having been a soldier in the past, and Eileen is almost sure she doesn’t lie, but she can’t help but wonder. Still, she fights like someone who knows what she’s doing, and makes up for her bluntness with determination and perseverance and an unexplainable amount of physical strength.
“No shit” Mia grumbles, combing her fingers through the black mane. Eileen watches in silence. For her, having such long hair in this line of work seems absurd. She keeps it cropped as close as possible to her skull in order for her cowl to fit properly, and she imagines the Hunter has gotten grabbed by her ridiculously long ponytail more than once in a fight. Normally, she wouldn’t have had any qualms in telling this to the novice hunter. But she doesn’t say anything, and can’t really figure out why. Hawke finishes combing back her hair in silence.
Pulling a worn, light pink ribbon from her pocket, she ties her hair back into her usual ponytail. And then she stops.
“Oh. Reminds me I got you something.”
Eileen’s eyebrows shoot up under her mask, as Mia reaches and shuffles into the neverending pockets of her coat, and then tosses her something. Eileen catches the bag and weighs it in her hand, turning to look at Mia questioningly. The Hunter, busy with pinning the hair that escaped her ponytail back into place, doesn’t return the look.
They have met a few times, and Eileen wouldn’t call their relationship a “friendship”. She doesn’t like having friends. She’s had enough of those in the past, and none have lived to tell the tale. Hawke doesn’t seem like the friendly type either, and at first they both tried hard to pretend not to like the other, but Eileen suspects she’s the only person the Hunter has met in Yharnam that hasn’t tried to kill her on sight, and she keeps coming to her even when she doesn’t need anything. They have grown used to the other, and against her will, Eileen has to admit that Hawke’s bluntness makes her laugh and that teasing her about it is much more fun that glaring at the darkness in silence.
“Well? Open it.” She tries to sound nonchalant, but it’s clear she’s looking forward to seeing Eileen react, so the Crow obliges.
She peeks inside the bag-and what she sees is so surprising it takes her a good half minute to react, as her brain slowly works to remember what it is.
“ Candy ?” she blurts out, incredulous, and her tone makes Hawke smile for the second time since she knows her, a grimace that twists the mangled skin of her scar and makes her look a lot angrier than she already does.
“Yup” the Hunter says proudly. Eileen grabs one from the bag, turning it between her fingers with her eyebrows raised. The bright colors are disorienting: she’s so used to the black and grey of the perpetual night that seeing this swirl of red and white has left her mind blank.
“Wherever in the world did you find these?” she asks Hawke, who seems proud of herself, and Eileen realizes with a small startle that this is probably the first time the Hunter has heard her emote so clearly.
“Broke into a house” the other replies nonchalantly. When Eileen stares in silence, she shrugs. “What? I needed to hide, so I went into the pantry” she explains. “I meant to bring you cheese, but I ate it all while I waited until it was safe to leave, so I grabbed you these instead.”
The image of Mia Hawke locked inside a pantry, gorging herself on cheese while all the evils of Yharnam lurk outside the door is irresistible. Eileen can’t help a snort, and she shakes her head slightly.
“Surprised you didn’t eat them yourself.”
Hawke shrugs one shoulder.
“I don’t have much of a sweet tooth” she says.
“Is that so” Eileen says, grinning to herself. “Well, if you break into another pantry in the future, do keep in mind I enjoy cheese quite a lot.”
“I’ll keep it in mind if I can find a way to carry a pistol, an axe and a giant wheel of cheese at the same time” Mia says dryly, making Eileen bark out a laugh. She catches the glint in the Hunter’s single pale eye, and she can tell she’s satisfied. Happy to have made her smile. The realization makes something similar to warm fondness bloom in Eileen’s chest, and for this once, she allows it to linger a few seconds. It’s been a while since anyone was so set on making her smile: few girls were able to, back when she was less jaded, and no men ever managed it. Eileen toys uncomfortably with the thought that maybe, maybe , she’s starting to feel something like affection towards the younger Hunter -something like what she imagines birds must feel towards their chicks- before smothering it as usual and clearing her throat.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, pipsqueak?” she snaps, in her usual flat tone. The Hunter stretches her arms over her head until her shoulders pop. Then she places the hat back on her head and picks up her axe. She is left handed, but also blind on that side, so Eileen has to lean back a little bit to avoid getting smacked.
“Yes, Eileen, I can tell when I’m not wanted” she grumbles in mock offense. “No need to kick me out, you old bat.”
“Insolent brat.”
“Try not to break a hip while I’m out, you crone” Mia adds as she heads back into the darkness.
“Sod off.”
Eileen hears her snort as she disappears from sight, and once she’s alone again, she looks back at the candy she holds between her fingers and allows herself to smile openly. Slipping the colorful treat under her mask, she pops it into her mouth and lets sweetness spread over her tongue, and hopes that the young Hunter finds her way out of the endless night-or at least, that this time, she lives through her encounter with the Cleric Beast.