Work Text:
With a deep, melodious sound, the clock chimes eight times, signalling the commencement of the evening hours. The floorboards creak as feet delicately dance towards her, with the sharp intake of breath and the gentle swish of material. She can identify the patterns of Lady Maria’s gait, the elegance bestowed with every step, the deep sorrow and regret barely contained underneath. The Lady of the Clocktower brings an air of unhappiness with her, shrouding the small room with uncertainty and anxiety, her very movements bringing about a drastic shift in the atmosphere. Within her small room, Adeline is cocooned from the normal turmoil of the Research Hall; the shrieks of the other patients do not reach her, the chaotic shifting of anger and despair lie entirely beyond her own world.
Despite being told countless times, Adeline refuses to see herself as a saint, for she’s only done what she’s been told, following the steady pace of her superiors, until her perfectly curated blood placed her under the watchful eye of the Vicar himself. The marvellous birth of a new order, a church of healing, where we might ease the suffering of our fellows. Her mantra. And even now, shifting under uncomfortable restraining belts, the high back of the chair digging into her shoulders, she reminds herself of this.
‘Adeline. They would like to take a sample of your bone marrow. I was not happy to hear it, and I did try and ask if there was any other way, but…’ Lady Maria’s voice floats around her, weaving through the air, a beautiful velvety ribbon of blooming reds entwined with deep fuschia. Adeline cannot see, and hasn’t been able to since her head changed, but she visualises with her mind, giving shape and pattern to the sounds she hears. The floorboards are a luminous yellow, their creaking cracks reminding her of a tree, standing solitary, under the bright, warming sun. The walls become her forest; a thicket of verdant green leaves, fluttering irresistibly in the breeze. And Lady Maria brings the beautiful meadow, her presence symbolising a break within the repetitive greens, her words promising comfort and joy, despite being shadowed with guilt.
‘Oh no, no. Please, do not worry yourself with me, Lady Maria. I am quite used to these things. Alas, knowing I might be able to bring some comfort for another… It pleases me to be of help. Truly.’ Speaking becomes difficult at times, especially with her misshapen head, but Adeline perseveres, all in the knowledge that she is doing something good, something right. She knows that good behaviour will allow her to visit the lumenflower gardens high above, where she might dream of greater things, perhaps even hear the wonderful singing again, chanting to her, from the cosmos themselves.
Lady Maria takes a small, nervous step towards her. ‘I will stay here, of course. Laurence, and his… friends… will carry out the procedure.’ Her voice falters and wavers. Adeline can sense the disapproval, like a sudden crash of waves against the cliff-face. But there is nothing else that Adeline can offer by way of comfort; Lady Maria has closed herself off to comfort, preferring to keep herself shrouded with sadness.
‘Please, tell them to be careful. My blood has been helping others, and I would truly hate for any of it to be wasted, or lost.’ Adeline curls her fingers around the ends of the armrest, finding the familiar grooves and dips in the woodwork. In her mind, she can see the door open; the sounds rise to an orchestral symphony within her ears, a musical medley of footsteps and movement; a disjointed dance that focuses entirely upon her. And she knows, as the straps are removed from her slowly wasting body, that soon she will sleep again; descending into the dark myriad labyrinths of her own inner world.
Maria keeps her promise, as she always tries to.
They rest Saint Adeline on the cold metal table, using pillows to cushion her on her side, choosing the iliac crest of her pelvis to extract marrow. Despite having seen the same procedure countless times on multiple others, it always hurts her to see Adeline - her friend, really - undergo such things, her frail and delicate body subjected to cold, sharp instruments, dragging through her almost-translucent skin.
‘Paraldehyde dose enough?’ Laurence asks, turning his blue gaze to the white-clad doctor beside him, who places the empty syringe onto a metal tray. ‘I don’t want the patient waking up midway through. The last time, you didn’t give enough, and they woke up.’
Maria hates listening to their discourse. It’s always the patient, or even worse, the subject. It’s never William, or Samuel, or Emily, or Adeline. The Research Hall had once operated as a hospice, for those on palliative care; the residents could be taken down to offer prayer in the Cathedral, or spend their final hours basking under the warm glow of the sun, on the high bridge. She had remembered those days, when she had still hunted beasts with her trusted Rakuyo at her side; when Laurence had been nothing more than a simple junior physician, telling stories of ancient labyrinths and old Gods to the dying, reading long-forgotten prayers to them, his face constantly a mix of emotions as he tried to suppress his own interests in the Great Ones. Because the infirm and the dying wanted stories of hope, not grand tales of Pthumeru and bodiless entities which watch over their every move. But that had been years ago, before the Fishing Hamlet, before the irrefutable proof of the divine had been discovered.
Gritting her teeth, Maria takes hold of Adeline’s unmoving hand. ‘Do you always have to discuss our residents like they are mere objects for research?’ She squeezes the unresponsive hand, feeling the gentle yet faint warmth underneath. ‘Saint Adeline is one of our most talented. She has heard the whispers of the Great Ones. She has given every ounce of blood to help you. The least you can do is use her name.’
Laurence merely shrugs at her, clearly unbothered by her complaint. ‘Is the extraction site prepared and clean? Aspiration needle, biopsy needle and lidocaine solution ready?’ The two white-clad church doctors nod, one holding a long needle in a gloved hand, the other with a bottle of clear liquid and a rag. Laurence nods. ‘Good. Let’s get this over with. I have a lot to do before I can retire for the night.’
Maria hates watching the procedure. The obsessive need to check blood production; to ensure that the desired, pure healing blood is being synthesised within the body, allowing an endless supply of the modified, healing paleblood. Maria also knows that very few of the church nuns ever reach this level of physiological change, and reaching it requires such extreme procedures and pain that she no longer finds Laurence’s cause worthy. So many others had undergone the rigorous procedures and failed, falling into madness, misery and malnutrition.
She squeezes Adeline’s hand again as the biopsy needle is forced through the outer bony shell of her iliac crest. She remembers everything since the massacre at the Fishing Hamlet. And even remembers some of what came before.
It began with innocent blood infusions. Nobody had batted an eyelid at the group of medically trained researchers who wanted to use some strange blood to ease the suffering of the dying. Questions had been raised at one or two unexpected deaths…but pathology could only ever rule that those unfortunate souls had died of a heart-attack. As if the stress of receiving too high a dose of paleblood hadn’t led them straight to their deaths.
And Maria had been entirely complicit. She had sat there in those endless meetings, nodding her head to the discussions of research, and divine intellect, and the mysteries of other planes of existence, and the insight to see more. After all, who at Byrgenwerth would raise their voice in dissent, against the most miraculous cure-all blood? Certainly not Maria. She was an integral part. She would bring back prized artefacts from Pthumeru; she would find more strange, transformed creatures to siphon paleblood from…more Pthumerians to extract their scant quantities of Old Blood. All given to Laurence and his associates, to mix together and formulise. The guinea-pigs became the fast-dying patients in the hospice above the Grand Cathedral. Until one day, which changed everything.
After the Fishing Hamlet, after Kos was brought back and thoroughly dissected, after scores of village denizens had been captured and experimented on, Laurence had founded a new set of ideas…ones which shaped his barely-recognised Church. He began to truly believe that the Great Ones existed within large bodies of water, and that the parasitic waters of the Fishing Hamlet would allow them to finally witness the otherworldly entities. A new era of knowledge. The ever-closer approach to evolution; imbibing the parasites, feeding the patients a steady diet of sea-water, the never-ending infusions of paleblood, kin-blood, old blood, any blood they could find. But for Maria, this became her punishment.
If evolution involves being stabbed with syringes every day, or having your brain trepanned, or having your bone marrow extracted….and it results in a misshapen head, auditory hallucinations and rendering us weaker than before…it is no evolution I want part of. And she tells herself this. Every day. It isn’t evolution. It isn’t even close. They are all blind, deaf, ignorant and fumbling their way through discoveries they don’t understand, bringing their fellow people one step closer to ruin and damnation. And yet, as she kneels, clutching Adeline’s hand like a lifeline, she forces herself to confront the horrible world they’ve built, every day; reminding herself of her own sordid sins, of her own blasphemous actions, in striking down the innocent, in imprisoning them in this tower of misery, in listening to their screams of agony, with only a few paltry words to offer as comfort.
Without sight, many of her dreams transition into reality, as the steady sound of dripping water lures her towards the surface of consciousness. The droplets fall in a rhythm, attuned to the slow thud of her heart, filling her mind with rapturous blues and infinite azures, cerulean waves blending into indigo threads, aquamarine waves crashing within her head. If she still had eyes, she would surely open them to a deep, underwater world, reaching her hand out to touch the schools of colourful fish as they flutter by, carried on an invisible current, on a path of discovery and bliss. But Adeline can no longer see, and cannot possibly imagine what has occurred to her eyes - had they simply melted into her head? Had they regressed, disappearing as quickly as they had once emerged when she was but a baby? Is she, instead, simply overflowing with eyes, eyes she cannot see, eyes that flourish within her, like a colourful meadow of countless flowers? Sometimes, she wants to ask… perhaps the kind Vicar would tell her? And yet, she refuses, knowing deep down that her question would only be uncomfortable, and draw her wardens’ attention away from the other patients, who would be much more deserving of their time. And she knows her questions would only sadden Lady Maria.
A dull, throbbing ache in her left hip keeps her occupied. No matter how many times she wriggles and shifts, the ache persists, filling her mind with a constant tug of pain. She also knows that Lady Maria is in the room with her; the soft, quiet breathing from somewhere in the corner, with the occasional turn of a page, reassures her that she isn’t alone. Adeline senses the unhappiness from Lady Maria, like a cloud of sorrow, sitting uncomfortably in the room. If only I could offer some words of comfort to my Lady… if only I knew what was troubling her so.
She imagines herself taking a deep breath - because, with her misshapen head, she cannot breathe as normal - before speaking. ‘Lady Maria, what is it that troubles you? I sense an air of discontent and unease about you.’ A short silence greets her question, and Adeline wonders if, perhaps, she has overstepped a boundary. Until she hears a soft sigh, and the sound of a book being closed.
‘Adeline, have I not told you, to stop calling me Lady? I am a warden, nothing more.’ She sighs, her tone sad and thoughtful. ‘I am troubled by much, these days. The ruinous state of this place. The stagnant research, which seems to go nowhere. The indescribable sorrow that so many of the Clocktower residents feel. I feel powerless to help. No matter what I do…no matter what I say, my words are disregarded, my actions ignored. I am sorry, Adeline. I should not be resting these matters upon you.’
‘I do not mind it,’ Adeline replies calmly, imagining verdant emeralds speckling through the weaving, crimson ribbons of Lady Maria’s words. ‘I am of very little use, most of the time. If speaking your mind helps ease your troubles, I will happily listen, for as many hours or days that you need.’ Despite her attempts to comfort Lady Maria, Adeline can sense that her mood has not lifted with her words. I wish I could show you the beautiful, mesmerising colours that I see.
‘But that is the issue. You should not have to feel this way. They have stripped you of all agency, removed your confidence, and made you believe that your only purpose is to further their own goals. It is not right.’ With sadness enveloping her words, Lady Maria’s tone seems to shift into pale greys, the colour of slowly-building clouds, of rain and puddles and storms.
‘I do not understand,’ Adeline whispers, unable to follow her Lady’s meaning. ‘I was brought here with a purpose. I am trying to hear the voices. The voices of the Great Ones. This is the purpose I serve… It goes beyond me, towards something far greater. I must fulfil my purpose. It is all that I have left. That is my agency, and my belief transcends any fears that I might have. I am here to help find something greater, something more magnificent. I was nothing, but now, I have the chance to truly be something.’ Adeline does not know how late at night it is, but she can sense Lady Maria’s tiredness, alongside her confusion.
‘No, I did not mean-’ Lady Maria begins, before stopping herself. Adeline squeezes the wood of the armrest, feeling the leather straps digging into her arms. Worried that she may have spoken inappropriately, she prepares herself to try and explain, but Lady Maria is not yet finished. ‘Tell me, Adeline, do you remember how this entire institute came to be? And what it was before Laurence took over?’
‘It was a hospice, Lady Maria. I worked here, many years ago. Easing the fears of those on the very precipice of death. Did I ever ease the fears of their souls? That question plagued me for many nights…but now, I am helping to ease the suffering of those who are very much alive.’ Adeline imagines herself smiling, projecting her joy into her words instead. Perhaps the one thing she misses about being a normal person is having her face, with all the emotions she could easily express. Restrained to the chair, she cannot even use body language to express herself… and so, her words would have to do.
‘Yes,’ Lady Maria responds, her voice softening into a gentle hue of cerise. ‘Back then, you had a very different outlook. You even called me Maria, without the Lady title. But then those…of the church…noticed you, and… everything changed. Do you not wish you could turn back the clock, and go back to that time? Things could be so different…’
‘Forgive me, Lady Maria, but no, I do not.’ Adeline feels as if her words are a great sin, in disagreeing with Lady Maria. After all, should she disagree with her? I must be true to myself. For that is why I am here. ‘I am happy here, fulfilling my role for something greater. I am tasked with listening for the Great Ones, and the wondrous, dripping waters of the deep sea. This is what I am, and this is my purpose.’
Maria quickly tires of walking the upper floors of the Research Hall.
She had watched as two of Laurence’s most trusted doctors - a surgeon and an anatomist - had subjected a younger woman to trepanning. Janet was only twenty, and had volunteered to help at the hall, in the hopes of gaining experience to hopefully become a doctor herself, only to end up as yet another experiment. She had spoken of her younger siblings, the untimely death of her father, her hopes, her favourite books, while being fed a continuous line of paleblood mixed with - well, Maria doesn’t quite know what, as she had long since distanced herself from the harrowing experiments - through an IV. The changes had been rapid, too rapid, with seizures, nightmares, pain and hatred, begging for it to end, constantly asking why. Why me, why are you doing this, she had asked, in a tone that would haunt Maria until her last days. There had been a rushed discussion - eyes on the inside, the nefarious line that always puts Maria on edge - and then, they had rammed the drill into her misshapen head, spilling the strange, ghastly clear fluid that was called Brain Fluid, while she had struggled and seized and twitched.
Whatever the two doctors had searched for, they had found it, but only minimally - and Janet’s frail, lifeless body had been covered and removed, sent to the Upper Cathedral Ward to be incinerated. Maria had made her exit, the sickening nausea at the back of her throat, desperate to rid herself of the memory of those two doctors, entirely emotionless, searching for eyes, searching for a sign of the Great Ones within a young woman’s delicate anatomy. Too much. Why her? Laurence promised me that only the infirm and dying would ever be considered for such… brutality. They had all gone too far, and Maria was nothing more than a helpless bystander, allowing it to happen. She could not even face herself in the mirror.
Her life revolves entirely around the Clocktower inhabitants, the individual people who reside under her care. They would speak to her, wait for her, beg to hear her. Those who begged for death would be momentarily comforted by her; those in anguish and pain would find relief from hearing her stories. They look up to her, as a saviour, a mentor, a guiding light from the Great Ones, and yet every second of their tormented lives was because of her. Because she couldn’t set them free; her punishment is to watch the carnage unfold, to witness the true depravity of those she once considered friends. She had wrought untold violence on the villagers in the Fishing Hamlet; she would live now, to witness the consequences of her actions. Nothing can release the chains of guilt that bind her.
Not even her own death.
And with every passing day, things become worse. Once, there would be a death every month or two; now, barely a week goes by without another lifeless body being unceremoniously thrown into the incinerators. But the Healing Church, despite the abject chaos and failure within the Research Hall, manages to gain more support every day. The healing blood has been perfected. And they are reaching the point of perfecting the blood saints, too. Grooming them, learning the correct balances of paleblood and Old Blood to give them, determining how to create the perfect vessel to cultivate an endless supply of healing blood. The everyday Yharnamites need not know what happens beyond the holy visage of the Grand Cathedral; they only know that a mysterious substance exists, and can be gifted to them, in return for their support and belief. The normal people of the city do not understand why beasts occasionally plague the streets; they do not know the source of the scourge. Maria does. With greater quantities of healing blood comes the greater risk of descending into beasthood. But the Healing Church manages to gain favour regardless, being the fearless saviours who protect the citizens and cleanse the streets of the beastly scourge.
The new Healing Church is built upon lies. Lies form the foundation; lies perpetuate its existence, lies make it what it is. Maria knows the lies all too well. She knows that lies eventually show themselves. She knows that one day, the Healing Church will topple.
She clutches the balcony key tightly in her hand. She will walk through the Research Hall, one last time. She will give the key to Adeline, so that the young blood saint might go outside again, and feel the warmth of the sun on her.
Perhaps, Adeline might remember who she once was, and the true meaning of being human. Perhaps, there might be a way to be free from the horrors she’s witnessed and experienced. And maybe, Maria could save her. Just one single soul.
Maybe then, Maria might find her own salvation.