Malenia’s objection reflects so clearly upon her features. Her lips press thinly. She catches the corners of her mouth curving into a grimace as his words scorch her nearly as much as the writhing beasthood within her chest. She suppresses the anger and desperation that threatens to spill at the mere thought that her sole objective would never come to fruition; that her beloved brother may be entirely lost. Malenia swallows. Her gaze upon him does not break as she stands with a closed fist in the event her blade needs to be drawn.
She spits back at @transgressed through gritted teeth, denouncing his bitterness and takes a step forward.
“I will find him.” There is a definitive edge to her voice, with little room for qualms. Their focus locks onto one another as the silence between them thickens. The wind rises, beating against the buildings and lifting loose metal structures causing them to creak. Fallen leaves scrape the cobblestone and brush against her feet as though the breeze ushers for Malenia to press onward. She could feel him scrutinizing her intently through the mask.
A distant bell tolls again and again as it did upon her collecting consciousness. And now the Doctor beckons to whatever part of her reasoning that inclines with his twisted logic.
“‘Consultation,’” Malenia halts a bitter laughter that nearly erupts from her chest.
“Men take fate into their hands to carve themselves a path through hell when prayers were needed the most…but were never answered. What good, dear Doctor, is a flimsy wish if the mouth has been severed along with the rest of the corpse?”
“Ah, perhaps, I have been mistaken.”
The Doctor exhales, shaking his head in a brief display of disdain—and disappointment. Despite this, a virulent and knife-like glee squirms underneath the skin of his displeasure. Uninterested in entertaining Malenia’s reasons—juvenile, he’s certain of it—to refuse his advice, the Doctor readjusts his mask, unsympathetic and condescending toward her convictions and her doubts.
“I misjudged you. I thought you would still listen to reason, despite the madness that has befallen Yharnam… Yet it appears the Hunt has already seduced you.” A private smile. He speaks, almost whispering, like sharing a precious secret. “It is a pity… I had high hopes for you.”
The yoke of the Doctor’s taunting voice grows heavier and heavier, laden with his own, delighted bloodlust—held back, yet flaunted like a ceremonial blade. He has no interest in fighting her—not now, not when she still retains her sanity, not when she still has her uses—but he can’t deny that the idea of it is riveting. The frenzied spiral of his cruelty spills forth like entrails from a disemboweled corpse, and he steps forward, extending both hands in a grandiose gesture. His distorted grin is a gash across his face; mockery drips from his wound-like smile.
“Go on then, Malenia. Succumb to your animal intuition all you would like—! Surrender to your bestial mindlessness—!”
Laced with a sick sense of pleasure, each bellowed and beckoning word builds toward an overt anticipation—a teeming curiosity. Although he knows it would ultimately be a shame, the Doctor has long wondered: if she were to fail, like his former colleagues had believed she would, and instead, succumbed to the blood, what manner of beast would she become? He withdraws his outstretched arms, casually crossing them across his chest.
“—No? What is the matter?” The fallen leaves scatter around them, swirling with the wind. The agonized howling of the old buildings echoes like a song. The distant bell tolls again: a heart beating. “With how readily you denied the alternative, I assumed you had resigned yourself to your fate: less than human, your brother nothing more than a forgotten memory.”
Suddenly, his expression turns reticent, his spite and schadenfreude eviscerated by a revived indifference. Whether she wants to retaliate against his words, he does not care.
“If you are still in possession of your senses, I suggest that you set aside your doubts… But, of course, if you truly desire to cull the Great Ones, instead of taking counsel from them… Do as you wish. It is only your brother at stake, after all.”
