Choral Composition

MYSTERY BOX - DELETED CHAPTER

“So. How did you end up in Ascelin’s company?” Drogomir asked instead, and since it seemed important to him Anastas told him.

“He walked up to my window and asked after my sister.”

Drogomir looked a little disturbed and a lot of tired by his news, and waved for him to continue.

So Anastas gave him an abbreviated version, which the man let go uninterrupted. Mostly.

He got a little upset about the break in.

“I suppose that’s why he wanted to leave you here.” Bedelia mused, cleaning her bowl with a piece of bread. “I don’t like the idea of you in that house by yourself anyway.”

“Alone?” Drogomir echoed, giving her an alarmed look, and then towards Anastas like he expected a corroboration to believe what he was hearing. Anastas nodded — yes, alone — and Drogomir’s brow scrunched down and his nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed like lightning. “He shouldn’t have left you there the first time.” He said, in a way that didn’t bode well for Ascelin’s continued existence. Anastas reassessed his mental image of Drogomir, injuring someone - now he could picture it fine.

“Erm. I don’t know if I should defend him, but he did try to get me to go. But I wasn’t going to go anywhere with him I didn’t have to.” Anastas admitted, “At least not until staying became scarier than going.”

“Him scaring you is another issue entirely.” Drogo jabbed his spoon at a potato. “I should box his ears.”

The image this produced was amusing, if ill-advised. “He might maul you.” Anastas said, thinking of the fire that sprung free to Ascelin’s clawed fingertips.

“Do not worry on my behalf.” Drogomir grumbled. “I am going to shake him until some sense flies into his empty head.”

“I get the impression that his decisions make him unpopular.” Anya admitted.

“Blin, because he makes everyone’s lives more difficult.” Drogo agreed. “The only person who likes him is your sister, and she causes me just as many headaches.”

Vasilissa caused other people headaches? Anastas tried to decide how he felt about this. At least, she caused her ex-fiance headaches…

“He’s in a temper, dear.” Bedelia said, while Drogo fell into another code-switching rant. “Just let him get it out.”

Anastas shrugged and ate his stew. He got the impression Bedelia was trying to fatten him up, and that was a far less upsetting thing to consider than the rest of his circumstances, so he focused on it.

“I hate them.” Drogo mumbled to the wood. “One of these days, I’m going to save us the stress and lock Ascelin in the basement. We can throw him down books, pass him jam through the door.”

Anastas had some compelling evidence for why this wouldn’t work: “He picks locks.”

“Bly- blin.” The man corrected quickly, to Anastas’s private amusement. “Then we take away his knives. The gloves. Anything sharp.” The prospector sat up a little and rubbed at his temples. “And Vasilissa, we can - I don’t know what we can do with her.” He realized, his brow furrowing. “I’ve watched her punch a scourge beast. She will definitely punch me if I lock her up.”

Anastas winced. Had she? That sounded like something Vera would have scolded her for.

Drogo was still problem-solving. “Maybe if we lock her in a room with soft walls, and no weapons…”

“Well, that dog won’t hunt.” A new, familiar voice interjected, and Anastas and Bedelia jumped and snapped their heads towards the antechamber of the townhouse.

Ascelin was standing there, smiling like he hadn’t disappeared from existence for two days. From how Bedelia jumped, Anastas summarized she hadn’t heard him come in either. But Drogomir didn’t look surprised, just despairing.

Ascelin walked farther in. He was dressed in dark mended slacks and a pale reddish waistcoat, white shirt, and a dark capelet. Still with a hood, though whether that was due to light sensitivity or a healthy sense of melodrama remained to be seen. A loose lock of hair, shining greenish in the candlelight, hung loose from his hood.

“Unless you mean to strip me naked.” Ascelin smiled at them, canting his head to the side and narrowing his eyes.

Anastas shifted in his seat for a better look, because while he was annoyed- well, it was also the first time he had seen Ascelin’s whole face exposed. To his annoyance the hunter was very pretty, with high cheekbones, narrow eyes, and a scar across his nose.

It was terrible. Anastas turned his attention to his stew bowl and reminded himself that it didn’t do to find anything pleasing about the man.

Thankfully oblivious to this, Ascelin was - still picking fights with their host. “All these years and I never knew you thought of me that way, Drogo.” He leaned on the table beside the tomb prospector, smiling down at him in what could only be flirtation in front of the man’s wife.

Drogo smacked his head, making Ascelin lean away and laugh. “You are insufferable. You will come to the study and explain what you have done this time.”

Ascelin leaned back and relaxed a little, and his smile shifted from artifice to something soft and genuine. “Yeah, I’d love to. Should probably let the kid come along. Oh - and let me go and get the box from the stoop.”

“Box?” Drogomir echoed. Ascelin’s smile twitched back to something fake, and Anastas wondered how worried they should be.

#

The mysterious box was hissing, and Drogomir was looking at it mistrustfully.

But — this was a big but — he let Ascelin take it into his study.

“Talk.” He demanded.

Ascelin sat on the fainting couch by the bookshelf and said, “Yeah, okay.”

He launched into an explanation of events that was parallel to Anastas’s own, yet… wrong. Well. Mirrored.

“Last Hunt, Ludwig assigned me some new prey,” Ascelin said, “Something called a darkbeast, that started showing up since—y’know. I was hoping to get Vasilissa's help with it, but she wasn't around, so I pulled up her address at the Church Registrar and went calling. She wasn’t around, but—” He gestured at Anastas, paused, reached up to rub his cheek. “I did get some help there for that hunt. It’s died thrice now, twice at my hand. It keeps getting back up.”

Drogomir looked disturbed at this news. Anastas sympathised — his very skin was crawling from the idea.

Drogo leaned forward. “You’re sure it’s the same one?”

“I wasn’t,” Ascelin hesitated, “But the third death. I saw-” His fingers twitched. “You remember Old Yharnam.”

“I do.” Drogomir said, “But what does that have to do with…?”

Ascelin hesitated. “Well.” He made a face. “It—seems like may be that all over again.”

Drogomir grit his jaw.

Anastas raised his hand. “Excuse me. I'm confused. What—happened in Old Yharnam?” He asked. The both of them turned to stare at him, so Anastas clarified. “I know there was an outbreak, and a lot of people died, and that the fires got out of control and destroyed most of the town. But—what does that have to do with this?”

Ascelin laughed a little. It wasn’t a happy laugh, but it was — something. Like he was recollecting a bad joke.

Drogomir looked very grim. “Everything about beasts changed in old Yharnam.” He said, voice low, “It was old Yharnam where we learned their nature.”

Anastas shifted. “I still don’t… understand…” But he’d seen the hand, and he thought-

Ascelin looked him in the eyes directly. “In old Yharnam,” He said, “We saw people turn into scourgebeasts.”

“… oh.” Anastas felt a throbbing in his head.

#

The scourge was an interesting malady. It started like a flu - weakness, cough, chills, cold sweats. Sometimes hallucinations, paranoia. There would be a low fever, and difficulty to tell whether a patient was dreaming or awake. They’d go around in a sort of haze, and many had to be strapped to their beds. It was easy to miss in drunks, because it wasn’t unlike the high that over-imbibing wrought.

Some people, especially the very young or old, or frail, would die in this stage. Some people would recover — there was debate over whether those people would be resistant to new strains of the illness. In spite of that debate, their blood was coveted as a medicine for the sick, at least among the superstitious and the snake oil peddlers.

Then there was the night sickness: the progression, or maybe a stronger strain of scourge allowed in by the first infection. The delirium would worsen, and the patients would become combative. Most died after some time in this stage, from overexciting the heart or hurling themselves from ledges and windows. Patients kept on ground level were known to escape from the house come moonrise, and be found dead leagues off from where they’d started at nightfall.

Some of them were never found at all.

Scourge beasts, it was generally accepted, were a blight on the land. What sent them down was contested. A god giving them trials to overcome, a jealous deity from the neighbouring lands. Anastas's own mother had grimly proclaimed them mera, nightmares given form.

The popular opinion in Yharnam usually held that the beasts were some fault of foreigners: either they were monsters brought in by the Outside, or they were curse to weed out the unworthy blood by Yharnam herself.

“The beasts appearing from the woods,” Ascelin said, “They’re advanced patients. Their blood turns to poison in their veins, makes them ill. Twists them.” He gave Anastas a shrewd look, and added, “I do trust you'll keep this quiet.”

Anastas’s stomach hurt. “I… the Church knows?” He asked, feeling as if the mountain was shifting under his feet, about to turn the room on end.

“Sure,” Ascelin said, “Course it knows.”

“Ascelin—” Drogomir started, but Ascelin ploughed ahead.

“It decided it would be better if things were kept quiet. Didn’t want a panic while we’re looking for a cure, and… didn’t want people taking it on themselves to handle ‘risky cases’.” His eyes glittered, and he smiled with sharp teeth. “You really shouldn’t trust Hunters, kid. We all know what we’re stalking in the night… and we do it anyway.”

Anastas pressed his back to the door and slid into a sit. “I don't understand.” He said, voice quiet. “I…”

“He really doesn’t need to know this,” Drogomir admonished.

“He does.” Ascelin interrupted again. “Because the beast I was contracted to hunt, you know, the one that won’t fucking die?” He stared at Drogo, rather than Anya, and that was almost worse because he said: “It’s come after him twice now, and it doesn’t seem willing to learn.”

Drogo put his temples in his hands and said, “Blyat.”

#

Drogomir had demanded explanations, evidence, more information. Ascelin had told him what he considered relevant, and they had called on Anastas for his memories of the night. (Spotty, overdetailed in places, strangely bare in others.)

They did not seem surprised that he could tell them more about a rat he’d jumped over and the detail’s of the beggar’s hands and gun than the corpse he thought the man had stood over, or the streets he’d run down to get away.

He thought of Ascelin saying to him, it was only a beast, and in the moment he’d thought it gentle and kind.

Something foreign, flickering and hot, stirred inside of Anastas. His fists clenched against his thighs, and he thought of a cruel smile, of half lies, of a finger pressing into his tongue until he gagged. He breathed in and out, slowly, and reminded himself that he could not act on his emotions.

“The man in my house,” he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. Cold, the way his sister sounded, or his mother used to, when they were preparing for some unpleasant necessity. “He killed it for you. You called him a crow. Who was he.”

Ascelin shifted, turning a look that was altogether too appraising for Anastas’s taste on him. Anastas glared, and Ascelin cracked a little secret smile.

“Hunter of Hunters. A damn crow, come to feast on carrion.” He rubbed his forehead, smile slipping. “That is…”

“Why would Hunters hunt other Hunters?” Anastas demanded, fists tightening in the material of his slacks.

Ascelin said, “Because Hunters turn into the most vicious beasts.”

… the headache worsened. Anya breathed through the worst of it, focused on the ceiling, tried to steady himself. The ground wasn’t moving. It wasn’t.

“You think the man that was in my house was there to hunt the beast, and you think the beast after me is a Hunter, turned into a scourgebeast.” He paused, then said, “You think a beast is after me at all. Why.” This defied rational thought. Anastas wasn’t a particularly appealing target by any measure he could think of, unless this was another thing connected to his sister.

“Because it… broke into your house twice?” Ascelin posited, apparently taking the question in a rather more literal sense than Anya had intended it.

“You told me you didn't know who did that!” Anastas felt his temper fraying.

“I mean, I wasn’t sure.” Ascelin admitted, “But I found this medicine by the cabinets that your sister wouldn’t touch if someone paid her, and — anyway, look at this.” He opened the box, and Anastas stared at the contents in a mixture of horror and revulsion.

Actually, so did Drogo.

“Ascelin,” Drogo said, sounding far more calm than he looked, his hands flexing open and shut like he wanted to grip someone’s throat and squeeze it. “Why did you bring a box of snakes into my house?”

“What? No, not Circe, the thing she’s on.”

Ascelin reached past the writhing, hissing mass to take out an outsized, sun-bleached skull of some massive animal. Fanged, grown too large, and yet with… a horribly flat, familiar visage for a face. It was the best argument that they were telling the truth of old Yharnam, and Anastas stared at it in a mix of revulsion and fascination.

“So anyway,” Ascelin said, “I spent today flirting with Archibald.”

The snakes came up with the skull, and did not want to release it. So really Ascelin was holding up a skull covered in furiously hissy little pit vipers, that… seemed to be fused together?

“He’s disgraced.” Drogo said, ignoring the skull to stare at the snake. Snakes? “A lunatic. And he’s not even your type. Why would you spend any time with him at all.”

“Yes, you’ll understand that’s why the Holy Blade had me deal with the darkbeast.” Ascelin agreed, “Didn’t want to inflame the passions of a scholar on a mission. But Archibald knows more about these,” He bounced the skull, whose jaw clattered, “Than anyone else I know, so I wanted to get his opinions on how to keep one down.”

“Archibald is a heretic.” Drogomir looked as if he were developing his own headache. “He’s one wrong move from being ejected from the Church entirely, and you spent the day—” He cut himself off and sighed, then held out a hand in expectation. “Let me see the skull. Without the snakes.”

Ascelin tried to detangle the furiously hissing mass, and several of the heads bit him. He didn’t seem to notice: he let out a little cheer when he wrest the snakeball free of his prize.

Then he held it out towards Anastas. “Want to hold her?”

Anastas stared at it. “I… kind of.” He admitted, off-kilter for reasons other than the entire restructuring of his world view. “Wait. Is she venomous?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess you can't hold her.” Ascelin looked apologetic. “Never mind.” He took the snake back to his own chest. It continued to bite him.

“Did you at least get anything useful?” Drogo asked, examining the skull.

“Yes,” Ascelin said, smiling like a cat with a bird in its claws. “Actually.” He put the snakes back in the box. “If you destroy the bones, they don't regenerate.”

“Why did you have a mass of snakes?” Anastas asked him.

“What? To hide the skull.” Ascelin said, like it was obvious. “If someone as suspicious as me goes running through town with a black unlabelled box, my boss will be looking for me by lunchtime.” He rolled his eyes, apparently at the notion of having to explain himself to whom Anastas assumed was Ludwig the Holy Blade. There was something seriously amiss with Ascelin. Anya eyed the snakes, and amended, a lot of things are amiss.

“But if the box is hissing, no one wants to ask!” Ascelin finished, radiant with pride at his clever solution.

Anastas looked at Drogomir, who shrugged. “I wouldn't ask what he had if he hadn’t brought it in my house.” Their host admitted, existential dread painted on his face.

From the look of mixed pleasure and pride, Ascelin seemed to take this as an admittance of his own brilliance. “Now our friend, the other darkbeast? Or whatever he is that’s like one, he’s been made into ash thrice. If he comes around again,” His eyes went half-lidded, and a self-satisfied smile curled his lips. Anastas shuddered and leaned away from him.

Anastas couldn’t help it. He burst into tears.

Ascelin startled a little at the noise, though he didn’t seem to have the energy to do much besides. Which was a good thing — Anastas threw himself across the man’s lap and clung to his shoulders.

“What—hey? Ki—Anastas, hey, come on, what’s with you?” Ascelin’s voice was rough from disuse, and horribly welcome after so long without it. Anastas buried his face in the man’s shoulder and tried to stave off his shaking.

Ascelin wasn’t always kind, it was true, but he was there, and Anastas needed him. And he’d already lost so much this year, he couldn’t—

Don’t think about her like she’s gone.

He made himself stop the thought. But the tears wouldn’t quit, now that they’d welled up, and he felt a little sick with himself for crying on Ascelin’s shoulder.

Ascelin didn’t speak again. He made a soft noise, and something touched Anastas’s back. It hesitated a moment, then pressed between his shoulder blades — Ascelin’s hand, like the man meant to hug him.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Ascelin murmured, near his temple. Anastas was mortified. He kept his face hidden. “Whatever happened, it’s over. What’s got you acting like this?”

Anastas tried to force ‘I don’t know what happened’ and ‘you weren’t responding’ and ‘we’ve been down here ages’ out at once and didn’t manage anything more coherent than a sob. He hated it, but what else could he do?

“Anastas?” Amelia mumbled, sounding half-asleep. Anastas twitched; he must have woken her. “What’s going on?”

“The kid’s crying,” Ascelin said, puzzled sounding.

Amelia yelped. “Sir Carim?!”

Anastas heard her scramble to a sit, and Ascelin made a soft noise. “What’s with the both of you? Stop acting like I died. Oh—wait, did I die?”

“Yes!” Amelia threw herself against them, and Ascelin huffed like she’d startled him, while Anastas wheezed and then tried to get back the air Amelia had forced out of him. “You came from the Cathedral lamp looking half-dead and grabbed us!”

“I did?” Ascelin couldn’t have sounded more surprised about it than they had felt, but he came damn close. Anastas kept his face buried, ashamed of his red eyes and the tear stains on his cheeks, and the ugly relief coursing through him. Ascelin was alright. He was.

“Yes!” Amelia must have smacked the Choir Hunter on the chest; Ascelin grunted.

“Sorry? I don’t think I intended to—oh.” Ascelin took in a sharp breath, and Anastas drew back to see if Amelia had hit him somewhere sensitive, but she looked as shocked as Anastas. Ascelin, wide-eyed, said, “No,” Very quietly, then again, barely above a whisper. “No. I… I meant to.”

“Why would you mean to die?” Amelia asked, brows furrowing. “And—Carim?”

Ascelin was shaking. He tried to form a word, but no sound left his lips. He shook his head, and Amelia seemed to decide — a little late — that discretion was best. She stopped asking, and laid her hand on Ascelin’s wrist in what she probably meant as mute support. 

Anastas felt uneasy all over. He shifted a little closer to Ascelin and held out his hand. Ascelin looked startled by it.

His fingers closed around Anastas’s a moment later. He breathed and breathed, shaking, and said, “Don’t worry about it.”