Genshin-Side-Piece

Lins | Genshin Side Blog to my Main Blog. Some NSFW things on here so Minors DNI. 18+ | She/Her | 30+ yo human | Genshin Streamer - twitch.tv/linsward

[genshin-side-piece]

So the other blog got Shadow Banned

Hi. So apparently I made Tumblr mad and they banned the other blog. Anyway, here is the second iteration. I'll be slowly adding everything back. If you'd like to give this a follow, I would appreciate it. :)

*Update - The blogs are no longer blacklisted. This blog will be the main one though.

Genshin Impact Masterlist:

All stories are tagged with their own warnings.

Alhaitham & Kaveh

The Contract The Hawk & The Sparrow

Capitano

Three Part Series A Worthy Sacrifice Spoil of War A Rose in Winter

Diluc

A Matter of Trust A Matter of Trust Part II (AO3 link, you will leave this website. Tumblr won't let me have this one on here.) Keyholder (Part 1)(Part 2)

Kamisato Ayato

Eagle Eye

Yandere Kamisato Ayato Thoughts AKA The Paper Doll

Neuvillette

Margarita Iudicis

4 Part Series Love Me Tender Love Me True Tell Me You Are Mine Never Let Me Go

Pierro

Maîtresse-en-titre

Yandere Pierro AKA The Director's Paramour

Pantalone

The Manicurist

A Private Asset (Part 1)(Part 2)

Wriothesley

Hazy Shade of Winter (Part 1) (Part 2) The Devil You Choose (Part 1)(Part 2A)(Part 2B)(Part 3)(Part 4)(Part 5)(Part 6A)(Part 6B)

Zhongli

The Collector

[genshin-side-piece]

I’ve been rolling this one around in my head for a while. 

There's a version of this story where love was never the starting point. Where it took Feofan a very, very long time to fall for Zandik, and arguably it only happened once Feo had grown out from under Zandik's shadow entirely.

The relationship begins, as survival. Zandik had ill intentions for Feofan, and Feo simply talked his way out of them. He was useful, he was clever, and he made himself impossible to discard. Somewhere in that ongoing negotiation, Zandik became intrigued; and intrigue, between two people like this, curdles slowly into partnership, and partnership into companionship. I’m not going to say love. I’d like to believe they did love each other, but Feo’s reactions regarding Zandik’s treatment after he died give me pause. While Feo could have been upset over the death, it doesn’t seem like he was angry over the treatment of the body. He may not have tried because it’s par for the course at this point, but I don’t think that’s the case. Omega seems to paint a more romantic version of the events, indicating Omega believes Feo is far more infatuated with him than he actually is.

This is why Feofan paints such a different picture of what he had with Dottore versus what could have been with Zandik. They are not the same man, and Feo knows it. That fact adds to the tension in their relationship. It’s what keeps Omega from ever fully being able to claim Feo as his. Omega isn’t the original specimen. Try as he might, he is bound by the limitation given to him by his creator. Omega will never be what Zandik was by the end of his life. While time gives Omega a longer relationship with Feo, it does not erase a life built over 50 years together. It does not alter that Feo’s heart will always remain with Zandik.

My personal theory is that Omega has to work the hardest for Feo's affection, and the irony is exquisite. Omega is frozen at the version of the man Feo met before the relationship truly formed. But Feo himself is no longer who he was. He has matured across a long life, to the point where even the elixir of immortality holds little sway over him anymore. The desperate dependence that might once have leveled the field is gone. As Pantalone, Feo holds most of the cards. He is Dottore's primary source of funding. Omega can threaten to withhold the elixir, but Omega is intelligent enough to know that destroying Pantalone destroys himself. So they meet on more even ground than Zandik and Feo ever did, which is precisely the problem. Omega wants to be regarded by Feo as the original was, but he has none of the original's leverage and all of his arrogance.

What Omega does hold over the other segments is memory. He is the first to carry a piece of Feofan, and he embodies Zandik's original feelings for him. I personally believe Feo prefers the older segments, but that doesn’t stop Omega from clinging to being the keeper of the beginning. When Omega says Feo chose to work with him, it can be read as a reference to that original partnership; but in this theory, it's also an admission. After the deletion of the other segments, there was tension between Omega and Feo. While Feo ultimately respected Omega’s choice in the deletion, Omega still had to work to bring Feo back onto his side. The choice he references isn't only the ancient one; it's the reconciliation he had to earn.

Zandik's death was made bearable only because the segments survived. 35, 45, and 65 each carried a thread of the life Feo built with him; which made the grieving both easier and far more complicated. In the immediate wake of the loss, Feo may have been closest to 65, the version nearest to the original Zandik. But as the rawest grief mellowed, he drifted toward 45; the one who stayed home in Snezhnaya with 8 while the others went out on Fatui business. The three of them, Feo, 45, and 8, could have settled into an odd, strange little family. And Omega, out in the field or simply on the outside of it, was jealous of exactly that warmth.

Interestingly, I think “Boattore” may have been 45. Which if true, means 8 may have been with Pantalone at the time of the deletion. The betrayal gets that much deeper if Feo comes home to find 8 destroyed, only to later learn of Omega’s actions in a staff meeting. 

The destruction of the other segments isn't just a tactical loss, it's the erasure of that built life. With only 35 remaining, what survives is the beginning and nothing else: the meeting, the early infatuation, before any of the tenderness was earned. Everything that came after is gone.

This is where it turns out to be the most tragic. In Irminsul, what's briefly reforged isn't Omega at all. It's Zandik, made whole again, the soul reassembled for a moment before the fire takes it. The scene becomes a rectification of the past: Feo is finally given the chance to say goodbye to the partner and lover he never got to properly mourn, only to lose that whole version of him for a second time, this time for good. The tragedy is doubled, because even if Feo opts to die, which is likely; there is a strong possibility he will never be reunited with Zandik. Unlike other souls, Zandik’s didn’t make it into the ley lines. His soul is destroyed, eliminating any possibility of Feo and Zandik being reunited in the afterlife or in the next life. 

In terms of a final resurrection, Feo knows, even if he recreated Zandik from his own memories, it would not be the same man. That knowledge is exactly why he hesitates, why he insists that so long as the soul survives, there is no need to resurrect that which is gone. To rebuild from memory would be to make an Omega of his own: a beginning without the long middle, a likeness that remembers being loved without having lived through the experience of creating that life together.

While Feo could build a new life with his version of Zandik, it would be a short one. Even with all of Zandik’s surviving research, the resurrected version would have all of the information, with none of the capability. Meaning, the new segment will not be able to manufacture the elixir of immortality. In the end, Feo will do to the new segment what Zandik did to him. Feo will die. With that death, Feo will leave behind a false version of his lover, with only the scattered memories of life that was never the segment’s to begin with.

[magicalbats]

The Servant of Two Masters (Part 1 & 2)

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 20,474

Warnings: Afab!reader, not gender neutral, master/servant dynamic, BIG age difference - yes, I'm talking about with the 85 year old Zandik, dubcon, noncon, coercion, vaginal fingering, edging, omega bullies the old man and reader, mentioned parental death/sickness, loss of virginity, segment shenanigans incoming

A/N: I'm essentially posting a backlog of everything I've worked on during my hiatus, don't mind me. lol Just some quick things to note!

1. The title for this actually comes from a commedia dell'arte play by the Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni, written in 1746. I don't think it will end up tying into this fic in any meaningful way, but the title seemed aptly appropriate for my schemes. lol

2. Although I do have a general plot progression in mind, this is largely free form so we're just kind of playing it hard and fast over here. Updates will come when they come but make no mistake, this is all really just a setup for me to be deeply horny on main. (so the usual)

⭐

The office is immaculate and well furnished, and you positively hate every inch of it. 

Hands balling into tight fists down at your sides, you keep your head respectfully bowed and try to focus on what the Lord Harbinger is saying. It’s hard, though. Everything felt like it was spinning dizzily around you in all of its ostentatious polished glory, so much mora poured into but a single room that could have been used instead to feed the villages and outposts across Snezhnaya. 

You felt sick. Completely out of your element here where the lavish was a bygone conclusion and your dirty, work-worn boots don’t fit the aesthetic of the drapes. 

“Are you listening, dear?” Regrator drawls, snapping you out of your spiraling thoughts. 

But even though the tone of voice still remained as pleasant as ever, you couldn’t quite shake the sense that he wasn’t exactly thrilled to have you standing before him like this. Not that you could really blame him. The wealthy so rarely had any reason to cohort directly with the poor, after all. You were as good as a stray mongrel that had wandered in off the streets without first having been invited to do so. An unwanted and unnecessary guest that he would sooner be rid of than anything else. 

You didn’t have much left in the way of options, however, and you bravely gather your resolve as you lift your head just a fraction of an inch to steal a quick, split second peek at him. Handsome, but decidedly dangerous. Very much so. Anyone with a working pair of eyes could have realized that much at just a glance. 

“Yes, my lord. I’m sorry if it didn’t seem like I was.”

Drawing a slow, calculated breath that makes his narrow shoulders subtly rise and then fall, Regrator pins you in place with a pityingly sardonic smile. “Well, I suppose I do have to give you credit for one thing. Your manners are quite agreeable, aren’t they? That is not always the case with someone who is so very … lowborn. And you even had the courage to come here just to entreat me directly. That makes two things, then.”

You stamp down the urge to squirm in place, trying very hard not to think about how inconsequential you felt standing there in front of the Lord Harbinger like that. It wasn’t just the expensive room with its expensive furniture, excess and frivolity unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, shoved into every corner and on every shelf. It’s the way he watches you like a bug through a microscope. 

Something to observe, not something to touch or make nice with, and certainly not something to invite to have a seat in one of the finely upholstered chairs that stand guard in front of his stately mahogany desk. There was no telling what you might have dragged in with you, what unsightly stains you might leave behind. So you continue to stand, and you don’t even dare to ask for anything more than that.  

“With that being said,” he goes on; slow, thoughtful. Considering. “I have to admit I’m not exactly sure what you expect me to do with you. If it is a paycheck you need, then you should seek out one of the recruitment centers or intake officers, not me. Her Majesty is always happy to welcome young, plucky soldiers to her army’s ranks though. I’m sure you’d find much warmer reception there.”

As opposed to his frozen cold, bitter reception? 

“My lord, I’ve already tried that. Many times, in fact. But they always tell me I’m not fit for service before they send me on my way again. The last man I spoke to said I wouldn’t even make good cannon fodder. Just a … another mouth for them to feed.”

“The medical division, then. Nurses are needed just as much as soldiers are.”

The sting of unshed tears creeps into your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. You’d already humiliated yourself enough just by marching into the Northland Bank and demanding an audience with its owner, you really didn’t want to add dramatics on top of that. It’s hard though, so hard. 

“I - I’m terrified of blood, sir. I can’t stand the sight of it. Honest. I’m lucky if I don’t pass out on the spot but then I run the risk of spitting up my lunch. I’m no good as a medic either.”

Softly clicking his tongue, Regrator tips his head ever so slightly to one side and vaguely purses his lips at you. “In that case, allow me to ask you again: what am I supposed to do with you when you have no talent, no strengths to offer? I’d like to remind you that nothing is free in this world and I cannot simply give you a salary for no services rendered. So, tell me. What are you going to give me in exchange?” 

“… I’m not sure, my lord. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you think that’s something you should have considered before you came calling on me in my office?” 

You flush hot at that, embarrassed by your tragic lack of foresight. But it was already much too late to remedy any of it, neither your uselessness nor the impulsive decision to come here, and you grope for an appropriate answer to the question. There had to be something. 

“Forgive me, but … could you be in need of a maid, my lord? Someone to clean and tidy up for you, or - or perhaps to take care of other mundane tasks that are far beneath someone of your — impressive and noble bearing?” 

That manages to earn you a scoff of a laugh as Regrator slowly shakes his head, looking almost rueful now. 

“So you’re also well versed in the art of brown nosing too, I see.” 

You’re almost startled to hear such crass language come out of his mouth, sounding all the more wrong in that dulcet, well cultured drawl of his. 

But before either of you can make another move — you, to decide how you should respond to that unexpected drop of the mask and him, to dismiss you from his sight — the door to the office abruptly swings open with a sudden wrench. 

“Pantalone!” The new man, this one utterly unknown to you, barks as he sweeps into the room, a whirlwind of dark, lifeless feathers that shudder at the slightest movement. “Did you approve my request for the research funding as I asked you to? I need to get started on the next phase soon. This is a highly time sensitive matter, you know.”

The door bangs shut behind him and, letting out a slow exhale through his nose, Regrator sedately leans back in his comfortable chair to glance up at the newcomer. Completely disengaging himself from the fact that you were still standing there, waiting for an answer, you can’t help but notice. Talk about awkward. 

“Yes, I saw it. And I’m well aware just how impatient you are, Doctor. That really is a bad habit of yours, if you ask me. I always approve your projects before anyone else’s, don’t I?” 

Grumbling a low sound, the man in the vaguely bird-like mask steps up next to you and then bypasses you completely, not even sparing you so much as a glance when he goes by. Much more interested in his bespectacled colleague sitting on the other side of the desk than he was in you, evidently. 

And you got the sense that this was likely for the best. 

“Then where is my mora, Pantalone? When might I expect it to reach my hand, hm? Today? In the next hour?” 

“Relax. I’ve already got someone downstairs divvying up what you asked me for. Such large amounts can take time to procure and verify, as I’m sure you’re well aware. But really now, what’s got you in such a deplorable mood today? I very much doubt it has only to do with the funding.” 

“No.” He bites out, through gnashing teeth by the sounds of it. Even you, someone who was not at all familiar with this person, could tell just from looking at his stiff back that he was indeed upset about something. 

But somehow Regrator’s placcid guise remains steadily in place even when his acquaintance begins to slowly pace, back and forth, in front of the desk. Not at all unlike a caged animal. 

“It’s that damn Columbina. Again! She’s been avoiding me lately, I’m sure of it. And we’d been having such a splendid time in each other's company too. I was even on my best behavior, if you can believe it.”

“I can’t.” Regrator helpfully supplies, even though he sounded to you just as unaffected by this information as he was by everything else. Amused, even. 

Snorting a derisive laugh, the man starts to broaden the circumference of his pacing, refusing to stay confined to the area in front of the desk any longer. As if he simply couldn’t stand to remain in one spot while he relayed the full scope of his frustrations to the other man. 

Rather surreptitiously, you start to back up and inch your way towards the door with every intention of making a silent, sneaky escape from the room. 

“I really don’t get it, you know. One moment I’m giving her the tour of my lab and the next, poof. She’s disappeared. Spirited away, never to be seen again, except in fleeting glances while she haunts the corridors of the palace like a singing wraith. That seems to be all she ever does, don’t you think?”

At Regrator’s vague lilt of a hum, the man in the bird mask makes a sharp about-face and starts to retrace the wide half moon arc he’d already stomped. 

“It really is ridiculous. I do nothing short of welcoming her in with open arms and this is the thanks I get.” He shakes his head, snorting a humorless laugh under his breath. “And don’t even get me started on that old, dying coot.”

“Now, Dottore,” the banker lightly admonishes. “That’s hardly a nice thing to say, is it?” 

“Pah! Who cares for niceties when the topic is but a plain and simple truth? Death comes for every mortal, eventually, and that ancient relic is no exception. It is the one great equalizer in this world, after all. Ah, but I suppose not all of us have to worry about that, do we?”   

You’re almost to the door now, your fingers itching with the overpowering urge to reach out and snatch the handle. It is only your curiosity at what was being discussed that makes you hesitate to take the chance while you have it, but you quickly come to regret that decision when this so-called Doctor aggressively turns on his heel again. 

And this time he comes up short when he finds himself standing face to face with you. The noticeable jump of tension in his posture tells you he really hadn’t noticed you earlier, and your presence there in the office comes as something of a shock to him. Oh, you really should have gotten out of there instead of being nosy. 

“And who is this?” He sharply emphasizes each individual word, punching the syllables out one by one as if they’ve personally wronged him. 

“Mm? You’re still here? My dear, I thought you’d already left some time ago.” 

You don’t think you believe that but you still find yourself growing uncomfortably warm under the Regrator’s archly inflected drawl. How embarrassing. 

“I’m so sorry, my … my lords.” You stammer in a rush. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I was just trying to excuse myself without interrupting your conversation.”

As if to prove that, you snatch your arm out to grab blindly at the door handle. It swings open with your jerky tug and you move to step out into the lobby, but Dottore is quicker than you expect. His gloved hand flies up to smack against the finely crafted wood, slamming it shut again, and you give a startled yelp of surprise when you snag your fingers back as if you’d been scalded. 

“Oh, but let’s not be so hasty,” he croons at you, all solicitation now. In the blink of an eye every bit of that simmering, bubbling temper from a moment ago is completely gone, as if a switch in him had been flipped, and your bone dry throat works a nervous swallow as you watch him politely fold his arms behind the small of his back. “Stay and chat for a moment, won’t you? And what is your name, little mouse?” 

You tell him with no shortage of apprehension or difficulty when your vocal chords almost refuse to cooperate. 

“I see. How interesting. I didn’t even notice you standing there. Has anyone ever told you that you are very good at going unnoticed and hiding in plain sight?” 

“Uh - uhm …”

“Our dear guest was just on her way.” Pantalone cuts in then. And although his tone of voice still remains as pleasantly accommodating as ever, there is now the prick of a pointed barb somewhere just underneath the surface to put you on even higher alert. Was he displeased with you? 

“Is that so?” His mouth tugging into a rather bemused smirk, the Doctor tips his head to one side, studying you from a slightly different angle. He does not look at all unlike a curious carrion bird in the execution of that gesture. 

“Oh, but what a pity that is. We could have had coffee brought in. I must admit, I’m quite curious to know what brought you before my esteemed colleague today. Judging by your attire, I’d say … you must be a commoner, is that right? And not a very well off one, if I had to guess. Then what business could you possibly have with the owner of the Northland Bank, hm?” 

“Dottore.” 

Wide eyes flickering in Regrator’s direction, you expect to see a disapproving frown upon his face or a bothered crease between his brows. Instead, you find him still smiling from his spot behind the desk, looking only mildly uncertain of his friend’s game. How curious. 

How frightening. 

You snap your gaze back up at the Doctor. “It — it was nothing, really. Just … wishful thinking, is all. I only wanted to try my luck here but I guess that was silly of me.” 

“With what?” 

“Oh. Um, a job. Work that I might be able to do for the Lord Harbinger in exchange for a few mora. I thought maybe he’d need extra hands here at the bank, or … or something.” 

“Or something.” The Doctor echoes you, sounding hardly impressed and yet not exactly disinterested in your pathetic little sob story either, prompting Regrator to quietly clear his throat. 

“Seeing as the bank is currently fully staffed and I have no need at the present time for any sort of housekeeping personnel, I’m afraid I’ve had to decline her well intentioned offer. While it does pain me to say it, I have a feeling that our little guest doesn’t have much to offer from an employer's perspective.” 

Your cheeks positively blaze, hot enough to fry an egg on. Of course you’d known coming here was likely the most foolish thing you could possibly do, well aware of your own shortcomings as you were, but to hear him say it out loud and in so many words? It feels like you could just whither away and die on the spot. 

“I - I’m so — s - so sorry, my lord. Please forgive me for my impudence today. It won’t happen again, I promise. I’ll just - -“ 

You’re already halfway through the motion of reaching for the door again when the masked man standing next to you abruptly grabs at your elbow, pinching and squeezing to once again halt your escape. Jumping at the contact, you jerk your head down to disbelievingly take in his gloved hand on your person. You’re so perplexed by this confounding turn of events that you don’t even think to pull away when he starts to nudge you in the direction of the two chairs situated in front of the desk. 

“Come, come. There’s no need for that now, is there? We are all adults, after all.” The Doctor cooes saccharinely. It was obvious he found something funny here but you couldn’t even begin to guess at what that might be or what it had to do with you as you stiffly let him pull you where he wants. It’s not as if you had much of a choice in the matter. “Surely something can be arranged if we just put our heads together and think. Three minds are always more effective than one when it comes to problem solving, wouldn’t you agree?”  

“I suppose so - -“

“Sit.” He commands, giving you a pointed shove in the direction of the nearest chair. The gravelly resonance in that one single word does more to convince you that it would be in your best interests to obey him than the insistence of his hands on you does, and you quickly drop into the indicated seat. 

You’re admittedly glad for it, too, because you feel dangerously close to fainting dead away from fright as you nervously peer up at the Doctor. What did he want with you to make you stay like this? And were you even allowed to be sitting on any of the furniture in the first place? Something in the way Regrator not so idly taps his fingers against the mahogany grain of his desk leads you to believe that you were not. 

How humiliating! You felt like a dog that was only being permitted to continue breaking the rules because there was company over, but that leniency would quickly disappear once you were alone with your master again. 

“There. That’s much better, isn’t it? Try not to look so nervous though. I merely want to talk.” Looking really quite pleased with himself, the Doctor eases his body into the chair next to yours where he proceeds to get comfortable, crossing his legs and then resting his neatly folded hands atop the bend of his knee. “Well then, little mouse. Tell me. How old are you?” 

You answer him truthfully, unsure why he would want to know, but it earns you a brief nod of approval all the same. 

“Well, that’s not too bad, is it? In fact, I might dare to say that you’re in the prime of your life and you don’t even realize it. Have you any family?” 

Something about that particular question strikes you as truly odd, and you shoot a helpless look at Regrator behind his desk. He is of absolutely no help to you though. 

Evidently perfectly content to simply watch the scene unfold before him, he just sits there, smiling, alternating between rapping at the wood and fiddling with one of the rings on his right hand. He neither rushes to your rescue nor does he join in on his friend’s impromptu interrogation of you. An utterly neutral party, if you didn’t have your creeping suspicion to the contrary. 

Turning back to the Doctor again, you sheepishly nod your head. “A mother and a father, but he’s … he hasn’t been home in nearly ten years. He was deployed with a regiment of Her Majesty’s forces to a foreign land when I was younger.”

Your answer seems to rouse Pantalone from his role of simple spectator, peering over at you now through the delicate lenses of his eyeglasses. “Deceased, then? Or …” 

“Not to our knowledge. Not officially, anyway.”

“There’s no one else?” Dottore tacks on this time. 

“No, my lord. It’s just us.” 

“Then is a soldier's salary not enough to see two people sufficiently fed and clothed? If that is the case then we shall have to direct any further queries on this matter to Pantalone instead.” He says, grinning over at the man in question, who gives no indication of having even heard him, other than the faintest tightening of the muscles around his mouth. 

It’s not hard to see that something about this situation is irritating him quite a bit. Whether that was you or his friend’s overly chatty persistence, you couldn’t be sure; but you self consciously rush to absolve him of any mistaken culpability before his mood can sour any further. 

“No, t - that isn’t quite it. Truth be told, the payments we receive from the palace used to be more than enough to cover our living expenses but … recently my mother has taken ill and she can no longer do odd jobs here or there to supplement our income. Our savings lasted for a little while, and then all of the medicine and doctors visits quickly depleted whatever we had. That’s why I thought …”

“You thought?” The masked man presses when you hesitate to go on. 

“Well, I — I guess my assumption was that working under one of Her Majesty’s Harbinger’s would earn me enough money to take care of her in her old age. Even if she doesn’t get better, I’d at least like her to be comfortable in her remaining time here. I need a reliable income for that, and plenty of it.” 

The Doctor huffs an amused laugh under his breath, not even bothering to try and conceal it. “That’s very noble of you, isn’t it? The perfect, martyred daughter playing her role right to the last. They have a word for that, you know.” 

You lift your head, curiosity once again getting the better of you. “They do?” 

“Oh, yes. It’s called being a fool.” 

Regrator heaves a quiet exhale at your startled jolt of surprise, giving his head a solemn shake now. “Dottore, that is no way to incline someone to your side when you plan on asking them for a fair exchange of services. I can guess at what you’re thinking, but … are you quite certain that it’s a good idea?” 

“I don’t see why not. It sounds to me like she already has experience in caring for the sick and the elderly. It will just be replacing one with another. That seems like a reasonable trade off for a plenty sizable check, if you ask me.” 

Slowly blinking away the sting of tears that have risen in the backs of your eyes, unbidden, you glance between the two of them with ever growing uncertainty. “What do you mean? Are you asking me to …” 

Eagerly, the Doctor unfolds his legs and sits forward in his chair, leaning across to invade your space. You shirk back, frightened by his close proximity as much as the leering smirk you can see under the hooked beak of his featureless mask. But even then, even in the face of your skittish, nervous reaction, he remains ever undaunted in pursuit of his goal. 

“That’s right. It might not be Pantalone pulling your purse strings, but if any old Harbinger would do then why not come work for me instead? I’ll certainly make it worth your while, little mouse. You see, I have an invalid of my own that needs tending to and I’m afraid I just don’t have the time or the patience to deal with it myself. In exchange, I will be happy to supply you with room and board, three meals a day and, of course, a hefty sum of mora to send back home to your mother. Doesn’t that sound perfectly agreeable to you? Hm?” 

Sitting there in the exquisitely made wing backed chair that was singularly nicer than anything you’d ever owned in your life, you can hardly believe what it is you’re being offered. Surely your ears must have been playing tricks on you. It was too good to be true, and more than you had even dared to hope for when you’d set off on this ill begotten expedition to the Northland Bank. There had to be a catch though. Something he wasn’t telling you. Fortuitous luck like this didn’t come without its pitfalls, you knew that only all too well. 

Your tongue darts out to nervously wet your lips as you search his blank mask for any signs that might point you in the right direction, to help you decide whether or not this was an insidious trap of some sort. It definitely felt like it was. 

“That … is a very generous offer, my lord. Thank you. I’m not sure I deserve your kindness, but — may I ask a question first?” 

He inclines his head rather graciously. “Go on.” 

You steal another brief glance at Regrator, but it’s clear he still has no intention of bailing you out, leaving you to sink or to swim, so you press on. “I’d like to know a bit more about the job I would be doing, if I accepted your proposal. What would you expect of me? Is it … a parent of yours that needs taking care of?” 

“Something like that.” Grumbling under his breath, the Doctor stands from his chair to resume his earlier pacing, but slower this time. An almost thoughtful gait to his step now. “Where to start? The, let’s say, patient in question is an eighty-four year old man with all of the usual problems one would expect at that age. Arthritic to the point of being half lame, he occasionally uses a wheelchair to get around although he isn’t quite to the point of being bed bound yet. Frankly, I hope it doesn’t ever come to that. He’s already cantankerous enough at the best of times.”

His boots thunking softly on the floorboards, he moves behind you and out of sight. 

“And yet he expects us to see to his care just by virtue of our proximity to him. But as I’ve already said, I have other, far more important things to be doing with my time. Research to conduct, experiments to oversee. His soon to be palliative care is the least of my concern, yet he refuses to stop harping on and on about needing this or that at all hours of the day. If you should choose to accept this position then I would expect you to keep him preoccupied and out of our hair indefinitely. That means, little mouse, that you would have to be present and alert at a moment's notice. Any slacking off in these duties would result in very unfortunate consequences for you, indeed.” 

You shudder faintly in your chair, effectively chilled to the bone by the total lack of regard or affection in which he speaks about this individual. He’d said it was something like a parent though, so you could only assume that they did not have a very good relationship. In truth, you almost felt bad for the old man without having even met him yet. 

But then it hits you. The catch. 

That sudden realization makes your stomach twist itself into a tight ball of knots as you spin around to peer back at the masked man, just as he comes up along the other side of you. It was hard to believe he’d ask something like this after you’d already told him about your own situation, your own circumstances. 

“I’m sorry, my lord, but … I can’t leave my mother alone like that. I’m all she has. If I’m not there to take care of her no one else will and I’ll have done all this for nothing.”

“Oh?” He cocks his head to the side, looking for all the world like a raven inspecting a fresh corpse on the side of the road for signs of life. “And whatever is stopping you from hiring someone to see to her in your stead, silly girl?” 

“I - I can’t afford that …” 

“Ah, I see. You doubt the depths of my coffers, then, I take it?” 

“Ahem.” Regrator cuts in at that moment, delicately clearing his throat of some imagined obstruction. “I believe that would be my coffers, Dottore, and you know full well that I at least like to be asked before you start making promises with my mora.”

The Doctor chuckles a faint sound of amusement in response. “Oh, don’t be like that, Pantalone. Can’t you see the poor thing is down on her luck and in need of our charitable assistance?” 

“Yes, well,” the bespectacled man murmurs, shifting his attention to you now. “What my colleague is trying to say is that the question of whether or not something is affordable won’t be of any concern to you if you ultimately decide to work for him. You will be making more than enough to pay for a live-in nurse to move in at your home or to even relocate your mother into a permanent residence at one of the clinics if you would so wish it. To that end I have no problem giving you an advance payment so that you are able to make all the necessary arrangements prior to starting your work, if that is something you need to consider.” 

“… really?” 

“Yes, dear. Really.” Regrator says, holding back a laugh. 

You just stare at him in utter disbelief for a painfully drawn out stretch of seconds before slowly glancing up at the Doctor again. It is not lost on you that something seems to have shifted between them inside this room. But he, too, appears to be completely serious and sincere. And try as you might to wrap your head around it you just don’t understand. Did this even really make any sense when you got right down to it? 

“But — but why me? Why couldn’t you just as easily hire someone more qualified than I am to take care of your fath - -“ 

“That is not what he is.” Dottore cuts across you forcefully enough to make you snap your mouth shut. Then, more quietly, he says, “Not exactly, anyway.”

Breathing out a rather curt exhale, the Doctor moves to step around the back of your chair again, slowly dragging his gloved hand across the top of it this time as he goes by. “I do not expect you to truly get anything out of this explanation, but the fact of the matter is that the situation calls for the utmost discretion and secrecy. Although I cannot tell you the exact details of it right now, what I can say is that this matter concerns a Fatui Harbinger and is, therefore, a delicate topic indeed. We cannot have word of the comings and goings of Her Majesty’s forces leaking to the public.”

“It’s a point of security, my dear.” Regrator helpfully adds on. “You understand.” 

You’re not so sure you do, but then the Doctor plops down in his abandoned seat and leans forward to brace his elbows upon his knees, clasped hands meeting between them. He looks … weary, you think. Like he’d already puzzled out every other possible avenue to resolve this issue as cleanly and neatly as possible only to come up regretfully short, time and time again. It makes you wonder, not for the first, what his relation could possibly be with this mysterious old man then, if he wouldn’t simply wipe his hands of it like he seemed to want. 

“The problem, you see, is that hired nurses generally expect to go home at the end of the day,” he goes on. “Or eventually, at the very least. And they take information with them, intentionally or not. They talk and they gossip, letting things slip. But we can’t just sequester someone like that away from the rest of the world, because they would invariably have people looking for them. Either family or employers, coworkers. Someone who might start asking questions. If the tracks then lead any subsequent investigations directly to the doorstep of a Harbinger …” 

The Doctor solemnly shakes his head, and you finally start to understand. 

“So you figured I was your best bet because the only one who might question my whereabouts is my mother, and she’s …” You’re reluctant to say it, but he nods his agreement all the same. “I see. But it sounds like I won’t have much freedom of movement, if you’re that worried about possible leaks getting out. I am sorry, my lord, but I still don’t think I can take on this responsibility.”

“Not even if it could potentially save your mother’s life?” 

You snap your head around to look over at Regrator who pins you in place with a not unkind smile. 

“What?” 

“Forgive me for butting in, it’s just … with the amount of mora you would be making from this position you could easily afford to hire the best physicians Snezhnaya has to offer. Sure, you might lose out on a couple of months with your mother, or even a year or two, depending on how the hands of fate choose to fall. But if she could be cured in that time then you would be free to enjoy each other's company in relative comfort once the job is completed.” 

Your mind positively reels at this information. Was that truly possible? An equivalent trade of some of your time for more of hers? Did you even dare to believe it? 

“I guess I didn’t really think of it like that, but … is the situation really that imperative, my lord? I - I mean, not to be rude, but is your fa - - your patient that much on borrowed time?” 

The Doctor tilts his face towards you, sending you a look that is no less scathing despite the barrier of his mask standing in the way. “He will be eighty-five years old soon. What do you think? I can’t imagine he has all that many more years in him, although I suppose we would only be so lucky if he doesn’t stubbornly cling to life with everything he’s got.” 

You’re more than a little aghast at how he speaks of this man, but even that is not enough to douse the flickering, hopeful flame that ignites in your heart. It wasn’t what you had set out to do, far from it, and yet you couldn’t conceive of a better outcome, especially when Regrator had been so quick to dismiss your entreaty of him. 

It was, of course, hard to believe that this prickly individual in the bird mask would be your savior over the arguably polite, handsome banker, and yet that seems to be exactly how things have turned out for you. Even if it was only a slim chance at extending your mothers life, perhaps just long enough for you to find some closure for her regarding the disappearance of your father, you knew that this was an opportunity you couldn’t afford to pass up. And besides that, if the Doctor was half as unsympathetic towards the old man as he was when talking about him in front of a complete stranger, then you could only surmise that your presence might be the single source of kindness allotted to him in his final days. You weren’t making this decision because of that, but it is something you take into consideration. 

“Alright, then,” you say at last, shocked at yourself for even considering going through with it. “I’m listening. How much are you going to pay me, so that I know what sort of arrangements to make for my mother? And when would you like me to start?” 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dear mama,

Today, I met old man Zandik for the first time. He is quite the interesting character! I cannot tell you much of my current situation or my employer, of course, and I’m sure this and any future letters to you will be thoroughly inspected before delivery to ensure that nothing of import slips through. I don’t think this much should hurt anything though, or at least I hope it doesn’t. 

But I don’t want you to worry about me or wonder how I’m doing, so I’ve decided it would be in both our best interests to send you periodic updates addressed to your room at the hospital while I’m away. I pray that this, the first of what is sure to be many letters, finds you well. Tell me, are the nurses being kind to you? Has there been any change at all in your health? I know you don’t like to be fussed over but please try not to give the staff there a hard time. They’re only trying to help you, just as I am doing my best to help you in whatever way that I can. 

Once I am finished with this job I promise I’ll come get you and we’ll go on a nice, long trip together!  

Oh, but let me tell you a little about old man Zandik. I suppose I should start calling him ‘Master’ now?

He turned out to be just as advanced in his later years as his associate claimed him to be and, strangely enough, this set any of my lingering doubts regarding his story to rest. I call the man I met at the Northland Bank an associate because … well, it’s a little hard to explain. Actually, I’m not quite sure I even understand it myself. This place is rather disconcerting in that regard, and sometimes it can be exceedingly difficult to make sense of the things I hear or see. 

Luckily, though, Master Zandik is a very grounding presence in his own strange way. To some extent he feels more real than the one in the mask, despite the fact that he did not seem particularly happy to see me standing there with his associate. He even tried to send me away at first, which I am sure you can imagine came as quite the shock! I thought I might pass out right then and there from embarrassment, thinking that there had been some sort of mistake. But the other man insisted that everything was already in order for me to begin my duties and after stressing to him that the advanced payment had already been delivered (and spent!) Zandik reluctantly gave in. I’m not entirely sure what their relation is to cause so much tension between them, but we occupied the rest of the afternoon with him showing me around his laboratory and telling me all about the things inside it. 

Yes, you read that right. A laboratory, mama! I’ve been employed in the service of a real scientist who works for Her Majesty, and who has accomplished quite a lot according to him. It is just as I told you, then, when I had to leave you at the hospital. So you see, there is nothing at all for you to fret about. 

But back to Master Zandik. Although he certainly wasn’t happy with me in the beginning he warmed up quickly enough. Honestly, I think he was just happy to be shown an interest in his work and to spend time around someone other than himself. In another life he might even have been a teacher, a celebrated professor at an equally venerated university. He seemed to rather enjoy explaining things to me despite the fact that I could hardly keep up with much of what he said. 

I suppose that, in a way, this was likely what the man in the mask meant when he said that he didn’t have time to take care of Master Zandik himself. The old man is sharp for his age and far more intelligent than I would have thought it possible for any one person to be, but he also seems a bit lonely. Restless in his advancing age. I’m not sure if my presence here or any amount of interest in his work will be enough to ward off the causal effects of his twilight years, but I’m certainly going to do my best. For your sake as much as his. 

He isn’t nearly as sweet or kindhearted as you are, mama, but I think the two of you would get along splendidly. Something about him almost reminds me of papa. It would have been nice if I’d been able to take care of him in his old age, too. Perhaps, then, Master Zandik will be my temporary substitute in the meantime. I’ll get some good practice in, at least! 

Oh, but I do miss you so. I hope you’ll write me back soon. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it’s a little unnerving being away from home like this. Sometimes I hear strange sounds off in the distance and Master Zandik does not like to let me far out of his sight, so I cannot even investigate the source to put my mind at ease. Her Majesty willing, it is nothing to worry about though. 

Until next time,

With love 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It is undoubtedly something to worry about, you decide with no shortage of fast mounting apprehension. 

In fact, there were a great many things you should be worried about and right at the top of that list was the identity of the mysterious masked person who seemed to come and go with all of the pomp and circumstance of a wandering specter. That strange noise you kept hearing didn’t even crack the top five. 

It was alarming though, causing your blood pressure spike and your heart to race every time you caught it coming from somewhere not that far off in the distance. But you never seemed to get any closer to it no matter where you happened to be standing, nor could you pinpoint which direction it was coming from. And worst of all, Zandik did not seem to even notice it. If anything, your startled reactions appeared to bother him far more than anything else did. 

“And what’s got you so spooked this time?” He grumbles, carefully setting his coffee cup down on its matching saucer with a faint clink from the delicate glass. “Looks like you’ve seen a ghoul passing by, if you ask me.” 

You’re not so sure that’s an entirely inaccurate statement, all things considered, and you nervously turn away from your dusting to face him. “Do you really not hear it? What is that?” 

“Hm?” Tilting his head slightly, Zandik carefully listens for a long moment. The two of you are in his library, perfectly still and silent save for the far off noise that has plagued you since you first arrived here. 

It always sounded off at random intervals throughout the day with no rhyme or reason that you could discern, ensuring it always caught you unawares and ill prepared. Just yesterday you’d nearly dumped boiling water all down your front from jumping so hard at the unexpected shrill. 

At length, he finally gives his head a shake. “I don’t hear anything. You’re imagining it.” 

“I really don’t think I am.” You insist, but it’s weak and unsure. Not exactly convinced of your own convictions when this place was starting to make you feel crazy. 

You’d been here for about a month now and for the most part the work wasn’t anything terrible. You liked Zandik well enough, even if he was occasionally short with you and not quite as easy to please as the letter you’d sent to your mother had implied. Sure, it was wrong to fib or stretch the truth, but you hadn’t wanted her to worry about you when she should have been worrying about herself. 

For the most part you just kept the old man company. Waking him every morning, helping him get dressed and then handing him his cane, when he felt up for it, so you could accompany him down to the lab he so enjoyed dawdling in or, like today, the library. You take your meals together, sit and read together, when time permits, and enjoy the peaceful stillness of the eerily quiet, sprawling mansion together. Sometimes he snaps at you, pinches your thigh to get your attention or chides you for imagined slights against his person, but that was usually the worst of it. 

The one in the bird mask was decidedly much worse and he often appeared without warning, materializing out of some dark nook or cranny to scare you half to death. Even if he were not inclined to such sneaking around, though, you were still likely to have found his presence there with you and the old man disconcerting. 

Because you’d realized quite immediately upon being introduced to Zandik that something was not right here. They were very much alike, those two, with the same hair (although the older’s had started to thin and to dull in color) and their voices were very much the same as well (although the younger’s was more crisp and clear) but you couldn’t quite put your finger on what was off between them. At first you’d thought the masked one had simply lied to you, and they were in fact father and son despite what he’d said to the contrary. And yet …

Watching them interact gave you the impression that this wasn’t likely to be the correct answer either. They were almost like mirror images of one another, in a way, and Zandik was only marginally easier to deal with by simple virtue of the fact that he was reliant on you to take care of many everyday, mundane tasks for him. If he had been even half as spry and independent as his younger counterpart, you were sure you would have been in a world of trouble. 

Anxiously twisting the feather duster in your hands now, you stand there and listen to the distant grating, gnashing, grinding sound that seems as if it is coming from everywhere and somehow nowhere all at once. It gave you the impression of metal biting into metal, tearing and ripping. Crushing. You couldn’t believe he didn’t hear that. 

Eventually lifting his head again, Zandik now peers over at you with a scowl deepening the wrinkles around his mouth. “Is your imagination really that distracting? Those bookshelves aren’t going to dust themselves, you know.” 

“It is not my imagination.” You argue, earning yourself a humorless scoff from him. 

“Then what else could it be? My hearing hasn’t gotten that bad yet. If I can make out the scurrying of rats down in the cellar — and trust me, I most assuredly can — then surely I would also hear this mysterious noise you speak of.”

Grumbling something unkind under his breath, Zandik settles deeper into his chair before going on. “I don’t know where he found you at – some barren street corner, I would imagine. But I feel the need to once again voice my doubts concerning this arrangement. An empty headed, flighty little girl does not seem the best candidate for watching after an old man, if you want my opinion.” 

“I am not a little girl.” You huff, taking great offense to that. 

“Well, you certainly look like one to me.” 

Cheeks growing warm, you have to bite your tongue to stop the impulse to argue any further with him. He was your employer, after all, and he also wasn’t necessarily wrong. To an eighty-four year old you probably did seem not much unlike a child to him. But that didn’t mean you appreciated being talked to like one, and for an uncomfortably long moment terse silence claims the room with only that horrible sound to fill the empty space. 

And then, it stops. 

As suddenly as it started, it recedes back into the void of nothingness and you slowly exhale your great relief. Watching you carefully, Zandik observes the way your shoulders gradually relax and how the tension drains out of your body before he similarly sighs a heavy, world weary breath out through his nose. 

“Come here, silly girl. Let me see you. Don’t be frightened.” 

Still clutching the feather duster, you heed his summons and obediently, albeit anxiously, step across the room to come up beside him. 

He’d felt well enough today to forgo the wheelchair he sometimes needed to get around with when his arthritis was bothering him, relying on only his cane to help him shuffle down to the library with you in tow. As such, he is sitting in a comfortably cushioned, high backed chair in front of a cluttered desk littered with books and papers, a seemingly random pair of forceps and an empty beaker, an assortment of pens and inkwells scattered about the surface. You weren’t sure what he was working on, if he was working on anything at all and not simply wiling away the time. You probably wouldn’t have understood much of it even if you’d asked him, though. Zandik’s mind was something far beyond your scope of comprehension even in his old age. 

Halting a respectful distance from the arm of his chair, you neatly fold your hands in front of you over the white apron that trails down your front. “Yes, Master?” 

Saying nothing, Zandik reaches out to firmly grab hold of your fingers with his mouth pressed in a tight line. You give a small jolt, flushing rather profusely as he tugs, nudging you to step closer to him. The gesture isn’t exactly gentle but it’s not aggressive, either. Just — demanding. And maybe a bit condescending, the way he steers you into place as if you should have innately understood where he wanted you to be. 

Evidently satisfied only when you can feel the bulk of the skirt pushing in on his chair, he releases you and lets his hand drop to the arm rest. Then he turns his attention towards the dusty old book spread open before him, disregarding you completely, and still without uttering so much as a single word in your direction.  

To your surprise it looks like he’s going to ignore you now that you’re standing beside him, his attention fixed on the hefty tome. He neither says or indicates anything to signal what he wants, so you simply stand there, waiting and at attention. 

Then you feel it. 

That same hand almost inconspicuously touches the back of your knee, tickling you ever so faintly when he traces your stockings upward to then slip underneath the hem of your skirt. You go ramrod stiff, shuddering and breaking out into gooseflesh as you stamp down the urge to pull away from him. This was not a unique instance of him putting his hands on you, but you were no more used to it now than the first time it happened. 

“W - what are you doing? Sir?” 

Zandik clicks his tongue, still not even bothering to look up when he responds. “What does it look like I’m doing? Don’t be daft, girl.”

Pursing your lips, you stand there stiff as a board while he slowly works his way higher and higher up the back of your thigh. So grumpy. 

You’d nearly whirled around and slapped him across the face the first time he’d done something like this, mere days after being introduced. At the onset you’d thought he was merely trying to scare you away, hoping to send you packing with complaints of harassment and unfavorable work conditions, but you’d assured yourself that you were made of tougher stuff than that. 

He’d persisted though, even after a few weeks had gone by, and now you weren’t so sure that he wasn’t just taking advantage of his age and his position of authority to feel you up whenever the mood struck him. 

Sometimes it was like this; touching your exposed legs where the housekeeping uniform given to you by the man in the mask didn’t reach down far enough to protect you from his wandering fingers. Other times he’d wait until you were close enough, leaning forward to set his coffee in front of him or picking up a book he’d asked to have taken away, to reach up and innocuously brush his knuckles across your chest. You didn’t like it one bit, but you always thought of your mother in these situations to remind yourself what was at stake here. For her sake, you would put up with just about anything. 

But this time Zandik’s searching fingers are bolder than usual, evidently no longer content with simply touching the parts of you that could be misconstrued as innocent or accidental, if you chose to interpret them that way. This time, he brushes right over the top edge of your stockings, taking a moment to inspect the little metal clasps holding them in place before reaching higher still. 

Your throat suddenly seems to be obstructed with something that feels very much like a boulder, lodged and unbudging, as he now feels along bare skin. His fingers are cold and bony, trembling ever so slightly from the effects of aging, not nerves. He’s perfectly confident, in fact, when he unhesitatingly finds the seam of your panties a moment later and proceeds to almost possessively curl those long, dexterous digits around the pudge of your quim to make you give a great jolt of surprise. 

“M - master Zandik! What - -!” 

“Oh, just hush, you idiot. I’m not hurting you, am I? Eh? No, I didn’t think so. Now stop looking at me like that and focus on this instead of those phantom noises you think you hear.” 

“But … but …” 

Swaying somewhat unsteadily there on your feet, you screw your eyes shut with a low whimper. You’d never had someone touch you like this before and you aren’t sure what to make of any of it. 

On one hand, you try to reason with yourself, he was right in that he wasn’t causing you any harm. It didn’t hurt, at the very least. But on the other it was undoubtedly wrong for him to be helping himself to your body like this. Not only because you were employer and employee, master and servant, and this broke the unspoken understanding between those respective roles, your stations in life. But also because of the great difference in age. 

He was old enough to be your grandfather, for crying out loud! 

You feel more than a smidge bitter about that, and you silently curse him in your head while he nudges the hand between your legs with a deliberate motion that makes his fingers press up into you. The sensation of fleshy lips shifting under the pressure, forced to part for him, quickly has you sucking in a ragged breath that painfully rakes on the way down. 

“W - what do you mean to do, sir?” You warble out, starting to squirm on your feet beside him. Impulsively, you reach behind you with one hand to try and shove the back of your dress down but it is simply no use. His arm remains as uncompromising as ever. “Is this really necessary? I’m s - sorry if I … displeased you.”

“Nonsense. You did nothing of the sort.” He grumbles, the brunt of his focus remaining on the book laid out on the desk while the gesture of his hand seems akin to a mere afterthought. 

“Then why - -“

“Gods, girl. Do you ever stop asking questions? Ever since you came here you’ve been wound tighter than a jack spring, always jumping and scaring at the slightest noise. I’ll have you know that this is precisely why I tried to tell that bastard fool you weren’t needed here.” Snorting a derisive sound, Zandik reaches for the pen sitting next to the book with his right hand. 

Leaving the other to busy between your legs, he jots down some notation or another that you can’t quite decipher when the insistent rubbing of his fingers was beginning to make you feel so very warm. Stuffy, and increasingly stifled. 

“What’s done is already done though, and I suppose you’re here to stay.” He goes on, softening the tone of his voice by only some small margin. “The least you could do is let me tend to you a little bit without all this fuss. If it helps, you can try to think of it as being in exchange for always taking decent enough care of me. You do make a rather agreeable pot of coffee, I have to admit.” 

Blinking back the sting of unshed tears from your eyes, you peer down at him in question but, still, he won’t look up at you. 

Was this supposed to be some sort of reward then? His way of praising you for a month’s worth of hard work rendered, or perhaps as a misguided way of soothing your jittery nerves. That seemed rather backwards to you and you weren’t sure how that could possibly make any sense in his mind, but … 

The growing warmth that slowly settles and spreads across your pussy is frustratingly persuasive. It fogs your brain, making it more and more difficult to think straight even as you somewhat awkwardly shift around on your heels, torn between skittering away from his attentions or nudging into it. In truth you hadn’t given much thought at all to the ways in which a man might someday touch you but this was far too wrong for you to reconcile any of it in your mind. He shouldn’t have been doing this to you. 

And you certainly should not have been enjoying it. Not even a little bit. 

And yet as the seconds continue to tick by, dutifully counted off by the stoic facade of the grandfather clock against the adjacent wall, that’s exactly how your body appears to be responding to him as well as his ministrations. With pleasure, and the eager, excessive slick of your youth. You can feel it gathering along the crease, steadily building up in abundance until it feels like it’s oozing out of you to stick to the cotton of your panties. Dampening, clinging, smearing wetly with every pass of his twitching fingers. Your cunt had never felt as terribly hot as it does now. 

The sensation is overpowering and potent enough that when he finally gives his hand a deliberate twist, locating the outer edge of the gusset and rudely shoving the thin material aside, it very nearly comes as a relief. You can’t help but shudder though, whimpering at the cool brush of wafting air that caresses over your thoroughly swollen sex to make your posture waver. 

Almost unconsciously you find yourself tipping forward, the weight of your upper body too much for your legs to support when your lower half was buzzing, tingling. Turning into molten honey that threatens to drip out onto the floor underneath you. 

Without warning, Zandik’s wizened fingertips slip inside the tight space between flesh and cotton, where he proceeds to drag a harsh line through your weeping slit. You involuntarily jolt at the feeling, and when he chuckles a brief sound in the same heartbeat you can’t be sure if it’s in response to your reaction or the state of arousal he’s found you in. Perhaps it was even both. 

“Interesting. Looks to me like you’re much more eager than you want to let on. Not exactly the pure, innocent maiden you’d have me believe you are, hm?” 

You have a strong mind to correct him on that. To insist that it is only the precise expertise of his fingers and the keen application he applies to your cunt that has made such a mess of you, and not any fault of your own. But you can’t seem to manage it, having neither the oxygen nor the remaining mental capacity to follow through on the impulse. All you can do is stand there, softly panting, while his digits spear through delicate creases and satin inner folds in search of the hidden pearl at the apex of your slit. 

And you know the exact moment he finds it just as well as he does, because you violently twitch so hard your legs almost give out on the spot. One of your hands blindly flies out to slam against the top of the desk in an attempt to restore your balance but it’s no use. Especially not when Zandik sets in to rub over that sensitive spot, drawing tight circles into the pulsing, pinprick nerve cluster. The motion of his hand was at once tender and demanding at the same time. 

Entirely against your will, you let loose a low, faltering sound of rapidly budding ecstasy, unable to hold it back even if you’d tried. The fingers on your pussy give an excited little jump in response to the sound before attacking you with even greater fervor than before. That delicate button, swollen and tender, grinds under the pressure of his attention, dragging against the worn pads of his digits. 

You felt like you were drunkenly spinning through a kaleidoscopic rush of sensation unlike anything you’d ever experienced before. Inebriated and loopy, soaring higher and higher towards the culminative end of your own consciousness. You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. You felt like you were going to cry; great big, gasping sobs that would wrack you straight down to the bone. You were going to die here in this library. You were going to — 

“Aah - aaugghhn! M - master Zandik!” 

A harsh, ragged intake of air is all you manage after that rattling plea, feeling as if you were about to tip right over the precipice into some great, gaping maw of absolution. 

But you don’t quite make it that far, hovering poised and shaking for the pin to drop when the door on the opposite side of the room abruptly wrenches open. 

You hear an unwelcomingly familiar voice call out, “is this where you are?” and you wrench yourself upright so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash. 

Zandik, too, reacts with a startled little jerk, quickly withdrawing his hand from the inside of your panties just in time for the man in the bird mask to appear in the doorway. One or both of you must look guilty as hell, though, because he pauses there to consideringly observe the scene he’s just walked in on. 

“Am I interrupting something?” He drawls at length, quiet and pointed with barbed wire. 

“N - no, my lord. I was just — checking if master Zandik needed a refill on his coffee. That’s all.”

Heaving another terse exhale, the old man lifts his hand — the one that had just been between your legs, you realize with a great deal of mortified horror — to idly gesture the other inside. “A top off sounds just fine. What do you want? I hope you’re not bringing me another caretaker I didn’t want or ask for.” 

“Oh, don’t be like that.” The Doctor croons, the switch in him flipping just like that. 

You find this aspect of him perhaps most disconcerting of all, and you gratefully turn away to retrieve the silver carafe you’d left sitting by the window when he moves to step through the door. 

“Just because you haven’t realized it yet, that doesn’t mean you don’t need someone around who can fully devote all of their attention to your long list of needs. You are, after all, getting older with each and every passing day, Zandik. The aches and ailments are only going to continue to accumulate with time. I think you know that just as well as I do.” 

“You have a working pair of hands, don’t you? Or is that mouth of yours the only thing that works?” 

“It’s not my responsibility.” He volleys back, keeping his tone light and airy. Playful, almost, or so you might think if you didn’t already know him better than that. 

Keeping your head down so as not to draw any unwanted attention to yourself, you cautiously make your way back over to Zandik’s side where you lean across his shoulder to refill the cup on the table. He’s back to ignoring your presence though, which is just fine with you, and you quickly skitter away when the Doctor steps up to the other side of the desk without giving you so much as a second glance. And thank Her Majesty for that small mercy! 

Retreating back some distance to one of the tall bookshelves, you settle in to resume your earlier dusting. Or pretend to, anyway.  

You’d picked up very early on that it was best to keep yourself busy and preoccupied while they had their discussions, but that didn’t mean you weren’t going to stay well within earshot to listen. It was one of the good things about being able to make yourself so small and unobtrusive that you just sort of blended right in with the scenery, and likely why the Doctor had set his machinations on you that day in the bank. You were easy to overlook when he had far more important things to be dealing with. 

“You say it’s not your responsibility.” Zandik finally grumbles, sounding as if he was still turning that statement over in his head. “As if you should even have the luxury of choice in the matter.” 

“It’s not. It really isn’t.” The Doctor insists. “But let’s put that aside for now. I have some interesting news to share with you, if you’d like to know what that most impulsive segment of yours has been up to recently.” 

Ever so slowly, you turn your head to better angle your ear towards the desk. Segments. You’d heard that word a few times now over the course of your stay here, but you had no idea what it meant or what it might refer to. You were curious though, and as always that curiosity of yours tended to get you into trouble. This was clearly not a conversation you should have been privy to, and yet here you were. 

Perhaps thinking the exact same thing, Zandik uneasily shifts in his chair. “And what might that be? I trust it must be good if you went to the trouble of tracking me down.” 

The Doctor says something about Sumeru, then, something that makes absolutely no sense to you. There’s an eager lilt in his voice when he talks about it though, calling it lost technology and forbidden research, unexpected breakthroughs. You find that a little odd, admittedly, because you were very much under the impression that he worked directly under the Tsaritsa. Why would she forbid something that one of her loyal subjects was working on? 

Unless … it was not she who had forbidden it? 

It’s hard to imagine that anyone or anything’s authority would trump that of Her Majesty’s. Even the other gods in neighboring nations seemed pale in comparison to her splendor, her heavy handed rule of law, but that seemed to be exactly what they were talking about. 

Unfortunately the subject is changed too quickly for you to glean much of anything from it, moving away from those far more interesting tidbits to focus instead on minute details and data, probability statistics of success or failure, resource management and funding arrangements. It’s all very vague in your mind. Amorphous and shapeless without any basis of understanding to contextualize any of it. They may as well have been speaking a different language and it doesn’t take long for you to mentally tune them out in favor of revisiting that bizarre exchange with Zandik. 

It was strange, wasn’t it, for him to overstep like that? Even by his own standards, that had been a bit much. And your pussy was still soaking wet with the evidence of his ambitious intents upon you, reminding you just how sticky and uncomfortably slick you were with every little shift of your body. Against your better judgments, you find that you ache terribly for the unfulfilled thrill of culmination that had been mercilessly ripped from you even as you silently rebuke it in the same breath. 

You felt sick and slimy just thinking about him touching you as he had, angry at your own helplessness to do anything to stop it from happening. But you also couldn’t ignore the tight, wanting knot in your loins, the powerfully compelling urge to offer your cunt up to the perusal of his hands again. It had felt nice, you’re beyond ashamed to realize. Good, in a way that felt like it could all too easily become addicting if you weren’t careful.

Had Zandik been even just thirty years younger you probably would have been wrestling with quite the moral conundrum right now. He is not, though, and so your decision was an easy one to make. You just couldn’t afford to get involved with someone that many decades your senior and whose position in the social hierarchy far outclassed yours. Simply entertaining the notion was in itself craven and perverted. 

But if he were to be the one who initiated it again … it’s not as if you could really tell your employer ‘no’, could you? 

These contradictory and confusing thoughts whirl about inside your head over the next half hour or so while the two of them go back and forth over this or that and the other. They aren’t exactly on friendly terms, given the sharp barbs they regularly exchange between them, apparently unable to stop themselves from taking jabs at pride and ego. They were barely even cordial, in fact. 

But whatever is bubbling beneath the surface does not reach its boiling point today, and your ears prick back into focus when you hear the Doctor start to make the usual indications that he was to take his leave. 

You’re not sure if you should be happy about that or not, hand tightening on the useless feather duster you’d all but forgotten you were holding. You certainly had not used it for its intended purpose at any time since Zandik first called you to his side. 

But between your nosy interest in their discussion and the dripping wet cunt between your legs, you’d been quite distracted from your duties. Now, however, you jump to get back to your dusting while you listen to heavy boots moving across the floor. A shuffling turn, a redistribution of weight, the purposeful thunk of a heel landing squarely on old wood with an accompanying low creak. 

And then gloved hands are looping around you from behind, very nearly making you jump out of your skin when they anchor around your waist without warning. Heart lodging in your throat, you whip your head around to look back at the featureless mask hovering just over your shoulder. 

“M - m - my lord?” You squeak in fright. 

“How adorable. But don’t pretend to be surprised now, little mouse. I know full well that you were listening to our conversation with nothing short of rapt fascination, weren’t you?” The Doctor croons, clearly amused by that simple audacity rather than enraged by it like you otherwise might have thought him to be. 

“You … you knew? But you kept talking anyway?” 

“Why, of course. It’s not as if there’s anything you can do with this information, is there? The strict stipulations of our arrangement were made for a very good reason, you know. And besides … you’ve been standing in this exact spot the entire time, not doing much of anything that I would even begin to call productive. You weren’t exactly trying to hide it.” 

You flinch at his pointed accusation, cheeks flooding with embarrassed heat. The Doctor merely chuckles a faint sound at your reaction though, neither chiding you for your indiscretions or punishing you for them. He really couldn’t care about you eavesdropping, then. Clearly quite confident that you would find no easy way to leak what you’ve heard to the outside world for as long as you were trapped here inside this sprawling, resoundingly empty manor home. 

Regrettably for you, he was likely correct about that. 

“I’ll try to be sneakier about it next time.” You promise him, earning another quiet snort of amusement. “In the meantime, was there anything I could help you with, sir? Your hands …” 

He gives your waist a tight squeeze at the reminder, blocky fingers digging deep into lovehandles for a brief moment to make you squirm. You couldn’t figure out what their fascination was with touching you so indecorously like this, and you whimper softly at the sharp little jabs of discomfort that spark through you. 

The Doctor doesn’t release his hold though, not even when you nervously rock forward as if to slip out of his grasp and flee. His fingers are like iron manacles where they hold you to the spot, demanding compliance and promising to take it by force should you get any bright ideas about fighting him. Those hands were not unlike Zandik’s in that sense, but somehow even more ruthless. Unsympathetic. 

“Ooh, don’t be like that. I just thought to check in on you, that’s all.” He coos when he leans closer, hunching over you now as if to swallow you up in a final, damning rustle of black bird feathers. “It’s just as I thought, though. You’ve taken to this assignment exceptionally well by the looks of things. I guess you really were the best candidate for the job after all.” 

“T - … thank you for the compliment, my lord.” 

“Think nothing of it. And there will be plenty more where that came from if you continue to meet my expectations of you.” Dropping his voice to a whisper, somehow sultry as the night and menacing as a bared-fang hiss at the same time, he goes on. “You’ve been taking awfully good care of that decrepit old wretch, haven’t you? And you have my immense thanks for that, of course. I do wonder though how I should show my appreciation for all of your hard work so far …”

With that vaguely ominous murmur, his hands slide low to deliberately smooth over your hips and across your thighs in a sudden rush of contact that makes you gasp. But there’s no time to stop it when everything happens much too fast for you to even comprehend that it’s happening at all. 

One moment he’s taking big, wrenching handfuls of the skirt, gathering it in his fists, and the next he’s got the bulk of the material hiked up around your stomach. You jolt at the abrupt exposure of your lower half, head snapping down to watch the Doctor snake one arm around you and trap the material in place. This allows him to reach back down with the other where he’s now free to palm at your underwear in a too tight squeeze that has you twisting in his hold, biting your tongue to stop the yelp that tries to force its way out. 

You couldn’t believe he would do this when Zandik was still sitting just behind the two of you at the desk. Was he insane? 

“My, my, isn’t this an interesting discovery. Your panties are damp, little mouse. I wonder what could possibly be the cause of that.”

Turning your face away from him to fix upon the opposite wall instead, you blindly reach down and clamp your fingers around the wrist between your legs. But it’s no use. He’s as unbudging as a brick wall against you. Even trying to squeeze him out with your thighs doesn’t do you any good. 

“S - stop that! Let go of me!” You hiss viciously under your breath, practically spitting at him like a viper. 

“What, you’re not interested?” He laughs against your temple to send hot breath dancing across your skin, and you respond by trembling fiercely in his hold. “Well, that seems a little backwards if you ask me. Do you really think that old fool can give you something I can’t? Frankly, my dear, I’m not even sure if he can still get it up.”

You give him a sharp, incredulous look, nearly taking your own eye out on the pointy beak of his mask, but all he does is laugh in response. 

“Don’t look at me like that. You’re welcome to do whatever you want, within reason. I’m certainly not going to stop you, and far be it that I would try to prohibit the pursuit of scientific discovery if you’d like to find out for yourself. I’m just saying that the statistical odds aren’t exactly stacked in your favor. But on the off chance that he isn’t completely impotent … I can still promise you that I would take much better care of you than he ever could.” 

As if in proof of that decree, the Doctor gives his probing hand a purposeful twist, snagging the edge of the fabric with the crook of his fingers. Without a single ounce of regard for how you might feel about it, he peels your underwear aside to once again expose your weeping slit to the cool air in the library. It makes you realize anew just how swollen and slick your pussy is, shaking with a plaintive arch of your spine as you seethe through your teeth. 

Ever unconcerned with silly notions such as time or place, even potential audiences, Dottore delves two of those gloved digits inside the pudgy grip of your labia. He is nothing like Zandik in the way he paws at you now, ignoring your tingling clitoris entirely in favor of locating your dripping opening instead. And when he finds it easily enough by following the source of all that slippery discharge to its wellspring, he doesn’t even hesitate to thrust his fingers inside. 

The sudden breach of your body, this unexpected penetration, has you frantically rising up on your tip toes in a desperate bid to escape it. You’re trapped in his arms though, with nowhere to run, and you frantically drop the feather duster to the sound of a dull clatter against the floor so you can slap that hand over your mouth instead. It takes everything you have not to shriek in distress and rising panic, the sting of fresh, salty tears making your vision blur. 

It wasn’t just the stretch to your hitherto untested passage, the deep ache that it leaves in you. These things alone would have been more than enough to have you sobbing, lamenting your own ruin in this drafty place. But what truly makes your throat cinch shut, making it impossible to breathe, for your stomach to wrench so violently you think you might really faint dead away, is how readily your cunt accepts the violation.  

You’re too wet, too puffy and swollen to keep him out, and the Doctor is able to freely impale you on those long, searching digits straight up to the second joint with hardly any effort at all to show for it. Zandik’s patient, coaxing caresses over that long stretch of minutes had done its job and done it exceptionally well. You sway in the Doctor’s hold, dizzy and reeling, as you throb around the intrusion, wheezing nauseatingly into your palm. 

“Oh? What’s this now?” 

Drawling a slow, reverberating chuckle, he starts to worm deeper into you, forcing your tight inner sleeve to accommodate his presence within. It’s an uncomfortably vice-like fit, to be sure, when your constricting passage squeezes around his fingers as if to strangle them. And yet that does absolutely nothing to daunt his tireless pursuit of reaching as far into your person as he can go, singlemindedly bullying your tender pussy open one malicious inch at a time. 

Finally, he slides the rest of the way home with one last, insidious wriggle of those astute digits, a messy click sounding from your cunt when his knuckles press into you hard. The foreign sensation of being stuffed full like this nearly has your eyes rolling back in their sockets even as you awkwardly shift to lessen some of the pressure. It’s a futile endeavor, though. There’s no escaping his clutches like this, no way to lift yourself off of his hand when he has you stuck in place by your pussy. All you can manage is to stiffly writhe against him, the heels of your little buckled shoes shuffling a disoriented tempo against the floor in your desperate search for balance atop the spear of his fingers. 

“You took that surprisingly well,” he murmurs, directly into your ear, so close that you can feel his coarse lips brushing the outer shell. It comes as a small, distant relief that he sounds so pleased with you, evidently satisfied by the reluctant acquiescence of your body. You could only hope that this meant he wouldn’t try to force you to bend any further than he already had. 

“And you didn’t even scream either. Not that it would have done you any good though. I’m sure you understand perfectly well by now that no one will be coming to your rescue here, hm? But that’s just as well, darling mouse. I do so detest the sound of wailing.” 

The Doctor’s sturdy frame shudders against yours when he issues another low, grinding laugh, chuckling into the side of your head. You blearily come out of your stupor now that what you think must be the worst of it has passed, alertness slowly returning to you as you stir within the confines of his arms. But the one around your waist merely tightens, keeping you securely fastened to him, while the other flexes with the tensing of musculature and chorded sinew. 

In torturous slow motion, the fingers inside your trembling quim begin to retreat. Sliding out from the clinging grip of you one mind numbing fraction at a time until only the first joint remains wedged. Then he pushes back in, at that same staggered pace, gliding through the sticky mess along your guts until you’ve taken both of his first two fingers in their entirety again. The same wet, sloppy squelch as before punctuates the air, sounding unbearably loud in the otherwise still and silent library. 

You almost curse yourself for even considering it right now, given your own predicament, and yet you can’t help but wonder what Zandik must be thinking. Listening to his younger counterpart — because that’s all you can think of him as — patiently working you open with his hand, the muffled gasps and whines that slip out from behind your cupped palm. The bow legged shuffle of your awkwardly splayed feet, its cause unmistakable. The tall tell sound of a drenched, terribly stuffed pussy being worked over, manipulated, and plucked to vibrating fever pitch. 

Was he possibly even watching, having turned around in his chair to observe the spectacle that unfolds before him? 

It was not so different from what he himself had already done to you, in truth, but the Doctor takes a much different approach in his defilement of your body. He is not nearly as doting in his methodology of playing with your cunt as the old man was, nor particularly gentle about the way he crooks his thrusting fingers and jabs at your upper wall, as if to reach all the way through you to come out at your bellybutton. He’s demanding and forceful, merciless. And you positively flood around his thrusting digits, quite against your will. 

The same nearly suffocating pressure from before rapidly swells throughout your loins to leave them knotted and twisted, turning molten within the protective cradle of your internal organs. It feels like your cunt is melting all over again. Liquifying into a mess of warm, sticky mead. It leaves you soaring and panicked, drunk on the potent rush of endorphins that crashes over you and drowns you all at once. This time you really were going to — 

“That’s it, little mouse. Ride my hand. Yesss, just like that. Chase your pleasure for me. There, there. That’s a good girl. Are you going to cum for me? Go on. Don’t be scared. You’ve already ruined my glove with the proof of your innocence, haven’t you? What harm could a bit more do?”

You struggle to make any sense at all of what it is he’s saying, whining a frantic sound in the back of your throat even as your hips pitifully jump in his palm. It’s impossible to think straight, just as it is impossible to breathe like this, but you still find yourself bobbing your head in agreement all the same. Whatever it was that awaited you on the other side, you knew you wanted it. Needed it. Craved it more than anything else right now when he had you wound so terribly tight. 

But that suffocating blanket of relief was not meant to be yours, clearly, because the Doctor waits until you’re teetering right on the edge again before he cruelly rips his fingers away. Wailing behind your hand at the sudden loss, you twist and pathetically buck in his hold while your pussy sadly clenches around nothing. The empty void he’s left in you just makes you want it even more, practically out of your mind with a hitherto unknown ecstasy of the flesh. 

He just doesn’t care though, merely laughing at your flagrant animal display as he carefully moves to withdraw his hand from your underwear. Realizing that he truly intends to leave you like this, worked up and wanting, has you gasping like a beached fish when you tilt your face down to look between your legs in shellshocked disbelief. 

And the shimmering thread of gossamer slick that you find stretching between the rumpled edge of your panties and his glistening fingers promptly sends a fresh thrill of mortification though your system. 

You really were melting. 

“Ah, there’s a good pet.” He purrs, quite pleased with the show you’ve unintentionally put on for him. The bastard. “I think I rather like the face you make when you’re trying not to cry. It’s very becoming on you, if I do say so myself.” 

The Doctor lifts his hand towards you then, aiming on a clear and steady trajectory right for the fingers you have clasped over your mouth. But you screw your eyes shut and try to turn your head away from him, squirming in an attempt to free yourself. 

It does you no good, not any more than it did all the other times you’ve tried to reject what he’s doing to you, and after only a brief struggle of clashing wills he finally manages to yank your scrabbling palm away. 

“Here you are. Open up, little mouse.” Murmuring soft condescensions at you, he nudges his sticky fingers at your mouth and persistently follows after you with them each time you try to twist away. “Don’t fuss now. Take your medicine like a big girl. It's doctor's orders. You understand.” 

“Mmmn! N - no - -!” 

You don’t get the chance to say anything more on the matter when the Doctor rudely shoves his digits past your lips, stuffing your mouth full and silencing any other protests you might have had. The taste of leather and oil, and your own cunt floods your tastebuds in an instant, and you squeal a harried sound around the intrusion but it’s already too late. His long fingers settle across your tongue, keeping your jaw wedged open around them to leave you with no other choice than to grudgingly suck him clean. 

It’s hard not to feel humiliatingly infantile in that moment while you work your mouth around the intrusion, especially when your compliance earns you a masculine hum of approval from your assailant. But you don’t like it, not one bit, grimacing at the bitter taste of salt and other secretions even as you dutifully swallow it down. It’s not as if you could do much of anything else in this situation. Not when he has you clasped to the front of him with the reinforced steel of his forearm. 

“There. Isn’t that better? Don’t you feel appropriately coddled now, dear? Certainly much better than whatever that old fossil did for you, I trust.” 

You shoot him a sharp, grumpy scowl from the corner of your eye but the Doctor only snorts a bemused sound, finally pulling his fingers from your mouth once he’s deemed them to be thoroughly serviced. 

“My, that’s quite the look, isn’t it? Although I suppose I can’t blame you for being a bit fussy with me, I feel I must warn you to make sure you’ve appropriately fixed your face by the time Pantalone stops by to pay you a visit. We wouldn’t want to rouse his concerns regarding your treatment here, now would we?” 

Somehow that manages to pierce through the inebriated fog hanging over your head and, still harshly panting in the aftermath of your ordeal, you turn your face towards him in question. “Lord Regrator? He … he’s coming here?”

“Why, of course. This is one of his properties, after all.” 

The unexpected bombshell of this information leaves you thoroughly floored, so much so that you don’t even think to yank yourself free when the Doctor loosens his hold on you. With an amicable pat to your hip, he finally lets you down to stand on your own two feet again before he pulls away, disengaging from your person. But not without a belittling smack to your ass that makes your cheeks blaze anew. 

You’d simply assumed that this manor house belonged to Zandik or perhaps the Lord Harbinger himself. Both of them, even. The notion that this was in fact Regrator’s home hadn’t even crossed your mind. He’d said it was only one of them, though, so perhaps he didn’t frequent it all that often? That would at least explain why you hadn’t seen him even once over the last month. 

Feeling a bit cowed now, you give a prim little sniff and set about smoothing your uniform out to the best of your ability. That bird-faced menace had wrinkled the dark skirt beyond repair, damn him. 

But still, he lingers just over your shoulder even when you try very hard to ignore him, chuckling another low sound when you refuse to give him anymore of your attention. 

“Don’t pout. That was only a simple demonstration, darling mouse, but I promise to play with you much more thoroughly next time. I’ll make sure to set aside enough time, just for you. Let's call it … a bonus, shall we? But do remember what I said, won’t you? Whatever that old coot can do for you, I can do so much better.” 

Unable to help yourself, you snap another sharp look at him in warning, embarrassed and humiliated in equal measure. That it only earns you another sharp laugh for your trouble frustrates you a great deal, and you stand there stewing in your anger when he at last turns to leave with one last bark of amusement. The sound of his boots moving across the floor precedes the click of the door, the groan of old hinges and then the slam of it shutting behind him. 

And finally you are enveloped in still, peaceful silence again. 

Or would have been, had your stomach not been twisting itself into a thrumming ball of knots. 

Cautiously slow, you peer over your shoulder to look back at the desk. 

Sure enough you find Zandik’s hunched frame sitting right where you’d left him. He’d heard every last bit of it, then. Even if his hearing was not quite as keen as he’d claimed it to be, he was still sitting in much too close proximity to have missed any of it. Double damn that masked fiend! And you were quite certain he’d intentionally put on that little display just for Zandik’s benefit. You couldn’t even begin to guess at why he would do something like that, but it was becoming increasingly more obvious to you that the Doctor was nothing more than a selfish bully. It probably pleased him to no end to swoop in and steal something that he likely already suspected the old man wanted for himself. 

And yet you still hesitate there in front of the crammed bookshelves for a long moment, wrestling with your indecision when you were so unsure how to proceed from here. A very real part of you wants to flee from this room, this house, the sprawling grounds outside and disappear into the snowy mountains, never to be seen again. Not once have you ever been so terribly stricken with shame in all of your life. 

But the logical, rational part of your brain knew you couldn’t do that. Your mother needed the money and Zandik, too, needed your company. You couldn’t just leave him to the care of that horrible man even if you did wish that a hole would open up in the floor and swallow you into the bowels of the earth so you wouldn’t have to deal with this mess. 

Desperately fumbling for your resolve, you finally make up your mind and start to inch your way over to Zandik’s chair. His attention remains steadfastly fixed upon the book in front of him, however, and as you get closer you can tell this is very much intentional on his part. He doesn’t want to look at you. Oh, how in the world were you possibly going to navigate this precarious situation now? 

“M - Master Zandik?” You tentatively hedge, coming up alongside him on a nervous shuffle. “Is there anything I can get for you? Is your coffee still warm?” 

He doesn’t respond beyond a mute shake of his head, looking so utterly crestfallen and dejected in his high backed chair that it tugs at your heartstrings something fierce. It was like the air had been let out of a balloon and he now sat, deflated, stewing in his own melancholy. 

You feel immediately and irrevocably terrible, even though you had no idea why he would behave like this. Anger would have been understandable, perhaps even preferable. You could probably understand it a lot more than his currently despondent mood, anyway. 

In all honesty, you hadn’t thought he cared all that much for you to begin with, the way he always treated you like nothing more than a proper nuisance. But you’d have to puzzle that out another day. 

Scrambling for something appropriate to say in the present, you hear yourself impulsively blurt, “I’m sorry you had to listen to that. It was not my intention to …” 

To, what? Be assaulted against your will? No, that wasn’t it. But what did you call it then? Was it disrespectful to him, that you’d been accosted by his associate without putting up more of a fight? Was that what he was upset about?

Or had it been a blow to his ego for him to sit there, listening, while the Doctor gleaned such explosive results from a similar perusal of your cunt? Dripping just as wet as before, and sore now, soaking into your panties with the proof of what the other man had done to you while you stood there next to Zandik begging for his acknowledgement. 

You have absolutely no idea what to say or how to fix this, if it even could be fixed. 

But, at length, he finally exhales a weary breath, inspiring a low flutter of hope in your guts as you watch him slowly sit up in his chair, the gesture stiff. Halting. 

“It’s nothing for you to apologize for, stupid girl.” He grumbles, obviously unhappy. “This is just how things are, isn’t that right? The strong rule over the weak, and the young replace the old. I knew that, of course. But …” 

The creased wrinkles along his brow deepen slightly when he frowns as if in thought. It’s not hard to see he’s pondering over some troublesome aspect of this situation, either his own feelings on the matter or the circumstances that had led to this end result, and you patiently wait there at his elbow for a conclusion to be reached. 

You can’t even begin to guess at what he’ll say next, but somehow or another the very last thing you expect is, “It’s surprisingly frustrating, though. I wouldn’t have thought I’d still care about these things at this age.” 

Your stomach pulls with a faint tug of uncertainty. “Sir?” 

Giving his head another brief shake, Zandik allows himself to recline back against the cushioned support behind him where he finally sends you a sidelong glance. 

“The feeling of being one upped. Bested. And by myself, no less. It seems that no matter how old I get or how much I think I’ve matured over time, a man’s pride remains a delicate thing. Even when I know I simply can’t compete on the same physical level anymore, it still manages to wound almost as much as admitting this to you does.” 

You slowly blink at that. So that’s what this was about. And worse, it made a certain amount of sense that he should feel this way. You’d been given to him, promised to be his servant, only for that masked man to turn around and lay claim on you himself. Even if the logic was a bit backwards, seeing as you’d never agreed to your body being a part of the deal, you did understand it on some level. 

“I see.” You say at last. “That way of thinking isn’t unfounded, I suppose. But … Master Zandik, please forgive me for speaking out of turn, it’s just. I really don’t think that this is something you should be concerned about.”

A mirthless laugh punches out of him, laced with the startings of his ire. “And why is that? Don’t try to coddle me, girl. I don’t need your sympathy or my ego fluffed. It is simply the way of the world.” 

Flinching slightly, you almost find yourself backing down. He was getting short with you now, and you so hated to agitate him, but you foolishly decide to stand your ground on this. You had to. 

“Master, that is just not true. Of course you’re not wrong to say that he is on a different level than you physically, but that’s not all there is to it. There are — other factors at play here. Things that you aren’t considering.” 

Zandik scoffs an impatient sound. “Such as? Go on then. Tell me all about it, if you know so much.”

You quickly draw a purposeful breath to do just that, but the words immediately get stuck in your throat. Panic starts to set in. How were you possibly supposed to explain to him that he was the more agreeable choice — even despite his age and physical condition, even if he thought those things made him inferior to the Doctor — and you liked him better by simple virtue of the fact that he had not terrorized you as the masked man had?

Your cunt still throbbed with the lingering evidence of that, sore and achy in the aftermath of his rough treatment whereas Zandik’s almost affectionate petting had only left you craving more. If you were going to have your innocence stripped by anyone then you would have preferred it to be him. 

But you couldn’t just say that! What would you look like, inviting an old man to touch you in that manner? And that was to say nothing of the fact that he was clearly just waiting to write off whatever you had to say as mere lip service? Something to mend his bruised pride and make him feel marginally better about himself, candy for a scraped knee. But unless you could actually figure out how to convince him of your sincerity it would never amount to anything of worth in his mind. Just pretty, placating words. The sympathy he already told you he didn’t want. 

So, what was the solution? 

The two of you stay like that for an uncomfortably long stretch of minutes, just looking at one another, while you frantically scramble for the answer to that exceedingly difficult question. Seeing the flustered uncertainty on your face, however, he eventually turns away with a gravelly sound of annoyance. 

“As I thought. That will be all for now. Leave me to my work.” 

Your knotted stomach plummets into the ground at your feet. “But, sir - -“

“I said leave me to it!” 

Jolting at the harsh reprimand in his voice, you take a frightened little step back from him. He’d never hit you before, not in earnest anyway. You didn’t count the quick swats he’d sometimes give your hands if you were reaching for something you shouldn’t have been in the lab when you accompanied him down there. But seeing the old man this outraged, you aren’t so sure he won’t start. 

And yet, in spite of it all, Zandik instead just shuts you out completely. With a singleminded focus, he sits up in his chair and leans over his book again, taking up his pen in the right hand. Ignoring you completely, as if you didn’t even exist anymore within the narrow stretch of his world. Just like it was when you’d first arrived here. 

To say you’d simply stretched the truth in your letter would have been an understatement. It had taken you almost an entire week to get him to speak to you at all, and another after that before he would engage in anything even remotely resembling a friendly conversation. This was all wrong. You couldn’t go back to walking on eggshells after all that hard work you’d put in just to earn even a tiny sliver of his trust. That damned Doctor had thrown everything into disarray simply because he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. You had to think fast and you had to think smart. 

There was only one thing that came to mind which might remedy this situation though, and you weren’t so sure it would work. You also weren’t convinced you had the stomach for it, especially after everything else your poor cunt had already endured today, but you at least had to try. You needed to show him you weren’t just saying things to protect his pride but that you really, truly meant it. 

Your heartbeat slams a violent, pounding rhythm against your ribcage as you make your decision on a spur of the moment whim and slowly reach down to grab at the bulk of your housekeeping uniform, lifting the skirt up around your hips. Just that simple act makes your skin crawl, having never exposed yourself to anyone like this before. Not of your own volition, anyway, and you pointedly keep your chin tucked so you won’t have to look at him as you shuffle right back up into the space you just vacated a moment ago. Silent and hopeful as you present your cunt to him in offering. 

At first he just continues to ignore you, the whole of his attention fixed on the birdlike scrawl he scratches out on the sheet of notes. Not for the first time you wonder what he’s working on but say nothing for fear that it would just come out a jumbled mess and further embarrass you when you were already internally withering. 

All you can do now is wait for him to decide whether or not to acknowledge you, whether he would keep you or send you away. But you intrinsically understood that the only way you were going to get through to him was by showing Zandik that you weren’t simply coddling him with empty words. 

And finally, after what feels like many lifetimes has crept by at a glacial pace, he finally brings his attention up with a particularly bothered sigh. Turning towards you at last, he impassively takes in the sight of you standing there with your panties flashed at him, the deeply frazzled look on your face and the death grip you’ve got on the hiked up skirt. 

You’re not sure how you must look to him in that moment — like some tawdry trollop, if you had to take a guess — but he doesn’t move or say anything at all until, eventually, you start to self-consciously squirm under his piercing gaze. 

“And what’s this, now?” He says in a clipped tone of voice, dropping his pen to the desk with a noisy clatter. His eyes remain locked on you, however, not dissimilar to those of a predator staring down a helpless prey animal, and you hope that this is a good sign. Maybe that meant he would actually listen to you now. 

Yet you still can’t quite seem to find your voice, completely choked up by your own self conscious embarrassment, so you make do with simply nudging your pelvis forward to indicate what you want from him. But Zandik just narrows his eyes, glowering at you from behind the single lens of his monocle, as if he expected this to be some cruel, insidious trap. 

“You want me to touch you, is that it? Well? Speak, girl, before I decide to put your mouth to better use than all that inane prattling you’re so prone to. You won’t shut up when I want you to but then you’re as silent as a crypt when I ask you a simple question.” He scoffs a rough sound and then, more gently, adds, “I would have thought you’ve had enough of other people’s hands on you for one day.” 

Nervously biting your lip, you offer up a slow shake of your head. “I - it’s not that, Master Zandik. I just … it felt — better when you did it. So I thought you might want to … finish what you started earlier. That’s all.”

As far as appeals to pride and ego are concerned, it’s not a particularly clever one.   

But something still shifts behind his eyes, something you have no name for and which you were very much unaccustomed to having directed at you. It looked like something akin to a distant flicker of heat though, the curlings of genuine interest making the dulled irises subtly light up from within. 

Is this what it was like to have a man look at you with plainly unbridled lust, you wonder, even as he slowly reaches out for you with a silent gesture. 

Your breath starts to come short again when his bony fingers slip into the space between your thighs, finding the gusset of your panties once more and pressing up into them. He makes a low noise in the back of his throat at the unmistakably dampened quality of the material while you tremble weakly at the contact. 

For a tortuously long moment, Zandik just takes his time petting over you through that thin, flimsy barrier, coaxing your pussy into buzzing for him again. Testing if you were really telling the truth. And you were. His touch was so much more intentional, less impatient, than the Doctor’s, and it nearly bowls you over how quickly your arousal skyrockets back to full force under his watchful eye. 

That probably wasn’t too terribly surprising though, you supposed, given that you’d already been denied the relief of absolution twice now. And yet that was precisely why you were so eager to reposition yourself back into his good graces again. You could have lied to yourself, convinced your heavy conscience that you were only doing this for his sake, to ensure melancholia didn’t take hold of an already sensitive constitution. But that would have been a boldfaced lie. 

In truth it was your cunt urging you on, dictating your choices, and you rattle out a threadbare little moan when he eventually turns in his chair to better face you. 

Using both hands now, Zandik pinches at the corners of your underwear and ever so gently tugs them down your thighs. One inch at a time they drag lower and lower, until the rumpled cotton finally meets the tops of your stockings. They can’t go any further than that with the garterbelt clasps in the way, but that is all he needs. 

Shivering at the molten rush that sweeps over you, pussy hot and swollen, bared fully out in the open like this, you sway almost dizzily there on your feet. “Nngh, Master Zandik … please. Please touch me. J - just like you did before. Please?” 

He faintly clicks his tongue even though he’s already half way through the motion of reaching up between your legs again. But this time his cool digits touch skin and slick pubic hair, applying just a small amount of pressure on your slit to make it part for him. 

Only to immediately draw a sharp little breath. “No wonder your panties felt so wet. You’re positively soaked. I’m sure a nice, hard cock would just slip right in there, wouldn’t it? Is that what you want?  Are you secretly hoping I’ll fuck you here and now, you stupid little girl?” 

Equally aghast at his crass language and running hotter than ever before at the deeply felt response it inspires within your body, you tip your head back to groan up at the ceiling. “Oough. Don’t say that. Please. Don’t even think about it. That’s so … it’s …”

Zandik rumbles a low chuckle at that, more and more of his usual self assured confidence returning to him now as he nudges further up into the fleshy grip of your labia. “What else am I supposed to think about when I’ve got such a fresh, lovely young thing offering herself up to me like this? Even an old man’s cock still works, you know.” 

You can’t help the way you whimper at the thought of it, positively gushing against his worn fingertips when they locate your clit and set in to rub. The glide is perfectly smooth and lubricated, and that delicate pearl simply pulses under his steady attention.  

Your hands shake as you hike your skirt up a bit higher, jutting your pelvis further into that mind numbing source of pressure. It really does feel good, so much better than whatever that selfish Doctor had forced you to endure. This was something else entirely, and it has your vision blurring around the edges while you try to find your bearings and orient yourself again, bracing squarely on your heels. 

It’s an effort in futility though. Just like before, the surging tide of pleasure rushes up to swallow you and it sweeps you off your feet, pulling you under the current. Your head swims and your chest tightens. Knees wobbling faintly in their locked positions. It’s too much and, somehow, not enough at the same time. You could almost sob from how intensely your pussy thrums with the static electricity of your oncoming release, every single nerve ending in you vibrating at a hitherto unheard of frequency. 

And to think, it was all because of a man who was old enough to be your grandfather. 

“Zuh - Zandik! Master, I … ooughh, I’m so — so …!” 

“Then let it go. You’ve already got my fingers soaked, a bit more won’t hurt anything. Don’t over think it. Yes, that’s right. Just keep pressing that sweet little cunt into my hand, now. Just like that.” 

You can do nothing else, in fact, eagerly rolling your hips into the motion now. The building tension within you abruptly doubles, then triples, and you screw your eyes shut when pulsing starbursts flash across your vision to effectively blind you. Letting out a faltering mewl of pleasure, you readily give yourself over fully to that hot, throbbing warmth that emanates out from your core. You can feel everything. The nudge of your pudgy labia moving with his hand. The excess slick that oozes and drips out of you. The fleshy, swollen bud of your clit rolling, rolling, rolling under his fingertips. 

And you finally cum, the thread snapping so suddenly, almost violently, that you jerk in place. A strange keening noise rattles out of you as you shake into your orgasm, pelvis stuttering while he continues to rub, rub, rub. You have no choice but to ride it to completion and you weakly shudder through the spasms, struggling to remain upright and erect. That’s an exceedingly difficult task, however, when it felt like the whole world was being flipped upside down on its head around you. 

Finally wheezing a haggard, utterly spent moan into the static charged air of the quiet library, you abruptly slam back into your own body a small eternity later. The unexpectedness of it staggers you, damn near knocks you on your ass, and you stumble back half a step as if in shock. 

The new distance separates Zandik’s hand from your still squeezing cunt, and he consideringly peers up at you while you try to catch your breath. You couldn’t believe that had just happened. Not that you’d allowed it or that the sensation had left you soaring somewhere far outside your own mind high above the stratosphere. It was, in many ways, inconceivable. 

“Oh … oh, blessed mother.” You finally croak, once you’ve managed to find some semblance of your voice again. “That was — interesting, wasn’t it?” 

Zandik barks a sharp, not entirely humorless laugh. “Is that what you call it then? Just interesting?”

Wheezing out a long, grounding exhale, you shoot him a somewhat surreptitious look as you tiredly drop your arms, allowing your skirt to fall back into place. “Were you expecting something else?” 

“Perhaps. I might have liked to hear how utterly amazing it was, or how skillful my technique is.” 

“You just wanted to be praised, didn’t you?” 

“Every man wants to be praised, girl. It would do you well to remember that in the future.” 

You realize then, glancing down at him sitting there, looking like he was quite pleased with himself, that he was having a bit of fun with it. Teasing you in a way you’d never experienced before. Not from him, at any rate, and you allow yourself a soft, thoroughly satiated laugh as you tiredly reach to tug your panties back up. 

“I’ll admit, it was awfully nice. I didn’t know my body could feel like that, especially after … w - well, that’s not really important.” 

“It’s alright.” Zandik tells you, surprisingly soft. “I cannot take back what he did to you while I was incapable of doing anything to stop it, but I can try to make it a little better for you. That was your first orgasm, wasn’t it?” 

The shock of that question must be written across your face in broad sweeping brush strokes, because he gives his head a slow, almost disappointed shake.

“It didn’t occur to me at first that that might be the case. But I figured it out shortly after you held up your dress for me. It just didn’t make sense for anyone who is at all familiar with the erogenous functions of their body to behave the way that you were. As if you wanted it but didn’t know how to ask for it, or even what you should be asking for.” 

Putting his head to one side — one of a few different gestures he seemed to share with the Doctor — Zandik studies you from that new angle for a drawn out moment. 

“Come here, girl. And no tricks this time, I give you my word.” 

Hesitantly heeding his summons, you step up next to his chair again on wobbly legs. A distant note of surprise quickly washes over you when he reaches up to slide his hand along the curve of your waist, pulling you in against him until you realize what he’s doing. You put up a cursory amount of resistance then, insisting again and again that you were too big, too grown, to sit on his lap when he tries to tug you down. But in the end Zandik wins out, his stubbornness exceeding even yours, and you finally let him drag you onto his thigh. 

Your reluctant compliance does absolutely nothing to steady your nerves, though, and you squeak a tiny sound as you come to settle in place against him. “M - Master Zandik? Surely I am much too heavy to be on top of you like this! What will I do if I accidentally hurt you?” 

“Nonsense. You’re much too self conscious for my liking. We’ll have to work on that. But for now,” sighing rather softly, contently, almost, he leans his head back against the chair and closes his eyes. Looking for all the world like he was settling in for a much needed nap. Honestly, you could have used one of those yourself. 

“Just sit and enjoy the quiet for a moment, won’t you? Do some self reflecting on how you feel or meditate, or do nothing at all. I don’t really care either way. Just … be silent with me.” 

You would have jumped at the chance in almost any other situation, under any other circumstances, but a doubtful niggling at the back of your mind makes that nearly impossible. Even in the hazy warmth of afterglow you’re almost too antsy to sit still. Because even despite having never taken part in such activities before, at least not until today, you’d certainly heard whisperings about it. You were not that naive as to have completely missed out on the way both women and men alike often talked about sex. 

It was usually the other way around, wasn’t it? Or at least that had been your impression up til’ now. That men tended to lean towards being selfish and they rarely concerned themselves with the pleasure of their partners. That they were demanding and only sought their own release before rolling over and going to sleep without a second thought to anything else. It was in part why you’d avoided being courted by anyone, for fear of being on the receiving end of such impartial advances. 

And while Zandik certainly looked as if he was starting to doze off, it seemed that this was a bit out of order from how you’d been told it would be. 

Unable to keep your concerns at bay any longer, you give in to the urge and ever so carefully fidget atop his lap. “But, Master … what about you? Should I not be seeing to your needs as well?” 

His eyes do not open but the pale line of his brow does draw in, knitting and deepening the wrinkles on his forehead slightly. “No need for that. Not at the moment, at any rate.” 

You sneak a quick peak down at the front of his pants to briefly study the weakening tent there. It looked like he’d been right, and even an old man’s cock still worked under the right conditions, and the Doctor had been wrong. If you were only brave enough — or stupid enough — you might have liked to rub that in his stupid, smug face. 

“Is this really okay though? Are you sure?” 

“Gods, girl! You don’t know how to just let things rest, do you?” Zandik snaps alert again to turn a narrow eyed scowl your way. Back to his usual grumpy self, it seemed. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were fishing for it. Is that it? Do you actually want me to fuck you sensless, right here and now?” 

He barks a mirthless snort at your startled expression of plain faced shock. 

“As I thought. Then unless you want me to change my mind I’d suggest you learn to let sleeping dogs lie.” Exhaling a deeply ruffled breath, he tips his head back to regard the ceiling as if in deep contemplation. “You’ve already made it clear you have no desire to go that far with me, and I can hardly say I blame you for that. I’m also not physically equipped to make you do something you don’t want to. Not with this old body, at any rate. So I won’t even try.”

“But,” you stubbornly take another jab at it, feeling that you would be remiss if you didn’t at least make an effort to better understand him. It was odd for him to seek out this sort of prolonged physical contact with you anyway, and yet he didn’t want anything from you in return while doing it? That just doesn’t make any sense. “You could just order me to do whatever you want. Why won’t you?” 

Zandik huffs a quiet laugh. “And what would the fun be in that, huh?” 

A strange little flutter starts up in your chest but you’re quick to suppress it, shoving it back down into some vault in the back of your head where you can lock it up and throw away the key. That was a dangerous possibility threatening to open up before you. It wouldn’t do to let this situation spiral any further out of control, if you could help it, especially when you were already toeing the line of indecency like this. 

No. No, you’d have to remain steadfast for as long as you were in the thick of it dealing with this situation. 

As if it had been cued to do so, the grandfather clock along the opposite wall abruptly chimes then, disrupting the resounding quiet with such an earth shattering explosion that you jolt right up out of his lap. 

“Oh!” You blurt, flushing hotly when Zandik sends you a flat look as if to say ‘see? always so damn jumpy’. Like you hadn’t already embarrassed yourself enough for one day. “I - it’s lunchtime already? How time flies! I didn’t even … didn’t even notice how late it was getting. I’ll go start on something right away!” 

Ignoring his very unimpressed frown, you pivot on your heel and hurry over to the window side to grab up the coffee carafe on your way out. You knew he would want a fresh pot to go with whatever luncheon sandwich or savory soup you prepared for him that day, and you were admittedly quite glad for the chance to beat a hasty retreat from this room. It was inexplicably stuffy and fogged with something unspeakable. Something you didn’t even dare to dwell on. 

Stepping up to the little table at the corner of the windowsill, your hand reaches out to loop around the silver handle and you start to turn away. But a suggestion of movement at the edge of your peripheral makes you hesitate, head turning, as you glance out the window and down at the yard below. 

Where you proceed to watch someone unknown to you — a young man, by the looks of it— as he walks away from the side of the house to step around a snow covered bush before he disappears from sight. 

Your hand immediately starts to shake with the terrified tremor that works up your arm, vibrating so badly you almost drop the carafe to an ear splitting crash against the floor. 

He’d had his back to you so hadn’t gotten a good look at the face, but the hair … 

It had been the exact same, wispy shade of pale blue that Zandik’s and the Doctor’s was.

⭐

Crossposted: here

[magicalbats]

A midday reblog for people with normal sleep schedules lol

[genshin-side-piece]

Hazy Shade of Winter - Part 3

Warnings: Yandere Content, Implied Kidnapping, Implied Captivity, Implied Stalking, Fighting, Mentions of alcohol, Suggestive sexual content, Non-Consensual Touching, my bad writing, anything else I missed, 18+, Minors DNI

A/N: Soooooo it happened and there might be a Part 4. Follow up to Hazy Shade of Winter (Part 1) (Part 2)

A year later, the game between you and Wriothesley had evolved. It had become less of a sparring match and more of a dance between the two of you. With time, the disruption that came with your initial imprisonment had faded into an odd routine between you and him. That wasn’t to say you were complacent. Far from it. Your continued fury towards him had left its fair share of scars on him. If you got even the sliver of an opening to do something to him, you took it. You had a particular sense of pride for the scar you’d clawed into his neck, even if it had earned you weeks in the filthiest cell the fortress had to offer. The stench and the muck and the sludge had all been worth the feeling of his blood on your hands after you’d debased yourself in the hope of getting a chance to escape.

You hadn’t of course. You’d no more gotten your nails out of him when he’d slammed you down on his desk, pinning you with one hand, while the other wiped the blood from his neck. Through his hand, you could feel the ferocity of his temper as his own emotions surged through him. Wriothesley was not a man who was easily fooled; especially in his own fiefdom. He had a handle on almost everyone who lived in the fortress. He knew what made them tick and how to both wind them up and slow them down. You’d given him the illusion that he had that same handle on you. Over the course of the weeks and months that you’d played this game with him, you let him think that he knew you. Through your own compliance, you let him get closer to you. Feel you. Love you. He had allowed himself the rare privilege of letting his guard down and allowing you a small level of trust when it came to him. In return, you’d repaid that trust with a betrayal of the deepest kind. 

Wriothesley lived in a portion of the fortress where he had a direct route to the outside, should he need it. You’d found the map for it on one of the rare occasions he’d left you in his office unsupervised. At the time, there had been a small chance he would have taken you to bed with him unencumbered. Whether you tried to slip away in the night or end him with a pillow, didn’t really matter. All you would have had to do was wait for him to fall asleep. From there, the path to freedom could have been yours. Your one shortcoming had been that you were eager to see your plan realized. After months of dealing with him, you’d been ready to be rid of him.

That mistake had been when he still had a sense of hope that you would come round to the idea of being kept like an animal. Afterwards, the hope remained, but he was never that foolish again. To say that you spent every moment after under lock and key wasn’t an exaggeration. His next gift to you was a special set of manacles that were designed specifically for long term wear and use. Wriothesley had designed them himself, making sure they had a tracking mechanism in them. Should he need to, he could find you with the press of a button. He made sure you used them, constantly. He insisted they were for your own protection, but in reality they were little more than a reminder of his control. He had to be there when they came off and he didn’t leave until they went back on. The only exception was if you were in a secure enough place where he could leave you at liberty and trust you wouldn’t do something foolish.  

In addition to your new accessories, Wriothesley had made it a point to learn your behaviors and spot your tells. He was determined not to be fooled by you again. Every action and subsequent reaction was measured, a mental log being made for his own reference later. At his core, Wriothesley understood that you had found a way to turn his most basic rule against him. 

You were the master of your own treatment. That meant your behavior directly correlated to how he handled you. This included forcing him to punish you for being disobedient purely for the sake of punishing him. You’d learned early on, Wriothesley was true to his word when he told you he didn’t want to harm you. Every time he had to, whether it be missed meals or weeks in confinement, he was always apologetic afterwards. He asked, to the point of pleading that you not act out again. Over and over he had promised you a better life. He swore to the archons themselves that he could make you happy. That he could give a life where you didn’t have to struggle. He had the position, the title, and most importantly the money to be able to do so. Yet over and over again you had refused him. What he offered wasn’t what you wanted. You had been happy in your old life. Granted it wasn’t the most wonderful or fulfilling, but it had been yours. His pleas of devotion didn’t cancel out the fact he’d stolen your autonomy from you for the sake of himself. Instead, you’d made it where that same devotion forced him to punish you for his continued need to keep you in a place where you refused to belong. 

Recently though, he had found a way to mitigate that tactic as well. Wriothesley had come to understand that if he wouldn’t release you, then the next best option was to let you have a go at him. He felt it was a worthwhile cause to provide a safe environment for you to do that in. In his own words, it afforded you the opportunity to expend the boundless levels of energy you refused to put to better use. 

Once a week, after the fortress had gone to bed, Wriothesley would drag you down to the pankration ring and for lack of a better term, turn you loose. The space was a rare instance where you and he could agree on something. Wriothesley could easily keep you contained by disabling the elevator, while the space was large enough that you could put a fair amount of distance between the two of you. Unlike every other time you interacted with him, he didn’t have to be close. You could run laps around him, sprinting away the second he tried to get near. It was only at the end, after you’d worn yourself out that he would invade your personal space once again and return you to the box he kept you in.

He gestured at you, finding you were already charging at him before he was ready. Wriothesley caught your wrist the second you swung it, easily pushing you back and inviting you to try again. You did and for a second time, he pushed you away. This time he used a little more force so he could have the room to follow you as you tried to circle him. While the current situation was all fun and games for him, you knew Wriothesley wasn’t going to be foolish enough to show you his back. 

“We could make this fun, you know.” You growled, loathing that he found any of this amusing. “Yes yes I know.” He smirked. “You hate me and anything to do with me. But since you’re so keen to hurt me, why don’t we make a bet? Every time I block you, I get a kiss…” He thought about it for a moment. “Or a slap on the ass. I suppose it’s whichever I can get to the fastest.” You glared at him, finding both options equally disgusting. “You’re vile.” He smirked. “Maybe, but I’m taking all the punishment here.” You charged him with all the force you could muster. Leaping at him in an attempt to reach his face, but for a third time, Wriothesley caught you. Rather than your wrist, he was able to get hold of your waist, easily pulling your flailing form into his chest. The impact of your weight against his caused him to stumble a bit, but never to the point that he would fall. “See?” He pulled you in closer as you struggled to get out of his grasp. “This would be the perfect opportunity for a kiss-” His blue eyes briefly found yours as you purposefully pulled away from him. “Provided you would hold still long enough to let me.” “Dream on.” He laughed again, shifting you slightly in his arms. “Let me sweeten it then. Every time I block you, I get a kiss. Every strike you land, I’ll give you a point.” You stilled, but only long enough to give him a questioning look. “A point, to what?” “A prize.” The mirth in his voice only seemed to raise your ire at him. “What kind of prize?” He adjusted his grip on you again, bouncing you slightly as he did so. “Depends, I do love it when you decide to play along with me.” His eyes sparkled at you, infuriating you more. “Let’s say you can land a certain amount of blows before I can land a certain amount of kisses. Then maybe I'll take you up top for some fresh air.” Your irritation vanished, at least for the moment. Up top. He was suggesting taking you to the surface, if you could beat him. For you at least, it was the ultimate prize as it carried the greatest risk for him.

On the surface, Wriothesley was subject to the same laws as everyone else in Fontaine. His immunity dissolved the second he left Meropide. Should you try to slip away, should you find someone to help you, should they believe you when you tell them what Wriothesley had already put you through, then he could be arrested. He could be stripped of his power and position. He could be imprisoned in the very fortress he called home. Perhaps, you could finally have your justice after all. There was just one problem with it all.

“What’s the catch?” Everything Wriothesley offered had strings. This was no exception. He was acting too non-chalant about it. Especially considering the one reward he had refused to entertain until now was going to the surface. 

“No catch. If you win, I’ll let you run around up top for a few hours. The weather’s gotten nice again, so I don’t have to worry about you getting sick if I have you out for too long.” Cautiously you rephrased the question.

“Fine, but what do you get if you win?” He smiled at you, pleased you’d forced the topic. It was evident he had wanted you to go there over him proposing whatever god awful thing he wanted in the event that he won. 

“I think that would be rather obvious. If going up top is one of your greatest desires, think what one of mine might be.” The thought nearly made you sick on the spot. “That’s revolting.” You struggled against him pushing and pulling as a means of trying to get away from him, but he held entirely firm. “Maybe, but fair’s fair. I’m putting up a nice piece of collateral sweetheart, the least you can do is match it.” “Going outside…” He tightened his grip on you in an attempt to stop your squirming. “Isn’t equal to you getting to stick your cock in me.” He shrugged. “But it’s all you have, right?” “Because it’s all you’ll let me have!” It’s not like you were capable of keeping or making credits. You weren’t allowed anywhere near the fortresses paperwork, never mind access to anything that could be turned into a weapon. He had made it so the only things you had to trade were your dignity and your body. It was his way of forcing the long standing argument between you closer to the conclusion he so desperately craved. His world would be yours, the price though was to give him yourself in return. “I mean I could get you to agree to stay forever, but that seems a tad out of balance. An afternoon in the sun isn’t a fair trade for letting you leave, is it?” To you it was, but he wasn’t going to give you up on something this simple. If that option ever came on the table, the fight between you would be a hefty one, and even then, you were positive he wouldn’t let you win. At least here, you stood a chance or rather you thought you did. Letting out a huff, you petulantly agreed no. Wriothesley seemed pleased that you had agreed so easily. “In that case, love, how about it? Want to go a few rounds with me?” “Say I don’t? What then? Are you going to subject me to being held like a doll for the remainder of our time down here?” He chuckled, slowly lowering you so at least your feet were on the ground. His arms however, remained firmly around you. “Holding onto you is a rare thing. I’ll take what I can get. As for the wager, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. Just know the offer may not come again. The only reason I’m asking now is because you seem especially spicy tonight. I imagine it’s because I’ve kept you more cooped up than normal these last few days. I thought, perhaps, a chance to stretch your legs outside of the fortress would be a welcome one.” It was, if it didn’t include the risk of having to let him fuck you if you lost the wager. “Add in I don’t have to wear the manacles anymore.” He blinked, unsure of what he heard. “If I win, I get to go up top and I get the use of my hands back.” Wriothesley chuckled. “Why, so you can try to stab me again? Absolutely not. I’ll take you up unrestrained, but that’s as far as it goes.The second you’re back in the fortress, the manacles go back on.” You rolled your eyes at him, pulling another chuckle out of him. “Good try though.” You sighed as he waited, knowing it was the best you were going to get. "Fine." "Say it properly." "Fine, I'll take the wager." Your jaw set so hard it ached. “Good.” He smirked at you. “We’ll make this one easy. Five hits or five kisses. Whoever lands them first wins." That part at least was agreeable.

He smiled at you then, slow and pleased. You wanted to put your nails through his throat just for the look of it. His grip on you eased, not entirely, but enough that you could feel the give in his arms. It was the small permission of space he was beginning to allow you. In your mind at least, you knew what was coming next. He was going to let you go. He was going to step back and roll his shoulders and settle into a stance, and then the count would begin and you would have, for the first time in nearly a year, a real chance to put a hand on him in a way he couldn't punish you for. You could hardly wait.

Wriothesley though didn’t let go. Not right away at least. 

You should have known it was coming. The one thing Wriothesley could do on a fairly consistent basis was con you into a false sense of security. He knew how to win just enough trust from you to take advantage of it. Now was no exception. His hand found the back of your neck before you had registered the motion and tipped your head up. In one fluid move, his mouth was on yours before you had properly understood what he was doing. It was quick; a press, a flicker of warmth, gone before you could find the angle to bite him for it, but it was unmistakable in its intent. When he pulled back, the smug little tilt of his mouth told you what was coming before the word even landed. "One." "We hadn't started!" Your voice came out half a snarl. "We hadn't not started." He stepped back at last, releasing you in the same motion that opened two paces of distance between his body and yours, and he rolled the stiffness out of his shoulders with the easy unconcern of a man who had just stolen a point from you in broad daylight and intended to enjoy the rest of the evening doing the same. "First one's free, sweetheart. You'd best catch up."

You didn’t give him the satisfaction of a verbal response. Instead, your foot connected with his knee, causing him to jerk and stumble backwards. A nice little pop echoed off the stone walls, followed by a deep grunt. “Fine, one.” Not giving him a chance to recover, you backed up, preparing to go for his legs again, but he was ready for you. He rolled the weight off the struck knee and settled back into his stance, the smile was thinner now but no less infuriating. He flexed the leg once, testing it, and the limp that followed could have been real or a lure; you couldn't tell, and you suspected that was the point. Wriothesley had been doing this longer than you. He fought like a man who had never needed to win quickly because he had always been certain he would win eventually. That patience was the most maddening part of him. He had all the time in the world for you, while you had only the burning, finite minutes before your body gave out from the overexertion you were putting yourself through. 

Wriothesley kept you healthy, but it wasn’t to the same condition that he was in. You were only allowed enough exercise to keep you active, but never enough for you to build any real physical conditioning. That’s why you had to make this quick. If you ran out of steam before the count of five, you were done for. "One to one." His voice carried easily across the ring. "I'll give you that one. Good shot." "You'll give me a lot more before we're done." "Mm. I'm counting on it." You feinted right, dropping low, and went for his planted foot. It was a sweep meant to put him flat on his back where you could plant a heel somewhere considerably less forgiving than his knee. Wriothesley, however, was ready for it. 

Wriothesley’s hand caught the back of your shirt before you'd completed the motion, and he used your own forward momentum to haul you upright against him. You twisted, snarling, but the angle was bad and his mouth found the corner of yours before you could turn your face away. It barely qualified as a kiss in your opinion. A graze, a brush, the sort of thing that wouldn't have counted in any honest contest. But you weren't dealing with an honest man. Wriothesley would count what suited him and disregard the rest. His only aim in this was to win. He couldn’t care less about the details of how he got there. "Two." He unceremoniously let you go, giving you a good shove in the opposite direction as he stepped back. Wriothesley watched with open amusement as you scrubbed your sleeve across your mouth, attempting to remove the spit he’d purposefully left on your cheek. "Sloppy of me. I'll do better next time." "You'll choke on the next one." "Can you reach my throat without needing something to stand on?" You narrowed your eyes, growling in response.

The next time, you came in fast and low, without telegraphing. A dodge with your shoulder followed by an elbow you drove up under his ribs. It landed cleanly. Not hard enough to wind him, but enough to make the breath leave him in a sharp huff, and enough to crack the easy expression on his face for half a second before he recovered it. The satisfaction of seeing that crack was almost worth the price of being close enough to feel his hand grip the back of your neck before you could pull away. "Two." You confidently announced as scurried away from his grasp. "Two to two." He rolled the shoulder he'd dropped, working out the ache. "You're getting faster, or I'm getting slow." "You're getting old, is what you're getting." That earned you an unamused look. "Rude." 

You circled him and he let you. That was the thing you couldn't stop noticing. He was letting you drive the fight. His feet weren't moving with the same skill you'd seen him use against the inmates who occasionally got brave enough to test him. He was wide in his stance, slow to pivot, his hands lower than they should have been. He wanted to be hit. Or rather, he didn't mind being hit, because the alternative was that you stopped engaging, and engagement was the entire point of this for him. He'd said it himself, in not so many words. Holding onto you was a rare thing. He'd take what he could get, even if that meant catching you as you were flying at his face with your fists. 

The knowledge made you want to scratch his eyes out even more. You hated that even if he lost, Wriothesley was getting something out of this. Would there ever be a time where he didn’t manipulate the circumstances for his own gain? 

With your ire on max, you went for him again, and this time he didn't bother blocking the strike at all. He turned his head at the crucial moment, catching your wrist after your knuckles had already grazed his jaw. It wasn't a real hit, not in the sense that you wanted it to be. The only way you counted it as satisfying was if it hurt him. He however, viewed it differently. "Three for you." "I barely touched you." "Close enough. I'm feeling generous." He pulled you in before you could rip your wrist back, and this kiss was not a graze. He had your jaw in his other hand, fingers spread along the line of it, holding you in place long enough that you felt the heat of his mouth on yours for a full count of two before you got your teeth into his lower lip. He pulled back with a quiet laugh, touching his thumb to the spot, checking it for blood. "I forgot how fun you are when you get like this. I suppose that’s the tradeoff for making you behave. Are you going to be this feisty when I claim my prize or will you just let me have it?” All you could muster was a sound of disgust in response. Had you less sense, you would have gone for him then and there, but you saw the bait for what it was and held where you were. “Good. You’re paying attention. That’s three for me then, unless you’d like to give me another freebie or two." "I'll show you where you can stick your damn freebie." 

Despite the fact that he was breathing harder now, he laughed. Not much, Wriothesley was by design in much better condition than you, but your efforts weren’t going entirely to waste. When you got close enough to him, you could see the flush in his cheeks and the fine beads of sweat that were forming along his hairline. Your takeaway was if you lost, at least you’d made him work for his victory. It was little consolation, especially when your own chest was burning and there was a tremor starting in your thighs that you didn't like, but it was something. He’d had you up and moving for nearly an hour and the adrenaline from his proposed game was beginning to thin. You reminded yourself that you were running on borrowed time, minutes really before your body gave out. If you hadn’t landed the final blow by that point, then it would be all too easy for Wriothesley to claim his prize.

Without thinking about it, you lunged for him. You cut a diagonal across his line, ducking under the arm he raised to catch you. In a quick move, you raised your hand, raking your nails down the side of his neck on the way past. The sharp edge ripped its way across his skin, leaving glaring marks above his collar. It wasn’t the same spot as before, this was fresh skin, which gave you another spot of him that you had claimed as your own. He hissed, actually hissed, and the sound was the most satisfying thing you'd heard all week. "Four." You were already backing away, putting distance between you, chest heaving. "That's four." "That's four." He pressed two fingers to his neck and brought them away red. It wasn’t a copious amount of blood. You were sure it had already stopped. But the sight of it was enough to bring your adrenaline back up. 

Wriothesley paused, looking at the blood for a long moment. Then he looked at you, and the smile that crossed his face was entirely devilish. "You really are something." God help you, he liked it. "Save it." It was difficult not to show how nervous his smile had made you. With what was on the line, you knew that if he did manage to pull out a victory, that smile was the promise that he would devour you whole. "Three to four. You're one ahead. We’ll see if I can’t catch up." Arrogantly, he winked at you before coming for you. Not hard, he was still pulling himself back, you could see it in the way his shoulders stayed loose. But he certainly showed more intent than before. He was fast. Even after a long day, Wriothesley was still quick on his feet. You twisted away from the first reach, slipped under the second, and on the third he had you by the waist, pulling you against him so completely that your feet briefly left the floor.

This kiss you couldn't dodge. He caught the back of your head again and held you there. When you opened your mouth to swear at him, he used it. You bit, but he was ready and pulled back just enough to make the bite glance off, and then his mouth was on yours again. He held on longer this time, deeper, and deliberate in a way the others hadn't been. By the time he let you go your legs were unsteady underneath you and your face was hot for reasons that had nothing to do with exertion. You hated him. You hated him with a clarity that felt almost holy. "Four." His voice was rougher than before. "Four each." "Don't get comfortable." "I never do." He gave you another smile. “You know we could call it a draw. Right here, right now, we could both say we’re good and then we could both get what we want.” He tried to snag another kiss, but you managed to get your hand up before his lips ever reached your face. “Never.” You tried to sound firm in it, but your own fatigue was catching up with you. It was difficult to hide that you were gasping for air when he had only just broken a sweat. “Double or nothing then. You win, I take you to the surface once a month, weather permitting. I win, I have you whenever I want, however I want. Deal?” “Twice a month. You take me to the surface twice a month if I win. One of those is the city.” He laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m not about to give you the chance to run to the first gardiennage you see. The only time you’re ever going back to the Court of Fontaine is if I can’t take you anywhere else.” “Then I won’t willingly suck your cock every day for the rest of your life.” He paused, slowly raising an eyebrow. “Every day, huh?” You nodded, knowing you at least had his attention. To sweeten the deal, you softened your expression as much as you could, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “I’ll even be nice about it.” He laughed. “As tempting as that is, I’m not buying that for a second. I’ve been taken in by that look before and the last time I let it get me, I ended up in the infirmary with stitches.” He smirked at you. “I’m still feeling generous…” Which meant he was feeling confident. “I’ll give you up top twice a month, in the countryside, but you have to do everything I tell you. No back talk, no schemes, no nothing and I have the right to revoke it, for any reason.” You rolled your eyes, knowing that was probably the best you were going to get. Begrudgingly, you agreed to his terms. 

The next exchange was the one that mattered, now more than ever. He set his stance and waited, watching you the way he watched everything: cataloguing, measuring, and deciding which of your tells were the real ones and which you were using to trick him. You let him look. You let him see you breathing hard, just as you let him see the slight favor you were giving your left side due to the cramp that was forming. On him, you could see he was still favoring the one knee. He was casually flexing the shoulder you had struck, and you knew the fresh marks on his neck stung.

Then you went for his left knee again, the one you'd struck first, the one he'd been quietly babying for the last quarter hour whether he'd admitted it or not. He moved to block, instinctively, dropping his hand to intercept the strike he expected to come low. But the kick was the feint. You pivoted off it before your foot ever reached him, brought your other knee up, and drove it square into his gut with everything you had left in you.

The breath went out of him in a sound you would remember for a long time. He folded, just slightly. It wasn’t a full collapse, he was too well-trained for that, but enough that he had to take a step back to keep his footing. His hand came up to his sternum as if to hold the air in. You staggered back yourself. The momentum of the strike combined with the burned-out shake in your legs sent you in uneven steps across the ring. Half-laughing, you got the count out as you went slightly breathless. "Five." A few more stumbling paces back, hand thrown out for a balance you couldn't find. "That's five, I—"

Your heel caught on something, the lip of the floor, your own foot, you would never know. You went down on your backside in an undignified heap, the rest of the sentence dissolving as you landed. And then, because your body was burning and your lungs were empty and you had nothing left to spend on rage, something else came out of you instead.

You laughed.

It started small, a half-breath you almost didn't recognize as your own, and then it caught and built and you were laughing properly, head tipped back, both hands braced behind you on the cold floor. "I win." You got the words out between breaths, grinning so wide your face ached. "I actually won. I beat you." Another bright crack of laughter rolled through you. "I beat you at your own bloody game."

Wriothesley straightened by degrees, hand still resting on his sternum. He looked at you with an expression you couldn't quite place. For a long moment he didn't say anything at all. He just watched you, breathless on the floor of his pankration ring, flushed and unguardedly pleased with yourself. Somewhere underneath the haze of your own delight you registered, dimly, that this was the first time in a year you had laughed or found true joy in anything. More than that though, this was the first time you had ever let any pleasure of any kind cross your face in front of him. The first time you had given him a sound that wasn't a curse or a scream or a flat refusal. The first time he had heard you laugh.

He didn't like it.

It wasn't large, the dislike. It wasn't anger. There was something in his face that almost wanted to soften toward the sound, that would have been pleased to hear it under any other circumstance. But you weren't laughing because of him. You were laughing in spite of him. You were laughing because you had taken something from him, and the joy of that theft was the first joy he had ever been allowed to witness in you, and it was happening entirely at his expense. You saw the small tightening at the corner of his mouth. The single, deliberate breath in through his nose. The faint, controlled set of his jaw as he chose to bury the rest inside himself. He let the breath out long and slow, and nodded once. "You win." The two words came out perfectly even. He had his voice back. But you had seen it, the slip, the small irked thing he hadn't quite managed to bury in time, and the satisfaction of having seen it folded itself into the satisfaction of the win and doubled it. You let yourself fall flat onto your back on the floor, arms thrown out, staring up at the distant ceiling of the fortress, and laughed once more. It was shorter this time, quieter, but it didn’t mean you were any less pleased with yourself. Once again, you had managed to save yourself from what was suggested as the inevitable. He had told you on your first day that you would eventually come around. That at some point he would wiggle a finger at you and you would be at his side in seconds. So far, you had resisted that. More importantly, you had resisted him. Wriothesley could only get his way with you when it came to bets and challenges. Even then, it wasn’t always what he truly wanted. You knew he would fall to his knees in relief if you ever truly fell in line.

Out of the corner of your eye, you watched him walk towards you. For a split second, you thought he might allow you the privilege of gloating. You had beaten him fair and square. In your mind at least, you had earned the right to celebrate. Wriothesley though, thought differently. When you fully turned your head to look at him, any of the mirth he’d previously had was long gone. In its place was the stern warden. That should have been the first clue that your fun was over. The second should have been the sound of the manacles gently clacking against each other as he walked over. The hint of them caused your elation to instantly leave you. Not now, not yet. Not when you finally had something to be happy about. “Wait…” You tried to scoot away, but his foot on your wrist stopped you from getting very far. He didn’t press firmly, only enough to hold you in place while you squirmed to try to get out his grasp. “I’m not ready to go back yet. I just need a break… I’ll be running laps around you in no time.” He chuckled at that, clearly not buying it for a second. “I think not. It’s time to go.” He adjusted the manacles in his hand, giving you a more neutral stare. “I need to get you cleaned up and ready for bed.” A task that you never made easy for him. 

The one thing you adamantly refused to allow was to be washed and dressed like a child, even if he complained that you acted like one as he did it. You were beyond capable of caring for your own hygiene. Even if he didn’t entirely trust you, the least he could provide was an area where you could wash in peace. The compromise that had been reached between you was that you used his bathroom, but the door was always open. This way he could make sure you didn’t get up to any mischief. If he was ready to put you to bed, the odds were that the compromise wasn’t going to hold. He wouldn’t wait for you to finish washing. He would go in with you, sharing what was already a tight space in the name of efficiency. “As always, we can do this the easy way, where you actually listen to me or I can drag you out of here kicking and screaming.” He gently shrugged, smirking to himself. “Surprisingly, the second one might be the better option this go-round. Given how tired you are, I’m sure I’ll end up carrying you either way.” Up until now, you had been having a semblance of fun. The joy of winning had temporarily washed away the grim reality you were facing. For the briefest of moments, you had felt free. Now it was all gone in a matter of seconds. His power over you being reaffirmed with only a few words. “I hadn’t finished, I’m not ready to go yet.” It was a weak plea, you knew it was. But you still tried, if only to avoid being locked in for the night for a little longer. “That’s too bad. Unfortunately for you, I dictate when you’re done for the evening. Seeing as you’re flat on your back from exhaustion, I think it’s best if we call it here.” You scrunched your nose at him. “Spoilsport. You’re just upset that you lost and now you have to take me up top.” He chuckled. “I’m upset, because you pushed yourself harder than you should have. I’d offer to work on your conditioning if I thought you wouldn’t use it against me.” You both knew you absolutely would. Hence his need to keep you healthy, but controllable. “Come on.” 

By now, you knew the drill. He gestured for you to rise, which you did, though the action was weak and slow. Your efforts had their impact on you as well. As a rule, Wriothesley fed you based on your activity level for that day. Lighter days meant a more sedentary day, while heavier days indicated you were going to be more physical. Today had started light and ended with a heavier meal, indicating you coming down here was a last-minute decision. Your body wasn’t exactly appreciative of that. The exertion of the fight had left you sluggish and shaky. Wriothesley knew it too. You suspected it as much when he lightly placed his hand on your shoulder, gently turning you so your back was to him. The faint touches continued when he lifted your wrists so he could place the oh so familiar manacles on you. One and then the other. His hands didn't leave your wrists immediately after the second manacle clicked home. He held them there a beat longer than was necessary, thumbs resting on the bones at the base of your hands as if testing the fit. You felt the warmth of him at your back. He was closer than he needed to be, so close, in fact, that you could feel his even breaths on the crown of your head. The exhaustion in your body made it difficult to register anything beyond the simple facts of him: heat, breath, weight. You were too tired to fully push him away. You doubted he would let you. Instead, you let your shoulders sag and waited to be told what came next.

He slowly turned you by the shoulders. The way you might handle something that had run out of fight rather than something that had ever been dangerous. But you weren't quite finished. You hadn't been finished since the laugh had bubbled out of you on the ring's floor, and the shred of fire it had lit was guttering but not yet entirely out. When you faced him again you found the dregs of it and bared your teeth at him. It wasn’t quite a smile, but not a full snarl either. "Don't." You knew what was coming. You could read it on his face. "Don't even think about it." "It's a little late for that, sweetheart." "You lost." That should have been the end of it. But Wriothesley wasn’t one to leave anything unfinished. In the year you had spent with him, the one thing you had learned was if he expected a specific return on something, he made sure he got it. You feared now was going to be no exception. "I know I lost." He said it in a patient, almost agreeable manner. Acting as if you'd remarked on the weather rather than reminded him of his own defeat. "I'm going to pay what I lost. You'll be up top by tomorrow afternoon, I'll see to it personally." His hand drifted up from your shoulder to the side of your neck, thumb finding the hollow at the base of your jaw. "But we agreed on a count of five. Even if I didn’t win, I had hoped to find a way to get all five. Thanks to this, I know I was right about one thing when it came to you.” He smirked, moving slightly closer to you. “Those lips of yours are incredibly kissable." You visibly grimaced at that, attempting to jerk your head back so he couldn’t try anything. Unfortunately, your circumstances weren’t in a position to obey you. The manacles, predictably, made that an inelegant proposition; your shoulders went where your wrists couldn't, and the motion only twisted you against his hand rather than away from it. He didn't grip you. He didn't need to grip you. All Wriothesley had to do was guide you into a position he could work with. 

He tilted his head slightly to follow yours. There was a small lazy chase between you, where he followed along the angle of your retreat, while you tried to avoid him as much as possible. Wriothesley chuckled, acting as if him catching you was a foregone conclusion. It was. You knew it was, but you hated that he was merely humoring you purely for the thrill of the chase. You got out half a word, something furious, something you didn't even finish, before his mouth was on yours.

This kiss wasn’t like the others. It wasn't a graze, or a stolen brush at the corner of your mouth. It wasn't the deep deliberate thing he had taken when he tried to trick you into getting what he wanted. He didn't hold you in place. The manacles and your own fatigue did that for him, and the brief flare of resistance had cost you the last of your strength; you were folding into his hand without meaning to, your knees finally giving up the work of holding you upright in earnest. He responded in kind, groaning at the contact when you leaned into him. You still fought him, trying in vain to get your head away from him, but Wriothesley’s arms coming around you ended any thought of that. The second his palm brushed against the back of your head, you knew you were his until he decided it was time to let you go.

His mouth was soft, patient, and entirely starved. He kissed you the way a man kisses something he has already decided is his to consume. He did it slowly, savoring every breath and every whimper he pulled out of you. Wriothesley had waited two years for this. It came to you with stunning clarity, that this moment was the reward he had been waiting for. You could scream, you could claw, you could scratch; none of it would ever make a dent. Because Wriothesley had always been intent on claiming the thing he hadn’t earned and didn’t need to earn because he had already made it his. When it came to you, his patience had led him to what you knew was the first of many rewards for his diligence. The matter of him finally having you wasn’t a question of if, but when. Tonight had been a lucky escape, but there would be a point where he forced the issue. Where he would make a wager you couldn’t beat or trick you so you couldn’t get away. The question was, how much longer was he willing to wait before he got his just reward.

His hand shifted off the back of your head, following the path around the side of your face to the hollow of your neck. It gave you the leverage you needed to twist your lips away from his. He briefly followed, but only so he could get one last taste of you before he finally let you go. When he pulled back, his thumb had found its way back to your jaw, the rough pad gently running over your skin. "Five." He said it low, almost to himself. There was no triumph in his voice. He knew, the same as you did, that it wasn't a victory. He had lost the game on the floor of the pankration ring and he owed you a trip up top and he would pay what he owed; Wriothesley was many things, but he was not a man who reneged on a debt fairly won. He had simply wanted his fifth kiss, and so he had taken his fifth kiss. The price of it was that the count was entirely hollow. That part didn't matter to him. He took it anyway, simply because he could.

He let go of your face, shifting his body so he could slide one arm beneath your knees and the other behind your back. With a grunt, he lifted you off the floor as if you weighed nothing at all. You let him. In part because there was nothing left in you to do anything else.

The walk to the elevator was short. You kept your eyes mostly closed against the harsh overhead lights of the ring. On instinct you tucked your head against the warm slope of his shoulder, not bothering to register the sigh that followed the gesture. He didn't speak. He shifted his grip once to free a hand so he could turn the lift controls back on. A few clicks, a ding, and the soft hum of the cab starting up was the last sound that registered with any real clarity before sleep began pulling at you in earnest. You felt the rise of the lift beneath you, the steady, unbothered cadence of his breathing where your face was pressed to the collar of his shirt. You felt the moment when the doors slid open onto the upper floors and the cooler, drier air of the fortress’s central hub met your skin.

As he carried you down the long quiet corridors back toward the rooms in which he kept you, your last clear thought before sleep took you completely was that you had won, today, in the only way it was possible to win against him: briefly, and only on his sufferance, and only until the manacles went back on.

[genshin-side-piece]

What if the Webtorre design is the theorized playable version of Dottore?

I have nothing to back this up BTW, I'm just going with it. It's been confirmed Zandik had 8 segments, which tracks because that would be one for every full decade of his life. The number is further confirmed when Omega destroys the other segments. 7 voices sound off, with Omega being the eighth. We never see faces with the voices.

In Omega's flashback, we only see six segments; 8, 18, 25, 35, 45, & 65. They are also the only ones referenced in the later records. The segments in their 50s and 70s are missing. Interestingly, 45, 50s, & 70s are not shown with the other segments that were destroyed.

It's entirely plausible that Diluc could have gotten 50s and/or 70s and that's how he got banned from Snezhnaya. Even if he did, they would still turn up in Omega's flashback. The question is, why aren't they there? Were they the ones always out in the field and therefore Omega never knew them? Were they created outside of Snezhnaya and abandoned in their homeland? Did Omega not count them as part of the group?

We know Webtorre is canon because he's referenced in Dottore's second boss form.

Hypothetically, could Webtorre's original body have been damaged and possibly scrapped before being replaced with a new one? As a tangent, it would be WILD if that's who Lohen is. As a means of preserving himself, Webtorre transfers himself into one of his test subjects and uses that person as a host, evading Omega's wipe. Back to the theory though, the scrapped form would give Panatlone a "body" to experiment with, should he try to revive his deceased friend. While Omega may not have had enough time to create an entirely new form for a new perspective, it would make sense that he repaired an existing one as a back up in the event that Pantalone is able to succeed in extracting his own materials and implanting them in the segment.

It would be a weird echo for what Arlecchino is doing for Sandrone. The difference is what Arlecchino and Pantalone are able to create.

I also wonder what Dottore would be like based on Feo's memories. The core of their relationship is shown from Omega's perspective, not Feo's. While I think Feo loved or at least cared for Oldtorre, I'm not sure the same can be said for all the segments. Feo acknowledges Omega is not Zandik and therefore, I don't think Feo cared for Omega in the same way. Their partnership could be simply due to the fact that Omega is all that Feo has left and vice versa.

Considering Feo met Zandik as one of his test subjects, it's not a leap to say Feo has seen the best and worst of Zandik. It's plausible the new perspective could be better or far worse than the original could ever hope to be. Only time, and Hoyo's writers will tell.

[genshin-side-piece]

After Zandik takes Feofan on, it seems Zandik, and later the segments could do what they wished to Feofan's body during the maintenance period and he could only marginally protest. That being said, why does it feel like they did more than just "maintenance?"

Why does it feel like Zandik made modifications to Feofan's body, purely for aesthetic purposes and the segments just carried it forward. Like Zandik or one of the clones invents implants just to give Feofan the chest and ass the older ones want him to have.

They find a way to reverse the ill effects that years of smoking have had on Feo's skin. Collagen and Elastin supplements are developed to help restore what Feo's own choices have destroyed.

They even correct his teeth, because god forbid Feo have a jacked up smile.

To the benefit of everyone, Dottore inadvertently invents the field of cosmetic medicine just to keep his favorite boy toy looking as pristine as the day he found him.

[genshin-side-piece]

So after 6.6, does anyone have the Omega segment being full on yandere for Pantalone for the last 400+ years or so stuck in their head or is it just me?

[genshin-side-piece]

Based on the NEW Pantalone leaks, please let him be as cunty as I've imagined him to be.

[genshin-side-piece]

For the pantalone series of A private asset can you make another one where instead the reader attempted to escape?

Thanks :)) have a good day/night!

Hi Nonny!

Thanks so much for the ask! :) I hadn't planned on doing another one for A Private Asset right now, but if I do, I'll keep this in mind.

[genshin-side-piece]

Okay so i’ve been chewing on the 6.3 archon quest for a while now and the more i think about it, the more i’m convinced something is… off. Not in a “plot hole” way, in a very intentional, hoyo-is-being-weird-on-purpose way.

What if after the final confrontation, Dottore didn’t actually lose, he shifted the traveler into an alternate reality to keep us out of the real endgame?

Because once you start looking at the post-quest world through that lens a lot of things feel suspiciously curated.

Right at the start, he isolates us in a controlled environment tailored to our psychology. He builds a world meant to appeal to our sense of justice and order and tries to convince us to stay there.

Canon says these are experimental realms / constructs, not full timelines. Sure. But the question becomes: If he can make a small fake reality, why couldn’t he scale it up?

What if “beating” him just transitions us into a more stable version of the same trick? One that’s based on what he knows about us and those around us.This is supported by Wanderer’s ending in the quest. 

Dottore doesn’t recognize Wanderer for who he actually is. Which means his understanding of Wanderer is already incomplete and flawed.

Because Dottore is not omnipresent or at least, he doesn’t admit to being that way, he likely doesn’t know Wanderer’s core was removed to run Sandrone’s extrapolations. Which means at the end, when Wanderer is leaving for Sumeru, the core being returned never gets addressed in dialogue. The same thing goes for the curse Dottore places on everyone after we raid his lab. Since he was busy with us, he wouldn’t have known Sandrone found it. 

If we’re in a Dottore-built reality, both the curse and Wanderer being “stable” without explanation makes sense. Because from Dottore’s perspective, nothing was wrong in the first place. He was too distracted with other things, like possibly altering Teyvat’s history, to notice.

Another thing that sticks out is how we’re told certain conversations happened, but we never see them. In the past, Hoyo has been consistent in showing us the traveler’s important character interactions.

One explanation is we don’t see it due to pacing. That’s totally possible. Another explanation is that we’re being given reconstructed memories to smooth over narrative seams.

It creates this lingering feeling that something happened in the gaps, and we’re only seeing the edited version. Much like we did when Dottore had us in the initial alternate space. He only let us see what he wanted and not the truth. We see this in how everything wraps up in one of the alternate endings. Nod-Krai moves toward unity in a way that feels extremely convenient. People who were deeply divided start aligning faster than you’d expect. Is that character growth? Yes, absolutely. But through the theory lens, it looks like we’re living inside the exact type of world Dottore tried to design for us.

It’s funny how Columbina’s “one chance” dialogue echoes Dottore’s earlier rhetoric almost beat for beat. It could be a coincidence, but it’s enough to feel like the world is speaking in his narrative voice.

When we meet with her on the moon, Columbina gives us info on our sibling, she shows us our lost ship, and she unlocks more of our powers. Aka the exact information Dottore promised us earlier. Again, this is a totally normal quest resolution, if that was the true resolution. We know the ending on the Moon is one of two. Who is to say which one is real? Who can say either is real?

Another part of the story that’s been bothering me is the whole “rogue harbinger” thing. What if that’s theater, or at least not as out-of-control as it looks?

Because here’s the part that keeps nagging at me: the Dottore we actually meet is probably a segment, and not necessarily acting independently the whole time. We already know the real Dottore can control his segments remotely, which means there’s almost certainly some kind of oversight or fail safe built into the system. Additionally, the Jester would know that on some level, Dottore is a liability. It’s hard to believe the Fauti would just let him run wild with zero contingency. 

Then there’s the physical side of things. The amount of energy being channeled through Dottore’s body during the quest is absurd. The kind of power that should realistically kill or destabilize a normal human. So that raises two possibilities: The “real” Dottore isn’t human anymore (or hasn’t been for a long time) or he engineered a specific segment designed to withstand god-level power, essentially a disposable vessel meant for ascension attempts. 

We see proof of this in Sumeru, where Dottore tries to engineer a false god using Scaramouche. He collected the data from that experiment, made improvements based on that data, and applied it to what we see in Nod Krai.

This becomes extra interesting when you remember that Wanderer is the basis for Dottore’s segment research in the first place. Dottore improved on Scaramouche’s flaws, creating a vessel fit for god-hood.

So if the segment we fight is being piloted or guided at key moments, and a fail safe exists somewhere in the system, and the Fatui never trigger it… Then the question becomes, if he truly betrayed them, why not just shut him down?

Instead the Tsaritsa gives specific orders to Sandrone and Arlecchino to exercise lethal force if need be to stop Dottore. This causes the whole thing to turn into a very public, very chaotic confrontation. Which feels less like damage control and more like a staged conflict. Very similar to what happened in Liyue with Childe. That makes me wonder if the mess was the point.

Because from a strategy angle, it accomplishes a lot:

The traveler gets occupied or potentially sidelined, possibly permanently. Since we’re the protagonist, we are a threat to the Tsaritsa’s plan. From the onset, the Fauti have been hesitant to kill us. If anything, they’ve been using us through different tasks through the Adventurer’s Guild to reach their goals. If we didn’t serve a higher purpose to them, they would have offed us long ago. To keep us out of trouble until we’re needed, Dottore tucks us away in a world that he or the Fatui can control. An alternate theory could be that the Jester and the Abyss sibling are working together. The Jester wishes to kill the gods and burn away the old world, while the Abyss sibling is looking to restore Khaenri'ah. The two could have reached a deal where we’re kept safe until the plan is realized. This is accomplished by dropping us into an alternate timeline that echos the main one. Once the plan is realized the sibling or the Jester may let us out, or they may keep us there. For all we know, the plan could have been realized long ago and at the end of this cycle, we wake up in the “new world.”

Harbingers like Sandrone, Arlecchino, and Columbina could no longer be necessary to the main plan. Since they are not 100% loyal to the Fauti or the Tsaritsa, they are a liability. The Fauti can’t just get rid of them. If, however, they're lost in the fight to Dottore, so be it. Given the lack of the reaction to other character deaths *coughs CAPITANO coughs* No one will question the narrative. BTW, I’m not suggesting Dottore is 100% loyal. He’s not, but since he can wield the power of the Trilune, he is useful.

A “rogue harbinger” narrative gives everyone plausible deniability while the real plan keeps moving behind the scenes. It’s worth noting that prior to 6.3 Columbina was being rejected by the world. That means whatever she gave the Tsaritsa wasn’t complete. The false moon being replaced by the real moon restores Columbina’s power; Completing whatever she gave to the Tsaritsa. Since we don’t know what Dottore was up to in between the time we escape and when we confront him again. He could have been moving the plan forward as well. He doesn’t view us as a threat, and while we aren’t in his line of sight, he does have us trapped. While we’re distracted trying to stop him, he can do other things.

So maybe the Dottore we saw wasn’t a traitor, just a specialized segment playing the villain role, while the real architect stayed somewhere far away, pulling the strings. Kind of like Lygus from HSR.

6.3 leans hard into surreal environments, perception manipulation, and morally curated outcomes. Everything feels slightly too tidy after a quest that was otherwise chaotic and psychologically intense.

And if there’s one thing Dottore believes in, it’s this: Control what people perceive, and you control the reality they accept. 

So maybe we won, or maybe we just got moved somewhere we can’t interfere anymore. Maybe we’ve been there the whole time and we’ve just been in a loop. That could be why we have virtually no memories at the start. Dottore is our version of Lygus and he keeps running us through different cycles to see how many different outcomes he can achieve before he’s through. 

[rotted-court-jester]

"Additionally, the Jester would know that on some level, Dottore is a liability. It’s hard to believe the Fatui would just let him run wild with zero contingency."

THIS. 👆

This is the #1 thing that I've been thinking about after 6.3.

There is no fucking way that Pierro and the Tsaritsa are genuinely shocked that Dottore has "gone off the rails."

A joke I made about how the purpose of the Harbingers is actually just to distract and cause mayhem might actually have more truth to it than I initially thought...

I think the "no killing each other" rule was placed knowing that someone was going to break it eventually. The rule was probably set as more of a "ok at least try to tolerate each other for a while and get some work done before deciding to bite each other's heads off or betray all of us" message.

All of the Harbingers whose backstories we know so far were all recruited at the lowest point in their lives. And this was 100% intentional. But instead of using that to her advantage to have more control over them, the Tsaritsa essentially just lets them do whatever they want. It clearly doesn't matter that much to their plans if the Harbingers were to eventually fall apart like they've been doing recently.

...Or maybe them "falling apart" is also part of the plan? 🤔

[genshin-side-piece]

Love the addition to this. The one thing I forgot to mention that is specific to the Harbingers is that out the remaining group, Pierro is unaccounted for. At the start of the 6.3 update, Pantalone and Pulcinella returned to Snezhnaya between 6.0 & 6.1 (might be as late as 6.2). Childe is playing messenger boy between Nod Krai and Snezhnaya. Arlecchino, Dottore, & Sandrone are all in Nod Krai. We know the Jester was in Nod Krai, because he was in the release trailer. But strangely he's never mentioned by anyone, and his whereabouts remain unknown. It's possible he could have gone on to somewhere else. The final gnosis needs to retrieved and Natlan is right there. He could have gone home with Pantalone and Pulcinella since Pierro and Pulcinella are overseeing the finalization of the Tsaritsa's plan. He also could have been helping Dottore return the moon to Teyvat. Anything's possible. :)

It's worth mentioning that all of the harbingers were recruited for an actual purpose. There are only two real outliers; Arlecchino was probably never meant to be a harbinger. She only became one when she unalived Crucabena. Then there's Childe, who got in because Pulcinella pulled some strings with Pierro and the Tsarista. All of the rest were recruited because there are/were instrumental in the plan. I think it's more of a question what that purpose is and when their usefulness runs out. Here's my theory on why the Fauti wanted each person: Columbina - Raw Materials (Moon Goddess/Heir to the Frost Moon Marrow)

Arlechinno - Raw Materials (Crimson Moon Descendant + Abyssal Connection + Heir to the Iridescent Moon Marrow)

Capitano - Raw Materials (Altered Heart + Magical Sword) - His purpose can still be fulfilled. The heart and the sword can be extracted from him.

Scaramouche - Raw Materials + Test Subject for Dottore's God project (Avatar of an Archon + Made from Irminsul)

Dottore - Research and Development

Sandrone - Research and Development

Pantalone - Actual purpose yet unknown, assumed purpose Money

Pulchinella - Actual purpose yet unknown, assumed purpose Political Figure + Population control

Childe - Actual purpose yet unknown, current purpose Errand Boy

Signora - Actual purpose yet unknown (Crimson Witch of Flames)

Since she is given a formal funeral that we see, I believe her death is accidental and therefore not part of the plan. There is a possibility her death sets the plan back slightly and the Fatui have to pivot away from whatever she was meant to do/be. It's worth noting that I think she was meant to die. Pierro talks about how pretty much everyone in the Fatui or beyond is up to be sacrificed for the greater cause. I just don't think she was meant to die in Inazuma based on the reaction to her death. It's very similar to the reaction to Crucabena's death. It is possible Signora could still be apart of the plan. There is the copium hope that the Fatui put her on ice with the intention of resurrecting her.

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[tattooedzombigirl]

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

[secondlina]

Reblogging because it’s a damn potato and I want to encourage people to assume potatoes are magical.

[plagued-roses]

MAGIC POTATO GO!🥔

[genshin-side-piece]

Okay so i’ve been chewing on the 6.3 archon quest for a while now and the more i think about it, the more i’m convinced something is… off. Not in a “plot hole” way, in a very intentional, hoyo-is-being-weird-on-purpose way.

What if after the final confrontation, Dottore didn’t actually lose, he shifted the traveler into an alternate reality to keep us out of the real endgame?

Because once you start looking at the post-quest world through that lens a lot of things feel suspiciously curated.

Right at the start, he isolates us in a controlled environment tailored to our psychology. He builds a world meant to appeal to our sense of justice and order and tries to convince us to stay there.

Canon says these are experimental realms / constructs, not full timelines. Sure. But the question becomes: If he can make a small fake reality, why couldn’t he scale it up?

What if “beating” him just transitions us into a more stable version of the same trick? One that’s based on what he knows about us and those around us.This is supported by Wanderer’s ending in the quest. 

Dottore doesn’t recognize Wanderer for who he actually is. Which means his understanding of Wanderer is already incomplete and flawed.

Because Dottore is not omnipresent or at least, he doesn’t admit to being that way, he likely doesn’t know Wanderer’s core was removed to run Sandrone’s extrapolations. Which means at the end, when Wanderer is leaving for Sumeru, the core being returned never gets addressed in dialogue. The same thing goes for the curse Dottore places on everyone after we raid his lab. Since he was busy with us, he wouldn’t have known Sandrone found it. 

If we’re in a Dottore-built reality, both the curse and Wanderer being “stable” without explanation makes sense. Because from Dottore’s perspective, nothing was wrong in the first place. He was too distracted with other things, like possibly altering Teyvat’s history, to notice.

Another thing that sticks out is how we’re told certain conversations happened, but we never see them. In the past, Hoyo has been consistent in showing us the traveler’s important character interactions.

One explanation is we don’t see it due to pacing. That’s totally possible. Another explanation is that we’re being given reconstructed memories to smooth over narrative seams.

It creates this lingering feeling that something happened in the gaps, and we’re only seeing the edited version. Much like we did when Dottore had us in the initial alternate space. He only let us see what he wanted and not the truth. We see this in how everything wraps up in one of the alternate endings. Nod-Krai moves toward unity in a way that feels extremely convenient. People who were deeply divided start aligning faster than you’d expect. Is that character growth? Yes, absolutely. But through the theory lens, it looks like we’re living inside the exact type of world Dottore tried to design for us.

It’s funny how Columbina’s “one chance” dialogue echoes Dottore’s earlier rhetoric almost beat for beat. It could be a coincidence, but it’s enough to feel like the world is speaking in his narrative voice.

When we meet with her on the moon, Columbina gives us info on our sibling, she shows us our lost ship, and she unlocks more of our powers. Aka the exact information Dottore promised us earlier. Again, this is a totally normal quest resolution, if that was the true resolution. We know the ending on the Moon is one of two. Who is to say which one is real? Who can say either is real?

Another part of the story that’s been bothering me is the whole “rogue harbinger” thing. What if that’s theater, or at least not as out-of-control as it looks?

Because here’s the part that keeps nagging at me: the Dottore we actually meet is probably a segment, and not necessarily acting independently the whole time. We already know the real Dottore can control his segments remotely, which means there’s almost certainly some kind of oversight or fail safe built into the system. Additionally, the Jester would know that on some level, Dottore is a liability. It’s hard to believe the Fauti would just let him run wild with zero contingency. 

Then there’s the physical side of things. The amount of energy being channeled through Dottore’s body during the quest is absurd. The kind of power that should realistically kill or destabilize a normal human. So that raises two possibilities: The “real” Dottore isn’t human anymore (or hasn’t been for a long time) or he engineered a specific segment designed to withstand god-level power, essentially a disposable vessel meant for ascension attempts. 

We see proof of this in Sumeru, where Dottore tries to engineer a false god using Scaramouche. He collected the data from that experiment, made improvements based on that data, and applied it to what we see in Nod Krai.

This becomes extra interesting when you remember that Wanderer is the basis for Dottore’s segment research in the first place. Dottore improved on Scaramouche’s flaws, creating a vessel fit for god-hood.

So if the segment we fight is being piloted or guided at key moments, and a fail safe exists somewhere in the system, and the Fatui never trigger it… Then the question becomes, if he truly betrayed them, why not just shut him down?

Instead the Tsaritsa gives specific orders to Sandrone and Arlecchino to exercise lethal force if need be to stop Dottore. This causes the whole thing to turn into a very public, very chaotic confrontation. Which feels less like damage control and more like a staged conflict. Very similar to what happened in Liyue with Childe. That makes me wonder if the mess was the point.

Because from a strategy angle, it accomplishes a lot:

The traveler gets occupied or potentially sidelined, possibly permanently. Since we’re the protagonist, we are a threat to the Tsaritsa’s plan. From the onset, the Fauti have been hesitant to kill us. If anything, they’ve been using us through different tasks through the Adventurer’s Guild to reach their goals. If we didn’t serve a higher purpose to them, they would have offed us long ago. To keep us out of trouble until we’re needed, Dottore tucks us away in a world that he or the Fatui can control. An alternate theory could be that the Jester and the Abyss sibling are working together. The Jester wishes to kill the gods and burn away the old world, while the Abyss sibling is looking to restore Khaenri'ah. The two could have reached a deal where we’re kept safe until the plan is realized. This is accomplished by dropping us into an alternate timeline that echos the main one. Once the plan is realized the sibling or the Jester may let us out, or they may keep us there. For all we know, the plan could have been realized long ago and at the end of this cycle, we wake up in the “new world.”

Harbingers like Sandrone, Arlecchino, and Columbina could no longer be necessary to the main plan. Since they are not 100% loyal to the Fauti or the Tsaritsa, they are a liability. The Fauti can’t just get rid of them. If, however, they're lost in the fight to Dottore, so be it. Given the lack of the reaction to other character deaths *coughs CAPITANO coughs* No one will question the narrative. BTW, I’m not suggesting Dottore is 100% loyal. He’s not, but since he can wield the power of the Trilune, he is useful.

A “rogue harbinger” narrative gives everyone plausible deniability while the real plan keeps moving behind the scenes. It’s worth noting that prior to 6.3 Columbina was being rejected by the world. That means whatever she gave the Tsaritsa wasn’t complete. The false moon being replaced by the real moon restores Columbina’s power; Completing whatever she gave to the Tsaritsa. Since we don’t know what Dottore was up to in between the time we escape and when we confront him again. He could have been moving the plan forward as well. He doesn’t view us as a threat, and while we aren’t in his line of sight, he does have us trapped. While we’re distracted trying to stop him, he can do other things.

So maybe the Dottore we saw wasn’t a traitor, just a specialized segment playing the villain role, while the real architect stayed somewhere far away, pulling the strings. Kind of like Lygus from HSR.

6.3 leans hard into surreal environments, perception manipulation, and morally curated outcomes. Everything feels slightly too tidy after a quest that was otherwise chaotic and psychologically intense.

And if there’s one thing Dottore believes in, it’s this: Control what people perceive, and you control the reality they accept. 

So maybe we won, or maybe we just got moved somewhere we can’t interfere anymore. Maybe we’ve been there the whole time and we’ve just been in a loop. That could be why we have virtually no memories at the start. Dottore is our version of Lygus and he keeps running us through different cycles to see how many different outcomes he can achieve before he’s through. 

[genshin-side-piece]

Part of me genuinely hopes Hoyo tells us how long Dottore has been monitoring us for. When EXACTLY did we catch his attention? Was it when he first found out we existed and he was waiting possibly hundreds of years for us to turn up? Was it when Signora returned from Mondstadt? When Childe got back from Liyue? I don't believe it was Sumeru, because given the new information from Nod Krai, Sumeru feels like it was a test.

Like, he was THRILLED to meet us. Listen to him. He's so incredibly pleased with himself he's damn near giddy. Part of that is because he's led us into his first trap, but to him, it feels like the start of a very long game. One that's been following us well before we ever set eyes on him for the first time.

[genshin-side-piece]

A/N: The 6.3 Dottore stuff changed my brain chemistry. Canon yandere Dottore was not on my Genshin bingo card. Let’s just hope Pantalone isn’t super pissed the first time we meet him. 

Warnings: Yandere Fauti Non-Sense, obsession, possession (desired), g/n reader, sfw

Imagine Pantalone shares Dottore's obsession with the traveler. Whether it be grief due to the “loss” of his friend, or that our value to him is nearly immeasurable, he still wants us.

It didn't start out that way. Pantalone's orders in the beginning were only to keep tabs on us through our various tasks with the Adventurer's Guild. It was easy enough to draw us in with the promise of ample rewards, provided we completed certain tasks. We had nothing, so the chance to earn something was welcomed. At first, the tasks were small. We were given simple challenges designed to measure our character, figure out our personality, our likes, our dislikes. Then the tasks grew into feats of strength. How invincible were we? How many monsters could we defeat in one go? How far did the limit of our physical capabilities extend before we could be defeated? Then finally, the bar was raised with the intention of testing our resolve. How much could we take, before we cracked under the weight of our own ambition? All of it would be compiled into reports that Pantalone would then pass on to the higher ups in the Fauti. 

He never really paid them much mind. While the reports gave a glimpse into our true value when it came to the Fauti’s plans, Pantalone was already well aware that we were nearly invaluable as we were unique to this world. A true one of a kind. Decent people were a mora a dozen, weren’t they? Immortals, especially powerful ones, were rarer but still easy enough to find. All anyone needed to do was look at his comrades as proof. Descenders though, they weren’t just strolling down the frozen streets of Snezhnograd were they? Especially one that is so easily manipulated as us.

We were so generous with some of his other comrades, surely we could be persuaded to do the same for Dottore and him, right?

The desire to possess us stemmed purely from Dottore’s interest in us. It was hard to know when or how Dottore’s interest had sparked, but as Dottore's desire to have us grew, so did Pantalone's. As Dottore's patience waxed and waned, so did Pantalone's. The only relief that abided the mutual need to have us, were the reports that told them we were drawing that much closer with every step we took. As Pantalone readied himself for the journey to Nod Krai, the excitement of being so close to finally bringing us to his and Dottore’s side was nearly impalpable. Natlan was very near to Nod Krai, wasn’t it? With the Captain’s unfortunate demise and the abyss still lurking, it would be nothing to steal Natlan’s famed hope from them, would it? Pantalone loved nothing more than realizing a long standing goal. Whether that be taking control of the world’s economy or us, he would enjoy the victory immensely.

Victory though, would not be that easy. 

Part of the job of a harbinger was to expect disappointment. Whether it be in business or in war, not everything went completely to plan. Even if one achieved the desired outcome, things could often get messy, especially if the right variables were introduced at the right time. We were one of those variables and Dottore’s failure to fully capture us was certainly a disappointment. Pantalone, though, could only grit his teeth and endure it. His disgust at the defeat could be quelled with the knowledge that he knew we wouldn’t stay in Nod Krai forever. At some point we would leave. With one archon left to find, Pantalone knew at some stage we would have to journey to Sneznaya. His patience would have to hold a little longer, even if his desire to take what he felt was his was already overriding all logic and reason.

He could wait. He would wait. Because the second we crossed into his territory, he knew it would be over for us. Pantalone would achieve what Dottore could not. He would bring us to heal once and for all, and when he did so he could finally call us his. 

[genshin-side-piece]

A Private Asset - Part 2

Warnings: Yandereish Content, Implied Stalking, Non-Con Voyerism, Blackmail, Implied masturbation, No Pronouns are used for the reader, my bad writing, anything else I missed, NSFW, 18+

A/N: I don’t think this qualifies as it, but I’m tagging this as Yandere just to be safe.

Link to Part 1

You had done it. You had actually done it. With what felt like mere seconds to spare, you had managed to gain editor level rights to the server. With a sizable knot in your stomach, you dragged your response to the Regrator’s challenge to you into the FTP software, praying that it uploaded in time. By the grace of the Archons, you still had fifteen or so minutes left. Given how everything else had gone during this experience, you wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had your internet throttled back, just to slow you down.

There was no question he was watching for it. Pantalone had ensured your focus stayed entirely on his set task since he’d given it to you. You’d barely eaten and hadn’t slept since yesterday. Little messages via uploads to the server had come throughout the last 24 hours. Some were quick reminders of how long you had. Others taunted and teased you as he waited. All of them spoke to how eager he really was to see how you’d respond. It spoke well of his patience and how well it was holding despite how long it was taking you to meet his impossible challenge. Part of that excitement had to come from the fact that he was enjoying making you squirm. You knew from some of the other videos that the Regrator’s sado-masochist tendencies ran deep and while he wasn’t personally with you, some of his messages showed he was getting off on your suffering virtually. 

Your video was regrettably not where all your efforts had gone. You’d barely stomached editing it, but you couldn’t give him something raw. Not when you’d cursed his name through half of it. While he might enjoy the suffering, you were sure letting him hear your ire towards him would only make things worse for you. Finding inspiration to even bring yourself anywhere close to an orgasm had been nearly impossible. All you could keep thinking about was his threat. Your mind going into overdrive every five minutes at the idea of the Regrator kicking down your door at any second because his patience had run out. As a result, your attempt was admittedly underwhelming at best. To achieve the tiniest and most unsatisfying orgasm of your life, you had resorted to a few drinks and some recreational relaxants that cost you more time than they should have. That’s why you didn’t feel relieved as the video finished uploading. 

You knew the video wasn’t what he wanted. It wasn’t remotely alluring or enchanting. It was barely pornographic. The only thing that qualified it as such was that you had managed to be nude in it. You’d gambled on the fact that the sight of your body would be enough to satiate him. Otherwise, he was probably going to have to enhance it, just to see what you were doing. You’d made the lighting intentionally bad so that he would get to see you without seeing all of you. Even though you were sure he knew what you looked like, you couldn’t stomach the idea of accidentally doxxing yourself for his entertainment. For your own sanity, and possibly your safety, you’d hidden any parts of yourself that you felt could give you away. Namely your face. That way, if he tried to use the video to prove your identity, you had some plausible deniability. It had still come from you and he certainly had the access records to prove it; but there was some doubt as to whether it was actually you in the video or if it was perhaps someone that you’d paid to do the video for you. 

Letting your head fall to your desk in exhaustion, you groaned at that idea. God, why hadn’t you paid someone to make it for you? Prostitutes were a mora a dozen in your part of the city. All you needed was someone with a similar body type and a willingness to be on camera and you would have been set. You could have kept working on the server while they gave the Regrator the show he craved. Then you remembered his watchers. While they wouldn’t know why you wanted the other person, it would get back to the Regrator that you had recruited someone to help you. It would establish an expectation that wouldn’t be in the final result. The absence of that second person could easily call you and the video into question, prompting any number of consequences as a result. Even if you tried to spin an excuse that you’d paid the other person to manage the camera, the odds were that at minimum the Regrator may make you do the video again, just to be sure. That’s if he didn’t have you brought to him to perform for him in person. You supposed in this instance authenticity was best, even if you felt like you were ready heave on the spot. You hoped once was enough. As you closed your eyes and let your exhaustion take you into a dreamless sleep, you prayed that this was over. 

It was a quaint offering. For all of the video’s faults, Pantalone had managed to find some delight in your complete discomfort with the entire situation. You were clearly nervous. If he had to guess, this was likely your first time exposing yourself like this or if you had done it prior, you hadn’t done it enough times to have any real comfort with it. He found it suitably adorable. It was easy for him to tell that the entire ordeal had been a struggle. Pantalone had meant for it to be a challenge after all. What better way to test your true capabilities and extract a little revenge than coercing you into posting an explicit video of yourself? It was a win-win in his mind.

Though, if he was being honest, he would have almost bet against you. Based on what he knew about you and hackers in general, you didn’t strike him as the type to rise to the occasion. Most hackers weren’t, at least not when they knew they were caught. Most would scamper away with their tail between their legs, only to find the local constabulary waiting for them a small ways away. Others would fight. There had been one as Pantalone recalled who had tried to drag the entire Fatui down with him. He hadn’t of course. Sandrone and Dottore’s systems had performed their jobs well. He had been shut down before his warbling cry of defiance had ceased. Within a few hours, he had been taken away, never to be heard from again. Then, there was you. Dear, adorable you who had neither failed him or run. You had met him head on, ultimately proving that your presence in his world wasn’t a fluke.  

Pantalone admired the way you’d stood your ground. As if his challenge had given you something to prove. He found it an admirable quality. Even if the video was truly awful, you’d gotten it to him, hadn’t you? That was certainly worth noting. If he didn’t want to play with you to the point that he ruined you, he would consider hiring you to his personal data security team as an advisor. Heavens knew you certainly had a far superior skill set to the twits that currently worked for him. After all, they had assured him that the system he currently had in place was fool proof. He'd been told that in the same way a mousetrap doesn’t wait for the mouse to be careless, the system he'd built wouldn't wait for attackers to be stupid. It would be more than enough to keep all the rats away from what he treasured most. How funny that despite every reassurance a little mouse had still managed to find their way in. It was only by the grace of the additional tracking he’d insisted on that he’d been able to catch you. Now, he had you, to do with you as he pleased. If he so chose, Pantalone was sure you would be capable of building a far better trap than your predecessors could.  

If he did that though, things would inevitably get messy. Pantalone wasn’t opposed to the idea. He had always enjoyed those kinds of shenanigans in the past, but at present he didn’t have the energy or the time. Things within the Fauti were ramping up, and with his comrades dropping like flies, there weren’t enough hours in the day to seize all the opportunities that were headed his way. There was also the annoying matter of keeping his nose clean for appearances sake. There were already enough public scandals both outside the Fauti and within it. Pantalone wasn’t about to give the Rooster or the papers any additional firepower where he was concerned. Not when there were far less people to hide himself behind then there had been just a year ago. It was sad really. For now at least, anything he did to you would have to be contained to the privacy of the server you now shared. 

His eyes drifted back over to your pathetic little video. Even in an inebriated state you had wrestled with the necessary inspiration to take yourself to the heights you had felt he wanted. Tragically, your body shook more from the cold of your room than it did the sensations you were giving yourself. He found that a shame. How utterly delicious it would be to get even a taste of what the real thing looked like. To see that body of yours vibrating with need as you whimpered and begged for more. Pantalone could only smirk at the very thought of it. The concept was something he didn’t necessarily want to waste on a poorly done video. For that particular delight, he imagined it would be far more entertaining to watch it happen in person, especially if he could cause those sensations himself. Regrettably for him, he would have to wait. It was a pity. Teasing you to the point that you pleaded with him for a far better orgasm than you had given yourself would be so terribly fun, wouldn’t it? He sighed, absently toying with the rings on his fingers as he thought it all over. 

He should leave well enough alone, shouldn’t he. The data on your capabilities, as well as the sad little video you’d made for him should have been enough to satiate him. It wasn’t like you posed a threat to him. He doubted you would go to the authorities over that matter. You would have to admit that you’d committed a crime by hacking into Northland’s servers and stealing information. Seeing as you’d answered his challenge, he was almost certain you didn’t want to end up in prison due to your folly. The same held true if you tried to go to the papers or sell his videos. If even a whisper of what transpired reached his ears, he could silence you before the papers could post the story online. It was apparent you understood that.

An audible laugh slipped past his lips. Both of those factors played so well in his favor, didn’t they? 

Things had been so incredibly mundane as of late. Pantalone had been craving a small distraction from the mountains of paperwork he had to deal with. You would fill that role so nicely wouldn’t you; especially since he had a tight little leash he could keep you on. The threat of exposure and prison would be enough to keep you compliant for at least a little while. During that time, he could extract what he wanted from you. All it would take was a little guidance on his part.

His eyes drifted back to your video and as they did, he rolled the investment over in his mind. Because that’s what this really was, wasn’t it? Pantalone was going to invest what time and energy he could spare, into you. There would be a small monetary investment as well, but he could write that off as a simple expense and not worry over it. The true stake in all of this would be his guidance, and what his guidance could mold you into. While you had shown yourself to  be awkward and somewhat unimpressive when it came to his preferred form of debauchery, he could chalk that up to inexperience, as well as nerves. When it came to everything else, you had proven yourself to be entirely capable, hadn’t you? That told him that you could pivot when you needed too, and more importantly you could learn when you had to. His smirk grew wider at that thought. Yes. A little polish, a little shine, and he could turn you into the perfect little pet for his squalid desires. He could keep you in the confined space that was the server and no one would be the wiser. It really was an ideal situation, wasn’t it? He didn’t have to know you or see you outside of your interludes online. You could remain under his watchful eye while staying at liberty, so long as you behaved. Should you decide to get loud, or should you decide his guidance wasn’t worth your time, well he already had you in a cage didn’t he? He could easily tuck you away where no one would find you ever again, and then perhaps the real fun could begin.

[genshin-side-piece]

My general reaction to the Pantalone leaks

[genshin-side-piece]

A Private Asset

Not Pantalone returning to haunt my thoughts after so long. Welcome back sir, I’ve missed you.

Warnings: Yandereish Content, Implied Stalking, Non-Con Voyerism, Blackmail, Implied mutual masturbation, No Pronouns are used for the reader, my bad writing, anything else I missed, NSFW, 18+

A/N: I don’t think this qualifies as it, but I’m tagging this as Yandere just to be safe. Link to Part 2

Pantalone's vanity is such that he enjoys recording different acts of pleasure, whether they be on himself or with others. He keeps all the videos on a private server that is buried deep within a bank of ordinary Northland Bank servers. Not even the IT department is aware of its existence. Pantalone is savvy enough when it comes to technology that he prefers to maintain the server himself. It spares him the trouble of having to babysit any unintended witnesses to his depravities. God forbid knowledge of the videos becomes common, or worse one of his videos hits the public. The carefully crafted image of himself would shatter in seconds. Leaving him to be humiliated before his peers and the world. It's an idea he doesn't enjoy. Which is why his attention is instantly drawn the second the security protocols on that server are breached.

You hadn't intended to access it. At least that's what you told yourself when you'd found it. You had simply hacked into Northland's mainframe and were taking a look around. It was your hope that you could mine out some useful information that you could sell on the black market. Bank records weren't anything of real value, they were a dime a dozen on the open market. You could care less about those. It was general knowledge, at least amongst your circle of comrades, that Northland was little more than a cover for the Fauti's less than scrupulous practices. Meaning if you could find any information on the organization's plans or movements, you would hit the proverbial gold mine. 

When you had discovered the server all the way at the bottom of a nested list, you already had enough information to get you through the next few months. You should have left it alone. But your curiosity got the better of you. The higher security protocols triggered your interest in a way that the standard Northland servers hadn't. This singular server was a puzzle to you and you being you, viewed the stricter restrictions as a challenge. This server's security wasn't a standard system that could be easily overridden. You quickly discovered that the protections around the server were custom made. Meaning its owner had intended for it to be fool proof when it came to keeping any unwanted individuals out. That thought only intrigued you more. What could be so precious that this level of security was required? Was it weapons codes or plans for world domination? Surely whatever was there would be profitable enough that you would never have to work again, right?

After days of trying, to the point that you were nearly exhausted, you finally got in. It had taken a monumental amount of research on your part to figure out a way around the complex coding. What you discovered was well worth your efforts. On a server for one was a treasure trove of videos. All of them private, all of them explicit. You could hardly believe it.  

You should have just left well enough alone after that. The knowledge that you could watch the Regrator get off in some of weirdest ways possible should have been enough. Even in your greed, you should have grabbed some of the more disgusting videos and sold them for a large profit. The funds would be more than enough for you to evade the harbinger’s wrath and start a new life elsewhere. Most importantly, after you had accessed the server, you should have checked for additional security measures; namely tracking. If you had, you would have realized that the access records were being monitored. You would have known your IP address and location had been captured. You would have realized that your fate, at least where the Regrator was concerned, was already sealed. Unfortunately for you, that wasn’t what happened. Instead, in your own depravity, you had set an alert to be notified of any updates to the server so you could see what perversion he indulged in next. 

Pantalone knew the second the server was breached. He was in the middle of a meeting when he received the notification. It was only by the grace of the heavens that he managed to keep himself contained. Security breaches weren’t an uncommon thing. Northland was a common target for hackers and resistance fighters alike. It was why he laced lies and false plans throughout the servers. Pantalone had more than enough data on what they were looking for. All he needed to do was place it in specific areas so they wouldn’t have cause to go deeper. Not many people were inclined to keep digging after they’d already found the treasure. You were obviously the exception. That told him you were either abnormally greedy or you didn’t know what was good for you. It didn’t matter to him. You had made yourself a target. The question was how best to deal with you? Finding you would be simple. His tracking software would see to that. Pantalone only needed to assess the damage to determine whether he needed to act now or if the matter would keep until his afternoon tea.

After the meeting’s sudden adjournment, in the privacy of the now empty space, the analytics gave him surprisingly good news. Nothing had been taken. You had breached the security, but you hadn’t stolen anything. In fact, all you had done was browsed his videos like it was your going through your own personal library. He supposed for now it wasn’t that bad.Clearly you’d been snooping and that was all. The matter could be fixed with additional security to stop you from coming back. If word of the videos got out, it was something he could easily deny. From his end of things, you had no proof. Even if you’d taken screen captures, you still risked exposing yourself and your less than legal activities. You would have to publicly admit you had committed a crime. If you did, then it was nothing to him to silence you for good. After all, any number of nasty accidents could be arranged and none of them would be traceable to him. All he could do now was wait and see.

It took you a few days to go back and try again. After your first encounter with videos, you’d set the notification and promptly walked away. You’d told yourself the notification was enough. You didn’t need to go back unless he posted something new. The image of him looking so vulnerable though. Of him gasping and moaning and whimpering as he ran his hands over himself was a tough one to forget. Despite everything that made him terrifying, beneath it all, the weakness he willingly put on display was utterly alluring. You knew the videos were for his eyes only. That the exposed nature of them was for him to enjoy. But you couldn’t help but allow your mind to wander back to them. God he had looked so pathetic. Pantalone always projected an image of strength to the public. To see him so weak and needy was addictive. Your own desire to see him make an absolute mess of himself demanded it. Which was why, despite your better judgement, you found your way back into Northland’s systems. 

The additional security should have been a red flag. You hadn’t sold what you’d taken a few days earlier, meaning that there was only one reason for the additional firewalls; your visit to the private server had been discovered. Your own need to peer back into Pantalone’s private world dismissed the additional security as little more than red tape. The bank had instituted a new security policy or something like that. Breaches were common, so it’s likely they were attempting to dissuade smaller hackers with new measures. For you though, they weren’t anything. Not after you had figured out how his security worked. You bypassed them easily enough, quickly tunneling down into the treasure trove that rested at the end. 

This went on for weeks. You tried not to make it a daily thing as that felt excessive, but every time he posted a new video, which was becoming more frequent, you found yourself going there right away. The temptation to see his latest perversion was simply too great, especially since watching him had helped bring you to some of the best orgasms of your life. At this stage, at least in the back of your mind, you felt he had to know. Different aspects of his videos had changed. It was nothing dramatic, but you had noticed slightly improved lighting, better camera angles, and above all, the mumbled utterances of are you enjoying this as he got himself off. It was hard to believe he enjoyed being watched when he was like this. His image was always so controlled. As you sat in a post orgasmic bliss after his latest video, you wondered if he was doing just that? Was he tailoring this image of himself specifically for you, based on what you enjoyed? You scoffed at the possibility. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know, right? 

As you thought about it over the next day or so, you swore to yourself that you’d been careful. You hadn’t given him a way to know you had been there or at the very least you appeased yourself with the idea that he couldn’t find you. You had cracked his security protocol enough that the normal alarms wouldn’t trigger. On his side, you should have looked like a regular user and nothing more. Even if he had figured out specific videos were being watched without his consent, he wouldn’t go so far as to bait you, would he? 

Your answer came in the form of another video, one where he explicitly used your name. 

The second it passed his lips your entire body went cold. All you could do was blankly stare at the screen as he sat there in all his magnificence, looking utterly proud of himself. For a moment you thought you’d misheard it. He hadn’t said your name, he didn’t know it. Again, you swore to yourself that you had been careful. He couldn’t know anything about you. Then, as if on que, he said it again. This time, with a smirk so sinister you leapt up from your chair just to get away from it. God he knew. Oh fuck, he knew. You immediately went to close the screen, your arousal long forgotten due to the reality that was now seeping in. The Regrator knew what you had been up to. He likely had known for weeks now. It explained the changes and tweaks made to the content. It explained his utterances and questions as he stroked himself. He was imagining you watching him. That fact sent a chill down your spin. He shouldn’t know you exist. Yet he did and worse than that, he was getting off on the fact that you watched him. 

Your hand was on the button. You were seconds away from closing the window when his melodic voice washed over you again. “Before you close this darling. Just know, this one tells me how far you got.” As your eyes drifted over to the screen, you saw a shudder ripple its way through his body. On top of everything, the bastard had the nerve to be close. “End the fun too soon and there may be-” He gasped as he ran his fingers over the tip of his cock. “Consequences.” You swallowed, not daring to imagine what those might be. He had your name, which meant he knew how to find you. Even if you tried to run, you wouldn’t get far. Your funds might get you to somewhere like Nod Krai, but you wouldn’t have enough to pay the guilds for their silence. It wasn’t like you were well equipped to survive out in the wild either. To stand a chance of making it there or really anywhere, you would have to take a job in the city. That meant a proper address tied to your name. All it would take was for Pantalone to get a hold of your paperwork. After that, you were a sitting duck.

From the screen, he smiled at you again, moaning your name as his movements grew more erratic. He was going to cum. As you stood there and shook in fear, he was going to have the nerve to cum. “Fair’s fair-” He groaned out another darling. “You obviously enjoy watching me.” He paused long enough to get the rest of the sentence out. “It’s only right I should get to see you.” Your stomach collapsed to the point that you felt like you were going to be ill. He wasn’t serious. “You’ve…” He groaned in satisfaction as he teased the tip of his cock with his fingers. “Definitely caught my attention dearest.” Pantalone tightened his grip slightly, his hips jerking and stuttering as his movements grew messier. He was getting close now. You could see it in the way he furrowed his brow. The regrator was desperate to hold on, but you knew him well enough to know that wouldn’t be the case. The second he drew his bottom lip into his mouth, it was over. In what you would consider a truly glorious display, Pantalone came moaning your name. 

“You-” His voice was heady with lust as he came down from his orgasm; pleasure and satisfaction dripping from every single word. It was as annoying as it was alluring. You had just watched the regrator get off to you or at least the idea of what he was going to do to you. Despite everything you were feeling in the moment, you couldn’t help but be a little flattered. “Have 24 hours to respond. I won’t bother with access rights. If you’re clever enough to get through my security, then I’m sure you're clever enough to figure out how to get a video of your own onto this server.” You gapped at that your temporary sense of pride long forgotten. Not only did the bastard want payback, but he was going to set you up for failure to get it? It had taken you days to understand how the server worked. Even then you’d only barely gotten into it with read-only access. Now he expected you to update your permissions, on your own? In less than 24 hours? He had to be insane. “I do hope you’ll give me a good show. After all, I’ve made quite the effort for you. The least you can do is return the favor.” The pause after that overtook everything. Your spinning mind automatically went into overdrive. What were you supposed to do? What could you do? You had hacked your way into the private server of one of the most powerful men in Sneznaya and stolen from his public servers. That alone was enough to earn you a ticket to jail. Then, with his full knowledge, but not his consent, you had been pleasuring yourself to him for weeks. Now, he was demanding compensation in the most humiliating way possible. He couldn’t actually expect you to film yourself, could he? At least not in the same method he did for himself. Surely he was joking. He had to be. “If I don’t see anything from you as of the time you started this little video then I’ll take that as an invitation to see you in person so that we might experience this little delight together. It has been ages since I’ve had anyone fun here.” Your legs automatically gave out. You fumbled your way back into your chair, tears forming in your eyes as reality finished setting in. He was going to make you do it. Come hell or high water, the Regrator would get his way with you. The question was, could you get the video on the server in time or would it be easier to sort this out in person? Despite your lack of funds, could you try to get to another border or at least out on the open sea? Could you swing that before your time ran out? “Before you think I can’t find you, or you believe you can get away, just know I have spies close by watching your every move. If they catch you trying to run, then we’ll meet each other much sooner than expected.” Of course he already had people on you. He’d probably sent them as soon as he’d begun this sick little game with you. “I’m eager to see how you’ll respond dearest.” Your eyes came back up to the screen before you realized they’d fallen away. The sinister smile he’d held the whole time mocked you from the other side of the screen. “Don’t keep me waiting for too long. It ruins the fun.” With one last laugh, the video ended. Leaving you in complete darkness. 

What now? Was it worth your time to meet his challenge? Did you really believe you could get the necessary access rights in time or would your time be better served trying something else? You thought about trying to find his spies. There couldn’t be that many, could there? Maybe you could take what you had and buy them off. Maybe you could try to use force as a means of escape. Even if you managed it, there was still the matter of trying to get away. The cities were warmed to make them habitable. But in the frozen tundras of Snezhnaya, you doubted you would make it a mile before you froze. Were those your choices? Comply or die? Was that all he had left you with? You let out a broken sob at the thought. 

With tear filled eyes, you looked back at the dark screens. He’d insisted you shouldn’t disappoint him. You knew that applied to your actions as much as your video. If you forced him to wait for nothing, you knew the consequences would become more severe. Right now he had given you a choice. He’d only asked for one video. If you didn’t acquiesce to his request then one could turn into an infinite number with a snap of his fingers. Worse still, he could find you and he could demand that you give him what he wanted in person. If those were your only options, then you preferred to keep him as far away as humanly possible. 

With shaking hands, you reached for the keyboard and mouse, closing his video. You had to try, didn’t you? Even if you hated it, even if you failed, you still had to make an effort. Because even the smallest effort might be what stayed his hand. At least, you hoped it did. In all honesty, nothing actually would. Even if by some miracle you managed to meet his deadline, that only opened the door to additional demands. More videos, tougher challenges, and tighter timelines. Because that was the real payoff for him, wasn’t it? The show he wanted wasn’t the video, it was the challenge in getting the video to him. Pantalone wanted to be impressed to the point that he had demanded it. The price of his individual attention was that you show him how capable you really were. He wanted to see if your meddling was a fluke or if you were as competent as you had shown yourself to be. If that was the case, then you decided you would rise to the occasion. As the terror of the situation settled into anxiety, you decided he didn’t matter. You would do what he wanted, but you wouldn’t do it for him, you would do it for yourself. You would prove that you could beat him at his own game, even if you had to humiliate yourself to win. 

Your fingers began to work over the keyboard as you opened windows and command prompts. Because like the server, that was the challenge. You became determined to beat the Regrator at his own game, if only to save yourself.