the robots, I smash ;^ // Call me Biite! // a 18+ terato/exo/robophilia sideblog! Many nswfs, actually. but!!! not Always // twitter is the same as my tumblr lmao // note: this is a sideblog!
Hi im Biite and you're watching disney channel welcome to my nsfw blog!!! I do lotsa shit here like:
Horny art post
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80% horny fanart of lots of things (currently mostly into m/adn/ess co/mba/t and also maybe am/ong u/s)
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Okay, so... Like... playing with his wires till all he can do is let out a steady stream of strained beeps and whistle-y hums similar to the little "ah- ah- ah-" sounds some people make when getting rammed.... Making him overheat and spark, watching him twitch against your touch...
Listening as those beeps and hums pitch up and grow longer..... UGH. JUST. WHINY ROBOTS. WHINY, DESPERATE, NEEDY ROBOTS.
8.6k Words - Servant to the Prince, Dain thought he’d have no chance in fighting at the tournament and winning the prize that would set his mother for months. Then, a set of living armor offers to train him, and Dain starts to think he may have a shot.
Tag: NSFW, masturbation and vouyerism, mild blood mention
The preparations for the grand tournament takes over the kingdom faster than any siege or battle could ever hope to. In the matter of a day the banners have been lifted, the barriers have been set, and the musicians are practicing for opening day.
The royal family is overseeing the festivities, which means Prince Galliant is requesting his brightest, most striking uniform. He’s thrown all the rest on the floor, and Dain languishes at having to pick up and re-fold every single item of clothing.
"This tournament will be the highlight of the year," His Majesty brandishes his ceremonial rapier in front of the mirror as Dain ties a length of fabric over his shoulder.
"Your majesty certainly looks the part," Dain replies, walking around the prince to stand by the mirror, and Prince Galliant laughs.
"Of course I do!" he points the end of the rapier at Dain's chest, not as a threat, but an acknowledgement. "I have the best foot servant in the kingdom."
Dain glows at the praise, suppressing a smile. "Is there anything else I can assist with, your majesty?"
Prince Galliant swishes the rapier again, ignoring Dain's question. That's a dismissal in Dain's book, so he bows at the waist and steps out of the range of the blade.
Dain begins to pick up the discarded clothing items that litter the floor, rejects from the prince's closet. His Majesty had wanted to appear divine, the crown jewel of the kingdom, so he'd picked out a ruby red doublet and matching pants, a golden sash and several pieces of golden jewelry.
It left many of his clothing items on the floor, like casualties of battle laid out for the singular crow named Dain to pick at.
But this is what Dain is used to. He’s been Prince Galliant’s errand boy for over ten years now, since the both of them were young teenagers. He’s nothing if not accustomed to his majesty’s peculiarities.
"Dain," Prince Galliant calls over his shoulder. "Will you be attempting the tourney this year?"
Dain stops with an armful of clothes in front of the prince. He hadn't thought about it, competing. The tournament is open to the public, and the prize money is nothing to scoff at. It could help his mother in the city; but competing is a dangerous game. Dain had seen men lose their lives trying to win.
"I hardly think I qualify, your majesty," he admits.
Prince Galliant regards him, a hand on his chin. "You don't know how to fight?"
It feels like an admonishment, and Dain grimaces. "No, your majesty."
Prince Galliant chuffs, disappointed, and Dain sinks a little further into his tunic. His father had passed when Dain was very young, and Dain's been in the castle ever since he was old enough to run errands. There's been little chance to learn the ways of the sword.
“You’d better learn, then,” his highness says. “A man’s not a man if he doesn’t know how to fight.”
Dain accepts the advice gracefully, as always, and continues cleaning up.
***
After Prince Galliant is satisfied with his ensemble, Dain is dismissed and given something he has no idea what to do with: free time.
The kitchens waved him off as they prepared luncheon for the castle, comparing him to a scurrying rat underfoot. The laundry is on rest until suppertime, and the stables are all empty— the noblemen and their guests are touring the city and riding in the hills.
Dain knows if he tries to nap that he’ll sleep well past dinner, that the library is probably filled to the brim with more nobles and honored guests, and a trip to his mother would take too long. So Dain wanders the castle grounds, without direction or purpose.
In his wandering, he winds up watching the men set up the jousting stands. The fence marking the edge of the ring is already up, and a group of several men are currently working on the stands for spectators.
Prince Galliant’s words drift back to the forefront of his mind. A man’s not a man if he doesn’t know how to fight. It’s not as if he never wanted to learn, but the time to teach him has likely passed. He should’ve started when he was a young boy, possibly learning alongside the prince himself.
One of the knights waves him down, "You, boy! Come lend us your hand."
Dain hops the fence and trots up, and the knight lowers his arm as he spots the crest on Dain's tunic that marks him as a royal serf. "Apologies, sir, I didn't realize--"
Dain waves him off. "It's no matter, how can I help?"
The man stutters for a moment, looking to the others pulling ropes and hammering nails into wood for the large central arena. Already the forms of the stands are taking shape into perfect angles, like stairs for a giant, where everyone will watch the tournament.
Everyone helping is covered in a healthy layer of mud, it cakes their boots and is slowly creeping up their legs the more they move. The knight sees this, glances back to Dain, then shakes his head, as if banishing the thought. He gestures to a much cleaner looking section of the market, where several sets of living armor are throwing cloth over large wooden frames. "Go set up the stalls, then."
Finally having a task makes Dain perk up. He nods once, and jogs over to the living armor. The metal of their suits glints in the sunlight, shiny and smooth. From a distance, all the armor appear the same, but as Dain trots up, he starts to make out small differences marking each individual.
Some wear the crest of the kingdom, a lion reaching towards a distant star, others have clothing under the steel colored red and black. The metal plating on each of them shows signs of battle and wear, scratches and nicks from swords, dents and punctures from a shield glancing too close to the delicate magic that keeps the armor together.
They're not the ones Dain is familiar with that walk the castle, these must be a lower rank that patrol in the city. They're still something to admire, though. Magic come to life.
"Hello," Dain calls, and waits for an answer, a command to tell him what to do. But they all ignore him, not breaking in their movements of throwing a large sheet of canvas over the framework of a stall.
Every set stands at least a head taller than Dain, broadcasting a figure that could easily pick him up and throw him over their shoulder like a sack of grain. The armor in the castle is more slim, made for parades and exhibitions, not battle. They speak endlessly of triumph and honor with no experience of it, plus they’re a bit rude.
After another moment of nothing, Dain bites his tongue and taps one on the shoulder. It stops, then turns to Dain as if to rudely ask, “What?”
This one doesn't have the crest of the kingdom, but the kingdom's colors are inlaid in the metal itself. It gives the armor colored red lines that guide the eye, from the pointed helm, down the flat chestplate, over the jointed legs and ending at the articulated feet. This one looks the most worn down of the lot, with dozens of scratches and dents, there’s even a hairline crack down one shoulder pauldron and pieces of chainmail missing.
Dain half-expects it to knock him aside. He freezes, waiting for the blow, but the armor only cocks its head to one side.
"I, uh," Dain says, eyes searching for a face that isn't there, tamping down the urge to fiddle with his hands. "How can I help?"
The armor looks to its compatriots, then back to Dain, but says nothing before continuing on with the next stall. Dain takes that as a sign that he’s meant to do what they’re doing, and steps up to join them.
So he does, stepping into the small group and falling in line. They work quickly, hammering the wooden beams and planks together before propping the completed frame up. Then they throw a large cover on top, not quite a quilt as Dain had thought, but something sewn that lays flat over the corners and even creates an opening for the vendor.
It’s easy work, if a bit boring, and Dain falls into a rhythm where he isn’t quite paying attention anymore. He prefers this group of armor to the sets in the castle. They don’t speak much, but they jostle each other, clamping hands on shoulders, knocking affectionate punches. It reminds Dain of the soldiers when they return from a campaign, the comadre and friendliness that comes with being in close quarters.
Sudden pain lances up Dain’s foot and he yelps, falling to his ass on the ground and kicking up his leg.
Son of a bitch, he stepped on a nail. It's small, barely the length of his first knuckle, sticking out of his boot. Thankfully it's shallow, but a simple brush of it shoots more pain up his leg and he holds back another yelp of pain.
Setting his teeth, Dain rips the nail free and works to take his boot off. The sight of blood doesn’t usually bother him, but seeing his own starting to pool on the grass has his head spinning. He blinks several times, and makes an attempt to stand, only for the dizziness to hit harder and drop him to the ground.
Perfect, just perfect.
Suddenly, he's being scooped up, held like a bride by one of the living armor knights, the one with the lined detailing that he’d tapped earlier.
“Wait I—!” Squirming, he tries to release its hold on him, but its arms only tighten around his knees and back, and Dain grits his teeth against the embarrassment. He's never been carried like this. The steel has been warmed by the sun, making two bands of heat through his clothes, not altogether unpleasant.
"You can put me down now," he protests, trying to climb down from the hold but thwarted again by its strong grip. People are starting to stare.
Where is it taking him—? Looking ahead, Dain sees that they’re heading towards the river, which is barely a stone’s throw away. On the sidelines behind him, Dain hears voices. Muttering, gossipping no doubt, followed by a peal of laughter. He covers his face with his hands.
This is humiliating.
He's not some swooning maiden that faints at the sight of blood. Or at least, he didn’t think he was. Apparently the sight of his own made it impossible to stand.
The armor sets him down on the grass just before the riverbank, and Dain yelps when those large hands pull his foot up, pitching him backwards so he's laying on his back and staring at the sky. The armor inspects his injury, then gently guides his foot to the water. Legs splayed open, Dain bites back a nasty retort in his head and attempts to right himself, only to be shoved back down by those strong arms.
The laughter behind him fades into the distance, apparently the ladies got their fill of this little show, and he’s left in silence. Well, almost silence. The armor clanks and clatters every time it moves, one of the hazards of being covered in plated metal from head to toe, but it’s a comforting sound. Like rain on the ground or the sound of wind through the trees, Dain’s so used to the bustle of the castle that the rough sound of metal is one he knows well.
The armor is gentle as it soaks Dain’s foot in the river, waiting until the injury seals itself up before gently grasping his ankle and setting it on the grass. While it works, Dain looks up at the sky. This is surprisingly human behavior for living armor. He probably shouldn’t be calling it an ‘it,’ now that it’s helping him. The others from the group had rough, battle worn voices, so perhaps this one is male as well.
As Dain turns his gaze back to the armor, he sees it producing a small square of cloth from its sleeve, and wrapping his foot with it. It’s plain white, with an embroidered edge, it looks like a napkin from the kitchens.
The armor makes to stand, and Dain sits up. Even though any onlookers are long gone, there’s still heat in Dain’s cheeks. He pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms over them.
"...Thank you," Dain says, cheeks puffed out in a pout.
The armor nods, then stands straight and offers Dain a hand up, which he takes. The pain has lessened, and hopefully the bleeding has stopped by now. This was all rather unnecessary, and Dain hates being fretted over. Still, he should thank the armor for helping him.
"Do you have a name?"
"Warrec." Finally, the armor speaks, in a soothing baritone no less, and Dain smiles. Warrec, a man’s name.
Dain fiddles with his hands so he doesn’t have to look at his own reflection in the metal. "I’m Dain,” he says, holding out a hand to shake. “Thank you, Warrec."
Warrec starts, like he didn't expect Dain to thank him, and slowly shakes his hand. "Of course, my lord."
Dain snorts, his cheeks burning even hotter. No one's ever called him that before. "Are you going to allow me to continue setting up?"
Warrec tilts his head, as if considering him, before he nods decisively. "But please watch yourself more carefully, m’lord."
Dain laughs, already starting back to the preparations.
***
The completed stands, cloth covers and all, are beautiful and enchanting during the day, a cascade of colors and shapes like a living mosaic. But at night they turn into ghosts, a sea of specters with gaping mouths. It’s an eerie sight, one that makes Dain stop on his way to the servant’s quarters to peer out the window. Was he only setting those up just this afternoon?
As humiliating as it was, Dain wouldn’t change anything about today. It’s not often he’s taken care of so thoroughly by someone else. Had this happened in the castle, he’d have been expected to dress it up and then get back to work as soon as possible, with a note from the matron to not get blood on anything.
The rest of the armor had given the two of them a hard time about “mooning over each other,” but it only helped Dain feel as part of the group. They joked with him, they were all familiar now. They’d completed the rest of the stalls without issue, and then Dain was called to the prince’s side once more. Dain had spent the rest of the evening with his mind preoccupied. All evening he’s been thinking of glinting armor in the sun, and cool river water over his feet.
He hopes the good knight is having a nice evening.
Dain turns away from the window, and nearly flattens his nose against a plane of sheet metal. He squeaks and jumps away, caught off guard and shocked— how had this knight snuck up on him and what did they—?
Until Dain realizes that it’s the armor from earlier today, the one with the lines. Warrec, he’d said his name was.
“Oh, it’s you,” Dain says, breathing out a sigh, pushing down the feeling of being caught out, daydreaming. “You scared me half to death.”
"Are you not going to dinner, my lord?" Warrec asks, and Dain blinks at him, confused. The dinner in the Grand Hall is for the royal family, court, and guests of the crown. Warrec must think he's a noble, a thought that makes Dain smile.
"I've already eaten, good knight. I'm off to tend to his majesty's room."
The prince is a rather messy fellow, one of his few flaws. But when one has an army of servants at his beck and call, his majesty can afford to be a bit of a slob. Or a large slob.
Warrec stares at Dain as if processing his words, and then turns his head, looking out the window, then back to Dain. "I will accompany you."
Dain holds back a laugh. "It's just laundry. Very low likelihood of being attacked," he teases.
Warrec straightens, somehow making himself taller. "But not impossible."
"Wouldn't the good knight prefer to do something else?"
Warrec doesn't reply, and he doesn't make any moves to leave. Why this knight has attached himself to Dain, he hasn't the faintest idea, but he'd have as much luck arguing with a brick wall.
The living armor are always after things to do, they don't tend to stay idle as the magic keeping them upright is burning a large amount of energy. It's why they're used so frequently in battle, they'll continue moving forward until physically incapable of doing so. Watching a servant clean His Majesty's chambers hardly seems a fitting activity for such incredible magic.
And yet, Warrec remains standing in front of him, unmoving. Dain didn't think the living armor had wants, he thought they were closer to automatons, like the wind up toys the young princess likes to play with in the throne room. They make choices in battle and in matters of life and death, but this situation is neither. Maybe Warrec thinks Dain is in danger of hurting himself again.
"Well," Dain says, shrugging. "Follow me."
Warrec follows Dain through the grand halls of Castle Guthanna. It's a few minutes' walk, but one Dain can navigate with his eyes closed. He imagines Warrec hasn't seen some of the servant's passages and secret hallways that he takes en route to His Majesty's quarters, and Dain is hit with a pang of melancholy for the wonder he used to feel navigating the dank, dripping stairs that almost no commoner is privy to. Can Warrec feel wonder or melancholy like that?
“You know your way around here, my lord,” Warrec says as they ascend a set of steps. The metal hitting the chainmail is making a horrible, echoing clanking sound that can probably be heard leagues away, but Dain doesn’t mind. It’s better than the stony silence he’s used to.
Refuting the compliment would be useless, so Dain only blows a piece of hair out of his face and continues climbing. Dain pushes open the solid wood backing of a painting that opens into Prince Galliant's room, and the two step into the space, Dain without a sound, and Warrec banging enough to wake the kingdom.
The frame clicks shut behind them, and Dain turns to survey the mess. The moonlight from the windows slices the room into several even pieces, illuminating the piles of cloth that lie on the floor. Dain sighs heavily. He’d just cleaned up this mess, why had the Prince gone and emptied his wardrobe, again?
“I’ll take this half,” Dain says, slicing the room with his arm. “You take the other. Just set them on the bed and we’ll fold…everything.”
Warrec nods and turns away, and the two of them set to their task. Since the clothes are all fresh, Dain will have to fold every piece and store them instead of just piling everything into a laundry basket. It’s tedious and frustrating, but it’s Dain’s responsibility, and having Warrec as a companion makes it go marginally faster.
At least, it’s faster until Warrec starts to fold and it’s made abundantly clear that Warrec was made for battle. He’s sneaking glances at Dain over his own pile to follow along, and his folding is, well, piss poor. He’s cute, examining a garment before draping it over the huge pile and unevenly pressing sleeves and seams together. Dain has to fix more than half of them, but Warrec seems so ready, so serious about this, Dain couldn’t stand to turn him away.
“I did not think His Majesty had this many garments,” Warrec says after rolling up a pair of pantaloons and setting them next to the others. If he rolls a few more, he could stack them into a tower.
Dain laughs as he opens the large trunk at the base of the bed and sets Prince Galliant’s winter cloak— why had he removed this? It’s the middle of summer— and sets it inside. “He has more than this. These were just discarded for dinner.”
“Really?” Warrec asks, sounding genuinely surprised, and Dain laughs again.
“Really,” he says around a smile. He slips his hands under a large pile of folded shirts and breeches, stands upright, and makes for the wardrobe on the opposite end of the room.
“Would you like some help?” Warrec asks as Dain carefully balances the clothes, the pile easily past his head. But Dain shakes his head.
“I’ve done this before, I—“
Distracted by the conversation, Dain’s foot catches on the corner of the bed, and he nearly trips before he catches himself with a hop. It shifts the balance of the clothes in his arms and the pile wobbles dangerously, but with a quick adjustment, he doesn’t lose anything to the floor.
"You are quick, my lord," Warrec says behind him.
Dain laughs, flustered, as he continues to step very carefully to the wardrobe. All the while, he pushes down the urge to retaliate against the compliment. "Thank you."
If he had tripped in front of Warrec, well, it would at least have been embarrassing. Something presses at Dain to impress the armor, to earn his respect. So he makes it to the wardrobe without issue, and opens it deftly with his foot before carefully dumping the shirts and breeches onto the wood.
No one's ever paid him so many compliments, save for his mother. Dain isn’t used to them, and doesn’t know how to approach it. Shall he compliment back? Is he meant to posture?
Warrec interrupts his thoughts when he asks, "Will you be at the games?"
Dain squints. "Games--? Oh! No, no, I can't fight."
"You show promise, I can teach you."
"I— really?" That would be wonderful! If he wins the competition, the gold would set his mother for a year. Could he really compete? Did he really have a chance?
Warrec nods confidently. "I would be honored."
Dain leans forward and hides inside the wardrobe to cover his wholly embarrassed face. All that, as well that Warrec would be honored to teach him? It’s almost too much to contain.
The rest of the folding is done in silence, albeit Dain has a spring to his step the rest of the way. Not only will he have a chance at being the best at the tournament, he’s gotten a chance to prove himself, to be a man in his own right.
It’s a heady thought, one that carries Dain through the folding and back through the servant’s passages, and finally to the hallway where Warrec had cornered him. It’s the shortest way back to the servant’s quarters, which means this is where they have to part ways.
Stepping into the hall, Dain turns to Warrec. “I appreciate all your help.” And it’s only a tiny lie. Warrec wasn’t impeding the folding, just making it a little slower. They’d finished before Prince Galliant returned, and that’s all that mattered in the end.
Warrec stares at him, or he just doesn’t move for a moment, Dain can’t tell, before snapping to attention, metal coming together with a sshk!
“Glad to have been of service, my lord. Meet me at the sparring grounds at first light." And he starts to walk off.
“Before you go—“ Dain grabs Warrec by the wrist, stopping him. "This is yours," Dain says, handing Warrec the small handkerchief he'd used to wrap Dain's foot.
Warrec looks down at the fabric, and gingerly takes it in his hands, gentle despite his size. Dain had tried to wash the blood from it, but a small pink-orange stain remained no matter how hard he scrubbed. As he passes it, Warrec grabs his hands, and Dain feels the soft material of Warrec's gloves. It's leather, worked so much it's become soft to the touch, reflecting a warm brown glow from the candles above.
Warrec glances down at the cloth. "You're…giving this to me?"
Dain's mind is still focused on the contact between them, at Warrec's large hands cupping his. There's a texture to the leather, he felt it dragging over his skin in a manner that was distracting. Dain quickly pulls his hands back, hoping the darkness in his face isn't broadcasted in the low light. "I'm more returning it to you, but if you want to look at it that way, then yes."
Warrec hums, the sound echoing within his metal helm. He carefully folds the cloth and tucks it away in his sleeve. “Thank you, m’lord. I’ll see you at first light.”
***
First light shouldn’t be as exhausting as it feels. When Dain first started at the castle, he’d be up far before then and in the kitchens, or doing laundry, or any number of things. But being footman to the prince has its perks. The matron would call them drawbacks that make Dain lazy, as he only really needs to be awake when the prince is, which has allowed Dain many mornings to sleep in past sunrise.
Heaving a great yawn, Dain stretches as he walks to the training grounds. It’s empty this early in the morning, but soon it will be filled with competitors, all getting ready for the first section of the tournament— the Joust of War.
The Joust of War and the Joust of Peace are the biggest draws for the festival. The crowds that gathered flood the stands and spill into the grass, hundreds of people all in one place. Personally, Dain had never been one for jousting. It simply wasn’t a sport he’d been privy to growing up, and thus never felt attached to. It’s entertaining to watch, sure, but he’d rather view the sword-fighting.
Warrec is waiting for him in the jousting ring, two wooden practice swords in his hands.
Dain smirks. “What, no steel?”
Truly, he’s glad for the training swords. They’re meant for children, which means the wood is light and doesn’t hurt as much when it hits the skin. Hopefully he can make it out of this session in one piece. Not that he isn’t up for the challenge, but Warrec cuts an intimidating figure. Dain would be lying if he claimed not to be nervous.
Warrec tosses Dain the sword before saying, “Today is for seeing where you’re at. Tomorrow will be for learning.”
Without warning, Warrec charges at Dain, and Dain barely gets his sword up in time to block the overhead blow Warrec slams down.
“Aren’t you going to show me a stance first?” Dain asks, a little hysterical.
“We fight first, then I correct you.”
Warrec shifts his hips, and too late Dain realizes that he’s moving to sweep his feet out from under him before he’s on the ground, flat on his back, Warrec pointing the rounded edge of the blade at his nose.
“Again,” Warrec states, stepping back.
After getting to his feet, Dain warily takes a few steps back. He truly doesn’t know how to fight. When he was younger he’d imagine, in the way that all boys do, that if he’d gotten caught in a fight, his body would just…know. But the pain in his back from hitting the hard ground tells a different story.
He’ll have to try harder. Warrec clearly has no compunctions over kicking his ass.
After finding his footing, Dain charges forward and swings the sword high above his head as Warrec had done. Warrec blocks the blow with a single arm, using the other to elbow Dain’s side. Dain dodges the hit, unlocking his sword and stepping back and out of Warrec’s reach.
“At least you know to dodge,” Warrec drones sarcastically, and Dain grits his teeth. He charges forward again. He feints to the left, but Warrec is too fast and sweeps his feet out from under him again.
It goes like this for most of the morning: Dain making attempts to catch Warrec unawares, and Warrec countering it every single time. Even when Dain attempts to mimic Warrec’s posture and gait, he’s no match for the speed or power behind Warrec’s attacks.
The few times he’s managed to lock swords with Warrec, his feet are swept from under him, or the sword thrown out of his hand by pure force, each time Warrec calling out his weak spots.
“Left flank,” Warrec says before jabbing at Dain’s ribs, making contact and sending Dain sideways into the ground.
Dain hits the dirt, knocking the air from his chest, and Warrec taps his shoulder with his sword— he’s dead. Dain groans, but still plants his hands to the ground and makes to get up. His whole body aches. There’s bruises forming in places he didn’t even get hit. His lungs are on fire and his head is starting to throb from the exertion. His shirt is soaked with sweat, and Warrec still stands casually as if none of this bothers him.
Warrec steps around him, and Dain flinches, expecting a hit. But none come, and he peeks around his arm to see Warrec offering him a hand.
“You’ve done well today, my lord.”
Dain scoffs, falling onto his back and staring up at the sky. “You beat me into dust.”
“And soon, I’ll show you how I did it,” Warrec says, as if it’s a matter of the weather. “Even today, you showed improvement.”
Despite the pain starting to spread fingers over his side, Dain smiles. “Then you’ll beat me bloody some more tomorrow?”
“If m’lord wishes.”
Dain barks a laugh, then grabs Warrec’s steady hand and hauls himself up.
***
Every morning for the next week is as grueling as the first, but Dain is determined to understand Warrec’s instructions. The creature has been beating him down day after day, and Dain feels no closer to winning than he did before this all started.
But today Warrec has taken a break from shoving Dain’s face into the dirt, and is instead teaching him proper form. It’s a well-needed break for Dain’s bruised and battered skin, but the trade off is a blunted metal sword that makes his arms burn the longer he holds it.
“Shoulders down,” Warrec taps each of Dain’s shoulders with the end of his sword. “You’re so lithe, my lord, but you tense easily.”
Dain breathes out, relaxing his shoulders to where they should be, trying to ignore the small tremors working their way through his wrists. He knows, logically, that he won’t be built within a day, or even a week, but that doesn’t stop the frustration he feels at his own weakness.
Warrec switches to a single grip on his own sword, pressing the other hand to Dain’s sternum. It’s a test of balance, one that Dain sets himself against very well, while also trying to corral his wandering mind.
Warrec releases his hand, releasing Dain’s chest, and he walks around Dain to check his feet.
It’s been a very close-quarters day, with a fair amount of corrections, stances, and sparring hand-to-hand; which translated into more than enough physical contact than Dain typically gets in one day. He’s drawn in to wherever Warrec touches him, points of correction that he wants to draw a line between and then sink into the tangled mess.
Dain’s going to go insane if Warrec keeps circling him like a vulture. “I think we should—“
“One more fight, then I release you for the day.”
Warrec tosses Dain the other sword, and Dain readies himself. Right foot angled back, not too far, not too close.
Warrec rushes him without a word, and Dain watches his hands, his hips, his feet. Watches the twist of a wrist that tells him the direction he’s about to swing so he can parry, parry, and —thrust!
For the first time, Dain lands a hit on Warreck, and the chime of metal hitting metal is like the pealing of bells to his ears.
“Ah-hah!” Dain cries, throwing his arms up in victory, giving Warrec the perfect chance to rush him and throw him to the ground. It was Dain’s fault, he left himself open, but he’s still grinning as Warrec helps him back up and reprimands, “Don’t get distracted.”
It’s the first hit he’s landed! It took a few days, but he did it! And if he can do it again, maybe he can land a hit on someone else!
“Not bad,” Warrec concedes, clapping Dain on the shoulder, and Dain’s grin grows.
“Let’s go again!” Dain hops into his ready stance, sword pointed at Warrec. “Come on, give me all you’ve got!”
Warrec looks him up and down, walking around Dain as he did before. He stops behind him, and rests one hand on his shoulder, the other over his hip.
“Relax,” Warrec says, voice deep and soothing as he presses his hands to adjust Dain’s stance. The hand over his shoulder trails a slow line down his arm to his wrist, testing the strength. “You move with grace, but don’t compromise your form for speed.”
Dain swallows, his focus purely concentrated on Warrec’s hands as his heart pounds. They’re steady, guiding, and very, very distracting. The leather somehow manages to find any patch of exposed skin, leaving ghosts of touch, prickling sensations that make his face warm to think about. It all combines with the rush from a moment ago, mixing together to form a pressure behind his ribs and a large, inappropriate bubble in Dain’s mind.
Pulling Dain out of his own thoughts, Warrec takes a few steps away and readies his stance. Dain is prepared this time when Warrec rushes at him, arms poised like he’s going to swing out in a wide arc, but he feints and makes a jab for Dain’s legs.
Dain side-steps out of the way, watching for the opening that Warrec’s huge motion left on his side, and then slices towards it with all his strength. Clang! The sword hits its mark, not hard enough to throw Warrec to the side, but enough to make him stumble.
“Yeah!” Dain shouts, stepping out of Warrec’s reach and falling into a defensive position. Warrec will probably rush at him again, he needs to be ready.
“Don’t get cocky,” Warrec says, swinging wide and fast.
“Never!” Dain fires back, blocking easily. He spins out of reach of Warrec’s sword and aims a hit at Warrec’s open side.
It hits, throwing Warrec off balance again, but he quickly regains his footing and swings so quickly that Dain almost doesn’t get his sword up in time. The move locks them together, allowing Dain the briefest of reprieves.
“You’re improving,” Warrec says, voice far too level for the amount of physical activity he’s been doing.
“Not quite as good as you,” Dain says.
Warrec chuckles, and the sound shoots an arrow into Dain’s heart. “You’d have to train for much longer.”
Dain smirks. “Now who’s getting cocky?”
Dain unlocks their blades and deflects Warreck’s subsequent attack, and the two of them match each other’s moves blow for blow.
It’s an even match, until Warrec plays dirty. He approaches Dain as if to swing the sword at him again, but just before reaching Dain he drops his body low, weaving underneath Dain’s arms and tackling him to the ground. They hit the dirt and all of Dain’s breath leaves in a huff of air as Warrec’s weight piles on top of him.
Dain stares at the sky as he catches his breath. That’s the longest they’ve fought where Warrec didn’t pummel him instantly. He could actually have a chance at this.
But he doesn’t have time to gather his thoughts. Warrec is on top of him, between his legs and pressing into his groin. His helm is close enough that Dain can make out his own reflection, see the sweat rolling down his skin. The armor is cool in the morning light, shifting whenever Warrec moves.
Wasting no time, Warrec makes a sound like he’s clearing his throat before he stands, offering Dain a hand. Dain takes it, unable to look at Warrec and hoping that his disheveled state excuses his need to adjust his trousers.
“You’ve done very well today, m’lord. You’re excelling quickly,” Warrec says as Dain offers him the sword.
That’s high praise, coming from Warrec. Over the past few days, Dain has begun to follow the pattern of Warrec’s compliments. They’re short, but honest and personal. They cut through to Dain’s core like a blade, and Dain’s growing more and more fond of them each day. He strives for them, thinks about them as he performs his daily duties, replays them as he washes his wounds from that morning’s training session.
“Same time tomorrow?” Dain asks, hopeful, but Warrec shakes his head.
“First day of the tournament is tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Dain says, pursing his lips in an effort not to pout. He’d not been keeping track of the days. Was the tournament really starting tomorrow? He didn’t feel nearly ready. He’s only landed a handful of strikes on Warrec, how is he to face another knight with the same skill?
Warrec has been firm, but invaluable in his teaching. And if Dain’s being honest with himself, he will admit that he may be a touch smitten. Warrec is doing him a great favor with this training, building him from the ground up when most others wouldn’t have the patience. His instruction is curt, but not cruel, clear and concise, very much like him.
In the evening hours he seeks Dain out, following him around like a lost puppy, and Dain’s grown used to the attention. He looks forward to their sessions, imagining the ways they could go, the ways he could win. But he also thinks of things that could happen while he’s working. He thinks of ways those lovely leather gloves could be used for his benefit. They’ve been a frequent subject of a few of Dain’s wandering thoughts after Warrec bids him goodnight.
“I will be expected for the opening ceremonies. There won’t be time, I fear,” Warrec says, and Dain is sure his mind is playing tricks because Warrec seems…almost crestfallen.
“Oh,” Dain says again, no longer hiding his own disappointment. “Well then, my good knight,” he bows with a sarcastic flourish. “I’ll see you at the tournament.”
***
The first day of festivities bursts across the land like a flower in the spring. People from all walks of life park their carriages down the river, and patrons flood the grounds, the city, and the castle. Dain has never seen so many people in one place, so many different tongues and forms of dress, it has his head spinning trying to remember all the different greetings the matron lists off.
“An’ don’t look a single one of them in the eye, got that?”
“Yes ma’am!”
The chores are layered overtop one another tenfold, from food preparation to laundry, the stables and crops as well as every little task that the noblemen ask. There aren’t enough hands to go around, and Dain is pulled in so many directions that he barely has time for a sip of water.
Prince Galliant is understanding, but still requires Dain at his side for the opening ceremony. It leaves Dain anxiously tapping his fingers against his leg, going through the list of chores that go unattended the longer he sits.
Prince Galliant picks up on his mood. “Calm down, you won’t be missed for one hour,” he says, sipping the wine from his goblet. The royal family is seated on their respective thrones at a far end of the jousting loop, and Dain is sitting below the Prince, on his left.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Dain mumbles so his Majesty won’t hear. He’s not being acute on purpose, but he’s wound up from having so many directions to follow. He shouldn’t be here, leisuring while the rest of the staff are up to their ears in chores.
But his responsibility to Prince Galliant comes first, so he’ll watch the ceremonies, then politely excuse himself later.
There’s acts from across the land, from singers to acrobatics, all wearing the colors of their home, and as much as Dain’s head is full of responsibilities, he can still appreciate the theatrics. There’s buckets of talent on display, played in front of him for the royal family in a way that makes the young Princess Melody squeal in delight.
Afterwards come the knights, and Dain nearly chokes on his spit when he sees Warrec. He looks the exact same, except tucked in his belt, tied in a knot, is the square of cloth he’d used to tie Dain’s foot.
Prince Galliant hums a short note, almost impressed. “It seems one of our autonomous knights has a favor!" The Queen laughs, and Dain hears her snap her fan open.
“I see that! What a novelty!” And she laughs again, and Dain feels his face burning. He’s glad for his complexion at that moment, that doesn’t show color in his face.
The Prince twists in his seat to face Dain. “What do you think, Dain?”
Still, Dain tries not to give anything away, faking nonchalance. "That is…fascinating, your majesty."
Prince Galliant’s face lights up in a smile. "Indeed! I've never seen such a display!"
"Neither have I."
“I wonder who it is,” Prince Galliant muses. “To have captured such a hardened warrior.”
“I’m not sure, your highness,” Dain says, swallowing hard.
Dain can’t ask the Prince what he thinks of it, it would cross a boundary that he’s never been through. So Dain swallows his questions, and waits until the Prince sees something in his face that confirms what he’s thinking, and turns back around.
Relationships with the living armor aren’t completely unheard of, but it’s still not a common sight. With one as rough as Warrec at his side, Dain would certainly be the subject of conversation. But over the days that they’ve been together, Dain finds his penchant for caring what others think has gone down significantly. Being followed by the world’s loudest baby duck has quickly cooled his burning face.
So he watches the knights circle the jousting ring, keeping an eye on Warrec as they each present to the royal family. Warrec must not be aware of Dain’s presence, or if he is, he makes no moves to show it.
It makes Dain’s viewing of the rest of the ceremonies marginally less awkward, and before he knows it, Dain is excusing himself from the stands to fall into enough chores that his mind is quiet for the rest of the day.
***
Hot water for baths is a luxury when there’s hundreds of guests within the castle. The small magic stones used to keep the water hot are in limited supply, so when Prince Galliant gifts him one saying, “You look like you could use a few moments to yourself,” and Dain isn’t one to waste gifts.
He does wait until the rest of the castle has gone to bed to prepare his bath. There’s a small room down the hall from the servant’s quarters, stocked with several tubs and more than enough water to fill each of them. From his earnings, Dain’s managed to purchase scented oils and a soap for his hair, and the water is wonderfully hot as he steps in, instantly working through his sore muscles.
Running a cloth over his skin, Dain muses over the bruises that Warrec put on him. One here from the blade, another from a tackle, a third from the blade again. It’s like a map of Dain’s progress, the faded marks layered under the fresh bruises, scabbed over cuts that are already turning into scars.
After scrubbing his hair clean and changing the soapy water for more fresh heat, Dain feels the stress of the day rolls off of him in waves.
Dain sighs into the fresh, scented water, aware of the heat surrounding his body. It’s late enough that no one will come and bother him, and the walls don’t broadcast noise this deep in the castle. It’s quiet, and Dain can look through the window high in the wall and watch the night sky overhead.
It allows space in his mind for thoughts that he’d pushed down. The reminder of Warrec’s gloves over his body has been a present thought all day, one that only grew the longer he ignored it. But here, he can think freely, can dip into a fantasy all his own.
Running his hands down his body, Dain sighs out through his nose. Oh, what he’d give for one last morning session with Warrec, one where he could memorize the placement of his hands, feel his fingers dig in as they run down his arm or over his hips. One last time where he could possibly trick Warrec into falling on top of him again.
Dain’s hands travel over his torso and down his thighs, his palms and fingers just calloused enough to spark fire underneath his skin. Grasping his half-hard cock, Dain lets out a small sound of pleasure and begins to stroke.
Warrec wore that small cloth as a favor today, and as unintentional as it was, now he thinks Dain is interested. And Dain most certainly is, he just didn’t think anything would come of it. Does wearing the favor mean Warrec is interested as well?
He pulls his lower lip between his teeth and chokes out another moan, the sound echoing off the stone walls and making his toes curl.
Suddenly, the door bursts open and Dain squeals, frozen in place. A tall, foreboding shadow lingers in the doorway before stepping into the light.
"Warrec!" Dain quickly moves to cover himself, sloshing water all over the floor. Great, he's going to have to clean that later.
"I heard…" Warrec trails off, looking around the room. "I thought you may be in trouble."
Much to Dain's embarrassment, Warrec walks the room, checking for traps or anyone who may be hiding. Dain’s head falls to the rim of the tub with a thunk. “How did you even know where I was?”
Once he’s done checking the room, Warrec returns to Dain’s side and shrugs, the motion jostling his chainmail. “I saw you exiting the feast, and when you didn’t go to bed...”
“So you followed me.”
“Would m’lord like me to leave?”
"N-no," Dain says, falling further into the water. Even after being caught, he’s still half hard, he realizes. Warrec seems to realize this too.
"Ah— Ah! I see." Warrec says, and then crosses his legs and sits on the ground just outside of Dain’s tub. Dain blanches.
"What're you--?"
"Would my lord allow me audience?" He asks quietly.
Warrec says it so honestly, so baldly, that Dain is momentarily struck for words. Dain swallows hard, acutely aware of his hand on his prick, somehow growing harder the longer Warrec stares at him. And it’s a tantalizing thought, touching himself with Warrec watching. That sounds divine. Just a step below being worked over by the man himself.
"The water may splash," Dain mumbles, the excuse sounding paper thin even to his own ears. "Wouldn't want you to rust."
Warrec stands, and for a moment Dain thinks he's making to leave when he heads for the door, but he comes back with an armful of drying towels. He lays it on the floor by the tub, and kneels on one end. He stretches another over his lap, and leaves the third on top of the first, perfectly folded and waiting for Dain.
Well, that's one way to show committed interest.
Dain tries to diffuse the tension in the air. “I saw you at the opening ceremony today.”
“And I saw you,” Warrec replies.
Dain thinks of the favor tied in Warrec’s belt earlier that day, how he brandished it like a badge of honor. Warrec was proud of it, and wanted everyone to see. They feel the same about each other, so this would be the next logical step, right?
The shame burning under Dain’s skin diffuses into a promise, low and hot under Dain’s cheeks. Warrec wants to watch him, and the idea is not altogether unpleasant. So Dain shifts in the water, stretching out the leg closest to Warrec, and when he grasps his cock again, he’s already hard.
He’s so, so nervous, so he starts in easy, careful movements. The echoing of the sloshing water against the stone only serves to ground his embarrassment, and he tries to lessen the effect, with little success.
Warrec is still as a statue, his helm pointed down towards Dain’s hips, offering no reprieve. His hands are resting on his lap, and when Dain cranes his neck, slowly succumbing to the pleasure of his own hand, he sees Warrec’s hands tightened into fists. He’s enjoying this. It’s like Dain is putting on a show, and he wants to perform.
Planting one foot on the rim of the tub, Dain tightens his grip and speeds his pace, arching back into the pleasure that shoots down his spine. With his other hand he gently squeezes his balls, and the noise he makes is obscene.
The sound of water moving in the tub and pouring on the floor mixes with Dain’s breathy moans and makes him sound like he’s in pain. He squeezes at the head and it feels so good Dain knows he’s not going to last much longer. The foot propped on the edge slips over, hooking Dain’s leg and opening his hips so he can thrust up into his hand.
Dain doesn’t care about the mess right now, he can clean it up later when the full consequences of what he’s doing come down on him. What he wants to do now is impress Warrec, to burn this image into his mind. Dain doesn’t know if the armor need physical pleasure, but if they do, Dain wants Warrec to imagine him.
“You look heavenly, my lord,” Warrec says, voice full of awe in a way that makes Dain smile.
“I’m thinking of you,” Dain says, and it’s not entirely false. With Warrec in front of him he doesn’t need to imagine anything. “I was thinking of you before too.”
Dain twists his hand over the head of his cock and shuts his eyes against the jolt of sensation that curls his toes. He hears Warrec shift on the floor, shuffling closer to the tub so he’s up against the rim.
“Do you like seeing me?” Dain asks, cracking open one eye as his climax fast approaches.
“I do,” Warrec replies cooly, hands coming up to grasp the rim of the tub. “I wish I could touch you, my lord.”
With that, Dain comes with a short cry, his legs locking up, his back arching against the tub. The exposed metal is cool against his back and neck, his skin is over-sensitive and makes the water feel that much hotter, the shimmering afterglow that much better.
Dain falls back, the water splashing his stomach, and he rolls his head to the side to look at Warrec.
“Next time,” Dain says between heavy breaths, reaching his hand out and touching the side of Warrec’s helm. Warrec’s hands on the rim of the tub fall away, and Dain’s surprised to see small indents in the metal.
“You are graceful on and off the field, my lord,” Warrec says, and Dain turns away to smile into his shoulder.
Hiya! I'm super glad you liked my story, that's really exciting! I noticed that you tag your reblogs with the original creator, which is a great idea. However, I noticed that you missed an R in my username. It's RachRar, you missed the R after the h. I hope you don't mind me letting you know!
!!!!! Oh thank you for letting me know!! Ill fix that right away
Story: Who Needs Thoughts When You Could Have Dick Instead?
Work Name: Who Needs Thoughts When You Could Have Dick Instead?
Pairing: Ourbill/Tillie
Kinks: Anal, Dubcon
Universe: Generic High Fantasy
Note: Ourbill is in a human guise
Possible trigger warning: Ourbill's arms are prosthetics that are attached by magic. They free float from his elbow. In the story, Tillie pulls them off entirely. I don't know what to call that as far as trigger goes, but I wanted to give some kind of warning in case that is a problem for those who use disability aids as it is a significant part of the story.
Associated art done by @nautspaghat on twitter. I HIGHLY recommend that you look at my twitter as the art that is posted there directly inspired this story. I can't post it here due to the content though.
Ourbill glanced at the book then at the blackboard, checking over the various shapes and sigils. His eyes narrowed as he found an error, irritated with himself. He set the book down on the desk, a hand on it to ensure the tome wouldn’t fall back together and close, and grabbed a cloth, then moved a leg up to the desk to reach higher. He wiped at the board, nose wrinkling. He hated making mistakes, and more than that, mistakes that could significantly alter the spell. He didn’t care about it being more dangerous, that was the nature of magic, after all. He cared that it would affect the end result. He was already testing something new and combining spells, he didn’t need it to explode in his face. Again.
He leaned back to rest on his calf, staying in place. He tapped on the chalk, metal fingers making soft tik tik tik sounds as he took his time. Every section was given the same amount of attention, willing to take hours to check over if he must. Ensuring the quality was more important than moving quickly.
He huffed softly when he found another error, hiking himself up higher to adjust it. Just as the chalk touched the board, something touched him. A large clawed hand grasped his head, large enough for the claws to scratch by his ears, another hand grabbing his arm on the stump end of his elbow and the top section of his gauntlet. No fear went through him— nobody else had a grip like that other than Tillie, and Tillie was nothing if not an obedient dog. He wouldn’t harm his master.
Ourbill moved with Tillie’s grip and back to his feet, tugged down from his perch on the desk, then bent over for a moment. He felt a weight rub against his thigh, rolling his eyes as he realized that Tillie was in a mood. Once Tillie let go of his arm, the grip on his head shifted down to his neck. The mimic around his torso shivered for a moment but when Tillie gave his welcome huff against Ourbill’s ear, it settled down.
Tillie’s claws, so intensely sharp, cut at Ourbill’s neck shallowly. Ourbill’s eyes narrowed, turning his head to try and look at Tillie. As Tillie was on his left side, however, his false eye had no vision and Tillie was in his blind spot. Ourbill groaned in distaste as Tillie licked at him, tongue wet and large.
“Hello, Tillie,” he sighed. The second lick made his lip curl, even wetter and longer. “Behave. You have already drawn blood, now let go of me.”
Tillie gave a soft, low growl, testing Ourbill’s mood. Ourbill gave a sharp, quick hiss of denial, moving his arm to pull out of Tillie’s grip. For once, however, all it did was make Tillie chuckle as he kept Ourbill in place. He was released for only a moment before Tillie tossed him in the air, grabbed his thighs, and flipped him upside down. Ourbill glared at Tillie but Tillie was out of sight as he bent him further back until he rested on his shoulders. He saw his calves and shoes, held tightly by Tillie as his ass was near Tillie’s face.
“Tillie,” Ourbill said quietly, dangerously. Tillie seemed beyond caring, or refused to, and he didn’t stop. Tillie’s mouth closed around his groin, bone jaws carefully digging into his fine trousers. “Don’t you tear my—” Before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted with a loud tearing sound as Tillie ripped the pants and bared his ass.
Ourbill’s lips pursed, reddening in both growing anger and blood pooling in his head. “You’re going to pay for new ones.” Tillie ignored him, little grumbles in his throat as he began to lavish Ourbill’s ass with his tongue. Ourbill’s tail slapped Tillie's face and showed his annoyance, but Tillie pushed it out of the way and continued licking. Ourbill’s hands reached out to grasp onto Tillie’s feet, gripping tightly on the muscled, but ultimately delicate, limbs, and squeezed just hard enough to catch Tillie’s attention.
“Tillie!” Tillie pulled back from Ourbill, fingers tapping along Ourbill’s legs to get a sense of his body’s reactions. There was a faint wrinkle in Tillie’s face that indicated his pleasure and amusement. “I said let go.” To emphasize his point, Ourbill began to grip tighter, knowing that his metal prosthetics could snap bone if he were to try. Tillie made an annoyed sound, frustrated that Ourbill kept talking.
Tillie put Ourbill back down on his back gently. Ourbill scoffed. “About time.” He put a hand on the ground, moving to stand up. He didn’t expect Tillie to grab his arms suddenly, keeping him in place. “For fuck’s sake, Tillie, sto— NO!” Tillie ripped at the prosthetics and pulled until the magic gave out rather than harm him, tossing the limbs aside in an uncaring sprawl.
Ourbill’s glare could shatter men like glass but Tillie didn’t care, hoisting Ourbill back up to his shoulders as if he heard nothing. “I am going to paddle your ass until even you beg for me to stop,” Ourbill hissed. “I’ll leave you so bruised that anyone who sees will think you were in a brawl. I’m going to tie your leash to the door like a dog until I return home to feed you like the beast you are. I’m— oh!”
Tillie plunged his tongue in Ourbill’s ass to shut him up, and the planewalker shuddered in surprise at the sudden intrusion but, just as Tillie wanted, stopped talking. His arms, the top half at any rate, twitched as he tried to grab onto the ground for grip, to take control and balance how he wanted rather than be at Tillie’s mercy, but his arms were too far away for the magic to re-attach. His thighs squeezed on Tillie to try and force him to stop, but his thighs were no match for Tillie’s bone jaws.
It was rare for Tillie to be allowed to actually penetrate him and even then it was in controlled environments, so Ourbill felt off-footed and unsure. He felt rather vulnerable, actually, a feeling that left him uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to do.
Tillie did, however. His tongue pressed in further, deeper, aiming for the spot that could make even Ourbill writhe. Ourbill wriggled, trying to escape, face flushing with more than frustration now, eyes widening as Tillie became more methodical in his movements. “Let me go—”
Tillie leaned over him more, moving to kneel before tugging Ourbill closer to rest his shoulders on Tillie’s thighs. It was softer than the floor, at least, but it didn’t make him feel any more in charge, left at Tillie’s mercy as he was. He felt Tillie’s cock, throbbing and wet, against his back, a few stray drops of precum dribbling down to his arms. He rested his biceps against Tillie’s thighs for some semblance of control, trying to work himself back up to a glare. It was hard, though, considering his position and how his own cock pulsed heavily against his stomach.
When did he get hard? He had no idea, but his own slick pooled over the head before it squirted over his abs at the realization. He was panting— when did this start? Why was he aroused when he had no control? Tillie was his bitch, how dare he rise against him? He was meant to be on his knees and pleading for Ourbill’s attention; to think he had the arrogance to force Ourbill down—
As though he knew when Ourbill began to work himself up into a self righteous fury, Tillie slurped his tongue out again, the heavy member slapping against his groin for a moment and startling him. Tillie pulled it back, letting it glide across Ourbill’s cock and hole before circling the entrance once more. Ourbill bit his lips, refusing to make a sound. Tillie pressed his tongue against Ourbill’s ass, the tip flicking against the puckered entrance. Ourbill twitched with each touch but made no sound, eyes closed as he wrestled with self control.
Tillie slowly thrust his tongue forward and Ourbill arched, heels digging into Tillie’s back as he raised himself to deepen the intrusion. Phantom hands scrabbled at the ground for purchase, Ourbill’s mouth opened in a silent pant, his chest heaving. He felt like he had no air, his lungs were too starved of oxygen for anything but a hot rush making his head spin. He didn’t realize how his thighs quaked when Tillie reached up to hold onto one to keep him still, nor when Tillie used his other hand to pull Ourbill up until he was laying on his back and on Tillie’s hand. Tillie’s hands were large and he was strong, so Ourbill’s weight, even with his prosthetic leg still attached and the mimic curled around his rib cage protectively, was hefted with ease.
Ourbill felt even more powerless, balanced on Tillie’s palm. At least on his back he could wiggle around, but now all he could do was move his legs. Ourbill’s tail shook from base to tip with each movement of Tillie’s tongue, his cock jerking in a similar rhythm. Tillie growled, growing impatient. His hand twitched, then with a suddenness that made Ourbill gasp, shoved Ourbill onto his back on the desk, a hand over his chest to keep him in place before shoving his tongue inside again, deeper, harder.
Ourbill bit at his lips hard enough to taste his own blood, something he hadn’t done in years, and the taste was electrifying. The reaction was paralleled in his body, squirming as he struggled to stay silent. Tillie knew what he was doing, however, his tongue alarmingly prehensile and mobile. The muscle rubbed against Ourbill’s prostate, hips immediately jumping and knees hooking around Tillie’s shoulders. Tillie, pleased, chuffed over Ourbill, drooling even more now that he had his prey secured.
Ourbill panted with an open mouth as Tillie began to narrow down to his target. Ourbill’s cock was weeping slick now, balls twitching. When was the last time he had let Tillie fuck him? The last time he had given Tillie the gift of his ass in any way? Was it too long? What was it that drove him to this, to pinning him down against the hardwood, a hand encasing his thigh, the other over his chest? Was it a rut— he had a calendar for those, did he miss it? He had been busy, after all, but he had always carved time out for Tillie, there was no way he—
“A-ah!” Ourbill couldn’t contain his moan when Tillie thrust against it, cock gushing as his hips rolled against Tillie’s tongue. He refused to give in again but Tillie was merciless, slamming against it now that he had its location mapped. His knees raised slowly as he tensed, tail vibrating and balls churning in need as his climax approached, but still he held himself back from making another sound.
Just as he was about to fall over the edge of no return, Tillie slurped his tongue out, panting just as much as Ourbill. Ourbill choked down a whimper, shuddering but relaxing against the desk in fits and bursts. His forgotten glare began to re-surface, ready to demand that Tillie lay on his back so he could ride his tongue, but Tillie was pulling back, standing up and away. Ourbill would not beg, he refused to stoop so low, but he did hook his prosthetic leg around Tillie’s side to keep him nearby. If Tillie wanted out, he would have to break that connection too.
Tillie didn’t plan on it, standing straight and slapping his cock on Ourbill’s stomach. The girth was ridiculous and Ourbill’s eyes widened. How in the hell was Tillie planning on fitting that inside of him? As he began to tense with an unpleasant turn of his stomach, looking up at Tillie with mild fear —no, anger, with anger— he felt one of Tillie’s fingers slip into him. Knowing how sharp Tillie’s claws were, he immediately began to arch away, hissing like a startled cat and glaring. Tillie laughed but didn’t stop, and Ourbill felt no piercing nail digging into him. Still wary, he waited for the gotcha but there seemed to not be one.
Tillie apparently snipped his claws at some point— were the claws on that hand even sharp when he came in? Was it premeditated? Did Tillie come to his office with the audacity in mind to think he could bend Ourbill over like a whore just because he was stronger? He was going to get lashings, whippings, no, not even that, beatings after this for his gall. Tillie had clearly gotten used to a too lax hand and Ourbill planned on fixing that. Would it be the iron cuffs? Or perhaps the cock cage, Tillie did always struggle with that.
Another finger spread Ourbill wide and his thoughts scattered into the wind, focused on his body’s reactions. With his free hand, Tillie gathered the copious pre cum and dripped it down to his other hand to use it as lubricant as he scissored Ourbill wide. Ourbill struggled, but his movements were weakening like his mind, thoughts fading into a buzzy blankness that was so tempting to sink into.
When he felt a third finger, so large, so thick, fitting inside of him, he was startled and brought back down. The wood against his back was rubbing against his spine protrusions, tail pinned against the edge of the desk, and he wrinkled his nose at the growing discomfort that threatened to spill over into pain. Tillie took notice, angling his thumb up to rub at Ourbill’s cock. Ourbill choked on air, not expecting it and cock surging with a lewd gush of slick. His stomach was wet with it, dick dripping like a faucet and balls constantly twitching. Tillie’s rough skin was incredible against his own, the dichotomy of the calloused assassin’s touch compared to his own soft and gently bred flesh making him quake. Tillie was so large; he had never felt so small.
Ourbill’s teeth were clenched, breathing roughly and eyes screwed closed. He would win this battle of wills, he must. Tillie was acting up, was being a terrible pet, and Ourbill needed to keep his wits to punish him, to not let Tillie win. He was drooling, saliva dripping down and onto his shirt as he fought both his body and Tillie, head lolling back and hitting the table to try and stay grounded. In retaliation, Tillie shifted his fingers and cocked them in a beckoning motion. Ourbill arched, hissing again but making no further sound. He wished he had his hands to grab, to slap, to punch, to pull— something, anything!
Tillie pulled out, making sure that Ourbill was steady on the desk. He reached into his hood scarf and pulled out some lube, dumping it on his cock. He saved some for Ourbill, lifting him by his hips to pour it inside the slightly gaping hole. The oil was cold and Ourbill gasped, eyes flying open and ready to glare. When he was set back down, he felt it begin to ooze out. “Don’t you dare let it get on the carpe—”
The head of Tillie’s cock kissed Ourbill’s asshole and Ourbill practically whited out. Tillie hadn’t even pushed inside yet, but the sensation of the warm member, the wet head smearing precum against him, was more than enough to startle him into silence. Tillie hand pulled at one of Ourbill’s cheeks, pulling at himself to encourage a spurt of precum to pour into Ourbill. The sensation made Ourbill shudder, wanting —needing— more. Ourbill licked at his lips, eye cracking open and ready to snap at Tillie. Realizing he had used all of his luck, Tillie began to press inside.
Ourbill’s hole fought it, fluttering and tension trying to push him out. Tillie moved his thumb to rub at Ourbill’s balls, knowing they were more sensitive than his cock. When he was in human form, his balls took the place of the plating, and while the cock was nice, it was replacing only the very top portion of the plating and was less sensitive as a result. Ourbill arched, hole now welcoming Tillie inside. It was still a tough fit, but after a few moments, he was balls deep. Ourbill’s sack pulsed against Tillie’s pelvis, hips riding carefully against Tillie to feel the way his balls shifted and the skin moved.
Tillie was still, letting Ourbill set the pace for a moment and gently rubbing at the plush sack with a slightly chapped toe bean. Ourbill’s arms moved as if to cover his face, to hide his mouth and expression, to deny Tillie the right to see him so scarlet faced and needy. Ourbill was sweating profusely, feeling like he had jumped into a pool, and yet Tillie was still not moving. Ourbill began to bounce against him, but Tillie stopped that with a firm grasp of his hip.
A hiss began to build in Ourbill’s throat. The size disparity made no difference when it came to wielding tools to put Tillie in his place. He could see that the whip would not be nearly enough, no matter how much blood was spilled. No, he would need something more intense— a cattle prod? He could always make Tillie get that cock piercing for his tip so he could use it to lead Tillie around like a bull by the ring. He wouldn’t be able to act up that way, just a sharp jerk of the ring and Tillie would surely fall to his knees and plead for Ourbill to stop. That sounded like a great idea, he would just need to get one that would shift with his size. Who could he ask—
Tillie’s hips had slid back as Ourbill was lost in thought, then slammed forward, hands gripping his thighs. An involuntary sound escaped his lungs at the sudden compression, eyes flying open to see Tillie smirking above him. His eyes narrowed into a glare, but the next thrust broke it into a gasp. How could he possibly think when Tillie’s fat cock was shoving him open? It was nearly as thick as his arm, he could already feel that he was going to be aching. He tried to keep hold of the threads of thoughts in his mind, but with every push of Tillie’s hips he began to lose them one by one. That brainless buzz was returning with Tillie’s movements, panting hard enough that he could feel his throat getting hoarse. His eyes rolled back into his head, struggling to get air as Tillie used his ass like a toy, rolling into it as much as Tillie was shoving down.
It took a few thrusts before Tillie found his prostate, startling a yelp out of Ourbill. He immediately tried pretending he hadn’t, but Tillie placed a hand over his waist, claws digging into the wood to keep Ourbill still and began to fuck into him harder, rutting into him again and again and again until Ourbill was gasping and making little whimpering sounds that kept getting cut off with a new thrust stealing the air from his lungs.
“Saelsyn,” Tillie growled, using the Primordial word for Master that he knew drove Ourbill wild. He might prefer Oevial himself (primal/feral mate), but Ourbill’s immediate loss of breath was worth it, a choked sound that might have been a moan. Tillie curled around Ourbill, clawing into the desk as he fucked into Ourbill, remembering only at the last moment that he needed to grasp onto the planewalker because he couldn’t hold his own position when armless. Tillie’s growls were interspaced with low moans, all to better hear Ourbill slowly lose himself to the feeling. Tillie’s cock was so deep in him he might as well be deepthroating it, and with Tillie purposely making noise, Ourbill’s self conscious prideful walls began to crumble into little noises.
Ourbill didn’t whimper but he was making soft pleading sounds, eyes closed tight and moaning only in his throat. Ourbill couldn’t keep his lips closed for too long though, needing to heave a breath. His eyes fluttered, looking up at Tillie for just a moment before closing, turning away to try and hide the sounds he was making even as he continued. Tillie pressed his forehead against Ourbill’s shoulder, panting just as hard, if not harder, adding little whines, some whimpers of his own. Ourbill might love hearing him scream in pleasure (or pain, mostly pain), but it was the few close touches with the soft sounds that made Ourbill melt into a puddle.
“Saelsyn please—” Ourbill was biting his lip when when Tillie put just the right begging emphasis on the word, then broke into a real moan. He was still quiet, never had been loud to begin with, but it was a sincere moan regardless. His thighs shook as he tried to pull Tillie closer, their chests touching.
Tillie felt Ourbill’s heart race, the thrum of blood pulsing through his body. Beneath his hand he felt Ourbill’s stomach begin to tense, the little sounds growing stronger, and ass tighter. Ourbill’s balls drew up in preparation to spill and Tillie reached down to caress the skin in careful, gentle pulls, Ourbill’s tail twitching furiously against his skin. Ourbill whined, unable to focus, to do anything but make the little sounds of pleasure that made Tillie’s heart race and body shake in shared ecstasy.
Ourbill cursed in Primordial, his vulgar tongue finally freed as he spat through borderline nonsensical sentence fragments. Even if he was making sense, Tillie didn’t understand it anyway, knowing only the barest of the language for Ourbill, and even that he had to pry out of the man with a crowbar to force him to admit something he considered private. Ourbill’s sounds began to rise in pitch, shoulders pitching side to side, eyes open and pupil on his good eye blown wide. “A-Aelso—” Pet—
Tillie’s thrusts became erratic, pounding in deep and shuddering before jerking back out to the head just to feel Ourbill’s hole try to close before pushing back inside. “Saelsyn— Saelsyn— Saelsyn—!” His hips bounced on Ourbill’s and Ourbill spread his thighs as widely as they could go.
Ourbill arched, a silent scream on his lips, hips shuddering and muscles quivering. “Aelso—” He wound up tighter and tighter, constantly murmuring curses and praises in the same breath until he cut off with a gasp so soft it was noticed only because of the sudden silence as his hips jerked, cock spraying cum all over his chest and tail stiff against Tillie’s thighs. Tillie gave a chest shaking growl with a few last thrusts before he began to gush his load into Ourbill, hands on Ourbill’s hips and rolling into him as if he could fit any deeper, though careful to keep his knot out.
Tillie pulled out of Ourbill slowly, feeling the cream seep out of Ourbill’s hole. He was tempted to clean Ourbill with his tongue, but the last time he had done that, Ourbill beat his ass and said it was disgusting, that only animals do that. Granted, when Tillie sassed back that he was an animal, he ended up regretting it when he got his first whipping. Only a little though.
Ourbill was boneless on the table and Tillie set him down gently. He looked around for something to put under Ourbill’s hips to catch the falling cum. Knowing it was a no win situation and he had about 3 seconds to decide, he grabbed Ourbill’s suit jacket and lifted Ourbill by the knees to tuck the jacket underneath. Ourbill was already wrinkling his nose, knowing what Tillie did.
He went to admonish Tillie, then sighed. “Give me back my arms and choose your punishment. We’ll do that tonight at 10.” Tillie opened his mouth, ready to say his favorite ‘fun’-ishment but Ourbill forestalled that with a wave of an arm, holding out each bicep for Tillie to attach the gauntlets with the magic reigniting in a flash of pink tinted teal. “If you say a leash, then I’m going to set you out in the park like the dog you are so you can shit with the rest of the beasts.”
Tillie pouted. “Think about it while you leave and get me new clothing. You have a key. I expect you back in 30 minutes with an apology and a magi-pack.” He pushed himself up, rubbing at his chest where it ached. The mimic tightened just a little to be comforting. Ourbill took a deep breath in, then out. Now, to actually decide on the punishment.
He picked up the chalk, looking the chalkboard over. All of the runes were smudged. Ourbill breathed out heavily. Perhaps writing out lines was in order so he could see the effort Ourbill put in, and in Primordial too while he was at it. Tillie needed to learn it anyway.
A failed experiment, Tillie is mimic made and staggers along the razor thin edge of beast and man, attempting to find stability and hoping to find a place he is accepted as he is rather than who others want him to be.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
Artist: NautSpaghat
Previous Chapter Summary: After leaving Thunmir, Tillie feels a call on the pendant from one of his siblings. It turns out to be Glaukos, who now goes by Pun. After helping Pun heal, Pun tells him about the Black Blades, an assassin/thief guild, that Pun works for. Tillie joins.
Tillie licked the last of the blood from the vial. It was animal blood, apparently, but the taste made Tillie recoil. This was blood from something he’d never tasted before and it made his stomach turn unpleasantly in a way he’d never felt. If he had to put a name to it, it was similar to how Pun’s blood had made him throw up but less intense. He pushed the vial back across the table. Ayla picked it up, flicking it slightly to remove the few drops of Tillie’s saliva that lingered. “Is that enough?”
“Yes. Stop asking every time you give me a new one,” Tillie scowled. Ayla shrugged.
“I don’t know how much you need or if it’s different between races or species. I’d rather make sure you knew where you were going.” She shifted a paper around then passed one over to him. The paper was magicked specifically for him to have raised lettering. Since he had been earning more than enough to justify his position, he was given a little bit of special treatment.
He ran his fingers over the writing, snorting. “Why are you sending me to this guy? There isn’t even anything useful on this.”
“The customer wants something special. He wants to meet you first to, and I quote, ‘make sure you are worth paying.’” Tillie tapped on the table, nails clicking against the fine wood.
“Does he do this often?”
“When he wants someone new, yes. He’s very particular, but he also pays extremely well. If he likes you, you’ll end up being his personal contractor.”
Tillie paused his fingers. “How many people does he want killed to have a regular assassin on hand?”
“So far it’s been” —more paper shuffling— “ten. The first two were testers apparently and the rest were filled in with increasingly high guildies. He wants someone with a high level of skill but he explicitly didn’t want Pun again. He heard about you somehow so he put you as his first choice. Apparently Pun pissed him off, and since I know you like hearing that Pun failed, I figured it would be a fun one to turn over to you.”
Tillie didn’t like that it was stated so openly, but when he sat across from the third in command, he merely sunk his claw into the parchment and dragged it closer to express his displeasure. She inhaled when it left a deep scratch in the wood, irritated at the damage. He was useful enough that his spite fueled damages were tolerated well enough and he knew it. Nobody else could do what he did.
“Fine. What’s the pay? All it says is where to meet him.”
He heard Ayla shrug. The motion was just as annoyed as he was. “Listen, this guy is weird as fuck. The only reason we keep taking his money is because it’s worth his idiosyncrasies.” Tillie didn’t know that word, but from her tone he had a feeling it was a longer way of saying that the guy was a pain in the ass.
“What’s the name?”
“Ourbill. The blood is from his pets. Er, his ‘tools’. He gets pissed when you call them pets.” She snorted. “They’re just little companion mimics, they don’t actually do anything, but he’s very insistent that they’re tools and not pets.”
“Huh.” Tillie stood up, rolling the parchment and tucking it into a bag at his waist. “Alright. How far is he?”
“Same city, not sure where. He gave us the blood and said that it should be enough.”
Tillie’s tail flicked curiously and he paused at the door. “Has he heard about me then?”
She shrugged. “I guess so. We’re mostly hush hush about how we do things but rumors are always around no matter how we squash them.”
Tillie chuckled. “I’ll be back with your cut later.”
She leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up on the table. “Don’t die.”
“As if someone could kill me.” She shook her head in response but didn’t reply.
———
The tracking was easy. Tillie found little challenge in tracking down his prey, especially when he was given blood; it was practically a walk in the park. It seemed like the guy tried to complicate it on purpose though, bunking above an extremely busy and very boozy bar near the shore where seawind tried to steal away scents.
He didn’t go through the inn, tempted to buy a drink and knowing it would end up with him deep in the cups rather than working. Instead, he waited for the dark of night to steal away the sun and give him the opportunity to slink up the wall. The building was old and handholds many so it was quick and easy to climb. The guy was on the third floor and Tillie had to take more time to make sure nobody was nearby as he ascended, but after a few moments he was slipping into the open window.
“Leaving your window open when you’re expecting a killer is a bad idea,” Tillie chuffed as he closed the glass behind him.
“I pay your blood money. I expect you to do as you are told, not give opinions.” Ourbill’s voice was droning and monotonous with flicks of an unknown accent warping the syllables. Tillie leaned against the wall, toe tapping on the ground curiously. Three little creatures bounced and played in a corner on top of some blanket. From the way the vibrations were echoing, it was waxed or oiled. Ourbill himself was heavier than he expected, but he was neither tall nor wide. He was writing and as he lifted his arm to place the pen into a sandwell, Tillie heard the clank of metal against wood. Not a golem, he was too light for that, but not human either. Or elf, or dwarf, or anything else he’d spoken to as far as he was aware.
“What are you?” Tillie asked rudely, stepping forward to lap at the air around the man. Tillie felt no change in heartbeat that couldn’t be attributed to a natural adjustment as Ourbill turned around with a thoughtless magical movement spinning him so his back and chair were facing the desk and he was facing Tillie head on.
Ourbill made a sound in his throat of disgust. “Keep your bodily fluids away from me.” Tillie slurped his tongue back into his mouth wetly, making the noise loud on purpose. He heard Ourbill hiss softly under his breath, the sound catching Tillie’s attention. Gata hissed but not quite like that. Ourbill’s tongue made the sound round rather than the throat like gatas, so he was still lost as to what Ourbill was.
Tillie leaned over Ourbill, a hand on the desk and inches away from pinning the man to the wood. Ourbill didn’t move; he didn’t lean back or try to slip out from under him. Shockingly, he leaned forward instead and grabbed Tillie’s wrist, invading his space as much as Tillie was trying to invade his. Just as Tillie thought, Ourbill’s hands were metal prosthetics. The fingers and palm floated separately from each other and from the forearm. The buzz of magic made his muscles twitch but he too did not back down. A gentle, but firm, hand was placed in the middle of Tillie’s chest but below his gem. Ourbill’s fingers were spread to allow the point of the gem to slip between the middle two fingers and his palm pressed tightly against Tillie’s bare skin.
“Release me or you shall learn what my magic can do.”
Tillie debated it, tilting his head back and forth doubtfully. “You can’t be that much of a threat if you have to pay someone else to do your dirty work.”
Heat began to pool in Ourbill’s palm against his skin, his other hand gripping Tillie’s wrist more tightly. He increased the strength and it took only a couple of seconds for Tillie to acknowledge silently that Ourbill could quite easily snap his wrist if he actually tried. “This is your last warning before I burn this gem out of your chest and take it for myself.”
Tillie hummed as if thinking, the idea making a lance of fear slide through his veins. If Ourbill moved even an inch higher and pulled at the gem in the least Tillie would be on the floor like a bug, ready to be stepped on and thrown away. He kept his cool though, forcing himself to stay for a couple of seconds more before moving back. He didn’t want to show Ourbill weakness, but he was personally impressed by Ourbill, as no other person he had ever met, minus Thunmir, had ever been so calm in front of him. A begrudging respect that he had not felt in years warmed his chest from the inside.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tillie said dismissively, brushing Ourbill’s hand away as he straightened. “Fire and sulfur and explosions, I get it.” Ourbill leaned back into his chair more comfortably.
“Are you done?” Ourbill asked. When Tillie shrugged, he took it as a confirmation. “Good. Try again and I will not stay my hand.” He turned back to the desk and plucked out a paper. “I assume you cannot see, so I will read out the order. ‘For the price of—’”
“Is it written with charcoal?” Tillie interrupted. Ourbill seemed thrown off. Tillie heard something whip through the air and meaty slap against the desk with heavy thwap following immediately after.
“Excuse me?”
Tillie tapped the ground a couple of times with a toe claw, his tongue hanging out in a smirk as he confirmed what he thought he had heard. “Nice tail.”
Ourbill seemed nonplussed, the paper crinkling against itself as he lowered it slightly in his hands. “Perhaps I requested the wrong individual.” He rolled the scroll up tightly, a silken ribbon sliding in quick movements as he tied the parchment closed.
“Awh, come on, don’t be like that.” Tillie raised his hands and waved them slightly in an attempt to seem apologetic (he was not). “I didn’t mean to piss you off, I just meant that I don’t need you to read to me unless it’s written in charcoal. If it’s in ink then I’m fine, pens make an indent in the paper and I can feel it.”
Ourbill tapped the scroll against his hand. “Hm. Yes. It is written in charcoal. It is meant to be easily destroyed.” He stood, brushing past Tillie, almost shoulder-checking him. What a ballsy little man. One of Ourbill’s footsteps sounded much different than the other, another metal twang against the floor akin to his arms. Tillie resisted the urge to reach down and pull on Ourbill’s tail as he felt it slap him, the desire strong and hard to refuse. Thankfully Ourbill was out of reach before he lost his self control.
The fire ate the parchment in an eager whoosh as Ourbill tossed the scroll into the flames. “Do you actually want me to leave?” Tillie didn’t want to leave. He felt like he had been doing good at his job, actually, so to do something to wreck his positive streak was a little upsetting.
“I am re-writing the paper for you.”
Tillie fidgeted, picking at his claws awkwardly. It was unexpected and he didn’t know how to respond to that. Someone actually acknowledging something he couldn’t do, but not being angry about it and furthermore, offering to adjust in order for Tillie to be treated as an equal was something Tillie had not experienced. Not since Thunmir. He got concessions from the guild but that was only begrudging compared to Ourbill simply doing it to make sure they stood on the same level.
Ourbill returned to the desk and began writing. The sound of the nib scratching against the paper made Tillie’s skin crawl, just the right kind of noise that made him twitchy. He needed to drown it out. “What are your pe— tools?” He asked awkwardly, uncomfortable with starting conversations.
The pen paused. “Mimics.”
“Yeah, I know that, I mean, you gave me their blood to hunt you down. But if they’re tools, what do they do?” Tillie approached the corner slowly, not wanting to spook the little creatures.
“They are my bags.” Ourbill tapped the pen on the desk, probably to dislodge a clump of ink so it didn’t make a mess. Tillie stopped at the edge of the blanket and knelt down.
A mimic inched forward. It was bat like, little membranes catching the air and tiny claws helping it wobble its way over. “It’s a baby!” Tillie said, shocked, holding out a claw for the mimic to approach.
“Of course they are,” Ourbill said, waving a hand dismissively. “If they were adults they would be too heavy to carry.” Tillie couldn’t argue with that logic, but flicked it away gently when he felt the beast begin gnawing on the nail.
Ourbill finished his writing with a couple of sharp lines before setting the pen aside. “Here is the new copy.”
Tillie pushed the mimicling back onto the cloth, making sure it was toddling away and not returning before he took the paper from Ourbill. Ourbill waited silently as Tillie dragged a claw along the indentations.
Standard stuff, pay after proof of the kill, don’t do anything that incriminated him. Oddly enough, Ourbill called himself Merchant on the paper. Normally Tillie’s contracts were verbal and without any pronouns or names apart from the mark itself, but written like this, having a name of some kind was required. Tillie found it amusing that he was called “Contractor.” This order, compared to the rest he had ever taken, was written as a contract and explicitly included consequences for breaking it as well as a small section at the bottom that mentioned a reward. This guy was just full of surprises.
“So if I bring back the skin, I get an extra 20%?”
“Yes,” Ourbill said, “which I will not report to your guild. Consider it a tip for a job well done.”
“Weird,” Tillie mumbled. He brought his claw up to his mouth to lick away the ink, confused when he didn’t taste anything.
“There was no ink used,” Ourbill clarified as he returned to his desk. “There is no need to waste a resource when all you needed was the deformation of the paper.”
Tillie stood still, holding the paper for a moment, then rolled it up slowly. “Should I burn this? Or…?”
“Keep it on you. Do not be caught with it, of course, but it is your copy of our deal.” Ourbill waved a paper so it would make a sound. “I have my own copy. You can check it if you wish. I used a charcoal sheet so it would be legible to me when I traced out the letters for yours.”
“...No, I’m good.” Ourbill seemed like a person who would happily burn someone on a pyre for lying to him and Tillie had a feeling that Ourbill wouldn’t lie in return.
“Excellent. Then leave. I will see you next when you have the pound of flesh I purchased.”
Tillie tucked the rolled scroll into a bag at his waist, glad that it was one of the dimension bags that Pun had grabbed for him. He didn’t want to bend the paper.
———
Tillie took his time staking out the victim to ensure that there would be no suspects. Normally he just grabbed them and scuttled off into a dark corner to gorge himself, but he didn’t think that would be appropriate for this one. He needed to make sure the skin was whole so he had to be careful.
It was the longest hunt he’d had the entire time he’d been working for the Black Blades. The longest before this was a week, but he felt a need to be perfect, so when he was easing up on week two he didn’t mind it. He traced the parchment periodically to make sure he didn’t miss something, but there really was nothing more to it. Find the mark, kill him, make sure nobody suspects anything, and keep the skin. There was no time limitation listed, though he also didn’t dawdle. He couldn’t take another contract until his current one was done according to the guild rules.
It took 8 days, a full five day week and a half more after he first met Ourbill to find the right moment. The takedown was quick, engulfing the man’s head in his hand and yanking him into the darkness of an alley to slit his throat. Ourbill didn’t say that he couldn’t eat the insides, so he found a back alley butchery and borrowed the use of a few knives to make the work easier before eating his meal leisurely. He gave himself a day to finish the preparation before returning to Ourbill with the skin in the bag. He even removed all the hair and genitals just to make it a little cleaner. He probably didn’t need to, but he felt a need to impress that he steadfastly refused to acknowledge.
He needed to know what Ourbill looked like, the odd man making him curious and willing to deal with the initial dizziness of sight. He took a final lick of the human’s flesh before letting his bones shift and body contort. He flipped his hood up and made sure his mouth was covered, then walked into the inn casually with the bag at his hip. He winked at a beefy dwarf as he passed by, buying a pair of mugs before walking up the stairs. He sniffed a few times to make sure he went to the right door and pulled the cloth over his face to hide his mouth again before knocking.
“Merchant~!” Tillie chirped. “I have an ale for you!”
“I did not order anything.”
“I have your delivery too!” The door opened to reveal Ourbill. Tillie blinked a few times. He didn’t know what he expected but it wasn’t a blue skinned, one eyed man with horns haloing his head.
Ourbill’s eye narrowed, the red iris glowing in the black sclera of an eye the size of an average man’s fist. The size of the eye meant there was no nose but he did still have a mouth that looked rather average for most humanoids. The horns started at each side of his forehead and curled up and around until they touched and made a solid, handle-like shape. Tillie had an intrusive urge to pick him up by the horns and launch him through the window like a bag just to watch him fly. Ourbill was perhaps 5’4” and Tillie still loomed over him as a human, a contrast that felt wrong in some way he couldn’t put his finger on. Ourbill pulled the door open further, revealing that his forearms down were both magical prosthetics with a teal glow pulsing through runes inscribed in the metal. Tillie’s gaze flicked up and he noted that the same teal glow escaping Ourbill’s shirt collar.
Ourbill looked Tillie up and down but didn’t move aside. “I ordered no delivery.”
Tillie rolled his eyes. He might look like a human ready to wrestle with some bulls and break horses, but he couldn’t hide every aspect of himself. He tugged down the scarf covering the lower half of his face, the sawtooth teeth and bony jaws impossible to miss. Understanding lit up Ourbill’s expression and he turned on his heel, waving for Tillie to come inside. Tillie all but skipped in, closing the door. He changed his speed when he saw Ourbill begin to glare, catching the door at the last moment to close it quietly. He noticed there was no second chair, so when Ourbill took the only chair by the desk, he instead pivoted to sit on Ourbill’s bed, his weight making a significant dent in the blankets and mattress. Ourbill’s eye twitched when Tillie offered him alcohol and turned away, uninterested.
“I do not drink swill.”
“More for me then!” Tillie said and raised a mug in a cheer, taking a few gulps of it before setting the cups on the ground and self consciously pulled the scarf back over his mouth. He untied the bag at his waist and tossed it over to Ourbill. The dimension bag was small even though the contents could be much larger, so it was useful in transporting large or messy items. “Here’s the skin you ordered.”
Ourbill caught it at the last second, very nearly missing it entirely. Tillie raised an eyebrow. Alright, not a quick guy. Magic might be his entire schtick. A pretty big and powerful schtick, he had to admit, but still, everyone had weaknesses. What a nice way to find out this confident man’s weak point. Knowing how to kill people was instinctive at this point and he saved that information in the back of his mind. He’d probably forget later, but it was noted nonetheless.
“Did you remove the hair?” Ourbill asked, pulling the drawstring and looking inside.
“Yup. Got rid of the dick too, figured you didn’t want that.”
“Assumption is a poor choice,” Ourbill murmured, “but you are correct.” He walked over to the mimic corner and turned the bag inside out. The wet flaps of flayed skin plopped on top of the three creatures. Tillie immediately heard little munching sounds and pleased squeaks from them as they descended, or rather, ascended into their meal.
Tillie watched in fascination as the mimiclings ate, their little bodies stretching more than he thought they could. Their forms were messy and ambiguous at best, shambling mounds of goo at worst, and it was mesmerizing.
“Have you never seen a mimic?” Ourbill asked. “They are rare but not unknown creatures.”
“I mean, no, not really. I don’t see often at all, so.” Ourbill frowned at the sarcastic tone.
“I suppose I cannot fault you for that.” He stared at Tillie, his large eye’s gaze piercing. Tillie felt like a specimen again, wiggling uncomfortably and looking away. He immediately knew he had failed the staring contest and made himself look weak, a lick of frustration burning at his still overfull stomach. “I am, however, surprised that you shift your form so often.”
Tillie shrugged as Ourbill returned to his seat. “It’s part of my special deal, makes people want to buy me over some rando in the guild, especially when they don’t want to deal with Pun. I get asked for by name sometimes cause of that.” He paused and his eyes tightened in a smirk. “Like you did.”
Ourbill scowled as it was turned back on him. “Do not get a big head,” he said sharply. “It makes for poor customer service.” Tillie went silent awkwardly, fiddling with the mug in his lap. There was less in there than he expected. He must have downed it faster than he thought he did. He tipped the last of the dregs into the other mug.
“So, uh. What do you drink if not this shit?” Tillie raised the second mug and tugged his scarf down to reveal his mouth, tilting it in a waterfall before hiding his sawtooth mouth once more.
Ourbill snorted dismissively. “You could not afford it.”
Tillie rolled his eyes. “With what you’re paying me I’m pretty sure I could afford damn near anything. What is it?”
Ourbill finally looked away to check on his mimiclings, ignoring the question. They were slowing down in their efforts to stuff themselves until they burst, rolling around like fat little balls. Tillie suppressed the desire to smoosh one gently just to feel how plump it was. He really did want to be gentle too, something that surprised him. He normally would have thought about squeezing small things like stress toys but the worst he could muster was irritation when one waddled its way over to him and bumped against his foot.
He felt Ourbill tense but the man didn’t move, watching him keenly for any hint of a threat. Tillie pushed the empty mug away from the mimic, figuring it probably shouldn’t have any booze even if it was just a few drops. It burbled and made a noise he was pretty sure was meant to be a chirp but just came out like a gurgly grumble. Tillie pulled down his scarf and gave a soft hiss, a deep one that warned the baby that it was intruding on his domain. The mimicling whined in distress, legs working overtime to skitter away and comforting itself with its siblings. Ourbill relaxed minutely but Tillie could tell that he was overstaying his welcome.
“That was a brave one,” Tillie commented as he downed the last of his ale. He picked up the other cup and stood, stretching for a moment and listening to joints pop, then cocked a hip and looked Ourbill up and down. “Contract complete or did I miss something somewhere?”
Ourbill turned in his chair and pulled out a bag of coins, the metal jingling merrily but somehow more dully than it should. “10,000 gold as we discussed.” He held the bag out for Tillie to take.
Tillie jiggled the pouch to test the weight. It was all there but there was some softness that he didn’t expect. Confused, he opened the bag and jammed a finger in. The moment he touched it, he understood. It was all wrapped up like it came right from a bank, the little rolls of coins neatly packaged with fabric to keep them together. “Gotta say, you’re the first to give me bank gold.”
“Hm. Perhaps not the last time I shall do so.” Tillie looked up at that, wondering if it meant what he thought it did. “Here is your tip of 2,000 gold for providing the additional service.”
Tillie perked up, taking the second, smaller pouch eagerly. That too was rolled and he wondered why he hadn’t thought of that before. He knew of it, but keeping the annoying little discs in neat tubes kept the gold from ringing out and tempting thieves to try and steal was something he hadn’t considered before.
Tillie leaned forward, eyes hooded and looked Ourbill up and down like a dish he wanted to eat. “So, that drink you said was your favorite. What was it?”
Ourbill looked confused, answering before he really thought about the non-sequitur question. “Phoseon Ikuni wine, specifically the vintage from the early 500s but no later than 523.”
“So just under a hundred years ago, gotcha,” Tillie’s eyes crinkled in a smile as he thought about that . It was currently 581 so that vintage would be pretty damn old. “Next time you call, I’ll grab a bottle in thanks.”
Ourbill looked around the room as he processed what Tillie had said. “We shall see. Now leave.”
Tillie inclined his head. Now just to find out what the hell Phoseon Ikuni wine was.
A failed experiment, Tillie is mimic made and staggers along the razor thin edge of beast and man, attempting to find stability and hoping to find a place he is accepted as he is rather than who others want him to be.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
Previous Chapter Summary: Tillie was taken in by Thunmir, a gata (cat-man) who gave him stability and help his self control. He has just been pushed out of the nest to figure life out on his own.
———
“Shut up.” Tillie ground the woman’s face into the cobblestones more firmly. Her nose was broken and her arm had been bitten off, but she wasn’t dead. Yet, at least. He put a foot on her lower back then released her head. She collapsed against the stone groaning, but didn’t speak, even to complain. She was bleeding profusely, not just from the bite that took her arm but from the knife he had turned against her as well, her life dribbling on the roadway in heavy, fat rivulets that mirrored the rain pouring down from the dark sky.
Tillie’s claws dug into her back lightly, a silent threat to make her death all the more painful. “Where’s the ring?”
She snorted before cutting off into a choked wail as Tillie squeezed. “H-he took it! I don’t have it anymore!”
The thief struggled against him instinctively, trying to wriggle out of his grip. She wasn’t going anywhere and both of them knew it. He flipped her to her back so she could see her death face to face. “He who?” Tillie asked.
“Rowan! Please, let me go—” She tried to wipe at her cheeks to remove the muck of the street from her skin, the stench permeating her clothing but the movement just hurt and she whimpered. Tillie loomed over her, tongue twisting in the air before he licked a stripe of her blood off of her face. It was disgusting because she was covered in mud, but the intimidation factor was much stronger and she choked on a hysterical snivel.
Tillie growled lowly, drooling over her. Her heart was beating so fast and he could hear her life gushing out of her arm in wet splashes under his fingers, soaking the mortar between the stones no matter how he crushed the cut flesh to slow the wastage of blood and keep her alive for a little longer, but knew just as well as she did that it was mostly a futile gesture. He held tighter to try to strengthen the tourniquet more effectively and ignored her cries of pain, but it was clear that she was losing too much blood no matter how hard he tried. “Rowan,” he repeated to ensure he heard correctly. She nodded but she was growing weak. Her heart was losing rhythm, an unsteady thump that reverberated through Tillie’s grip. “Where does he live?”
She wasn’t even crying anymore, snot nosed and babbling nonsensically. Tillie grabbed her by the neck and picked her up, letting her feet dangle over the ground. “Where does he fucking live?!” Tillie repeated but the movement encouraged what little blood she had left to leave her in slowly weakening pulses. Tillie snarled, shaking her to try and shock her alive just enough to answer, but there was nothing more. Her heart was as still as she was.
Tillie snarled, jerking her around again for good measure before grabbing the knife from the ground. Someone was sure to recognize it. He didn’t even know why he was bothering to chase down this thief. The money wasn’t worth the effort. The man was paying, what, 200 gold to try and get back some stupid ring? Tillie had already been on it for a few days and his patience was wearing thin.
He raised up the body and took a bite out of the other arm, ripping it off and devouring her greedily. He left her head to roll down the sidewalk. Too much biting for too little meat.
The soft rain was soothing against his skin when he emerged from the awning. He opened his mouth and tipped back to catch a drink, then caught a few handfuls to wipe off the worst of the blood. He would normally lick himself clean but when there was refuse on the street mixed with it, he didn’t feel a need to eat literal trash just to get a few licks of blood. She had tasted sweet though; elves always were a little on the lighter side.
He flicked rain off of his hand and reached to his waist pouch, jingling the coins for a quick count. The noise was loud but he doubted anyone would try to fight him. Another bounce of the bag to recount, then he huffed. 12 gold. Not even enough to get properly drunk in a bar. Not nearly at that threshold where he found threats funny rather than an invitation for a brawl. Where could he even go? He wasn’t going to bother with the merchant’s order anymore, that took too much effort for too little money. He was going to have to talk to people (again) to find another deal and he didn’t feel like doing that either.
The pendant on his chest slapped against his skin, burning hot. Tillie stopped walking and raised a hand to touch it. There was a heartbeat pulsing through the metal, fast— too fast. Whoever it was seemed to be a precarious position. He was tempted to leave it, but the still sharp memory of Vinnie’s pleading made him hold onto it for a moment longer.
“Tillie!”
Tillie jolted in place at the sound, hand clutching onto the metal. It was scalding and he felt it burn his skin but he didn’t let go. The lack of practice made the phrase hard to say, but he spoke slowly and clearly.
“I answer.”
A swirling mass of cold appeared to his side, sucking like a whirlpool and drawing him in. He dug his claws into the cobble, trying to resist, but the pendant pulled at him suddenly and he tumbled into the void regardless. A moment later he spun around in the air to land on his feet as he was spat back out on some only moderately flat stone surface.
The air was still. It smelled of decay and dust mixed with something that was akin to blood but had a different note to it. If he had to pin it down, it smelled similar to his own rather than from a human or even an enkindled.
Rough laughter to his left cut off into choking coughs. At least one rib was broken based on the scratch of bone in thin flesh, but the lungs were fine. Iron clicked against itself as the person shifted painfully, manacled to a stout ring set into the wall, the sound of the chains awakening a crawling sensation over his skin. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
Tillie remained on all fours, tail flicking to and fro as he assessed the situation further and ignoring the speaker. There were bars 5 feet away, a bucket with stinking refuse in it. They were underground, that was for certain. The weight and groan of stone told him that there was a building above that sprawled out like a mansion. He tilted his head, listening. A few drops of water wound its way from a barred window, wind howling from the small space. It wasn’t windy outside, he noted, just the air moving through the size of the hole made it louder than it would be normally. This was a dungeon, or a jail of some kind.
“Which one are you?” Tillie said, standing up. He stalked closer, tongue licking at the air to gather more scent and information.
“Pun,” he replied, voice hoarse.
“I don’t know a Pun,” Tillie hissed, hackles raising. Was this some kind of trap? The manacles already had him on edge, remembering the way cuffs had always pinned him down without recourse to escape.
“Shit, fuck, right,” Pun hacked onto the ground roughly, a wet phlegm that was far too dense to be just snot and inhaled through a crushed windpipe. “Glaukos. I used to be Glaukos.”
Tillie moved closer until he was hovering above Pun, a hand on the wall to listen for other threats. The scent of blood increased, a bitter, stinging bite on his tongue that made him want to leave. “Prove it.”
Pun wheezed a laugh. “How am I gonna prove it? I used the pendant and now you’re here.”
Tillie couldn’t argue with that, but he still didn’t trust the small creature before him. Pun was perhaps 5 and a half feet tall, maybe 100 pounds. He was clearly emaciated and seriously wounded. How long had he been here before he used the necklace?
“Who gave it to you?”
“Vinnie,” Pun sighed, head leaning back against the wall. He heard Pun’s eyes close and his heart begin to slow. “I really should have called you earlier,” he said, voice slurring as he slumped against the wall. “Didn’t think it was gonna be this bad. I’ll pay for a healer, promise. I won’t make you… pay… for me…” His back slid against the stone, caught only by Tillie’s hands and saved from striking the ground like a limp doll.
Tillie huffed. Well, now he was on a time limit. Pun’s body was shutting down. More bones were broken than he originally thought, the man puddle-like in his hands. He was still breathing but Tillie didn’t know for how long, and he also, annoyingly, didn’t know where he was.
Breaking out wasn’t particularly hard. He ripped the door off by the hinges, throwing it at the guard who wandered by to check out the noise before running past all the shocked guards. It seemed that it was a prison if the groans of the drunks and clinking steps of the jailers was any indication, and not just that but a particularly high level one. What did Pun do to end up in such a bad location? Tillie was quick but he kept Pun still in his hands, shifting and adjusting to keep Pun as flat as possible with his head to the side.
The air outside was clean and salty, the wind gentle but cooling though there was a touch of humidity that made his skin slightly damp. He heard the rush of waves crashing against a shore in the distance along with the sounds of a large, busy night time city. He licked at the air, searching for the scents that told him where a healer was. Healers always stunk of herbs and poultices, wet leaves and sharp magic that made his tongue sting. He scowled when his tongue felt the telltale caress of osseper root and willow bark, bitter enough to make the muscle twist uncomfortably.
Tillie kicked the door open, the answering scream and rattle of pots and herbs confirming his suspicions. “Stay still or I’ll kill you.”
“Yeah, okay, I can do that—!” The healer babbled stupidly, hands flying over the walls and knocking down bottles as he tried to catch his balance to avoid moving too much.
“Heal him.” Tillie thrust forward Pun, the man lolling in his grip.
Tillie heard a hushed “what the fuck is that” before the healer swallowed heavily. “I can do that. What happened?”
“Fuck if I know,” Tillie answered, following the healer to the back room. He set Pun down gently on the bed and pressed the back of his hand against Pun’s forehead. Burning. Tillie grumbled in response, then stepped back as the healer’s instincts began to kick in.
“Alright, then I’ll do everything.” The healer bustled around, grabbing bottle after bottle and shoving some in Tillie’s grip before scurrying off to pull herb bundles down. “Set those here. Put two tablespoons in this pestle— oh, wait. You can’t see, can you?” The healer hesitated, dithering in place.
“I can feel enough,” Tillie rumbled. “Tell me what to do.” The healer sounded unsure, but began to give Tillie exacting instructions. For once, he was glad that Thunmir had forced him to learn how to cook and measure herbs consistently. He never thought he’d be using the knowledge, but here was a good example of the kind of thing that Thunmir always told him would happen.
The balm was boiling in a cauldron before the healer was able to breathe enough to speak, wiping at his head. “So, not to put too fine a point on it, but do you have… coin… to pay… with…” He began to stammer as Tillie turned towards him. “Nevermind, it’s on the house.”
Tillie chuffed in amusement. “I’ll get the money.” He surprised himself with the words, but he meant them regardless. Thunmir always said to never shortchange a healer and, more importantly, it also wasn’t his money. Pun had offered his anyway so Tillie had no skin in it.
“If… you don’t mind me asking,” the healer said again more delicately, clearly trying to have a conversation to lighten the tension that Tillie’s existence caused. “What, uh, exactly, are you? And him?”
Tillie licked at a claw to clean it of the herbs he had been measuring, skin wrinkling at the taste of ginger. He continued anyway, clearly ignoring the question. The healer passed over a clean wet cloth for Tillie to wipe away the traces of the herbs. Tillie was grateful, giving the healer a nod of approval.
The healer sighed. “Right. Dumb question. Sorry.”
Tillie tossed the cloth back once he was done and the healer yelped at the unexpected slap of wet fabric over his face. “How long til he heals?”
The healer, heartbeat taking a few seconds to return to normal, took a deep breath. “Well.” He exhaled, the motion helping him calm down. “Awake? Tomorrow at most. Up and moving again? A week, maybe? Unless you find a higher healer, that is. I normally don’t treat wounds of this level.”
“What kinds of wounds were there?”
The healer coughed into a hand uncomfortably. “What kind of wounds weren’t there? Bone breaks, lacerations, fever, the coughing sickness. He was lucky his lungs weren’t punctured by his ribs. He was even… well.” He trailed off. When it became clear that Tillie wasn’t aware of what he referred to, he tapped his thighs to muster the words. “He was abused in depraved ways.”
Tillie made a soft growl. The healer took it like Tillie was annoyed with him, beginning to speak again but Tillie waved a hand dismissively. He didn’t care what the healer thought and the healer went silent obediently. Tillie nipped at the sharp end of a nail to clean it thoughtfully. It still tasted like osseper root but there wasn’t much to be done about that. The stench clung tightly— at least his claws tended to shed relatively quickly so he’d have to deal with it until then.
He could always just leave Pun here to deal with his own problems. He didn’t really need to do more than that, he had already fulfilled his promise to Vinnie by bringing Pun to a place where he would be healed. Pun seemed so fragile and weak; just as Vinnie said Tillie was the stronger one by a significant margin. He didn’t care about Pun. If anything, he personally hated the man. It wasn’t exactly good to be the main focus back at the center but jealousy still burned in his chest when he thought about Pun, or rather, Glaukos.
Fancy Glaukos, prancing around like he was soooo important. People cared about how he had been, making sure he was healthy and cared for and so special. But now he was in Tillie’s hands and at his mercy. Tillie was tempted to leave, but therein was his problem. He was tempted and not simply doing it. He hated Pun. He hated him so, so much. But he cared about Vinnie, and Vinnie cared about Pun.
Tillie huffed as he came to a decision. Vinnie would want Pun not only healthy but safe and the best way to do that would be to ensure that the idiots who hurt Pun were dead. “If I come back and he is not here, or is further hurt, I will find you and the next time anyone sees you, it will be in pieces across the city. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” The healer stammered. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get rid of the people who hurt him,” Tillie said. “Give me the cloths you wiped him down with.”
The healer was baffled, but obediently went to the hamper and offered it to Tillie. Tillie lapped at the air then plucked a couple of the towels out. The healer felt nauseous, a novel sensation in his line of work, when Tillie licked the disgusting cloth. He slurped his tongue back into his mouth, the taste of men’s acrid sweat and metal sticking to his tongue unpleasantly.
“Can I help you with anything else before you leave?” the healer asked awkwardly, putting the hamper back down when Tillie tossed the rags back in.
“No. Keep him safe and healing.” The threat tickled at the healer’s neck and he swallowed heavily, nodding. “I will return.”
———
When Tillie opened the door again two days later, the broken wood had been patched together to fix the snapped panels and made a different sound when the handle touched the wall behind. He had used the knob this time, closing it as he heard the healer scurry to the front room.
“We’re closed, you’re going to need to go to Jenn—” The healer cut himself off when he realized who stood before him. “Hello, sir. Your friend is doing much better. He’s sitting up and he’s eaten and drank quite normally. He’s had no issues with relieving himself and the infections are fading quickly. He should be well enough to walk tonight and back to his normal self in two or three weeks. He seems to be weaker than I had originally thought.”
Tillie rumbled and the healer all but fell over himself in explanation, fear making him jittery. “I don’t know what he is, sir! I estimated compared to a— a human-elf mix but he clearly isn’t! I’m doing my best, I swear it!”
Tillie stalked towards him, feeling the healer wince and his heart beat through his chest loud enough that anyone in the room could hear. “Good enough,” Tillie growled and the healer made a noise of relief, muttering a prayer of thanks to Phortyx for safety.
Tillie walked past the healer and into the back room to check on Pun. Pun greeted him with a cheery “hey-o!” and a wince when he waved. “How was your trip?” So casual as if Tillie hadn’t just saved his life twice over.
Tillie responded with an irritated huff, taking a seat on a chair that felt flimsy but held his weight regardless. “Filling.”
“What does that mean?” Pun asked quizzically. When Tillie leaned back to reveal a slightly bloated, fattened stomach, he closed his mouth with an audible clink of teeth. “Ah. I see.”
“You’re lucky I bothered to wash up before I returned,” Tillie groused. “If you hurled over the floor it was just going to cost more gold to clean up.”
Pun shrugged, the cost clearly ineffective in dissuading him. “Eh. I’ll make more.”
Tillie tapped his claws along the wooden arms of the chair, toes clicking a similar rhythm as he kept his sense of the room fresh. “What the hell did you do that got you beat so bad?”
“Oh, that.” Pun leaned back into the bed. “You know what I can do, right?” His tone was flatter, uncomfortable and unwilling to name the shapeshifting skill in case the healer could hear.
“Mhm.” Tillie didn’t bother speaking, a flat note of understanding.
“I use that and I kill people, to put it bluntly, and I lost the fight.” Tillie tilted his head, not expecting that as a response. Pun seemed too weak to handle something like murder. “I’ll kill when the money's right and the person deserves it, but I don’t like doing those tasks. I mostly steal. Sometimes it’s personal interest but most of the time it’s someone that wants something. I never know if it’s stolen and needs to be returned or if they just want it and have the gold to get ahold of it. It doesn’t matter to me any. I get my money either way.”
“How much do you have on you?”
“Right now? None, obviously.” The sardonic words prickled at Tillie but he gripped the chair rather than snarl, the old wood splintering in his grasp. “But once I speak to the mobile bank, I’ll have a couple thousand. The deal I was trying to finish was going to get me 10 more.”
The healer, just walking through the door, choked and nearly dropped the tray of drinks but caught it at the last moment. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overhear—”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Pun chirped. “I mean, I wouldn’t spread that around, though. The walls can hear a lot more than you think and sometimes you’ll get a delivery that you didn’t expect if the knives get the gossip.”
The healer’s voice was strangled. “I think I’d rather sew my mouth shut than say anything you two have ever said.”
“Good choice,” Pun said with a grin in his voice. “So what’s the tonic, doc? Some bitter thing? Or is it sour this time?” He sounded hopeful, oddly enough.
The healer gave Pun a cup and Pun groaned after a quick sniff. Tillie didn’t know why, it smelled perfectly fine, especially for some sort of herbal medicine. There was no comparison between Thunmir’s healing and this; Tillie would rather drink this one. “This again?”
“If you want to get any better, yes,” the healer said. The other cup on the tray rattled as the healer tried to keep his composure. “Most people like that it’s sweet.”
Pun scoffed. “I’d rather eat the leaves on their own. At least they’re crunchy.”
“I think you are the only person who has ever said that combination of words and meant it sincerely, sir,” the healer noted. “Please don’t take too long, the oils will separate and then it will be all the worse.”
“Bahh, it can’t get worse.”
“It can get less effective.”
“I guess that’s the one that matters.” Pun sighed. “Alright, bottoms up!” He downed it in a hearty, long quaff, swallowing it bit by bit until he put the cup on the tray with a groan. “Alright, lemme have the lemon juice now.” The cup was passed over without commenting on the fact that the man literally asked to drink lemon juice.
“I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” the healer said to the room. Tillie shifted in his seat. The two men were acting as if they were friendly, something that Tillie never really got. Of course it would be Glaukos— Pun. Whatever.
Once the healer was gone and out of earshot, Pun whined like a child. “Can you believe it, Tillie? That shit costs 10 gold per cup and it tastes like someone gnawed on sugarcane before spitting it out.”
Tillie chuffed with a shake of his head. “It can’t be that bad.”
“It is that bad,” Pun insisted. “Have you ever eaten raw sugarcane? It tastes like dirt and makes my teeth hurt from how sweet it is.”
Tillie waved a hand dismissively. Sweet was the second best taste after savory, Pun was complaining just to complain. “No, but it didn’t smell like something worth bitching about.”
“Go lick the cup then,” Pun said petulantly. Tillie stood up. “Uhhhh... Wait, hang on, I wasn’t actually serious, that’s gross.”
Tillie walked over to the side table, picking up the cup. He licked at the air, then slurped the lingering dregs at the bottom. His stomach immediately hurt, the buzz of Pun’s spit making him spin around and grab a bowl before violently throwing up. Pun watched in shock, leaning back and grimacing at the sight.
“Okay, it wasn’t that bad. Are you good?”
Tillie wiped at his teeth, resisting the urge to snarl as his stomach flip flopped aggressively. “I’m fine. I forgot that I can’t eat anything after you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pun bristled like an angry bird, the blankets rustling as he leaned forward in indignation. “I keep myself clean, I'll have you know.”
“It means that that’s how I shift,” Tillie answered sharply and returned to his chair. The wood complained just as loudly as Pun had, but unlike Pun, Tillie could hit the chair. It splintered in his grip and he very nearly fell on his ass. Pun stifled a snort. Tillie’s tail lashed threateningly and Pun swallowed the laugh.
“Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhh.” Pun shifted a bandage delicately, trying to readjust it. “So then if you suck someone off—”
“Yes.”
“Heh.” Pun took a drink of his lemon juice, amused, then tried to scratch around a bandage without disturbing it.
“Stop touching the bandage. The sound is annoying.” Tillie said, the rasping sound of gauze making him want to gnaw on the fabric bandage. Not because it was on Pun or had fluid but because it felt like the only way to stop the sound. It had always been a problem when he had been bandaged in the monastery but without the threat of a switch on his stomach, the urge was stronger. Pun pulled his hand away.
“You can hear that?”
“Yes. I can hear your heart beating, I can hear the wind outside, and I can feel the healer picking more herbs out back.”
“What do you mean, feel and hear?” Pun was curious. “I don’t have any of that. I just see really well.”
“I can feel where and what things are through the ground. I’m told it’s similar to how you can feel and hear gong in the air but I can sense it much further away than you.”
“Well that’s no fair,” Pun kicked his feet under the blanket in frustration. “I’d rather have that than just being able to see. At least you don’t get a headache from trying to focus on something too hard.” A child. Pun was just a child, a brat that complained and whined when he didn’t get his way. Tillie swallowed down the urge to really show Pun the meaning of not fair.
Tillie didn’t want to continue the conversation, moving it towards something else to avoid letting his constant simmering anger burst out. “How do you make that much money? I tried doing the same thing and barely got anything.” His tone was surly, which in his opinion was a fairly solid upgrade.
Pun tilted the cup just to get the rest of the lemon juice, the noise grating when he slurped the last. Tillie felt a splinter poke into a paw pad when his toes twitched. “Not to be arrogant or anything, but I’m good at what I do and that pays a shitload of money for certain people and contracts. For others that don’t need me to borrow faces, it’s because I’m in a guild.”
“A guild? Isn’t that for leather workers or something?”
“Yeah, but it’s also a lot easier to be a thief or an assassin when you have a group to help with resources. You can get people’s movements, their habits, what they hold near and dear, all that kind of stuff without needing to take weeks to really stake them out for that info. They’re called the Black Blades.” Pun set the empty cup on the side table and reclined fully into the bed. “If you need, I can give you a way in.”
Tillie bristled at the idea that someone would need to speak for him, but deflated once he thought about it for more than a second. He wasn’t going to get access by himself and if Pun was as highly regarded as he said he was, then his word was going to be helpful. Tillie clenched his hands, a claw pricking against a scar on the pad of his thumb. “Yeah.” He struggled to force himself to continue. “Please.”
Pun hummed softly in acknowledgement. “When I can get back up, I’ll speak to the guys above me. We can always use more meat.”
“I can shift too, I’m not just muscle,” Tillie snapped. He already mentioned that and Pun already forgot?
“Do you normally throw up afterwards?” Pun asked pointedly.
“No! That was just because we’re made from the same stuff,” Tillie snarled, shoulders rising in frustration and very nearly poking himself with his shoulder spikes. “I’m more than competent to shift and I don’t need your judgment on what I can do, shitling.”
Pun raised his hands to deny the accusation. “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that, you’re just stronger than me. How good is your shifting?”
Tillie’s anger transformed into icy resentment and he leaned against the wall with crossed arms. “I… can’t copy people,” he admitted. “I can look like some random human if I get their blood, but it isn’t the same as what you do. I can’t hide my mouth or my scars either.”
“That’s still great though! Nobody else but you and I can do that,” Pun said, trying to cheer Tillie up. It was more annoying than just looking down on him, a hidden pity that made Tillie want to throw the broken chair across the room. “Can you have the same face again or is it different every time?”
Tillie’s tail flicked against the ground and he felt the wooden floor split underneath in a long gash. “I can make it the same if I get the same person’s blood, but if it’s someone new, then the shape is new too.”
“Hmmm,” Pun thought about that, rubbing at his chin for a moment then turned his hand over as he spoke with a pointing finger at an idea. “That’s perfect to avoid being caught, honestly. If you have a new shape every time then you can’t really be pinned down. Can you change back to yourself when you want or do you need to wait for the blood to be used up or something?”
“When I want, but I can’t change again without some fluid.”
“We’ll have to make you a bag that can hold a bunch of vials then. That’ll be easy, there are some dimension bags and I know an alchemist that has little straps to keep the bottles from smashing against each other in hers.” Pun yawned, stretching then whined when it hurt. “I’m gonna nap. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”
He pulled the blanket up and wiggled into a more comfortable position. “You don’t have to stay here the entire time, you know.”
“Shut up and go to sleep. You’re gonna be here for who knows how long and I don’t want it to be any longer than it has to be.”
Pun snorted in amusement, but didn’t prod any further, letting himself slip into the blankness of sleep. With Tillie there, he was as safe as he could be, so Tillie wasn’t surprised when the still weak man was out in mere moments.
———
“Let me lead, alright?” Like Tillie had much of a choice, grunting in response. Pun’s voice was different, mimicking an elf and had an air of superiority that elves tended to have. The walk through the still damp streets was wet on Tillie’s toes, the lingering mud in the cobbles sticking to his toes. They walked along a main street, Pun commenting on things they passed. Tillie didn’t bother telling him that he didn’t need to since he could smell everything well enough. Maybe Pun would know something useful.
“That one is a flower shop, the guy who runs it is really nice. If you bring him some candy, he’ll give you some flowers for free!”
“That doesn’t sound free if you’re giving him something,” Tillie said.
“Oh.” Pun’s step paused but Tillie did not and Pun jogged to catch back up and lead once more. “I guess that’s true. Over there is a jeweler, he doesn’t like selling as much as he likes buying new pieces so the prices are really high. People with a lot of money can convince him though, so he wins in the end, really. There’s a few food places, I recommend Lemon’s Bite, they’re all about sour food, it’s amazing.”
Tillie tilted his head slightly. “People like sour enough to make an entire shop on it?”
“Oh yeah,” Pun said with a grin. “I practically keep that place alive. I love sour like I love Victor, it’s amazing.” Pun’s voice took on a peculiar tone that Tillie couldn’t quite place, a slight squeaky breathlessness that he eventually filed into the ‘I’m a child and think I’m in love’ category. Tillie kept the name Victor in his mind for future notes. Pun was important in the guild and if he had some boyfriend, then the boyfriend was sure to be important as well, if only by association.
“And this,” Pun knocked on a door sharply, “is an appointment only tailor shop. Hey-o!”
Tillie heard wood scrape against itself as a door opened. Whoever it was couldn’t stifle a choke of surprise but caught himself with a cough. Tillie tended to cause that reaction so he wasn’t surprised at the sudden fear he smelled. “Yeah? What’re you looking for?”
Pun tilted back and forth from his heels to his toes, cheerful and peppy. “Sorry to bother, but I’m looking for a knife sharpener, do you have any appointments later?”
Tillie loomed over Pun and put a hand on the doorway. It was nearly too short and he knew he was going to be uncomfortable just walking inside. The man holding the door was sweating now, something that Tillie found amusing enough that when Pun elbowed Tillie (gently) in the stomach to push him back, he took the hint and stepped back. “Sorry for my friend, he’s just helping me out, you know? When I go shopping it can be a lot to carry.”
“H-ha, yeah, I got it. Come on in, let me check the appointment book.” The door opened and Pun and Tillie went inside.
The tiny pieces of fluff from threads and fabric made Tillie want to sneeze, rubbing at his face to try and prevent it; Tillie’s sneezes were usually fairly disgusting. There was someone buying fabric at the front and talking to a shopkeep about the quality of the silk, apparently it was subpar and from Ucil rather than the promised Oflus.
Oflus was a desert country with few exports but they tended towards being the expensive side. It was also a fairly good manufacturing land, taking in materials, making the final product, and sending it back out to the purchaser with a markup. The last person Tillie was trying to find the ring for was from Oflus. Comparatively, Ocil was a thin country that lined the southern half of the western shoreline and whose production was known for cheapness and frailty of work. It wasn’t surprising that a shop would try to pass off something from Ucil as from Oflus instead.
Another shopkeep was speaking to two customers as they demonstrated some hand cranked machine that drove needles into thread to sew fabric together much faster than by hand. There was something about it being very expensive and requiring a lot of magical input to power but Tillie didn’t care all that much.
The doorsman brought them to a counter in the back, flipping through a book. “Ah, I see we have an appointment for next Ledh at two in the afternoon?”
Pun leaned against the table. “Got any for Ixi? My blades are looking really burred and I don’t want them to dull when the magic runs out because I’m waiting forever.”
The doorsman hummed and flipped another page. “How does eight in the morning sound?”
Pun sighed as though he was granting a great concession. “I suppose that will work. Can I request Varcus? I remember the last time I saw him he even replaced the handle for me.”
The doorsman tapped on the book as he traced through entries. “Ah, I see. Varcus in particular is rather booked up, may I know why you request him in particular? We like to know why so we can ensure that all of our workers are trained equally and prevent one person from being overwhelmed.”
Tillie’s tail was curling on itself as he struggled not to scream. What the hell was this conversation? If it was some code it was taking way too goddamn long! Pun gave a light laugh as though this wasn’t infuriating. “Oh, you know, he’s the only one who’s treated my knife right. She’s a Blujj blade so I like to keep her safe.”
Tillie’s mental rampage through the store paused, his thoughts setting down the chair he had been about to throw into the window. Blujj was a country of odd superstition and magical exports and more interesting than anything else Pun had said. He brought himself out of his daydream and focused more on what they were saying.
“I see, what material?”
“She’s made from Droithian blackstone.” The shopkeep made a noise of amazement.
“My goodness sir, may I recommend mentioning that first next time? A Droithian black blade is quite a tempermental material, your taste for Varcus’ touch is well earned.” Pun giggled at the shopkeep’s barely noticeable irritation. “Please, come to the back and we shall check in your knife and ensure it receives the utmost of care.”
The shopkeep closed the book and beckoned for Tillie and Pun to follow. Thoughtful now, Tillie considered the words carefully. Clearly the code related to a Droithian blackstone blade, a black blade, from Blujj.
The Droithian Abyss wasn’t someone people talked about easily or without hushed tones, so to have Pun mention it so casually was worth paying attention to. The Abyss was a deep canyon in the southern sea, deeper than anyone had ever been able to explore. No magic known had allowed explorers to penetrate its depths and reveal its secrets.
Rumors flew, of course, as they always did. The Droithian Abyss held a leviathan that would eat the world at the end of days! No, surely it was a hole all the way down to the bottom of the world where the void ate everything that fell so deeply. Or maybe it was where everything would be sucked in slowly until there was nothing but the abyss.
Blujj, on the other hand, was simply an isolated country on the southeastern tip of land that was filled with caverns and cliffs along the sea’s edge. It held two major harbors known for being the midway point between Ucil and Efrela, so as weird as it may be, it served an important function in ship travel. It was said that there was more of Blujj underwater than there was above but no mermen swam those waters. Even fish were rarer there, likely due to the colder waters that the Abyss radiated, so much of the food was sourced from land, an oddity for such a seabound country.
It was said that there was land across the sea to the south, but the Abyss was long, stretching from Blujj to Broetheo and nobody tried anymore. Nobody smart, at least.
The shopkeep put a key in a lock and clicked it open, then waved for Pun and Tillie to go inside. “Victor’s been waiting for you, Pun. He’s been worried.” The man’s tone was devoid of the customer service warmth it had originally held. “Also, next time you come by, don’t take so goddamn long to say the code, fuckwit.”
“Piss off,” Pun replied, tone just as cheerful now as it had been before. The door closed behind them with a click as the lock slid home once more. Pun turned to walk backwards as he led Tillie inside and down a hallway that sloped into the earth before opening another door. “Ready to meet the head honcho? They’ll decide what’s gonna happen but really, between you and me, don’t worry about it.”
“Why would I?” Tillie side-stepped a chair, the person inside gasping at the sight of Tillie. It was loud in here and smelled of people and food, likely due to the lack of windows to help the air move. There were a few people and he heard them pause their conversation to notice him but felt no need to pay attention in return.
“Oh, well, you know,” Pun stammered, clearly not expecting that response. “Normally people are kinda freaked out meeting someone who runs a guild dedicated to killing and stealing.”
“Do they deal with people eating their kills too?” Tillie asked in return. Pun turned around to face where he was walking and stopped in front of a door.
“You know, probably, but you’re kind of the only one who would do it on the regular. …You would do it on the regular, right?” Pun asked, hand hovering in front of the door.
“It’s free food,” Tillie said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Eugh,” Pun shuddered at the idea. “Gross.” He knocked on the door a couple of times. “I got a new recruit here!”
The door opened after the first knock. “What have I told you about bringing street rats— oh.” The voice went silent. Tillie’s tail flicked curiously. Tillie leaned down, licking at the air.
“You’re small,” Tillie growled at the enkindled, their scent of brimstone in the air prickling at him. “Real small.”
Pun skipped in front of Tillie with a hand to his chest and fear pushing his voice higher. “H-hey hey hey, let’s not do that, alright? I don’t want to end up on the shitlist again. Tillie, please?”
Tillie huffed but stepped back. “Fine.” He shoved Pun’s hand off of his chest. “Make it worth my while.”
Pun wiped at his head with a forced laugh. “Y-yeah, sorry, boss, he’s just. You know, kind of used to being the most dangerous guy around.”
The enkindled harrumphed, crossing their arms. Tillie felt the other’s tail twitch at the air and had an intrusive thought of grabbing them by it and bashing them against the wall. He clenched his hands closed.
“Well then, he better prove himself. What’s your name?” The enkindled’s voice was almost childish but demanding regardless. Tillie estimated them as maybe 15 but he had a feeling they were much older than that.
“Tillie.”
The endkindled made a surprised noise. “I guess that kind of makes a difference.”
Pun laughed again. Tillie was really starting to hate the smug sound. “Right? Kind of a dick but really, a good choice this time.”
“Stop talking,” the endkindled said to Pun. Pun went flat on his heels with a huff, grumbling to himself. “Come with me.”
Tillie put a hand on Pun’s shoulder then shoved him aside as he followed. The door closed behind him. “Heard about you,” the enkindled said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, apparently you start a lot of shit.” Tillie scowled. It was nice that he was strong enough to be noted but he had a feeling that this wasn’t a good thing.
“What of it?” Tillie didn’t bother sitting when the enkindled sat behind a desk. The sense of power that people gave him when he stood taller hadn’t failed him yet. He was wary, but he wasn’t going to let the kid intimidate him even if they spooked Pun. Especially if they spooked Pun, honestly. Anyone that freaked out Pun was on his good side already.
“Nothing,” the enkindled said. “Nice to meet you, Tillie. You can call me Master.”
Tillie slammed his hands on the desk, claws digging into the wood. His nails pierced through some papers and pushed a knife aside as he dragged deep furrows into the wood. “I call no man Master,” he growled.
A small wooden stick slapped at his knuckles and he let go with a hiss of pain. “Behave.”
“I will never call you ‘master’,” Tillie said. He flicked a paper off of his hand at the enkindled. The edge of the paper hit their horn, normally a sensitive organ but all they did was inhale sharply.
“Learn to.”
Tillie reached forward, nails deep in the wood as he prepared to leap over the desk. He heard a fwip rush by his face and leaned back at the last moment, the knife spinning past his head to dig into the wall. Tillie tilted his head, jerking his claws out with difficulty and tapping the ground with his toes to search for the second person in the room.
The enkindled laughed. Another fwip and the knife jerked out from the wall to hover somewhere, presumably by the kid’s head. Tillie tensed— it was in the air which means he had no way to track it. “Magic?” he growled.
“Yup!” Tillie stood up straight and crossed his arms.
“Pick another name.”
“Earn it.”
“I’ll call you nothing at all,” Tillie snapped. He inhaled sharply when he felt the knife against his throat, then chuckled, tail flicking. “Go on, kill me. You’ll lose something you never knew the worth of.”
The enkindled pushed the knife forward, the point so close to cutting through an artery but not yet piercing more than the thin skin. Tillie didn’t move, laughing under his breath. “Coward.”
The knife moved away and Tillie gloated with a cackle only to be cut off with a snarl as the knife dragged a line over his face. Tillie covered his face with a howl, the wound bleeding copiously as the bone was revealed under the thin skin, a match for the scar over the right side of his head.
“For your temerity and pride, you may call me Glory. Do not besmirch my name and make me regret giving you this honor.” Tillie hissed, the sound low and deep that usually made his prey shudder in fear.
“Fuck you.”
“Earn it.” Tillie was unprepared for that answer and didn’t know how to reply. “Go get stitched up. Let it heal naturally, no magic. Remember your lesson and speak to Ayla for your first contract.” Tillie spun without speaking further, lowering his hands and letting his blood soak the nice carpet. Glory could deal with the results of his own actions too.
A changeling with a fondness for sex, gold, and glory, in that order.
Pun was the first of his kind (changeling), but was not a natural creation. His "father" was a awakened mimic wizard, part of a large, black market corporation. Pun, then named Glaukos, was not the only creation his mimic "father" made, Pun's "brothers" being an Aberration and a Doppelganger, all the first of their species.
Growing up as a specimen was miserable, though Vinnie (Pun's father) did legitimately care about them and love them. Pun was the golden child, as much as a laboratory specimen could be, and as a result got the majority of Vinnie's attention, giving Pun a great people sense. Pun instinctively watched people, learning how to interact by copying their actions and words, learning that he could do so much more than simply copy people. He could become them.
With this newfound knowledge, Pun broke out of his captivity as a young teen and struck out in the world, hoping to find a path of his own, taking a new name that better fit him: Pun. His father knew, and did not pursue— he had problems of his own that needed tending, including getting out of that corporation, but Vinnie's story is for another time. Pun, a poor and sheltered child, did not know how to find safe employment, and with his changeling skills, he went for the most profitable and easy path; thievery. He joined a Thieves’ Guild, working through them rather lazily and pushing boundaries, knowing that his unique abilities made him hard to replace.
He gained a boyfriend when he was 15— but it was not a good relationship. His boyfriend, Victor, was a human man of 20 who took great pleasure in grooming Pun into exactly what he wanted Pun to be. Pun, already feeling abandoned when his father didn’t try to find him, latched onto the man with all the eager gullibility of a teenager, his sense of self and life revolving around the man.
Victor was a subtle worker, taking Pun’s confidence in himself and breaking him down bit by bit with casual, patient barbs. It was a death of a thousand cuts; statements like “it’s alright, Pun… Nobody can expect someone without ears to hear anything anyway” were common and only got meaner. As their relationship progressed over the next few years, the backhands became more and more cruel, culminating in making Pun afraid to show his real, natural face, deeming it the face of a “gross little maggot.” Victor was quick to gaslight Pun and played sweet with him in private, praising Pun for “looking so pretty for him” when Pun borrowed one of the boyfriend’s random and ever changing lusts.
It took multiple years before Pun began to realize how cruel the relationship was, and then only when the abuse became more and more overt. Physical backhands for “speaking out of turn” were the norm and rape under the guise of “you never say no anyway, so shut up, you know crying makes me sad” were the only sexual activities they had at that point. Pun’s joy, quality of life, or pleasure was never considered important or even worthy of being entertained. Even other members of the Thief's Guild looked uncomfortable and awkward, and they were hardly paragons of morality, often more stabby than talkative.
It came to a head in their final mission together. It was a joint effort to sneak into a minor noble’s bedroom and steal away an heirloom, and for their skill at that point it should not have been as difficult as it was. Before the mission, however, Pun had been abused quite thoroughly, along with the accumulating aches and declining mental state. His balance was off due to weak legs, his voice was hoarse because his throat hurt, and bruises littered his body. He was in no condition for something as intense as the guards that rushed out, having been tipped off.
Pun was the look out, hiding on a roof nearby after actually capturing the heirloom, watching as his boyfriend was apprehended by the guards. Pun clutched the bag to his chest, watching and unsure of what to do. He wanted to help Victor. But he also desperately wanted to run away, afraid of both Victor and the guards, and not sure which he feared most. He knew that the moment he did leap into action to defend his boyfriend, he would be overwhelmed in the same way. But if he didn’t and Victor managed to free himself, he would look for Pun and punish him afterwards. There was no winning.
With the ache of his body weighing on him, the abuses piling up and weakening him, his emotions dulled from the pain he had endured, he couldn’t move to do anything. He was going to lose out either way, and the guards gave him at least one out, and at that, one that would end the other danger. Hope bloomed in him, a weak and flickering flame, that he might actually escape the hell his relationship and life had become.
His perch on the edge of the building was hard to balance on, and with that minor hope in his chest, Pun stepped back, denying Victor his help. Victor howled in fury, swearing curses and promising dire consequences if he was not released. The guards were less than amused with Victor’s struggling and fighting. After a minute of trying to force Victor to give in, the guards’ patience wore out. They were not city guards, but mercenaries, and had been authorized for any actions providing it protected the noble they served. Their tolerance for bullshit was low, and with the trouble he had been causing, along with making a solid few hits on the guards when defending himself, the guards stopped trying to hold back.
Pun watched a dagger slam into his boyfriend mid scream, cutting his yelling off immediately into choked gasps. Pun pulled his hood up, vowing right there and then to never give anyone that kind of power over him again.
Pun took his now ex-boyfriend’s face to be his most often used human disguise. Though he fiercely hates him, the sting of bittersweet love there once was couldn’t be forgotten. There had still been moments of joy between them, and though he was aware of how horrible the relationship was, emotions made little distinction in what should be and what was. Pun got no true sense of closure, only a violent and abrupt ending to the relationship, and it left him adrift for a time, not knowing who or what he really was.
He broke away from the guild and searched for a purpose of his own making, refusing to obey anyone else or be tied down with any sort of commitment. After all, if he didn't care about anyone, nobody would care about him, and that meant nobody could hurt him again. Pun did many things to get by, including theatrics, acrobatic shows, even some musical shows, but never really found his groove. Pun eventually went to a brothel and offered his services, and found peace in the easy money to be had by pretending to be someone else and spreading his legs. Naturally, the brothel wanted to keep him as a permanent member, and after an uncomfortable altercation with the house mistress, Pun left to wander the world.
Now, he sells his skills as a thief and assassin as easily as he sells his body, shameless in his own desires and urges. He does not value himself highly, and as such puts himself into sketchy situations often just to prove to himself that he can get out of them. His spite keeps him going most days, and the mental numbing combined with physical pleasure keeps him going the rest.
A Planewalker whose god is gold, his self control tight, and his morals loose.
He grew up in a comfortable, if constantly roving, family. Never one to care about what others thought, he made his own path through life, gathering gold and knowledge. A sorcerer, he felt the thrum of magic over his skin like others feel air, able to manipulate time and feel the ticking of the clock in every heartbeat. Intelligent, but foolish, he decided to do something nobody else had done before; make a multilayered spell scroll.
He took his time, gathering spells that created fire and explosions and destruction from every corner of the plane possible, venturing to other planes to gather even more. He began his work, taking time to weave each spell into the scroll bit by bit. Arrogance was his downfall however, as the scroll worked. In fact, it worked so well that he was on his back with no recollection as to how, blood pooling out his body, seeing a leg much, much too far away, arms even further. It was due only to how much gold he spent on a daily basis that he was found. With every coin emptied from his pockets, he was healed, though had major trauma to his body.
As long as he was alive, it was enough. He would get back to how he was before, better even. New magical prosthetics replaced his arms and leg, runes crossing his body in every direction to keep his body functional. At least it meant he didn’t need to eat nearly as much, something he had never found pleasant, and could replace it with magi-packs, magical sources of energy. Expensive, but worth it.
He saved acquired 3 baby mimics to use as emotional support animals tools. One is a vest over his chest, one a band over his arm, and another acting as a bag. His hubris, but not his arrogance, tempered, he makes his way much more carefully. Ourbill likes what he cannot break, finding that few can stand up to his standards of relationships. He is unyielding, but fair. If he says he is going to do something, he will, be that punishment or reward, no matter how ridiculous the reward might be. The only creature who has yet managed to keep his interest, the only one to actually enjoy the yoke of his control, is Tillie. Pun’s eldest brother and a creature more mimic than man with a feral attitude, Tillie finds the rigid, unchanging rules comforting. He can break the rules, but he knows precisely what will happen and why, and the consistency is soothing.
He gathers gold lawfully, down to the very last bylaw and city code, manipulating the meaning however it best serves him. The memory of the explosion that nearly killed him is always in the back of his mind, and a noise too loud can cause him to immediately overthink, forcibly turning his mind to whatever it is he’s focusing on to avoid actually processing his emotions. He even turns it into a test of his own will. He uses magic that explicitly creates thunderous rumbles and explosive bursts, forcing himself through it as a means of proving to himself that he is in control. He plans now to gather gold and power, to become a mogul of merchantry and run a massive, plane spanning company that contains anything and everything a customer could wish to purchase.
He knows that not all people find Planewalkers comfortable to look at. The single large eye can be piercing, following every action keenly and obviously, especially when the owner of the eye is shrewd and looking for weakness to exploit. And so, for those weaker folk, he adopts a human form.
Art Credit: Naut
Art Coloring for the FIRST and LAST photo only: me! It's the hip high one and the one where he's leaning on his hand. The middle one with the black eye and red iris is Naut's glorious work.
A failed experiment, Tillie is mimic made and staggers along the razor thin edge of beast and man, attempting to find stability and hoping to find a place he is accepted as he is rather than who others want him to be.
Note: This is his backstory and I've used a different format idea. This is more akin to a short story/novella with full chapters rather than a small essay.
The first thing Tillie ever remembered was a sense of liquid around him, floating in something that damped vibrations and made it impossible to understand where he was. The next was feeling a thicker, better fluid on his claws, something that smelled tasty, and screaming that was so loud it was overwhelming before he felt his body begin to melt and he lost thoughts once more. He learned what it was like to speak through jaws of bone that lacked lips, his tongue prehensile enough to help make his speech understandable, and he learned that no matter how good it felt to sink his claws into flesh, he shouldn’t do that. It took beast-like training for him to finally listen, shocks and collars that stung his neck before he obeyed sullenly, doing what he was told.
He was intelligent enough that he knew they treated him like a tool, something they made and not something they considered a person. He hated them for it, lashing out and damaging expensive equipment and snapping bones until the lightning zinging through his body made him writhe on the floor, clawing at the collar and hissing in pain before he lost consciousness as his body fell apart. He always came back though, in that same floating liquid that left him confused and frustrated.
The experiments were not purposely cruel, but they cared little for Tillie’s pain. He was forced to run and run until he could run no further, legs smearing into the ground before he puddled on the floor in a wet glop. He was forced to tell them what vibrations rang through the ground, what the material was made of, how fast it moved. He was told to destroy what was before him, but that was one he enjoyed.
It didn’t matter what they set him against, big dogs, bears, men with armor and swords, he fought until he either killed or he found himself back in the floating tube. They liked it when he won, tittering and speaking and their hearts were fast, beating more and more and tempting him to try to eat them just to feel the way it stopped in his grip, but he began to keep himself in check more often than not. Not that they noticed or cared, they only wanted to see him obey, they didn’t want to know that he was thinking or had opinions.
The scientist called Vinnie seemed to care, but Tillie didn’t believe it. If he cared, then he’d let Tillie go, stop the needles piercing his skin every day, stop the shocks that stung and left his sense of the world dulled from burned skin. But Vinnie didn’t stop them. He said he did, oh he said many things, like “you’re not a failure” and “I consider you my son” and “I love you” but nobody would care for a beast like Tillie, not when there were more experiments coming after him. If he was enough, then there didn’t need to be more, but they never stopped. Some of them failed, died miserable, pathetic deaths with voices he could hear echoing in the hallways and rooms, others so silently that he knew they existed only when he felt their heart stop beating through the floor.
They were most excited when he ended up killing a particular man set before him. He was different in some way, something that Tillie didn’t know. Few people weren’t the same, but he never knew how. Some were taller, some were heavier, some smelt different, and some were shorter. But this one that he had beneath him, gleefully tearing to pieces in search of that fat, pulsing muscle in his chest, this one was bigger. He licked at a claw to clean it, a jolt going down his spine. This was new; something about the blood electrified his body.
He licked at his hands more, cleaning them of blood and slurping at the body after throwing aside the metal covering the flesh. Cracking through the bones— devouring the meat— Tillie snarled as his skin grew hot, his tail lashed and burned as it grew shorter, his claws fading into short, stubby nails. Something was hurting his head, something like heat but didn’t burn and he covered his face. There was something different. He had something in the middle that he breathed through, his mouth was still the same as before, the raw bone jaws, but the things under his hands hurt the most, two small, soft orbs above the protrusion he breathed with.
Tillie whimpered; pulling his hands away just made the not-heat not-cold stinging worse. The scientists were patient for once, watching him silently. He felt a hand on his shoulder, spinning away and lashing out with a hand but met nothing but air. He felt someone walk in front of him before stopping. The thing before him was short, thin, and made of something that hurt his face less. A blanket was thrown over his head and the pain began to fade. Vinnie sat in front of him, uncaring that Tillie was still straddling the eviscerated man with gore all over him.
Tillie blinked and the wet things were soothed, lowering his hands slowly. He blinked again and again as he adjusted to this new sense. It didn’t tap against his skin like vibrations, it didn’t smell, or taste, or hear. It was something completely different; Vinnie called it sight and said he was proud of Tillie. Tillie didn’t understand.
He was able to copy others. He couldn’t be Hao the elf, but he could have skin that matched his color, have hair that was a different hue and texture. He could be taller, but he would always have two eyes, a nose, and his jigsaw mouth. But apart from that, he could see when he copied them, and he could look as if all of the people were mixed together and traits were pulled from a big pot at random. It happened with anyone that they let him lick, or bite, or eat. He could be anything that walked on two legs, had two arms, had a head, and was intelligent. He couldn’t be a wolf or a dragon, but he could be an elf, or a human, or an orc, or any other race as long as he had something from them. He was sick when they tried combining multiple races’ blood, but when there was only one source he was able to shift. All of them had a sense so foreign to him: sight. They called him Doppelganger.
He learned about the others that were made and that he was the first. They were better, more obedient, more pliant to their whims. The second to live was slow to grow but stable and had no issues with his form melting. It was stupider, but stronger; its name was Telemral and it was an Aberration according to Vinnie, the scientist who spoke to Tillie most. Tillie was angry, lashing out again and again until he was restrained against metal with manacles on his limbs.
And then there was the next one, the one they were so excited about. It spoke, and it was smart, and it could be whatever it wanted to be. They called it Glaukos. Glaukos was so obedient, listened to what they wanted so well, was so good and it made Tillie retch to hear praise heaped on the little bastard. He was a Changeling and he could copy people and be so perfect at it— even Tillie couldn’t tell them apart. Their voices echoed in the rooms, they walked the same, the weight matched, the scent was perfect, and it made Tillie furious. He could even have lips! Tillie couldn’t and knew that he wasn’t enough. He could shift his form, but not as well as Glaukos. He could be a person, but not that person.
Tillie paced the room when he was left alone to be himself, when he wasn’t the center of attention for more poking and prodding. Nobody cared about him anymore when Tillie was a disappointment compared to Glaukos. They just wanted to play with Glaukos and ooh and aah over him, and it made them neglect their duty toward Tillie. Tillie waited until they were focused on something else, maybe Glaukos, he didn’t care, but once they were completely ignoring him, it was time.
Tillie had learned how the lock on his door worked, especially since they kept needing to replace it when he began to destroy it. But this time, he had figured out something that didn’t involve the lock at all; he could destroy the hinges of the door instead. His claws were enough to scratch at the metal, but a lax technician had left a needle behind and using that meant he wouldn’t dull his nails. She hadn’t meant to leave it, of course, and she had remembered to take the syringe, but the needles they needed to use to get through Tillie’s thick skin meant that the needle was a fairly decent size, perfect for pulling up the head of the hinge pin to slide it out.
He was quiet, careful. His claws clicked against the ground softly, growling to himself in irritation at the sound. His tail flicked back and forth as he focused on what he heard and felt. He knew his senses were stronger than the scientists’, but he was wary nonetheless. There had been more than enough times that he had run gleefully through what he had thought were empty hallways only to be caught on some magical switch that made alarms blare. But now he could feel them, though it was very hard to listen. It had a particular kind of hum, an uncomfortable sort of feeling that made his skin crawl. He couldn’t take his time to find all of them, he already knew he was pushing his luck when he wasn’t caught immediately.
He struggled in place; he could rush to get out and hope he didn’t trigger any traps, or he could sneak around and possibly take too long. He tapped his claws along the wall to get a sense of where people were. Close, and coming closer. He had to decide now.
He spun around and began to run, nails digging into the stone tiles and leaving gouges, barreling into walls and snarling when he felt some glass vial break and the contents burn his skin. He wiped it off roughly; already he heard his jailers running after him, yelling about needing to go back into his room or else they would force him. Tillie didn’t care— he’d either get out or he’d goop and be captured once more. At this point his fate was already in the air. He may as well keep running and hope to get out into the open air again, feel the sunlight and warmth sink into him like a warm blanket.
Glass crunched under his hands as he slammed into a window, pausing for just a moment when he felt a swirling emptiness beyond. It wasn’t sterile out there, it smelled like dirt and leaves, the air rushing past him in a brisk wind. It felt cool out there, but not the cool of the inside of the building. It felt cool like lazily melting ice. He wanted that. He ripped at the remaining glass, uncaring of the wounds it dug into his palms and sides as he struggled to get out. He was too big and the window too small, snarling and snapping at the sill to try and widen it enough for him to escape.
He screamed when he felt the piercing needles of the zapper, bloody hands grabbing at them and ripping them out to throw them back at the attacker. Giving up on the window, he turned instead towards his jailers and leapt forward with murder on his mind. He was mid-air when he was suddenly back in the floating tube, any sense of time in between lost.
Tillie was watched more carefully now. He didn’t speak anymore, even when the scientists tried to shock him and force him, answering only with violence and growling snarls. Eventually, Vinnie came by, probably as some sort of last resort to get Tillie to speak. Tillie sulked as Vinnie spoke, pushing his uneaten food away and refusing to answer any questions.
Vinnie said that, in his escape attempt, Glaukos had managed to get out. Of course it was Glaukos, the piece of shit that didn’t deserve anyone’s attention, didn’t deserve the awe in the scientists’ voices. He was small and could copy people, so when Tillie made a mess he had a perfect opportunity to slip out. Vinnie apologized a lot, which Tillie didn’t acknowledge, and said that he didn’t want Tillie to be hurt. Part of Tillie wanted to kill Vinnie for pretending to act like he cared.
He noticed the way that Tillie avoided putting weight on a toe, asking, not demanding, that Tillie let him look. Tillie refused for a couple of days until the glass shard still embedded in his toe bean made him want to rip it out himself, letting Vinnie look with an angry, unbroken silence. He didn’t speak the entire time that Vinnie pulled it free, using magic to whisk it out instead of the scalpels and needles that the others always used to cut him open. Vinnie petted his foot gently and Tillie flinched, expecting something sharp and painful, but nothing came of it. He let his foot rest again on Vinnie slowly, wary. Vinnie petted the rough skin, speaking about things that didn’t matter until Tillie’s tail began to thwap at the ground, pleased that he wasn’t being forced to do anything. He could just listen.
Slowly, Vinnie began to truly win Tillie’s trust. There were still experiments, but fewer over time. Vinnie was able to visit more often, offering him meat that was still questionably warm from wherever he got it from, which Tillie appreciated. He even gave Tillie live prey, quick little hooved things and heavy, squealing beasts that were satisfying to shred, the crack of bones pleasing and keeping his teeth sharp. With the new diet, his skin even began to soften slightly, something the others never bothered to think about, though the spiky growths caused by the needles didn’t shrink. The wet pulse of blood and life leaving his prey was invigorating and he began to grow even stronger, bigger, now that his body was getting what it needed on a more regular basis.
He still refused to speak, but Vinnie didn’t push him anymore. He brought little vials of blood for Tillie to take or not as he liked. When he did, he was a new shape every time, even if it was from the same person multiple times. He could wrangle the transformation into something similar when he wanted to, or keep it for longer periods before he lost control of it, but he never could truly choose the form.
He struggled with sight sometimes, the sense overwhelming for a day before it became useful in new forms. He vomited the time that Vinnie had given him blood from someone with four eyes, the dizzying spin of so many angles sickening. From then on, Vinnie only gave him human blood. It was easier to get, he said. More humans were out in the world than many other races.
He learned to read and to write, the pens and papers feeling ungainly in his hands when he was transformed. He was frustrated when he returned to himself, the fragile instruments snapping in his grip without meaning to, throwing them away and sulking. He couldn’t write when he couldn’t see anyway. But Vinnie was patient and the laboratory began to slow even more with fewer people walking about. He could count the number left on both hands, few enough that he could probably escape without problem. Vinnie said the center was losing funding, whatever that meant.
Vinnie taught him what it would be like outside casually, talking about things he had done and people he had met as if he weren’t giving Tillie the knowledge he needed to live outside the walls. Tillie wasn’t sure if it was meant to be as informative as it was or if Vinnie was just talking for the sake of talking.
There were so many places out there, places of bitter cold and searing heat, high mountains with wind swirling on the peaks and buried lands deep, deep underground with nothing but the weight of the earth above. There were beaches and oceans and abysses miles and miles deep until nothing there knew of light and could only understand their environment through touch or scent. Tillie paid keen attention to that until Vinnie explained that Tillie would, unfortunately, not be able to survive there. The pressure was too high and Tillie couldn’t breathe underwater. That started a new round of mutual experiments to see if he could breathe as a merman could, and the answer was yes, but that transformation faded away much quicker. The blood was thin compared to that of the land walking folk, Vinnie said, so it must be used up much quicker.
Vinnie vanished for a few days. Then a week. People were returning to the center, people Tillie never knew and had never smelt before. The laboratory was warming up again and it frightened Tillie. He never said so but when Vinnie returned, Vinnie knew. They were coming to make more, Vinnie said with a quiet, angry voice. More creatures that they would use and experiment on and hurt to try and make another Glaukos, or even another Telemral. But Vinnie didn’t know what they would do with Tillie. He had been resistant to their desires, too violent to trust, and too unstable to fight consistently. Vinnie was the only one to keep him alive. Or at least, Vinnie said so. Tillie kept that doubt in mind but said nothing of it. If he really was useless, they would have just killed him.
One night, Tillie heard his door open quietly. The hinges smelt of rendered fat rather than oil, the metal gliding against itself and hiding the sound. Tillie was on his feet, ready to fight and almost jumped forward before he realized it was Vinnie. Relaxing only a little, he waited for an explanation. Experiments never happened at night and he was left alone almost all the time now. Something was different.
Vinnie said it was time to leave. Tillie didn’t understand but when Vinnie repeated it, Tillie moved forward towards him. Vinnie was small compared to him. He had never really thought about that before, the way that he towered over Vinnie. Temptation to leap forward and bite until there was nothing left went through his mind but he stopped himself, clenching his hand and driving a claw into the soft meat of his thumb. Vinnie whispered to be quiet, to follow, and not to speak until they were free.
Free. Free as in freedom, Vinnie said. Outside of these walls and away from the people inside. He was going to destroy it once Tillie was out. He said he was sorry but he had helped Telemral escape first and that was why he’d been gone for a while. Jealousy coursed through Tillie like flame, but another claw dug into his palm and he kept his calm. When they were out in the open, Vinnie explained, Tillie needed to run as far as he could. He was given a necklace with a symbol on it.
“Don’t lose this. Never, ever lose it. Please,” Vinnie pleaded, the wind blowing his hood around. The fabric made gasping sounds as it caught and lost the wind. Vinnie’s hand was still holding onto Tillie, his hand just barely larger than Tillie’s palm and cool compared to humans. The pendant was small, difficult to keep hold of in his grip. It was round with a raised oblong oval in the center, perhaps the size of the tip of his finger. He curled his fingers around it tightly, blood from his hand smearing against it.
“They’re going to come after me, and they’re going to threaten me, and probably try to kill me. Do not turn around. Do not come back. I will be fine. I’ll find you again one day, I swear I will.” Vinnie’s hand grasped Tillie’s curled fingers more tightly. “If you need me, rub the pendant. Think about me and I will come.”
Tillie shifted his fingers to grasp the pendant carefully, lowering down to a knee and bending his head. Vinnie tied it around his neck, then pressed a bag in his hand. It smelled metallic and there was a clink of metal inside. “This is money. Remember when we talked about that?” Tillie nodded. “I put in a paper with how much some things are worth so nobody lies to you. Food is cheap.”
Tillie touched the pendant. There was more to it than just Vinnie. He could feel the heat of others through the metal, the way the magic pulsed with the beat of hearts. He opened his mouth, tongue slipping out, and spoke. The words were hoarse, unused for so long, and slightly stuttering. “Who else is in this?”
He felt Vinnie’s heart skip a beat. “Telemral. And….” Vinie hesitated. Tillie’s hand twitched. If he just grabbed Vinnie and squeezed, he’d say what he meant and he’d stop trying to lie, but Vinnie spoke before he moved. “And Glaukos.”
Tillie snarled, pulling away from Vinnie and raising a hand to yank the pendant off. He didn’t want to be connected to that perfect little bastard. Vinnie caught his hand, babbling and desperate. “Please! They’re not as strong as you— Glaukos is weak and soft! Telemral isn’t smart like you! They need someone they can rely on, someone strong that can help them! Tillie, please! I beg of you!”
Tillie’s hand stopped, the leather cord just before its breaking point, taut enough to make a sound if plucked. “I’m… I’m better?”
“Yes!” Vinnie’s hand was shaking over his, heart beating like a rabbit’s. “Tillie, you are smart, and fast and strong. You can change and you can hear and feel in ways that they can’t. You are the closest to what the center was trying to make. They were trying to make more of you. They made Telemral and he was stronger, but you’re smarter. They made Glaukos and he can change, but you’re faster. They wanted another you that didn’t melt and would obey. But you’re the best that they— that I— could have hoped for. Please don’t leave them. Don’t leave your brothers alone.” Vinnie breathed shallowly and Tillie could smell the wet salt of tears.
With a half-hearted snarl, he let go of the pendant. It bounced against his chest and clinked against the gem embedded in his flesh. “Brothers?”
Vinnie tied the leather a bit tighter so the metal wouldn’t strike the gem as Tillie moved. “And I’m your father. I— I made you. You don’t have to call me anything. But I love you, and you are my son.”
Tillie huffed irritably. “I’ll lose the necklace.”
“It won’t leave you.” Vinnie pulled on the leather thong. It tugged against Tillie but he was heavier and eventually, Vinnie let go. No, he didn’t let go. It was too sudden for that. It… went through his hand? “Nobody can take it from you. It will fade through their hands. The only one who can take it off is you.”
Tillie touched it again, feeling the shape. There was something carved into the back of the metal. “What is this?”
“It’s the rune magic. If they call for you, you’ll feel it through that. If you call them, they’ll feel it in theirs. You will be able to walk through a portal to get to them if you hold it and answer them.”
“How?”
“Say ‘I answer’ to answer them, and ‘I call’ and then the name you want for assistance.” The language was different than what they normally spoke, something that felt old and bright. Tillie tried to copy it but the sound was difficult for him to say without lips when it seemed to be nothing but whistling noises. Vinnie coached him, jumping when there was a sound behind them, but he waited until Tillie could say it competently.
“Please don’t hate them. Hate me if you must.” Another sound behind them, an explosion. Tillie felt rumblings through the earth as more destruction was happening deep below. Vinnie’s hands were tight on Tillie. “Promise me you’ll answer.”
Tillie grumbled.
“Tillie, please. I ask nothing else from you. If they need help, I might not be able to be there. Please. I’ll do anything.”
Tillie growled but the sincerity in Vinnie’s pleadings made him finally agree. “Fine.”
Vinnie was relieved from the way the tension in his muscles released, though the tremors in his hands only increased. A scent that had been tickling at Tillie for a while became stronger. Vinnie was afraid. “How do I get what you offered?”
“What do you want?”
Tillie thought about it, ignoring the screaming that he could feel warbling the air. “I want to shift better.” Vinnie made a strangled laugh and Tillie was immediately angry. There was nothing funny about the request. His claws dug into the earth, crunching rocks and digging furrows into the stone as he kept himself in check.
“You can do everything better now that you’re out of there. They used magic to weaken you. Anything you could do before, you can do better now. You can’t copy someone, but you can use the same form if you use the same person’s blood.”
Tillie’s tail twisted in the air. Vinnie might be right— he could hear more, smell more than he could in the sterile walls he had left. Maybe he was stronger, even. One thing he had never had, however, was knowledge of what Vinnie was or where he came from. He’d never met someone who smelt like him or walked like him and nobody else ever said what he was.
“What are you?”
“A mimic,” Vinnie said. Tillie’s skin wrinkled in a frown. “An animal, a beast. I used to be a monster, but I was awakened and given intelligence. I’m the only one like me, just like you’re the only one like you.”
“I want your blood.”
Vinnie froze in place. Even his blood felt slower, his heartbeat hesitant and heavy. Tillie felt saliva gather in his mouth, the urge to bite and get the blood himself growing stronger. “It won’t work.”
“What?”
“You won’t be able to copy me. You’re made from me.”
“I want it anyway.” He didn’t say it was so he could track Vinnie down later if he needed to, or that Vinnie’s scent had become comforting. He didn’t even consciously know the second part, but the desire to have a piece of Vinnie close by was resolute.
Vinnie didn’t speak, pulling something from inside his robes. The vibrant scent of blood filled the air as he heard Vinnie grunt in pain, tongue lapping at the wind to get more of the smell. It slurped back into his mouth as he heard Vinnie fumbling for something. The squeaking sound of a cork being pushed against glass was followed by Vinnie’s hand in his, pressing a vial of his warmth into Tillie’s palm. “It’s magic. It won’t dry and it will stay clean as long as you don’t open the vial.”
Tillie patted himself down to find a pocket but Vinnie grabbed the necklace. He pressed the vial against the pendant before saying something in that light language again and it vanished in a small pop that made Tillie jump. “How do I get it back?” Tillie’s voice was edging on panicked; he had been given something precious and now it was taken away almost immediately.
“Open,” Vinnie said and the vial popped back out with the same sound into his palm. “You put it in and out using that word. Say it.” Tillie repeated a couple of times until the pendant obeyed and the vial returned. “You can only put one thing into the pendant.”
Tillie turned his head to the side, the vibration in the ground growing stronger, more threatening. “They’re coming.”
Vinnie patted Tillie’s shoulders until he knelt down more, pressing his forehead against Tillie’s. “I love you so, so much. Please never doubt that.” He pulled away, turning to face the center. “Now go. Run. Don’t come back.”
Tillie paused for a moment. The hesitation was enough for Vinnie to notice. “I said, GO!” Some power pushed at Tillie and his muscles began to obey before he realized what was happening. He couldn’t feel Vinnie; he wasn’t touching the ground anymore. Tillie hated that. He hated flying, or floating, he couldn’t tell where things were if they weren’t touching the ground.
The explosions were close enough that he felt the warmth tickle his skin. Vinnie was yelling, saying something in that musical, wobbly language, but Tillie couldn’t turn around or stop. He just kept running and running and running until he finally slowed down and collapsed against a tree, exhausted. He must have run for miles as he heard and felt nothing from where he came, no scent in the air from the center and no rumblings in the ground.
He confirmed he wasn’t gooping, touching his limbs and toes to make sure they were solid, then leaned his head against the tree. There was so much going on here. A sticky smell that reminded him of the tree he leaned against. A fluttering of a bird landing in the tree. There was a small creature, something fuzzy and quick, running across the dirt around 10 feet away before it pushed through a bush, the leaves rustling against themselves before stilling.
The sun was rising, the heat slowly filling him from his head down to his toes until he was bathed in the warmth. A breeze passed over him, bringing scents of someplace new. It smelled like cooked meat and leafy water, burning wood and the scent of people. Many people of all shapes, all kinds. His stomach rumbled. He pushed himself to stand, dusting off his torn pants and making sure the moneybag at his waist was still firm.
He picked the direction towards the scents, licking his wounded hand to clean it. He didn’t know where he was going. He knew very few things, in fact. So there was no reason not to go everywhere. He wasn’t going to be tied down again, or told what to do. He was going to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and fuck everyone else. Nobody could stop him anyway.
He straightened a bit at that thought, satisfaction settling in his stomach like a warm meal. He was stronger than anyone he’d ever met. He was bigger, and smart. He knew when not to eat someone, so he could talk to people. He could control himself. But nobody else was ever going to control him again.
A failed experiment, Tillie is mimic made and staggers along the razor thin edge of beast and man, attempting to find stability and hoping to find a place he is accepted as he is rather than who others want him to be.
Note: This is his backstory and I've used a different format idea. This is more akin to a short story/novella with full chapters rather than a small essay.
The first thing Tillie ever remembered was a sense of liquid around him, floating in something that damped vibrations and made it impossible to understand where he was. The next was feeling a thicker, better fluid on his claws, something that smelled tasty, and screaming that was so loud it was overwhelming before he felt his body begin to melt and he lost thoughts once more. He learned what it was like to speak through jaws of bone that lacked lips, his tongue prehensile enough to help make his speech understandable, and he learned that no matter how good it felt to sink his claws into flesh, he shouldn’t do that. It took beast-like training for him to finally listen, shocks and collars that stung his neck before he obeyed sullenly, doing what he was told.
He was intelligent enough that he knew they treated him like a tool, something they made and not something they considered a person. He hated them for it, lashing out and damaging expensive equipment and snapping bones until the lightning zinging through his body made him writhe on the floor, clawing at the collar and hissing in pain before he lost consciousness as his body fell apart. He always came back though, in that same floating liquid that left him confused and frustrated.
The experiments were not purposely cruel, but they cared little for Tillie’s pain. He was forced to run and run until he could run no further, legs smearing into the ground before he puddled on the floor in a wet glop. He was forced to tell them what vibrations rang through the ground, what the material was made of, how fast it moved. He was told to destroy what was before him, but that was one he enjoyed.
It didn’t matter what they set him against, big dogs, bears, men with armor and swords, he fought until he either killed or he found himself back in the floating tube. They liked it when he won, tittering and speaking and their hearts were fast, beating more and more and tempting him to try to eat them just to feel the way it stopped in his grip, but he began to keep himself in check more often than not. Not that they noticed or cared, they only wanted to see him obey, they didn’t want to know that he was thinking or had opinions.
The scientist called Vinnie seemed to care, but Tillie didn’t believe it. If he cared, then he’d let Tillie go, stop the needles piercing his skin every day, stop the shocks that stung and left his sense of the world dulled from burned skin. But Vinnie didn’t stop them. He said he did, oh he said many things, like “you’re not a failure” and “I consider you my son” and “I love you” but nobody would care for a beast like Tillie, not when there were more experiments coming after him. If he was enough, then there didn’t need to be more, but they never stopped. Some of them failed, died miserable, pathetic deaths with voices he could hear echoing in the hallways and rooms, others so silently that he knew they existed only when he felt their heart stop beating through the floor.
They were most excited when he ended up killing a particular man set before him. He was different in some way, something that Tillie didn’t know. Few people weren’t the same, but he never knew how. Some were taller, some were heavier, some smelt different, and some were shorter. But this one that he had beneath him, gleefully tearing to pieces in search of that fat, pulsing muscle in his chest, this one was bigger. He licked at a claw to clean it, a jolt going down his spine. This was new; something about the blood electrified his body.
He licked at his hands more, cleaning them of blood and slurping at the body after throwing aside the metal covering the flesh. Cracking through the bones— devouring the meat— Tillie snarled as his skin grew hot, his tail lashed and burned as it grew shorter, his claws fading into short, stubby nails. Something was hurting his head, something like heat but didn’t burn and he covered his face. There was something different. He had something in the middle that he breathed through, his mouth was still the same as before, the raw bone jaws, but the things under his hands hurt the most, two small, soft orbs above the protrusion he breathed with.
Tillie whimpered; pulling his hands away just made the not-heat not-cold stinging worse. The scientists were patient for once, watching him silently. He felt a hand on his shoulder, spinning away and lashing out with a hand but met nothing but air. He felt someone walk in front of him before stopping. The thing before him was short, thin, and made of something that hurt his face less. A blanket was thrown over his head and the pain began to fade. Vinnie sat in front of him, uncaring that Tillie was still straddling the eviscerated man with gore all over him.
Tillie blinked and the wet things were soothed, lowering his hands slowly. He blinked again and again as he adjusted to this new sense. It didn’t tap against his skin like vibrations, it didn’t smell, or taste, or hear. It was something completely different; Vinnie called it sight and said he was proud of Tillie. Tillie didn’t understand.
He was able to copy others. He couldn’t be Hao the elf, but he could have skin that matched his color, have hair that was a different hue and texture. He could be taller, but he would always have two eyes, a nose, and his jigsaw mouth. But apart from that, he could see when he copied them, and he could look as if all of the people were mixed together and traits were pulled from a big pot at random. It happened with anyone that they let him lick, or bite, or eat. He could be anything that walked on two legs, had two arms, had a head, and was intelligent. He couldn’t be a wolf or a dragon, but he could be an elf, or a human, or an orc, or any other race as long as he had something from them. He was sick when they tried combining multiple races’ blood, but when there was only one source he was able to shift. All of them had a sense so foreign to him: sight. They called him Doppelganger.
He learned about the others that were made and that he was the first. They were better, more obedient, more pliant to their whims. The second to live was slow to grow but stable and had no issues with his form melting. It was stupider, but stronger; its name was Telemral and it was an Aberration according to Vinnie, the scientist who spoke to Tillie most. Tillie was angry, lashing out again and again until he was restrained against metal with manacles on his limbs.
And then there was the next one, the one they were so excited about. It spoke, and it was smart, and it could be whatever it wanted to be. They called it Glaukos. Glaukos was so obedient, listened to what they wanted so well, was so good and it made Tillie retch to hear praise heaped on the little bastard. He was a Changeling and he could copy people and be so perfect at it— even Tillie couldn’t tell them apart. Their voices echoed in the rooms, they walked the same, the weight matched, the scent was perfect, and it made Tillie furious. He could even have lips! Tillie couldn’t and knew that he wasn’t enough. He could shift his form, but not as well as Glaukos. He could be a person, but not that person.
Tillie paced the room when he was left alone to be himself, when he wasn’t the center of attention for more poking and prodding. Nobody cared about him anymore when Tillie was a disappointment compared to Glaukos. They just wanted to play with Glaukos and ooh and aah over him, and it made them neglect their duty toward Tillie. Tillie waited until they were focused on something else, maybe Glaukos, he didn’t care, but once they were completely ignoring him, it was time.
Tillie had learned how the lock on his door worked, especially since they kept needing to replace it when he began to destroy it. But this time, he had figured out something that didn’t involve the lock at all; he could destroy the hinges of the door instead. His claws were enough to scratch at the metal, but a lax technician had left a needle behind and using that meant he wouldn’t dull his nails. She hadn’t meant to leave it, of course, and she had remembered to take the syringe, but the needles they needed to use to get through Tillie’s thick skin meant that the needle was a fairly decent size, perfect for pulling up the head of the hinge pin to slide it out.
He was quiet, careful. His claws clicked against the ground softly, growling to himself in irritation at the sound. His tail flicked back and forth as he focused on what he heard and felt. He knew his senses were stronger than the scientists’, but he was wary nonetheless. There had been more than enough times that he had run gleefully through what he had thought were empty hallways only to be caught on some magical switch that made alarms blare. But now he could feel them, though it was very hard to listen. It had a particular kind of hum, an uncomfortable sort of feeling that made his skin crawl. He couldn’t take his time to find all of them, he already knew he was pushing his luck when he wasn’t caught immediately.
He struggled in place; he could rush to get out and hope he didn’t trigger any traps, or he could sneak around and possibly take too long. He tapped his claws along the wall to get a sense of where people were. Close, and coming closer. He had to decide now.
He spun around and began to run, nails digging into the stone tiles and leaving gouges, barreling into walls and snarling when he felt some glass vial break and the contents burn his skin. He wiped it off roughly; already he heard his jailers running after him, yelling about needing to go back into his room or else they would force him. Tillie didn’t care— he’d either get out or he’d goop and be captured once more. At this point his fate was already in the air. He may as well keep running and hope to get out into the open air again, feel the sunlight and warmth sink into him like a warm blanket.
Glass crunched under his hands as he slammed into a window, pausing for just a moment when he felt a swirling emptiness beyond. It wasn’t sterile out there, it smelled like dirt and leaves, the air rushing past him in a brisk wind. It felt cool out there, but not the cool of the inside of the building. It felt cool like lazily melting ice. He wanted that. He ripped at the remaining glass, uncaring of the wounds it dug into his palms and sides as he struggled to get out. He was too big and the window too small, snarling and snapping at the sill to try and widen it enough for him to escape.
He screamed when he felt the piercing needles of the zapper, bloody hands grabbing at them and ripping them out to throw them back at the attacker. Giving up on the window, he turned instead towards his jailers and leapt forward with murder on his mind. He was mid-air when he was suddenly back in the floating tube, any sense of time in between lost.
Tillie was watched more carefully now. He didn’t speak anymore, even when the scientists tried to shock him and force him, answering only with violence and growling snarls. Eventually, Vinnie came by, probably as some sort of last resort to get Tillie to speak. Tillie sulked as Vinnie spoke, pushing his uneaten food away and refusing to answer any questions.
Vinnie said that, in his escape attempt, Glaukos had managed to get out. Of course it was Glaukos, the piece of shit that didn’t deserve anyone’s attention, didn’t deserve the awe in the scientists’ voices. He was small and could copy people, so when Tillie made a mess he had a perfect opportunity to slip out. Vinnie apologized a lot, which Tillie didn’t acknowledge, and said that he didn’t want Tillie to be hurt. Part of Tillie wanted to kill Vinnie for pretending to act like he cared.
He noticed the way that Tillie avoided putting weight on a toe, asking, not demanding, that Tillie let him look. Tillie refused for a couple of days until the glass shard still embedded in his toe bean made him want to rip it out himself, letting Vinnie look with an angry, unbroken silence. He didn’t speak the entire time that Vinnie pulled it free, using magic to whisk it out instead of the scalpels and needles that the others always used to cut him open. Vinnie petted his foot gently and Tillie flinched, expecting something sharp and painful, but nothing came of it. He let his foot rest again on Vinnie slowly, wary. Vinnie petted the rough skin, speaking about things that didn’t matter until Tillie’s tail began to thwap at the ground, pleased that he wasn’t being forced to do anything. He could just listen.
Slowly, Vinnie began to truly win Tillie’s trust. There were still experiments, but fewer over time. Vinnie was able to visit more often, offering him meat that was still questionably warm from wherever he got it from, which Tillie appreciated. He even gave Tillie live prey, quick little hooved things and heavy, squealing beasts that were satisfying to shred, the crack of bones pleasing and keeping his teeth sharp. With the new diet, his skin even began to soften slightly, something the others never bothered to think about, though the spiky growths caused by the needles didn’t shrink. The wet pulse of blood and life leaving his prey was invigorating and he began to grow even stronger, bigger, now that his body was getting what it needed on a more regular basis.
He still refused to speak, but Vinnie didn’t push him anymore. He brought little vials of blood for Tillie to take or not as he liked. When he did, he was a new shape every time, even if it was from the same person multiple times. He could wrangle the transformation into something similar when he wanted to, or keep it for longer periods before he lost control of it, but he never could truly choose the form.
He struggled with sight sometimes, the sense overwhelming for a day before it became useful in new forms. He vomited the time that Vinnie had given him blood from someone with four eyes, the dizzying spin of so many angles sickening. From then on, Vinnie only gave him human blood. It was easier to get, he said. More humans were out in the world than many other races.
He learned to read and to write, the pens and papers feeling ungainly in his hands when he was transformed. He was frustrated when he returned to himself, the fragile instruments snapping in his grip without meaning to, throwing them away and sulking. He couldn’t write when he couldn’t see anyway. But Vinnie was patient and the laboratory began to slow even more with fewer people walking about. He could count the number left on both hands, few enough that he could probably escape without problem. Vinnie said the center was losing funding, whatever that meant.
Vinnie taught him what it would be like outside casually, talking about things he had done and people he had met as if he weren’t giving Tillie the knowledge he needed to live outside the walls. Tillie wasn’t sure if it was meant to be as informative as it was or if Vinnie was just talking for the sake of talking.
There were so many places out there, places of bitter cold and searing heat, high mountains with wind swirling on the peaks and buried lands deep, deep underground with nothing but the weight of the earth above. There were beaches and oceans and abysses miles and miles deep until nothing there knew of light and could only understand their environment through touch or scent. Tillie paid keen attention to that until Vinnie explained that Tillie would, unfortunately, not be able to survive there. The pressure was too high and Tillie couldn’t breathe underwater. That started a new round of mutual experiments to see if he could breathe as a merman could, and the answer was yes, but that transformation faded away much quicker. The blood was thin compared to that of the land walking folk, Vinnie said, so it must be used up much quicker.
Vinnie vanished for a few days. Then a week. People were returning to the center, people Tillie never knew and had never smelt before. The laboratory was warming up again and it frightened Tillie. He never said so but when Vinnie returned, Vinnie knew. They were coming to make more, Vinnie said with a quiet, angry voice. More creatures that they would use and experiment on and hurt to try and make another Glaukos, or even another Telemral. But Vinnie didn’t know what they would do with Tillie. He had been resistant to their desires, too violent to trust, and too unstable to fight consistently. Vinnie was the only one to keep him alive. Or at least, Vinnie said so. Tillie kept that doubt in mind but said nothing of it. If he really was useless, they would have just killed him.
One night, Tillie heard his door open quietly. The hinges smelt of rendered fat rather than oil, the metal gliding against itself and hiding the sound. Tillie was on his feet, ready to fight and almost jumped forward before he realized it was Vinnie. Relaxing only a little, he waited for an explanation. Experiments never happened at night and he was left alone almost all the time now. Something was different.
Vinnie said it was time to leave. Tillie didn’t understand but when Vinnie repeated it, Tillie moved forward towards him. Vinnie was small compared to him. He had never really thought about that before, the way that he towered over Vinnie. Temptation to leap forward and bite until there was nothing left went through his mind but he stopped himself, clenching his hand and driving a claw into the soft meat of his thumb. Vinnie whispered to be quiet, to follow, and not to speak until they were free.
Free. Free as in freedom, Vinnie said. Outside of these walls and away from the people inside. He was going to destroy it once Tillie was out. He said he was sorry but he had helped Telemral escape first and that was why he’d been gone for a while. Jealousy coursed through Tillie like flame, but another claw dug into his palm and he kept his calm. When they were out in the open, Vinnie explained, Tillie needed to run as far as he could. He was given a necklace with a symbol on it.
“Don’t lose this. Never, ever lose it. Please,” Vinnie pleaded, the wind blowing his hood around. The fabric made gasping sounds as it caught and lost the wind. Vinnie’s hand was still holding onto Tillie, his hand just barely larger than Tillie’s palm and cool compared to humans. The pendant was small, difficult to keep hold of in his grip. It was round with a raised oblong oval in the center, perhaps the size of the tip of his finger. He curled his fingers around it tightly, blood from his hand smearing against it.
“They’re going to come after me, and they’re going to threaten me, and probably try to kill me. Do not turn around. Do not come back. I will be fine. I’ll find you again one day, I swear I will.” Vinnie’s hand grasped Tillie’s curled fingers more tightly. “If you need me, rub the pendant. Think about me and I will come.”
Tillie shifted his fingers to grasp the pendant carefully, lowering down to a knee and bending his head. Vinnie tied it around his neck, then pressed a bag in his hand. It smelled metallic and there was a clink of metal inside. “This is money. Remember when we talked about that?” Tillie nodded. “I put in a paper with how much some things are worth so nobody lies to you. Food is cheap.”
Tillie touched the pendant. There was more to it than just Vinnie. He could feel the heat of others through the metal, the way the magic pulsed with the beat of hearts. He opened his mouth, tongue slipping out, and spoke. The words were hoarse, unused for so long, and slightly stuttering. “Who else is in this?”
He felt Vinnie’s heart skip a beat. “Telemral. And….” Vinie hesitated. Tillie’s hand twitched. If he just grabbed Vinnie and squeezed, he’d say what he meant and he’d stop trying to lie, but Vinnie spoke before he moved. “And Glaukos.”
Tillie snarled, pulling away from Vinnie and raising a hand to yank the pendant off. He didn’t want to be connected to that perfect little bastard. Vinnie caught his hand, babbling and desperate. “Please! They’re not as strong as you— Glaukos is weak and soft! Telemral isn’t smart like you! They need someone they can rely on, someone strong that can help them! Tillie, please! I beg of you!”
Tillie’s hand stopped, the leather cord just before its breaking point, taut enough to make a sound if plucked. “I’m… I’m better?”
“Yes!” Vinnie’s hand was shaking over his, heart beating like a rabbit’s. “Tillie, you are smart, and fast and strong. You can change and you can hear and feel in ways that they can’t. You are the closest to what the center was trying to make. They were trying to make more of you. They made Telemral and he was stronger, but you’re smarter. They made Glaukos and he can change, but you’re faster. They wanted another you that didn’t melt and would obey. But you’re the best that they— that I— could have hoped for. Please don’t leave them. Don’t leave your brothers alone.” Vinnie breathed shallowly and Tillie could smell the wet salt of tears.
With a half-hearted snarl, he let go of the pendant. It bounced against his chest and clinked against the gem embedded in his flesh. “Brothers?”
Vinnie tied the leather a bit tighter so the metal wouldn’t strike the gem as Tillie moved. “And I’m your father. I— I made you. You don’t have to call me anything. But I love you, and you are my son.”
Tillie huffed irritably. “I’ll lose the necklace.”
“It won’t leave you.” Vinnie pulled on the leather thong. It tugged against Tillie but he was heavier and eventually, Vinnie let go. No, he didn’t let go. It was too sudden for that. It… went through his hand? “Nobody can take it from you. It will fade through their hands. The only one who can take it off is you.”
Tillie touched it again, feeling the shape. There was something carved into the back of the metal. “What is this?”
“It’s the rune magic. If they call for you, you’ll feel it through that. If you call them, they’ll feel it in theirs. You will be able to walk through a portal to get to them if you hold it and answer them.”
“How?”
“Say ‘I answer’ to answer them, and ‘I call’ and then the name you want for assistance.” The language was different than what they normally spoke, something that felt old and bright. Tillie tried to copy it but the sound was difficult for him to say without lips when it seemed to be nothing but whistling noises. Vinnie coached him, jumping when there was a sound behind them, but he waited until Tillie could say it competently.
“Please don’t hate them. Hate me if you must.” Another sound behind them, an explosion. Tillie felt rumblings through the earth as more destruction was happening deep below. Vinnie’s hands were tight on Tillie. “Promise me you’ll answer.”
Tillie grumbled.
“Tillie, please. I ask nothing else from you. If they need help, I might not be able to be there. Please. I’ll do anything.”
Tillie growled but the sincerity in Vinnie’s pleadings made him finally agree. “Fine.”
Vinnie was relieved from the way the tension in his muscles released, though the tremors in his hands only increased. A scent that had been tickling at Tillie for a while became stronger. Vinnie was afraid. “How do I get what you offered?”
“What do you want?”
Tillie thought about it, ignoring the screaming that he could feel warbling the air. “I want to shift better.” Vinnie made a strangled laugh and Tillie was immediately angry. There was nothing funny about the request. His claws dug into the earth, crunching rocks and digging furrows into the stone as he kept himself in check.
“You can do everything better now that you’re out of there. They used magic to weaken you. Anything you could do before, you can do better now. You can’t copy someone, but you can use the same form if you use the same person’s blood.”
Tillie’s tail twisted in the air. Vinnie might be right— he could hear more, smell more than he could in the sterile walls he had left. Maybe he was stronger, even. One thing he had never had, however, was knowledge of what Vinnie was or where he came from. He’d never met someone who smelt like him or walked like him and nobody else ever said what he was.
“What are you?”
“A mimic,” Vinnie said. Tillie’s skin wrinkled in a frown. “An animal, a beast. I used to be a monster, but I was awakened and given intelligence. I’m the only one like me, just like you’re the only one like you.”
“I want your blood.”
Vinnie froze in place. Even his blood felt slower, his heartbeat hesitant and heavy. Tillie felt saliva gather in his mouth, the urge to bite and get the blood himself growing stronger. “It won’t work.”
“What?”
“You won’t be able to copy me. You’re made from me.”
“I want it anyway.” He didn’t say it was so he could track Vinnie down later if he needed to, or that Vinnie’s scent had become comforting. He didn’t even consciously know the second part, but the desire to have a piece of Vinnie close by was resolute.
Vinnie didn’t speak, pulling something from inside his robes. The vibrant scent of blood filled the air as he heard Vinnie grunt in pain, tongue lapping at the wind to get more of the smell. It slurped back into his mouth as he heard Vinnie fumbling for something. The squeaking sound of a cork being pushed against glass was followed by Vinnie’s hand in his, pressing a vial of his warmth into Tillie’s palm. “It’s magic. It won’t dry and it will stay clean as long as you don’t open the vial.”
Tillie patted himself down to find a pocket but Vinnie grabbed the necklace. He pressed the vial against the pendant before saying something in that light language again and it vanished in a small pop that made Tillie jump. “How do I get it back?” Tillie’s voice was edging on panicked; he had been given something precious and now it was taken away almost immediately.
“Open,” Vinnie said and the vial popped back out with the same sound into his palm. “You put it in and out using that word. Say it.” Tillie repeated a couple of times until the pendant obeyed and the vial returned. “You can only put one thing into the pendant.”
Tillie turned his head to the side, the vibration in the ground growing stronger, more threatening. “They’re coming.”
Vinnie patted Tillie’s shoulders until he knelt down more, pressing his forehead against Tillie’s. “I love you so, so much. Please never doubt that.” He pulled away, turning to face the center. “Now go. Run. Don’t come back.”
Tillie paused for a moment. The hesitation was enough for Vinnie to notice. “I said, GO!” Some power pushed at Tillie and his muscles began to obey before he realized what was happening. He couldn’t feel Vinnie; he wasn’t touching the ground anymore. Tillie hated that. He hated flying, or floating, he couldn’t tell where things were if they weren’t touching the ground.
The explosions were close enough that he felt the warmth tickle his skin. Vinnie was yelling, saying something in that musical, wobbly language, but Tillie couldn’t turn around or stop. He just kept running and running and running until he finally slowed down and collapsed against a tree, exhausted. He must have run for miles as he heard and felt nothing from where he came, no scent in the air from the center and no rumblings in the ground.
He confirmed he wasn’t gooping, touching his limbs and toes to make sure they were solid, then leaned his head against the tree. There was so much going on here. A sticky smell that reminded him of the tree he leaned against. A fluttering of a bird landing in the tree. There was a small creature, something fuzzy and quick, running across the dirt around 10 feet away before it pushed through a bush, the leaves rustling against themselves before stilling.
The sun was rising, the heat slowly filling him from his head down to his toes until he was bathed in the warmth. A breeze passed over him, bringing scents of someplace new. It smelled like cooked meat and leafy water, burning wood and the scent of people. Many people of all shapes, all kinds. His stomach rumbled. He pushed himself to stand, dusting off his torn pants and making sure the moneybag at his waist was still firm.
He picked the direction towards the scents, licking his wounded hand to clean it. He didn’t know where he was going. He knew very few things, in fact. So there was no reason not to go everywhere. He wasn’t going to be tied down again, or told what to do. He was going to do what he wanted, when he wanted, and fuck everyone else. Nobody could stop him anyway.
He straightened a bit at that thought, satisfaction settling in his stomach like a warm meal. He was stronger than anyone he’d ever met. He was bigger, and smart. He knew when not to eat someone, so he could talk to people. He could control himself. But nobody else was ever going to control him again.
