⠀⠀ truth be told, veritas has been her acquaintance for a while & they have had more run-ins than she would have liked. milou mingate has no need for companionship ⠀ ⸺ ⠀ you are either of use, or you will be left to wonder whether you have imagined her existence when she is done with you. even so, there is a problem with longstanding allies ⠀ ⸺ ⠀ your initial investment will eventually expire & you will need to raise the stakes. the longer the transaction goes on, the easier it will be for familiarity to settle & the margin of error to expand.

yet no matter how careful you are; sometimes a gamble must be taken.

⠀⠀ ❝ the world’s end tavern may be the laughter’s breeding ground, ❞ ⠀ & how she would know so better than anyone else, ⠀ ❝ but at the end of the day; it’s still a tavern. when you run your own, you get quite a good feeling on how they operate … or well, any business in the line, for that matter. ❞ ⠀ she motions towards the bartender, the sparkle in her eyes telling them all they need to know. even among fellow fools, her identity is no open secret. those that are aware know how much they are ( rather aren’t ) allowed to loosen their lips. the rest simply knows mingate as a fellow fool; albeit one you do not ask too many questions about.

 her  prompt  inspires  a  tilt  of  beguilement,  where  a  curl  of  amaranthine  —  under  the  glow  of  the  tavern  and  the  hue  of  the  laughter  —  grazed  lightly  across  his  forehead.  ❝  hm.  ❞  mused  he,  mulling  her  atypically  innocuous  probe.  ❝  i  happened  upon  a  riddle.  ❞  the  doctor  answered,  as  innocently  as  she.  ❝  i  cracked  it,  naturally,  and  —  as  you  can  see  —  i  ended  up  here.  ❞  there  was  no  need  for  gesture  or  fanfare;  the  world’s  end  spoke  for  itself.  a  simple  glance,  or  even  a  whiff  was  enough  to  gather  the  proclivities  of  the  laughter.

 though,  oblivious  he  is  not  to  the  hidden  and  perhaps  barbed  reservation  laced  between  her  strung  words.  the  crux  of  the  matter,  and  what  he  could  only  gather  was  the  reason  behind  the  summons  of  mingate.

 still,  he  drags  out  the  mutual  knowledge  that  dangles  between  them.  until  the  ice  clinks  in  his  glass,  breaking  him  out  of  his  artificial  reverie.

 ❝  perhaps,  ❞  began  a  timbre,  thick  as  the  viscous  fluid  that  coated  their  tongues;  prying  apart  the  silent  shroud  that  had  settled  over  them.  before  he  leaned  in,  and  parted  his  lips  to  tinge  her  ear  with  his  advice.  ❝  if  mitternacht  integrated  a  similar  system,  i  would  be  more  inclined  to  grace  you  with  my  presence.  ❞

 to  ridicule  the  mistress,  was  akin  to  signing  a  death  wish.  but  such  was  a  side  effect  of  indulging  in  the  beverage  mixed  by  the  hands  of  elation.  or  it  would  have  been  if  the  professor  had  been  a  normal  patron  (  which  he  was  not  )  .

　"With all the whirring from the nearby building? I highly doubt it." He did happen to catch his mutter and would not miss the opportunity to give his input. "If the tuning of their hearing system was that powerful, we'd have been found through our footsteps alone by now."

　It's a simple guess taken from personal accounts, anyway. His sound sensors' input was fairly well calibrated and tuned (courtesy of the man himself), but it was still nowhere near as potent as the other stipulated for androids to have. He'd like to think his parts were a little more advanced in quality than those of the old machines hunting them down—or at least, he was certain he was a pretty new and even personalised model himself. He could not recall much of that.

　With a sigh, he yet opted to simply comply, if only to give his companion some peace of mind. "Alright, fine. But you will promise to try relaxing a little once we've reached the checkpoint, yes?"

　He slipped the camera inside his bag and turned to walk towards the exit, stopping for a moment to peek up at the man in his readied stance, faux-opticals seeking the other's eyes on the passing. "…And don't fall too behind along the way, will you? Wasting your very mortal life to protect a machine does not suit your character." Then, he passed the threshold out of the place before any retort could be given. At the very least, irritation would distract the professor from whatever was keeping him so on edge during this scouting mission.

 if  only  the  android  had  known,  the  very  words  that  were  imparted  by  fabricated  tissue;  absent  of  the  pulse  and  warmth  —  he  once  carried  —  had  been  the  driving  force  that  led  to  the  swing  of  the  executioner’s  blade.  all  for  the  sake  of  a  mortal  that  disguised  himself  as  a  machine.

 no.  he  could  not  dwell  on  it.  his  participation  in  its  his  inception  had  been  an  answer  in  itself;  sentencing  himself  to  carry  the  burden  of  resurrecting  a  false  memory,  even  if  the  weight  became  too  much  to  bear.  so,  he  shouldered  primitive  gear,  to  defend  the  pinnacle  of  advanced  technology.

 heh.  the  irony.

 they  had  done  this  dance,  several  times  now.  it  was  second  nature  as  they  navigated  the  fray,  taking  to  the  stage  with  a  performance  that  had  been  choreographed  solely  for  the  unusual  duo  —  of  man  and  machine.

 a  spark  fizzled.  a  clang  rang  out.  drawing  more  numbers;  easy  targets.  before  the  dismantled  instruments  collapsed  in  a  boneless  heap.  their  steps  were  light,  nimble,  and  precisely  the  measurement  that  allowed  them  to  bypass  the  active  sensors  that  sought  out  motion  or  a  heat  signature.  but  they  did  not  disturb  the  terrain,  nor  did  they  disrupt  the  line  of  sight  that  were  displayed  on  the  running  HUDs.

 it  was  a  symphony.  a  harmony  that  had  once  been  conjured  as  a  faraway  dream  by  a  naïve  child  or  a  senile  man  on  his  death  bed.  deemed  to  be  an  impossibility  by  the  masses.

 finally,  the  dust  settled.  the  metal  was  but  scraps  and  the  wiring  torn;  sputtering  with  their  last  breaths  before  the  circuitry  had  run  dry.  providing  the  window  for  the  two  to  slip  past  unnoticed.  ❝  status  report.  ❞  came  a  voice  belonging  to  the  last  living  thing  on  the  grounds.

 entrance  to  the  checkpoint  was  but  a  brief  reprieve,  but  rest,  nonetheless.  the  doctor  would  perform  his  routine  inspections,  prepared  to  heal.  to  repair.  that  was  the  rhythm  they  had  adopted,  that  was  the  schedule  that  kept  them  from  falling  apart.

 but  as  his  eyes  carved  their  typical  observations  and  scrutiny,  the  practitioner’s  gleam;  embodying  the  dawn,  paused  on  the  region  that  housed  the  source  responsible  for  aventurine’s  earlier  mischief.

❝  rage,  maybe  rage  would  lift  me  up,  make  me  stand,  make  me  walk—  ❞

#𝙳𝙰𝚁𝙺𝙱𝙴𝚃𝚂   an  independent  +  highly  selective  multi  muse  featuring  diluc  ragnvindr  from  hoyoverse's  genshin  impact  as  revered  by  ray  ᵉˢᵗ   ²⁰²⁵   this  blog  is  unaffiliated  with  a  majority  of  the  fandoms  included  in  its  roster  &  many  of  the  characters  written  are  based  on  personal  headcanons.  running  on  aest. 

 ❝  no.  ❞  lu  guang  croaked,  with  an  ache  that  echoed  on  the  tail  end  of  his  outburst.  ❝  no  doctor.  ❞  assertion  carried  in  his  announcement,  ordering  his  friend  —  turned  —  caretaker  to  dismiss  such  a  notion.  ❝  not  after  being  discharged.  it’s  too  soon…  to  go  back.  ❞  with  a  dwindling  voice  and  complete  lassitude,  lu  guang  failed  to  verify  his  own  utterances,  slipping  phrases  that  he  would  have  caught  otherwise;  praying  that  ambiguity  masked  the  hidden  truth.

 in  his  debilitated  state,  lu  guang  resorted  to  minimal  efforts  —  parting  his  lips  at  the  insistent  press  of  the  tablet,  replaced  by  the  slide  of  a  stream,  rushing  down  his  throat.  he  swallowed  despite  feeling  utterly  enervated,  forcing  himself  to  undergo  cheng  xiaoshi’s  medical  instructions.

 but  even  in  his  lethargic  condition,  sapped  by  the  systemic  malady,  lu  guang’s  stubbornness  —  an  immovable  pillar  —  won  out.

 emitting  another  anguished  groan,  the  eyes  of  their  small  cadre  adjusted  himself  against  the  plush  surface  of  the  sofa,  shifting  from  the  imprint  his  prone  position  had  indented  intending  on  sitting  up.  until  another  flash  of  crimson  flitted  across  his  vision,  sending  lu  guang  to  collapse  into  the  couch  —  and  although  it  was  a  soft  landing,  it  felt  like  a  thunderclap  to  the  febrile  male.

 blinking  away  the  residual  vermillion,  his  gaze  fixed  on  his  true  companion,  erasing  any  trace  that  was  reminiscent  of  the  foul  stench  of  hotpot  meat.  ❝  i  might  have  caught  something,  ❞  lu  guang  offered,  as  if  to  spare  cheng  xiaoshi  of  any  further  reason  to  furrow  his  brows  and  purse  his  lips.  ❝  in  the  hospital.  ❞  he  reasoned,  as  if  the  idea  of  such  a  common  occurrence  might  be  convincing  enough  for  the  gaze  of  scepticism  planted  on  his  person.