#tcotm

Despite all things, you eventually find yourself falling into the familiar rhythm of routine once more. As far as promises go, Dottore makes good on his word— you are spared the ordeal of having to facilitate his experiments again, much to your relief. He insists, however, that you remain in his office as you work, silently daring you to challenge him in the space after the statement.

You don’t.

In the end, you find yourself skirting the edges of his attention, tucking yourself into the corners of his office and busying yourself with the tasks he gives you. Halfway through tidying up his notes and documents, careful not to crinkle the edges of the papers, you’re faced with the realisation that you’ve taken on the role of some sort of personal assistant.

You’re not sure why he’s entrusted you with this. Was this another test? Or were you simply not a liability to him— easily disposed of if anything went south? You switch off your train of thought before it can head down that avenue. Dottore doesn’t seem to complain about your work, so you decide to take it at face value and try not to overthink it.

Days pass with relative peace and you’re grateful for the respite. Aside from treatment sessions and mealtimes, you don’t see Dottore at all— you can hear him just beyond the office door, however, the sound of equipment clattering and (occasionally) voices speaking reaching your ears with relative clarity. It’s not your intention to eavesdrop but you hear things nonetheless— promptly trying to forget them immediately after.

Delta comes in once and watches you from a corner of the room with such frightening intensity that it takes everything in you not to shrink away. You’re not sure how long he remains there, red eyes piercing into your bowed head as you work, but eventually he mutters something that sounds like a declaration of how boring this was and strides out, the slam of the door masking your ragged exhale.

Perhaps you’d forgotten that this was his office, but the fact is quickly reestablished one day when the door slams open and he steps in, covered in blood and leaning heavily against the doorframe.

You jump at the sight, nearly dropping the sheaf of notes you’d been about to lay down. “Dottore,” you say, voice pitched slightly higher than usual. “Are you… alright?”

He draws himself up to his full height for a moment before his shoulders slump again, and you really do drop the notes this time— on the desk, thankfully— rushing forward in time right before he staggers.

You drape his arm over your shoulders to hold him up, your other arm looping around his waist for support as you shift him to the couch in the corner. You’re too engrossed in the task to notice how the blood smears on your clothes as well, but he does. 

Once you’ve settled him with some difficulty, you hover there for a moment, lips pressed thin in concern. “What do you need, Lord Harbinger?”

“I’m fine.”

You pause, eyebrows drawn together. “But the blood—”

“Is not mine.”

You can believe that, but your eyes are suspicious as you glare at him, taking in the unnatural pallor of his skin and how the scars that show from the edge of the mask seem more pronounced than usual in conjunction to the gore splattered across his face. Specifically the one across his lips.

Dottore smirks when he catches you staring, the corners of his mouth turning up. Your eyes instantly rip themselves away and you fight down the embarrassed flush that threatens to rise. “But you—”

“Composer,” he holds up a hand to halt you. “Just quiet down and give me a moment.”

You subside. “I’ll be right back.”

He watches you leave the room, hears the taps in his laboratory switch on and off. You return with a bucket of warm water and a clean cloth you’d found folded in a cabinet, walking over to him again.

“What are you doing?” he asks, vaguely amused as you sink to your knees in front of him and dip the cloth into the bucket.

“What do you think,” and you can’t hold back the sarcastic edge in your reply, ducking your head to avoid eye contact as you wring the excess water out. “You can use this to clean the blood off your face and hands.”

“No.”

You raise your head, looking at him for a moment. “You’re going to walk around the Palace like this?”

His grin widens, and you catch the gleam of teeth. “I never said that. Aren’t you supposed to be making yourself useful?”

The breath you’d been taking chokes itself in your throat when it dawns on you. “What.”

“Do it for me,” he beckons, the undercurrent of amusement never leaving his voice. “Go on.”

You grit your teeth before you can say something irrevocably reckless.

Coming from someone who was on the brink of collapse mere minutes ago, your arrogance truly remains unscathed, Lord Harbinger.

Instead, you move to comply, fumbling to remove as much of the sanguine that stains his gloves as possible— though you’re sure they’ll still need to be sent for proper cleaning— before dragging them off his hands entirely and setting them down to roll up his sleeves, hoping your fingers don’t tremble as you sponge at the skin there too. Most of the blood is on his clothes, so you’re spared from trying to remove much of the damage, though you’ve gotten better at not wanting to implode each time your skin makes direct contact with his.

Regardless, you’re arguably nervous when you move up to his collarbones and neck, the damp cloth staining crimson as you clean off the blood there too. You don’t let your hands linger, barely allowing yourself to look at him as you polish the silver ring of his harness until it’s clean again. The tension rises between the both of you until it's practically suffocating, and the water in the bucket tints pink as you wring it out and dip it in again.

When you glance up again, you freeze.

Dottore raises an eyebrow at you, the mask he’d just removed dangling from his fingers. When he speaks, his voice is matter-of-fact and decisively imperious.

“Wouldn’t this make your ministrations easier?”

Condescension aside, you hate that he has a point.

Tentatively, you reach forward. The cloth is soft against his cheek as you work, bloodstains soon reduced to nothing but a diluted smear against the once-pristine fabric. 

Only unlike earlier, this time you can’t look away, your eyes outlining the contours of his expression, tracing the scar tissue on the upper half of his face— the majority of which seem to be the products of a nasty burn, from your appraisal.

This time, when you feel the razor’s edge of apprehension that sets your nerves alight at his proximity, you realise with sinking horror that it is not fear.

All while scarlet eyes burn into you unflinchingly, searching you. 

You finish wiping his face clean of blood, somewhat in a state of shock from your newfound realisation, preparing to stand and back away hastily. You haven’t even risen when he speaks, still kneeling on the floor. “Are you revulsed by my appearance, Composer?”

I don’t like liars. You’ll do well to remember that.

His expression is blank, completely unreadable. You want to die. 

“I am not.”

“You know better than to speak mistruth to my face.”

“I’m not,” you protest weakly, and heat floods your cheeks as you force the words out. “In fact, I think you’re…”

He pauses. Looks at you, mildly inquisitive, waiting. You’re reminded of a snow leopard before it pounces on its prey, all elegance and sharp teeth. “Don’t mumble. What is it?”

“… Rather attractive, Lord Harbinger.”

You tack the honorific on as an afterthought, the sound of it watery and rather faint. As if it would soften the blow of the sheer mortification you’ve just delivered upon yourself.

Head lowered, you don’t expect his fingers to grasp your jaw, tilting your face up again towards his. You definitely make an undignified little sound at that, however, if the gleam in his eyes is any indication to go off on. “You’re not lying to me,” he states, and you can’t tell if he sounds perplexed or smug. 

Words fail you and you opt to shake your head silently instead, the movement vastly minimised in his grip. Dottore leans closer to you, and you’re paralyzed in a dizzying blend of captivation and consternation, unable to do much else but struggle to keep calm. When the slant of his smile meets you, the racing thoughts in your mind instantly flatline.

You don’t even realise he’s stolen the washcloth directly out of your grasp until he’s pressing a (relatively clean) corner of it to your cheek, imitating the motion you’d used on him earlier as he drags it dangerously near to your lips, other hand still clasping your jaw firmly.

You’re dazed, discomposed. Music notes falling off the staves, harmonies played into disarray. 

“You had some of the blood on your face,” Dottore intones, sounding rather self-satisfied as he releases you. 

You want to slap the smirk off his face. You want to keep looking until you have him memorised as completely as your music, ingrained as deeply as muscle memory. 

The words are a distant thing on your tongue. “…Thank you, Dottore.”

You’re too dazed to realise that you’ve called him by his name twice today as you gather everything up and hurry out of the office. Anything to escape the way he’s looking at you.

~

He must take some mercy on you when you return, because he doesn’t torment you further. Sufficiently more collected, you give him a chilly glare that you hope masks the lingering heat of embarrassment simmering beneath your skin. “What was that?”

“I assume you mean my earlier state,” he grins, crossing his arms. You pointedly do not stare.

You’d never dream of questioning him about anything other than that. “Yes.”

Dottore sighs and gestures at you vaguely, the teasing air replaced with ruthless efficiency in the blink of an eye. “You’ve heard of Delusions, I presume.”

Who didn’t? Still, you remember something. “I’ve skimmed your notes on them briefly.”

“Yes, those.” He surveys you for a moment, pleasantly surprised that you’d taken interest in his research. He had been eager to see how far your curiosity would take you when given access to his notes. 

Furthermore, you expressed no protest nor did you brandish the accusation of blasphemy at him… he continues speaking. “This was simply the toll exerted on me by one such Delusion, as I was testing a prototype out. Wielding it results in a greater amount of power utilised in combat, yet the side effects followed suit, something I have yet to correct.”

You’re undeniably intrigued, recalling the scribbles in the margins and placing them as familiar. “But, Lord Harbinger, I was under the impression that the current archetype was more than adequate and was already being used widespread by the Fatui ranks.” 

“Tch,” he scoffs, gesturing at you. Understanding his request, you locate the notes that concern the topic at hand and pass the sheaf to him. Dottore flips through the pages as you pull out the chair at his desk to take a seat. “The current model is elementary at best, barely beyond basic function. If I merely stopped at adequacy in my work, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

He levels you with a sharp-eyed gaze, one that pierces through you and deciphers the very fibres of your being as if you’re nothing more than a string of equations. “Surely you understand me, Composer.”

You recall hours of practice in an empty concert hall, rewriting notes over and over to soothe your insatiable self-expectations. Aching wrists and numb fingers streaking blood on cello strings.

“… I do,” you admit.

“Of course you do,” he says crisply. “Nonetheless, that’s all there was to this afternoon. I’ll have to go back to tweaking the manufacturing process of the Delusion after this…” 

Dottore launches into a spiel of theories and formulas. Whether you understand him or not— you merely listen to him as he debates prospects and wrangles the nuances of potential adjustments out, scribbling hasty amendments into the pages of his notes as he goes. You won’t say it, but you do find his voice pleasing to listen to.

You don’t ask about the blood on him. You don’t ask just how he had decided to test the prototype out. You have a feeling you won’t like the answer.

Traitorous, your mind flashes back to the memory of Dottore faltering, nearly crumpling to the floor, even if it had only been for a moment. If that was what a singular round of tests could do to him…

The Harbinger catches the look on your face when he slows, that unnervingly charming grin making its way back to his face once again. “Are you worried about me, Composer?”

You can’t lie to him, so you opt not to respond, gazing at him the same way a deer would at prospective headlights. 

The Doctor’s laugh makes your composure crack ever-so-slightly and you curse his name mentally for having flustered you so many times within the span of a single hour.

“How cute,” he tells you, and the distance between the couch and chair suddenly doesn’t feel like enough to properly separate the both of you. “It’ll take more than that to put me out of commission, my dear. Moreover, it’d be rather pathetic if my demise came at the hands of one of my own creations.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?” 

Does his presence ever get less overwhelming?

“I hope you’re having fun,” you tell him scathingly, the words tumbling out before you can soften your tone with respect. Somehow, this only amuses him further.

“I definitely am,” Dottore purrs. You resist the coward’s urge to cover your face. 

“My lord,” you chastise. 

“Better than what you usually call me, but I liked it more when you said my name.”

You surrender and succumb, pressing your face into your hands and letting out a long, exasperated breath into your palms, refusing to look up. He laughs again and you feel it reverberate deep within you, rewriting the rhythm of your pulse. At this rate, you’ll never be free of him.

Nothing in your life has gone quite as planned for the last month or so. This fact further drives itself home a few days later when the door to Dottore’s laboratory slides open and you’re yanked in before you can even knock, still halfway through executing the action. You trip over your feet in a panic from the sudden blur of motion, the hand on your collar hauling you upright before you can tumble over embarrassingly. 

It’s too early in the day for this. Your heart is hammering too fast and you’ve had it. “Lord Harbinger, is your frequent manhandling of me going to become a habit? Because I—”

“Prime allows you to speak to him like this? My.”

A shiver traipses down your spine and mangles the words on your tongue as you freeze. This voice, familiar yet not— you’re reminded of dissonant chords, arguments overheard down the hallways at night. 

When you raise your head, the spark of outrage that flares within you is extinguished in an instant. Instead of the tapered bird mask you’ve grown accustomed to, this one covers his entire face save for the red eyes that bore into your, unblinking. His hair is styled differently, shorter and curlier than what you remember… and the clothes he dons are in a completely different taste from what you’ve seen Dottore wear.

But it’s the same pale hair, the same cadence— though there’s a certain quality of his tone, something shamelessly unhinged in comparison to the arrogant menace that outlines the contours of your patron’s voice. You can see half of his mouth through the bizarre mask, and his teeth are sharper— edges pointed like a shark’s.

You make eye contact and immediately flinch.

Does he also have…?

“You’re not him,” you say rather lamely, pausing as you try to disentangle the fabric of your shirt collar from his white-gloved grip. To your chagrin, he doesn’t let you go.

He lets out a crazed giggle at your disoriented expression and it wreaks pandemonium on your nerves the same way the unpleasant screech of a bow drawn over strings before rosin has been applied would. “Yes I am.”

You must look even more confused now because he lets you go and moves closer at the same time, drawn to your unease like blood in the water. 

You take a wary step away and he closes in. “Where’s Dottore?” you bite out, words curt as alarm rises in the dark of your throat.

“I am Dottore.” You can’t identify any trace of a lie in those deranged eyes, but you’re nonetheless sceptical. “Just not yours, though.” He grins as if he’s just overheard a great joke, but all you feel is danger.

Your gaze scans the room for an exit, trying not to flinch. Something tells you that such a reaction would only spur him on, and you’re a little sick of this perplexing charade— but then he closes in and the backs of your thighs hit the desk, cornered. 

“I called him a fool for this, you know,” he tells you. He’s not touching you, but you still feel trapped like a prey animal in the jaws of a beast. His presence is unpredictable and he’s even more difficult to read by way of sheer uncertainty. 

Mad, your mind supplies, which isn’t a reassuring thought. 

“But I had to come and find out for myself, and now that you’re here, I see it. I do want to…”

He trails off, breaking into another round of snickering. You don’t know what he’s talking about. You don’t know anything, and you’re not sure you’d like to.

“Delta.” Dottore is standing in the doorway to his office, seemingly having just emerged. His voice is scathing.

It comes as a warning but relief slams into you as you’re suddenly given room to breathe, inching away from him— Delta, apparently, who raises his hands in mock surrender. “I was merely curious,” he scoffs. “They’re a pretty little thing, too. Is that what you see?”

“Back to work.” Dottore orders without a single sign of acknowledgement towards the latter’s comments. His tone is final, and the other backs down, obeying with a sneer.

Maybe this really is going to become a standard occurrence, you think to yourself when Dottore’s fingers close around your wrist and he tugs you into his office.

~

The pads of Dottore’s fingers are rough on your skin as he kneads into your wrist again, the caustic heat from the contact twisting through you once more. You want to cower away from the feeling. You want to let it burn you at the stake.

“Does this hurt?” His touch drags over a sore spot and you hiss at the twinge of discomfort that jabs at you. He’s merciless as he works into it until the pain dulls and you exhale, nerves still frayed and tender.

You still have no idea why he’s doing this, insistent on treating you every day. You want to ask what benefit you pose to him, what he could ever gain from the patronage, if you were going to end up as another subject on the dissection table—

Instead, you say, “I have questions.”

“I expected as much,” he responds, not looking up. “Go on.”

“Who was that?”

“Delta.” The corner of his mouth curves up as he responds deadpan, secretly amused. Your eyes narrow.

“No, I know, but—” you try to gesture with your dominant hand and realise that he’s still holding it down, grip vicelike but not abrasive. “He said he was you, but not you.”

“He’s a Segment.” You stare at him uncomprehendingly for a moment, and Dottore goes on. “Simply put, a piece of myself plucked from one of the varying states of my life, given individual consciousness and thought.”

You raise a brow, but you think you can follow. “He called you Prime, earlier.”

“I am the original, the prime,” he tells you, taking your other wrist and beginning to work on that in turn. “The creator.”

You think of red eyes and the subsequent insanity caged within, the remorseless slice of a scalpel through helpless flesh. 

“I see.”

If that’s the case, haven’t you found yourself in a den of wolves? Out of the frying pan and straight into the fire— another thought strikes you. 

“This implies that there are more of you, then?”

You twitch as he digs into a nerve, holding back a gasp. “Yes, there are more. You may run into them occasionally.” 

The way he says it implies discontent, as if it’s an unfortunate fact—

“But remember this, Composer,” He drawls, acerbic and sharp, “You report to me.”

You wonder if the way his voice dips low like a promise can be interpreted as possessive. 

“Yes, Lord Harbinger.”

For all his previous words about how he’s not going to eat you alive, he certainly smiles like he’s about to. “Good.”

~

Technically, Dottore hasn’t forbidden you from leaving the palace. You’ve just been too wrapped up in a daze of fatigue and stress to think about doing anything else for the last month, and now that the Harbinger has ordered you off playing your instruments until your wrists have recovered, you have far too much free time on your hands. Your passing days have been spent reading and revising your old notes and music scores, but lethargy is beginning to settle into your muscles and you’re itching for a change of scenery.

You recall that the strings on your cello are wearing out. There’s a music store in the nearby village that you can get to on foot, and the salary he continues to pay you even as you’re laid off from playing is far more than enough to cover the expenses. It’s settled, then.

Your eyes sweep over your hands, noting the writer’s callus on your middle finger and the ink stain on your palm, somehow lingering longer than yesterday’s blood. The etchings of your cello’s strings are still raw and tender to the touch when your fingertips brush anything, crisscrossed over old scars of the same design. Perhaps you should buy some ointment as well, for the healing. A musician should have well-kept hands and you’ve never truly cared much about the nuances of this knowledge before— but now you have a patron, and he’s the Second Harbinger. You need to remember that.

Once you’ve bundled yourself up and made sure that you’ve obtained all you need for your errand, you slip out of your room and meander down the hallways. It takes you a few wrong turns and doubling back before you find the exit, but you’re halted by the Fatui guards before you.

“On what business are you departing from the Palace?”

You know it’s standard protocol, really nothing personal, so you’re nervous but steady when you respond. “A personal errand,” you tell them, hoping it’s enough. 

Unfortunately, it's not. “Under whose command?”

Anxiety constricts your vocal chords and you hesitate a beat too long to escape suspicion. You wonder if Dottore would mind you using his name for such a small thing, but you hate going off uncertainties—

“They're with me.” Someone’s hand wraps around your shoulder and pulls you into them, but where you expect light hair and a baritone voice, you’re met face-to-face with Columbina, the Third Harbinger. You barely have time to stutter your acknowledgement before she’s sweeping past with you in tow.

Columbina’s smile is sweet and her touch is gentle when she leads you out of the Palace, but you have the inkling that she’s not helping you out of mere goodwill and that whatever she wants, she will obtain.

“My lady,” you begin, and she laughs, the sound blithe and airy. “Why, you delight me with your honorifics! No wonder our Second likes you so.”

Your mind slows to a crawl at that, trying to process the information. “He, he doesn’t— huh?”

“Oh, don’t play the fool,” she admonishes, voice lilting and sweet as a melody. Somehow, your limbs loosen at the sound of it, and tension leaves your shoulders. “You’re his little composer. I’ve heard all about you.”

“You… have?”

The Damselette nods and the seraphim wings on her head flutter excitedly. “But not enough— there are some things I’d prefer to learn from the source themself! Tell me, little bird, where are you headed off today?”

You remain wide-eyed, syrupy daze blanketing your senses like golden honey. Still, you manage to relate the details of your errand to her and tell her your name. Columbina insists on accompanying you on your tasks, and you’re not sure if this spells disaster or not— but there’s little you can do to protest, allowing her to loop her arm into yours as she speaks to you as one would an old friend.

Still, you can’t shake the crawling sense of disquietude that settles over you in her presence. Your mind seems to settle into a state of calm, too docile, too abnormal from your usual racing thoughts. You don’t sense malice from the Dove— but you’ve heard rumours about her lack of mortality and you suspect that it has a part to play in the half-stupor you’re draped in.

She talks to you all the way to your destination and watches inquisitively as you select and pay for the cello strings you’d needed. It’s all lighthearted chatter— you feel as if she’s trying to lull you into a sense of calm as she regales you with her tales, tidbits of palace gossip that make you giggle softly and promises of tea together in the future. It’s only when you’re heading back to the Palace does she finally expose the core of her curiosity. 

“Tell me about him,” Columbina urges, practically promenading at your side from how light her steps seem. You notice that she’s barefoot, silk ribbons winding up her ankles and legs. Despite the snowy wasteland that freezes around you both, the Damselette pays it no heed, skin porcelain-perfect and unscathed by the cold. You can’t help but marvel at her.

“Shouldn’t you know him better than I do?” you ask. “I was under the impression that the Harbingers worked together.”

She laughs and it’s the sound of windchimes, crystal-clear and mellifluous. “Yes, little bird,” she says agreeably, “but I want to know about how he treats you.”

You rack your brain, trying to muster up a reply. “He’s… okay, I guess.”

Columbina tilts her head, encouraging you to elaborate. You heave a sigh.

“When he took me on as my patron,” you continue, “I expected him to be far more… restrictive with his expectations of my work, but so far he’s allowed me to work with only my own creativity as the limit. Except…”

You crack your knuckles, a nervous reflex. The motion of it grounds you, gives your hands something to do as you twist your fingers into each other and fidget. “…I got a little carried away, that first month,” you admit sheepishly, “and he’s forbidden me from playing until my wrists heal.”

The wings on her head twitch in something you’d call curiosity as she angles her head towards you. “Forbidden?”

Why is she smiling? This is the second time today that you feel as if you’re witnessing a secret joke that you’re not privy to.

You tell Columbina vaguely about Dottore’s treatment of your hands and wrists, leaving out the details. Somehow, the memory of his fingers pressing into your skin makes you shudder. Do you fear him so much, that even the mere thought of that scares you? 

Like the Second, Columbina’s eyes are veiled— behind lace instead of metal— yet she regards you knowingly, as if she knows something you don’t. “Interesting,” she chirps, “so very interesting, little bird. Have you met the others?”

You raise a brow. “The other Harbingers? It’s only been you and him, so far.”

“Oh, no, I meant the other versions of him, though I’m delighted to have gotten to you before my co-workers. If only I’d found you before Dottore had…”

For the sake of your own sanity, you decide to take her latter statement as a joke and your laugh joins hers, bright in the afternoon air. “I met Delta earlier,” you affirm, remembering the razor-edged teeth, the flash of pink silk at his neck. Hangman hands closing in on your shirt collar. A shiver traverses the length of your spine and the Dove notices it.

“Ah, that one,” she says, and you can’t quite parse the undercurrent in her voice when she says this— is it fondness? Irritation? Amusement? “He leaves quite the impression, doesn’t he?”

“That’s certainly a way to describe it,” you concur.

“And did your Doctor say anything of it?”

You ignore the twitch of your fingers when she calls him yours; Delta had done the same earlier. “He reminded me that my patronage was under him, and only him.”

An enigmatic smile flashes across her face, pearly teeth showing. “He never did seem like the type who shared.”

“Huh?” Once again, you’re left in the dark.

“No matter,” Columbina disperses it with a flutter of feathers. “Why don’t you take me to your music room, little bird? I’d love to see your instruments, even if you can’t play for me today.”

Agreement comes to your lips easily and she’s delighted— the Damselette sweeps you up into a whirlwind of conversation once more and you let yourself be drawn in. It’s only when you’re back in the Palace and navigating the hallways back to Dottore’s wing that you realise that you’ve completely forgotten to to buy the healing ointment for your fingers. 

~

Columbina’s company is not an unpleasant one, you conclude. It’s undeniable that she’s a little overwhelming and you have the intuitive feeling that crossing her would be an incredibly foolish decision— but conversation flows easily between the two of you and you’re content enough. Perhaps it’s just a testament to how starved you are of human interaction— it’s been weeks since you’ve had any of it, save for your few exchanges with Dottore.

The Dove sits on your piano bench, mouth open in song. It’s fitting considering her title, you think— the sound of her voice fills the room and holds you captive, silvery and resonant. In all your life, you’ve never heard anything like this— like her, spellbound as you listen, enthralled as you restring your cello.

The case is laid open on the polished floors of the music room. You’re kneeling over the neck of the instrument, fingers twisting the tuning pegs to drop the tension of the string. Once it loosens, you tug it from the pegbox and do the same to the fine tuners, extricating the string completely. 

The hem of your shirt goes to wipe at the fingerboard absently as you select the new string, fingers running over the grooves of the instrument’s bridge before you fit it in, tightening it with the pegs. You repeat the process with the other three strings, and Columbina’s voice swoops low, concluding in tandem with your task so that you can tune the cello.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” you begin hesitantly, but she’s already nodding and the note you need spills from her throat, lilting. You draw the bow over your strings as you match the pitch to hers, the rest of the strings tuned in falling intervals from the first

You sit up, gathering the discarded strings up and returning your instrument to its case, quietly satisfied.

“Do you sing, little bird?” Columbina asks. You pause. 

“At times,” you respond cautiously, leaning back on your haunches, hands folding in your lap. 

She clasps her hands together, feigning a swoon. “We must hear you then.”

Suddenly self-conscious, you’re thinking of a gracious way to evade her cajoling when you sense another presence at the door, one you instantly recognize as your spine stiffens.

“Doctor, how lovely,” Columbina croons, unperturbed. “Your little musician was about to sing for us.”

You instantly protest. “N-no, I wasn’t—”

He steps closer and his shadow slides across the floor, fluid as it settles over you and blocks the light behind his looming figure. 

You’re made to tilt your head up to look back at him— and then you realise what he’s staring at, rushing to explain. “I was just replacing my cello’s strings, I didn’t play…” you mutter. “Much.”

His head cocks to the side, judgemental. “Is the issue your excess of free time, Composer? I can always keep you busy if that’s the case.”

The memory of red flashes in your vision and you’re nauseous for a moment, mouth going dry.

“Stop that,” Columbina chides. “You’ll frighten the poor thing.”

Dottore shifts his attention to her, wings fluttering all around her head. “Damselette,” he intones dryly, a hint of sarcasm in the reply. “Is it too much to hope that you stay out of my affairs?”

“Far too much,” she responds, syllables spilling from her tongue like birdsong. “You always accuse me about my meddlesome nature. Isn’t it lovely to be right?”

“You can turn anything into a curse, you harpy,” he grumbles, folding his arms across his chest. Columbina laughs soft and low, hopping off the piano bench where she'd perched. She takes off in a flutter before you can blink twice and you’re left alone with the enigma who had shifted the scope of your entire life within a few weeks. Your fault, perhaps, for signing the devil’s deal.

You regain yourself, latching the case of your instrument shut and valiantly ignoring how you’re still kneeling before Dottore, tension building. “Lord Harbinger, did you come for anything?”

“Dinner,” he reminds you simply, and your eyes widen. He's right, it is evening and whatever little sunlight there is in Snezhnaya is already dimming into twilight; you can see it through the window. 

A gloved hand is offered to you before you can scramble to your feet awkwardly. You eye it dubiously before you place your hand in his and allow him to help you up. 

You gasp as his hand slides further up your arm— so as not to jostle your wrist— and Dottore pulls you forward sharply into him. You stumble and barely avoid colliding into his shoulder, looking up at him with narrowed eyes. You attempt indignation over the invasion of your personal space, but he's far too close for you to pull out all the stops and you're trying to remember how to breathe. “What was that for?”

He shifts, dipping his head so that his lips are at your ear and his voice rolls over you in a shiver, makes you think of a Dionysiac melody, ritualistic madness and religious ecstasy.

“Just to let you know,” he hums, “The offer remains open. You do seem to have a terrible habit of neglecting yourself whenever I leave you to yourself.”

( It’s a hypocrital thing to say, he knows. But in the face of all the alterations he’s made to himself, his reliance on things like sleeping and eating is far less detrimental, barely a cause for concern. You, on the other hand… )

His fingers loosen and you back away to recreate the distance between you, visibly rattled. Your mouth spreads into a thin line, eyes darkening beneath the guise of something unreadable as you glare at him, accusatory. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you.”

It takes every grain of your self-control to remain deathly still when he chuckles, stamping out the shudder that threatens to shake you to the core. “Doing what exactly?”

You fight for articulation, but your mind features only a rising dissonance, notes crashing into each other as you try for words. “Well, I— you know.”

“Let’s say I was doing whatever you’re accusing me of,” he taunts, voice thick with sarcasm. “Is it working?”

You drawn yourself up a little straighter, more rigid. “No.”

The answer is curt, firm, but you read disbelief in the curl of his lips and the flash of his teeth. You don’t realise that you’re staring at his mouth, noting how his teeth are blunter than Delta’s yet hold their own jagged sharpness. Once more, you recall him saying he wouldn't eat you alive, but he could. Carmine irises flash through your mind again and terror licks you down to the bone from the inside out.

He grins when he catches the expression on your face. “Are you scared of me, Composer?”

“No.”

“Liar,” he hisses. Razor-sharp, the smile that widens upon his visage is savage by nature, the embodiment of a demon by design. You know that all the efforts you’ve brought to the table in an attempt to leverage an edge for yourself pales in comparison to the beast before you. “You do fear. You fear me.”

And you can’t look away, because Dottore’s presence rewrites the gravitational pull of your attention whenever he so much as shares a space with you. Magnetic the same way a black hole draws stars towards it, shredding and consuming them with singleminded ruthlessness. Its very nature demands to devour, and you aren’t sure that his own doesn’t follow suit.

To your credit, you manage your terror remarkably well, diminishing it into something that you can swallow back down. Once you understand that denial isn’t an option you can sell convincingly, you resign yourself. “Perhaps,” you admit to him, “but I hope to never reveal the extent of that fear to you.”

“And why is that?” Wicked curiosity meets you with an inquiry, and you square your shoulders firmly.

“You just don’t seem like a very good person to trust, Lord Harbinger.”

He actually laughs at that, and some of the tension between you melts away. “Smart little thing you are, aren't you.”

The dark sky arcing overhead beyond the window seems to bring him back to his original aim in arriving here— when Dottore offers his arm to you in a mockery of courtesy, you take it and allow him to walk you to his office as you rearrange your face back into careful neutrality.

“I don’t like liars,” the Harbinger says abruptly on the way, and you make a mental note of the minute detail, tucking it away. “You’ll do well to remember that.” 

As you lapse into silence, Dottore’s eyes slide to the still-healing wound on your cheek and he stifles a huff of amusement at how you take in the information, a performer ever-so-eager to please. 

Even away from your music, you are just so entertaining.

Dinner is awkward and strained— at least on your part— the Harbinger makes no effort to break the layer of tension that freezes the air between you, though you suppose you should be relieved that he does nothing to worsen the anxiety simmering beneath your skin. Yet.

For the most of it, at least you keep your face blank and your voice relatively steady. He doesn’t seem like the sort to tolerate any display of emotional weakness— and far be it from you to exhibit something so personal, so vulnerable.

The cut on your cheek stings in the cold, dry air. You do your best to ignore it.

You watch him, noting how the mask remains firmly affixed to his visage even as he eats. Your own food is barely touched— it’s good, but your appetite is practically nonexistent as you chew slowly. You’ve noted that each Harbinger presides over a respective wing of the Palace, but you’re not aware of much else other than the understanding that your own residence lies on the outskirts of Dottore’s wing. 

From what you’ve seen (or the lack of), the staff that work under the Second is scant, the hallways mostly deserted of organic life. Sometimes you hear voices from the direction of the research and scientific laboratories, where Dottore’s office lies. 

It perplexes you because the timbre and cadence of the people speaking are always eerily similar, yet their moods and intonations are never quite the same. Discordant in the same way that you’ve heard in some contemporary music pieces, right yet wrong. You can’t quite put your finger on it, the distance distorting what little you could hear until you’d simply given up.

Safe to say, you’ve kept only to your rooms on the same corridor— you dare not venture further. But as Dottore led you through the hallways with nary a glance back to see if you were keeping up, you’d quickly realised that memorising the layout of this area would be in your best interests if you wanted to avoid future inconveniences.

Il Dottore’s voice cuts through the silence as sharp as the knife he holds, slicing his food up with frightening precision. “Refrain from practising tomorrow. I want you in my laboratory by noon.”

Your protest dies on your lips in resignation. Strictly speaking, it’s not an issue— you see the merit in moderating your practice sessions. The injuries from overtaxing yourself in your work are nasty to deal with and the process of recovery is a setback you’re unwilling to endure again. As your patron, he exercises the right to make such requests, even if it sounds more like an order. You know this, and the realisation of your own foolishness settles into you; you’ve spent your first month here driving yourself to exhaustion, forgetting to pay attention to your physical condition. 

Your composition shouldn’t be hindered much away from your instruments and you can keep yourself occupied until noon… but it’s the latter part of his statement that causes your breath to quicken and your fingers to tense. “What will I be doing, Lord Harbinger?”

“You’ll find out.”

You try to busy yourself with choking down the food before you, fearful of appearing ungrateful. He said you would assist him earlier, but would he change his mind, veer off into more gruesome prospects for you?

The disappearance of a single musician wouldn’t be a cause for concern at all.

Quiet, you scold your internal monologue, trying to stifle the pessimism that infects your thoughts. Your lack of response calls the Doctor to drum his fingers on the table, breaking you out of your daze. 

“It’s rude to avoid eye contact with the one speaking to you, Composer.”

You meet what you assume is his gaze, hoping none of your thoughts are showing through your expression. “Would you rather I stare, then?”

“Perhaps.” He smiles like a knife and the gleam of his teeth sets you on edge further, amplifying your distress. “Oh, don’t look so wretchedly terrified. Much as I enjoy that, it makes for boring company.” The lilt of his voice insinuates condescension, amusement.

Though dread still thrums its constant tempo in accompaniment to your pulse, you feel a spike of exasperation at his neverending arrogance and you’re about to avert your gaze when he slides his elbow a fraction across the table, shifting closer to you. 

“I’m not going to eat you alive.”

The oppressive feeling of being watched only intensifies. If this is how things are when his eyes are covered, you shudder to think of how much worse it would be should you ever face the misfortune of invoking his full attention, unmasked. 

You swallow on nothing, throat bobbing as you do, and reply. “Somehow, I have trouble believing that.”

There’s that laugh again, the one that drags a blade down the length of your spine, threading discomfort through your vertebrae. “You’ll have to put some faith in me, Composer.” The words spill from his tongue like the utterance of a holy commandment, implication more than meets the eye. Faith is an art lost to both of you— he walks a path contradistinctive to that of the Gods, and you hold no devotion to anything other than your music. The irony is not lost on Dottore, as he watches you intently. You’re still far too cautious around him and not for poor reason, but he catches hints of your true temperament sometimes— the unconscious lift of a brow, the half-disbelieving sigh you suppress. The outburst you’d had merely an hour ago, all signs that you aren’t as subdued and unfeeling as you try to be.

Dottore wonders idly how far he can push you before he reminds himself that he is merely observing. The line drawn between performer and audience is intangible yet there all the same: you may look, but you may not touch. 

Gloved fingers flex, imperceptible. 

What a shame he’s always had a penchant for breaking boundaries.

Dinner finishes itself up with relative silence after that and you creep back to the music room to gather your scores and writing tools up, bringing them back to your room. 

That night, you hear bloodcurdling screaming from down the hall, chilling you to the bone.

You practically mummify yourself in your blankets to block out the sound, staring at the ceiling until your eyes water uncomfortably for lack of moisture. 

Sleep claims you uneasily.

~

The day repeats itself from the beginning and you’re pondering vaguely at how your life here has been playing on dull repetition— save for the wrench thrown into your daily plans last night by the Doctor. There’s no one around to personally ban you from stealing into the music room, but you will not cross a Harbinger so directly. You remember the feeling of being surveyed, studied, and it makes the knot in your throat tangle tighter. 

Despite the awareness that you could and should engage yourself with other things— there’s your dissertation, for one, and a song you’d written with lyrics that don’t flow quite perfectly yet— your mind seems insistent on driving itself to the brink of exhaustion, so you find yourself wasting the morning hours in a haze, thoughts draped in a heavy daze you can't seem to lift.

Dottore’s presence is no less overwhelming when you enter his laboratory at noon and you have to suck in a sharp breath when you turn to see him right there, watching. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled above the elbow, the accessories that you’d seen him wear twice before stripped away save for the harness that encircles his neck and dips beneath his shirt. His hands are encased in surgical gloves rather than the usual leather ones.

“You,” he acknowledges, and you find yourself scrambling to keep up with for the second time as he leads you deeper into the heart of the laboratory. “Come.”

You exhale in relief when he finally looks away. The invisible weight of his gaze makes you more nervous than you’ve ever felt— you've performed for large crowds before, yet you'd prefer the multitudes of those eyes on you over his unreadable scrutiny.

All coherent thought stutters to a halt when you see the body strapped to the metal table, torso opened up in a blossom of bloodstained flesh. You can hardly believe it when Dottore beckons you forward, closer to the carnage— you swallow something that feels like nausea, bile creeping up the back of your throat. Do not look, do not look, do not look—

“What is this?” you ask, your voice filtering in from a distance, sounding completely foreign to you.

“A traitor from within the ranks.” Dottore’s voice is unemotional, completely pragmatic. You don’t understand how he can just… “He tried to sell confidential Fatui information for a profit. This is his reward.”

You can feel your nails digging into your palms, little crescent-moon gouges welling up with blood. Your wrists ache sharply at the strain you’re exerting and you try to relax, you truly do— but it all goes to hell when Dottore casts you a sideways glance and breezes right on without expecting an answer. “Pass me that, will you?”

Is this some sort of test?

Through the roaring of blood in your ears, you locate what he’s referring to from the nearby worktop, and comply on clockwork. You wish you could find some kind of justification in what he’s doing— but when he takes the scalpel from your hands and makes a deft incision that drags a scream to life in the still air, you realise that the man on the table is still breathing despite his state and the horror of it sticks to the fine hairs on your skin, a slow-acting poison that paralyses you into silence.

You squeeze your eyes shut, taking refuge in the blissful darkness behind your eyelids for a split second.

Dottore seems to tire of the man’s whimpering soon enough, a sound that rumbles like a growl and vibrates like a purr clawing at the cage of his ribs like a savage beast. The edge of the surgical blade is set against the weakly pulsing throat and you can’t even protest— can’t even intercede before the jugular is sliced open and blood sprays everywhere. Red stipples your cheek, staining your hands and your torso— there is so much of it, yet the Harbinger doesn’t even flinch.

Somehow, you get through the entire procedure without your knees giving out on you, obeying the Doctor’s direction with mechanical passivity. Although your mind continues to scream danger at you, you’re unable to process anything because all you can see is crimson, the harsh lights of the laboratory searing into your retinas, photoreceptors in your eyes projecting nothing but the garish colour on repeat. You’ve never considered yourself particularly squeamish around the sight of blood, but it’s something about the calculated ruthlessness of it all— the unflinching brutality as Dottore takes the body apart and rends sinew from tendon that sends the chill resonating deep beyond your bones down into the marrow. You’d handed him the knife, but you’re aware he’s perfectly capable of executing what he wanted himself. You weren’t a necessary variable there. An ornamentative note crushed into the melody, simply present for… what?

Dottore’s hands are gloved in gore all the way up to the elbows. The ringing in your ears tolls incessantly, harshly, and you suppress the childish hysteria that almost drives you to clasp your fingers over your ears. You might’ve succumbed anyway, were it not for the fact that someone else’s blood is still drying on your skin.

Oh, god, you really can’t breathe.

None of the rumours you’ve heard about his experiments can measure up to the true atrocity of it. The adrenaline that courses through your bloodstream is the only thing that keeps you standing upright, because the only other surface available is the dissection table and you’d rather die than take another step towards the corpse as much as you can help it.

Inhumane, that’s what this was.

But the cacophony of conflict that wages war within you doesn’t surge up— your tongue sets itself firmly between the rows of your teeth and Dottore doesn’t stop you when you slip away without a word.

~

Your knees hit the tiled floor of your bathroom and you are curling up, fingers tangled together, kneeling with no god to go to. The water is scalding but you pay it no caution, welcoming the burn. Red slides off your fingertips and you scrub at your skin with your nails desperately, the blood diluting and swirling onto the floor in sluggish spirals. The steam clouds your lungs, scorching and thick and suffocating, but all you can smell is the metallic tang of blood and your next intake of breath feels more like hyperventilation. You rake your nails down your arms again, the sting of it doing little to soothe you.

Your hands are scoured clean, skin chafed and red from your efforts by now, so why do you still feel this way?

The feeling of blood caked beneath your nails lingers. You stare at your hands for a moment more before you get up, clothing yourself in a stupor and moving to your desk outside. 

You’ve always had a habit of clipping your nails too short, cutting and filing down to the quick and leaving your fingertips red and raw. It started as a matter of logic— at least to you, because the longer it took for your nails to grow out again, the more time you had before you faced the inconvenience once more. Over time, though, it had become something more like self-penance, imposed upon yourself when you fell short. A reminder that you had to do better, a reset of sorts. You’ve learnt to play through the pain, the sting a welcome one.

Yes, a reset. That’s what you need now.

~

When Dottore hears music filtering down the hallway, his brows draw together. He’d given you express instruction not to practice today— the way you’d performed yesterday and the quiver in your wrists clearly indicated signs of a developing injury, damage to the nerves inevitable should you continue to overwork yourself. An old one worsened again, he deduces. He feels as if you are aware of this, so what are you doing?

He’s cleaned up from the laboratory earlier, not a single speck of blood staining his clothes and his usual gloves back on. His cloak remains unused, discarded somewhere in his office, boots clicking as his feet carry him towards your corridor. 

The laugh he barks out sounds more like a scoff at your sheer lack of self-preservation when he hears the low, rich tones of a cello. He hasn’t witnessed your technique with your secondary instrument until now, but it’s evident from the way the music flows that you’re well-versed in the nuances of the piece that spills from the intersection between the bow and the strings.

But there’s something off about it— he frowns, pausing right outside the door as he listens, ever the scholar as he tries to parse the root cause of it. 

The piece you’re playing is an adaptation of a relatively well-known folk song, no doubt arranged for the cello in your own time. You’re executing all the notes flawlessly and it’s pleasing to the ear, yet there’s an undercurrent of something haunting, an element that doesn’t fully belong with the nature of the music. Tormented. Guilty.

In spite of that, rather than discompose and aggravate, you reshape the music as your own, breaking it from comfortably familiar confines into a new thing, uniquely conflicting. Fascinating. It shifts him the same way that horror might if he had the capacity to feel fear deep enough for such an emotion— as it is, all it does is spark interest in the cavity of his chest, riveting him as wholly as the vision of Irminsul’s destruction had.

You nearly drop the bow when he steps in without so much as a knock or an announcement of his presence. Dottore’s eyes fall to you, and you stop playing as the atmosphere between you grows palpably more strained.

Your fingers are bleeding on the cello’s strings, scarlet streaking down the fingerboard.

For the second time this week, you find your practice disrupted and your wrist snatched up tightly in the Second Harbinger’s grasp, and you wonder vaguely if this is going to be a routine occurrence. 

Unfortunately, when his fingers dig into your skin, a flash of pain shoots white-hot through your wrist and your expression cracks, a low exhale of pain leaving your lips. “Lord Harbinger—”

“What is this,” he demands, holding your bloodied hand up, the crisscross indentations of steel strings sore and tender to the touch.

You can only stare back at him, wordless. The debilitating numbness from earlier remains settled over your senses like a heavy blanket, and you feel like you’re watching the scene play out from an outside perspective, spectating your own dilemma.

Dottore’s sigh is ragged with vexation as he lets go of you and he mutters something to himself that sounds like ‘perhaps I went too far’, but you’re still rooted to the spot, wondering distantly if he would simply break the patronage agreement now and throw you out. You’d already overworked yourself to the point of an affliction on your wrist’s nervous system. What other use was there for you, other than—

“Composer.”

The image of your body on the dissection table flashes before your eyes, and you flinch.

“Lay your instrument down.”

Stiffly, you do as instructed, setting your cello and bow back in the case. You take the time to wipe the blood off the polished wood and steel before you latch it shut, and Dottore wonders at your lack of alarm over the whole affair, if this has happened before or if your current state is one of delayed shock.

Does it matter less to you if it’s your blood being spilled, your life offered up as the sacrificial lamb?

His lips press into a thin line, and you’re still mentally flipping though morbid scenarios of what he’s going to do, neck craned up to look at him.

“Give me your hand.”

What?

His voice is impassive and it takes you a moment to process the leather-clad palm before you, fingers open expectantly. Tentatively, you obey.

He inspects your wrists for a moment, turning them over before he reaches to grab your other hand, doing the same. Dottore clicks his tongue, dissatisfied— you assume it’s at you, and shrink back as best as you can with both your wrists captured in his grasp. “This won’t do.”

You sound more dejected than you mean to when you reply, lowering your eyes. “I apologise, Lord Harbinger.”

“Not that.”

Confused, you lapse into silence.

He grins suddenly, manic as ever, and it makes you shiver; no doubt he can feel the tremor through your entire body from where he has you in his hold. “Take my gloves off.”

You’re truly not sure how much more of this you can handle. 

Dottore tilts his head at you, waiting.

You try desperately to keep your hands steady as you slide your fingers beneath the cuff of one glove and pull it off, but you likely fail anyway if the widening of his grin is any indication. Clearly, he enjoys unnerving you. The other follows suit in a moment, the brush of your skin against his igniting something that settles deep within you; deducing it as fear, you hold both his gloves in your hands with some uncertainty for a beat, depositing them in your lap with no other option on hand at the moment.

Then Dottore’s fingers are encircling your wrist once more, the pads of his thumbs digging into a spot right over your arteries. The sudden action sends a sharp flare of pain scorching through your nerves and you can’t bite back the quiet whimper that chokes itself from your throat at that, instinctively attempting to yank your hand away.

His grip only tightens and your vision goes white-hot in agony for a moment. “Relax,” he purrs, voice authoritative. You instantly go still, then blink at your involuntary compliance.

Dottore continues to massage your wrist, fingers shifting from varying pressure points and locating live nerve endings that send jolts of agony through you, the searing discomfort gradually subsiding as he works. You have no idea what he’s doing, but you feel some of the strain in your wrists dissipating, the ache less sharp. 

He catches your look of bewilderment when he finally pauses, and this time when you feel his gaze on you, it feels sufficiently less terrifying. “Spit it out.”

“…What did you do?”

“A simple technique called myofascial release,” he states, matter-of-fact. “It helps to relax tendons in the wrist and reduce pressure on the median nerve.”

Your brows furrow, and he’s mildly incredulous. “This clearly isn’t the first time you’ve had a similar injury. Have you not undergone this before?”

“…No,” you reply slowly. “I was made to wear a splint for months until my wrist recovered.”

Dottore reads your silent concern and waves it away at once. “No need for that. As long as you come to me each day for treatment, you’ll be fine in merely a few weeks…”

He leans closer and you’re suddenly petrified when you remember how his mask sliced into your face the last time you were in such proximity. At the same time, you grow acutely aware of how he’s still holding your wrist in his, his fingers firm but no longer painful on your skin.

“… And refrain from playing any of your instruments for now, Composer.”

The Harbinger waits for you to argue, but you simply nod. “Yes.”

You’re half-terrified of asking your other question when he continues on. “I will not have you assist me in… procedures such as the one from earlier anymore, but I will find use for you elsewhere.”

The relief that blossoms in your chest is hesitant, but there nonetheless. “Thank you,” you say before you can stop yourself, the words rushing from you in a breath.

Dottore finally allows you to pull your wrist from his grasp, staring at you for a moment more before he pulls back.

“Dinner will be sent to your room tonight,” is all he says before he turns and leaves without another word.

You rotate your wrist tentatively, relieved when the sharp pain truly proves itself to have reduced. Already, you can’t wait to sink into the embrace of your bed and sleep the day off.