Killing Butterflies - Empires SMP

Sixteen - Preen

The door slammed open again - and really, was Scott trying to break the doorframe? The sound was becoming so annoying that if they heard it anymore they might as well not register it as a sound. And fuck them, door slams were shit.

Before they even had the time to try and slide themself out of the nook, he had plonked himself down on the floor, body tilted forwards and wings tilted backwards, head jutting right into the space. "Wake up."

"I'm already awake." Xornoth snapped, gritting their teeth and kicking the blankets off them. And it was true - they had just resigned themself to stewing. "I wasn't even asleep to begin with. You don't need to command me, you stupid fucker."

The look he gave them was completely and entirely blank, devoid of any thought process whatsoever, before a dull realisation drawled over his face. "Oh- I didn't mean it in the command sense- well, I mean, I did? But not in the magical command sense-?"

They groaned, burying their face back into the pillow. Aeor, they wanted to hit him. They wanted to hit him so badly. "Why do you want me awake?"

"So I can give you a wing preen."

They blinked, stared at him, tried to process the confusion that rang through them. Their breath stuttered and stumbled, half dying in their throat. "What?"

"A wing preen." He repeated. "I know you don't like people touching you, but your wings are in awful condition, and really, it would be better if they were preened.'

It did nothing to comfort them. In fact, they would have strangled him if they weren't so confused. "What?"

"Come on." He groaned, shifting so he could jab them in the shoulder. The action made them shudder away from his cold fingers. "You've been sleeping for at least fifteen hours. It's morning already."

They squinted at him. "I don't remember going to sleep."

And it was true. They didn't. Although... now that they actually thought about it, they didn't remember anything about the last few hours. A glance to the way the sun slanted onto the floor made them realise that it really was the morning, and they'd last woken up in the middle of the fucking afternoon.

But they would have remembered if they went to sleep, right?

"Okay Mx Memory." Scott nodded 'seriously', the sarcasm coating his tongue like poison coated a knife. "Do you remember me telling you to wake up?"

Oh, if only they could lunge and curl their fingers around his throat, use their claws to slit his throat, tear it open and hear him gasp for air. If only they still had their magic, and they could summon a fire to burn him alive, skin turning redder and redder and exploring completely. Maybe crack his ribs in, force them to pierce his organs. Of course they remembered him telling them to wake up, the fucking idiot."

"Yes." They snapped, curling their fingers into the wood and fighting against the spell stopping them from tearing their claws across the floor and ruining it. They wanted to tear their claws around Scott's throat.

"Good!" He clapped his hands together. He had rings on. Golden bands that circled them, glittering in the light, looking all official and royal and shit. How had they not seen those before? "Then let's go." They wrenched their arm back as he tried to grab their wrist, leaving him with a faintly embarrassed expression before he cleared his throat. "So... uh... are you going to-"

"Fuck off." They growled, twisting the blanket off of them and easing themself out of the end Scott was not next too. They really didn't fancy hitting their antlers on him first thing in the morning, though jutting their antlers through his bones sounded more preferable.