Killing Butterflies - Empires SMP

Twenty One - Request

A/N: hiii im still aliveeee sorry if there are any mistakes lol

They ended up eating. Eventually.

It was cold and it was boring and they knew that it had been days since they last had food. They could go longer: two or three months was their maximum, but they'd always had magic and things to distract them before. Here, in a room that was physically big yet so obnoxiously cramped, it was a little harder to stave it out.

The food itself was shit. They didn't even know it was possible to make rice taste like ash, but the soggy grains stuck in the cracks of their misshapen teeth like spoiled glue. At the very least, it didn't taste poisoned, but it did nothing to reassure them. Not when Scott wouldn't even need to poison them if he wanted them gone - which, fair, he probably didn't seeing as he hadn't killed them by now, but the option still remained and so did Aeor's personal opinion on them.

Worrying about it wouldn’t do anything. There wasn’t a point.

Instead, they focused more on the glass slipped inside of their sleeve. It had cut them slightly as they slept, leaving a jagged red mark, but no blood apart from the faintest of dried specks. That was something they could worry about. But they didn't have any fucking pockets to move the glass too, because somebody had decided to change their fucking clothes-

They inhaled sharply and turned the glass over in their hand, allowing it to sit and bite the flesh that curled as their fingers clenched. Exor had liked broken glass amongst other things, like harsh stone and broken bones, and for the briefest moment, they wondered what tools Aeor liked to teach Scott with. They couldn't see him resigning to anything messy. Perhaps he was left with psychological torment, rotting memories of other lives, broken emotions that cracked if prodded for too long. They could see it clearly - a snowy white stag with a heart of pure light, carefully sliding its bleached fingers inside his head and snatching out whatever needed to be taken. Pain dressed up with a thin veneer of goodness.

They stopped clenching as soon as they became aware of the stinging that erupted in their palm. It was flimsy - it was only strong near its sharpened, jagged end - and any wrong amount of force could break it in two. Not their best weapon, but considering that the only other weapon was their own antlers, it wasn't the worst they could do. Considering the spells that the wizard had cast on them, they probably wouldn't even be able to pick up regular weapons at all. Which was shit.

It scuffed their skin as they slid it back up their sleeve, unwilling to waste their time staring at something they couldn't even use (for now). Instead, the bored part of them rose to their feet, grimacing at how the floor seemed to tilt beneath them and how their wings felt like dead weights, and strode straight towards the door. They weren't even sure what had spurred this point of movement. Frustration maybe. It wasn't like they would know - they just knew that they wanted out. Out of this stupid room, out of the stupid sameness and stupid windows and stupid bed. Just out.

Their hand snatched the doorknob and twisted, and to their greatest surprise, it opened.

Directly into Scott's face.

Which… well, first of all:

Fuck.

He startled, arms and wings alike flaring out to stop him from falling over in sheer shock. They would have mirrored him, had they not had their wings tied back and arm latched around the handle until they forced their fingers to unclench. All appearances considered, it looked like he was just as surprised as they were. Which meant… something, they just weren't exactly sure of what.

(Everything meant something in Rivendell - an unsatisfying game of dancing around the things you needed to talk about and shaming whoever mentioned it first. Only the winters knew how Scott and survived in such in an environment for so long)