Killing Butterflies - Empires SMP

Eighteen - Corner

A/N Sorry this chapter sucks Blackpink happened hahaha

Their hand scrunched into a ball, fingers piercing crescents onto their palms, before curling outwards again.

They repeated the pattern, relishing in the short lived feeling in their palms that swarmed over the numb feeling before dying out completely. They couldn't really do anything else.

Xornoth stared at the door from where they were sat - crammed into the gap where the bookshelf and the wall didn't quite meet; it was too small for them to properly fit, but they somehow managed and even if they didn't they would have stayed there anyway. They were not coming out.

They'd tried relaxing their shoulders earlier, when no one had come in for what seemed like a short eternity, but their bones had remained locked in place, stiff and refusing to move. Not the first time that had happened, but it was ever so annoying when there wasn't even anything making them seize up.

Wasn't anything they could do about it. So they just sucked it up and stayed put.

Their hand curled in on itself again, claws biting into their palms. Absently, Xornoth wondered if they would have to cut them. Surely Scott would insist on slicing them off at some point - they'd seen the faces he made looking at them. They were surprised he hadn't done it sooner.

Maybe he'd slice their fingers-

They lurched forwards, a grimace tightened across their face in such a way that if they titled their in the right way it would snap. Their fingers unfurled, and instinctively, their wings tried to copy. The increasingly numb feeling that trickled across their wings did nothing but make them feel worse, a stiff and refusing feeling that intensified but didn't get more painful; normally less pain would be a good thing, but they were pretty sure that feeling nothing after so long of their wings being tied up wasn't supposed to be good.

Anger surged through them as they thought about that stupid fucking wizard standing over them with her stupid staff, lording over them as if she were a queen and not a runaway princess. Then they remembered Scott's deal of talking to her about their wing bindings if they ate something every day and got even angrier. He was probably planning on not bringing them any food at all, wasn't he? Then he could continue having them trussed up and not have to talk to anyone about them whatsoever.

Or maybe he was just incredibly fucking incompetent.

Or maybe he would slice off their fingers-

Xornoth bristled, teeth gritting in an odd sort of lock, jutting into each other and not allowing a single centimetre of leeway. There was no good reason for Scott to slice off their fingers… except actually there was, because if they didn't have fingers then they wouldn't be as much of a threat. It wasn't like they could hold a sword without them, and they could practically feel the razor sharp metal slicing through them-

Not helpful.

Their breath rattled in their chest, tinging as they felt the bandages rub across the stab wounds. Despite the coldness of the room, a part of them felt overheated, heartbeat kicking in even though they weren't in immediate danger. Their skin crawled at the odd, clammy feeling that clung to it, a sharp hysteria that made them feel sick-

Would they feel as sick when Scott sliced-

"Shut the fuck up." They snapped to nobody but themself, twisting at a strange angle. The thoughts in their head died down, and then ramped back up with double the force. They didn't even remember closing their eyes, but a child like fear made them keep them shut, too afraid to consider the possibility of their fingers being reduced to bloody stumps already, seeping and draining onto the floor with a dull drip.