Backstory: Spotless

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14k words. Because I was a fool who thought 13k for the Privacy chapters (which run parallel to this one) would have no effect on how long this would be. "Oh, it'll probably be 2, maybe 3k." Nope. Just as long. Behold, for that who stands before you is to be known henceforth as a fool, unwilling to face the truth that lies unburied, unhidden, laid bare for all to see.

~~~

Timone carefully tends to the vegetable garden, plucking the ripe ones while leaving the rest attached to their respective plant. They'll ripen soon enough, what with the mutations done to them by his master. All that matters is that he picks enough to feed everyone, and doesn't let any sit long enough to begin to rot. His mentor taught that lesson to him with their life.

Through the empty halls he hurries, silently thankful for the retreat's master's absence. It's thanks to his brother that he learned the price of making too much noise around the master. The master doesn't like it when they bother it with noise.

A silent mantra repeats in the back of his mind, passed down by everyone with the dubious honor of cleaning this place. Be not seen. Be not heard. Be not noticed, and live another day.

That is the rule one must live by when working in a Watcher's retreat. Whatever the Watcher says, goes. No matter what it tells you to do, you have to do it, and you have to do it immediately, with no hesitation. That's apparently what got his mentor's mentor killed. A brief hesitation when ordered to dispose of a still-living captive.

Passing that particularly sadistic test of loyalty was a matter of great shame for his mentor.

He heaves open the heavy door to the experiment room, laying his eyes upon the hopeless captives trapped here. Quietly, he calls out, "It's not back yet. I've brought food, and I'll go get water shortly."

He doesn't hear the usual snide remark from the corner cell though. His heart sinks. Normally, his quiet call is received by a nihilistic retort from the corner cell's occupant, asking him what the point is when half of them will be dead before the seasons turn. Sometimes, when there'd been a lot of old captives removed or a bunch of new captives added, the heavily twisted guy would snap at him about enjoying his bigger cage. He never took it personally though. They all know just as well as he does that one poorly timed temper tantrum from the retreat's master would end him just as easily as it would any of them.

"Are they..."

The silent cell's neighbor responds, confirming his fear. "Yeah. Decided they'd had enough, and didn't give any of us the chance to talk 'em out of it. Said to tell you to treat yourself instead of wasting the sweet stuff on them. Their words, not mine."

His hands tighten on the tray carrying the bowls of food he'd prepared, grief silent but deep. As strange as it is, he enjoyed the sarcastic bite they would always respond with, and had come to look forward to the quiet conversations he would only dare hold whenever his master was away. He stares down at the dollop of homemade jam sitting on one of the simple scones he bakes whenever his master is gone, made from the scant amount of wild berries he has time to gather between his cleaning duties.

"I..." He didn't even know their name! They would never answer, just saying that it'd make it hurt more when they're gone. And now? Now he doesn't even have a name to write on the little tombstone he always tries to find the time to make for everyone who ends up here. This tiny act of rebellion, of refusing to give up his sorrow, will probably be what gets him killed one day, but he can't find it in him to care. Everyone deserves someone to remember them when they're gone. Everyone.

Autopilot takes over. He hands out the bowls of vegetable soup to everyone, then one of the carefully baked scones each, meticulously prepared to be as even as possible to avoid accusations of favoritism. No one tries to get him to let them out this time. While he is capable of opening their cells and letting them escape this room, he knows exactly how worthless that would prove in the face of the ravine ringing the mountain retreat.

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