#OC: Karina Alexandre

[boundinparchment]

Patience

A moment between Dottore and his young daughter. Established Dottore/Original Female Character. Part of the Heretic and Forsaken series. On AO3 here.

“Ya ruhi” > “my soul”

“Abi” > “Father”

A faint tugging barely tore Zandik’s attention away from the report in front of him. Without breaking his focus, he spoke softly, only enough edge in his voice to warn, never scare.

“Remember: be gentle.”

“Blue,” came the reply, proud and excited.

“Yes, that’s blue. What else is blue, ya ruhi?” he prompted.

“Hair!”

Out of the corner of his eye, the Harbinger caught a tiny hand reaching for his hair. She was dexterous for her age, eager and excited; however, she didn’t know her strength and Zandik was well aware of the consequences of it. Deftly, he reached up and redirected her hand so she gripped his fingers instead.

“Yes, my hair is blue. So is yours.”

He skimmed the rest of the report and then cast the paper aside. There was still plenty to do, especially in the aftermath of it all. He needed to oversee soil and water samples for traces of elemental energy, evaluate Leyline flare-ups from residual memories that didn’t burn properly, allocating resources and smoothing over conflicts. The latter was hardly his problem directly but Pierro would ask and it was better to have an answer ready.

Without Archons, humanity could take back the reins, finally. They would know this world and all its secrets and wonders.

It would be better. Born through revitalizing fires, sprouting from the ashes anew.

“Abi?”

It was refreshing to hear his language from someone else and caught him every time. He'd been away for so long, shunned from it, but he could never truly erase the traces. Karina emphasized that she wanted their child to know who they were, where they came from, and language was vital. He agreed (after all, he'd studied dozens of them himself) and was filled with an odd sense of pride every time he watched eyes glow when something clicked in her growing mind.

His daughter shifted in his lap and tapped her hand to his cheek softly before she experimented and brushed over the scruff he hadn’t bothered with as of late. She giggled, running her hand one way and then another. He never grew out an entire beard (too much maintenance) but some mornings, there was no time for more than scrubbing away the day’s dirt. Especially when Karina was away.

Zandik carefully pried her hand from his face and blew kisses into her palm. She squealed and his heart lurched at the sound.

This world needed more of that.

“Having fun, ya ruhi?” he teased.

Her smile was an echo of her mother’s; congenial and sweet in a way his never could be. Eyes like emeralds, so verdant that he’d been bizarrely relieved. But then he was left with the question of how recessive red eyes were after all; he would find out eventually, he supposed, if Karina was willing. Such gems contrasted with a head full of thick blue curls, her one defining and unmistakable trait of her parentage.

“Yes! Love abi!”

“I love you, too. It’s late. Do you want to—“

“‘Spection!”

The little girl threw her arms wide, narrowly missing her father’s nose. Her diction would come with time, he reminded himself as he collected her in his arms.

“Exactly. We’ll inspect the lab and make sure everything is safe. And then it’s bedtime.”

He felt the pout more than he saw it, an idle hand playing with his earring as they walked.

“Sleep is important, ya ruhi,” he chastised carefully.

She couldn’t fall into his habits. As wide as her eyes were about the world, she had time for it all. And he wouldn’t sacrifice her wellbeing for his selfishness of wanting these moments to last longer.

The quiet was better than outright protest, but only just. Her acceptance of authority made these moments easier, certainly. Soon enough, she’d be telling everyone no and seeing how far she could get.

Soon enough, she’d be too big to be carried.

Zandik shifted her slightly to rearrange his hold as he pushed open the door to the laboratory. Nothing as grand as what he had at the Palace but large enough that he could do as he needed. He went about, pointing to things and speaking clearly, letting her touch what wasn’t dangerous, asking her simple yes or no questions. Now was not the time to engage in larger topics but if she asked, he answered in ways that felt complete enough for now.

She could learn about crystalflies properly another time.

He watched her face light up as he tidied up his desk and locked away important papers. Really, the most imperative things were in his mind, but written records were crucial.

“Mama!”

An excited hand pointed to the metal arm resting on a stand atop his desk. The plating was removed, wires dangling in organized heaps, the sharp fingers angled like a claw.

“That’s right,” Zandik said before he kissed the girl’s temple. “Mama’s arm.”

Karina came back with a strained expression and the arm in her good hand. The device was made of the strongest metal and the finest circuitry; he’d crafted it with care he didn’t know he was capable of. She’d handed over the arm with an apologetic kiss and then hugged their daughter tight with her good arm, holding back an expression he hadn’t seen since…

“Abi fix mama?” She said it with an upwards inflection, the way she did when a toy broke or something went wrong. Worried for nothing except her mother being able to hug her.

Zandik held the child in his arms a little tighter.

“Yes. Yes, abi will fix mama’s arm.”

[boundinparchment]

At last, when the sun crested and the clouds dissipated, they packed up what little provisions were left and made their way back to the Palace.  But not before Dottore draped the cloak, long since abandoned in favor of freedom, around Karina’s shoulders and fastened it closed.

“Keep it for now.  The bitter cold and I are old friends.”

A gesture of goodwill that Karina knew not to be taken at face value.  Returning to the Palace in a Harbinger’s cloak would catch attention; she had nothing this ornate, not even as a Warden, and it was clearly intended for a taller individual.  To say nothing of the shared scents that lingered in the fabric, in the collar. 

From - Tell Me Who You Wanna Be {And I Will Set You Free}

Thank you for commissioning me! OC Belongs to @boundinparchment

[boundinparchment]

Killing Loneliness

The night before Celestia falls, two people hold a conversation of the future.

Dottore/Original Female Character. Part of the Heretic and Forsaken series.

On AO3 here.

She should be happy. She survived Fontaine. Maybe not intact but she survived. Her new arm was lightweight, stronger than steel, and operated so seamlessly that she had to look to remember it was mechanical. No one looked at her with pity in the shadows of their eyes anymore.

And tomorrow, they would tear down the sky and Celestia along with it. The Fatui and the Traveler and the Third Descender, now whole, would declare war on the Usurpers.

Karina inhaled deeply and watched her exhale curl slow and steady in the lantern light. Behind her, she heard footsteps, distinct in their click as metal met stone; a rhythm and sound she heard a thousand times before. He was hardly a party person but he need not seek her company, she mused.

After all, he’d made it quite clear so long ago that this was…

Professional.

The sounds of raucous singing and cheering bled out into the still night for a moment before Dottore closed the door behind him. She didn’t even turn her head, eyes fixed on the ribbons of light in the sky, forever brighter than any lights in the capitol. Neither of them spoke and she appreciated that for once, he didn’t want to hear the sound of his own voice. Karina shifted her weight but kept her elbows on the balcony railing, shoulders tight.

If he was here for a pep talk, she didn’t want it.

Finally, she turned her head to him and asked, “Have you ever thought about what happens after?”

Dottore’s head was angled up slightly but she knew he wasn’t looking at the aurora. Celestia loomed on the horizon, visible only as a shadow over the reaches of Fontaine.

“Many times. Not all of them pleasant. It would be…unwise to pretend as though death has not been chasing me.”

She gave a small smirk and then looked back out over the city.

“I take it, then, you have not,” Dottore surmised.

Karina shook her head.

“I can plan all I want and strategize until my eyes bleed. It won’t matter until I’m out there. And by then, it’s down to me. Might as well be luck and thinking ahead has always gotten me…well,” she let out a derisive scoff, “it got me here.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught his weight shift; he stood straighter, poised like the scholar he proclaimed to be before a class of one.

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Maybe not,” she replied. “I’ve done more in the last several years than I ever did in Fontaine. I wouldn’t have left the plateau otherwise, I’m certain. My family would be alive but my fate…I truly may as well have been chained to a rock and left for a sea monster.”

She was born under the Chained Maiden constellation and it never bothered her before. Not until the Archon Residue sang in her blood in that arena and she realized her Vision would never reawaken again. All because she forsook what Celestia intended for her.

In exchange, she paid the cost of her family’s lives and her dominant arm.

Was this better? Working for the Fatui, serving the man who almost killed her, potentially harboring feelings better left in a cabin deep in the mountains?

She had no idea.

“Say we survive whatever happens,” Karina asked. “Where would you go?”

“Beyond the veil is very tempting. I’ve studied these same unmoving stars for centuries and they bore me. There are other universes, other lands, more to uncover than is possible to visually fathom.”

For a moment, she wondered if his eyes were wide, eager even, beneath his mask. She missed his full face, saw it deep in her dreams, yearned to be special again just enough to see his true face.

“But I would be remiss if I did not stay and study the consequences of tomorrow,” Dottore admitted. “That would be leaving the experiment half-finished and for others to document. A skewed perspective.”

He drew in a deep breath and then gave a sigh so soft she only saw the rise and fall of his shoulders.

“Well, that’s lucky for me,” Karina replied. “I’ll need someone who knows to fix my arm and I wouldn’t trust a Fontainian engineer to touch it. You’d leave me with few options if you departed.”

“I might still. The fallout may not be as impactful as I’ve speculated. Stranger phenomena have certainly occurred.”

“Such as?”

His pause was unexpected. Dottore always took the chance to demonstrate just how much he knew of the world. Karina was familiar enough with his patterns to recognize that he was thinking over his next words carefully, chewing on them the way a discerning patron might consider a tender steak.

He turned his head towards her and felt her blood turn to ice and then thaw again when he removed his mask and stared at her. How did he do that, make her feel as though they were the only ones in the entire universe? Her heart hammered as her stomach did several twists and she wondered if she would even survive tonight.

There was a hunger written across his face deeper than a carnal desire.

“Such as the notion that if we survive at all, Karina, I find myself wondering what a quiet life looks like. Or rather, a settled life. What two people who shook off the chains of fate might be capable of and the legacy they’ll leave behind. Genetically and otherwise.”

He didn’t need to punctuate it with the missing piece. She could infer the rest and he knew she would.

“Is that such a bad thing?” she echoed.

Neither of them had a family. But they could be one, make one, couldn’t they? Did they balance each other out enough for that?

“Yet to be determined.”

“Describe it to me.”

“It would be more efficient to show you.”

He swallowed and she watched his throat bob slightly. She wanted to kiss that spot again, let her lips trace the shape of his neck, his jaw, his cheeks.

And she could not think of a world where she didn’t have his voice nearby. Where she turned and he wasn’t there.

A world without him wasn’t one she wanted.

Karina’s eyes flickered to his lips before she settled her gaze on his. She stepped closer and angled her head, lips ghosting over his.

“Then show me, Zandik,” she whispered, “what it means to live past tomorrow.”

[boundinparchment]

Drown With the Sun (II/II)

Il Dottore's segment took care of her pain in his absence, as was his duty; Karina, as his second-in-command, returned the gesture when the segments were gone. Part 2 of The Heretic and the Forsaken series. Il Dottore/Female Original Character. On AO3 here.

Years passed in the blink of an eye, as they often did for the man of four-plus-centuries.  A sense of time was not required for one such as himself, especially not in relevance to others.  The phenomena made itself known in every other facet outside of himself anyway.

Karina surpassed every challenge thrown at her, and if she didn’t, she worked day and night until she did.  She earned her title, her place, and the right to make snide remarks in private.  Time carved itself across her flesh in the form of lean muscle and faint scars.  

Every time she arrived back from patrols near the Rift, she seemed to bear a new one, and Dottore suppressed the urge to kiss it.

Volkov tended to her wounds, the Harbinger well knew.  The two of them were stationed together, bonded by their rank and mutual survival.  The idea of another seeing her bare back, her toned arms, or any other parts of her only ever stirred a disgusting sense of jealousy that wove its way into his Segment network for days.  

She was his subordinate, Dottore rationalized.  Nothing more.

Besides, the conversations with her regarding Celestia’s hypocrisy and the cruelty of the Archons were ideas echoed by Pantalone and others.  He was not starved for companionship, for conversation.  There were plenty among the Fatuus with which he could voice his heresy and ideas.

She was simply the optimal choice.

When she was gone, the Creature toddled into his workshop or his office, blanket in claw, downtrodden and lost.  He had a sense of object permanence (Dottore had long since tested that), so the only conclusion the scientist could make was one involving a sense of loss and an understanding of absence.

The thing was the rawest emotional form he had left, packed away by accident and left outside of the network to prevent further infighting.  The last of his innocence was nothing more than a bundle of fur and teeth and sharp claws.  It clung to one of the only other people who suffered a fate as cruel as his.  Ironic, that the creature lacking higher cognition was the one so obvious in its affection and care.  Even more so that its creator would never give in to the base needs of emotional attachment and physicality, of intimacy.

He did not need it, not with his Segments around; no one else knew his needs and his mind better.

His Warden (for as much as he despised her presence, Karina would always be his Fontainian bargaining chip, his chevalière) was once again away and the little monster made its nest beneath Dottore’s chair.  It scrambled up and settled into his lap hours ago, content to listen to its older self explain the formula he was working on.  Even if the creature couldn’t respond except for screeches and squeaks, the action helped loosen ideas and see where potential problems laid.

Dottore would not, could not , admit he preferred Karina for such a task.  Her eyebrows knitted, lips tugged into a slight pout as she thought things through, eyes as fresh as the Avidiya Forest after rainfall when she posed a counter argument or idea.  She was strategic enough to be handy on the front lines in Natlan if Capitano had use of her eventually.

That would seal her fate; few came back from Natlan in one piece.  

And he couldn’t account for plans that did not include her.  Perhaps once.  But not anymore.  At least not until he knew what led to her Vision behaving as it did. 

Or so he told himself every time the thought of her laugh snagged on his almost non-existent heart.

Dottore sat back in his chair, lifting the little creature with ease and rearranging it so he could shift his weight comfortably.  The formula was long forgotten now and if he tried to force it, he would only end up more irritated than he already was by the distraction of absence.

Omega was in Sumeru now, ideally finishing the nonsense with the Akademiya.  The final Segment insisted that the chevalière did not need to stay behind but Dottore wondered if, perhaps, such an arrangement would have been better.  

If only to see what she made of the lush lands of the forests and the wasteland of the desert and her opinion on the divide between Sumeru’s people.  For an Electro user, she had a strong sense of justice and for the short time they were back in his homeland, Dottore wondered if she would side with the institution or the people gate-kept from it.  After all, exposing her to the Shouki No Kami, to Scaramouche’s grand designs and the Electro Gnosis itself, played with the threads of her perspective and showed her the gods were neither remarkable nor permanent.  They could be created out of anything, as long as the faith of the majority was high enough.

She had been remarkably quiet on the return to Snezhnaya and he saw little of her since.  Instead of accompanying Omega, she was once again pushing back creatures from the Abyss and beyond.  Hardly stimulating work.

The matter of her Vision, on the other hand… that was far more intriguing.  Not even being near the Gnosis did anything.  In fact, Karina specifically seemed to avoid that section of the laboratory entirely during her stay once the demonstration was finished.  

She never explicitly told him why .  He had not thought it odd, not then, but he had been too focused on perfecting negotiations.  And soon it would be too late to recreate the situation, for Omega was due to retrieve both Gnoses…

Speaking of…

The connection between himself and all of his Segments was, more often than not, mere white noise.  Some days, the Segments were louder; during others, especially when it came to the pesky chevalière , silence reigned (but never for long).  The average experience was, however, like trying to find a station on a Fontainian radio and he had to truly think of the Segment to make the proper connection.

He could take over any Segment’s body at any time but it limited himself to that particular perspective.  Helpful when he needed to truly explore an idea through another lens.  But more useful when it came to observation, in which he could simply monitor without anyone else the wiser.

What a tiny Archon.  Even awake, she was nothing more than a bean sprout and she hardly had the power befitting her station.

Omega’s voice rattled through Dottore’s mind.  “I see. If you think all those versions of me are worth a Gnosis...then, we have a deal, Lesser Lord Kusanali.”

Deal?  What sort of arrangement had the Segment just made?  

The rest happened quicker than he expected and the connection exploded into a cacophony of noise and voices and panic.  Each of his Segments, scattered across all of Teyvat, were struck with the startling realization at once, and not even their Prime origin point was spared.

“Sheer foolishness,” Dottore thought, targeting every word at Omega, at that blasted Archon.  “How could I have been so shortsighted back then?”

Lesser Lord Kusanali disappeared from his vision with a few blinks, his office coming in and out of focus.  Eyelids heavy, the last sound he recalled was not, in fact, his youngest self, hot-headed and arrogant, swearing vengeance on Omega. Paws pressed against his chest and the world around him faded away in a haze of screeches, whines, and watery singular eye.

Karina wove her way through the lower corridors until she came to the familiar workshop, divided into its different sections and projects.  Without parts of the Shouki No Kami lingering now, the space felt empty, devoid of life.  No doubt the floor would soon be home to numerous mechanical marvels and parts, as was the norm, but the prototypes were certainly remarkable.

She had yet to even see the usual Segment in the laboratory; usually he was around when she returned, staring at Volkov over an assistant’s shoulder.  It never bothered her colleague, or so he claimed, but she was never certain whether Dottore was sizing him up for battle or for dinner.  But he was nowhere to be found thus far.

Her footsteps echoed, unaccompanied by the usual sounds of activity down here.  Was he going to ambush her, remind her to keep on her toes?

He never did that on days she returned from the northern parts.  Karina dared not consider it a kindness but there was little else to describe it.  Perhaps he might call it inefficient.

“Lord Harbinger?” she called from the top of the staircase.  “Lord Dottore?”

She heard the familiar clung of metal on metal and her heart dropped into her stomach when she caught sight of a crop of teal hair.  He was working on something, as usual, some rectangular device she couldn’t make out from this angle.

Funny how comforting she found his presence, even in the form of a Segment.

“The rise time is too long…” she caught him muttering.  “If it can’t work quickly enough, it won’t reach bandwidth capacities…”

The Segment looked up from his notes when she came closer.  Any one of them never looked tired, despite the organic components used to make them.

“You were gone longer than usual,” he quipped, returning his gaze to the papers in front of him.  “Anything of note?”

“Not particularly,” Karina replied.  “We managed to capture a live Fenrir with specific mutations and corruption this time.  It should be making its way down within a few hours.”

“I see.  Prime doesn’t want to be disturbed so tend to the delivery and then see yourself out.”

He waved a hand at her, shooing her like a dog.  The Segment was acting strange, tapping a finger against the surface of the table as he stared at the notes; his eyes moved as though he was reading but he never once moved to act upon what he was reading.  Usually his focus was unparalleled, regardless of who was around.

“Get on it with, Omega, some of us have work to do,” he mumbled.

Oh, of course.  Omega was still in Sumeru.  The last she ever saw of him was an empty face plate, head tilted with a sharp-toothed grin as he said her services as a Warden were no longer required.

Out of all of the Segments, he was the most unsettling, in her opinion.  Too confident, too arrogant, five steps ahead of everyone while knowing exactly how to get what he wanted.  Her training kept her away from Omega to begin with and she did everything she could to avoid the last Segment while serving Dottore proper in Sumeru.  Something in the way he posed his questions, the way his gaze lingered on her, made Karina feel more like an object than a person, a rabbit in the jaws of a hungry wolf.  As if he did not want her so much as he wanted to root around inside her until he was bored.

There was an edge to Omega, one she balanced on before; one she was determined to never walk on again.

He must have been negotiating for the Gnoses, then.  Right on schedule.

The Segment before her gave up on the notes and began to meander around the table and sectioned-off workspace.  A gloved hand reached out and grasped her jaw, pulling Karina out of her thoughts and forcing her to look into eyes as deep as a blood moon.  His hand was cold compared to Dottore’s, lacking a proper circulatory system in the human sense, thumb brushing the corner of her bottom lip.

“If you insist on standing there, then, Alexandre, be useful and replace the pot of coffee from this morning.”

Karina watched as something foreign crossed the Segment’s features, his mouth parted and pupils narrowed, eyes blown wide.  He looked less shocked and more as if he had been blasted in the gut with a Fontainian blunderbuss at close range, completely paralyzed.  The fingers on her jaw flexed and gripped harder, pulling her down as the Segment’s joints gave out.  

She tried to grab onto him as he fell, muscles straining as she eased the limp mechanical body to the floor.  Was he short-circuiting?  She’d seen each Segment undergo maintenance more than once, fully aware they required upkeep, but they’d never simply collapsed…

Fear snaked its way through her muscles, freezing her in place as the Segment gave a half-hearted laugh.

“So it’s like this, huh?  You would betray even yourself. Good riddance!”

Crimson eyes glowed brighter for a moment, a final flare of life, before their color dimmed.  Ashes of a fire stamped out.

Karina’s head shot up, eyes scanning every visible area for movement.  No one ever made it down this far, save the now-dormant Segment, herself, and the true Dottore.  If the Segment was gone, her next concern was securing the area and finding the Harbinger himself.

She swallowed hard as she reached out a gauntleted hand and tried to close the Segment’s eyes.  His components complied much easier than a humans and if she didn’t know any better and ignored the lack of breathing (none of them needed air, after all), he simply looked like he was sleeping.  The stillness in the Segment’s limbs, the way its limp form responded to gravity and movement so easily, scratched at Karina’s memories; no resistance from muscles, no flexing or response to stimuli, just like the bodies of her comrades…like Rhiannon’s…

With a shaky breath, Karina shoved the Segment off of her and clamored to her feet.  This was different.  He was nothing more than an object, a thing , he felt no pain and suffered nothing in the end…

The layout of the workshop was rather straightforward despite its winding corridors.  One way in and one way out.  Karina made her way back to the elevator entrance and pulled the grate in front of the large doors and locked it in place; only someone with the proper clearance had a second key for the mechanism.  An easy security policy.  At least Dottore kept things simple in that regard.

Now for the man himself.

She tried to keep her eyes from lingering on the Segment as she drew her knife from her shoulder holster and held it close, stalking through the space.  From the furthest corner, she heard the clattering of a tray and its instruments, the sound echoing as loud as a gunshot.  Careful not to let her footfalls betray her, Karina arrived at the scene to find nothing but a metal instrument tray and various tools scattered on the floor, along with a bedsheet dangling off the vivisection table, stark white without a trace of blood.

An errant snapping of a jaw made Karina carefully duck to check under the table; tucked into the space between the table and a nearby cabinet, she could make out a single eye and a fluffy tail.

Before she could open her mouth, the blur of fur and teeth chattered and gave a high-pitched cry, diving for Karina.  She grunted at the impact, the creature nuzzling into her uniform, ears pulled down as it gave a series of smaller cries and whines.  Absently, she stroked the creature’s head, never quite lowering her knife.

What was the little creature doing down here?  More importantly, what was it doing down here unsupervised?

Usually it kept to Dottore’s office.  Or, if not there, it was always in the care of another or Dottore himself.  Like a child, this being was not to be trusted on its own in the laboratories (a lecture she received no less than three times when it was discovered the little thing clung to her so long ago).  If it was here , then…

“Where is the Doctor?” Karina asked when the little thing grew quiet.  “What happened?”

Her gaze met a singular eye, wide and wet and scared as the creature processed her words.  Its beak opened and then closed without a sound before it jumped from her lap and took her arm in its tiny claws.  It pulled with a surprising amount of force, chirping urgently when Karina didn’t move fast enough.  As soon as she rose to her feet, the creature dashed off on all fours and its fluffy tail disappeared around a corner.

There was only room in that direction to check.

And surely he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to be killed remotely.

He wasn’t, of course, Karina mused as she pulled off her gloves and pressed a bare finger to Dottore’s pulsepoint.  Solid and steady.

Alive.  That might not mean much if he were comatose, admittedly, but he was breathing, at least.

The Harbinger didn’t so much as flinch or moan when the creature nudged his leg or climbed and slapped its paw against his cheek.  Dottore was face-down on the desk, his mask discarded, looking as though he’d done nothing more than fall asleep while working.

First things first, he needed to be moved.  She couldn’t access his desk and see what needed to be prioritized (if even possible) if he was slumped over all of the paperwork.  Who knew, maybe moving him would wake him up from the stupor and all would be solved.

Life was rarely, if ever, so easy.

Karina’s eyes roamed the office and settled on the piece of furniture nearest the desk.  A different sofa than the one she laid on (which had mysteriously been replaced several years prior), tufted leather with arms as tall as the back.  It would do.  

She reached and tucked one arm beneath Dottore’s and pulled him up and then away from the desk, his boots dragging on the floor.  His head lolled from one side to another as she slowly carried him across the room, his earring occasionally swaying to tap at her temple.  This close, she could make out the lingering scent of aftershave, a crisp mint that gave way to warm musk and sandalwood, reminiscent of the hotel in Sumeru.  Nothing like the Segments, who often smelled of disinfectant and the persistent iron tang of blood.

Karina arranged him on the couch as best she could; unlike the last couch, it was long enough to consider his full height.  With help from the creature, she made quick work of his boots and placed them aside.  

Her eyes fell on his face, entirely unveiled now.  His jaw was just like Omega’s but his mask had hidden an aquiline nose, dark circles under his eyes, and a brow forever pinched in thought.  She could imagine how, if he were awake, his nostrils might flare and his eyes would narrow in indignation.  The Segments were, of course, still him and some manners never changed.  If he smiled more, Karina considered he might even be handsome in the right light.

She scoffed, gut immediately churning with guilt at seeing him like this.  A Harbinger’s visage, especially that of the top three, was their own private knowledge.  They were no longer the people they saw in the mirror but someone else, some thing else, entirely.  

And even she, with all of her work and her rank, was not worthy of that visual knowledge.

Karina tore her gaze from the Harbinger and retrieved his mask, clipping it into place over his eyes and forehead with ease.  There.  Perfect.

The creature tucked its creator in, little paws pressing a newly found blanket between the man’s biceps and the couch.  The chevalière watched as it paused and sat near Dottore’s feet, eye fixed on the sleeping Harbinger as it kicked its hind legs back and forth.  She didn’t count the minutes but when it finally hopped down, it immediately patted her boot and raised its arms, a silent plea to be carried.

Karina picked up the fluffy companion and sifted through Dottore’s desk with a single hand.  She left the office with her arms full of fur and papers, uncertain of all but the sleepless night ahead.

Her first note out of the laboratory had been not to the Jester but the Regrator, specifically through Volkov.  No one would question the correspondence chain and Volkov was being considered by Lord Pantalone as a potential Warden candidate.  Discretion was guaranteed.

She would deal with the Jester (and the Tsaritsa) at a later date.

The Fenris was handed off to the upper levels, contained and sedated.  Nothing the staff up there couldn’t handle.

Pantalone controlled the funding and if he wasn’t going to get results, he needed to be aware of the change in schedules.  Plus, he was familiar with Dottore’s handwriting; Karina could only look at the chicken scratch for so long before her eyes stung.  

Omega was in possession of two Gnoses, according to recent reports; Pantalone only mentioned that the Segment exchanged something of substantial value for both of them.

“One of them said something about a betrayal,” Karina said as she massaged water and broth down Dottore’s throat.  “Perhaps Omega offered up the Segments as collateral.  It would cripple the opposition and buy time without a true loss of life.  Archons never want to be responsible for the death of a human, no matter their moral standing.”

With a smirk as she cradled Dottore’s head just right, the Regrator agreed; after all, doing so would keep Lesser Lord Kusanali’s hands clean, too.  

When she wasn’t taking care of the Harbinger directly, she was making decisions about things she knew nothing about.  The written goals and hypotheses were not as clear as they initially seemed and it grew more difficult to ascertain priorities.  Not to mention the growing pile of Segments, the youngest of which was where the creature was now resting.

Her heart ached, reminded of when Rhiannon crawled into bed with her when she couldn’t sleep.  If she looked too closely, Karina felt sticky blood on her fingers and strong hands around her arms, prying her away from her sister’s lifeless body.

Did the little thing feel the agony of loneliness clawing from the inside out?  The fear, the fury?

When she admitted to Pantalone that it was almost impossible to keep the various projects Dottore gave his Segments straight, let alone what to do with the bodies, the banker gave a barking laugh of amusement.

“I know what I might do,” Pantalone drawled, golden eyes boring into her, “but this is your job.  No one else is as close to a Harbinger as their Warden.  It is your duty to consider what must be done and why.  After all, you’re meant to be an asset , Alexandre.”

Spoken as if she were nothing more than a number on a spreadsheet.

“Contrary to how he presents it, you would have been reassigned if he did not trust you,” the Ninth said.  “He never had a Warden previously.  Your presence will no doubt lend itself to a new perspective for him.”

He parted not long after for another meeting, a sickeningly kind smile on his lips.  Happy, no doubt, that he did not have to deal with Dottore’s condition and merely the fallout left behind.

Bastard.  

Both of them, bastards.

Without them, she wouldn’t even be alive now to be in this position.  Would it be better to be chained to a bed in Fontaine?  To have been killed with the rest of her family?

Dottore would laugh at her if he knew the thoughts running through her head.

Hadn’t training taught her anything?  Did her second chance mean nothing to her?  She accomplished enough to be promising by Fatui standards and yet she would squander it by wishing she were dead?

Wasteful, he would call her.  It was better to be alive, to know that the past didn’t matter, that it was only the here and now and the floor beneath one’s feet.

He was surprisingly grounded for a man who split himself into several branches.  Even if he was absolutely determined to find out the root cause of her Vision’s lack of power, even if he saw her as nothing more than a puzzle to solve.

At least he saw her and all she encompassed.

To the point that he neutralized the primordial water in her blood and turned her human.  How had no one in Fontaine realized that before?  Water as blood had been a metaphor but to think it held some truth…

Those files she read would no doubt be burned when he woke.

She scoffed as she settled back into her makeshift workstation and ran through what she knew.  The creature immediately returned to her lap, nestled close as it gave a sound close to a pur.

Dottore would want to part out the Segments.  They were expensive and difficult to make, full of dream solvent and something called primordial water, along with branches of Irminsul.  All of those could be repurposed in one way or another and Dottore hated nothing more than having to scout for or purchase parts.  

They were inorganic, which meant no concern for decomposition.  She could set up an area in the back and organize the branches; at least they’ll be out of the way and away from prying eyes.  

Most of them completed their major testing with a few exceptions for weaponry…next patrol left later this week under her charge…

She and Volkov could do the weapons testing.  The north would prove a good baseline and he at least understood instructions both verbal and written; whatever she couldn’t make sense of, he could.

Perfect.  The Segments could be rearranged in the morning and that gave her time to obtain the weapons and the rest of the details from other staff members.  She scribbled down the plans, complete with checklists and individuals involved, finally satisfied the issues were no longer intangible sensations in her brain.

Karina looked down at the creature, now curled up and fast asleep.  How easily he drifted off.  An enviable position from where she was sitting (and she was, now, stuck sitting; he slept too lightly for her to move him).  

She shifted down in the seat slightly and leaned back to put her feet on the desk, curling up a little in the seat.  Karina wrapped her arms around her new companion and held it close, her eyes and mind finally giving into the exhaustion of the last few days.  A little rest would not go amiss.

Dottore jolted awake, a strange weight on his neck and chest as his head throbbed.  His mouth tasted disgusting and felt like someone shoved a wade of cotton into his mouth to chew.  No, worse still, as if he was being asked to swallow a hairball.  

Hazily, he reached up and found a bulking mass on his face.  What the hell was this?

The Harbinger grabbed it and pulled it away from his face, instantly relieved as he spit out stray hairs and fibers.  The thing he held gave a series of sleepy protesting squeaks and when his vision settled again, Dottore came mask-to-eye with the single creature still alive after Omega’s destruction.

The fox-raven hybrid held out its tiny arms in victory, tail wagging at the realization its creator was awake.

Awake…that meant he’d been sleeping…no, that wasn’t quite sleep, was it?  It was too dark, too empty, too silent.  He might have brushed fingers with death once again in his extended lifetime.  It came close several times as a child, first with stones and then with swords and torches; by the time the desert itself tried to kill him, he was far too spiteful to die.

How long had he been…

Dottore released the creature’s scruff and it plopped back down into his lap.  The excitement died away, replaced with a need to make certain all was as it should be.  As the monster tapped its paws across his torso and arms, the Harbinger looked around and took stock of his surroundings.

His office.  Someone moved him from the chair and onto the couch, even went so far as to remove his shoes.  His mask felt slightly out of place and absently, he reached up and clicked it home, the screen beneath it flickering to life and displaying what he already knew.  All Segment vitals were zero’d out, signals dead, and the Segments themselves were unreachable.  He’d taken this off when he was last awake, he was certain.

It looked cleaner but maybe that was simply the dim light playing tricks on him.  The desk was void of papers and the table beside the couch had a pile of bowls and a cluster of glasses.  Neat and tidy but the remnants of one’s actions left behind?  By mere accident or did they want him to know they’d cared for him.

Cared for him.

Who the hell would care for a wretch like him?

It wasn’t as if the world did.

A paw tapped his cheek, sharp claws scratching his skin.  The Doctor looked down and found the creature looking at him, or trying to, eye narrowed.

“I’m fine,” Dottore said, voice hoarse.  “Nothing that can’t be rebuilt.  Omega is inherently selfish; you’re stuck with me from now on.”

A squeak that sounded like a human’s “nuh-uh” was the only reply he received before the fluffy tormentor climbed down and slowly made its way towards the door, left ajar.  When the Harbinger didn’t follow, it rolled its eye and waved its arms, beckoning him on.

“Alright, alright, fine.  Go on ahead.”

With his Segments gone, everything was bound to be close to shambles.  Even if Omega was successful, cutting off all of the Segments and silencing them was akin to cutting out his own eyes and chopping off an arm for good measure.  They weren’t just perspectives to use to examine problems; they were individuals, all of whom were good at what they did and furthered his work a hundred fold every year.  Culling them was tantamount to treason, depending on the Tsaritsa’s mood.

Even two Gnoses wouldn’t make up for the backlog of work and delays he would be facing.  

Dottore grimaced as his head pounded again.  He didn’t need this, any of this, and Omega had to go and throw everything back at him, naturally.  Anger initially flared deep in his stomach but it gave way to tasteless irony.  He’d been selfish at that age and perspective, focused only on what would bring him the most progress or further his understanding of the world.  

The Archon’s plan would not have worked if any other Segment had been sent, the clever sprout.  

Without them, he had a mountain of work ahead of him.

On the other hand, however, he’d gained an abundance of knowledge from all of their experiences.  His head swam with memories that were his but not, words and theories and concepts all at the ready, even if he never managed to be the one to gather them.

Amid all of them, a single memory of startled green eyes, a pang of fear.  

Surely he had not been so fortuitous?

The Second shoved his feet into his boots, pondering the expression as he buckled the fastenings.  Fear and uncertainty were friends to no one except those that knew how to use them but they were ugly on her; he lacked any other descriptors for it.  He usually relished in one’s terror, their instincts kicking in to debase oneself to their purest human form.  Yet now, that churn of fury returned, aimed at Omega not for his usurpation but the blast radius of it.

Why?

What did the chevalière even matter?

She was nothing but another face, doomed to expire before he would.  His Warden would die on the battlefield, or in servitude, probably in the next decade if she were lucky.

The Doctor stood, stretching only enough to rid his limbs of the lingering stiffness, and made his way out towards the workshop proper.

One day, the walls around him would not volley her laughs and quips around as they did today.  Dottore’s gaze settled on the chevalière , weary but no less dedicated, and his mouth went dry as he took in her visage.  The Creature was poised over her shoulders, more cat than anything; it appeared to nod before its attention shattered and it nuzzled closer to her.

Two cups on the table, steaming.  Already prepared, as always.

Without the Segments, it would be quieter in Haeresys, and her presence was…not unwelcome.  

He was no stranger to loss but the idea of being alone …

No.  Not before he had his answers and before he could give them to her.  She deserved that much.

She spared no details as she explained her plans, the breakdown of what he’d missed, where everything was organized.  Thorough, succinct, fairly logical; he knew her thought patterns well enough to work around her structure, if need be.

“Twelve Segments were brought back but I’m not certain that’s all of them.  Excluding Omega, naturally.  He should arrive tomorrow, based on the last raven received.”

Omega, Omega, Omega…whatever to do with him now that he outlived his usefulness?

Weapon testing would be finalized this week out in the wasteland of the north, specifically by both Wardens.  Not the ideal environment, especially given he would likely not be there to observe.  He would prefer to, of course, but…

She was only staying until he woke up, precisely with the intent to finish testing and provide details as soon as possible.  

“Unless your orders are different, Lord Harbinger?”

How he longed to hear her call him something else.  Anything else.  How would those two syllables of his, known only to himself and Omega, roll off her tongue?  Would she say it with disdain, perhaps, for all he did to her?  Or was that too much effort, too much to give him?

“No.  Your plan is sound, chevalière .”

Karina straightened and scooped the creature off of her shoulders.  Her lips quirked into a small comforting smile when the tell-tale cry of disappointment reached her, and she gave a habitual rub to its head.  Dottore’s heart seemed to misinterpret that he was not, in fact, dying, for it skipped a beat and then tried to make up for it, beating twice.

“Back before you know it, mon petit.  Don’t be so glum.”

The creature only seemed to sink into its disappointment further.  It used its one eye to boldly plead for her to stay, shameless in what it wanted.  

Shameless or simply direct?  Dottore couldn’t tell.  It knew nothing of the former and even less about being obtuse.

If he had blinked, he would have missed how she bent down and pecked the top of the creature’s head.  That cheered it up considerably and when she locked eyes with him again, Karina bowed.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going, sir.  The sleds leave at daybreak and I need to pack.”

Dottore nodded, turning his head away to assess the change in the workspace.  His ears felt hot now, too.  Seeing her be kind to the creature, to him , dredged up a tangled assortment of ideas, several of which involved genetics as his curious thoughts strayed if his red eyes were a dominant or recessive gene.

He had plenty of work ahead of him in just scraping the Segments, let alone being debriefed by others and examining the large corrupted wolf waiting for him upstairs.  

Karina turned and began to make her way out of the workshop when Dottore found his mouth opening of its own accord.

“Warden?”

He swore his ears burned hotter still just looking at her.  Ridiculous.  He might have helped her find her place here, potentially, and be the reason she was even still alive to begin with, but that didn’t mean she had to repay him.  No one held debts over him in that fashion.  Pantalone was an exception, of course, but Dottore wasn’t in the habit of equivalent exchange.

He didn’t understand this, the draw to her, the way he ached at the prospect of her being gone.  Even temporarily.

Dottore smiled, wide and sharp and playful.

“Come back in one piece, won’t you?” 

She smirked, and he could only assume by the shake of her head that she scoffed.  Karina broke her gaze away first, her eyes settling on a pile of parts before she looked at him again dead-on.

“As if I’d do anything else, Lord Harbinger.”

This time, he let her go, exhaling only when he heard the elevator grind shut and begin its ascent.  Dottore reached up and unclipped his mask, tossing it onto the table and leaning onto his palms.  

He looked up when he noticed movement; the creature stood proudly on its hind legs, eye narrowed in pride as it wagged its tail.  It gave a little chirp, reminiscent of a teasing whistle.  

Dottore glared.  “Oh, shut it, won’t you?”

She would be the death of him, that much was certain.  If Omega couldn’t kill him, Karina might.

[boundinparchment]

Drown With the Sun (I/II)

Il Dottore's segment took care of her pain in his absence, as was his duty; Karina, as his second-in-command, returned the gesture when the segments were gone. Part 2 of The Heretic and the Forsaken series. Il Dottore/Female Original Character. On AO3 here.

Karina blinked in vain, willing away the rings around the bright lights and the agonizing pressure in her skull.  It wasn’t a surprise; she was due for her cycle and her caffeine intake dropped suddenly due to a recent schedule change.  She hadn’t slept in almost a day.

Any number of things would have triggered the pain radiating from behind her eye.  Perhaps a tiny creature had crawled through her ear to drive an ice pick into her ocular socket.  

Knowing Dottore, anything was possible.

Regardless, she still had to work and the Segment assigned to her training hammered her over and over all morning.  Questions, broken up by a sparring session.  Unrelenting.

Just like their confrontation in Fontaine.

Worse, actually.

Or maybe that was the pain talking.

White light exploded when something blunt and solid smacked her ribcage, her diaphragm spasming as her body forgot how to breathe.  Her knife clattered to the stone floor.  More pain seared across her being.  A problem for when her brain didn’t feel like it was trying to escape her skull.  She vaguely thought about a bruise until the pain found the rhythm of her pulse, pounding.

Winded, Karina’s vision cleared for a second to reveal a familiar black and white mask and red eyes.

The younger version of Dottore rolled his eyes and dismissed his training claymore with a wave of his hand.  Most knew him as a catalyst user but if she was to serve him as Warden,, she needed to learn and understand his methods of close quarter combat.  Or so Prime insisted, much to Karina’s and the Segment’s disappointment.

“What is wrong with you, chevalière?  You didn’t even move,” the Segment snapped.  “Don’t tell me your brain has been replaced with a Cryo slime.”

“That’d be your dream come true, wouldn’t it?” Karina muttered.

“Not particularly.  You’re ever so slightly above average intelligence usually.  Would be a shame to lose that.”

Always so charming, Karina thought, pushing away the urge to frown.

Her blood pressure finally dropped a little and she could no longer hear the blood rushing in her ears.  But the pickaxe behind her eye remained, chipping away at her optic nerve, and was beginning to sink into her jaw.  Breathing still hurt and made it all the worse.  If she moved, her vision swam and the pain increased again.  

“Usually you’ve already attacked in return and would have tried going for my jugular like they taught you.  You’re efficient.  And yet you stall.  Did you not see me, chevalière?”

The Segment approached in three quick strides and ducked a little, his head cocked to the side.  He kept his arms folded behind his back.  Karina held his gaze but he broke away first, crimson eyes roaming her face.  

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Day before last.  You’ve been keeping me here.”

“You’ve been compensating with caffeine, no doubt.”

“What other choice did I have?”

A bright light blinded her for a second and she flinched.  Her shoulders curled forward as she pressed a palm to her eye, swallowing the whimper that clawed at her throat.

“We’re done for the day.  Come with me.”

Karina’s covered eye watered against her hand.  The light sensitivity was bad but he may as well have stabbed her.  Everything swam again for a second before she fell into step behind the Segment.  Instead of leading her out of the basement and back to the surface, Karina followed him through a door and down a corridor; he was never far from her, and even seemed to impatiently wait for her.

The room they arrived in would have been sprawling if not for the cluttered bookshelves and mismatched furniture littered with equipment and various pieces of machinery.

“Sit.”

A white gloved hand pointed to a sofa on the far wall and his tone left no room for negotiation.  Karina complied, the firm cushions hardly giving way under her weight.  Hardly used.  Or perhaps simply a new replacement.

The Segment adjusted the lights, dimming them without hindering his ability to see, and then went about searching through a few cabinets near the door after shedding his coat.  He seemed to be gathering a few items and distantly, Karina thought a fatal experiment would at least likely end the pain.  Little could be worse than it already was, in her opinion.

Out of the corner of her eye as she scanned the room, she thought she saw a flash of fur.  No.  Maybe just some discarded material.  It hurt to have her eyes open but hallucinations weren’t one of her usual symptoms.

And then the weird fluff appeared at the Segment’s feet.  Roughly the size of a toddler, the creature stood on two legs and had tiny clawed hands and a fluffy tail, not unlike the raccoons that darted through Fontaine’s forests.  It was white, no , light blue, and when it turned its head to her, Karina had to squint to confirm the singular eye and beak centered in its black-furred face.

It tugged on the Segment’s pant leg and pointed, chittering.  Karina winced at the sound.  What other abominations were kept down here?

Karina only caught a clipped, “Behave.  Prime doesn’t need to know,” before the Segment returned, one hand full of fluid bags and the other guiding an IV pole in place.  The little blue creature pushed the base, as if helping.

“This is Prime’s private office but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” the Segment explained, casting a glare down.

The creature shrunk, as if ashamed, before it turned its attention to Karina.  It was cute, she acquiesced, but not in the way that children’s toys were often adorable and pleasant; the single eye and the sharp claws tore that image away instantly.  Slowly, the little thing stepped forward, hands patting Karina’s boots; before she could reach down, the creature was pulling at the buckles.

“Remove your boots and your jacket, chevalière.  Extend your left arm when you’re finished.”

Karina made quick work of her boots and coat, or as quick as one could be when every movement made the pounding that much worse.  The creature sniffed her hand all the while, a few sounds escaping its beak.  Soon enough, it nuzzled itself against her right hip on the couch.  Karina hesitantly reached out and stroked the oddity, finding its fur soft and clean.

For a moment, her eyes traced the soft curls framing the Segment’s mask.  Was his hair as soft as this?  Was Prime’s?

When she didn’t extend her arm quick enough, gloved hands took her arm and arranged it over the arm of the couch.  Experienced fingers poked and prodded, searching for a vein.

“Pay that thing no mind,” the Segment said.  “It’s a troublemaker, much worse than the younger branches.  No cognitive growth.  It’ll bite you just as much as it’ll demand to share a space with you.”

Next to her, Karina felt the vibrations of a growl.  Or the bird equivalent of such a noise.  The sound stopped when she gently used her fingertips to rub the spot between its ears, just above its eye.

“You’ll feel a little burning at the injection site but it eases once you’re asleep.”

“Wait, what are you—?”

Karina went to pull her arm away but the Segment was quicker, hand pinning her arm to the couch.  He held her in place with just enough pressure for her knee-jerk reaction to ease, a silent plea to think rather than react.

“A painkiller and something to help you sleep.  Standard compounds they’d give you in the infirmary.  Unless you’ve forgotten that it would be quite foolish, idiotic even, for me to kill you.  Prime wants you alive to investigate your Vision.  I’m hardly going to interfere with that wish.  Some of the pain is likely withdrawal, given your caffeine intake as of late,” the Segment explained.  “This won’t help with the inevitable nausea but you should sleep through most of it.”

Through unfocused vision, Karina met the Segment’s gaze again, garnet gem burning in the low light.  Despite his obscured features, there was a certainty in the set of his shoulders and a thin line of the corner of his mouth; he meant every word.  And even this Segment, as much as he bickered with his creator, always obeyed the larger picture.  

Potentially one of the few with an inch of self-awareness.

Fine.  Not like she had much of a choice to begin with.  And she would have a hell of a time making it back to her quarters right now.

Karina nodded and then closed her eyes, leaning back against the couch as the hand on her arm relaxed.

“Did he make this thing?” she asked, stroking the soft fur on her right.

“Yes and no,” the Segment explained as he found a vein and tied a tourniquet.  “Lord Pantalone was, for a time, invested in children’s toy manufacturing; he needed designs that were unique and charming.”

A cool swab was brushed across her elbow before she felt the pinch of the needle.  The Segment attached the IV valve and the pain eased as it was taped down.  He continued to speak as he prepped the rest of the painkillers and attached the lines.

“Prime came up with the prototype for an animatronic companion, complete with its own nervous system, but it happened to be too close by during a Segment creation.  One of his youngest selves ended up in the creature.  Needless to say, the line of toys was never created.”

As if on cue, the creature wiggled its way onto her lap and nestled against her, arms out in a hug.  For a monstrous thing, it was relatively friendly.  For now.

“So technically, it’s just like you?”

The Segment opened the line and the drip of painkillers began, Karina’s arm immediately searing as soon as the concoction met her bloodstream.  She bit the inside of her cheek and fought to keep her arm relaxed.  At this point, what was more pain?

He’d done it on purpose though.  Gone was the steadfast dedication to removing her pain and in its place was the familiar haughtiness and arrogance.  At least he’d gone back to normal.

“In the crudest sense, yes, if you must phrase it that way,” the Segment rested a fist on his hip, the corner of his mouth set into a scowl.  “In actuality, myself and the others are far more complex and expensive in both resources and physicality.”

The little creature shuffled and turned around, hind feet on Karina’s thighs, eye narrowed.  It waved its arms around and continued its screeching.  She’d heard similar sounds from playful foxes, now that she heard more out of the creature.

“Oh, stop it, she’s fine,” the Segment barked out.

More chittering.  Karina winced when the creature hit a high sound.

“Ridiculous.  You should be quite thrilled you get as much freedom as you do, fluffball.  Do as you wish; Prime will be upset regardless.”

She opened one eye when the weight on her lap relented and she heard the tapping of claws against the flagstone.  When Karina flicked her gaze to the Segment, she found him with crossed arms and his eyes watching the blue monster toddling around in search of something.

“He’s outside of the Segment network,” was the only explanation she received.  “Unbeholden to Prime in the same way.  He has the most freedom but he lacks every opportunity to grow.  Forever stunted, stuck before…”

He clicked his tongue and gave a sardonic scoff.

“Forget it.  I’ll notify Prime of your situation.  Sleep it off and be prepared to make up for the lost time as soon as you’re functional again.”

The Segment was gone in a blur of long legs, only stopping to grab his coat and shout something at the creature that was now buried, face first, into a nearby chest.  The door slammed shut, rattling Karina’s aching skull.

She settled back onto the sofa, rearranging herself so she laid lengthwise across the surface.  Compared to her, Dottore no doubt had to let his feet dangle off the arm of the couch if he didn’t curl up; she barely fit as it was and she was still several inches shorter than her superior.  

Karina found a way to lay her arm to prevent the tubes from being tangled and just as she settled, she heard scurrying and felt the little blue monster return.  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught little arms unfolding a blanket and flapping it out, trying to drape it over her.  It gave a huff of dissatisfaction and finished the job by wriggling up the length of the couch and bringing the edge of the blanket with it.

Once it found a comfortable position, she felt a final sigh more than she heard it and closed her eyes.  Whatever the medication didn’t help, sleep would, even if she was going to be covered in blue fur at the end of it all.

Absolute waste of time.  Another meeting that could have been a written missive.  Hours upon hours spent talking about procedure and policy rather than actual plans.  Tartaglia could not seem to unglue his eyes from the Captain long enough to give a status report and Pantalone reminding them all of correct expense reports did not make for a productive, informative, morning.

Dottore’s footfalls were heavy as he strode through the upper levels of the lab, teeth clenched every time someone waited too long to get out of his path.  He’d spent too long around people, around useless pieces of dross, and now he had to make up for it.  His Segments only helped so much, especially when he was in charge of the technology needed for the excursions into the Chasm and the far reaches of the desert.  Parts of his network were too quiet, another abnormality; that did not occur on its own without good reason.

As soon as he finally arrived down in the basements and crossed the threshold into his private retreat, Dottore, prime and divisible only by himself, discovered the reason.

The Fontaine chevalière, curled up, one arm peeking out from a blanket attached to a half-empty IV line.  Dottore’s eyes narrowed behind his mask as he caught sight of a familiar set of ears, his fluffy mistake of a Segment nestled against the woman in the same way it often demanded to with his creator.

He ran his tongue over his back teeth before he quietly crossed the room, reading the label on the bag of fluids.  Painkiller and sleeping aid.  She hadn’t needed either one in months, not since before she left for training, before she was thrust into her new position as his second-in-command.  Or she would be, if she ever learned to take care of herself.

Dottore dropped his gaze and traced his eyes over the darkened circles beneath her eyes and her too-dry lips.  She loved using that mouth of hers almost as much as she did her blade.  The Harbinger might have found her retorts annoying if not for the fact that she often provided a different perspective; his colleagues only ever opened their mouths to drive home needless sharp barbs.  She at least pressed to make a point.

The very thing that almost got her killed not once, but twice.

Would she ask a third time?

After all, so many things in Teyvat came in groups of three…

His fingers twitched when his hand hovered over her hair and he pulled away.  She’d only been here close to a year.  And yet the silence when she was asleep, out of sight…deafening.  That hadn’t been the case at first; he’d previously been overwhelmed by intrigue, wondering how a single person ever ended up with a dormant Vision opposed to an empty one, impressed marginally by the willpower it took to keep going after the world took everything away…

That ache in his chest did not belong.  If he could rip out his heart and survive, like his Segments could, he would tear the thing from his ribcage to make this sensation stop.

A bleary eye opened and blinked at him, as red as his own; the creature at least had the understanding to recognize this was not the norm, curling slightly in embarrassment and burying its face against Karina’s collarbone.

It was comfortable with her.  He could not recall ever being so, not at that age, not even with his own parents.

When Dottore didn’t shoo it away, the not-Segment pulled Karina’s arm around it and nestled back into place.

How curious.

The Harbinger reached out and swept away a stray lock of hair.  Karina didn’t stir, her facial muscles not recognizing the touch at all.  The sedative was powerful, certainly; he’d used it enough times to know its potency.

For a moment, he contemplated his options.  Waking the chevalière was pointless since she would barely be able to walk.  Bringing her back to her own quarters himself would raise too many questions.  And moving her at all would wake the hybrid creature and Dottore was in no mood to deal with the screeching and cackling.

Why he’d chosen a fox and a raven as the original inspiration for the prototype, he could not recall.  A mistake, in hindsight.

“If it keeps you all quiet…” he muttered.

The Doctor tugged on his ascot and unfastened his jacket, discarding both on the desk.  He adjusted his gloves before leaving the room, intent on finding another distraction that did not involve dark hair and eyes the color of spring grass.

When he rounded the corner, he came face to face with the Segment in charge of her training, the one that he often wished had killed the woman laying in the other room.  In an instant, his hand shot out and grabbed its throat as Dottore shifted his weight to press the Segment against the nearest wall.

“Never.  Again.  She does not belong in my private office.”

“And yet you left her there, Zandik,” the Segment smiled, pointed teeth bared.  “There’s something beyond curiosity with her.  She’s tenacious, persistent.  Few have continued on when all of life is against them.”

He squeezed harder and the Segment only laughed.

“She needed to rest.  I could not train her in that state.  It was a matter of convenience and will not happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.”

His hand muscles flexed and when he felt the synthetic flesh give underneath his fingers, the Harbinger let go.  The Segment grunted and shook its head, skin already marred and bearing a handprint.

When she was finally gone and the little creature had burrowed into the blanket left behind somewhere else in the laboratory, Dottore plucked the pillow from the couch and held it to his face, inhaling imported shampoo and spun sugar.  Always sweet, as if she spent her free time in the kitchens rather than on the sparring mats with that other survivor, Volkov.

His chest tightened and his heart jumped.  Mere conditioning.  She was one of the few who kept up with him, truly met him blow for blow, knew the cruelest facets of the world and yet rose up and demanded another punch from fate itself.

He threw the pillow into the nearest furnace and the sofa was gone by morning.

[boundinparchment]

🎲 :)

A kiss to the neck + along the collarbone

It was a reflex, really. So she told herself. The fire’s embers glowed but provided no warmth and she had little recourse but to shift and burrow into a shoulder that was far too proud to ever slump.

It was rare to ever see more than the exposed skin of his Adam’s apple. Perhaps once, on a Segment, Karina noticed the defined collarbone. Long before his time in exile with the Eremites honed his muscles. Even on that, of course, she was speculating; it was obvious that he spent time among the desert tribes when she saw how they interacted, how easily negotiations went.

What did who he had been matter to her? After all, this was just…tension snapping.

Karina turned over, lips brushing over the well-defined muscles that laid otherwise hidden at the base of his neck. She followed a trail of her own making and stopped when his collarbone split at a small hollow.

Without missing a beat, hands grabbed her waist and pulled her into a now-familiar position. Around them, the heavy cloak that doubled as a blanket shifted, shielding them from most of the cruelty of a winter’s night.

“Am I not allowed to admire what time has done, what you hide from the world?” Karina dared to teased. “Am I wrong for that?”

Bold, too bold, and she was far too sober for this.

He had no reply, instead only leveraging them both so she was on her back, enveloped by him again in one swift motion. His rhythm, the cadence of his breathing and the way he held her close as he buried his face in her neck in return told her everything his silence did not.

[boundinparchment]

🎲

A kiss to the shoulder

“You’re lucky to even be alive.”

“I know.”

“This is going to hurt. Limb replacement is a months-long process.”

“I know.”

She didn’t want the lecture. Didn’t need it. Enough people looked at her like a wounded puppy. The victor of the duel and yet all the poorer for it.

Karina sat on an adjustable table, one that allowed her to sit normally while her torso was propped up, back facing Dottore. Her shirt hung in shreds off of her arms, her back wholly exposed. It was less a physician’s table and more intended for massages and stretching, but it would work, for he needed a good angle for her shoulder blade.

Gloved hands traced her spine and then her left shoulder blade, before moving on to the tender flesh on her right. The joint was partially intact, he said; getting the shoulder and the arm joint to work in tandem would be tedious but doable.

Warmth flooded her back, pierced only by the metallic rings of a harness. A nose tickled her spine before she felt lips pressed against her bare flesh, the skin and muscles tender and sore.

She swore she felt her name whispered against her skin, like a prayer, a plea, a sigh of relief from a man who called upon no god for answers.

“I am glad you’re alive.”

[boundinparchment]

🎲!

A kiss in parting + a kiss to a palm

She lingered, unable to pull away, as if her feet had grown roots. The sun dared to peek behind the trees and paint the sky hues of pink and orange. Somewhere nearby, a bird began its morning song, and she watched as Zandik tilted his head slightly, listening.

A different moment was preferable but there was little choice when it came to field expeditions.

Karina leaned down to brush away soft teal curls and press a kiss to her daughter's forehead; the child didn't even twitch, eyes bleary as she reached for her mother and found fingers to grip.

"I'll send reports when I can," she said. "It's routine, I shouldn't be gone longer than two weeks."

With practiced ease, he shifted their daughter from one arm to another, the child not once letting go of her mother's hand. Karina nestled into his now free arm, as best one could with a pack on one shoulder, and rested her head in the perfect crook near his neck.

"Come back in one piece. Parts of that arm are no longer possible to source."

Karina huffed. "Ever practical, aren't you?"

"I will miss you, that goes without saying."

Rough fingers gently pulled at tiny ones, replaced them, and brought her hand to his lips. Her skin burned, days later, where she last remembered his touch.

[boundinparchment]

Spillways - X - FIN

Karina Alexandre, formerly of Fontaine, serves the Fatui after a series of events forces her hand and her Vision no longer glows bright. Unluckily for her, such circumstances are all too fascinating to the Second Harbinger. Prequel to ‘Tell Me Who You Wanna Be’. Hints at Il Dottore x Original Female Character. ArchiveOfOurOwn

Karina’s ears rang as she clasped hands automatically with Volkov upon arriving to the doors of the audience chamber. She’d forced herself to eat the food set out for her that morning and donned the black uniform left for her, a replacement for her now-ruined one from yesterday.

Volkov looked like death; his eyes bore dark circles and he noticeably limped. Distance spared her more brutal injuries but only just. As much as she hated to admit it, Dottore had been right; she was lucky to still have her arm after handling a gun of that size so freely. Karina otherwise only felt like she ran on a hamster wheel for weeks minus the agonizing tug of her shoulder.

Two squadrons all but decimated and she was a survivor both times?

It was beginning to get old.

Kneeling at the foot of the throne was a blur and she tried her best to focus on the words spoken to them. The last two of their entire training squadron, they had shown immense resilience and an understanding of one another’s strengths and weaknesses.

“Although both of you need a better understanding of risk assessment,” the Tsaritsa said, her eyebrows raised in disapproval. “You will be assigned to a Harbinger for your training but that does not mean you will permanently serve them; unless the need arises or a Harbinger asks, Wardens are typically needed for special field missions beyond the scope of the normal ranks. It should go without saying that rank trumps any questions of loyalty.”

They were expected not to think, to obey the hierarchy of rank; contrarily, one needed enough free will and critical thinking to know exactly how to handle a situation in the event they were the one with the highest rank in the room. Familiar territory.

Perhaps the Knave or the Dove, the Fontainian thought. The Knave at least was from Fontaine and it wouldn’t hurt to at least have one connection in a foreign land that loved no one at all. Hell, she would endure Tartaglia if she had to.

Fate had other plans. Naturally.

“Alexandre, you share a history with my Doctor that may, in fact, be far more beneficial to your role here,” the Archon said, her eyes glimmering as she dashed Karina’s silent pleas. The soldier’s head spun and she balled her hands to keep them from shaking. “Your previous skillsets lend themselves perfectly to a position with the quartermaster that needs to be filled; you’ll distribute weapons per written order and repair uniforms. It is the Doctor’s hope that you will understand the principles under which you must work.”

From there, she only caught snippets of Volkov, Pantalone, and something about horses. Given the two Harbingers were well acquainted, perhaps this would not be as lonely as a journey as she expected.

They were dismissed with little ceremony but Karina hesitated, not rising to her feet immediately. Whatever expectations she held for that morning, these were not considered, and when the Tsaritsa came to stand in front of her, she saw a different Archon than the one who wiped away her tears and apologized for her suffering.

For there was little left to feel now.

The Tsaritsa gestured for Karina to rise before she laid an icy hand on the human’s cheek.

“Remember what I told you: this world is cruel in its futility, in its cyclical nature. That is why, instead of fighting against the cycle itself, we seek to simply break the wheel. Fate changed for you when your Vision went dark. Make the most of it.”

A final dismissal that would not go unpunished this time.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Your Majesty,” Karina said, bowing at the waist before she left the frozen throne room.

Volkov was nowhere to be found, much to Karina’s relief. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind for questions and for Volkov’s speculation. He was perceptive, at least based on the last few days’ events, and seemingly right more often than not.

Made for arrogance, made one think themselves infallible.

She would not make the same mistake twice.

The chevalière took little comfort in the sentiments from the Archon as she made her way down to Haeresys, as requested. If anything was cyclical, it was the journey back and forth to the depths of the Palace, as if she were a children’s toy on a string.

When she arrived, she was only directed with a stammer and two directions to another elevator, to the highest restriction section. Her shoulder throbbed with a pulse of its own and she tried to keep it still, find a position that didn’t cause pain. In hindsight, a sling probably would have been a good idea.

The main level disappeared behind a metal shutter and her stomach pitched at the jolt of the wires and pullies as she descended. The old dungeons and a fighting pit most were familiar with fashioned private cells and a testing arena; if one was fortunate, that was all they ever saw of Haeresys. The depths of the Palace and Dottore’s domain grew like an organism of its own cognition, built upon over the years (centuries, no doubt, Karina mused) as needs grew. The longer she had to traverse them, the more they felt like a maze, never ending and always trying to bring one to the center.

Newer stone, better lighting, cleaner environments.

All the more ominous for it.

Karina stepped out of the elevator and gave her name and identification not to a guard but a camera. It whirred as it zoomed in before the double doors ahead unlocked with a low buzz.

She followed the corridor, footsteps echoing along with the steady hum of energy from the large coils of wires along the floor, until the space opened up into a large, sunken, high-vaulted room. It was a neater version of the pit used in the first level high above, with clear delineated workspaces despite the open room. A desk with a large contraption atop it and various bookshelves in the center dominated the space but her eyes also caught on a half-assembled Ruin machine in a far corner along with what looked to be mechs from Fontaine.

They weren’t so much as missing parts as much as they were simply…disintegrated.

Not far from the pile of metal limbs, an examination table held a large mass underneath a white sheet. The fabric was stained with blood and a black residue that seemed to be eating away at the material. Through a hole in the covering, Karina swore a diamond eye blinked at her.

In the back, off to her right, she caught a sound and looked to see Dottore and one of his Segments, heads bowed in conspiracy. Karina’s eyes locked with a red-eyed glare from the man with shorter hair, the corner of his mouth curled into a snarl through the cutout of his mask. So many of them looked similar around a certain age but when he threw up a hand and stormed out, Karina had no doubt that Segment was the one she confronted all those years ago.

Bastard. Unhinged cackling hyena with no sense of moral propriety. All of those bodies, piled high and all he could do was laugh…

The only upside to Dottore himself was that he seemingly got better with age; or, rather, he knew precisely when to pull out the behavior he was so infamous for and put it on display. Perhaps that wasn’t necessarily a benefit at all, Karina realized. It only made him more unpredictable.

Without much direction, she approached the center of the room. The device, she realized, was not unlike the large sniper rifle she trained with. Bigger still, roughly the length of the desk, there was a distinct gap between two pieces of metal rather than a traditional barrel. No chamber, no lever, not even a seam for a magazine. Fascinating. Such guns were, on occasion, mounted to Fontaine’s ships but…

“It’s a prototype rail gun, still far from field testing. If you’re lucky, perhaps you’ll be able to dislocate your shoulder again to fire it one day,” the Harbinger said by way of greeting.

When had he approached? She hadn’t even heard him.

Karina straightened and rested her hands behind her back. Dottore didn’t so much as look at her as he scoured his desk for several sheets of paper, finding the folder he wanted beneath the barrel of the rail gun.

Wait, if the true Dottore could approach that silently, then…

“Don’t bother. We’re alone. You are not the only one displeased with the Tsaritsa’s arrangements, chevalière. Nothing the second half of today’s experiment won’t fix.”

“What’s the first, sir?”

The Harbinger’s head snapped up as he found a pen, his thumb releasing the cap with a resonating click that seemed far too loud. His jaw twitched, annoyed at such an obvious question.

“Ensuring your shoulder is operational enough for field training.”

As with any examination, it involved sitting on an examination table and having her back and shoulder prodded further. While he moved her shoulder and arm and pressed his fingers into the joint, Karina remained dutifully silent, stiff every time she felt his gloved hands touch her skin.

“If you tense up any further, I might snap your joint,” Dottore drawled. “Relax. I care not for what Evreux did to you nor to perpetuate his behavior. But your stiffness will not help identify if something is out of alignment.”

He almost sounded disgusted. How kind.

“The next few months are going to be fun,” he muttered to himself. Louder, as he rubbed his fingers beneath her shoulder blade, he asked, “Do you even know the full truth, Alexandre?”

“That my previous superior turned out to be wholly protected by his family’s legacy and used me as a scapegoat? That the only reason I’m even out of Fontaine was because the current class war suits Fatui interests? Or that, if I had simply agreed to the terms laid out, I’d at least have a family to write to?”

She didn’t want to think about this. If he was bitching about her being tense now, this conversation was not going to make things much better.

“What, precisely, do you remember, chevalière?” Dottore asked as he brought her arm out and moved it up slightly; she winced at the pain and the uncomfortable way he felt around the joint with his other hand. “From the beginning.”

Better than being told to forget about what happened and push through her nightmares, she supposed. But not by much.

“It was gradual. By the time I caught Sébastien’s attention, I was too enamored to consider anything suspicious. Exactly what they teach you not to do,” Karina said.

After a pause, she continued.

“He disliked my use of a Vision. I earned my promotions fair and square but what other conclusion were people meant to draw when I was top of my squadron but publicly courting my superior?”

“That you were actually capable at the profession you chose. But most people prefer to think the world is not that boring. Go on.”

She was about to remark that her question was rhetorical but when she felt additional pressure on her joint and winced, she realized that was the entire point.

Watch yourself, Karina thought.

She recounted the strange times when Sébastien was gone for days. How he always seemed to come back in a better mood with a different change of clothes. Things would be fine for years. Until rumors swirled and then articles began to tell of people missing. At first, it was children. Later, it became groups of the population that the perpetrator thought no one would miss.

Karina’s words were mechanical, an echo of the testimony she gave to the Court.

“All of the pieces lined up to fit the notion that the Fatui were taking advantage of the people forgotten by the Hydro Archon. It made sense.”

She didn’t miss Dottore’s scoff against her skin before he released her arm.

“You should gave the full range of motion back within the week. Get dressed.”

She did and Dottore stepped away to the side scribbled something down and then turned his attention back to her. That she couldn’t see his eyes was, in fact, almost soothing. His eyes unnerved her, or at least the Segment’s eyes did.

She blinked away the remnants of her nightmare from the previous evening.

Didn’t make being under his gaze any easier.

He reached for a tool from a nearby table before pulling a vial from his pocket. Its contents were dark purple pulsing and shimmering, never quite stabilizing. The Harbinger swirled the tiny container carefully before giving it a good shake, the two materials mingling as best they were capable of.

“What is that?” Karina asked, eyes narrowed.

“Without a Vision, without a Delusion, you will be severely disadvantaged. Consider this a...contingency.”

Too late, she realized what his other hand held as he drew the liquid into a syringe. Her mind raced in an attempt to put a name to the liquids and came up woefully short as Dottore grabbed her neck. A searing pain was localized in the curve of her neck at first until it began to crawl, carried by her own blood.

Betrayed by her own body. Again.

“Subject has yet to dissolve, as others have with this same mixture. Promising. And yet contradictory, because Fontainians inherently...ah…unless that’s the common denominator…”

Dottore’s words melted away as whispers crept along her bones and nestled into the base of her skull. They grew louder and louder, her ears ringing even worse than before, their words never coherent and their suffering eternal. Karina whimpered as she caught sight of marks across her hands, traveling along her veins and dancing towards her fingertips and staining them black. She swallowed thickly and fought back a wave of nausea before she clutched her head and doubled over, falling off of the table and onto the floor in a heap.

She caught sight of her reflection in the shining leg of the table, her eyes no longer a familiar green but a glowing purple, and her skin sallow, sickly.

A hand gripped her hair and pulled her to her feet. Dottore kept her head angled, his face so close to hers that his mask’s beak pressed into her nose.

“Residue is already subsiding, irises are back to normal with no signs of permanent discoloration.”

He shoved her away and out of the examination section. She stumbled back, panting.

“...tenacious, as expected of an allogene with an Electro affinity,” he spat.

Dottore rolled his wrist and a large claymore materialized, floating faithfully nearby.

“Time to see what you’re made of, chevalière.”

Without a weapon, Karina had no choice but to put distance between them; being up close and personal with a claymore wielder was foolish, asking to be killed.

A bright flash of light and a familiar whistle ripped through the air and Karina whipped her head to see the other Segment from before. Above his shoulders, two needles, both primed for another shot.

Well, fuck.

The room itself was of no help. Or almost no help. Distance didn’t matter when those shots would take a limb clean off or worse. She grabbed a nearby tray and held it up to her head, covering herself just when another laser whizzed towards her.

“You never did thank me,” the Segment snarled. “For leaving the breadcrumb trail. Just a shame it was all a waste and I had to clean it up anyway.”

“Why would I thank you for essentially framing me? You worked with him! You and the Marionette ensured he would never be brought to justice by getting rid of the bodies!”

“You say that as if Focalors would have punished him to begin with,” Dottore, hand raised and claymore poised high over his head, laughed as he slowly flanked her. “Such a case would have created more indemnitium but it would have destabilized faith in the powers that be. And your Archon would never consider such a thing. You handed Evreux everything he needed on a silver platter, chevalière.”

Karina wove her way around the room, avoiding the Segments well-aimed shots and keeping an eye on Dottore proper. Neither seemed in any kind of hurry, especially the Harbinger himself. He was baiting her, corralling her. Like a wolf circling its prey.

“Sébastien Evreux made quite the mess of the plans in Fontaine. And he was–is–a loose thread. His sentiments towards allogenes, given his authority and ruling power, became quite violent and with enough attention, the nation could easily earn the ire of the Heavenly Principles...”

She grabbed a proper shield from the surviving mechs and dodged another shot as she continued to circle.

“They teach you to disarm and disengage as soon as possible. Why are you hiding?” Dottore goaded.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement and turned to meet the heavy blow, the claymore’s blade winking at her as she bolstered herself against the force.

“Our actions kept the peace so Fontaine would not be subject to Celestia’s autonomous wrath. Your comrades would have lived if not for your meddling.”

“But not my family.”

She long ago realized that they would have died, one way or another, no matter how she looked at it. The words felt like fire in her throat and she couldn’t help but spit them out reflexively, putting the rest of her willpower into holding against Dottore’s claymore.

A laser whizzed past her head, just near her ear, and took off a chunk of hair with it. It distracted her just enough and she lost her grip and fell when Dottore’s power won out and the claymore pushed her down.

“Your family was killed by rogue Fatui Agents who liked that Evreux’s money lined their pockets. The event is, actually, quite unrelated,” the Segment snickered.

“But you knew that,” Dottore continued. “It is unclear what would have become of you if you had, instead, returned to your superior first. Or if you had discovered the true story right then.”

“It’s not as complicated as you make it seem, Lord Harbinger,” Karina shot back. “Not really.”

She didn’t want to think about that. How she’d let herself be comforted by a man who slaughtered for fun, who targeted allogenes like they were a disease. Had she not had her moment of clarity, Karina was certain she would be begging for death by the time Evreux was through with her.

Dottore smirked. “The sad reality is that you are here, alive, and your family is gone. You yearned for more and you flew too close to the sun.”

He knelt down over her, his weapon hovering like an executioner’s blade above both of them.

“To have a Vision is to embrace one’s fate. One truth remains among everything else and it is that you were meant to die that day. You did not. Now get up and fight, chevalière.”

[boundinparchment]

It's funny because I was just thinking about the coffee shop AU you came up with last time! 8. Hospital AU and 70. Locked in a Room or 71. Twenty-Four Hours to Live because I can't decide. With Dottore and whoever else comes to mind :3

"Whatever you do, don't--" Karina winced when the latch clicked home. "...let the door shut."

"How did you get in here?"

Today was turning out to be absolute hell and it just kept getting worse. After the day (and night) she'd had, especially after the grueling drive in the raging snowstorm, she wanted to be alone.

A prayer room would have been better, in hindsight. It was stupid of her to assume the door to the bunk room wasn't busted when she had to press her shoulder into the door for it to unstick.

And now, the head of neurology was glaring at her with eyes even more bloodshot than hers. His question had everything to do with her blood-splattered EMS uniform; only doctors had access to on-call rooms and most were locked behind keycards.

Except for this one, tucked away in an older part of the hospital, away from the bustle.

"Same as you. But now that the door is closed, it can't open from the inside."

Karina met the neurologist more times than she cared to, purely out of coincidence. He was the youngest department leader in a long time, people said, and although grating on one's emotions, he often knew exactly how to pinpoint and treat the problem.

And maybe, just maybe, she'd been dared to approach him at a bar after drinking with her colleagues, only to end up getting a ride home from the sharp-tongued man standing near the door. He was quiet until she asked about the car and remarked that it looked like a shark from the front. His laugh was warm, rich like the amber liquid that burned her throat, and he remarked on the engine quality and feeling connected to the road.

She hadn't dared invite him upstairs and he had not deigned to ask. People would talk at work anyway; there was little point in lending any truth to such rumors.

That man seemed so far away now as his red eyes burned into her. Exhausted, body and soul, and perhaps all of his work in vain if the patient didn't see results.

The doctor's eyes narrowed, lips tugged into a frown, before he slowly turned to test her statement. Jammed, refusing to budge.

He slammed his fist against the door and then left it there for a moment. His shoulders rose and fell before he straightened and made his way towards one of the other bunks and took a seat. He kicked off his shoes and then settled onto the cot, not bothering to get under the covers as he turned his back to her.

Doctors like him were paged and on-call twenty-four-seven; he'd be up in all of fifteen minutes after they rang for him.

He turned over onto his back, his head lolling to the side to look at her.

"When are you off, Alexandre? Presuming we're able to extradite ourselves from this room."

Karina looked at her watch. "Another five hours, if I'm not stuck on a scene. Car accidents are a given in weather like tonight's. Why?"

"Eighteen hours in surgery and my patient flatlined just as I was closing up their incisions. I'd...prefer the company of one who understands the uphill battle. Especially someone who can smile in the face of it all."

For a moment, she caught nothing but earnestness in his exhausted expression. Karina felt the corners of her lip twitch and the chuckle that escaped him brought her right back to that night.

"Just like that."

If he was going to be that straightforward, the least she could do was return the favor.

She rose from her bunk, pausing only to yank off her boots, before she crawled onto the bed next to him. He was warm, and she could feel toned muscles as she pressed herself into his side. Karina angled her head close to his, lips hovering.

"Life is too short, Karina," he whispered. "I do not wish to waste more time for subpar results."

He captured her lips with his in one smooth motion, slow and methodical, but not without a burning hunger lingering underneath. His arms shifted and before she knew it, she was straddling him.

When she finally broke the kiss, she said, "Sleep first, Zandik."

"I can sleep when I'm dead. I should have finished what I started when I brought you home that night."

[boundinparchment]

👕 12, 🍽️ 9 for Karina, and 🤝 18 for Sybilla!

👕 12. Has your character gone through major stylistic or physical changes?

Yes. Depending on the universe/AU, she changes drastically compared to her old Fontaine style. In Liyue, she keeps her hair up, she incorporates Liyue styled clothing into her wardrobe more, dresses more feminine/feminine leaning in terms of skirts, dresses, etc. This is the biggest departure since she was previously in military service. In Sneznhaya, she's all pants, belts, boots, light armor, cloaks. Her hair is often down (unless she's in the lab, can't have stray hairs ruining experiments). If anything, she leans into her old style more.

🍽️ 9. Does your character like to try new foods?

Karina will try anything once. She might pass initial judgment, but she'll try it regardless!

🤝 18. What is your character’s favorite form of affection?

Giving: "Here's a scarf I made, it's cold out, bundle up. You seem like you need an ear, do you want to talk?" Receiving: "What can I do to help? What will make things easier? Hi you told me this very specific thing and I made something for you. I will simply keep you company when it becomes too much."

From 🌸My Super Long Hopefully Fun Character Ask Game

[boundinparchment]

Hide and secret for Miss Karina 🫶

hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?

Already answered! <3

secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?

Sometimes, she wonders what life would have been like if she'd been found truly guilty during her trial. If she would have been happy in the Fortress, never seeing the sun again, if it meant her family was alive and well. </3

[boundinparchment]

Karina: Nightmare, Rhiannon: Hide, Gabrielle: Mask :3c

nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

Karina’s nightmares are often about her family. Usually the idyllic turned horrifying, the average breakfast devolving as her parents blame her, as Rhiannon blames her, their mouths moving almost mechanically. Their skin burns away, etc etc.

She’ll usually go and train and shake off the adrenaline that comes with the nightmares. Zhongli has found her in a field full of KO’d hilichurls at daybreak; Dottore will often see her running with Childe in the forest paths lining the Palace.

Either love interest knows about them. Tries to get her to talk about it. And she will, to some extent. But when it’s the same, over and over, it begs the question “why bother?” They know what plagues her but they can only provide so much. Dottore in particular has offered both experiments and solutions from previous findings and Karina wants neither. She punishes herself, really.

hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?

A scar on her neck, long and jagged, from Dottore’s experiments on her vocal cords. An opera singer, a prima donna, must appear perfect and beautiful. Her scar is hers alone (and Dottore’s but that’s neither here nor there).

mask: Does your OC wear a mask, literally or figuratively? What goes on beneath it? Is there anyone in their life who gets to see who they are under the mask?

Figuratively, yes, but it’s paper-thin. She’s an artist who knows her worth but has also been so screwed over that she’s still learning how to play the game. No one has the privilege of seeing beneath it. Pantalone and Neuvillette can see through it, for different reasons.

[boundinparchment]

i saw oc art consent

hello

do u have a canonical clothing design…so then I can go ham…I just went based on what you’ve written about her so far and drew what I vibed

Definitely depends on the universe and phase of life (whether she’s still in Fontaine vs. in Liyue with Zhongli vs. In Snez serving the Fatui/with Dottore) but generally, she prefers pants!

I can usually see her in loose blouse tucked into waist-high pants, corset or waistcoat, flat boots; simple and efficient. She might have an overcoat of some kind if it’s colder. Armor is a given for when she’s still a Guard in Fontaine or with the Fatui. Usually not a full suit for the sake of mobility but clawed gauntlets, sharp greaves, a paldron to hang a cloak from.

For her life in Liyue, she’s far more in-touch with her roots and experiments more with clothes. She might wear dresses or skirts and blouses more often to blend into her role, for example, and use herself as a model for an idea for a customer. She’s far more creative in her main story, and that lends itself to trying more styles.

Her Vision is probably more efficient if pinned at her neck, rather than mimicking Jean and hanging it, that’s a much better idea!

[boundinparchment]

Sibylla and Karina in a room together laying out each of their desperate measures, trying to figure the other person out, and then they end up commiserating over workaholic partners.

[boundinparchment]

Mm guilt & hide for OC asks?

guilt: What is your OC guilty about? How do they handle their guilt? Do they try to avoid guilt, or do they accept it?

Karina is eternally burdened with the guilt of having caused the deaths of her fellow soldiers and her family. Even if she's out of Fontaine, there's a weight that will never truly be lifted from her.

She accepts the burden to a fault. She would rather bear that guilt and embrace it than try to point fingers and find somewhere else to entirely shoulder it. After all, she's tried, and that system failed her, so what other choice does she have?

hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?

Her affections and emotions, unless things must be said. Everyone she's ever cared for and loved has, in some way, been hurt. Her family is entirely deceased and her lover/former superior turned out to be the one conspiring and causing harm to Fontainians. Deep down, Karina doesn't entirely believe her affections are capable of bringing anyone joy or safety.