#eirttore...?

[ellalalala]

Let It Through

Tags: Il Dottore/OC, Il Dottore x Female Original Character, half-assed hurt/comfort, pre-relationship, slightly iffy dynamic, suicidal thoughts

A/N: No, I've never written for my OC and yes, only 3 people in total know her name. I'll dedicate a separate post to her eventually but for now I wanted to put this out because I needed Dottore to do The Thing (be somewhat nice) for personal reasons. Not proofread. Title comes from this song.

"Why are you here?"

Eir sat on the windowsill when Dottore approached, her eyes glued to the snowstorm outside Zapolyarny palace. The sky was pitch black and there was hardly anything of note to witness - not in the snowy wastelands of Snezhnaya - not like in Sumeru.

"Where else would I go?"

Dottore exhaled softly. "You are not my prisoner. Quit acting like one."

How could she, when it felt as if this was exactly what she had been reduced to? Now her life had lost its meaning, now she had been stripped of everything that defined her. There was nothing left.

Eir pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them to make herself appear smaller. She had no interest in talking to him - but to her dismay, Dottore didn't share that sentiment.

He sat on the opposite side of the windowsill and asked, "what ails you so?"

Everything. My existence - lonely and miserable, the past, the present, you.

The words were on the tip of her tongue, threatening to spill, but Eir could never say them aloud. It hurt less when the truth was concealed from the rest of the world; when the reality of things was known to none but herself. Were she to express what she felt now, Eir would be overtaken by sorrow far worse than any curse inflicted upon her by Celestia.

Besides, Dottore would never understand. They were fundamentally different people - he did not share her pain nor had he seen what she saw so long ago. It was easier, Eir realized, to stay quiet and unassuming.

"Trivial matters," she murmured, "nothing of importance to you."

"You speak with little conviction." Dottore remarked. Irritating man. Could he not leave her alone? Eir peeked at him from the corner of her eye and found him without his tailcoat. The sleeves of his blue dress shirt were rolled up to his elbows and he appeared as relaxed as could be, but that intricate mask of his remained fixed to his face. Whatever could be so despicable, Eir wondered, what could you possibly hide?

"Perhaps that's what you want to believe."

"I am not in the habit of deluding myself with wishful fantasies. You stubbornly refuse to tell me the truth. Why is that?"

Eir spat, "why would I tell it to you?"

"Unless you have other options, I don't see why you wouldn't."

"I would sooner seek solace from the Regrator than I would from you."

Dottore gritted his teeth. "You-"

"Look," Eir breathed, frustration bubbling in her chest. "I am in no mood to bicker with you. If you have nothing good to say, let me be alone; I could use the silence."

All was quiet. Eir's eyes remained trained on the view outside the window as she desperately ignored the wild beating of her heart. She could imagine the angry scowl on his face; for Dottore despised rejection, especially from those he deemed beneath him. Surely, even with her privileges, Eir could not get away with this...

But Eir's thoughts were interrupted by the feel of a gentle palm on her knee, the sound of Dottore shifting until he sat unbearably close.

"I cannot fault you for being distrustful of me, however you must understand that I will not harm you in any way. If there is something that troubles you, tell me so this instant; I only wish to help."

Eir regarded him with a surprised glance. As her frustration melted into longing, she considered giving in, allowing the truth to pour from her mouth until there was nothing left to say.

But she would be crossing the line. There would be no coming back if she told him - Dottore must have been aware of that, too. And yet... Eir could continue to push him away for as long as she desired but he would keep coming back to her anyway; trying to defy fate was a losing game.

Eir looked at his gloved hand on her knee, the beak-shaped mask he refused to discard and thought, just this once. Just once and never again. So she said:

"I'm tired of always losing: my family, my nation, my friends. Everything I love is always taken from me. The only person who could understand my feelings," she inhaled shakily, "left me without a second thought. Now I have nothing but the grief I have carried for five hundred years and I don't know what to do with it. I'm tired... I no longer yearn for the past but for the eternal slumber which I was robbed of."

Her lips trembled as she spoke, and ignoring Dottore's gaze, she continued, "I don't know what else is left. I miss being young; I miss having hope. I was so good once, do you know? I was a good alchemist, a good student. Now I am half human, half monster, with nothing to show for myself but all the pain Celestia gave me."

She touched the rough scars on her cheek as if by instinct. Memories of scorching sands and sharp claws tearing through her skin clouded Eir's mind.

"Is this what I was born for?" She asked softly. "Is this all I'll ever be?"

Now her secrets had been laid bare for Dottore to use as he wished. He would think her weak. He wouldn't understand the depth of her despair - how it had fused with the blood in her veins until Eir couldn't tell who she was without it.

The weight on her knee was no more. Eir looked at Dottore to find him taking the mask off his face with careful hands. Before long, she was met with a pair of bright ruby eyes, furrowed brows, and-

"Let your scars be proof of what you have endured but never allow them to dictate what you are." He spoke solemnly. Eir's breath hitched as she gazed at him, wide-eyed, as his words slowly sank in.

All she could see were his scars. He has them, too. That's what he has been hiding all along. Why? What happened to him? What has he endured?

There was a long, ragged scar that fell across the bridge of his nose. Another thinner scar on his forehead, which reached his hairline and disappeared there, between the long cyan strands of hair that framed his face. A faded scar on his cheekbone, one more on his temple - they were littered on the upper half of his face as if someone had deliberately wounded him.

Eir would have touched them, if she could.

"You cannot give up; not until every last leaf on the Irminsul tree has been burned and the wretched island in the sky has been brought down to earth. You," Dottore fixed her with a stare so grave that Eir was rendered breathless, "cannot give up. Do you understand?"

"I know," she whispered. It didn't take much thinking to understand what Dottore tried to convey with this dramatic display: I have lived through terrible things, too, but look at what I have done with myself. If I could, so can you.

Did it look so simple to him? Did he truly assume that she hadn't tried before, again and again? This was all the proof she needed: Dottore would never fully grasp what Eir felt. Irminsul, Celestia- these things hardly mattered to her. She did not care if the palace burned with her in it. Her life, Teyvat itself - things that had become inconsequential with the agonizingly slow passage of time.

"You will find meaning again," said Dottore, and somehow, these were the most comforting words she heard all night. Eir blinked rapidly so as to not make a complete fool of herself - Tsaritsa knows she could never live this down.

Dottore took her left hand in his - the one painted midnight blue and adorned with bright purple veins. She could not feel his touch there; but when he tilted his head down to press a tender kiss to her knuckles, Eir swore that her skin felt like it was on fire.

He looked at her once more, with eyes like the trishiraite that she had studied so long ago. In those eyes swirled sincerity, understanding, a promise of something that was still out of Eir's reach.

For now, this would have to suffice.