Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everyday is a brand new experiment.

Things out of your nightmares and nothing else like you've ever seen, beyond your wildest delusions and dreams...

They are alive, and very real, but are not seen in your day to day.

Some hide amongst the people, others among the shadows. Many go unnoticed at all, concealed behind the veil.

Man and Monster walk along the same plane of existence.

However, reality can be stranger than fiction. Anomalies hiding right beneath your eyes, and you would never even realize it.

==============

DATABASE [:ERROR:] = NEW ENTRY.

==============

INITIAL LOG FILE TIMESTAMP: 22 September 2021, 22:29 UTC-8

Chapter Text

I've watched you mortals from amongst your crowds.

I was fascinated, as a child watching from my earthen window in the valley, brown cloth scratching at my skin. The scuffing stays to this day as a reminder to the horrifying beauties of the mortal realm I had been thrust into.

We are just as unnatural and anomalous as you humans, yet you rest dignified upon your laurels while you kill us, the beings that both cause the entropy and the anomalous equilibrium. For every day that passes, I grow ever more scared of what you mortals will become. All of you.

I see you grow, I see you constantly editing your façade like a change of shoes. You become ever less concerned with the world around you and morph into self-intent, self-indulgent beings, hell-bent on destroying us.  You grow hungrier for knowledge, yet you destroy what you refuse to understand.

I may fear that humanity will destroy itself with this pinned upon their chests, proud to be extinguishing themselves and us in the process.

A death that is best left for the dark, if you ask me. But what would be left to survive in the light, if all perished at the hands of the greedy and superstitious? (Perish the thought of salvation; that's just bollocks they try to spoon-feed you at breakfast. Wake up and drink your bloody disgusting liquids, mortals...)

You should be the ones to be feared by your own. That is evident, if we even fear the fate that you shall reign upon all of this world.

=====

FILE ENTRY ONE: [WHERE OUR STORY BEGAN]

=====

I am but one of the many horrors hidden behind the veil, working to maintain the darkness that keeps every little secret like me hidden.

I secure. I contain. And last, but not least, I protect your fragile minds from horrors beyond your very comprehension. No thank you cards needed.

I was born in darkness, being siphoned to the light, tasked to keep things dark between us.

I live where I work, I work where I live....this Foundation is a warm place, compared to the earthen walls of my childhood, yet....somehow also colder. Of course, I'm never alone, even when I desire to be. Spyglasses in every hallway, watching your every move as if your existence was an affront to nature....wait, that's this fucking Foundation's reasoning for keeping us here. But shouldn't they be the ones in the cages to be laughed or poked-and-prodded?

The staff are just as anomalous as the "specimens" kept here. They're not "specimens", though....they're entities with their own desires and dreams. Yet because they see them as "wrong" in their mortal senses... The Foundation keep them shackled, locked up, bathed in acids so they can't escape. Isolated, deprived of a coddled gentleness that they so desperately need because they have the mark of a cult or have skin that burns living flesh. Crying, clawing, scrying, drawing. It seems so cruel that we're locked up just because they don't like us.

....Okay, maybe I could agree about it if we locked up Clef, but only in a distant dream. If only.....if....

-----------------------------------
"Andrews? Helloooooooo, Earth to Luci~...hey!"

A snap of fingers in front of a dazed scientist from one of his colleagues.

He jolts, zooming to sit straight back up and thwacking the back of his head on the wall. "OW!"
Papers fly off from the small desk where Lucifen Andrews works tirelessly day in, day out. The clock ticks up on the wall above a informational poster on emergency protocols, neighbored by bookshelves and lounge chairs. Being the director's assistant is always a pain in the ass.

His colleague, Millye, leers over him with hands on her hips and a cocked brow, clipboard and binder in tow. All of this to be matched with her security badge attached the pocket and stethoscope coiled lovingly around the collar to her scrubs. "What the hell are you daydreaming about this time, Luci?"

"....I...huh? Must have spaced out while typing my report....no wonder my mouth feels dry.....ew, and my sleeve's wet," he would reply.

The smaller scientist climbs out of his office chair and wipes the drool off of his chin. He is a small, scrawny man of some sort of European descent with long mocha brown hair and sandy tan skin. The one eye that is visible, on right, is a warm honey brown....the other is obscured by his bangs. He's about 175cm [5'6"] tall and has a Clearance 4 Badge upon his button-up shirt's front pocket.

"You're always spacing out, Lucifen. I expect you to next sleep through a containment breach and not notice it happening," she chided.

"Yeesh, Mill. You really need to have some faith in me. It's not my fault Director Ansel wants me to finish all this paperwork to give to the Overwatch...."

"Woah, woah, woah. Wait, he's been making you do his paperwork? Don't tell me you haven't slept all night...."

"Three days counting now," Lucifen would return with a quip before going back to rest.

Before Millye could express her concerns, the scientist had already fallen back into rest. The truth is that it really had been a week since he had his last restful sleep, but he was too exhausted to express this truth to his stubborn colleague.

-------------------------------------------

The sound of heavy duty boots walking down the hall echoes through the halls of the facility, searching for something.

A siren. A scream. Silence.

And it is only when he opens his eyes that he realizes things have changed.

Welcome to the Foundation.

Chapter Text

I don't remember too much during my time in the box.

I remember the horrors before and the subtle suffering after. It's like an old memory I've had saved in the scrapbooks.

They branded me as one of the horrors they placed on the shelf, another number on another archive page in RAISA's SCPFileServer System.

Gone from an equal to a lesser just for showing my own abilities, I'm writing this on a notepad they tossed into my room.

Is this what they feel like, trapped in the cells? Vulnerable?

Much like you mortals, even we anomalies have our own feelings and perspectives...although many of us do not have the mind or mouth to say them.

=====

FILE NAME TWO: [REDACTED MEMORY]

=====

I do remember that I woke up to the sound of a loud explosion that evening.

Sirens were screaming in terror at what happened and Millye ran into Sector 8, where I was when it all broke out.

"Luci, get up! We need to get out of here; there's been a security breach and intruders are storming through the facility," she had said.


Her face was full of terror, mine with confusion.

I grabbed my laptop bag and stuffed the computer they gave me, along with my two-way radio.

Another explosion tore through the building...the smell of gunpowder and nitroglycerin filled the air, then smoke from the room around me followed.

Millye and I lost fifteen good scientists that day.

Many of them people we went to school with...so it was heartbreaking to see their faces blown apart like those party poppers kids light during the summer, the ones with confetti. Only, instead of confetti, it was pieces of tissue and bone...if not blown open, their faces had burns worse than anything I saw in med school. Worse than I saw out in the field during remediation missions, even.

Thankfully they never reached the on-site alpha warheads. But they could have, had I not done what I did to get stuck in that box.

---

We ran with the few of us that did survive. Me, being as clumsy as I am, fell down the stairs and sprained my leg.

"Mill, my leg's done in. Just go!"

"Like hell I'm leaving you behind, Lucifen!"

"And like hell you'll survive if you're dragging around dead weight!"

She paused.

"....then promise me you'll survive, damn it."

"I can hold my own, Mill. Just go....I'd rather you survive."



Millye then ran down towards Gate B. That's the last time I've ever seen her, so far. They're still searching for her...

Andrea was torn to shreds by frag grenades, Tyler riddled with holes from a twenty-five caliber shotgun.

Dan was disfigured from injuries and Charlie lost their leg.

Sam....oh, dear Sam....she was our newest intern, not even 19. She was shot point blank by one of the Chaos Insurgency men there that day.
She was just about to ask one of the other scientists out on a date... when she was killed, I don't think I ever felt that burning anguish since.

I ran across one of the suits while trying to flee. He was being chased by the CI.... and one had lobbed a frag our way.

That's when I did it.

I jump-rolled to the side of him...and held out both hands, out to each side. The frag exploded and smothered the hallway in smoke.

It was painful....but I was able to hold up two solid, slightly transparent purple walls of reality, one on each hand area, from floor to ceiling.

My horns began to present fully, and the eye that had been hidden behind my bangs...it was in pure view.

Two black and red eyes glowing red with anger. My clothes ripped at the sleeves and cuffs, revealing my true form.


The ugly, plain truth of what I really am.

I am a Ram Faerie, which is considered a Class III Reality Bender. It's like a more mixed form of satyr and demon.

I have been hiding myself in a now Broken Veil amongst my coworkers, assimilating among you mortals, trying to live my life normally. I have the ability to mask my fae features within a humanoid form, but I can't do that and use my abilities at the same time. I took the risk of outing myself as an anomalous entity for the sake of saving this suit's life, even as my hooves and flank shake from pain of bruises.

Afterwards, MTF would seal me into that box. It's something Sam had developed, called the Amida Cage. They tested its containment ability by sticking me inside of it, like a canine to a carrier.

Ever since they let me out of it, I've been quarantined (but really put into seclusion detainment) within my employee dorm at the time.

The man I saved that day, I would know him as O5-3. He's the one who told them to lock me in here...it's been five days without any social enrichment. I saved his life and he locked me up for being a reality bender. Clef gets away with it because he's a Class I... I've come to hate him since.

Here's hoping that they let me out soon...it's driving me crazy being in here....and I'm scared.

----------------
==END ENTRY==

Chapter Text

I had a dream of verdurous pastures full of clover upon a backdrop of softly-clouded blue skies.

I ran freely through the grassy fields, dandelions and oxtail daisies greeting me as they gave way.

They drew a path towards violets and marigolds, powdered with azure bluets and allium flowers.

I gathered a few daffodils and drank dew from their petals as I ventured through.

I came across a clearing to take respite in for a brief moment.
The bluebells embraced me as I lay among them, looking up into the sky.

An unsteady feeling came to my mind, and I began to feel discord within my being. After awhile, I sat up and gazed back behind me in trepidation.

Orpheus looks back to gaze upon Eurydice, convinced that he had been fooled by the gods, only to find his beloved damned to Hades evermore for his betrayal of his own faith in her.

Burned patches in the form of my tracks originate decay spreading through the view behind me.
I looked back to see the daffodils withering in my hands.

The sky began to turn a harsh red-brown, the flowers running away in a futile attempt to survive, only to petrify in place.

I found myself paralyzed in my seated stance, flames surrounding my body as the bluebells burned white-hot.

Chains wrapped around my neck tightly, gripping harder and harder as I gasped for air. The daffodils burned into my arms, as if to brand me with their anger.

I tried to call out but found I could not speak. I wanted to cry, but no tears would come. I would then find myself falling into endless void.

Endlessly falling.....but then his gentle voice called within that soundless dark where no sound or light could break through.

I open my eyes....and that's when I find myself free of that silence, crying out for what I might have lost in that hell.

[Excerpt from a transcript taken of the psychological evaluation of SCP-5429 after awaking from a comatose state post-Red Event on --/--/---- at --/-- AM]

===================

FILE NAME THREE: [AMIDA ADFICIO]

===================

During my seclusion, I was not in the best state of mind.

I felt betrayed by those I trusted, and in turn, I resented myself for saving a life. The thing I had been trained to do, turned on me in a gaslighted manner.

The guilt over the loss of Sam and Millye, the anguish over Charlie and Dan's injuries, that ever-growing feeling of agreement with my superiors at calling me the monster for being like those I studied. It all broke my already unstable brain into slivers of itself that could have never been feasibly recovered.

I was obsessed, engulfed in my own despair for something that was not my fault, but he manipulated into me being the cause.

I lost control of myself, leaving tallies upon my skin of the hours I was trapped and the things that filled my head during them. A tally for each figure I saw in my room, two if they were someone I knew. I lost count of how many at day nine.

And when I convinced myself there was a way to atone, it was too late for me to save myself from that sinkhole of a pain.

I swallowed....and it all went black.

....but somehow.....I....survived to tell her my story. To find a way to accept what had happened.....to not feel alone anymore.

When she asked me about my experience.... I told her of a dream I had once.

A dream of verdurous pastures full of clovers, upon a backdrop of softly-clouded blue skies.

===
[END FILE.]
===

Chapter Text

Her name was Meredith. Doctor Meredith......I cannot remember her first name. I don't even know if she has one, or if that was it.

You seem to like keeping things vague for the sake of secrecy, professionalism....whatever bollocks you decide to come up with to hide the truth.

Regardless, she was the sweetest, most....human individual I ever met; the embodiment of what you call "human" to make yourselves feel better in comparison to the people who don't fit your world-view.

Very intelligent....with the most beautiful brown-blonde locks I ever saw, falling over rich sepia-brown skin that glowed in the warm incandescent lighting.

Attentive, focused amber eyes looking through bronze oval lenses gazed over the tallies along my arms, the red rings and claw marks along my throat. She wrapped them with gentle linens and gave me warm drink to help me calm down. With every time I fell back into that hell, she comforted me and helped me learn how to manage the stress.

She disappeared a few weeks after I began my rehabilitation within containment. I wonder whatever happened to her.... did they hurt her? Did she quit, realizing her mistake of joining this cursed Foundation?

All I know is that I never saw her again and they subsequently tightened the chains around me. Would Director Ansel have ever agreed to this, if he survived?

However....during that time....I had met someone I only heard rumor about.

Someone who would become the first path to my freedom.

============

FILE ENTRY FOUR: [VENIO, JUDICIUM RUBENS IN HONORE]

============

"So....what are we to do about this new...development, so to say?"

A man with silver eyes sits at a circular table with twelve others, all shrouded in shadows. "One of our members was attacked and protected by an anomaly under review....and then Alpha One's major dysfunction during the investigation on that Scarlet Horseman."

"Maybe we can have your special little lap dog get rid of this anomaly? Especially after the atrocious mess she left us with that mission?" a stout, squinted man across the room would sneer.

"That special little lap dog you speak of is one of our best operatives," he would reply.

"Yeah, I can agree, she's impressive on the field. However, she can be....oh, I don't know...destructive when out of control! You saw what chaos she wrought when she approached.....and that thing waking up. What good can she do in this situation, as disgraced as she is, One?"

"We don't know enough about this new anomaly's abilities to terminate it immediately. After all, aren't we supposed to contain things as dangerous as this thing....rather than murdering it without understanding whether it can kill us first?"

"DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING?! SHE'S THE CHILD OF THE SCARLET KING, ARTIFICIAL OR NOT! HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CONTROL HER, KNOWING THE DAMAGE SHE CAUSED DURING THAT MISSION?" the stout man would shout, face red. "YOU'RE SPEAKING AS A MADMAN!"

O5-1 would look at the other, observing his demeanor. "And do you have any better ideas, Three?"

"To be honest, I want her terminated. Destroyed. With how much damage she's caused already, imagine what would happen if she turned into that abomination again. She'd kill us all!" O5-3 would retort. "We couldn't stop her the first time; what makes you we could stop her a second or third time? Answer me that."

A silence fills the room. O5-1's silver eyes would glance across the room, quiet and stoic. He refuses to let this rabble continue on further, knowing the mouth it comes from is traitorous at most; words only somebody with a separate interest could agree with.

"But have you stopped to consider we could use this....destructive reaction to our advantage to hunt him down? If we have his flesh and blood, would that not lead him to us?"

"Really? And how would you suppose we do that? She is a force of nature that can't be controlled. Why isn't that going through your damn guys' heads?" Three would hiss through gritted teeth, poison slipping off his lips.

"....tell me this, then....if I may change the topic briefly.....what of that new anomaly you ran across, Three? Have we cross-tested with it yet, to see its reaction to her?" O5-1 would inquire, curiously. "Perhaps there may be some thing we may discover about it."

"....you mean the Bloodhound?" Three would inquire.

"Yes. If we were to expose it to the memetic hazard of the Scarlet word....or to her......perhaps the Bloodhound may be able to assist her in luring him out?"

"I mean....I have been wanted to test that further. I have been wanting to see the Bloodhound's potential, after all there is so much to his abilities to be discovered. However, it's a shame I was unable to experiment further with him, due to the incident." O5-3 would huff, sitting back in his chair.

"...Then should we send her in there....and find out?" O5-1 would look to Three with a lecherous smirk.

O5-3 would return a smirk. "Well, perhaps we shall. Let's see what the Crimson Judge will do with our favorite little Bloodhound."

------------------
Footsteps hit the linoleum floor of the containment zone. Heavy boots and the shuffle of fabric swirling around the tall individual can be heard as she approached.

The door to a cell opens, and inside lays the broken Bloodhound, cowering before the light having been deprived of contact.

"...oh. You're the Bloodhound?" She would look down at it and stare. "I was expecting something a bit....larger. You're rather....minuscule compared to their description."

The broken fae would look up, six eyes beaming up from the darkness to meet her golden irises.

"....what do you want from me.....blood? Bones...? What little sanity is in me? Unless you have business here, let me be."

The woman, known as Judge, would approach and kneel before the fae, huffing with stoicism as they reach eye-to-eye level.

"Hey. I'm not exactly here on personal terms. I'm here by request from the O5 Council....something about an anomaly?"

".....what are you getting at. Did they send you here to break me into more pieces than I already am? Or did they send you to relieve me of my misery, at last?" The words would come off his lips like blades.

"You're quite the spiteful one. I'm not here to do either, I'm here on different business. In fact, I require your assistance on a particular matter."

Lucifen would sit up, his ripped lab coat and bloody fingernails coming into view. "....so? Get on with it.....besides....you reek of cherry."

"I smell like cherries? That's a new one," Judge would retort. "...Look. I don't have time with whatever you're going on about. I'm looking for something. You're an anomaly, right....you're locked up in a box, after all."

"....stupid questions get stupid answers," he would growl.

"Fair enough. But I heard you were something known as a Bloodhound. Also, you've been promoted somewhat, after all that's happened....which I'm surprised by."

He would give an angry growl. "WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?"

Judge laughs at the response. "What, they haven't told you? I'm not surprised....let me personally congratulate you....Director."

He would look to her with disbelief.

"Yeah, you're the new Site Director. How ironic is that?"



Silence fills the cell as he weakly stands up, glaring daggers into her eyes. "You're taunting me, aren't you? Torturing me with pitiful praises....sod off with that."

"Oh, won't you shut up? Stop with your pitiful moping. You're the new Site Director.....and I'm your new...so to say....Head of Security," Judge would snark.

"....you've got to be shitting me."

"Well, no. After the whole incident with you, both Director and Head of Security died. So it's ironic that they make the one who caused it the one in charge. I'm taking the Security Head's place as well."

"For the last time, it was not my fault. We were ambushed. I was protecting him...and this is the thanks I get? Imprisonment? Torture?"

"Well, no longer. You're no longer going to be imprisoned. You're going to be Site Director, only...with a guard dog at your neck constantly."
"By the way, I'm that guard dog. The name's Judge."

Lucifen would look towards the tall redhead, bewilderment on his tanned face.
"...Judge....huh? What kind of a name is that.....?"

She stopped crouching, and looks to him. Closed briefly...then glaring straight back with blackened scelera.

"You and I are not too much different, as people in this Foundation would say."

The two would glare towards each other.


"...you're......Eldritch. Your smell......disgusting cherry. You reek of Scarlet blood....." he would slime out of gritted teeth.

"...Eldritch, you say. I was wondering what this other me was." The tail end of the fae's speech was not reached to her, due to amnestics.

"....and they sent you to me, of all anomalies. Just so you can put me on a leash as a handler. Great. Just BLOODY great," Lucifen would complain.

"....I am one of their best. They only bring me out for special occasions.....so it must be an important reason. I could just terminate you if you wanted, however."

Lucifen deliberates....and sighs.

".....Fine. I'll play their little game of house, if it means I can get out of this fucking box."

Judge stands more, towering him in six-foot tall stature. She extends a hand.

"Congratulations, Site Director."

He would take the hand, gripping roughly. "....pleasure's mine.....Judge."
=====
[END FILE]
=====

Chapter Text

Judge taps her foot impatiently, awaiting O5-1's appearance.

"Ah. There you are, Judge."

O5-1 would approach, Judge turning to meet his gilded gaze.
"....What took you so long? I've been here a good thirty minutes; you know I hate being kept waiting so long. I don't care if you're my boss or not."

He would give a wily smile and opens the door. "I had some....business to discuss with my colleagues. Allow me to brief you on your next assignment."

"Ah, yes. After two weeks of quarantine after that incident was bad enough, I'm finally being put back out onto the field. What do you have for me this time?" she would inquire to the suited figure.

"There's this anomaly we need you to handle, Captain. He is one of our newest acquisitions, albeit unorthodox."

"A new acquisition... and in an unorthodox manner, to boot. How did you gain this new....anomaly in such a way?" She would interrogate.

O5-1 would smirk. "He just happened to....reveal himself to us during a security breach at one of our fringe sites."

Judge is spooked. "Wait, wait, wait....he was a Site Member?! How the hell did that get past you guys?!"

"We had out suspicions...but Three and Five insisted to wait and see. As if three normal, non-cognitive cameras weren't sacrificed just to get an image of the man for his badge."

"It's extremely dangerous to do something like that, even if he is an anomaly," she'd chide.

"One of my colleagues was at the site during the breach, on a routine administrative visit. He approached, and when the intruders attempted to harm him.....they knowingly activated an anomalous effect to shield him, before ripping his assailants into ribbons and shreds."

"....sonuvabitch. So...what do want me to do about it? Am I terminating him....or am I re-containing him....or what?" Judge would growl in confusion.

"...we know you would be strong enough to contain him in the event he gets unruly. His current containment is sufficient....but....recent Ethics Committee findings have led the Council to make decisions that seem....less than satisfactory, considering the human cost of the incident." O5-1 would stand up, lighting a smoke.

"...so, I'm his guard dog? His jailer?"

"The Director and Security Lead of that site were killed in the breach. His position before his containment would have him promoted to Director through succession, as Nikolas Ansel's interim assistant at the time. We're assigning you there....both to monitor and control him....and to secure the site for further containment procedures as necessary. Am I clear, Judge?"

Judge gapes for a brief moment, staring in disbelief. "So....I'm no longer part of Red Right Hand? I'm no longer part of Alpha-9.....and I'm being assigned to security at Site 39?"

"....Not completely removed....just....on probation, for your latest mishap during the last mission you were sent on."

"...I can assure you, this is a much, much better punishment than what the Council had decided for you."

"So what, they wanted to terminate me?" Judge would retort.

"You are much too valuable to terminate, in my opinion. Potential would go to waste. You ship out in two hours....so get moving."

"...huh....thanks." Judge would then walk out, upset and frustrated by the situation. She would curse and mutter something, only to be heard by herself.

=====================

FILE ENTRY FIVE: [BLOODHOUND AND HANDLER]

=====================

"Alright....so down this hall is the way to the Research Sectors, the other hall leads to Administrative.....and the stairs lead to Employee Housing, plus Medical."

Judge looks around with an unchanging neutral expression on her face as she follows the now Site Director of 39. Most of the staff who see Judge are unnerved by her presence, as she gives out an uneasy aura. “I have to admit, Dr. Andrews, this site seems more advanced than others.”

"....No shit it is," he would retort, making his tall companion raise a brow. "....There's another level below Housing and Medical, fully filled with concrete on one side, the Cafeteria on the other side....along with other offices."

“High secured, well laid out, extremely organized, and is able to handle a lot of damage. No wonder they want to transfer several Keter level SCPs here.”

"....Yeah. Considering where we are, they experimented with placing the containment cells in a particular proportion to the research areas."

“By any chance do you now which SCPs are coming to this site?” Judge would inquire.

Lucifen scratches his cheek in contemplation.

"....Overwatch tells us jack shit, so I would not expect much notice. Although they're coming from 19 and 25....which tells me the more infamous ones will be making their shuffle through, as is procedure...." Lucifen would note, stretching his arms above his head. He adds, "Then again, who am I to complain? They won't be any more willing to tell me jack shit due to my containment."

The shouting of guards running down the hall startled the scientist, making him duck down, as if being shot at.
However, it wasn't the scientist or his companion that they were going after.

Upon discovering this, the scientist would look at his beeping pager and go dashing, a Bloodhound followed by his Crimson Handler.

The sound of propeller blades gets louder and louder, approaching the ground gently and tapping the concrete kindly upon the helicopters landing. Several Mobile Task Force agents jump out from a helicopter, bringing out an entity in bindings of steel and leather.

His golden gaze connects with the Bloodhound, turned towards Gate D. A familiar glance between the two....as he is pushed back towards a place of a brief visit once before, not too long in the past. He opens his mouth to speak.....but the words are drowned out to all ears by the careless flapping of the copter's spanning arms.

A familiar face returns to the Site....one that Lucifen has never forgotten, and never wishes to.
=================

[END FILE]

Chapter Text

I had met him not too long after they put me into full containment.

The good doctor was training him, utilizing his skills for a beneficial purpose, both in research and the medical field.

He walked into the room, clipboard in hand, just like myself. It had been so long since they sent somebody into my room after my last outburst. I scratched my forearm with my claws in anxious trepidation. Would he be like the doctors who yelled at me before in interview; stoic, unyielding... thinking themselves of higher knowledge than I?

But my preconceptions and assumptions had failed me; he was someone I could communicate with.

Even as I hid my true self behind the mask, I could sense he saw right through me.... as a man I knew long ago once could.

==========================================

FILE ENTRY SIX: [A GLANCE INTO THE INNER LENS]

==========================================

I remember that day well. They had just transferred me into a brand new site for a cross-testing experiment, or so they told me.

The good doctor approached me, with him by his side, in restraints just as inhumane and steel cold as mine. Usually the doctor had company whenever coming into my cell, but this felt different. He was irrefutably here as part of the experiment as well.

His gaze was gentle and calm, despite what rumors I had heard of the man- claws that dug into your skin, ripping you out of existence.
It was quite unnerving, having him before you after seeing so much material and hearing so many tales.

I cannot be sure whether those scientists had even met the man himself, as he was much more than that, looking within hindsight.

He sat at the table in front of me, and I did as well. We met our gazes, and beyond any doubt, I have reason to believe that we shared a breath of anxious trepidation.

The good doctor exited the room, to enter the observation room next to my containment cell.
I could tell he was much more fearful of my presence, than I of his.

I set down the clipboard I had until then been holding in my trembling hand, heart racing with the fast flurry of static as I tried to steady myself. It had been an unorthodox of meeting another anomaly, especially when they are the horror that your fellow doctors warn you of.


I sucked in a deep breath through my dried lips, as the intercom above us spoke....
----

"This interview is being initiated as part of an experimental containment method suggested by the Foundation Ethics Committee, with mediator Doctor Elijah Itkin present for the record.

"All parties present in the interview hall are as follows, for recollection and cross-reference towards each individual's file-

"Party A is Doctor Andrews, a current researcher at Site-39, working under Director Ansel."

I sucked in another breath, as I braced for those words I've come to put into disuse, after all of these years.

"Party B is SCP-049, also referred to as 'The Plague Doctor'. Object class: Euclid.

"Subject has been transferred from Site-19 for purposes of the experiment process."

I still cannot stand to hear that number, nor to hear anyone referred in such a manner.


I have a name, too.





However, our dearest Lucifen knows better than to go and call out my name for all to hear in the town square, so to say.

====
[ > File Continues ]

Chapter Text

=================================

[> Continue File Entry: [A GLANCE INTO THE INNER LENS] ]

.........

[> Continuation Point Labelled.]


FILE ENTRY SIX, PART TWO: [A DOCTOR'S TOUCH]

================================

If there is any experience within this concrete prison that they've placed us both into that I could say that I genuinely enjoy, it would have to be the connection I gained from and gave to him.

He and I looked upon each other, and it was clear that the both of us were each intimidated by the other, unknowingly.

Then again, with how these scientists have treated the both of us over the years, I would not doubt that he thought that I was his termination letter. I've changed since then, of course, but that's another matter.

---------

"You two have been called to this site to participate in a special experiment, on behalf of Director Ansel of Site-39. It is a theoretical method of containment we're testing called Supervised Rehabilitative Containment....you're quite familiar with the concept if I'm understanding correctly, Andrews?" Doctor Itkin would inquire.

"I know vaguely of the Director's musings on such an idea, sir," Lucifen would reply.

"It involves supervision of a specific anomaly with technical skills in a particular field prior to initial containment within the Foundation, allowing for interaction with other staff in a similar field and, if appropriate, allow restricted assistance in research activities.

A brief silence, before he would continue.

"Director Ansel thought it would be of benefit to the Ethics Committee to see if an anomaly reacts similarly to their non-anomalous human counterparts during vocational therapies. That is to say, supervise vocational activity for a SCP within their containment site....however further from normal protocol it may deviate, within reason."

I was fascinated at such an... extreme notion, considering how this Foundation handles entities like myself. Sure, we get our recreation, but we have to traverse so much red tape in order to do the stuff we enjoy.

"I will admit, Andrews," Itkin would continue, "Your colleague does bring some wild ideas, yet they do have the potential to prove themselves in theory. And he had requested we bring you here from Site-52 after learning about you from a recent interview....noted you had a mentality that would be containment-positive."

".....he said what now. And additionally, where in the bleeding fuck did he get that information from?!" Andrews's rancorous noise drones out from the ears and attention of the anomaly sitting adjacent to him.

---------

I have not seen a man this aggravated since the incident with Doctor.....oh, what's his name again....the one who is still cross with me about the one thing.....bah, whatever. Not important right now, me getting nostalgic.

The good doctors both argued about this for a long time. Eventually, even I got cross.

".....Pardon my rudeness, but would you mind not tearing one another limb by limb when we have business to conduct, doctors?
" We could continue this argument, but frankly, I have no time to see you throw bollocks upon the other and both faces be smeared brown."

That silenced their rancor and caused them to finally acknowledge my spot at the table. The one called Andrews looked at me.

"....you know, old gaffer? ....the man's got a point. Besides, this is just petty stuff we're hollering about here. Let's set it down and get to work, instead of brawling like two blighty birds over a mobile photo of themselves, yeah?"

Doctor Itkin would give a sigh and nod, sitting back down and clearing his throat.

"My apologies, 049. I suppose I lost my temper and my professionalism went with it."

====

[ > File Continues ]

Chapter Text

=================================

[> Continue File Entry: [A GLANCE INTO THE INNER LENS] ]

.........

[> Continuation Point Labelled.]


FILE ENTRY SIX, PART THREE: [AN APT EYE FOR THE TRADE]

<<WARNING! FLAGS -CW -PSY ARE ACTIVE ON A MAJORITY OF THIS ENTRY PORTION.>>

Author Disclaimer:

This chapter discusses topics that may disturb and/or distress readers suffering from psychological traumatic disorders such as PTSD and other related conditions. We want to ensure your reading pleasure while also considering a healthy connection with the story, which includes acknowledging topics such as this. Mental health should not be stigmatized, and we will make our best efforts to ensure such will not occur. If you begin to feel mental distress at any point during your viewing of this chapter, don't be afraid to click off the tab and contact your local/national crisis lines (where available). Attempts to preserve the intent while also minimizing impact have been made during the writing process.

That being said, please enjoy the entry as best possible.

With love, SCP_SITE_39

================================

"...So.....SCP-049.....mouthful to say, innit." 

Andrews would talk to me while putting his doctor's coat on. Of course, I was still accompanied by the MTF handlers on site, wearing those awful restraints the whole walk. None of them were concerned, nor had they cared.

"I wonder if we can figure a shorthand, so we don't have to spew that muck every time. Add, I imagine it must get quite tiring being called by that designation every time."

I didn't know exactly how to react to that....although I was taken by surprise that he would be so.....informal.

"..049.....0-4-9....4...9.....quattre novem.....difficile est invenire nomen hunc hominem simpliciter abire posse,"
                                        << four nine.... it is difficult to figure out a simple name for this guy....>>

He'd mumble under a breath, unaware I understand what he means. I decided to give him a small surprise.

049: Si quid exspectes, medicus est quem facile intelligam.
        <<If there's anything that surprises me, it is a doctor I can easily understand.>>

The short doctor twitches with a yip! and side steps to look at him. The MTF look up.

Lucifen: Entiam! Non desino Horatio ac virtute eius imprimi.
        <<Really! Much like Horatius and his valors, I never stop being impressed.>>

              Nesciebat te Latinum intelligere, est mihi patria.
        <<I did not expect you to know Latin. It's my first language.>>

049: Paternus? Tu Romanus es in hereditate?
        <<Your first language? Are you of Roman heritage?>>

Lucifen: Imo Hibernicus sum. Elevatus sum in fratre, catholicus in natura. Adhibetur omnibus modis.
        <<No, I'm Irish. However, I was raised in a Catholic Friary. They use [Latin] for every thing!>>

The two would share a quiet laugh as they enter the medical wing, the MTF finally releasing the anomaly from his restraints. He would follow the dear doctor obediently.

---------------------------------------

A few months would pass after I arrived.

At first, I would find that my peers were frightened of my visage....yet worked with me begrudgingly, as it was part of my new containment. Over time, however, their harshness would soften. And I would be embraced as another part of the medical staff....especially after the event that would change everything in the site.

Or rather, everything within the Foundation as a whole.

It was like any other evening.

I was inspecting my tools, cleaning them thoroughly, pouring elixirs to purge any contaminant from the gleaming silver surface. I was not even two hours into this nightly ritual of mine, when I heard the scream of blaring sirens. It was as if the sky had been torn asunder. I tumbled from my sitting block, landing on the floor with a cracking thud from the terrifying thrill. I looked around me, the stillness of the medical wing suddenly cast into complete discord, and I made the foolish choice to away within that instant, for hell had broken out from above.

My body was locked in place, an endless weight of concrete had trapped me under a portion of ceiling that was formerly above me, blown down with the force of a bomb and its heat that would blanket me. Rebar jutted out and twisted in an ever tightening grip and the concrete its partner laid on me as if to remind me how fragile my skeleton was....my vision grew pale as tender breath escaped my lungs as if running from disaster. My eyes drooped and trodden until darkness had claimed my sight. Hope had only come when soldiers in their cold ocean-like color salvaged me from the wreckage. I remember the pain; it burned. It twisted and turned even as I lay still in that stretcher, being taken to triage.....red. Just red, leaving a trail of crimson breadcrumbs as the restraints pressed into me with a lack of tenderness.

I found myself caught in the sway of a memory, my life before this prison, turning to a sanctum. My eyes opened forced to watch, I could not scream....all was silent. It burned with an ire, scorching across my skin with a rage, charring the humanity right from the monster it would create. The jealousy of a snowy serpent consuming what happiness I once held. I arose from my cot with a wailing crash of nerves, then gave a seethe as the pain churns once more within my freshly laid sutures, slightly hampering the process of mending my wounds. I slid my talons up my midsection, to check my physical form, if only to ensure I was still among the living. Once I felt I was satisfied with my answer, I slid a few digits underneath my corvine veil, reprieving my visage from its obscured nature once I could confirm I was indeed alone. A looking glass gazed from afar, reflecting upon me the gruesome countenance birthed to me within that inferno.

Many people assume that, because I obscure myself constantly with my porcelain raven's mask, that it must be one with my flesh and bone. They come to the conjecture that chitin connects it to my face and skull bones, embedded in... and that my robes are flesh itself, surrounding Lord knows what under it. Their theories are unfounded, fueled by the frivolity of what the Good Doctor misled them to. Of course, I've come to embrace their ignorance as to my visage; they would be full of shock and awe at what that good-for-nothing snake had done to me, lest they discover it. My face is charred, as is some of my other flesh, the scars segregated in a sagittal manner. The golden gaze of my own likeness within the mirror's polished face peers back at me, and welling in the tears that form in our eyes would be a heartfelt pain we both would know well. I have a name, but it will forever be locked behind a number. My personality, my ability, why I ended up here; all of it is obfuscated behind a lexicon that takes the collective anomalous agency that we so dearly needed. But alas, we are fated to never see such a sight ever again from within the stone garrisons that imprison us, stealing us away from the homes and lives we had for ourselves, assimilating with our surroundings.

Many centuries have passed since the inferno branded me with this monstrous visage, with its pallid summoner slithering across my neck, envy painted along its belly and spite lining its abyssal smile as it lies in wait for the kill. I feel deplored knowing that this was not the first pain the snake had inflicted upon me, and may not be the last. What would come to follow, however, had none to do with the serpent but to do with the harbingers. My knowledge on what I faced next... is only what I would learn from my personal experience within the situation, as well as what the scientists had shared to me afterwards.

Before I could fully realize it, the wait had finally concluded, and I was discharged back to normal duties once the site had been re-secured.

I would come to discover my dear ally had been placed into seclusion, as he was discovered to have anomalous capabilities. However, this state would not last...and the horror of what I witnessed that day ever-still daunts me. He was nowhere to be found for eight days....but on the ninth... it feels like my grief replenished its resolve in the gaze of my dear friend, when I discovered the sudden truth.

------

It was nine days after I was cleared to return to my work, when the door to my office swung open. One of the doctors was standing there with a crash cart, and told me to aid them with an emergency.

An accident was in progress, in regards to an anomaly under study, and I was to accompany the group to hopefully resuscitate it.

I was unaware of the implications until I saw it for myself....or rather....I saw him. Or....what little there was of him, as it would appear. While the doctors rushed to contact the Ethics Committee.... I found myself trapped in a state of horror, my body trembling at the sight before me. Normally, I am well accustomed to wounds and blood, being a healer....but this.

This was no accident. I should not have been called to this emergency, but who else would tend to it?

Andrews had been within this seclusion for those past eight days, but the dear lady who informed us of his file at the door mentioned that his mental state deteriorated over time, eventually halting intake of meals three days prior to the incident. He was on medications at the time.....the same medicine that I saw swimming in the red-speckled emetic froth staining the tiles beneath him. Pure red drained from him, through the weeping of his sleeves and skin, like tally marks along a path. Seclusion had drove him over a boundary of guilt, even causing violent outbursts at the lady who told us to break into the room to get contact with him.

Perhaps.... had I not been there, however.... I would have lost my dear friend.

My prognosis was that he attempted to self-terminate via means of medicinal overdose and self-inflicted wounds....so much red flooded my vision that I lost myself in fear. But in a desperation to hold onto the one person who saw me as truly human still, I threw aside my decorum and rushed to his side. Steel blades were freshly stained, and the bottle was rolling over to my peer on the phone.

I rolled him onto his side and desperately did everything I could to save him, while they brought in the stretcher.

Miraculously.....his breathing was ragged....but it stopped occasionally for minutes at a time, only to begin again with compressions. I know this is not the case for all patients in the same situation, so I could only pray that he would make it....

I stayed in that room and forewent sleep, shaking too much to rest. I cried, I screamed, I prayed for a miracle....and when he came up from his comatose state a fortnight after? A wave of relief sent me to collapse, long-awaited. They would put this Red Event on file as 5429-PSYC-01, one of the psychology department's most infamous documents since what had occurred to the late Doctor Iceberg. They let me listen to one of his sessions, as part of my own treatment... and I was horrified to see how he had been warped by the event.

Afterwards, it was deemed unethical that the O5 member that had put him into containment would expose him to such a horrifying procedure, among any other anomaly. Since then, my containment procedure has been communal; me and Andrews have shared a containment space since that day, which has helped his recovery quite a bit. He is still not allowed to return to normal duties, so I have been temporarily suspended from my allowed work until the Ethics Committee says he is able to integrate back into the Site proper as Director, and I am able to fully function within my Limited Containment.

I suppose it will be only a matter of time.....to see what will change.

========

[END FILE ENTRY.]

Chapter Text

The startling quiet in this room would be unnerving for any sane man.

I find the silence quite lovely, considering how tumultuous the swarms of scientists have been in their flight down these pallid white halls as of late.

My fingers dance along the black-and-white steps of this wooden singer, clothed in her deep burgundy dress, voice humming low and sweet to the cadences of a song that has not left my lips for so long.

The calliope of voices like mine, vibrating in harmony, act as my company in this solitary quartet.

I can see his face gently within my closed lids, his warm smile. Allow me a moment... for if I speak his manner more, I surely would be engulfed in lament over a flower lost so soon.

He was a white rose in a garden of red, and a miracle among this world.

The only patient I knew who would be cured from the Pestilence... but as the church had once said, a serpent would come for the innocent Eve, and tempt her with an apple from the Tree.

=====================================

FILE NAME SEVEN: [ A PORCELAIN MEMORY ]

=====================================

Long ago, in the town of Montauban, there was a raven.

He held his nest within its outskirts, obscured from the bustling village.

The raven, accosted from his homeland and made a refugee, found sanctuary among its peasantry. His ebony silhouette concealed him within his domicile, and his porcelain visage fully sheltered his true nature when away from it. A mysterious corvid form with a harsh, cold tone that would bring fear towards all who found themselves in his care, and a neutral gaze devoid of personal attachment.

He was a man of medicine, seeking to cure a Pestilence that could never be fully studied by human eyes. Once a healer of kings and lords, now the raven is relegated to serving as an apothecary for his new sanctuary, held by the church uphill and dispatched therein.

The doctor is purely empirical in all matters of his research; books surround him and beakers bubble away with varying hues. The townspeople would never be let into this laboratory, and if he ever took on an apprentice, it was short-lived. Any person insane enough to consider him a good teacher would be correct in their judgement, but all that followed in pursuit to learn his craft fled in fear, unable to process the intricacies of his animus.

Only one individual in the world outside of him would ever be able to understand what infuriated the raven.

----

The evening had been quite pluvious, persisting within the twilight. Winds howled with vigor, thrashing the chained kerosene lamps that illuminated Montauban's cobbled streets. Rain bore down, tracking the silt up and around the stones, making the walk quite treacherous. But even with the horrid weather, the raven goes on his regular stroll -- albeit with his cloak pinned down further, as not to remove the dark shroud that conceals his form. However, he holds in his grip the ring of a soft hand-lantern.

His heeled boots clicked upon the stones, tick-tacking past the darkened windows of town, like the hands of a clock to mark a rhythm in his gait. This peaceful sound is then upset by the horrid shriek of two fine stallions, followed by the scraping rancor of carriage wood buffeting an unknown obstacle. A harsh gasp of pain is drowned out by the galloping of hooves crashing through and into the distance -- and all returns to ambience. The doctor stops in his tracks, narrowly avoiding being struck by the swift machine himself. His heart pounds heavily with the sudden rush of adrenaline, a distressed swallow thrashing about in its osseous cage. Some of the windows around the sound's origin would illuminate in response to the disturbance, and with it the doctor would converge upon the scene.

The moon would shine through the cloud cover, as if to transfix its gaze upon the source of the whining. A young looking man laid upon the cobble, curled up in agony from the calamity that has befallen him. Crimson bleeds through the light-senna fabric of his solemn robes; he had been struck by the furious beast that had stormed through moments prior. Several faces emerge from warmed stoops, a few maids of the wealthy merchants stepping out to see the commotion. However, upon sight of the doctor, the crowd regresses back towards their safety with horror. They watch from a distance in intimidation, his presence an omen of misfortune for many of the gentry.

The raven approaches the young man, kneeling down quietly, his gentle beacon ebbs as it hovers near his robes. One brave maiden who dares to approach closer observes the doctor's examination, the light revealing the sight of broken limbs and bruising along pale skin. He would kindly turn to the eavesdropper, golden gaze glancing up to her hazel eyes, awash with terror upon the gruesome sight.

"....Fair maiden," the Raven hummed.

She would back away with fear, before the warm beacon reveals his porcelain masquerade to her.

"....Fear not. I come not to harm... but this poor gentleman has found himself with quite the ailment."

His gaze would return to the young man. The rain had granted brief pause, revealing the disheveled robes of a monk, marked with a tattered cross of the L'église Saint-Jacques. The doctor's gaze softens, and pulls the hood off of his head, revealing pearlescent white hair marred by the mud.

"...I require assistance to lift him. Dear maid, if you could beseech your master for--"

But when the raven turned to inquire to her, the maiden had already vanished. He gave a huff of annoyance, realizing that his request would not be heeded, as most would rather suffer an horrid fate than approach him. So the raven latched the beacon to his belt, and hoisted the injured monk into his arms, slowly carrying him back to his cottage at the outskirts. The wind and rain would wait for the two to enter shelter, then resume their onslaught of the village until the morning dawn struck upon Montauban's skies.

=====================

[[File Continues... >>> ]]

Chapter Text

=====================================

FILE NAME EIGHT: [ THE WHITE CROW BECKONS ME ]

=====================================

Where the Raven laid his nest, a White Crow would return to his senses.

The young male had been taken by a stupor, disoriented from the excruciating pain in his lower limbs.

He would wake, finding himself rested in a warm cot, covered by a well-knit wool duvet. The heat of a warm boiler pumped through the nearby vent, making the room quite comfortable. He adjusts his position, only to be greeted with the sharp welcome of his mended wound.

His tattered robes rest near the vent, still drying out from the rain.

The young crow croaks with complaint, settling into his upright seated stance when the door opens.

The raven enters, still donning his signature corvid visage. He is startled by the doctor, until he notices his offering -- fresh bread and a warm stew flirted with his senses. The crow is given his sustenance, the raven sitting aside and making notes of his recovery. Once he has had his fill, the crow raises his violet eyes to meet the raven's golden gaze.

"....where am I..." he inquired. "Are you gonna...."

"You need not worry for your life. I'm only keeping you here to ensure your recovery," the raven would reply.

"...but where is here?"

"...This is my own home. The weather was too perilous to bring you back to your monastery, nor were the townsfolk willing to give aid."

The crow's gaze would lower, a somber expression to him. "...The abbot.... recused me from my role."

The raven would perk up, eyes wide in shock behind his porcelain facade ."...I beg your pardon?"

"I've been expelled from my order... I found something among the Abbot's documents that he did not want reaching my Brothers. He.... He's been in wealthy squalor and concealing it from the Cardinal. He garners the finest silk for his garmentry and holds egregious possessions, yet preaching to us that we should not hold such desires for splendor -- that is it a temptation of sin."

He puts his hands in his lap, almost in alms for prayer, gripping the duvet with inner turmoil.

"I can only pray for his forgiveness and for my own salvation from the Lord. As much as I already have my own sins to atone for... ones I did not choose, but He granted upon me......quite contrary of Him to do such a thing to His children."

The raven looks upon the crow, speechless. His gaze would soften with the silence, and a gentle palm rests itself onto the friar's. His patient would flinch in fear.... but upon the realization of his survival... his shoulders would release their tension.

"....I..... can empathize with your distress.... As much as it burdens me to admit. Confer to me, Friar.... what must you atone to?"

He shifts uncomfortably, before taking a deep breath and meeting the raven's gaze.

"...I-I....."

A silence fills the room, spare for the crack in the friar's voice as he softly wept.

"Forgive me if I bring distress to you for inquiring....What might your name be.... dear Brother?"

The white crow gazed up, eyes moistened with tears.

His pale lips would open softly to reply.

==========

Oktavius was his name.

He was the sole son of the House of Tavril, holders of the most splendid winery in all of the province, in the Bourbonnais.

His father was a devout Protestant, as many of the townsfolk were.... and from what Doctor Andrews had said, they still are as they were when I still resided in Montauban. It seems so long ago that they took me to that horrid site and my troubles began. However, I digress.

He was annointed in 1840 within the L'eglise, and with it, his following under the Abbot, Father Christopher. The chapter was a secretive order, as Protestantism had become more of a lucrative religion of the time, dominated over by the Catholic Church and the Concordat. So it should be of no surprise that their relationship with the township of Montauban was dyed in blood over centuries -- I myself arrived there when the region was being purged of it, but at the point in time in which we met, it was a mutual bond.

Oktavius's father had him sent there as a means of religious salvation. His manner was considered sacrilegious, as my dear crow did not fall within the line of order -- he held attraction to those like him, as to say... He was homosexual, something that was considered an illness of the soul. Of course, there is nothing wrong with how he felt... there never was. However, during our time together, it was deemed something to damn you to the Christian Hell. A temptation for the Devil to make wrong the world, and something that would threaten his family's bloodline, as he had no siblings.

He had been brutally beaten by his father for his forbidden attraction, to the point of his shoulder being so damaged that he could not toil in the vineyards. I had traced the many lashmarks that decorated his impossibly pale skin. It was if a Ming vase had been laid with cracks that retained their place, lined with the warmest cobalt blue to blend it into the pattern. Any partner he would attempt to woo would either be struck by his father's musket or beaten just the same as he, creating a fear where they would not even dare approach.

I fully understood his pain.... and even more still, with these burns that remind me that his presence is no longer here. The guilt remains...

But what of his ailment?

When I touched his hands that dawn... I could see that he was actively contaminated by the Pestilence, but only by mere exposure. Over time, as his wounds healed -- his fear would subside, and with it, the blight would burn away. Even after all this time, he is the only patient I knew who had even been cured of the Pestilence... there has not been a single one since then.

Oktavius was a white crow among a monastery of magpies -- a good man put into a cruel, corrupted institution.

Originally, our relationship was naught but that of patient and healer. Once our time like that was over... I look upon that time fondly.

========

His limbs would heal nicely, with the raven tending to them, day in and day out. One step, two.... ten, eleven....

All seemed to be fine with Oktavius's recovery.... although he had a habit of restlessness.

This would lead to a huge discovery for the white crow one wintry evening. Snow blew hard outside in the cold, stormy December air.

Finding himself in a fit of insomnia, Oktavius curiously came down the steps. He would creep down to garner a glance of the doctor while he is diligently at work. The raven sat alone near the boiler, pouring liquids and aqueous substances between his beakers. His corvid-esque veil settled itself upon a nearby shelf - watching in sentry of the room - and his usual cowl is lowered, resting upon his shoulders. The crow looked around the room, taking in every detail of the workshop, at least until his gaze meets a familiar silhouette.

Oktavius examined the raven gently, until his eyes pause at his features, exposed for the first time in human memory.

The doctor's lips were gently pursed in studious silence, his golden irises reflecting the light from the blaze. Shoulder-length raven black hair caresses a sharp yet rounded presence in brandy hue - a coup d'oeil with the softness of a rose, contrasted by the roughness of its thorns, and sloping down with a gentle curve like its petals.

"....que...c'est beau..." <...how.... beautiful...>

The raven would freeze and drop his beaker, whipping around quickly towards the noise.

Two scalpels would fly towards the crow, and he would dive downwards to dodge the twin blades -- which strike the beam above him.

The raven is turned towards the perceived intruder, startled and on the defense, staring daggers in his direction. His black wings are spread to conceal himself from the light. His voice would echo around the small room, as if to ward his assailant out of hiding.

"Qui va là?!" <Who goes there?!>

The crow crumples onto the floor, frightened by the sudden hostile reaction. He gives a fearful squeak in reply.

The raven pauses, eyes tracing down to the trembling crow, meeting his terrified gaze. The uptight rancor of the doctor quells, and his shoulders untense. "...Oh.... it's just you..... I-I thought you were... someone else," the doctor would stutter, his expression now one of regret. The wings rapidly recede, hiding back under his flowing robes.

Oktavius would seize up in fear as the raven approached him. His eyes shut tight, awaiting to be consumed whole.... but it never comes. Instead, a gentle hand rests itself on the side of his head, and when he opens them, two gentle golden irises glance right back into his. That beautiful rose was so close to him, he could trace his fingers along the doctor's lips, his cheeks, his chin.... but they stayed fixed to his lap.

"....Je suis vraiment désolé de t'avoir fait peur <I'm so sorry for frightening you>...," he would quietly say, head slightly bowed in shame;
"...Sleep could not find me, and my curiosity got the best of me." The white crow's violet eyes were full of apprehension and tears.

The raven wiped the crow's tears away and sits himself next to him.

"....Non.... I acted upon my instincts and nearly inflicted harm upon you as a result. The fault is purely mine, Oktavius."

An awkward silence was shared between the two, the humming crackles of burning wood in the boiler the only thing filling in the difference.

The raven would quietly stand, pulling out the two scalpels from the wooden beam. He would then place them back within their leather casing, before returning back to the crow. He would gently hold out a hand to the other, aiding the crow to a stand.

"....Are you alright?" the doctor would inquire.

"....Oui, I am. Although... forgive me if this seems odd of me to say to you, Doctor..."

"Hmm?" he would reply.

"....but it is a shame that such beauty is hidden from the world behind a porcelain veil... why do you hide it?"

His feathers fluffed up beneath his jawline, left silent. The raven averts his gaze with a fluster, left with a light cough of surprise.

"....Are you well, Doctor?"

His face warmed up with cinnamon red as he attempted to settle himself. A gentle breath comes from his lips. Composed once more, the raven would clear his throat and return his attention to the white crow.

"...Oui. Oui, I am. As for your inquiry.... it's complicated."

The crow would take up a seat on an adjacent stool, attentive to the other.

"....I listen, Doctor."

========

The mask is more than just a decoration.

It's a reminder of what I've lost, what blessings I gained, and the horrors I've faced.

It's a symbol of my home, the one I knew so long ago.... a paradise I have long since been accosted from.

A distant memory of my origins and family..... in an oasis commonly known to the Foundation as the forgotten realm of Alagadda.

Alagadda... the City of Gold, the Kingdom of Mystique..... A bustling paradise of color, a trade beacon of the world.

Once led by an All-Knowing Ruler, advised by his Ambassador and his lands dispatched by his four Lords: men of White, Red, Yellow, Black.
Attended to by many servants, all hand-picked for their skill and devotion by His Eye, the Golden King would continue the dynastic fantasy of his ancestors. Under his rule, our people prospered, the faithful rewarded for their diligence with valor and pride.

Everyone who resided in His Domain wore a masquerade that expressed their individuality. They all held one for every occasion: one for normal matters, another for marriage and a different one for mourning, a wildly decorated one for holidays and events of mass observance, et cetera.

The colors used on a common man's mask corresponded to the Lord overseeing his village, adorned with patterns unique to his bloodline, registered within the Lord's Tome. These patterns held pieces that told their role within the village: farmer, weaver, carver, and so on. Their masks would be created with clay, varieties of which are dependent on the region.

Individuals of the clergy -- the priests, monks, wards of the temple -- they donned a special gold pattern upon theirs, made of Hadina wood (with a finish not unlike that of polished willow). They also wore a headdress, covering their skin in a uniform white to look indistinguishable from one another within the pew, only differentiated by the stars on the mask itself.

Those who worked directly under the King, however, have no pattern. Unlike the gentry and common folk, with color slathered onto clay veils, our masks are made of the purest white porcelain. No decorations to adorn, imperfections unheard of, only pale-almost-luminescent white made as a perfect fit to our faces.

When Our Merciful King chose me out of all of the subjects placed before him to serve his court, it was the greatest honor I've ever received.

I came from a weaving family: spinning the finest silk threads into a unique type of fabric only we knew how to make. I was born the eldest child of two, but my brother sadly perished to illness before his mask could be crafted.... or even his name could be proclaimed. As such, it was only me and my mother until the Lord came that day.

Our family was overseen by the White Lord, and thus our terracotta veils were adorned in white, with the pattern of a crow donned atop.

He came with calm and quiet demeanor, standing at the behest of Mother's attentive gaze. His attendant demanded we give our mandated contribution: five bundles of hand-woven silk fabric in the purest white we could provide. Mother gladly paid our family's due to the Lord, whisking to his carriage the fine textiles, while I continued with my work. Satisfied with our diligent compliance, the attendant regressed.

As he exited our home, however, a conflict between two other craftsmen in the village broke out. It is beyond me how it escalated to such a level, but a massive crash erupted from the walls above him and upset some roofing upon the Lord, inflicting sharp wounds upon his skin. My mother could not come to his aid, without the risk of dropping the bundles and staining their pure white with terracotta dust from the road. The attendant rushed to punish the offenders, flogging them for their insolence... but I made the decision to abandon my work and rush to the Lord. The ceramicist and carver removed the rubble, but a gash decorated the Lord's skin, a imperfection upon pure white.

I brought out a bottle of water, olive salve, my needle and thread, and long edge trimmings of the prized white silk -- with them, I went to work. I was not as skilled a healer back then as I am now, but I weaved the wound to a mend, almost as if the infliction had never occurred. Of course, the attention needed to the task left me unaware that the attendant bore witness to the miraculous feat I had procured to M'Lord. His silver eyes gazed up to meet mine, showing a rare display of gratitude as I helped him to his feet.

He asked for my family name... and I provided the information with due diligence, complying with his request. The White Lord then gave a gentle nod, before entering his carriage to depart with the attendant. He would whisper gently to his counterpart... and while I did not hear what they said.... I would come to know what my gesture of goodwill meant.

I was working upon the twilight hour, sharpening my cherished sewing scissors and clearing my station for the evening, when my mother approached me in her dressing gown. She said that there was somebody at the door who wished for my presence... and when I approached, the White Lord and his guard stood once again at our door. The attendant declared that I was to be seen at the Palace with great interest from the King, upon high appointment due to my diligent actions that warm afternoon. Mother looked to me sadly, knowing what this would mean for me: I would never see her again. I held her tightly for a brief time, before she handed me my supplies and wished me well on my journey.

I would be trained to be a healer by the White Lord himself, diligence withstanding to earn my place as the Royal Healer - and with it, I stood before the Golden King himself.

---

He scrutinized me with his eyes, peering into my very soul.

<< ...I sense some unease in you, child. >>

"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Your Majesty."

He squinted his eyes at me, digging further into me.

<< Unease: in your own form, your... circumstance. >>

"...."

<< You and I are not unlike one another.... this is quite amusing of a fact to me. >>

He gestured for me to approach closer, and the guards would push me into the King's proximity.

I would stand there before Him, my arms trembling with slight trepidation.

He would look past me, at the guards, pikes pointed at my back.

Upon his glare to them, they return to the far end of the room.

His gaze returned to me.

<< ...What is your name? Not your family's.... but yours.>>

"..... [DATA EXPUNGED], sir......"

<< You seem... ashamed of your title. >>

I felt like a deer in the headlights.

" .... I-It's not like that, sir, it's just-"

<< Your displeasure with that moniker is telling, child. I see all; my eyes cannot be deceived by mortal words. >>

I went silent, in resignation.... for I could not refute that he was correct.

<< Now... tell me. What is your true name? >>

<< That name that distinguishes you from the rest of the shining stars in my dominion. >>

<< A name all yours to have and hold. Your name. >>

".....My name......"

He waited patiently for a reply.

The silence was deafening as I tried to formulate a response.

Courage would burn into my heart as it sunk in that this was my paradise.

My sanctuary.

With renewed resolve, the answer flew from my lips as smooth as a summer breeze.

And the Golden King gave an earnest smile as I spoke...

=========

"My name is Léone Riçelle."

The room fell silent.... before a soft chuckle of endearment left Oktavius's soft lips.

".....Léone..... that's the most beautiful name I've ever heard."

==========================================================

[File Continues... >>]

Chapter Text

=====================================

FILE NAME NINE, SECTION A: [ HIS HEAVENLY SMILE ]

=====================================

The raven, normally a solitary creature, relished in the crow's company.

Over those past few months, the white crow made that little cottage in the outskirts feel a little less.... Quiet? Lonely? He had difficulty finding words to describe what he felt. Over time, the raven would question his views on companionship -- he never really had someone with him for this long, not since his previous apprentice had abandoned her duties, never to be seen again.

What he once thought would be a distraction.... might not actually be so detrimental.

Despite his resolutions, however, he would have to come to terms with the inevitable.

Oktavius had made a full recovery, and could fully move around freely once more without issue... but he wouldn't be able to stay. An abbot from another monastery had noted his absence and Father Christopher was given no choice but to reinstate the friar. He would have to return to the L'eglise, to continue his work and worship... as much as he dreaded doing so.

The fateful day came on a warm spring morning, as the Sun rose from its rested cradle.
Oktavius would stand with Léone outside the cottage, preparing to depart.

"....I cannot possibly thank you enough for granting me your graces and aid in my time of need," the crow would chirp quietly.

The raven shifted in his stance, porcelain visage once more fixed upon his face. His heart felt conflicted, but he remained nonchalant.

"....I am but a healer, and my duty is to mend the broken, nurse the ill and invalid. It is what little I could do for your service."

Oktavius would come closer to the raven, bestowing upon him a gentle handkerchief, adorned with a small feather of gold silk thread.

He would gaze upon the gift, mystified but touched by the gesture.

"....I vow on the Lord's name that I will find a way to do greater kind by you in return, Doctor. Goodwill brings good faith."

The friar would then raise his mended hood over his pallid facade.

"....and I promise that I will come find you again."

"Until we next meet..... G_d bless you."

He would turn.... and then, just as quick as he came.... Oktavius was gone.

Weeks would pass.

The raven laid awake in his nest, gazing out the moonlit window in longing. The night felt endless, dawn seeming like it would never come.

No amount of candlelit study would relieve him from the emptiness inside his chest, ever-growing, threatening to consume him. It would not grant his mind comfort from the return of solitude. Not even the strongest of his various elixirs, made from the finest lavender in his own garden, could grant the doctor rest amongst his inner turmoil.

This made the raven distraught.

A sickening burn sat unwavering in his throat, threatening to ravage him whole. His mind transfixed itself upon the void left by his counterpart's departure, the silent rooms devoid of the sound of his gentle laugh, an empty stew bowl now left resting in the cupboard. The friar's warmth lingered in the fabric, his scent (reminiscent to that of gentle wisteria) never washing from the linens, even as the doctor scrubbed it with the harshest of solvents.

He would sigh in resignation, wings spread as he lay prone on his nest, face burrowed into its cushion. He would shut his eyes, in a futile attempt to call rest to him; it would only come when he would fall unconscious from its absence.

Replacing his view of the moon would be the image of that gentle white crow, the sensation of his own hands embracing the other's.

It was a gentle dream that found him at last.

===============

Night blanketed Montauban with gentle moonlight.

The steeple of the L'eglise made its dominion known over the cloister, laying a path for a procession of hoods to progress undetected. A cluster of twelve dark shrouds traversed through twilight, led by a thirteenth in the front. Their flight is swift, and without a single footstep leaving trace of their presence, they entered the divine sanctuary.

The bevy of friars would spread out across the room, interweaving themselves within its wooden pews. Their leader stood before the altar, facing a wooden likeness of the Madonna, her gentle eyes gazing upon the Brotherhood in observance.

The air around them seemed to still, leaving their surroundings in a stasis.

He pauses to steady himself, taking in a deep breath. Clasping his hands gently together, he begins to quietly chant a soft hymn.

Rosaries rest within their hands as they showed their gratitude for her protection and guidance. Their hushed chorus warmed the bitter chill of the cathedral, prayers for their continued safety diffusing into the air.

Elsewhere in the cathedral, another cluster ascends the tower where their Abbot rests in tranquility, ignorant to his impending assailants.

They discreetly open the door to his office, that same stillness enveloping them as well.

Removing from it his matters of affluence, and with it the annals of his corruption, the assailants make quick their decision.

Before the Abbot has a chance to be woken up by his instinct, their plunder was complete. With each member withholding a portion of their oppressor's contraband (and whatever small personal possessions they themselves held), the Nuns of the L'eglise make their rapid departure towards the offices of the Cardinal.

Their Head Sister reports quietly to the leader of the bevy, giving her own brief prayer for protection before removing her cowl and fleeing.

In turn, the friars complete their final prayers, and make haste back out of the sanctuary.

All exit to their dormitory except for their leader.

He covers the Madonna in the Head Sister's cowl, as if to protect her from the events that would soon follow.

The friar moves away from her as he pours out casks of wine across the sanctuary tiles.

He would stand back.... and strike a match.

---

He would tack a copy of scripture speaking as to the punishments that a Man of G_d should endure for the sins committed by the Abbot. An illuminated manuscript of Father Christopher, once decorated as a holy symbol, lays below the evidence of the blood upon his hands -- a fitting epitaph to rest upon the damp, rotten doors of a burning church.

Once the record is affixed, he sees his brothers run from the monastery, cloth shrouds burning from the flames they've set alight. He sets his own shroud alight with the blaze, and makes his own "frantic escape".

However, he would take one last action before running off into the night -- he would pause before the stone statue of the Mother Mary that is affixed to the front walkway. His gaze meets the carefree smile of the gentle Madonna, giving her one last prayer of thanks.

He would place his rosary gently into her cupped palms.

With his matters fully sorted, Oktavius makes his flight to freedom....

...and it all starts with a familiar cottage on the outskirts.

================

A violent rapping at the front door would revive the raven from his deep stupor, sending his hand flying to grab his porcelain visage.

Pulling his shroud over his wings and affixing it around his waist with rope, he would make his hurried flight down the stairs.

"...Par la grâce... ce qui se passe....?" <Gracious.... what is happening?>

He opens the door with haste, the shrouded figure gripping the doorjamb to catch his breath.

"Pardonne-moi de t'avoir réveillé si tôt......*huff*... I must seek sanctuary in your abode once more.... *huff*.... the situation is dire..."

<Forgive me for waking you this early...>

The familiar warmth of the voice within the shroud before him brings the raven to his senses.

His golden eyes, however, shoot wide open at the sight of the burning fabric.

"Oh, Mon Dieu.... Oktavius!"

He quickly pulls his cloaked acquaintance inside, grabbing one of his beakers and extinguishing the blaze with its contents. He would then return to the door, shutting it tight and locking the door once more. He quickly turns to Oktavius, gripping his shoulders gently to hold him in place.

With the curtains still closed shut, Léone rips off his corvid-esque veil, revealing his sleep-derived visage.

"....What the hell happened? Your robes are smoldered, and you smell of smoke.....oh lord, don't tell me you've been burnt..."

The raven scrambles to start searching every single inch of his counterpart for injury, his feathers puffed up in morbid panic.

Noticing his counterpart's anxious flurry, Oktavius gently takes Léone's hands into his own with an awkward smile.

The raven, adrenaline pumping through his body, twitches to a halt at the sudden hinderance of his movement.

"Doctor, you need not worry.... I'm unharmed," the crow would gently chortle.

His hands would tremble lightly in the other's grasp as his body relaxes. The raven's face upon realizing his hasty actions flushes a warm cinnamon red under his brandy-tinted skin. His soft lips quivered minutely in shame, and his eyes gently averted their gaze from the crow.

"....I do appreciate your concern for my well-being, however..... it means a lot to me, considering how the Abbot was."

"...Was?" the raven would inquire, confused.

Oktavius would then tell him about the recent actions taken by the lower clergy that twilight. The doctor is left speechless.

"....All of us burned our shrouds partially, so we would be able to feign ignorance if the Cardinal came..... Surprised the Nuns joined in."

"....I-I see," Léone responded.

The crow gently squeezed the raven's hands, kneading them with his thumbs to help his dear friend quell his anxiety.

Some conversation between the two would reacquaint them. Stories of mishaps in the congregation hall during High Mass, and amusing moments of capricion between the monks, among other things.

However, Oktavius would note his counterpart was unusually aloof. An unease grew within his gut.

".... Léone?"

"...Mm?"

".....Are you feeling well? Your eyes are dazed, as if your mind is preoccupied..."

The raven turned his gaze to meet the crow's, but a wave of fatigue would send him collapsing towards the earthen floor.

He would once again lose consciousness -- but luckily he would be swept up by the crow shy of hitting the ground.

-------

An air of disorientation filled the raven as he rose out of his stupor.

All was blurry at first -- a few blinks would sharpen his vision, revealing a room cast in lantern light.

He laid supine in the cot, muscles aching and burning from exhaustion, his vigor left diminished.

A sharp protest ripples from his body as he shifts his weight to adjust.

The door opens with a hushed creak, his acquaintance bearing warm bread and a sweet-smelling bowl of porridge. Seeing his distress, the tray is set down onto a nearby stool and the white crow rushes to gently aid him. A sharp inhale of pain ripped through the raven's teeth.

Once settled upright, the rancor in his frame would calm.

The tray is transferred from the stool to the doctor's lap, resting upon it. His gloved hand would take up a sample of the starchy mixture in the wooden instrument, wisps of steam rising to greet him. Its honeyed scent beckoned the raven, and upon first bite, he was left entranced. One spoon turned to two bowls... His ravenous manner cast a wave of ease upon Oktavius's face.

The bowl laid emptied once more without a speck of waste, nor a bread crumb left to fall for vermin to take up.
A heavy sigh escaped Léone's lips, sated at last. He glances up to the white crow, face dusted in timid sienna red.

"....Goodness," he would chuckle. "...What a relief to see your strength return, my friend. You had me beside myself with worry..."

A burning began to rise once more within the raven's throat. His heart pings with sway at the crow's carefree smile, his gleeful laugh. The compassionate aura of the white crow brought a warmth to his core. Words desperately wanted to flood from his lips. Overwhelmed by the sudden sensation, he once again closed his eyes to gather himself.

The air in the room slowly swirled around the pair as it came to a halt, the two of them held in the moment, encased by the stillness.

Silence held dominant. Words could cut through it as if it were butter. He took a deep breath.

His companion seemed to give off an almost heavenly glow, radiating around him with an aura so enchanting.

At last, the raven would open his eyes and peer directly into the crow's vibrant orbs.

"....Oktavius?"

"....Oui, mon ami?"

".....May I confide something to you...?"

The crow raised his brows with timid surprise at the raven's request. He would give an earnest smile.

"...D'accord....What seems to be troubling you?"

His hand would gently squeeze and his gaze trails to his lap.

"....I haven't the faintest idea why.... but..... my mind has not held rest for some time."

Oktavius scoots himself closer, to gently rest a hand on the raven's.

".... My heart has felt heavy ... as if a great weight bore itself upon it, carving a hole that grows ever wider. Ever colder.... tightened like a hand-towel being wrung of water before it is hung to dry in the warm spring breeze. It yearns for something beyond my awareness.

"I found myself unable to take in even the faintest crumb of bread.... that heavy feeling held itself in eminence throughout the whole of my very being. It covered my eyes in a veil, as if my body lamented something it had lost, left widowed to it..."

The crow nods, attentively listening.

"...It's been persistent for the past fortnight. This feeling... normally, I shouldn't be so bothered, but...."

"...mm?" the friar would murmur curiously.

"....Something about you being here fills that gap in me. When you left, everything felt a bit.... colder. Like a void was left in your place."

Oktavius perks up, his pale complexion heated up with a warm glow. Léone's wings gently unfurled, resting at his sides to self-soothe.

"... Without you..... everything felt out of balance. Like something was missing. And while sorrow did not overcome me...."

The raven's voice would crack.

"...I...... I found myself unable to work. Unwilling to continue my work... like I had lost sight of my purpose. Perhaps with the time we had spent together during your recovery.... made me realize that the silence is deafening. That my heart yearns for a companion in my study.

".... My heart opened a gap that only your presence can fill.... Given all this evidence.... I feel confident in that prognosis."

His golden irises would rise to meet the other's vibrant violet gaze.

".... I must confess... You've brought light back into my life. Light I haven't felt since I was forced to flee my home.... but.... maybe...."

".....Y-You've become my home, in a way, Oktavius..."

The white crow find himself speechless, face flushing brighter with heat.

Tears suddenly well in the raven's golden eyes, falling down his cheeks as his composure gives way, shattering completely.
He begins to fall apart before the friar's eyes, emotion bleeding out from his wails of anguish.

Oktavius takes the raven into his arms, caressing the distressed corvid in his warm embrace.

Léone burrows into his companion's shroud, eyes buried within the soft linen, concealing his face -- now reddened with tears.

"....I.... found myself yearning for your return.... praying for it, even.... and it appears through this odd twist of fate...."

"... I had come in search of you, on my own accord," the crow would chirp quietly.

The raven raises his head silently to look at him, wiping away tears from his own eyes.

Chapter Text

He was the only one whom my heart could hold so dear.

Oktavius was an angel among mortal men.

But alas, in the garden where Adam and Eve frolicked freely.....

The peace would not last, and Eden would burn in agony.

============================


FILE NUMBER NINE, SECTION B: [ SILVER LOCKET ]


============================

I thought I had rid myself of him. That bloody mask...

He is called Dyonisus, the Black Lord of Alagadda. I only consider him as my tormentor, for he is no lord. He is a white serpent with black ichor for blood, tears, sinews. Donning himself upon whichever poor soul was the lowest bidder.

'Tis entirely by his hand that our Realm became forgotten, when he strung our King upon that rope, and laid my name through the blood that pooled underneath his bandaged, crucified body. Yet, one can only pray that His All-Seeing Eyes still watch in wait from beyond this plane. The only justice I have gained in this is that he was also exiled from that paradise, if only under his falsehood that I contracted him to shield me, to placate me in his sinful deed.

I felt him naught but an annoyance when we were thrust upon this human plane, I in Naples and he in Athens. However, he had come across my path when I approached the border. He walked alongside me as an unwelcome stowaway, trailing me through whichever town I entered -- he worked as a con artist, swindling the populace with miracles and pagentry, all while continuing to drag my name through the mud. Even when I crossed paths with a man of my own profession in Austria, he attempted to sway them with his spell... And I crushed him thusly out of anger.

I thought I had finally shook him from my heel when I took flight for Montauban that stormy evening.

But, alas, he appeared in my doorway a short few years later.... and what he would bring has left me ravenous at his throat.

I was having my luncheon with Oktavius when he came to call.

He tried to wise up, acting as an infirm patient who desperately needed my services, and I the fool allowed him in.

Once he made himself known as my "old friend", he attempted to greet himself to Oktavius.... and I suppose I responded in instinct, bearing my wings and teeth, putting myself between my dear crow and that monster. "...Oh my, Léone dear... must you be so monstrous when you have company to bear witness? It's terribly rude of you...." he slimed, giving a harsh scoff of offense.

I was prepared to maul him once more to protect my beloved. However, much to my relief, Dyonisus took his hint and departed.

....What he did next... was reprehensible. I will never forgive him, even if it kills me.... he does not deserve my remorse.

=================

"So.... what you're saying is: this.... healer has slain those whom he deems worthy of this "cure"...?"

The mask would smile widely towards the Abbot, standing before his desk with papers, smeared on its faces with ink.

"Yes, Your Grace..... the dear Doctor has played your gentry for poor saps. He is naught but a murderer, and a witch at that, if that worsens."

"...Witchcraft? In my parish? By G_d, what else would he have done....." Father Christopher would groan, head leaned into his hand.

"....Perhaps act as temptress toward one of your monks and coerce him with the devil's act.... One that would make him burn this church down to the ground. A man of the Lord turning his back upon his church and divinity, all for the sake of a murderer's favor."

Father Christopher's eyes widen as he sits up, furious and appalled.

"Your best friar.... Oktavius. His hands are stained with soot, his vices rich with sin.... and he has been laying the murderer in his own bed!" Dyonisus would laugh, before the expression of his mask turns to fury; "Doesn't it make you the least bit bereaved that your own men would set your church ablaze...? Lead by a harlot of all people, within your own friary?"

"...So my suspicions were true.... he was who dared to paint me as a sinner, and lead all my servants of G_d into rebellion and blasphemy. But not only that, he has defied the Lord and broken his vows. After all I have done to save his soul from the Devil's Temptation, this is his return of grace toward me? And contracted by the Doctor, of all people... a man of medicine is a murderer.....both of Man and Divinity."

A glint gleamed in Dynoisus's eyes.

"....I know where they are hiding, Father."

The abbot takes his attention back to the masked serpent, glancing into his squinted orbs.

".....I can lead your men to the witch's abode.... and we can bring the wrath of your G_d to both their poor souls."

Father Christopher leans in to listen closer.

"All it will take is a few of your guard, some supplies, and your graces. It is a holy act I seek to do, as I too have been wronged."

"....Do we have a deal, my good Abbot?"

Dyonisus would hold out a hand to him, innocently..... and the Abbot would agree to his scheme, giving credibility to his impending task. His eyes would gleam with pure glee, a bright royal purple.

"I can assure you that your trust is well placed.... Father."

===============

A warm autumn breeze blew through the streets of Montauban.

It was a quiet Sunday morning, dawn breaking through the hills in the distance.
Leaves turned red and orange upon the treetops, falling onto the cobble paths.

All was still, spare for the sound of crunching underfoot and rustling from fabric wrapped around a slender form.

Windows to the local boulangerie were open, the alluring scent of fresh bread attracting passers-by.
The door opens, and the baker turns to greet the newcomer.

"Bonjour, what brings you in this fine mor...ning..." His voice is snagged by silence at what stands before him.

"...Bonjour. Quel est le prix de cela aujourd'hui?" <What is the price of this today?>

The raven gazes back gently to the heavy-set man, holding a bag of fresh rolls with gentle, unsheathed hands.

".... 5 francs a roll. That is a small set ... so 20 francs, for the full bag of four;" the baker replied with a quiver.

"Hmm. The grain must be in bounty... temptation to a few draws me. Une moment."

He would set it upon the counter and pull a satchel from inside his shroud. The baker winces in intimidation, but peeks down upon the familiar ring of coin against his counter. He slowly takes the payment and places it into his box, glancing back towards the doctor. He is left dumbfounded by the amicable manner the healer poses towards him, convinced he was to be feared.

Once his satchel is secured, his gentle hands take up the bag once more, giving a gentle chuckle.
"...Merci beaucoup, dear baker. Blessed Sunday to you," he'd chirp sweetly in thanks.

The baker can see the raven turn to exit, and gives a sigh of relief upon his exit. Curiously, he watches as the raven removes a roll from the small bag and lift his veil slightly. He is about take a bite from it, when a small boy comes bumbling in with fervor.

"Pépère! Pépère! Dépêche-vous, vien voir!" <Grandfather, grandfather! Hurry, come see!>

The baker pushes up his counter door, rushing to his grandson's side. "What has happened, my child?" The raven pulls down his veil and returns the roll to his bag, moving out of the way for the gentleman.

"Quelque chose de terrible est arrivé! We must act quickly!"
   <Something awful has happened!>

He perks up with sudden urgency, and whips his gaze towards a growing plume of smoke.

All the baker and his grandson would hear is a harsh croak, turning their gaze to a dropped bag of rolls, resting upon fallen black feathers.

They look to one another and rush into the shop, exiting with pails of sand.

The raven would make a mad dash towards his home, clacking along the cobble, praying that his fears are false.

He would find it engulfed in flames.

He is held in fear by the implications, quietly whimpering with anxiety. The baker and his grandson rush along the street, seeing the doctor held paralyzed at the sight. They approach him, only to be ignored as he goes rushing into the fray, kicking the cottage door open.

"....M-Monsieur! C'est dangereuse! Don't go in there!" the child would scream after him, with shock. The baker looks on in horror.

Léone would frantically dash through the flames, his face contorted in fear under his veil, which he would rip off.

He would shout through the roars of the flame, choking in small parts upon the smoke that bellows around him. He rushes up the wooden stairwell, smoldering in ember as he embarked them. He would barge into his quarters, which had been completely flooded by the inferno.

The sight he is greeted with makes his heart wrench in agony, his eyes widened with dismay, and his voice crack with pain.

"....Oh.....B-By His All-Seeing Eyes...."

Submerged in flame and rubble, and wrapped in his charred linen shroud, a white crow lay upon the smoldering floorboards. The raven rushes to his side, attempting to revive him. With every shake, every push down upon his breast, every breath pushed through his charred lips, every cry of his name into the air... a cherished moment flooded the raven's anguished mind, burning into his eidetic memory.

He is brought to tears, overcome with grief. His wails fill the room, echoing against the walls, scorched by the blaze.

"...My my, Léone.... what a terrible mess you've found yourself in."

The raven's howl quiets as he turns his gaze up towards the voice. His eyes are filled with tears of agony, but glare with anger.

"....YOU.... You did this... didn't you..."

The mask would chuckle with gentle glee, looking down upon the raven. "....Oh, heavens no.... you brought this upon yourself, see. Death follows your every footstep, and yet you dedicate yourself to a mortal of the human realm... when will you ever learn, dear Doctor?" He approaches, throwing the corvid-like veil toward his counterpart.

Léone's face snarls in rage and grief, staring right into Dyonisus's gleaming purple eyes. He rises to lunge at the masked corpse, only to be restrained by his wings and sloshed with an oily substance.

"....Foolish, foolish Seraph.... you simply don't understand your place in this world. Perhaps I should remind you."

He would throw the raven harshly onto his back, crushing his wings against the floorboards. A scream of agony blooms into the air. Dionysus then takes up a piece of firewood and lights it with the flames surrounding them. The raven's eyes widen as he approached, paralyzed by the pain.

"....But I know it is better if you gain acquaintance to the Inferno of your own making..... my dear Léone. Until next we meet.... old friend."

And the torch is tossed upon him, as the floor gives way. Léone and his fallen lover are cast into the firey pit below, his scream echoing through the flames.

All goes dark, all goes quiet.

From the rubble, smoldered in the residual embers, something would rise up.

Silent, the raven would bring himself back onto his feet, covered in soot.

His once gentle form, bathed in brandy, now charred from head to toe -- a clear divide cut sagitally down his frame. His hand brushes along his veil, raising it to his visage once more, covering it as he normally would. Léone pulls his shroud around him, and begins his movement to assess the damage, when he is taken into the harsh grasp of armored guards and dragged out toward the town square.

Before the whole village of Montauban, his limbs are bound by rope. A large silhouette casts itself upon him, glaring him down from above.

"See here before you, dearly beloved -- the witch, a healer of falsehoods, finally accosted for his sins!"

Léone struggles to get himself unbound, only to be dragged upward by none other than Father Christopher.

"Have you any repentance for your crimes?" he would inquire aloud.

"...I'm.... innocent!" Léone would growl, flicking his face to the side.

"...Innocent to the coercion and murder of Brother Oktavius? Innocent in the leading of a good man out of the eyes of G_d?!"

A low chuckle follows.

"...My, my.... You're quite conniving, dear Doctor.... trying to fool a man of divinity, now as ever...."

His gaze shifts to the voice of Dyonisus, an audible snarl coming from under his cowl.

The masked corpse smiles in glee as he glares down at the raven.

"Have you not done enough to torture me, Dyonisus?! Burning my home, my sanctuary.... now you turn these humans against me?!"

"...Humans....?" the abbot would inquire, taken aback.

"...Oh, yes. He is not of human design, my dear Father. Remove his cowl and his cloak.... and let all be revealed in its ugly truth."

Father Christopher would signal to the guards, who strip the raven of his shroud, revealing his burned body and hidden facade. His blackened wings encase him, shielding him from their spears. The crowd would gasp in horror.

"....A murderer, temptress, witch.... and a demon in the guise of a fallen angel.... how rich!" Dyonisus would chortle.

Léone moves his gaze up to the abbot's, enraged. But.... a sudden change occurred within him.

"....Do you repent before the eyes of G_d, you wretched beast?" he would inquire.

The raven's feathers flick, ripping his bindings free from him, and the concealment would all return to his form.

"...What?" the abbot would inquire, suddenly filled with unease.

Something changed in his demeanor. His voice is monotone, without remorse, without empathy. Purely methodical.

"....I am but a doctor.... and you are unwell. A Pestilence flows through your veins, and it is sickening..."

Léone steps towards the abbot. Father Christopher steps back, tripping upon the stage.

The raven pulls him up to his line of sight, talons sharpened. His golden irises stare right into the abbot's blue orbs, blank and unfeeling.

"...Do not be afraid. My cure is most effective."

And upon the folktales of the peoples of Montauban, that is when the doctor gained his first specimen...

The first instance of 049-02 had been born, and his fearsome reputation its twin.

A silver locket is stained with blood.

A warped mask of possessive quality is sealed within a burning cathedral.

The village would grow and wane with time, people disappearing over time.

And armed with their rifles, men in tactical gear would knock upon a wooden door.

==============================

Seething corruption. Poisonous greed. Feigned ignorance.

They are the three hallmark symptoms of the Pestilence, if not the infection vectors.

Dyonisus is a harbinger... it seems to follow him wherever he treads.

The Pestilence itself is corruption of the soul, through willful influence and intent.

Only I can sense who is infected, only I can cure their infliction..... but I know I am not the only one who can study it.

Oktavius was able to understand what it was... which set him apart from most mortal humans I had come to know.

He will forever be the only one who was cured without the gift of medicine.

And forever will he rest in my grief, his gentle demeanor a footnote of my existence.

For he is and will always be the light of my life -- an angel, his heavenly gaze forever remaining a treasure in my memory.

Chapter Text

What once was a man has become an idea.

A cry of blood yet to be spilled, a howl for what used to be, built in concrete and stone.

What was once held in a gilded cage, has finally been freed.

But the bird that fears what lies outside his prison must make himself a shadow of his former self...

The bird, wings clipped by its captor out of selfish desire, envious of the brilliant hues painted upon its feathers... it flies.

But with its wings comes the burning, for those who are the Bloodhounds to find.

The idea becomes an ember burning in the spring, rested upon them.

=====================

FILE NUMBER TEN: [COCCINEAM FLAMMAM, FRACTA; CRUENTA ET RUBIGINOSA]

=====================

The storm howls violently.

Thunder rolls from the distance, dark clouds seated in the sky, un-moving... unwavering.

A fire ebbs brightly from the woods.

Birds flashing by, only revealed by the lightning, behold the sight of a tragedy - a car crashed along the side of that rain-soaked road. It crackles, seemingly unaffected by the weather. The fallen pine needles smolder into ash.

Its embers float in the air, swirling around the rising plume of bellowing black smoke.

The shadow of a monster rises from the burning inferno. Its twisted, deer-like antlers shine a golden hue within the silhouette. A clawed, talon-like hand reaches into the flame, pulling out a briefcase, brushing the flame off its leather surface as if it were merely dust.

Piece by piece, it sifts through the wreckage to find itself.

The silhouette shrinks, pine needles crunching under its feet as it approaches the road.

A body lays among the shattered glass, emaciated by the flame and impact. Stripped of its suit and slacks, and skin bubbling from the blaze, it lies slumped against the middle console of its metal-cage coffin - a freshly formed John Doe, never to be known.

Thumps turn to simple footsteps.

Fabric rustles.

The click of glasses being unfolded and donned.

A breath comes from its chapped lips.

A breath of life.

Long forgotten life.

It encroaches upon the concrete walls and barbed wire fences.

A man gets up from his chair and approaches it, holding his rifle in his hand.

"Halt."

The footsteps stop. More join it, with the sound of shuffling ammunition and rubber.

"This is a restricted zone. Gonna need to see your badge or papers."

Fabric shuffles, procuring a badge, notably attached to some keys.

The guard scrutinizes it.

"....Hmm. Seems you haven't updated to the new badge system yet.... you got yer papers with ya, buddy?"

"...Y-Yeah," a low, scruffy voice scratched. "One second."

The figure dips to the nearby awning, opening the suitcase and presenting documents to the guard.

"....Ahhhh, I see. The brass talked about sending some big-wig here from Site 19... Right this way, Inspector."

It closes the briefcase, following the men through a pair of metal doors.

"Y'know, you came at just the right time. Shit's been crazy here... maybe you can get it sorted out."

They enter a room.

"We just need to update your badge first, and then you can get right to work. Stand on the red dot and face the camera."

It does as it is told.

A camera shutter rings through the room. The sound of a plastic card being shot out from a machine and into a plastic bin.

The guard takes it out and looks at it, giving a smirk as he hands it over.

"Alright. You're all set, Inspector. Let's get you settled into the dorms.... no offense, but you look like shit."

"....It's been a long night."

The shower warms up his rain-soaked skin. Ashy-black water circles down the drain, interlaced with suds.

A mirror above the sink fogs up from the moisture... and it is wiped away, revealing a reflection within it.

Long, scarlet red hair drapes down below his shoulders.

Tanned skin with a matching beard. A small scuff under his amber-like eyes.

He looks at himself for a long while.

"...Harris.... Arkham."

Satisfied with his appearance, he exits the bathroom and into a basic bedroom.

He dons a spare un-burnt suit from the suitcase, a nice dark brown set with a deep-colored collared shirt to go well with it. He ties his damp hair up into a high ponytail, putting back on his wire-frame glasses. They're basic readers, but it seems to help with the glaring florescent lighting. Paired with a nice pair of formal shoes, he dons his badge and grabs a clipboard.

He takes a deep breath and steps out of his dorm, headed back to the security office.

It was about time he got a good look around the place.

====

====

In the depths below, beneath many layers of steel and concrete, a soft, idle hum echoes.

The medical wing, freshly repaired, gleamed like porcelain.

A tall figure stands at a table, plunging syringes into bottles, filling them, pulling them out, grabs a new one, rinse and repeat. He hums a cheerful melody as he works peacefully. His companion sits at a nearby desk, ruffling through paperwork and writing on some with a fountain pen. A cup of coffee wisps next to him idly.

"....Say..... Riçelle."

The rhythmic movement of sharps stops. The tall figure turns, his sterile white porcelain mask pointed towards the noise.

"...Mm?"

"...I never quite understood why you're always so chipper when you do stuff like this. Is it really that enjoyable?"

He turns to the satyr, raising a hand to where his chin would be, thinking.

"...I suppose it holds no difference from how I once studied my craft, back among the human mortals."

"...Don'tcha ever get bored?"

"Non. It's somewhat therapeutic for me. The pace and wisp-like feeling of the work calms the soul, n'est pas?"

"Eh..... I could do without."

"....Then again, I suppose you aren't quite as acquainted with such joys anymore, are you, dear Lucifen?"

Lucifen glares up at him.

"....Nay.... I s'pose I just have to get used to them..... just like I do with this bloody collar they've got chained on me leg."

He looks down to his legs. A tracking device beeps away softly, attached to his ankle.

"You forget that I bear one as well. It is a rather.... uncomfortable adjustment."

The door beeps and opens.

Two guards step in. "....Ah, great. The bird man and our new freak are in here together.... wait. Where is your supervising researcher?"

"Hasn't shown up," Lucifen replied. "Bugger should've been here two hours ago. We ain't been doin' anything bad, rest assured."

049 returns to his work, filling syringes and capping them, setting them aside on a silver tray for the other doctors to use.

"....Take a look in here, Inspector. This might interest you," the guard snarks.

Harris would lean over and peek in.

"This is one of the site's.... running experiments. Ansel called it "Supervised Rehabilitative Containment". Take a contained, sentient Euclid that has a skill and put it to work under surveillance. Itkin decided to test the initiative on the fucking plague doctor. To top it off, we have this guy to worry about now... apparently he was one of Ansel's short-hands. Dunno how he snuck under radar as an anomaly, though."

Lucifen's ear flicks in annoyance. "I CAN hear ya, you know."

"Yeah, it don't change that you're a freak of nature, kid," the guard retorts.

"...Gentlemen... please," the bird would interject. "I would hate to agitate our new guest with such.... pedantic matters."

The satyr huffs, sitting back in his chair.

"Normally they'd be in here with a researcher or two, given tasks, and observed to see what their capabilities are..... but it seems the person in charge of their supervision is absent. Surprised these two haven't taken the opportunity to breach."

"....And 'ave the Crimson Judge rip me a new arsehole? Nahhhhhhh," Lucifen would snark.

"...Crimson.... Judge?" Harris would inquire.

"...That... would be me," a voice booms from behind. The guards (and Harris) jump, looking into the hall to see the leering juggernaut behind them. Her golden eyes glare over the group, gazing up towards the satyr briefly. The guard stiffens, stood at attention.

"C-Captain.... t-this is the Inspector that the O5 sent over. W-We were just giving him a tour... m-ma'am."

She looks him up and down.

"...Hmmph. I'm Crimson Judge, Security Director of Site 39, and leader of the Red Right Hand."

"Former leader, ya mean," Lucifen would chirp with a smug smirk, "Remember, yer still on probation, Capt'n...."

She shoots daggers at the satyr, who takes a nonchalant sip of his coffee.

"...I overheard some of the Hammer Down boys talkin' about it when they were draggin' in the lizard earlier."

"Lizard?" Harris would chime in.

"Yeah," he'd continue. "That big fuck-ugly lizard that's damn near invincible to anything under the bloody sun.... includin' the sun."

"....Fuck.... why didn't you TELL ME that 682's already arrived?! " Judge would boom, anger directed at the guards.

"Hammer Down already made sure that the thing's in its acid bath in the basement, ma'am...!" He'd whimper.

"...Guessin' that Admin sent 'cha down to keep me on your leash.... Captain?" Lucifen would add, smirk.

She walks over and pulls him up by the collar of his shirt, growling. "Why I oughta-"

"Ah, ah, ah...." he'd snark. "You're literally in front of an Inspector that can get your arse demoted....Ya really wanna start this now?"

She stops, looking back at Harris. Judge sweeps a look over him.... then slowly lowers the satyr back down.

"Thought so."

"...M-My apologies, Inspector. It's just that the satyr can be a bit...." She glares back. "...pesty."

Harris anxiously sweats a little, observing the whole phenomenon.

Once the whole group leaves, Judge glares back at him.

"You're lucky that we have company. We'll settle this out later."

Lucifen smirks. "Whatever you say, Copper Maiden."

And she leaves.

"How you manage not to get yourself killed is beyond me, Andrews."

"If she kills me, her boss will have 'er arse. Simple as that."

And the two return to their work.