𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃, scaramouche

02.

MONTHS PASSED in a blur, the days bleeding into one another as scaramouche continued with his duties, the weight of the fatui’s orders pressing down on him. he moved through his routines like clockwork, barely conscious of the passing time. after your death, the incident was locked away, buried deep where no one would speak of it again—not even him.

yet, despite his efforts to forget, scaramouche found himself lost in thought, staring into the void, reminiscing about the time you shared. he cursed himself for it, told himself that it shouldn’t matter. you were nothing more than a fleeting distraction, a piece of entertainment he had toyed with and discarded.

but no matter how much he tried to convince himself, he couldn’t stop his feet from taking him back to the place where it all ended. in the rare moments of leisure, his body moved on its own, as if programmed to mock him, dragging him back to that spot deep in the forest—the place where you had drawn your final breath.

today was no different.

he stood there, right where he had before, staring at the ground where your blood had once stained the snow. the crimson had long since disappeared, buried beneath layers of ice and time, leaving only a blank, cold canvas. his eyes lingered on the spot, a silent question hanging in the air.

what if you hadn’t approached him that day? what if you had stayed away, never crossing paths with him?

would your fate have been different?

with all these questions swirling in his mind, one stood out above the rest—haunting him with its undeniable presence.

what happened to your body?

scaramouche couldn’t help but overthink it. after all, he never bothered to bury you, nor did he instruct his subordinates to handle your corpse. he had left you there, exposed to the elements, vulnerable to the wolves and whatever else roamed the wilds of snezhnaya. you should have been nothing more than a meal for the creatures of the cold.

and yet... there were no remains. no bones, no scraps of flesh. nothing.

it gnawed at him. shouldn't there have been something left? he told himself it didn’t matter—it shouldn’t matter—but the more he thought about it, the more he realized there was an empty gap in the story, a mystery he couldn’t solve.

an empty gap he couldn't fill.

he needed to know. he had to know.

but why? why was this haunting him? he wasn’t supposed to care. you were nothing to him—just a naive fool who had fallen into his game. being devoured by wolves should’ve put his mind at ease, ending any lingering trace of you in the world.

but it didn’t.

"my lord."

a voice, steady yet trembling, came from behind. scaramouche didn’t turn immediately, though he recognized the voice as belonging to one of his subordinates—a fatui agent, face obscured by the standard mask and hood that hid their features. his indigo eyes shifted over his shoulder, a cold, piercing glance locking onto the figure.

"what? can't you see i'm busy?" he replied icily, the annoyance clear in his tone. his gaze snapped back to the spot in front of him, the place that had consumed his thoughts.

the agent flinched at the harshness of his words but quickly composed himself, clearing his throat before speaking again. "the doctor wishes to see you in his laboratory."

scaramouche remained silent, the agent’s words lingering in the air. the doctor... what could he possibly want this time? whatever it was, it had better be worth dragging him away from this moment.