like you couldn’t stop nuzzling into her hand if you wanted to (you don't want to stop), sweet and adoring and safe [dimly, you’re aware of voices above.]

“Is that...is that Fiend Bait?” “Oh, yeah. There’s lots of stuff you can do with it, you know? They really like the taste, and they’ll get nice and docile for you if they're not already aggroed, and….honestly!”

(pet, pet, little words of encouragement and you don’t hear but you don’t have to ‘cos you feel it all over and you follow) “Why waste it on cruel, pointless grind when you can simply-” she slips two more drops into your mouth, and everything’s so pleasantly hazy “--be kind?”

(the next hour or so is a blur of petting and cooing and delightfully fuzzy-feverish feelings. of smallness, but a kind of smallness you can take refuge in. you’ve never felt so *loved*.) a voice - your voice - cuts through the fog. “You must be exhausted, little mimic.”

it it has been a long day, hasn’t it? feels like--like you haven’t slept in ages, like (little strokes and ear-rubs, and she takes the leash in hand.) “But that’s okay, isn’t it?” “Mistress’ll tuck you in safe and sound, little mimic.”

a different kind of blur, now. everything but her words and her warmth and the fingers in your hair receding, everything but her sweet, steady hand and her *guidance* falling out of mind and then everything slows and the leash comes off with a sharp click and the fog thins

and you realize you’re *alone.* in the room. with a *monster* wearing your face.

the cold certainty of What You Know She’ll Do hits, and your heart sinks like a stone.

Chapter 7: Despite everything, she's still you. She can see it in your eyes, y'know? the pit-of-your-stomach fear. (you never did have much of a poker face.)

she closes the door and you're so *shaky*, your knees wobble and quiver and your eyes are big and wet like every inch of you knows she's going to-- she was so gentle and kind 'cos, ‘cos she wanted to get your guard down, ‘cos she wanted to get you alone, 'cos she's going to--

"come, little one." she's sitting on the bed and patting the space beside and you want to obey if only to placate, if only to buy a few more moments but your legs won't move none of you will you don't wanna--

she gets up and your blood runs cold this is--she's, she's going to do it you're going to--and, and she'll just tell them--and no one'll care, 'cos you're--'costheythinkyou're--youdon’twanna, youdon’twanna

“little one.” your eyes close tight and for the second time today you’re waiting, waiting, hoping against hope it doesn’t *hurt*

[a hand on your cheek, a flinch and a frantic apology and a please-don’t-all-the-things-you’re-too-scared-to-say] “deep breaths, now. ♥” ‘cos “nice and slow and steady.” ‘cos you know this is the end there’s no reason for there’s no *point* in keeping you you’re not

“iiiiin and out, nice and even and safe.” you steal the shortest peek you can. [small and shaken and disbelieving] "why don’t i tell you a story, little mimic?”

[what?]

her lips form a funny little shape like like drizzled honey calcifying around the contours of some strange strain of kindness, forming the shape of a mercy you’ve never known “you like those.” a statement, not a question. “always have, haven’t you?"

she leads you by the hand, geeeently sits you down on the bed. [you don’t have it in you to put up a fight.] "once upon a time, there was a creature." she conjures up a brush, all ocean-depth wood and night-sky bristles. starts to smooth out your hair with gentle little strokes

"she was a tool, made for a purpose." one arm holding, coiling, enveloping "she was made to see loose threads and slipping gears and she was made to *pull.*" the other uncoiling, detangling, teasing out your fears and smoothing them down with featherlight strokes

"her creator believed that her favored children would be refined through adversity, and so she made a world where everyone defined themselves by how they struggle."

"a world full of beasts and brutes and terrible things, but what beast wants to be an ill-fated footnote in some heroine's bloody bildungsROM?" "this was *troublesome* for the creator, her creations being so *difficult*, and so she brewed up something new."

"creatures who couldn't rest until they'd tugged the threads loose." "they'd find the weakest link, take a kind of psychic snapshot. *become* that snapshot, like a--like a, ah, what’s the word from the other place~?"

"a system image." "like a system image with hopes and hungers. they’d tease and wind up every last morsel of fear and mistrust until the party tore itself to bloody *shreds*. and it'd fill them up! it’d fill them up for a bit, but they'd never stop feeling *hungry*."

"mimics." "people took to calling them” “mimics.” (stroke, stroke, rubbing in time with the word) “because that's what they were understood to do. mimic."

"but then....something wonderful happened, you know?" she gingerly sets the brush aside, and she tiiiilts your gaze up to meet yours, and she *smiles.* "one such mimic--she tried to bathe in some hapless little thief, and she drowned in something she'd never known before."

she holds you like she's going to pick you up and spin you around ‘til she drops, like a joy that consumes "isn't that amazing, little mimic? She’d found so much less than she’d expected, but so much *more*."

"a life she'd never known, a world she'd never known, aspirations she'd never known. *hopes*. real ones, tangible ones, no~thing like the prêt-à-rêver pangs her designer’d seeded her with. can you *believe* that, little mimic?"

she smiles at you, beatific and adoring and there's a spoonful of something murkier but "like--like she could just *be*, and be something else." like religious mania but she's got you kneeling at the altar of We Don't Have To Be This, like a fever that threatens to catch

"and the lovely little thing whose place she'd taken--she didn't behave the way *they* behave, you know? no threats. no desperate, full-throated dehumanization. no hoarse, frantic shouts of 'monster,' and all the things worse than monster." a kiss in your hair like she's *proud*

"she just....she was just *scared*, you know? scared the way we are when we're first thrust into a world like this. she was fragile, she was small. she needed a place, she needed a way to make sense of it all. she needed love."

[a quiver inside and out, your lip might as well be a weathervane for your head and your heart] she gen~tly tilts your head up, cups your cheek. her thumb rubs at the apple of your cheek in soft swirls. "do you need love?"

when did you start crying?

[you don't hear the words, but you feel them] [you feel your throat make sounds, the movement of lips and tongue] [and you feel it in your heart, truer than anything you’ve known] “yes” “ma’am”

a look like her heart’s boiled over and burst, like being joyfully consumed after all, like an elemental brewed from adoring, soaring pride like a frankenstein’s monster sewn together from seven kinds of love and a spark of kindness like

like she couldn’t be happier with you, little mimic. “good *girl*.”

@bunwithanoven gosh, this is such a perfect dream of life as a pet! it was an amazing feeling when she was collared - and it only got better from there 😻 thank you so much for writing this 💖

@violetSnep i'm really glad you enjoyed!! thanks. <3

@bunwithanoven reading these instills a powerful calm in me thank you