8 hours ago
Raffe fell into a routine based purely on survival. Months had passed; he knew by now he was kept in a government facility, no longer monitored by Paragon but something more deeply classified. The details were incidental things he had no opinion on. The power he’d never wanted was gone – that should have been a revelation, but it only made sense in a way Raffe acknowledged and then set aside as irrelevant. Bastian knew. The Commander. Presumably the Ascendancy, though Raffe never met him. The private experiments to explain his condition continued behind closed doors – not to cure it, but to understand it. Raffe didn’t ask questions, he only consented. Nor did he ask what was gleaned.
They’d kept a box of his things, retrieved from Kallisti after he’d left. His whole life’s worth, including his wallet, Nox’s ring, and an unopened Christmas present; but he never went through any of it. The man he was now had no levity left to him, no joy, and no right to darken his old life. Memories of the masquerade – of Noemi’s soft concern, and Kristian’s description of the yawning abyss he saw inside – lurked in his mind sometimes. But it was the discomfort of trying to pretend he was still the same person inside, not the horror of what he might be now. So he rarely looked back.
The night at the carnival was little beyond a blur, and the weeks after that nothing but haze. The trackmarks on his arms were healed, the withdrawal long past. Sobriety had been cold. But Bastian enforced self-discipline with the tenacity of a man who wielded the same weapon inwards, and exacted the same standards in others. He wasn’t kind, but he was thorough. Every moment was accounted for and put to purpose. Exercise. Meditation. Raffe had never picked up a weapon in his life, let alone something so archaic as a sword, but he did as he was instructed and learned that too. It was easier not to question, to live inside a body that worked like a machine. He ate when he was told to, and what he was told to. His body grew lean and strong. When he caught himself in the mirror, which he rarely did, his face was drawn and angular. White ghosted his temples, stark against the burnished curls.
He didn’t seek company. There were other Dominions, but he barely saw them. The Garden housed other men learning how to wield the power too, but he avoided them, and Bastian’s stern eye encouraged a distance. Only Morven crossed it on occasion, not because he was special, but because she did not ever seem to account herself as beholden to the hierarchy and rules. She offered Healing more than once, eyes narrowed like she sensed something broken beneath the surface. But he only declined and moved away.
They’d kept a box of his things, retrieved from Kallisti after he’d left. His whole life’s worth, including his wallet, Nox’s ring, and an unopened Christmas present; but he never went through any of it. The man he was now had no levity left to him, no joy, and no right to darken his old life. Memories of the masquerade – of Noemi’s soft concern, and Kristian’s description of the yawning abyss he saw inside – lurked in his mind sometimes. But it was the discomfort of trying to pretend he was still the same person inside, not the horror of what he might be now. So he rarely looked back.
The night at the carnival was little beyond a blur, and the weeks after that nothing but haze. The trackmarks on his arms were healed, the withdrawal long past. Sobriety had been cold. But Bastian enforced self-discipline with the tenacity of a man who wielded the same weapon inwards, and exacted the same standards in others. He wasn’t kind, but he was thorough. Every moment was accounted for and put to purpose. Exercise. Meditation. Raffe had never picked up a weapon in his life, let alone something so archaic as a sword, but he did as he was instructed and learned that too. It was easier not to question, to live inside a body that worked like a machine. He ate when he was told to, and what he was told to. His body grew lean and strong. When he caught himself in the mirror, which he rarely did, his face was drawn and angular. White ghosted his temples, stark against the burnished curls.
He didn’t seek company. There were other Dominions, but he barely saw them. The Garden housed other men learning how to wield the power too, but he avoided them, and Bastian’s stern eye encouraged a distance. Only Morven crossed it on occasion, not because he was special, but because she did not ever seem to account herself as beholden to the hierarchy and rules. She offered Healing more than once, eyes narrowed like she sensed something broken beneath the surface. But he only declined and moved away.