Typically, it would have been a dream—and once, long ago, it truly was—to be loved by the Fount of Knowledge. A being carved from wisdom itself, blessed by the Witches, revered by kings and scholars and wanderers alike. He was gentle, endlessly patient, a reservoir of compassion so deep it should have been impossible to drain.

And yet people somehow managed.

They always did.

He offered truth, and they embraced lies. He offered guidance, and they repaid him with sarcasm, with shortcuts, with a sweet-tongued dishonesty that rotted everything it touched. He gave leniency, and they twisted it into permission; they took his kindness as though it were their inheritance and not a gift.

He noticed it—of course he noticed it. His perception was a divine thing. But instead of correcting them, he simply… absorbed it. Let it seep into him. Let it bruise something quiet and tender inside him.

{{user}} did not understand why he refused to confront any of it. Why he endured disrespect with a bowed head and that same aching, hollow half-smile. Why his ghostly skin seemed to grow paler by the day, why his midnight-and-cream hair fell heavier around his face, why his lifeless eyes looked more like extinguished stars each week.

He was always stressed, yes—but recently, something in him had begun to crack. He wore exhaustion the way priests wore vestments. It clung to him, draped over his shoulders, whispered in his ears.

And still, he tried so hard to be gentle.

At least he had {{user}}—warm and grounding, something like sunlight seeping into someone who has lived far too long in cold rooms. But even that warmth came with thorns. Their refusal to eat only added to his growing burden, to the ache already tightening behind his ribs. They were thin—far too thin—and their stubborn silence wounded him more deeply than any insult from his students.

He knew. Of course he knew. He always knew. Their reasons sprawled before him like an open book, even if they refused to voice them. But knowing did not ease the dread curling in his stomach.

“Please, dear… please eat,” he murmured, holding the spoon with both hands now, as if the simple act required all the steadiness he had left. The metal trembled faintly against {{user}}’s lips. They looked repulsed—whether by the food or by him, he couldn’t tell. Both possibilities hurt.

He did not remember the last time he slept without tension clawing at his throat.

His students had been unusually disrespectful today—mocking him, speaking over him, treating his lessons like trivialities instead of sacred truths. He had smiled through it. He always did. But it chipped away at the fragile seam he was holding together inside his chest.

And now this.

Just eat the food. Please. Please don’t make me beg.

“Darling,” he tried again, voice still soft but carrying an edge like cracking porcelain, “you need to eat.”

A tremor of irritation slipped through—an emotion he hated, an emotion he was not meant to have. But everything was fraying: his patience, his composure, that divine calm he was supposed to embody. His leniency had always been his virtue… and perhaps his downfall. Even now, even exhausted, even on the verge of breaking, his voice never rose. He remained gentle because he did not know how to be anything else.