The cold Snezhnayan winds howled against the window, their icy breath seeping through the cracks. Frost etched ghostly veins along the glass, and outside, the world lay buried in a darkness that cared nothing for the turning of seasons. Within the chamber, only the soft golden glow of candlelight that were warm, flickering, and fragile.

You moved with care, tending to the shallow cuts scattered across his skin. Bandages slipped through your fingers like silk as you wrapped his arm, your touch steady despite the chill in the room. He wasn’t made of flesh, but his body bore the illusion well.. too well. Even a puppet could bleed, even a god could scar. And he despised the thought of blemishes, each one a whisper of failure, of vulnerability he refused to acknowledge.

“I finally got the Electro Gnosis…” His voice was low, bitter, each word laced with venom. “But what does it matter, when Dottore takes his sweet time with the project?!”

He stared down at his hands, fingers curling slightly as if they might crush the very memory of power slipping through them.