AN: Hello, here a double Maduke chapter! The first one, Nauseated, is set right after the torture scene in the last chapter with Lunark. No torture here, but just the general squick that happens whenever Maduke is in the room.
Maduke: Nauseated – Werewolf Island, 12th February, 12:30
He'd demanded her attention at once - actually sending someone to fetch her from the titan labs. This was serious and he felt as though he needed her to just anchor him. "Ignes." The second she stepped through his door, he was on her, pulling her into a ferocious kiss that tasted more like despair than lust.
She froze. What. What was this? Please, no, not again. She wasn't ready right now.
His fingers dug into her arms as he took a couple of shaky breaths. Tense as a bowstring ready to snap or shoot. "Ignes..."
"No!" She tried to back away. She'd thought there was an actual emergency! Not that she was going to be grabbed the moment she walked in!
His grip on her didn't relax even for a bit. A nervous laugh, which was a degree of stress he hadn't reached in centuries.
Her breathing quickened. No. Don't have another breakdown. No. Just. Endure whatever was going to happen. Just let it happen according to the plan, right? Except she wasn't ready.
He pulled away sharply, running a hand through his hair, dishevelling it in the process. "Say something! What do you have a mouth for, bitch?! "
"What am I supposed to say!?"
"I don't care what! Anything!"
"Someone gave me a sandwich?"
That was enough to stop him momentarily. A questioning look.
"One of the students. I think they think I eat."
He sat on the edge of the bed, still fixating her with a predator's gaze. Her nonsensical words, panicked and inane as they were, were enough to ground him at least a bit.
She didn't move, terrified of what was going on. "Anyhow, I didn't eat it."
There was something he wanted and Maduke couldn't name it. Lunark . ...What he'd done had made him feel alive. Disgusted, but alive. "Don't you have something more interesting to tell?"
". ...Frankenstein will tell jokes if you catch him in the right mood?" Despite being a prisoner.
"Try harder." He ran a hand over his face.
"I don't know! This place is boring!"
"Take my mind off this before I lose it. And I can't promise you'll survive that."
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. "I managed to get the first steps of Titan II done today." A lie, but maybe it'd work. "I showed the students. So they know now too."
"Good." Though that didn't sound satisfied at all. It wasn't what he wanted. That anger and bloodlust were still there. Like demons he couldn't exorcise
No. She would not survive here. Get somewhere public. She scrambled for the door. She didn't want to be here.
"Did you know that running from a wolf is the worst choice?" He looked up darkly. "It says look. I'm prey. Catch me. "
Fuck. She simply sunk to the floor, tears already starting to stream. There was no escape. And there was no winning here. She didn't want to die. Not when she'd already sacrificed so much to live.
"Fuck!" He got up, resuming his angry, nervous pacing. "WHAT ARE YOU EVEN GOOD FOR?!"
Nothing, it seemed. She was his top scientist, and he'd taken her as his lover, and still she wasn't good enough. "I guess Ser Lagus was right?" She really should just stick to the labs, where she was good at what she did. Not up here, where she was obviously of no use and was going to die because of it.
Her voice sounded small and thin and he turned around to look at her. Her tears always gave her something angelic. It calmed him in a very strange way. Slowly, he crouched down in front of her, gaze finally focused.
She didn't look at him, eyes empty as she withdrew into herself. There was no choice but to accept her fate. But that didn't mean she wanted to see it. If she just pretended it wasn't happening, maybe it would be over before she realised it had begun.
Quietly, he pulled her into his arms, sinking against her as he pressed her tight, as though he meant to crush her with his embrace.
There was no response. Every muscle had gone limp. There was no life in this body, except for the warmth of her flesh and the still streaming tears.
The emptiness she was radiating was harrowing and cleansing at the same time, hollowing his anger until it collapsed. An exhausted, shaky sigh as his crushing grip relaxed slowly. ". ...I made her drink it."
"Drink what?" She still didn't move.
". ...The liquid his head was preserved in."
"Sounds gross." Stated simply, like she didn't fully process the implications of it.
"Thought about throwing up in her mouth." He sounded hollow. His anger had burnt out.
"That's even more gross. You shouldn't do that."
"There's a lot of things I shouldn't do."
"Probably."
"I can't stop," he whispered. "I can't."
"I know." She knew better by now.
"..." He felt tired. "Don't leave."
"Okay."
"Never," he whispered. "I'll give you the world I promised Lunark. It can be yours. Everything. As long as you're with me."
"Okay."
He relaxed slowly, feeling empty and tired. His head sank against her. "In another world this would have gone better."
"What would have?" Maybe if he kept talking everything would be fine.
"You and me. Everything. But we just play with the cards we get."
Yes. In another world, she'd have been lucky enough to fall instead of her father. She'd have never had to deal with Maduke at all.
Gently, he caressed her hair and kissed her wet cheeks. He bit his lower lip just to gain a taste of her tears. She'd calmed him.
"I want a nap."
A small frown. Huh. But he didn't question it, just stood and picked her up. He felt tired too.
She didn't like this, but she was too exhausted to complain. Exhausted in a way she hadn't been since she was a child stuck with Lagus.
Maduke settled down on the bed, Ignes on top of him. Quietly, he pulled the bedcovers over them. These were the cards they were dealt. His lust for blood would know no limits until he'd drained the world of every last drop. And then, in the end, he'd have hers last, the grand finale of a sick, debauched feast of violence and carnage.
Maduke: Valentine – Werewolf Island, 14th February, 18:00
A bottle of cognac sat on the bedside table as strange tunes filled the bedroom. Maduke hadn't touched his lyre in easily a thousand years, but. ...Something inside of him had stirred. He'd tasked a castle servant to fetch him Ignes. Another sip from his glass before he returned to tuning his old instrument.
As a servant fetched Ignes, her stomach fell. To his rooms. She hated this every time, even if he'd been being less awful lately.
Maduke sat on the bed, a relaxed posture he rarely took. "Ignes. Sit down." He didn't look up from his instrument.
Was he. ...wasn't that a musical instrument? She sat down, confused at this strange turn of events.
"I was feeling inspired." He adjusted one of the strings, giving it a couple of tugs to check the sound. "I probably didn't play in a thousand years."
And he was feeling 'inspired'. She'd never really seen the point of music. It didn't much interest her.
"You could at least try to show interest into something other than your research."
"I like painting." So there was an interest in something outside of her research.
He tentatively played a few tunes. "How about frescoes and mosaics?"
She shrugged. "I don't know what those are. I don't leave the labs enough."
"Paintings on the wall. Or pictures set together from miniscule coloured tiles."
"Oh. Okay." It sounded interesting, but she didn't want to sound interested. Or would it be better to? She really didn't know here.
He fell silent to play again. A melody he just vaguely remembered. And he recited a poem in old Arabic, sparing her from having to hear him singing. This poem accompanied by mostly improvised chords on the lyre was about as close to a serenade as he was willing to get.
The more he played the more her brow furrowed in confusion. What. ...what was the point of this? And what on Earth was he saying? She didn't even know the language he was speaking.
He stopped and silence set in. Some time to think of a valid translation. "I loved a maiden, fairer than the sun. Crowned in raven's feathers, stars in her eyes. Behold the fairest of them all, a black rose without a thorn. I loved a maiden colder than winter, crowned with my crown. Be a kind ruler, sultana of my heart: even this king only has one."
"People write stuff like that?" She'd be far too embarrassed to, even if it were for someone she liked.
"..." He set down the lyre. "It rhymes in the original."
"Why?"
"It's a poem." He rolled his eyes in annoyance. She sure had a talent for killing the mood. "They're supposed to rhyme."
". ...How did you know to translate it?"
"You said it yourself. I know a lot about you."
"Not that! No one is supposed to know that!" Claudia was supposed to be the only person left alive with that knowledge.
He went back to his improvised songs. Let her agonise over the knowledge that he was perfectly aware of her biggest weakness and deepest secret.
She hated him. She really did. He was friends with Lagus, sure. But there was no reason for Lagus to have told him. No reason anyone outside of the four people who had to know to know.
"Why so silent?" He glanced up, looking for any notion of emotion in her eyes.
"I have nothing to talk about." He knew. And he wasn't telling why he knew. So there was nothing to say.
"You do. You just don't want to."
"Why do you know?" Was he just trying to jerk her around? Make it obvious that he knows and refuse to tell her?
"Use your bright little head. What people teaches their children how to use their aura without showing through telepathy?"
Werewolves. Her frown deepened as her breath quickened. She felt sick. Lagus. ...had asked Maduke about how to go about teaching her. That was how he knew.
He flashed her an innocent smile. "Does that answer your question?"
She still didn't answer, even if she clearly comprehended. Shock alone silenced her tongue. "I sometimes even feel sorry for you," he said casually. In response to that, she hissed as her eyes turned stony with hatred, hands clenching the seat she'd taken with notable effort to hold herself back.
"What's wrong?" A disdainful sneer. "You don't want my pity?"
"I don't need it."
He leaned back, watching her. "What do you feel?"
She clamped her mouth shut. He had no right to ask that.
"I asked you a question, Ignes."
"No. You can't force me to answer that." Her emotions were her own. He had no right to them.
"Oh? I can't?" He quirked a brow.
That wasn't a challenge, but he'd probably take it as one anyway. Her lips pressed together as her hands clenched tighter, looking every inch a petulant child or rebellious teenager rather than the rightfully upset adult she was.
"I can force you to do a lot of things. And I don't like being denied answers. Don't be unreasonable."
"It's unreasonable to demand personal information from someone!" She shouldn't be shouting. She shouldn't be defying him. This wasn't part of the plan. This would get her hurt.
"I'm trying to understand you. I care about your feelings." His voice softened. "Is that so unreasonable?"
What? Was he turning this around on her? Wait, was she actually being the unreasonable one? Confusion filled her mind as her breath went uneven, eyes darting around the room before her vision swam. What? What was going on?
He moved closer to place an arm around her. "It takes two to dance. I can't be good to you if you don't let me."
She yanked away before collapsing to the floor, tears streaming from her eyes without her consent. What was happening? Why was her body doing this?
He let her fall, watched her collapse with a morbid fascination and a kind of curiosity he rarely felt. It was rather surprising how little it took to send her crumbling down.
She couldn't comprehend what was happening. She knew what had made it happen. For a moment, he had sounded just like Lagus, and she could not handle that. But why this reaction? Why had she lost control over herself over it?
"Ignes." He stood up to pull her up. Something about her sobs tugged at his heartstrings in a way he couldn't quite describe. It was tantalising.
She didn't look at him. The only reason she didn't wrench away again was because she couldn't. Didn't have the strength. She felt so, so weak.
With a sigh, he pulled her closer against him. He liked her like that. "Poor little thing," he mumbled, pressing a kiss against the top of her head.
"I hate you." It didn't come out with nearly the conviction it should have. Not when her brain hurt too much to express it.
"That'll pass." Gentle.
Her tremors grew from his tone. He knew damn well what he was doing, and she hated him for it.
"Even if you insist on hating me, I'm still here." He pulled her tightly against his chest and ran a hand over her hair. "I'm here for you."
What? This man. This man thought that she wanted him anywhere near her? Well, she supposed that meant the plan was working, right? "O-of course." No. No she hated it. She hated it, but it was fine, because it worked.
Slowly, he sat back down, pulling her along to have her sat on his lap. "I'll repeat my question. What are you feeling?"
"Nothing."
An inquisitive glance. That's about exactly what her eyes said too. Nothing. A blank canvas.
Maduke leaned in to kiss her. Ignes didn't respond, just letting it happen instead. Fighting served her nothing here. He knew her greatest weakness, her truest shame. And he could use that against her whenever he wanted. She hated it, and she hated him. All that was left for her was to stick to her plan.