"Diane."

The lady narrowed her eyes slightly, lips curving in a small frown. This was not a favourable start to the conversation with the man who functioned as the superior to her superiors' superiors.

"Dee-an."

Quinn Stellamort made a small tsk sound. "That's not what your nametag says."

Dian tapped the nametag, sighing. She wouldn't pursue this argument, because she'd heard Mr. Stellamort was the kind of person to pull out absolutely irrelevant information and treat it like indisputable proof, and he already sounded just like that.

She adjusted her shirt's collar, and moved towards a large grey table, with various clipboards and papers haphazardly thrown onto it. "The specimen is stable," Dian said. She picked up a clipboard and clicked a pen, "I received your report that you wanted to… subdue it?"

Dian turned to Mr. Stellamort. Mr. Stellamort gained one of his annoying grins, and crossed his arms. "Not just subdue it. Fit it with a shock collar."

"Why?"

"Safety precautions, of course."

Safety precautions? She knew they were dealing with something entirely alien, something that had nearly rearranged the room to its desires—which she had managed to stop from happening with a monopoly board of all things—and that safety should be prioritised, but a shock collar? Wasn't that a bit much? Dian had doubts such a creature would even be affected by a lowly shock collar.

Now, how to put these thoughts into words?

"…I have objections to that."

Perfect.

Mr. Stellamort immediately scowled. "And what would those be?"

"For one, have they… has it even proved itself to need such a thing? It's stable, Stellamort. Actually, it's quite complacent so long as it's entertained."

"We shouldn't need to humour it, Diane—"

"Dian," she cut in.

"—Di… whatever," he huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose, then threw his hands out, "we are humans, and it is our subject. Why should we placate this thing? The point here is not to be friends, it's to observe."

"It acts like a child," Dian noted.

"Well, it's not one. Not a human child, at least. Perhaps it's a child by its own… species' standards, but it is not human, not a person, and shouldn't be treated like one."

As much as Dian would hate to admit—at least in front of Mr. Stellamort—she had grown a slight sense of affection for the creature. Everyone else, save for maybe one or two other researchers, was callous and refused to see it as anything more than a subject to experiment on and observe. Actually, she still wasn't even sure why Mr. Stellamort would come down to a lowly researcher and relay his plan of putting a shock collar on it to her of all people.

She wouldn't have to ponder that for long, though, because she was handed a box.

Carefully, she opened it. An ugly black collar, with a pronged black box, and a reinforced buckle.

"Is this…"

"It is."

It clicked at that moment. He wanted her to be the one to put this on them. He wanted her to betray their trust. And for what? Some notion that they were secretly dangerous even though they were also insanely easy to subdue without taking drastic measures?

"I don't want to do this."

"No, you don't want to, but you have to."

"I don't," Dian insisted, "we can do without this, Stellamort. We can find other methods."

"Perhaps, but this will be the best method. It's for the greater good."

Mr. Stellamort took a few steps back, and Dian could feel the impending over-dramatic monologue.

"You see, Diane," he began, and Dian resisted the urge to immediately facepalm, as indeed, he was about to go on a tangent, and he had gotten her name wrong again, "we are on the precipice of a revolutionary discovery. Extraterrestrials, Diane, things beyond us! We've dreamed of this for so long…"

He looked at her, sporting an expression of fake grief, "Is it really that hard for you to put a shock collar on this singular specimen?"

It was that hard because she considered them a friend.

It was that hard because this seemed needlessly cruel.

It was that hard because she saw them as an individual.

But, she knew nothing she could say would dissuade Mr. Stellamort.

So, Dian inhaled slowly.

"No. It's not."

She was lying, but Mr. Stellamort was either ignorant to her true feelings or simply did not care, gaining another smug smirk.

"I didn't think so. Now go on, Diane."

"Dian."

"Diane."

Did he just magically forget how her name was actually pronounced every time? Whatever, she rolled her eyes and took the collar out of the box. This was going to hurt, both for her and her pseudo-friend.