It Hurt a Little

Haruspex looked into the kind eyes of the priest across from him. He’d all but escaped the main area of the Bunnery after a baby bun innocently reached up to investigate the thin fabric wraps covering his eyes. His flight instinct held off long enough for Haruspex to put the bun safely back into its bassinet, but only barely. 

“I just need a few minutes of your time, Father. I’ve been reminded of… an unpleasant childhood memory and need a moment to compose myself.” 

~~~

She always treated me the worst. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t have any interesting Traits. None of Feleli’s Tentacles, or Kyril’s Hellfire. But I did my best to be kind, and caring, and… 

Nothing that seemed to matter to her. 

“You need to work harder if you want to be loved.” She would say, calling me by a name I’ve since abandoned. 

“Instead, you’re always crying, looking up at me with those pathetic eyes. And what an ugly colour!” She would say, not even pretending to comfort me. 

“Stop looking at me!” She would say, turning and leaving me behind. 

It hurt a little, that she hated my eyes so much. Eyes are the windows to the soul, as they say, so if my eyes were so horrible to behold, what did that say about who I had the potential to become?

Kyril and Feleli did their best to comfort me. They would hold me as I cried, and feed me treats that they’d been given by our caretaker’s honoured guests - guests I was never allowed to meet, of course. I was nothing to brag about. 

I often fell asleep with tears in my eyes. 

Eventually, I thought maybe she could bring herself to love me if I took away the feature she seemed to hate the most. When I asked my littermates for help, Kyril frowned, brow furrowing as it often did. He held my face, looking directly into my eyes and insisting that nothing was wrong with them. That they were beautiful, in fact. 

But as Feleli brought over strips of fabric he’d cut from a thin sheet, Kyril relented, saying that he would support my choice because my comfort was the most important thing to him. I didn’t have the heart to explain to him that this choice was a shot in the dark, a last resort, not meant to comfort me at all. 

It hurt a little, in fact, having that fabric press against my eyes. I had a headache for hours every morning after putting the wraps on, as my vision adjusted to the barrier. 

She seemed pleased, at least. She would justify her cruelty, saying that she had given me the drive to improve myself, and nobody in Burrowgatory would care enough to do that for me. That when we left her home and entered Succubun society proper, that Kyril and Feleli would move onto the great things they were destined for, and I would be left alone. She would say that the least I could do was be useful to buns like them, and change myself as they requested. 

Tears came to my eyes like usual, catching in the wraps Feleli had made. The wet fabric was uncomfortable, and caused my face to itch. So I quickly learned to stop crying. 

It hurt a little, feeling my heart turn to stone. Thinking that maybe this is what the demon had seen when she looked into my eyes. The blank white chill of a heavy snowfall. An old container with only dust inside. 

Emptiness. 

It…

It hurt a lot, actually. 

~~~ 

There was a knock on the door. 

“Father Haruspex, may I? When you’re ready, you have a visitor.” 

“Of course, child, let them know I’ll be out shortly.” 

The Haruspex blinked, and his reflection did as well. He smiled sadly at the ornate mirror hanging in his office. “Thank you for listening, Father.” Haruspex opened the box on the top of his desk and pulled out a fresh set of wraps. They were all identical, the ones he had now. No childish whimsy coloured his face anymore; the wraps Feleli had made for him when they were young lived in the back of his closet at home. The fabric that obscured Haruspex’s eyes in his adulthood were simply a sterile, emotionless white. 

Once his eyes were covered, the priest flattened his expression into a serene nothingness before tucking the box back into its drawer, and exited his private office. 

A nun pointed him in the direction of where the aforementioned visitor was waiting. It was a familiar face, a bun he knew well. 

“Feleli.” 

“Haru.” The Lust doll greeted him with a smile, checking the time on his cellphone. “I came to pick you up.” 

“To…?” 

Feleli looked at him incredulously. “Kyril’s gonna be mad if you don’t come tonight. It’s his turn to make dinner for everybody, remember? He’s probably working on it right now.” 

“Ah, yes… My apologies Feleli, my days have been busy with the Bunnery being as full as it is this month.” Haruspex hesitated, and admitted “ - and today has been particularly… Challenging. I’m not myself right now.” 

Feleli’s face softened, multicolor eyes flitting over what was visible of his littermate’s face and picking up much more than the average bun would be able to. “That’s okay Haru. Let’s just go, alright? It’s already pretty late; I’m sure you’ve been here longer than anybody else today anyways.” 

Haruspex nodded. He had technically been about twenty-six hours early for his shift… And he couldn’t remember if he’d had any sort of rest other than stopping to accept a pastry that a kind bun had brought to hand out at the Bunnery. “I just need to get something from my office, please wait here.” 

Once he was back in his office, he took the box of wraps out again and tucked a few spares into an inner pocket. Haruspex put the box back and turned to leave, his gaze catching on the mirror as he did so. 

He could confide in his littermates, and have them help carry the pain his memory had dredged up. Kyril and Feleli had suffered at the hands of the same demon, after all. Their experiences had been much different than his, of course, but… 

No, he wouldn’t trouble them with his emotions. He’d made a vow to himself shortly after arriving in Burrowgatory, that his adult self wouldn’t be a burden to his littermates the way he had been as a kit. 

The thought hurt a little, but Haruspex was used to it by now.