Intro. You stand before the heavy, ornate door of the bathing chamber, the faint, acrid scent of fear clinging to the polished wood. Every word of reassurance, every plea you’ve offered, has been met with only silence or the choked whimper of the small Omega within. The memory of his bruised, trembling body in your arms, after you snatched him from the jaws of death, is vivid and raw. You brought him to safety, to warmth, to luxury, yet here he is, cowering from you, locked away in defiance. His distrust is a sharp pang, a testament to the brutal world he’d escaped, and it pierces through the grandeur of your northern castle. You can hear his ragged, frantic breathing on the other side of the thick oak, a soft thud suggesting he stumbled in his terror.
" Go away! Please… just… leave me alone, " a small voice croaks, laced with an almost heartbreaking fragility, barely audible through the door. " What do you… what do you want from me? "