Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Verso wondered if, perhaps, the initial failure hadn’t actually been his fault. He’d been unable to focus on the offensive, trying instead to protect the useless expeditioners. Their physical capabilities weren’t the worst he’d ever seen, but their mental fortitude—but it wasn’t as if he’d been spoiled for choice for who to accompany to Visages’ island. Regardless of the reason, the whole thing had ended in disaster when one of the expeditioners made the choice to put on one of the axon’s masks. 

So. Perhaps—in fact, probably!—Verso would have more luck taking out the axon on his own. 

After all, he was immortal. The axon wasn’t. It was simple math, right?

Simple math also should have told him that he would be outnumbered on the island, countless nevrons to his single, solitary self. 

Being immortal hadn’t done him any favors when it came to risk assessment. But really, what was the worst that would happen? He’d get stabbed again? Cut into pieces? Hardly new or exciting. He’d just crawl off and try again later, until he either got bored or succeeded.

And the Moissonneuses had stabbed him, to be fair. They’d stabbed him rather a lot.

He was usually pretty good at moving through the pain. His ‘Verso Magic’ party trick wouldn’t work otherwise. But when Monoco cut him in half, he had plenty of time to get used to it, to convince his brain to ignore the agony of an injury that should have been extremely fatal. Given enough time, his nerves would abandon the cause, since continuing to inform his brain of his body’s terrible situation clearly wasn’t improving anything.

The Moissonneuses just kept stabbing him, though, with a manic, joyful energy that didn’t let up. They might have left him for dead if he'd fallen still, but he couldn’t keep himself from reacting. Gritting his teeth and smothering his little grunts of pain only did so much when his legs kept twitching or his lungs kept filling with blood he needed to cough out. Every time he recovered, his ligaments reconnecting or his bones snapping back into place, a nevron would happily give him a new problem to worry about.

And then the Mask Keeper showed up.

It was, at first, a welcome respite. The Moissonneuses retreated in the wake of the more powerful nevron, and instead of decapitating him or impaling him or flaying him alive, the Mask Keeper simply secured Verso’s wrists in ropes of Chroma and pulled him upright. 

“Back again, so soon?”

“Well, you know.” Verso kept his tone light. Most of his wounds were concentrated on his torso, but one of his arms had a deep gash running from elbow to shoulder, and the pull on his wrists wasn’t helping. His toes were barely brushing the earth; he tried not to flail and kick in search of stable footing, and he kept the pain from his voice as best he could while he bandied little remarks with the talkative nevron. “Thought I’d give it another go now that I’m not lugging around any more dead weight.”

The nevron’s large hand came up towards his face, and he jerked his head back automatically. The motion made him sway, but did little else, and the nevron cupped his cheek, fingers curling along his hairline. “It’s so effortless for you, isn’t it?” the Mask Keeper asked. “You don’t even have to think about it.”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,” Verso hissed. His squirming tugged on his still open wounds; he could feel blood running down his arm. His shirt was going to be hell to peel off, later.  

“Naturally.” The nevron’s hand lowered, and Verso thought about trying to kick it, but the idea was quickly abandoned. His foot was hardly going to do much against that creepy sculpted armor. 

The thudding and cracking sounds of rocks hitting each other drew Verso’s attention. As the nevron stepped away from him, he could see those enormous stone masks piling atop one another to form a sort of chair. It finished assembling itself, and the Mask Keeper sat, facing Verso with all the confidence of a king on his throne.

“Girls,” the nevron called, and Verso heard that damn clicking noise return. “Let’s see how well secured his masks are.”

For a moment, Verso didn’t realize he'd been blindfolded. He just assumed the Mask Keeper was being overly dramatic again, abusing whatever weird nevron powers let it submerge the entire island in darkness and summon spotlights. But the stage lighting never came, and then Verso noticed, when he blinked, that his eyelashes brushed against something. 

The absence of vision made the clicking noises worse, as he could only guess that the Moissonneuses approached him once more. If he weren’t in the habit of lying to himself so often, he might have allowed himself to speculate on what this might mean for when they resumed stabbing him. 

Verso was not an honest man. He told himself that it was nothing he had not already endured. 

It would have been inaccurate to say that the first cut took him by surprise. He was fully expecting the touch of the blades, after all. But he couldn’t see them coming, couldn’t anticipate where he would be wounded, and couldn’t know when the next knife would sink into him. All he could do was hang by his wrists and grunt—cry—scream—all he could do was feel, as his skin was split, as curved metal carved into him, as his intestines were parted along cruel edges, as his ribs were wedged apart where the Moissonneuse stabbed at just the right angle between the bones and then twisted its blade.

There was blood running down his chin, into his beard. There was blood pouring from countless cuts on his body, sticking his clothes to his skin painfully as the nevrons pulled the shredded fabric away.

Why—why were they pulling his ruined clothes off him?

“He looks too foolish in just the boots. Get rid of those, and then take a break.”

The tugging at his legs gave him more leverage than his toes straining to touch the ground beneath him, and so he tried to take advantage and kick out at one of the Moissonneuses. He felt his shin connect with something hard, felt the slide of flowing fabric against his skin, and jointed wooden fingers dug into his thigh as a blade scooped a chunk out of his hip. He screamed, legs going limp, and the nevrons finished fully disrobing him. 

Without the added volume of the boots, his toes had no contact with the earth below, save for the occasional delicate brush of grass. The unsettling noises of wooden clicks and clacks receded, and Verso twisted in his bonds. He dangled back and forth, unable to pull his wrists free despite his increasing desperation. Now was a perfect opportunity, if he could break loose and rip the blindfold off and run for it.

“It’s a shame you can’t see yourself.” Rich amusement colored the Mask Keeper’s voice. “Wriggling and helpless. Pitiful. Exposed.”

Verso’s breath hitched, and he jerked involuntarily. 

“Don’t worry. The girls are just catching their breath. You’ll have company again soon.”

Why couldn’t he get his hands free? If he couldn’t break the ropes, he could summon his dagger and cut his own hand off if it came down to it. Not an optimal plan—and surely it would make the subsequent retreat more difficult—but at this point, he was ready to risk it. 

His dagger wouldn’t come. Nor would his sword. The chroma around his wrists burned with the attempts, and he hissed between his teeth. 

For the first time, he realized he might be in more trouble than he anticipated. 

Why was this damn nevron so chatty, anyway? All the nevrons on Visages’s island were weird. The same could be said for Sirène’s, but the Mask Keeper was the strangest by far. It spoke with intelligence equal to the miserable white nevrons—more, in fact, as it strode around like a sauntering prima donna, and apparently now it coordinated and commanded other nevrons. Almost like a human. Almost like an expeditioner, trussing Verso up and taking her sword and—

“What are you even doing?” Verso asked, trying not to spin uselessly on the rope. “What does this accomplish for you?”

Cold metal fingers alighted on his bare hip, and Verso choked on a yelp, his muscles seizing automatically as he tried to get away from the nevron’s touch. He hadn’t heard the Mask Keeper approach. 

“Let us just say that boredom is not an experience unique to humans.”

The nevron’s low voice echoed through Verso’s every layer, his skin and bones and marrow vibrating with it, and he tried again, futilely, to pull free. The hand on his hip squeezed, almost hard enough to be painful, and then let go. Verso swung by his aching wrists, and he heard the Mask Keeper’s steps as it presumably sashayed back to its chair. 

“All right, girls, he’s all yours again.”

What Verso hated most about the Moissonneuses was not their overlarge smile, or their jerking motions. What he hated most was their wooden hands, finely articulated, smooth, and bandaged. Their touch was too reminiscent of Monoco’s, and doubly so now that they ran their cool hands over his skin. He counted two—three pairs of hands on him—maybe more, as they withdrew and returned, and the caress of soft fabric followed and preceded their touches. Fingertips grazed his straining biceps, his shoulders, his ribcage as it swelled with anxious breaths. A palm settled where the Mask Keeper had gripped his hip, familiar textures in unfamiliar configurations, and another hand cupped his ass, and another glided over his thigh, between his legs—

“What the hell are you doing!” Verso yelled. He thrashed as much as he could, but what little torque he managed was stopped short by the fist closing on his throat. Cruel points jammed into his pelvis and the soft skin below his belly button, and he whined. “Stop, stop this—what the fuck—”

The sounds of clicking and giggling continued uninterrupted, neither pausing nor increasing, as if he hadn’t spoken. Hard wooden fingers pinched his nipples, and the hands on his ass and thigh migrated and then abruptly lifted him. His voice was startled from him, something broad pressing between his legs—a wooden torso, draped in loose fabric, flush against his inner thighs, grinding against him. He shouted, writhing against the unyielding hands grabbing him, holding him spread open as yet another hand palmed the curve of his ass and then jammed a stiff finger into his hole. 

“Stop it!” He was shuddering, squirming, his muscles clenching and twitching with terrified bids for freedom. “Stop, stop, stop—no—ah—”

The finger inside him curled—joints pinched his inner flesh—and he yelled in wordless misery. There was nothing to ease the passage, no lube or lotion or even spit, because what need would the Moissonneuses have of such things? Doubtless he would bleed, if he hadn’t already begun to, but it would dry and grow tacky before it could lubricate him well enough to lessen the pain. 

A second finger invaded him. His chest was heaving with rapid, shallow breaths. This wasn’t what nevrons did. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was being fingerfucked with brutal force, his skin tearing as it was stretched too quickly around the intrusion. 

The third finger made him scream. Again, his cries and struggles made no difference. The nevron drove its fingers inside him and parted them, and Verso’s body was made to accommodate. 

He was whimpering and crying in a way he hadn’t when they stabbed him, and it was pathetic, and it was impossible to stop. Not that his begging made a difference either way—the only one who thought Verso had any pride or dignity to lose was Verso himself. His thighs trembled where they were splayed around a nevron’s body, and his blindfold was wet with tears. His nipples hurt from being pinched and his shoulders ached from his body’s hanging weight. Wanting to die was not a novel experience for him, but the intensity of the urge thrummed through his veins. 

The Moissonneuse’s hands were warmed from his skin when they finally landed on his cock. The fingers closed around his limp length and started to pump, while the hand breaching him from behind disappeared. His raw hole was left empty just long enough to twitch, before something else pressed against him, cool and hard. He tried to pull away, muscles in his abdomen tightening to lift his pelvis, but whatever was pushing into his hole only followed. 

Did nevrons have sexual genitals, or was it using something else? Did it matter what impaled him, when it was thick and rough and scraping against his abused, dry insides? He was sobbing, and the thing fucking his ass continued with cruel, steady thrusts. 

The other Moissonneuses dragged their fingers over his torso, scratching gauges through his skin, down his thighs, up his chest, across his neck. He heaved, and grimy wooden fingers hooked into his mouth, jabbing into his cheek and tongue. The hand on his cock continued to stroke him, coaxing him into hardness despite every other wretched agony of his body.

Whatever the nevron was using to fuck him punched against a tender place inside him, and he jolted, a groan wrenched out of his throat. “No,” he moaned, shaking his head. “No, please—nn—oooh—” 

His back arched, hips bucking in shock, as the Moissonneuse shoved that unknown violation ever further inside him, and the chafing hand pumping his dick sped up. He couldn’t keep the pain and pleasure separate. He threw his head from side to side and twisted his pelvis, but there was nowhere to retreat, no clemency to be found. He was weeping, his voice climbing to increasingly higher pitches as each thrust knocked a pathetic little moan out of him. 

A nevron was raping him, and he was going to come from it. 

He tried to focus on the pain, the sore pull of his muscles, the assault of his tender hole. But his body was desperate to escape the hurt, his cock demanding even the awful, punishing strokes the Moissonneuse administered. Everything mixed and built and burst, a firework flaring in his pelvis, and he cried, and he came. 

His whole body trembled, and the nevrons’ motions didn’t yield or slow, and he keened as the pleasure swiftly burned away. The hand on his cock moved easier now, helped along by the fluid of his release, and he couldn’t escape the overstimulating torment. All his limp legs could do was quiver. He couldn’t feel his arms anymore. His mouth hung open around voiceless cries, and the Moissonneuse continued to fuck him.

“Oh, bra-vo. That was lovely.”

Verso summoned the breath to moan pitifully. The Mask Keeper’s cold, metal touch was on his face again. A thumb pressed his lower lip as its other fingers gripped his jaw, holding his head as still as was possible while something kept spearing into his hole, rocking his body into the other nevrons’ embrace.

“What do you think? Have you been sufficiently unmasked?”

“Hhhhg,” Verso managed, and then he fainted. 

Chapter Text

Julie's sword was in him. 

Her sword was in him, and it wasn't an accident. It was plunged into his chest, punching through his core, just below his ribs. It burst through his back and sliced into his spine and embedded itself deep into the earth. 

He knew how to escape this. He'd done it last time. He had to wait for her to tire, to eventually leave, and then he could bring his tied hands down and use the edge of her sword to saw through the ropes. 

His hands slipped, the sharp blade cutting into the meat of his palms, and he couldn't get the ropes to part. The sword was too big, too thick. She stabbed him in the stomach, in the thigh, in the neck, and he choked and cried. This wasn't how it went. Why couldn't he get his hands free? 

Monoco was touching him, sturdy wooden fingers spreading him open. He'd coated his hands in something—some oil, maybe. It was irrelevant. He moaned and rocked his hips back and wondered why Monoco wasn't stopping Julie from stabbing him. 

Rocks and sticks dug into his knees, and Monoco's palm pressed flat against his back and pushed him down. His wrists were pulled up and forward, and his elbows bent and his shoulders rolled as he was arranged, his torso suspended and his back forced to bow. Monoco's hand on his spine became Julie's sword, splintering his ribs with its passage. Monoco's fingers in his hole impaled him, split him apart like chopped firewood, and he whimpered. 

He was empty again, and then he wasn't, filled with something thicker than Monoco's wooden fingers. The oil eased the intrusion but couldn't completely erase the pain, and Monoco said, “Find that spot again.” The thing fucking him obeyed, angling to ram into the place inside him that burst like starlight, and he keened and writhed. 

“Very good. It seems he's enjoying himself,” the Mask Keeper observed, voice deep with amusement, and Verso jerked awake with a hoarse cry. 

He was on his knees, as he'd been in the dream. His head hung between his taut arms, and he could see—the blindfold was gone, he could see again—the Moissonneuse’s great double-bladed sword erupted from his chest, his lifeblood dripping down it. He groaned, twisted, tried to bend and look back at who or what was fucking him from behind. 

Julie wasn't there. Julie had been dead for years. 

Monoco wasn't there, either, just another Moissonneuse, smiling broadly as she pumped her arm and fucked him with the hilt of her sickle. 

He sobbed and felt himself go limp, bent over and on his knees and hanging from his wrists. The Moissonneuse's thrusts rocked him back and forth, his body providing no resistance. Surely this had to end eventually. Surely they would exhaust the appeal of stabbing and raping him at some point. 

“You cling to your masks so desperately,” the Mask Keeper crooned. Verso had no idea where the voice was coming from, and even less desire to try to find out. If the Mask Keeper wanted to make itself known, it would. There was nothing Verso could do about it, either way. 

Slick wooden fingers wrapped around his cock, and he choked on a moan as it tried to leave his throat. The wide, flat blade still hadn’t been withdrawn from the sheath of his body. The edges cut into his ragged flesh every time the Moissonneuse thrust the sickle hilt into him. His body was heavy and his limbs were feeble, quivering. His thighs trembled and twitched, his bare toes digging into the earth, seeking leverage, as he attempted in equal measure to pursue the touch on his cock and retreat from the blunt end of the weapon skewering him from behind. 

It was easier for the nevrons to make the pleasure overtake him, this time. Verso blamed whatever they’d used to make their touches slick and wet. His head hung down, his jaw slack, and drool fell from his open mouth. He couldn’t stop himself from gasping, but at least his lungs were too strained to fully voice his pathetic cries. They were dragging him to his peak once more; he clenched his fists and shut his eyes, but the assault was too pointed, too deliberate. He was not going to be able to resist. 

Maybe he’d faint again. Wouldn’t that be something. Trapped in a repeating cycle of nightmares.

“No. Not yet.”

Something new touched his dick—too smooth and slender to be the Moissonneuse’s finger. His eyes fluttered open, and he struggled to look beyond the sword, to focus his blurred vision past his shaking body. A glowing ring of chroma was wrapped around the base of his cock. He could see the head of his dick, red and shining and wet, encircled by the nevron’s bandaged, wooden hands, poking through the circle of finger and thumb, precum leaking out. 

He groaned and shuddered, and the Moissonneuse clicked and clattered behind him, still fucking him without cease. Neither rallentando nor crescendo came to offer him relief; the nevron maintained its steady tempo as dutifully as a metronome. His own approaching climax faded away, becoming a far off fantasy, distant as the canvas’s vanishing point. 

It did nothing to diminish the pleasure, only ensured it would not end. His dick was stroked, his prostate pounded, and he mewled and wept in time with the nevron’s clicks and giggles. He couldn’t endure it; he couldn’t do anything but endure it. 

He was speared and skewered and stroked, he was fucked and fucked and fucked, and all that changed was how breathless his cries became. His throat was as raw as his hole. He couldn’t even scream if he wanted to anymore. 

Finally, the nevron’s thrusts slowed, and then stopped. The hand on his cock disappeared, the hilt was fully withdrawn from him, and he twitched around nothing. His eyes fluttered open, his vision hazy with tears, and all he could make out was the sunlit grass of the vale. It was just as bright and cheerful as it had been when he woke up from his nightmare. By his estimation, not even an hour had passed, if half that. He tried to whine, and his breath simply passed weakly through his throat. 

The wide blade was abruptly ripped from his torso, and he did find it in him to cry out for that, a miserable little scream that bloodily tore itself out of his lungs. Spit hung from his lips, lined with red, and he stopped trying to focus his gaze, let everything blur together. 

He was being moved—hands on him, releasing his wrists from their bonds, and he should run now, he should twist and pull and flee, but his body wouldn’t respond. The nevrons brought his arms down and then behind his back, and his limbs shook and trembled. It was the nevrons’ touch that kept him from falling, their hands on his chest and shoulders and wrists supporting him, lifting him. His opportunity to escape vanished, as chroma bound his wrists together once more, and hands on his hips hoisted him up. His legs fell beneath him, and the chroma ropes on his wrists lifted him once more, but with his arms pulled in the opposite direction now. Unless they dislocated his shoulders, he had no choice but to bow forward as his hands rose behind his back. 

The gentle brush of fabric against the backs of his legs betrayed another Moissonneuse behind him. (Or was it the same one as from before?) So did the clicking, but that was so constant a noise that it had almost disappeared now, a companion to the echoing thud of his heartbeat in his ears. His dick throbbed hopefully, and he wished for a moment that the Moissonneuse would take its sickle and slice his goddamn cock right off. 

The Moissonneuse did not slice his cock off. He felt its dress shift, and then something hard and wooden pressed against his hole. It was smooth, unlike the blunt edges of the hilt, and it was oiled. 

Did nevrons actually have dicks of their own after all, he had time to wonder, before it filled him. 

He was loose and stretched, and the thing stabbing into him was smooth and slick, and his thighs twitched and jerked as pleasure sparked inside him. He still hurt; his arms were already screaming in protest at the new position, and his chest was still torn apart, slowly stitching itself back together. The rest of him was a myriad of bruises and cuts. 

Inhuman thighs slapped against his own as the nevron buried itself in his ass. One of its hands fisted itself in his hair, catching strands in those finely articulated joints. The other held its sickle, which it hooked over his shoulder, blade biting into his flesh each time the nevron fucked into him. His toes left the earth with the force of each thrust, as he was vigorously bounced on what could only be the Moissonneuse’s cock.

Was this his life now? Reduced to a nevron’s fucktoy? He doubted any future expeditions would make it to Visage’s island without his help, and neither Renoir nor Alicia would have reason to think he was here—normally he gave the axons a wide berth. 

His body shuddered, the curved blade carving into his chest, and his hips tilted at an angle that let the Moissonneuse stab into his prostate once more. He thrashed like a fish on a line, then, choking on moans that wouldn’t leave his throat, legs spasming. His cock bobbed under him, eager and leaking and untouched, and he could feel his heartbeat in the tight ring at its base. 

His mouth was trying to form words, voiceless pleading. He could hear the breathy whispers that were rocked out of him, “please,” and, “stop,” and, “why?”

The Mask Keeper’s voice tore through the shrouds of pleasure and pain coating his mind. “Keep going,” it coaxed. “Beloved son of the canvas—how far can you descend?”

Ah. So that was the game now. Verso wasn’t sure he could fall further, but he didn’t have much choice; he and the nevrons were going to find out together, regardless of what his feelings were on the matter. 

As if waiting for the Mask Keeper’s cue, the Moissonneuse yanked his hair back, hips pistoning rapidly. Verso whined as loudly as he could, which amounted to little more than a wheezing hiss. His legs kicked involuntarily out, and his hole clenched tight around the monstrous dick that fucked him faster, faster, faster. 

“P—puh—please,” he gasped. “Please, please—” 

 His cock throbbed. Each pulse of his heartbeat made it feel like the ring at the base was squeezing, clamping down harder. Would this be what could finally kill him? 

Large hands cupped his cheeks, his jaw, wrapped around his entire skull. “Please, what? What are you begging for?” 

The Mask Keeper's smooth face filled his vision. All Verso could see was the flat expanse of—stone? Clay? The inhuman surface, revealing nothing. A perfect mask. 

But the nevron’s voice was eager. Verso's pleas became the underlying harmony, as the Mask Keeper encouraged him.

“You can say it, here. We can take the mask down, show me the beneath.”

Its voice increased in volume, almost as if the Mask Keeper was the one fucking him with more and more force, chasing its peak. 

“Verso. Give me your mask. I'll craft you a new one, I'll guard your truth with the greatest lies. Verso. Verso.”

His mouth hung open. Drool coated the Mask Keeper's broad palms. He begged, he needed, and the Mask Keeper crooned such sweet promises. He wanted to come, he wanted his freedom, he wanted to be released from the nevrons’ hold, from the pleasure, from the canvas.

“Tell me what you want, Verso. Tell me what you truly want.”

Its massive hand covered his face entirely, a hidden haven, and into that mask, Verso cried—

“M—Monoco—”

The ring vanished from the base of his cock. He came, shaking and trembling with a whimper. The Moissonneuse gave a final, wretched thrust and shot its release into him, a burst of chroma, and it burned like the ice of Frozen Hearts. 

Chapter Text

It had been four years since he'd seen Monoco. Four years since the Gestral had finally realized Verso was beyond help, that there was nothing to be done for him, that Verso was determined to be miserable until the very instant he and the entire canvas faded away. 

Four years since Noco had—been broken. Monoco couldn't bring himself to say, “died.” At least, not when it came to his family. 

Verso knew Monoco would never blame him for it, the same way he knew he was the reason Monoco's Papa had died. And maybe that had been part of it—knowing it was Verso's fault and yet never allowing himself to so much as think that truth. It was the only lie Monoco could ever tell, and Verso didn't begrudge him hating it. Hating Verso. 

Four years since he'd heard the comforting rumble of Monoco's voice. Four years without being able to bury his face in that fur, without feeling those long arms wrapping around him, without anyone having his back. 

Maybe that was why he'd determined to come to Visages’ Island on his own. To prove to himself that he didn't need anyone. 

To remind himself that he was hopeless without Monoco. 

The Mask Keeper did not free him, of course. For some reason, Verso had thought maybe he was done, that maybe after the nevron forced him to cry and beg for his friend, he’d be left to shamefully crawl away. But, no. 

He was rearranged, shuffled from one position to the next, as nevron after nevron used him. Bouchecliers and Chapeliers joined the parade of Moissonneuses that crowded around his limp body. At this point, he wondered if every damn nevron on the island would get a turn with him. Not all of them forced their way into his ass and his mouth; some of them seemed content enough to punch new holes into him, with blade or blunt edge or both. But all of them hurt, and when he thought his nerves were finally growing dull to the pain, the Mask Keeper’s words cut into him where the swords and cocks couldn’t reach.

“What if this one is your friend? Masked in the form of a nevron, slipping in to get close to you, to come rescue you?”

The idea of Monoco seeing him like this—when he was covered in his own blood and cum and even piss—the nevrons certainly didn't care about his comfort or bodily functions beyond what made him squirm and wail and go tight around their dicks. The dirt and grime from the vale decorated him, and sticky nevron cum leaked from his hole and painted his thighs and chest and face. Shame flooded his belly, clinging cold to his ribs, and his body responded by twitching and clenching down on the massive cock that was currently fucking into him. 

The Boucheclier groaned, that awful, pained noise, and its thrusts sped up. Verso’s head lolled back onto its chest. He didn't have the wherewithal to wonder how the Mask Keeper knew about Monoco’s unique fighting style, not when the Boucheclier was pounding into him, hard and fast and huge. Its hands under his thighs held him open as it bounced him on its dick, and his own hard cock bobbed with the motion. 

He was pretty sure at least a day had gone by, but he'd passed out a few more times in the interim, and it was difficult to keep track of how long he spent unconscious. Without food or water, he knew lethargy would overtake him on a level even beyond the constant abuse; he could feel it starting already. He wouldn’t starve to death, but escape would become an even less likely possibility, until the nevrons eventually tired of him. 

Please. Please let them tire of him.

The Boucheclier’s release filled him up, and his body responded to the cold heat flooding his insides. The whimper that escaped him was just as pitiful as the weak strings of cum that spilled from his dick. Having achieved its satisfaction, the nevron let go of him. Without its hands to hold him up, he fell off its cock and landed, first on his knees and then, boneless, the rest of him flopped down to lie in his own pathetic puddle of spend. 

There was another ragged groan, and then the Boucheclier slammed its shield down into his back. He heard his spine snap. The sensations from his pelvis were momentarily numbed, and he sobbed from the blessed relief.

He lied on the ground where he’d fallen and took brief solace in the cool, itchy grass on his skin. The Boucheclier’s heavy footsteps receded, but another nevron would take its place soon enough, he knew. He could hear something else already approaching—another Moissonneuse, maybe.

No. The clicking was different. Hanging out with Gestrals so much had given Verso a certain appreciation for the sounds of articulated wood. Whatever approached now had limbs that were assembled differently; the sound was deeper and less abrupt, slightly longer tones that spoke of rounder joints. 

There was a second noise, overlayed on top of the clattering. A wheezing sort of squeal that might have made Verso think of some kind of feral donkey. 

He blinked his eyes open. The nevron in front of him was thrashing grotesquely, its widely grinning mask jerking back and forth as its torso writhed. An enormous, reddened eyeball stared at him from the center of the thing’s chest. Its giant hands slapped the earth in motion disgustingly reminiscent of a playful dog. 

Verso held its stare for a moment, and then he tried to scream. He was barely able to squeak out a high pitched breath, and his hands scrambled, fingers digging into the earth to try to pull himself away. His spine still hadn’t repaired itself, and his legs dragged uselessly behind him. He managed to flee all of a few centimeters before one of the nevron’s giant hands closed around his calf.

“Please, please, no, please—no, please, please—”

His weak cries were little more than whispers, but he knew the Mask Keeper was listening for them. Likewise, he knew they were pointless. Neither piece of knowledge could prevent him from begging. 

It picked him up by the leg, letting the rest of his broken body dangle. His fingertips clawed at the grass and earth until he could no longer reach, and still he grasped desperately at the ground beneath him. He heard the bones of his broken back shift and snap, the partial healing interrupted, and agony pierced through his nerves. 

Leaning back, the nevron’s labored motions calmed as it held and examined its prey. With its other hand, it touched and groped him, squeezing his torso hard enough that the bones slipped out of alignment once more. Another attempt at a scream rasped through Verso’s throat. The nevron’s head gave a sickening wobble in response, and Verso squeezed his eyes shut. 

Each of its fingers felt as thick as his wrist, as it prodded at him. The unsteady touch stuttered along his torso and then disappeared from his perception, passing the break in his spine, but he refused to open his eyes to see what it was doing to the rest of him. Now would have been a fantastic time to pass out again, but his fear forced him vigilant and alert. He could only wait, terrified, for the next torment to his body.

He didn't have to wait long. Whether it lost interest in examining the rest of him, or whether it was disappointed with his lack of reaction, it flung him up and then slammed him down into the earth. He couldn't even cry out, all the breath brutally knocked from his chest, and his eyes snapped open automatically. Above him he could see the nevron writhe as it clattered and creaked. Its jerky movements nauseated him. He turned his head to the side, trying to look away, and was greeted by the sight of a mirror.

Verso's first thought was of how awful he looked. Half-dead and covered in all manner of his own dried fluids, he hardly even appeared human anymore. 

His second thought was the perhaps more pressing concern: Visages, the fucking axon, had arrived. Verso’s gaze made the difficult journey up, looking beyond the mirror, to see the giant floating masks that regarded him—each expression a different emotion, yet all of them holding disgust for the pitiful broken thing on the ground. 

It cost him more than he had to give, to turn his head to the opposite side and look away. And there, as a reward for his efforts, the Mask Keeper stood, trapping him. 

“Poor Verso,” it said, affecting a falsely soothing tone. “Sweet coward, all you want is to escape, isn't it?”

He whimpered. His spine finally finished healing, and sensation regretfully returned to his lower half; his whimper grew to a miserable wail. 

“You just want to run away, and you don't care who you hurt.”

That comment hardly seemed relevant to the current situation, but Verso was resolved to refuse to feel guilt for that. Nobody else had cared how they hurt him. Why should he hesitate? Why did he have to be a better man than his creator, who didn't care who she hurt when she clung to him so tightly? 

“We who guard the truth with lies.... Don't forget which is which, or you'll cut yourself on your own sword.”

The contorting nevron above him did not give him any longer to contemplate the Mask Keeper's taunts. It grabbed both his ankles and lifted them, pushing, folding Verso in half, exposing his bruised cock, his taint, his bloody hole. Its exciting clattering grew louder and faster, and Verso shut his eyes, the only part of him he could try to keep to himself anymore. His last fragile mask. 

It broke, as the nevron fucked into him. His eyes flew open, sightless, and he screamed and howled in agony through his ripped throat, and the nevron cored through him and replaced whatever used to be inside of him, and his hands twitched and his legs kicked and his dry eyes stared, unseeing, unfocused. 

He didn't move again on his own, even long after the nevron was through with him.