The hunchback kept walking straight out of the undead dorms. Where did he have to go? No where. Barth was done with him. Calder... wasn't speaking to him, or so he could fathom, and his Mistress....

His grip tightened on his shovel, his boots untied as they trudged through the dark grass. Partners. A... "Couple"... but... but... frustrated, he found a spot under a curling leaf-less tree, just far enough that roots wouldn't be a problem. It was a nice spot. He slammed the shovel down into the earth, quickly heaving the load up and behind him.

Mistress said she loved him. Mistress said he was the best minion, and yet... she never called on him. She never had things for him to do without him stepping up and just doing them. It was perfectly acceptable to keep an Igor just for fashion's sake but... she was always busy. Busy with.... *friends*... busy with minions she held in higher regard than him. He couldn't even steal away to Master Malodore's for a bit of mind-occupying work without... without... mishap. He had just wanted a bit of comfort himself, he didn't have to explain it OUTRIGHT did he? No. No. He wasn't supposed to anyway. Never supposed to.

The dirt flew, the hole getting deeper under his feet.

But no, he had... committed a faux pas. Apparently. His face was burning. No one had ever held him, comforted him, fulfilled his needs the way his Mistress did. She knew how it was done. She knew how to treat him, but unfortunately... she had other minions. He gave a grunt, hefting the shovel against a wedged rock, she'd never... not... not with him.

No one wanted the creepy, quiet hunchback. Not even his so called 'friends'.

The rock went flying and he was able to proceed deeper, knee-high now as he widened the hole.

Suddenly the mental image of if Calder had popped up in between them as he tried to kiss Miss Morrigan popped into his head and he flushed hotly. That would not have done. Was that how Mistress and Master had felt?

It wasn't FAIR.

He was smart! He was smart too! Smarter than he should be. Smarter than the Igors Master Barth had mentioned. But not smart enough, apparently.

Maybe he should say Yes to Miss Sin. It had driven Mistress crazy at the thought, maybe if she was jealous enough...

She'd just abandon him and that would be the end of it. She didn't really love him, not really, not like she loved Master Malodore or that stupid Dragon of hers...

He was just a tool, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. You're not supposed to feel like this about your Mistress. Mistress knew best.

Maybe... maybe if he filled her room with fresh brains, the freshest he could find, a hundred of them, more than there had been Icky Stix, maybe... Hmm.

He kept at it for some time, and was approaching six feet when he finally sat down, panting.

His mind felt clearer now, but no less confused. Fundamentally, he reasoned, what did he want?

But it didn't matter what he wanted. He was an Igor. His wants were his Master's wants. He sighed, curling up on the cool earth, out of the night wind. It was getting to that point where it was so late it was just about Early.

What did he want?

He wanted to be needed. He wanted to be useful. He wanted to be Happy and he didn't think he could be those things, not really. Maybe he needed to try harder. Dr. Fell had been right about him all along. He was broken. But maybe he still could be fixed. He rolled over onto his side, touching a heap of dirt beside him gingerly before patting it down into a proper shape. It was... almost right, in the moonlight filtering down from the edges of the hole. Almost right to slip his arm around, curling up against it.

There were things a Master could not give his Igor. At least not that Igor. Things.... hell, conventionally even a Mistress shouldn't. Not without a lot of raised eyebrows. He supposed he couldn't blame her.

He needed to speak to Barth. Eventually. Maybe. Barth at least gave him things to do and ordered him about properly. If the Sloth still wanted the trouble of the services of a faulty piece of equipment. But... maybe his Mistress was right.

Of course she was right. She was always right. She loved him.

With a sigh, weariness finally took hold, and he drifted off once more... but this time he wasn't in the cornfield. He was somewhere else, somewhere pleasant, somewhere he felt whole and not just a sum of his parts.