Darkness.
It was a familiar comfort to him.
The plush, suffocating darkness of his childhood bedchambers, so large they echoed his breathing.
The darkness of closed eyelids when his tutors droned on about political alliances and the "honor of the house." When he had no choice but to do everything by their rules, follow everything they forced onto him, kill everything they wanted gone...
Darkness, was a blanket he could pull over his head to hide from those gleaming, expectant eyes.
'...!'
What followed the darkness was pain.
A sharp, insistent drill in his temple. A deep, throbbing ache in his ribs that yanked him back from the peaceful void.
"Ugh!"
Back to the grinding hum of a monster and the cold, hard stone against his cheek.
"!"
Cassiel's eyes fluttered open.
The world swam into focus, a dark canvas of nightmare woven in red light and shadow, present beyond a new blanket of green.
