The child, spying from a shadowed corner, twitches back further into the darkness at the prince’s raised voice. But it listens hard, paying attention to every word, to the smallest nuances — after all, it’s already seen what will happen if the mistress isn’t pleased.
The children’s nightmares are full of fire.
So it creeps out just a little, listening as hard as ever it can, and waits to follow the dark prince back out to the surface.
”If she sent you to follow me, you’re doing a horrible job,” Mordred says, a smirk dancing around his lips as he turned his head towards the shadows. Mordred’s cloaks brushed against his ankles as the breeze from the stairwell hit him and he looked up towards the landing at the top. Suddenly, the man reached out, taking the boy by the scruff of the collar.
For a moment, he says nothing, just standing there as his cold gaze fixed on the boy’s face, lifting him from the ground. “Tell her, she is going to have to find her own way out, because she isn’t getting out with me.”
The child yelps and kicks out, hopelessly. It bares its teeth, and then Summer steps out of the shadows at the top of the stairs. “If you’re going to kill it, get on with it or let me do it.” She takes a step down, and another, completely disregarding the dragging of her skirts through the mess of the floor.
The child yelps again, and its struggles redouble. “Please, please,” it pants out, whimpering.
“And then we can talk about how you think you’re going to prevent me from taking the same path you do. If you find it.”