Deep beneath the Lostein castle's front of luxury lurked a dark, damp place. The castle under Ivelda's rule had taken on her image over the years; its gardens blooming with color and extravagance, the furniture crafted from ivory and gold and silks and all manner of dead and glittering things. It was breathtakingly beautiful, perhaps more than it had been during the Livingstone's rule, but cold. Just like the mind calculating behind the bewitching eyes of its ruler. Ivelda's heart didn't lie with the castle's flourishing gardens or cold, golden throne. Her heart laid deep in the castle's dungeons, where the fires that warmed the floors above throbbed and blazed hot and humid. Shadows fed on the mold and decay in the dark of her heart and the wails of the tormented echoed amidst the dripping of some unknown, sticky substance from who knows where. It would take something truly twisted to thrive in these depths.
Enter, Eike.
The little prince did not simply thrive in the dark, rotting catacombs of Ivelda's heart. He could not reside anywhere else. They sheltered him, they nursed him, they were hers... when he shut his eyes, the rot was sweeter than flowers and the heat was nothing but a Spring breeze. It was love.
And these screams, that he pried from her enemy as he pried off his nails, they were how he gave it back.
The naked man gave a throaty wail as the nail came loose and Eike pulled away. The thorny vines wrapping against his shriveled body tightened and the blue roses growing from them bloomed, then died, bloomed, then died, releasing over and over an overwhelming sweetness then a stench of compost. Butterflies gathered at his wounds like beasts to a watering hole. Eike brought the nail to his lips and suckled it as he observed the man's reactions with unnaturally wide, pale eyes.
"Eike."
A guardsman entered the room, sweating profusely and hiding his nose. Behind him trailed two in noble garb linked together by chains, a woman and a little girl who shared the woman's eyes. The woman immediately went pale with disgust and attempted to hide the sight of the torture from the child.
"This is the traitor Lord Conrad's family," the guard continued, trying not to gag, "Her Majesty... wishes for you to see that no secrets die with them."
Eike took the bloody fingernail from his lips, his eyes drawn to the little girl peeking from behind her mother's skirts. She was glancing nervously around the room at its dark corners, where stuffed toys were being taken by mold and wasting away. Eike dropped the nail and bit the tip of his glove, pulling it off to reveal a few of his fingers to be missing and regrowing nails, too. He plucked a blue rose from his victim and approached the girl, kneeling before her. She trembled as he neared her face with his gloved hand, then flinched as he trailed a finger down her cheek.
Across her jaw, her cheeks, her forehead and down her nose, staring intently at her reactions as he did so. His finger traveled down her shoulder, paused, and suddenly wormed under her armpit to tickle her. She let out a shriek of laughter and shook herself free. Eike smiled. He continued his journey down to her little hand that she stretched out for him and stroked down each finger. She smiled shyly and giggled at the sensation as her mother watched on apprehensively. Finally, he brandished the blue rose for her, his hand clamped tightly around the stem. She went to take it - then gasped, her gaze fixated on Eike's hand. Thick droplets of blood dripped from his hand, and as he opened his palm, he revealed the wicked thorns that had sliced through it. He brought the rose to his face and took in a deep whiff, glaring at the girl's frightened expression as he did so. He stood.
"I understand." He said, and gave the guard an unnervingly vacant smile. "I shall teach them the euphoria of feeling."
The guard was eager to leave, taking the woman and her daughter with him. Alone apart from the waning consciousness of his prisoner, Eike picked up one of his stuffed toys and laid down on the hot stone. He stared up at the ceiling, towards the castle's beautiful interior, where the others dined and conversed and indulged in the finer sensations without him. He had never had a child to play with before. He wondered what face she would make at the taste of candy. He wondered how it would contort when she burned her tongue.
"Lucky," he whispered. His nails dug into his unfeeling companion. "Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky..!!"
Rip. Stuffing spilled from its broken seams. Eike shut his eyes and took a deep breath.
"... Oh, Elijah."
His eyes slid open. He brought his palm to his mouth and licked it, looking wistfully at the ceiling.
"Please, betray her soon."