Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

A/N: Ohmygoodness. I feel like I've been away for a century; to be honest, I basically have. Even if I tried to explain how busy I've been, I doubt anyone would grasp the reality of the situation, which is that my brain has now turned into a post-it note reading "Back in five minutes."

ANYWAY. This is a new AU story idea I had, not to say that I've given up on Suitor, because, trust me, I'm still working on it. I just felt the urge to write something more serious and GRITTY (brilliant adjective). It's from Hitomi's point of view, mainly for variety, also because I wanted to test out my damn fine literary skills (that was sarcastic). If you feel in the mood for a light-hearted banter-fest, I'm afraid this particular story is not for you. All my others are though... so go and read them instead. :3

Get ready for a long and winding road of darkness, betrayal, angst, a lot of travelling and, well, you've guessed it: Passion. Steaming, sizzling, brooding passion. I can't wait. I might even have to change the rating, depending on how erm... steamy you like your passion.

Righty. Even I admit that the beginning is hard to follow, so I wouldn't skim-read unless you yearn to confuse yourself.

Enjoy!

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When was the last time you saw blue sky?

Was it yesterday? An hour ago?

Is the sky blue outside your window?

I bet you're looking. And I bet you can see blue, somewhere. You might see blue everywhere, if you're lucky.

Wait. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that luck has nothing to do with it.

Well, you've obviously never been here.

To this place where the only sunlight is candlelight. This darkened place.

When was the last time I saw blue sky?

Ten years ago.

Before they locked the door.

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Sometimes I wake up in the night, and for a moment, a mere second, I cannot remember where I am. The blissful shock of unawareness warms me, frightens me and calms me all at once. It allows my mind to wander, to grasp and snatch at things that escape me when I am fully alert and coherent. That moment is the only freedom I have from this moonlit prison, and it is the only moment I long for during the empty hours that find me here. In that moment, I am no-one and I am everyone. I allow myself to be anyone. For that moment.

Only for a moment.

And then I remember.

And I am trapped again.

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The day I met him was like any other. Dark.

Everything had gone as usual; a maid had come to dress me, another had served breakfast on the small table in my room, and a new book lay, untouched, on one of the tables next to the bed. I had smiled my thanks to the servants, who had not returned the gesture, and I had proceeded to eat the meal in silence as they stood nearby, wondering if today they would answer my questions.

They didn't.

They left, and I sat at the table for a long while afterwards, thinking about nothing of any real consequence. I stared at the shuttered window on the far wall, debating whether or not I should attempt to pry it open again. My thoughts drifted languidly to the last time I had tried.

My fingernails had grown back now, thankfully, though the scars of once deep splinters still sketched over the skin surrounding them. I don't think I'll ever forget the image of those bloodied hands, my hands, clawing their way through the wood, desperately seeking the pain and satisfaction of light, aching to feel something new and real.

They had found me on the floor in tears, my own blood smeared across my face and in my hair; my hands crimson, raw and ripped. Torn. The shutter on the window remained in the same formidable state, mocking the soft flesh that had surrendered so easily to it.

My act of crazed desperation had merely served to exacerbate the situation further. They saw it as a worsening of my illness. Of the illness that had kept me down here for ten years.

I had been told that it was an extremely rare reaction to the sun; so rare that it was unheard of in medical circles. But this "condition", what they saw as fits and episodes where I lost the ability to speak or move or see….I saw as something very different.

I saw visions.

Whether they were truly brought on by the sun or something linked with it, I could not say, I suppose I would never find out. The first had been when I was seven. I had picked a flower from the ground in childlike fascination, only to be overcome with fear so acute I could not move. I remember the experience in viciously clear detail; the way my heart stopped beating with the sudden cease in the passage of time, the way my eyes darkened with images of blood and destruction and gore; the way my hands grasped for the pure white petals that fell from the stem of the bloom and into the fiery ruins. And the crying. I will never forget the sound of crying, so turgid with despair that the resonance was something inhumane. My body had collapsed in a moment, and I had stared up at the sky, tears too heavy to fall from my widened, horrified eyes. The daisy stayed, untainted, in my fingers. My nurse told me later that I had not breathed for several minutes. I forget how long I remained silent after that day.

That had been the first vision, and the least harrowing.

From then on, somehow always in sunlight, inside or out, I would scream and cry out as if I were dying, reach for things I could not reach in this world, scratching and clawing my way out of the hell that possessed me every time I provoked the demon that lay dormant in my mind.

After the fourth "episode", as the doctors called them, it was concluded that I was no longer sane, even considering my serene coherence between each of the visions. I did not tell them what I had seen, simply because I did not know how to express the horror of it at such a young age. My childhood and innocence were snatched from me in an instant, and my freedom crushed with the petals of the last flower I had held in my fingertips. I was banished, but within the walls of the palace. Within the walls of one room.

I sighed, gliding a brush through my short, boyish hair. The maid cut it regularly, in an effort to avoid the inevitable tangles an "episode" may bring. I have to admit that I had no desire to see it long after so many years. New candles had been lit today, I realised as I noticed my pale reflection in the mirror, the pallor of my skin more visible than normal even in the honeyed light. New candles. That meant it was the first of the month.

I put the brush down.

It meant that the King was visiting me today.

It had been a ritual since the end of the first year, when I had been deemed "safe enough" for him to visit without guards or doctors or any suchlike. Once a month, on the morning of the first day, he would ascend the steps up to my rooms and talk briefly with me, words that no longer held any trace of affection or even interest, only spoken out of duty and shame. I hated the minutes he spent with me, however short they may have been. I hated the fear shadowing his eyes, and my reflection within them. I hated the way he never said my name. I hated the fact his complexion was almost as pale as mine, even though he had the choice of covering it with sunlight.

I hated him for doing this to me.

And, most of all, I hated him for being my father.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour. I counted the seconds until his imminent arrival. As expected, the key scraped the lock shortly afterwards. I turned at the sound.

My father, tall, solid and unmoving as rock, was shown in, his heavy cloaks and ornaments rustling as they brushed past the doorframe. He did not acknowledge or thank the servant who bowed his respect before leaving us. I frowned.

"Vexed at my arrival already I see." The King regarded me warily, "I daresay this breaks some sort of record."

I stood, swallowed. My hands clasped together in front of me, and my eyes dropped to them in an attempt to avoid the mockery so apparent in his.

"We have much to discuss this morning, daughter."

Daughter. Was I still?

I nodded my understanding silently.

"Let us sit."

"Yes, my Lord."

I walked to the small table in the corner of the room, first pulling a chair out for him before I waited next to another. He glided over leisurely, surveying the enormous room, regarding the tiny, majestic world he had trapped me in. But however luxurious the covers on my four poster bed were, no matter how enormous the fireplace was or how expensive the three piece furniture suite in one corner of the room had been, it was no place for a King. I felt it. There was no doubt in my mind that he felt it too.

He stopped in front of me and regarded the chair I had placed for him, the only other one at the table, as if it were some sort of horrendous torture device. Undoubtedly, for him it was a painful ordeal, talking to his only child, a woman, neither fit for a kingdom nor something so trivial as the judgement of others. I hated that I understood. He sighed, taking a seat. I did so opposite him a moment afterwards.

He's getting old. I thought as I looked at his wilting face across the table, at the hands that settled on the wooden top, wrinkled but otherwise flawless. The hands of a King they may have been, but the hands of a man they were not, I thought, wondering if they had ever done a day's real work. It seemed he was ageing in front of my eyes, and I had never noticed before. My thoughts were punctuated by his voice, rasping slightly.

"Have you had any…that is, has there been—"

I caught his meaning.

"No, my Lord. No episodes for six months."

"Good." He seemed to sigh in partial relief. "That is…good."

Uncomfortable, familiar silence settled. The candlelight flickered over the sagging planes of his face.

"I will get straight to the heart of the matter." He said, gravely. At the words, my hands gripped handfuls of my dress under the table. In what emotion, I could not say. Fear is too weak a word to express the way my heart seemed to wrench into my throat. Hope is too strong a term to describe the way it kicked a beat. At my deceptive stillness, he continued.

"You have reached your eighteenth year, have you not?" I sensed the question was rhetorical, but nodded anyway.

"Indeed." He continued, "Then no doubt you are aware of the implications that come with this age?"

I shook my head slowly. He frowned.

"I had hoped you would have some idea, child." His words conveyed the shame I continued to cast upon him, "Some idea of what is expected of you in this complex situation."

Expected of me? I thought. I assumed the only thing expected of me was silence.

"Forgive my ignorance, my Lord." My submissiveness did not betray the raw anxiety plummeting through my veins. Did he plan to send me away? To let me out?

My father sighed once more. The sound was heavy and laboured.

"The kingdom needs an heir." He said plainly after a long moment, looking at me intently, "A male heir."

I blinked.

Oh God.

I understood his implication immediately. And yet I could not comprehend the lunacy of it. He continued to stare at me, wide eyed, insinuating the obvious, the unfathomable meaning of his words.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"But surely you can't mean—"

"My ailing health and my age have disabled me from taking on the responsibility myself." He interrupted, procrastinating though the outcome was inevitable.

"It falls to you, as my only child, to produce the heir to the throne. A son."

I could not make sense of the words.

"But—"

"I have organised a suitable match—"

"But I—"

"You must do this." His sharpened tone halted my appeal, and he stood, towering over me, a giant, "If there is no blood heir when I expire, then this Kingdom will go to the dogs, child. And I'll be damned if I let that sullied fate interfere with the one this family has woven over the last three centuries."

I stuttered over my confusion and fear, my hands coming up to scratch the wooden surface of the table. It came to me to do the only thing I could. Beg.

Tears pricked my eyes. "But…but I don't understand, I… cannot…father, please, surely there must be…surely I—" I stopped when I saw his expression. His face, the weariness in his eyes, told me this, told me I, was the last resort. His last resort.

"You will remain here in isolation. I have arranged for—"

"Oh father no, please!" I stood up at the affirmation that I would stay imprisoned, begged, reached for his hands, "Do not keep me up here and ask this of me!" Flinching as he snatched his hands out of my reach, I followed as he strode to the door, "Father! Please, you cannot ask this of me! What will become of me?! Father! I cannot! I will not—"

Without warning, he whirled towards me, explosive with rage, "Oh, you will! Mark me, girl, you will do this! I have chosen a prince for you, do you hear? I have chosen him because he is the only one who might even consider consenting to wed you!"

I blinked, taken aback

"W-Wed?"

The king ignored me, "And that is only because his own backwater country no longer exists! He is your only chance; he is this Kingdom's only hope for a future!" He bellowed, "You will marry him and you will beget an heir before the month is out!"

"B-Beget…" My throat closed, "…a month?!"

"A month!" He shouted, enraged for reasons unbeknownst to me, "Or else you shall never see the light of day again! I swear it!" His face darkened in the dim light, and his tone dropped menacingly as he repeated the words anew. "I swear it."

We shared a one final stare, his gaze defiant, mine utterly defeated.

And then he moved, his clothes swishing as he turned on his heel. The door opened from outside.

As it closed behind him, I fell to my knees and cried.

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My insides knotted with dread that night as I looked out the window. The moon, a crescent diamond cut into ebony, shone brighter than I remembered ever seeing it. It seemed to me to be an omen; something threatening and sharp, pale as death. Something lurking in the darkness.

I had studied the moon in all forms. Nightfall was the only time the shutters on my window were opened; it was the only time I could open the glass and view the outside world. But the connection was always cosmetic. Even though I could taste the night air and feel the breeze on my skin, nature and everything in it was still too far away to touch. The bars on the window frame and the guards pacing outside made it intangible.

But amongst the familiar feelings of unease I had that night, there was also the unfathomable urge to imagine his face. The prince's face. Whoever he was.

Honestly, I expected the worst. After all, what reason did my father have to present me with somebody my own age, somebody who had things in common with me? He had no reason to please me. More importantly, he had no choice in his choosing who would be suitable; this prince was, essentially, a king without a kingdom. He needed this marriage just as my father needed an heir. So what choice did I have in the matter?

Even if he was a vile creature, old and fat and putrid smelling, what choice did I have?

But… for some reason, as I imagined his face in the moonlight, it was not so beastly as I had feared. My mind seemed to conjure pictures of bright eyes, blonde hair, a kind smile. I imagined him to be older than me by only a few years, tall, a knight in shining armour perhaps. Perhaps he would take care of me.

Perhaps he would save me.

I could only hope.

I sighed. I didn't even want a husband, let alone a child. I didn't want any of this. And yet here I was, imagining a man, a lover, smiling at me and telling me he loved me, that he would save me and protect me and…

What was the point?

My hopes would only be shrouded in the morning, along with the inevitable rising of the sun.

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Even as I waited, I had no real idea what would happen. That is what frightened me so. I had no idea when he would come or if he would come here or what we'd have to do or…

I had no idea.

I didn't know how this was going to work. The politics of the situation seemed to me the most problematic of all; if I married and had a child, surely that child would be heir to the Prince's throne but…but then I suppose if he no longer had a throne then surely he wasn't a prince anymore and so…so perhaps…

My head fell into my hands without provocation. I was kidding myself. The most problematic— terrifying thing about this situation was not the politics. No. It was the fact that I hadn't spoken to any man but my father since I was eight years old. It was the fact that I would have to marry one and…and sleep with one.

With the decade I'd had to educate myself with books and such, of course I was familiar with the act of procreation. I knew its scientific details, I knew what it did and how it did it. However, that was not to say I was in any way familiar with…how to do it. I understood that such an act brought no pleasure for either party, or at least, none for the woman as much as I could decipher. It was, quite literally, a duty that I had to do. A duty and nothing more. To bear a child.

But I wondered what would become of the prince afterward. My father obviously meant to keep me up here indefinitely, infinitely; so where did that leave my would be husband and the would be heir? Once the babe was born, would it then be snatched away from me? If it was a girl, would it be merely discarded? Discarded as I had been?

I just didn't understand how it would work. I didn't understand my father or how he'd gone about convincing somebody to marry a "madwoman". That is, if he'd even told them the details.

The fire crackled a few feet away, followed by a clanging from the clock above it, naming the hour to be noon. I took my feet down from the settee as a servant suddenly scratched at the door.

It opened without my permission, as was the norm, and a familiar maid entered, curtseyed, looked worried for a moment when she obviously couldn't spot me in the darkness of the room, before finally gesturing to somebody else outside the door. My mouth turned dry and stale, and my heat beat furiously, violently within my chest as I realised who it was.

The maid cleared her throat.

"His Highness Lord Fanel to see you, my Lady." Her mousy voice announced, "On your father's orders."

I immediately stood as I heard his first booted footstep, though in the darkness I could not tell so well if he had entered the room. Suddenly a man's low timbre vibrated through me.

"Leave us." It commanded, towards the servant. I shivered in anticipation and fear at its authoritative tone. He was most certainly royalty.

To my surprise, the maid did indeed leave the room. It confused me that my father had consented for this stranger and I to be left alone so soon. Surely he couldn't already mean to…mean to—

"Come into the light." His dark voice vibrated through me, seemed to sing in my veins, "I can barely see you."

I looked at the floor, bit my lip. Surely what I looked like would hardly matter in all this. Nevertheless, I walked towards the fireplace as steadily as I was able, eyes down. I heard him approach simultaneously, and the thought of our inevitable meeting in a matter of seconds was enough to make my stomach roil. Though his voice betrayed a maturity that I feared I lacked, it couldn't have belonged to someone much older than me. I quashed the quiver of hope that sprouted to life inside me with the thought that he very well could be 50 years old for all I knew. But then that familiar image returned to me, of the azure eyes, what I imagined to be the colour of the sky, and the blonde hair, the sun…and the smile, so pleased I was his. Perhaps this would be him. My knight.

I stopped when I saw his black boots reflect the firelight, my eyes still trained on the floor. He stood still, clearly awaiting my reaction.

I took a breath. Then I looked up…and it caught in my throat.

That image of sunshine and blue skies, of an angel coming to rescue me…could not have been more wrong.

In the firelight, the strong angles of his face were severe, chiselled. Frightening. He was tall, lean, and had obviously been travelling from the creases in his well tailored, simple clothes. His hair was not blonde; it was black. Ebony. Obsidian. It was the night that I knew so well. His mouth held no smile, though neither did it hold any traces of other emotion. It seemed firm and set, but not grim. I briefly felt the urge to see it move, in speech or otherwise.

And then I saw his eyes.

The candlelight did nothing to soften their infinite darkness, the intensity with which they held me, unmoving. Such eyes…they belonged to a hawk, a panther. They belonged to a hunter. His stare was predatory, inescapable even if I'd tried to flee. I did not try. I could not. I could feel it raking me, making a study of me in the dim light. The feeling was more than unsettling, and yet for some reason I did not fidget, nor did I try to stop him.

We seemed to stay like that for hours, though I'm sure it must have only been a moment. Looking back, I realise now that it always felt like that with him.

I don't know how I did it, but somehow I found my voice.

"I…Pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Highness." I curtseyed as if I'd been doing it every day of my life. When his eyes met mine once more, they seemed to hold some kind of bitter amusement.

He bowed in answer, though I felt the gesture was a little mocking.

"The pleasure is mutual, my Lady," His features did not betray any such sentiment. He straightened. Silence settled between us, punctuated by the crackling of the fire beside us.

Thankfully, I noticed he did not look at all much older than me, and was certainly, certainly not fat. It seemed he did not cling to the regular pretensions of handsomeness, though his striking countenance held another sort of beauty entirely. Dark, dangerous beauty. The kind that is more a curse than a blessing, given to those who do not wish for it and yet are punished for possessing it. I suddenly felt very embarrassed, afraid of his judgement of me, pale and weak, while his honeyed skin glowed in the firelight and his fine figure dominated the entirety of the suite.

He could have done so much better than me. I found myself thinking.

"We are… to be married at sunset." His voice, suddenly quiet and rather strained, pierced my thoughts. I swallowed, docile.

"Are we?" I looked down at the floor again, striving to say something appropriate, "I am… I am very happy, my Lord."

"I doubt that very much." He said quietly, much to my surprise. My eyes lifted to his, to find them looking at me, into me. Without warning, he took a step toward me, grabbing my shoulders. The simple touch sent my senses spiralling. His face was only inches away from mine, his hands touching me, his breath fanning over my cropped hair.

"Let us make clear immediately that neither of us are "happy" about this situation." I suspected these words betrayed more his own feelings on the subject, rather than mine.

"But know this," He continued, intense, "I will not hurt you, and I will not force you to…" His eyes closed for a moment before regarding me with some unfathomable emotion, "…I will not force you to do anything you do not wish to do."

I swallowed, unable to wrench my gaze away from his.

"I… "

There was a violent rap on the door. The Prince's hands fell away from my shoulders abruptly. I silently mourned the loss.

The servant from earlier entered. She curtsied hastily, her breathing heavy as though she had run all the way back up the stairs.

"Beg Pardon, my Lord…but I have just been informed that you are not to stay here, the other servants said that his highness never permitted you—"

The Prince held up a hand to silence her.

"Don't read into it." The hand lowered, "I will go."

He turned to me in the darkness.

"Until sunset."

I nodded, my reply escaping only as a hushed, "Sunset."

Our eyes locked. I shivered inwardly, though I did not understand why.

He left without a backward glance.

And it was then that I realised… the next time I would see him, I would be tied to him forever.

Yet, somehow, part of me knew that my heart already had been.

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Well, Well, Welllll....

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By the by, if you've read it, dear reader, do review. How very kind you are. How very english I am.

TOODLES!