#( anyway jump on the balekin hate everyone we leave at dawn

[cruelprincae]

What's the worst punishment you've ever received from Balekin?

Flashes of a golden bridle, a dark room and a whip with an iron end cloud his vision and make his stomach churn. It was the day the eldest of his brothers brought him to Hollow Hall; the same day his father, High King Eldred, sentenced Asha to be taken away to the Tower of Forgetting and himself banished from the Palace grounds for a crime he did not commit, when he was little over nine years of age. Balekin had made it abundantly clear that should he not accept his punishment, then he was to leave Hollow Hall and his mercy, to instead roam the Lower Courts of Insmire which held dreadful, monstrous fates for inconsequential Princes ― and because the monster he knew was far better than a monster he did not, he had taken off his shirt, sank to his knees and accepted each ghastly strike from the mortal woman's hand until his back bled and his vision swarm far too greatly to hold onto consciousness. It was humiliating ― then again such was the purpose of his punishment ― but it hadn't ended then. When he came to, he was laying on his chest upon a grand oak-made bed with carved legs to resemble animals and covered with fur coverlets ― the softest and simultaneously warmest bed he had ever laid on his entire life ( and perhaps, the only bed he had ever been on, considering he had spent the first nine years of his life either curled up underneath banquet tables of the revels held in the Palace of Elfhame or the beddings of hay in the royal stables ). Margaret was by his side, tending to his back with a particularly foul-smelling concoction that made his wounds itch and tingle, and Balekin was standing tall beside her, looking down at him through furrowed brows as though supervising a particularly difficult and costly strategy plan. A shine caught his eye, and Cardan's gaze shifted to the hardwood and similarly carved nightstand by his bed, upon which laid a golden device, laced on one with one dark, iridescent hair that he guessed belonged to Balekin; It looked like a bridle one would use on a steed or a toad, but it was significantly smaller and strangely fit, as though it was designed for a person to wear. Once Balekin announced that it was enchanted for the wearer to obey the commands of the person whose hair belonged to, that ought to wear it a time until he grows obedient as a Prince should be without the use of it and when Margaret ceased her tending to instead attempt to put it on him, Cardan had thrashed, and clawed, and bit his refusal but wounded as he was, the device was inevitably worn. He did, however, manage to deliver a particularly nasty bite on Balekin's wrist, regardless of whether the thorns adorning his hand hurt his mouth and tongue, but that only resulted in the eldest Greenbriar rage and the decision that since the youngest Prince liked to act like an animal then he would be treated as one and was hence sentenced to spend the night in one of Hollow Hall's basement cells where the grounds are cold, the rooms are dark and the bars are made of iron as punishment to whoever is deserving enough to be put inside. As far as punishments go, that did not differentiate much from the remainder of them throughout the following decade, but unlike the rest, Cardan did cry that night. It was an act that betrayed weakness and it disgusted him. His emotions were a swirling tornado of disgust and hate; hate for himself, for the stupid mortals, for his father, Dain, all his siblings who refused to take him in and the one who did ― hate who burned so bright it almost numbed the cold bitting on his skin. That night, he decided that he would school himself to hide the unwanted emotions, that he would learn to pretend, that he would learn to please his brother and fit into a skin that was not his to wear to begin with. Not a heart of stone, but a heart of fire, strong enough to burn down Elfhame and everyone in it.

Blinking his way back to reality, to safety, and away from the distant memory, Cardan's dark gaze squints dangerously, his sharp features hard and unreadable. ❛ Mind your Mab-forsaken business. ❜ He merely spits before turning on his heel and walking away.