"You will never fly with broken wings. The dogs will catch you first."

An animalistic snarl awakes Nomura from her restless slumber. A snarl and the sound of struggling guards, judging from the clatter of armour. Someone has a new pet.

She growls at all the fuss and glances through the gap in the cell walls at the young Trollhunter as he sleeps so peacefully. Well, as peacefully as one can in the Darklands. She had long since grown weary of taunting him, and had left him in silence to rest at last. She of all creatures knows how important even a moment's rest is, especially when Gunmar the Black favours you for beatings. 

Curious, yet still wary, Nomura creeps over to the crystal bars of her prison, long, slender fingers curling around the shards as she inspects the new pet as it thrashes violently against the guards' firm hold. All she can make out is the cold blue hues of their eyes and the overwhelming scent of spilt blood. It is not a sight she had been unprepared for, but the lack of Changeling-like qualities in the creature is unexpected.

The young Trollhunter had mentioned another, had he not? Nomura mulls over his earlier words, the ones she had barely listened to as she taunted him for his ploy to flee. He had, as she recalls, a boy he referred to as 'Tyler' before correcting himself with the name 'Esmerion'. She shakes her head. Tyler was the name of the boy who had approached her at the museum about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table. The fool had involved his brother in his own affairs, and she was going to look upon the consequences of that action.

She scoffs. It's not as though she actually cares about the boy's fate. But the Trollhunter's correction had caught her attention. Who is 'Esmerion'? The name feels familiar, Nomura muses, though her thoughts are cut off by a furious bellow from the new addition.

A crack echoes through the cavern and Nomura steps away with a grimace, watching with bright eyes as the prisoner rips his own already bloodied arm out of the guard's hand, splitting the living stone with ease. The guard roars in agony, and violently throws the prisoner into the cell beside Nomura's, caring not for the resounding crack that echoes within the cell. With that, the guards storm off with their wounded comrade, the crystal bars snapping into place.

Intrigued, Nomura approaches the small sliver of a gap in the wall between her and the new prisoner. The scent of blood is so thick now that she nearly gags, finding the unwavering smell overpowering and tainted, as though it is not the blood of a human, yet neither the blood of a creature. 

As she searches the cell for some sign of the prisoner, a pit in the bottom-most part of her stomach tightens with unease. It is an instinct that tells who is predator and who is prey. It does not deliver her pleasant news of where she resides on that chart.

A cruel snarl and a scrambling of bloodied fingers within the gap startles the Changeling, scaring her back until she can be sure that the prisoner is unable to somehow enter her own cell. Shimmering scarlet paints the peek hole with disgusting fluid as the desperate hands retreat back into their own place. A rumble makes her heart tremble, her bones rattling from the intense resound that the creature within the neighbouring walls creates.

"What..." she forces the sentence from her twisted tongue. "What are you?"

Her only answer is a growl not unlike the ones she has heard from Gunmar himself. The fear in her heart triples at this beast-like response, and she steps back again, pressing against the stone wall. 

Blue eyes, far brighter than the brightest sun and colder than the peak of the Himalayas, appear in the gap, wild and vicious. Nomura cannot resist the shiver that travels down her spine, nor the breath she withholds in fear of the creature. Those are human eyes, but it is not a human impression that twists her gut.

Another snarl creates tremors that she had not imagined to be possible and the creature cries out in sudden pain, stumbling away from the crack with a yelp. All grows silent.

Nomura blinks at the gap in the wall, about to creep forward when something scrapes against the cavern floor, causing her to stiffen and her ears to flatten against her skull. The sound repeats, grinding like nails on a chalkboard, and Nomura can't help but recall the feeling of chalk in her hand, nor the familiar scent of a school classroom. But those days are far behind her, and the scent that fills her nose is anything but welcome.

With utmost caution, she creeps over to the crack, hands tight to her chest as she approaches. The sight she sees is enough to disturb whatever sleep she ever gets, and that's just the pool of blood surrounding the figure. The creature itself is human in shape, clothed in a pair of torn pants that may have once been a nice tan colour but now sport a sickening shade of red. An iron rod sticks out from its flesh, above the collarbone, where charring muscle and skin smokes. Black bruises splotch the creature's ribcage, wrapping around what she can only imagine to be the whole of his torso--

Nomura pauses. When had she identified the creature as a 'him'?

Her gaze travels upwards, and her breath catches in her throat as her eyes lock with the freezing glare of the prisoner. It's not just his chilling eyes, but the familiar shape of his lips and nose, the form of his brows and cheeks. This is Tyler Reynolds. This is the boy who had held such innocent curiosity and had approached her on his own terms. This is the boy that Stricklander had been so proud of. But the creature she sees is not a boy. He is a worn and hardened man, one whose body is littered with old and healed scars, scars of many injuries and infection, scars earned in training and in battle. He is a man out of his era. And yet... Nomura cannot quite place her finger on it, even as she watches him rip the iron rod from his shoulder and viciously throw it across the cell.

No, she sees it now. She sees it in the way he ignores the hole in his body, in the way he inspects the wounds on his forearms. He is not human, she thinks, watching as he stems the bleeding by licking the open wounds. He cannot be.

"What's happening?" a voice asks behind her, and it takes all of her self control to not whip around in wild fear.

Composing herself, Nomura steps away from the crack and towards the Trollhunter's hole in the wall, placing herself so he is unable to see the slick blood dribbling down the wall. "Nothing at all, Trollhunter," she hisses at him, attempting to flash him her usual unsettling grin, though it feels more strained than it might have been on another day.

"Are you sure?" Jim quips, the bags under his eyes all too apparent for someone his age. "Nothing at all, huh? Doesn't seem like it."

Nomura snarls quietly, glaring at him through the small hole in the wall. "Nothing to concern yourself with, Little Gynt. Go back to sleep, if you even can." She doesn't bother hearing the concerned words leave her lips, so rattled is she from the brief encounter with the creature that was once Tyler Reynolds. She even ignores the look of confusion from the young Trollhunter.

"Is everything all right?" he asks, experiencing genuine concern for the Changeling despite their shared past. "You seem... disturbed."

Her gaze snaps back to him, the wild terror briefly leaving her acid green eyes as she meets his cool blue. "I am fine," she spits at him, brushing away his worry. "Nothing happened. Go to sleep." Nomura glares at him, even though the intensity of it is washed away by the creeping feeling that she is about to become prey.

Jim backs off immediately, raising his hands in surrender before returning to his previous placement to sleep. "Fine, fine. Don't tell me what's made you so nervous. It's not like I'll be able to do anything anyway."

Nomura growls at his bitter use of sarcasm, grimacing as she feels a gaze on her back. "Don't be a fool, Trollhunter. I'm not nervous."

"Okay, okay." Jim makes a show of shrugging off her words, pretending to be casual even as his eyes burn with the haunting memory of Esmerion falling into the darkness. "So you're not. Whatever. Still doesn't change that I can't help. So what's the point in sharing?"

"Silence!" she snarls, hitting the stone next to her with frustration. "Silence yourself, Trollhunter. There are worse things than Gunmar to be afraid of in the Darklands."

Jim sits up, eyes wide with horrified curiosity. "There are things worse than Gunmar?" he queries, feeling even more defenseless than before. "What are they?"

"Creatures that haunt waking nightmares," she replies, sliding down the wall to the cell floor. Her head hides behind her arms, hiding her face from the steely gaze of the monster next door. "Beware them, Trollhunter. For you never know who might be one."

At long last! Apologies for the wait, folks, I hit quite the writer's block. I hope you're all faring well during this time.

Hope you enjoyed!