He couldn't get her eyes out of his head.

For days, those beautiful, mesmerizing, golden irises had consumed him. He could see her personality through them, for they were windows leading straight to her soul. She was kind and strong. But she had a darkness inside.

She intrigued him to no end.

He would wander through the muggy courtyards of Nyghtmir aimlessly. Sometimes he'd walk with his eyes closed, imagining he was taking a stroll through a garden with the golden-eyed girl from his dreams.

The golden lamps stationed every few feet apart from each other reminded him of her. He would often find himself staring at them for hours on end, wishing he could see her in person. He replayed the image of her in his head over and over again until it was ingrained in his brain.

He craved her ebony skin, darker than midnight and just as gorgeous. Her features were perfect, soft and rounded and calling out for his touch. She was a goddess.

Whenever he went to sleep, he would see her face. His fellow inmates often asked him why he spent so much time sleeping instead of socializing with them. He never answered them. They would never know the truth. But he did.

She was the reason why.

She appeared in his dreams. Or rather, dream—as it was the same one each time. The same scene, the same noises, the same damn outcome. Every time he awoke from his slumber, he rushed over to the thick, metal bars serving as a window on the wall of his compact cell.

The thick, hilly jungles lingered outside. Moonlight poured in through the lidded canopies, shining on his dark face. Screeches and wails from the damned prisoners in his cellblock made him want to claw his ears off; of course, he couldn't. Any attempt to take his own life or kill another inmate would be promptly stopped by a nearby guard.

They were everywhere. He could never escape them. For the rest of his pathetic lives, he would be forced to see their faces instead of the one he really wanted to see.

He wished he could sleep, but the heat seeping into his cell room kept him from doing so. Despite it being well past sundown, the Amazonian jungles—which Nyghtmir was nestled between—maintained his high temperature and humidity well into the night.

He squeezed his eyes shut, replaying his dream sequence in his head.

His dream always took him to the same place. It was a dark forest, almost entirely shrouded in shadows. But she was his candle. His beacon. Light seemed to follow her like a lost puppy. He would follow the glittering trails of bronze and yellow, hoping they would bring him to her.

He would always catch short glimpses of her sprinting ahead of him, her soft laughs filling his ears. Her black hair would wave in the night wind, the pleasant scent of lavender reaching his nose.

She was beautiful, without flaw.

But she would never be his.

As long as he was locked away in Nyghtmir, the main prison complex for magicians and magical creatures, he would never be able to meet her. She was out there in the world and he was locked away forever, forced to pay for crimes against the Eldenarian Council.

Unlike the deniers he congregated with, he owned his transgressions. He wore them on his back like armor. During his trial, he hadn't even made a case for himself. He knew he didn't deserve mercy or forgiveness. He deserved to rot.

He had accepted his fate.

He knew he wasn't like the other inmates of the prison, though. They were criminals, deceivers, and villains. They knew the rules and disregarded them without thought. They killed and cheated and stole.

What he did, he did for his back. Redfangs always looked out for each other. If that meant getting locked away forever for the good of his brothers and sisters, then so be it. He'd take his sentence and serve it with pride.

But then his dreams brought him her. And his loyalty to his family was keeping him from her.

He didn't even know the girl, or her name, but had already imprinted on her being.

Sighing, he laid himself down on the stone slab that was meant to be his bed. Holding his hands over his ears, he coaxed himself to sleep.

He smiled as he sunk into his dreams.