It was a young’un thrown down into a dungeon alongside mine own self. He had a head of red, and blue eyes too vivid in colour. Bawling, like a newborn without his mother’s presence.

“Oi, stop mewling boy… what’s your name?” I moved my shackled hands to distract him, yet the cackle of my rusty chains had done the job.

“M-My name?” The boy oustared the heavy chains around my bony wrists, suppressing his own tears. “A-Adelard… Sir…?” He peered up at me, his countenance full of red and blue swells, he had been beaten.

“Adelard, aye? It’s… Drogo.” I respond to the hesitation in his voice. “Drogo… how long have you been…?” The red headed lad spied at the cobwebbed corners of the tiny dungeon.

“How long? Who knows?” I had lost sense of time, I had lost count of the days long ago. There was fear in Adelard’s eyes at my dim answer.

“What got you in here, lad?” I decided to ask, uneasy with our silence. He gulped, “My father… a Lord… he beat my mother to death… I, his bastard son… took my revenge.” His hands buckled into fists, Adelard stared at the dead rat in the dark corner of the dungeon.

“You slew your father, aye?” I said out loud, “He is no father!” The boy croaked despite his youth, for a moment he resembled a sculpture of Lucifer I had seen in Rome.

“Why are you in here… Drogo?” Adelard asked, but his eyes had no interest in my impending answer, they were full of wretched despair.

“Why am I here? Like you… Adelard, I am also a bastard son…” I smile at my own tragic fate, seizing Adelard’s attention.

“Of a Lord?” He chuckled along with me, “No…” I lose my smile and cackle. “Ariadne. Empress Ariadne.” I confessed to him.

His blue eyes stared into my poorly sight, he convulsed into laughter and tears. “I do not believe you, Drogo.” He rasped out.

“Why would the son of Ariadne, wife of Zeno… be imprisoned in a dungeon in one of Alfred the Great’s castles?” He cackled out, ghastly.

“My mother… feared me.” I chuckled out. “Hid me… out of sight and time…” I explained to him.

“What’s it like, Drogo?” Adelard asked out loud, “Being kept from the outside world… being without freedom… what does it do to a person?” Adelard shivered as he questioned me.

“It’s no different to being out there…” I sighed. Adelard stared at my aloofness, unable to comprehend my answer, he was fretting over his own imprisonment.

“You may fear it, now…” I sighed, “But… you will get used to it.” I say to him. “No… I could never get used to this… even if it were my fate… I could never accept it!” He raged.

My eyes widened at his answer, he truly resembled that sculpture of the fallen angel.