The door opened but Higgs didn't pay attention to it. He was trying to keep his mind at peace by only dealing with the devil when the devil appeared. Worrying about it would only cause more problems and it was hard enough keeping himself strong.

"Higgs? Can you hear me?"

Odd... Elizabeth almost sounds like a man...

"Higgs? Are you still here?" Still here? He felt someone touch him softly. "Dear God, what has she done to you?"

Wait... Higgs flicked his eyes towards where he felt a hand on his cheek. He was surprised to find a young man instead of Elizabeth but he looked a little familiar to him. Seeing Higgs make eye contact with him made the man smile, happiness filling his eyes.

"Thank goodness! I thought you had removed yourself from reality completely. I know you probably don't remember me since we aren't closely related but I'm Pixus Gravehilde-Northumberly." A Northumberly? "We met once a long time ago as children but I'm not here for that! I wasn't able to hear everything, but from what I did hear, something bad has happened here. I also know that you have been fed lies. No one has stopped looking for you and everyone is so worried about you. I know it doesn't seem like much when things are so bleak, but please don't give up on your family. We are doing everything we can to rescue you."

"I don't believe you." He said, his voice hoarse. "Elizabeth said no one was coming."

Pixus made a face at that but from what little he could here, he guessed this response was to be expected. He grabbed Higgs' hand and held it to his chest, making Higgs look at him.

"Believe what you want, but I'm telling you that your family is coming to get you. There have been some roadblocks that have made it difficult, but seeing as you are now, I will be able to confirm a lot of things and then they will come and take you come."

"My home is here."

"No it isn't. Your home is with your family and that Merida lady."

Higgs shook his head a little. "My home is here. No one is ever coming, especially Merida... She..." He started shaking a little. "She abandoned me here."

"That's not true at all."

"Elizabeth said so..." he whispered, silent tears falling down his face as he looked at Pixus. "Elizabeth is always right."

Pixus realized that Higgs had been partially brainwashed, or rather, manipulated. This Elizabeth woman had trained him to not question her actions or most likely a bad consequence would happen but the tears he shed showed that there was a small part of him that didn't believe it. The tears were a symbol of the hope he had most likely locked away to keep from being hurt even more. Pixus realized that whatever legalities his family was trying to overcome needed to be long forgotten, because if his cousin stayed in this hell hole any longer, they would be rescuing a shell rather than a person.

A noise made Pixus turn swiftly and he realized Elizabeth was coming. He touched Higgs' face again and made him look at him.

"I have to go. Elizabeth is coming back. What I told you was the truth, Higgs. Our family is going to get you out here and you won't have to stay here any longer. Don't give up hope on us. Don't give up on the people who truly love you."

The doorknob turned and Pixus rolled over the bed to the other side of the room where it was mostly dark. Once the door was open, Higgs watched Pixus fly up to the ceiling and then swooped out behind Elizabeth.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you." He said stoically.

"I could have sworn I heard someone else in here."

"How?" he said, looking her dead in the eyes.

"Hmm..." She walked over to the bed that Higgs was tied to and laid across it so that her head was in his lap. "I just had the most vulgar encounter today." He didn't say anything and she made a face. She cleared her throat and he looked down at her. "Are you not concerned for my wellbeing?"

Higgs slowly reached his hand up from the bed and moved a little bit of hair from her face, although it was a forced as a puppeteer controlling a puppet.

"Did you have a bad day?" he asked mechanically.

"Ugh, yes! It was awful! There I was minding my own business while I was visiting Patrick when all of a sudden that Merida-boy, your father, and another man and woman that I recognized but I couldn't quite figure out who they were came barging into his home with some ridiculous story about you missing because you had realized Merida was exactly how I said she was and you were going to propose to me. As flattered as I was, the situation (unfortunately) is completely implausible. One, because you're here with me already, right, my love?"

"Yes."

"And two, the audacity that I'm stupid enough to believe you'd switch your opinions of that wretched redhead on your own. I love you and obviously with the right coaching you've given up on her, but I'm not that naïve. They think I'm such a gullible fool. That annoying woman just won't let up and let us be together! Why does she have to ruin what we have right now? Can't she see catch the hint that she's never going to be able to get you to leave?"

"I don't know."

"I know it's confusing for you at the moment, but don't you worry about a thing, my love. Eventually they will stop making silly excuses and accept that you have chosen me as your true love. I mean, I was the first one to cure one of your curses rather than Merida, so that accounts for something, right?"

"Yes."

Elizabeth sat up and looked at Higgs for a moment.

"Are you happy here, Higgs?"

"Yes."

She made a face and scooted closer to him so she could grab his face. She made him look at her as he stared at her with cold, dead eyes.

"I don't believe you... Something has made you change... There was someone in here, wasn't there?"

"How could there be?"

Elizabeth sneered and squeezed his cheeks harder until her nails were on his skin, which she raked down his cheek, making him bleed.

"Somehow a Northumberly got into this house and has planted this idea about leaving in your head again when I tore that belief out!"

"You obviously didn't get the root."

"Are you being facetious, right now?" He didn't say anything as she stood up and went to the other side of the bed so she could get closer to him. "What have I told you?"

"No one is coming."

"And?"

"Elizabeth is always right."

"So if I'm always right then that means when I say that no one is coming, no one is coming. Have I made myself clear? All the people who think they can make a difference have no evidence that allows them on my property without being a trespasser. As a trespasser, I can do anything I like to them for coming onto my property without proper legal authority." She leaned over him, her face inches from his. "Merida is too lowly of a person to even have a say, your parents are pariahs within the ton and are only accepted as people because they have money. Your friends don't have enough status to make a difference either. So that means that if they try to accuse me of anything without proper evidence that allows them on my property, if they step foot on it, I am allowed to handle it in any way I see fit. And when I say 'any way I see fit', I mean any way that seems fit.

"If I catch whoever was in here with you, there will be hell to pay. Not only will I do as I see fit for sneaking onto my property and trying to steal my things, but I will make you watch. And as you watch, I'm sure you will be filled with guilt because you allowed yourself to have hope and let that foolish person risk their lives to save yours. Won't that be a shame? Won't that be your fault?"

"No."

"What?"

Higgs looked up at her, staring into her eyes.

"You're wrong."

"What?" she said, fuming.

"I'm... an idiot but... you don't know my family. There's too much you don't know."

Elizabeth stood up straight, putting her hands on her hips.

"I may not know enough to kill but I know enough to wound. That's always been your problem, Higgs: you have always underestimated me. I may not be as flamboyant about it as Merida, but I'm not as innocent as I claim to be and I like to keep it that way; but smarter men would have figured it out by now. To be honest, sometimes I think you're quite stupid... Either way, what does it matter? Would you really allow yourself to be taken away from the mother of your child?" Higgs' eyes widened in shock. "Oh yes. With the end of the month coming up, I'm not exactly sure how the elixir will work but I'm guaranteed a child. And if anyone tries to say otherwise, how could they deny your pleasure in doing it? After all, everyone knows that a man can't have sex without first being aroused?" She giggled. "No one would believe anything you said. All lords are rakes, don't you know? Even if you tried to explain it to your family, they will force you to marry me to save face. I'm carrying the firstborn heir of the Northumberly line, after all."

Hearing that his agonizing deprecation of his self-worth served such a horrible purpose, he was surprised his mind was reminded of the beautiful time he had had with Merida at least a month before he was captured. The softness of her freckled skin, the sweetness of her caress, the tenderness between them as they hid in that coat closet and the joy and frustration of being patronized by Edgar and Marlow... He hated her for abandoning him to this demon woman, for not coming to him sooner, not 'feeling' him in such despair -fuck the law and trespassing- but knowing that she had the upper hand made him laugh. Not only that, he also was reminded about his own close family and how the 'heirs' in his family was not the same as everyone else. Radek was the firstborn child of his grandfather but since he wasn't married to his mother, that meant nothing. Kans as well. The only one that made a difference was his own father. If Higgs didn't want to marry Elizabeth, he didn't have to. He chuckled again at the thought.

"Why are you laughing? Have you finally cracked?"

"Not at all."

"Then what the hell is so funny?"

"Just you... You have such... interesting ideas."

Elizabeth grabbed his hair harshly and made him look at her again. "You will be here for a long, long time, Lord Northumberly, and I'm getting tired of having to remind you of the rules."

"I'm a slow learner."

"Obviously."

"But so are you."

"Is that so?"

"You think you're so smart because you think you've outwitted everyone, but there's one person you will never win against-"

"Don't you dare say it-"

"Merida will always win."

Elizabeth screamed like a banshee and pushed Higgs over, straddling him as she choked him.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to speak about that fucking woman?! Don't realize that it's because of her that you're in this situation? It's been weeks and she hasn't even tried to come and save you except the one time. She's using your family to do her dirty work and won't even come and find you on her own! She's never coming! She's left you to me because she'd tired of you and your childish mental capacity! You're nothing to her!" She finally got over herself and stopped choking Higgs, letting him go. He coughed, grimacing from the pain in his arm where he was sure it was broken. "What are the rules in his house?"

"Elizabeth is always right."

"And?"

"No one is coming."

"And?"

"You are the only one that I love."

"And?"

"Merida is a bad word."

"Again."

"Merida is a bad word."

"I don't believe you."

"I'm sorry."

Elizabeth looked down at him and sighed, sliding off of him and the bed as she put her hands on her hips again.

"I think you're in need of a bath. You've got a little bit of a smell to you that I assume is just the ogre itself. Do you know if you give off some sort of strange scent?" Higgs didn't do anything and she shrugged. "I'll just wait until the new month. I'm excited to see what you'll be."

"Nothing." He rasped.

"Huh?"

"I was born in December. We don't turn in our birth months."

"Oh... Well then, that's definitely going to be fun."

She left the room and Higgs swallowed, his throat bruised and his arm in excruciating pain. His wrists were tied to the headboard with a short chain that had allowed him more mobility but when Elizabeth pushed him over and pinned him down, it had pulled the chain its limit, thus most likely breaking his upper arm. He wasn't really sure if that was the case and he knew it wasn't a complete break since his arm wasn't dangling in a peculiar way, but moving it was breathtaking in the worst way. He finally was able to get himself into a seated position and let the tears he was holding in slide down his face from the pain. He may have been in a comfy bed in a more suitable room, but he would have rather taken back to cellar with the torture devices than be in this room. At least in the dark cellar the sinister things were blatant and clear. The room may have looked normal and good but there was a darkness that lurked in the shadows that made it more menacing than anything in that cellar could ever be.