The first night passed without a castle-leveling event. This, Stolas decided as he peered through a enchanted one-way scrying mirror he'd installed outside the room, was a victory.
Darkness hadn't moved from his corner. The feather-cocoon had remained tightly shut, only the faintest rise and fall indicating life within. He hadn't touched the bowl of ambrosia fruit Stolas had left by the door, nor the shallow dish of moon-dew water.
"He's going to starve," Octavia stated the next morning. She'd found her father in his observatory, surrounded by floating tomes with titles like Primordial Emotional Matrices and Care and Feeding of Elemental Changelings. He looked like he hadn't slept.
"He is a being of immense supernatural energy, Via. He can likely subsist on ambient magic for some time," Stolas said, rubbing his temples. "The food is a… gesture. An offering of peace."
"An offering he's ignoring. Have you tried, I don't know, chicken nuggets?"
Stolas blinked. "A… what nugget?"
"Forget it." She flopped into a large chair. "So what's the genius plan for today? More sitting and staring?"
"Today," Stolas said, closing a book with a soft thump, "we attempt basic interaction. He responded to calm vocal tones. We must build on that. We must also… ascertain the limits of his reactive adaptations in a controlled manner."
"You want to poke the demon-child to see what happens."
"In the most gentle,scholarly way imaginable!"
---
The "gentle, scholarly poke" began with Stolas entering the room alone, moving with the slow grace of a biologist approaching a skittish predator. He carried a simple, soft blanket.
"Good morning, little one," he cooed, his voice a low, steady rumble.
One green eye slid open from the feather mass.
"I thought you might be cold," Stolas continued, laying the blanket on the floor halfway between them. He then slowly backed up to the doorway and sat down, making himself small and non-threatening.
For ten minutes, nothing happened. Then, the cocoon rustled. A claw emerged, then another. Darkness unfolded himself, his movements jerky and uncertain. His four eyes fixed on the blanket. He sniffed the air, crept forward on all fours, and gave the fabric a tentative poke. Seeming to decide it wasn't a trap, he dragged it back to his corner and began meticulously arranging it, tucking the edges under himself with fastidious care.
Stolas's heart leapt. A positive interaction! He'd accepted a provision!
Encouraged, Stolas later sent in a simple, plush toy—a round, fuzzy creature with button eyes. This was less successful. Darkness took one look at the toy's staring eyes, let out a low growl, and the toy spontaneously combusted into a small, sad pile of ash.
"Note," Stolas murmured to himself, scribbling on a floating parchment. "May perceive simplified faces as threatening. Or perhaps just hates cute things. Understandable."
The real test came that afternoon. Octavia, driven by a morbid curiosity she'd never admit to, volunteered to deliver the next meal. She swapped the ambrosia for a plain, cooked hell-steak she'd nicked from the kitchens, figuring protein was universal.
She pushed the door open with her foot, holding the plate. "Hey. Uh. Dinner."
Darkness was in the center of the room now, curiously tracing the cracks in the stone floor with a claw. At her voice, he flinched, his wings half-flaring. The air grew tense.
Octavia froze. Don't be a threat, she thought. Just a bored girl with meat. She slowly placed the plate on the floor and took three large steps back, leaning against the wall by the door. She pulled out her phone, pretending to scroll, giving him a wide berth.
Darkness watched her. The tension eased slightly. He approached the plate, sniffed the steak suspiciously, then picked it up with his claws. He took a tiny bite. Then a bigger one. He ate with a feral, focused intensity, barely chewing.
"See? Not poison," Octavia muttered, not looking up from her screen.
A soft, almost inaudible sound made her glance up. Darkness had finished the steak and was looking at the empty plate. A low, rough vibration was coming from his chest. It took her a second to realize it was a tiny, contented purr.
A smirk tugged at her lips. "Yeah, you're a real tough guy."
At the sound of her voice, the purr stopped. He looked at her, not with fear or anger, but with a blank, owlish curiosity. One of his upper eyes blinked, then a lower one.
"You're weird," she said.
He just stared.
Then, the palace's grand clock struck the hour. A deep, resonant BONG echoed through the stone corridors.
It was too much. The sudden, booming noise shattered the fragile calm. Darkness's eyes flew wide with panic. He dropped the plate with a clatter and scrambled back into his corner, his wings snapping shut around him. But this time, the fear didn't just make him hide.
The room reacted. A deep chill exploded from his corner, frosting the walls and floor in an instant. Jagged spikes of ice erupted from the stone around him, forming a defensive thicket. Octavia's breath fogged in the suddenly arctic air.
"Whoa! Okay, clock bad! Noted!" she yelped, scrambling out of the room.
Stolas was there in seconds, summoned by the spike of magical frost. He peered in at the glacial fortress now occupying the corner. "Fascinating! Cryogenic manifestation triggered by auditory-based fear! His adaptation is environmental!"
"He's a scared kid who made a popsicle fort, Dad!" Octavia hissed, hugging herself against the cold. "Your 'research' is gonna get us flash-frozen!"
Stolas's excited scholarly look softened into one of guilt. "You are right, of course. The priority is comfort, not cataloging." He raised his voice to a soothing pitch, directed at the ice fortress. "The noise is gone, little one. It will not hurt you. The cold… is very impressive. You are safe."
There was no response from within the icy thicket.
Later that night, after the magical frost had finally receded (leaving the room damp and smelling of wet stone), Stolas found another black feather. This one was on the observatory balcony, perfectly placed on his favorite telescope.
It was a message. I'm watching. I can get anywhere.
He incinerated the feather with a pulse of quiet anger, the ashes scattering on the hellwind. The game was not just internal. He had a volatile child to protect and an unseen adversary circling his home. The walls, literally and figuratively, were closing in.
Back in his room, Darkness finally emerged from his damp blanket. The fear from the clock had faded, leaving a hollow, shaky feeling. He looked at the spot where the girl-smoke had stood. She had brought the good meat. She had not come closer when he made the cold.
He didn't have words for it. But in the storm-map of his mind, one chaotic variable had shifted slightly. From THREAT? to UNCERTAIN. It was, for a creature of pure reaction, a monumental shift.
He curled up on the blanket, and for the first time, his sleep was not a tense collapse into exhaustion, but something faintly resembling rest. Outside his door, the palace held its breath, waiting for the next tremor.