AN: Playing with the timeline a touch.

The creature sat in the cell which had been provided for him, the place where he had been so foolishly imprisoned. He flipped through the pages of the poetry book left to him, no heart for the text within or the world outside. How foolish had he been, to trust them as he had? To think even a woman blind to his appearances could show genuine kindness or mercy? He was a freak. A monster. He would always be this creature, drifting in a world that had no place for him beyond these iron bars. Which he could rip from their hinges in moments, should he chose.

He didn't chose. He sat. He tolerated his former employer and deceiver's idle conversation with no words to return for the man possessed and consumed by greed. He couldn't even bring himself to call the other a monster in his place, the world had beaten him so far down there was some part that said he was exactly where he belonged. Tucked away where people could come and pay to gasp at him and jeer at him. He had no struggle for it, no fight. Until the night he heard something peculiar outside. The former employer had told him not to bother screaming. No point. And yet this night he could hear the pluck of strings and a melodious voice drifting outside of his window. It was beautiful, more so than any poem he had read, and without thought he had risen to his feet and begun to reach for the grated window above which lead to the alleys. He could almost reach it, almost touch it with his finger tips, but was only just to short. He didn't know the language being sung, though it came ever closer. As it approached, he strained to reach that window, compelled towards the tune beyond reason, not understanding the drive or desire, only that he must see who was responsible for the sounds. A jump allowed him to at last wrap his hands around the bars, attempting to pull himself up to peer out, only to fall back with a crash. The music stopped, and he lay sprawled upon the stone floor in a daze. What had he been doing, just then?

He stared up at the window, and in a moment saw a face crouch down to peer down inside his cage. In an instant he was scrambling to his feet, trying to cover his face so as not to frighten the one above. The eyes were as beautiful as the song, and he had no doubt she was responsible for the reprieve from his dreary conclusions for the world. When she spoke, it was with a faint accent he found somewhat familiar. Scottish? Irish? He couldn't tell which.

"Hello," it was at once gentle and playful, "What are you doing down there? It doesn't look very comfortable..." her eyes drifted over the bars both above and below, the gaze narrowing to a slit and voice dropping a few octaves, "Are you being held prisoner?" The tone said it for her. She knew the answer already, it would do him little good to argue. Yet he managed the confidence a caged man might see fit to lack,

"I can leave when ever I like."

"Well then, how nice." she rose, he caught a flourish of skirt and cloak turning to leave.

"Wait!" A moment of silence,

"Yes?"

"...Might I inquire as to who you are?"

"Climb out of your hole, and I will tell you."

"I doubt you would appreciate the vision which would greet you."

"You know nothing of me."

"Nor you of what I did to be put here." Silence.

"Fair point, though by your own admission it is no prison, but that which you have made for yourself." the face reappeared, curiosity compelled as she continued,

"You may find I am not so easily frightened." it was a challenge. He wasn't sure he cared for how obvious that was, torn between the duality of staying slinked to the shadows or rising to meet it. In the end he settled between the two polar drives, stepping slowly forward into the light. She laughed, and he instantly felt his stomach knot as he retreated, about to chase her away but she spoke before him,

"Not frightening in the least! Is that what you were so worried about?" she sank down, laying flat on her stomach before the grate, no concern for the filth of the street, her expression playful and open.

"I know a place, where an appearance like ours is no issue at all." Theirs? She was, from what he could make out, nothing short of beautiful. Though he had only seen her face, and only in the dim lights provided. What did she mean by that? The words dripped with a longing he had yet to hear from anyone, a poetic sigh from lips,

"I know a place...it will be difficult to get there..." she was off somewhere far away for a moment, and then her attention came back to him, "If you decide you've had enough of hiding in a hole, come and find me." She was rising again to go, song drifting back to him,

"I know just the place, just the place...fly away home..." She was leaving as quickly as she appeared. The creature inside the cage took his seat, and found the whole interaction more and more unusual as the sensation of song began to become little more than a distant memory, or perhaps a waking dream.