Sorry we took so long. Needed inspiration. Found it in a very obvious place.

Nero finally got home after being pursued by Rosso for almost a mile. After walking through the door, he found a hastily scribbled note from Hojo, saying that he had gotten a lead on the experiment, had gone to the woods and would be back tonight, don't wait up for dinner, from, Daddy.

He put down the note and stared at it for a while. "… Right… So, to my books then… La la la…" Nero trilled before skipping, yes, skipping, up the stairs.

Five miles into the woods, Hojo was encountering issues. Namely, that there was a large castle on the site of the bones' location. Genius that he thought he was, Hojo decided that he would just walk into the abandoned location and excavate from the floor. "Brilliant! Pure genius!" he would have shouted up over the stairs to his lousy, good-for-nothing son.

He didn't count on being abducted by a candlestick and a clock.

"Release me!" He screeched from behind the bars of his prison. Hojo pounded relentlessly against the steel while the small silhouettes stared at him from the shadows.

"This doesn't feel right, yo…"

"It needs to be done, Reno. The master would have a heart attack if he found this man wandering freely through the castle."

"I know… But maybe he's the one to break the curse."

The clock seemed to stare at the candle, which threw it's "limbs" up incredulously. "What?! It's possible, yo! You don't know! Maybe the master is gay!"

"There's no maybe about it. We know he is."

"Maybe he likes… Uh… Brash… Idiocy over looks or anything else in the world."

"Then he'd be with you." The clock motioned to the stairs. "Come on. There may be others approaching."

Nero had been alone for almost a week before he decided that something was off. Certainly, Hojo had stayed away for days at a time but he at least sent letters or specimens. Nothing had come yet.

Strange was what Nero had dubbed the events, but he was happy to just sit around and theorize… To his cat, Caligula. Nero never really did like bouncing his theories off other people. They wouldn't get it. Caligula definitely understood. He simply had to get it.

"Oh forget it, you're adorable, but useless," Nero concluded to his cat before marching out to get food for the week.

Rosso watched as Nero perused the market and sidled up to him. "Hello, Nero."

"Hello, Rosso. How are you?" Nero had to keep his tone as neutral as humanly possible. This woman wasn't really a man-eater so much as a murderous gold digger. Nothing had ever been proven about the deaths of her past four-or-so husbands, but the world knew that she had done it.

And now she was after Nero. New blood, the village supposed, and Rosso wasn't exactly correcting anyone. Plus, Hojo was making the most money around here, so there would definitely be some hefty payments if she married him.

Nero saw all of this and had come to a conclusion concerning it: Rosso is loathsome but very dangerous.

"What are we doing, my love?"

"Getting groceries," Nero said. Again, very, very neutral tones with Rosso. "Father hasn't been home in a week, so I'm holding down the fort."

"So you are alone?"

Shit. "Uhm, well, sort of. Caligula is with me."

Rosso laughed, glass fingernails against a chalkboard. "Perhaps I should, ah, come over and keep you company?"

"Ah… Ahaha… That's probably a bad idea. Father would be furious if I let anyone in the hou-"

"I insist," Rosso purred. When Rosso insisted, you didn't argue.

You ran.

"Oh, you know I would take you, Caligula, but, well, better you than me." Nero tried to explain his situation to the unblinking tabby who had perched himself on a stack of books. "I just need to leave for a few days, find Father, then return with him." The glare from the cat screamed coward.

Nero left that night, maybe twenty minutes before Rosso arrived. The black trees in the woods didn't scare him, as they did with most of the village boys. Rather, they made him feel secluded and at home. More at home than the village ever could.

"Perhaps I should leave home," Nero mused aloud to the trees. "I am going to be of age very, very soon so I may as well. Yes, I could live a life of silent contemplation here in the woods. Very nice, very singular."

As he approached a castle, Nero observed the architecture, mentally taking notes. This thing was old, hadn't been kept in at least 100 years. Maybe more. Decidedly European in design, but something was vaguely ominous.

The gates were open, creaking in the wind. Nero breezed straight through and up to the big double doors. There was a gold knocker, which he used and received no response. Nero found the door unlocked and strode right in.

The first thing he noticed was a large hole, right in the middle of the rotting wood floor. The second thing he noticed was that he could actually see in this place. There was candlestick on the side table. Nero picked it up and looked around the dark expanse of the room.

"Is anyone here?"