The warm atmosphere of the evening is already succumbing to the first nightly chills, a gentle breeze rustling through the branches outside of the windows, and Rogue's relentless pacing is carving a pattern of worry and restlessness into the thick carpet of their bedroom.
Hours have passed since he had been forced to leave Sting behind in this black pit of utter despair and Jiemma had done a disgustingly good job in keeping him from returning to the blonde's side ever since.

Though he had left Sting's prison in a hurry, slipping through the countless shadows darkening their guild in mere seconds, a rough, oversized hand had sent him flying into a table more than ten feet away, as soon as he'd skidded to a shaky halt in the main hall.
With blood trickling down his temple and white noise buzzing hazily in his ears, he couldn't help but stumble right into the Master when trying to get back up, what earned him another harsh slap across his face.
This time the lumpish, tawdry golden rings crimping the fleshy fingers managed to draw blood in three different spots, forcing a small gasp of pain from cracked lips.
"The next time I call for you, you get your scrawny ass here right away, did I make myself clear?"
Biting down the vile choke of anger, Rogue only ground out a toneless "Yes, Sir." and kept his eyes glued to the floor.
Calloused fingers suddenly clutched his chin with a bruising vice-grip and bent his head up with bone crushing force, lifting the boy off his feet with ease.
"Look at me, when you're being talked to! You're a stubborn little punk, but I'll beat some manners into you! Now, I'mma show you your place!"
Without further ado Rogue got smashed to the ground, Jiemma's feet hovering threateningly over his neck.
"There! That's much better. Do you understand now? You are but vermin at my feet, that I gave the merciful opportunity to show their value. Do not get conceited! You may be a Dragon Slayer, but to me you're but a fledgling and I might crush you whenever I see fit. Now, quit crawling around like some toddler, get up! I have some errands for you.
Here's a list of stuff, I need to have delivered, and some goods from a store in Magnolia. You better waste no time, getting these things done."

The errands in question were nothing but barely concealed spite, taunting him to refuse and insist on staying, but Rogue had known all along, that whatever resistance he offered would have been dealt to Sting tenfold, thus he resigned himself to silent, albeit reluctant compliance.
Thus he held his head high and accepted the order without so much as even a flinch.
Jiemma looked at him in bewilderment and for a second Rogue could have sworn there was something akin to disappointment flashing through the cold, starring eyes.
But then a sly expression spread on the distorted, harsh face, causing an ominous feeling of dread to slither down his guts.
The Shadow Dragon Slayer clenched his jaw tightly, ready to bite down hard on the soft flesh of his tongue, should the beating continue.
This man might force him into obedience and frighten him into submittal, but he wouldn't have the satisfaction of eliciting even the smallest noise from his throat. He might beat his flesh, but this was his pride, his dignity and this brute of a man wouldn't defile it.
The Master, however, had seemingly lost his interest in Rogue; already sauntering back towards his private rooms, he only looked back at the boy still crouched down in front of his humongous chair.
"What are you waiting for? Shouldn't you get moving? You wouldn't wanna stay out too long, now, would you?"
His voice had been thick and dripping with taunt, the vile edge of a threat barely concealed by a mocking sweetness that sounded nauseatingly wrong and alien coming from this very person.
Rogue shivered violently, a foreboding of oncoming mischief having his blood run cold.

After that he had spent the better part of the afternoon darting all across town, knowing perfectly well, that Jiemma had pulled those errands right out of his ass just to have him out of the guild and Sting all alone and at his complete mercy.

When he returned after what felt like weeks later, bones heavy and bruised from the previous beating, Minerva greeted him right at the door steps with a grin full of mockery and nails glinting like poison-dipped daggers in the late afternoon light.
"Oh, what have we here?" She sing-sung. "Well, aren't you a fast delivery boy, cutie? Why don't I give you a nice little treat for your good work?"
She closed the distance with languid steps, hips swinging ostentatiously, and placed a single wiggling finger on Rogue's chest; her long, pointy nail a constant reminder that she was, indeed a tigress merely playing with her prey.
But tonight the prey in question wasn't willing to let himself get played and mocked, so Rogue stared her down icily, slapped her hand away and, with frustration and sorrow harshening his whole demeanour, pushed past her roughly without so much as a second glance.
A grave mistake, as he should have know, but the need to return to Sting's side was getting unbearable and made him reckless.
"This is not how you should treat a Lady, my dearest Rogue!" The false sweetness in her voice was nearly as sharp and venomous as the scarcely hidden snarl that cut through the air. Belatedly he realized, that his back was completely open and unguarded, but it didn't stop him from rushing on towards their room, the desperate hope of finding the White Dragon Slayer there spurning him into overdrive.
Suddenly his feet wouldn't move, the pull of gravity so strong, that his whole body got dragged flush to the ground by an unyielding force.
Minerva drew closer, her slit dress riding up her thighs almost obscenely, and placed a foot casually on top of Rogue's head; the sharp-edged metal heel digging painfully and cold into his temple.
"Father was right! You really need to be taught some manners!" Her voice came out as nothing but a cruel cursing, insufficiently covered in honey.
"So be grateful, for you'll receive the privilege of a special lesson from no one else but me myself. I might have even let you dash to your darling Sting's rescue in due time, if you had shown even the tiniest effort so please me. Alas, since you decided to spite me like that..."
She put some weight onto the foot still pinning Rogue to the ground, and started twisting her heel until it dig into the soft skin, leaving a gush of blood spilling down a pale cheek at removal.
"Maybe next time you'll think twice about rejecting my advances. Be gone!"
A sharp pang rang throughout the hallway and the ground devoured him greedily.

When Rogue finally comes to, he finds himself face down on the floor of their bedroom, with only a vague memory of being sucked into a chaotic void, where inhumane sounds pierced his ears, eating away at his mind, while his nerves seemed to be on fire. The Shadow Dragon Slayer has no idea how long it had taken for him to lose consciousness, it might have been hours or mere moments, and even now, God knows how much later, his whole body aches and throbs.
His muscles screech at him in protest when he tries to sit up and a nauseating dizziness tells him that his magic power had been drained completely.
Truly, Minerva's Territory was a dreadful spell and to be reckoned with.

So he waits for a little longer to regain his bearing and eventually manages to hoist himself up.
A glance at the darkening sky outside indicates, that fortunately he hadn't been out cold for quite as long as he'd dreaded, but the fact that Sting is still not back in here makes his stomach drop anxiously.
"Rogue? A.. Are you okay?" A small voice pipes up from behind him and a second later a blur of pink and green comes flying right into his chest. "Frosch was so worried! You didn't move and... and... We thought you were dead!" His precious little Exceed is snuggling into his lap, nuzzling his belly like crazy, while she spills ugly, noisy tears.
"I told you, it would take a whole lot more than some bruises to do someone as strong as Sting or Rogue in!" Lektor's words sound as boasting as ever, but there is relief written all over his face, showing that he, too, had been more than concerned about the Shadow Dragon Slayer's well being.
"Hey, Rogue, where's Sting? Hasn't he been with you? I haven't seen him all day!"
For a second Rogue considers making up some kind of excuse to spare their exceeds the nasty truth, but then he reconsiders and tells the whole story. These cats were their friends, they didn't deserve being lied to, even if it was in good intent.
After he finishes, the three of them sit in brooding silence, each lost in their own bubble of concern, until Rogue's patience runs thin and he snaps.
"That's it! I'm not gonna sit here any longer, doing nothing but wait. I'll go get him right now. This has gone on for long enough, Sting was already freaked out hours ago, who knows how he's holding up. And it's cold as shit in there, I bet he's half frozen by now." He jumps to his feet, already summoning what meagre amount of magic he managed to accumulate, when Frosch calls out to him. "Rogue! You mustn't go! Please, they'll be back any minute now!"
Taken aback, the Shadow Dragon Slayer refrains from sliding into the shadows and turns to his exceed in bewilderment.
"Who is coming back? What do you mean, Frosch?"
The little critter only shakes her head as tears well up in her eyes, so Lektor takes it upon himself to explain the situation.
"Rufus and Orga! They've been checking the room every fifteen minutes, making sure that you didn't run off. They said, if you left, they would tell the master about the two of us. We're sorry, Rogue."
He, too, hangs his head for a moment, but then he swallows hard and looks back up.
Although there is fierce determination glittering in his eyes, his voice is still shaky and breaking with the desperate effort to sound brave, when he adds:
"Hey, Rogue, please don't worry about us! Just go and get Sting! We're going to be fine, I promise! Sting is more important right now! He might be injured, and I guess he's really scared all alone in the dark. I know I would be, and I'd wish someone would come for me. So, please! Bring Sting back to us, I'm sure the Master won't treat us this hard."
"Yeah, Fro thinks so, too!"
Rogue's face falters and pales considerably, while anger rushes through his veins in rash, crushing waves.
Though he looks at the cats with affection and pride lightening his eyes, another part of his mind breathes fire and brimstone at those bastards, that forced him to choose between Sting and their exceeds.
In the end he groans wearily and collapses next to his bed, head buried in his arms and heart heavy as he admits defeat.
He couldn't possibly expose Lektor and Frosch to the threat of being mauled by a furious Jiemma, since it would be their undoing.
The little exceeds couldn't fight for themselves, and as much as it pains him, he's well aware, that right now they're in a much greater need of his protection than Sting, terrified and shaken though he may be.
So he gathers the cats close, taking just as much comfort from their furry warmth as he is trying to offer, and swallows the bitterness sharpening his voice.
"Naa, Sting would kill me, if I let anything happen to you. Besides, didn't you always say, he was the strongest Dragon Slayer in Fiore? Have some faith in him, I'm sure he'll soldier through this. Let's wait for him together, shall we?" 'And pick up the pieces later on', he adds mentally, but for the sake of the exceeds he puts up a tough facade and hides his anxiousness behind the brightest smile he can offer right now.

And thus they wait in a tension-brimming silence, as the sun steadily descends, bleeding a scarlet ominous red onto the walls, until the night sky lowers its velvet veil over the land.
The scarce attempts at conversation die down after two or three sentences, and the helplessness settles heavy in Rogue's throat, as he paces their room for the umpteenth time.
Though his body trembles in a state of constant alertness he nearly jumps out of his skin when the humongous, unsightly grandfather-clock downstairs announces the tenth hour with foreboding, eery tolls.
The air reverberates with gloom, sending chills up and down his spine, but the sound of footsteps has his head snap up in excitement.
Even though unsteady and hesitant, contorted by a serious limp the Shadow Dragon Slayer would recognize this rhythm anywhere.
The paces stop right in front of their room, where his keen ears detect the sound of an exhausted sigh, before the doorknob starts to turn.
Rogue dashes over to the threshold, relief, gratitude and yearning having his knees feeling faint, and finally, finally finds himself face to face with Sting.

He is almost about to pull his friend into his arms tightly, hands already reaching for sagging shoulders, when Sting flinches back, with his eyes wide and staring.
It takes Rogue a moment to overcome his puzzlement and another one for him to take in the other boy's appearance.
Then fury pools deep inside his chest, burning and raging, ready to lash out at Jiemma, their guild mates, god and the whole world.
Anyone who was responsible for those wounds or turned a blind eye when it happened. But mostly himself. For not taking the beating. For complying once again with Jiemma's cruel ways... Maybe, if he could have just stomached the punishment... 'No! This is not the time for self-pity! Get it together!' He scolds himself. 'There are more pressing matters at hand!'
And it couldn't be more accurate than that.
Sting's face is littered with small cuts, some of them still bleeding faintly, a dark bruise blooms around his left eye, highlighting the bright azure in an obscenely beautiful way, and his clothes are grimy, bloodstained and ragged.
But the most dreadful sight are the angry marks and swellings all over his neck that are already starting to turn black.
Marks, that, as Rogue shockingly realizes, look nauseatingly like brutish, meaty hands.
"Sting... What... What the hell..." He finds that voice as well as reason avoids his shell-shocked form, as he stares at his best friend in anguish, mind reeling, finding neither head nor tails.
But just standing there, gaping and caving to shock really wasn't an option now, so he tries again.
"Sting... We gotta take care of these wounds! Come here, I... I'll get some hot water and... shit, where's the first aid kit? Ahh, fuck dammit... I... Why didn't I think of this sooner?"
"Don't worry. I can do it on my own." It's the first time the White Dragon Slayer speaks and his small voice sounds alien, too hoarse and dull, listlessly uttered words without so much as an ounce of life to them.
"But..." Rogue is utterly dumbfounded, can't place the cool, withdrawn demeanour, and the feeling of shiftlessness in his guts increases tenfold.
"I'm gonna take a shower..." With that Sting staggers past him, swaying dangerously on wobbly knees and Rogue reaches out by instinct, trying to prevent his obviously faint friend from crumbling to the ground, but once again, the other boy shies away from the touch and makes for the bathroom in apparent haste.
When he slams the door shut, the clicking of the lock rings like a gun shot in the sensitive ears of the Shadow Dragon Slayer, and he couldn't feel worse if Sting had just punched his stomach.
In all the years they'd known each other neither of them had ever felt the need for a door lock. They are close enough to one another, that nudity means nothing to them and respect each other enough not to violate their respective privacy. All in all either of them has complete faith in the other- or at least that's how things had been in the morning.
'He's just hurt and touching might aggravate his injuries...' Rogue tries to tell himself with little success.
'And who knows what Jiemma did to him... Maybe a nice hot shower will make him snap out of this...'

The water seems to be running for ages, steam is already starting to curl around the bathroom door, but Sting is still scrubbing his body. Rogue can hear the restless rubbing of a harsh brush on sore skin, and nearly drowned by the gushing of water, every now and then a choked sob, followed by muttered words, too soft for even his ears to catch.
Once again he's doomed to idle waiting and it's grinding on his nerves with razor-sharp incisions.
Why wouldn't Sting let him treat his injuries? That's how it was supposed to be...
Why would Sting deny himself the comfort of warm fingers easing his suffering?
He'd always been fond of those intimate, quiet moments made up from small caresses and gentle treatment.
The bathroom door opens and reveals Sting, almost hidden behind shrouds of mist, as he limps towards his bed with unsteady steps.
He has cleaned up the biggest part of his wounds and wrapped the most dire ones up in bandages, but his face is still swollen and raw and the thin scarf slung around his neck doesn't manage to cover the ugly bruises completely.
Worst of all, his eyes are still hollow and empty and his trembling hands are clenched into the hems of his shirt.
Rogue looks him over with soft, compassionate eyes, but his friend avoids his gaze and drops down onto the mattress, back facing the Shadow Dragon Slayer.
"Hey, Sting... are you... no, of course not, what a silly question." Rogue catches himself before he can ask something this stupid. Sting was very obviously a far cry from "all right", but he just can't find his words, not now... not when his whole world seems to be crumbling beneath his feet.
And still, the White Dragon Slayer answers:
"Yeah... I'm fine. Sorry, but I'm going to sleep."
His voice is still flat and toneless, barely a whisper in the cold air drifting through the open window. Suddenly something crosses Rogue's mind, something Sting had mentioned himself a lifetime ago.
"Hey, what about the book you got today? Don't you wanna start reading?"
He sincerely hopes that the promise of snuggling up nice and warm under a shared blanket, all the while losing themselves in the next volume of their favourite adventure novel series might coax the blonde out of his shell.
But his shy optimism is shattered, when Sting buries himself under a heap of blankets and mumbles:
"You can read it, if you wanna. It's in my back. I just wanna sleep."
After that he falls silent and Rogue is all alone with his thoughts and fears.
Luckily their exceeds had fallen asleep some time ago, so they didn't bear witness to this unpleasant, unsettling reunion, that had been nothing like he had imagined.
Usually Sting would always seek comfort in closeness, rapidly calming down, when Rogue's hands were combing through his hair or caressing his back.
Whenever the Holy Dragon Slayer got seriously frightened, he'd curl up pressed flush against his friend, leaning into each and every touch that was oh-so-willingly given.
And Rogue would enjoy those calm moments between warm sheets, when their bodies just acted on their own accord and time seemed to still, as either of them took in all the tiny things that made up his other part.
Heartbeats, breathing, smell- even the structure of hair and skin forever engraved in their memory.
So why was it now, that Sting rejected him this vehemently?
Just what did this bastard do to him, to actually make him frightened of his best friend?
Thousands of questions are buzzing through his head, which is already pounding and spinning, but can't find rest whatsoever.
He stares at the ceiling for the longest time, trying to find answers hidden between the cracks and stains on the cold, dreary stones; to no avail, however.
After a while he turns off the light and whispers a soft, fond
"Goodnight, Sting..." into the darkness.
But even though the still thundering pulse and the somewhat ragged breathing tell him that the other boy is very much awake, he doesn't receive an answer.