Nightmares; her nights were plagued with them these days. Perhaps the staff could hear her screams; but if they did they left no indication of it after the fourth day of her confinement.
She understood that her punishment was necessary on some level; one or two hours after the headmaster had put the fear of god into her. Nevertheless, the nightmares made what could have been an acceptable punishment…torture, in her eyes.
Each nightmare was the same, the same eldritch abominations and the same unimaginable atrocities. Every time she dreamed, the stench of rotting flesh filled her nostrils and the pain of the hungering cold touched her skin; visions of vastly corrupted swathes of land, each more horrific than the last sped by her endless sight as she witnessed foul magic the likes of which she could have never imagined, blasphemous by any definition, and committing acts that would damn its users existence a thousand times over.
But the worst of all were those burning red eyes that haunted her. Watching wherever she ventured with absolute hatred.
Tonight was one such night for Louise. As she tossed and turned upon her feathered mattress, she once again was running from the immaterial phantasms and atrocities that plagued her sleep. However, this time was different.
"Wielder of Frostmourne…" legion was its voice as thousands of different tones, both howling and screaming, rang out into her blasphemous sleep while fire dripped from its words.
Louise woke screaming, but even then it did her little good as the damning voice continued to echo throughout her head, "On you are the sins of the sword reformed, and on you is the damnation of your soul!"
Even as she tumbled out of her bed and onto the cold stone floor, racked with pain upon her impact as well as knocking over her precariously perched familiar, the voice proceeded to sound out its judgment, "The deaths of Thousands now lie upon your head, How will you answer?!"
Louise didn't answer , scared out of her wits as she was. Tangled within her sheets, her only course of action was to reach for the one thing that could be defined as safe in that moment, that is, if she could. Clumsily, her hands smacked against the cold stone floor, fumbling with the sheets that frustratingly interfered with her ability to maneuver, only serving to increase her panic. The sound of tearing sheets could be heard as Louise pulled herself free, her hands instantly darting towards her familiar as quickly as possible, and then grasping a hold of the cold that pervaded its hilt with a grip that left her knuckles white and her arms shaking.
"DEATH!" the voice screamed in rage within her mind, even as the comforting numbness of Frostmourne encased her conscious, "The wielder answers death!"
She could feel it now, all around her, the shadows gathering and the freezing chill creeping down the back of her neck, Goosebumps forming upon her arms and legs. She almost didn't even register the screaming howls of frustration as she witnessed Frostmourne glow in ethereal light, as if battling away the power of her unseen enemy.
With one last scream of rage the presence disappears, leaving Louise clutching Frostmourne's hilt, tears staining her face and body shaking like a leaf in the wind in response to her encounter with…whatever that was.
AN: Short, I know. But the next one should be longer.