I hereby swear that I am working on the other fics in between essay-writing (yay third year of uni), but this was already written, I haven't uploaded much recently, I thought you probably deserved an update by now... anyway, chapter 6!


Chapter 6

Why wasn't it working?

None of them survived past that first brushing of minds. Of course, no-one who didn't have greed or ambition was useful at all – he couldn't get a handle on them at all. He couldn't offer something to someone who didn't want it. No, he had to deal with the dregs of society.

He'd tried men with evil hearts, slid into their dreams and promised all their desires if they would just come and fetch him. A simple request, it seemed, yet those same evil-driven hearts gave out the moment that he tried to even move alongside them. Useless as carriers.

He'd tried women choked with ambition and pride, promised them that he would make them beautiful beyond compare. Some of them had lasted long enough to react in horror as their bodies twisted grotesquely into death, but most didn't. Hopeless.

He needed someone with ambition, someone who wanted what he wanted, and would do anything to get it.

For the thousandth time he cursed his crystal prison. They had feared him, his power, and with good reason. He hated them.

Maybe that was why it didn't work? Because even as he reached out to the one who would help him, he hated them so much because of what they'd done to him and what they'd made him do in the past, his hatred killed them?

It would certainly explain why he didn't want the children, even the bullies. He'd never minded the younglings – they might have destroyed each other in war games, but they'd get back up again afterwards and hug each other. Hate didn't last long when you were that young, or if it did, it was too small and petty to give the drive that he needed to break free.

He couldn't do anything but hate. And he hated that too.