Just a note before we continue: I make no promises that there will anything historically accurate or correct about this setting beyond basic functionality of life in a large in the middle of some fantasy countryside. That's not why we're here: we are here for Pinhead as a knight and Kirsty in a ridiculous amount of nice dresses and gothic undertones. We good? Good.

Nighttime in the manor was always silent as breath; save the small shudders of wood and creaking of stone setting into earth, there was never a peep within the walls after sunset. It used to put Kirsty at ease; now, walking down the long corridors to her room, she found it distracting to the point of alarm. She could barely hear her own footsteps, and her mind whispered warnings of shadows behind her, unwanted hands reaching from the dark to grab her and drag her into them.

Perhaps that was why she had taken to asking the knight to walk with her, despite his alarming appearance and rather imposing presence. She'd wanted to ask many times what happened to mutilate him so, but instead she busied herself with smaller questions. This had been their routine for a week, and today she was feeling bolder and less afraid those harmful hands in the dark would be his.

"How did you find the manor?" Kirsty glanced at a vase and saw his shape warp across its surface, pale and strange. He looked back at her before disappearing as she walked past it, but soon appeared in a window's gleam.

"I simply knew. Riding was no issue; every path I took, every break in the road, I felt the correct course when I saw it." Ah, right, rode. That was a set of questions for tomorrow night.

"And the snow didn't make things more difficult? You arrived in the dead of winter, we were having difficulty getting messages out." He shook his head, or seemed to before disappearing; as Kirsty reached the next window she stopped, and as he appeared it seemed the clouds beyond were passing through his skin.

"I felt nothing of the cold. I suppose I felt nothing at all, but the urge to move forward. There was nothing else of interest to me but arriving at my destination."

"But why?" That was the core of it, wasn't it? "Why come all the way here, if you were at the border to begin with? Why choose a minor lord's manor of all places to serve, and spend who knows how long riding to reach it, in the thick of a violent and merciless winter? Why choose our family?"

"I did not choose your family," he said, and she wished emote even the tiniest bit, "I am here to serve you, my lady." She wanted to ask why again, but he gestured behind her. "Your rooms," he said, and she looked over her shoulder to see her door; had they walked so long already? "Goodnight, my lady."

Kirsty turned back to the window, but he was not there; all that lingered were the first clouds of icy frost.

The window to Kirsty's bedroom faced the east, which she knew because the sun would claw its way into her room and press at her eyes each morning. A great dark curtain hung to shelter her from its grasp, but still splinters of gold brushed her cheek and peered under her eyelid.

This was what roused her; she could sleep through whatever clamor the courtyard held, the shuffle of maidservants and staff making their way about the manor. The light was not so easily ignored, however, and as she woke Kirsty forced herself to sit up in her bed, if only so her face would no longer be in the sunbeam's path.

Going by the sounds outside - a small cacophony of voices, the clanging of metal and rumble of carts - it was morning, and the tradesmen were making exchanges of steel and spirits for whatever goods were brought in from outside the manor walls. Normally there would have been a knock on her door, urging Kirsty to dress and begin her day, but that happened less often with the passing of her father, and had all but ceased with the arrival of Lord Frank... and the other.

Kirsty didn't mind; she was keen to dress herself, often looking in her mirror as she did so. She was curious about her body, the way her back tightened when she raised her arms to tie up her hair, the curves and lines that allowed her to move and act as she saw fit. It was a miraculous thing, she'd thought often, to even have such a body; as when she dressed she was able to see just how much it was capable of, for no machine could lace a gown, could tie a ribbon, could braid her hair.

It was also the only time she was truly alone. When she stepped out of that door, one maid or another would certainly appear to check her appearance and hurry her to breakfast; here, alone as she finished brushing and applying the slightest bit of color to her lips, she felt free. Even her knight's presence was not felt during this time of morning; it was as if he sensed the impropriety and made a point to haunt some other part of the home until she was ready for the day.

Kirsty rose from her vanity and returned to the window, finally drawing the curtain and facing the day. Light flooded into her room, and she blinked as she looked down, the world slowly coming back into focus.

The manor was shaped rather like a three-sided fence, and though her window faced the east, it was turned inward; and so she could see all of the courtyard that the manor encompassed, workers shoveling snow and bargaining with the merchants. In the death of winter, life was returning to the manor, even with the contentious lordship of her uncle.

Kirsty savored the moment's peace, and steeled herself for breakfast.