Except for my OC's and the story, I don't own diddly-squat. Everything else belongs to Disney and Lloyd Alexander.

Chapter 7

The two burning torches on either side of the doorway were the only light sources the dim room was graced with, other than the window on the opposite side of the floor, but the torn curtains were pulled tight in a contradictory manner, preventing any outside light from coming in.

The furniture was incredibly sparse, but to the room's sole occupant it mattered not in the slightest, as he paced the length of the floor with a monotonous stride, hands behind his back. He may have appeared only slightly puzzled by some intriguing thing or another, but the deathly aura that surrounded him lent a sense of dark purpose to his seemingly languid movements that turned them from casual to horrifying in an instant. He made not the slightest sound, save for the soft rustle of his robe brushing the stone floor. The silence only added to his frightening presence. A storm of varying emotions worked across his normally impassive face. Confusion, irritation, fury, desperation, hate, possible panic. . .no two were the same, and his eyes were black pits that could fell the mighty oak at a single glance.

In short, the Horned King was in a raging temper.

It had been a month since he had been released from the Hellish pits of the Cauldron, and although the initial shock of being raised from the dead and having everything back to the way it was up until the last few minutes before his demise had more or less passed, the shock of the overwhelming helplessness of his current situation had not dimmed in the slightest.

The words that decreed the impossible task the Fates had bestowed upon him echoed in his head. . .

'If you cannot earn a human's love in 18 moons, your soul will be returned to the Black Cauldron. . .for all eternity.'

The phrase had repeated itself in a ceaseless loop in his consciousness ever since he had been brought back to Prydain. All day, all night. Tormenting him. He could, with difficulty, push it to the farthest depths of his mind and try in vain to occupy himself with something else, but being all alone in a gigantic castle that was completely void of anything or anyone worth his time did not give him much else to think about. It was when he was alone, however, away from his Invisible Servants, that it would float back to the surface of his mind and sit there like pond scum.

'Earn a human's love. . .

In eighteen moons. . .

Or suffer for all time. . .'

The Horned King curled his lip in a silent snarl of rage.

'Those Fates picked this task for me intentionally because they knew I would have absolutely no chance of completing it,' he thought grimly. 'They would want nothing more than to send me back to the Cauldron. To. . .*him*.'

The Horned King held in a shudder with effort.

'To further insult me and complicate matters, they gave me a limited time to achieve it in as well. What do they expect? I, the *Horned King*, murderer of thousands, and enslaver of thousands more, to grovel at a pathetic mortal's feet and beg for forgiveness? For *love*?'

He silently scoffed.

'They certainly realize that love, the weak emotion that it is, can only be created by something that has a heart? A beating, life-giving, but weak nonetheless, heart.'

The Horned King temporarily halted in his pacing to glance down at his chest.

'And, as every living thing knows, I no longer possess such an object. I lost it centuries ago, along with all other impractical things that would hinder me in my quest for ultimate power. And the countless number of people who's deaths I dealt with personally over the centuries have never failed to remind me of it ever since. Always their last words. . ."You are a cold and heartless monster!" The few emotions I still faintly possess. . .which I simply call them for lack of a better term. . .do not require a heart to stem from. I am heartless. I cannot feel. I cannot touch upon these things mortals so foolishly live on. I cannot feel love. Nor do I have any wish to. They are so weak it nearly sickens me. And I'm certain the Fates know as well, someone with a heart cannot love something that possesses no heart to love them back. Not that I would even be considered worthy of receiving such a feeling anyhow.'

The Horned King resumed his pacing, continuing his noiseless, raging monologue.

'The only reason the Fates released me from the Cauldron at all was because they had no choice. They were forced to.'

The Horned King bared his fangs in a silent, mocking leer for a moment at the thought, before sinking back into his trance-like state.

'I have studied everything about the Fates and the Black Cauldron endless times, and I have not found a single bit of evidence as to what could have forced them to release me. What is stronger than Fate itself? What was powerful enough to make them release my soul from the Cauldron and bring me back to life in my own body, (Which was destroyed when I died) completely against their will? Perhaps if I could find it, that would be the answer to keeping myself here permanently, preventing me from going back to that Hell. But I will not allow myself to hope for it. Just as I will not allow myself to hope for saving myself from the Cauldron. I will not allow the Fates to dangle hope over my head like a priceless gem, and let them watch me fail miserably trying to snatch it. They will not control me like a man controls his beast. Because I know I have no chance of getting the thing they so harshly taunt me with.'

The Horned King paused again for a moment in his pacing to block out a mental image of himself back in the Cauldron that had suddenly appeared in his mind, screaming for mercy as the flames of Hell licked at him. Whenever the words of the Fates were not endlessly looping inside his head, it was the sounds of the Cauldron that haunted him. The screams of the tortured damned lent back-noise to the insanest, wickedest laughter that overrode the Horned King's mind completely at times, sending shivers of terror to crawl through him.

With an effort he forcefully shoved the images away and resumed his silent musings with a sigh so soft it could have been the breeze outside, an air of broken resignation in the sound.

'Perhaps if I did possess a sliver of hope, I might try to complete this task, to save my soul from the eternal, endless torture the Fates released me from. But one cannot hope without a heart, and I have no heart to do so with. I am heartless, and therefore I am hopeless as well. Even if I were capable of feeling, no one would ever feel anything but hatred for me, let alone *love*.'

His lip curled again at the mere thought of the word.

'How could they? The things I have done? The people I've slaughtered without so much as a second thought? My appearance does not help matters, but that is irrelevant. No one would ever. . .*could* ever. . .forgive me for the things I have done.'

The Horned King slowly walked to the window, pulling one of the moth-eaten curtains aside to stare across the massive stretch of wasteland surrounding the castle. It stretched out like a dead, lifeless brown belt, surrounding what his domain had been before his demise.

He stared out past the striking, endless lush green forests and hills of Prydain that lay beyond that, and toward the general area of where he knew the nearest city to be, although he couldn't see it. The sky was dark with ominous clouds, and odd drops of rain were already falling. Lightning flashed faintly in the distance, accented by a soft rumble of thunder. The sky was black enough for even the simplest bum to say Mother Nature was going to release a storm of explosive proportions. Much like the storm going on inside the spectator's head now.

'No doubt they have celebrated my death with much relief,' he thought. 'That *Pig-Keeper* is probably a hero for causing my demise.'

The Horned King's eyes darkened as the cool breeze tugged strongly at the curtains, trying to throw them open even further. His right hand slowly curled into a fist to grip his robe tightly, while his left, no longer holding the curtain, gripped the stone sill tightly, his claws leaving small indents in the stone as he otherwise kept his composure.

'I will allow myself one goal. Before I return to the Cauldron, I will hunt that boy down, or lure him here, and I will kill him as slowly and painfully as possible. I will make him suffer a hundredfold for all the torment he has caused me, and will cause me when I am forced to return to the Cauldron. He could be anywhere in Prydain, but he cannot hide from me. I will track him down, if it takes all of my time here to do it with, and I will make him pay.'

The Horned King's eyes shimmered blood red in unbridled hatred, staring out over Prydain, as the wind rippled his robes and caused his stole to flap in the gust. A branched streak of lightning shot across the sky above the castle, lighting up its frightening silhouette as a roar of thunder caused the very stones to tremble slightly, adding dark foreboding to his vow.

'Oh, yes. This, I swear.'