Note: The question was: "Let's talk about the Raven. Namely his rejection of you and your brothers in favor of a non-blood Nightray."

This reply was made by Fred before the events of Lucid Dreamers, which centers around Gilbert's trial with the Raven and its aftermath.

XVIII. The Raven

I prefer not to answer any details about my personal experience with the Raven, but I can give you my exact unbending opinion of the Chain: the creature is vile, violent, twisted, wicked, and an abomination upon our house.

And we need him, undeniably so.

Do not consider my opinion that of extremes. The bitter truths of history remind us that immediately after the Tragedy of Sablier, our nation was plunged into utter chaos. Please take a moment to consider the state of affairs and realize how dire our people's circumstances were: the monarchy and several of the prominent noble houses had been assassinated at the hands of the traitorous Baskervilles, disorder and lawless rampage swept throughout the land by vagabonds, while noble families on the fringe of the power structure schemed underhandedly or fought outright to stake out their position in the new order, and, most gravely, neighboring countries eyed our chaos with rapacious greed as their armies saber-rattled with determination to claim our territory. Until the Traveler King arrived (a minor distant cousin from the royal family) and established a renewed sense of order, there was no peace, no law, and – most importantly – no control over the ungodly beasts – the Chains – that swarmed out from the depths of the Abyss.

My father recounted bloody stories that his father told him of the horror of having those devils wreck havoc upon the land. Only a few people outside of Sablier had the ability to control the beasts, using sorcery to create the blood amulets Pandora uses now; and it was only through the cooperation of the Barma family and the Nightray family that we were able to hone this methodology. Of course, many innocents had to be sacrificed to Chains in order to accomplish this – I will not deny that Nightray hands had participated in these unfortunate incidents.

I consider their loss to be rather minor, actually, in consideration of the good that was accomplished. Besides which, those were only common folk, who have no consequence to us anyway.

Yet the witnesses to history have never been kind to our family. Unlike the Barmas, who rose to prominence to take control over Pandora, the Vessalius House, who had been hailed for its heroic ancestor Jack Vessalius, or the Rainsworth House, whose political iron hand helped assuage the enemies that lurked at our borders, the Nightray House became marked in blood and deception for our help in establishing the Traveler King's place in the nation. Understand the cruelty of that fate: we, the family who helped the new King assert his throne, were offered up like lambs upon the altar of public opinion.

We deserve better! "We should be the men," as Father constantly told me throughout my childhood, "who should be praised and valued for our fidelity to the nation. Not those vainglorious Vessalius'!"

Imagine that! Please, dear reader, imagine the unfair ignominy! And this weight, carried through the generations: first bequeathed upon my grandfather's shoulders, to be cast onto my father's back, to be shackled upon my neck…

I…. I apologize for that outburst. My tongue babbles on… I've gone on a tangent from the question at hand…

The Raven.

[sighs]

Yes, the Raven, the only Chain who had refused any contract offered to it for the last hundred years… the Nightrays had to maintain our influence somehow, especially since it soon became apparent that despite the royal family's control over the nation, the royals have become figureheads in comparison to the true beacons of power in this world: those who control the Doorways to the Abyss.

That Doorway we now control was going to be destroyed and buried, once it became known that it was impenetrable because of the Raven's presence at the threshold. My grandfather, however, attained that one for ourselves, believing that someday, one of us would be able to enter it and claim our rightful place in this kingdom by taming that impossible Chain.

And that someday has been delayed, again and again, a burden upon us all.

After my own ordeal, Mother pleaded with Father not to send anyone else through that portal of darkness. He gave Claude the option of whether he wanted to enter or not, actually, and Claude at first refused. Ernest was given the same proposition, but, headstrong as he was, submitted to undergo the trial for himself. His admission surprised us all, for Ernest was never the sort to engage in such… strenuous pursuits. I suspect that his peers at Lutwidge had played a role in pressuring him to establish himself as a "true" noble by undergoing the ordeal.

I remember Ernest, crawling out of the Doorway sobbing like a child and clinging to Mother's robes in the same manner he did when he was a toddler, shaking and blubbering.

I remember Claude, feeling shamed that his younger brother suffered at the cost of his own negation, offered to go next. I took him aside privately and begged him not to as long as Father gave him that allowance. Unfortunately by then, our father, instead of pitying Ernest, amassed a sort of resentful rage and berated him for his weakness, and Claude to his defense had retorted that Father should shift his rage at him instead of Ernest, who at least made an attempt.

I had five years of Dodgson's training under my belt before entering. Ernest, to his credit, had been an athletic fellow at school. Claude the pendant, the studious one, who was being trained to be an academic in the history of our nation and spent more time with his nose between books than doing anything else…gods, we were all fools.

I remember how the servants dragged Claude's nearly-dying body out from between those stone pillars. The amount of blood was frighteningly copious.

I remember Mother praying beside Claude's bedside, and baby Elly being ushered upstairs to the nursery by the wetnurse. I remember Father, upon exiting Claude's bedchamber, made a glance down the hallway at their departing forms and I thought to myself-

Not Elly, Father. Not Elly.

And then first ward came to us. Vincent, that strange child with the maligned stare.

That demon child was, in a twisted sense, our miracle. Or so Father claimed, as long as we found his lost brother, the mysterious Gilbert.

So, in the end, I had to resign myself to the necessary circumstances. Even if the Raven went to a cur from the streets under the graces of our name, at least, finally, our family could find some sort of relief from the curse that had tormented us all.

And, watching Gilbert from afar for so many years, perhaps I must convince myself that he is worthy, worthier than our precious Elliot, worthier than my dear Vanessa….

No, I can't say that, truly. Is Gilbert qualified? Perhaps. Will he ever be worthy? Never.

No matter — this is not the first time we have sacrificed a commoner for the greater good, after all.