Riding up to Prospero's castle took the couple through the winding brick road, the clanking of the horseshoes echoing throughout the area as the pair of black mustangs pulled the carriage, the carriage driver giving the mustangs instructions.
Seated beside each other, the couple continued to talk to Prospero.
From what they gathered, he was an eccentric man, about his mid-forties, been writing his stories since he picked up his first pencil as a child and has been writing since.
He learnt his connection with Baron Viper some time ago while researching things for his latest novel, well, he wrote so much about the Baron, he felt he needed something more.
To tell the truth, he never thought he would end up here living in a castle, but stranger things happened before, and well, it's interesting to Prospero.
"The ravens, especially!" Prospero mentioned how he wrote about them when he first arrived to the hamlet, figured it was something he could dip his toes in first while adjusting to his new life.
Sensing Paul's discomfort, Taylor spoke up, inquiring why Prospero was interested in them, thinking it was the allure and the bountiful myths tied to them, but Prospero's answer didn't ease Paul.
Lightly shrugging, Prospero casually tells her, "They came a little after I did. The locals attributed my arrival because of it. Some sort of a local legend. Personally, I believe they were heading south and grew tired during the journey. They'll be gone in time, if they don't empty the bakery first."
The few times Prospero came down from the castle for his provisions, nothing was different, life was normal in the hamlet.
A while ago, Prospero came down for his weekly provisions, that was when he noticed the ravens.
He took to talking about them with one of the locals and they told them the legend that ravens in the hamlet were a sign.
Of course, he couldn't get anything more than that, everyone in the hamlet's heavily opinionated in their beliefs over the legends.
"Er, what were the ones you heard about?" Taylor inquired what legends did Prospero hear about during his initial digging and he explained how there was one that ravens only come to the hamlet when there is a tragedy.
Something he immediately disagreed with.
"Then there was one I heard that only when a Nice owns the castle do ravens appear, hence why some are split," he gestures towards Taylor.
Slowly nodding, Taylor subtly turned her head towards Paul, seeing him in silent disagreement.
"Paul, it would have told us," Taylor reminded him with their telepathic connection.
She heard back a brief, "… I know."
Upon arriving at the castle, the couple went with Prospero inside, where he showed them how much remained the same, and some changes he had to make for him to live comfortably in the castle.
That took quite bit of work and money, but Prospero wanted to spend enough time getting to know his ancestors that it was worth the investments making the castle habitable.
"Is this him?" Taylor asks Prospero as she stood near a portrait of a man with fine lines, blue eyes, and a pained look that he tried desperately to cover up, but Taylor could see it clear as day.
Joining her side, Prospero looked up at the portrait, confirming this was the Baron.
"He looks so… broken," Taylor glimpsed at the baron's face closely, Prospero telling her this portrait was made after the death of his second son.
Losing his family in such a short time's bound to break a man, as Prospero summed.
A frown, Taylor admits that Prospero's not wrong, though opted not telling him how she sympathized with the Baron, preferring to keep it general, and Paul took over conversing with Prospero about the castle's history.
Since the castle's age, Prospero couldn't excavate any secrets if he wanted, he's under strict scrutiny not to alter the castle in any shape without approval, since its age and history, all that.
Only reason he even got the castle in the first place's because he agreed to their terms.
"Was your ancestor ever here?" Paul asked as he and Taylor's led around the castle.
Prospero responded that he found records that his ancestor came here to the baron's castle when his family first moved here.
As it stands, Prospero found records indicating that Baron Viper saw his cousin as a brother to him.
Growing up, Baron Viper lost several siblings to the diseases at the time, and at least one died in combat, that understandably he saw kinship with his cousin, since they managed to survive well into adulthood.
"There he is," Prospero showed the couple the portrait of his ancestor as he toured them around the castle, Warren Nice, standing next to his cousin, Viper, clearly painted around their younger years.
Strong family resemblances, there's a reason people thought them as brothers, and why they saw each other as such.
The only thing separating the two was Warren's facial scar, Prospero saying he gotten it during a sparring match that went awry.
"After the baron died, why didn't your ancestor inherit the castle?" Taylor asked Prospero as he led them away from the portrait.
Turning the corner, Prospero admits, "I can't figure that one out. It was in the baron's will that if anything happened to him and his family, Warren would've gotten the castle. And I assure you this wasn't another nefarious plot to have a castle to his lonesome."
His curiosity piqued, Paul turned his head towards Prospero as he questioned, "What happened to Warren?"
A shrug from Prospero, he tells Paul that Warren was drafted into a war, there were records of the draft card being issued, but after that, nothing.
He wasn't sure if Warren died during it or captured and died in a camp, he tried looking, but all he found was unclaimed soldiers, not one matching Warren's characteristics.
"He left behind a wife and two children, none of them ever came up here for the castle," Prospero tells the couple as he walked them towards a different portrait, the last one made just before Warren was drafted and it seemed his facial scar became more pronounced as he gotten older.
"Maybe it was too much. She lost her husband, she had her children to think about, maybe that's why?" Taylor gave an explanation.
Despite the castle would've been left to his widow and children as next of kin, his widow didn't want having the children dealing with not only losing their father, but moving to an unknown place that only their father knew.
Thinking it over, Prospero mentioned, "Yes. Perhaps. By the time the children were of age, she'd already remarried, she took her new husband's surname as her children."
That explained why he had difficulties tracking down the paperwork proving that he was the rightful heir of the castle.
Prospero continued touring the couple around the castle, showing what was original, and what had to be changed for whatever reason.
Passing by a window, Paul stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a large raven perched on the windowsill, looking inside the castle, and it stopped when it noticed him.
There's that sly look in its eyes.
