[Open] Now it's over for me, and it's over for you...

[notsogrimreaper]

Early in the morning, inhabitants of the castle may be awoken by a very loud sound. Something has made impact with the castle, hard enough to make the entire building rumble. It's almost like an earthquake, so it's unsurprising to see, if one ventures out of their room and towards the throne room, that there was damage done.

...A lot of damage.

The outer wall of the room is almost completely demolished, stone rubble scattered everywhere, even crushing one of the thrones. The windows as well are completely shattered, and the glass on the ground is mixed with a scattering of black feathers.

Looking out of the crater will reveal the probable culprit... A large monster, two pairs of black wings curled around it, slowly lumbering towards the forest. It's attempting to hide, but considering the fact that it's about twice the size of some of the trees, it's unlikely it will find much cover.



It will be another week before the castle suffers another attack. It's not enough to do damage, but there's a storm, swirling clouds and thunder and pelting rain that means most will want to stay inside.

If anyone does look outside, however, they will see the monster in the middle of the courtyard, curled in on itself, clutching its head. As time goes on it starts to shrink, feathers retreating, sickly pale skin gaining colour, metallic armour sinking back into the thing's limbs and perpetual smile morphing into a grimace of pain.

The process lasts only a few minutes, fortunately, and in the end, there is no longer a monster, but a gangly teenage boy, who barely has time to breathe before the rain starts pouring down harder.

He makes his way to the castle entrance, and there he stays for a moment, wiping his face with his already drenched scarf and shivering. He stays there for quite a while, huddled in the shadows of the door, before he slowly takes a few steps inside.

"A castle?"

His voice echoes in the stone hallway, and he frowns for a moment, but despite his confusion, he really has no choice but to continue on.

If he runs into anyone, he'll look a little... frightened, for a moment, before he catches himself, and then he adopts a warm smile and raises a hand in greeting.

"Hi there! It's a real mess outside, huh?"

He's... keeping his fingers crossed no one noticed his earlier predicament.