The dark flickering lights of the Marionette's Chains tapped out a code in light, "there is no hope", the prison ship said, "only hell." And hell there was. The screams of torture echoed through the metal belly of the beast as whimpers of fear gripped with insanity muttered and scratched themselves into the walls.

However, in one cell, there was none of this. No outstretched hand between the bars, pleading for food, no weak human on the ground, slowly starving himself to bone, no carving of names and messages into the graffitied walls. This cell, was a rarity by all accounts; just as rare as its inhabitant, one Edoric Libris, the Prince of Sin.

He had once spent his days indulging himself in all the vice and wickedness his sinful money could buy. Nothing was out of reach for him and nothing he could not have done. Of course, those days where long gone, a distant dream in a sea of agonizing nightmares, but the man didn't break in the slightest. Whatever the crooked cops and guards could do, the underworld had already done to him in more ways then one and often with much less restraint.

Once more, his thoughts where that of escape from the Marionette Chains, the wretched ship that had kept him from his true position. He had already memorized many of the obvious exfiltration methods, none of which seemed all too likely. His eternal musings was broken by only the sound of hundreds of feet shifting around which only meant one thing: Shifting Day.

Every so often, the ship would get supplies to sustain itself from some dingy rim world as well as a load of new prisoners. To make sure enough room was in place, cells often got a bit squishy. Edoric heard the heavy bolt to his door open and a girl was shoved in, the guard making some rude remarks about her as the bolt once again fell. Looking down at the new girl who had landing, the Prince of Crime opened his mouth, "So... you're my new roommate due to the shift, princess ehh?"

The way the guard held his prisoner was almost like a fatherly hold. The prisoner walked, weeping, with the guard's hands placed firmly on the prisoner's shoulders, as if the guard were actually riding a bicycle. The prisoner clearly did not like it, squirming and trying to get free, however every time such an event happened, the guard gave the prisoner's shoulders a very tight looking squeeze. A different prisoner watched, wishing that she were in that hold, rather than being dragged along the ground without a care in the world. "Why are you dragging me like this? C-can I not be handled better?" The girl asks. She stopped being dragged, thankfully, and she thought she was actually going to be walked like a normal person...

Suddenly, Cyan squealed, as she was shoved into a cell without warning. "Why!" She cried out, turning over and pulling her tail into the cell before it was caught by the closing of the door and the locking of the cell. The worst part of being taken to a cell like this, was that she had effectively been downgraded from her previous cell. Her previous cell had been in better conditions than the cells in this section of Marionette's Chains, as it had been a minimum-security ward. She, at least, had better caring guards. And she had been on her own.

Finally, Cyan heard the voice. The voice of someone else in the cell. Her eyes widened. She would have liked to be in a cell of her own again, or maybe even in one with another girl... I'm in a cell with a guy!? Cyan thought to herself, panicked. Isn't there laws against this? Or do they not give a care about higher security prisoners than minimums? She rolled over, and stared at the man, her ears twitching as she debated what to do.

"I-I'm not a princess..." Cyan says quietly, a tiny hint of a smile on her face. Despite the shock of being shoved into a cell with this guy, she found it funny that the man chose to use that set of words on seeing her arrival. "But yes, I am your roommate now. Though I must admit, I definitely preferred the minimum security ward." She admitted to him. "My name is Cyan." Throughout her talking, she had edged along the walls of the cell, moving to the only other bed in the room, and had sat down, staring at her new roommate.

"Well then Princess Cyan," Edoric stretched as he traced a finger around some words that had been carved into the side of the wall, "What are you in here for? Murder? Arson? Jaywalking?"

Edoric stood up and bowed, "Excuse my rudeness, I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name is Edoric, you might have heard of my family, the Libris. We've managed to get ourself in all sorts of things over the years."

Standing against the wall, he pulled out one of the metal pieces of cutlery he managed to keep and ran the back of it against the wall, trying to carve out his own message amongst the dozen of other images, messages and scribbles that lined the cell, not all his of course. There must have been hundreds who have been in this cell before. Countless hours stuck, moaning about a hope of escape, a shred of freedom, the light of innocence. Edoric scuffed at those notions, there was no such thing as innocence, everyone has a sin and it was the Libris family's job to exploit it.

He keeps on calling me princess. Sweet, but I would prefer if he didn't.

Cyan watched as the man fingered at words carved into the wall, each one telling many stories of suffering. As the man spoke his next sentence, she turned and stared at him for a few moments. Cyan wondered if he was a bit ill brained, or perhaps simply noticed the inhuman features on her body. Sure, she didn't have her claws out, clawing at anything (however she really did to tear at something), however he should clearly be able to see her ears, and perhaps her tail, too. Or maybe he had already guessed she was thrown in because of those, and was simply pressing to see if she had done anything else, Cyan had a quick flashback, her vision now that of her past, ramming into the side of a building, and then tearing up what was inside of it, in a larger, more destructive form than she was in right now, before looting the place for food.

"Jaywalking." Cyan finally said, her gaze now focused on the hard ground. It was a lie, but then, she refused to tell the truth. She didn't know how many people were in the building, however she was told she had killed three while she had sat the inevitable court case, the one that sentenced her to the ship she was now aboard. While her face remained facing the ground, her eyes rotated upward, watching the man, who was in the middle of announcing his name... Edoric. He was of the Libris family, one which Cyan had definitely heard of.

"Well... Mister Edoric, do they ever give you anything in this cell block?" Cyan believed that her question was rhetorical. It looked almost as if everyone in this cell block was suffering. "I mean, I could do with a scratching post." In her previous cell, Cyan had a scratching post, placed by a guard who had seen her distress at having nothing in her cell. Cyan moved to the bars of the cell to look out, but suddenly jumped back with a tiny yelp as a guard came trotting along, running his baton against the bars of the cell, giving her a fright.

Edoric laughed twice, first from Cyan's "crime" and again when the guard came walking down. Jaywalking sounded like a toddler's excuse to why they'd be here and that same toddler would jump back from the approaching guard baton. Hiding his spoon, he met the guard's eyes as the guard glared at him as he pasted but, smacking the bars a bit more harshly.

"They give me food and the occasional change of clothing." Edoric chuckled as he twirled the spoon around, freeing it from his back, "So tell me what you're really in here for princess. Unless you a CEO while doing it, jaywalking doesn't warrant a visit on the Marionette Chains five star resort and spa."

The crime prince stretched once more and stood up, meandering over to his iron block of a bed and vigorously shaking out the faded, stained blanket which looked more like a whole bunch of dirty shirts sewed together. He laid down and rested his head on another mess of old clothing, wrapped with two belts to form a primitive pillow. Hoping that the girl didn't see the dried blood on the sheets, he flipped it upside down in an attempt to hide it, not that it did much good.

"Tip of advice," Edoric flipped on to his side to face the catgirl, "The guards here are only here to make sure we don't get out. They don't care what we do to each other inside."

Cyan tried to hold back a gasp of alarm. Just food and occasional change of clothes? W-Wait, how am I meant to change with him in here!? She quickly dragged her thoughts away from Edoric staring her down as she changed her clothes in the future, and turned her attention to his new statement. "I-I'm telling you, it was just that. I was already on the run, though. Because of... Well..." She wiggled her ears and gave her tail a sway to it. What she was saying was the truth, but it wasn't the full truth, the truth she wished not to tell. "Both of those combined probably led me here. And I was in the minimum security block. I just got moved here because of the change."

She watched as Edoric got into bed, and sighed. There was nothing to do in this cell, she probably should also just get some sleep until something happens. Suddenly, Edoric said something that caught her off guard. She almost threw up in her mouth, even though she wasn't sure that she wasn't interpreting the words correctly. He got into bed, he turned to face me, and he claimed they didn't care what we did. Oh god. "T-That's absurd! Yuck!" Cyan hisses, before jumping onto her bed. She began scratching at the wall, both to take out her disgust on it and to just scratch at something. She briefly thought about scratching at Edoric, but threw the thought away. He probably could just beat her down. Unless... No, she shouldn't do that.

"So, princess," Edoric chuckled at Cyan's ineptitude with her new surroundings, dubbed "Princess Sickness" by most of the other fine gents in this cell block, appropriate for Cyan's case, "What will you do now? You're in a hostile new world with no one to give a care in the world about you. Will you hunt or be hunted?"

Edoric almost went into a mocking tone, feeling the hostility emitting from the girl. With his usual air, he ignored whatever glaring daggers she was trying to stab him with as turned on to his back and stared into the ceiling. It was only his third year here and yet it felt like his thirtieth. How time flies in hell. Closing his eyes, he slowly lulled himself to sleep, there was no worry in him, no worry he would be torn up by his new roommate, he already knew how to counter it if that was the case. As Edoric's head slumped against his pillow, for the first time in forever, he dreamed. He dreamed a dream of sheep grazing in a peaceful pasture, all without a care in the world.