o hunter! my hunter! (yandere!prince!epel x gn!reader)

Part 4

tw: language maybe and also nudity, uncomfortable bathing scene that i had to take breaks while writing

a/n: reader gets kinda schemey in this one, definitely not healthy thoughts to have

After about a month of the same agonizing routines, you find that the next week is quiet—too quiet.

You know that something is going on when you can hear the servants rushing from room to room as silently as they can, carrying cleaning supplies and rugs and pillows and blankets in and out, nearly crashing into you several times over. None of them touch your room, at least not while you're in it, so you're not sure what exactly is going on.

Epel is doing a careful job at not revealing anything either. He still insists that you spend almost every waking moment with him, but he's begun to talk less—unless it's about you, of course. He loves to point out everything he can about you. You've worked hard to keep your reactions under control, but it's hard to when he talks about how he wants to carve into your face for the majority of your dinner together.

You've discovered a little outdoors space that isn't as guarded as the others and seems to have been left completely to the elements. It's small, with an open roof and thick pillars holding up segments of the balcony above that lets you hide in the shade; there are more plants here, too, growing through the cracks of the old dusty stones and hanging down in vines from the pots left on the floors of the balconies. There are poles stacked across a rack that holds old wooden swords and stacks of hay that seem to be training dummies, which you've taken to swinging around whenever you get bored—which is often.

The swords are heavy and mimic the real thing, which you're grateful for. You're nowhere near the level of the guards—you'd always preferred a hunting knife or a bow over a sword—but you've grown confident that you could probably do some damage if needed. Which you hope you won't need to, but if the opportunity arises, you're not complaining. You could do with a little action in here.

So you spend your time "training". You know you look like an idiot, but there's no one around you to tell you that, and everyone has to start somewhere, anyways.

At least you can lift the sword, unlike Epel, who can't even lift himself off of the ground sometimes. If it were solely you against him instead you against the entire army he has guarding each room, you'd win for sure. The boy has no tact and absolutely no experience to call his own—you're not sure it could even count as a fair fight.

So you train, and you think about what the letter you saw on Epel's desk might contain, and you think about where he could've been before he came to the castle, and you try not to think about what you saw inside of his room.

He'd been nothing but trouble for you, which was a vast understatement. He was basically dehumanizing you at each and every turn, just because you were powerless to stop any of it and because he apparently likes to see the people he's taken a liking to fall apart beneath his touch. That was all you'd been able to grasp of him, apart from him not having grown up in this place and having what could probably be described as an insecurity towards his size.

Seeing something as tender as those crudely carved wooden animals sitting on his shelves dug at your chest. You'd nearly forgotten that most of his behaviors were most likely learned and that he was probably vastly different as a child. It made something in your stomach curl as you think about how he was still keeping reminders of the innocence he no longer has.