Euron could smell the acrid scent of blood before he opened the thick cell door. He could taste it on the tip of his tongue, a familiar and homely flavor. The hinges creaked and groaned, rusted from the dampened sea air even below deck where he kept them. His creation.

They had once been a bright and lively noble, snatched away from their homeland like so many before. Euron had kept them, shoved them into a tiny little cell in the darkness of the lowest quarters of the Silence. They had kicked and cried and fought him the whole time. Their hands had bled from banging against the barnacle-infested door, the rough wood scraping and cutting their once soft hands. Now. Now, there was no fighting, no screaming, no crying.

Good.

Euron had taken care of them. He kept them protected in their shell of darkness. He fed them. Though the flesh had been mangled at first, they had recognized it. He had seen the horror was over their face ─ but they were starving. They had eaten. They had gotten used to the taste. They craved it. It benefited him, also, serving as an easy way to get rid of bodies. Dumping them overboard had grown bland and boring - it brought him no pleasure - but this? It was magnificent. It was thrilling. He'd crushed them, warped them into a monster of his own making.

Each time he came to visit them, they seemed more and more… comfortable, for lack of a better word. Their conversations were no longer spent with weeping pleas. They were pleasant, almost normal. They had grown docile. Obedient. Even if their atmosphere hinted at anything but. The light in their eyes had returned, and they looked upon him with a certain fondness.

The walls were dampened. Old streaks of blood tainted the wooden planks and their skin. Their hands and forearms tinged a dark pink from the ichor, a reminder of all they had done ─ and all they had become, tearing through flesh like a ravenous beast. The bones of their latest meal still sat in the corner, bathed in shadows and bits of skin. A beautiful, gruesome sight. Euron's lips twitched, almost forming a smile. Almost. He was proud of his creation.

“Come, my little darling.” That was what he so often called them. Though, today, he offered his hand for them to take, to rise from the darkness they hid in and join him.

“You have been so.. obedient,” the words could nearly be classified as a compliment. “You deserve a gift. Join me above the deck. We shall watch the setting sun.”

It was more so an offer than anything else. Euron had fed them, protected them, changed them, and now it was time to cherish them. To hold the monster he loved so dearly. If they were to refuse, well, he could always start over with another poor, unfortunate soul.