The bastard night comes for one, it comes for all. Under the black blanket of the sky, everyone is the same. Monsters and men all look indistinguishable to the lethargic eye of the moon, yet it is those put on the earth that can see the vast differences in each of us for souls and hearts are difficult to hide.

-Agnes Vauclain

Lord Caspian watched his wife and young son from his seat at the head of the long dinner table. Sitting on his right was his wife. The lord regarded how his wife daintily raised her wine glass to her lips, how she carefully cut her roast beef with the silver knife and fork. Caspian's gaze lingered on the small butterfly ring resting on her finger, the one he gave her when they wed. His thoughts drifted to that day momentarily. 

The lady's hand in marriage had been given to the lord by her father, the Baron Carberry just two weeks before Lord Caspian's departure to Transylvania many years ago. Baron Carberry deemed it right that two people of noble English blood should marry and breed more English people, even if they were to live so far away from their native land. Twenty-two-year-old Lord Caspian and his betrothed had never met, not until the day of their wedding, when eighteen-year-old Calla made her way up the aisle of Saint James Church in London in her white lace wedding gown to meet and marry her new husband.

It did not take the young pair long to fall in love for Lady Calla's gentle nature and delicate words were a small sliver of sun in the lord's gray world. Even though he was not a man who favored the show of affection nor took kindly to people portraying their love for one another, Lord Caspian did care for Lady Calla as much as a man like him could.

The newlyweds shared their first year of marriage fixing up their new home. Lord Caspian had inherited a tremendous sum of money and the stone manor in Transylvania, which had been his family's since the 16th century. The manor had been restored and refurbished to suit the couple's needs. Sprawling grass and looming trees went on as far as the eye could see. The house was dark stone with twin gargoyles situated on a small Crow's nest balcony above the double doors. The statue's eyes were polished onyx which glared at any passerby maliciously whenever fragments of the light caught them.

Calla and the servants made the manor into a home. Pictures of landscapes and portraits of their lineage covered the walls. Candelabras of the finest quality lit the halls. Fine tapestries threaded with gold, red, and blue hung in each room. Though the manor became a beautiful place, the brown and gray stone of the floor and the darkness of the stone walls never made the large house feel anything but cold. Even when Calla became with child.

When his son was born, Lord Caspian thought that he could love the child as much as he loved his wife since the babe came from his wife's own womb, but that was not the case. Caspian's son took after his grandfather in looks, with his striking auburn hair and brown eyes. 

In the now eighteen-year-old Troy, Lord Caspian would never be able to see the image of Calla. Caspian's soul was bitter for he would never have a beautiful child with black as night hair and eyes greener than emeralds. The small shards of affection he did manage to find for his only child were given sparsely to the boy since Troy reminded Caspian too much of his own father, a man who never ceased to remind Caspian that he was at fault for letting his mother die during childbirth.

Caspian's father, the noble yet distant Lord Tyrell, taught his son how to be a Lord, how to hunt, but taught him nothing of empathy or affection. Whatever bits of love Caspian did later find in his life were solely Calla's doing for the lovely woman was the only person, on this land and on any other land both far and near, who could give and find any love within the brute of a man Caspian was.

Perhaps Caspian could not have even been able to love a child that looked like him. But every time the lord saw Troy he saw his father's face. But the boy's character did not mimic his grandfather's. Troy was a sweet child, quiet, preferring the company of his own self rather than to take company with others his age. In the marrow of his bones, Caspian found it bothersome that the lad did not have a fierce attitude and behaved more like a little rabbit instead. There were days Caspian wished there was more spirit in his delicate offspring.

From across the dinner table, Caspian looked at his son and thought How I wish you were less rabbit, more wolf.

Lord Caspian raised his wine glass and watched as his only child reached for a slice of bread and broke it into small pieces. The larger crumbs fell from the boy's hand onto his plate while the smaller ones stuck onto Troy's fingers. Though a young lord ought to know his table manners better, Troy brought his fingers to his lips and licked the tiny crumbs off.

Lord Caspian's blue eyes stormed. He brought his clenched fist hard upon the table, making the silverware rattle. His booming voice reached his son and beyond. "Have you been raised in the woods, boy? You bring disgrace to this house!"

Troy dropped his hands quickly onto his lap, fingers curling nervously around the napkin, his head hanging down in shame as his father hurled his own napkin onto his plate of unfinished roast. Lord Caspian pushed his chair back with such force that it fell over and hit the floor in a thunderous way. He stormed over to Troy and grabbed the boy by the back of the collar of his navy blue shirt.

Lord Caspian pulled his son off the chair roughly causing Troy's shirt to strangle him. The boy's fingers flew to his collar as he began to choke. Troy gasped as Caspian pulled the boy's smaller frame towards his larger one. The lord's hand shook the boy till the blue shirt rose out of Troy's dark trousers exposing a sliver of pale white skin covered in cat-claw thin scratches. The collar came up to the back of Troy's head, the stitching continued to cut off his air supply. Troy grappled with the collar, tried to pry it away from his father's hands.

"You will kill him!" Lady Calla burst from her seat and ran towards her husband and son. She grabbed at Caspian's wrist with both hands and pulled back, helping her son escape his father's clutches. "Have you no shame, Caspian?"

Troy coughed violently, his mouth opening and closing like a fish's who had been cruelly plucked out of the water and hurled onto dry land. When oxygen entered Troy's mouth and filled his lungs, the boy began breathing normally again. Tears stung, but Troy would not give his father the satisfaction of allowing them to drop. Troy was no longer a boy and he was not quite a man, but whatever tears he had ever felt like shedding would only fall in the privacy of his own bedchambers.

Caspian's face was angered, red and full of rage. Had his wife not parted father and son, Lord Caspian may have hurt his child much, much worse.

"Agnes!" Lady Calla called for her handmaid and Agnes appeared as if out of the shadows. The handmaid did not ask any questions, she simply wrapped her arm around Troy and escorted him out of the dining area. It had not been the first time Agnes had to slip into the dining area and take the boy out of harm's way after his mother rescued him again.

"My lord, you know I care deeply about you and our marriage but your rage will end up bringing you nothing but Hell." Calla looked at her husband. "And, my beloved, it will end up bringing Hell to us, as well." Calla's hand reached out to touch her husband's. She noticed he was shaking with anger. Caspian was a fire burning strong. Calla feared that one day he would burst into flames and engulf them all into his inferno. Little did she know that Caspian had already set the wheels of fate in motion when he struck the old witch barely an hour ago.

Caspian's blue eyes darkened then turned into fragments of a storm. He pulled away from his wife, turned on his heel and stomped out of the dining room leaving Calla alone to weep silently into her hands.

Agnes had the younger maid, Enid, bring a cup of steaming red wine spiced with clove infused orange slices to Troy in his bedchambers. Agnes had been a part of the household since before Troy was born. Lady Calla had personally chosen the older servant as her handmaid upon her departure from England. Agnes was a fly on the wall, a whisper of words when either her mistress or the little lord needed her. But Agnes stayed away from Lord Caspian as much as she could, never having thought highly of the haughty violent-tempered man.

Agnes Vauclain preferred to remain in the shadows of Lady Calla's presence or with Troy. It was never because she feared Lord Caspian, which she did not. It was simply because she thought that if she ever got too close to the lord of the house she may end up spitting on him.

There had been many a night where Agnes lay awake praying to God to rain his wrath on Lord Caspian, and many a day when the handmaid prayed that He would take pity and make the unkind man simply vanish from the face of the Earth.

"Drink this, my little lord," Agnes said softly as she handed the steaming mug of wine to the teen.

Troy sat on the wolf-skin covers of his large four-post bed. The gray and white marble pattern of the fur must have looked beautiful on the creature that had been killed for it. Agnes knew that Lord Caspian's vast property was home to many wild creatures. The maid knew that the lord and his companions sometimes hunted among the trees for whatever sort of animal they could put an arrow through for sport, never for food since all their meat came once a week from the butcher in the city.

Troy's fingers weaved through the thick fur of the wolf-hide before he took the cup. His brown eyes rose to Agnes.

So different from his father...Agnes thought

When she saw Troy's bottom lip tremble Agnes hushed him. Her hand rested on his shoulder in a motherly way. "Shh, young lord. This is how children act to violence. This is not how men act to it."

Troy drew in a deep breath, straightened his back and swallowed his sorrow. "How do men act, Agnes? Do they return violence with violence? Should I have attacked my father with the same sort of rage he used upon me? Is that how I should be, like him?"

The old handmaid pursed her lips. She watched Troy take a long gulp of the steaming wine, certain that it was still hot enough to burn his tongue. Agnes saw that Troy did not flinch.

"Do not repay violence with violence," Agnes replied, but when Troy asked again what he should have offered in return, it was on the old woman's tongue to tell the child to repay violence with revenge.

"Perhaps one day he will change," was all Agnes could say.

Troy shook his head. "He is a monster. I will not hold my breath, dear maid." The young lord tipped the cup back and drank every last drop.  

Why Christine?

Q-Why did you pick the name Tyrell of all names?

Me-Two words: Mr. Robot.