Blaine woke up with a start, a book falling to the floor from where it had been resting on his chest. He groaned and ran his hand over his head as he looked to the window trying to judge what time it was.

Not that it mattered. It was best if he stayed in his room in the castle and read his books. He knew that he was best served by staying out of sight, and therefore, out of the mind of his father. Elias Anderson, the king, had been on one of his tirades all week, and anyone who got into his path suffered for it. Blaine would be no exception, in fact, he would probably get it worse than anyone for being the "useless sissy boy" he was. His father regularly reminded him that it would have been better if he had been born a girl so he could be married off like his sisters. Instead he served as a reminder to his father that not all his sons were war hungry obedient lap dogs to their father.

It wasn't that Blaine couldn't fight. He fought better than anyone he knew in fact, including his older brother Cooper which said a lot. He was very skilled with swords and even trained himself with bow and arrow. He had done better in his tactics and strategies coursework than Cooper too, and his tutor had lost his head for saying as much to his father.

No. The problem was that Blaine didn't agree with his father, and unlike the other boys in the family, couldn't restrain himself from saying so. He had the stitches from the last time he argued with his father still healing up in fact. It made no sense, he had told his father, to take over lands when the people in our own lands were starving.

That was a mistake. There was no getting through to his father, so there was no point in saying anything to him. He had been questioning his father's actions since he was a boy but had always been unwilling to defend himself against his father's hands, or even the hands of his guards when his father wanted him punished but didn't feel like doing it himself.

It didn't help that he was gay either. Couldn't even be married off to a princess – not that any of the patriarchal rulers his father negotiated with would want an Anderson boy in their home. A woman was fine. A woman, in his father's mind, and the minds of those he associated with, was for breeding and keeping quiet. A woman could be controlled.

Blaine knew that it wasn't that way everywhere. He spent his time reading since he wasn't allowed out (his father didn't want anyone outside the family and elite guard to associate with him). The books told him of other places, other ways of thinking. They helped him escape his reality into other places.

In his reality, his mother was long dead from the birth of her fifth child. His father was on his fifth wife, having lost the others to childbirth or suicide. His sisters would be taught the skills of a wife, and would be married off as soon as they could. His brothers taught to fight from an early age and sent over the continent to claim lands and wealth. That is, with the exception of Cooper, the eldest male and thus, the heir, and Blaine, who couldn't be trusted.

In his reality, Blaine had never left the castle grounds. He couldn't even see over the walls from the windows in his room. When he wasn't reading, he was drawing or talking to his cat – Cat. Not the most clever of names, but one that he didn't feel ridiculous using when he was having a conversation.

In his reality, his best friends were servants of the house. Thad, David, Wes, Nick, Jeff, Trent. They worked in the kitchens, the baths, and the horse stalls. They made sure Blaine got something to eat when his father tried to starve him, and cleaned him up after the beatings. Nick had even flirted with one of more ruthless of the guards, Sebastian, in order to distract him from the beating he was giving Blaine at the time.

In his reality, Blaine was lucky to still be alive.

Blaine stretched his arms out over his head and leaned over to pick the book off the floor. He put a bookmark into the place where he was when he dozed off and stood up to return it to its place on the shelf.

"Well Cat. It's starting to get a little cool in here. Shall we start up a fire?"

The grey haired cat sleeping on the bed didn't move except for the occasional twitch of the tail.

Blaine sighed and went to stoke the cinders in the fireplace of his room, building the fire up slowly and carefully so it would last most of the night.

He wished for someone to talk to. To have a real conversation with beyond the brief interactions he had with the servants here. Cat is great... for a cat. Blaine wanted a true friend though. One he could bond with like those in his books. His great tales of men forming brotherly friendships as they go into battle, or confiding in one another over drinks, even the gossipy and often catty relationships of women depicted in some of his books. Anything would be better than the nothing he endures as his only source of freedom.

And he does endure. He doesn't know why. At some point his father will succeed in killing him off, and even if that doesn't happen, then what future does he has to look forward to here? There are only so many more books in the library he hasn't read, and even if his father dies, who knows what Cooper will allow for him. Blaine hasn't really been allowed to get close to his brothers since they figured out he was gay.

Blaine washed his face up in the wash bucket and smoothed back the curls on top of his head. Maybe it's the curls that curse him. All his brother's have straight hair and he has the damned curls. He's always tried to keep them flattened with the honey pomade Thad makes, but they always come back.

He stepped to the window and opened it up to allow in a little cool air and gazed out over the courtyard of the castle. It's dark outside. A few flickers from lanterns from the guards on patrol move around below him and also up on the wall, but there's nothing else.

Blaine looked up. He scanned the stars and thinks back to his astronomy books. He does this every night. It used to be to help him remember the information, now he does it as one more thing to help pass the time.

It's spring. He already knew that. He can see the lion constellation and the crab clearly from his position. The air has always smelled different in the spring somehow too. He doesn't know what's over the wall, but he imagines it as great farmlands where the farmers right now are preparing their crops. Crops that somehow aren't enough for his father and the troops. He may not know what's going on out there, but he knows from what David and Wes say that people are starving.

This summer two more of his sisters will be married off as part of pacts his father has made. He swallowed to hold his tears back. He loves his sisters, and can't stand when they leave. He never ends up seeing them again. They're all gone by the time they're fourteen. Never a word about them, or from them, again. For all he knows they're dead. If he ever had a daughter, he doesn't know how he would be able to part with them ever, yet his father casts them off as quickly as he can.

He has taught his sisters how to play different instruments. He's not allowed to teach them to read or anything "useful" as his father puts it. He still tries to sneak in what he can, but being under guard all the time makes it difficult and his sisters end up punished when he tries to educate them. Music is not useful according to his father, so Blaine is free to use it as a means to spend time with his sisters.

He is the only male he knows who can play instruments. The servants like to sing together and he's joined in before as they've burst into song in the kitchen peeling potatoes and decorating cakes. It's some of the most fun he has, but it doesn't happen too often. His father keeps the servants quite busy and Blaine can't be seen with them too much or he'll likely put them in danger by association.

Blaine sighed once more and shut the window before he speaks aloud. "Well Cat... it's been such an exciting day but I think I must get to bed."

He changed himself into his pyjamas and crawled under the covers. "Goodnight Cat."

Cat meows, and Blaine closed his eyes.