# 01 - Comfort

The silence is a comfort. He closes his eyes and he breathes, and in his dorm room, it is the only sound. The wind is still, tonight, there's no whistling against his cracked windows. The minipets are sleeping, quiet, not stirring. Thackery is curled against his side, heart quietly beating, his breath soft.

So perhaps he is a liar. It isn't silent: but it's peaceful.

Ashford's mind is a zen garden, quiet sand, a few rocks, and a gossamer wrapping of tranquility.

He had spent eight months in confinement, chained to a will not his own. Shackled to a power that ate at his lifeforce, captured his mind, enhanced his anxieties. The Insanity had lived up to its name: it had taken him apart, piece by piece, until there was literally nothing left...except fog.

He had been a creature wholly constructed of rage and fear, a wailing banshee demanding to return home.

It was so foolish, now.

Home was here, in this room. Not because of its locale at Amityville or anything so pedestrian, but because of its contents. One Thackery, Cerberus. Six minipets, various natures. The Pyramid Head knew as surely as he farmed guilt that he wanted to graduate and take up residence in Halloweentown with Thackery. He had plans, a great deal of them-- scraps from his sane moments pieced together over the last year, like a secret cypher that unlocked the contents of his own heart.

The reaper wanted to show how sorry he was, for one-- and for two, to show grateful he was, that Thackery never left. He gave up only at force, and at Ashford's behest.

Even still.

Thackery came for him, in Ash's time of need. Ashford was indebted, eternally thankful, and blessed by all the unholy powers below. In the name of Jack, Lobsel Vith, and Xuchilbara-- he would prove to the world and all his peers that he was, in fact, worthy. Of redemption, of Thackery's love, of trust.

While the Cerberus gave his adoration freely: there were penances to be made.

Ash looked thoughtful, carding a large hand through obsidian locks, and decided:

He would take Thackery's mark, etch it into his flesh, binding himself in eternal service, a mark to show the world whom he served first in all things.

The thought was a comfort.