The Raven Prince had hunger in the hollow whites of his wide eyes. The blood in him was as hungry as the creature it came from, and it pounded promises against his veins. It wormed between the fragments of his incomplete heart, pecking at what it found in him, but he did not have enough to satisfy it. He knew his heart was sorry scraps, and not fit for the Raven.

Not yet, he reminded himself, and the thought placated him, scrawling a dreamy smile across his face. Until then, his hunger would burn through him. He would never have enough love, no matter how many hearts he stole, and he had been unable to capture even one. A hiss boiled in the silent night. His failures were unacceptable to both himself and his master.

(italics)M-master... I have none. What are you... am I... doing?(/italics)

Gold was so easily damaged. Soft and malleable. The Raven Prince ripped into that golden heart as it was reflected suddenly in his eyes. He pried at his chest; he couldn't cool under the black fabric, and his heart might scorch through. Gold melted in the heat of the wounds. The hunger painfully scratched for freedom from that fragile, gilded cry in his chest. It was a shell of gold leaf, nothing more, and he would fill it in with all the love in the world.

Then he could stop hurting so much. The weakened heart kept burning into something charred and bitter, and he still heard the gentle voice screaming at the back of his mind. There were even times when he wanted to scream with it. The smile widened at the sharpness of the blows it took, however, his eyes narrowing as if to focus on something distant. He was the Raven Prince, he remembered, and he squashed the scream into silence. It was annoying, he was sure it would return.

(i)Ah... How sweet.(/i) He radiated power and delirium in the temporary quiet. Sickness was vivid on his pale face. He felt as if every second without blood pouring down his throat moved him closer to a useless end. He tilted his head to the sky, silvery hair sticking in strands to sweat on his forehead. He almost seemed to expect the weather to oblige him with a gruesome turn, but even ordinary rain did not fall.

Nothing came. He cawed viciously, enraged at the stars in the sky. That annoying light, light just like what that Princess Tutu brought him. That was what held him away from everything he could ever want. From silence in his heart, from mindless, painless love, from blood in his throat-

But he could have blood, couldn't he? And no one would restrain his talons, not Tutu, not that pathetic knight. (i)She(/i) would give her heart willing, the princess who had been given to him had no use for her heart. It didn't matter how stained it was.