<br/>There was the shifter, hunching by the corner, and her own attempt at hiding brought Midnight's eyes to her first. That was not something he needed to worry about, so he turned his gaze toward the door and Taskill once he ascertained that Bryn wasn't there quite yet. At least it was the three of them there, so there was less of a chance of any one of them having to shoulder their master's wrath on their own, right? The anger that drifted into the room was hard to ignore, however.<br/><br/>Rather than cowering, he followed the sprite's example and made his way to the bed, stopping by its foot to exorcise the ghosts that prevented him from moving forward. He forced himself to forget again; to ignore the memories of those first days, weeks, months where he was brought here over and over again to do the Master's will, of finding himself giving in to Bryn, enjoying the treatment and the pain inflicted onto himself and others, of how soiled that made him feel.<br/><br/>It was just this body of course, this weak two-legged thing that he hated so much and yet was growing attached to.<br/><br/>He made himself crawl onto the bed with the Ghillie Dhu, brushing his shoulder with his arm in a gesture of solidarity even though his words were sobering. Rather than kneeling, he curled onto his side and stretched against the other, lending his frame for support. He snorted against the other male's thigh at the mention of pain. It was always painful, one way or another. No, Taskil was right in one thing, however; Midnight would say nothing, ask nothing, give nothing but what was demanded of him. This was the way it was.<br/><br/>Then the door exploded out, and all he could to was fight to stay in place as the Master walked their way.<br/><br/><em>He's just going to watch.</em><br/><br/>The threat was both terrifying and satisfying at the same time. He knew Midnight would find a way to repay him for /that,/ and however that fed his pride, the rest of it made him hunch back an inch or two. Bryn had made him do it so many times, anyway, what was a little more practice? But this was not the time for talking back, he sensed that well enough, and so kept to his stubborn silence.<br/><br/>It was only when Bryn's robes began to slide down his shoulders that all the muscles on his new body started to tighten one by one, in fear and anticipation. The shift of his frame brought him a fraction of an inch closer to Taskill, eyes focusing somewhere about two inches before the foot of the bed rather than on what there was to see above. If he had a horn, it would be pointed to the center of the Master's chest, but then, that was exactly how all this had started.<br/><br/><em>Damn it.</em><br/><br/>He opened his mouth and then closed it without a sound, and his hand itched to take the sprite's own -- he wouldn't, though, it just would give Bryn more fuel to his fire. Instead, the alicorn-man stretched his body against the natural instinct of curling onto himself and pressed his back to the bed, rolling in that diffident manner in which once he might have done against grass - and which seemed to peeve his most dominant partness the most, because it indicated he didn't give a shit about what they had prepared for him.<br/><br/>At least it wouldn't all fall on Taskill. He couldn't allow that.<br/>