More living castle???(no pressure I just love it!!!!)
First of all, I love you, anon. Secondly, YIPPEE!!! YIPPEE!!! I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THE LIVING CASTLE!!!
Okay, so let's cover the basics! So, Nightmare's castle is alive, and its halls and corridors move around as it pleases. Doors disappear, rooms shift around, all that jazz. Oh, oh, and the castle LOVES Nightmare. He's the castle's very favorite. It will do anything for him. He's spent more than a thousand years with the place, after all. It bends to his will by choice, not because he makes it. Whenever he walks somewhere? He always finds himself there unnaturally quick. He wants to be hidden away? The boys won't be able to find him unless the castle thinks they should.
The castle is very, very protective of him. Nightmare always warns the new boys to stick together in the first few weeks here. To never walk anywhere alone. It's for good reason. When he just got Killer? The castle would trap him in a loop for hours at a time, until Nightmare finally noticed and went to find him. Once, it trapped him somewhere for days, after threatening Nightmare. The castle wouldn't even let Nightmare reach him until It'd been nearly four days. Killer nor Nightmare were very happy about that.
For a while, Killer assumed the castle was doing Nightmare's bidding, and he was just lying about it having a mind of its own... well, until the castle began to trust him, that is. See, the castle is also very, very mischievous. It plays jokes. Tells secrets. Whispers, and coaxes. One day, Killer gives in and follows. He learns all sorts of things, mostly about Nightmare and mostly harmless things, but it's delightful and intriguing to taunt him with a piece of personal information that Nightmare has no clue how he learned.
The castle pulls mean jokes, Killer has seen a floorboard snap out of place to trip him up a little, only to snap obediently back into place when Nightmare turns around and starts scolding the walls. He swears to god the shadows hiss with a quiet, delighted laughter. These jokes in Nightmare are all loving, of course. The castle is sure not to truly harm him.
Killer, however, semi-frequently turns the corner to his room only to fall down the flight of stairs that is definitely supposed to be by the living room, nowhere near his own.
Dust wakes up in the middle of the night after a nightmare and finds that his door is ajar... Moreso, that Horror's door is right across from his own. Horror lives in the room several doors down beyond the corner.
Horror is hungry and walks out of his room and down the hall only to walk right into the kitchen. The kitchen is a five minute walk away and down a flight of stairs. He looks back and sees the typical view from the kitchen door.
Cross doesn't take Nightmare's warning about sticking with someone seriously, and he goes to take a shower by himself, only to find himself completely lost and utterly confused. He thinks the boys are playing some kind of trick on him because he keeps hearing laughter. Dust finds him and drags him to Nightmare so he can be reprimanded. Cross gets a light scolding and another warning, this time with the explanation that the castle, it's very lively... and it doesn't take well to new folks. It needs time to understand you mean us, and it, no harm.
Killer tells him that whenever he got lost, he'd talk to the castle, and that would help. (He started telling it all his intrusive thoughts and eventually it would get tired of his shit and let him go) Cross starts talking to the walls and telling jokes while he walks alone, and suddenly, he doesn't get lost at all. He hears whispering and mumbling while he's eating some dessert in his room, so he leaves some in the corner. It's gone when he blinks, and the next day? The training room is right around the corner from his own room. It's safe to say he makes a good impression.
I'm also writing a little story about Killer's misadventures with the castle. Let me know if y'all would be interested in seeing that!