@thecastleghost
To the deepest halls of the castle, she goes, unassuming and self-contained; for it is her determination to garner what help she can, where she can, a woman on a mission, collected and focused; she has made a promise, and she is eager to keep it and prove herself useful. She slithers through the vastness of the halls, making her full skirts swirl around her while she draws her path toward the depths of the castle, toward its north wing, hurried in gait-- it is half past two, and the floors are overflowing with moonlight, her candle, pale and flickering, casting a collection of shadows over the curves of her face. There is a pillared hallway in the north side of the castle, long and narrow, and she walks toward its end, a mass of dark shadows slipping over her; the deeper she moves, the thicker the sullen darkness that envelopes her becomes, and she half-pauses mid-step, swallows hard and allows her hand to skate over the wall--swollen with water and moisture-- while her eyes comb through the corners of the corridor-- a big, echoing place; her senses prickle with the weight of the silence that plagues the lower parts of the palace, and her high anticipations. Somewhere, rivulets of water are dripping off the cracks in the walls and pooling on the floors, and the foreboding silence swallows the pattering sound, the shadows thick and crackling with the moisture of the ceilings and floors--she senses a peculiar pulse in the air, and her heartbeat swells; for she believes the rumors to be true, and her senses detect a particular stiffness in the vast darkness that is stretched all around her. “--hello?” she calls out, her throat itching, and her voice echoes off the walls. There is a long, heavy pause, and she swallows harder, her heart leaping in her mouth. “are you here? I have no intentions to hurt you, s'il vous plait.” she says, feeling her flesh crawl.