Kiss from a Rose || Beauty and the Beast AU|| @TheMischievousPrinceLoki
Lightning illuminated the sky, blindingly so as she ran, her boots sticking in the mud as rain fell in buckets. She was soaked through, tired and hurting, but she had to keep going. The men of the local village had raided the caravan, done terrible things and were looking to do more to her. Ivan had told her to run, to dress like a man and run until she found refuge. She was doing so now, but she could hear the men closing in and the howl of their dogs right behind her.
“The dogs are closing in. We’ll have the gypsy witch soon!”
There was a stigmata about women with red hair, they were witches, children of the devil and it didn’t help that she was a gypsy either. That also made her a thief and dirty. Still that didn’t stop the leers from men and their wandering hands when she danced for them, but the closer they got the easier they were to steal from, so she didn’t mind, she got used to it and her cold manner earned her a certain name, Black Widow. Don’t sleep with her they would say, she will kill you in your sleep she’s so cold, but Natalia knew these men would not care once they caught her. She wouldn’t be in the position she was now had she not come upon them doing unspeakable things to her friend and killed one of them.
Hearing one of the dogs closing in, she glanced back and then lost her footing, slipping in the mud, thinking quickly she grabbed a fallen branch near her to beat off the beasts and then stood and kept running, trying to find a way out of the seemingly never ending forest.
“There is a legend about this forest. They say in the middle of it lies a castle, it seems abandoned but a great beast lives there with a heart of ice and eyes of blood.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale to tell children to keep them in their beds at night.”
“Never go into the endless part of the forest Natalia. It is true and he will find you and you will never be heard of again.”
The memory came as she beheld what looked like a wall, tall and imposing covered in vines and thorns. It couldn’t be real… but the lightning that illuminated the sky told her otherwise revealing spiraling towers of a castle. She needed to find the gate; maybe she could get inside and wait out her pursuers beyond these walls. It didn’t take her long to find the gate, it was practically rusted shut but she managed to get it open just enough to squeeze her small frame through, what lay beyond the gate was… curious. It looked like a garden, but long forgotten with various statues and fountains that seemed to had not put out water in years.
Suddenly a sound grabbed her attention, turning she gasped and moved to the gate which was suddenly being covered in vines and thorns, “No no. How am I going to get out?” She tried to cut at them with her knife, but it was useless, whatever she cut away grew back and somehow thicker until she couldn’t hear anything but the rain and thunder and silence. A strange sort of silence as though everything around her was alive somehow.
With a few cuts stinging her face and arms from the vines and thorns, she turned and moved towards the rather dreary looking castle; at least she could get out of the rain for the night and maybe in the morning scale the wall and move on. It was a decent plan, but she had one of those bad feelings, which seemed to get worse the closer to the large doors she got. When she reached them, she took a deep breath and pushed them open, stepping inside, a shiver working down her spine as she did so.
The place was large, huge even and seemingly empty. It felt lonely and there was no light except the flashes of lightning that came through the large unadorned windows. Wrapping her arms around herself, the tired, wet, slightly injured and muddy young woman moved further into the dismal castle, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor as she moved, “Hello?” She called out tentatively… because she felt like something or someone was watching her.