Chapter Text
You’ve been taught your entire life to obey the elders in your lives, to respect your mother and to do as you're told with your head held down, because you’re the black sheep of your family, the stain to be removed once you’d stop being useful to them. You would never marry a man, that’s the fact your mother would tell you in the dark of the night while making you regret your existence. You would never marry, because you’re not like her, because you’re not like what she’d told you a proper lady should be. You’re tainted with your thoughts of other women, and she has made sure you understand the severity of it.
You can’t blame her for the putrid rot she carries towards you. After all, you do agree with it by the time you’ve heard her poison seep into your skin for years and years with no end. At least, you try your hardest to agree. It’s easier so, to not have your hopes up.
So, you stay. Because where else would you go?
And when your mother finally grows thin on her hospitality and kindness you never quite understood as such, you run. You run for hours, until you’re so lost in the far away woods that you wouldn’t know how to get back anyway.
Your entire being aches. The flashes of hot and cold scalding your freezing skin, the dried up blood pulling painfully at your skin around the ragged slash trailing your face, it all starts to weigh you down slowly but surely. Your breath hitches up to your throat with the sobs you try so hard to stifle, and you finally halt when your legs stop cooperating with you.
You crash and burn, much like your life before this moment.
The cold rain dots your skin and makes the burn of your wounds worsen. You lay on the bed of moss and rocks and pine needles, devoid of strength to care that you’re soaked to the core or that you’re vulnerable to whatever would lurk in the darkness. You’re tired. Exhausted beyond imagination. Despite your aching will to live, you’re accompanied with the warmth of knowing that this place of death would be of your own choice, not decided by any rotten member of your family.
A victorious smile riddles your face and lessens the weight of your tears. You win, no matter what ending this forest would lay down upon you.
You lose track of the passage of time. You’re not sure if you’ve laid there for a few seconds, a minute, or hours, but considering the fact that you’re not cold anymore it’s probably been a long time.
So, when the shadow of someone towering over you falls on you, you’re way past trying to escape. You merely utter a weak whimper when you get poked with something sharp, your eyes drooping close as you start to fade. Your head buzzes; as if there were flies crawling near your ears, and you hear bickering, the sensation of something moving on your skin getting stronger and persistent the louder the incoherent words grow.
With the last ounces of strength, you force yourself to open your eyes--
-- and that’s when something hard gets hacked against your temple, sending you deep into the sweet blessing of unconsciousness.
You’re used to all kinds of aches and misery-inducing injuries, but the pain you feel when you wake up this time is in its own class. Your pulse ricochets inside your skull and spine with an onset of nausea, and you’re quite sure you’ve never before felt such a searing sensation rummage your body when you try to move. You whimper a sob that has been stuck to your throat for an eternity.
“Oh, she made a noise, Bela. Look, I didn’t kill her!”
“Great, now scoot over so I can warm up, Daniela…”
“This is why mother warned us not to go hunting before the storm…”
“Thank you, Cass, for kindly reminding me about that…”
The word exchange starts to heat up and you don’t understand the words as they mend into a gigantic butter knife slicing down your skull as the headache rises to its peak. This time your cry isn’t quiet, it’s not graceful, and the swear word that accompanies it seems to stop whatever is happening around you. It’s also the moment that you open your eyes, making you wish you hadn’t.
You’re face to face with three girls with black hooded cloaks and gruesomely bloodied faces, gawking at you mere inches away. Your first reaction is back away, but you get stopped by the girl with blonde hair as she grabs your arm. Even though the touch doesn’t hurt, you struggle and trash around until you do exactly the thing the girl tried to prevent; you fall off from the divan and smack against the ground with a loud thud.
At least that’s the thing that makes you aware that you’re actually alive-- and not in the woods.
“Well, she’s not dying, that’s for sure…” The blonde girl mutters, her fingers rubbing the bridge of her nose as the two other girls grin and giggle at your misfortune. You grimace, not quite sure if you should feel terrified for your life.
“Where-- where am I?” You manage to ask, your voice shivering as your teeth clack together from the cold stone floor. The fireplace is behind the three strangers and you’d rather not make demands right now.
“Castle Dimitrescu…” It’s the blonde girl talking again. “We ran into you while we tried to get our asses saved from the sudden storm.”
“And Bela here thought we’d gift you to our mot--”
“Did not, Daniela…”
“But you coul-”
“Cass…”
You look at the girls, and now that you start to connect some dots and names, you’re more than sure they’re sisters. Which makes sense, if you’ve come to learn anything about sibling quarrels while babysitting your cousins.
You take a little while to actually comprehend the words, and even then you’re not sure what they’re on about. You nod to them groggily, even though the movement causes you to want to drown your head into a pile of snow to ease the throbbing.
Castle Dimitrescu.
The information hits you, not as hard as whatever you were struck with earlier, and you finally seem to immerse yourself into your environment.
There are wine barrels, decorating the walls in their red oak, and the seals you’ve grown familiar sparkle in the muted glow. You could barely see them, but the recognition hit you just the same. You remember the inns that your mother would drag you to, where you would spend hours and hours staring at the crimson-stained barrels and wondering if your own heart bleeds the same. Broken bottles lie forgotten here and there. Blood splatters indicate the room hasn’t been cleaned properly in ages, yet some corners of the room look well kept with the piles of blankets and magazines that definitely look too modern to fit in the old regalness of the castle itself. It’s a mixture of cozy and downright creepy.
The room isn’t exactly grand nor warm, not something you’d expect from the feared Dimitrescu’s household, and you get an odd feeling of dread; like you’re hiding from someone. Or rather, you’re the one being hidden from someone.
“Are you with us?” Bela interrupts your rising dread. She waves her hand in front of your eyes and for a second, your vision goes blurry and you groan.
“Wh- yes… I’m just confused,” is your answer, and it sparks uncontrollable giggles and snickering from the two other sisters.
“You hit her too hard in the head, she’s totally out of it,” Cassandra says with a grin as she pushes Daniela playfully. Unfortunately, you don’t find it funny, and neither does the red-haired girl, as she is quick to slash her claws at her sister with a hiss.
“Not my fault she fucking scared the living shit out of me!”
“Well, it’s not my problem you get scared of a half dead random woman when she as much as hitches a breath!”
Again, the bickering starts, and you don’t bother listening anymore. You merely take a better position on the floor and hug your knees as you lull yourself into the exhaustion playing chords on you. You close your eyes, block out the sounds, and you breathe.
This is going nowhere. In fact, you think, the more the situation unravels the less you understand. Even your own thoughts feel like they’re wrapped in cotton and wool, a haze you can’t rid from your racing thoughts.
You just feel the panic that dwells in your blood, and you can’t source its origins. Something is off, something is bound to happen if you don’t do.. something? Some… thing?
What were you thinking just now? The thought slips from your fingers, only to be replaced by another incoherent one.
It’s then when you hear the stern yet oddly calming voice boom from the hallways outside.
“Girls? Are you down here, because if I do find you three in trouble again I will--”
For some unknown reason, your reaction is to force yourself up and try to make a run for it. Not away from the castle, but towards the voice, because in your scrambled mind it feels like the right thing to do, like you’d find safety from whoever is outside of that room more than from the three girls who dragged you there.
“Oh shi-”
You barely hear the curse as you trip over towards the door, your fingertips already gracing the wood.
“I’ll stop her!” Daniela screeches, and it makes you falter for long enough that you never reach your destination.
The empty wine bottle that is thrown at you smashes against your skull. You see white as the excruciating pain makes you recoil and fall over, the back of your head hitting the ground with a disgusting crack.
It’s more than enough to knock you out.
“Shit-- you didn’t have to stop her like that!”
“-- she would’ve run into Mother and then we’d be fucked Bela!”
“And you don’t think we’ll be fucked now, Daniela? Going out and freezing our asses to near death and bringing a random maiden to our house and then you go and mince her fucking brai--”
You hear the bickering from the shroud of your unconsciousness, but it’s not quite enough to pull you completely out of it. It’s like you’re underwater, desperately searching for the way to air.
The door creaks somewhere and silence falls. You’re almost there, almost reaching the surface, almost…
“What on earth-- girls? What is this?”
The words become muddied again, a blur in the ocean you wade in. You’re in and out of the comber that crashes you in its fury, until suddenly you feel a tug, strong arms around you pulling you to safety, and you take the touch in like it’s the very air in your lungs.
You’re not under water anymore. The fog steps away as you open your eyes, though an odd sense of astray still lingers at the back of your head.
The woman holding you has the most stunning golden eyes that stare into your very soul. You lick your dry lips, confusion dancing on your face as you don’t quite now what to do with any part of your body. So, you end up lifting your hand and tracing your fingers over the unfamiliar face.
It causes the woman to frown and gently take your hand to steer it away from her cheek.
“And what do we have here… a peculiar little thing. Seems like my daughters brought a great deal of trouble upon you…”
You blink, as you have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Uh.. what?” You whisper, a sharp sting boiling down the back of your head, and you whimper. There is something oddly familiar in the pain, but you can’t place your finger on it.
“Never-mind that. My daughters are the ones in trouble, not you… Now, do tell me dear, what is your name?”
You open your mouth to answer, but come to a stop in an instant. You try again, and again, anxiety nestling at the cage of your chest. You know what this woman is asking of you, and you know you should know what to answer.
Your words are stained with fear and confusion once you actually get them untangled from your throat.
“I… don’t-- I don’t know?”
You look into the warmth of those unknown eyes, and you weep. You weep, because there is emptiness inside of you that tears you to your core, and you don’t know where it origins from, you don’t know how to rid of it, you don’t know--
-- you don’t remember who you are.
From the corner of your eyes, you see a blonde girl smack the one with flaming red hair.
“Daniela! Look what you’ve done, you fucking broke her!”