Chapter Text
Her hand is too small.
The realization comes, and she knows somehow that isn’t right. When she wiggles her fingertips, she feels a ghost of what should be- these pale, porcelain pale things are not what she should have, not what she remembers to be her hands. Her skin is wrong as well, she is so pale she is leaning on blue, she realizes, where something tells her she should be darker. She wiggles her wrong fingertips, and it hurts. To move, to make them obey her thoughts. Then she realizes that her fingertips are skewed.
Broken , she thinks.
That is why it hurts. Pain is a dull ache, familiar to her. She knows her body is always aching. But not because of anything done to her, not because she is broken outwardly. But because she is broken inwardly. But still, why is her hand so small? Why is it broken?
Why is it so hot? She thinks.
Sweat lines her brow, coats her upper lip with salt. That doesn’t seem right. It was winter. It should be cold, seeping into her bones to make her ache more . But it's hot. So hot . She feels like she's boiling . And- and then there’s this other hand. Larger. Too large to make sense, it curls around one of her's. Soothing, trembling thumb on the meat of her palm. Circles. Fingertips, she could barely feel it. They, too, looked broken. But the hand is holding her hand despite it. Vaguely, she realizes that something is burning . Heat, the scent of roasting pork. She nearly vomits. She is a vegetarian because of her health- nearly all meat does her ill. She should not be smelling cooking meat. Her- the ones that are her's do the same for her. She has not smelled the scent of meat in nearly-
How long? Why is it so hot?
The hot, the small hands, the broken fingers. The smell.
She doesn't understand. She only knows that something is wrong.
“ Anatasia, my little Anatasia,” the voice is guttural, feminine. Russian. She follows the line of the hand, too big, too large to make sense-
A woman is staring at her. Desperation in her blue eyes. Her eyes are soft, like the petals of a flower. She was beautiful once, with high cheekbones, fine brows, and a delicate chin. But her mouth-
It is glasgow.
Her lips have been forcefully pulled away, open, shattered teeth and seeping gums exposed, and gathered cuts, fresh lines on the woman's face. This- it has been imposed on the woman, it has been ripped gleefully into her. It is curled, identical on each side. It's still fresh, still bleeding, still weeping with the freshness of the injury. Someone has seen her beauty, once beauty, and been angry. Furious. Envious.
This, this Woman's mutilation, it is someone's Design.
She realizes, faintly, stomach turning with the smell of pork, that she may have woken in hell, to danger beyond her understanding. She is small, she is broken, she is in hell-
“When I tell you, Anastasia, you run, ” the woman demands, in barely above a whisper.
The name given to her that does not seem right. Does not fit against her skin. Does not seem to ring true to her. But…
What is my name? She thinks, panic clawing at her throat.
I am Anastasia? That seems wrong, but somehow right.
She will rise again.
Can she run? She does not know.
“ I-” the Russian flows easily. Her voice is hoarse but high. It is not her voice.
Did she know Russian? How could that be her voice?
She cannot remember.
Why must she run?
“ Run to the woods. Through the door right there, baby, and out the side door, two lefts, don't bother to lock or close the door behind you. Just keep running. Do not look back, promise me, Anastasia.”
It is so hot.
Why is this woman mutilated before her? Why was she do desperate to talk around a face ripped open, tongue, split in two-
She does not know.
But something small, and animal within her- Knows she must follow what she demands of her . The words from the Woman- They are truth. Obey th y- Gently, she nods. Hooks her broken pinky around the Woman's. Tears slip out of petal blue eyes, and that broken hand, that broken hand, rubbing small circles into her palm, cups her face.
Love. Love is her Design, the Woman only is love. Comfort slips into Anastasia at her soft touch, at her words, even in hell itself.
The woman had been whispering. With a fierce nod, she croons her next words, nearly a shriek , louder.
“I love you!”
Somewhere in the heat, in the hell she has awoken to, a Beast hears.