Scars

Help

Valora peaked into her father's room and automatically panicked at the note on the bed. "Father!" She read the note and felt despaired. To the cliff. I must see her. Will return soon. She slammed the note down and ran out the door donning her veil. Arriving to the forest out of breath, she saw her father yelling.

"How could you! It has been eleven years! She refuses to marry! What you've done to her is unacceptable!"

"Father!" She yelled again. He was deaf to her as he continued to yell. She had never seen him behave so. She was able to get to him as he paused in a coughing fit. "Father, what are you doing?" He was unable to answer her as he clenched his chest. "Where is your coat?" She fussed looking down to untie her cape to put around his frail shoulders. She screamed in terror when she felt rather than saw him drop to the ground clutching his chest. "Oh god! Father!" She looked around in despair for any source of help and sighed at no sigh of life. Just the wind and the snow covered ground. The falling snow blocked her vision and she could feel her father began to tremble. "Help!" She shouted. She knew she could not get her father home and to a physician in time so she thought desperately. The castle! "I will be back." She whispered covering him in her cape and running as fast as she could in the direction she remembered the castle was in.

Adonis studied the mirror and watched the last bit of red disappear from the tip of a rose petal. "No no no no." He whispered as he felt another scar begin to form. He clenched his jaw against the pain. In a normal mirror, he watched as the silver scars on his face left to turn into the silver on the rose and the relief he felt at once again seeing his features unscarred dissipated when once glance in the special mirror showed his marred face. He saw what the world would see and he hated it. It no longer mattered that the silver scars he could see were gone when everyone else saw a disfigured monster. He growled running a hand through his hair. He could not vent his rage to anyone because he sent all of the servants home, all but Sicily, unable to stand their stares and curious faces. Today would give him one more year to figure out a way to break the curse and he was running out of time. He snapped out of it when he heard a pounding at his door. He ignored it, but the pounding continued with such urgency. He donned his mask and swung the door open making sure it would slam against the wall and echo throughout the house. His eyes widened when he saw the woman shivering at his door.

"My father." She gasped. "The cliff. His chest. Please help."

He looked past her at the blizzard and frowned, concern replacing his rage. "Stay here." he muttered. He took off his cloak and gave it to her before running toward the cliff. Arriving within minutes with his long strides, he saw the trembling elderly man and sighed before picking him up and jogging back to his house. Walking directly to one of the closest rooms he lit candles as she appeared.

"Is.. Is he alive?"

"Yes, but he is freezing." He gave her instructions to light the fireplace as he worked on the man. He learned a few things from Sicily about treating hypothermia and shock after she scolded him for trying to freeze to death in the woods. Each time she caught him trying to end his existence she would give him lectures on how to treat illness and reverse the effects of his shenanigans. In attempts to kill himself, he learned to save lives, the ultimate irony. Sicily rushed in, wearing a simple robe.

"Hypothermia."

"Fire place. Good. Covers. Good. I must go prepare some soup for him when he awakens."

"If he awakens." Valora muttered, gaining Sicily's attention for the first time. "He clenched his chest which caused him to fall and lose consciousness." She kept her tears at bay but could not hide her trembling. "I would not have been able to get him home in time to save him." She said more to Adonis referring to the promise as she bought the cloak around herself even more. He just silently stared down at her father.