Grimmling (RWBY)

Chapter 1 - Evernight Castle - A Season of Rebellion

Selene didn't know who the guest was, or how they had gotten to Evernight Castle.

Selene was an inquisitive young woman, though.

When she heard one of her mother's servants, Tyrian, giggling about their guest having finally recovered enough for conversation, she had become... curious.

Selene didn't like Tyrian. She didn't like how he fawned and babbled around her mother. She didn't like the way he looked at her with a strange combination of awe and revulsion. And she especially didn't like how he laughed when he saw others suffering. Thankfully, her mother seemed to sense this, and kept him away from her. Her mother kept most of her "Agents" as she called them, away from her.

But a guest? That was new. Unusual. And Selene had grown bored with the passing of years.

Selene had been given permission to ride Blackfeather, her Nevermore companion, anywhere in the Grimmlands that she pleased, but she had never seen any travelers that might become guests. She didn't understand why, and her maid, old Visha, had merely shushed her when she'd asked. And she'd learned long ago not to ask her mother about other people. She felt lucky that she was allowed to explore her mother's Kingdom.

And she suspected that there were other lands out there, with people. Surely there were. But she was not allowed to ask about them, nor to visit what her mother had once called "the other continents" when Selene had caught her unawares and asked. Then her mother had glared at her, and made her swear she would not set foot on any of them.

And now there was a guest. Possibly someone who was not one of her mother's servants or agents, who... perhaps, had not been told that they were not to tell Selene certain things.

Selene was twenty-five years old. She was sure that she was an adult, and should be able to make her own decisions. But her mother treated her like a child, still. It was frustrating.

And so she had snooped. She had listened to the servants talk, and paid attention to when meals were being prepared and served. And she had, discretely, followed one to the deepest basements of Evernight, and had discovered a door that would change her world.

Selene waited in the shadows of an alcove, just where the hallway branched, until the servant had returned with the tray, now stacked with the remains of the prior meal's dishes. She assumed they had left the late dinner with the guest. Selene had dined in her chambers a couple of hours earlier. Visha believed that Selene had retired early, and her mother was very unlikely to look for her at this late hour.

Why a guest would want to be housed in the basements, with no windows, she could not begin to fathom. It was dim, in the bowels of Evernight. The dark stone seemed to absorb light and throw it back with a purple cast, and there was a smell of damp and decay.

She waited until the servant was well out of sight, and made her way quietly the toward where they must have left the tray. She could faintly smell the aroma of the food, and began using that as an additional guide for her footsteps.

The hallway contained several doors on either side, and all but two were open. The rooms themselves were sparsely furnished, with small beds, a table and chair.

And strangely, as she glanced in each, she noticed an iron ring was driven into the stone wall between bed and table on each one, until she reached the final two closd doors.

The first had a strange violet light seeping from beneath the door, and a strange hum sounded from within. She found that she did not enjoy either, and moved forward quickly.

And at the second closed door, she paused, listening.

She could hear a woman's voice.

"Shall I tell you a bedtime story?"