Beauty and Her Vampire {Watty Awards}

BAHV (Part 1)

2012 © Sonia Bartlett

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Part One

Riderscroft, Negly 1709

     The cool night air rushed through the lackluster strands of hair that stuck to the thin, pale girl’s form. Her head hung low, her eyes shut, as her limp form was carried relentlessly into the ever-darkening forestry. A bare whisper of breath unsteadily made its way through her lips. She was the picture of resigned defeat.

     The two bulky guards on either side of her grasped her shoulders with firm fingers, holding her entire weight between the two so her knees were bent and her bare feet were inches off the forest floor. And yet there was a certain amount of pity behind their resolute expressions.

     It wasn’t this poor girl’s fault she was chosen this moon – that they knew. But they also realized with grim resolve that if it wasn’t she, it could be another…their sister or the girl they fancied perhaps. But as they reached the ancient dais, the stocky blonde man was forced to admit that he had fancied this poor slip of a girl whose eyes were normally shining with the light of challenge and laughter and whose luxurious tawny chestnut mane was whipping in the wind atop her great dappled stallion.

     But now her eyes were shut – no doubt dulled from exhaustion and fasting. Her glorious curly mane of hair that caught the eye of man a man was now limp and dull. It gave the man a strange sensation in his chest, a pulling barb of pain that made him hesitated on the bottom step of the platform.

     His partner shot him a quick, fierce look that reminded him of his duty. He had made this march almost every moon since he was seven and ten summers, so why hesitate now? Torn, he reluctantly followed his friend up the dais.

     It wasn’t very large, the size of one of the rooms in his three-room home. In the center, fresh straw was piled between two upright posts, laden with dull gray meal chains. Carefully making their way over the creaking boards, the men set the woman’s limp body onto the straw.

     Her eyelashes fluttered when she felt the prickly seat but her head still hung as each guard grabbed her wrists and pointlessly cuffed her to the brand new chains. It wasn’t as if she was going to fight or try to leave. They doubted that she even could, what with the three day fast that every Aukoti for the past century has rigidly adhered to, whether by choice or not.

     With a final check on the cuff’s lock, the men rose to leave. On impulse, the blonde knelt quickly, his lips to the girl’s ear and whispered.

     “I’m sorry, Arabella. This should never have been your fate.” With a soft, barely noticeable touch of his lips to her forehead, the blonde turned and walked quickly off the dais passing by a box covered in many, many years of rust that housed the key to the girl's dull chains.

     In his haste he missed the girl’s rasping voice. “I forgive you, Rich,” she breathed, the whisper ripping painfully through a throat torn from yelling. A moment later, the darkness enveloped his somewhat-comforting presence from her fading vision.

      She didn’t blame them – no, she was too drained for that. For days she raged at the counsel, the town, even the King who so badly neglected his suffering lands. But her voice was almost gone from use, and she was so tired…so very tired.

      Her last thought before the darkness consumed her, as well, was of her family. They were the only ones she had not cursed. She didn’t blame Joey for stealing that bread. Instead, she now accepted her fate.

      “I hope he will make it quick…”  That was the last thought she would have for several hours…until the dying sun was banished completely from the sky and darkness reigned supreme.

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     The silence was deafening. No crickets chirped. No animals rustled. The wind was eerily absent. Even the stars had hidden tonight – perhaps afraid of what was lurking in the shadows. The only sound was the erratic breathing of the fitfully sleeping girl on the dais.

     No sound or movement marked the appearance of the man into the cold fall night. One moment all was quiet, the next a presence made itself known with long, purposeful strides. From the darkness of the tree line, he arose – a being of pure power whose cloak blended with the shadows that surrounded him.

     He approached the dais with the ease of familiarity accentuated by an almost animalistic grace. Passing by the unnoticed metal box covered in rust, he came to a fluid halt before the girl. She was clad simply in a soft yellow wool dress that bore the signs of many restless nights. The dark circles under her eyes and the thinness of her frame were proof of the villagers’ continued folly of fasting. As if from abstaining from food, their god would somehow save them.

     His eyes scrutinized her, as if evaluating her merit on some unfathomable scale.  After a moment he seemed to come to a decision, a slight frown marring his otherwise impassive features. Bending in one lithe movement, he brushed a piece of tawny hair from her eyes in with a foreign gentleness, revealing a stunningly attractive face. Her eyes flickered for a moment, but he didn’t flinch. There was no light in the night – no stars or moon. Even the men he knew had left her there brought no lantern for her to see him by.

     Still, when her eyes opened fully, she scanned the area in front of her. Unerringly, her green-gray eyes sought and found his precisely. He stiffened infinitesimally. Then her eyes shuttered closed as if she was again asleep.

     Then, “Quickly, please. I-I don’t want to suffer.” It was the strength in those words, and the odd fragility of them, as much as the words themselves that stopped the man. For a moment he was unsure of himself – a rarity to be sure – but when the girl’s tenseness faded into another restless slumber, he relaxed minutely.  

     Coming to a decision, he rose from his crouch, bringing her left wrist with him. Insinuating a finger between her wrist and the cold metal of the manacle that surrounded it, he pressed and the iron snapped. Releasing her wrist, he repeated the action. The links of chain clanked against eachother as he bent between them to lift the shivering girl.

     In his arms she froze and he wondered if she would awake yet again. When she relaxed once more, she melded her frame to his, obviously seeking heat in the cold night. Even his cool frame was warmer than the prickly straw that was her bed for the night. Vaguely uncomfortable, the man became rigid beneath her touch. Despite the temperature, she was warm.

     Her touch was warmer than it ought to have been, and so he abruptly turned and left the dais. A moment later, his cloak blended into the shadows and all that was left was the rapidly fading beacon of the girl’s yellow dress.

     An instant later, even that was consumed by the darkness.