A/N 1: Okay, so I don't really know where I am going with this one. I have wanted to write something of this sort for a very long time, so all this is my muse's fault. Blame her.
A/N 2: All characters in this story are entirely fictional and except for the main characters of Lauren Weisberger's book The Devil Wears Prada, all the rest are mine. I have referred to places and people all of which did exist a trillion years ago and maybe still do. However, I have only used them to help me mould the story into something believable. What's it called, writer's license or something?! I have no intent of rewriting history or whatever. Just letting my imagination free.
A/N 3: Oh yes! I am playing around with the time period too much. I will do the same with the age gap between Miranda and Andrea. Hope no one minds. Also I do realize what you read might not completely be the Miranda Priestly we know, but according to me she only got stronger with time and experience, so that's that. Okay. I'll stop talking
Last thing, I don't have a beta reader. So all mistakes are mine.
Pairing: Miranda/OC, eventual Mirandy
Genre: Uber AU
Rating: K...eventual M
Doomed Destinies
Province of Castellón
September, 1502
She can hear the white horses neighing outside. Preparing for another night of warfare- another land, another tribe. Looting, plundering, raping, decapitations and carnage. More blood and gore.
The Moors have been sworn enemies of the Spaniards since times immemorial. Every day, it's a new territory that they capture. Zaragoza can win but not Castellón. Not the Celtiberians or the other tribes of the Iberian Peninsula.
It's warm inside and dark, except for the solitary fire burning in the fireplace. Its golden embers are being reflected in her electric blue eyes. Tonight, they are glazed over with emotion- anger, fear, abject humiliation, desperation and something akin to hopelessness. She sits in one corner of the hall playing absent-mindedly with her long raven hair. It smells of lavender, rosemary and vanilla which is intermingling with the smell of death and decay hanging in the air.
Her eighteen year old body is aching from the violation it has endured over the course of the past two days. The lily white skin of her fragile body is bruised all over with watercolour marks of blood clots and lacerations.
Even in all her despair, she looks like the angel of light- the stark white of her skin contrasting with the black of her hair, the azure blue eyes ablaze with red embers, the sharp nose complemented by an equally soft and rounded set of lips which are quivering ever so slightly. She wills herself to not give in, to not cry.
I am Miriam. Daughter of the Land of the setting Sun. Daughter of Mother Earth. They, my people the Celtiberians say this land belongs to us. Yet, yet here I am- a captive, a plaything for the Moors. I haven't seen my family in two days, ever since the war. I wonder if they're alive. I prefer to not dwell on that. Then again, is it not better to be dead in a time like this?
True I haven't seen as much luxury in my life as I have seen in these past two days, yet I do not prefer this. Hammams, wine, fruits, meat, lace and muslin, enormous beds surround me. I have only experienced what it like is to lie in these beds, for that's all I have been asked to do. I have been raped seven times by seven different men ever since they kidnapped me and brought me to this fort.
They treat us, oh yes there are others too, like objects which they can bend to their own free will. Yet, I find myself singled out from the dozens. While the rest have all been assigned a single Lord, I am tossed around; everybody gets a turn with me. I know it's because I resist more, because I still have a voice which I try to steel haplessly, because I haven't given up yet. Hope, God, I live on it. They like the challenge, I believe.
I can feel myself slipping; I know I am losing the game, whatever it is. They talk about me in their foreign language when I'm there. I can hardly understand what they say, but all I have gathered is that they call me 'Azeeza' or the precious one. It repels me. The others will eventually become princesses and queens; however I am to be the 'sharmoota' or the whore of the court.
Is this what the Mighty One has ordained for me? Madre says we are here to do God's work. Is this what God wants of me? If yes, then so shall it be. Yet, yet I ask myself: Is this your destiny Miriam?
P.S. Of course this isn't Miranda's destiny! She is ordained for greater things. Things will obviously get better. I plan to introduce Andrea in the second or third chapter if things go as I want it to be. So hold onto our seats until then.