When word reached us of the sleeping castle I knew that my brother would not rest until his lust for questing was sated, until we had found the princess who lay slumbering in the eye of a curse. The tale came from far away, over the hills, from the deep heart of the irrational east. We travelled, him and I, through many patchwork fields; over vast mountain ranges; and across the great rivers of our continent, until at last we reached a land in which the very air is pregnant with doubt and at night the wind whispers ancient secrets high above the lofty mountain paths.
The people here are tough and superstitious, bent with toil, weathered by the harsh winds that rattle through their crude woollen clothing. They seem themselves to have been flung here by the wind from the farthest corners of the earth, as there is no uniformity in their appearance, aside from the identically blank expressions worn by all; Slavic men with wide, studded belts roam the hills; picturesque Asiatic women trudge along the roadsides carrying colourful bundles on their heads; and everywhere shrines flutter their ribbons towards the sky, announcing their icons to passers-by. They cling to their folk law, necks and wrists laden with strings of primitive charms, rosaries, loops of wooden beads, strange amulets and a multitude of other jewellery with which they ward off the ancient evils that plague their country. I don't blame them, there is little here to live on but the chill wind and silent rocks, and the wolves are always hungry.
Away from the roughly hewn roads that have been gouged out of the defiant hills, huge, tangled forests spring up gloomily and blanket the cold ground in impenetrable oceans of green, populated only by howling beasts, which can sometimes be seen swimming through the murky shadows at the forest edges. The cerulean sky is cavernously empty, hanging eternally over crested mountains: The inhuman beauty of the region; the lonely expanses of exquisitely uninhabitable earth; the anonymity of the wilderness and all the secrets it holds conspired to snatch my brothers heart and lock it away in rock and ice. Beside such immensity mere mortals are infinitesimal and the strange rumours that rustle through the villages are unsurprising, those mysterious murmurs of danger and despair appear to be bred by the mountains themselves.
We travelled through the harsh world for endless weeks, searching for a whisper of the enchanted princess, but though we found those who would take us in for the night, for a price, a mention of the tale would induce nothing but a terrified silence from all those to whom we spoke. The longer we searched, the more intrigued my brother became, until he was seized by an almost obsessive mania; he slept badly, ate little and was consumed by dreams of the mysterious woman. This fruitless chase continued for several months, and everyday I begged my brother to give up the search and come away from the cold beauty that trapped us.
I was beginning to despair at his deteriorating health when we came across a deserted village, deep in the hostile forests, filled with tiny crumbling cottages, one of which exuded a thin blue column of smoke from the worn chimney. The hut was almost entirely covered with climbing plants, and ferns pushed out through broken shutters, from which faded red paint peeled sadly. It looked as though it would turn to dust and blow away in the slightest breath of wind. In front of this house, slumped in a crude rocking chair, was a woman who looked older than the hills, older than even the forests and mountains. Her face was so wrinkled that her eyes were almost invisible between grey folds of skin. From between her thin lips hung a wooden pipe, and she puffed out noxious purple fumes into the crystal air. Beside her was a curious object that looked rather like a large pestle and mortar, and I wondered what it could be for. She watched us in silence as we approached with unusual caution, and the forest was silent but for the far off howling of the wolves. My brother coughed nervously and greeted her in the fashion customary to the region. She smiled suddenly, showing crooked yellow teeth, and a soft wind rustled her thick ropes of iron-grey hair. To our surprise she answered us in perfect French, and promised to give us the knowledge we sought in return for my ruby ring. My brother readily agreed, and I, grateful for the direction that the wise-woman provided, handed it over without question. We gladly accepted her offer of a place to stay for the night, the forests in this land are never safe, and as ripples of darkness spread inky tendrils across the sky, we stooped into the safety of the crooked hut.
A/N: Please review! Chapter 2 is on it's way, should be done before monday (hopefully).