A.N.: Yes, yes, I know I already have a fic that I should be working on. However, this is a companion to Elysian Fields - to those who haven't read Elysian Fields, it is not compulsory to read it to understand Roses are Red but it might help and it'll give you an idea of what Rose looks like from someone else's point of view. Even if that someone else is a bloodthirsty sadist.

Chapter One

I'm pretty. That's almost the only good thing you can say about me. I'm not funny, or clever, or kind, or patient, or inventive. I'm pretty. Oh, and I have a good memory - but perhaps good is the wrong word. It's not exactly good … but I'm not sure of what word I should use. I can remember every single line of Tam o' Shanter - but I have no recollection at all of the fifth rule of indices, 1. no matter how often my maths teacher had explained it to me.

But I am pretty and I am not going to pretend I don't know. When you have hardly any good traits about yourself, such as I do, then it is foolish not to take advantage of them. I may never have an amusing remark to make and perhaps I never will remember how interlocking spurs are created 2. but at least I can make myself so mind wrenchingly enchanting that everyone who sees me will immediately rush home and compose a sonnet or ballad about my beauty. Or at least a limerick.

The world should contain more poetry. After all, if it's the only thing I have any memory for then I want to know as much of it as possible. And if by being pretty I can increase the amount of poetry then I shall attempt to make myself the most lovely vision the world has ever seen.

So who am I?

My name is Rosalynde Hayden, if it really matters all that much, but I mostly prefer to just be called 'Rose'. It's simpler and more words rhyme with it. I'm pretty and I know a lot of poems but I'm not very clever. I turned eighteen last week.

And what am I?

I am the perfect little doll, pretty as a picture but with a head that is stuffed full of sawdust. I'm just touching 4ft 11 and my hair is as golden as a cornfield. I have blue eyes and pale skin and, if I want to, I can make my eyes look like glass. Like doll's eyes. Not blank in that I'm not showing emotions but blank as in there's nothing behind them. It comes in useful sometimes, especially when somebody interrupts me from my book.

I read a lot but never anything other than poetry - except children's books. I love Snow White and Cinderella and Peter Pan is one of my favourites. I could never read anything complicated - I gave up halfway through the second sentence of 1984 - but I like fairy tales. I know I'm stupid, I know I'm childish and have never properly grown up, but I don't care. I really don't care.

I'd probably have had a horrible time at school if it wasn't for my parents. 'Please don't be hard on Rose', they always say to the teachers, 'she's an absolute darling, she really is, and she tries so hard'. And teachers all nod understandingly to my parents and smile patronizingly at me whenever they see me again. I may be stupid but I'm not that stupid, I know they think there's something wrong with my head. And maybe there is, I don't know. But, no matter how badly I failed all my subjects - even English because they want you to be able to analyse, not just recite - I'm doing just fine now that I've graduated. Well, sort of graduated. Does it count as graduating if you failed everything? I don't know.

But, whether I graduated or not, I'm doing fine. My parents dote on me and our family is well-off enough that I don't need a job so my exam results aren't all that important. And now I'm on my way to America.

Yes, at the moment I'm sitting on a plane that will take me from England to America. I'm going to visit my grandparents, who I've never met but who've always sent me wonderful gifts every Christmas and birthday, and I shall be staying for about a month before returning home and … who knows? But for now, I'm flying, for the first time. It is interesting, to say the least, and I would be perfectly happy if only the little boy behind me would stop kicking the back of my seat.

I wonder if, in America, there's really as much crime as in the movies? 3.

1. The 5th rule of indices is 'a to the power of minus m equals one over (a to the power of m)', if you're wondering.

2. Interlocking spurs are created by … I'll shut up now, shall I?

3. In real life, the answer to this is probably 4. no. In Gotham City, the answer is whoooooooooooo-eeeeee, those movies don't know the half of it!

4. 'Probably' because I've never been to America and have no idea what the people there get up to.

AN: As always, your thoughts on this are appreciated as are your ideas and suggestions. If you have any requests for villains you'd like to see then I'd be delighted to receive those too.