This is a chapter edit from the first time I posted this story. I felt that I wasn't receiving enough readers because of the poorly written beginning chapters. This drove me to fill in spaces and rewrite confusing spaces, which I will be doing with the other chapters excluding the most recent one. This chapter still leaves me confused at certain parts, but that's a chance I will have to take. New Readers: I only hope you enjoy this as you delve further into the story. I apologize for my weak writing in the beginning; this continues to leave me at no excuse. Read and review, thank you.
"...from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why." -The Prophecy
"Mommy? When will you tell me the story?" She paused to correct herself. "The real one?" The child settled into her down-feathered bed, glistening eyes of sapphire holding a devious but innocent youth inside despite her slow-progressing age.
Her mother laughed an enchanting, magical laugh. Like wind chimes, the daughter thought—a music box. But the sound of the music box was not emitting from her mother's voice, it truly was a music box. The picturesque woman of eternal age sitting beside her flipped it open without a thought and sat upon the bed, listening. The melody fanned out into a soft harmonic rhythmsad, but heart-wrenchingly consuming to human ears. This child stared as her mother reached out to cup her cheek with an unexplainable smile. The golden flame smoldering inside the spirit of her eyes made the girl's face brighten.
Finally she will tell me.
"Clever one, aren't you? How did you know I lied?"
"Because people don't fall in love and live happily ever after. Fairytales are dark and never-ending. Happily ever after follows 'till death do us part.' Daddy told me." She proudly raised her chin as high as her growing ego expanded, trying to prove her intellect in one sentence.
"Your father is right. I am terribly surprised he never took the time to tell you this tale himself." Her drawn out stillness following the statement matched what her daughter had done earlier: correct herself. "No. It is not like him to do so." For another lengthened minute they sat in a peaceful recess of time, listening to the music box's lullaby. The child was on the brink of slumber if it weren't for her mother's shift in weight on the bed.
"We danced to that," she stated silently. "Your father and I. Such a long time ago." It came out in a hushed whisper—the last statement.
"Was it romantic?"
Her mother laughed again. "It was. But that will be discussed for another time. Shall I tell you this spectacular story you've been itching for such a long time to hear?" Her daughter nodded almost hurriedly, egging her on to move forward with the tale. "Alright. Alright. Here we go." Her petite figure settled on the bed, smooth and youthful fingers smoothing back the wrinkles in her dress. She waved her hand among the candle behind her and it ignited at once. The heart-shaped music box played again.
"This girl was very young, and lost in the power of the gift bestowed upon her. She did not know how to use it even though the ones before her trained her since the mark of her birth on earthen soil. They underestimated the power themselves, not knowing that the elemental, despite being an earth-bound guardian of the heavens, possessed a power overruling the rights of good and evil. As honorable as the gift was, she hated it. She cursed it. No one, not even her parents she was forced away from at the earliest of ages, guided the way through her life's destined path. The light was lost, and darkness remained. Darkness… seemed to be the key to her salvation. He was the key…"
(Early 1890s)
The sweet smell of heated hay filled the atmosphere as the fire contagiously spread in an even circle, engulfing me. Closing my eyes I relished in the vapor, believing that that last smell would be the only comfort I took with me to death.
It is all a dream, Autumn. A dream that will soon come to pass.
In my early adult years, I realized I had not yet experienced a full life every person particularly desires nowadays—what with the European diseases and increasing poverty. So, at this point in time after musing over that thought, I was convinced that I'd be one of those who died at a young age. Tonight I was being sentenced to my death. The urging of my demise grew louder, villagers shouting curses at me from all directions. I couldn't help but smile as I opened my eyes to the faces of accusers one more time. Those eyes of mine were capable of scaring the bravest onlookers. At first glance, they would seem as if they were glowing. But, if someone were to come closer to me, my irises looked like an extraction from the surface of the sun itself. They shouldn't be afraid, for it was only the energy of the elements within me. All of it was a part of me that I had to accept one day—even if it meant accepting it by death. From the moment of birth, I have been an elemental. I never knew the purpose of this gift—being a supernatural creature that fit in with several other categories diagnosed as abomination. Though I was trained by my Carpathian ancestors for society's rejections and through the ways of concealing this gift and curse, I hoped I would put them to excellent use one day when the time came.
I believe today was the day their use would be in dire need. The village we lived in had an intense paranoia of anything out of the ordinary during the year of growing up. I respected them for that, of course. Dracula's been hunting in our town for years. But perhaps the paranoia surrounding my being turned to chaos too quickly. Being different was blasphemy. Through my powers, the intense suspicion of the villagers mistook me for practicing witchcraft. Witchcraft in Transylvania is immediately punishable by being burned in the center of town. It was the devil's work, they'd say. A working that can only be cleansed by being sent back to hell.
I pulled on the taut ropes binding my wrists together, staring down the leader of my falsely acclaimed witch hunt: Anna Valerious.
She walked towards me with slow haste, her dark Romanian eyes observing each unique expression morphing my face. My head bowed in respect she should not have deserved.
"You know the reason for your execution?" She questioned. Her voice held no sign of a respect returned. The smoke of the fire entered my lungs unsuspectingly, forcing me to gasp for the air I wasn't receiving. As my coughs subsided, I stared into her face in return without sympathy for her cursed family as she had now cursed mine.
"Of course I do," I grinned. "The reason is you. I am no witch. I worship no devil. I speak no foreign tongue of evil. I was gifted with the elements of the earth, and I regret nothing. So go ahead. Burn me. Cast me off as Satan's earthly puppet. Do you expect me to beg now and agree with you? Beg for my life until you relent and confine me for the rest of my life? He will still be looking for you: the prince of darkness. Killing me will never solve your own family problems. Time is running out." I inhaled, closing my eyes to everyone and turning my face upwards towards the skies. "I can feel it in the winds."
My eyes glowed brighter in the light of the fire as they opened, reflecting off of the chestnut tendrils flowing across my back.