A/N include a canary cream
The castle walls crumble around me in a strange, slow motion descent of rubble and mortar so old it has turned to sand. It leaves pockmarks in its wake as it slides around the tiny stones and broken things, casting shadows like acid breaking through a slab of stone.
This analogy is true in some ways, if the stone is the failing walls of this castle and the acidic corrosion the sharp sting of time and neglect. The taste it leaves is just as bitter, after all.
I've been here for years now, and although the ruin has been on the brink of collapse for as long as I have known it, I have never seen even a hint that it is finally going to fall into decay. Instead, it remains poised on the edge of failure, towers of fading stone standing tall in defiance of logic and all knowledge of gravity, never once tipping over the edge.
I wish it would. Maybe then I could be free. But the same dread force that keeps this place standing prevents its outer walls from coming down and its doors from opening. It's like it has become a dying animal with pieces of its brain removed – fighting to maintain its defenses without even knowing why. I wonder what memories this place has seen in the centuries of its youth that would make it cling so strongly to survival. I wonder why it seeks to protect its people from some unknown force of destruction.
You see, it is my own fault I am trapped. I wandered here nearly a decade ago, drawn by the mystery and sadness that surrounds this place, and the undeniable certainty that I somehow belong here – that this is somehow home. Like an idiot, I thought the certainty of youth meant something, instead of being nothing more than a misguided need to belong, and I stepped foot inside the great entrance doors only to hear them shut forever behind me.
The only way up is out, high up above the broken battlements and through the cracks in this great castle's defenses. Don't think I haven't tried. I've knotted together tapestry after tapestry in an attempt to scale the walls, built pick after pick out of the broken swords of knights so that I might stab my way through the mortar and onwards to freedom. It doesn't work. The castle heaves a great sigh, like a living thing, and throws me back time and again. Several months ago, I stopped trying.
Even the magic doesn't work.
Oh yes, I know about the magic. The terrible sorcery that bewitched my young, impressionable mind and led me astray. I thought I was special – these strange things I could do in the dead of night, when I wished for it the most. The golden, sparkling magic. It's what led me here, away from the destruction of my city, along the overgrown train tracks, and past the hulking lump of steel that was once a steam engine from the days of old.
There are legends whispered amongst children that tell tales of an ancient school of witchcraft and wizardry – a place where people with magic studied to become kings and queens of our world. When you are a child, you believe them. When your fingertips light up under the midnight sky with a thousand glistening sparks, you believe it more.
Whatever beings once roamed these halls are long dead and even longer forgotten. The only magic left here lies within my prison walls and the everlasting feast that appears along the four cracked and broken dining tables that line the Hall. Even this bears the stench of decay, as I am forced to eat my fill quickly before the succulent dishes dissolve into dust.
I push aside the empty portrait frame that conceals the hidden room I found many years ago. The portrait creaks on rusty hinges before smashing back against the stone wall behind it. I wonder whether it is worth attempting to open the windows again and hurl myself to the ground below – a far better fate than this terminal isolation – but quickly settle on the futility of my actions. The windows hold fast; I don't need to attempt to open them to know this.
I kick out at the cushioned arm chair, sick to death of this endless spiral of misery and anger, and something beneath it catches my eye. The cushions are perfectly preserved, maintained by some spell I cannot fathom, and from beneath them rolls a tiny pastry. I frown, drawn by the way the packaging around it glows, sparkling in the dull sunlight. Surely it will crumble to dust before my eyes.
It does no such thing, and drawn by the faint hope that it is poisoned and will end my misery once and for all, I unwrap the strange custard and eat it.
To my horror, I feel fine.
Suddenly, my stomach seems to stretch beyond capacity, before I feel the very immediate sensation of being snapped like a rubber band. I scream, but it comes out like a squawk. When I look down at my body, there is a large beak in the way: my beak. Seconds pass slowly as I wait to wake from this strange nightmare, and then it suddenly clicks.
This is real. This is real, and I am free.
I flap my wings, rising unsteadily like a newborn chick, and lurch, lopsided toward the sky. I don't know how long this will last, and I can already feel the castle groaning in protest. Its walls shudder, reaching for me, but it has no control over my flight, and its attempts to halt me only send more stones cascading toward the floor. I fly toward the broken ceiling and through into blinding sunlight.
I glide slowly down to the pavement below, transforming back into my human form and stumbling forward into an adrenaline-fueled run toward the broken castle gates and freedom.
As I hear the walls tumble down behind me, crying out with the screech of stone on stone that sounds almost human, I can't help but shake the feeling that I have left my home behind me.