Greetings Phantom Phans. So, this is a gender swap, but only for Erik ( add and 'a' to the end of that from now on, dear reader). Everyone else will remain as they were. This fic is pretty original, but some elements of Kay have been adopted. Please enjoy :)
Disclaimer: The following characters are being borrowed for the sake of sanity. Thank Ye :)
Since my youth, the women of high society always held a certain enigmatic air. These ladies, with curls piled high atop heads with noses held higher by snobbery, they always made me wonder. They were gorgeous, these women. They'd swirl about the floor in a flurry of skirts with upstanding gentlemen to the most fashionable waltzes. It is not a mystery to me now why I didn't gander at the men, but at the time I wondered why the women held my attention and made it linger far more than it should. Perhaps it was my ravaged face, I would ponder. Maybe I despised the fact that they could flounce about with the gaiety only their kind could afford, while I, the daughter and only child to my upper class parents, had to watch with far less enthusiasm at the top of the stair.
Or maybe, I'd whisper, it was the fact that they were able to socialize. I could never afford that, or rather that my parents couldn't. My mother, Antoinette, she told me that I wasn't allowed to join in on the fun until I grew out of my awkward stage. Yes, my malformed lips, lack of a nose, and the skeletal shape I had always known as my own- an awkward stage. Really, mother? I can't imagine how she must have felt, seeing that zombie child and realizing it was indeed the fruit of her womb. Her little girl, an un-dead creature.
Papa refused to acknowledge me. Unless I dared to call upon him as such. A thrashing was what preceded that kind of insinuation. Any kind of inkling that I was partly his. His name was Laurent. I recall it only because Mama would screech it when he boxed my ears and he seemed to respond. He was a handsome fellow. Maybe my father with his obtuse fury, taught me that men were to be observed and treated with caution and veiled disdain.
I believe my mother was the only one to show me even the slightest bit of pity. Total seclusion was making me the most unbearable of children, so my mother came up with a plan to satisfy both my lonesome boredom and her wish to play dress up with the angel child she never had. Mama often held masquerades and I was permitted to attend as long as Papa didn't know of it.
" Erika stay silent and stay hidden. Talk to no one and watch out for your father. Here."
Every party she would hand me a new outfit. I was always something over decorated and coquettish. I, the monarch butterfly or the not- so- bashful Bopeep. The costumes were confectionary pastries of pink candy bows and green icing ribbons atop butter cream taffeta. A walking fruit tart. It didn't matter though, I was amongst the living. They were so warm, these people. The women, with their swelling bosoms and beaded gowns trimmed with delicate lace. I loved them. They smelled of lavender and roses. They giggled shrilly as men tickled their necks with combed goatees. My mother, always the center of attention, eyeing me with caution.
Everything was well until I met her.
Her name was Cecile.
She was the one who made it clear to me that I wasn't one for courting males. Not that males would want to court me. Cecile was a girl of fourteen with fetching freckles on her nose and beautiful pouting lips. I was thirteen at the time, and was well into the habit of avoiding people at masquerades. This evening, I was quaffed up in the fashion of a peacock. My hair, of which I had plenty, was twirled into coils of gold and cascaded down my back. A peacocks mask covered the majority of my face and my corset pushed my barely budding breasts up near my throat. I had gone into the salon to avoid my father. He had grown suspicious over the last few months, ever since he had seen Mama bringing home dresses that seemed far to small for her. It was for that reason that I was a peacock this night instead of the planned archangel.
I had settled myself at the harp and plucked it's strings absently. I was proficient at many, if not all instruments, but the harp was the only one available in the room. I sang softly to myself and strummed delicately along with my voice. I was so consumed by singing, I didn't notice the girl at my side until she whimpered behind her hand. I jumped so high in shock that she stopped her tears instantly and tittered in my expense.
" I beg pardon, Mademoiselle. I didn't mean to make you cry." I said, straightening my back and bowing. She giggled now and lifted my chin up so I would face her.
" You act like a gentleman, silly goose. Come up here and let us converse normally." I straightened up instantaneously and she sat me next to her on the straight-backed couch.
" My name is Cecile. What is your name, Mademoiselle Garcon?" It was lucky she couldn't see my flushed cheeks.
" Erika..."
" Erika, you have a most superb voice! It reduced me to tears." So strange she was. She was a minuet copy of the beautiful women I had come to be so throughly engrossed in. She cooled herself with the red brocaded fan in her hand. She herself was dressed as angel of a more seductive breed.
" I find these parties of masques particularly daunting, don't you?"
" Daunting? In what sense, Mademoiselle?"
" Erika, don't you find it intimidating to say, involve yourself with a gentleman on a semi- personal level when the whole night he keeps up the farce of say a demon or Hades?"
" I don't see how that is daunting, considering that you yourself will be flirting without shame behind the face of the Snow Queen or that of the Goddess Aphrodite." Cecile laughed softly at this behind her mask, a simple veil with golden stars branching off the eyes. It covered only the top half of her face and left me staring without knowing at her full lips, distinctly rouged a deep red.
" How old are you?" questioned Cecile as a laughing couple danced by the slightly parted salon curtains, spilling champagne on the carpet. I pressed my lips in distaste before answering.
" Thirteen."
" A year younger than myself. Your manner of speaking and care of words make you seem older. Not to mention the beauty of your voice! My word, who is your voice instructor? I must ask your maestro to tutor me!"
" I have no voice instructor. I am not privileged."
" Not privileged? You are from a high bred family, are you not, Erika?"
" Oh, I am" I hastily replied, " But my parents don't favor me much." Cecile crinkled her nose in distaste at the very thought.
" They do not favor you? That sounds cruel, to say nothing but the least! Why on earth would they not favor their own child?" I pressed my lips again, making them drain of color. I would often do that when I grew nervous as a child. Sometimes I catch myself doing it still.
" Because I am a monster with a face that God himself finds perverse. Don't scoff, mademoiselle. It's quite true. Now, I beg to be excused so that I may retire to my room."
" You're Madame Antoinette's daughter?! Pardon-moi, but I feel that I must see your face. You must be trying to push me away, as you do others. Your parents say you are viciously anti-social."
" Do they?!" I rounded on her bitterly, my words seething with hate. " Mademoiselle, I am far from it! I crave for human touch! I wish just once I could dance with someone and not fear their reaction to my face! I am repulsive, horrifying, un-dead, ugly- if you please! Just a monster!"Cecile took me into her arms then, soothing me with the gentle rhythm of her breathing.
" I believe you're beautiful under that mask, dearest little nightingale. Sing again, for me?"
I felt that I should oblige, for she coaxed my ungovernable temper into repose. Positioning myself once again at the harp, I plucked the strings into a flighty melody for Cecile. Her expression went slack, the sparkle in her eyes became so muted she appeared dazed. I sang for a while, trying to supply myself with some peace of mind while she sat without uttering a word.
Just as my mother, my father, and myself feared so greatly, my face was revealed. It is still so vivid. Cecile stood and made her way toward me. She moved like an automation, her joints stiff as she leaned forward to caress my cheek. And then, for the first time in my life, I felt betrayal. She tore away my safeguard. By removing my mask, she removed all of the manners my mother ingrained so painstakingly into me. She stripped me of pride, and of most of the hope I had acquired at that point.
No one would have known if I had just clamped my hand over her mouth until she grew tired of it, but I myself was paralyzed. What a sound! Her screams seemed to halt the party so abruptly, it was almost as if they had been anticipating it. The guests crowed into the boudoir, reaction after reaction bombarding me. Then they stepped forward. My father, dressed at the King of Thieves, bore his hatred with such an igneous glare, I feared my heart might combust. Mama clamped her fingers so fiercely in her skirts, I could feel the blows she wanted to inflict upon my face.
I cared so very little what my father desired. He never loved me, so why should I give a fuck what he thought or what he wanted to do to me. It was Antoinette, my frail golden haired mother. Her sea- saw of love and hate toward me was the only comfort I found. She at least showed some love in her denial.
" Who is that?"
" The devil himself"
" But it is a little girl!"
" Who's child is that?
My father grabbed me by my hair. I was sobbing so irrationally, that he slapped my tainted cheeks to knock some sense into me.
" Laurent, wait!" Antoinette cried, her hair fluttering behind her as she dashed for my rescue.
" Antoinette, it ends tonight! This child has been a leech on my income, my happiness and my sanity. Don't you see she has made you ill as well?" My mother's perfect brown eyes stared intently at my father.
" Erika..." My mother said with a dazed echo. I feared she would do what she did next.
" Mama?" I asked meekly. She moved forward, her expression an enigma. The assembly of the upper class watched on. Even little Cecile, her tears not so fetching now as they were mere minutes ago. My mother gripped my wrist with one hand, her nails puncturing the tender flesh. I winced slightly as she leaned in to whisper to me.
" You are not my child. You are the spawn of hell itself. Now, get out." She shot a glace up to Laurent and he began to drag me out of the house by my hair.
" Mama, Mama...MAMA!!!" She stood stock still, her head turned away in disgust. I'll never forget her face, not for as long as I live. My father opened our front door and threw me down the stone steps, a tumbling wreck of curls and petticoats.
" I never want to see your face again, though I'm sure it will haunt me for the rest of my days."
My nose, or what existed of it, bled as I raised my head off the stone path. I know my tears betrayed me then.
" Papa, please..." I whimpered. The door slammed without a qualm and grimaced at me with foreboding. The party seemed to grow steadily back to it's former level of joviality and people dance past the window. Slowly, I raised myself onto my feet and walked away from the house I had considered home.
Chapter one est finis! C'est tres mal, n'est pas? Don't fret, I've got another chapter on the way. Please let me know how you liked it :)
Love,
DeMuerte