Once upon a time, in a land far far away, lived a young queen named Daisy.
Let's be more precise now, shall we? The year was 1522, exactly a month after Daisy's coronation. It was then that her time travelling friends from the future, Barry, Naldo, Cyd and Shelby, decided to pay her a visit.
Indeed for the first time since her coronation, the gang from 2016 was heading back to the year 1522. Barry hadn't seen his love ever since and he was missing her like crazy, a fact of which his friends were very aware.
It was great for the gang to be all in the same room once again. They had planned to stay for an entire week. But soon enough, Daisy and Barry were off who knows where and so were Cyd and Naldo who were now officially a couple.
Though she ended up alone in a castle five hundred years in the past, Shelby didn't mind…too much. She was happy for her friends and completely understood they needed time alone together. She then decided to visit the castle but it being so enormous and her being Shelby, she found herself getting kind of…lost.
She saw a guard and wanted to ask her way but the poor man was sleeping so soundly that she couldn't bring herself to wake him up. She took the stairs next to him hoping she was heading for the lobby.
Descending the stairs, she quickly realized her mistake. Nothing felt familiar. The rest of the castle being so cozy and welcoming, she was surprised at how cold and frightening this place seemed to be.
As her foot hit the ground at the bottom of the stairs she felt something grab her wrist and pull her forward. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she struggled to get free from the hand holding her. That hand belonged to a man who was fortunately standing behind steel bars.
The man was much older than her with dark intense eyes with a shade of evil. His rotten appearance betrayed how long he might have been there. Showing equally mistreated teeth, the man smiled at her while looking her up and down.
"Hello beautiful creature." He then said in a rusty voice. That only increased Shelby's will to get her arm free from his grip. With all her strength, she forcefully moved her arm so that his own would hit the hard bars of what she assumed to be his cell. Her tactic worked as he lost his grip on her.
Quickly backing away, her back hit cold steel and she felt an arm wrap around her waist. Turning her head she saw a boy about her age in another cell looking as bad as the other man. She struggled to get free as he whispered obscenities in her ear. Feeling his hand moving up her belly, she hit him in the stomach with her elbow.
Once he let go, she started running as far away as possible from them. She didn't even think about running back up the stairs as her feet seemed to have a mind of their own. Turning a corner, she stopped to catch her breath.
"What is this place?" she wondered aloud.
"Welcome to the dungeon!" She heard a voice respond behind her.
She froze for a moment. She knew that voice…she almost married that voice. And sure enough as she slowly turned around, there he was. Casually lining against the bars as if he owned the place was standing Sebastian, the only person Shelby had ever truly hated.
"Sebastian!" Shelby said with surprise.
"Fancy seeing you here Shelby." he replied with sarcasm not losing his pose. "What are you doing here?"
"I…" Shelby tried to regain her composure as fast as she could. If there was something she couldn't bear, it was losing her pride in front of that Gaston wannabe. "Can't a girl come visit her ex-fiancé in the dungeon?" She replied crossing her arms with the same attitude she always had used every time she had confronted him.
"How nice of you" he said through gritted teeth as he walked closer towards her with a cold stare.
"I know…it's something you could learn from!" she told him, feeling much more powerful than before in front of him as he was now contained.
"You're lost, aren't you?" he said cracking a smile.
"Maybe!" Shelby replied not losing her attitude.
"Well…" he said nodding in the opposite direction as she came from. "Exit's that way!" he looked back at her with something in his eyes she couldn't quite identify.
Was that sadness? Or maybe anger? Both? She wasn't sure but as she looked in the direction Sebastian pointed her too, she couldn't move her feet. Oh, she wanted to get out of there, as quickly as she could but as much as tried to, she couldn't move.
Sebastian had kept her physically captive already. How was it possible that even if he was behind metal bars and she was free, he still had some sort of power over her?
"Well…aren't you going to get back to your friends?" he said bitterly putting emphasis on the word friends.
"Oh don't worry, I'm getting out of here!" she said still not moving. As if seeing him for the first time that day, Shelby wondered how it was possible for him to still look perfectly intact compared to the other prisoners. Oh, he was handsome, she wasn't about to deny that but after being here for a month, she'd have thought he would have been messier than this.
"Farewell then." He said with that same look, the one that had restrained her feet from moving.
She dusted off her dress before thinking about stepping towards the exit. Her beautiful white dress was tarnished at the waist due to the dirty arm that had surrounded it. One of her long dangling sleeves had been ripped where the first man had forcefully grabbed her.
Shelby's gesture had caught Sebastian's attention. Nodding at her dress, he couldn't help but ask what had happened.
"What's that all about? Can't your queen friend buy you a better dress?" he replied with bitterness.
"First of all, I don't expect anything out of my friend's position and secondly, my dress would have been fine if your dungeon companions hadn't gotten so excited at seeing a woman after such a long time." She replied looking at him right in the eyes.
"I don't understand why." He said with a mocking laugh. "There's nothing exciting about you!"
Shelby's face fell. As much as she didn't care about what that villain thought, his comment really hurt. Regaining her composure, she replied to him.
"In that case, life would have been pretty dull if you had married me!" she said secretly hoping he would take that back.
Looking at her for a while, Sebastian cracked a smile.
"Well, maybe I find you more exciting than I let on." Then nodding at the dress, he continued. "If that had been me I would have ripped that dress right off of you!"
Even though he had taking his insult back, Shelby felt he had gone too far. Her first reaction was to slap that grin right off his face. But as she was merely centimeters from his cheek, he grabbed her wrist before her hand collided with it.
She then realized what she had done. She had felt safe up to this point and even powerful as he was standing behind those bars. But she had passed her hand on the other side as a reflex. Now that he had a grip on her, he was still as scary as she had always known him to be.
He smiled even more as he tightened his hold on her. The look of horror that filled Shelby's face encouraged him to release his tight grip a bit. She immediately tried to retrieve her arm by sliding it from between his grasp but once her hand was in his he closed the gap once again.
"Please give me back my hand!" said Shelby with what she hoped to be a non-shaking voice.
"And why would I do that?" he asked looking straight in her light blue eyes. "If I let go, you'll run away and I'll be stuck here once again all by myself. And honestly, I could use the company!"
Shelby was taking back by that. Was he actually being sincere? Thinking fast, she came up with an idea to please both of them.
"If you let go, I promise to bring you desert tonight! You do have quite the sweet tooth if I remember correctly!" she said proud of her memory.
"Why should I believe you?" he asked stroking his thumb on the back of her hand.
The movement sent shivers down Shelby's spine but she wasn't about to let him notice.
"Because I promised! And I always keep my promises!" she assured him.
Looking at her hand intently, he quickly slipped her ring off her finger before letting go.
"Hey, my ring!" she screamed upsettingly.
"You'll get it back!" he stated. "After, you bring me desert!"
Shelby knew his word meant nothing. He himself had admitted that lying was one of the things he was very good at. But either way he had her ring. It was worth the try.
"Fine!" she said. "See you after diner then!"
"Very well!" he replied with proudness. "Go that way." He said nodding to his left. "You won't have to pass in front of anyone else and there usually aren't any guards."
Surprised of this thoughtful recommendation, Shelby followed his advice.
Looking at her ascending the stairs, Sebastian tried to remind himself that he despised her. Even so, she was the first human contact he had had in over a month aside from the guards bringing him food from time to time. And he desperately wanted her to come back.