When Naveen woke, it was with a painful lurch. He had been dreaming of a woman with snakes for hair and eyes that were so fearful they could turn a heart stone cold with dread. He looked around in confusion, trying to shake the cobwebs of the dream from his mind.
Where was he? A serpent woman? His father gone...the west wing.
The taper had burned low in the time he had slept and he could see, through the vine covered windows, the dimmest grey light of dawn as it began to color the black sky outside . Naveen stumbled painfully to his feet, his body all disjointed aches from the odd position he had slept in. When he went over to examine what was left of the light, he was surprised to find a handsome repast spread on the sideboard. There was good cheese and grainy bread, winter fruits and assorted nuts that were often hoarded after harvest. Naveen knew that he had, though unconsciously, defied his hostess demands and he had really expected hard crusts and water or nothing at all. This welcome meal was outside his sphere of expectations of such a creature and he truly began to wonder what type of ensourced place he was captured in.
The appartment was richly attired and clean, though everything had the aura of being a long time unused. He wondered if the unseen servants had brushed it up in a matter of mere minutes, or if it were often kept as such for "unexpected" guests. If so, what eventually happened to these guests? Tier obviously intended to have kept Naveen's father prisoner until he offered himself. Had he placed his vitality and youth into her hands only to become some tender banquet? Was that why she seemed so disbelieving of his offer to stay in his father's place, surprised perhaps, at the good luck of such a willing lamb to the slaughter?
Naveen completely lost his appetite. He looked around for the short blade usually sheathed in his belt and was not surprised when it did not seem to be amongst his scant belongings. The fact that the door was unlocked and ajar did nothing to reassure him as he guessed that the unseen servants could watch his every move and report to their mistress. Naveen thought desperately of a way to make himself invisible or keep hidden and make good an escape. He couldn't scale the walls. One look out the balcony doors told him that they were very sheer and the ivy growth, though thick, was to spars this high up to even begin to hold his weight.
"...forbidden…"
The word came to him as if spoken aloud. Tier had deemed the west wing forbidden. Why? Perhaps because it was in such disrepair that it would afford an easy escape route? Were her servants, somehow, unable to see into this quarter? Whatever the reason, it was to the west wing he would go. The rising sun gave him a solid sense of what direction to take outside his own door and, before very many steps, he was already gratified through careful observation. A heavy tapestry that would have easily concealed any apperiture had developed grown thin enough in spots to let light through from a hidden doorway.
Naveen pushed the impediment aside warily, peering through the opening into the dawn-dim corridor beyond. Here, it seemed, the dust and disrepair hung heavier than on the opposite side of the tapestry. A single, narrow trail had been plied through the dust and grime. It led from the concealed door directly to a grand, spiraling staircase, up and away. Was this the trail of some other, fortunate escapee? Whatever lay beyond, he could do nothing but follow.
As he ascended the stairs, Naveen's hands itched for a weapon. He looked all around for some broken piece of furniture or shard of glass he could use to defend himself if need be. At the top of the stairs in a wide hall, he spied a pair of crossed swords affixed to a plaque on the wall. Upon inspection, though, they proved to be too ornamental and beyond rusted to do him any good. Having found this unexpected oddment - he scanned the walls around him for something else that might work in his defense. For a moment, he was arrested by the shredded portrait of what appeared to be an auburn trussed lady. Her face was was too far damaged to make out any likeness, but her eyes hung in the ruin and seemed to float in the darkness. Naveen swallowed hard when he realized that only dagger-like claws could have made those parallel slashes through the canvas. Turning away from the chilling image, he noticed something else that, like those haunting eyes, hung by itself in the darkness.
A rose.
Shielded by a thin glass dome, it exuded brilliance like a beacon through the grey light of dawn filtering in through the windows. Naveen stepped cautiously into the chamber where the rose resided, it's luminescence pulling him toward it like a moth to a flame. He walked over to it, his eyes transfixed, and gently lifted the bell jar, leaving the rose looking strange and unprotected. Wanting, somehow, to protect it anew, he reached to touch it, to cup it in his hands.
A shadow seemed to quench the rose's light for just a moment, but blinking, Naveen realized it was the light around him that has been blocked and not that of the rose.
Tier's menacing form was framed in a balcony window.
Almost before he could comprehend her presence, she lept into the room and onto the table, slamming the jar back over the rose.
"Why did you come here?" she hissed angrily, the clawed hands scraping slightly against the glass dome.
Naveen backed away, his eyes darting between her and the open balcony window. "I'm sorry…"
"I warned you never to come here!"
"I didn't mean any harm!" Naveen frantically wondered if he could even run from her.
"Do you realize what you could have done!" Tier screeched in anger. She moved toward him menacingly, flexing those dagger like claws as if ready to tear something apart.
"Get out," she said, and for an instant, Naveen didn't register that this warning voice came from the deadly creature in front of him. This thing no longer resembled anything human.
"GET OUT!"
Tier launched herself at Naveen, digging those piercing talons deep into the wood of the door he had just flung back between them. As he retreated into another chamber, he noted with clenching fear that there was no other exit to the place. The sound of splintering wood was awful and all he could do was back further into the musty darkness.
Then, a sound so out of character with the situation came to his ears. If he hadn't actually seen the dog a moment later, he would have decided he'd gone mad with fear. A large, shaggy sheepdog, barking in alarm, dashed past him and into the other room. More surprising, it didn't stop to confront the snarling mass of Tier who was, undoubtedly, a sure target for any such defensive canine.
Dumbfounded both by the sudden appearance of the dog, the only other living creature he had encountered thus far, and the silence on the part of Tier that its barking had induced, Naveen peered back into the room he had only just escaped. Both the dog and the fiend that had been ripping apart the door a moment before were now out on the open balcony, the cacophony of barking carrying in the thin morning air. Tier dropped her hand to the dogs' shaggy head and it became silent with the gesture.
Naveen felt like he was in a waking dream. The shielded rose still stood in the center of the room, glowing on amidst the splinters and wreckage of thick wood. Tier stood with the dog looking out intently on the fields as if the last few minutes had never happened. The young man felt as compelled to approach the pair as he had felt compelled to approach the rose. Tier turned sharply to look at him, her strange face in the folds of the dark hood suddenly transformed from inhuman to the starkly defiant look of a person who had endured too much.
"Wolves," she said simply and disappeared over the balcony without a whisper of sound.
