Arc I: The Belli Castle
Chapter VII: Beneath Nightfall
The thick veil of night impregnated the distance in her eyes as she approached the furred being, her heaving chest betraying the apprehension that coursed freely through her veins. It chilled her blood as much as the air chilled her skin, but it was not enough to deter her.
When had it grown so cold outside, anyway?
She contemplated her reason for climbing down that impossibly high set of stairs and to approach a beast that could be the end of her as well as it could be of no consequence whatsoever. A beast that ever so slightly moved its head to stare directly into her eyes for the second time in the past minutes.
It wasn't that dogs were her favourite animals or anything like that. Hell, she had no idea which breed the one in front of her belonged to, or if "breed" was even the correct terminology in the first place. It was hard for her to pinpoint his colour in the moonlight already, for crying out loud!
A feral growl froze her in place. The dog's mouth split apart to reveal a set of angry, thorned teeth as it moved its frail frame back up on its four legs. Its bravado lasted but a second, though, for it let out a whimper and crawled back against the giant roots.
Her mouth worked to soothe the poor thing as she put her palms up, yet all that escaped its insides was a dry cough that made the whimpering grow a little harsher. A complete backfire on her part, but still she braved the couple of steps it took for her to approach the animal.
"H-hey..." She tried again, but her voice still broke into a cough. Its eyes shone as they caught hold of hers for the third time, fear unhidden in the depths of their irises. "Calm down, buddy, I'm not gonna hurt you." Another whimper. "Hey, hey. I promise!"
She crouched down over the dog and touched her knees to the ground, unfazed by all the dirt that found home on her recently cleaned skin. Her hands - she had watched them at the fountain on her way out - tried to reach for it, but it flinched away from her touch with a new whimper and the softest of growls.
Her eyes travelled along white fur that could've been grey and it was her time to flinch. A small chain encircled the animal's neck as if to hang it off the tree, and she didn't had to be an expert to know it was too tight to be safe. Small protrusions sprouted from its length and forced themselves inwards, making it all the worse. It was a cruel replacement for a dog collar, and, by the way the poor thing shivered, it was on its way to become its murdering weapon, too.
A new kind of war raged between her mind and her heart then. It made her legs tremble and her teeth grit loudly. Anger, hatred, repulse or disgust - which of them did she feel the most at that point? Impossible to say with the way she kept drifting from one towards the other.
The dog whimpered again and she unscrewed her face at once. She sure as all hell weren't causing the best first impression on it. But what else could she do? It wouldn't let her approach any further nor would it allow her to touch the chains and pry them free!
Another thought made her eyes widen and a tentative smile to take hold of her face. She had completely forgotten that small, yet extremely important detail with the storm of emotions raging inside her mind. Or maybe it had to do with the fact she hated the place in which she had found such a thing, and had vowed never to go back.
"Hewe?" The dog's ears picked up at the sound and all its protests seemed to melt into a snort. "Is that you, buddy?" It stared back at her. Maybe she should focus herself on the name...
"Is that you, Hewe?" She tried again, and the way his ears picked up once more told her everything she needed to know. "Would you let me check those things? I promise I mean you no harm, Hewe."
It kept its stare focused on her, but lowered his head all the same. She took it as consent and approached her hands from the chains, mind racing with what ifs that ultimately ended with her hand being bitten and she gaining a new enemy in that cursed place.
To her surprise, though, all of her imaginations were burnt to crisps as her hand touched the cold metal of the chains. She stared at the dog...no...she stared at him, she stared at Hewe, and offered a reassuring smile.
"Its gonna be alright, buddy" She promised, hands tugging and pulling at his restrains. They were far tighter than they seemed, and for a second she thought they would not budge at all, but they cracked out of a sudden and her ass found the ground, chains held tight in her palms.
A bark forced her eyes up to his and a shiver up her spine. He was finally free of all restraints, even though they still pierced the roots, but the coldness never left his eyes. And to make it worse, she was at the mercy of his next actions, what with the whole falling down on her ass thing.
She gulped internally as he made his slow approach. Maybe she had hurt him when she tried to get rid of the chains, and he had taken it as an assault. Maybe he just didn't felt as much gratitude as she thought he would once set free. Or maybe she should've just thought it all better before doing anything to a potentially dang-
His breath pierced her ears and she closed her eyes shut, only to have them open again in surprise as he pressed his muzzle against her cheeks in a soft caress. His fur felt better than the softness of every blanket she had used and every pet she had touched before. It felt, in a way, like home.
"Good boy, Hewe!" She embraced his neck with one of her arms and accepted his caresses with a smile. His tail denounced his happiness at the praise as it slapped away at her thighs. "Such a good, brave boy you are..."
Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't be forced to survive alone anymore. Maybe she had finally met someone to be there for her when she needed it the most. Maybe she had finally made a friend!
A thought struck at her then as she caressed his fur with the tips of her fingers. After everything they had done the poor thing, her captors or whoever it was that had chained him to the tree roots, she wouldn't allow them into his belongings, no matter how much she wished she would.
"Come, Hewe." She stood up and petted him on the head when he let out an agreeing bark...or what she thought was an agreeing bark, anyway. "We have something of yours to retrieve."
o - o - o - o - o
So maybe she should've thought her second plan through, too. It was hard enough to move around that damn claustrophobic cellar with sunlight seeping through its ruined ceiling. But to do that at night? Suffice to say, it was not a good idea. Not a good idea at all!
Shadows found their place at her right and threw her into the hungry mouth of a dark abyss. They also crept in from the left, and from above, and from below and from behind her lids, too! They devoured her whole, and there was no turning back anymore, for "back" was nowhere to be found.
Hewe whimpered from somewhere at her side, and she twisted herself around to find a brand new river of darkness. Her feet hit something hard on her haste, though, and she could do nothing but brace herself for the fall.
It did not hurt as much as she thought it would. What was it with her ass and falling onto it time and time again, anyway? Almost felt too frequent to be a coincidence...but that was just her being paranoid.
"H-Hewe?" She hated how her voice broke from a mere scare. Her chest went up and down faster the longer her furred friend kept her in wait for his reply. "That's not funny, big boy." She tried again, to no avail. "Where are you, Hewe?"
She waited an eternity and then a some more, just to make sure, but silence was her only response. Her heart throbbed and fell down into her core. Her eyes fluttered and her lungs burned. A very, very bad idea, indeed...
A minute or two passed before she recovered her breathing and allowed life back into her limbs. Her right hand got tangled into something soft as she tried to use it to lift herself off the floor, though, and she pulled the limb back with a startled gasp. So much for calming herself down.
Tentative yet cautious, her fingers trailed themselves along the object, and her mind flooded with relief when she took it for what it was: Hewe's collar. It was why she had entered that dark place to begin with, and now she was finally free to leave its morbid insides! But...
A wooden crack penetrated her ears and she willed herself back up with haste. Not the smartest of moves, but the first to ever cross her mind whenever fear loaded itself into her heart. The "flee on sight" move, that was.
Blue light invaded her eyes then, and Hewe's snarls followed in its wake. She could barely see his frame backing away from the light and against her feet, and the view forced a step backwards from her opposite leg.
"Hewe?" She whispered, voice croaked from the dryness in her throat. "Do you know what that is?" He barked weirdly at the light, anger tightly packed into his threat. Whatever it was, he did not like it one bit.
The light flickered just as the dog reached her and, for a second or so, Fiona thought someone would creep out from behind the wooden crates holding a blue candle or something weird like that. She never expected a floating orb of pure blue light to reveal itself, though, nor for the wood to scream loudly at its mere touch.
It was official. Wherever the fuck she was, it was one of the worst places in the world for her to be at, and undoubtedly the creepiest one. What was next, Edward Scissorhands? Everything seemed possible giving that miss Tinkerbell seemed ready to fucking toast them both alive!
The ball of...whatever it was made of...approached them with slow, taunting movements, and Hewe let out another of his muffled barks. Fuck, maybe that thing had touched his mouth. If so, that must've hurt him like hell!
She took another step backwards and cast a glance over her shoulders. She saw the staircase then. That weird-assed light had cast its clutches all over it, and she couldn't help but be thankful for that small miracle of sorts.
"Come, boy" her voice echoed between the walls and seemed to fuel the orb's hunger for their heads. "We gotta go, Hewe" he growled at the thing but turned his body aside together with hers. "Now!" And so they ran.
It was an all too familiar situation to her - to run away from someone, or rather, to run away from something. She had lost count of how many times she had done so in the past couple of hours, and that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg one would call her past. Courage was never one of her virtues, after all.
They sped up the stairs, her feet almost getting caught by one of its deformed steps, and turned back to peer into the darkness below. Blue rays approached from its intestines, and Fiona's frame set itself ablaze.
One pursuer was enough to get her ankle broken, and fuck knew what else was wrong with her at that point, physical and otherwise. Two would be the death of her, and of that she was sure of.
But she wasn't the only one that mattered anymore. Her eyes travelled down to her right side, where her friend growled a strange growl at the light with all his might. She was not alone, and she would make damn sure that he wouldn't be, too.
She had to do something, and she had to do it fast. Otherwise the thing below ground would never leave them alone, and something told her it was far more dangerous than the fat man and the maid from before. But it could be no more than her fear of the unknown, she had to admit.
Two wooden planks caught her attention when the orb finally extended its clutches up the stairs. They were holding a couple of heavy boxes just above the entrance, for reasons she couldn't really comprehend. Her captors had quite the unique sense of style, she had realized a long time before.
But that didn't mattered at the time. All that mattered was that the crates would be a great barricade, or at least good enough a diversion for them to run away from that thing.
"Hewe!" She pointed at the plank on the left as she ran at the one on the right. "Break that thing, but be careful where it lands!"
He gave her another of his strange barks and ran straight to the plank, hitting it with his head in what looked to be an immensely painful way. She shut her eyes with guilt and kicked her own structure off.
With their support severed, all the crates fell down onto the staircase, effectively trapping the light inside. It shook moments later and her wide eyes feared it would gave into the orb's might, but it did not, and she couldn't help to breathe out her relief.
It did not last long, though, for her feet took her fast to her friend's shaky side.
"Hewe!" She crouched down next to him and took hold of his head. "Whatever were you thinking, bud!?" She petted his head, exactly where it had hit the wood, and was glad that nothing liquid stuck to her fingers.
"Never do that again, okay?" He whimpered, and she forced him to look her in the eyes. Something fell from his mouth and onto her boots, but she had more pressing matters at hand. "Never again, you hear me!?"
She let out a sigh and ruffled his fur a little more, all the while doing her damn best to convey her worry through her eyes. It wouldn't do for him to think her to be mad at him for saving her or carrying out her orders, after all.
"Good boy, Hewe" She cooed, to his confused stare. "You saved both our asses out there, you know? Just make sure you don't hurt yourself in the process next time, eh?" He barked, happily swinging his tail.
"Huh?" She looked down at the thing he had dropped onto her boots and picked it up. It was cold to the touch, and sticky with his saliva - she'd wash it at the fountain together with her hands, for sure - and the shadows made it hard to see, but she managed to anyway.
"A key..." She whispered to them both. It was a big-assed, metallic key, and quite the heavy one, too. Whatever it opened, it had to be big. Sadly, not nearly big enough to be the exit gates. "But where to?"
She willed the questioning thoughts out of her mind as wiped the saliva out the object and slipped it into one of her boots. She'd think about all that bullshit at a later time, preferably one in which they weren't both in plain sight or close to something that wanted them both dead.
At the moment, though, she had a job to do. It was the sole reason for her to have entered that damn cellar in the first place! Thus she, with an honest smile, fastened the collar around Hewe's neck, where it rightfully belonged to.
