Author's Note: The next chapter we'll get back to Prince Hans, I promise! This backstory was really important to establish about Ansa though - hopefully you guys understand. Also apologies for the frightening themes haha. I never intended to write it so dark, it just came out that way.
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Just as her Nana promised, Ansa never aged or worried again from that day onward. In time, she grew to accept her role as a cryptic assistant to her Nana's need to consume the life of other people. As the years went by, Ansa honed herself into a master manipulator in order to trick travelers into entering her grandmother's house - which wasn't so difficult, considering Ansa bore the eternal resemblance of a happy little girl.
Ten years passed and Ansa eventually forgot her guilt over leading the unwary victims to their death. The process became mundane, even, as she tirelessly goaded unsuspecting men and women week after week into the clutches of her ravenous grandmother's den. Just as she'd forgotten about her parents, Ansa quickly forgot about the merchant man and the horrible image that had stuck in her mind for so long.
After that day, she turned her back and simply ignored it with dull ears and shuttered eyes. Her grandmother was more important than strangers. That's what she told herself. Whenever it grew to be too much again and she felt the sharp prick of guilt tap her shoulder, her Nana always found ways to soothe the concerned child until she forgot them again. Ansa's grandmother had a strange way about making her worries seem small.
It was on a warm summer afternoon that it happened. It had been a month since her Nana collected a soul, and she was growing restless. Ansa had decidedly taken up residence in the center of the abandoned village, tired of hearing her Nana complain. She always grew so cranky when she had to wait too long in-between her meals. It was in this spot, entirely unaware as she poked at the dirt with a stick, that a little boy appeared.
"Whatcha doing?" he shielded his eyes to look down at her. Ansa, who hadn't seen a boy her age in years, turned slow eyes up to his face. He squinched a freckled nose and peered at her from under a mop of curly brown hair. He wasn't older than eight or nine, by the looks of it.
"Nothing…" she answered, then quickly stood up. "Hey, where are your parents?" she asked while brushing off the seat of her tattered, blue dress. The little boy blinked for a moment before remembering something, then dropped his head low.
"I-I don't know," he confessed. Ansa stopped fussing with her dress and looked at him. He had tears in his eyes. "Papa thought he heard something - so he told me to run and find the nearest village. I ran and ran until I couldn't anymore, then I found this place." He was wiping snot and tears from his face now, which triggered Ansa's sympathy.
"Hey, I'm sure he's not far behind," she eased while placing her hands on her knees. The little boy looked up.
"Well, he said that two days ago," he murmured while glancing mournfully back down the road. "He should have been here by now," he added, then crumpled his face once the realization struck him and began to cry again. Ansa felt a strange, uncomfortable sensation squirm in her chest upon hearing his cries for his dead father. She reached out and hugged the boy without thought, perching her worried face atop his head. He welcomed the gesture and gripped her dress, sobbing harder.
Once he'd relented his tears, Ansa pulled him back and smiled. "You must be hungry, I bet?" she tried to cheer him up. After he wiped the excess snot from his nose, he looked up and nodded. Ansa stretched a warm smile across her face. "Come on, I'm sure my Nana can cook you something nice."
In her heart Ansa meant well. She'd had every intention of helping the boy - maybe even asking her Nana if they could keep him. She dearly needed a playmate, after all. He could be the perfect companion, like her own living doll. She was already contemplating all the wonderful adventures they could go on while walking back to the cabin when the door slammed open and out stepped her grandmother. Her wide eyes latched onto the boy like a plump prize, and instinctively Ansa gripped his hand tighter before calling to her Nana.
"Nana, this boy lost his father in the woods!" she shouted.
Her Nana wouldn't stop staring at the boy. He was beginning to slow down beside her. Ansa persisted, keeping her grip tight on his hand. "It's okay-" she whispered to him. "She won't hurt you."
"Nana, I thought we could bring him inside and make him stew?" she tried. Her Nana slowly turned her wild eyes on the girl - teeth glistening, mouth contorted. "I-I thought he could stay here… maybe? A-At least until we could find a way-" Ansa's shaken voice cut off with a horrible shriek as her Nana leapt from the porch and materialized beside the boy, wrenching him from her hands. By the time Ansa pulled her off, nothing but a limp, grey form remained. His eyes were shut in eternal slumber, and his face still hung on the fringe of a scream that never escaped.
In that awful moment, Ansa forgot about her grandmother. She forgot the reasons why she'd helped her Nana, and consequently her reasons for staying. Ansa no longer cared - all she could feel in that moment was her surge of overwhelming anguish. As her grandmother composed herself and turned to Ansa, she began to slowly back towards the door, shaking her head. Her tears blurred her vision and hands shook at her sides. She sensed the edge in her Nana's voice as she reached out a barely restrained hand and called for Ansa.
Ansa turned and bolted into the house and locked the door behind her. Immediately her Nana set to banging against it with all her might and cursed Ansa's name through the window. Ansa gripped her skull when a sharp pain shot through it, then began to frantically look around for supplies. She gathered her basket and tossed some stale bread and cheese into it, then her doll and cloak. She paused at the stairwell and looked down into the yawning darkness. A very long time ago, Ansa had asked what her Nana used the cellar for. From time to time she watched her Nana unlock the doors from deep beneath the house and return with fresh, wild game in her hands to cook with. Her Nana had looked at her with that dry, empty smile and said to never, ever, ever go into the cellar.
Ansa knew that her grandmother did not hunt, or leave the house hardly at all for that matter. In her mind, she worked out the reasoning that perhaps the cellar lead outside to some old traps her Nana had found in the house when she first moved here. After all, it use to belong to a trapper. Compelled by her urgency to escape, Ansa gathered her things and took one last look at the thrashing door before disappearing down the stairs.
She managed to bash open the rusty old lock on the cellar door after a couple of tries with the help of a hammer lying on the floor. Once she yanked both of the narrow doors open, a cold breeze wafted over her face. Surely, then, Ansa knew it had to lead outside. After a slight shudder, Ansa pulled on her cloak and merged into the shrouded dark of the cellar. At the bottom of the stairs her feet met cold, natural stone. She moved tentatively, and after her eyes adjusted little Ansa realized it was not a cellar at all, but an enormous cave.
After a half-hour of wandering, Ansa came to a giant maze of mirrors with very narrow walkways. A noise drew her attention as she jumped and noticed a small figure flash across the mirrors. She turned again and again, until finally the figure fell still and she realized it was a small rabbit. Little Ansa smiled and reached into her basket for a carrot, then held it out to the creature. It approached with caution, though driven on by its hunger, hopped forward and began to tentatively nibble on the snack.
"Now where did you come from?" she asked out loud while surveying the glass maze. After some thought, she brightened in revelation. "You must have wandered in from outside," she continued. The rabbit paid her no mind, and continued to chew. "I wonder where from, though?" Ansa began to look all around, then paused when her eyes caught something glimmering on the roof of the cave.
A glass trap door around the size of the rabbit, if not slightly bigger, rotated back and forth with the force of an airy breeze high above. It had been crudely carved to suit the gap it settled over, and shifted on long hinges. A few dead leaves slipped through and fell from the great height, fracturing the thin thread of light that managed to pierce the shallow tear in the cave stone. As Ansa followed curious eyes along the cave's ceiling, she realized there were at least a half-dozen more of the constructed traps, all as poorly made as the last. Her eyes turned back to the poor rabbit that had obviously fallen through one of the unfortunate traps.
"So that's how Nana catches you," she mused aloud. "You were lucky to survive the fall, little friend," she smiled to the poor thing. By the thin, ragged shape of its body, the creature had been trapped in the maze for some time now. Ansa set the carrot down and stood up, looking about. "I guess I'll have to find another way out…"
In that next moment, a low bellow echoed through the distance of the cave. Ansa gasped and ducked down, effectively spooking her new rabbit friend. It leapt into the air then darted away into the labyrinth of the mirror maze before she could stop it. Sighing, Ansa retracted her outstretched hand and stood back up while gathering her things, then set off through the maze herself. Eventually she supposed she would find the other side, and maybe then she could find a way outside.
In the many years she'd spent with her grandmother, Ansa had never bothered to look at herself much considering she never aged. However, on occasion she would witness her reflection in the silver of a spoon or by the glimmer of a pond or river. In those brief interludes, she had unconsciously memorized every line, every curve, every specific shape of her face and body over the last ten years. Now, as she walked down the endless rows of mirrors, she was forced to see herself from every angle - and it was in this moment Ansa realized something was certainly not right.
She looked much older than she remembered - and definitely much older than any ten-year-old girl ought to look. Ansa had never had reason to fear or anticipate age as other children did, but as she looked at her own reflection, the terror of mortality began to sink deep into her pounding chest as she watched her face transform before her own eyes. Baby fat began to visibly recede from her features, forming into shapely, defined cheekbones and a pert mouth.
She stared in horror as her figure changed as well. Her hair began to inch down her back in waves of dark brown; her arms lengthened and legs straightened little by little as the seconds passed by. Another bellow in the distance forced Ansa back into motion as she tucked her teary gaze downward and soldiered on, intent to ignore the stranger reflected back at her from the mirrors.
By the time she found her way out of the maze, her dress had become considerably tighter. She ripped the sleeves to give her arms room, then tore off her shoes and tossed them into the abyss. She followed along the wall under her fingers found a gap in the otherwise smooth stone wall and pulled open a hidden door that had been carved right out of its structure. As she made her way down the stone steps into another cavern, she felt another cold breeze brush the side of her neck, and turned towards it.
Ansa moved down the narrow pathway until it opened up into another enormous, open cavern. The ceiling stretched impossibly high and formed giant stalagmites that dripped water every so often onto the floor. The sound of the drops echoed off the walls and created an echoing melody that drifted throughout the cave.
Ansa's eyes eventually found a faint light at the other end of the cave in the shape of an exit. She instinctively moved towards it, then suddenly felt her bare feet anchored to the ground once she'd reached the center of the room. Something brushed the back of her neck, which caused her to jump and turn around only to find no one behind her. Instead, there stood an enormous mirror she hadn't noticed before in the very center of the cavern.
As Ansa's attention shifted to the new object, she felt pebbles run across her toes and looked down in curiosity. The mirror itself seemed to pulse with life, and emitted a low, unsettling hum that shifted gravel across the ground at its base. Though its silver structure and golden frame was magnificent, she couldn't help but feel her body tensing in apprehension the closer she drew - yet she could not manage to stop herself from approaching. Her eyes roamed its great surface with wonder and fear, and as she drew up to its very front it seemed to shift in a spectrum of colors she had never seen before.
It was finally then that Ansa realized the mirror reflected something back to her, though it was not what she expected. As she stepped fully in front of it, the gentle breeze grew to a steady torrent that lifted her growing hair from the back of her neck. It glided behind her in a ribbon of chocolate brown, entirely weightless.
Though her ears undoubtedly deceived her, she swore she heard singing of all things coming from the ancient mirror. As she looked up from her feet, she realized her reflection was not as it should be - at least not in the same way she'd come to realize only a short while ago in the mirror maze. Unlike in the labyrinth, this one reflected back a beautiful woman dressed in a flowing black gown that glittered like the scales of a dragon, and shining golden feathers as those of a magnificent eagle. Her dark silk hair braided down the length of her back, and around her head laced a silver crown.
The reflected woman poised in the mirror as if admiring herself, and turned a small smile at the corner of her lovely mouth. Ansa stared in wonder at the woman, who seemed to her the prettiest sight she'd ever seen. As the woman turned again, Ansa noticed a fractured section of the mirror - nearly invisible to the naked eye. Crouching for closer inspection, Ansa reached out to touch the fracture, only to have her finger pricked on the mirror's edge.
She drew back with a start and cradled her wounded finger, staring in offense at the shard. To her shock, the blood that hung from the shard's tip suddenly absorbed into the mirror's surface as if it were a part of the mirror itself. The low hum grew to a roar as the surface trembled, causing Ansa to stand in panic and back away. The wind howled around her and whipped her hair aimlessly in every direction, making it impossible to see. She fought to see in front of her, all the while backing away from the trembling mirror that now pulsed bright red.
A red hand materialized from the silver surface as nothing but smoke, then another until a dozen ghostly hands were crawling out of the mirror. Ansa screamed and began to run for the exit, only to have her feet drawn from beneath her. The hands took hold of her ankles, her legs, her body - then began to drag her back to the mirror that now sang in a crescendo of horrible shrieks and bellows.
No matter how hard she fought, it continued to drag her closer until she could see only the bright, seething red of the mirror in her vision. It grew into an angry chorus of a thousand voices and rang in her ear. She covered her ears and shut her eyes and began to cry, begging to wake up from this nightmare.
The screaming suddenly stopped, as did the low hum that threaded through her chest. Just as she began to open her eyes, a cold and terrible pain greater than she'd ever felt pierced directly through her chest and burned every cavern in her body. She opened her mouth to cry out, only to find her lungs robbed of air, and every part of her suddenly frozen in that moment. She fell silent and opened her eyes, then looked directly into the mirror.
You belong to us now….