AN:I know this is super late. I got busy and so did my beta. I hope you like it though, I worked pretty hard on it. Hopefully the next update comes quicker.
Chapter 4
Finn steps down from the top of the carriage. He unlocks the door to the inside, letting Maurice out.
"Where am I? What are you doing?" He asks, springing from inside the carriage and stumbling forward.
Finn moves forward to help him up. "I took you home," he says softly.
Maurice straightens up and pushes Finn away. "I don't want to be here. I want to go back and get Brittany!" He raises himself to his full height and steps closer to Finn, having to crane his neck back a bit to look him in the eyes.
Finn's hands rise in defense. He looks down at Maurice with wide eyes. "I'm sorry," he says, taking a step back.
"Take me to her," Maurice demands, shoving a finger into Finn's chest.
Finn takes a few steps back and hops onto the carriage. He opens his mouth and looks at Maurice for a long time. "I'm sorry," he repeats, clicking his tongue and the reigns at the horses.
The carriage moves forward and Maurice tries to keep pace with it, yelling for Finn to stop.
/
Brittany wakes up, but keeps her eyes closed. She can tell from the cloud soft bed beneath her that what happened the previous night wasn't a dream. She lets her eyes flutter open, hoping that might jolt her out of her dreaming, that it is all in fact, a dream.
The bed she is lying in isn't her own. It's too big and too ornate.
Brittany sighs and pushes herself up. Heavy curtains are drawn over the balcony doors in her room, but she doesn't need the moonlight to know it's late. She can feel it in the way the air is still. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed effortlessly and stands, stretching. She frowns. She feels so well rested and relaxed. The mattress is heavenly after sleeping on her worn cot for so many years.
Her frown deepens.
Her father is gone. He's been taken far away and she'll never see him again. The thought makes her chest tighten and her breathing becoming shallow. She shakes her head and sits up on the edge of the bed. She searches for anything else to focus on, anything except the horrible pain in her chest.
Her stomach growls and she almost smiles. Hunger. She's hungry. She can definitely focus on finding food.
Brittany stands and crosses the room slowly, trying to move as quietly as possible. The castle is still a big mystery with it's dark corridors and empty, dusty rooms. The place feels haunted. There is so much space and Brittany's afraid every step she takes will echo, letting Santana know her whereabouts.
Santana.
She's the most terrifying, mystifying person Brittany has ever come across. She feels a rage towards Santana she's never felt before. Anger for sending her father away, for trapping her here, for being so harsh for no apparent reasoning.
On the other hand, Brittany can't stop thinking about her dark, deep eyes. The way they seemed to capture Brittany's in the tower and hold her as if pleading for her to just look deeper. No one had ever looked at her that way before.
She pushes open her bedroom door, surprised it isn't locked. She steps out slowly, glancing left and right to make sure the coast is in fact clear. When no one stirs, Brittany moves out of her room and down the corridor, trying to find her way to the kitchen.
She isn't sure how she manages it, but she ends up in the entrance way. She looks to the doors and her heart rate picks up, beating hard against her chest. It would be so easy to run out the doors, down the path, out the creaking metal gates.
Brittany turns away from the door. Without a horse it would take her hours to get home and in the dead of night with no lamp and no food... She knows better.
Her feet take her down another corridor. This one leading her deeper into the castle. There are very few things hanging on the walls, a few torches a picture here and there.
A click echoes further down the hall and Brittany's heart seems to hold it's breath. She freezes, unable to move. She can hear feet moving towards her. The sound echoes eerily on the stone floor and walls. Brittany's eyes dart around frantically looking for something, anything to save her. She tries the closest door and whimpers when the handle won't budge.
"Brittany?" A voice asks.
Brittany's body jerks around. She opens her mouth to shout an apology and stops. "Quinn."
"What are you doing out of bed so late?" Quinn's features are distorted in the dim torch light.
Brittany expected to get yelled at for snooping or being out of bed. She says the first thing that comes to mind, which happens to be the truth. "I'm hungry."
Brittany makes out Quinn's smile. "You're a bit off from the kitchen."
/
Turns out 'a bit off' is putting it nicely. As Quinn leads Brittany through the castle, which is starting to feel more like a labyrinth, Brittany is sure it would have been morning before she found where she wanted to be.
The walk to the kitchen itself was quiet. Quinn remained silent and Brittany honestly felt she had nothing to say.
Sitting at the small table in the corner of the big kitchen, the silence weighs heavy. Every clang of a dish Quinn moves or opening of a cupboard echoes loudly, as if the night has magnified the sound of everything. The noise keeps Brittany's nerves on end, making it impossible for her to speak.
Quinn sets a few slices of bread and cheese and a glass of milk in front of Brittany before settling in the chair across from her. "Eat," she says quietly, scooting the plate forward.
Brittany hesitantly takes a slice of cheese and lays it on a slice of bread. She takes a large bite and sighs. The bread tastes fresh, the cheese is just strong enough and the milk is cold. "Thank you," she says, bringing her hand to her mouth to cover her half chewed food.
Quinn shrugs and leans back in her chair.
Brittany chews a few more times and swallows. "You're so nice to me."
Quinn looks back at her and smiles with half her mouth. "I can't help it," she says, looking down at the table. Her tone shifts, deeper, distant. "You just remind me of...you're good, Brittany."
Brittany half smiles back to Quinn. "You're good, too."
Quinn's eyebrow twitches and she keeps her gaze on the table.
Brittany lets her eyes wander the kitchen. It's big, a lot bigger than she would have thought. She eats an entire piece of bread and a slice of cheese and is reaching for her second when she finally asks. "Why do you stay here?"
Quinn's eyes snap to Brittany's.
"Why do any of you stay here if she's so horrible?"
The way Quinn doesn't respond makes Brittany feel like she knows the answer. "We can't leave, Brittany."
Brittany stops mid chew and lets her eyes wander over Quinn's face. She traces her eyebrow with her eyes before asking the next question that has popped into her head. "Why not?"
Quinn's hands tense on the table top, she removes them to her lap and sits up taller. "It's complicated," she says.
Brittany nods, everything seems to be so complicated. "Will you tell me anyway?"
Quinn's eyes narrow the slightest bit. Brittany watches, curiously, as Quinn's eyes flit over her face, landing on her own blue after what feels like a decade.
"Alright, but I don't know if you'll believe me."
"I don't either," Brittany says, truthfully. The words tumble out of her mouth.
Quinn smiles at her, a full smile. "Years ago Santana had a visitor come to the castle. It was an old woman." She paused.
Brittany sits back in her chair and takes another bite of her bread and cheese. She recognizes the way Quinn's eyes have glossed over, as if she's reliving the story she wants to tell. Brittany knows she wears the same look whenever she tells the children in the square about all of the places her father used to take her. She waits patiently for Quinn to continue.
"She wanted to stay in the castle for a night, she offered Santana a rose, the only thing she had to give." Quinn takes a deep breath and exhales it in a sigh. "Santana turned her away, though. Told her she was too ugly to stay."
"That was mean," Brittany mumbles around her food.
"Yes," Quinn says, shrugging. "It was, but that's how Santana is. She doesn't respond well to beautiful things. She hated the woman for being so ugly." Quinn pauses.
The pause is thick, pensive, and though Brittany is burning to ask another question she bites her tongue and takes another bite of bread to keep her mouth busy.
"The woman was an enchantress." Quinn looks up to read Brittany's expression.
Brittany takes a long drink of her milk. "I met an enchantress once. She bought a harp from my father. She was beautiful."
"So was this one," Quinn says, leaning back in her chair, resting her hands back on the table top.
"I thought you said she was ugly," Brittany asks.
"Well, she was when she asked for a place to stay," Quinn explains, looking down at the floor. "When Santana turned her away she, the enchantress, turned into a beautiful woman. Then she cursed Santana for being so heartless. She cursed all of us. She took away the one thing we loved above all else."
Quinn's lips turned down ever so slightly, her forehead crinkled in thought, her hazel eyes blank.
"She tricked you guys?"
"Well," Quinn says, snapping back to the story. "I suppose."
"That doesn't seem right," Brittany says, nose scrunching.
"It wasn't right for Santana to turn her away just because she wasn't beautiful," Quinn says.
Brittany takes a few slow bites. "Yes, true. It still wasn't nice of the enchantress to trick her, though."
Quinn sighs. "I suppose. Either way, here we are, cursed, stuck here until it's broken." Quinn looks up at Brittany, who stares down at the last slice of bread and cheese.
"What did she take away from Santana?"
Quinn finds Brittany's blue eyes and stares into them for a long time. "Her beauty."
Brittany stops chewing, her eyebrows knit together. "But she's..."
"Cursed. She used to be so beautiful," Quinn says, recalling the image of Santana, with her haughty expression and obvious beauty.
Brittany seems to mull over the new information like her food. Chewing it softly before swallowing it. "What did Rachel lose?"
Quinn can't help but scoff. "Her singing voice. She used to have the most beautiful voice I've ever heard before. Now she simply can't sing."
"That's tragic," Brittany says. She means it, she imagines what life would be like if she one day couldn't dance. "What about you?" She asks it quietly, keeping her eyes away from Quinn's.
"Me," Quinn replies, keeping her eyes on the wooden table. She follows the lines, hoping they might lead her far away from the conversation at hand. "I lost Beth."
"Who is Beth?" Brittany asks so quietly her voice is almost a whisper.
Quinn inhales deeply, steadying her voice. "My daughter."
Brittany gasps quietly. "Oh Quinn," she says, leaning forward in her chair. "I'm so sorry."
Quinn keeps her eyes down and shakes her head. "It's just...how it is until the curse is broken."
Brittany sits back in her chair and looks away from the food. She has no appetite. The castle seems much more sinister now. Everyone who lives in it is cursed, it makes every dark hallway appear more frightening and every small sound eery.
They sit in silence for a long time before Brittany speaks. "It's kind of funny. Well, not really funny, just interesting."
"What do you mean?" Quinn looks up and blinks repeatedly, trying to will the tears building in her eyes to disappear.
"You said the enchantress cursed all of you, maybe she just cursed the castle," Brittany says, looking down at the stone floor.
"Why do you say that?" Quinn asks with genuine interest.
"Because I love my dad more than anything and he's been taken from me forever and now I can't leave. I guess I'm one of you all now."
The way Brittany says it, with a sort of quiet acceptance, makes Quinn's tears thicken and slide quickly down her cheeks.
/
Santana has spent hours pacing her room, standing on her balcony or staring at her reflection for as long as she can stand in the enchanted mirror. She has trapped herself alone, her unrecognizable feelings for Brittany, her guilt over Maurice, her anger towards the enchantress, the curse, her servants, herself, have all bubbled to the surface. They're a mess and tangled beyond recognition. Santana can't figure out where to start to unravel the feelings she has.
Her skin itches in no particular place; she just needs to escape and get some fresh air.
She leaves her room quickly, too quickly. The door stands open wide behind her, beckoning for someone to come in.
The farther from her room she gets the more her skin feels like it's what is keeping her trapped. She imagines shedding it and transforming into herself or anyone else. She longs to be rid of the cursed skin she's trapped in now. She hates the way she looks, hates everything about her appearance.
She's even started to hate herself.
The enchantresses words echo in her head on her worst days. "What you see is what I saw."
"I see nothing," Santana says to herself.
The words are the first words she's spoken since Rachel left her. Her voice sounds foreign in her ears.
She stops walking and realizes where she has stopped. She stands in front of her parents chambers. She looks at the closed double doors for a long time.
Hesitantly, she pushes one of the doors open, it doesn't even creak.
The room has been untouched, save for a few servants who have tried to keep the castle from falling to shambles. The room is twice as large as her own. A fireplace with a few couches rest on one side, a large fourposter bed with a plush red comforter sits on the other. The curtains for the two large double doors leading to the balcony are pulled shut.
Santana steps inside.
It was their fault. They taught her that her name was better than everyone, that her beauty made it okay to frown upon those who were ugly, that her family's wealth meant she could do as she pleased. It was their fault she was trapped.
Her breath catches in her throat, her chest tightens, she closes her eyes tight, pleading herself not to cry. She stumbles to their bed and pulls back the dusty covers, sliding into her mothers side and tucking herself in. She can barely smell her mothers expensive perfume. She buries herself into the bed and wishes her body would disappear.
It was their fault. She whispers it to herself over and over again. She could place the blame on them, direct her anger, her despair towards them. They made her ugly, the enchantress only helped.
Her chest tightens painfully and her shoulders shake with a sob.
She desperately wants to believe it was their fault.
"Santana," her father says, voice booming through his study. "I won't hear another word. You're to go away, to the summer castle until you can learn to bite your sharp tongue."
"Father, this summer, no, I have places to be and people to see. I am just now sixteen, I have suitors," Santana says, standing, brow knit together. Her fists are balled at her sides.
"Suitors? Santana, I believe your vicious words and arrogant behavior have scared off any potential suitor or friend at this point," he says, rolling his eyes at her stance. "Your mother agrees. You are to take Quinn and Rachel and a few other servants and spend your summer learning to be a lady without an audience to spur on your hate." He crosses his arms and glares down at his daughter.
Santana opens her mouth, a retort on the tip of her tongue. This is her father, though, the one man she does not lash out to. "Fine," she says, voice deep. "But I think it's a horribly unfair thing to do."
"Hopefully you'll learn your lesson"
What hurts more than the fact that her appearance is repulsive is that the fault is entirely her own. The reason she and everyone else is trapped and suffering is because of her.
And since being ugly is all she has known to be, she's completely terrified that there is no way to break the curse.
Especially when rose petals keep falling.
/
"Thanks," Brittany says, standing when Quinn does. "For the food and...everything."
"Of course," Quinn replies picking up the dishes and setting them on a cutting board to be taken care of in the morning.
Brittany stands awkwardly, hands fidgeting in front of her. "I guess I'll head to bed," she says, looking around the kitchen.
"Do you know your way?" Quinn asks, an eyebrow cocked.
Brittany nods a few times, slowly. "Vaguely," she says.
Quinn chuckles lightly. "I'll show you."
/
Quinn leads her through the castle, trying her best to explain the basic layout and point out land marks. Brittany does her best to keep all of the information trapped in her head, but it's almost as if she can feel it leaking out of her ears.
She asks questions whenever they strike her, though. "What's up that way?" She asks, pointing up a set of stairs.
"That," Quinn says, stopping to look up the stairs. "That is the west wing. Don't ever go there."
"Why not?" Brittany asks, forehead lightly wrinkled.
Quinn turns to look at her, locking their eyes. "Don't ever go there," she repeats.
"Alright," Brittany replies, nodding. She glances around the stairs, trying to commit them to memory.
Quinn leads her away, down a few corridors and past another set of stairs. "This is your room," she says, standing in front of Brittany's door.
Brittany recognizes it immediately. The door she was shown earlier in the night. She turns to look at Quinn. "Thanks, again," she says and means it.
Quinn shrugs.
Brittany reaches out and pulls Quinn into a tight, quick hug. Quinn's body stiffens and then softens almost immediately. She wraps her arms around Brittany. "You're welcome," she says quietly.
Brittany releases her grip and watches Quinn disappear down the corridor.
She waits until she's absolutely certain that Quinn is far enough away that she won't hear Brittany moving down the hall. She begins to back track, her curiosity making her mind work harder to find her way to the right stairwell. She feels wide awake as she arrives at the base of the stairs, leading to the forbidden west wing.
She stands for a minute at the bottom of the stairs.
The castle around her is silent, everyone sleeping. She takes a hesitant step up and when nothing happens, she climbs.
She follows the only corridor. It's lined with rusted suits of armor. She reaches out tentatively and touches the chest plate of one. The metal is cool and grainy under her touch. She moves farther down the dark corridor, up a small flight up stairs and finds herself looking down a shorter hallway.
The hall is in shambles. Tapestries have been pulled from the walls, suits of armor and statues pushed over and lay crumpled. The red rug lining the stone floor is curled up at places or torn. The door at the end of the hall is standing ajar.
Brittany looks behind her, checking to make sure that no one is watching her. She slowly walks forward, stepping carefully over the tears and bumps in the rug.
She peeks into the open doorway at the end of the hall. When she sees no one inside she steps in. She looks around and her eyebrows knit when she realizes it's in the same messy state as the hallway. Pieces of tables, chairs, and tapestry are lying everywhere. The vanity against the wall has a shattered mirror and the bed sheets are tangled in a heap in the middle of the bed.
The room is full of angry, heavy energy, it makes her skin crawl and her scalp prickle.
Brittany takes a step towards a picture hanging on the wall. It looks as if someone has taken a knife to it and slashed through it, the canvas is torn. With shaking hands she lifts the hanging shred of canvas back up into place. It's a portrait, with dark eyes, eyes Brittany knows...
A small flash of red catches the corner of her eyes. She turns quickly, afraid of being caught, heart pounding quickly against her chest.
On the far side of the room atop a spindly legged table sits a rose. It hovers a few inches off of the table inside a glass cover. Brittany's eyes widen at the sight. She's never seen magic, even though she's heard of it so much from when she used to travel with her father.
She crosses the room carefully, each step bathing her in a red glow from the rose. She stands in front of the table and very carefully pulls the glass cover off. She sets it gently on the ground beside her.
The rose hovers in front of her, glowing softly red. She reaches out a hand to touch it, feel if the petals are like silk on her fingertips.
"What are you doing?"
Brittany turns quickly, bumping slightly into the table. The rose shifts and the hand mirror beside it nearly slips off the table.
Santana stands, framed in the doorway. Her face is slack, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.
"I was just," Brittany begins, taking a step away from the mysterious rose.
"Get out," Santana says, quietly.
"I...what?" Brittany stops.
"Just...get out," Santana says, eyes raking over everything in the room. She crosses the room quickly, brushing past Brittany as if she isn't even there. She recovers the rose and lays a hand on the glass case. She stares at it before looking up at Brittany.
Their eyes meet.
"Get out of here. Leave," she says, teeth bared and jaw tight.
"I'm sorry," Brittany begins, unable to pull her eyes away from Santana. She's never seen so many different emotions swirling around someone's eyes at once.
"Get out!"
Brittany's legs seem to work before her mind does. She bolts towards the door and down the corridor.
"Leave me," Santana says quietly, clutching at the glass case.