A/N: Again, thank you only reviewer ForeverACharmedOne…in fact she is the only person who is encouraging me and giving a reason for writing this…(tear)
"Prospero, I'm completely baffled. How could this happen, in the god's name how could it? We have security all around her home since the first attack, and now a girl has died, laid in your fiancé's bed with her fainted on the floor physically unharmed!" Lord Merguire said, exasperated and stressed.
"I have had no idea. But he gave her a red ring, signed Alexander, to her at her celebration earlier today. And physically, that ring cannot come off!" Prospero too was stressed, hoping to have a nice quiet time with her, planning on giving her first kiss…but it failed when the room was broken in after half an hour to find Merrin dead and his betrothed unconscious on the floor. This was rather unnecessary to his worries.
Indeed, he had been worrying a lot. He had to raise taxes, he was dealing with complaints and more and more pleas for help…but the beak Doctors could only heal the minor cases of plague, and could do no more for more seriously ill. Sometime the plague took a day to do its work, but usually a whole village would be wiped out in one to two days. By then it would have spread to another by the roads and winds, for it was airborne and by touch. It was even found out animals could carry the disease, in-active in more robust animal's and transmit it to humans who came in contact with them, before the animal's die themselves. Lesser creatures however curl up and bleed to their dizzying deaths.
Which then came to his darling Virginia, shaking and trying to be calm holding her reddened hand in her living room.
"The only to remove it is to cut off her finger…which we are not about to do. She has told us nothing of what she knows of why The Red Death came to her today. However we can assume he wants her, perhaps for torture or something so as to spite you. For you are the Prince, and she will be your wife someday is she lives long enough." Merguire sighed and rubbed his forehead. He turned away to go to Lady Dulcinia, who was sobbing in the other room.
"You are right. This…this fiend is torturing her with these encounters and deaths! But he can't get me fearful and angry if he does it to her! He'll have to do better than that!" The Prince lied and stalked to the room where Virginia sat. The Prince did know, however, that The Red Death wanted her for some other reason…to deprive him the rights as king, for she is the true princess, of the true line that was t be almost extinguished, so the prophecy said when the last king was banished to his death hundreds of years ago.
Virginia was seated, alone after having her hand rubbed with oils, soaps, water and herbs. It was to no effect, for the red rose ring still was stuck on her finger. The jewel however was cleverly small enough for a glove to fit comfortably on her hand. It never lost its luster under the water, nothing. It was still beautiful as ever. But to Prospero, it was a threat. His wedding ring should be there instead of that devils! Perhaps that ring was The Red Death's wedding ring!
"How are you feeling my love?" He sat down slowly next to her.
She was trembling a bit, holding her hand, a tear on her cheek and looking down to her lap. There seemed oppression, a gloom that tainted her cheeks. There was darkness in her eyes, tainting the blue to a darker hue.
"I'm just…tired and…lost." She had the feeling that perhaps she should lean against someone, someone to feel warm and get lost into that person's arms, to just sob silently into his shirt…but it was indeed Prospero who she was sitting next to, and he was one of the least desirable people she wanted to cling to. She was lost…but not completely. Insanity still was not here to plague her. Only the Red Death touching her, placing his lips upon her forehead, holding her, threatening her, murdering the person she could trust…forcing a ring upon her finger to keep her his forever.
"No you aren't fine. Come here darling, I want to help you." He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close to his side. She was still stiff and refused to snuggle closer, though she felt cold inside to the events that left her chilled.
"You don't understand. You never will. You cannot. You refuse to." She said and still fixated her vision to the green wallpaper. Her mind was filled with heightened senses filled with oppressing darkness of the future.
"Give me a chance my love…I will understand, don't worry…please, tell me everything…" Prospero himself was dying to know what he had said or done to her. All he knew was that he had put the ring on her finger, and who knows what he did else beside kill Merrin. She refused to speak of what else went on.
"Y-you'll…be…nothing. Nothing at all. Just let me go, I want to rest and feel better." Virginia whimpered. She felt like her body was in pain like sorrow would never lift from her.
Her mind was boiling with culprits of grief, depression, confusion, terror, fear, worry and trauma. She had felt thrilled and warm when he touched her, delicately…she felt grief at the loss of her only confinement, confusion as to the feelings that were awakened inside her, terror at her future, fear of the future and his visits in the next years, worry for her own safety and mind….and depression, for no doubt she would be locked into the trap of all that was listed above.
Prospero sighed. He supposed in a few days, or months, when she becomes more cheerful and better again he will have to press for information. He couldn't torture her of course, he was to be his wife someday! However it was frustrating not knowing what had caused her such a terrible fright. Perhaps some gory presentation or something horrifying. Whatever it was it made her shaken and visibly tortured inside.
She stood up and started her way to her room, recently cleaned of Merrin's mysteriously dead body from unknown, Red Death causes. Prospero looked away, angry she didn't think of him as a person to just be held by and loved. Though, he knew he wasn't the right person, he didn't feel that loving at the moment.
She entered her room. It seemed normal, the sheets were changed on the bed, and everything was as it was…before the tragedy.
Her few stuffed animals were scattered on the bed, teddy bears and kittens. Soon because she was now a woman they would be stuffed away into a closet. But now…they were there, they were the remnants of her childhood and the innocence she craved. Once she lived a life of blissful ignorance. But it had been shattered. And now, it was worse. Old wounds reopened. The Red Death's fingers had slit them, let them bleed. In time they would heal over just slightly…before they would be slashed worse and pour forth her life blood.
For now since her last resort to sob her fear all out was dead, the stuffed animals seemed welcoming to hug and cry with. Her purple dress was tear stained and strange exhaustion was apparent.
A hate came to become her thoughts. She hated feeling weak against someone. Now she realized, that perhaps she can control herself and not depend on people helping her, for they could not. She never wanted to feel tired and spent, used and intoxicated with alluring fear ever again.
That was what she felt like around The Red Death. She felt like a lost girl being attacked by wolves. He is there in her mind, he plagues her with his presence. For that is what he is: a plague.
She felt that perhaps tonight will be her last moment of carefree terror and abandon. Tonight, she swore, that here would be the last time she would cry like a girl. The next time a tear would come to her cheeks in her bed, she would be a woman.
As she fell down unto the bed and closed her eyes the stirring lust The Red Death had kindled inside her began it's way to influence her. She breathed softly as tears poured forth from her weary eyes. She felt unclean and no longer innocent…she had seen so much, she had felt so much, she had experienced too much for a young woman. The way he looked at her, the way his eyes spoke with meaning when he said one thing was certainly terrifying. His eyes said lust and refrain, his eyes wandered over her figure with a desire for her, that she knew, but he was strong and held himself back and spoke and moved like a gentleman. But she knew what he was thinking. She knew what he wanted, but he didn't take. She knows those eyes, the eyes of lust too are upon Prospero.
She hoped the Red Death would never take from her in the lustful way. She was sure though that he might on her 18th birthday. The note he wrote to her for the first time had a very suggestive meaning by 'claiming'. She shivered, feeling exposed and naked. Her skin tingled as she imagined his gloved hands stroking her body, arms, legs, and actually kissing her…she cringed, not wanting to think about that any more.
For now, she knew if she did think of the terrors he could give her in the next 4 years she would be locked down into the world of fear and depression that she was in the past. She would not be afraid. She would be fearless! She would be strong and wise and never let anything bring her down! Because she wasn't afraid of him…anyways, she hoped to become that. Right now she was afraid.
But it would be hard to become strong. She was bothered by the increasingly dangerous Prospero who would marry her. She would be Princess soon and rule the country…if it wasn't already ravaged and destroyed by the plague which was killing people everyday. Food would become a luxury, same with workers and people, everything would be expensive. Her family might die of the plague.
But she had been touched by the creator of the disease. Why did she not die?
She didn't know. She had nothing to tell her how and why, and she did not care. She was just glad to be alone, with a ring upon her finger as she slept her fears away.
A/N: You know the drill…Read and Review.
Shoys.