A/N: Long but super-duper-extra-special chapter! Darkness ahead..
Death. There was nothing left but death.
There was a small substantial cause for celebration during Virginia's 16th birthday. The world was still fulfilled with a fighting chance to survive, to prevail against the plague. There many alive, there were towns and cities still operating and living almost normally.
However, by Virginia's uneventful 17th the land had no cause to celebrate anymore.
There were only three cities untouched by the plague. One by one through the year, they fell. The people from the towns and villages, hamlets and thorps that were decimated by plague came to crowd into the safekeeping of the metropolises. Disease spread and The Red Death, unhindered came and created a blood bath.
The army was only a few hundred left. Many died or deserted. No general, corporal, kernel and such dared to investigate cities struck by the plague. It was all hopeless. None of the army's efforts helped to solve and sway the demon fiend.
Some in the darkness of woods and homes were actually worshipping the God of Blood. They were praying to him for forgiveness. They prayed to have the strength of suicide and mercy.
The demon's plans were working. The land was in the thrall of panic. People gathered in caravans, heading into the capital and lordly castles to survive. They left the cattle and crops to die in the fields as the Decay had full reign over the abandoned land. The sky was red, no more blue skys and white clouds. It was a storm of red clouds and darkness.
The wheat and grasses were withered. The ground was painted red with blood. The homes and towns were forgotten and left to rot; some were burned to charred ash. Trees of the forest were dying. Animals were rotting dead. Even the maggots who feed on their putrid flesh were dead. Vultures were living near the inhabited Capital and Goudhum. There they were safe from the plague.
The only creatures to survive were the swarms of ravens.
They feasted on people's bodies, animals, and raised their lecherous young in the dead dry stumps of trees. Bloody red flesh was fed to their evil young ones as the ravens imbued the powers of blood and death.
They were all ready to swarm and feed upon the dead of the last humans of the land.
The land of millions was decimated to several hundred.
A year went by. The nobles hid in their homes, either dying by The Red Death's means or surviving in the capital. Peasants fled and were robbed of their money and goods, and sent to scrounge into corners to starve and hide in the Capital. They huddled together to keep warm, and cared not for the fleas and lice that bit them, or the fevers and colds of regular diseases. Nor the lack of good water, spare shelter, and food beyond rats and birds. The beak doctors helped, and the more that died everyday the more room there was.
Virginia was living with the Prince. She was going to turn 18 soon.
Several miles away was the edge of the red sky. The rest of the sky above the city was cloudy gray, but 4 miles away there was the rest of the county's sky: Deep red clouds. There was a circle around the city.
There was no more order. No more middle class, no merchants, fisherman, farmers, peddlers, bards and knights. No army, no schoolteachers, no tutors and grocers. The blacksmith's fires were burned, the fish market was filled with no more fish, and the meat and vegetables were almost gone. The city of thousands was decimated and empty of almost no life. It seemed that all the colors and life's luster was sucked out of the buildings. Everything was gray and brown. Dust was settled everywhere and the paved roads had weeds and grass growing between the cobblestones. Gardens in front of buildings of art and temples were overgrown. The orchards with decorative fruits were plucked of their fruits by the small starving population.
There were only 200 hundred people left. Men, women and children. They had gathered in the farthest corner of the large expansive city, taking refuge in the caves of the Old Wall.
The Capital had been standing since many, many hundreds of years ago. There were many portions of the wall rebuilt and re-fortified. One of them in the far section of the South-West hadn't been renovated since a hundred years ago. Inside were caves and rooms in the catacombs under the wall since even before the wall was erected.
There, the people thought they were safe from the plague. They had the feeling that the plague would probably come within a few weeks, or even sooner. They all had mostly stopped dying thanks to the herbs and strength of the few beak doctors among them. They had scrambled enough edible material for the next week. They could only hope, pray, and wait in the catacombs eating their rats and molding bread.
Industry had all been stopped. The rich and the poor were living in filth in the only dry and safe place left in the entire country.
But the noble blood was still alive too.
There, on the mountain of The Kings, was an old castellated abbey. It was the fortress from battles past where the first kings gathered to fight for Labarverion. It was cold, isolated from the rest of the city, and just right by the edge of the red sky. It was there and always there, generations old, and it's architecture that of the grim and darkest of man's fashion. Gargoyles, contorted features and spiked spires. Black fold stone and wrought metal, with curious gothic art styling to create a thin decadent piece of terrible art. It looked like something unnatural had grown forth as a thick ugly tree on the ugly mountain crag. A sense of decay and horror was about it, like there was an aura radiating from it.
It was there that the nobles were gathered. Within a few days barons, dukes, generals, counts, chancellors, magistrate, and all of wealth and royal blood that were alive went into the abbey. Prospero was waiting with his entertainments, his wild beasts and dancers, musicians, food and tricks and celebration. He waited on his blue throne in the grand hall as the blue bloods came to survive and live in the rooms. They came out of fear though they never showed it. They still smiled and held their heads up high, as if they were not afraid that they would die very soon.
For they thought that they were here to escape.
They blinded themselves to the danger and the impending doom. They sat and stuffed themselves in the farthest corner of the plague, hiding behind heavy thick walls and the protective charms that supposedly would protect them from death. All their homes that were ruins now lay beyond the castle, and now they hid in a cage of luxury.
The doors were shut. The walls were barbed and guarded. The nooks and holes to escape from were sealed. None could escape once the drawbridge gate was finally sealed.
The outside looked evil, foreboding, clawed and trapping its inhabitants inside it self. They could not escape.
But insides it was a decadent palace.
The halls were garbed in vulgar colors, tapestries of brilliant hues and paintings of rich nobles and hunting, and bowls of fine fruit. Tables were leaden with feasts and wine and they filled themselves with the fruits of hard peasant labor, who were now dead in un hallowed graves or on in their fields. There were butlers and servants, frightened maids and cooks, cleaners and pages. They came with their masters mostly out of the hope that they will cheat death. They served their lords and ladies and their children. They too felt that they would survive the terrors of the plague and be rewarded when it had passed.
There was a small courtyard that let in light to the garden. There were urns of flowers, there was wine and hundreds upon hundreds of rooms. There were two libraries. There were vaults filled with gems and treasure. There were baths and pools to bathe in. There was banquet halls, game rooms, armories, and a fencing chamber.
It was all ready the week before, when Victor Prospero, the bold and strong for his young age at 26 started refurbish the place. And when it was all done he transferred himself there and invited all the royalty and their servants un-plagued to join him in surviving the end of the world.
When the caravans of wagons and carriages started their lonely climb up the mountain the people of the capital, starving and filthy and left to die in the city swarmed to them. They begged to be let in to safety, they threw stones at them they gave their strength to curse the nobility, the monarchs who were starving them of money and food for the past decade. They were held off by the last of the army, the lowly soldier happy that they would be in the castle to survive but sad that they were beating off their own people to die in the wilderness. The generals and above however were just as pompous and snotty as the nobility. They would at least be happy and safe, and when the plague left the land their armies would help rebuild what was left.
And so the almost a hundred royalties locked themselves in the abbey. The weak mob of people left went down the mountain and wondered what they should do. So they hid and scrambled the last of the food to hopefully, at least, survive. If not, they begged to each other that they wished to die peacefully. They had been through too much pain in the years. The decimation of this being, this god, this devil that had an entire empire to its knees was now ready to destroy everything. It was no human, for no human could wish to obliterate the world. No human possessed such power. It was inconceivable to think that this fiend appeared in the form of a man with a skull head, lavicious lips, long red hair and dashing royal red garb. They knew what he looked like. He made his presence known, and he had appeared several times to the Prince's betrothed.
One would hope that he would have immediately found another fiancé to replace her, one more noble since the death of the last of the Mauchdoms. But for some reason he still stayed and held her as his future wife. Of course, she had no choice in the matter. She was a woman and that was that. However Victor Prospero did not abandon the general's daughter. In fact the rumor already had gotten out that in fact Virginia was adopted from a peasant family who was burned to death by The Red Death. As such, he had made his appearance to her at the capital art museum when she was 10, at her 14th birthday and even harassing her on her 16th. Out of all these appearances, a person close to her has died. She was left without a father, her best friend, and her even closer brother. She was a woman of mystery. She was considered the most smartest and political savvy woman in the government, and was known for her cold, strong and dispassionate standings and words. She lectured; she fought for the common man and insulted the current state of leadership. She could not be stopped from raising the torch up high from the chains of bound servitude to the state of womanhood and being shunned from the ignorant, selfish plotting aristocracy. Prospero did everything in his power to keep her down and kept like a pet for him. Soon he planned on marrying, her whenever she did not know. She only hoped that if she did she would make sure he would stay faithful to her and he would rue the day he wished to have her at his side. If they survived she would help the people. Even if she had to suffer beatings and him raping her, she would laugh in his face.
Such as she was, she was a strong woman. She wanted to save them all as best she can though all her attempts failed. But she kept trying. She was hardened and ruthless from all the death and destruction that befell her family and the land.
Innocents died and were murdered in terrible agony. Demons and devils and other creatures that were summoned to his need defied the laws of the gods that the people worshipped. The priest's couldn't explain why, oh why a demon lord was allowed to come and destroy all that was good and prosperous. Now he had almost completely triumphed and was now saving the deathblow for the last of this country's humanity. Then, the priests knew, that he would move on to the other weaker nations.
The nobles now reigned over the dead in the fields.
They were bred only to hurt others and themselves with sin. Now they could not fight but only hide. They knew in their black hearts they were beaten.
"Let us gather and stay here, and be merry while a new world is reborn!" Prince Victor Prospero bellowed hiding his fear. The hundred nobles in the great hall cheered round the banquet table.
"Together when the plague is done, we shall come out and our servants shall work the land, and we will make the world again anew! Praise the gods and goddesses! They have blessed us with this haven." He toasted with his goblet of wine.
"Blessed are we!" The nobility toasted and the clinking of glasses was ended, as they drank deep the liquor in their glasses.
Virginia lightly sipped as she sat besides Prospero.
And so they feasted that first night on pheasants and seafoods, beef and lamb, calves and soups, salads and rice and pasta and pastries. They sang merry songs and laughed. They told their crude jokes and boasted. They became drunken and wild and danced in the ballroom. Till midnight it was, and they left the halls to pass out on their lavish beds or engage in passionate sinful revelry, countesses forgetting their husbands and making fools of themselves with dukes and lords. There was no law, no morality. The first three days the halls were filled with sounds of laughter, songs, pattering feet, music and love making.
Virginia sat in solitude in the far corner of the library, hiding her fear of The Red Death.
She was no child. She was a mature woman. She had received some invitations to join the hundred for tea, fencing, garden tours and orgies in the rooms but no, she was not too low for this. She walked the halls with stiff proud strides and stared ahead with her cold black dresses and purple hats. She was in her own world as all around her was hell. She would walk to places of hidden comfort and solitude while snotty children ran past, women were chased by men, dukes inviting her for a drink attempting to take her hand, women spitting at her and conversing about vanity.
She blocked them away. There was no real hope that was driving her, for she knew The Red Death will come and take her away, killing or no killing. She was to be used in a plot. And she was all alone with others she trusted to help her.
She trusted no one. Not even her mother.
It was the third day. She stood still as a statue in a dark purple dress. Her hat had a veil over her face and her poofy sleeves drooped. She was an elegant statue at that, gazing at the sea down the mountain. The sea looked red like blood, for even the red sky of the sunset and the plague in the heavens shone and the choppy waters, once limpid blue was raging in the evening and red. She sighed. She did not care for the cool breeze, it was colder than that of the late summer for which it was time.
Her mother the Lady Dulcinia was down the elegant bawdy hallway. She knew her foster daughter was in her bedroom, looking out the large window to the sea. And she was standing with Victor Prospero.
Dulcinia was distraught. In fact she never was quite the same since her husband died and then the disaster at Virginia's 14th birthday. And her own son…slaughtered with plague. And her daughter…almost molested.
She was not competent. She was senile and easy to manipulate.
Victor was however the manipulator.
"You know this will do her good…" Victor said in his deceptively charming voice.
"I know. She needs you, I just know! I feel it around her, she needs to know how much you love her, she needs to become happy." Lady Dulcinia chattered. She was old and twitching, smiling happily as she gave him her permission to…do things before the wedding night.
"I will make her happy. She will be truly thankful I'm sure. I'm glad you have given me permission." Victor gave a crafty smile as he adjusted his cravat.
It was the custom of the land that a man, if he was already betrothed to her, with permission from both or one of her guardians, could mate with her before the wedding. That is, if he had their permission.
And currently, he did get it while he was having some coffee and biscuits in the garden with her.
Such a stupid woman. She knows nothing at all. I have her wrapped around my little finger…So thought Prospero as he bade her good night and headed down the hall to seduce his fair lady.
I'll teach her a few things about who's in charge of this country. He thought and gave a snicker. She would rue the day she would argue and debate the laws that kept him and their like in power and wealth! And he would thoroughly enjoy this…he had waited to long to bed his future wife. He was sure she would soften after this night.
He knocked quietly and he heard his cue.
"Come in." Virginia tiredly sighed. She still stood gazing out the window.
His smile turned into feigned concern as he entered, softly closing and locking the door and putting his feathered hat swiftly to the small table by the door. She knew what he was doing, that with locking the door, putting his hat away and quietly sneaking up behind her with a false face. However Virginia was not the greatest intellect in the world, and she did not think Victor would be that audacious to strike before the wedding.
"My darling…my sweet little petunia…" Victor purred sweetly by her ear. His arms slowly moved to encircle her waist. However, his 'little petunia' was more like a 'stiff statue'.
"What do you wish from me, Victor?" She added a hint of disgust at the sound of his name. Victor only liked this spitefulness more.
"I wish all your love. And I wish it now." He purred once again.
"I don't love you. I never will. Love isn't just a tool of adoration, it's more than that and you don't understand it." She turned her head to face him with her deep cold glare. She meant serious business.
"You are so hardened and encased with stone my dear. When will you let your inner self prove that you actually do love me?" He still purred and smiled warmly. It was however not warm at all but hiding cunning deceiving plots. His desire for her and his selfish behavior only made him feel more invincible.
"I never have. The first time I saw you as a child, I thought you were a rude boy. After my foster father's death I saw you as a ignorant adolescent. When my sister died I saw you as an egotistical man-whore. On my 16th you made me feel you were mad and off balance with such strange grisly eccentric plots and strange entertainments. And now, you disgust me with your poor leadership and cowardliness." She stared even deeper into his eyes. His smile threatened to turn into a frown, but he held himself in check. It wasn't like him to be cowed by a woman's word.
"You are truly fit to be Princess. But you can't be if you don't please the Prince." Victor pulled her stronger to his body. Her side collided with his chest, indicating all too well what he wanted from her tonight.
"If I don't have to be Princess, then so be it. I'd rather live as serf than becoming your royal whore." She turned her head away. Still he held her close to his body by grasping hips.
"But I want you to be my Princess. I want you to be a good woman and help me rule the new world and not insult our monarchy." He grasped her chin with some slick sexual menace in his voice. "Isn't that clear?"
"I am a person that does what I will. I will reform and make the world a better place since you want me to be your wife. You cannot stop me." Her voice was still defiant.
Victor growled and pulled her into his arms fully. And then he kissed her.
She waited till he was done smacking kisses on her lips and roughly exploring her mouth. He stopped for breath, his hand reaching behind to undo the ribbon that held his hair back. He had long straight light brown hair, a beautiful shade but it was not what Virginia was paying attention to really.
"You see, if you swear that you will stop insulting and trying to change things I will not have to endeavor to show how much of a loving, 'evil' person I am tonight." He suddenly turned serious. She looked back and saw how much lust was in his eyes. They were on fire with it.
"You have no right to rape me. You have no right to even threaten me!" She hissed.
"I have your mother's permission. Such a manipulative old toad she is…but at least she agrees about who is more superior. You my dear have no say!" He growled and truly, he was on fire with lust.
She knew that someday this would happen. Too long had he looked at her with the desire to bed her. It was obvious, in this unholy castle that the right to free reign of sinful pleasures would give him the reason why he should make love, anytime her wanted. And Virginia was his favorite girl, besides her unsavory attitude to his ways.
He did not care. He would relish this as much as he could as, he hoped, they would suddenly strip themselves and hop right into her bed.
He was quite wrong however. It was not as simple as that if you had an unwilling partner.
Without panicking, she went about to try to pry herself out from Victor's arms. However he knew that she would try that first. He held her tightly against his body and proceeded to drag her back to the bed. The black sheeted bed was fit for at least three people perfect for the romp he awaited on the bed. He had dreamed of this moment, of finally feeling her, of finally touching every single part of her skin…
Virginia was pushed down on the bed with Victor's drooling growling head by her neck. Se was disgusted with such irrational behavior, more proof to her how much of an animal he was. She did not intend however to spend the night losing her virginity to such a wretched selfish man, and she made about her attempts to push him off her. He kept scooting her more into the middle of the bed and she soon realized that her strength was not good enough to push him directly off her.
As he went to sit more on top of her and undo her hair she started another idea. Her arms were free and her face in a snarl as she tried to push on his knees. He already pulled his cravat and his jacket off revealing a thin white shirt.
"Such a feisty vixen…" He laughed. Virginia was not about to be frozen with fear. He was just a jackass too sure of himself that he was going to succeed in raping her. She could deal with trying to get him off her body.
"I just want you to get away from me." She hissed and still was mostly unsuccessful with pushing him off her. He took this time to take his shirt off, revealing his somewhat muscular hairless chest. She took a few moments to stare at his abs and try to calculate how she was going to remove him. As she scanned his appearance she noticed the rising bulge in his pants and his hands going over the start the process of untying her corset from the front.
She smacked at his hands, and he withdrew scowling in pain at the slapping. He picked up the speed this time and this time made it past the smacking and clawing at his arms as he grabbed her breasts. He had always wanted to do that…They were always so plump and just bursting over the corsets and in the confines of her dresses…Now they were actually in his hands!
The pleasure was short lived. She scratched him on the face and started bucking and grunting in her desperation to dislodge his hands from her chest.
He roared in pain and withdrew, holding his face that was bleeding from the cuts. Her nails were somewhat long and she was utterly furious at him. She would not, at any cost, be subjected to this especially against her will!
She he groaned in pain she went about to flip to her side, rear up and shove him off. He was quite distracted and soon he was being kicked and punched in the face by her heels. Snarling and crying out in pain he grasped her dress to scramble back at her, but she quickly got him off and ran out the room.
Bleeding and cut, he soon found that Virginia had left the room. He was left panting and angry and beaten by a mere woman, his future wife!
Gathering his ribbons and other clothing that was pulled off, he redressed himself and summoned up his pride. He waltzed out of the room with his head held high in the air, despite the slashes at his face and his immediate need for first aid. He set a leisurely pace back to his royal chambers, Lady Dulcinia puzzled. She usually was, not understanding her daughter's will for freedom in a society that had none.
Virginia had ran off into the library, setting up a lounge chair in the corner to spend the night on. She had no fear that he would come after her tonight. She would make sure she was a light sleeper anyways. She could imagine Victor cursing under his breathe as he applied some bandages to his ruined handsome face. She had easily triumphed and removed the pest from her room.
If she wasn't any stronger, she would have been weak and screaming in fright. She smiled at herself.
She was proud she could defend herself with such tenacity. She was very strong, strong willed and strong ideals. She knew she was now truly considered a woman of power. No one could weaken her, no one could stop her, and no threats and tortures would make her change her mind if she knew that it was the right thing to do. She was flexible too, flexible in ideals and actually possessing the ability of compassion. But there was nothing that needed her love and affection. Only her work that she hoped, that she desperately hoped she would do.
That is, if The Red Death succeeded in his horrible plan. The entire nobility and herself were sitting ducks locked in a castle. The rest of the people were hiding and dying in the abandoned city.
She wished she was with them to share their suffering til the very end. But she was brought here only as property, and she would use this to her advantage to finally help the world when she will become co-ruler of the land…if it still lives by the end of the week…
A/N: Well…things getting more darker…It's also near the end of this tale!
Thanks for the review ForeverACharmedOne!
Shoys.