Mia pushed her way through the ornate doorways that lead to the actual castle itself and, for just a moment she found herself feeling bad for anyone who had the misfortune of going through the doorway on a regular basis, as it was impractically weighted and so would be a bother to have to keep coming and going through it. This, as one would assume it would given the context of common building layouts, led her to a grand entrance room. This room alone, segmented with a staircase, was larger than some of the houses that she had passed in her brief exploration of the village, though this was not the most surprising thing in the world. In fact, she would not have been shocked if there was a direct correlation between the two, that the grandiose nature of the castle was a direct result of everywhere else being decidedly less so.
It was an odd fancy to ponder, certainly, but it was far better than being left to the ponderances about the nature of the shrill scream that had rung out through the air not long after she made her way into the building. Of course, she was not so much of a fool to think she was going to be walking right into a perfectly safe environment, it would be naïve to try and convince herself otherwise after all, but she would have rather not have had this confirmed for her within the first minute she was there.
She quickly pushed down her discomfort before she might feel tempted to act on it, hurrying up the staircase with steady strides.
On the higher level of the entrance hall, there was a grand portrait of three elegantly dressed young women gazing with oddly unreadable expressions and eyes that followed her as she moved. They were, if the inscription below it was to be believed - and why would it not be? - the three daughters, presumably of the castle, Bela, Cassandra and Daniela. It was a perfectly lovely portrait, but of course it was otherwise it would not have been painted, but just because it was lovely it didn't mean there was a lick of truth to it. For the right price - or the fear of a looming demise if things weren't perfect - any painter could lie. It was a common practice, after all, to lie to appear better than one was. and could almost be tied back to human nature as a whole. regardless of whether that actually was the case or not.
Beyond a few accounts and record-keeping documents, there was little else of note in the room and so, with no particular benefit to lingering about the space, she hurried onwards. Beyond a clear show of grandiosity, one of which was an excess that no single person would ever need to exhibit, the next few rooms were equally underwhelming. More passageways and corridors with a little more function than such, or so it was until she entered the main hall. Any sense of grand excess that she had acknowledged previously was put to shame.
The hall itself, which had a good many branching doorways and a large staircase, seemed to be entirely adored to a hedonistic excess. Larger than it had any need to be and hedonistically lavish, all manner of artistic adornments filling the little spaces. By a far wall was a doorway that caught her attention more completely as it was protuberant with its sculptures, a plaque upon the very centre of it. Mia concluded there was no better place to investigate, more so because it was the first place that caught her attention than any real reason.
The plaque on the door, she discovered, read, 'Mask the angels' blinded gaze and only then will you be saved.' but it seemed she was not going to be given the opportunity to ponder this. As she read the words, she had brought a hand to the door, but no sooner had she done this, did a fly land upon the nail of her thumb. A second and then a third joined this fly, and the second bit her on the knuckle. As she pulled her hand away with an utterance of disapproval, she became far too aware of a shrill giggling that filled the air as soon as she had.
"Looking for Rose?" a voice breathed directly into her ear from the space that she had known was completely void of anyone at all right until that moment. There was a manic waver to this voice, too, that was more than enough to send chills down the back of even the most hearty monster hunters out there.
"Who...?" Mia exclaimed, whirling about, hands raised with the intention of defending herself in whatever way she was capable of.
There were three inhumanly pale women in what had briefly been an empty room. There was something oddly reminiscent of the entrance portrait in them, but this seemed more like a passing fancy. They dressed near identically, donning cloaked black dresses that flattered them greatly, a mismatch of various pendants hanging about their necks, and thick gloves. It was not these facts of which made her realise she was in a bad situation, however. Across their wide grinning mouths the disconcerting smear of blood was difficult to ignore, nor was the hunger in their oddly golden eyes. The closest to her, the blonde of the trio who had been the one to address her, did not hesitate to grab at Mia's arm.
"What do you think you're doing?" Mia exclaimed, trying to wiggle her way out of the other's vice-like grip, "Let me go!"
Her other arm was snatched up by the dark haired woman, who seemed to be making a point to dig her fingers into her arm as hard as she was capable of.
"Get off me!" demanded she, though her squirming was a great deal less successful now than it had been now that she found herself thoroughly clasped.
"You talk a lot, don't you?" the third, the red haired woman, said with a giggle, lazily draping her arms over Mia's shoulder, "But not a lot about anything." From her convenient location, she made the point of covering the now thoroughly trapped woman's mouth with her hands to stop her from arguing back.
It did not do her all that much good to dig her heels into the ground as she was dragged off with the same unceremonious disregard one might have for a bag of seed, but it at least felt like she was doing something to try and fight back, for dignity sake if nothing else. She was given the most odd sense that her captives were flickering, as if they did not have any real solid edges when looking at them from such a close proximity. This was less concerning, at least to her, than the strange insectile hum that they seemed to be making. Mia did not like bugs, and she especially did not like women who made the same noises as a swarm of bugs, which is an odd thing for a person to encounter even once in a person's life, but she did not live the most ordinary life and so the fact it happened twice was less of a shock to her than it may have been to others.
But a statistical likelihood to run into buggy people didn't make it any less worrying, after all, it hasn't ended well for her in the past, and it didn't seem to be all that much kinder to her this time either.
Being dragged about as she was, it was difficult for Mia to really tell where they were going, but she wouldn't wonder if that was intentional. What she did notice, however, was the fact that the cut she had gotten to her arm was not the most happy with her being dragged about like she was. Really, she was not the most happy with it either, so of that she and the injury she received were in mutual agreement.
They had stopped before she realised what had happened, but she most certainly noticed that she was tossed down to the ground. She caught herself before she landed poorly, staggering a little to keep herself from the floor. As she did so, she ignored whatever the chatter one of her captives was uttering, trying to shake off the inherent discomfort of, well, every part of the last few minutes. What she could not ignore, however, was the fact she had not simply been dragged there to meet an immediate end.
"You are so kind to me, daughters," a voice that near hummed with aristocratic surety of self, "Heisenberg did mention a rat, but I had wondered if he was merely talking about himself."
This comment won a scattering of giggles, but Mia was far from feeling like laughing. The speaker of this comment was incredible, and this was no exaggeration and it seemed that the woman knew this well. Far larger than a person should be, she almost lazily rose from her seat, each motion refined to perfection. Strangely, and perhaps - Mia rationalised despite being far too familiar with strange things that we not completely natural - simply just due to a trick of the light, the noblewoman seemed to near monochrome aside from the splash of red upon her lips. Blood or just lipstick, she had no real way to confirm either way, nor did she really want to.
"Rather lovely for a rat, are you not, Mrs. Winters? But my brother never did know how to appreciate loveliness." It was odd, the words she spoke should have been perfectly complementary and yet rang with the sort of air that Mia knew was a threat.
A clear threat she could accept, but the sort that lay hidden beneath a mask of pleasantries were by far the worst of all.
"Ma'am," Mia began, knowing she would have to pick her words very carefully, "I am not a rat, I came here to find my daughter. Tell me, please, is she here? Is Rose here?"
"Listen to her! Chattering like a little bird! How dreadfully rude of her to make demands of Mother!" the blonde, Bela, exclaimed, sounded sincerely offended.
"Yes, so rude! Give her to us, Mother, a rude tongue should be plucked out!" the dark haired Cassandra agreed with far too much eagerness to be passed off as just being for the sake of appearing like a devoted daughter.
"Now, now, daughters," the aristocratic Alcina Dimitrescu said with the faintest hint of amusement to her voice," "First, I must inform Mother Miranda of her arrival. But later, if she has no further use for her, your fun can be had."
"Wait," Mia said quickly, not particularly happy with discussions around her fate being made in front of her without getting a say in the matter, "Please, could you just answer me? What happened to my child? Is she safe?"
"Your daughter is with us now, Mrs. Winters, she is of no more concern to you." the vampiric woman stated simply, and with none of the weight this deserved.
"No more concern?" exclaimed she in response, unfortunately this exclamation was more combative than she intended, having said this before she had the chance to tap it into something a little safer, "With all due respect," she continued, forcing respectability into this, "That is my daughter you're talking about. How would you feel if one of your daughters were taken by strangers without a word of explanation?"
"That would never happen. I keep my daughters safe." was the snappy reply that this won.
"You can't know that for complete sure, right? What if your Mother Miranda finds my daughter was not suitable for whatever it might be that she wanted her for and so decided to take one of yours?" To emphasise this, she offered a gesture with her hand in the general direction of the daughters, which she needed to end prematurely as Daniela snapped at her hand. "Is that really so impossible?"
"You don't understand anything that is happening, Mrs. Winters, do not speak of affairs you could not begin to comprehend," warned Lady Dimitrescu, a sneer all too clear upon her elegant features, "If you must know, Mother Miranda gave me my daughters."
"And so she could take them away again just as easily," Mia said with a great deal of gentleness considering she was very tempted to risk trying to wipe the sneer from the significantly taller individual, "Please, listen to me, mother to mother. You love your daughters, right? You would never want to see them in danger, right? It's the same for me. I just want my daughter to be home safe. I don't know what Miranda wants with her, but Rose shouldn't be dragged into it. I just..." she had to pause, letting out a shaky little breath that nearly got away from her as her emotions crept up on her, "I just want to see her, to know that she's safe. Please, if it were you in my place, would you not just want to see that your daughters were safe?"
Alcina regarded the increasingly more distraught Mia with a strangely guarded expression. A sigh, not the sort that was designed to show any sort of disdain that she was more likely to sigh but rather one that was utterly sincere in its delivery, slipped past her painted lips. It only took a single stride to greatly reduce the distance between the two, but there was nothing of a threat in the looming closeness that came from this.
"One's child is a precious gift," the aristocrat spoke in an exceedingly measured manner, "Wait here if you would. Daughters, come."
Without waiting to see if her children would actually follow her, Lady Dimitrescu strode out the room, somehow making even the task of needing to duck down to fit through the doorway that was clearly not designed for her tremendous stature look more dignified than anything Mia had managed to do in her entire life. Bela hurried out after her mother, only tossing the briefest glances back at the woman before she was off. Daniela offered a strangely teasing flicker of her fingers that was loosely a wave before, and not without several needlessly dramatic twirls, she also vanished out the door. Cassandra seemed to draw out her lingering for a moment or so longer than she should, even going so far as to take several steps towards the only other person in the room at that moment, but even she, with a strangely chittering laugh, strode out of the room. Mia was, all of a sudden, left completely alone.
An odd little burning in her chest informed Mia that she had not yet completed a full breath since she first encountered the strange women. With a great big sigh, she rectified this at the same time she dragged her fingers through her hair until the moment she hit a snag, jerking her head back a little from the force of this. This was something she regretted almost immediately as this meant the bloody hooks that hung from the ceiling, a glaring difference from the rest of the rather pleasant nature of the room, were clear in her field of vision. If the dried blood, both on the hooks themselves and the immediate wall behind them, was anything to go by she might have been one wrong word away from finding herself hanging up like fresh meat in a butcher's shop.
Well, Mia briefly and altogether fatalistically thought, there were certainly worse places to die in than a castle. Those numerous few who had been killed in the Dimitrescu Castle might beg to differ - and one could actually ask them this, but only if one was willing to part with a significant chunk of themself in the exchange - but the woman had seen first-hand utterly dreadful places to die, and seen death take places that could have otherwise been a happy place to be - it was corrupted by her hand, it wasn't her fault, she should have done something to stop it, it was out of any of their control - so she would choose the upper floors of a castle over a dank, mouldy basement if she had no other choice but to decide upon her death.
Evidently, if her thoughts on the matters of death were anything to go by, she was not in a well way at all. With yet another sigh, she rubbed her eyes with the balls of her hands. There was no use letting herself fall to pieces when there was still work to be done and so, if it meant she needed to don yet another mask - so many lies! - and this being one of strength, then so be it.
If she was to be honest with herself, the prolonged silence of the room, the odd warmth of it, and the furniture that was clearly not designed for her was starting to bother her. She could, of course, justify this as it just made it all too obvious that she was not supposed to be there, and this sense of being out of place then, by extension, reminded her that she did not have any real weighting on how things progressed. It was exhausting, but she was already so tired already.
After a more than agonising period of time, she became aware of steady footsteps slowing to a stop by the door. Instinctively she moved to the other side of the room, wary of a potential attack, but it was not an attack that came. In strode Lady Dimitrescu, her expression unreadable - perhaps she wore the twin of Mia's own mask - as she made her way to the other.
"You plead your case well, Mrs. Winters," said she, lowering herself to bring them to a more even height difference, "You would go to the end of the world for your child, and I see myself in your devotion to her," something seemed to cloud her gaze for a moment, "Take this and leave, you cannot linger long. I do not know what you will face, but I trust you have nothing but Rose's best wishes at heart."
It was not a child that Mia was handed, but rather an odd little cloudy flask, and while it seemed a little clinical in nature, it was certainly not large enough to hold a whole baby. Even still, she found herself willing to trust in the intention behind this and so bowed her head. This was not only a show of thanks but also to hide away the tears that were threatening to fall all of a sudden.
"Thank you, I won't forget this," replied she, "Or the kindness you and your daughters showed me."
"It would do us all better if you did forget," There was a sadness to the aristocrat's words, for she realised that there could be dire consequences if Mother Miranda were to know she so actively disobeyed her wishes, but likewise understood the importance of a mother's love for her child. It was a poor place for her to find herself, but she justified her decision to herself. "Now leave, you've a while yet to go. Do not fail your little Rose, Mrs. Winters, you are all she has in the world yet. Go, now, and do what you must."
And, with a flask held to her chest and a weight in her heart, Mia did leave.