The Red Rose Among Thorns

ONE

Hey everyone I know it's been a while since I updated this story. Almost a month actually. But like I put in my profile I pre-write all my chapters beforehand and I haven't really had time to write anything. But I'm here now so I hope you enjoy this chapter. Also if your OC is in this book and they aren't exactly like how they are in your stories that's because I tried to fit them make them like characters from Beauty and the Beast since that's what this story is.
Nero belongs to DemonSlayerShadow666
Zara belongs to JessicaCiane
Alison belongs to -Dying-Angels-
and Abra belongs to Manimatsu

It was a beautiful morning in the kingdom of Vale. All around the marketplace people were hustling to and fro trying to buy their goods and chat with their neighbors.

At the edge of the village, in a small cottage, a young woman was emerging. This girl, clad in a black dress with a white apron and a bow in her hair, was named Blake Belladonna. Blake may have been very beautiful but that didn't stop her neighbors from gossiping about her.

For starters Blake loved to read and reading wasn't really a hobby that the villagers enjoyed, and secondly she always wore that bow in her hair, always. However a few villagers knew why she wore that bow. Blake was a Faunus and under her bow was a pair of black cat ears. A lot of villagers were Faunus but, like Blake, they preferred to keep their features a secret. Those who had animal ears hid them under bows or bonnets or hats, ones with tails would wrap them around their waists like a belt or tuck them in their skirts, if they had claws then they wore gloves, and if they had fangs....they just never opened their mouth.

As Blake made her daily trip to the bookstore, nose buried in a book, she tried to be oblivious to the whispers and stares of the villagers near her.

"Look there goes Blake, reading again," Alison said, "I bet you she's insane."

"She's definitely odd but I wouldn't go as far to say she's insane," said Abra.

Turning to her friend she added, "at least she doesn't dream about a man that may or may not exist."

"You don't know that," said Alison, "and I keep telling you the man I keep dreaming about is real. Every time I dream about him I feel like I've met him in reality."

The two girls continued to argue as Blake continued walking. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the last person she wanted to see but thankfully he seemed to preoccupied with something else to notice her.

"Isn't it wonderful Ilia?" Cardin Winchester asked his friend.

Ilia, who had been to busy watching Blake as she walked by, snapped out of her trance and looked at Cardin.

"I'm sorry what?"

"The mirror," he said, "isn't it wonderful?"

Ilia looked at the mirror that was hanging off the merchant cart they were standing in front of, "I don't know. I guess?"

"Well I think it's fabulous," he said, "I can see myself perfectly in it. And I was right, I don't have a bad side."

Ilia had to fight the urge not to roll her eyes.

In the mirror's surface Cardin noticed someone walk by and he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"There goes Velvet. You know I don't know why she wears that stupid bonnet. Everyone can see those ugly rabbit ears of hers. I don't know why we let those ugly Faunus live in our village. If it was up to me I would make them be run out of town and forced to live on their own. Don't you agree?"