Alchemy

1,2) PREMONITION

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Hinata:

With my face pressed against the pillow it was hard to breathe but it was the only way to muffle my screams and sobs. To cry was to show weakness. Hyūga’s did not cry.

I was only 18; far too young to be sold off...because this is exactly what it was selling me off. Father never cared much for me away. Hanabi was always his favourite.

In fact it wouldn't be a long shot to say that he despised me. It was because I looked like my mother.

I reminded him of her that was why he had hated me all these years. I had endured for so long. I had endured it all only for him to-

No. I corrected myself, I should have known that this was coming. I should have considered that he would sell me off. That I would I only prove “useful” to him in this way.

Yet a part of me, a naive and foolish part of me had actually believed that I would get to fall in love. That I would marry the man of my dreams. Not Kiba...

There was nothing wrong with Kiba, he was nice and all but he was my friend and nothing more.

I don't know when I had dozed off and drifted off into the world of dreams. I only remember waking up in another world.
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Dream

I frantically rubbed my arms in an attempt to warm my body as I walked up the forest path up the cliff that lead to shelter. I marched on, my shoes becoming damp in the snow.

Yes snow. I wasn't sure how it was snowing in the middle of summer let alone the fact that it never snowed in the Land of Sun which was why I wasn't accustomed to the nail-biting cold.

Even the snowflakes shivered as they danced on the ice-kissed breeze before dropping to the sodden earth.

An enormous shadow loomed over me and as I looked up I spotted what looked like an abandoned manor house in the sea of white frost. I stumbled up the path desperate for shelter before my toes succumbed to the icy kiss of death.

With trembling fingers I unlatched the rusted gates to enter the grounds of what to my surprise wasn't a manor at all but a castle; albeit one in disrepair.

Before scrambling up the rest of the path I stopped to admire what was left of the immaculate engravings that had once graced these gates.

A strangely familiar symbol was etched onto not only the gates but onto the walls encompassing the perimeter as well.

I trudged down the path that had meandered through the frosted gardens of the castle. Only something seemed wrong. I knew what it was the second after the sweet scent of roses wafted into my nostrils. Roses blooming in the middle of a blizzard?

That was unheard of. Each were crimson in colour, the colour of a sunrise. But there was no time to admire this peculiar abnormality as the icy hands of death were about to devour me. I stumbled up the remaining steps and fumbled with the handle of the door.

The barely noticeable metallic scent of blood hit me as I realized that I had pricked my finger on splinter of wood.

A drop of my blood splattered on the threshold, bright vermilion in the midst of a sea of snow. I stepped over the threshold trembling slightly at the old saying that once one steps over the threshold they risk never leaving. I stepped inside it was either go in or die in this unearthly cold.