Raella

One

Raella awoke to scuffed elbows, scabbed knees, and sore limbs. A harsh storm pounded away at the large, unfamiliar doors in front of her. Sitting up in confusion, breath visible in front of her, she rubbed at her arms in vain and glanced around her. A gasp echoed off of the atrium's walls as she realized where she was. Recalling the castle from her memory, it could only be described as looming, she shivered. A deep breath came and went and she stood up looking into the dark shadows for anything hidden before taking quiet steps to the door. Her dress swished with her steps, startling her at first. A large part of her hoped they would be locked mostly so that she would have an excuse to explore what was around her but also because she didn't want to have to go out into the rain. As if to comment a lightning bolt flashed through the unnoticed stain glass window above her with growling thunder shaking the structure.

Raella took the last few steps and pulled on the engraved metal handles only for a lock to keep them from moving forward. A sigh of relief left her as she turned around to face the darkness in front of her. Another flash gave the tiniest glimpse into the large stair well that travelled down into what looked to be a large ballroom also illuminated from its glass roof. The resounding thunder shook the chandeliers that hung around the room and the glass clinking together seemed more ominous than the thunder. 

It was hard to even think being so close to the storm outside and so Raella made her way to the stairwell in an attempt to look for someplace safe to stay inside what assumed to be never ending hallways and abandoned rooms. The hope inside her was that in the morning the doors would be unlocked or she could figure out a way to escape without the storm in her way. One night was all she needed to stand and then find somewhere outside of the castle to go.

She didn't want to think what life waited for her beyond that, it wasn't like she could go back home. Her father would just drag her right back here. She didn't know why she was here, maybe a debt to someone, or a fairy forewarning that she would ruin him, or maybe, the most likely of all, he had been drunk. Either way, this was a sign to let go and disappear. She shivered at the thought of him returning, she'd better get out quick enough. At the end of the day he was dead to her and she wasn't sticking around to find out exactly why, she was happy with the brief demonstration.

A step into the largest room she had ever been in drained any bravery right out of her. Something felt wrong to her and she found herself more jumpy than usual all of a sudden. The darkness shielded a lot of the room from her eyes, the cold didn't help. She took the stairs downward at an agonizingly slow pace. Who knew what was in there but if hiding the tap of her steps under the rumble of the storm kept it from waking up then she was more than happy to go slow. At the bottom of the steps she waited for lightning to illuminate the room to her once again, counting for it. Once the flash came she saw a hallway directly in line with the staircase across the polished stone floor and hope for a bedroom came with it. As the light left, confirming that the room was empty she took her first step onto the frozen floors, the cold seeping up through the cloth slippers.

Raella took a step back onto the carpeted stairwell steps. A thought emerged at that second which wasn't her typical way of thinking but then again this wasn't her typical life. I wish I had bought those fur shoes that looked so pretty and warm in the shop window when I had the chance. She grumbled to herself a bit more how ironic it was that she had planned to wait for her father to get home and go to town with him. Then he had dragged her here of all places, wherever that was, where she would have appreciated the slippers the most. She revelled in that thought for a bit longer feeling she had earned the pessimism at least a little. As she went to step back onto the floor, planning to dash into the hallway to avoid the cold for the sake of it, she looked down to see the fur shoes sitting in front of her.

"What?" She spoke dumbfounded and then covered her mouth as she gasped at her stupidity. She glanced around the ballroom, her head spinning back and forth wildly, before she could calm her racing heart. In the back of her mind she realized that her vision was adjusting to the dark. Entirely expecting the shoes to have been a hallucination she looked down again to make sure, only for them to be solidly material. The racing of her heart picked up again, but that was it for reactions the second time around.

Raella paused for a moment and did her best to convince herself that she was being entirely ridiculous about the whole situation and there was nothing to be afraid of. It was barely able to set in for a split-second. The adrenaline in her system continued to support her irrational thought process and behavior and finally she gave up. The feeling of being watched was what really set her off, though the dark atmosphere was somewhat frightening, shivers on her arms refused to leave and were almost painful.

Sitting on the stair well, hoping to calm her nerves for a second, Raella pulled the boots into her lap. Lightning flashed twice in a row giving here more light than usual. The brown and black fur was extremely soft to the touch and the hide stretched evenly. She pondered for a second whether this was a test or not, if she put on the boots would she offend whoever put them there or would she offend them by not putting them on? She decided to tug the leather onto her foot, if they didn't look exactly like the ones from the shop, suggesting that they were meant for her, she would have ignored the shoes altogether.

Sliding the old cloth from her feet but keeping them on the step next to her, Raella slowly but surely fit her right foot into the sole of the shoe. It was a size bigger than her old shoe, but by all means it fit her perfectly. They really were meant for me, she thought as her right foot began to warm up. The feeling of being watched no longer felt ominous but more protective, not that she needed to be protected from a freezing floor, but it was nice to let herself relax a little. Sliding on the left shoe Raella stood up and tested the icy floor again. Barely feeling the cold trying in vain to make it past the fur, Raella walked slowly across the ballroom floor, intrigued by the floor patterns. When another strike of lightning flashed she whipped her head up to look straight up into the falling rain, standing in the center of the ballroom Raella realized how vast of a room it actually was.

Raella paused for a second as she continued to stare up into the storm, she wondered if she could ask for directions to the closest bedroom instead of wandering aimlessly like she had planned to. She was about to speak up before stopping up short, specificity was always better. If the shoes were meant exactly for her there had to be a room meant for her. While it seemed rude to assume that she had a bedroom already, if asking for the nearest bedroom brought her face to face with something she didn't want to meet then it was better to be assuming. Another thought followed that as well, the shoes she had thought of had an exact mental picture and the only mental picture she could conjure of "her room" was the one back at her father's house. She shuddered at the thought of returning there, even if it was to collect her items before leaving again.

Starting again with some ground rules established she decided last second to speak aloud.

"I wish I had directions to the... bedroom -here, meant for me," unsurety clawed at her words and she felt extremely dumb, letting the words fall into an empty, echoing room.

"I don't know why I tried that," she laughed, speaking for the sake of lowering the temperature of her cheeks just a degree. Raella sighed, resigning herself to meandering, she moved towards the hallway once more. The rain had slowed to a pitter patter and she considered it comforting until she realized that it left her alone in the silence and darkness with her own thoughts.

Fire exploded from a torch to the left of the hallway entrance causing Raella to jump.

"Gaaaahh," she shouted and then she snorted, "Okay," she breathed in and out, "at least the scary part is over now." The tension seemed to suddenly drain away leaving exhaustion in its wake.

Approaching the torch she spoke again, "This is quite incredible," reaching to take hold of the old fashioned lighting system another flame erupted down the hall and made Raella flinch, she only laughed dryly to herself that time.

The shiny, ornate molding on the ceilings reflected the torch light. No view of windows was available in this hallway indicating that she had begun her trek into the interior parts of the castle. Or so she had thought until she reached the second torch and a wooden door swung open on the opposite side of the hall. A light glowed from the inside and tension began to fill inside her stomach again. This was when all of it was proved, if she could truly trust what had given her the shoes and what had led her to specifically to this door.

Hoping it would help, Raella muttered under her breath "Please don't be a death trap," and then waltzed into the room for the sake of no where else to go and pure curiosity.