Rosalind - Beauty and the Beast meets Dracula retelling

43- Not With A Whimper

The silver dress lay in a crumpled heap next to the hearth. Rosalind's corset and boots lay not too far away. Barefoot and clad in nothing but her shift, she sat in the armchair next to the fire watching the logs burn. The crackling sound was no distraction and she was oblivious to the heat reaching for her.

Rosalind's eyelids felt heavy yet she did not want to welcome sleep just yet. Not now that the night's events raged inside her brain like a storm threatening to destroy everything in its path.

Lifting her hands, she regarded her fingers. They were still the same yet the sensation of the lord's lips remained imprinted on her skin. The fire roared when Rosalind brought her fingers to her own lips and quivered. Her lids trembled and closed halfway. In the semi-darkness, all she saw was him.

Rosalind closed her eyes. Around her, the room grew dark with shadows that writhed against the stones. A soft moan ebbed from the walls as they breathed in and out, matching the rise and fall of her own chest.

When the deception of slumber came, it pulled her into a state of neither dreaming nor wake. Inside her, the drug moved, slithering into every part created by God and grace, taking her rational thoughts and molding them into something savage. As the Dragon pulled her deeper, Rosalind felt as though she were flying. When it let go and hurried forth, she cried out and began to chase it. Darkness howled around her yet still Rosalind ran until she felt herself stumble and fall as if in slow motion. For a moment, time moved as though it had stumbled into tar. A sensation, as though she had tumbled down a well, came over her swiftly now. All Rosalind felt was the sensation of falling, deeper and deeper. Around her, the world swirled. The darkness gave into light; pink, red, and tangerine. When she looked up, snowflakes and ash fell on her face.

She found herself in a large room, so big in fact that she could not see where it began and where it ended. The ceiling was the sky. Tall, unnaturally slender trees stood before her as though they belonged in the room. Their wooden eyes looked at her silently. When she moved, the trees bowed and gestured for her to walk further into the room.

There was a sense of belonging where there should have been fear. She headed through the trees and into the belly of the room where a large four-poster bed lay in the center. A sheer curtain, semi-obscuring the figure within, covered the top of the bed and wove around the posts. When Rosalind looked down at herself, she noticed she was still in just her shift.

Behind the gauzy curtain, a pair of hands stroked the material. A body moved closer causing a faint light to outline the man's frame. "Come closer," he whispered.

Rosalind stepped nearer until her toes were under the skirt of the bed. Lifting her hands, she placed them on top of the man's open palms.

"I need you with me," he spoke. His voice was low, a shadow of a sound. She knew those words. She had heard them before.

"Caspian," Rosalind uttered as she pressed her palm closer to his, feeling the veil pierce under her touch.

She looked at him through the thin material. With every blink Rosalind took, Caspian transformed from beast to man then back again. His reptilian skin turning into smooth paleness before his monstrous look returned.

Caspian pressed his face to the veil which outlined every detail of his lips. "You and I," he began, "are eternal."

With her palms pressed together with his, Rosalind felt the overwhelming desire to crawl through the curtain, bash through the veil, and into the very marrow of him. Taking a step, she severed the distance between them, breaking what divided them, and touched her forehead to his. "You and I," she echoed, "are eternal."

Old man Ivar's slippered feet were the only thing causing any noise. The shuffle-shuffle of his steps plowed through the snow. Clutched close to his chest was a bottle of ale, not his first one tonight but it would be the only one he would remember.

Above, the midnight sky bore streaks of pink. As Ivar continued on from the tavern to his home, the hues above shifted to red then tangerine. Soon flakes as fat as coins began to fall. They landed on the bridge of the old man's nose and melted. Ivar's eyes were fixed on the road ahead of him. The road he had taken a million times before, from tavern to his small cottage. He could walk the path with his eyes closed. And in a constant drunken stupor, many times he had.

Ivar touched the bottle to his lips. His raggedy shawl fell from his shoulders. He had not owned a coat in a long time, it was the long, brown woolen shawl that kept the chill off his bones. Even after ninety years of constant cold, Ivar always looked forward to the warmth of his hearth.

Born into snow, yet it was ten years before his birth when it had all began. As a child, he recalled his grandmother whispering tales of salvation in her sleep whenever she had fallen into her own drunken state of stupor.

"All hope and all our faith vanished when that Van Voreen girl perished," Ivar muttered under his breath recalling his grandmother's words. "We live in a starless sky, blinded by the constant fall of snow. We are with one foot in a grave and one in the abyss." The gentle light of the sky led Ivar deeper into the area where he lived. A hill speared with giant trees divided his side of Transylvania with the side of the well-to-do. Other small cottages dotted the area where the poorer of the region lived. Ivar was born there and there was where he would die. When he listened closely, he was able to hear the laughter and music from the tavern float all the way to his house. It followed him like a constant companion or a stalking beast.

Up on the far side of the hill, Caspian and his steed stood overlooking the fine houses. The lord ventured out since he could not slumber, not even after the amount of Dragon's Tongue he consumed. It was as though his insides wanted to tear out of his body. Every time he inhaled, he breathed Rosalind in. His desire for her was ravenous, unholy. He wanted her like he had wanted no one but Calla before her. It was a deep-rooted desire which he could not rid himself of, like a stain of blood left too long on a sleeve of white. He knew he could take her. Keep her with him until Kingdom Come for that was what would be logical for a beast like himself. But he would not do it for it was not just his body that ached for her but worse, it was his heart that cried out her name.

He grit his teeth and focused on the houses before him. Every one of the homes was graceful with sprawling yards leading to the treeline. Though large, the houses looked warm and inviting. Caspian thought that the families which lived there may be well-off but undoubtedly not as rich as he had been. For a moment, he thought of the hired castrati, the way he would leer over them as they stood at attention. Their eyes staring straight ahead, never at him. Unmoving. Even when he pulled gold coins out of his purse and rained them over the young singers' heads, they did not move. The boys would never be at ease in the lord's manor, no matter how many times they had sung for him.

Lord Caspian led the horse down the length of the hill as he continued to regard the homes, stopping only when he reached his destination.

From the large window, he saw life inside. Candles gave off a soft glow allowing Caspian to clearly see Rosalind's brother sitting in a study reading a book. A goblet rested on the table next to him.

The lord recalled their first meeting in his woods. How the bastard and his brother tried to put on a brave face when he bartered for their lives. How their father begged to be killed in their stead.

Caspian's hand ran down the horse's mane. When the animal snorted and shook its head the lord commanded, "Still, Charon." And his animal went as silent and still as a block of ice.

He watched as Julian set the book on his lap and yawned. "Were it not for her I would not have shown any mercy towards any of you," Caspian hissed. "You and your brother would have been strung up by your intestines like ornaments. Your father I would have left for the crows to eat."

The bottle was warm against old man Ivar's body. He closed his eyes and paused a few steps away from his home. "I cannot witness Transylvania fall into darkness." It was the sound of a horse shorting which caused Ivar to look over his shoulder. "Who goes there?" A chill ran down his spine, something different from the usual chill caused by eternal winter. This was like hands raking down his back, long talons sinking into his skin. The sensation was so cold he felt it burn. "Dear God," Ivar whispered to his bottle, "the Devil is here." Inside the ale, he saw death. It reached up a bony hand and pointed towards the hills. The old man raised his watery eyes in the direction of Caspian and his horse. "And this is how the world will end, not with a whimper but with an almighty bang."