We can skip the fairytale, can't we?
" Let's cut to the chase. I was just a girl living in her own little world. I was my mother's pride and my father's joy. At least... that's what they told me. That's as much as I can remember. I grew up peacefully at the bottom of the upper class in Lyons, France. Yes, I was the child of lace, silver spoons, and strangling corsets that dictated the everyday life façade my family lived within. This was long before thoughts of revolution within the country came and went.
Above all... I was a dancer. An award-winning dancer. By nineteen, I had nobles and aristocrats eating out of the palm of my hand, if only for ten to twenty minutes a night. By the time the last song finished and the violin strings stopped singing, I had every set of eyes on me that the spotlight could reach.
I don't remember much from that night. I remember the lights, the applause. I remember the flowers that fell on the stage edge and the sound of the stagecoach pulling up in wait for us that night. The show was over and the concert hall was packed up. That, my friend, is when the story ends.
"
You and I both wish.
" It was dark. I remember well the dreaded burning sensation that made me want to peel off my own skin. I remember screaming, but not being able to move. There were voices, I couldn't remember from what, or who. It felt like fire. I didn't know for how long. One thing I know is that in those early years... time was a strange thing.
I woke up in that place. It wasn't France, certainly not home. For the longest time, I didn't know where I was. I was no longer the little girl. I was no longer a daughter, a dancer, my father's joy, or my mother's pride. I wasn't anything I recognized besides a pale shadow of myself.
Months passed. They turned into decades, and then centuries. From time to time, we were nomads across Europe. Before long, I knew more about the world than ever despite existing in the shadows of it. They kept us alive and hungry by their doctrine—their protocols. I knew those words by heart before I ever knew anyone by name. Their hierarchy wasn't up for discussion. The rules were as real to us as the perpetual burning in our throats, and as for their punishment..?
I spent years in that place.
I spent decades in those trees... until?
Well, I never did listen.
"
What matters about our story,
Love, starts now.
" That night the sky was clear, the stars overhead were bright as if they themselves were watching. I don't know what snapped in me. He told me not to... I knew I had to. All of a sudden I was running. I let the trees become a blur, trees that were so familiar that I memorized the shapes of roots over the years. Just as suddenly as the territory edge came, for the first time in centuries, I passed through it alone. The trees changed. To my surprise, there were no immediate footsteps to follow. The stars above came and went. By the time I had stopped running, the sun had risen. And with each time the sun set, I kept running.
He couldn't stop me.
She couldn't reach me.
Their rules couldn't even touch me.
Not if I kept moving.
"
If it takes a monster,
I'll be one.
" Thirty years later, and no surprise I'm still running. The Coven has been on my heels every step of the way, or at least however often Abram proves he can keep up. That man taught me everything I know. Everything I never wanted to learn. Everything that I had to, in order to survive this existence that I never asked for. Maybe I owe Abram my life—but not my future.
No matter what I say, no matter what we've been through, deep down I know he'll never. He's a fool for thinking he could convince me otherwise. He doesn't see it, none of them do... And for the others? They might never listen.
I know one thing for sure. Help or not—I'm going to burn this whole fucking system to the ground.
And when it comes to an end?
I promise you.
I'll be holding her head.
"
