u/Impressive_Dig_4381

Content warnings: Mild body horror, verbal and physical abuse.

Glory scrubbed the entrance way floor and the stairs up to Mistress Vixiona’s room as quietly as she could.  She didn’t want to disturb her Mistress, not when it had been peaceful for so long. The great hall stank, even though she'd scrubbed it from top to bottom, she hadn't been brave enough to venture down the stairs towards the Necromancer's Laboratory. Glory swallowed, walking past the stairs to the scullery.

The dresses had long since dried but Mistress Vixiona’s door had remained shut. The scullery door had stayed open so the dresses waiting for her return still smelled of the cool night breeze.

Since the last night the lights had shone across the hills Glorybelle had gone to the broken gate to listen for a whisper of distant music. But the music had not returned and the only lights that shone in the night were the stars and a sliver of an icy moon. Up in the tower the crown of flowers rested on the windowsill, the petals had browned and the stems were black, but it was still there.

Glory poured the bucket of dirty water into one of the sinks in the dark scullery.  The breeze that blew in from the night plastered the folds of her wet gown against her legs. She padded from the scullery to the broken gate. Her cold hands curled around the colder iron of the gate. It hurt but she didn't mind. It was something to feel. She waited, with only the wind rattling the slowly yellowing leaves to break the silence.

When morning came again and the wind raced away from the sun Glorybelle turned back to the castle. She took her broom and wandered, sweeping here and there where it was needed. The silence of the castle made her shoulders tighten with every passing moment. Finally she found herself drawing water to scrub the floor simply to hear the sounds of the pump and water. 

Standing in the entry hall with the scrub brush and soapy water Glorybelle’s head swivelled around as she chose where to begin. Her eyes fell on the stone steps that circled down to the black door beneath the keep. She walked to the lip of the first step, her toes curling over it as she regarded the huge stinking black stain spread across the steps. A smeared handprint was on the second step, five faint white scratches on the stone around it. And that was where Glorybelle began to scrub.

Content warnings: Mild body horror, verbal and physical abuse.

The long days stretched silently, the nights slipping past in a blink. For Glory the days blurred together into a mishmash of orders and chores. She managed to bring the furniture Mistress Vixona wanted into the great hall somehow, though she was desperately afraid her scars would split open as she pulled it along the halls. 

"To the left, Glory. A touch more. Yes, there." Vixona's taloned fingers passed lightly over Glory's tangled hair. She stared at the furniture, her jaw working.

Glory slowly tilted her head, lacing her shaking hands together.

"It looks- " She turned to Vixona, frowning up at the green eyes that seemed to see something besides the furniture.

"You're thinking of the word sad - pathetic. Go and wash my gowns, stupid puppet." Vixona said without her usual rancor. Glory drifted towards the scullery glancing back to see Vixona sitting straight backed in one of the chairs. 

Sad wasn't the word she had wanted, not really. The room was so big. And the woman in the cluster of furniture seemed swallowed up by it.

That was sad. Maybe Vixona had been right.

Glory thought about it as she scrubbed the gowns piled in the scullery. The summer air blew in fresh and sweet. Glory drifted to the doorway, watching the flowers beyond the gate nodding their bright colored heads as the wind danced over them. 

She glanced behind her when she heard Vixona walking across the great hall. The door to the Necromancer's lab opened and slammed shut, vibrating the stones. Glorybelle inched into the garden, towards the flowers and away from the darkness of the scullery. 

She felt the beginnings of one of those dreamy memory fragments. Her own hands weaving the long stems of the flowers together into a circle. Her trembling fingers clenched and she slipped out the gate, wincing when her arm brushed the metal.

Picking the flowers was simple enough though the stems were tough and sometimes bruised under her fingers. She frowned and bit her lip as she worked. She smiled when she had a ragged armful. 

Sitting with her back to the warm stone of the wall Glorybelle tried to remember how to weave the flowers together. But the memory was slippery, difficult to capture. It fell through her mind like the stems of the flowers through her shaking hands. The more she tried to weave them together the worse her hands shook until she flung the flowers from her lap.

She stared at the setting sun, a red crescent falling below the far away mountains and screamed. Her scream echoed inside the keep and she jumped to her feet certain Vixona would call for her. She even heard a door slam. But there was no shrill voice, only silence from inside the crumbling husk of a castle.

And behind her, very close now, a drumbeat started as night fell. 

Glorybelle wavered, turning her head this way and that. Finally in an act she understood to be disobedient, she made a choice and turned her back on the Necromancer's Keep.

Soft petals crushed under her bare foot and she looked down at the scattered and mangled flowers. A spray of delicate white blooms was easily visible in the dark so she picked them up and took them with her.

The music shifted from a raucous dance to stately march as she stepped into the clearing. Glorybelle clutched the flowers close to her chest as the dancers parted and stepped back to make a path for her to the throne.

A path through a crowd to an empty throne.

He sat there, his fur topped cloak thrown over his bare shoulders, white hair blending into the fur. His head was tipped down and his mouth set in a flat line.

Vixona's pose in the great hall flashed through her mind. It was enough to propel her forward to the foot of the wooden throne.

"You look… sad?"

He lifted his head and smiled, the expression giving her some relief. She took another step towards him, the music speeding up behind her. Her heart sped along with it, or maybe it was that he was holding a hand out to her. 

She took it and he pulled her slowly to sit beside him. She could have stepped away at any time, she knew. But she didn't want to.

Instead she focused on his face. There were supposed to be words to say. But she couldn't remember them. Instead she held up her flower.

"I used to weave flower circles." Glorybelle said matter of factly, tilting it so he could see the damage. His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath. His voice when he answered held the warmth if not the strength of her faint memories.

"You did. You taught me how to do it." He cupped her shaking hands in his. "Will you let me make you one now?"

Glory nodded, turning her hand in his, cold violet skin against his warm tan. Then an avalanche of flowers filled their laps and hid their hands. 

She laughed as she lifted her head to look at him. The sadness she'd seen earlier seemed to be gone and his warm fingers squeezed hers beneath their blanket of petals and stems.

He talked to her as he worked, telling her the names of the flowers. She felt them as he said them. Tiny memories like a taste on the back of her tongue.

Finally they came to the spray of flowers she'd carried with her, the last to be woven into the circle.

"Aster…" Glorybelle said, lifting her head to look at him. He nodded and she pursed her lips to ask what he was thinking. His lips brushed over hers, and her mouth fell open.

"Auberon." She said it into the kiss. He lifted his head. She didn't know what to make of his expression or how her heart squeezed in her chest.

The lights felt too bright, the music that made her heart leap was too loud. He laid the flower circle on her head and she felt the moment as if time had stopped. It jarred her into standing, heart aching in her chest.

"Go." He said softly, shaking his white head. "Go. I will find you no matter what it takes."

Glory fled back to the keep, to the silence and darkness. But the music continued throughout the night and she watched the lights from the swaying window of her tower. She could still smell the flowers and if she licked her lips she could taste his kiss.