By Silken Glove

[thelisan]

2 Harvestmoon, 2E 221

Nalina wasn't sure how she'd gotten here. She'd gone to the woods to forage juniper berries for her tutor, a crotchety old prune named Marris. But the path wasn't what she remembered, and every time she tried to retrace her steps, she returned to a tree marked with what she dearly hoped was berry paste.

An hour later, it became very clear that it was not. She felt a cold wind, bitter and hateful even for a late autumn day, and then she felt eyes upon her. An instinctive terror gripped her heart, and she ran. Heedlessly, without direction, propelled by nothing more than a desperate desire to be anywhere else. But everywhere she turned, she saw the glint of those horrible eyes from another corner, and she had to continue. Her legs burned with fatigue, her lungs stung with each breath, and her cheek bled where thorns caught her, but she could not stop.

The trees thinned and Nalina felt hope rising in her chest - she was free of these awful woods. She had made it home.

But horror set in as she closed on the exit. Where she thought she was on her way back to Stonebridge, she had instead stumbled upon the manor that haunted her fellow villagers for generations. Shadecrest.

A pale, elegantly-garbed blonde woman in black stood under a tree in the garden, watching Nalina stumble out of the forest. A smile crept across her too-red lips and she beckoned the lost woman to her. "Come, pet. I shan't hurt you, not today," she called. Nalina froze in place, feeling trapped between the pit and the flame, and the woman laughed softly. "And on my honor, neither shall the beast." Slowly, Nalina felt herself being drawn toward her host, and she couldn't entirely be sure why she was trusting the woman. Before she knew it, she stood under the tree. "I am Nerezza, master of Shadecrest," she said, "And you are Nalina, the apprentice of Stonebridge's apothecary, are you not?"

"How- how do you know that?" Nalina gasped, recoiling as Nerezza reached a silk-gloved hand out to her.

"Be at ease, pet," Nerezza replied, her flawless composure a stark contrast to the apprentice's dread and panic. "I watch the world, you see, looking for treasures that may be of interest. Beautiful art, brilliant minds. And when I find both in one place... ah, there can be nothing better." Nalina found Nerezza's gaze, those unsettling yet beautiful ruby eyes, nearly impossible to look away from, and her voice and words to be... surprisingly enticing. "I guided you here, to me, to persuade you to stay."

Something clicked for Nalina, and that sentence shook her from her daze. "You- you set that beast after me, didn't you?!" she demanded, pointing at Nerezza while her eyes darted around to see if she was still being followed.

"Absolutely not," Nerezza replied, her composure entirely unruffled by the accusation. "But when you stumbled into my dear brother's hunting ground... yes, I lit the path for you to come here. You would not have been so safe in quaint Stonebridge. Old Marris wouldn't have been able to protect you," she explained, stepping closer. "Not like I can, dear pet."

"Don't- I'm- I'm not your pet," Nalina stammered, her cheeks flushed.

"Perhaps not yet, dear girl," Nerezza conceded, taking another step, now almost toe-to-toe with the lost apprentice. "But before long, you will be. It will be a comfortable life, and you will have all the opportunity you need to expand your mind... for as long as you so desire."

"And... and if I refuse? If I demand that you take me home?" Nalina asked. It took more effort than she wanted to admit to force the words from her lips, though.

"Oh, I think you are home, dear girl," Nerezza replied, her breath surprisingly warm on Nalina's face. She leaned in and kissed her cheek, tasting of the blood that trickled from the thorn-gouges. "But if you wish to leave, then I will not stop you. I will guide you through the forest back to Stonebridge," Nerezza whispered. Nalina's breath was ragged and shallow despite herself; despite everything she'd heard about Shadecrest, she found Nerezza's offer to be almost impossible to refuse.

"I... Can I... Just for a day, understand. I need to rest, and..." Nalina stammered. Her heart and body yearned to stay, her sense begged her to flee.

But Nerezza knew that third voice was doomed. "You shall have all you desire, for as long as you stay," she said, taking Nalina's hand. Just then a brutish, degraded humanoid form, eyeless, discolored, and with unsettling hound-like teeth rushed from the treeline. Nerezza raised her hand and a tree branch snapped off, darting toward the beast and penetrating him through the heart from behind. He collapsed and tumbled along the ground for a moment, stopping in a crumpled heap at Nalina's feet. "I had told you before, Ammar... no one harms my pets," Nerezza said to the body of her brother as he bled his last. "Come, dear pet, you must rest," she said gently, guiding Nalina down the path to Shadecrest proper, to her new home.