Chapter 6

Alcina cannot help but lock the door that night.

* * * * * * * * * *

The next morning, Alcina is greeted first thing by Mary, a bright-eyed fourteen-year-old girl, who is to be her primary attendant from House Warner.

She is young but endearingly eager in her youth and clearly skilled in her tasks. Alcina, for one, finds a small measure of relief in the fact that her personal attendant is such a courteous lass; she much prefers Mary’s ruddy-cheeked vivacity, to an older and somber one.

“I am most honored to be serving you, my Lady,” Mary says. 

Alcina manages, despite the circumstances, to muster up a smile for her. 

She sits at the vanity while Mary gently brushes her hair, deft and nimble hands working quickly to arrange her locks into a presentable appearance.

Alcina allows herself to be lulled into a moment of rest, as Mary’s babble - about the weather, and other such foolish things - provides a pleasant background hum.

“-so beautiful, my lady!” 

Alcina looks up at that, eyes flickering up to look at Mary through the mirror. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Mary, focus still directed at her task of brushing Alcina’s air, hums brightly. “I was just saying, my lady, that the entire castle has been abuzz with news of your beauty! What a surprise it was, to discover that you were so lovely-”

Alcina tilts her head, accidentally dislodging Mary’s hands from where they’d been carefully arranging her hair. “Why is that?”

“Why is what, my lord?”

“Why was it so surprising?” What had they been expecting, if they were surprised by Alcina?

Mary freezes, then, as if having just realized a mistake. She falters, hands hovering in the air still, eyes like a frightened deer where they meet Alcina’s curious gaze in the mirror.

“Oh- that- n-nothing, my lady, I apologize, I was just- it- we, we had only heard that Lord Brendan’s intended was to come, and-”

Realization sinks.

They had expected - purely by virtue of her betrothal to Brendan - that she, too, must have been a monster of the same breed as Lord Brendan.

Or, she supposes - as the monster that they view Lord Brendan as.

Alcina falls quiet, unsettled by the realization for reasons she does not quite understand. 

Mary, anxiously resuming her task of arranging Alcina’s hair, babbles on. “-oh, it’s such a nice day, my Lady, if I may suggest, the grounds have a most wonderful apple orchard, that I think you will find quite enjoyable-”

Alcina gives Mary a gentle smile. “That sounds lovely, Mary.” Mary beams.

Alcina, on Mary's suggestion, decides to head to the orchard that morning. She brings with her one of the books from the small bookshelf she’d found in her room.

She’d thought they were merely ornamental, but a closer look had belied that they were actually a collection of books for reading. 

The weather is warm and sunny, casting a pleasant glow over the orchard when she finds it. It isn’t too large, but certainly lovely enough for a stroll, and more than enough apples to feed the entire castle twice over.

Again, Alcina can’t help but feel a bit foolish, at how she’d imagined a stormy, lightning-battered castle shrouded in darkness. that she’d allowed those murmurs of Lord Brendan, the Shadowed Beast, to paint the entire image of the Western Plains for her.

Now that she’s had some, but not all, of her fears assuaged, the homesickness comes creeping in around the edges, lingering in the back of her mind.

Sitting here, she can’t help but think how she used to hide away in the deepest recesses of the gardens as a child, teary-eyed and grievous beyond the capacity that any young girl should hold.

And how Her brother Nordin would inevitably find her, with a handkerchief to wipe her cheeks and a piece of candy to coax a smile out of her with.

How, after, Alfred would invariably appear as if summoned, holding the latest thick tome he’d been doing some ‘light reading’ with; and how, sandwiched affectionately between her two older brothers, she’d be lulled into a nap by the soothing sounds of Alfred’s voice, reading aloud his favorite passages for her.

Despite herself, Alcina feels her eyes sting.

She closes her eyes for a few seconds, until the burning recedes, and looks down at the book she’d brought out with her. And for the next hour, she succeeds, to some degree, of distracting herself from thoughts of home within the pages of the book.

She’s absorbed somewhere in the middle of the page when she hears a light panting and looks up.

Standing not two feet from her, is the most menacing four-legged creature she’s ever laid eyes upon, a massive, lean black wolf, muscles rippling underneath its glossy coat, ears pricked straight upwards as it stares at Alcina through one eye.

The other eye is what makes it appear even more frightening: it’s closed shut, crisscrossed with a mangled, pale white scar. 

Alcina feels her heart rate quicken with nervousness. 

The wolf takes a step forward.

Alcina presses herself futilely back against the bark of the tree she sits below.

The wolf takes another step, and another, until it trots up to Alcina, at what is, admittedly, a much more sedate pace than one would expect from a lunging wolf about to snap its jaws around a prey.

That’s the only thing, really, that keeps Alcina from trying to make a run for it, instead of remaining like the sitting duck that she is, as the wolf approaches.

And then, with inexplicable gentleness, the wolf noses wetly at her outstretched leg.

Alcina holds herself utterly still, while the wolf continues to sniff up her lower calf, then her arm, until finally, nudging with a hot gust of air against her cheek.

Alcina can’t help the squeal that slips out of her when that cold, velvet nose makes contact with the delicate skin of her face, upon which the wolf, tail now beginning to wag, snuffles against her neck.

It tickles, making Alcina break out into a laugh, and when she looks up next, she finds the wolf crouched playfully beside her, tail wagging wildly.

Here, like this - his tongue lolling out, tail wagging rambunctiously, his rear end wiggling in the air - the wolf looks more like a silly, affectionate house pet than the terrifying beast it had appeared to be just moments prior. 

“Hello,” Alcina greets, another giggle falling from her lips when the wolf howls enthusiastically.

Slowly, she outstretches a hand, palm up, and is delighted to find that the wolf licks it with another whining. “Who are you?”

The wolf nuzzles affectionately into the hand Alcina strokes along the top of its head.

Alcina looks at the lines of its corded muscles, the strong jaws, and the ominousness that is carried in each one of its features, and wonders if this wolf, too, is an outcast.

Alcina taps a gentle finger right above the wolf's brow, where the mangled scar sits just below. 

“Well,” Alcina hums, patting the spot next to her. The wolf folds itself gracefully beside her, a warm and pleasant weight at her side. “Us two can stick together, then, yes?”

She resumes her book, this time with a hand petting idly at the wolf beside her.

Mary comes to find her with a small picnic basket for her lunch and flushes happily when Alcina thanks her profusely.

Afterward, Alcina is told that her presence is requested back at the castle, to meet with Lord Brendan.

Alcina wonders when, if ever, her heart will stop pounding in an almost painful way, beating out a tempo of nervousness - each time she is presented with the prospect of facing her intended.

They are betrothed, after all. She must get used to it at some point.

Does one ever really get used to a monster, though?