Once upon a time, in a land that was said to be ravaged by ice and snow for seven months straight, there was once a kingdom in the north that was now no more. And in this kingdom of ice and snow, there was once a queen named Eleanor.
Now, this Queen was said to be the fairest in all the land... with a hair that was the shade of morning dawn and eyes of the clearest, bluest summer skies.
And this spectacularly harsh winter, she and her beloved husband, King Arion, were expecting their first child. They were waiting ever since for this joyous moment, for their child to be brought to this world, they had spent months planning and preparing a grandiose celebration in the wake of the child's birth, one that would be befitting for the next King or Queen that will govern and protect the land and its people.
But it so happens, one gray morning, while the beautiful Queen was taking one of her daily walks within her maze-like garden that was filled with the loveliest of flowers when the weather is much agreeable, the pregnant, beautiful Queen suddenly happened to caught sight of a blooming deep, red rose. How it had managed to survive and bloom in this unforgiving time of the year is surely beyond her! Nonetheless, she still approached it, captivated by the sheer beauty of the rose.
‘Oh,’ she had thought, smiling prettily and without thinking, she reached out to grasp the chosen flower, ‘How lovely!’
Just as the Queen's delicate fingers made contact with the stem, intending to pull it, she let out a startled gasp, releasing it just as quickly as pain pricked and bloomed, and a trickle of red ever so slowly poured.
Thorns!
Pale and hurt, the Queen can only stare in mute horror as a droplet of blood from her finger fell on the snow-covered ground like a teardrop from the winter heavens.
She blinked slowly, her mouth opening briefly in awe as she stared, inching closer towards the offending flower, her shadow casting over the ground like a sudden blanket of darkness–like the seemingly never-ending night sky encasing the very lands she and her husband ruled because the pristine white snow and the stark red blood under her shadow made such a pleasing combination to her eye, it was quite a curious sight to see that the Queen found herself completely enthralled.
It looked like a masterpiece!
She chuckled then, at her own clumsiness, at the pretty sight of the white snow and the redness of her blood mixed together under the darkness of her shadow that the Queen cried, as if in prayer to the heavens:
“Oh, but if only my child will be as fair as snow, as dark as shadow, and as red as blood!”
It was just a silly wish.
A silly, innocent wish
Oh, but the poor, poor Queen, beautiful, foolish Queen!
Did she not know?
Had she not heard?
Be careful what you wish for!
...because what was seemingly a silly, innocent wish uttered as a passing fancy is still a wish. One that the heavens did not took heed, but the Devil himself had heard–and granted!
Alas, the Queen did not know indeed.
Thus, the beautiful, ignorant Queen stood up, holding her bleeding fingers to herself as she gazed at the blooming rose for the last time with a light smile on her face before going on her merry way.
She did not know it yet… oh no, not yet… but that had been the fateful moment wherein a mother had unknowingly foolishly condemned the child inside her womb.
*
Unbidden, a wry smile formed in Proserpina’s lips.
So the story is about a cursed child?
“…Sounds familiar,” she muttered.
*
A week later, the child was born right when the clock itself struck three whilst the unforgiving winter winds roared outside the palace walls as if knowing what’s to come, as if in outrage.
The winds had been raging and whistling its eerie song, the cold snow falling in large flurries of white all over the land, blanketing it in its blinding whiteness just as Demeter had once done so long ago whilst waiting for her beloved Persephone to come home, when she cursed the Earth to never flourish once more until her daughter returns, when the humans paid the wrath of a goddess and a mother for a sin they did not even commit.
The snowstorm was at its climax.
It was winter at its finest.
And the Queen, oh the pitiful beautiful Queen, shivering and weak from the birth of the kingdom’s awaited heir–all but cowered from the small bundle that was her own child, the child she had once dreamed and prayed for ever since she became wife and queen.
But now, she had taken just one look at the infant and oh, how she refused to touch, let alone look at it a second time!
The healers looked at one another in uneasiness at the strangeness that unfolds before their very eyes while the nursemaids flocked nervously around their stricken Queen, trying to calm her down in vain as her husband, the King marched straight into the room urgently. Like any father, he had been pale and trembling with worry for his wife and newborn child.
“My queen,” he says, holding her lovely face, gently, as to not startle her, “My love, whatever is the matter? Are you alright? Is our baby alright?”
At the mention of their child, the Queen bursted into another round of fresh tears again, lips and fingers shaking, and she wouldn’t dare to meet her husband’s eyes, “Milord, forgive me, this is… this is all my fault… my fault... please forgive me,” she sobbed, before pointing a shaking finger to the direction of the small bundle, “But... but the... the child... the c-child...”
As if on cue, as if it had known (speak of the devil and it shall appear), the small bundle began to unveil itself as the infant began to move its arms about in apparent discomfort of being covered, revealing hair as black as shadows with a skin that was pale as snow.
Such a sweet face the babe possessed, it would have been considered angelic and beautiful at first… but oh, but the eyes!
The Queen screamed in pure, unadulterated terror while the King and the others who were present can only stare with wide, horrified eyes and that was the moment when all hell breaks loose as the infant opened its mouth and began to wail–
Outside, the winds howled loudly just as the stricken Queen Eleanor and the infant continuously wailed its praise of horror, both in despair for its birth.
(…if only the child's eyes are not as red as blood)
“Merciful God, how can this be? How could You let this happen to me?” Queen Eleanor cried to the heavens in despair, “How could I have given birth to a demon?”
( In its cage, something sneers and laughs.)
(“But mother, haven’t you wished for me?”)
. . .
‘But did you know, my love?
I learned that in some countries, you kill a monster right when it was born… before it even has a chance to truly live, to hurt someone else and while some may think it to be cruel and unjust, I believe this to be the greatest mercy of them all, a mercy that was taken from me.
It was rather… amusing how there are people in this world who kill a monster but only when it kills someone else… and they are hailed and remembered by the world as heroes.
Hypocrites, the lot of them.
And yet… in some places, some people chose to release the monster, in a forest, somewhere in the seven seas or… or in a kingdom, abandon it anywhere–it was all the same in the end, it was left to the world’s mercy (or lack thereof), forever alone and set apart, forever, calling and crying for others of its kind, hoping that maybe… just maybe… they were not alone.’