Quest 228

[primrosella]

The blonde girl sits silently at the foot of the bed, her defeated posture echoed in the hollow look that has consumed her eyes. The door has shut, the lock turned with a resounding click; she is trapped. What's more, she is defeated. Her quest ends here, in the tower room that belongs to her husband-to-be, and her failure will be sealed twofold at

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[horrible_penny]

Nightmare number... what number was it by now? Penny feels as if she's been through hundreds of nightmares by now. This one is cold and dark. At least there isn't any blood. Yet. Just stone walls and shadows, and--

And Rosella?

Even in the dark, Penny can make out the blond (did it become lighter, or is this one of those convenient nightmare happenings?). She's up the stairs, yards away from Penny, and in a doorway. What can only be a bow is in her hands. From her vantage point, Penny can't see farther into the room. She creeps up the stairs towards Rosella, careful not to make a sound.

[horrible_penny]

Far be it for Penny to not run from hordes of flying monkeys and giant spider shadows. She's still determined to drag Rosella along with her, however. "What do they want from you?!"

[primrosella]

"I'm supposed to--" But she stops abruptly, because explanations of marriage and hunchbacked sons seem ridiculous to her now, with these horrors bearing down on her and the sound of wingbeats beginning to fill the air. "She swore she'd kill me," she answers instead, her eyes stinging with tears--not for herself, but for the people she's failed. She can't bear to let Penny be one of them, not on top of all the rest. "They're all going to die!"

[horrible_penny]

That stops Penny in her tracks... but only for a moment, as running still seems like the most prudent course of action to take. She enters the throne room, looking for the way out. "Who all? Rosella, no one's going to die!"

With the flapping of wings growing closer, however, Penny isn't entirely certain. It might not be a dream. It may not be harmless.

[primrosella]

Is there time to explain? It's a very good question, it's true. But a better one is, will it really matter, even if there isn't? Perhaps there is no way out of this. Perhaps Lolotte has won, perhaps it is already past dawn. Perhaps they're all dead already, and soon she'll be dead--or married, or worse.

"Here," she says frantically, rushing for the doors at the front of the throne room, forcing them open as if desperate for a glimpse of the sky outside--how long has it been?--as much as she is for an escape. "Daddy--Genesta--they'll both die at dawn if I don't--oh, hurry!"

[horrible_penny]

Now Penny is following Rosella, still not understanding the situation in the least. It's a relief to see the doors (perhaps they'll lead to someone else's nightmare?), but Rosella's words aren't very encouraging.

"If you don't what? Die?" The logic here is not the sort of logic that Penny can follow. "Come on. We'll both go, okay?"

[primrosella]

There is a wooden stable a little way down the path, near the entrance to the castle, and Rosella is running for it like a girl possessed--because while this is wrong, all wrong, and this wasn't how any of it was meant to go at all, she still remembers bits of how it should have been, and there is something in that stable that she remembers. There is something there that can help, she thinks, even as a small green hunchback begins to call her name plaintively from one of the castle windows, and the wingbeats grow louder in the air as the structure seems to shake on its very foundations.

"Hurry! In here!" she cries, wrenching open the door and motioning for Penny to enter, her eyes fixed on the castle for fear that their pursuers will show themselves at any minute.

[horrible_penny]

Much to Penny's dismay, outside doesn't seem all that much safer than inside. She doesn't pause to look back when she hears Rosella's name called in a strange voice, fear getting the better of curiosity. She enters the indicated door with all due haste.

"Rosella, what's going on?"

[primrosella]

"I think there's a way out in here," she answers as she follows Penny into the stable, hauling the door shut behind her. And whether or not there is an exit, the one undeniable thing is that there is most certainly a unicorn penned up in here, huge and beautiful and radiating a lovely pink-silver sheen from its horn and mane. When it sees Rosella, it turns its large, dark eyes hopefully toward her, and the love in them is evident. The arrow she shot into its heart is still working, after all, and it is still enchanted by her.

But Rosella is ignoring the unicorn in favor of the rest of the stable, pacing hurriedly and kicking over boxes as she tries to find the exit she thinks is here. "It seems like--like there ought to be one, a way out, so long as we're in here."

[horrible_penny]

Penny is entranced by the unicorn. She has seen the ones at the zoo in the City, of course, but never up close like this, and this unicorn is exceptionally beautiful. She approaches the creature slowly. "Maybe he knows a way out."

He, of course, being the unicorn. It's a ridiculous suggestion, maybe, but the unicorn looks so intelligent and benevolent. It looks like it should be able to fix everything that's wrong in this nightmare.

[primrosella]

"He's trapped here, too," she says, shuffling some boxes out of the way as she begins to scour the floor. "I had to capture him for her, so I made him fall in love with me. Poor thing..."

[horrible_penny]

"You had to what?" Penny isn't following this story, Rosella. She gives the unicorn one last look and then begins helping Rosella in her search for something escape-like. "Can we take him with us?"