"Beast trudged trough the knee deep snow. He had almost reached his destination; the snow made that fact painfully apparent. It was fall, when his feet had turned themselves toward this castle. Fall, with breathtaking colors that slowly bled of color and life, with the sudden changes in weather, and those days when the morning cold would still fade into warm afternoons. That had stopped happening weeks ago.
As he neared the gate, his steps slowed. He stopped, within paw reach of the gates. They weren't massive, but than again, nobody every attacked this castle. A sudden gust of wind sent swirls of the fallen snow lifting up to the sky, the weight of the snowflakes eventually bringing them back to the earth, where they once again covered. This snow was always covering, always muffling, and always numbing.
Loops, hexagons, circles, triangles and myriads of other shapes interlocked, running up and down the bars of that gate. Their patterns were hypnotizing. Intricately carved, it could have easily taken two or three months to finish that single bar. Gazing first right, then left, Beast understood that the iron wrought fence stretched as far as his eyes could see, in either direction, with countless such bars. Each unique, Each different... all of them ravishing, stunning, beautiful, and dead, through and through. Raising his paw, he lightly stroked the ornate bar in front of him.The intense cold that radiated from it made him flinch back and inhale sharply.
There was a lock, barring any further progress, into that castle. A flat metal plate was welded to the gate by a thick sheet of ice, a small stone basin sat underneath it. Beast started to reach out for the plate and hesitated, Maybe things could be different, maybe he didn't have to... His breath came in little puffs, showing up as miniature clouds that were churning almost as much as his emotions....His hand wavered, then steadied.... but no, it was better this way. He had known it, all this time. He firmly planted the palm of his right paw against the gate.
Instantly, the little moisture that was left in his chapped paws fused his paw to the plate. Now came the worst of it. The pain. but this promised to be the last he would feel of that for quite some time. He'd been feeling pain for quite some time, now. What was a bit more, if he could have peace? If he could go where no one would follow? Where no one else would ever be hurt again? Gritting his fangs, he pulled, hard.
He still screamed, when his paw came free. Most of it, anyway.
There was blood running down the palm of his paw. The wounds didn't seem deep, but it felt like with every heartbeat, more and more warmth left him. Cold was wrapping itself tightly around his arm, climbing up.. up... up, picking up speed as it went along. He watched, as the first drop of blood left his hand, congealing in the air, on the way down to the basin... and then the thick, moist 'plop', when it landed. Another followed. and another. With each drop, he felt colder.
He stood there, as moments stretched into eternities, drop after drop leaving his palm. It didn't hurt nearly as much, now.
The sudden "clang" of the metal plate dropping startled him out of his reverie. Muffled by the snow, the gates swung open silently. Beast took one shuddering step forward and stopped. He took another. and another. and he was walking. He squared his shoulders, and he was striding, his steps were silent, purposeful and claiming. Why, if you didn't notice the tears frozen to his face, you'd almost think he'd won something."
Unispiker Community Member 
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