Bee knows that trusting two guys she met at a pub was a really, really bad decision on her part. That her mom would absolutely tell her she’s disappointed in her life choices, and her mama would just sip her whiskey–coffee sadly and flip the coin she always keeps in one of her many pockets.
In her defense, mom would be even more disappointed if she knew that Bee was on the run from the government, and she would prefer Bee hanging out with “shady types” over the threat of her being hung.
And it wasn’t even that much of her fault!
Stupid vendors, stupid markets, and stupid Bee knowing how to use a metal water bucket as a potentially murderous weapon. She should have considered that maybe slamming it into someone’s head would give them a certain level of damage. (But fuck that guy, really, he had it coming for grumbling and bumbling and yelling at her. He should’ve considered that fighting random teenagers at markets might not end up being good.)
So it’s been three weeks — she thinks, because she and the two guys have been tearing through forests and they have no way of knowing besides counting sunsets and dawns — and currently, she’s in a bit of hot water.
Correction: she’s in a whole bath of hot water, with the two men hot heels and pouring boiling hot buckets over her, and the ground is on fire, and the sky is on fire, and she’s in hell and trying to outrun her fate.
Once again, not her fault — they should’ve kept their belongings closer and investigated each other before turning on poor, poor little orphan (she’s not an orphan, but they don’t need to know that) Bee. She didn’t even mean to go through their stupid little bags, they didn’t have anything valuable in them, it was just wasted time.
And forcing her to run away! Damn these bastards. Damn them straight to hell.
…Which is exactly where she is right now. Trudging through bushes and hiding behind trees, listening for any indication of a blade at her throat that might come within seconds. She doesn’t even have her bag, having left it with them.
And that’s how she ends up in front of a single, alone tower hidden in tall trees. Long, made of reddish–gray bricks with moss growing on it.
A tower standing on its own is unusual, but not that much so Bee would pay attention for more than a few moments. The king’s soldiers protect the territory, and they usually have sharp eyes (unless there’s a pub nearby,) so she slithers through the forest floor and begs God — if he even wants to listen to a horrible child and a sinner at this point — that they won’t see her.
A tower standing on its own without the kingdom’s flag is very unusual. A tower without any visible windows is really, very unusual.
Have the neighbors spread here while she’s been out of the loop? Bee’s mind immediately proposes. And, then,
maybe they can take her in for the time being?
She circles the tower in the bushes, trying to find any entrance but realizes that it’s bricked up — and that’s strange, fucking unreal, which king would order a closed tower — and that if she wants to get inside she needs to climb upwards.
With a sigh, she almost–crawls to the wall and puts her hands on the furthest sticking out bricks she can hold.
Left, right, left, right — her nail catches when she grasps the brick wrong, and her hands hurt, her calves burn with the strain — left and right, left and right, her foot slips and she almost faints from the electric bolt to her heart — and her pelvis shoots pain throughout all over lower back — left and right, and she pulls herself up by some vines that don’t snap by some miracle,
And she’s at a window. A little circular one, but open nonetheless, so no loudly–breaking glass. Let’s all yell for joy.
Bee decides to fuck it — her situation can’t get any more dire — and puts one foot on the inside windowsill.
Silence. Not even a breath.
She puts her tongue in cheek and catches the foot inside underneath the nearest brick that ever–so–slightly sticks out, and then swiftly pulls herself inside by the force of her legs, awkwardly swinging.
(She makes a disgruntled sound once her back hits the hard surface of the windowsill, and pure fear shoots through her for a moment before she scrambles upright.)
Glancing around, there’s no one in sight, so Bee dusts herself off, and slowly rolls her shoulders.
Then there’s a scream, a metal sound, and white–hot fog suddenly overtakes Bee’s brain.
“Oh Jesus fuck!” screamed right into her ear is not something Beatrice Abercrombie usually wakes up to.
She’s not very used to waking up tied to a chair, either, so maybe these two incidents are somehow connected. She would bet her shoes on that.
“What—” She swallows, thickly, because her throat is dry as hell and every noise is a precise knife line to it.
She raises her head — the bright sunlight from outside hurts her eyes, but doesn’t she want to fight — and squints at the figure before her through aching face muscles.
It’s tall, taller than her, definitely, and that settles a primal kind of fear inside of her. It’s holding some kind of a weapon — a sword, maybe? — in one hand, dangerously high, enough to attack Bee if they wanted to. Brown plain clothes, something she would expect from the angry mob that chased her from the market, and long hair that falls way, way longer than the figure’s elbows.
That’s all she can gather because her eyelids close on their own accord as a bolt of pain shoots through her head.
“Oh, fuck.” The figure half–pants, and wipes something off their forehead. “Thought I kih–killed you and would have to bury you in the walls.”
There’s an uncomfortable sort of silence between them for a few moments. Then, Bee croaks out in an almost whiny voice,
“The walls?”
Another beat of silence.
“The walls.” There’s shuffling and suddenly a face with unsettlingly blue eyes and wide lips comes into her front view.
(She can almost ignore the pang of sudden hotness deep in her face, and how her heart speeds up.)
“How— How did you get in here?” They stutter, but their voice is calm and decided. Something Bee wished she could do instead of croaking and whining out words.
She looks up, at least she’ll pretend she’s paying attention, and suddenly, all she can see is hair.
The hair.
…
God, the hair, that’s what Bee was so uneasy about?
It’s so long it makes a blue and brown wreath around them — both the guy and the chair, and even bigger and longer and more every-wherer — and up on the floor behind, up on the walls, hanging off a chnadelier up high in the ceiling, at the very top. It’s slightly greasy and puffy in different places, which is even freakier and weirder and makes Bee feel like she’s dreaming.
It’s everywhere she looks. It’s in her mind, in her brain, in front of her eyes, in her heart and memory, and on top of that it’s blue—
“Hello?”
“How did you get blueberry hair?”