How long did I spend in this place?

I decided to leave the night before, during the ball as I watched her watching me. I didn't go to her courtyard that night either. I had made my decision, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to hold firm if I watched her miracle again. Instead I went to the room I had claimed in her castle. There was nothing of mine in there, but it was the room I slept in during the days. I slept there last night.

I left the castle this morning. It was hard, very, very hard. There were nobles filling the hall just in front of the doors. I didn't know where any other exit might be, so the front doors were my only choice. I had to fight my way through the nobles, as well as fighting against the strange spell that lay upon the castle.

It pulled at me, trying to keep me in the castle. I suppose that was what was making time turn into a blur. Also what brought the nobles that I killed that night, protecting her, back to life and kept them, and her, young. It was strong, and felt of the thing in the moonlight as I pushed my way through it to leave.

But when I managed to push my way through it let me go suddenly, almost pushing methe last little bit of the way out of the castle. My vision went black for a moment, just from the force of the spell at my back. And when it cleared again and I could see, I couldn't believe my eyes.

All the trees were bare. There was a blanket of leaves on the ground, and the air was crisp and clear. That would not have surprised me, had I not returned to her castle during the beginning of the winter. I knew I had been back for quite a while, but I estimated the time as being three or four months at most, not almost a whole year.

I stood there for a few moments, before I decided that the spell over the castle must have a strange effect on time as well. I could think of no other reason for losing so much time. I then set out upon the road, determined to return to my Master's daughter and marry her as she had suggested before I returned. I made it a mile or two, not even enough to take me to the first village, when I found my feet starting to carry me back to the castle.

I couldn't just leave without saying goodbye to her. I had to see her one last time, in hope that she might decide to let me be as I am instead of as what she wanted me to be. It was as if the spell was still affecting me, which it most likely was doing.

I made my way back into the castle easily. The spell didn't prevent me from entering, and there was not a noble in sight when I got in. I hid myself in the corner of her courtyard and waited for the end of the ball.

It was different this time. She came into the courtyard, all alone, as she always did, but she didn't take her usual spot right in the middle. Instead, she moved to a spot just a few feet from where I was, faced me, the moonlight glinting off of her golden hair, and called out to me in her velvet voice.

"I know you're there, killer," she said, and the tone of her voice was strange, almost cruel. I looked up at her, and our eyes met. And then she smiled.

It wasn't the smile that she gave me when she first greeted me in her castle, when I was just a poor farm boy who somehow stumbled upon a magical place. It wasn't the smile she gave me when I asked her to dance the night after I first saw her in the moonlight. It wasn't even the sad smile that she gave the dead nobles the next night, or the slightly sympathetic one she gave me as I looked back.

It was the smile of the nobles who were consumed by the moonlight. It was a cruel, sadistic, fake smile that chilled my blood.

I froze, unable to grasp the image of her beautiful face holding that awful smile. I stopped thinking for a while, simply unable to cope at that moment. And that was then it snuck up behind me.

I wasn't even aware that it was present in the moonlight, let alone that it was sneaking up behind me. Not until it flowed around me, trying to enter every orifice in my body. I could feel it pressing down on me, trying to drive the air from my lungs, and I involuntarily gasped, allowing it in farther.

As I fell over, laying on the ground unable to move in its grasp and slowly starting to suffocate, I saw her, still smiling. She laughed, and the nobles started entering the courtyard. It was the nobles that I killed that night that were in front, and they all had knives. They came for me, and I could see the desire for revenge in their faces.

I couldn't do anything but watch in horror as the moonlight glinted off of theknives, and the toothed smiles. I could feel it surrounding, and filling, me, and I felt a tremor run through itthat seemed like laughter. And above it all, her laughter echoed through the courtyard.

But, just as the first noble would have reached me, he stopped. I couldn't see anything there to hold him, just that he had stopped, and that he looked furious. He started to yell something to her about keeping something in check, and she growled at him that she was trying her hardest. But that something was aiding him. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I could see the glow of her miracle starting to fill the courtyard.

It occurred to me that maybe her miracle wasn't so much of a good thing at that moment. But when the warm light touched me that thought went out of my head completely. The light was just so warm, and comforting that I couldn't believe it was evil, even if she had turned out that way.

The light drove away it and I was again able to breathe and move. I started to get up, staring at the snarling noble still frozen in front of me. And then I caught sight of her, and what was going on within her body.

She was rippling, as if she couldn't keep a hold on her form. She was starting to shift between a dark haired form and the form that I knew, and she didn't look like she was enjoying it at all. When she was more in the form that was familiar to me I could hear curses coming from her, things that I would never have imagined her saying.

Oddly enough, I could feel the love that I felt for her swelling, but when the darker form was stronger. The light was pulsing in time with her shifts, becoming stronger when the darker form was prevalent. I saw, once, the dark haired form stretching an arm out to me, and mouthing something that looked like "help." With that, all of my protective urges sprang into action.

I needed to protect the dark form. I needed to help that one, not the familiar one that I thought I was in love with. She wasn't the one I loved, it was the dark form within her, the source of the light. My life would be useless if I didn't save the dark one.

At that time, the nobles were all frozen, but they were trying frantically to get at her. And the moonlight was beginning to surround her, and try to enter her again. I knew, instinctively, that that would kill the dark one for good, and end all of my hopes. But I could not do anything against it. I had no power against it without the dark one's light.

Somehow my desire to help must have strengthened the dark one though, because as I went to deal with the nobles, who were coming unfrozen, the light became stronger, the brighter pulses becoming longer and more frequent. I heard her curses less, and I could almost feel it'sfrustration.

I killed nobles while the dark one's light pushed back the moonlight. Just as I killed the last of the moonlight filled fake humans, I heard her scream, one last time, before the warm light brightened again. The moon still shone down on the courtyard, but there was something different, as if it was completely gone.

I sheathed my sword and turned to the dark one, to see clearly the one who I had decided to throw my life away for. At first I could see nothing; the light emanating from the figure in front of me was too bright. But then, the light dimmed, eventually fading to nothing, and I saw a face, your face, smiling at me.

You and she are almost opposites. Where she was all bright, but still mysterious and closed to others, you are dark, but open, and friendly. She had golden hair, and emerald eyes, with a pale complexion so common among proper ladies. You have long, silky black hair and a slightly dark complexion that gives you an exotic look. And dark violet eyes that perfectly mirror your feelings. She was tall, with a curvy shape that so epitomized women. You, on the other hand, are short, and slender.

And, of course, she was female, where you are male.

It was then, as I watched you standing there, smiling at me but not saying a word, that I realized that I never loved her, not even at first. It was you I loved the whole time. I saw you inside of her, and I mistook the love I felt for you as being love for her. I reflected that it might be wrong, loving a male such as you. But I decided in that instant that I didn't care.

And so, I kneeled down in front of you to profess my devotion to you, only to find, in your eyes, that you already knew. As I knelt there, watching you play idly with your long, silky hair, a single snowflake drifted down from the sky to land on your skin. A moment later another joined it, and a chill wind blew through the courtyard.

I saw a shiver run through your frame, and I moved to give you my coat. But you stopped me with a gently placed hand on my arm. I looked to you, and you gave me one of the most serious, trusting looks I have ever seen. And then you spoke your first words to me, your voice that of a youth just come to his manhood.

"Kiss me, it's beginning to snow."