Red Rose | Lady Lesso Fanfiction

Astrid Widows

Desperate like a widow, uncertain like a widow. Astrid Widows may have not lost a husband but she had lost a key. The key to her home, isolated amongst lush forestry, hopping with bunnies and baby bunnies a like. All was pretty for Astrid Widows; not even a grey cloud in sight in her vision. She had long dreamt of a perfect life of royalty, of not living her adulthood in her home town of Daxville — north east off of Scotland, a pretentious island — it all felt secluded and trapped. Somehow, she wished she could fly high above the sky, look above the deep blue and get a glimpse at the outside. Her instinct felt she had a purpose elsewhere, she could never fulfil it though.

Dusk has now set; it's been a couple of hours since we last checked in on Astrid Widows. She is now pronounced in her cottage, warm, fiery and cozy, scented with tangy tomato sauce and condensation from the boiling pasta pot. She never found her key though, it's odd, her life is never full of mishaps... only she makes the mishaps; she's thinking about a better life too much. Oh stop this Astrid, your life is good enough. She Mumbles and stirs the pasta some more, bubbles flinging up on her wrist from the motioning water. I will find that key, I will tomorrow. After I meet with Maya, the hat maker. Apparently, she has a special gift that's been sent to me by god knows who?

A wooden spoon, banging on the side of the pot, autonomously; distracts Astrid, she bangs the spoon on the side of the pot and strains the pasta in a strainer, getting all the excess liquid out.
Polished to perfection, angelic plates decorated with little floral paintings, brimmed gold, pile up in the small rickety cupboard. Astrid shuffles through the plates, finding the cleanest one and uses that for her meal. It reminds her of the meadows located outside her house in the daytime; shimmying flowers, dew-dropped in the spring, little animals living out their existence. She enjoys watching the beauty of nature, the absence of evil in her life has blinded her from the harsh realities of the world. Daxville is too pure to have any evil presence and will actively rid of it. There once was this tale, a long lost tale, sometimes passed between mothers and daughters when the daughter begins to torment the minds of her parents with her adolescence... Astrid never got told the tale, she was always an angel. Astrid does read a lot of books on myths and legends, fairy tales, fantasy, all the good, elegant stuff that a woman who wears a long, white lacy dress - just like Astrid, would read. This is how she discovered this tale; a girl, well, two girls, Sophie and Agatha... one perceived as a witch and ridiculed and scapegoated by her township, that was Agatha. The other, Sophie, was different, she was a beautiful girl, a princess even... she was thought to have been the most delicate little ponce you'd meet. These two personalities of course, were great friends. Sophie protected Agatha from the evil of the world, she was honestly quite aggressive too. Sophie always longed to leave Gavaldon - their town - but Agatha didn't. It was an odd case, Sophie was never mistreated in town but Agatha was. Agatha was always a fighter, but it would later be revealed that Sophie was the real issue when they arrived at this... school? Sophie, the princess she desired to be, was dropped in the sluggish, disgusting watery hell on the bank of 'evil', the evil school. Agatha on the other hand, the witch everyone thought she was, was dropped off with the goody-two shoes, the preps. It was something Sophie would love: ball gowns, cute animals, cute boys, a perfect fairy-tale but no, she never got it. Why? It was simply because Sophie was evil... no matter how she presented herself she was secretly capable of a lot of evil, in-fact, she was so evil she conquered the entire school, even the two deans. She changed the purpose of this school.

Astrid always thought about this story, it was so peculiar to her. She honestly reminded herself a lot of Sophie, the whole desperation to leave their little town due to boredom and an impending sensation. Astrid knew she was not evil whatsoever, she had lived her whole 34 years on this earth avoiding evil all together. The key... I need to get that key tomorrow! Otherwise, my house will be unprotected forever! But first, like I said, the hat-maker, apparently she has a gift for me sent from an unknown of location? Ebony painted the atmosphere above the rural meadows, stretching sunrays shone their final obliteration on the ozone layer and cooled into still black. Astrid hated the night time, especially without her house doors locked... god, she really needed that key. Just one more night, Astrid, nothing will go wrong... nobody ever comes out this far of town. Living out here is an atrocity to the mind; anxiety ponders all the time, but you have to think logically, it's a long way out, the only thing out here is probably some scary animal who is too busy with itself - unless threatened - it's hard, the idea of being out here, in this tiny house that can easily be broken into, fears Astrid. She sleeps, restlessly, tossing and turning, dreaming all sorts of dreams; majority being about the story of Sophie and Agatha. Astrid looks above in her dream, examining into the charcoal tinted forest of the moonless night, slowly reminiscing blood red. Screeches bend through the sound waves, directly meeting Astrid's ears, piercing them with the unpleasant sound. Where am I? Astrid can feel herself in both states, shaking, panicking, biting her tongue to contain an even more ear-piercing scream. "Agatha?" Astrid whimpers into the night, not understanding the disappearance of her fictional best-friend. All of a sudden, Astrid wakes up in a glammed up ball room, twinkling with gold and a figure, a soft, delicate figure, like one of a queen. "Hello Astrid, I'm Professor Dovey, the dean of good." Professor Dovey was sure elegant, but who knew if that's really what she looked like? This was all Astrid's mind racing and feeding her a narrative to entertain her in her sleep. Soft atmospheres quickly bleed into tension, Dovey looked the most tense, she probably had experience with this other person... evil cackles, deep and smoky blurred into the foreground, presenting themself more prominent as heel clicking walked closer. A forceful pound of something against the floor, a cane - if Astrid's dream hadn't distorted what the object really was - "I am Lady Lesso, the dean of evil!" Shadows turned into a woman, pale-faced, stone cold expression, wicked green eyes and raging red hair that stretched outward from her face, fluffy and bold. "Lesso... you can't do this... you know I've worked hard to be here!" Dovey shook, defenceless against the dean of evil and her cane. Lesso chuckled, threw her cane on the floor and walked toward, quick and fierce. "I'm bored." The dean of evil maniacally laughed. "Ever since the schools had been conjoined and we hadn't had as much competitions and the whole purpose of one of us winning had been defeated with Sophie's victory, it bores me. Nothing's fun anymore... I want to create some drama with you Dovey, and that's what I did. I told a huge lie against you... so bad... that it's getting you banished!" Lesso grew a soft smile, a proud smile. The wicked green in her eyes raged almost neon out of insanity.

Wicked green grass swayed in the gentle breeze, Astrid woke herself, feeling all swayed up as well. What was that about? Where was Sophie and Agatha? Why was I dreaming in first person? Astrid ignored her last night's dream and decided to walk into the town to meet with the hat-maker. It was a thirty minute walk, bending through the forest, bridges arching over the waters, cobblestone paths leading into the town where people rode horse-back everywhere to get themselves place to place. Astrid directed herself eastwards into the centre of the little town, landing herself at the hat-makers brick exterior shop with hanging pots of flora greeting her above the door entrance. "Hello Astrid!" The hat-maker was a kind but frantic woman, she immediately dropped her work as soon as Astrid startled her with her presence. "Whoops! Sometimes I certainly do have butter fingers..." a nervous face palm and chuckle filled the room and Astrid couldn't help but feel her energy and smile along with her - it really helped soothe her confused soul - Should I tell the hat-maker about what happened? She usually has information about things like this... she is a bit spiritual after all. Astrid's mind beamed with consideration, interrupted by the hat-maker handing her a crate, a rustic looking rusty red wooden crate, locked shut with a black metallic padlock. "The key?" Astrid asked, uncertain. The hat-maker took her unique looking hat off and got serious for once. "It's the key you lost... the sender told me this, specifically." Astrid became suspicious and slightly raised her voice out of angst. "But that's my house key. That's only intended for my house..." The hat-maker sighed and placed a hand on Astrid's shoulder. "Don't ask me questions, just follow the instructions. Do you want to see what's inside this little crate?" Something feels off about her today, she's emitting a feeling... she feels other-worldly. Astrid sighs, she doesn't want to rebuttal, she hates arguments, so, with no other choice she obliges. "Ok. But what is inside?" Astrid naively reprimands. "That's for you to find out, dear." The hat-maker hands Astrid a free hat, a beret, velvety and white; suiting Astrid's intricately laced dress that presents elegant floral patterns around the waist. "It suits your hair lovely!" The hat-maker does a familiar soft but proud smile. "Thank you." Astrid delicately bows her head and holds the mini sized crate in her hands, trying to identify the object by the weight. It's near weightless... it's like a feather. "Are you alright, Astrid?" The hat-maker has picked up on Astrid's bewilderment. "Oh, yes, I'm just thinking of what could be inside this... Do you have any idea on who the sender is, please?" The hat-maker seems a bit bugged by this and quickly ushers her final words, "No, I don't that's for you to figure out, but all I'm going to say is that this will all suit you very well. It's very well suited." She blurts them out forcefully, and gently but pressuring sends Astrid on her quest.