Rose’s Untamed Bear (Filthy Fairy-tales)

Prologue

Long ago, before the Fabled Woods grew thick with shadow, there lived a woman named Serilda, fair as moonlight on fresh snow. So radiant was she that even the King himself loved her and would have made her his queen.

But she was young, young and proud. She believed in love, not in a union of safety. The King was her senior twice over, with a son older than she, and though he offered her a crown, she declined him.

Instead, another came, a man clothed in velvet night, his words like spun gold. He called himself Alarion the Wise, a sorcerer whose hand bent fire and stone to his will. With promises of a world remade for her, he lured Serilda from the King’s side, and she followed him into a life of wonder.

She thought herself in love, and he seemed just as bewitched with her. He gave her jewels, fine gowns, and a mansion filled with endless rooms and marvels. He let her wander freely through its halls, forbidding her but one thing: never open the locked door at the end of the corridor.

With each passing day, Serilda’s curiosity grew. Why should she be denied? What secret was worth more than trust? At last, when Alarion left on a journey and the mansion lay silent, she thought herself safe. She took the forbidden key, pressed it into the lock, and opened the door.

What she found ended the dream forever.

Behind it lay a chamber bathed in red. Gowns stiff with blood, tokens of brides before her sacrificed to feed Alarion’s dark arts, hung on the walls like trophies.

Ten, eleven, twenty before she stopped counting.

He was no wise man, but a Bluebeard Bridegroom, devourer of innocence, keeper of bones.

Horrified, Serilda fled back into Fabled Woods, running to the only man she thought could protect her now—King Rodrick.

He took her in gladly, even though she was carrying Alarion's child.

He promised her safety and welcomed her back without bitterness.

For a fleeting moment, she believed she was saved.

But that night, Alarion came, bent on revenge and furious over her disobedience.

His fury cracked the heavens. Serilda escaped into the trees with her life, but the King, his castle, his servants, and his son were not so fortunate.

With a single curse, Alarion turned them all into statues of cold stone, frozen where they stood, pouring all their life essence into a red crystal that began to pulse with the heartbeat of a stolen kingdom.

All but Prince Derrick, whom he cursed to hunt the woods as a beast for all eternity.

Filled with guilt and fear, Serilda fled deeper into the woods, stumbling until she found an abandoned hunter’s cabin, its timbers gray with age, its hearth long cold.

Desperate, she fell to her knees and prayed not to gods nor spells, but to the ancient Woods themselves.

Perhaps out of pity, or perhaps because the forest already had plans of its own, a hush fell over the glade.

From that day on, Alarion never set foot near the cabin, as if the trees themselves turned him aside.

Serilda restored the place with her own hands, making it a home. When the time came, all alone, she bore twin daughters.

The first was born with cheeks as red as wild roses; her cry was strong and fierce. Serilda named her Rose Red, for she was flame and courage given flesh.

The second was pale and fair as new-fallen snow, with hair just as white; her gaze was calm and deep even as an infant. Serilda named her Snow White, for she was serenity and stillness in the storm.

Thus, in secret and sorrow, the sisters were born—one of fire, one of frost—and the fate of curses and kingdoms would rest in their hands.

Over the years, Serilda raised her daughters in the little cabin, teaching them kindness, thrift, and the ways of the forest. Snow tended the hearth, sewed, and kept the garden green, while Rose chased deer through the glades, climbed trees, and laughed at storms. They were as different as fire and frost, yet bound as only sisters can be.

Sometimes, Serilda caught them listening to the hush of the woods as though the trees themselves spoke to them.

She never told them the whole of their father, nor of the curse that lingered over the land, but she could not stop the shadows from creeping closer.

For every year that passed, the roses bloomed redder, and the snows fell colder, as if the woods themselves were watching—waiting—for the tale to unfold.

But beyond the edges of the glade, Alarion’s fury only grew.

His rage at Serilda’s escape—his unfulfilled greed at the power he might have claimed when she slipped through his fingers—burned hotter than his sorcery.

The more he fed it, the smaller he became.

His proud stature withered, his beauty curdled, until he was no longer Alarion the Wise but a crooked, snarling thing.

His beard grew long and heavy with dark runes, binding his greed and his curse together.

The embodiment of his magic. Thus was born Grimbalt, the evil troll, whose malice poisoned the woods year by year.

And so, the tale began—

of two sisters,

and a prince who became a beast,

a troll whose beard bound kingdoms in chains,

and a mother who carried the memory of what she had loved, and lost, and feared would one day return.