mark !
if anyone is interested in beauty and wants to partner up >:3




Mother says every village needs its monster, and ours just happens to wear flowers and sing songs. Though fearful when young, after growing up, most immediately accept that it’s an old wives tale. But I can feel the uncertainty that settles upon the village as night falls.
They tell us the Beast is only a tool used at bedtime to keep little ones from straying too far from home. “Don’t follow the flowers, run from music heard after dark, and never wander past the treeline.” As children, we would cower, but now everyone just snickers and waves the warnings off. Some even ignore the warnings and purposefully go to explore the forbidden meadow.
But sometimes people don’t come back. But sometimes they do, and are left in a state that can’t be truthfully described as living. They return alive, breathing, but their minds are forever changed.
Mr. Barrett stumbled out at dawn not too long ago, the petals covering him crumbled like ash the moment anyone touched them. He kept muttering something along the lines of “little tune… a harp...” like he was half-asleep, half-dreaming. By morning he was supposedly right as rain and swore he’d only gone for a walk. His wife won’t let him near the woods now, I don’t think she even lets him leave their home. I have only seen him once since that day, but he wasn’t quite the same.
I’m not supposed to be in the library without an adult, but I found a record older than the chapel itself. Before I was dragged away, a page about a young girl who was sent to gather wildflowers and never returned caught my eye. After that, the odd occurrences began. At first, only mentions of some returning in trances like Mr. Barrett. But then the disappearances began. Only mentions of travellers initially, which was nothing to bat an eye at. However, some of the missing were villagers from long ago, their records remaining yet their names smudged and scribbled over.
Maybe Mother’s right and it’s all nonsense. Maybe the Beast is nothing but a tale crafted solely to scare children with no real history behind it.
But whenever the breeze carries a waft of petals, the scent of flowers no one grows here but still feels familiar, and that faint plucked-string hum, rhythmic like a heartbeat…
…I can’t help but wonder. Best hope Mother never reads this.

I smile but the reflection doesn’t smile back. I pluck the rose from the bush, its thorns stab back in futile defense as the pain, it's what I deserve after all.
Beads of scarlet form from the wound from the thorns. I smile at the familiar color as I turn the petals red.




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note: I initially only considered entering for Angelic Harp, as I had a concept I felt drawn to that would fit the prompt, but ended up entering for Stone Statue as well because I was hit with sudden inspiration with the prompt. please enjoy ♡
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