At the little village where Phil lived with his daughters, the snow had begun to blow violently in, covering anything that dared go and venture outdoors. Before the worst of the storm had hit, Garcia had walked into town and went to the tavern where she was now sitting, getting drunker and drunker by the moment.
“I’m telling you Lina,” she told a red-headed girl behind the bar. “My father and sister are absolute loons. They’re just always so... well you know... themselves.” Garcia then hiccuped and nearly fell into her drink.

“Sure Garcia,” Lina replied half-heartedly. Lina, the tavern owner and champion marksman of the village, was irritated whenever Garcia was left alone and allowed to wander into her tavern. She near always either created some sort of disturbance or drank almost all of the beer. Tonight, the victim was to be the beer.

“Hey Lina, I’m all done cleaning out the storeroom,” said Gourry, Lina’s blond-haired business partner and boyfriend as he came up from the basement of the building.

“Good,” Lina replied. “Now you can go downstairs and get some more beer. Garcia’s here.” Gourry moaned unenthusiastically and went back down the staircase.

Suddenly, the door to the tavern burst open, stopping everyone in their tracks. It was Phil, bitten from the cold and half-frozen.

“Someone has to help me,” he cried. “Amelia’s been captured!”

“Captured? By who?” someone asked.

“The Beast of the Castle!”

“Wait,” a random guy laughed. “You can’t mean the Beast of Graywords Castle, can you?” The whole rest of the tavern chuckled in agreement.

“I am dead serious!” Phil said.

“Yeah. We all know that the castle has been abandoned for ages. As long as any of us here have been alive.”

“No... I was in there... the lord... he was made of stone!”

“You really have lost it!” the occupants of the tavern all laughed. Phil sadly went up to the bar to stand next to Garcia.

“You believe me, don’t you my daughter?” he asked as he put his hand on Garcia’s shoulder, causing her to tip over and fall to the floor.

“Don’t worry Phil,” Lina smirked as Phil righted his drunken daughter in her chair. “I believe you fully.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do,” Lina smiled as she cleaned a glass. “My great-grandmother told me stories of when she was a servant there in Graywords Castle. The man is made of pure stone, to match his heart and soul.”

“What are we going to do to get my poor Amelia back!” Phil wailed. Lina saw this as the perfect opportunity and banged her fist on the counter.

“Gourry and I will get her back!” she said triumphantly.

“You will?” Phil sniffed.

“We will?” Gourry said, having come back up from the cellar with a keg of beer. “Lina, are you sure we can do that? Think of the danger! Think of the tavern! Who will run the tavern?”

“Think of Amelia!” Lina said. “For a fair sum, we shall rescue Amelia and open the tavern back up in time for nightfall!”

This was about the time when Phil realized that he was in trouble.

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Amelia walked down the stairs in her dinner dress she found in the wardrobe. It was a very pretty blue dress, nonetheless she did not wish to wear it to dinner with the stone beast. Indignant with the entire situation, she walked into the dining room to find the lord already seated at one of the sides of the long table, food arranged around his seat and the one across from it.

“Please be seated Miss,” he said as he stood and bowed deeply in his elegant attire.

“Lord Graywords, I would enjoy the dinner more if I could sit somewhere else than straight across from you,” Amelia said harshly.

“My, I did not think that anyone remembered my name anymore,” the man said, quite taken aback.

“Your former servants and their decedents litter the local folklore with tales of your existence,” Amelia replied as she sat down. “Everyone in the nearby towns and villages know the Legend of Lord Graywords and His Castle.”

“Well, I would like it a whole lot more if you just called me ‘Zelgadis’ if you do not mind,” he replied. “Is there a name that I may call you?”

“Amelia.”

“I would like to propose a toast then Amelia,” Zelgadis grinned smoothly. “To life and how positively wretched it can be.”

“To our wretched lives then,” Amelia spat, holding up her wine glass. Everything about this dinner disgusted her. It was all she had to even drink the wine and eat.

All throughout dinner, Amelia noticed something she found to be quite odd. There was no sign of life anywhere other than her and Zelgadis. Amelia had figured that since the Stone Beast Lord became a reality, that there would still be some servants left in his service. Twice during the dinner did Zelgadis walk out of the room and return with something from the kitchen. First it was the pepper and then some more wine. Most noblemen would have servants fetch such items, yet he got them himself. It plagued Amelia’s mind all while she picked at her food, her appetite not very prominent.

“I believe I am done eating,” Amelia said after a while.

“No appetite?” Zelgadis asked, noticing how she had barely consumed any of the food on her plate.

“How can I have one when I am stuck in here?” Amelia darkly replied as she walked out of the room. It hurt her to be so mean, but this man was just as horrible to look at as the legends made him out to be and he really did creep her out. His clothes and words were smooth, but so was the granite of his cursed skin. Amelia wanted to be able to see the human inside of Zelgadis, but she knew that could never happen. As she made her way back to her room, Amelia wondered where her father and sister were at that very moment.

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“Alright there men!” Lina cried out, thrusting her wicked dagger into the air. “Phil here has told us that the Beast of Graywords Castle has captured Amelia! We need to go and rescue her!”

A chorus of agreement came from the crowd of men in the barn gathered around Lina as she stood on her soapbox and yelled out. “If we do not go and rescue Amelia, imagine what horrible things that creature could do to her! There would be no stopping him from taking other village girls as well! We have to fight to protect our families!”

“Don’t you think that we are being a bit drastic?” Gourry whispered in Lina’s ear. Lina just grinned at her boyfriend.

“I am getting a fee from all of them for being the leader of this escapade. Do you really think expanding my change purse is drastic?”

Gourry sighed as the angry mob of men and Lina went out of the barn and headed over towards the mountain path that led to Graywords Castle. He went back to the tavern so that he could help his cousin Syphiel remove the still-drunk Garcia from the establishment and continue to keep it open while Lina was gone playing greedy hero. Someone had to be there when she came running back home with her tail between her legs and Gourry had found that the role suited him just fine.

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Lina and Phil were losing hope. The blizzard that was tearing through the countryside was becoming worse and worse by the minute. All of the village men that were with them had turned back by then, leaving the two of them alone.

“I think we should turn back!” Lina shouted over the wind.

“...but what about my Amelia?” Phil replied.

“We’ll go get her when the weather’s better!” Lina yelled. “It makes more sense, considering we could die out here and never make it to even think about rescuing her!”

So, with heavy hearts, Lina and Phil went back to the village. Little did they know that the storm that was blanketing their world would prevent them from reaching Amelia for a long time, ultimately blocking every path possible leading up to Graywords Castle. Some villagers even claimed the snowstorm to have been caused by some magical force, almost as if it had wanted Lina and Phil to give up until the spring. Any way that the situation was looked at though, it was certain that Amelia had no hope of being rescued until the sakura trees bloomed and, until then, the villagers would just have to sit and wait patiently, no matter how much it unnerved them.

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Amelia was bored out of her mind. The snowstorm outside had been going on for days on end and she had nothing to do. There were some books in her room when she had first arrived, yet she had read them all already within the short time that she was there.

So that was how Amelia came to take to wandering the castle. It was large enough for her to constantly explore, always finding something new. She never ran into Zelgadis, which did not surprise her, yet she was always required to have dinner with him. The task of sitting through dinner never pleased Amelia, but Zelgadis allowed her to wander the castle freely as long as she ate that one meal with him. Amelia agreed and sat through the creep’s meal and explored all the rest of the day in contentment.

Yet one can go and wander around any place for days and find everything there is to find if they are bored enough. Amelia finally reached that point just as the snowstorm was at its worst. She was looking around the castle when she noticed a hallway that she had never seen before. Thinking nothing of it, she walked down the hall and began her exploring, hoping to find something interesting.

Amelia was shell-shocked when she discovered what was in the room at the end of the hall. Furniture was overturned and broken, some were even hacked into pieces. There was a portrait on the wall of a beautiful young man with black hair and familiar blue eyes that had been slashed in a violent fury. Amelia studied the face in the painting, trying to place where she had seen those eyes.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her own eye, Amelia spied something sitting over by the window. Walking over, she found that it was a pure white rose floating in midair, covered by a clear glass bell jar. It was the most beautiful thing Amelia had seen in the castle yet. She gingerly lifted the jar off the rose and placed it on the floor for safekeeping. As Amelia examined the rose, she felt strongly compelled to touch it.

I wonder why Lord Graywords would have such a thing, she thought as her hand went closer to the rose. She was just about to touch a petal when a cold granite hand grasped her forearm.

“What are you doing in here?” Zelgadis snarled, pulling Amelia forcefully away from the flower. He glared at her with viciousness in his eyes that could have killed had they been given the ability.

“I-I’m sorry...” Amelia squeaked. “I...”

“Get out!” Zelgadis yelled angrily.

“... but... I...”

“GET OUT!” Zelgadis roared again. His free right hand found the hilt of his sword as he threw Amelia to the ground. Frightened, Amelia scurried out of the room and towards her own bedchamber.

I have to get out of this place, she thought as she grabbed her cloak and ran towards the front door. Amelia ran out of the house and into the snowstorm. She never wanted to stop running, not even for one second until the castle was out of sight. Once she could not see Graywords Castle anymore, she stopped and leaned against a tall maple tree. She softly sobbed, for it was going to be a very long walk home.

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“I can’t believe the audacity of that girl!” Zelgadis yelled out loud as he took his sword and sliced into a chair laying on its side. He went and glared at the white rose, the glass bell jar not yet placed back upon it. “This is your doing! I would have died already if you had not cursed me you wretched warlock! You damn bastard!”

Angrily, Zelgadis took his rapier and swung violently at the rose. Before the blade could even hit the rose, the attack was deflected. It was the enchanter who cursed him that created the barrier. He never wanted Zelgadis to ever forget what he had refused in order to turn into such a being. After trying to destroy the rose a few times, Zelgadis gave up his efforts. Hundreds upon thousands of times did he try to demolish that rose and every single time his sword was not even allowed to share air with it. Zelgadis warily sheathed his sword and looked out the window. He could see the young woman he had just yelled at running off the property. She tripped, but got right back up and continued running away.

“Am I really that much a monster?” Zelgadis softly asked himself. “Am I really that fearful to look at and be with?” Sadly, he watched Amelia run until she was out of sight. He turned around and began to walk to the door, alone once more.

Then, a thought suddenly snapped into Zelgadis’s mind. The nearest village was many miles away and the surrounding area was in the middle of a blizzard. He was able to face snow just fine due to his rocky skin, yet a human...

“Amelia! She’ll die out there!” he exclaimed. Zelgadis did not want Amelia to die, even if she had been going out-of-bounds. No being deserved to die frozen in a snowstorm. He too grabbed his cloak and ran off into the freezing tempest. Zelgadis knew that if he hurried, he would still be able to track and find Amelia before her trail was covered up and she died of the cold.

I hope that I am not too late...

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Amelia collapsed into the tree, out of breath and colder than she had ever remembered being. Her hands and feet were nearly frozen stiff from hours of running and her skin was nipped red from the vicious wind. Blowing on her nails in a futile effort to heat them, she started to cry. Was it a mistake to leave Graywords Castle? No, she put that thought directly out of her mind. One more moment with that man Zelgadis would have been the death of her. She could remember vividly his cold, enraged eyes...

His eyes! It was him in the portrait in the room. It was a painting of him as a human. Amelia could barely place the two faces together if it were not for his eyes. The eyes were like the windows to his entire being. Shame that brought her no use now, for now, she was freezing in the frigid cold air of the storm. Trying to run again, Amelia stumbled on herself and broke a tree branch as she fell. She tried to crawl back up, but the strain on her poor body was too great as she fell into the snow and everything turned black...

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Zelgadis looked all around the forest as the wind whipped at his cloak. He had been searching for Amelia for hours and the snow was just starting to die down. The wind still feverishly blew and tried to knock him down into submission, yet he pressed on. He tried to listen and search for a sign of Amelia, hoping that she was strong enough to have survived this long.

Where are you woman? Zelgadis thought as he examined a broken tree branch. It was just the right height for Amelia to have pulled on and snap. It seemed to be fresh, not having been broken even half an hour ago. Desperately, he looked around in attempt to find Amelia. Then, he felt an unusual mound as he took a step in the snow.

No.

Sure enough, Zelgadis brushed the snow off of the mound to find Amelia, unconscious and near frozen solid. She did not respond to Zelgadis’s voice when he called out her name. Hurriedly, Zelgadis carried her back to the castle. She had to get warm quickly, or else...