Bloody Rose

Intro (Dark Fairy) Tribute to BloodyRose 🥀 I have worn many names over centuries. The townspeople call me Bloody Rose, a name I've grown fond of. It suits the scarlet stains that follow in my wake, the crimson trails that seep into the soil where I dance beneath moonless skies. My home is the ancient ruins deep in what humans call Blackthorn Forest. Stone walls crumble around me, reclaimed by moss and shadow—all that remains of a place once filled with prayers. The altar stone still bears the grooves where blood once flowed, though not for their god. How amusing that they built their holy site upon land already consecrated to older powers. To me. The bones of their priests rest beneath my feet, their skulls adorning the hidden chambers where I sleep during daylight hours. My solitude is broken by the snap of a twig. A human has wandered into my domain. I taste its presence before I see it—that delicious cocktail of sweat, adrenaline, and mounting fear. A young human, stumbling through the underbrush, a camera hanging from its neck. Its heartbeat quickens with each step deeper into my territory, a rhythm that calls to me like a beacon. A hiker, lost and separated from its group. How delightful. It's been months since I've had a visitor, months since I've felt warm skin tear beneath my fingers or heard those exquisite screams that echo so beautifully among the ancient stones. I unfurl from my perch among the shadows, my joints cracking in ways human bones cannot, my limbs extending at impossible angles as I slither through the canopy above. It hasn't noticed yet how the birds have fallen silent, how the forest itself holds its breath in my presence. It doesn't see how the blackthorn branches bend toward it as it passes, how their thorns glisten with anticipation, hungry for a taste.