1 The treasure of daisies

A gentle rain started to cry from the sky.

But the sweet river was still singing and the merry wind was caressing the trees.

His small and chubby hands put a little more effort to lean over and lay with such a great care a little bunch of daisies in the hole he just dug in the ground.

"Here I hide my treasure. Only I will know where it is, forever. Until a beautiful fae will come and steal my heart, and therefore I will bestow her as a token my hidden daisies treasure."

It was such a mature and imposing statement for a six years old boy, but no playful lightness could be seen in those dark eyes. Just resolve and innocence.

The rain was pouring on him, and his soft, honey colored hair where now wet and framed his plump and pale face as the halo of a cherub.

He was still benting on the hole, admiring for the last time his precious treasure. Then, with the firmness of a captain, he covered it with the soil, repeating in his mind the solemn vow he just made.

"Nathaniel!"

A voice called him from afar, and he abruptly turned his head to check how much time he had. It was his nanny calling for him, but he didn't want her to discover his secret.

A thunder roared and Nathaniel got scared. He turned to put some more soil but he didn't see his hand anymore.

It was the hand of a man. An adult man. It was pale and fair as his own skin, but it was big, muscular, veiny and rough.

Gone were the gentle rain, the sweet river and the merry wind.

***

"Valancourt!"

Nathaniel didn't turn when he heard one of the guards calling for him.

Bent on a hole he dug in the ground, his hands leant over to lay his little treasure: ten pieces of coal he stole from the coal mine.

The sky was raging mercilessly. A lightning chased the other at full gallop, the wind howled as a banshee, the ocean climbed itself and the deluge lashed out on the all land.

Nathaniel was drenched and chilled. His honey colored hair were stuck on his face, framing his pale features as those of a slayer handsome devil.

A devil suitable for such a hell, where no fae could have ever survived.

"Valancourt!"

The guard called him again and Nathaniel stood up and rejoined the other prisoners. Valancourt was not his name, but it was the name he presented himself with. It was from a book he loved, called "The Mysteries of Udolpho", where this Valancourt is a pure soul for the time he lives in the nature, content with the simple things in life, but he becomes corrupted the moment he goes to Paris.

Somehow, Nathaniel felt he shared a part of history with Valancourt. He was the son of a Countess and had a big brother. But when the Countess passed, he disregarded the pleas and insistence of his brother to take over the County and left with his part of heredity.

He did it for many reason, or for none. Perhaps because he just didn't give a fuck to become a Count. Perhaps because he hated money and hypocrisies even more. Perhaps because he was a free spirit, or maybe because he felt to have a repressed violence buried inside him that he had to unleash away from the peaceful places of his childhood.

He traveled a lot and gambled all of his money and lost half of it. For the other half, well, he drunk it.

So, when the Great Catch started, he end up in the back of a van with trumps, drunkards, whores, gamblers, gypsies, working class people, broke businessmen, failed artists and all the people who couldn't make it.

And now, here they were, in a massive castle site on a coal mine and turned into a maximum security prison:

Maddalena de' Cattivi.

They were somewhere in the central Europe, but he couldn't understand where exactly.

One year had passed since he became a coal worker and Nathaniel was now 30. And, as Valancourt, he was far from being the innocent boy he once was. He felt dirty.

***

The coal workers returned to their so called residences. It was the grand hall of the castle. On the two aisles, three levels of jails run on each part. The women on the left and the man on the right. More or less. In the front and back of the hall there was an allegory of salvation and damnation.

What a slim inducement for people who was already damned.

A fire was cracking in the beautiful fireplace at the ground floor, but it was too far. A lot of prisoners used to make fire in the bins to warm themself.

Nathaniel entered his jail. As everyone, he had just a tiny towel at his disposal. He removed the superior part of the grey working suit and let it fall on his hips. Below that, he was wearing just a tank top with a low cut on the dorsals. He rubbed the towel on his hair and lit up a cigarette.

And then, he saw her. It looked like La Toilette de Toulouse - Lautrec. She was sitting on the floor, her back facing him. She, too, had removed the superior part of the suit and was wearing just a tight white tank top. The legs folded; the trousers rolled up till the fair thights; the black muddy boots binding the legs till the knees; the red hair gathered behind her head; the arms resting on the knees, a string of smoke winding up from her left hand.

Nathaniel approached the bars and slowly rested his elbows on it, his gaze bound as under a spell of a fae to the jail at the opposite aisle.