Anastasia's Point of View

When they found Anastasia, it was midnight and the full moon was cloaked by the clouds as a gift from Belle herself. Or at least, that's what they told her. How they all loved to tell her about that night. The Night of Destiny. The Night of the Chosen.

   They were all chosen, they liked to say. They being the ones who been rescued them, who had stolen away and raised them in secret.

   Raised was an interesting word, Anastasia thought. They had not raised them, truly, but shaped them. Like gardeners to a hedge, they had pruned the parts they did not like and allowed only what they wanted to flourish. They had trained them too. Oh, yes, they had trained them. Endlessly. Day in and day out. Even Anastasia, the youngest.

   And the most important, they liked to say. The chosen amongst the chosen. The one destined to bring them glory. Her 'mother' liked to say that, to repeat tales of legendary warriors and great queens to Anastasia by the flickering  campfire. To tell her of her great destiny.

   "You will bring us glory," she told Anastasia, morning after morning, as she braided her hair. Night after night, as she took the braids apart.  "You will raise us to power. Bards will compose songs for you. Storytellers will recite your legend around the campfires. Your name will never be forgotten, my sweet Anastasia. You will bring us to a golden age, out of the darkness. That is why I named you as I did. What does your name mean, Anastasia?"

   "Resurrection," she said dully, wincing in pain as her mother tugged at her braid to weave it into a crown. "Rebirth."

   "Yes," her mother smiled. "And you will bring the goddesses back to earth, my dear. You will be their rebirth, and the resurrection of our people."

   "Yes," Anastasia agreed, because she had to agree with anything her mother told her.

   "Yes, mother," her mother corrected. "I am your mother, Anastasia. You will address me as such."

   "Of course, mother," Anastasia replied obligingly, keeping her thoughts in check. She didn't think this woman was really her mother.

   She knew, of course, that she was not her mother of blood. Her people did not have mothers of blood. Only the goddesses, and the ocean. But she was not a mother in the way her people had mothers, either. This woman shaped her, pruned her. Moulded her into the person she wanted her to be. She was more a gardener to a plant, or a sculptor to clay, than a mother to Anastasia.

   "What will you do, mother?' Anastasia asked.

   "What do you mean, daughter?" Her mother asked, forgetting her hair for a moment.

   "When I bring glory to our people, to the chosen and the goddesses, what will you do?"

   "I will bring vengeance," her mother answered.