The authorities re-opened the Hall after a few days of fruitless enquiry. A caretaker had found Anja a few hours later, had given her a cup of sweet tisane and called the City Guard. She had been questioned, but the caretaker had vouched for her character having seen her painstakingly cleaning the gargoyles and statues in the hall, and she had been released, shaken but free: except from the ghosts of her past. With nothing and no-one else to hold on to, she went back to work.

I wish you were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace.

Thief of my heart, destroyer of my soul

As evil as you are beautiful, we are one, but my blindness has doomed us all.

We are as one until our hearts were turned to stone.

Witness the death of love, the loss of the living gods.

The curving paths of the city outside, the bustle of populace and ever changing skies with their wispy remnants of the gods were irrelevant to her here. The shadows were lengthening again, an organic and ever changing growth changing with the tides of the suns. A collection of words she had worked so hard to uncover lay part in shade and his face hung before her, unchanged, uncaring, and timeless in lithified indifference.

"You saved me. Why? But can you save me? Come on and save me again, from myself and my life of nothingness. Maybe you could save me from the ranks of the freaks, who suspect they could never love anyone, freaks like me.

"Oh gods, I'm talking to a lump of rock." She glanced down from her perch atop the tower scaffold to the marble floor below. There was a faint red stain to the creamy marble the caretaker had been unable to remove, but it was the damage to the flagstones nearby no-one had managed to explain.  A radial pattern of cracks spread from the point of impact, a depression a few fingers deep at its centre.

“This is my last night. I can’t stay with you any more, there’s no time left.” She reached into a pocket of her tunic and pulled out a metal chain and heart matching the one hanging around her neck. “I have no evidence to prove you didn’t save me, so I wanted to say thank you.” Anya reached out and hung the heart pendant around Amyru’s cold stone neck. “It was my sister's. She was all I had left. Now all I have is memory. It’s not enough.”

She shook her head trying to clear it, once again feeling the cold blade as it slid along her skin. Crying softly she hugged her arms around her slender body and rocked back on her heels.

"I don't understand. I'm fed up of being scared and alone. What is happening to me?” she whispered to the stones.

- You can be free child, end it now. There will be no more pain. Just peace.  You have suffered enough little one.  One step.  Just one step.  That's all you have to take. Join us in the silence between worlds... -

Anja closed her eyes, tears seeping from the lids. “No. I need to finish this. I need to understand what is going on here.”

- you are dying little one. That is why you can hear the ghosts of the past echoing around the Hall. Memories trapped in the stone whisper around your frail form, the flesh is weak, only stone remains timeless -

The girl opened her eyes, leaning back in fright from the beautiful face of the Arabesque. The timeless stone face was inches from her own, the eyes blank, the statue crouched forward like a mantis on its plinth. As she watched, the grey stone eyes clarified to an onyx black matching the pendant above her own pounding heart. The Arabesque blinked slowly, like a lizard, the nictitating membrane flicking across the stygian lense.

- you are worthless little one. A mere speck on the fabric of time. You come here with your misery writ plain in your mind and yet you know nothing of suffering, nothing of power. You have awoken me from my slumber and now you must pay the price. Bow before your God and tremble -

Arabesque drew herself to her full height on the plinth and stared down at the girl before her, then watched in disbelief as Anya raised herself to stand on her tower of wooden and metal to face her. Memories of a cold blade screamed at her to lie down, to capitulate, to bow and scrape and fawn at the feet of the being before her. They stood eye to eye for a few seconds and then holding the heart around her neck with one hand the girl spoke, the soft tone carrying the length and breadth of the The Hall of Gold.

“I've had enough of being scared. I will bow to no-one. Not any more.”

- Then you will die -

A stone hand shot forward and Anja staggered backwards to teeter on the edge of the raised platform, her hands windmilling wildly as she fought for balance. The stone heart rose from her thudding chest, the chain around her neck drawing tight and helping her balance. There was a faint sussuration of silica, and the statue of Amyru rose from his plinth. One gnarled hand was raised, and as he gestured inwards, Anja felt her body reeled in by the pendant straining against her skin, until the two hearts nestled together between flesh and stone.

- You dare to interfere? - The glare from the Arabesque should have melted stone, but instead Amyru looked at her in disdain.

- It is over my once-queen. The cycle is broken -

Anja felt herself shielded in strong arms. Arms of warm stone which felt somehow pliant and real. Amyru gestured with his free hand and a blizzard of dust erupted from the inscription Anja had been working on. Another curt motion and the dust stilled revealing more words in elegant cursive on the wall under the crudely written ‘Amyru’.

I wish you were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace.

Thief of my heart, destroyer of my soul

As evil as you are beautiful, we are one, but my blindness has doomed us all.

We are as one until our hearts were turned to stone.

Witness the death of love, the loss of the living gods.

And so we will remain until stone hearts once more beat as one.

- So, my Queen, it seems you are undone. After all these eons of suffering, my people shall be free. And so shall I -

Her cold eyes murderous with rage, Arabesque stepped onto the platform making it sway dangerously.

- We are not together, there will be no freedom, no surcease. I will rule once more with you constrained at my side. You will do my bidding Beast. And you little Fain will die - She lifted one hand to point at Anja, but stopped in horror as the tip of her finger turned to fine dust. Like an hourglass timing away the last few seconds of life, the drizzle of dust spread along her arm and within seconds a loose pile of grey dust was all that remained.

“Your heart wasn’t the one beating, my Queen.” Amyru inclined his head in farewell at his former Queen and sighed. Anja felt her feet lift from the boards of the tower, and with her held tightly in his arms Amyru floated to the marble floor.

She frowned. “If you can fly with so much care, why did you make such a bang when you tackled the man who tried to assault me the other day?”

Amyru chuckled deeply and Anja realised she could hear him rather than sense his voice in her head. “I had just woken up after several thousand years. I wasn’t really in the mood to be delicate.” He released her and lifted her hand to warm lips. “You have released me, my lady. Thank you.”

“But how?”

“You saw past ‘the Beast’. Amyru in the language of your ancestors meant monster or beast. My name is Azeen, which means beauty in the language of the ancients, as does yours. In other lands, other worlds and other times I was saved from being the beast of legend. In this land, until now, I was trapped by lust and crimes of passion, my form reflecting my crimes. In other lands I would give you a rose, show you the skies and give you my heart.”

“What’s a rose?”

Azeen blinked in surprise, smiled and bade her close her eyes. She stood silent in anticipation as the once god moved behind her, his strong arms circling her waist.

- Close your eyes. Trust me -

The air around her crackled, and a faint waft of perfume drifted past her face. Sunlit warmth caught her skin and a breeze rustled her dress.

“A dress?”

“Open your eyes.”

They hung suspended in the sky above the Hall. Her ripped and torn workclothes had changed to a silken dress that moved lazily in the light breeze above the domes of the city, and in her hand she held a perfect red flower. She lifted it to her nose, intoxicated by the unaccustomed scent.

“A rose for a rose, as they say. In other lands I was saved from the Beast by love. Here in these lands I became the Beast, in perfect harmony with the woman I loved. We ravaged the lands, raped, pillaged and destroyed the Fain, until I fell in love with one of your race: one of my race. I was originally of the Fain, but first fell in love with The Queen of the Gods. Arabesque captured my heart and my soul and I in turn was embittered by her soul becoming the Beast, Amyru. A Fain girl saw through my anger and pain and we fell in love. Arabesque found out, killed her, and in doing so cursed us all and sealed her own fate. It was she who scrawled 'Amyru' over the inscription below my plinth. On occasions over the millennia we have had moments of wakefullness amidst the endless pondering. One of mine was the other night when you were assaulted, but your gift to me destroyed the curse and woke us all.”

“All?”

“The once-gods are ‘once’ no more. You have restored us to continue on our travels through the silence between worlds. There are so many to explore. Come with us?”

They reappeared in the Hall, her feet planted firmly on the marble floor. Azeen lifted her hands and placed a kiss on her palms in the traditional Fain honour, and knelt before her, his head bowed.

“But where are we to go?”

“Anywhere you would like, my lady. You have saved us all.”

Anya became aware of the remaining statues in the hall, they had silently drifted down from their places in the Hall and now stood in a loose circle around them, smiling and nodding at her in greeting. Azeen looked up and she gasped, his eyes had returned. In place of the stone, two dark orbs stared back at her, worry plain in them as he looked at her.

“Then I would like to go where the roses grow.”

Azeen stood, smiling, and clasped her hand, the rest of the statues reaching out for their fellows in readiness. “Then that is where we shall start.”

~~~ The End ~~~

This round combined two subgenres: Fairytale Fantasy and Romantic Fantasy. Additionally, there were three required components along with adhering to the subgenres.

One of the four groups of paired pictures had to be incorporated into the story.

Any 2 out of the 8 listed quotes taken from Grimm's Fairy Tales had to be used.

1 of the 3 given songs had to significantly influence the story.

Word count had to be between 2,000 and 6,000 words - this one hit 3200 ish

QUOTATIONS - I used the ones in Bold

1) "Here is a fine duck; pray, kill her."

2) "What rumbles and tumbles, Against my poor bones? I thought 'twas six kids, But it feels like big stones."

3) "Blessed be the day and hour when I found you; cannot you contrive to let me into the sack for a little while?"

4) "Oh, you wretched beard-cleaner, you piebald fool, you hungry mouse-hunter, what can you be thinking of? Have you the cheek to ask how I am getting on?"

5) " 'Oh no!' said the young man; 'sitting cross-legged from morning to night, working backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.' "

6) "I wish you were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace."

7) "...and he could not withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and his country in the same manner."

8) "In the olden days, when wishing still worked..."

The songs we had to chose from were -

1) Aimee Mann - Save Me

2) The Killers - Shot at the Night

3) Matt Corby - Made of Stone

I incorporated lyrics from 1 and 2, but the main theme was from 3, particularly these lines

I'm carrying my heart but it's made of stone

I'm carrying my heart but my heart is made of stone

I put the Killers song up as I preferred it to the other two =]