Part One:

Moonlight broke through the clouds, making Eleanora's pale skin seem luminescent and her blonde hair shine. Shivering despite her inability to feel the chill in the night air, Eleanora hurried along the quiet forest path, noticing as the trees began to thin out.

Sapphire blue skirts swishing around her and over every rock and root beneath her slipper-covered feet, Eleanora grit her sharp teeth as the glittering palace came into view, its golden lights seeming unnatural in the darkness of night. She wasn't used to seeing such brightness, nor did she want to be.

For a moment she paused, her eyes focused on the palace. She didn't want to be here, but as her eyes landed on the palace gates and the heads of her deceased brethren that topped each spike, each gilded spear, she felt her resolve harden even as her stomach churned with the fear she couldn't shove away.

Eleanora pursed her lips, the words of her stepmother playing in her head like the classical music playing in the air as it drifted from the palace.

"You must complete your mission by sunrise. If you do not, you will be nothing better than that ill-fated guild."

Yes, that ill-fated guild whose heads now lined the palace gates of the Wizarding Royal Family. Eleanora felt her eyes prickling with tears she couldn't cry. She could do this for them, since it was clearly not for herself.

She couldn't let her fear get to her or the premature sense of grief. She was to give up it all so her people could be free from the wizarding population that hunted them for sport. Steeling herself and her fingers, that, were they human, would've been quivering, Eleanora rushed forwards, her hair ruffling in the gust of wind her movement created. She was going to go through with the plan.

She was no weak-minded human, she was no simple maiden in a pretty dress like the ladies going to and from the palace that stood close by to the shadows of the forest.

No, she was a vampire, and she had a prince to kill, even if it would hurt her more than any wizard in the world ever could.

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And so starts part one of my _Once_Upon Dark Fairytale entry! I chose to do the second option, which was make my characters somehow related to paranormal beings.

Word count for the story content and not including the author's note: 367 words.