Okay, so I've had this idea for awhile. I've been wanting to rewrite classic fairytales and put a Harvest Moon twist on them, and I decided Beauty and the Beast would be the easiest. So here it is! This is the first in my new series "Tales from the Homestead," which will be featuring other Harvest Moon takes on the classics, like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and a few others. Hopefully I can get them a written. Anyway, this story will most definitely not go word for word from the Disney movie, but the storyline will be parallel to it. There will definitely be some Harvest Moon aspects to it, as you'll see. So... enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I'm only putting this up here once, seeing how disclaimers can get tiring. I do NOT own Harvest Moon or the story of Beauty and the Beast. Those belong to their respective owners.
Chapter I—Prologue
Once upon a time, there was a wealthy tiller of the lands, a farmer by trade, and a hero among his people. He had saved the land of Castanet from dying permanently when the bells went silent, and set up his own small kingdom in the now fertile place. Being well-loved by the other villagers, he started thinking highly of himself, a bit too much.
As many seasons came and went, the large farm became bigger and more prosperous, until people began to think of the young owner as a prince. But his heroic heart started turning into a growing web of greed, shunning off the other villagers with his nasty attitude. Everyone once remembered him as Kevin, the lively, good-hearted farmer, but as he changed, they started to skirt around his property, until his territory became only a vague outline when seen from town.
Only a lightly visible path through a dangerous forest led to his property, which the very few who still visited him took. Each day they would come back a little more down-hearted at his state, but they still visited him nonetheless.
As the wealthy farmer started turning away those in need out of the coldness of his heart, the poor stopped coming to him asking for money—until one night, when an elderly woman came to his house, only asking if she could pick the fruit from one of his apple trees.
He refused, and sent her away. The next night, the women knocked on the door to his ominous house, and once again, he turned her away coldly. The third night she visited him, he demanded her to get off his property, yelling curses at her and calling her a vile hag.
She turned to go, but she stopped at the fruit tree, and threw off her hood. It was the very goddess he had saved so many years ago. Begging for forgiveness, he threw himself onto the ground and offered her his entire fortune.
The goddess refused, and for his actions, she cursed him to live as a monster, confined to his own quarters that he had lived in so loveless to his fellow man. She told him that if he only would have showed her the kindness he once had, then she would have let him keep living like a spoiled prince.
As his fingers broke out into claws, a roar was heard across the land. Nobody knew where it had come from, but the simple villagers were too fearful to find out.
The goddess pointed at the apple tree and told the prince that if he couldn't find a maiden to love him before the last leaf fell off the tree on his twenty-fourth birthday, he would remain a beast forever. He only had four years.
And so the splendid goddess left, leaving the farmer in his beastly state, alone and desolate, desiring for another human to love him so that he could break the curse.
A/N: Oh, and since this is just the prologue, it's kind of short. The other chapters should be longer. And please forgive me, I might not update this story for a few weeks D: This isn't the most, er, important of stories I have going right now. With that said, reviews are greatly appreciated :) Thanks for reading!
