This is a short story I wrote quite a while ago, it was part of my English A level - we had to create a version of a fairy tale, but had to add certain aspects to it, including magic, jumps in time and an issue in society. I did a version of Beauty and the Beast, where the Beast was not a monster, he was a black man in a racist and segregated society.

Recently I had the sudden idea to continue this - to write a series of fairy tales, but add something that looked at discrimination in society, and put it on the kindle (I already have a couple of books on there - it's something really simple and easy to do). But I thought before I did so, I should put up my original Beauty and the Beast story, and see what you guys think. I was planning to put this up on fanfic originally, and now I have finally got round to it :)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story! Would love to know what you think so please review :)

Beauty of the Beast

Prologue

There once was a City, a City full of life, love and tales to tell. Every place and everyone has a story, but today, we will just focus on the tale of two people in this ancient City - a story of a beauty, and a beast.

Our story begins in the dead of night one summer. The City was peaceful after darkness had settled upon it. No birds, no busy market place, no children playing in the streets. Everything was silent. There was just empty roads, twinkling stars, and a bright moon.

However, in a tall, menacing mansion just off the City centre, one man's mind was wide-awake and buzzing with so much information it was bordering on excitement.

If you looked at what the locals had nick-named 'Beastly Mansion', you would see rows and rows of windows running along all four floors, but if you peered through them they gave nothing away of the life inside. The mansion was built of redbricks, but their colour had grown dull over time, making the building look old and dull. The entrance of the mansion was made up of two huge, wooden doors, which always opened with a satisfying creek. The front garden of the mansion was a simple gravel path and close cut, green lawns. No plants. The garden and the road in front of the house were seperated by a pair of high, ominous, barbed wire gates. Very few people were seen entering or leaving Beastly Mansion.

All the windows of Beastly Mansion were black, apart from one, where a dim light shone from it. This was where the Beast stood now, candles hovering around him, held up by some invisible force, his dark eyes full of concentration as he worked on the canvas before him.

Every now and then the Beast had a vision, a prediction of the future, in his mind's eye. However the vision was always mere dotted outlines, with smudged faces and dim colours, and often made little sense. The Beast therefore had learned that the only way he could make sense of his visions, was if he painted them.

This particular prediction was the strongest the Beast had ever had, which was why he found himself awake in the middle of the night, his brush throwing bright colours across the dull canvas.

The Beast didn't know how long he had been working on the painting, all he knew was that he had to get it done as quickly as possible while the vision was still strong. Minutes passed in a blur as slowly the pieces of the puzzle in his head came together to form an image.

Suddenly, without any warning, the Beast stopped.

The painting was finished.

The Beast stepped back, trying to take a better look at his painting. In what felt like moments the blank canvas had been filled with colour, the candles illuminating the picture.

The painting was an image of the inside of a Church. The Beast recognised the Church by the small stained-glass windows in the background; it was the local one from the City. A blood-red carpet ran down the aisle, separating the rows of wooden pews. Walking down the aisle was a woman in an elaborate white dress – a wedding dress. Her dark brown hair fell over her shoulders in waves like the sea, her silver-blue eyes were wide with nervousness and her lips were bright red, like the carpet, against her fine, pale skin.

But what took the Beast completely by surprise in this strange image, was the man who was waiting for her at the end of the aisle.

It was him.

The Beast stared at the painting, astonished. How could this be? He would never marry. Who would want to marry him? He had finally got used to being rejected, to facing a life alone, but he had just made a prediction that he was going to make an ever-lasting bond with someone, someone he didn't know, someone he probably wouldn't even love. Why would he do such a thing? How was such a thing possible?

But his predictions had never been wrong before.

The Beast stood in the room, staring at the painted canvas, surrounded by hovering candles, and wondered what was going to happen next.