A/N: Originally featured in my listing "The Final Chapter". See if you can spot the references toward the end ;)
A blizzard raged outside. Snow blistered past the windows, making small bits of frost appear on the glass. Agathe wrapped herself in a thick wool blanket in front of the fire. It was dark out. The storm had snuffed out the daylight. From the corner of her eye she saw the front door burst open. She jumped up in surprise. A small old woman was crouched in the doorway. She walked up to the woman curiously. The ancient woman looked up at her and opened her mouth and spoke, "I need shelter from the storm."
"Yes, come in." Agathe said eagerly, letting her in and shutting the door behind her. She handed the old woman a blanket and walked her over to the chair she had been sitting in moments before in front of the fire. Agathe scurried into the small kitchen and grabbed a teapot, already filled with water. She had had a bad feeling the storm was coming and had collected water before it could hit. She put the kettle on the fire for some tea.
The old woman began to explain herself, "Thank you. Your kindness is appreciated. I was travelling to Villeneuve when the storm hit. Please, let me repay you for the kindness you've shown me."
Agathe quickly interrupted, "No, no, it's fine."
The elderly woman smiled sweetly toward Agathe. "You are a very kind woman. And I do not let good qualities go by unrewarded. To offer your home, your fire, and your drink to an old woman is exceptional. I knocked on three doors before I found someone who would welcome me. I am old, far older than you can imagine. I have grown weary. I am trying to find someone who can replace me." As she spoke she had sat up from the chair, the blanket falling from her shoulders as she started to glow. Agathe watched in shock. Her skin was luminous now, and she suddenly felt an overpowering feeling fill the room. The old woman looked down at Agathe, and gestured for her to stand with her. Agathe stumbled to her feet nervously. The woman was still ancient, that much was clear, but it was obvious that something was different about her. "Agathe, I am what some in the area might call a witch. I prefer the term 'enchantress' myself. I am a blend of human and magic. I have lived for a thousand years, and I have grown very tired. I have been searching for a human who is pure enough at heart to continue the magic. I believe you could do this."
Agathe was taken aback. She didn't know what to say, what to think.
"I realize this is all must be overwhelming."
"A bit." Agathe admitted, trying to remember how to breathe.
"Your role would be simple. As an enchantress, you are bound by one law: do no harm, unless it is to bring greater joy down the road. We seek to better the hearts of man and woman. And if to do that we need to cause strife, so be it. It has been known to happen, that's for sure." She chortled at her joke that Agathe didn't understand.
Agathe gaped at her before finally spitting out, "I don't think I —"
"Nonsense." The enchantress said. "I can see straight to your heart, to your soul. You are pure enough to wield this power without abusing it."
"I don't want this responsibility." Agathe said a bit desperately. "How can I be responsible for bettering mankind?"
The enchantress reached out and held Agathe's hands in her own, looking at her with kind eyes. "The fact that you hesitate from wielding this power only demonstrates your inability to abuse it. You are destined for this role, Agathe. However, I cannot pass along the power to you unless you consent to it. Do you wish to take on the role of being an enchantress?"
Agathe's head was spinning. She took a deep breath, looking down at the floor. She closed her eyes slowly, trying to concentrate on her breathing. She had no real reason to not do it. She hadn't asked, but she assumed the life of an enchantress did not permit for much human relations. But Agathe was already alone. Her parents had abandoned her as a child, and she'd grown up with a grandparent who had died not long ago. No siblings, not even cousins. She had nobody who cared for her, and nobody to care for. The closest thing she had to herself was her plants. She grew an immense number of plants, regardless of the season. She was never good at making friends anyway. Perhaps this life she was being offered was the right one for her. She finally nodded solemnly, "Yes. I do."
The woman glowed bright again, a yellow sunlight emitting from her. Agathe felt the woman's pulse in her hands. But it wasn't her pulse, it was the magic coursing through her like rapid fire. The beat of the magic poured from the older woman to the younger woman. The light slowly was transferring over, filling Agathe with an overwhelming warmth. It was soft, gentle magic that poured into her veins. The glow that had filled the room slowly subsided. Agathe blinked, her eyes still recovering from the burst of light. When her eyes readjusted, the old woman was missing. It would seem she had just evaporated. As if the magic had been sustaining her for so long that without it — she simply ceased to exist.
Agathe looked at her hands, expecting to see something different but there was nothing. She could feel the power of the magic pulsing through her. She thought curiously about what she could do with this magic. It wasn't like it came with an instruction manual. She walked over to the fireplace, and considered putting out the fire with her magic. But she thought better of it. Perhaps messing with fire first was not the best of ideas. Instead, she sat down next to her potted lily flower. She wasn't sure what to do. She took a good guess, putting a hand on the stem of the flower. Nothing happened. She frowned a bit. How was she supposed to use this magic that she felt within her?
She sighed, focusing on her breath again. She closed her eyes. She listened to the magic within her. It was a soft hum within her, a golden well of light waiting to be accessed. She knew it was there. She breathed deeply. She focused on the energy, focused on the feeling of the stem between her, and tried to connect the two. She felt the magic fueling her, finding its way down her fingertips. She opened her eyes and saw the young lily grow exponentially. It was only meant to grow up to a foot and a half, but before her eyes it grew to five feet in length. She stood back and looked at the perplexing plant. She had done that. She didn't really have a desire for a massive, five foot tall lily. She wondered if she could even shrink it back. She touched the stem again and did the same thing, but this time deliberately thought about making the plant smaller. It suddenly became as small as a dandelion.
She laughed with giddy delight. She had magic. She knew how to use it — kind of. It would take some practice before she could do much else besides shrink and grow plants. She played for hours in her humble home, seeing what she was capable of. She was in fact easily able to extinguish the flames in her fireplace with little effort. She had managed to turn her chair into a bowl. She had struggled to change it back at first, but managed it. There was a hum in the back of her head and she remembered what the elderly enchantress had told her. An enchantress bettered the hearts of men and women. She had even said she could see Agathe's soul and heart. She wondered how it was that she did this. Was she able to see other people's hearts now? There was only one way to find out.
She headed out the door, ignoring the raging blizzard. She was going to do precisely what the old enchantress had done. She would seek shelter from the storm from the nearest house. She walked several miles, her skin never getting cold. The warmth of the magic within her seemed to keep the cold at bay. She realized now that this meant that the enchantress was testing her when she had arrived at her door. She would have been warm with the magic as well, she would have been fine in the cold weather. But she had been looking for someone to give her magic to, and had sought out Agathe. How long had she been wandering until she found her?
She knocked on the door of a larger home that was miles up the road from where she lived. There was a minute that passed before the door opened. A middle-aged woman stood there, looking at Agathe curiously, "Yes, can I help you?"
"I'm seeking shelter from the storm." Agathe said with some hesitation. She was waiting to see if suddenly the stranger's heart became visible to her. She had no idea how this worked.
"Oh, yes, please come in." The woman said kindly.
And that's when Agathe sensed it. It was as if a light had appeared under the woman's clothes, right where her heart was. She knew it was only visible to her, as an enchantress. The light was a bright gold, much like Agathe's magic. She smiled and entered the home.
It did not take long for Agathe to figure out how to identify a good heart from a bad one. Although, she had yet to see a truly blackened heart. She had seen many with a faint gold shade, this appeared to be the average color. It meant that the person was of a generally good heart, with some exceptions. A pure gold heart was rare. She had not seen one heart that glowed quite as bright as her magic did in the hundreds of hearts she had seen. She had seen some that were a shade of gray, and a few that were pure black. These hearts belonged to the ones that didn't help her when she needed help, didn't let her in from the storm, or didn't help an injured animal. They were the ones who struggled with empathy and kindness. These folks, those of the gray and black hearts, were the ones who needed to be taught lessons.
She had been with her magic for a year, but she had only had to teach a few lessons. One had been to a woman who was jealous of her own stepdaughter. But she had not done what she was supposed to do. She blessed the stepdaughter so that the woman could not bring harm to her, and unfortunately this eventually resulted in the death of the black hearted woman. Agathe's job was to reform black hearts, not just destroy them. This had been her first failure. It had struck her hard and she secluded herself for weeks, practicing her magic dutifully before setting out again. This time she had a more meaningful intent to save the hearts that needed the most saving.
Her second lesson had been to a young maiden, who had a heart that darkened around her stepsister. Her gray heart was tinged with flecks of green jealousy. While jealousy was a common enough emotion, she had seen very few hearts that experienced it so deeply that it stained their heart and ability to love. But Agathe had been able to see that this young girl was not truly fated for rage and hatred. For when she tested the girl by begging in the street for spare change, the girl had separated from her sister and mother and gave Agathe a lump of coins and a kind word. She could see that underneath the gray there was a bright light struggling to free itself. And so Agathe had set in motion the girl's fate, guiding her way towards true love. This had turned out far better than her last case.
As Agathe had travelled on, she encountered the third black heart. But this time had been different. The woman in question had been an enchantress herself, but her heart had darkened. Agathe knew not how to approach the situation. The enchantress was clearly more powerful than her. She had witnessed her turn into a full-fledged dragon and breathe green flames. Her dire plans of revenge, targeted at the wrong people, were sure to blacken the hearts of those she hurt. Agathe tried to corner the enchantress and reason with her, pleading for her to change the course of her fate. Her heart was blackening rapidly, and as an enchantress, she would be able to see her own heart blackening. But the dark enchantress had cast Agathe away, using such a powerful magic that it made it impossible for Agathe to intervene. She left the region before she could see what dire ends anyone involved might meet.
Her fourth dark heart was an easy fix, thankfully. She had stumbled upon a young man toting around a new maiden on his arm. She could tell immediately that his heart was only covered in a thin film of shadow. The woman on his arm, however, had one of the darkest hearts she had ever seen. It was so dark she could barely sense it at all. As if instead of a heart existing, it was just an empty cavity. But she could tell from the eerie glow that emitted from the woman's heart that she had odd sorts of magic at her disposal. Agathe had observed them from a distance as she skirted the large castle where the dark couple walked about. She had crafted herself a pair of magic glasses, having a feeling that everything was not as it seemed. Sure enough, she could see that underneath the human layer the woman was a sea witch and the man was nothing but possessed. Agathe could not condone a forced relationship such as this, but needed to be on her way to other places. So instead of getting too deeply involved, she whisked a spell toward the woman that would curse her to misfortune. A sea witch such as her was completely unrecoverable. Her heart had been black too long to be saved.
It was a bitter winter again when she found herself back in her homeland of France. She had scoured most of France already, looking for the darkening hearts and helping where she could. But on her return, she realized that she had hardly covered as much ground as she expected. With an enchanted map, she realized her magic had yet to touch the southern portion of France. Having started in the north near Paris, she had not had an opportunity to head there until now. So, she set on her way, letting her magic guide her to those who would need her the most. It was during a blizzard on a dark night, much like the one that had hit before she herself had become an enchantress, that she felt a deep pull drawing her toward a castle in the distance. She had these urges a lot. She had long ago learned that her magic could do a lot of the work for her, and seemed to detect a fate that needed intervening or a heart that needed saving. She followed the urge toward the towering citadel.
As she approached, she could already sense the black heart that lay within the shelter of the tower walls. She turned herself invisible and crept up to a glass door of the castle. She was staring into a ballroom, the back of a large throne blocking a good chunk of the room from her view. She watched as the room full of women seemed to stare at the throne. She heard music begin and a man rose from the throne. She could see his heart clear as day now. A matte black. A resigned ebony. Something had tainted the heart, not allowing light to shine through it. The heart's host was defeated and unwilling to change the state of his heart. Well, Agathe would just have to see to that. She transfigured herself with ease, becoming the same old woman who had knocked on her door one fateful winter's night. Unlike the old enchantress, however, her age was a mere facade. She fashioned herself a large branch to act as her cane. She glanced at a small rose bush growing near the door and plucked one rose, not even feeling its thorns on her skin as she tucked it just under the sleeve of her large cloak. She banged on the door with the end of the twisted branch, and with an imperceptible flick of the wrist she caused the wind to burst the door open for her.
The crowd of dancers recoiled to the edges of the room and the candles flickered out from the wind. Agathe stepped past the ornate throne and kneeled as the princely man approached her with a lit candelabra. She gazed up at him imploringly and produced the rose from her sleeve, "I seek shelter from the storm. Will you take this rose as a gift?"
The man's bright red painted lips curled and he turned to face his crowd of onlookers and laughed righteously. She could see his black heart was unaffected. There was no kindness or love in him. He picked the rose from her hands and tossed it aside, "Get out." He said dismissively.
"I would be careful. Appearances are not as they may seem. After all, beauty is found within." Agathe warned him, giving him one last chance to prove himself. She was already formulating a plan in her head.
As she had suspected, the man rejected her gift again. "I will not tell you again. You are trespassing. Leave at once!"
Agathe looked up at the man and slowly began to melt the facade. She even went so far as to let the bright golden light of her heart fill her skin, giving her the same glow that had struck the previous enchantress. She slowly stood, plucking the rose from the ground. The guests fled the room frantically as the man watched her in shock. She wanted to strike a little extra fear in him and slowly levitated herself off the ground. She felt more powerful than she had since she first received her powers. The prince fell to his knees, the look of fear blatant on his face. "Please, spare me!" He cried desperately.
"I'm afraid I cannot do that. As punishment, your internal hatred shall be your curse. May the outside be the same as the inside." Agathe swept her arms before the man and he slowly transformed into a beast. "And all of those who allowed your heart to darken shall be punished as well." Her powers had given her the ability to trace his darkness, and she could see that those that inhabited the castle had aided the darkness by not preventing it from spreading. Before her, all of the occupants left in the ballroom began to transform and change. The man roared as the transformation completed. His clothes were torn and ragged on his body, and his still blue eyes shone with anguish and pain. He found that despite his animalistic appearance, he could still speak and pleaded, "Undo this foul curse, witch!"
"The only way for this curse to break is if you can learn to love and earn the love of another before this rose withers away." Agathe said patiently, crafting a bell jar out of thin air and placing the rose within it. "And don't worry, it will not be as easy as wooing the ladies who were here tonight." She said as the bell jar floated gently to the ground. The prince picked it up, cradling it in his arms. With a wave of her arm she erased the memories of the town around them. He could not simply manipulate someone that he knew into their love. No, this love had to be pure and honest. And she knew that it would have to be fresh, nothing that could have come from the town below the castle. "And to encourage you to open yourself to love," She said, flicking her wrist deftly through the air and conjuring two objects. "A book to travel the world, regardless of time, to remind you of what you will lose should you not know love." She let it fall slowly from her left hand, gliding down to the smooth marble floor of the ballroom. "And a mirror to look out beyond your castle and observe the world around." The mirror slowly slipped from her right hand and floated on top of the large book. "If you should fail to learn how to love and earn it in return, you shall be doomed to a life of a beast for eternity."
The beast had watched her in shock and awe, but now his face contorted into a snarl of fury. His massive jaws opened and let loose a terrible roar. Agathe had no time for his fury. She had a feeling that this curse was going to take some time, so she disappeared from thin air. She reappeared closer to the village. She would have to keep an eye on the town, making sure that her curse on the town's memory stayed in place as well. She had never performed magic so powerful and vast, and she had a feeling it was wise to stay close by during the curse. She returned to her more human flesh and found a place in an abandoned hovel in town.
She decided then and there she would make herself out as a weak, helpless widow. This would give her the most opportunity to observe without being pestered. While the man she had cursed hardly had the darkest heart she had seen (that had belonged to the sea witch) she had seen that his heart had the most hope. His heart was convinced it could only be black, so she would convince it otherwise. She knew there was promise for this heart to change. Her belief in it was only strengthened when a young man with a small child appeared soon after the curse was placed.