This idea's been gnawing at me for some time now. Inspired by Beauty and the Beast, Stephen King, Shakespeare, as well as the fanfic "Beauty and the Beast" by The Extra. She's a great writer, by the way, so go check her out!

Note: This is set in a fantasy land, but somewhere around the 18th-19th century. Times where carriages and those fancy-froufrou ball gown things still make sense. There will be magic and the like.

Disclaimer: -man does not belong to me. And Kanda says his prayers for that.


"Dark doings in the sleepiest small town loom dire and histrionic as a play."

-Rachel Hadas

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Theirs was a prosperous land, blessed with territory and closeness with the royalty. Businesses were flourishing, crops were sprouting, and crimes were few and far in between. The people were generally nice, the nobility kind, and visitors were welcomed.

It seemed the perfect town, from the jolly gentleman helping his wife out of a carriage to the kindly vendor giving children pieces of candy. It was not a place used to seeing true darkness.

Regardless, myths and legends will always flourish. They show no prejudice; everyone suffers, from the rich to the poor, the kind to the malevolent.

Even the kindest person will fall prey to the darkest sin. It was an addiction—no matter where you go, people will always have stories to tell, skeletons to show. They seemed to have a need to conjure up stories of the dark and foreboding as much as they needed to gossip about the girl who gave birth out of wedlock, or the man who went around with woman after woman, or maybe the family with a history of insanity.

There is a cruel streak in everyone; the question is whether it goes untouched or not. No one may ever know that the young gentleman routinely courts immorality in the form of promiscuous women, or that the kind vendor goes home and drinks and drinks and drinks until he no longer knows whether he is setting fire to the kindling or to his daughter's hand.

Sin is as much a part of humanity as is birth, life and death.

This land was no different.

Every house has dark corners, and within those shadows things best left untouched brewed. Beneath the bubbly cheer and accommodating atmosphere were legends as old as time itself.

And they were true.

+†+

The only myth that people still remember occurred very near here. Amongst the spacious and towering castles of the high nobles was another one, nearly forgotten but no less grand. The tallest part of it was a tower, domed and grey. It was nicknamed the "Tower of Thorns" for the deathly traps nature bestowed on those unfortunate enough to venture near; many a man had fallen prey to them and the gardens were now a mass grave.

Legend tells of a man who resided in that palace, a man so terrifyingly beautiful that it was with no stretch of the imagination that people branded him a demon. A man so deadly that men quivered, children cried, and women fled when they saw him—

—or so the tale goes. There has never been a living person who went there and returned to tell about it. Nonetheless, the stories persisted, the truth warped within them.

He never goes out, they say. He keeps monsters in the dungeons, they whisper. He drinks the blood of virgins, they gasp.

No one remembers who first built that place—for as long as they could remember, it had always been there, a fixture on the border of their happy little town, a blemish they tried to ignore and hide.

And as long as they remembered, the stories have always told of someone who saw a person in there.

No one was foolish enough to venture close to get a good glimpse of the inhabitant, but those courageous enough—or stupid enough—to hover on the border would sometimes see a ghost of a man. They always reported the same inky dark hair and cold, cold eyes. No matter the year, the time, the season; the reports were always the same. It would appear that only one person had lived in that tower.

For centuries.

These stories were always written off as outrageous tales, maybe a result of a children's game of courage or a little too much indulgence the night before. Even so, these sightings were woven into legends.

Their curiosity was not enough to overcome their fear, and so they made up stories. Perhaps he was a wayward traveler who sought solitude. Perchance he was some long-lost prince with amnesia, waiting to be found. Or maybe he was something darker and far more sinister.

Perhaps he wasn't human at all.

The people were content to let things be, and the castle remained a ghost story and a warning; nothing more, nothing less. But no matter what stories spun around it, it stayed off limits. There was a peculiar feeling around the area, and even the most logical townspeople refrained from going near the castle, or even looking at it, if they could help it.

Outwardly, the place looked no different than the kings' and queens'. It was opulent, but not flashily so. It stood tall, but not so tall that it took everyone's attention. Even so, many people found themselves thinking of that tower every now and then, usually on cold, dreary days or on dark nights when thoughts naturally bled into those of the other worldly.

It became a sort of tourist attraction for the town. People would come and ask about the tower, but none dared see it up close. They would stay a ways off, whispering and pointing. It was the town's own little skeleton.

As with everything, age began to dull their memory and washed away at the dark fear, and the story became just that; a myth to tell children for fun, a warning to never go alone into dark places, a legend to lull toddlers to sleep.

Only the oldest residents remembered another part of the story. The deaths and the disappearances.

Every couple of decades or so, a few people would begin to disappear. Eventually, some were recovered, but those who turned up were always dead. Each time it was different—there was no rhyme or reason for the disappearances, and no one had ever found the culprit. This led to yet another fearful discussion of 'that tower' and the powers it held.

Throughout the years, the place had been branded as evil, even if the people no longer remembered the reason why.

All they knew was that they told children to never go there.

Because they might never come out.

+†+

"Brother…?"

"Yes, my dear?"

"…no, never mind. It's nothing."

Lenalee turned towards the window once more, evading her brother's curious and mildly worried gaze. She bit her lip and wondered for the fifth time if she was truly doing the right thing by keeping this from him.

She didn't want to worry him with old wives' tales and make-believe myths, but things were just getting too strange.

She had first come across that tower purely on accident, though lord knows how that happened. The castle wasn't exactly hard to miss, but she found herself beginning to wander on one of her nightly strolls, and before she knew it, the tower loomed before her.

Fear immediately took root, but on its heels followed curiosity. Like others, she had only heard stories of this place and seen it from afar. She, too, knew of the man who supposedly dwelled within its cold walls, never aging and always there, like a malevolent sprite intent on staying. She was terrified out of her wits, and rightfully so. They said that those who approached the tower were never found again, and she half-expected to be stabbed any second now.

She had shaken her head, dismissing the fear as a remnant of childhood. There was no reason to fear tales that had no proof, and who had ever heard of a never-aging man anyway? Demons and sorcerers lived in aged paper, after all.

The fear subsided and Lenalee took a good look at her surroundings. Belatedly, she realized that there were thorns everywhere (and in the back of her mind, she wondered why she hadn't come across any before?)—swathing the edges of the castle, looped around the columns, splayed along the ground; however, they did not look like the fabled bloody barbs that took men's lives.

True, in broad daylight the place looked harmless, even up close. The most foreboding thing about it seemed to be the nest of rats by the wall. She could not say it looked grimy, but it didn't look as if anyone lived in it either.

She craned her neck and, as she expected, the windows remained dark. No head peered out at her, no glowing coal eyes entrapped her in their gaze, and no beast drank her soul or ate her flesh. In the caress of the sun, this place looked exactly as it did; an abandoned castle that was well-preserved by nature.

Curiosity took a hold of her once more and she walked around it once, twice. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and she had even been so bold as to touch the walls. They felt cold and dead.

Smiling slightly, she turned to head back, silently mocking the women who held so much fear and respect for this place.

Halfway down the path, she turned to take a last look at the castle, and her blood froze as the smile melted off her face.

There was a light on in the tower.

Without thinking, she fled, away from the tales and legends that nipped at her feet and back home to the safety of reality.

Once at home in the comfort of her bed, she immediately scolded herself for her foolishness. There couldn't have been a light there. The last time someone had purportedly seen a man in the tower had been over two centuries ago, and no man could possibly live that long. Just a trick of the light, that's all.

She went to sleep restlessly, refusing to entertain the thought that perhaps the man really wasn't human after all.

The second night, she had once again found herself staring at the castle. Her heart drummed against her throat in dismay. She knew she hadn't been headed here—she had been walking the opposite way! The feeling of unease rose, tension showing in the straight line of her body.

This time, she didn't bother playing the inquisitive child—she wanted to run, run away from this place and keep running, running until she could no longer see the peak of the tower. She bit back a cry as a light flashed on in the tower once more, a half-second before she whipped around and bolted.

Her mind blocked out the shadow that had suddenly appeared before the light, a black speck in the cold-gold halo, but far more threatening.

She was not foolish enough to chance a third meeting—that night, she stayed in. She was reassured by Komui's presence, and between the teasing dinner conversations and contorted games of chess, she could almost believe she had dreamed the entire thing.

It had happened again as she sat on the window seat in her room, catching up on her reading. She had glanced outside for a short break and was dismayed to find that from this angle, the tower was perfectly in view.

Grimacing darkly, she refused to back down. In the safe confines of her room, her courage rose. She would not be spooked by what those village women spouted—she wasn't as weak as that. She continued staring, issuing an unvoiced challenge. It was childish, but she couldn't help herself. Believing it was a dream was far easier than accepting that it wasn't.

Minutes passed, and just as she was about to smile in triumph, fears forgotten—

the light shone once more.

Thinking back to it, she felt both silly and afraid. There was no reason to believe in those fairy tales, and yet, there was no other explanation. Who else but the original inhabitant would have the guts to live there? The fact that the light had gone on every time she had been there meant someone was watching and waiting. It seemed as if she had earned some unwanted attention, for reasons unbeknownst to her.

Much as she disliked the theory, the pieces fit—the reason there was a light on, the reason why no matter how long she stared, she never saw anyone go in nor out. The reason why in the ocean between dreaming and waking, she thought she had heard some silky voice whispering her name.

After that third night, she had continued sitting there, waiting and watching out of morbid compulsion. Each time, the light had always appeared.

It was the seventh night now, and she had no doubt that the light would shine once more.

Dread pooled in her stomach. There had been no talk of such occurrences at the Tower of Thorns, and with the kind of gossips that resided here, the only possible reason was that no one else had seen it, save herself.

She could hear her brother bustling about in the next room, and she strengthened her resolve to make no mention of this to him. She had the feeling that there was a reason why the light only appeared for her, and while this greatly troubled her, she didn't want her brother caught up in any of this madness. He had enough to deal with as it is.

Nothing good could come of this. If anything, she was the one who had incurred its wrath, and she would be the one to face it.

Resigned, she felt herself facing the window once more, as if an invisible force compelled her to do so. As expected, there was the light, as bright as ever. Its wispy glow seemed to be beckoning to her. Bleakly, she traced a finger over the frosty glass, staring dully into the brightness that enveloped her whole.

+†+

The room was dark. It was always dark here, no matter the time. Over the years, pain and loneliness had sunk in their ugly fangs and taken over, blanketing everything in a heavy air. He could light all the lamps he wanted and open all the windows, but there was always a looming feeling of darkness and suffocation.

He strode briskly down a long hallway, ignoring the opulence that surrounded him. He had been here too long to appreciate their beauty anymore. They were now merely a reminder of his state. The term 'bird in a gilded cage' had never been more appropriate.

For the seventh night in a row, he made his way to the tower, cloak whispering against the stone steps.

It had been a long time since anyone had dared come this far—this one had even had the audacity to touch his walls.

He felt the beginning of interest prickling at his conscience. It was this feeling that made him go up to the tower every night. Despite having been a part of this castle for as long as he remembered, he had never liked that tower. He had the distinct impression that if he were to stay in there for too long, he would eventually lose the last of himself.

It was only this last chance, this last hope for something he had missed out on that drove him.

He was at the top of the stairs now. Stepping forward, he gazed silently at the large, ornate lantern. Its silver edges flashed and shone, begging to be lit.

It seemed as if he had successfully garnered her attention, and he intended to keep it. He thought with some bleak irony at how the lantern had come to help him so.

The ghost of a smile curved his lips. He stared out at the land, lamp glowing brightly behind him.

.

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And that's chapter 1 for ya! So, how many clichés can Mizu throw into one story? A lot.

Any guesses as to who the man is? (Not that hard, really…)

I hope you guys like it so far! It's hard writing AU -man, and I hope I haven't completely butchered the characters. I actually had this written a while back already, but I kept on re-editing it. If not good, it's at least better than my previous attempts. D: