Hello! We are Cat and Bee from RusCanWonderland on Tumblr.
Disclaimers, Notes & Warnings:
We do not own Hetalia or any characters within.
Warnings: REFERENCED BESTIALITY (this is a Beatuy and the Beast AU. What do you expect?) mild verbal abuse, mild violence, reference to hospitalization in a mental institution
Notes: In this reenactment of Beauty and the Beast, Ivan has been transformed into a polar bear instead of a fantasy beast. That being said, there will be a heavy reference to Matthew falling in love with a polar bear. For those of you who cannot handle this, please do not read.
In the year 1890 Czar Ivan Braginski was attending a grand party, celebrating his silver jubilee as sovereign ruler of Russia. Wifeless, childless, cold and with a taste for blood and young boys, it was quite shocking that the man had lived to see his fortieth birthday, much less twenty-five years as Czar without someone assassinating him.
The party had been suitably exciting, with dancing and food and drink to spare. Ladies dressed in their finery, their breasts displayed like white doves in their dresses as they wandered, hoping to catch the eye of some noble or other. Many didn't set their sights high enough to attempt to capture the attention of the Czar himself, as he was busy with smiling frigidly as he toyed with the hair of his servant, who trembled and looked for all the world like he wished to turn his face away.
But the monstrously huge man was nothing if possessive and those violet eyes were cold enough without anger behind them. He looked like some sort of giant from a fairy tale legend, towering over the other people, his entire body wrapped in an elaborate ice blue coat, dripping with silver adornments and lined with enough white fur to keep him warm in the cold wasteland outside. His black hair was slightly mussed, his silver and sapphire crown perched on his head, despite the discomfort it caused him. He moved with the terrifying grace of some great predator as he led the trembling little manservant towards the entrance of the ballroom, his intentions to the poor boy bright in those unearthly eyes, none brave enough to stop his movements for the sake of propriety or even the boy himself.
But one woman did step forward to stop the man, hunched and gnarled, her finger held out to point at the Czar. "You take this poor boy to warm your bed? Yet your heart is frozen, Ivan. As desolate and cold as Russia itself." The man frowned and stood as the music stuttered to a halt, looking over the elderly woman still dressed in the finery of the court, stopping just in front of her.
"Who are you?" The man snarled, pushing his coat back slightly to rest his hand on the pommel of his sword, looking like he fully considered cutting her down where she stood.
"Who I am doesn't matter." The woman grinned, showing off gapped teeth and blackened gums. "But I am your reckoning."
"Insolent sow." The man snapped, his hand shooting out to strike her, only for the limb to be lifted to sheild his eyes when a blinding light erupted from the woman's eyes.
She grew taller than any human, taller than the Czar himself, her robes billowing out about her as her voice, layered and echoing, filled the ballroom over the screams and cries of alarm from the party-goers. Her eyes directed the firey light of judgement and justice down on the man, beginning to speak as the man howled and roared in pain.
"There is nothing but ice and cruelty in your heart. And for that you might have once been killed. But I shall make you suffer more than that while offering you a chance at redemption."
Bone snapped and people watched in horror as their Czar fell to his knees, his black hair turning silvery white, covering his head and face, hands and back as the burning agony of his transformation sent him sprawling on the floor.
"You shall be given twenty-five years, in the form of a beast, not to age in those years. If you cannot find one that you could honestly love, and who can love you for who you are, in that twenty-fifth year your spell will be sealed and you shall spend eternity as a beast."
The Czar roared in rage, violet eyes wide as his bones cracked and snapped and reformed, his form gaining more mass in a matter of moments, everything aching as he screamed and the sound turned to a bear's roar, his body rearing up on hind legs as he roared into the air, holding up his paws and watching as the witch, fairy, enchantress, lifted her hands and gave a wave to the crowd around her.
There was an explosion of heat and the people screamed in terror as they burst into corpses burned from the force of the magic, nothing but ash and brittle, blackened bones.
The spell launched outwards from there, the palace's rose garden stretching and surrounding the entire gate until there was only one entrance in and out, forced closed by the branches of the rose trees, the peasantry surrounding the palace screaming as they stared out at the blinding light that emanated like a second sun from the palace, shouting for the police, for soldiers as they pointed to the horrifying sight of the palace becoming decrepit before their very eyes, the roars of a monstrous animal filling their ears as they watched.
And the rage of the last Czar of Russia gave out slowly as the years passed, the words of the enchantress' spell ringing through the beast's ears as he survived and hid within his palace.
The rage was replaced with even more ice and cold and a new loneliness that hadn't been present before and the man turned monster resigned himself to the fact that he would forever remain as he was.
For who could ever learn to love a beast?
It was a brisk February in 1914, and Francis Bonnefoy was nearly broke.
A crippled ballet dancer that had lost most of his fortune over the years, the man had little to support his own lavish lifestyle, much less the young son still training in ballet dormitories of the Paris Opera theatre. Yet he tried not to think of that as he pulled a long drag from a cigarette, laughing with the rather wealthy Mademoiselle Marianne and her mother, Madame Marie Gabrielle, in a small restaurant, his own son perched beside him in the height of French fashion as they listened to the young woman's account of how she had visited Russia on her mother's behest, the past month spent in a miserable empty palace in what she had finally come to realize must have been a joke on the behalf of the Russian government.
"There was nothing but tattered drapes, the food went rotten within hours after cooking it and I swear there was some sort of wild animal milling about the entire time. Whatever reward they're offering for whatever task they refuse to reveal was certainly not worth those disgusting conditions." The young girl's lips pursed in a pretty little pout, her lips pinkened by paint and her cheeks rouged delicately. Her breasts were proudly on display and every so often Francis allowed himself to flick his gaze down to them, when the attention was focused on their drinks or the madame at the table.
"Hmph, not as if that country can afford many jokes so there must be a handsome reward." Francis smirked around his cigarette before letting out a puff of smoke, his perfume would cover up the fumes nicely, the delicate rose scent soaked through all of his clothing and dabbed through his skin and hair as well. "That Lenin character might put a stop to these little trips that foreigners can make into Russia, ever since the government changed to that communist travesty they've been even more tight-lipped about why they need to import young people and then just toss them back."
Madame Marie Gabrielle nodded and hummed as she shifted. "They've been becoming more selective too." The woman smirked. "If you can't buy your way in they don't give you a second glance." She was an attractive woman, about Francis' age, but she had aged decidedly less gracefully than the man. She would flutter her eyes at him every so often and perhaps he should show more interest back, but she wasn't quite his taste either.
Matthew had been on these outings with his father for almost as long as he could remember. His mother had came from overseas, somewhere in the America's, Francis never did say from where, and had met his father during their time in the Opera. Francis was a young, aspiring dancer, almost androgynous enough to pass as either male or female, and his mother, a short, charmingly curvy thing that climbed the cat walks better than any man and painted backdrops and sets that were triple her size.
She courted him, no matter what Francis had to say, and through fate and an awful lot of good persuasion, they fell in love, married even, and had a son. No one doted over the child more than the proud mother did, and for once, nothing had made Francis more happy than his wife and child.
But of course, as the former dancer would still lament today, that nothing happy and wonderful lasts forever. She had died in the early morning one winter, defeated by a sickness that stole her pretty curves and warm glow. She had never stopped smiling though death had lingered for months, but the moment Francis had seen her smile fade for the last time, hope and joy seemed to fade with her.
His focus on dance dwindled, and during a fateful performance, his career was virtually over. Former instructors felt badly for him and offered him the opportunity to teach, but he made the deal that when his son became of age to enter the ballet dormitories, he would be allowed in without question.
Matthew, in turn, had known nothing else.
His features; his father's charming, graceful beauty, and his mother's sweet, round and warm appearance, left him looking even more the part of angelic dancer than his father ever had. Francis, quietly envious of his son, had spent the majority of his fortune on surrounding himself in things that would make him happy; lavish clothes, exquisite meals, and sparkling jewels that he'd wear in hopes of attracting a naive, rich dame that would share her marvelous fortune with him in exchange for him to share her bed; while Matthew grew up among hopeful girls and a few boys that knew little more than jete's, plies, and pirouettes.
He enjoyed dance, really, he did, but more often than not he found himself dreaming of lands he feared he'd never get to see other than in pictures or wondering what it was like to have a day not full of tireless rehearsals and to spend a night not lonely and cold in his issued bed. The only times he got to go out on the allowed days of rest were with his father to these luncheons or dinners that he was dressed up and put on display like a doll as Francis attempted to charm and bewitch a potential wife with a hefty bank account.
With most of these outings, Matthew didn't pay much attention to the idle chit chat that passed between pretty lips and smiling eyes. It was all fake and painfully polite and Matthew had heard these conversations time and time again. Usually, he'd sneak books to the table that he would place in his lap and read, most of the time unnoticed by everyone in attendance. Today, Francis had caught on early, and Matthew's beloved fairy tale was held aside and he was forced to at least pretend he was paying attention.
When the conversation turned towards the legend of the Czar in the frozen palace, desolate and alone and heavy with rumors, Matthew peered up, suddenly interested. He didn't understand the intense commodity with going and attempting to live alone, with or without a mysterious beast, in order to receive some sort of otherworldly prize. Most of Europe was treating the idea of going to this palace as a glamorous affair; romantic and gossiped about.
But if the only candidates that were allowed into the palace now were those that could afford it, Matthew feared that the entire situation had just become an attraction. Clearing his throat in thought, he gave his cooling tea a little swirl with a small silver spoon, as he felt his father's eyes flicker over to him.
"….perhaps the prize was at the expense of those stupid enough to buy into their legend. No real fairy tale like they say this is charges the heroine to fall in love with the prince," he hummed, earning a glare from the young Mademoiselle across from him. Matthew met the look with level calm as he took a sip of his drink and ignored the slight nudge from his father's elbow.
"Besides, doesn't the rumors say that the Czar supposedly fancies males?"
"Perhaps you should go and attempt to charm a fortune out of him?" The Madame laughed softly, perhaps only in jest, or perhaps not. "Such a horrible scandal, and no one ever questioned his preferences."
"Supposedly he was terrifying even before he was locked up." Marianne pointed out. "Now he's probably wallowing in that horrible palace, disgusting and old." The girl took another delicate sip of her tea.
Matthew frowned softly, a delicate furrow of his eyebrows that may or may not have tinted his eyes a darker shade of blue as the corner of his mouth down turned softly. "I don't suppose you would look as lovely as a rose if you were cursed and left alone in the cold for 25 years…'"Matthew lightly fussed back, earning himself a glare from his father.
"No one is unhappy without reason," he added, uncaring if the impression he was leaving of himself on the two women was unpleasant. They didn't have to put up with Matthew should a faux romance commence, only Francis. "And you cannot tell me that you wouldn't be wallowing in loneliness if you were so unlucky to have received the awful fate he has. It's cruel to make fun of him for it."
"If there's any merit to the rumors then he deserves to be lonely and cold." Marianne pointed out, only for her mother's eyes to light up as she placed a hand on Francis' sleeve.
"Oh, Francis! Why don't I pay for Matthew to go? It would be a lovely trip even with the plight of having to stay in that palace." The woman smiled at the boy. "And who knows, maybe the man would like the company of a handsome young boy?"
Francis looked slightly stunned and conflicted as he looked from the woman to his son then back to her. "How generous, Madame."
"Nonsense, you don't have the money to send him, and the poor boy could use a break from the dormitories anyway." The woman smiled and beamed at Matthew. "And such fire might be appreciated in Russia."