A/N: Honestly, I didn't expect to be writing another multi-chapter so quickly, but I was so excited about this AU that I had to write it! Besides from Beauty and the Beast, the other huge inspiration for this story was the short story 'The Courtship of Mr Lyon' which is a Beauty and the Beast retelling by Angela Carter. It really is an amazing, and beautifully written short story! Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this first chapter/prologue and I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thank you for reading!

December 1924

The miserable English winter, and his dreadful, liquor-induced headache had kept Eric in the drawing room all day, recovering from yet another party he couldn't afford. The servants had been sheepish around him; bringing him drinks, his tea, his dinner on a tarnished silver tray and nodding to themselves when they received a callous grunt of apparent gratitude in return. When the house was quiet enough he could overhear them murmuring in the hall, fretting over the expenses, but he was in a too despondent state of mind to get out of his armchair and chastise them. What would be the point? He would only be repeating himself, and being liberal with sharp words was sure to make them dull and blunt. And, he too, had grown unaffected by their polite words of concern.

Whilst organising his latest party at Tenorman Hall, apprehension surrounding the event was like a fever in the servants' quarters. Coarse reprimands proved an effective cure for a while, before Eric decided that ignorance was the best solution. What did they know about throwing parties? Eric was lord of the manor, this is what he was raised to do! When he was a child he had followed his dear mother like an eager little shadow around the house as she finalised the details from everything to intimate dinner parties, to elaborate masked balls sure to fill the society pages of every newspaper in England to the brim. How long ago that seemed, an idyll coated in pollen, a dream coated in dust. A more recent memory floated to the surface of his groggy subconscious; he was stumbling between the murmuring crowds that had gathered in the grand hall the night before, babbling about some fashionable topic, splashes of alcohol leaping from his glass and onto the outfit he had worn for the past four parties. Last night his guests had seemed impressed, charmed, laughing with him. Now he realised they were laughing to placate him, whispering once his back had turned. His guests were so much older than him, friends of his parents who had remembered Tenorman Hall in its prime, the father Eric never had a chance to meet, and he was the eighteen year old barely-adult master of the house, a child king to smile sympathetically at, and an orphan to pity. God, had he actually proposed a toast to his mother again last night? The funeral was eight months ago, it was embarrassing to grieve so publicly for so long.

Eric groaned, and ran his thumb over the bumpy, ornate frame of the mirror in his lap. It had belonged to his mother, and was the only piece of silver in the house that hadn't tarnished. It was if it had absorbed her beauty after years of her staring into its blank, glass face. Eric kept it by his bedside now. He glanced down, and was confronted by his stark reflection. His hair had fallen into his eyes that were framed by purple, exhausted shadows. He felt ashamed that the mirror had fallen into his possession, a disappointing demotion, before he recalled how many times it had reflected his mother's pained eyes, wobbly smile, greying hair, and the house that was already crumbling around them.

Over the sound of the crackling fire he heard a muffled knock at the front door. One of the servants answered it, and Eric could distinguish the voice of the most recent addition to the house; a young man named Leopold, taken on before Eric's mother passed away. A conversation began, but Eric didn't strain his ears to listen to it.

The door to the drawing room creaked open, but Eric didn't look up.

"Master Eric?"

"What?"

"Someone at the door for you, sir," Leopold said. "A, a woman. I don't recognise her…"

"Then tell her to go away," Eric replied, still not looking up. "Tell her I'm not feeling well."

"I told her that, sir, but she won't go," Leopold's voice was starting to strain with panic. "She says it's a matter of urgency."

Eric laughed at that and got up, his limbs aching from sitting in the chair for so long. He stretched his arms and smoothed down his smoking jacket, before striding out of the room. He shoved Leopold aside, but still the shy butler followed him to the front door.

The December chill had drifted into the airy hall, and Eric wrapped his arms around his chest to brace himself from the cold. He winced at the sight of the hag at the door; she wore her shabby shawl pulled up tightly over her head, and her hunched stance and shapeless attire made her appear deformed, hunchbacked. Her skin was ancient and weathered and cataract had glazed over her yellowed eyes. Outside it was starting to snow, and Eric could make out the old woman's horse and cart waiting patiently for her in the distance.

"Well?" he asked. "What do you want?"

"Please, sir, I've been travelling all night, on my way home from market, you see," the hag replied. "It's bitter cold, frozen outside, and it ain't safe for me and my horse on the road! I saw your house and almost wept! Your groundsman, grumpy lad with a funny turn of phrase, was kind enough to let me through the gates, bless his heart! I only hope the master of the house is just as kind! But don't be thinking I expect to stay the night for free! Not that I'm a wealthy woman…"

"Then how do you expect to pay me for my hospitality?" Eric interrupted. The cold was making him impatient.

A wide gummy smile spread across the old woman's face and she reached into her shawl, presenting a beautiful, perfect rose. The scarlet petals were vibrant, almost glowing, in the late evening. Eric glanced at Leopold, and saw he was just as surprised by its quality.

"It ain't much, but it's all I have sir," the old woman explained. "And it's beautiful!"

Slowly, she handed Eric the rose. He examined the gentle curve of the petals, and rolled the stem between his fingers. It was exquisite, but not a worthy payment, and he could hardly afford to keep himself and the servants living here, let alone entertain overnight guests. And why should he let this woman into his house? He owed her nothing, and Tenorman Hall was not open to the public. Not yet, at least. He'd rather die than let that happen.

"A rose!" He exclaimed, throwing the flower on the ground. "That's your payment?"

The old woman clutched her chest, and even Leopold winced beside his master. Mouth agape, the hag glanced between the rose at Eric's feet and his stern face.

"B-b-but I told you sir! It's all I have!"

"And it's worth nothing!" Eric snapped. "Do you really expect me to offer you shelter for a single rose? How dare you assume you have a right to my home! I would never let a penniless, ugly cretin like you step foot in this house! Not even if you offered me all the gold in the world! Now, get out!"

The old woman listened to this calmly, her wrinkled face was not creased by any offence or upset. She seemed detached from Eric's words, and he wondered if she was, in fact, senile. But, suddenly, she began to float. Her feet left the ground and her ragged clothes lifted to reveal pale, bony ankles and wrists. Suspended in the air, and emitting a piercing white light she resembled a Gothic ghoul. Leopold was shaking beside Eric, while Eric stared at her with a combination of disgust and awe, refusing to take his eyes off her. A gasp, like one waking from a bad dream in the middle of the night, echoed through the house. A howling gust of wind rattled the chandelier, and the portraits of forgotten ancestors on the walls. Eric and Leopold backed away and cowered from the terrible sorceress.

Her body twisted and she twirled in the air like unravelling silk, descended like a dove shot out of the sky; anything but human. Yet standing in the doorway now, she was very much a woman, possibly the ultimate, splendid example of humanity. But Eric felt no arousal, no admiration, for she was terrifyingly beautiful. Her shawl had fallen from her head, revealing long black hair that glimmered like spilt ink. Her ivory skin had a glittering, iridescent quality but she cast a prepossessing shadow, she stood taller than Eric now. Despite her height her body was in proportion, and her face was so symmetrical it could have been a mask. Her plump lips were redder than the rose she offered, so red they were almost purple, slabs of juicy meat rather than delicate petals. She could have been a vampire for all Eric knew. Or an Amazon. The long black gown she wore seemed it like it had melded to her unnaturally perfect body, clinging like desperate, pleading fingers to her wide hips. The hem of her dress unfurled like gnarled, wild thorns, like tentacles. The garment – that looked more alive than even she was – reminded Eric of the stoles he had seen draped across the shoulders of the women who had attended his latest party, the fur still plush and soft, when their eyes were very much dead and cold.

"You were foolish to deny me, Eric Cartman," the sorceress said, her voice was low and taut.

"H-h-how?" Eric managed. "How did you know-"

"For a youth I have never met a person so bitter, so resentful, so selfish and unkind," she continued, marching purposefully and slowly over to Eric and choking him in her suffocating gaze. "You live in a superficial world, and now that you have lost everybody you love, you can only take solace in material things. You numb your senses, and spend money you don't have on the company of vacuous and fickle people. These people have ugly, rotten souls. Yet you turn away a stranger in need? When you should be using your wealth – however waning – to help the poor, miserable hag at your door. Do not be deceived by appearances, Eric Cartman."

She extended her long, pale fingers, and although she didn't touch him Eric doubled over. The ache he experienced in his limbs during puberty returned but tenfold, grabbing the muscles in his back and stretching them, pulling them, until he was so hunched over it felt like he would collapse into the floorboards. And he would tunnel like a mole until he was away from Tenorman Hall, free from this torture, or perhaps he would keep falling like Alice into this grotesque Horrorland. He looked at his legs and realised they were growing, and broadening and taking new shape right before his eyes. He heard the seams of his smoking jacket, his trousers, rip, and with the stiches undone he could finally see what he was transforming into. He cried out and tears burned his eyes when long, jagged claws split his fingernails and toenails, tore apart the flesh and rendered his feet and hands paws.

The sorceress stood over Eric, face impassive, bored, as he seethed and sobbed. Fur started to sprout from his follicles, more rapid than Eric had ever seen hair grow, and thick and untamed it wore away the thinning, stretched material of his clothes. Eric heard Leopold shriek beside him, he was too stunned and horrified to do the same. There was a white-hot pain at the centre of his skull, worse than any migraine, and Eric covered his face with his new arms, not wanting to look at the sorceress. It hurt too much. He shivered and whimpered, and the tears clung to his fur-covered face. He tried to cry out, but he roared instead. Bewildered and hysterical, he tried again, but all he could do was roar helplessly.

"Do not lose everything in a greedy attempt to fill the holes in your life with nothing," the sorceress finally spoke. "You must learn to love truly, and become somebody worthy of loving. Take this rose," she picked up the flower and handed it to Eric. He grasped it clumsily in his paw. "You have ten years until the last petal falls. If you do not change your ways, and if you do not find someone who you can love and who will love you in return, you will remain a beast forever."

Eric opened his mouth to scream at her, to curse her, to beg her, but she had already turned away and disappeared. The front door was still open, letting the snow drift into the house. Eric ran to it, peered through the relentless storm to find her horse and cart, and he would go after her, chase her on all fours if he had to, like the animal… the beast… he had become. But he could see nothing but snow flurries. The flakes settled in his fur, joining his dried tears. He threw his head back, and roared once more.