In a frozen forest of black trees, there stood a castle that had lost all air of jubilation. The tapestries that decorated the stone walls was richly colored and finely woven, and the china that set empty on the grand table every night was elegantly crafted, and yet there were no festivities.

Here lived a dark, lonely knight, handsome but as glacial as the ice that surrounded his estate. He lived with his servants, whom he neither abused nor doted on. Rather, he made very little notice of them at all. No weary pilgrim ever crossed the threshold, nor was any visitor invited in. Such was the way the knight dwelled.

One late winter's night, colder than any that had ever been, there was a knock on his door.

His guardsman had retired for the evening after working through the week with a cold, and so it was by chance that the knight himself was the one to answer the rapping.

On the iced-over floor of his courtyard, an woman was keeled over, barely supporting herself. Her eyes were obscured by the ratty old hood of her traveling cape, but the knight could see the deep wrinkles that gathered around her mouth as she spoke.

"Please, my lord, a night of shelter for a weary traveler."

The knight watched as the beldam reached into her pocket cape and revealed a single white rose. It was in full bloom, lush and still deeply fragrant despite the chill it must have grown in. He had never seen any flower like it.

The beldam held it up to the light. "As payment, my lord."

The knight stared coldly at the woman. "No traveler would trespass onto my estate and be offered residence, especially not for such a pitiful token. Leave at once, or leave by force."

The woman's eyes remained unseen as she wordlessly tucked the rose away and unclasped her cape. When it fell away, what stood there was no beldam. In her place was a lithe, white-skinned creature, too terrifying to be beautiful. Her eyes were black, and it chilled the knight's soul upon realizing that no life reflected in them.

"You have spurned a fairy from your home. For that, there is no Celestial that could help you."

The knight sank to his knees as the fairy's wings unfolded—huge, paper-thin, and butterfly like. She lifted off the ground and smiled sardonically down at the man.

"Oh, but it would hardly be interesting if I just put you away now. There's no sport in that. Rather, my lord, since you are so cold and so lifeless, I might as well do you a favor and make your outside reflect your inside. And your poor servants. You treat them as if they were spirits, thin as air. How will you manage when they have no hands to make your bed, and no legs to run your messages?"

"I—"

The knight's protest turned into a roar of pain as his body turned blisteringly hot, his figure changing and warping. Above the convulsions, he could hear similar cries coming from the castle around him as his servants were cursed as well.

When the ache had finally ended, he weakly pushed himself to his hands, hearing a terrible scraping sound as he did so. The fairy had gone. All that remained of her presence was the white rose, cushioned gently in a small mound of snow. As the knight pressed his palms against the stone floor, he realized that he could no longer feel the fire that had seized his body seconds ago. Neither could he feel the cold of the ice that skid underneath his hand.

With a flash of horror, the young knight realized he could no longer feel anything.


((This was an AU that draws inspiration from Disney's Beauty and the Beast the French 1946 film, as well as the classic French fairy tale.

The title comes from a passage in the classic fairy tale:

Welcome Beauty, banish fear,
You are queen and mistress here.
Speak your wishes, speak your will,
Swift obedience meets them still.

I hope you enjoy this story! Much thanks to Komatsujo and chacusha for reading through the prologue for me.))