Transformation: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
Author's Note: I'm back from vacation. Thank you everybody who's been reviewing my story. I've changed the prologue which is now chapter one instead. You might want to read it too, cuz it's a little bit different. I've got chapter two written and posted. I'm so happy. I've finished that. I've been busy, and now there's the worry of school starting, but I'll try to keep up with the story. Please enjoy the story and remember to read and review!
Chapter One: The Tale of the Enchantment
A hand larger than the average hand reached for the book resting on the gray shelf that was sprinkled with dust and strewn with cobwebs. The hand bore faint resemblance to a human one as coarse fur concealed the skin beneath, and nails too long and too sharp to be normal extended out of the fingertips. The book fell out of its secured place and into the reaching hands. The book was bound in leather, giving an old, aging look to its cover, but as he flipped through the yellowing pages, the words that were magically transcribed stood out in bold black ink. It did not seem so long ago. He flipped backwards until he reached the second page. He already knew the first page, a short history about a king, and detested reading it again. His eyes were still sharp, and he read the miniscule writing by the light of the melting candle sitting on his desk.
***
The people were afraid; they feared for their lives, their villages, and their children. The king had to be stopped. He could not go on with his warmongering attitude; he could not find reason to shed blood over the littlest incidents. He could not lead the country into a war that would surely end in land flooding with spilt blood. The king was a danger, to himself and his country. He would have to be deposed of his throne. The people hesitated to arm themselves with weapons for they refused to be hypocrites, for how could they kill when they disliked the king killing others? They gathered in a hushed group and summoned the most powerful of them all. They sent forth the witch woman Anessa to curb the king's love of the hunt, obsession for flowing blood.
And so she went. She did not arrive in splendor at the king's castle with a chariot of flaming horses, streaming white hair, and eyes only too happy to perform such a spell. She entered the throne room wearing frayed patchwork clothing after two hours of riding on a borrowed brown horse. Living under the reign of such a hard king had turned her face gaunt and as white as a bone picked clean. She did not want to depose the king, but if his throne was empty, perhaps the country would have a chance to prosper.
The king received his visitor and was disgusted by the pale coloring of her face, her limp faded brown hair, and the hollow eyes that stared at him. She, in turn, noted that the king was young, early twenties, much too young to be such an evil tyrant, but evil never minded whose head it settled into. He was the embodiment of perfection. Golden hair that shone un-streaked, cobalt blue eyes that showed nothing but superficiality and a thick block of ice that could not be melted. He was tall and adorned with heavy gold jewelry and luxuriant velvet, and with his golden scepter in his hand, he looked very kingly and just. But he was not just and was not apt enough to be king. A man like him was barbarian, and could only belong in the North with the barbarians, but here he was, a kingdom ruled under his hand, and the heads of thousands rolling at his feet.
"Speak," he commanded, and she spoke. She spoke of his lust for blood and the hazard it was to the country and to him, and how it must be contained or stopped altogether. He could only look amused and deny her request. Loosing herself in her rage, the simple spell vanished from her mind and was remade into an enormous redemption plot.
"You are a miserable monster," the witch snarled, her knobby arms in the air showing her rage. "Have you no care for what becomes of your lands and people?"
The king was nonchalant; one foot tapped the ground, sending rhythm echoing through the throne room. He looked bemused; he studied the cuticles of his carefully groomed fingers. "I am the king, and I shall do what gives me pleasure, and no one shall say otherwise." His face did not turn. His cold cobalt blue eyes stared down at the woman. "Guards, take her away from my presence."
Four burly guards emerged from the king's side, and one grasped the woman's bony wrist. "Right away, your majesty. This worthless piece of pond scum will be gone."
But the woman yanked her wrist away, angrily. "You may call me pond scum, but the true pond scum is you! You may be a king with your endless wealth and pretty face, but you are nothing more than a monster. A true beast. I curse you. I curse you and your servants and your castle and your land. You are what you are. A monster, a beast, and so be it. By my will, no one and nothing will ever see you more than a beast. But," the woman added, her mouth twisting into a smile, "you shall be able to see yourself as human. Your hands shall be human to you, but to others who shake it, it will be the hands, or shall I say claws, of a monster. Mirrors will reflect your monstrosity and shatter from your ugliness! And with that, o king, my curse is complete." The woman's tone rang with triumph and hatred, and the guards trembled at the knees. Only one person stood undaunted; it was the king.
"Rubbish," he said rising from his magnificent throne. "Filth. Garbage." He laughed, and his laughter bounced off the pillars, magnified. "I must say, old woman, you will have to try harder. I have commoners in rags by the dozen who yell curses and cusses. At least yours is original. The others say 'A plague on you, you spiteful king. May you die before sunrise' or 'May your skin break out in boils' or 'May God strike you down with lightening' and other nonsense. I am not afraid of you, but you should be afraid of me. . . Bow down to me," he commanded with sudden vehemence. He was now an arm's length away from her. "Bow down to me, old woman," he demanded once more.
The woman was far from old. She may have been in her late twenties. Despite her sagging face, her eyes were strong. She held the king's gaze, black eyes glaring into ice. He was the first to drop his eyes. She spat in his face. Shocked, the king lifted one velvet sleeve to wipe off the clear saliva that dripped down his cheek. His face flamed red.
"Guards," he commanded, his voice shaking with unrestrained fury. "Put this despicable thing in the dungeons where she belongs." He addressed the woman. "For your curses and your rudeness, you shall be beheaded. Let that be a lesson to you, although too late to be undone."
"Yes," she breathed, her voice spitting out venom. "Let that be a lesson to you, too late to be undone. I had given you a second chance, but you did not take it." She raised a hand to the sky and twisted her wrist stiffly. "And it is done." Her voice was soft and calm and eerie.
The king laughed forcefully. "You have done nothing to me. You can do nothing to me. You have thought to curse me in my own ground. Here in this castle, I am king, and you are nothing but a peasant. You should not have forgotten your place for you will die now."
The woman smiled grimly. "You think I have done nothing, but that is my curse. Everything around you sees and senses you for the beastly thing you are. Listen to your voice. Can you not hear your growl? Look at your hands. Can you not see the illusions they are?"
The king opened his mouth to hiss, but all that escaped was a low growl. It was definitely not human. The guards backed away nervously, staring at the fearsome thing that had been their king. The king caught the fear in his guards' eyes. He stretched his hands out before him and flexed. His fingers looked human, but when he ran a hand over the other, he felt only the rough hairs of an animal and the sharp claws of a beast. He dashed to the mirror that lay on his throne. Hands that looked human clumsily grasped the mirror handle. He only saw his reflection for an instance before the glass shattered, spraying his neck. He brushed off the glass particles off his neck. He did not feel smooth skin, but hair the rough texture that lay over his hands. He could not see fur, but he felt it there. He had seen his reflection, if only for a moment, and he knew.
"What have you done to me?" he snarled, aghast, remembering the beastly face.
"You know what I have done," replied the woman. She shook her head at the four guards that were trying to creep out of the castle. "You cannot get away. I have cursed your king, the castle and the land. Now it is your turn for enchantment." Her wrist twisted slightly as she grasped an invisible force of power. The guards froze in the blinding light. When the light had receded, they had disappeared. Along the wall appeared four new hideously-disfigured stone statutes.
"Where are they?" whispered the king. "What have you done?"
"I've condemned them to life as stone statues. I think I shall have my servants, the sylphs, serve here. They are loyal to me, but they shall also pledge their loyalty to you. They will wait on you as your own servants have done. But, unlike your servants, they are not malicious nor corruptible." The woman gave a distorted smile. "You are still king, o mighty beast. But what will do you have now? You cannot control the commoner's lives any more. They shall live in more peace than you could give. They shall prosper, while you despair. You, your servants, and your miserable castle shall despair."
"How can this curse end?" cried the king desperately. He cried, but he heard his own pained growl with his ears. He winced.
"Oh yes," mused the woman. "Every curse must be able to be undone; every enchantment must be breakable." She clasped her fingers together and thought. "Your enchantment, my horrid beast, shall be undone when you learn pity and heart-wrenching sorrow; when you learn compassion and true love. But that's not all. I cannot make it too easy for you, your majesty. If you love, your love must be returned. And this must be true love, where sacrifices will be made. Only then shall this castle and land and its inhabitants be restored to their natural form. But here's the catch. You may not tell anyone about the enchantment; it is forbidden."
"But who can love the beast you have made me into!" raged the king, his deep voice reverberating.
"But who could love the beast you were?" she asked mockingly.
The beast did not answer.
"I have not made you into a beast," she said. "I have just made your inside appearance lap over to your physical one. No one made you into a beast. You did that part yourself."
"The curse will be impossible to break. No one will see past this," he protested, casting a hand out to the side. It looked human, but he knew it was the paw of an animal.
"You will be surprised," answered the woman, "There are girls out there who are not only skin deep. You shall see. But of course, it may take a while, centuries perhaps." She smiled again and continued, "After all, you said yourself, 'Who indeed could love a beast?"'
***
He shut the book without exerting fury. There was a time when he had wished to tear the pages of the book out, and had tried to do so. But the magical nature of the book was stronger than his strength, and no matter how he tried to dispose of it, it could never be undone. The book had been a parting gift from the witch woman who had cursed him; it was intended to record down his doings for her and him to both read. How she could read the book was beyond him. He had not seen her ever since that fateful day almost two decades ago, and if she had chosen to show her face to him once more, he did not think even what little humanity had so far been returned to him could stop him from eating her. He supposed that he should be grateful to her that at least he did not age. His illusory hands were still the hands of a twenty-year-old king, not the hands of a withering forty-year-old. But he could not force gratitude out of himself.
A slight wind chilled him. He knew without turning that one of the sylphs had come to bother him. By the sound of the cool voice that cut through the air, he knew it could only be Sibyl. Sibyl the sylph was tall and slender and entirely composed of frosty air. She extended one airy arm and laid her cold hand on his shoulder. He turned.
"I see you are reading the book again." That was all she said.
"So?" He was sulking again. "I've read it backward and forward, and only half of that book has been filled. There's no hints, no secret messages. There's nothing that can tell me what will happen in the end. How can this be a book if there is no ending?"
"The ending hasn't come about," said Sibyl gently. "This story ends when you have redeemed yourself and have been reverted back to human form or when you realize you are doomed to be nothing but a beast and take your life. I do not suggest doing the latter of the two. It has been almost twenty years - less I think; there is time; be patient. Someone's coming."
It was very much like Sibyl to end their conversation with an oracular note. True to her name, she was indeed a prophetess. Something's coming, thought the Beast. Something, no, someone is coming. Sibyl had never been wrong before; she could not be wrong now.
He eagerly leafed through the pages until he arrived at the last page opposite a blank one. In freshly written ink were two words that glared at him in the waning candlelight: Someone's coming. The words seem to tease him, wink at him, bait him - and he stared stonily at it until they faded into the page and disappeared. The page was left as it had originally been. If the sylph predicted it and that wretched witch woman had written it, someone indeed must be coming. But who? Who on earth could get so lost that he or she would wind up at his castle's door?
Author's Note: I'm back from vacation. Thank you everybody who's been reviewing my story. I've changed the prologue which is now chapter one instead. You might want to read it too, cuz it's a little bit different. I've got chapter two written and posted. I'm so happy. I've finished that. I've been busy, and now there's the worry of school starting, but I'll try to keep up with the story. Please enjoy the story and remember to read and review!
Chapter One: The Tale of the Enchantment
A hand larger than the average hand reached for the book resting on the gray shelf that was sprinkled with dust and strewn with cobwebs. The hand bore faint resemblance to a human one as coarse fur concealed the skin beneath, and nails too long and too sharp to be normal extended out of the fingertips. The book fell out of its secured place and into the reaching hands. The book was bound in leather, giving an old, aging look to its cover, but as he flipped through the yellowing pages, the words that were magically transcribed stood out in bold black ink. It did not seem so long ago. He flipped backwards until he reached the second page. He already knew the first page, a short history about a king, and detested reading it again. His eyes were still sharp, and he read the miniscule writing by the light of the melting candle sitting on his desk.
***
The people were afraid; they feared for their lives, their villages, and their children. The king had to be stopped. He could not go on with his warmongering attitude; he could not find reason to shed blood over the littlest incidents. He could not lead the country into a war that would surely end in land flooding with spilt blood. The king was a danger, to himself and his country. He would have to be deposed of his throne. The people hesitated to arm themselves with weapons for they refused to be hypocrites, for how could they kill when they disliked the king killing others? They gathered in a hushed group and summoned the most powerful of them all. They sent forth the witch woman Anessa to curb the king's love of the hunt, obsession for flowing blood.
And so she went. She did not arrive in splendor at the king's castle with a chariot of flaming horses, streaming white hair, and eyes only too happy to perform such a spell. She entered the throne room wearing frayed patchwork clothing after two hours of riding on a borrowed brown horse. Living under the reign of such a hard king had turned her face gaunt and as white as a bone picked clean. She did not want to depose the king, but if his throne was empty, perhaps the country would have a chance to prosper.
The king received his visitor and was disgusted by the pale coloring of her face, her limp faded brown hair, and the hollow eyes that stared at him. She, in turn, noted that the king was young, early twenties, much too young to be such an evil tyrant, but evil never minded whose head it settled into. He was the embodiment of perfection. Golden hair that shone un-streaked, cobalt blue eyes that showed nothing but superficiality and a thick block of ice that could not be melted. He was tall and adorned with heavy gold jewelry and luxuriant velvet, and with his golden scepter in his hand, he looked very kingly and just. But he was not just and was not apt enough to be king. A man like him was barbarian, and could only belong in the North with the barbarians, but here he was, a kingdom ruled under his hand, and the heads of thousands rolling at his feet.
"Speak," he commanded, and she spoke. She spoke of his lust for blood and the hazard it was to the country and to him, and how it must be contained or stopped altogether. He could only look amused and deny her request. Loosing herself in her rage, the simple spell vanished from her mind and was remade into an enormous redemption plot.
"You are a miserable monster," the witch snarled, her knobby arms in the air showing her rage. "Have you no care for what becomes of your lands and people?"
The king was nonchalant; one foot tapped the ground, sending rhythm echoing through the throne room. He looked bemused; he studied the cuticles of his carefully groomed fingers. "I am the king, and I shall do what gives me pleasure, and no one shall say otherwise." His face did not turn. His cold cobalt blue eyes stared down at the woman. "Guards, take her away from my presence."
Four burly guards emerged from the king's side, and one grasped the woman's bony wrist. "Right away, your majesty. This worthless piece of pond scum will be gone."
But the woman yanked her wrist away, angrily. "You may call me pond scum, but the true pond scum is you! You may be a king with your endless wealth and pretty face, but you are nothing more than a monster. A true beast. I curse you. I curse you and your servants and your castle and your land. You are what you are. A monster, a beast, and so be it. By my will, no one and nothing will ever see you more than a beast. But," the woman added, her mouth twisting into a smile, "you shall be able to see yourself as human. Your hands shall be human to you, but to others who shake it, it will be the hands, or shall I say claws, of a monster. Mirrors will reflect your monstrosity and shatter from your ugliness! And with that, o king, my curse is complete." The woman's tone rang with triumph and hatred, and the guards trembled at the knees. Only one person stood undaunted; it was the king.
"Rubbish," he said rising from his magnificent throne. "Filth. Garbage." He laughed, and his laughter bounced off the pillars, magnified. "I must say, old woman, you will have to try harder. I have commoners in rags by the dozen who yell curses and cusses. At least yours is original. The others say 'A plague on you, you spiteful king. May you die before sunrise' or 'May your skin break out in boils' or 'May God strike you down with lightening' and other nonsense. I am not afraid of you, but you should be afraid of me. . . Bow down to me," he commanded with sudden vehemence. He was now an arm's length away from her. "Bow down to me, old woman," he demanded once more.
The woman was far from old. She may have been in her late twenties. Despite her sagging face, her eyes were strong. She held the king's gaze, black eyes glaring into ice. He was the first to drop his eyes. She spat in his face. Shocked, the king lifted one velvet sleeve to wipe off the clear saliva that dripped down his cheek. His face flamed red.
"Guards," he commanded, his voice shaking with unrestrained fury. "Put this despicable thing in the dungeons where she belongs." He addressed the woman. "For your curses and your rudeness, you shall be beheaded. Let that be a lesson to you, although too late to be undone."
"Yes," she breathed, her voice spitting out venom. "Let that be a lesson to you, too late to be undone. I had given you a second chance, but you did not take it." She raised a hand to the sky and twisted her wrist stiffly. "And it is done." Her voice was soft and calm and eerie.
The king laughed forcefully. "You have done nothing to me. You can do nothing to me. You have thought to curse me in my own ground. Here in this castle, I am king, and you are nothing but a peasant. You should not have forgotten your place for you will die now."
The woman smiled grimly. "You think I have done nothing, but that is my curse. Everything around you sees and senses you for the beastly thing you are. Listen to your voice. Can you not hear your growl? Look at your hands. Can you not see the illusions they are?"
The king opened his mouth to hiss, but all that escaped was a low growl. It was definitely not human. The guards backed away nervously, staring at the fearsome thing that had been their king. The king caught the fear in his guards' eyes. He stretched his hands out before him and flexed. His fingers looked human, but when he ran a hand over the other, he felt only the rough hairs of an animal and the sharp claws of a beast. He dashed to the mirror that lay on his throne. Hands that looked human clumsily grasped the mirror handle. He only saw his reflection for an instance before the glass shattered, spraying his neck. He brushed off the glass particles off his neck. He did not feel smooth skin, but hair the rough texture that lay over his hands. He could not see fur, but he felt it there. He had seen his reflection, if only for a moment, and he knew.
"What have you done to me?" he snarled, aghast, remembering the beastly face.
"You know what I have done," replied the woman. She shook her head at the four guards that were trying to creep out of the castle. "You cannot get away. I have cursed your king, the castle and the land. Now it is your turn for enchantment." Her wrist twisted slightly as she grasped an invisible force of power. The guards froze in the blinding light. When the light had receded, they had disappeared. Along the wall appeared four new hideously-disfigured stone statutes.
"Where are they?" whispered the king. "What have you done?"
"I've condemned them to life as stone statues. I think I shall have my servants, the sylphs, serve here. They are loyal to me, but they shall also pledge their loyalty to you. They will wait on you as your own servants have done. But, unlike your servants, they are not malicious nor corruptible." The woman gave a distorted smile. "You are still king, o mighty beast. But what will do you have now? You cannot control the commoner's lives any more. They shall live in more peace than you could give. They shall prosper, while you despair. You, your servants, and your miserable castle shall despair."
"How can this curse end?" cried the king desperately. He cried, but he heard his own pained growl with his ears. He winced.
"Oh yes," mused the woman. "Every curse must be able to be undone; every enchantment must be breakable." She clasped her fingers together and thought. "Your enchantment, my horrid beast, shall be undone when you learn pity and heart-wrenching sorrow; when you learn compassion and true love. But that's not all. I cannot make it too easy for you, your majesty. If you love, your love must be returned. And this must be true love, where sacrifices will be made. Only then shall this castle and land and its inhabitants be restored to their natural form. But here's the catch. You may not tell anyone about the enchantment; it is forbidden."
"But who can love the beast you have made me into!" raged the king, his deep voice reverberating.
"But who could love the beast you were?" she asked mockingly.
The beast did not answer.
"I have not made you into a beast," she said. "I have just made your inside appearance lap over to your physical one. No one made you into a beast. You did that part yourself."
"The curse will be impossible to break. No one will see past this," he protested, casting a hand out to the side. It looked human, but he knew it was the paw of an animal.
"You will be surprised," answered the woman, "There are girls out there who are not only skin deep. You shall see. But of course, it may take a while, centuries perhaps." She smiled again and continued, "After all, you said yourself, 'Who indeed could love a beast?"'
***
He shut the book without exerting fury. There was a time when he had wished to tear the pages of the book out, and had tried to do so. But the magical nature of the book was stronger than his strength, and no matter how he tried to dispose of it, it could never be undone. The book had been a parting gift from the witch woman who had cursed him; it was intended to record down his doings for her and him to both read. How she could read the book was beyond him. He had not seen her ever since that fateful day almost two decades ago, and if she had chosen to show her face to him once more, he did not think even what little humanity had so far been returned to him could stop him from eating her. He supposed that he should be grateful to her that at least he did not age. His illusory hands were still the hands of a twenty-year-old king, not the hands of a withering forty-year-old. But he could not force gratitude out of himself.
A slight wind chilled him. He knew without turning that one of the sylphs had come to bother him. By the sound of the cool voice that cut through the air, he knew it could only be Sibyl. Sibyl the sylph was tall and slender and entirely composed of frosty air. She extended one airy arm and laid her cold hand on his shoulder. He turned.
"I see you are reading the book again." That was all she said.
"So?" He was sulking again. "I've read it backward and forward, and only half of that book has been filled. There's no hints, no secret messages. There's nothing that can tell me what will happen in the end. How can this be a book if there is no ending?"
"The ending hasn't come about," said Sibyl gently. "This story ends when you have redeemed yourself and have been reverted back to human form or when you realize you are doomed to be nothing but a beast and take your life. I do not suggest doing the latter of the two. It has been almost twenty years - less I think; there is time; be patient. Someone's coming."
It was very much like Sibyl to end their conversation with an oracular note. True to her name, she was indeed a prophetess. Something's coming, thought the Beast. Something, no, someone is coming. Sibyl had never been wrong before; she could not be wrong now.
He eagerly leafed through the pages until he arrived at the last page opposite a blank one. In freshly written ink were two words that glared at him in the waning candlelight: Someone's coming. The words seem to tease him, wink at him, bait him - and he stared stonily at it until they faded into the page and disappeared. The page was left as it had originally been. If the sylph predicted it and that wretched witch woman had written it, someone indeed must be coming. But who? Who on earth could get so lost that he or she would wind up at his castle's door?