Chapter 1

Three things in the human life are important: the first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind – Henry James

Once upon a time, there was a spoiled young man by the name of Torin. He had curly brown hair, ice-blue eyes, and his parents were extremely wealthy. Some even said that they were related by blood to a king and queen who sent them more riches every month. Because of Torin's wealthy background, he had everything that he could have ever wished for. Despite these treasures, he was always demanding more. It seemed that, the more treasures he accumulated, the more miserable he became.

There had been a curse put on his family many years before. It was taboo to speak of such things in those days, so by the time two generations had passed no one remembered the rules or consequences of the enchantment. Servants of the family would talk about it late at night when they were sure no one could overhear them, speculating that it had something to do with kindness, or something of the like.

Eventually, Torin's father died in an accident on the rode, and his mother died the next year of a broken heart. Naturally, they left everything to their only son, and Torin soon found himself owner of a large estate. He had a lovely castle, a large area of land with beautiful rose gardens, and about fifty servants to carry out his every wish.

The servants knew that he had been a terrible child, but that was nothing compared to the way he treated them as their master. He paid them next to nothing and stopped looking after their living spaces and food. Servants began to fall ill because of their terrible living conditions. Those who could afford to leave did, and those who didn't suffered all the more.

That's when the enchantment began to set in. There were little things at first – he began to grow facial hair more thickly than before, and his clothes started to get a little tighter on him. His finger and toenails started to grow faster and his teeth started to feel strange, like they didn't fit in his mouth anymore.

The prince took no notice of these things at first – Torin brushed it off as a minor illness, or a sign that he should lay off the wine. But as his servants began to suffer more, so did he. Hair began to thicken not only on his face, but on his arms, legs and… well, everywhere. Torin could have sworn that he grew at least two inches overnight, and his back began to curve. His teeth began to sharpen, so much that he started to cut his tongue and cheeks whenever he ate something. His jaw began to widen, his hairline started to take up more and more of his forehead…

One morning, Torin woke up, feeling out of sorts. He looked in the mirror, but what he saw wasn't human. Torin had changed from a man to a beast.

He refused to leave his room for almost a week after that, so he was never able to witness what was going on outside his room. With no master to order them around, all but two servants left for good, hoping they could find employment elsewhere. The two that stayed began to feel strange, and soon the enchantment had affected them as well.

The castle, for its part, was also changed by the curse. Every so often it would re-arrange itself, and on nights where the moon was new and couldn't be seen, certain objects came to life.

When Torin finally left his room, he was nothing like his old self. He was a strange creature, covered entirely with coarse brown fur. He had ears and a tail like a wolf's, a snout and paws like a lion and the shaggy arms and legs of a bear. His head was like a bears, but he had thick, twisted horns like a demon.

His two servants, unfortunately, weren't lucky enough to have changed into something visible. They had lost all solidity, and at first it was all they could do to blow about and cause minor stirring like the wind. It took two months for them to learn how to gather enough strength to do simple tasks like dusting and making beds, and by then the castle was in ruins.

Torin tried to be kind to his remaining servants in hopes of reversing the effects of the curse, but it was too late. Days stretched into months and months became years, stinging themselves into decades. In horror, Torin discovered that he didn't age, which meant that he was stuck in this monstrous form. His only way to escape would be to break the spell, but as far as he knew there was no way to remove the enchantment.

He would be stuck as a beast for the rest of eternity.

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Hello there, everyone out there in fanfiction world. I started writting this when I was about... fourteen... and now I'm editting and finishing it. Please let me know if you like it and if you think I should continue it.

Also, I'm going give you the songs that I listen to to inspire me while I write as a kind of soundtrack. If you want, you can YouTube them or something to listen to them while you read. This chapter was A Narnian Lullabye from the Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack.