Monsters are Made
An Over the Garden Wall One-shot
A/N: Okay, this is going to be a quick backstory headcanon for the Beast based upon a comic I saw on Tumblr a while ago. I suppose you can place the beginning of this in the late 1600's (around Puritan times).
Way back in the olden times, it was common for couples to have children simply to have some help around the house; they were not objects of affection, simply little hands to work the mill. However, it became very clear very quickly that one family near the edge of the woods was not common at all when the man of the house – a very well-respected priest for the village's church, a man of God by all means – suddenly up and left mere weeks before the birth of the first child, claiming that the fetus in his wife's womb was cursed, calling it a witch before it could even take its first breath.
Whether this is fortunate or unfortunate is not clear, but the good people of the village all seemed to agree that an unborn child was incapable of witchcraft before it could leave its mother's belly, and without incident the baby was born, a small boy that did not cry or squall, but simply stared at the midwife with pale eyes.
They say that the first night that the boy was alive, no wind disturbed the trees and no animals made a noise. It was the calmest night that the village had been blessed with since the settlers had moved in, but at the same time the lack of noise had kept all the occupants on edge.
As the boy grew older, he grew more mischievous, and it was not an innocent and childish mischief; it was a mischief that resulted in him spending more time out of the house, conning his mother's friends into giving him coins and candies until their small house no longer gained any company.
Frustrated that now all he could do was work, the boy began turning his trickery darker, leading up to three villagers at once into the woods with the promise of having seen a witch, only to take them where the town could no longer be seen, and he would then proceed to watch them starve to death and take any money from their pockets.
He was never caught in this sick game, not even by his own mother. As time went on, that boy became a man, and his heart grew blacker and colder. When his mother grew old and sick, rather than take care of her, he took all of the money that his neighbors offered to help, hoarding it to himself to convince more people to wander to their deaths.
His mother died within the fortnight, possibly through neglect rather than through her age and ailments.
The man had also become a very good actor, easing the suspicion any other villagers may have started to gain by pretending to be utterly heartbroken at the loss of the woman that had birthed him and raised him on her own. More money was given to him through the pity of those around him, feeding his greed until it had festered and consumed his soul.
Time passed, and countless lives were lost. One evening in late autumn, the man was returning from his hiding place in the woods, when he was approached by a woman no older than he. She rode upon a great deer, its twisting antlers awakening the greed within the man.
The woman asked that she may have some directions, and he pointed her in the wrong way, and she hopped off her deer to lead it. It was not long at all before she and her deer were separated.
The man had followed close behind, and the moment he had distracted the deer he had crept forth and beheaded it. He heard the woman shriek as he tiptoed back to the old house with his prize, satisfied with yet another trick well played.
When he reached his home, however, he was shocked to see the woman standing there, befuddled and wondering how on Earth she had managed to get out of his trap so quickly – and before him, to boot.
Light bathed her a moment, great wings spreading from her back. The protector of the forest looked upon him sternly, meaning to punish him harshly for what he had done.
The man, cursed by the breathtaking specter, was now given the purpose to be lost eternally in the Unknown, kept alive only by a lantern which one individual was to carry about at a time. The lantern's purpose had not been to last, but the man never lost his deceitfulness.
This curse had corrupted him even further, and he became a twisted and distorted beast, bathed in darkness and misshapen by the souls of all those that he had taken. The sick game he had so enjoyed for so long had now become even more desperate and deadly, and the guardian watched on with regret as her Unknown became paralyzed with fear at the monster she had created.
The guardian returned to visit the man one day, and he appeared smug, as though he had convinced himself he was winning at a competition between them. Her light preventing him from touching her, she opened her mouth.
In a voice as clear as bells and as soothing and melodic as music, she gave a prophecy on how her people and her territory would be freed from the reign of terror that the former human had gained.
"One day soon, the beast shall fall...
"Our heroes shall come over the garden wall."
Just as soon as she had appeared, she was gone, leaving the Beast confused and angered, vowing to himself that he would not let himself be defeated.
And so he waited, for years upon years, taking soul after soul, feeling as though he were becoming safer as Edelwood trees slowly took the forest over.
In fact, he became so confident in his being invincible that he barely took the two boys that fell into the river as a threat...