She was gone.
I had to let her go, of course. She missed her family, her father especially, more than any ties she may have formed here. However many magical things here, in this time-locked, cursed/blessed place, no matter the dubious relationships she had formed here, despite all of my hopes, her place is with them, her family. She promised to come back in a week's time, but I know better than to expect her to honor this promise. Once with her family, she will remember all of the fear and disgust, and how much safer and preferable her normal world is. I do not blame her, not at all. What more could I hope for? It was selfish bringing her here in the first place, despicable and desperate. I know this now as I knew it then, but I felt I had no choice. How long can I go on, hoping against hope, and praying against the fate that has put me on this path? So I seized the harmless offence made by her father, turning it unforgivable and worthy of a young woman sacrificing herself to keep her father from harm. Selfish. So selfish.
And yet she came, and she became everything. I may not look like a man, but I have a man's heart, which soon fell under her possession. How could it not? She is beautiful, down to her soul, and good, and brave, and kind, and compassionate, and….
She is gone.
I can feel the uneasiness and sadness from the servants; they tiptoe around me, confused by their own grief and mine. I hope to eventually be able to comfort them as best I can, but for now I can only spare enough attention to try and muffle my own agony. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. I wonder if I am keening this aloud, but decide that I do not care.
I wonder what it would have been like had I met her in a human shape. Would I have recognized the precious glary that stood before me? Or would I have been too restless and vapid to notice? Bah. Why do I think about that? She wouldn't have liked me much when I was human. Although, she did grow fond of me, even with my coarseness and beastly, hideous shape. Perhaps she would have forborne my human failings….
Enough. I move to a different room, barely noting which one I left or which one I enter; I only need a different view from the window to satisfy me before I sink into thought once again. I am seated in a chair before the fire before I realize that I am in the room where I first met her. Dear heaven, is there no escaping her? No, but I do not mind that. Not really. I remember her face when she first came in the room, timid, afraid, and unsure of what to expect. I remember how seeing her caused my breath to catch, and I was glad I was in the shadows, so she could not see me gawking foolishly, besides observing my freakish appearance. She jumped when I finally bade her good evening, but rallied soon afterward into at least an outward picture of calm. I admired her spirit then. I had many occasions, afterward, to admire her spirit. The way she would stand up to me, the way she refused to be terrified of me, even the way she threw a book at me one day when I acted churlishly. She could be ferocious, if riled up enough.
Memories of her flicker through my head, filling my every thought so that I do not notice the passing of time. Days and nights passed, and I didn't see them. I was obsessed with recalling every moment I had of her, so as not to be forgot. As if anything could be forgotten. Time passed…slowly and quickly at the same time.
I must have slept, for this wasn't a real memory that I had of her. She sat in the garden, smack in the middle of the rose petals that were gently discarded and distributed into a luxurious carpet for the feet of any garden visitor. She sat, eyes closed, face to the sun. I was overwhelmed by her beauty once again. She sighed, full of contentment, and looked to me, smiling. She held out an arm to me, beckoning me closer, laughing in pure joy.
I woke already standing. My body wove rather unpleasantly, rather like a drunk's would, and my mind was chaotic and purposeful: find Beauty in the garden. Surely, she wouldn't have appeared in the dream only to torment me; she wouldn't be so cruel. So, to the garden I would go.
The castle was disturbingly quiet, even though it hadn't had the usual castle noises for hundreds of years. The air was still; no servants moved about, doing their duties. But I scarcely noticed as I attempted to make my way outside. Distantly, I remembered that I hadn't eaten or drunk anything since she left, but I bumbled along, crashing into walls and furniture, desperate for the garden. Beauty, Beauty, my mind hummed, that thought moving me forward.
After what felt like eons, I found the rose garden. I steadied my dizzy self against a statue, my eyes blurring, head spinning. I tried to call for her, but only a rasping groan passed my lips. I stumbled forward, still trying to call her. I found the spot in my dream, where Beauty should have been sitting, face to the sun, laughing and calling me to her side. But she wasn't there. Just a cold, lonely place, with brown, dried rose petals coating every surface. My heart seized and lurched, the reality of her absence crashing down upon me once again. My legs shook like a newborn calves, then buckled, and I fell onto the rose petals, trying to breathe around the pain. I vaguely realized that I was probably dying, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I had never felt this pain before, even when she first left. I realized that I had been hoping against hope that she would come; that despite her family and her bright future among the reality that was her home, she would still come back and be with me. A dry, wheezing cough broke past my lips as I realized that hope was to be the death of me. It sounded like one of the poems that she liked….
'She's gone…she's gone…goodbye, Beauty…I love you…She's gone….'
And then I faded away.
Part Two.
I awoke gradually, my mind shying from a pain that strangely did not come.
I vaguely pondered on the meaning of this absent pain. My mind instinctively shied away from the source of this pain, survival the first instinct. I heard whispers of noise, which gradually grew lauder and clearer, until I recognized the sound of gut-wrenching sobs. The cries sounded familiar, and I desperately wanted to comfort, but found I could not yet move or see. Clarity was coming now in fits and bursts, as well as a frantic bubbling near my heart. The last confused me, but I suddenly heard words, and listened eagerly.
"Beast! Don't leave me, oh God, don't let him leave me, please…." Was cried, in a voice very familiar. Ah! With a sudden burst of clarity, I identified the bubbling near my heart as joy, radiant joy. My eyes fluttered open, dazzled by the light of the sun above my head. I was laying with my head in someone's lap, and my face was wet with tears. And the face above me made my heart stop again, before leaping forward in delight.
She was back. Beauty. My Beauty. She had her arm covering her eyes, and she was still crying. I had to stop her tears somehow….
"Beauty." I managed to sigh. Her arm lowered, and her eyes dropped to mine, her deep eyes that were still pooled with tears. I was struck by her loveliness anew, and could only sigh her name again. Relief and joy flooded her face, and she impatiently wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Beast. Oh, Beast, you are alive." She said, laying her cheek to mine. I closed my eyes, almost delirious with contentment. She was here, with me, and I could be happy.
"I thought…" I started, about to confess my despair, but she interrupted me.
"That I wasn't coming back? I'm so sorry…my sisters begged me to stay longer, and I didn't want to refuse them…but they only wanted to make me unhappy…but that is no excuse….I am so sorry…." She sat up and started to babble in her distress.
"Shhh…." I murmered. "Tis alright. You are here now."
"But…if I hadn't come, you would have…" She stopped, and put her face next to mine once more. It was hard to think with her so near, but I tried.
"Died? Probably." Her hands were curled into the fur around my neck, and her scent of lavender and orange peel was heady and intoxicating. I took a deep breath, inhaling it into me.
"But…but…oh, Beast. That would have been…"She sighed.
"Been what?" I asked in what I hoped was a detached tone. She shook her head, still next close to me.
"I can't think of a word bad enough for it." She said finally, sitting up. I tried to control my expression of disappointment. She helped me sit up, and I realized that I was starving, and still dizzy. How long since I last ate? 7 days? More? I didn't want to think about it.
"Why did you come back?" I asked after my head stopped spinning, curious about what would bring her back to where she had been prisoner. "Why did you not stay with your father, your brothers and sisters?"
"Do you want me to leave?" She asked, as if expecting a punishment.
"No!" I exploded, not willing for her to stray even a foot away. "No, I was just curious."
"Well…" She suddenly turned shy and uneasy.
"Beauty, what is it? What happened? Did someone hurt you?" I asked, starting to get angry.
"No, nothing like that." She reassured me. "It is just that…oh dear…." She muttered, coming to her feet and starting to pace quickly back and forth. I watched in growing apprehension as she seemed to wrestle with herself over something.
"Beauty?"
"Oh, hang it, girl! You're being ridiculous!" she muttered, before turning back to me. She gave me a hesitant smile before coming back to sit in front of me. She took my paws, hands, in hers, and looked me in the eye.
"Beast, I came back because I realized that…I missed you. Every day, it was like a hunger gnawing at me, no matter what I did. I would dream of you, and think about you all day. My sisters," she said with an embarrassed laugh, "thought that I had grown more uppity than before, especially after I told them about the castle and what we did here. But I wasn't…discontented to be back at the farm; my father has regained some of the riches he had lost, did you know? They are able to afford a maid and a man-servant now. So no, I wasn't unhappy about being back there…I was just unhappy being away from you. On the sixth day, I was preparing to come back, when my sisters came to me, weeping and begging me to stay for just a little longer." Here Beauty shook her head angrily. "I, irrational creature that I am, agreed, but only for a few days more, to make them more use to the idea of a goodbye. And so I stayed for three more days, during which they were…unpleasant to the extreme. On the third day, we got into a huge argument. They accused me of being a selfish gold-digger, of running away from my family just for the opulence here, even of being a witch trainee. I didn't mind that so very much, as I was used to it, but then they started talking about you. About how you were a bloodthirsty, savage killer wrought by dark magic, and they started talking about sending my brothers to hunt you down and kill you like the animal that you were. And my blood boiled, I was so incensed. I started screaming back at them, something I don't think I have ever done in the course of my life. I don't even remember what I said exactly, I was so angry. I stormed to my room and started packing right away, determined to come back to you. My father followed me, and gently asked me why I got so zealous in my defense of you. And it came to me right then."
Beauty paused, and I nearly stopped breathing in the suspense of the moment, longing and fearing to hear what she said next. She took a deep breath, looked into my eyes, and continued strong.
"Beast, the truth is, that I have fallen in love with you."
I couldn't breathe. All physical motion ceased. Everything stopped except that bubbling joy, which started pulsing anew. She continued.
"I don't know why I didn't see before. Tis ridiculous, really, that I didn't see it before. I love you, Beast. You are like the Sun; it is impossible for me to live without the warmth and light that is you. Living without you has ceased to even remotely become a possibility; if you were to…die…" she seemed to shudder on the word, " then so too would I. I love you, and it is because I love you that I want to marry you."
There was a split-second of silence, hushed and waiting, before the very foundations of the earth exploded into a starburst of wind and color. Tingles rolled all over my body, and I gasped as I felt myself changing. It lasted an moment that measure eternity, and then, suddenly, all was still.
I was shocked to find myself flat on my back. Then I thought about Beauty. Sudden panic lifted me to my feet, and I was faced with a stunned but dazzling Beauty as she stood before dressed in the elegance of a beautiful formal gown.
"Beauty…" I started in relief, then paused upon hearing my voice. I was still deep, but smooth. The growl behind every word was gone; in it's place was a smoothness that soothed and eased. I looked down to my paws…
…And saw hands.
Human hands…with tan skin. Strong, human, flexible hands. I lifted those human hands to my face and found smooth skin instead of rough fur. Human nose, human ears, human mouth…I stared at Beauty, who was still staring at me in a startled manner.
"Beauty…it's me." I said, the joy bubbling through my lips as human laughter. "It is your Beast. I am…human again."
"I don't understand." She said softly.
"I wasn't a very nice person, Beauty. I was full of myself and arrogant. One day, a witch came to me in the form of a drifter, and begged for some water." I grew ashamed at this part. "I did not treat her with kindness, to use an understatement. She then revealed herself as a powerful witch, and turned me into a Beast, until a woman could love me enough even in my ugliness to agree to marry me. And so, " I concluded, "Here we are."
She stared at me in wonder, then timidly came to stand in front of me. She lifter her hand to my face, and I sucked in a breath of air. She gently turned my face this way, then that, before whispering, "It really is you?" I swallowed rather loudly.
"Yes." I managed. She smiled at me, timid again.
"Well, I suppose that…." I didn't let her get any farther before I kissed her. She froze for the slightest instant before sighing and sliding her arms around my neck, deepening the kiss. I kissed her softly, not wanting to overwhelm her in my fervor. She tasted of orange peel, and the scent of lavender coiled around my senses, making me dizzy. She shivered, and my arms tightened around her waist, trying to draw her closer. Soon, I drew back, breathless and jubilant.
"Beauty, do you know that I adore you?" I said, my voice a little rougher than before the kiss. She grinned, and my heart stopped again.
"As I adore you." She replied. I grinned in return, before kissing her again, distantly noting that the roses were all in full bloom once more. My heart was full with the thrill of it.
She was here. We were together. And we would never be apart again.
Finis.