Hello, this is a new, modified version of A Beast and a Rose. So please, if you have read this story before, I ask you to please reread this chapter. Thank you!
A Beast and a Rose
Chapter 1. Toulèse's Violette
Greetings dear reader, if I may, I should like to tell you a story. What's that? Yes, you say? Alright. Let us begin now. Many times over the course of the years, we find that things are not always as they seem. So a young girl named Violette found out.
Violette was a servant to an orphaned prince named Toulèse. Violette was very pretty. Her waist-length hair was the color of dark-chocolate, and felt like silk to the touch. And her large eyes were what earned Violette her name. They were a very dark violet, and were surrounded by thick, dark eye-lashes, making them look very large in her small face. That, and her complexion and perfect figure ensured that she would be the most beautiful girl in Toulèse's entire castle by the time which she would turn fifteen.
Toulèse was a young prince who's family wanted nothing to do with. He was handsome, with jet-black hair, and electric-blue eyes. Toulèse may have been handsome, but he was also very spoiled, selfish, and unkind.
His castle was a beauty. With three high towers, and many secret passages that only a few servants and slaves knew about. And Violette was one of them. Toulèse knew about only ten of them when there were more than fifty! And Violette, knew where every single one went by heart. So if she and her best friend, Cosette, wanted to hide from the prince, they would go deep into the maze of tunnels and wait for Toulèse's anger to blow off.
Toulése and Violette were the same age, ten years old. But it was the young prince that was the more miserable of the two. Violette suffered Toulése's wrath only because he was lonely in his huge castle. His uncle, King Basile, and aunt, Queen Charlaméne, wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. The only things they ever gave him, were his castle, and servants.
Among them was the head cook, Raoul, and his son, the mâitre d', a young man of seventeen named Lumiere, the head maid named, Babette, Lumiere's sweet-heart, and four other maids, Mariette, Evette, Collette, and Cosette, a motherly widowed cook, Mrs. Potts and her five year-old son, Alaire, or, Chip for short, and the head of the household a plump middle-aged man named, Cogsworth, who came from England.
Violette was a maid, and sometimes, when Toulèse wanted her, would keep him company. When they were little, Toulèse and Violette would play in the tunnels. That is how the harpy-prince came to know about ten of the fifty secret passages in his castle.
But by the time that Prince Toulèse was to turn eleven, he fired Violette, having been in an argument with her that she would have won, and sent her to live in a nearby town. "She did not please me." he had said when Mrs. Potts found out and asked him why he fired the young beauty.
Violette did not mind that she had been sent away from the castle, she hated it there. She hated Toulèse's guts. Let zat horrid prince be miserable. I do not care. She thought as the carriage rolled onward through the snow, to the poor, provincial town to live with her father, an inventor named Maurice. But had she left even five minutes later, she would have been caught up in what happened to her former home.
As the carriage rolled onward, she remembered the argument she and Toulèse had...
Flashback:
"I told you Violette, we're lost." said the prince.
"We are not lost Toulèse. I know ze way from here." Violette replied.
"What have I told you about calling me by my name?" Toulèse asked, somewhat angry.
Violette ignored the question and pressed onward through the series of secret passages of Toulèse's castle.
"I asked you a question, Violette." Toulèse said, angrier.
"Look. I won't be able to find ze way out of here if you are always shouting at me." Violette countered the prince in her thick French accent.
Toulèse let out a low, threatening growl and grabbed Violette and snarled, "You are getting on my nerves. And you know zat is very dangerous."
"Just let me go so I can find ze way out of here." Violette said as she tried to pull her arm out of Toulèse's grasp.
Toulèse let go of he arm saying, "Ze only zing zat saves you is your beauty."
"In French please." Violette asked.
"I said, If you weren't so beautiful, I would fire you, and send you to live with your crazy father in zat little town." Toulèse said, rather irritated.
"My father is not crazy!" Violette shouted.
SMACK!
Violette rubbed her cheek as she lead Toulèse out of the tunnels. Neither of them said a word for the rest of the way out.
When they came out the entrance behind one of the many tapestries, Toulèse grabbed Violette, his electric-blue eyes flashing in fury, and took her to the foyer, and snarled, "Get out."
He then ordered a carriage to take Violette to the town, and told the young maid, "Pack your things and leave, and NEVER come back."
End Flashback:
Violette had gladly done so. Toulèse needn't worry zat I'll come back. I will never go back.
She's gone. Good. The ten-year-old, harpy-prince thought as he watched the carriage roll out of sight.
Toulèse smiled. Then something caught his attention. An old woman was coming to his castle. His smile faded. Who in ze name of life is zat? He thought.
She came and knocked on the door. The houseboy, Guillaume, opened the door, and said to her, "Who are you?"
"I wish to see His Most Excellent, and Royal Highness, Prince Toulèse." the old woman said.
Guillaume looked anxious. He was about to speak when the young prince, Toulèse said, rather annoyed, "I am here. What do you want old woman?"
"All I humbly ask for, my good prince, is shelter from the cold of winter's night." the beggar-woman replied, curtsying respectfully, "I will give your highness this, in return." and held the most perfect specimen of a rose that had ever bloomed.
Prince Toulèse was repulsed by the old woman's ugliness. He sneered at her and said, "Take your wilting fleur and be on your way, you old hag."
"Mon Dieu, Prince Toulèse, do not be fooled by outer appearances. True beauty, is found within." the old woman warned.
"I will say no more. Be gone, old woman!" the wolf-harpy said.
Suddenly, there was a glowing light. Guillaume ran in fright. Though Toulèse stood his ground. The boy-prince saw the old woman's ugliness melt away. And in her place, was a beautiful enchantress. The young prince fell to his knees before her.
"I warned you not to be deceived by appearances, Toulèse. Now you must pay the price." the Enchantress said to the kneeling prince.
"I'm sorry! Had I known, I would not have said zoze zings! You can stay!" Toulèse cried.
"I am afraid it is too late, Toulèse. For I have seen zat zere is no love in your heart." the Enchantress said.
Toulèse was at the point of groveling. The Enchantress took a long stick out of her cloak, and touched Toulèse's head and the walls of the castle with it, and said, "Let the spell be cast!"
Toulèse began to twitch in pain. He looked up at the Enchantress with a frighted look on his face and asked in barely more than a whisper that got softer and softer as he spoke, "What are you doing? Please stop. Please."
Toulèse then let out a howl of agony as his body morphed painfully, "AHOOAHAH!!!! PLEASE, MAKE...IT...STOP!!!!"
Jet-black fur sprouted all over Toulèse's face, neck, hands, and body. His fingernails grew thicker and gnarled. The frightened boy twitched in agony as he sprouted a long, jet-black tail.
When the transformation was through, Toulèse had turned into a hideous beast. Only jet-black fur could be seen on his body. No skin. Long gnarled talons. The only thing that stayed the same through the transformation, was his eyes. They were the same electric-blue, and were as sharp as ever.
"Now your outer appearance, matches your inner. All your servants are now household objects. Ze little boy who answered ze door when I knocked, is now a doormat. Your head cook is a stove. All ze maids are featherdusters, brooms, and mops. Ze mâitre d' is a candelabra. Ze cook Mrs. Potts is a teapot. Her son, a teacup. Ze only servant you have had zat was not affected by ze spell, was ze girl you fired just today. Her name is Violette, I understand." the Enchantress said.
"W-would she have been a featherduster too?" the beast-cub hardly dared to ask.
"No. She would have been a twelve-inch-long sowing-needle. She could fix a problem, and be sharp and prick you very hard." the Enchantress replied, "This Rose, is truly an enchanted Rose. It will bloom until you turn seventeen. If you can learn to love another, and earn her love in return, ze spell I have placed upon you and your castle will be broken. If not, you and your servants will be doomed to remain as you are now, forever. Only you, Toulèse, can break ze spell. Zough you may have help. I have one more zing for you. Zis mirror, will show you anyzing you wish to see. All you have to do is begin with "show me..." and it will show you it. Zis is where I leave you Toulèse. Adieu." and with that, the Enchantress disappeared.
Toulèse got up and thought, I can still balance. Good. But, what of ze rest of me? What did zat witch do to me? She said my outer appearance matches my inner.
He picked up the mirror the Enchantress had left him, looked into it and gasped in horror, "Mon Dieu, she really made me look like this?"
He touched his furry face. Unable to look at himself, he snarled at the mirror, "Never show me my face again. Unless I want to see it."
The mirror clouded over until the glass was nothing but a blurry-gray color. Toulèse looked at the mirror and said, "Show me Violette."
"Here you are Miss Violette."
"Thank you."
The coachman was helping Violette out of the carriage. Violette had a tired expression on her face. But that didn't hide her beauty. Her waist-length dark-brown hair flowed out behind her as she ran to her father.
"Zat's enough." Toulèse said to the mirror as it clouded over at his command.
A/N: How'd y'all like it? Please review!