I have decided that after a long hiatus from writing, I'm going to attempt to write my first TWD story starring Negan, and that has a few elements of Beauty and the Beast. It's not much atm and I'm not sure if I'll continue it, but I think it's pretty good so far and if you guys like it, I might continue. I know that for my other readers who are looking at this, I should be working on my other stories. I am though, but I just wanted to get this brain baby out. Enjoy!
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind.
But then, one winter's night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince sneered at the gift and turned the old woman away. But she warned him not to be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within. And when he dismissed her again, the old woman's ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress.
The prince tried to apologize, but it was too late, for she had seen that there was no love in his heart. And as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast and placed a powerful spell on the castle and all who lived there.
Ashamed of his monstrous form, the beast concealed himself inside his castle, with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his twenty-first year. If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time.
As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope. For who could ever learn to love a beast?
It was a very good story.
Far off places, daring sword fights, a daughter's sacrifice, magic spells, prince disguised as a hideous monster, and the daughter ending the curse with a declaration of love.
It often entertained the woman who lay in her dimly lit hole of a room, after she was relieved of her duties or when after the guard had his way with her.
She had enjoyed the story and how it was so unlike other fairy tales for many years. She liked how it took months for the main players in the story to get to know one another and fall in love. Sometimes she would change different bits: sometimes the daughter had two awful sisters that nearly caused her to kill the beast. Other times she was the daughter of the fairy who cursed the prince. Then there were times that she would say the rose was as pink as a sunrise by the sea. But that never resonated as well as red as blood.
Her sisters had always applauded her for being such a master storyteller. Almost anyone would say with such a talent that she could that get herself out of any sort of a situation with a flick of her silver-tongue; however, she believes that almost anyone else would believe how she could ever have the whim to think of such a tale when just outside it was hell on earth.
Or even the hell inside the hospital.
Sometimes even she wondered why think about it herself. Such a silly and fanciful story that paled in comparison to the horrors in this new world. Perhaps that was why she clung to it. The story brought back memories before the dead returned to the living, to when she first arrived at the Athens of the South for adventure and freedom, or she wanted more than from her dull and simple provincial life on her father's farm. Back to when she would read in the hayloft as she was done with her chores around the house and farm till the sun would begin to set, singing along to the radio with her sisters as they drove into town, rowdy breakfast conversations in the morning, her stepbrother's cheeky grin and harmless jokes, the warm afternoon sun on her back with a slight breeze through her, and her father's kind and loving smiles. The angry fights, hateful words, and driving off and never looking back.
She shifted uncomfortably on the bed and shed a few tears at those memories. She finally had her adventure- and it had cost her everything: her home, her family, her life.
And it all started when the world fell apart.
Footsteps down the hall.
She shut her eyes as tight as possible against the memories. The footsteps grew louder. The clank of a doorknob and the door creaking open. A slightly older woman clad in black with an air of authority with her hair in a tight bun and a cold, stern expression met her blue gaze.
"Edwards needs you now for the new patient," the woman said without a trace of emotion or sentiment.
Patients, She spat the word with disdain. They're not patients. They're not patients. They become prisoners like me.
"Greene!" The woman barked, snapping the blonde woman out of her reverie.
She stood up listlessly and turned her hate filled gaze to the warden and uttered her reply with slow, deliberate derision: "I hear you and I'm ready to comply to whatever the good doctor needs."
The older woman sneered and turned to lead her to where Edwards was. Finally, stopped and entered a room where they could see him looking over an unconscious patient being laid down on the bed. Young with a pretty and youthful face that had a scratch on her cheek, maize colored hair that was held messily in a ponytail and braids, and as they walked closer, it was all the woman could do to hold herself back. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry in relief and sadness, she wanted to explode- anything as she looked at the girl and a pretty singsong voice filled her head with a name ringing in her ears loudly in repetition like a bell.
Beth.
