Beauty and the Beast
Summary: The Enchanter had been right about Jade, for truly, who could love a beast?
Rating: T
Pairing: AU Bade [Beck and Jade]
AN: So, I was watching Beauty and the Beast [oddly enough] and I found myself re-falling in love with it. I've always been fond of the tail because it had a bit more of a freak side than anything. And I made a connection: Jade could be the Beast. It would make sense, right?
Beck getting together with Jade could have very well meant he was taming the beast; you know? So I thought, considering I've grasped the tale so well, that I'd write it in a unique perspective, but still in an un-modernized way. It still takes place a few decades ago and it still involves a monumental castle, but there are many things different.
So check it out. I'm not sure if this will just be the prologue, but I'll find that out as I type it up.
~Nat
[OoOoOoO]
"It was not on the outside, but the allowance into one's heart that would forever cherish a love."
Characters:
Belle: Beck Oliver
Beast: Jade West
Gaston: Tori Vega
Maurice: Erwin Sikowitz
Mrs. Potts: Cat's Nona [Mrs. Valentine]
Le Fou: Trina Vega
Lumiere: Andre' Harris
Fifi/Babette: Keeko
Cogsworth: Lane Alexander
Chip Potts: Cat Valentine
The Enchantress: Ryder Daniels
Triplets: Hayley Ferguson, Tara Ganz, and Meredith
The Wardrobe: Alyssa Vaughn
Monsieur D'Arque: Mason Thornesmith
Chef Bouche: Robbie Shapiro
[OoOoOoO]
Prologue:
Our story begins deep within a forest, towering with Evergreens, the running of a massive waterfall, scurrying land mammals, and the chirp of the native tongues of local birds. The forest was mythical in itself, the epitome of beauty and the definition of serene. But don't look too far off in the distance, for there loomed a castle whose consequences originated with epic proportions.
If you cared to take a look inside, you'd witness a girl hardly over the age of fifteen. She was beautiful, graceful [as any girl was expected to be at that age], and paired with a set of silver eyes to match. Her hair was a luscious black and her skin a particular shade of ivory that put porcelain to shame. But if you looked past the beauty and physical appeal of the princess, past the flare of emotion in her eyes, directly into her soul, you'd find one thing: hate.
Her patience was tested at the age of fifteen. It had started as a seemingly normal day, she'd been awoken by Alyssa [her royal dresser] and had been dressed in a beautiful satin gown tinted her favorite shade of red. She'd been bound tightly in her corset and she'd set down to breakfast. She'd always had the castle to herself. Her Father and her Mother had practically left her here, but she'd had no complaints.
She had an array of servants, maids, and cooks she could boss around without her parents getting in her way and chastising her lack of feminine upbringing. Don't get her wrong, the princess enjoyed dressing up and parading around in all of her beauty, but it was her characteristics that emphasized the fact.
When not getting her way, she screamed and shouted and threatened to cut them all up with shears; by no means was her temper controlled.
More than happy to be utterly alone in the castle, the princess roamed around down to the dining room where a large breakfast was placed out and she was immediately greeted by Mrs. Valentine. She ignored her and sat down, making a small plate for herself and shooing the older woman away with a flick of her wrist.
She ate and went out to the stables to check on her horse, and then went back inside and did the rest of her plans for the day. Tonight there was to be a large dinner in her honor [merely because she wished for so] and she'd be perfectly fine with preparing herself.
But the knocker slammed against the door a few times, signaling a visitor. Her eyes initially narrowed and expecting it to be her Mother or worse: her Father, she didn't bother shouting at Lane to get it and instead opened the door herself. She was met with the presence of a shriveled man. It was pouring, she'd taken note of that at how the older man's cloak draped so tightly around his bony shoulders, making him appear to have a hunch. She mentally snickered.
The princess locked eyes with the man, hand absently resting on the door. "What is it you want?" Her voice boomed with intolerance and impatience.
The older fellow coughed weakly, peering out from behind the heavy shadowing of his ebony cloak. "I see refuge, my dear. In return for shelter for the night, I offer you this blooming rose." He insisting, holding out a shaky hand with the garment firmly gripped. It was a brilliant magenta, a slight glow surrounding . But the princess had seen better and was less than impressed.
She had none of it and smacked at the extended ligament. "You expect entrance into my castle with the offer of a pathetic rose?! Clearly, you must be joking, for my gardener could rummage up a thousand of those at my very beck and call! Your offer is meaningless." Her eyes narrowed and she added in bitterly: "And I would never host a man so deeply riddled with age in a castle whose prime is the definition of beauty!"
But the man continued to plead. "Oh but you must reconsider, my princess!" His voice laced with desperation as he stared at her through blue, youthful eyes. "For appearances are not of value. It is a danger to judge one in such a way so naively!"
She only got angrier. "My word is the law, now leave this castle at once and take your useless token with you!" Her fingers made a move to slam the door shut, but her attempts were disheveled at the touch of more mythical proportions.
The princess was practically fuming when immediately the appearance of the gentlemen changed into a handsome, debonair young chap. His eyes among nothing else, remained the same and held their youthful shading.
"I warned you," He said. "Judging appearances can be dangerous when there is clearly only hate in your heart."
His appearance was overwhelming, a rather rebellious look on him. He had lightly tanned skin, his dark hair slicked back over his head. His lips pursed and cheeks hollowed; he towered over her. She had an inference they would have gotten along greatly if not for the predicament she'd gotten herself in.
The girl broke into hysterics, understanding suddenly the heinous situation she'd gotten herself into; ignoring royal perpetuity and throwing caution to the wind, she dropped to her knees, clasping her fingers together in a begging notions. A new horrified expression dawned on her face. "Oh do forgive me, I am very aware you are not a horrid man. Please, come into my castle at-"
"SILENCE!" The man shouted, his form now hued with a majestic golden sheen. He raised a dark scepter, uncurling from around his forearm. "Due to the lack of love and compassion in your heart, I put a curse on you and the entire residence of this castle. The curse will only be broken, if and only if, you can attain the love of another and return the feelings just the same to him!"
The young princess gasped at the declaration.
"Y-You cannot do this to me, I will be Queen one day!" Her voice had begun to falter in terror.
The Enchanter held up a hand. "Your pleads will go un-listened to, much like how you'd acknowledged mine. For why should I listen to the words of a beast?" He hissed venomously, the words setting her off almost immediately.
"A beast?!" She shouted in outrage and before she could manage a proper rebuttal, a light enveloped her, pulling her into a dark abyss, the heavenly cruel face of the Enchanter feeling more of a distance dream once she'd forgotten her surroundings.
The princess condemned the thought as a dream and found herself back in her quarters. She exhaled loudly and rose her body, a snapping noise echoing and indicating that the strings of the tightly wound corset she'd been wearing under the scarlet number was breaking at a rapid rate.
Outraged, she gasped, but was instead met with a deep growl eliciting from her lips. She leapt off the bed, a constant onslaught of ripping pounding in her ears as she broke onto all fours out of sudden instinct and raced for a mirror.
The image she saw was not of her own face, but of a monster! Dark russets of fur spread across every inch of her body, racing up her forearms, across once dainty fingers and knuckles, up thinned calves and even across her once well-endowed chest. Claws replaced all nail and her feet had been completely replaced, having herself now propped up only on her toes, her heel much too far away from her toes, curling into the floor as a grasp. And when she looked down warily, the abrupt swish of a gnarly tail protruded from her backside, lashing wildly at the recognition.
But none of her transformations scorched her quite as badly as the state of her face.
Her eyes were the only thing that remained the same. Her once beautiful hair was gone and replaced with tufts of the same shade of her fur that covered her body! Her carefully crafted cheekbones expanded to accommodate massive jaws with jarring fangs to match, as she looked closer. Her nose completely vanished to reveal that relative to a dog's nose and horns replaced her ears.
The beautifully crafted dress she'd had made was in shreds around her newly changed body and she ripped the ruined garment of her, gauging her claws into expensive fabric and tearing at some of her fur.
She roared and roared, the sheer volume shaking the walls of the castle and startling the currently unchanged workers downstairs. She bound around her rooms, taking out draperies, bed sheets, quilts, furniture, a feather mattress even. Half of a pillow hung from her jaws as her stare bore into the portrait of herself.
It had been painted a month ago and said in crafted handwriting at the bottom: "Jadelyn August West."
She was no longer that girl and with a mournful whine, she ravished it with her claws and slunk over to examine the rose sitting on a table near the balcony.
Velvety words dripped into her ears. "This rose will bloom until your 21st year, you have until then to win the heart of another, if you are unable to find such a thing, your appearance will remain unchanged for the rest of your days. If not, and you manage to win the heart of another and he loves you? The spell will be broken." Her eyes dropped to a mirror next to the floating rose and the voice continued. "I have kindly allowed you a magic mirror, ask for anyone and they shall appear. It is the only line to the rest of the world you have, be careful with it." The rose suddenly darkened to become similar to that of a decaying rose, bristling with thorns. "The rose had already begun to deplete and well steadily deplete until your 21st year. Its shading is for the mere purpose to resemble the color of your heart. I wish you luck," He said with mock sincerity and then came the final sneer: "Who could love a beast?"
The princess roared in agony and grasped the mirror in her over-sized paws. "Show me Andre', show me Lane, show me Mrs. Valentine!" Immediately her eyes ere overwhelmed with the image of them all be turned into the form of ordinary every-day objects they'd used frequently to complete their jobs. Their human bodies were stolen away just like hers.
Andre' turned into a candelabra, his body disappearing. His hands were replaced with small candles and his head dispersed into a long dark candle, all three of them lit as his body was now a golden holder.
Lane shifted into a clock, his head rounding out to fill-out the face of a clock, his mustache turned into the hour and minute hands, his hands being replaced with mitty like pieces and his feet spreading out into four sections to prop himself up.
Mrs. Valentine's already rounded form shrunk down to that of a teapot, her nose swirling out like an elephant's and curled out, both of her arms conjoining into one to rest on the side of her new body. Her feet hadn't even gotten a replacement; they were just gone.
Jadelyn ran out on her balcony, unable to take anymore of what she was witnessing. She gathered onto her haunches and dug her claws into the railing, and let out such an angry, rueful roar, it has been told that the wolves cowered and the houses shook for days on end.
The Enchanter had been right about Jade, for truly, who could love a beast?
[OoOoOoO]
AN: Hm. I tried to grasp the older text of the story, but remain true to character with Jade. Beck will appearing in the next chapter as the story goes and I'm rather excited to write about it [given this story hopefully gets positive feedback].
Plus, I love a little Tori-bashing. Warning for anyone who does plan on reading the second chapter when I post it. Then, if you read the character list, you'll see that Tori is Gaston. I hate Gaston and I hate Tori - it works flawlessly.
Anyway, reviews are my lifeline, don't kill me!
~Nat