&And My Prince Will Come
There was Snow White who was beautiful. There was Belle who was intelligent. There was Cinderella who could dance. There was Aurora who could sing. There was Jasmine who was in love. There was Ariel who could do all sorts of sports.
And there was Olette.
Olette wasn't particularly beautiful, she wasn't particularly intelligent, she could barely dance, her singing was questionable, she'd never known what love meant and she was certainly not sporty in the least. But she liked to read, she loved reading.
Of huge castles with spiralling towers holding trapped princesses and brave princes and dragons and ogres who would hold them captive. Of fairies and witchcraft. Of witches and magic. She could see her sisters in all these different places with their wonderful talents. But Olette never seemed to fit, with her plain looks and flare for reading.
People would whisper behind her back – unaware that she could hear their snide remarks – about how odd it was that she could come from such an otherwise wonderful family. Her own kin were equally as reproachful – even more so – as her sisters pushed her around, forcing her to do all the tiresome chores they had been set. For they had much more important things to do like dancing and swimming.
But there was one place where she could get away from the shrieks of her sisters and the burble of the town. The bookshop dulled any outside noise out, it was so quiet and peaceful. It was like a whole different world as soon as she stepped inside and the little bell made its tinkly noise.
The aroma of coffee beans and wood lifted any worry or anxiety Olette had and let her dream into her books. Candles flickered around her and as people walked past the window, they would shake their heads and mutter something about her being "so odd..." But here Olette couldn't hear their comments. She could hear the beast's roar as it dived to catch the prince who managed to gracefully catch the swooning princess and lead her off to Happy Ever After Land.
The gentle tick-tick-tick of a clock stopped an evening and the keeper said, "Oh dearie me, that clock – it's always on the blink!" Olette giggled and slotted the book back onto its respective shelf. She whispered, for she was not known to speak any louder than this, a quiet goodbye before leaving the store.
A wind was playing through the near empty streets as Olette threw her cloak's hood up over her head. Her fingertips were numb and she could see other people rubbing their hands together as they hurried on back to their little homes. Olette's house, however, was just on the outskirts of the town: further back than the bakery and a little way past the farmyard.
She knew that once she was home she would have to make hot cocoa and warm up the water for her sisters to have baths, and of course after that, she would have to do a little bit of ironing for Ariel and Jasmine and then Cinderella and Belle wanted those dresses sewing. And she was sure that the other three had similar chores for her too, but Olette had forgotten those but they were written down somewhere. With all her other notes.
Her other notes were descriptions of how she wanted her story to be like. Because she wanted to be a maiden in distress. And there would, of course, be the prince and he would come and save her from a tower. Or no, maybe she'd be to save someone. Oh goodness no, she wasn't brave enough to do that. And she couldn't just go up to someone and say, "Excuse me, could you please rescue that prince there for me? It's sort of been my dream to do it but I feel that I am not brave enough and I will probably die."
That would just be incredibly silly, they'd merely turn on her and whisper and spread rumours and hatehatehatehateher.
But nevertheless, Olette drifted off to that dream: she had just bought some armour for her sister's husband and she happened to be trying it on when suddenly someone said that there was a prince in danger and Olette quickly rushed to the rescue, adorned with the armour. And then when the prince says, "Thank you, good Sir," Olette would throw off her helmet and he would fall in love with her immediately. They would marry and her father would finally get the money he deserved.
She sighed. Or maybe not. The house looked the same with its plain door and plain brickwork and plain roof. She could vaguely remember when she was little and she, her sisters and her father had lived in luxury until he lost it all when the ship he had sent off sank in a freak thunderstorm.
Olette's mother had been on that boat.
"Olette! Get in here now," shrieked the voice of Cinderella. It was shortly followed by Aurora's nasty trill of, "Father says that we can't start without you."
"Oh, God knows why!"
Olette recognised Ariel's sharp tones cutting in there before she was yanked inside and told to stand in the corner. Her father laughed and motioned for her to go over to him, she obliged carefully, so as not to cause another tragedy where her sisters called her a suck-up for about three years and a few months. He said, "Girls, I'm going out of town to buy a new ship."
Olette's sisters almost jumped out of their seats in excitement, they were absolutely brimming with happiness it seemed. Pence turned to his youngest, "Olette, isn't it great? We're finally going to have our fortune back!" Olette nodded meekly and said that yes, of course it was great.
"Now, I want you all to tell me what gifts you would like for when I get back."
Again, the excitement of every sister but Olette was unimaginable – they were nearly climbing the walls this time. "Oh daddy! I would love a pendant– yes, get me a beautiful golden pendant!" was Ariel's response. And then came a wall of requests and 'I want it's. Snow White needed jewellery and Belle had to have a fur coat. Cinderella wanted some new shoes – preferably fur slippers. Aurora and her pink (no blue... hm, but pink does suit me – ohhh, but so does blue) dress, and then Jasmine needed that plush, patterned carpet.
"And you, Olette?" Olette shook her head and Pence nodded, adding a small, "Oh," along with it. He patted her back then proceeded to put on his cloak over his thick jumper. "Bye, girls. Look after each other."
By now, snow had started to fall and Phillipe was starting to get restless as he snorted and kicked at the stable door when a crystal appeared on his nose. Pence shivered in the cold and Olette's heart sank – he had been hoping to get Olette to open up to him, to be able to prove that he loved her but she was never able to ask him of anything because she felt it too much to ask of a poor, old widower. Her sisters felt otherwise, obviously. But, seeing his saddened face turn to plaster a fake smile for his girls, Olette realised that she had to say something. She rushed out to him as he was about to mount Phillipe.
"Wait! Father, could... could I have a," Olette paused before lowering her voice, "could I have a rose – a red rose – please?" Was she asking too much? Was a red rose worth the trouble her father may have to take to get it? She bit her lip, waiting for his reply. He breathed in deeply, hood covering most of his face, before looking back down at his youngest.
"Of course," he said, a warm, real smile on him. "Of course!" He laughed, heartily, before kissing her forehead and then letting Phillipe head into a trot. Olette grasped her skirts, watching him go, waving as he did.
xXo
an okay, this was the first chapter of this fic for Gray-Rain Skies' Beauty & the Beast challenge :D I'm a very boring person & therefore I have nothing to say, only I hope you enjoyed it so far ('cause I'm very original too), please review 'cause it'd be stupid to say READ & review when it's rather obvious that unless you're a strange (but maybe in a good way) person & you've skipped straight to the an to read my boring note that I write just 'cause I can, you've already read the chapter. anyhoo, constructive critism is very, very, very, very x infinity helpful, 'kay? in the original story, beauty (her english name 'cause it was translated from french & so on but everyone knows that so I won't smother you with my useless blabber) had two sisters & her father used to be a rich man until his ship died & he became poor, her sisters never liked being poor, they moaned all the time, beauty did all the work, then father went out for a trip hoping to get a boat, didn't get any, got a rose for beauty, thus leading to the story we all know well. ahem, just, uh, thought you might like to know... :3 ANDDDD, hopefully last, possibly least, there is a plot-twist that you may or may not be able to ever see in this fic - but it is definately different to the actual story. darnit, that an was too long. -pout-