Title: Words of Comfort
Author: Delilah Draken
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: The Phantom of the Opera
Character(s): Erik, Christine
Status: Finished
Disclaimer: The stories are mine. All the rest - characters and locations you've heard of in TV shows, movies, books etc - belong to their respective owners. I am just borrowing them.
Summary: A fairy tale is told.
Author's Note: prompt #141 – Cadence at tamingthemuse.
"Once upon a time," he remembers being told by an angelic woman named Perrault. The way her soft words caressed his face seemed like the greatest benediction to his then very young mind, like a mother's loving kiss.
"Once upon a time there was a beautiful prince," she would say. "He was so beautiful that with time his heart turned bitter and cold as stone. All servants in his beautiful castle were afraid of his anger and the way he managed to imagine the worst kind of punishments for them.
One winter night, during a snow storm, an old gipsy woman came to ask for shelter for herself and her travelling people. But the prince didn't allow the gipsies even into the empty stables, instead he ordered all doors closed and locked. He watched from a tower room how the storm stole all warmth and life from the gipsy band. He watched and laughed.
Then, as if by magic, he heard a voice calling his name. It was the old woman's voice.
'You, prince, are a monster,' it said. 'Your heart is as cold as the snow hiding your castle. Your heart is as bloodthirsty as the beasts hunting in your forests. For your crime against the innocent you will pay.'
And the beautiful prince was no more, as he was changed into a dreadful beast. A beast that could only hunt and kill and be feared by all people. A beast that was soon the only living being in his great castle.
Many years went by. So many years that even the beast forgot he had not always been a beast, that long ago he was cruel human and ruler over wide lands. So many years that the beautiful castle turned to dust and grand forest grew in its stead.
One day, the beast heard a cry echoing around him. Curious as to what could be afraid of anything in his forest that wasn't himself, he went to find out.
He found a woman running away from armoured men. 'Those men,' he thought, 'must surely plan to do some mischief.' And mischief they did. Oh, what a great mischief they did!
When it was over and the men long gone, the beast took the woman and brought her to his resting place. He gave her food and wine, dressed her in fine gowns and silken shoes. He gave her many beautiful things, for that was the only way he still knew how to talk.
Over many months he did this and the woman soon began to no longer fear his animal hide and claws. She learned that the beast was not as dangerous as he seemed. She learned that above all he was as lonely as only a beast without its kin can be.
She learned to love the beast."
Here she would pause to let him ask a question, as if waiting for him to want to know why the woman from the story began to love the beast. His angelic Mademoiselle Perrault did always wait for a question that never came, for how should he have known the words to ask why?
"Once upon a time," he repeats, now a grown man. His words are a soft whisper to avoid frightening the small girl sleeping on his legs; her arms tightly wrapped around his knees.
"Once upon a time a beast fell in love with an angel..."