A bit of a shorter chapter this time around, but I didn't want to delay the Prince's punishment for too much longer, as I like to think he really has it coming to him.
Anyways, I hope that you are continuing to enjoy the story! I am working hard at trying to make it different while still keeping some aspects of the familiar that we all know and love, and I promise, a significant amount of this story is drastically different than that of the 2017 movie, as I do have a solid plan in mind for Beast, Belle, and even my favorite "baddie" Gaston. :)
The next chapter will be up soon and will be a tad longer to compensate for this shorter chapter, as Gaston works desperately to try to find a place to hide Belle and tend her wounds while navigating the danger of the Wolves' Woods.
CHAPTER 7
THE Prince had quickly become a disappointment to Agathe throughout the years that she'd watched him grow.
Unfortunately, the young man's father and mother were dead, and despite the nobleman's abhorrent and disgusting behavior towards her own niece, Circe, Agathe would not stoop to the levels of being a murderer. No.
She stood at the edge of the Wolves' Woods where Gaston had left him sprawled out on the ground, regarding the young man of twenty years old currently groveling at her feet as he struggled to get up, still in shock over the events of what had just transpired not five minutes ago.
"I know you," the prince breathed, recognition dawning in his sky-blue eyes as he took in the fair-skinned, fair-haired blonde's features. "Now that I see you. How could I have forgotten your face? You were married to Henri, weren't you? I remember him. Your husband. He was one of my own. Your kind shouldn't even be allowed to breed, let alone exist," Prince Adam spat with disgust. "A normal person would have died a lot sooner, but he was a charmante. It took my colleague in charge of capturing it several attempts before he finally killed it. Up until he died, he kept screaming your name." The prince taunted Villeneuve's beggar woman.
"Hmm. You don't say," Agathe growled, her tone frosty and remorseless. "I've got some bad news for you, Your Highness. This is it for you. The end of the line for you. But before that happens, you'll have to apologize for all the mischief you've caused. Now you will kneel before me and beg for mercy."
Prince Adam heard himself chuckle. "You're funny—"
"I SAID KNEEL!" Agathe bellowed angrily, her voice raising an octave as she unleashed the worst of her wrath on him, the sheer force of her scream rustled the trees' leaves and seemed to echo all through the castle grounds.
As if his body were no longer in control of itself, Adam sank into a low bow before finally falling onto his knees, though his muscles screamed for relief as he gritted his teeth.
"Witchcraft," he growled, spitting the word as though it were poison that had settled upon his tongue. His face paled and drained of what little color was left within, which wasn't very much to begin with.
Agathe, however, remained unfazed and merely toyed with a strawberry blonde curl.
"As I said, Your Majesty, the end of the line. But if you were able to think rationally, it would have been obvious to you that I am no ordinary woman to be trifled with. How else could I have come here? It is at least a few days' journeys by horseback, and that's assuming you don't get lost in the forest, and I see no beast waiting for its master behind me, do you?" she asked, scoffing as she looked to the left and right at the deserted grounds. "Take a look at yourself now. Monster. You almost forced yourself on that girl, Prince, not once before your own wedding, but three times now. A truly fine husband you would make, taking what it is that you want, with no regard for your future bride's honor. Do you truly think I would allow my niece to marry such a brute? I think not. You are not fit for my Circe, Highness," she growled, no semblance of warmth laced in her voice.
Agathe knew men like this Prince Adam du Barreau. He was a plain chap, transparent, even, only an inconceivable monster of a man because some couldn't conceive of the prince's lusts.
Studying the suffering prince for a moment longer, Agathe let a smile flit across her face.
"You claim to be a noble man, Prince."
This, at least, is enough to give the boy pause. And so, they were at the crux of the matter.
"I am noble," the prince says, his tone almost meandering towards shrill.
"No." Agathe coldly lets the word hang in the frigid air around them, her frustration begging for assuagement. "Your actions towards those around you are less than noble. Only a fool would be blinded towards that. What's left of you, Your Majesty, is nothing all that impressive. Only an arrogant shell of a man, and a useless prince at that, sir. What I see at my feet, monsieur, is no man."
The prince squeezed his eyes tightly shut and ground his teeth together in anguish before turning his head slightly to look up at the surprisingly stunning creature whom he had first believed to be a ragged beggar woman.
But now, as he looked upon her, this was not the case. The prince attempted to speak to her in the hopes of supplicating the witch, found out what this woman wanted, though when he tried, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth like someone had shoved wet clay down his gullet.
"What…do you…see?" he managed to rasp out weakly.
The woman who called herself Agathe and seemed to be on friendly terms with both Gaston and his hearth keep pursed her lips into a thin line and glowered at Adam.
"A beast," she spat, with hatred and venom in her tone.
No sooner than the words had left her mouth did Adam feel a sharp searing pain that tormented his entire body. It was almost more than the prince thought he could bear as his muscles attempted to write in utter agony, though it felt as though his blood was boiling hotter than molten lava in his veins.
However, his aching bones as they shifted, seeming to grow, though not before breaking as it seemed his body was…transforming…kept him pinned in place, lying, and waiting.
Then, just as quickly as Adam wished he could succumb to the nothingness, the blackness that crept on the edges of his fading vision, the darkness would once more encroach upon him. Perhaps this was what Hell felt like, what this witch did to him.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a light burned itself into his vision. It was dim like a candle yet agonizing to him nonetheless as he felt his pupils dilate even in the dark.
It very nearly blinded the prince. Everything weighed down upon him. The crisp cold air shocked his lungs as he gasped for the taste of it, feeling his incisors grow and sharpen until they resembled almost that of sharp fangs. He had been risen from the waves, only for whatever was happening to him and around him to slam him back down to the ground.
The force of it snapped Adam's burning blue eyes wide open. The darkness was gone.
Prince Adam's eyes' torture was met by the burning harrowing pain of this mysterious light once more, and his hoarse throat cried out against it as the prince realized: this light did not come from any torch that was being held, but rather, the woman affront him, she was the light.
The beautiful blonde beggar woman of Villeneuve radiated an extraordinary heat and warmth that could only come from the heavens, the gods of the tales of old.
He tried to cry out against it, thinking that surely what he was witnessing was witchcraft, to raise his arms and shield his vision with his hand, only to find that his hand was no longer his own.
In its place, a horrible hairy brown claw, his nails no longer fingernails, but blackened vicious wolf's claws. He cursed himself and he cursed the witch eyeing him with no small amount of smug triumph in her burning steely grey eyes as the golden glow emanated off of her in an aura quite unlike anything that he had ever seen before.
When the witch spoke, her voice was calculating and cold.
"Now then. I suppose I could be cruel and torture you to kill you. Considering what you did to my husband and our entire race of people like him and I, there's no question that would be appropriate, a fitting form of punishment. But unfortunately, I'm not as vulgar as you. It would bring me no satisfaction. So, I think I'll stand here and watch until you've taken your last miserable breath as a human. Judging by the way your body is transforming, I'd say you have about a minute at best. It's quite agonizing, isn't it? Your body changing as your bones break and shift back into place again. I dedicate these last few minutes before the curse takes its full effects on you and that of your servants to Henri's soul. May you rest in peace, my love."
Oh god! Oh, God! The prince's mind screamed at him. What had he done?
His servants did not deserve this.
"Let…them…go…" he growled in a deep, baritone rumble that did not sound his own voice whatsoever.
It sent a tremor down his spine and caused his hackles to raise as he slowly stood to his feet, though he felt dizzy. His heart sank lower than the depths from which he had crawled, and Prince Adam du Barreau was no more. But in his place a monster. A Beast.
Towering, hulking, huge, and hairy, his only consolation to assuage his guilt was that no one else was around to see his transformation.
The scream that turned into a guttural howl as the Beast-Prince parted his lips caused the ground to shake beneath his paws. In that empty scream, Agathe knew, was the pain of an indifferent man, of a beast who sold its soul for ease and a life of comfort, and instead found Hell. It can wrap itself in beautiful skin or the rancid hide of the decaying creatures of the abyss, yet Agathe saw it regardless of disguise.
Agathe's lips turned up in a smirk.
"Is that…pity and plea I detect in your voice?" The witch turned to face him and fixed him with a pointedly cold glower. "It truly is a shame that it came to you too late, Your Majesty. Your servants stood by and watched as your own man carved his knife into that poor girl's cheekbone and likely has scarred her face as a result, Prince. They are just as guilty as you. Guilty as sin, their sin is that they did not help. They stood by. And did nothing."
Exhausted, he could fight no more. Adam knew he must be alive, but he no longer wished to be. He had given up.
He wanted to fall back into the darkness he was comfortable in. As it surged towards him as the newly transformed creature sank to all fours, he hoped it would engulf him, and he would cease to breathe and to exist.
If he was alive and had caused his own servants' demise, he wanted nothing more to do with him. Adam let himself relax into the void. He prayed that it would end his torment. He wanted no more of it.
As precious sleep started to find the Beast, he heard the witch's shrill voice.
"You will find a blood-red rose encased in a glass dome in the West Wing, Your Highness. You will be sore for a few days following your transformation as your body adjusts to its new form, though it will adjust, in time. It's quite a feat, all your bones broken and shifting into a brand-new place in your body. This rose that I've given you, see to its care, and tend it well. It is an enchanted rose, and it shall bloom for one more year until your twenty-first birthday. If you can learn and find it within your heart to forgive, and to love another, and earn her love in return, the spell that I've just cast will be broken. But if not, your servants shall remain as they are, and you, a Beast, for all eternity, and you will lose all humanity, what little of it that you have left. The worst aspects of the curse I've set upon you and your servants and this castle are reserved for you and only you. Should any young woman happen to come across your path, the only thing that will frighten her is the sight of your visage. Have I made myself clear, Beast?" Only when the Beast let out a low, guttural growl did she speak again and continue explaining her terms and conditions. "Though, the best of luck in getting a young mademoiselle to fall in love with you, for I do wonder if you're the worst person I've ever met. The truly vile do tend to stand out over the years, Prince. I shall be checking on you from time to time, Highness. Do not disappoint me," the witch warned, and then she fled.
The prince's ragged gasps as the beggar woman from Villeneuve vanished into the cold mist became agonized, hair-raising, almost demonic-sounding screams as a pair of twisting, long horns began to emerge from his head, finalizing his transformation from man to beast, tearing through his skull with such excruciating force that Adam thought he was being ripped apart from the inside-out.
Adam thought that he would very well burst from the pain, he screamed until he was very nearly in shock from the pain, and still, his muscles could not compel him to stand upright. Prince Adam felt as though the darkness were closing in around him, pulling him under, as he lay on the snow-covered ground, staring up at the millions of stars.
He had already fought so hard. Part of him wanted to let go, to fall back into a calming abyss of nothingness and be washed away.
Even as his body and mind begged for relief, the Beast-Prince knew that he could not give up.
If there was but a chance he could save his servants' lives, if not himself, then he was going to have to try.
He wanted this so desperately, needed it. This was all he had now.
He had fought all his life, ever since he was old enough to understand the ways of the aristocracy and how the world around him and his family worked.
Adam had been fierce, impassioned, unstoppable, unyielding.
Those who had dared to challenge his rule had either fallen at the tip of his blade or were sent to the gallows.
It had all seemed so bloody long ago. That life had been before. Before Father and Mother had died, Mother going first of an illness, dying of a disease of the heart, and Father not but a few years after her, of a broken heart, the doctors had claimed.
Before he had met and became engaged to Princess Circe in the hopes of further improving relations with Germany.
Before he had taken on that prickly little hearth keep, that, for some reason, visions of her face flitted through his mind as he writhed in agony on his back on the ground. Before he had been turned into this hideous…demonic wretch.
Before, before, before. Before.
Adam feared this was a battle that could not be won, and with a prize so dear at stake. His strength and resolve were failing him, and he'd not even started yet.
But he held on with all his might. Failure was not an option. His own life, and the lives of his servants, depended upon it.
Every scar on his body carried a memory, but with it, also a conquest. All of his victories over threats, fears, anguish, and torment, made Adam a brave man.
Though all of them seemed useless compared to this. He had known pain like this, but never quite like this now.
As precious sleep found the newly-transformed Prince Adam once more, under the stars, he was hit with an idea.
His newly appointed hearth keep.
He could force her to stay, to love him.
Surely, the witch's spell she'd placed him under would break once he laid on the charm, assuming the beauty but a strange girl could look past… all of this. His hearth keep, this Belle, as prickly and hot-headed and stubborn as she was, she was his now and there was no way he was giving her back.
Given enough time, come the morning when he went after them himself, she would come to thank him for it.