A/N: This is another one-shot ficlet that comes with a moodboard that sadly I can't post here but it's post 659994022550650880 on my tumblr if you want to see it. The different kind of tragic backstory for Savitar, this AU just feels fitting for this pair.
In Good Time
There once was a prince whose name is sadly since forgotten. And once, he was full of light, but life was not kind to him nor his loved ones. With each tragedy, his bright smile grew weaker. He knew less and less whom to trust, whom to turn to when his luck was down. And with each betrayal, his faith in people's goodness faded like the light then dimmed in his eyes when he tried to smile. His despair and unhappiness colored his every interaction - the darkness of his grief settled over the whole estate. No longer was he the happy child they remembered, nor the noble man whom all the servants had felt comforted to take over from his parents who passed too soon.
When he could take no more of life's injustices, he sought out an enchanter, determined to make the world good again, to make right the wrongs that plagued his family. But he was rash, he did not consider that the wording of the wish could be almost as important as the intent. So alas, he did not have all that he desired returned to him and he lashed out at the enchanter. As he may have told it the enchanter was fickle, cruel, and perhaps that is the case, perhaps he laughed at the fool's pain.
But perhaps he was wiser and simply fulfilled the wish in the only way it was possible to, something infinitely more complex than the instant gratification expected. Either way, the prince was overtaken with an intense rage and bitterness. Perhaps it was a curse from the enchanter that transformed that emotion into a visage more visceral, becoming the beast he acted. Or perhaps, not that many would think to guess it, he had that spark of magic within himself already; the result of something strong worked back and forth over time until it broke, twisted round and showed on the outside everything hidden that had long been brewing within him.
Many versions of that tale have been told in the villages and Caitlin Snow has heard her share, not that she puts any stock in magic or fairy tales. She reads obsessively, teaching herself everything she can about medicine, and the world at large, without leaving her ailing father. When she trespasses onto the land next to the supposedly haunted derelict grand house - to gather a rare herb she has only read about in old apothecary journals - she does not expect to be disturbing any man. And indeed she does not, for it is a beast who strikes a hard bargain with her for a cure for her father.
Despite the circumstances, Caitlin intends to do what she can to find the beast a cure as well, though he is resistant to proper examination which does not help matters. He only allows fleeting touches before he flinches away, barely enough time to hear what she suspects is an alarmingly high heart rate. She expects to be content to pass the time reading in his vast library, but there's something sad about the shuttered, dusty house that calls out for light to be shed on it. Both literally, as she breathes life into the place she must live out their agreed-upon days, and figuratively, because she has never been able to resist a curiosity. So many questions dance through her mind, about the house's history, about those doomed to walk its halls, and she gets so few answers to those questions she does dare ask. It feels at times like the Beast's story is not so unlike the tales she has read in his libraries' old abandoned tomes; stories that waited centuries for the right person to uncover them and, as with any story, will unfold in their own time.