Swords slashed the air. Its blade painted the wind red from the slaughter of men. Women screamed as their children were riped apart. Some were left alive and escaped, but some were captured and slaved.

Up the hill was a bloody castle, flamed with the fury of fires and the anger of men. A woman came out of the shadows and stood on the brink of the balcony. She saw what her evil husband had done as king. She had pleased her son to run away for safety from him. Now it was her turn to set her baby free, even if it means that she die for the child.

Men's cries for revenge forced the mother to regret her farewell. She took to her plunging death down the castle, leaving her husband furious than ever.

Everything have quieted down for a while. The mother, barely holding her baby in her breasts, wondered what her husband had done. She limped through the forest in pain from her fall, but fell at the river, still holding her son close to her skipping heart.

The mother knew she had to move on. She heard too much silence, she went back, more sore than ever. The city was still in flames. The castle stood in ruins, weeping blood from its walls. She climbed up the stairs, wondering still where her husband was. She entered upon the kingdom and saw her husband holding the baby's bloody blanket.

"Why did you leave me?"

"I need to protect our sons. You tried to murder my sons!"

The king turned to face his wife. She too was bloody and arched with pain. He took out his sword, "I don't want my sons to be killed. I want you to be killed instead. Where is my eldest son?!"

"I don't know..."

"You do know."

The mother held the baby close to her breasts, "No! Leave me alone... Leave me alone!"

"Give me the child!"

"NO! Never!"

The King slashed his wife through the breasts into her heart. As the mother passed out into death, the baby began to cry. The king took the child into his arms as the baby screamed in his father's arms, "You will not know who we are..." The king lay his son in the cradle and covered the baby with the bloody blanket.

"Good-bye... my son," The king took his own sword and fell upon it right at the foot of the cradle...

...sixteen years later...

The baby, now a full grown child, grew up alone in the castle. He had some people who he had captured from the forests of his domain. The people served him highly and respectfully, making him feel for them and gave them pay.

But one evening, a cold evening, the young man heard a knock upon his huge doors. The servants crowded around from him, fearing he would hurt the knocker. The young man opened the door to an old woman. He quickly gasped as the woman kindly said, "Would you help an old woman by giving her shether for one night? I will give you this beautiful rose in return."

The young man knew nothing of beauty. He had no heart, because he was found dying in his crib with his parents dead close to him. He said sternly, but gently, "I can't accept such rose... I know no beauty and no care whatsoever."

The old woman showed her eyes and said, "You refuse my gift?"

"I can't... If you stay within my domain, you will be my servant."

The young man grew angrier as the old woman continued to say, "Just let me stay for one night."

"I have no room for you to stay..." Finally he remarked with a snap in his voice.

Then, the old woman began to stand taller. Her old clock began to fall and a straighter woman stared in the eyes of the young man, "I am much ashamed of my own son."

The young man's eyes burned, "Mother?"

"You have no feelings for those about you. Your father's evil spirit have grown within you. The only thing that can make you better like I was, is that you must learn the value of beauty!"

The young man fell to his knees, begging his own mother for mercy. But the queen said, "My son, my only young son. Your brother is in the midst of those, knowing all, while you lack mercy, and love. My wonderful child you were, and now you are like your father."

The young man cried out to his mother as she continued, "You will pay. You are now cursed just as your father, and the only remedy is no medicine, but of beauty and love."

The son looked up at his mother for the last time as his hands turned into furry paws. He cried, "Mother! NO!"

The young man had no idea that his own life was controlled. He scratched every picture of himself, scarring his own heart how he became like his father in just sixteen years. But since that day, he lingered about the rose, wondering who would love an evil man like he and his own father?