*Burning Roses.*
*A Beauty and The Beast story.*
Rating: Pg-13Pairings: None yet.
Genre: Romance, Humor, Drama. And action (I think).
Disclaimer: Please, for the love of God, read the first chapter's disclaimer and keep it in your mind.
Summary: Hey, Coffee. ::insane giggle:: What's with the acorn? Must be from one of those persons from the Squirrel Convention down the hall. Better thank them. It's Starbucks. Mmmmmm… HOT!!!!.
::owowowow:: Anyway, Relena wakes up from her little trip out to Sleeping Beauty La La land, and well…yeah. Serena quickly becomes Bosom Buddies with the faeries she had stomped previously. Hey, what a lovely world they live in. Where the bestest of buds come from the shoe marks on the floor. Erm, so… Beast has hell in store for him. Poor widdle beastie boy, having to deal with all this stuff I'm throwing at him. :: Insane cackle… "OW, my tongue":: GO READ NOW, coffee hot, I'm in paaaiiinn…
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Chapter Five.
Beast was wondering the halls, minding his own honest business, really, when he started hearing voices. Now, he was quite certain it wasn't those kind of voices in particular. But, hey, considering what he had been through in the past several days, voices would have been the icing on the tea cake. That is if the tea cakes even had icing. Perhaps maybe, it's more of the jam on the fruit tart. Er, yes. So anyway, he was walking, or prowling like any good predator should prowl, when his hyper sensitive hearing picked up these voices. Now, that isn't to say his furry little pointed ears are hyper active and go bouncing up the walls, just that they are extra, very, very, very sensitive to any noise.
Which was why he picked up the slight buzzing of the voices but not the words. Which was to expect, as he was, by his judgment, three halls away from the voices. Which, may or may not have been a good thing.
Whew, what a relief, for a second there he thought he had gone mad. He hadn't survived so long for nothing, mind you. It would have been a major kick in the pants for him to have gone loo loo after so long.
The irony might have done him in. Har har har.
Well, curiosity being a natural failing among his particular species-if there where any more of cursed creatures like him, that is-, he figured "Gosh golly gee, how about I go and see whom those voices are." And thus he did.
Serena leaned down to inspect the damage she had done to the two faeries, feeling very bad for doing them harm. By nature, Serena was a kind girl who hated hurting creatures. Hell, she was a vegetarian, was tight with the whole "Save the {insert animal here}" parties, and so on.
But, she was a complete stranger when dealing with faeries. Were they bugs or humans? OR is that midgets?
No offense to anyone out there.
So, anyway, she took the safest route of advise. When in doubt, poke it with a stick. She did. There was a convenient stick just a little to her left.
" Are they alright?" she asked, turning to look over her shoulder at Braid, who was floating upside down whistling to Yankee doodle dandy. He stopped for a moment, "Aww, don't worry about them, they're used to being used as door mats. It's a daily ritual in our life you could say."
"Oh, that's horrible!"
"Tell me about it." Braid went back to whistling while Serena went on looking scandalized.
"Who does it?" She demanded, standing up to her full 5'3'' height. Considering Braid's size, she was quite effectively towering over him. She did it, and she did it well. He was very much afraid for his braid.. er, life.
Open mouthed, he stared up at her in horrified awe. " uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…"
Suddenly, she was at eye level with him, or maybe it was he that eyelevel to her… in any case, both of them were eye to eye, and he was very much afraid. And he was sitting on her hand.
"I'm just trying to help you guys. You don't need to fear me. Actually, I find that really funny… You fearing me, I mean." She smiled.
It was a contagious smile, because Braid smiled as well. "Heh, yeah, no offense, but your not that scary at all really."
"Hey, I can be scary if I feel like it. Well, My name is Serena, but you can call me Ren or Sere."
"I'm Duo. The blonde pancake down yonder is Quatre and the one that has the proverbial stick up his as…um… yeah, you're a lady right? Well, He's Wufei. But you can call him Wu-man. He likes that name better." Duo laughed, scratching the back of his neck.
From the floor there came such a mutter, that Serena looked down to see what was the matter.
"I heard that you braided fruit. And I'm going to kill you for it."
Serena watched the short little black haired fairy stand up and straiten his wings in quick angry movements. She lifted her eyebrows when he drew a sword about the size of a glorified pincushion needle, and charge after Duo with a battle cry that, to her, sounded like someone had stepped on a mouse. Dou, for his part, just flitted to her shoulder with a gleeful cackle fit for a very small witch.
She sighed, rolling her eyes upward.
"Ye gods, you two are worse than Darien and I." Putting out a hand, she stopped Wufei just as he was about to dive bomb the giggling winged nut on her shoulder. Dazed, Wufei bounded off her palm and drifted to the floor like a piece of paper. She looked down at him, and shook her head.
"All right, now I like you." Duo said, peering down at the swirly eyed Wufei with a curious expression. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he shouted down to Wufei, "HEY! WU-WU, whatsa matter, can't take a woman."
A muffled curse was the response.
Leaning down, she picked the bad tempered fairy up by the back of his shirt, and brought him up to eye level with her.
" You know, it was rather rude of you to attack your friend like that Sir. Wufei." She gave him a shrewd look, and making a bark to the dark, " I believe it was dishonorable."
With a sudden burst of fury, Wufei became a whirlwind of fists and feet.
" I AM NOT DISHONOURABLE ONNA!!!!"
Serena gave him that, "Maybe not, but you do sound like a mouse when you scream like that. You squeak."
The volume of his shouts rose a few more octaves, "I DO NOT SQEUAK! I DONT!!!!!!
"Whatever you say." She picked up the other fairy gently.
"I take it that you two know this place right?" Looking down the halls, Serena came to the conclusion that if she were to try to navigate the castle by herself, she might end up getting hopelessly lost. And then starving to death, because she doubted anyone would ever be able to find her.
Wufei, of course did not answer her, but Duo on the other hand was all for it. That is, until someone, or something depending on your point of view, interrupted the jolly little party of three and one knocked out.
Something tall, dark and hairy to be precise. And not just a little scary. Serena was suddenly glad that she wasn't allergic to any type of animals or she might have sneezed herself to a coma by now.
Beast stood there, looking particularly well groomed if not for the bad candle lighting, staring at her in what looked to be relief. But then again, Serena was hardly interested in whether he was relieved or not. I mean, come on, he did just act like she was a carrier of the plague. Do you seriously think that she would allow him to get off so easy? No. Wrongo.
" What do you want?" Oh, yes, that was a horrible punishment. She needed to work on being mean. Oh well, She sat there looking at him, imagining every single bone being broken one by one by one. His bones. Not hers. She was not self-destructive. Despite popular belief given her choice of company. A very toothy choice of company at that.
Duo, who certainly had his priorities in line starting with getting the hell out of there before his rear was stomped by wither one of them, had decided to play wall-fairy and was sitting up on a picture frame on the wall. He watched the scene with avid interest. The kind of interest where you see something absolutely horrible and no matter what you want to do you just can't take your eyes away from it. Yeah, you know, that kind.
He was also thinking, ~ 20 toadstools on Serena going all kow tow to Mr. I'm a big bad wolf.~ Serena had, after all stomped him and his buddies, stopped Wufei on his war path, and sent the chauvinistic mini man into a total lapse of sanity. He'd never seen any one do an impression of a rabid cat so well.
Aside from Beast of course. But then again, that was a given. Like, Duh. Okay, so he wasn't a cat. Nor, technically was he actually a wolf. Or a lion. Or …another beastie like creature with fangs and claws and grr-ness leaking from every available pore not covered by fur. Duo was getting a headache.
" Did you follow me?" She quaked in indignation, and threw the most convenient thing in hand, which happened to be Wufei, at the beast. "Ooops, I did it again."
Luckily, the fairy came to just before dining into a head on collision with something that could grind his teeny weenie little fairy bones into jelly for his toast and put his wings to good use. The judges give him a five for effort, though the last judge had to be the standard pain in the foot and give him a four. Wufei made a note to prick the ingrate with his glorified pin needle later.
"Do you make a habit of flinging little fairy's about?"
"No. Only when you're around. You bring out the…uh, beast in me." With that, Serena reached and grabbed Duo, Still holding Quatre and walked away, snatching Wufei from the air as she did so. Leaving a very ticked of beast in her wake. Ticks were nasty things, really.
Fuming, Beast rounded on his pads and stalked to his own sanctuary; the rose garden.
Serena marched down the corridor; nose parallel to the red and plush carpeting that would have any noble monarch turn puke green with envy. She took no notice of the struggling Wufei, of the squealing Duo as she went. A few times she would stop and peek into a room, to see if they were suitable for habitation.
And, if, for that case, they were the right color. Pink was most assuredly out of the question. Maybe a nice soothing baby blue and other such shades were in order.
What she got, was a nice, homey room with deep blue trimmings and wood décor with a lovely little library perfect for her.
"Mine," Was the declaration before the door shut with a resounding tha-boom. "Oh, blessed tub. "
The door opened again and three fairies were deposited on their rears with the orders to "Stay put or I shall take a pea shooter to you all."
Once again, the door shut.
Pink was the first color to greet Relena's dazed and confused eyes when she came to. She was disoriented and was having difficulty figuring out what had happened; so when the memories came back she went wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
"Oh my…." She squeaked, sitting up.
All right, enough of that. I'm not in the mood to write about her. Zero interest factors. So moving on. Heh, pink….
Heaven on earth came in the form of a rose scented bubble bath in a marble tub for Serena. What with the steam coming from the opalescent waters, she could only imagine how wonderful it would feel against her skin.
Petty coasts and other articles of clothing ricocheted off of trappings and the few other items in the room before the owner had dashed into the bathing room and was engulfed in the rose water up to her ears.
Serena's eyes fluttered with pleasure. At home, she had to content herself with bathing in a stream as far from the house as she could get. She hadn't had a real bath in seven years. Not since her mother passed on. Relena and Darien stood her up on the chance to have a real, warm bath.
Such was the pains of being her.
Well, she mused, I could get used to this.
Beast was pacing. Back and forth back and forth. So it went.
He was also ruining the rug on which he waltzed; his claws reeking havoc on the delicate woven strands of silk. Eh, well, he didn't much like the coloration of the rug anyway. It clashed with his fur.
Well, that was a weak reason for his animosity towards the rug.
And what the hell was a rug doing out in the garden anyway? Duo must have been tweaking with the magic of the castle.
Again.
Damn fairy. Damn Serena who had just allied herself to the damn fairy.
"I've certainly pissed off someone in the heavens." He growled, and resisted the urge to make a rude gesture to the twilight sky dome above him.
If they were pissed off at him now, he didn't want to find out what their enraged mood was like.
Oh…wait. He was a beast. Gee, guess this was just the icing on the cake.
This must be an extension of hell. Laugh it up.
Ha Ha. Ha. Whatever.