Author's note: Beauty has made it safely out of Saruptal's palace, and is on her way home – or is she? Read and see…
Lexi: I'm glad you enjoyed the rather large update, and yes, the repeat chapter in 17 and 18 was an error. Stupid me, but hey, I fixed it. ^_^ Anyways. Nelisia and Tizirra are going to get their punishment soon, but that will be in the epilogue. As things stand right now, I think we'll have about two more chapters from Beauty (this one being one of them) and then a sort of counter-point thing between both her and the Beast for the end, and after that, the epilogue. So about four, if I'm calculating this right. *wink* As for the third part of the Travelers of Enchantment series, it will begin soon. I'm already working on ideas for how to start it out…
Fae Queen: Well, thank you very much – your review was much appreciated, and I will definitely see to it that I read your story and review for you as well! I love the BatB stories on ff.net, and try to read any that I see.
Rosethorn: Okay, here it is – sorry I took so long, but things at my house during the holidays… 'Jeez-oh-pete' is the only phrase I can use to describe it. ^_^ Anywho, here's another update for your reading pleasure, and I hope that Gavin is behaving for you. Hehe.
Everyone else: Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews – they seriously make my day, and it encourages me to know that there are actually people out there who read (and like!) my stuff. Now enjoy!
Disclaimer/claimer: Oh yes, I didn't come up with any of the original fairy tales featured in here, but I do own a lot of the characters (i.e. Arielle, Doran Laclarien, Nelisia, Tizirra, Elenette, Raethyr, Griff, Saruptal, Orlando, etc. etc. etc.) It almost goes without saying…
Beauty:
Revelation
…the next morning, she found herself at her father's, and having rung a little bell, that was by her bedside, she saw the maid come, who, the moment she saw her, gave a loud shriek, at which the good man ran up stairs, and thought he should have died with joy to see his dear daughter again…
It was twilight, and very cold; the air about me was hung thick with a chilling, clammy heaviness to it, and mist swathed the road ahead of my horse as it galloped headlong through the deep forest, flecks of dirt flying before its clipping hooves. I leaned low over its neck, letting it have its head. I was all-too-ready to reach my destination, and as the night drew on, the thought of getting out of the darkness was very welcome.
Beside me, just over my left shoulder, Elenette zipped along through the air, easily keeping pace with her former Spryte comrade, my current mount. She looked like little more than a tiny little star, the sole source of light in the dark forest, and for once, she did not chatter merrily and breathlessly to me. We both held a sense of urgency in our hearts, and we both knew it quite well. We continued to race along, my dark evergreen cloak billowing out behind me in the wind as it rushed past, whipping against my clothing. I had great need of haste at the moment.
The night before, I had visited, very shortly, the magical gathering at the palace of the wizard Saruptal, and there I had met three of the surely most famous faery tale figures of all time, two of which were my personal hero and heroine! I had also stolen from under the wizard's very nose the Book of Hours, which he had taken from the White Realm centuries before.
And I had lived to tell about it.
Which is still amazing, and all the more reason why you should be concerned of only getting to somewhere you can hide and, above all, keep an exceedingly low profile, Arielle.
I thought this grimly and urged my mount on faster, shifting in my seat and gripping the reins tighter after I had pulled my hood down further over my face, effectively obscuring my features.
After I had somehow managed to escape the wizard's castle without being marked, I had made my way to the nearest inn, some twenty-five miles away. No one questioned my being there alone, which I credited to the fact that there were quite a few lone feminine travelers who frequented these parts of Éindor: healers, enchantresses, bards, and the sort. I think I had come across as the third of those – a bard. Fortunately, no one had asked me to sing. I doubt my unnerved and frazzled mental state would have allowed me to give a very worthwhile performance then.
When I had reached my room, I had found a note awaiting me there, and Elenette – and her companion – had identified it as one from their master, the Beast. I was very relieved to have heard from him, and desired very much to give him a report of my success so far, so I read the letter. In it, he told me not to feel obligated to return to the castle directly. "Go visit your father, and show him that he is not to fear for your welfare – that you are, above all else, safe," the letter had said.
Well, really the last thing I wanted to do right then was go back and make a lovely little house call to my former residence, especially if it meant a run-in with the eternal duo of torment and destruction, Nelisia and Tizirra Argonté-Laclarien. My stepmother and stepsister. But oh well, fine, I suppose I could do that, I had decided before putting out the light and going to bed. I could do with a visit to my father, whom I still missed dearly in spite of the love that I had grown to have for my new home with the Beast.
Whom I missed now more than anything, with an intensity that I could not begin to describe in any way of the spoken language.
So now, here I was: cantering down the old road that I had taken oh-so-many times with my father, with my 'family' itself, drawing ever nearer to the farm house at the crossroads somewhere in the most remote forests of northern Éindor. Finally, I came out of the trees, Elenette clearing them right behind me, and pulled my horse to a stop, casting about myself for a scan of the clearing. Little more than a fourth of a mile down the road, lurking in the gloomy mist, were the faintest, most shadowy gray outlines of a wooden farmhouse – the house that had never been a home to me.
"All right."
I clenched my teeth, even more grim than before, and squared my shoulders resolutely. What would Nelisia say to my current attire, and how would Tizirra react to my almost boyish garb? Evergreen breeches, a full-cut woolen tunic of the same, knee-high brown leather boots, deerskin gloves, and a hooded cloak was hardly the mod for fashionable ladies of the Known World!
I dug my heels into my horse's sides and it galloped forward again. We were dashing into the front yard in less than a minute, and I rode right up to the nearest door before swiftly dismounting. Then I frowned.
Even in the dusky shadows, I could clearly tell that the door directly in front of me was quite solidly boarded over. In fact, now that I gave the house a more proper scrutiny, it looked as if it hadn't been lived in for some time.
"What on earth happened here?" I wondered aloud, to both Elenette, the other Spryte, and the listening air of the forest. Elenette was silent for a moment before she came to hover over me, near my right shoulder.
"Perhaps they have gone to live elsewhere in the mortal village?" she offered, but I shook my head, not seeing how that could have been the case.
"No. My father had nowhere else to go but this place, after what happened with the ships and his merchant business." I had told her long before about my family and the reason why we had vacated Basilisk-Head and Casilimoor itself to come here. "No, I don't think that they would have left this house for another one here. It just doesn't work out. Where have they gone?"
Just then, almost as if in answer to my question, a gravelly, sharply accented Éindorean voice called out to us from the general vicinity of the farm gate. I turned around swiftly, and Elenette swooped neatly out of sight in a split second, hiding herself very discreetly in a fold of my horse's saddlebag.
"If ye be lookin' for lodgings, m'lady, yer best bet is on the village down the road – nary about five miles yonder!"
A small wooden cart, drawn by a pair of donkeys and holding a single occupant: an elderly but spry little man who peered at me nearsightedly from atop his perch had rolled up to the gate. I gestured my recognition of his presence and called back quickly, "Please, sir – where have the occupants of this house gone – the merchant Laclarien and his wife and daughter?"
He paused a moment, as if trying to pull the answer out of somewhere in the dusty corridors of dismissed knowledge, and finally replied, "Last I heard, the merchant had fallen quite ill, and so the entire family had repaired back to Basilisk-Head in Casilimoor, where they'd hailed from before they come here."
I had heard enough. In a split second, I had remounted my horse and wheeled him about, sending him charging back onto the road. I turned in the saddle as I prepared to depart, yelling back over my shoulder, "Thank you – and tell the people at the inn that they'll still have room for one more person tonight!"
* * *
"Which is the quickest route to the southernmost seaport in Éindor, Elenette?" I asked, some twenty minutes later as we galloped down the road, through the black night. Elenette whizzed along for another moment before she replied, in her breathy, small voice, "Take the right fork at the junction near Maythar – the next split in the road you see! What are we going to do now, Arielle?"
"We're going to make a visit to Basilisk-Head, my friend." I replied, concentrating on the road as the scenery flew by us. "My father is sick, and if I know anything at all about Nelisia and Tizirra, they're probably preparing right now to go out to some thick-headed dolt of a lord or marquis's cotillion and leave him at home to fend for himself!" How could I have been so stupid? Why, oh why, hadn't I checked on the welfare of my father before now? How could I have forgotten this?
Elenette seemed to have sensed my self-condemning thoughts, for she told me, "It's not your fault that your father is unwell, Arielle."
"But it is my fault for not knowing! I could have made him well by now!"
I wanted very much to berate myself now for this, but then my better senses kicked in and told me that this wouldn't help. Right now, my father was sick, and I needed to get to him. Then I could make him well again, see to it that he knew that I was alive and well, and very happy and content indeed, and return home – to my true home. So I urged my horse on, and we reached the crossroads near the town of Maythar within the hour. I quickly developed a plan of action and told it to Elenette as we sped along.
"We'll have to ride to Trantharis, Elenette – it's a port-city in the southernmost point of Éindor, and one where we can easily get a place on a ship to take us to Basilisk-Head. It's somewhere around two-hundred and fifty miles away, but we can stop tonight and then go the rest of the way tomorrow."
"But isn't the celebration which the mortals know as the Autumn Equinox to be held beginning on the morrow?"
I hauled my mount to a jarring stop, feeling a sick twisting feeling jab into my stomach as I remembered the specific holiday that she had just referred to. "Blast it!" I snapped, disgusted with my poor planning, the world, and myself in general.
The Autumn Equinox was one of the more largely celebrated holidays in the Known World, and if memory served me correctly, all roads would be jammed with any number of people going to their respective places of merriment. There would be no way that I could ever thread my way through them in the amount of time that I would have desired to. Calm yourself, Arielle, and find another way, my better sense told me, winning over my being yet again.
"We can cut across country, Elenette, and still reach it." I told her.
We rode on again, and hours flew by like fleeting minutes, and soon I saw that the moon's progress now marked far past midnight. We would have to find some place to rest for the night, I decided, and relayed this to Elenette. However, we seemed to be in the archetypical, legendary 'middle of nowhere' right at that moment, and there was not a village, city, town, or human dwelling within sight. Then—
"Look!" cried Elenette, zipping in front of me and setting the air around us ablaze with the intensification of her glow.
I peered towards where she was gesturing in Sprytian movements and saw, deep in the moonlit valley far below the road that we stood upon, a small building, golden pinpricks of light showing through its miniscule windows.
"Perhaps fate has not left our side after all," I commented, smiling dryly, and nudged my mount towards it.
In a while, we reached the place, and I dismounted yet again, feeling my muscles begin to ache deeply. I had been riding almost nonstop for far too many hours to count, and now I simply wanted to sit down and rest. I gathered the reins of the long-suffering and extremely patient Spryte that had been transformed into my horse into one hand and led it along behind me as I skirted the house, coming around it to the front door.
Within, I could see that all was well furnished, complete with a roaring fire, luxurious furniture – or what was luxurious to common folk such as myself, although it was really nothing compared to the Beast's castle – and a long, broad table loaded with heaps of delectable-looking food.
I glanced at Elenette shortly, and then knocked firmly on the door. I heard movement from within – movement that sounded suspiciously like the clopping of four middle-sized hooves on a tile floor.
And then the door swung open, and I found myself face-to-face with a gray donkey, upon whose back perched a ginger tomcat, whose luminous green eyes gazed upon me delicately, questioningly. I almost choked on my laughter!
Ah, so it is you, gray-one! I said to the donkey. Is it possible that I should meet with you again – and in such a place?
Fair lady enchantress! the donkey's surprise reply was. It is you! Come in, come in! My friends have long heard tell of your inspiration in my life – enter, and join us!
He stood aside and I walked in, my Sprytes following behind me: both in their original forms now, for I had disenchanted the horse. The donkey pushed the door closed with its head and then clip-clopped over to stand in front of me, making various little noises in its throat that I took to be some sort of animal summons to a sleek, gray-brown hound and a richly plumed and jewel-toned rooster, who rose from their places in front of the fire. The cat hopped down off of the donkey's back as he spoke, addressing them all.
Friends, this is a special night! Tonight, the fair enchantress who sent me on the beginning of the quest that led us all here has come, and she is our guest!
And then, after they had urged me over to the table and had me load up a plate of the absolutely scrumptious steaming hot food that was there, they all proceeded to tell me of the adventure that brought them all to the wonderful house. Once the donkey had left me, he met up with the dog, and then the cat, and then the rooster, and, together, they had decided to go to the town of Bremin to become musicians. However, on their way, they had stopped for the night at this house, only to find that it was inhabited by a band of fearsome robbers!
Not to be defeated by this, the four had come up with a plan to frighten the bandits away. The donkey stood before a window, placing his hooves on its ledge, the dog climb on his back, the cat stood on the dog's back, and the rooster perched on top of them all. Then, they began to sing – and I could only imagine the noise that they had made! The robbers had fled, leaving their plundered wealth and marvelous feast behind, and the animals had taken possession of the house in their wake. Then, when the ousted inhabitants of the house had tried to come back and re-take the place, the animals had frightened them off once again. Now they all lived quite happily there.
And since I had been the reason for all of this, they said, they would have me stay nowhere but here for the night. So I very willingly – and gratefully – assented. Before I went to sleep, curled up in a plush blanket on the couch before the fireplace, I heard Elenette's voice in my ear.
"Why don't you use your wishes to take us to Casilimoor, Arielle?"
Wishes. I had told her about the Golden Genie before, but…hmm. I hadn't thought of that before.
"Perhaps I will, Elenette." I replied, gazing at the flickering golden flames, which reminded me vaguely of the shade of a certain pair of dragon-like eyes… "I'm not sure if they will be valid, since I don't have the Genie's book with me with now." I suppressed a yawn, and pulled the blanket closer about my chin, snuggling into it as drowsiness dropped down over me, softly and soothingly. "But…maybe…maybe I will…perhaps I will…perhaps…"
And then I slept.
Goodnight, Beast. I miss you so…I'll be home soon.
Goodnight, my beautiful Beast.
"Beauty…"
* * *