"Please, sir, have you- "
He closed the door in her face. If it was a 'her'. The hunched shape in scraps of sack; oily hair and wrinkles; patterns of dirt covering every visible surface; could have been anything. Could have been a wild animal in clothes. He snorted at the idea.
"Filthy beggars. I'll have none of it," he muttered, helping himself to another glass of mulled wine. He shied from TOUCHING them- how should he invite them in for food and drink?
Another rap, like the knob of a cane being knocked against the iron frame of the door. The Prince lowered his goblet to the table and made a face at the window. It was cold outside, and he was comfortable by the fire. "GO AWAY!" he shouted, but that door was thick. He wouldn't be heard. Besides- the rapping persisted.
The pewter hit the table with a crack that begged gentler handling. The Prince stomped to the door, irrational irritation building towards his late night visitor.
Delicate iron ivy had been wrought into the frame of the door and it scratched him as he pulled the damn thing open.
"WHAT!" he snapped.
"Please, sir. I am hungry and lonely- I have traveled for many days. Would a little food and company pain you so? If I must- I could repay you." The beggar let the query's end hang, allowing the Prince to apply his own interpretation.
"Don't be DISGUSTING." he fumed. "I have no use for your stories or your company. You are not welcome here. Walk on." The door was too heavy to slam, but he put his strong young back into heaving it shut. Inexplicably, it stopped a few bare inches from the doorjamb.
The beggar had put her walking stick through the doorway. Through a hand span of space, the Prince saw the woman raise her head from the ground. In a withered, sun-tanned face, her eyes glowed like unholy coals.
"Such a beautiful face," she whispered to him, voice barely audible. "Have you no such beauty inside of you?"
A swift kick of his leather-booted foot took the cane out of the jamb. "Such is not for you to judge, hag. Be off with you. Before I set the beasts to run you away."
And the heavy oak barred her from his world once more. At the table, the Prince hefted his goblet and reflected upon how very small it seemed. He abandoned it in favor of a swig from the decanter.
"AH- so much- "
A thunderous crash shook the room, followed by the troubling tinkle of breaking glass. When the Prince whirled around, he found the delicate ivy door bent and knarled on one hinge and surrounded by a bloom of crystal shards. In the doorway stood a woman...a glorious woman, with swirling black hair and eyes like lightning. She wore the old hag's scraps and carried her walking stick like a wand.
"YOU," she snarled.
The Prince was taken aback. His legs gave out at the sight, and he sank to his knees on the floor before her. "Old- old woman?" he gasped. The sorceress before him was as beauteous as any woman whose attentions he'd cultivated in the past. But her face...her face was frightening. It was twisted with fury, with retribution. With hate.
"You have nothing to say to me," she hissed. "You had your chance- you could have helped me- you COULD have SAVED me-
And yet you did nothing!"
The Prince faltered. "Kind lady, most...wonderful lady...please. I had no idea you were who I see you now are- "
"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" she raged. The room seemed to darken with the force of her fury. "My face decided my fate- now let yours choose for you!"
The young man cowered away, slicing his hands on broken glass and fumbling desperately for something to hide him.
"Wait, please! I'm sorry- so sorry- anything for you-" he whispered.
The wind that blew from the outside in grew stronger. It knocked glasses and cups from the tables, opened shutters and cabinets, threw apples and knives to the floor. As it brushed past the witch, it gained color, and light- it gained a life of its own-
The very first thing it caught was the young Prince on the ground. He shut his eyes, bit his lip, tried to prepare himself for the agonizing death she had devised for him.
The lit wind shimmered like the aurora, kissing his fingers, his eyes, bathing his body. And where it touched him, he changed...
The wind moved on. It passed through the doorway, snaked into the halls, searched rooms, draped beds...and things changed.
What had been the Prince opened alien eyes and looked up to the woman above him.
He tried to form the words to ask her what she'd done...and his mouth didn't cooperate.
"Hhhnnrwhhh..." he growled. Growled? But he had always been so eloquent.
"Grrhrrrhunhhh..."
The sorceress smiled with bright triumph. Colored smoke drifted back to her and settled about her feet.
"You wicked, wicked boy," she murmured at last. "Be punished. Show the face your beauty hid- and be damned by it."
He listened with one ear. His hands...they felt clumsy, warm, and unmanageable. The hands he'd always been so skilled with.
"RrrrRrrRRrr..."
But they weren't hands anymore. When he lifted them to the light, he saw dark fur and long claws. Like he was wearing hideous animal-gloves...
"Let this be my last 'gift' unto you, beautiful fool," he heard. "A single rose...caught now in its prime, plucked from your very own gardens. As you live, it will wither- as will your hope for redemption. When the last petal falls, your fate seals. Stuck with the face of a beast and the heart of a man; let your own vanity bring your downfall!"
She turned away, and her magic seeped away with her. In the doorway, she stopped- at his broken garble for attention.
"HOW to lift the curse, I'm sure you ask?" she leered, as silky and venomous as she had been wild and vicious.
"Find someone who'll love you for what beats beneath your wretched skin."
Her laughter echoed in the empty, quiet halls of the castle for a long time after. It was dispelled only by the primal, wild roar of the Beast...