Hi! This is my attempt at a humorous parody of "Beauty and the Beast" starring the YGO cast.
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I just cast them in this story line that I don't own either. And I'm dirt poor. So don't sue me. You'll only be wasting your time.
Note: Sorry for making you all wait three weeks for this chapter! This is probably my favorite as well...I was traveling last Friday and that's my excuse. What this means is that next week, you get Chapter Six! So delays have their perks. Enjoy!
Is This Your Mansion?
Chapter Five
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Five minutes passed in a moment that felt like five hours as the Beast glared down at Beauty. Neither spoke, frozen in silence as though that cold voice and those cold eyes held some power over the room. Ryou's fingers turned numb in the crushing grip.
Finally, in a timid voice, Ryou spoke. "P-please, could you l-let go of my hand? You're h-hurting my fingers."
"The west wing is forbidden," the cold voice said. Ryou shrunk away from him, but surprisingly his hand was released. His hand fell to the glass and Ryou quickly pulled it away, as though the glass burnt his skin. "You would do well to remember that."
Ryou backed away from the man they called Beast, only to trip over the remains of a red oak chair. The man's blue eyes watched in scrutiny as the young man tried desperately to stand up. Ryou scrambled over the broken wood and managed to throw his body back to its feet, but the momentum threw his weight towards the table holding the rose. Beauty just managed to grab the edge of the table before he fell onto the polished surface and unknowingly pushed the glass cover over the side. The man standing idly by the table dove quickly, trying to catch the glass and the rose. He managed to save the flower, but the covering crashed to the floor and burst into a million tiny pieces of light.
Ryou gasped and took a step back, careful not to fall again. "I'm sorry about the glass!"
The man- Ryou realized with a sudden flash of clarity he did not know his name- unbent his body cradled around the precious dying flower until he was once again standing at his full, frightening, height. His face twisted in a horrible expression as the cold voice hissed in a tone more dangerous than a shout, "You clumsy-! If the rose had- Do you realize what you could have done!"
"I-I'm sorry," Ryou whispered again, moving back through the room.
"Get out," the man yelled, advancing quickly on the scared boy, the rose still clutched to his chest. "Get out of my house!"
Ryou gasped, his eyes wide in fright, then turned and ran out of the room, slamming the doors behind him. As he reached the stairs he heard voices talking and slowed enough not to run into the invisible servants.
"What-"
"Sir-"
"The Master!"
Ryou ignored the voices as he ran down the east wing and burst into the white room, where a lit candle hovered in the air.
"Beauty, what's the commotion?" Mokuba asked, his voice anxious. "Where were you?"
Ryou paused in grabbing his cloak to stare at the candle. "I…I got hungry."
The shadow on the wall shivered and the candle's light wavered in the air. "D-did the Master find out? Is that what the yelling was about?"
"No, I…went down the west wing."
Mokuba gasped. "Beauty, that's forbidden!"
Ryou frowned and pulled his cloak around his shoulders. "I don't care if it is! And besides, I- I'm not staying here."
The candle fell to the floor and an invisible hand clutched at Ryou's arm. "Beauty, don't leave! You mustn't leave!"
"He told me to go, so I'll be more than obliging and do just that." Ryou tentatively placed his hand on Mokuba's. "Thank you for everything but, promise or no promise, I can't stay here any longer. Good bye." Then Ryou ran back down the hall and down the stairs where more voices greeted him.
"Ryou, where are you going?" That was Yuugi, Beauty thought vaguely as he pushed the man aside.
"What's all the racket?" sounded like Mahado as Ryou ran past the dining room. Hands grabbed at his arms, trying to hold him back.
"Beauty, are you trying to leave?" It was Jounouchi's voice and Jou's hands holding his left arm. Ryou nodded vaguely as the second pair of hands spoke.
"But you can't leave! Jou, you know he can't leave!" Otogi exclaimed.
Ryou shook both men off. "Oh, but I must leave! Your Master ordered me to and so I'm leaving!"
"Akunadin, do something!" Isis shrieked from the dining room doorway. Footsteps sounded along the hallway towards Ryou, but he ran to the large front door and dashed out into the freezing night before anyone else could stop him.
The weather was brutal with heavy raindrops falling down from the sky like arrows, piercing through the thin fabric of Beauty's clothes. Shivering, Ryou pulled his cloak tighter around him and headed towards the forest. The journey from home only lasted less than an hour; surely, then, it should not take long to navigate back.
An hour later and the rain had turned to hail, the forest was thicker as opposed to thinning and Beauty realized that he was utterly lost. And then, just when he thought the trees were finally starting to part and he could see light up ahead, Ryou fell into the freezing depths of a hidden lake. Seaweed twisted around his legs and the water-soaked clothes pulled him down into the murky below.
Back up at the mansion, everyone save Honda stood in the main hall, staring at each other's shadows. Ten years of invisible companions made each servant skilled in detecting each other, by shadows, by shuffles, and even by nervous coughs. Now, Malik standing beside Rishid on the stairs, let a telltale throat-clearing out into the silence.
"It's all your fault, Ishtar," Jounouchi growled. "You were supposed to be watching him!"
"Oh shut up, poodle. You and Otogi didn't do such a great job of keeping him here. You're both strong men, or have you shriveled since I last saw you?" Malik spat back.
"Why I oughta," Jou began, but he didn't. Everyone knew Yuugi held him back.
"What about you, Shadi? Did a great job of getting him to bed, didn't you?" Karimu snapped from the dining room doorway.
"I had to stop Rishid and Malik before they woke the Master," Shadi said.
"Would have been better if they had woken him up than our dearly departed guest," Otogi argued.
"But they wouldn't have woken him up if they had been doing their jobs like they were supposed to!" Jou said.
"Stop barking about it, pooch. Don't tell me you and Yuugi wouldn't have gotten a little frisky if you two were assigned the post instead," Malik sneered.
"I've had enough of your damn dog jokes, Ishtar. If I could see you right now, I'd punch your lights out for it!"
"Big words from you Jou," Malik laughed. "Too bad that won't be happening soon."
"Yeah, no thanks to you," Jou snapped.
"Oh please, stop it!" Isis, standing beside Mahado in the shadows of the hall, pleaded. "Arguing gets us nowhere."
"Isis is right; it doesn't matter whose fault it is," Yuugi said. "Beauty is gone."
"I wish there was something we could do," Shizuka's soft voice said.
"Akunadin, why didn't you stop him? Why didn't you do anything?" Isis asked mournfully. "Our last chance."
Another silence fell upon them as the grandfather clock chimed the time- an hour passed since Ryou stepped into the Master's chambers and reached for a rose. An old sigh, fatigued but not from lack of hope. Akunadin spoke. "I'm going up to speak with the Master. I suggest you all get to bed. We all have work to do in the morning."
"But who could sleep?" Mahado asked as a frail shadow crept up the stairs. "I certainly won't be able to." Others voiced their assent, an uneasiness setting in the air. Then, they all felt a great calm, like a fatherly smile warming their friend's face.
"Have you all forgotten? The forest won't let him go so easy. Now if you'll excuse me, it's important that I see the Master immediately." His footsteps disappeared up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, moonlight flooded the landing, pouring in from the south wing windows. Akunadin paused to bathe in the might for a moment, then turned and walked down the west wing corridor, leaving the moon behind as he descended further towards the Beast's sanctuary.
The doors were closed tight as usual and the old man struggled with the heavy wood. As a clock struck the first quarter of the hour, Akunadin finally slipped inside. Time was wasting. Walking carefully through the room past wrecked chairs, dressers and tables familiar to him, Akunadin quickly made it to the table with the rose. But the flower was no longer protected by the glass covering and sprinkles of sharp glass shards on the floor told him why. The Master was not standing watch, so Akunadin passed the table with no more than a glance and stepped out onto the balcony.
There, washed with moonlight, stood a horrendous, black creature with small, bat like wings protruding from a hunched back. A dark navy coat and white dress shirt covered most of the creature's furry anatomy, while black pants concealed hairy wolf legs. However, the paws- it had neither hands nor feet, yet miraculously stood as a human would- were bare and showed dangerous, flesh-ripping claws. The face was that of a dark lion and vicious fangs like those of a hyena grinned awkwardly from a fearsome snout. But the blue eyes were sad and kind.
"Seto, my son, what are you doing out here?" Akunadin whispered.
"I drove him from this house, like so many others. Is it my fate to always be ugly?" The creature asked in a mournful voice.
Akunadin laid an invisible hand on the paw. "No, my son, you must not think like that. Besides, the rose is not dead, and he has not escaped yet."
The monstrous face turned away from the kind-hearted servant. "But would it be right to drag him back here and keep him as my prisoner? I couldn't do that."
"No, but what if you rescued him from almost certain death? Then he would have no choice but to repay you by staying here, at least for a little while."
He looked up, eyes alarmed. "Death? What do you mean, Akunadin?"
"He is running through the forest now, as we speak. But shortly, the forest will swallow him alive. If you leave now, you may be able to save him."
The Beast ran to the window, then paused and looked back. "How do I find him?"
"Use your senses, Seto. You'll find him. The forest wants that to happen."
Seto grinned, a grotesque yet oddly touching sight. And then, he was gone. Akunadin fell to his knees in relief. "I am too old for this," he muttered.
Seto ran from the house, past a gathering of surprised servants and out into the cold. The rain had stopped above the house but as he entered the forest, hailstones beat mercilessly upon his black fur. Dashing through the trees, Seto barely noticed the falling of the icy stones, and shook them off like dry leaves.
He ran through the forest for what seemed forever but was really only a minute when a lake of murky black sprang before his path. The water rippled as though disturbed only recently and there, on the surface of the lake lingered the bright white hair of Beauty. Seto did not hesitate as he plunged into the freezing water after the young man. Wrenching his legs from the seaweed, Seto dragged Ryou out of the water and swam back to shore.
The boy had fainted in the water and as Seto placed his body on the shore, he almost mistook him for dead. But Seto watched him closely and caught the slight movement of his slender chest. Lifting Ryou gently in his arms, he slowly made his way back to the mansion. Ryou slept the entire time.
Except, as they traveled through the forest, Beauty's eyes opened for a second. All he saw were gentle, warm eyes before he succumbed to darkness again.
TBC…
Aw, just a little bit of fluff at the end, and a whole lot of excitement throughout! I'm really fond of this chapter, mainly because of the dog jokes. I love Malik for them, even though I was the one who really came up with them. So next chapter Ryou meets Honda and sees the Beast at breakfast! I cannot wait (even though it's already written!) Until then!