A/N thanks for the reviews! I now have the whole story planned. It is just a case of stretching it out over chapters. Also, I sent thie to Trudirose to beta, but we haven't been able to be in contact, so I thought I'd just post it anyway. Sorry if there are any mistakes!
Kairos walked through the woods, trying her best to understand. How could it be? No other Beauty was an Enchantress, none in thirteen generations. She had thought for a while that the magic could be genetic, but when none had shown signs, she had dismissed herself as one in a million. An odd statistic that never really counted. And now Calla... she had Kairos' eyes, she had her power. But she also had characteristics of Beauty, the hair for one thing. Some would say it was coincidence. But then some might say it meant something, that all these combinations were metaphors for something else, something of higher meaning. And it was odd that this Beauty occurred at the last generation. It seemed significant in some way, but Kairos didn't really want to examine why.
She sighed, the Voice wouldn't be pleased. It didn't agree with the way she did things, said she took too many risks. But Kairos knew that this was the only way the curse would work, that the Beast would take the deal. The Beast's after Patrick all seemed to have one thing in common, stubbornness. It meant that they would not readily accept a deal, even if it meant freeing themselves from the curse. No, she had to let them meet the Beauty, let them think they stood a chance, then rip the Beauty away from them at the last moment. That way, when they were downhearted, in despair, the deal would seem like the only way out. And of course it called out to the trait they had all inherited form Patrick, selfishness.
The woods were certainly beautiful on this morning. The sun gleamed through the trees, spattering the ground with golden traces, almost like those seen on the bottom of a clear river. She could almost hear the river, it had changed course throughout the centuries but it was still nearby. She knew these woods so well, it was odd, centuries had passed and so much had changed in the surrounding areas and in her, but these woods stayed the same. Calm and peaceful, they were the place she always went to relax and to take time off from... well general thinking. She didn't know it, but that was exactly what Calla did too.
Her silvery-grey dress swished around her ankles, her bare-feet hardly feeling the soft moss on the ground. Around her ankle she wore a thin ankle bracelet. It was just a plain silver chain but she always wore it. It was a simple treasure, not much to look at but her father had given it to her as a bracelet but she had decided to adapt it over the years, and it had always been a bit too big for her wrist. It was the one thing that reminded her of who she had been at one point in her life and, unlike Adam, she didn't want to forget that. Shemustn't forget that.
Soon she was out of the forest, and walking along the tarmac road that led to Calla's town. She could easily have used magic to get her there, but she preferred the walk. This was country she knew, the town had once been the village she'd grown up in, and she felt... at home here. Not in the manor house, but walking along the roads, and in the forest. That was where she truly felt like she belonged, the only place where the past didn't seem to matter. Of course so much had changed, the old dirt track was now a road and the small village had enlarged drastically. But the essence was the same. As she reached Calla's house she saw a familiar person walking down the road towards her.
"Hello Annabel,"
The woman stopped dead in the street, her red curls blowing gently in the breeze. "What do you want? Where's Calla? I mean, how is she? Please... don't make her do this."
"I wasn't aware I was making her do anything, but I would like a word with you and your mother, would you be so kind as to oblige?"
Annabel began to shake her head, but stopped and sighed. "You don't make anyone do anything, but you don't give them many options," then she turned around and led the way back to her house.
Not knowingthat this was happening, Calla and Beast were eating breakfast in the castle. A maid brought in a bowl of porridge for each of them, then returned with the sugar and milk, gave a small curtsey then left them on their own. It was very odd and the atmosphere was slightly uncomfortable.
"I..." began Calla, although she didn't know how to finish, "it was nice talking to you yesterday, I often feel as though I don't have anyone to really... talk to."
"Well, at least you have a brother!" Beast said, giving a laugh and remembering bits of conversation from last night. Usually it would have taken him weeks to remember someone's name, never mind whether they had siblings or not.
"Yes, Daniel's great but... he's away a lot, I mean he has just started university, he doesn't really have time for me," she rolled her eyes, "God, don't I sound like a whimpering fool."
"A whimpering fool?" Beast laughed, "what odd expressions you English come up with!"
Calla shrugged, "I think that's just me, I just make stuff up so that it kind of makes what I'm saying make sense. See, my sentence structure is all over the place,"
"I was never good at grammar anyway, English never was my forté,"
"What is then?" Calla was glad that they had managed to get over the awkwardness of this morning, and ease back into jaunty conversation again,
Beast paused. As Adam he had never really had a... thing. He was just popular, for a reason he couldn't quite work out... he wasn't exactly the nicest of characters, "I guess I'm good at sport," he reasoned, trying to think of anything else, then it struck him. "Art. I love art... whether I'm good at it or not... I don't know, but I like it..." he thought back to the first time he had met Kairos, when he had been doodling in class. Odd, he hadn't taken his eyes off her, but his biology book's first page was still a portrait of her, of her teenage self anyway.
"Art ey? Cool, and I bet you're wicked at it!" Calla said, in her enthusiastic way,
Beast lifted his paws, "I'm not going to be drawing much now am I?"
"Of course you will, we are going to break this curse, one way or another... and even if we don't," she added with a smirk, "you can always hold the pencil with your mouth."
"You think you're funny, don't you?" Beast said, shaking his head.
"Of course I do. BecauseI am."
"Anyway, what's your thing? I know it's not comedy,"
"Neither is yours! I don't really have a thing. I'm -as my teachers would say anyway- an all rounder,"
"Oh, lucky!"
"I've always wanted a thing actually," she said with a sigh, it was half mocking, half serious. She had wanted a thing, she remembered a girl in her Primary School that did judo, and a boy who played piano. It would have been nice to be that interested in something.
"You can always take something up now."
She shook her head, "Nah, it wouldn't be the same really, I don't really mind."
He gave a smile, and it struck her for the first time in a while that she was sitting at a table, wearing a seventeenth century dress, eating porridge with a wolf-like beast. She had managed to lose herself in conversation so it hadn't mattered what he had looked like. Sure, she had prided herself on not being shallow, but when it had come down to seeing him for the first time, she had never thought that she would be sitting here having a normal... no, not normal a nice conversation with him. He was not only a nice guy, he was one of the nicest she had met. Beast or not.
Kairos was, at the same time thather Beauty and Beast were growing closer, sitting at Calla's dining table with her mother and grandmother.Kairos glanced around the small cottage kitchen, she had seen it many times in the mirror, but had never seen it for real. It seemed different, yet everything was the same. There was a small fridge at one end and next to the window was a line of wooden surfaces, one with a sink and one with a washing machine underneath. The gas cooker was at the other end, an old kettle whistling on the ring as Annabel made tea. But the feeling the room gave Kairos, one of family, was totally different to what she had expected. It made her feel uneasy, because no matter how "at home" she felt in the woods, she had never felt like she had a family. Perhaps because she never had.
"What is that you want?" Naomi, Calla's grandmother, asked with contempt, "you haven't spoken a word since you arrived. Now tell us what you want, as you must want something, Witch."
"I do wish you wouldn't call me that, my name is Kairos. Greek, like your daughter's in fact," she added, with an innocent smile, Naomi just scowled.
"You think that because you have these powers you can come in and ruin all our lives? I have seen you do it to my daughter, and now my granddaughter. I won't allow it any more!" Naomi stood from her chair, but Kairos lifted her hand and Naomi found herself pushed back into the chair.
"Naomi, please, I thought that perhaps we had gotten over the old grievances, I thought I could come here and indulge in some pleasantries before I said what I came to say, but you want me to brashly begin? Has common courtesy really been lost so soon?" Kairos looked at Annabel who was standing by the sink, pouring hot water into three cups, she wouldn't catch the enchantress's eye, so Kairos looked back to Naomi, "don't forget that just because I don't look it, I am still older than you, much older, and I was always taught to respect my elders."
Naomi said nothing, and just sat in silence, scowling. Annabel gave a cup to Kairos then gave one to her mother and finally sat down and sipped her own tea, even though it was much too hot for drinking.
"Well, I think that all of our nicety's have been exhausted. So I shall press on, with the reason I came here, Calla is fine, she is doing well... although she is indeed surprising. I am sure that you noticed the similarities between us?"
"She is nothing like you!" Naomi spat out, her anger a close mirror of Calla's when Adam had told her the same thing.
"It is her eyes isn't it?" Annabel said quietly.
"Yes... it seems family traits are strong in this generation," Kairos said, ignoring Naomi.
"Family traits?" Annabel shook her head, "I don't understand, I know that Calla has my mother's anger but... how could her eyes be..." she stopped as realisation hit her, "who are you?"
"I am Kairos, but I am also..." for the first time, Kairos didn't feel in control. Well, not for the first time, but the first time since the curse had been put in place, "I am the original Beauty's... sister."
Both Naomi and Annabel gasped. They had never thought that they could be... related to their captor. The woman who had made their lives so hard, she was their... relation. It couldn't be.
"No... you can't be..." Naomi couldn't even finish her sentence, but Kairos nodded anyway.
"Yes, I am," her voice had reclaimed the strong tone it usually commanded, "although that is not all that I have come here to say. Calla has more of my... traits as we can call them. Yesterday she performed a spell, and it succeeded. She seems to be,"
Annabel interrupted, "An enchantress."
A/N Well, I actually planned this chapter to end further along in the story, but this is quite a good break and I put more... stuffin there than I expected, so it is as long as my chapters usually are. Cool! Review please! And then shall you get the next update!