[Author's Note: This was inspired by the original 18th century version of the fairytale, in which the old and arrogant fairy cursed the underage Prince after he rejected her marriage proposal. The somewhat random point that she could make herself beautiful one day a year is also taken from the fairytale. I combined these ideas with an AU conceived while discussing with CarolNJoy what Belle's intentions had been when she left the castle to attend her father — did she really never intend to come back? Neither of us thought so.]
CHAPTER 1: (PROLOGUE)
O Rose thou art sick
In agony, the Beast roared as he watched from the window: his beloved rode away to the forest gloom, never to be seen by his eyes again.
This was the very last night on which to break the curse of the Enchantress. If not done now, never could it be.
The splendid dance and dinner he had earlier so enjoyed served as pretext. It was essential that the Beast fall in love and win Belle's love before he turned the age of twenty-one. Why the Enchantress had chosen such a ludicrous requirement when cursing a boy, who was not yet eleven years old nor even physically mature, never made sense to anyone. Nevertheless, it was what she required. The whole castle depended on him. He was depending on himself.
Yet it had all gone wrong! When he invited Belle out to the terrace, intending to announce his feelings for her and, perhaps, even ask her to marry him, he had sensed her unhappiness. She declared her sadness stemmed from the absence of her father, from whom he had forced her to separate. To appease her, he showed the magic mirror in his possession, which could reveal anything one wished to see — but to everyone's alarm it revealed that her father was sick and lost in the forest. Even the Beast did not want to leave the old man to die out there; and he certainly could not put Belle through the torment of losing her father, looming deadline or no. There was nothing to do but release her from her promise to remain at the castle. It broke his heart to do it, for he knew that he was giving up his whole life; but he freed her, and gifted her the magic mirror as a token of their time together (perhaps selfishly and unrealistically hoping she might even think of him and fondly want to see his gruesome image again, someday, when she had forgiven him.) From her he received a thank you and a tap on the cheek, as if she communicated that he ought to simply cheer up.
He had already informed the servants of the situation by the time Belle changed to her traveling clothes and set out into the void.
Thenceforth, there was only the agonizing night-watch for the moment of horror to arrive.
The Beast tried to make it more bearable by changing out of his dress clothes. Alas! The memory of his dance with Belle, of his arm around her, of the beauty snuggled against him as they waltzed, rendered the outfit too sacred to discard. He stored it away. Perhaps someday — some very, very faraway day — he would look upon it and fondly remember his time with her. Sometime in the future. Whatever future a lonely and heartsick Beast could have in store.
As he sat and saw the falling petals of the enchanted rose, he reminded himself that he deserved this. He was made into a Beast for acting like one. To have insulted an ugly old lady… to have imprisoned a girl in hopes of breaking the curse… the memory brought a swift frost to his heart, which frigid pain made him clutch at his chest, and roar his wretched agony.
The time ticked away, each moment a long, slow spill. There was no hope of sleep. His suffering increased with each hour. If the curse were not broken by dawn, it never would be, per the specifications of the Enchantress. What would be a lifetime as a Beast? Ten years had been torture. Yet somehow, the sharpest sting was not in the disfigurement, nor the humiliation of beasthood, but the agony of being alone… alone and unloved. Belle never loved him, and if that could not come even by her — good hearted and unconcerned with appearances as she was — there was nobody on earth who would ever feel otherwise.
He would always be alone.
No one to love him. No one for him to love. A long, lonely life ahead; made all the worse by a memory of a great love's unrequited anguish. That made the weight of the miseries so much heavier. It would have been easier on him had Belle never come at all, if he had simply been a disappointed little monster who never had a chance, rather than knowing the added torment of proving himself a worthless failure when happiness had been right in his grasp.
A rainstorm began. It cloaked the skyline, obscuring the pending dawn; still the wilting rose, dropping another precious petal every few hours, let him know just how much time was lost.
At one point Mrs. Potts came to the door to ask something. He barely understood what she said, and he merely commanded her to leave him in peace. She obeyed.
At last came the fatal moment. Only one rose petal remained, limply hanging from the dried-out stem. The Beast could feel tears welling up in his eyes, knowing there was nothing that would stop it from making its final descent.
It fell; and so fell from him a sob. Rendered through beastly lungs, the noise became a terrible growl that did not in any way convey the depth of his pain.
Despite the rain, he stumbled out of his room to the balcony. It was like some leak had sprung in his body; the force of life drained out in gushes. He clung to the balustrade, almost unable to stand on his own two paws. There was a spot where the balcony hung directly over the cavernous moat below. He did not need to think about it, he simply knew:
If he leapt from that spot, he would be crushed to death on impact with the water below.
Could he? His body had gone numb. Thoughts raced through his head of all his regrets, all the things he wished he could have done in his life that would never be. He particularly wished he'd told Belle that he loved her; even if she didn't feel the same, he wished he'd said it. Too late, too late. He could hear the weeping and lamenting of the servants inside the palace, as they all came to realize the deadline was passed.
Those awful sounds would haunt him for the rest of his life.
But he could ensure that life would be a short one.
No long, lonely years to pass, day after day a disappointment, a painful remembering of what he could have had with Belle, haunted by what a horrible human he had been —
With a burst of emotion, he threw himself forward.
He had never known a greater terror than the fall — until the moment that he stopped in mid-air. He was dangling, looking down at the moat below. Then he was actually floating backward, towards the balcony. The Beast's brain couldn't comprehend it, and his body couldn't tolerate it. As he was gently laid by unseen hands upon the cold marble, he simply sank flat to the ground, numb and futile and drained.
"Now what did you go and do a silly thing like that for?" asked an elderly female voice. "Things aren't so bad as that. You think it's bad to be a Beast forever? You have size on your side. Try going through life without that."
Oh, God. He knew the voice. He could never forget it, though he wanted to. It was the Enchantress. Even when he was a child she always spoke to him with those creepy double-entendres. He tried to lift his head but found no strength whatsoever. His heart was beating but his blood flowed with a cold sluggishness rarely seen in a conscious person. He couldn't move. It was luck that he could even breathe.
The hem of her long black robe appeared a before his horrified eyes. He didn't have the strength to even raise his gaze to her.
"You're lucky I decided to check up on you. Believe it or not, Prince, I've always kind of liked you," said the creaking old voice. The Beast didn't have to think hard to remember the face that went with it. He had been horrified by her looks as a child, and inexcusably had said as much to her; but that incident ensured her ghastly features were forever seared into his memory. One eye — one bulging eye, with a pinkish cast and red veins all through. Not enough teeth, and the ones that were, made your gums ache just to look upon. So many wrinkles that it seemed they must be contagious. The nose — how could there be a nose so unflattering against such already hideous features? But most of all there was always a sense that being around such a hideous presence was going to inflict a like disfigurement upon one's self.
(Perhaps he had been right about that, in a way.)
The same invisible hands that had pulled him back to the balcony seized him once again. He was left standing— or more properly floating — eye to eye with the hideous old woman. He said nothing.
"So you've hit twenty-one, and still never found the girl of your dreams?" she said. "Such a pity. You were a handsome one, as I recall — even as a boy. I'd have liked to see what manhood's done for you."
The Beast managed a low grumble. The effort drained him.
"Well," continued the haggard old voice, "lucky for you, I didn't just come here to gloat. I see my loopholes, generous as they were, went unfulfilled. So I'm giving you another chance."
The Beast's interest was piqued, but he had experienced so much disappointment in the last 24 hours he couldn't dare get his hopes up again. His body quaked with distress. He was still too weak to say anything.
"I turned you into a Beast to teach you a lesson about judging people by their appearances. Well, I have another way you can show me what you've learned. Picture it: the most powerful magician in all the universe, older and wiser than any other, able to offer you all the wealth, protection, health, youth and joie de vivre you can think of. All you'd have to do to claim the prize is marry her. She might not be much of a looker, it's true, but a deficiency or two in that department can surely be ignored when she's got everything else to her advantage. More than that, she's got her heart set on you, and you alone — so you can't object that this is a loveless match. No, love's going to be abundant in this marriage."
The Beast was beginning to feel a spark of hope. He finally mustered the words, "Is it… is it you?"
"None other!" smiled the old hag. The Beast wondered if her teeth were even real, or if they were only some kind of denture made from rotted wood. "And it's one lucky Prince who gets such a winner of a wife — in addition to being changed back into a handsome young man."
He could feel his heartbeat strike up again. This was real. There was hope! He wished he could tell Belle about this — but she was gone —
A momentary doubt seized him. He could never feel about the Enchantress what he'd felt towards Belle. But — what did it matter? Belle was gone back to her father, never to return. No woman would want him as a Beast, anyway. At least this afforded him some degree of happiness, some level of life that could be worth living. Compared against the alternative…
"I'll — I'll do it," he gasped, his head spinning. "Anything. Please. Please."
He still half expected she would laugh in his face, reveal she was only teasing, and leave him to his fate. Instead, she reached into her robe and produced a shimmering wand of milky crystal. The Beast went crosseyed watching it get closer and closer to his face.
The Enchantress muttered incomprehensible words, and then with a forceful tap she struck her freshly twenty-one year old victim upon the head with the wand.
What he next perceived was the most incredible thing he had ever experienced, even in a life quite filled with strange experience. The sense was that a poison, to which he had long grown acclimated, suddenly drained from his body. A golden light blinded him. A minute later he was flat on the ground, steam billowing off of him; and though stunned, he had honestly never felt better.
He moved. It was easy to do so. His limbs felt light. He looked down at his hands and saw — they were indeed hands. They were attached to furless arms. He reached up and felt his face. It was smooth, with a mouth that withheld all of its teeth. There were no more horns weighing down his head and making his neck hurt. There was no more tail tangling itself between his legs.
He was human again.
Thrilled, he barely noticed as the rest of the castle began to transform back into the shining edifice it once had been. Cheers and screams of joy were rising from the rooms inside as the servants returned to their old selves.
Strangely, the Prince's first thought was that he wanted to show this all to Belle, to share his tremendous happiness with her. He reminded himself, with a sinking heart, that she was gone.
There was someone else to share his happiness with, someone else to share his life with.
He turned to the Enchantress and immediately felt his stomach clench at her hideous appearance. But he was so happy, and so grateful — and if truth be told, so scared of her — his smile was retained, and with a certain uneasiness he walked to her side. For another person he might have thrown his arms around her and kissed her in such a moment. For the Enchantress… well…
He took her by the withered old hands. His skin crawled as he gazed into her bloodshot eyes. But he stayed cheerful.
"When are we to be married?" he asked.
The Enchantress pursed what lips she had. "I've a treat in store for you. You see, I am able to transform myself into the most beautiful female under heaven. You've seen that form. You remember it, I'm sure."
The Prince did. "Yes. I remember," he said. Then he added with an eager hope, "Will you change into that form, now?"
"Well, the trouble is, I can only manage that trick when the stars align a certain way. They won't do the job for another couple of weeks. Now, I look forward to being a lovely, blushing bride on my wedding day just as anyone else does. So, when the stars are in line, then we can be married. I'll look like Venus herself — for about a day, after which I turn back until the stars align again in a year or so. That delay is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. It gives us some time to plan out and prepare the celebration." She drew closer to the Prince, resting her hooded head affectionately upon his breast. "Besides, there's a thing or two I want you to know before the wedding night."
The Prince nodded obediently to her remark. So she couldn't become beautiful merely at will. He was disappointed to learn that. Yet he reassured himself that, in time, he would grow accustomed to her everyday appearance, and it would cease to trouble him. He could love her, he was sure of it — why, with all the castle's servants assisting him as before, he would probably be in love with her by the end of the week!
It now seemed to him such a funny coincidence that she had arrived at his castle all those years ago, on the exact night when she was able to make the transformation. He wondered how his life would have differed had she simply come to the door as a beautiful Enchantress.
