Sorry for the announcement, I'll shut up soon. This is mainly for the person who reviewed this story, Melody-Rose, so if you're not them, you don't have to listen to this, but you can as this could go for anyone who cares.
Getting started, one: Don't worry, I'll continue the stories. I love writing more than anything, so if I ever stop them I'm dead or in a coma. Seriously, I love it so much, even if I'm incapacitated, I'll dictate the story to someone who will write it down ^.^.
Two: Melody-Rose said that they could not find a single finished version of Beauty & Beast anywhere and I know what they mean. I don't know if this is something you're interested in or have already seen, but just in case, I found a set of stories called D Gray Man Fairy Tales Anthology that has a story in there about beauty and the beast. It's d gray man and its finished so maybe you'd like to search the name or type this link into your web browser? ( /s/5894314/1/D-GrayMan-Fairy-Tales-Anthology)
Alright, sorry. Onto the story! 0.0
It had been several days since her brother left and he had yet to return. He had not even sent word of how he was doing or explaining his absence. At first, Lenalee was angry with him, but now she was just worried. She was in the living room staring at the door when it happened.
If only he would come through the door now, I would forgive the worry he caused me. She thought desperately. At that moment there was a loud, fervent knocking on the door.
"Brother?" She cried hopefully and running to the door and wrenching it open. What she opened the door to caused her great alarm.
The man who was driving the carriage that took her brother away, Krory, she remembered, was now kneeling on her doorstep. It looked as if it had taken every ounce of strength he had to knock on the door. His face and clothes were scratched and dirty. There were tear stains on his cheeks and snot oozing out of his nose. Overall, he looked pitiful and tortured.
"Oh, my! Are you alright?!" Lenalee pulled the man to his feet and helped him into the house. She was just about to attend to his wounds after placing him on the couch when his shock seemed to wear off.
"Ms. Lee!" He cried, grabbing her hand in a comforting gesture. "Your brother!" A cold chill swept through Lenalee at his words.
"What? What about my brother?" She prodded desperately.
"He went to this house. For help. A great castle." His words were spaced out and he spoke with short sentences. There was a child. A beast! He took your brother. Locked him away somewhere, I don't know where." The man started to seem more coherent. He began to cry.
"Oh, no! Brother…" Lenalee whimpered covering her mouth as tears began to spill down her cheeks.
"I ran through those treacherous woods all the way back here. I thought you deserved to know. Mr. Lee won't be coming back." He finished.
"Oh…" Lenalee realized that his coming back through the woods explained why he was so scratched up. "Please take me to my brother!" Lenalee threw herself at Krory.
"W-what?! Ms. Lee, it's too dangerous! I can't take you there!"
"I can't leave my brother there! Please!" Lenalee begged harder.
Krory couldn't stand the pleading look and steeled himself. "Yes. Fine, then. I will take you to the place where I last saw your brother, but I will not go too close to the castle."
Lenalee's face visibly relaxed. "Thank you, Mr. Krory. Thank you…" She sobbed into his arm which she had wrapped herself around.
After she had pulled herself together quite some time later, she cleaned and bound up his wounds. They both rested and later that night, they set out for the woods and the abandoned city. Before they had set out on their short journey, Krory needed to go out and commission a new carriage. This he could do with ease, but it would take a little bit of time so Lenalee stayed back at the house and waited.
While she waited, she went into her brother's office to look around for anything that may be useful. She found it in the form of a map and a book in one of his desk drawers. The map wasn't anything special. It was just an average map showing their town and some of the other towns or roads surrounding it.
However, the forest on the edge of their little village had always been some kind of mystery to her. Whether it was because there wasn't much known about it at all or if it was simply because there wasn't a wealth of reading material in their town, she really didn't know which. This map had the forest which didn't seem to have a name and beyond the forest was just a blank area. What seemed strange to Lenalee was not that Krory had talked about not just a whole town, a castle that was supposed to be in the blank area, but that the blank area had a name. Over the blank area, in heavy, dark lettering was the name "Mater".
Mater? I think I've heard of that before. Lenalee was almost inexplicably reminded of her brother as she thought about this name to a place she didn't know she knew. Oh, I remember now! It was a story my brother told me when I was little. Lenalee thought back to a time when she was a kid and having trouble going to sleep. Komui had offered to tell her a story.
*Flashback* "So do you want to hear a true story or a made-up story?" Komui asked, sitting on the edge of Lenalee's bed.
"A true story!" Lenalee's small voice perked up instantly.
"Alright." Komui smiled. "I'll tell you the legend of Mater." "Meh-ter?" Lenalee asked, trying to pronounce the name.
"Nope. Mater. Try again." Komui urged. Lenalee opened her mouth.
"M-Mater…"
"You got it!" Komui said, his smile broadening. "Now onto the story. That is, if you still want to hear it…"
"Of course I do!" Lenalee cried, not seeing the sneaky smile on her brother's face.
"Just checking." He chuckled. "There was once a powerful city called Mater. It was home to many people of noble blood and homes definetly worth admiring. It had a bustling trade industry and even some royalty. But the city became shrouded in a darkness that cannot be described. Next thing you know, everyone packs up and moves out of the town, though outsiders don't really know why everyone had to leave.
People who used to live in the town were sometimes asked after they had moved somewhere else. They were all vague with their answers, but they all admitted that the town had been cursed and that a monster stalked the area. A deformed creature with the body of a human, but gnarled deformities, scales and razor sharp claws."
"So the monster scared them away?" Lenalee asked, leaning forward.
"Perhaps the story of the monster did. Either way, everyone living there fled and no one ever came back and people were too afraid to talk about it. Hence, the place was forgotten and anybody who knows about it or wrote about it, refers to it as the Abandoned City."
"Do you think there really was a monster?" Lenalee asked curiously.
"Me? No. I believe that they believed it and with ancient superstitions they probably had reasons to think that."
"That's so cool! I wanna see the abandoned city too!" Komui put his hand on her head.
"Its now become a forgotten place. Some people know of it, but don't even believe the city existed."
"I believe it existed and I'm gonna see it one day." Lenalee said.
"I'm sure you will." Komui placated rubbing her head softly. It was with this soft, sweet feeling that little Lenalee went to sleep. *End Flashback*
It was real. The city and it's infamous monster were real and her brother was being held hostage there. Though she knew this in her heart, Lenalee couldn't believe it. However, Lenalee soon had to put her worry and inner turmoil aside as it was not long after that Krory came back with the new carriage and they were off to save her brother.
Lenalee stumbled precariously through the woods, getting more and more irritated. It seemed as if her dress was getting caught on every branch in the forest.
"Only a little farther, Ms. Lee." Krory promised as he helped her to, yet again, untangle her dress from the foliage.
"Thank you." She said as they continued their trek.
Soon they came to the edge of a cliff. Lenalee couldn't see it at first, but Krory insisted it was there. She obliged by proceeding carefully. According to Krory, her brother didn't see the cliff either and ended up tumbling down it and that was how the two were separated. Because she was looking hard for it, Lenalee was able to spot the cliff before she made the same mistake as her brother. Together with Krory, Lenalee climbed down the side of the cliff to the safety of the ground below. Apparently, this is how Krory did it last time after Komui fell and continued on ahead.
It was when they started making their way through the desolate city towards the looming castle that Lenalee felt the strangest bout of deja vous. Racking her brain, she looked carefully around at her surroundings before resting her eyes on the castle.
I've seen this place before. She staring up at the windows of the castle, two of which were brightly lit. The dream she had almost a week ago comes to her. This is the place from my dream. I remember the town and the forest and especially this castle.
A shudder ran through her body as she replayed the dream in her mind. The wandering in the woods, looking out at the mysterious town and it's castle and then falling off of the cliff she hadn't seen. Krory urged her forward and although she tried to focus on continuing to move, she couldn't help but ponder on if her dream was a premonition...or if maybe she had made this happen somehow.
She bit her bottom lip at that thought. Maybe this is what she got for wishing for change and adventure and for so much more as long as it wasn't part of her everyday life. Maybe if she had been content with what she had as she had sometimes thought she should be, then this wouldn't have happened and her brother wouldn't have had to go through such a frightening experience.
At any rate, I woke up without getting to explore this place properly. Lenalee thought trying to cheer herself up, but the thought ended up rather sad. I'm only getting what I asked for. Her stomach clenched at this and she pushed forward.
As they came to the large gate of the castle, Krory stopped walking. Realizing that Krory was not following, Lenalee stopped too and turned back to look at him.
"Mr. Krory?" She called. "I'm sorry, Ms. Lee," Krory said, looking truly sorry. "but I told you I'd take you up to the castle and I did. I won't go any further, but I wish you good luck!" He threw the last sentence over his shoulder as he turned and ran off back the way they came.
Now alone, Lenalee paused as the fear and worry that she had been barely able to suppress when she was with Krory now rising to the surface now that she was alone. She took a deep breath and turned back to the gates. They were wide and large, but hung open slightly. Parted in the middle just enough for her to walk through comfortably.
Moving through the dark (if not, chilling) garden, Lenalee walked up the few short steps of the surprisingly polished polished marble stairs to the door. It was a slightly bigger than average door made of strong wood and supplemented with iron. It seemed sturdy and well-kept for such a deteriorated atmosphere. She raised her hand up to the heavy-looking door knocker which was in the shape of a rather terrifying and snarling lion. Getting a good hold on the heavy thing, she brought it down on the door.
This was mostly a chapter to tie up loose ends, so to speak. To, of course, get on with the rather small and irritating (to me, anyway), but still very important part where the witness to the kidnapping or whatever goes and tells Beauty so she has a reason to go to the scary castle. ;)
Also, I wanted to tie everything together, you know, with the childhood memory of the story and the recent dream and the town and whatnot. I thought it would be strange if people on the outside so long after it happened actually knew about the curse or the prince or anything like that so I put the childhood bedtime story in more as a way to show what the popular conception of the town and the curse was. Hope you like it and didn't get lost, if you did, I'm sorry...)0o0