Beauty and the Beast
Snow is piled around the castle, blurring the landscape together so it’s hard to tell the ground apart from the trees. It’s hard to tell the trees from the sky, too, everything mixed together into a fuzzy constant of white. His feet break through the thick crust of snow as he steps out of the castle, where it hasn’t snowed in years, or even changed from spring to summer to fall.
It’s never had to. There are no birds for winter to chase away, there aren’t any lazy beasts to curl in the summer sun. There aren’t even any flowers in the gardens, though there used to be. He’d showed her those flowers, in pictures, and she’d smiled almost longingly at their brilliant colors.
No, there hadn’t been an almost about it.
He’s surprised he still knows how to walk on two legs. He’s been going on four for far too long.
* * *
He takes a break by the signpost; not to eat, because he didn’t have a chance to pack any food. He barely had a chance to do more than run through the castle door- she’d been furious, and the smile that twists his lips as he thinks about it is sardonic and unhappy. Bitter, almost.
His stomach growls as he sits there, looking up at the sky, and he wonders if he should tell her father. No, he wouldn’t believe him. Even in a world where such things were commonplace, no one wants to believe a monster could turn into a man, or that a daughter could become a monster, taking a curse to bear upon her own shoulders, for love.
Well, she wouldn’t have loved him if she’d known what it would have gotten her into. He hadn’t loved anyone for a long time. Pretending to had been enough for the spell. Funny how magic claimed to know everything, but could be fooled by gestures that couldn’t fool a girl who’d lived her whole life with her head in the clouds.
He doesn’t want to think about this anymore. Slowly, like his legs will give out beneath him if he rushes on too fast, he gets to his feet.
* * *
The first time they’d met, he knew she was a girl of honor. He knew this simply by virtue of her arrival, stealthy, alone, nervous. Her steps had been tentative, but her voice didn’t shake when she’d called out to him.
“My father came here,” she said, “He took a rose.”
She’d brought it back to him, hoping to exchange it for her own father’s pride, but the petals had turned to velvet and it’s stem was made of glass. He screamed then, an anguished sound that no one had ever been able to distinguish from anger, not even himself.
The rose fell to the floor as he lunged, and the glass in his feet didn’t hurt nearly as much as the loss of that last flower. He’d had thick feet, anyway.
She stayed to make up for it, a life for a life. He hadn’t forced her too, but he couldn’t be without it.
* * *
The woods start to thin after a few more hours of walking, and his courage thins with it, so that he finds himself straying towards the side of the road, sticking to the trees. It’s foolish, he knows. The trees won’t protect him any more than the road would. They might even be more dangerous. It’s cowardly, too. The people he’s approaching won’t see anything different about him, not at first, not when the cold could stoop his back and curl his hands just as well as any number of years as a beast.
It’s not where he belongs though. It never was, not for him. It’s where she belonged, and he’s not her. Resting a hand against the tree, he leans forward, trying to catch a glimpse of her life, but it’s not there.
There hasn’t been a trace of her life here for months.
* * *
It’s dark before he moves from that spot, though he’d slid into a crouch not all that long after he’d realized who he was looking for.
He tells himself he can’t go back. She’d offered her heart to him on a thin thread of trust, and even if he hadn’t walked away, the transformation would have been more than enough to break that trust. Trust hurts when it breaks. It hurts everyone, the one who held it out, the one who snapped it in two. If anyone had been watching, it would have hurt them too.
She’d been howling as he’d left, a long, drawn out call of rage.
He’d been howling like that once too.
* * *
There are no wolves in these forests, because he chased them off years ago, when the curse was still new and his bones still ached to be a man’s. Now they ache to be a monster’s again, and he has to struggle to stay on two feet, to keep from falling to all fours and clambering along that way, like an animal. It’s as much as he deserves, because he brought the curse upon himself, condemning an old woman to die because he’d been too selfish to let her intrude on his private domain.
The transformation had been horrendous. The months afterward had been worse. The servants that he hadn’t killed and eaten, or frightened away with his slavering jaws, had left one by one. The harmless animals that had scurried in and out of the garden had fled as well. Only the flowers had remained for more than a few months, only a single rose for longer than a year. No one had come into the castle either. No one but an old man who didn’t know any better than to take away that last flower.
No one but an old man, and then his daughter, determined to make up for her father’s mistake, even if it meant going behind his back.
It’s as much as he deserves if she devours his flesh like he devoured the flesh of his servants.
* * *
The door to the castle has not been locked for years, and he doubts it can really be locked again. Certainly, by now, it’s rusted over far too much to be matched with a key. He leaves it open as he steps into the hall again. It’s never winter in the castle. It’s never cold.
She’s sleeping by the fire, body trembling as if the cold still clinging to his cheeks has already reached her. He wonders if she can still cry, or if her human tear ducts were removed, for appearances sake. Something so large and brutal shouldn’t be able to cry. Something like that would be too intimate for anyone to watch.
He gets on his knees, wraps his arms around her shoulders.
“I love you,” he says, as if it could release the spell, and then, because it feels right, “Come back to me.”
She doesn’t wake. He falls asleep like that, his fingers digging into her fur.
It’s never had to. There are no birds for winter to chase away, there aren’t any lazy beasts to curl in the summer sun. There aren’t even any flowers in the gardens, though there used to be. He’d showed her those flowers, in pictures, and she’d smiled almost longingly at their brilliant colors.
No, there hadn’t been an almost about it.
He’s surprised he still knows how to walk on two legs. He’s been going on four for far too long.
* * *
He takes a break by the signpost; not to eat, because he didn’t have a chance to pack any food. He barely had a chance to do more than run through the castle door- she’d been furious, and the smile that twists his lips as he thinks about it is sardonic and unhappy. Bitter, almost.
His stomach growls as he sits there, looking up at the sky, and he wonders if he should tell her father. No, he wouldn’t believe him. Even in a world where such things were commonplace, no one wants to believe a monster could turn into a man, or that a daughter could become a monster, taking a curse to bear upon her own shoulders, for love.
Well, she wouldn’t have loved him if she’d known what it would have gotten her into. He hadn’t loved anyone for a long time. Pretending to had been enough for the spell. Funny how magic claimed to know everything, but could be fooled by gestures that couldn’t fool a girl who’d lived her whole life with her head in the clouds.
He doesn’t want to think about this anymore. Slowly, like his legs will give out beneath him if he rushes on too fast, he gets to his feet.
* * *
The first time they’d met, he knew she was a girl of honor. He knew this simply by virtue of her arrival, stealthy, alone, nervous. Her steps had been tentative, but her voice didn’t shake when she’d called out to him.
“My father came here,” she said, “He took a rose.”
She’d brought it back to him, hoping to exchange it for her own father’s pride, but the petals had turned to velvet and it’s stem was made of glass. He screamed then, an anguished sound that no one had ever been able to distinguish from anger, not even himself.
The rose fell to the floor as he lunged, and the glass in his feet didn’t hurt nearly as much as the loss of that last flower. He’d had thick feet, anyway.
She stayed to make up for it, a life for a life. He hadn’t forced her too, but he couldn’t be without it.
* * *
The woods start to thin after a few more hours of walking, and his courage thins with it, so that he finds himself straying towards the side of the road, sticking to the trees. It’s foolish, he knows. The trees won’t protect him any more than the road would. They might even be more dangerous. It’s cowardly, too. The people he’s approaching won’t see anything different about him, not at first, not when the cold could stoop his back and curl his hands just as well as any number of years as a beast.
It’s not where he belongs though. It never was, not for him. It’s where she belonged, and he’s not her. Resting a hand against the tree, he leans forward, trying to catch a glimpse of her life, but it’s not there.
There hasn’t been a trace of her life here for months.
* * *
It’s dark before he moves from that spot, though he’d slid into a crouch not all that long after he’d realized who he was looking for.
He tells himself he can’t go back. She’d offered her heart to him on a thin thread of trust, and even if he hadn’t walked away, the transformation would have been more than enough to break that trust. Trust hurts when it breaks. It hurts everyone, the one who held it out, the one who snapped it in two. If anyone had been watching, it would have hurt them too.
She’d been howling as he’d left, a long, drawn out call of rage.
He’d been howling like that once too.
* * *
There are no wolves in these forests, because he chased them off years ago, when the curse was still new and his bones still ached to be a man’s. Now they ache to be a monster’s again, and he has to struggle to stay on two feet, to keep from falling to all fours and clambering along that way, like an animal. It’s as much as he deserves, because he brought the curse upon himself, condemning an old woman to die because he’d been too selfish to let her intrude on his private domain.
The transformation had been horrendous. The months afterward had been worse. The servants that he hadn’t killed and eaten, or frightened away with his slavering jaws, had left one by one. The harmless animals that had scurried in and out of the garden had fled as well. Only the flowers had remained for more than a few months, only a single rose for longer than a year. No one had come into the castle either. No one but an old man who didn’t know any better than to take away that last flower.
No one but an old man, and then his daughter, determined to make up for her father’s mistake, even if it meant going behind his back.
It’s as much as he deserves if she devours his flesh like he devoured the flesh of his servants.
* * *
The door to the castle has not been locked for years, and he doubts it can really be locked again. Certainly, by now, it’s rusted over far too much to be matched with a key. He leaves it open as he steps into the hall again. It’s never winter in the castle. It’s never cold.
She’s sleeping by the fire, body trembling as if the cold still clinging to his cheeks has already reached her. He wonders if she can still cry, or if her human tear ducts were removed, for appearances sake. Something so large and brutal shouldn’t be able to cry. Something like that would be too intimate for anyone to watch.
He gets on his knees, wraps his arms around her shoulders.
“I love you,” he says, as if it could release the spell, and then, because it feels right, “Come back to me.”
She doesn’t wake. He falls asleep like that, his fingers digging into her fur.