Belle is a maid living in service of a handsome prince who she falls madly in love with. Jealous of all the other women and angry at his refusal to notice her she curses him and turns him into a hideous beast. For years they remain together in the c...
A rose that hasn't even begun to break apart. Its plump and blood-red petals still look as young and graceful as the day Belle gave it to me ninety years ago.
"Your Highness?" Maurie asks again, he is trying not to show it but he is getting scared. I can't blame him, in times like this I suppose my silence is more concerning than when I speak.
Clenching my paw into a fist I press it against the window.
"Do you know what today is, Maurie?" I ask, my gruff and deep voice echoing around the room.
Maurie sighs and bows his head in sadness.
"Yes, Your Highness. How could I ever forget what today is?"
"Ninety years ago today I became this thing. Ninety years," I turn around fast, and with one swipe of my paw, I push all the items that were spread out on the table to the floor, "Ninety God damned years as a monster! Ninety years of looking at that fucking rose waiting for the petals to start falling! Ninety years!"
Tired from my fit of rage, I slump into a chair and lean my upper body over my legs.
Maurie, who although is a bit scared, confidently walks up to me and places a firm yet comforting hand on my shoulder. He doesn't say anything. What can he say? What can he tell his prince something that he hasn't said a hundred times already over the last nine decades?
Don't worry.
It will be alright.
A petal will fall one day.
We will figure this out.
None of them will make any difference.
I hear the door creak open and Belle rush in. "What's going on here?" she asks.
"His Highness is just feeling off. I think he just needs some rest," Maurie says.
I shove Maurie's hand off my shoulder and stand up angrily.
"Stop calling me, Your Highness. I stopped being a prince long ago. Now I'm just," I glare at my paws, "Now I'm just a beast. A horrid, disgusting, disfigured monster that people and my family hated so much that they left. I'm a beast and that's all I will ever be."
I choke back a sob with the last sentence. Sinking back into the chair I cover my face with my hands and sob.
Belle rushes over and sits in the chair next to me.
"I don't understand why this happened to me," I sob.
Neither of them does anything but after all, there is nothing they can do. There is nothing that anybody can do to help me.
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After hours of crying the Beast finally fell asleep.
I'm just thankful that he had a least moved into his bed before falling asleep. With nothing else left to do here, I get up and decide to go practice some new spells in my study.
It used to be the king's study and would have been the prince's but after the curse, he gave it away along with all of his duties to me making me the prime executor of everything. For all extensive purposes, I am the queen and that is exactly what I wanted, among other things.
All those years where my father and I slaved away in this castle the endless hours, sleepless nights, ruling labour and not to mention the harsh treatment from the head servant. And what did we get for our efforts? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The prince was all I had growing up. Every day it was the conversations I had with him that brought me joy and kept me sane. But even he was slipping away, far away into the arms of those pathetic aristocratic women with faces covered in power and those ridiculously tall wigs on.
As far as I am concerned I had to put that curse on him. It was an extreme method to use but so far it has given me everything I have wanted.
As I reach the door I look over my shoulder at the bright red rose still enclosed under the glass casing by the window.
Closing my eyes I smile because I can still feel my magic strong in the rose. Those petals will stay on that rose until the conditions of the spell are met. Which will never happen and I will make sure of it.
