What can I say? I love a good fairy tale and it's fun to retell one. However this will be a very dark retelling. This was heavily inspired by Panna A Netvor a Czech adaptation of Beauty and the Beast which is a fantasy horror film and if I could ever picture Alastor and Charlie in a Beauty and the Beast story it would be that one.
Real Fairies are not good. They are not tiny and innocent sprites with wings that live in gardens. They are not kindly and maternal women who grant the wishes of girls who are abused by their stepfamilies or living wooden toys who wish to become human. They are not courteous party goers who give magical gifts to babies. They are nothing like in the stories and legends you have heard about them before. In actuality fairies are very wicked and mischievous females who spend their pass time torturing other creatures for their own twisted amusement. Since the very moment they sprang into the world, all they have ever done was commit very cruel or very irritating acts on some poor unsuspecting soul who unintentionally crossed their path. The most vile of them all were three fairy sisters who would travel to various lands and cause all sorts of trouble to anyone they encountered. No one could even look at the sisters and expect to escape them unchanged.
But then one day a young prince was hunting late at night when he heard the sound of bell-like voices laughing in the air. With careful stealth, he followed the laughter to the very center of the woods where there lay a cool spring. He hid himself among the bushes and looking through them he saw the three fairies bathing in the spring. They did not notice the prince so they did him no harm and upon realizing that they were fairies the prince had initially thought to leave until his eyes fell upon the youngest one who was combing her hair underneath the moonlight.
She was the most beautiful creature that the prince had ever beheld. One of wit, majesty, and great grace. With long hair as rich as mahogany wood, dazzling violet eyes, creamy brown skin that was fragrant of amber and lilac, and a smile that was passed from mouth to mouth in the country like a gift. So smitten the young prince was with her that neither night nor day could he tear his thoughts from the bright image. His heart was instantly lost and he desired the fairy maiden with all his being.
As the moon was beginning to set, the three fairies decided to change back into their sacred robes and return to their home but the youngest had misplaced hers so she ended up staying behind to search for it while her sisters went ahead. She had hung her robe on a tree but it slipped from the branches and fell into the bushes where the prince found it. When the fairy saw her robe in the hands of a human male she wept bitterly for now that she had been seen without her robe she would be considered tainted and unclean by her sisters and could never return home.
The prince then cast his cloak over the fairy and carried her to his castle where he made her his bride. The young couple dwelt lovingly and contentedly together. So happy they were that the fairy almost forgot her previous life completely. However her older sisters eventually discovered her and they were greatly enraged by not only the fact that she had become a human's wife but that she now carried a human's child within her.
The two older fairies brutally killed the prince, destroyed his kingdom until nothing remained save for a haunting memory, and placed a dreadful curse upon the younger fairy's unborn child. The poor woman fell upon her knees and pleaded with her sisters to show mercy. The oldest refused to yield but the middle was moved upon seeing her younger sister's tears. She granted her a private kingdom of her own, one far from human eyes and with loyal servants who would tend to her every need. But most importantly she told her of the only way to break the curse that her child would be forced to live with. Sadly the mother to be, could not be the one to break this curse.
Within in time the younger fairy gave birth to a son but he was not beautiful like his mother or handsome like his human father had been. He was terrifying, fearsome, hideous. All who saw the child drew back in fear and alarm. Wherever he went he learned that he was not welcome. He learned that he was strange. He learned that he was ugly. And he learned that he was hated. But his long suffering mother never saw him the way others did. She had held him to her breast. She wrapped him in a bundle and hugged him to bits. She loved him but at the same time she mourned him for she was certain that his life would be one of nothing but woe.
As the boy grew he began to crave blood and flesh, his mother kept him fed with beasts that her servants hunted. But when she finally died, her monstrous offspring started to hunt his own meals and he hunted both man and beast. Never once understanding the difference between the two or just how evil these acts were. The forest floor was often stained with blood and corpses were often found lying about with their organs ripped out savagely.
But you see the poor wretch just couldn't help himself. He had to kill, he had to shed blood, for he knew nothing else. He had urges and needs that the average sane man would not dare think of, that is if you could even call him a man. He heard sinister voices that would whisper sinful and vile thoughts into his head. And he learned to enjoy those thoughts and what those thoughts would drive him to do.
The 'kingdom" in which he reigned over were black and misty woods, a place where very little had the courage to enter and his servants were animals twisted and disfigured into sub creatures who were almost as mortifying in appearance as their master was. One would think that any man or beast who lived this way would be completely miserable but no, no he was quite content with this life. A life where he ruled with fear and had the power to control if one lived or died in his domain. Those who knew him found it puzzling that he could actually find happiness within this dreadful existence. Some said it was because he was born without a heart and could only find pleasure in watching the massacre of others. Or maybe he merely forced himself to be happy this way for if he did not he probably would have become so agonized that that he would have ended his own life. No one could say for sure. No one save for the monster himself.
Either way one thing could be certain of in terms of this creature. He was mad. Insane, psychotic, deranged, his mind unhinged, and anyone who ever encountered him was beyond all hope of ever living to see the light of day again.
...
A caravan was traveling through the black woods one evening to deliver some goods to a market place. One of the travelers thought that the regular path would take too long so he insisted that the group take a short cut through the woods.
"We'll have to hack our way through these damn brambles." He complained during the trip.
"We should not have come here." His fellow traveler shuddered. "We are now surely headed straight for death."
"If you fear wolves then calm yourself because we have guns."
"It's not the wolves that I fear. It is something much more vicious."
"What could be more vicious than a wolf?"
"Have you not heard the legends of these woods? They say that the devil himself lives here and that he's hunted down anyone who's ever set foot inside."
"I do not pay attention to the idiotic tales of senile old men."
"We should head back before it's too late. Perhaps he doesn't know of our presence yet?"
"We are not returning. We've come too far already and these spices are worth a fortune at the market. I'm not delaying our destination anymore than I have to."
But suddenly their horses bucked wild and broke away from the wagon that they were pulling. The travelers tried to calm them but the very moment their feet touched the ground something came out of the thicket and slit one of their throats. A dead body dropped to the ground and the living traveler tried to run but he didn't get far. He tripped, fell, and claws were plunged deep into his chest. His lungs were jerked out by what had killed him and then the living nightmare dissected the first man of his liver, a malicious smile on his face the whole time he did this. He then took the liver and lungs back to his home where he salted and ate them with glee.
Mad glee, glee that one feels when their brain has been ravaged and that is what had become of this terrible beast. The only thing that helped him keep a small fraction of his sanity was the memory of his mother. She had been the only light he knew and he did not want to forget her so her grave was kept close to him and he held on to what she had parted with when she died. Her favorite ring and these words,
"Every woman has the power to make beautiful the man she loves."
She had said that the ring and those words were his only hope of ever finding true happiness but he failed to understand the meaning of either one. Nevertheless he kept the ring locked up tight in a small wooden box and he had those exact words memorized by heart, all to keep her memory alive. Not that he believed that any of the two would help him find any joy. As he matured he thought that he was completely full filled and satisfied. Unaware that in time his seemingly eternal yet deluded smile that he used as a mask would be unveiled to expose his real feelings and the one to unveil that mask would be someone who could help him see what real happiness looked like. Someone who just like him was living in misery and was very much oblivious to it.