Chapter Text
meanwhile, in the icy palace that was the prince charming's birthright, there was a loathsome beast that stalked him in the night; it was there at every turn, rippling in the shining, mirror-like walls of the castle. the first time he had seen it he had screamed in horror, and the others—his family, his servants of which few were left, and his friends of which there were fewer still—all stared at him with identical looks of vacant confusion. so now he simply ignored it, for the most part, except when he could bring himself to study it.
it was a monstrous creature with elongated tusks that gleamed with spittle in the candlelight, its jaw unhinged in a nightmarish caricature of a charming smile; its claws were half the length of an arm, and they made a screeching sound as they scoured deep into the mirrored floors. the prince thought that its one beautiful feature, if you could call it that, was its pelt. it shone with dazzling splendor, like the plains of ice and snow that stretched beyond the castle. he had the thought, brief and sudden and ferocious, that he would like to hunt it down, kill it and skin it and hang it above his bed for its beauty alone. the thought was banished as quickly as it came, for it was followed by a deep and nameless fear, almost as if the prince charming were the prey and not the predator, a feeling that he could not linger on.
and yet, for all of that, perhaps most horrifying were the eyes that peered back at him. they were a clear, startling blue that, for all their arrogance and cruelty, shone back at him with a strange, hidden innocence, much like a child's.
he did not look at them too closely, for they gave him an unsettling feeling, as if he had seen them before. of course, he had. he had seen them every day, for as long as he was able to look into a mirror. they were his eyes! but he could not see it; it was as if a veil had been drawn over him.
of course, there was a part of him that knew, but that part slept deep inside him, and would not wake from its slumber until much, much later. until it was much, much too late, until he had long transformed into what was now only a reflection of his most despicable, inner self. a shadow which followed after him as he paced the hallways well into the night, which followed him into the short bursts of sleep he managed, and which eventually, lastly, crept into the morning light. then, then it stared back at him from his mirror, and it grinned.