Chapter Text
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a young prince in a castle of gold and glass.
He had wealth beyond imagining, servants to answer his every command, and a kingdom that bowed beneath his name. Yet for all he possessed, the Prince was cruel, vain, and cold-hearted. He judged all things by beauty, power, and obedience, and he looked upon anything strange or unpleasant with disgust.
Then, on a bitter winter night, an old beggar woman came to the castle gates.
Bent beneath the wind and wrapped in tattered cloth, she offered the Prince a single rose in exchange for shelter from the cold. Repulsed by her appearance, the Prince sneered at the gift and turned her away.
The old woman warned him not to trust only what his eyes could see, for beauty was often hidden beneath frightening things.
But the Prince would not listen.
When he rejected her a second time, the beggar woman’s frail shape fell away, revealing a beautiful enchantress. The Prince begged for forgiveness, but it was too late. She had looked beyond his handsome face and found no kindness in his heart.
As punishment, she transformed him into the very thing he feared most.
A beast.
His hands became claws. His voice became a growl. His handsome face twisted into something monstrous. And with one sweep of her magic, the enchantress placed a powerful spell upon the castle and all who lived within it.
Ashamed of his terrifying form, the Beast hid himself away from the world. The castle grew silent. The forest thickened around its walls. The people beyond its grounds spoke of shadows, monsters, and cursed things that prowled where no one dared to wander.
Only a magic mirror remained as the Beast’s window to the outside world.
The rose the enchantress had offered him was no ordinary flower. It was enchanted, and it would bloom until his twenty-first year. If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return before the final petal fell, the spell would be broken.
If he could not, he would remain a beast forever.
As the years passed, the Beast fell deeper into rage, shame, and despair. He forgot the sound of kindness. He forgot the warmth of another hand. And worst of all, he began to believe that no heart could ever look upon him without fear.
For who could ever learn to love a beast?