Short Story / Beast from Beauty
I didn’t have to look to know.
My hands- or, rather, claws- flexed from within their new skin, getting used to the raw power invested there. I could feel myself shrinking away, hiding in the corners of my mind. Breath came raggedly, forced from the wide expanse of my chest. Fear ripped from me more easily than the fur I was pulling, almost unconsciously, from my too-thick skin. This wasn’t right- I had been wrong, I knew that now. And, before all else, the desperate urge- no, need- to go back to how it had been consumed me. A single beaded tear fell from my eye, becoming mere moisture in the fur it fell to.
A choked sob tore the air from my lungs, and with a howl of grief I faded into the brush.
---
The crack of sunlight along the horizon brought only pain. Heavy lids lifted themselves to reveal larger, more frantic eyes than my face had ever held before. My eyes had not been closed in sleep. The gentle friend of healing and rest would not call on me now, or potentially ever again, I feared. I was a heinous thing, roaming the forests of my homeland as a monster. A blemish against the beauty of nature. A thing - yes, thing - that was not accepted by the trees, the flowers, or even the predators of the land.
Bu it had not always been this way. I had not always been a stain of existence. There had been a time, a time not so long before, when I was more beautiful than anything or anyone you had ever seen. No. Better than that. I had been without imperfection. Blonde hair had fallen to soft curls and waves down my jaw, framing a strong chin and gentle jaw. Green eyes had sparked from under my perfectly arched brows, reminiscent of fresh grass sparkling with dew. My lips had been pursed just the right amount-what the village girls had referred to most commonly as “impeccably kissable”. Tanned skin had been stretched over muscle and bone, without mar-except, of course, for the one lined scar that had run down my right cheek. My strength had been unmatched, surprising with the lithe form I had carried, perfect in stature-I had been fitting for my position. I’d had the presence of a Prince.
But all of that was history now, the makings of myth already, left behind in time. It had been from the moment that I had seen her-beautiful in every way, the woman I had been searching for. The only one who could possibly be my match, in mind and in eye. I had pursued her, of course, as any man of my stature would have. She had responded, though not nearly as eagerly as any of the others would have-it had impressed me, drawn me in further. She had captured my interest, had become my obsession. She was made of sun and moon, it had seemed to me- the sun in her hair, shining in her eyes, as the moon tinted her skin and words with calm beauty. Perhaps you could call it love-I would not know. If so, love is little but addiction and obsession run rampant. In my case, obsession did no good; like a drunk, I had wandered after her in a daze.
And then he had shown up.
He was not beautiful in person, from view. I had not understood what had drawn her to him at that point-why the woman I myself had given the honour of falling for had turned to another man, had run to his arms and not mine. I had done nothing that I had not done before. But she did not want me, had not fallen in love with me. It made no sense, or very little- his nose was crooked, his right eye drooping unpleasantly. He walked with a limp, and spoke with a lisp. He was ugly. Disgusting. A creature not fit to walk the same steps as I, let alone hold the same woman that I wished upon.
He was nothing but a disgusting, filthy animal, or so I’d thought.
But now, now I understood…a little too late.
A rough growl passed down my throat-something that would have once been a mere sigh of discontentment. Everything felt more intense now, in these dark days of mine. Smells were blunt, and close between. I shivered, the scent of rabbit sliding into my nostrils. My limbs moved of their own will, silently, deadly, passing through trees at the speed of five horses. My claws extended, yearning to spread yet more blood along them. I was hungry, famished, and delirious. And before my mind had caught up with my feet, I had entrapped my prey between the razor sharp edges of what had once been fingers. My mouth extended horizontally in what may have been a smile, revealing my double row of predator’s teeth. And I bit down, letting blood spurt from my newest victim. Hacking, half the meat spewed from my mouth- the taste of raw flesh would never appeal to me. No matter how monstrous I appeared, I would always have the taste of royalty.
Disappointed and discouraged, I lobbed the body of the animal through the trees, my inhuman strength propelling it farther than I could see. Poor blight. Though it was probably better off- a scissored neck was the quickest way those of that kind would die. And it would have died eventually. If it had had young ones, they would soon be found, and would join her. That was nature’s way. But I wasn’t too worried. It wasn’t the season for young ones.
No, it certainly wasn’t the season for young ones.
It hadn’t taken me long to rid the world of him, either. Weak and pathetic, he had given no fight. A punch to get him down, a few hits from a piece of fence to knock him out, and a knife to slit the throat. The blood, in my opinion, had improved upon him. He had already been tragic-his death had only encouraged it. Crazed in love, in obsession, I had carved into his flesh, made him unrecognizable. I had pressed my blade along his cheeks, and down his chest. Through his clothes-he did not need them any longer, they only made him seem human. I had severed his leg, the limping one, the one that had made his fool’s walk so completely irritating. A circle on his chest, an ‘X’ over top the heart. The part she said she loved him for. With a roar, a growl, a feral beast’s call, I had plunged my dagger into that heart, marking the spot, and finishing my handiwork.
Then I had left him there, covered in his blood. My hair was dyed a deadly red that night, my hands covered in the paint of an inner war. My clothes were in tact, mostly, if stained just a little bit. I had wandered from that empty farmyard as a new man, a different man-a murderer and a lover, though both are very similar to one another. I knew then that at some point I had fallen from myself, from who I was deep inside, and from who I had once been. I had changed. I had connected to two individuals-and that connection had not deepened me. It had ruined me. My love, once naught to be given, had been stolen from me. And my hatred, once openly available, and been focused. Both had ended in ruin, left me empty, left me weak. My knees had buckled, tossing me into a shallow stream for the night.
I had not heard her scream the next morning when she found him.
There was no doubt that they had guessed that it had been I- when I had gone after him, I had not been careful. I had been blunt, had let my anger lead me along by strings that were not held by my hands. I had been a puppet for the bloody deity of death and murder, pillaging life as if it meant no more than a twig from a tree. But, left unconscious in my stream, they had not found me. They had not found me.
And they never would again.
My beauty was now gone, fled from my features. I was haunted by two souls- that of the man I had killed, and by extension, the woman who had loved him. She had never loved me, but through my own actions I had gained the extreme wonder of being hated. Loved by many, hated by none, I had her living guile following me with every step I took, both sound and emotion echoing as claw met grass. I walked passed tree and bush, through streams and up hills wrought from steep rock. I did not know where I was going, only that I walked far from those who wished me ill, and from any whom I might be danger to. Far from those who still lived on, as I did not- I had died, as myself, that night. It seemed so long ago now- half a century ago, at least. And it had been two nights. Two nights. Impressive. I had never carried on with anything for quite that long before.
Finally, following my stream, I came across something magnificent- something beautiful in it’s own right, gorgeous singularly, yet fitting into the background of forest. A castle stood before me, broken and wearing, but beautiful in its own right. The fact that it stood regally after what may have been a millennia both astonished and called to me. I approached it, heavy footfalls taking me inside the decrepit building.
The entering room was fantastical, ceiling extending high above even my head, with but a few holes showing the sky above me. Sunlight twinkled in through cracks in the walls, pressing itself against and bouncing off the glass chandelier that filled the top of the room, and the glass miracles of the windows. Tearing material hung from each side of every window, framing them with a pathetic sort of majesty. In awe, I walked forwards, through the dust on the cracked marble floor. Up stairs, and into the library- embossed with thousands of books, at least three stories high and a village in width. Into the chambers- that which would be fit for angels, had any ever chosen to fall from the heavens. Through dining room and halls, I found myself falling in love again. But this time, it was not an obsession. It was a home. A home. I had never had one of those before. Not really.
Returning to the library, I allowed myself to curl into a ball, torn clothes wrinkling and stretching over my too-large limbs. I closed my eyes, and tried to sleep-perhaps things would change while I slept. I wished again, as a heaviness took my body, that I could return to how I had been. Mindless, an idiot in a prince’s body.
But I had not been in that body for days now, not since my stream had washed it away. When I had awoken the night after I had committed crime, I had woken to the intensity of pure pain. My flesh had writhed with itself, battling to become a pure form. I had screamed into the night, crying at what I was sure was the end of the world. My body had extended, parts of me washed away in the water. Fur had sprouted, a snout extended from my beautiful face. I had gotten larger, stretching to my fullest extent. Claws had broken flesh, leaving me with a substitution for the hands I’d had the day before. And when my transformation had been complete, words had been whispered into my ear, an unearthly goddess telling my fate.
“Ugly creature, take what chance at beauty you have in you and guard it carefully. Love, and return as human to the world you felt was once in your hands.”
A flower had bloomed next to my waterbed. And I had run from my place, tearing the plant as carefully as I could on my way. I had placed it in a small pouch I wore always on my side, and kept it with me on my journey through the woods.
Now, as I woke at night from a relentlessly uncomfortable sleep, I placed it tenderly under a glass case. A shuddering breath passed through me. I would stay here, a once-beautiful phantom in a once-beautiful palace. I was nothing that should have been alive, a gruesome face and a gruesome mind all I had to offer the world around me.
I was a beast, a beast made from beauty.
But I would learn to love again.
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First of all I loved the concept. I thought it was a very interesting spin on the “Beauty and the Beast” story. I liked the whole idea of showing the beast’s metamorphosis, but I would have liked that part to be clearer in the beginning. I realised he was changing into the beast, and there was some lovely description there but I found myself a bit confused – why was he being transformed then? I can understand him being cursed after killing the rival, but I saw it as he was already a beast at that point. Maybe I was rather confused.
Some beautiful description, and I really like the way you portray his emotions and reaction to his metamorphosis.
One small thing that I found a bit annoying was the overuse of hyphens. I think it would be better if most of these were cut out because it just makes things look messy and breaks the flow, and doesn’t add any real relevance to it there.
On the whole though, you have a good base for a very nice short story in there. With a little clarification and some tidying up of the grammar it has a lot of potential. :)
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This is good. Familiar. I only have a couple suggestions:
I noticed you go back and forth between present and past tense. For example: “now I understood”. It should be “now I understand” or “then I understood”.
The first two or three pages, I thought the prince was a woman. I think its because of the description of him and the use of the word “beautiful”.
Only thing that really made me think was the fact that the only way for him to turn human again is to love, but ironically, love is sorta what drove him crazy and turned him into a beast. Hmmm…
Makes me wanna watch beauty and the beast :-)
Take that disney…this is kind of like a good prequel. I’ve never seen the original movie, but it was cool seeing how he actually became a beast…and it made sense. You had a believable reason for him being transformed this was. It wasnt that brutal sorry dont worry about the whole mature thing. I didnt spot any grammar errors with my eyes..and overall liked this.
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