Beauty and The Savage Beast (closed for slippedhalo and me)

[slippedhalo]

Once inside the castle Belle pulled the soaking wet fabric from her body and handed it to a waiting pair of floating gloves which carried it away to dry by a fire. She then took a towel from a rack of towels which had rolled itself out toward the door for them and began to dry her naked body. "I'm freezing. Do you think we could perhaps rest ourselves by the fireplace for a while?" she asked, still curious about his shift in mood.

 

[BadForm]

"Certainly, Beauty," I said as confidently as I was able to muster despite the peculiarity of the weather outside.

I led her to the fireplace, the two of us naked and by now unashamed to be so with each other. As we arrived, the fireplace roared into life, its flames soothing in their heat. I saw Beauty was looking at me, seemingly in concern, and decided to explain the reason I had frozen outside.

"Beauty," I said with a deep breath. "It has not rained here at all in the near four hundred years since the fairy cursed the castle. The entire grounds have been constant. The trees constantly ready for harvest, the swine fatted and replenished no matter how many are slain for food, the sun shining during the day and the moon at night full and bright. Things are changing of a sudden, Beauty, and I have no idea why or what the implication of that is."

 

[slippedhalo]

"Is it because...is it my presence here?" asked Belle, carefully wording her statement as she was still not sure enough of her feelings to admit them even to herself let alone say them aloud. She knew she had several more days yet before the petal would fall.

 

[BadForm]

"It could be," I acknowledge, "but it shouldn't be. The fairy's spell wrought a curse that froze the castle outside the world unless a woman fell in love with the real me. Beauty, I know you have not done so yet and likely never will. Therefore time should not be moving on."

There was something else, something it took me a while to put my finger on. When it came to me, I was horrified. If time was truly moving, it was unlikely the stores would replenish nor yet stay healthyful to eat. If a butterfly could enter the castle, could rats? Nothing in the castle was changing back yet, and if the curse was undoing slowly there was as great a danger as there was a benefit. I began to grow afraid for Beauty and what this might mean for her. I had lived a too-long life; if I died it would not be before my time. She was merely beginning hers.

 

[slippedhalo]

Belle's eyes filled with worry as she considered this. "Then, I have done wrong...in learning not to hate you. The beginning of that change in me could have resulted in some changes to this environment...and perhaps it isn't...well...I would have thought it would be good to cause things to change back to normal...yet, you seem worried about these new changes." she noted.

 

[BadForm]

I shook my head. "No, Beauty, you have not done wrong. I am grateful that you have managed to not hate me, but there may be problems because of it. If the tiniest things can change but not the major ones such as the people of the castle coming back to their normal form, then what might be implied for food, for water? Did you not wonder how I could offer you fresh berries and pork after 400 years without contact with the outside world? It is because the berries have been picked thousands of times, the pig slain thousands of times, but each time they are replaced with exactly the same thing. If that no longer happens, what might it mean for our food, our water?"

 

[slippedhalo]

"But...if the change is as subtle and slow as the changes in my feelings...we still have a few more days to enact more changes." she reasoned hopefully.

 

[BadForm]

"Belle," I began. For some reason, her given name seemed more appropriate at this point than the description I had been using as a name. "Do you think you could fall truly in love with a loving sadist? You have come far, but do you feel you could accept the fullness of pleasure in pain? Consider this - I had planned to take your third virginity, your anal virginity, this evening. You have seen my manhood and how it compares to your size. Do you think you could learn to love someone who would make such demands of you within so few days? If things change further but you can not truly love me within a week, then we could remain trapped within a half-changed castle running out of food, forever hungry. I have no wish to do that to you. I can only hope that there is some way to ensure your escape."

Unseen, above them, a cobweb began to spread over the ceiling. The screws holding up the chandelier began to rust. Out in the garden, grass began to crow through the paths. It was only when dust began to fall into the fire from the chimney, making it sputter and spark, that they realized something was wrong.

 

[slippedhalo]

Belle nodded her head as she thought about this new predicament they found themselves in, "The way I see it, the worst has already happened to me...not that I look forward at all to some of the things you have in store for me...I also trust you would not kill me, maim me, nor do anything you view as truly harming me in any way. That out of the way leaves me free to truly get to know you for who you are...and I don't...really...mind...how you are. I don't think I could be satisfied with another sort of life after this experience. You yourself said so earlier when I spoke of my unhappiness back in my villiage. And, now that my family, and likely others are aware of my stay here, they would never truly accept me back again anyways. I would not be allowed the sort of life I even would have perhaps found minute comfort in before this...No decent man will have me now."

She leaned forward and took his exceptionally large hand in both of hers. "Does that lead me to love you? No, of course it is a thing so intangible, given freely and earned at the same time. It can never be forced...but...I think it is not impossible. We're only halfway through this week." she reasoned with an encouraging smile. "I am your student and will submit to your will and all I hope for in return is to be what I already am, happier here than in my previous life. Do not fret. Things will work out, and if I must be the only human in this household and must fatten and slay the hogs myself, plant the grains, purchase our other wants and needs by the farmers of the lands around us, myself...I promise you I would, and I would always return to you. I am not a liar nor a quitter. I won't leave you prematurely, not this week and if it must be and the petal falls with no resolution, I would stick to my word then too... Do not worry." she promised.

It was only the sound of a faint scream and a crash in the courtyard which broke their concentration on their discussion and one another. They both rose quickly to see where the sound had come from....

....A gruesome sight greeted them in the courtyard. Blood spread quickly upon the ground, seeping through the stone crevaces beneath the clearly human head of a lovely looking woman, it appeared. Her shining black hair matted now in her own vital fluids as her skull had been cracked like an egg upon the stone. Her body was smooth, walnut-brown naked flesh, to the waist... where it ended and subtly began to morph into the smooth wooden finish of a handle toward her lower torso, the lower half of this body, a broom. She had been one of the maids. To Belle, she had always been a broom and now she saw some of what she might had looked like, at least her top half, when she was once a woman.

All of the other house-servants, still enchanted to appear to be various household tools and cleaning objects, gathered around this dead woman/broom and stared at her mangled, bloody form lying there unnaturally still as only death can do. It was completely silent as each considered this horror and took it to heart in their own way.

Belle's eyes, wide with horror and shock, took this scene in. "She jumped from the balcony... perhaps it was too painful...or, she thought to escape...I fear I'll see this gruesome sight in my nightmares for years to come." she whispered softly, drawing closer to the beast for comfort.

 

[BadForm]

"Millicent, no!" I cried and fled outside to where the maid lay dead.

I cradled her skull in my arms and wept as her blood soaked my body. My hands shook as I picked her up and screamed at the heavens. "Gods be damned this curse!" I cried and the cry gave way to a long, keening wail. What else would happen while I tried to make Beauty love me. Was it too late to make her hate me and at least save the lives of the other castle servants. Wracked with grief and confusion I began to walk towards the small chapel at the back of the castle grounds. Most of the servants followed me.

Beneath my feet an itching and tingling went unnoticed. Weeds and grass continued to grow over the path from between the stones. Had I felt them, had I been able to think, I would have been terrified for all of us.

--

A giggling behind her caused Belle to turn. Standing there was a tall and lithe woman, full naked with brazen flesh. Antennae from her eyebrows and silvery wings at her back told Belle who this was. The fairy. She held in her hand the rose that had been the timer for all the pain of the last centuries, its one petal solid and unwavering.

"I loved him once, you know," she said and held out the petal to Belle. "I loved him as you may think you will. But I cursed him for his crime. Do you know what will happen if you do fall in love with him? Think you silly girl, look around you and think. Already the rafters gain cobwebs. Already the grasses of four hundred years begin to grow between the flagstones. These are minor things based in your appreciation of the life he offers. What will happen when you love him? Think. Think about four hundred years and one man."

And she began to laugh once more, not the girlish giggle of before but a rageful cackle that spoke of evil magic and its implications for mortal man.

 

[slippedhalo]

Belle wanted to reach out to the fairy, to shake the answers she needed from her but before she had taken a step in her direction the woman was gone. Belle fell to her knees and began to weep. This was the most frightening thing she had ever experienced. This had so many implications...Belle was at a loss over what she should do. Was it truly because of her that these things were happening? Would she be able to turn back the changes on this castle by leaving them alone? Would she ever be happy again if she did leave the beast? As the rain began to fall again, nature working to cleanse the stones of their heinous crime by washing the blood away, Belle didn't bother to move from her spot and continued to rock herself and cry, naked and alone in the storm. Uncertain of her next step.

 

[BadForm]

I buried her myself, digging deep into the earth to cleanse the agony and fear from my soul. Each time the spade hit the dirt new tears rolled down my cheeks, splashing to the already sodden ground. I cared not about the storm, the rain, the cold. She had been the most recent of the servants I had hired and was just as beloved as every other one of them gathered around. I could not help but notice as I dug for an hour how the grasses slowly changed, growing as if left to grow unhindered for a few years. What was happening I could not guess, but I knew it was terrible. Finally I took my weary and aching body back to Beauty.

"Beauty," I said, looking at her weary and shocked face, "Belle... I do not know what is happening, but perhaps you should try to leave before things here harm you too."

(OOC: If you're wondering I'm working towards one of several conclusions, hope you're enjoying the twist. I want to write with you again definitely, possibly immediately that we finish Beauty, but would like to finish the storyline).

 

[slippedhalo]

Belle looked up at him. His eyes were sad and powerless. He was afraid for her safety and had not even given a thought over his possession of her and that only made her care for him even more deeply. He was thinking for her and not for his own greed. It warmed her heart...

But, she knew that more changes in her feelings could result in more harm than good to he and the other inhabitants of the castle. "Where would I go?" she asked in a weary, emotionally drained, whisper. "Is this fairy so cruel that even your one way out of this curse is a curse unto itself? I can't believe it. All enchantments have a loophole...Aphise, I don't want to leave you here to die." her courageous statemen dissolving into tears as she pictured he and the other castle inhabitants slowly half-metamorphing into themselves before their bodies could no longer take the pain of it, or the starvation of her master as his gardens and orchards turn to dust, the pigs and fowl long dead...or he himself, shriveling to a 400+ year old pile of ash...all of these things occurred to her and all were equally terrifying.

 

[BadForm]

"My one way out..?"

What did she mean. I stared at the floor trying to make sense of her statement. My way out was for her to love me. That would mean that time would once again flow as the castle was bound back to reality. That would mean... And my heart sank. What was happening with the grass was that four years growth had happened in an hour. My mind did a quick calculation. Four years in an hour, one hundred years almost in a whole day and so almost four hundred years in the time left available to me. I had not changed, but the small things had. The grass, the newest of the servants. Belle cared, appreciated, did not yet love.

My eyes fell on the rose that had been dropped on the floor, its petal was sword to my Damocles, its fall spelling my doom. Her words spun through my mind... enchantment, loophole... loophole, enchantment... yes, there was one. I picked up the rose and held it gently in my grasp. I resisted the urge to smile, to laugh at the very predicament I was in and its implications. She had said that one image that had attracted her was the one where the man was bound and the woman superior. Could she understand how true to our situation that power exchange was. Could I have ever known my dream of how I dominated yet served her was true? The irony was terrifying, yet I had to make this work exactly right.

A screw fell from the ceiling, spraying rust as it bounced off the floor. Looking up I saw cobwebs cover the chandellier. Her compassion was turning slowly towards love.

"Beauty!" I said siddenly. "If I am to die then I will know the pleasure of your third virginity first. I do not know how much longer I have so I will take you now and not later. But in my love for you I will grant you the decision on how you may ease your passage first. Tell me, how do you wish to oil yourself and me?"

It was a demand I was sure to comply with, perhaps even quite willingly with the level of care she had shown and its impacts on the castle. Yet it was one that would temporarily halt the progression to love.

 

[slippedhalo]

Had he said he loved her? She thought that she might have heard that in his quick statement of his intentions and in offering her a choice of how to begin this third initiation into what he considered her womanhood. Belle paused and looked around, still distracted by the changes happening all around them. He was trying to make the most of their time together. Did he worry these might be his last days upon the earth? Belle nodded as she thought and finally responded with, "The picture..."
Another she had stared at a long time,
"...blindfolded and bound... I would have you brand me as your own and...and penetrate my flower before you take my anus, to oil us both."

 

[BadForm]

I felt a twinge within my spine and knew that time was moving more quickly. I was aging, and had little time left. I had thought that such a demand would slow down the possibility of her loving me, yet it anything her giving of herself showed just how close she was. If anything I had driven her closer.

Behind me I heard a cough and as I turned I saw the butler, Guilliver, looking at us in shock. He was fully human, though his skin still held the glassy sheen of the bottle he had been until recently. I stared at him and gave my order.

"Guilliver, tell the healer to meet me in the forge. Tell the smith to heat the fires and prepare the brand and piercer, the special ones used only for female slaves. Tell him to get ready jewels and metals, he knows which ones may be selected from. GO man, GO!"

He nodded, his years of servitude providing him the incentive to carry out the orders immediately. I turned back to Beauty, seeing her nervously staring at me.

"Beloved Beauty, sweet Belle," I said. "There is but ONE chance for me, and that if we are not too late. That chance is the other reading of the spell. The fairy stated that should a woman fall in love with me before the last petal falls then the castle will be bound back to reality and time will be freed for it. My love, if you do not yet fully love me, if there is one essence of doubt, of pain, even of hatred cling to it within your caring and hear me. If the last petal falls BEFORE you love me then I believe we will be trapped forever OUTSIDE time, disconnected from the so-called real world." I handed her the rose. "I will give you exactly your wish, even should you choose to accept this one chance to flee eternity here. However, if you should choose, rip the petal from the rose, and rip us both into an eternity here. Freeze time as it is now... if you will do that for a man you do not yet love."

 

[slippedhalo]

"Why must the decision fall upon me?" asked Belle in a whisper, more to herself than anyone else. The implications of this decision washed over her as she held the rose with a trembling hand and stared, for the longest time at the enchanted bloom, nearly dead. What it came down to now, what it had always been about was of her power over him, not the other way around. He may be the dominant one but she had the power over his life and those of all who lived inside the castle walls, even herself...she may have never taken the initiative to cause change in her own life but it had always been there, the power. She found it ironic than she had never discovered her power over her own life until she gave up all control of it to another for a time to become his submissive...But, now was the time for her to make a choice for them all. The fact that Aphise even trusted her enough to do this was just more proof for her of his love.

...After several long moments of contemplation in dead silence, Belle looked up at the master of the crumbling castle and sought his eyes with her own stating, "I do this just as much for myself as for all of you. I do not need you to change to know how I feel about you and what I desire." ...before tearing the petal from the bloom...

 

[BadForm]

OOC: Sorry I can't come up with a better final post, am a little tired after a week of hard hard work.

IC:

I loved her then. I loved her more than I had loved anyone before, including myself. I loved her not so much for the gift she had given me but for the understanding that it was a gift she had given herself. And I knew it was right that she not have the branding alone but that I share it too. I took her into my arms and started towards the forge.

"Beauty," I said, "Did you choose your metal and your jewelry yet? You will receive your nipple rings in the forge, but as there is no priest here now I wish you to consider them your engagement and your wedding ring."

I wondered what this marriage of two hearts would bring as we started our future together and I reflected on a tale from my childhood. Without time to intrude on our personal realm, I could only hope I would make her happy ever after.

 

[slippedhalo]

Belle had chosen and they stood before the forger as if he were a priest,dedicating themselves to one another through the pleasure of pain and the subtle understanding that they needed nothing of the outside world to make them happier than they could make one another.

The gold, diamond studded rings upon her nipples did hurt but not at all as much as it would have hurt her to leave him and be left alone in a world which didn't understand her. She took the pain with the understanding that she was strong enough to take it. She knew this about herself now, her inner strength was more than most anyone she had known in her previous life and she knew that he loved her and would dedicate himself to her in his own ways too.

As Aphise, her beast, led her to be bound and blindfolded a rush of excitement ran through her, knowing the branding would hurt as well but then afterward they would enjoy each other before he took her last virginity. She was willing to give it all to him. She did love him.