Love Is Never Ugly

Chapter 1

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.