Chapter 1~to begin at a beginning or the end so we may start

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   To start off he was not always marred and clawed, with rabid fangs protruding from chapped lips. No, to start with he was a boy. A little boy that sat on his mothers bed as she read from a well loved copy of Beauty and the Beast
    “... happily ever after.” In the form of a little boy our hero frowned and looked up at his mother “Well did you like it?”
    “...No.”
    “Well why not?”
    “It didn’t make... didn’t make sense.” His mother laughed
    “Well why not?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I see ti’anne I see.” She ruffed his hair. It was the last story she would ever read to him. She died. All People do. And his father being a father dug a hole into his work and sat in the deepest darkest part of it. Leaving him alone. He hated this emptiness and it made him think of the tale his mother had told him last. The tale as old as time as it was so called. It still didn’t quite yet make sense to our young hero, but he did understand the beast. All alone in his castle with no one but the furniture. So he did as the beast had done. He began to search for his belle. A parade of beautiful young  girls followed his revelation to find her. His father too busy to care about the exotic parade that was dancing shamelessly through his only son’s bedroom. This you see is what had always puzzled him about that beast in the old story. The beast got it right on the first girl he tired. True love doesn’t happen like that. True love isn’t the first girl to ‘wander’ into your castle, you have to go out looking for it. So that is where we meet our hero. Looking for his belle. Looking in all the wrong places and by all the wrong means.
    “Look Cindy the Nerd drooped something.” He sneered. Not that this is particularly funny, witty or interesting. He was just stating fact. Narrating. There goes the baker with his tray like always the same old bread and roles to sell. His mind sang at him. The blonde was as blondes are rather dumb. She laughed in a rather chipmunky fashion  and sneered at the girl kneeling over retrieving a book. His comment received him a glower from a boy standing next to her. he snickered at them and continued to walk
    “So Mal. I hear your father is off world again.” Cindy twisted a piece of bottle gold round her finger.
    “Yeah he’s making peace arrangements with the people of T’meria, he wont be back for a week.” Not that it even maters.
    “Soo...Tomorrow?” These girls are getting snakier and snakier he thought to himself. It had been two hours since she had told him  her name.
    “Yeah, my place.” then again so had Mal.

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    Cindy was like all the rest. And she definitely wasn’t his belle. And the parade continued. He would have never guessed that the reason he wasn’t finding his belle was because he really was looking in all the wrong places. He was nowhere close.
    “Hey Ben?”
    “Yes Gwen?” She slapped at his shoulder gently, really more of a tap.
    “That was a crime of rhyme.” Ben sighed.
    “Ah yes and I simply do not pass the test.” She grinned at him.
    “Any who, what are you doing tonight?”
    “Sleeping.” He replied after a moment.
    “Sleep at my place you look like you need it.” and he did. god he did.
    “Love to. Can’t.” She frowned.
    “Why.”
    “Doctors in the morning, even more of a quack than the last one.” she nodded thoughtfully.
    “Tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow.” Ben was the boy Mal had seen earlier, he was also the unfortunate result of a interplanetary relationship between his Mother and a man from Almar called Eticos. Ben was born mostly human but with Almar in his blood. more importantly Almar in his heart and lungs. Almarians are evolved enough not to need a heart or lungs. They don’t need any internal organs at all in fact. They live off the life energy of their planet, no matter where they go in the galaxy they are always tied to their home. This is not important. What is important is that humans can’t live without their heart and lungs. It wasn’t a week after Ben was born that it was discovered how big a problem this could really be. When your newborn son has to have his blood artificially pumped for him because his heart is incapable of doing it for him it causes stress. Then Heartbreak happens leaving a suicidal mother to care for her slowly dying son. Suicide ended up being far more important. So Ben was adopted by a single nurse named Nicolenta. She loved him and he loved her. I hate to tell you they were all each other had but it was true. they had the closest thing to happiness they could possibly reach. Nicolenta -or Nico as Ben had always known her as- had Ben constantly prodded by all the physicians she could find - a good number of them quacks- in hopes of finding some relief from Ben’s struggle to live. He sighed thinking about all this.
    “Well I have to go.” Gwen said kissing his forehead lightly in parting. Gwen was the daughter of one of the recurring doctors Ben had been forced to see since he was young. She was like a sister. Family. Home. He sighed turning away.
    “Home” he breathed out heading to the door.
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    His father had been off world for weeks when he finally came back.
    “Evening Mal.”
    “Evening Damon.” Mal said dryly.
    “Mal.”
    “Damon.”
    “Mal” he looked up at Damon, whom he never called dad ever. To find a women bathed in warm green light standing slightly behind him. Mal could not tell you wether she was beautiful, or ugly just that she was there. “This is Th’yline, she wishes to observe human existence to...”
    “Make better use of the goddesses trust.” Th’yline finished for him.Her voice as indescribable as her appearance. Mal nodded and turned to Damon.
    “I’m leaving.” 
    “No, you are not, you will have dinner with me and Th’yline.” It must be a work thing. He only talked to Mal about work things.
    “No. Me and CIndy have a date.” Lie.
    “Pig.” Th’yline.
    “Excuse me?”
    “In your thoughts. I see all. Pig.” his brow creased in confusion.
    “Sorry?”
    “You ti’anne are a Pig.”
    “Ti’anne,” he repeated  blankly “ my mother used to call me that.”
    “It means Beast, Horror, Pig.”
    “Why am I a Pig?” more importantly why had his mother called him that she had been a scholar in T’merian culture. she would have known. Why?
    “You spend so long dwelling on a story that you do not under stand but is your destiny all the same your constant search for beauty causes you to over look the very thing which you seek.I will help you, for you need me.I will help you but not for you for one who’s time grows short. I will help you though I have no love for such a beast. but someone needs you and they and only them above all the rest of you has earned the happiness, I only give you the tools you require to let them live a bit of happiness before the end. Di’an tante vectate!” and then there was blackness there was pain so intense and constant it became almost comforting in the endless inky black.
   

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