Beauty (A retelling of Beauty and the Beast) by: Robin McKinley

A long time ago, there was a kingdom as old as time and before portraits were ever painted. There lived a family that owned this kingdom. They were a family of great beauty and fortune. Thousands and thousands of years this family lived this way. Until the Magician came.

The Magician came the day of the Princes birth-claim; he was to be 18.

His mother the Queen was to be 35 in a few days too so they celebrate they're birth-claims on the same day. She was a beauty to spy upon with golden hair and green eyes. She was the daughter of the duke not far from the kingdom for the king to over look. She was only 17 at the time and the king was only 20, but they fell madly in love. The duke was a little too persistent to accept his announcement of courtship, for he was a young king and the duke will be getting a profitable share in wealth for a very long time. But the king and queen live now in the castle of towers and mischief riddled dungeons; happy and optimistic for their son to be a great king as has the king standing now.

The Magician however, knew the queen all too well for he was also in love with her. But the young king took her away from him before he could declare his love for her and the father sold her all to eagerly just for the money. He was furious and promised to steal her back. But as a mere man and has no horse or carriage to travel with, it took him 18 years to travel to the kingdom; for he has either lost his way a few times and had quite a while to find himself a ship to cross the roaring seas, even considering the amount of money he had to work for! just to be on the ship. But he has finally made it. And he will be taking his prize he has sought for so long. He didn't know about the child though and his growing hatred for the king over the years has built up to be a rambling furnace of the amount of hate. But when he saw the son, (for the magician was behind the treeline of the circumference of the kingdom), he couldn't contain his hatred anymore; and turned the boy to a great beast, a beast so vile and hideous, the queens heart couldn't bear the grief and died. 

The king was in horror, anger, and hopelessness seeing his dear love was dead. He saw the magician who was also in horror and called out his hunting party, screaming for them to seize the murderer. 

All of the king's hunting party and banners and pennoncels were out. There was thousands of hounds scattered, tails high, before the galloping horses, and two or three riders carried hooded falcons on their wrists. In the front of the field the king rode, leaning forwards over his horses neck; he wore a thin circlet around his forehead, his horse was the largest and finest. He was galloping towards a great wood whose branches bowed like flowers where the magician was last seen. His face full of rage.

Many things then happened that centuries of retelling has forgotten what exactly happened. But people do remember a great and terrible light illuminating the forest. The kings horse, plunging wildly away from the forest, riderless, its eyes rolling. The other hunters were reining back hard at the forest's edge, with expressions of shock, dismay, and dawning horror on their faces. The dogs were fleeing, tails between legs and ears flat, and the falcons struggled to be free, wings spread, claws tearing at tasseled hoods. Everyone who lived in the kingdom fled to villages  and some crossed the sea, far away from the past. Everyone but very few faithful butlers and maids, and the prince whose beast image was still with him.

The magician later came back to recover the queens body, hoping the last bits of magic he has could revive her. But when he came back the prince-Beast chased him down. The magician had just enough time and energy to spurt out an enchantment over the castle, causing the very few remaining people to turn invisible like the wind and for the people living there to live longer than any average human. The flaw in his sorcery was that he had to give them a task, for the curse to be lifted. So he screeched out to the Beast-prince, "Only a maiden who truly loves you and wishes to marry you can break the bloody curse!"

The magician dropped something out of the many trinkets of magic, while scampering away from the Beast-prince. The Beast-prince didn't notice it for sheer blind rage towards the magician. When the Beast-prince came back, tripping on his paws, heaving great gasps of air, he then noticed the object. 

With a bloodied paw, the Beast-prince picked up a mirror.