Beauty and the Beast - a Sims Retelling

[Louise56]

Oh no! She can't be too late.

[Figwit]

Thank you 

I ran down corridors my footfalls loud in the echoing silence. Which way? I was lost, unsure where to start, where he could possibly be? 



Slime oozed from the walls and lichen grew in patches, black in the dim light. The floor was slippery and treacherous beneath my feet. Hallways were blocked with fallen rubble and broken staircases swayed or zigzagged up walls, going nowhere. In places, gaps of impenetrable blackness had appeared. They frightened me most of all. 



Above my fears was a sense of utter urgency. Time was short. I knew that. I could picture it trickling away before me like the sands in an hourglass with only a few grains left or the falling petals of a dying rose.



Invisible fingers plucked at my hair and clothes and I batted them away as I paused wracked with indecision. The castle was huge. He could be anywhere. Despair was settling on my shoulders. Left, I decided and turned down a corridor. The fingers grew intense in their annoyance. I gasped and tried to push the invisible beings from me. Invisible? His servants? Perhaps they were trying to lead me to him.



I followed their guidance, slowly at first as I tried to understand the pluckings and proddings. When they ceased I knew I was on the right path. I ran now, careless of the slippery floor. The castle was dying. 




I could feel it now, an anguish, a misery that grew in intensity as I pushed on. Heavy and dark and immeasurably sad, the air about me pulsated with sorrow.

I felt the pain and despair of a handsome young man transformed to a hideous creature for no greater crime than spurning an unhappy girl's love. My heart cried at the bleakness of his existence as the long years stretched ever on. I felt his mourning as he watched his family and friends wither and perish until no-one was left.



I pressed on and the sorrow grew. It was joined now by the torment of a young woman who knew, the second those words of doom had left her lips, that she had merely been the instrument of an evil beyond her reckoning.



'I did not want it this way,' the thin voice of my long dead ancestor, Rose, wailed in my mind and I knew she suffered for her deed.  She had bitterly regretted the damage she had caused and would have taken it back if she could. I caught a glimpse of a young woman's final memory of playing in a field of flowers with a blonde haired child and watched it fade as her body succumbed to death, drained of its life force by the power of the curse.



I felt as well the cries of the servants, bodiless spirits neither dead nor alive and chained to the castle by invisible bonds. They keened for peace and freedom from the bounds of this mortal life.



I was sobbing myself now, mourning my own selfishness and lack of pity when I abandoned these creatures to their fate. I had been their hope, their sunshine - he told me that once - but all I had cared for was myself.



At last I stumbled into a bedchamber I had never seen before. It was bare of all ornament save for a rough iron bed. A figure, dark and crumpled lay above the sheets.

'Light,' I ordered and immediately lit candles appeared gripped in unseen hands.



I was almost sorry for the light as I ran to his side. My heart despaired. He looked so ill.


[Louise56]

I hope she can help him. Your writing is so good, I got shivers reading this chapter.

[RainBeau]

Me too! But the chapters are so short! I have to keep coming back for more!

[Figwit]

Thank you both. 

Sorry Ombradellarosa for the short chapters.  I do cut them short to maintain the tension but also I am rewriting as I go and I want to get it right.  It is a compliment though that you ask impatiently for more.   

No pictures for this one.  I really didn't know how to illustrate it. 


I ran to the bed and knelt at his side. 'Water, please.'

A tumbler materialized in front of my face. I took it and held it to his lips.

His face was grey, drawn. I was trembling with fear. He drank a little and his eyes opened.



'Belle?' His voice was croaky, weak and his breathing was shallow.



'Hush my love. Drink.' I stroked the matted hair from his brow.



'Too late, Belle,' he sighed a long ragged breath. 'I am dying. You should leave. The castle will die too. You are in peril...'

 He trailed off, exhausted.



'No.' I sobbed. 'You told me you could not die.'



'It seems I was wrong.'  His lips twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘Of all the things that could kill me I had never thought of grief.’



'Please. No.' I begged, the tears coursed down my cheeks. I took his hand, no more than a shrunken claw now, and I willed the life back into him.



'Would you deny me this death I crave, my Beauty?' His eyes were older than time and weary beyond the grave.  

I felt small, selfish. I wanted him to live for me. Too late I knew I loved him, that I could not endure without him. 

But had he not suffered enough?  Was it truly love to want to prolong his suffering for my own selfish needs. Surely, love also meant letting him go so that he could find his peace at last.



However, I knew in my heart there was something wrong with that picture. If he died now, there would be no release for him or Rose or the servants. They would plunge into the abyss with their sorrow and regrets unresolved, unabated.



'If you die, I die too.' My voice was steady. 'But neither of us will die this day.'

I felt the conviction grow in me as a tiny spark of hope in the sea of blackness.



'I love you, Beast, with my heart, my soul, with all my being. I cannot exist without you because I know now we are destined to be one. Turn away from that dark pathway. I have strength enough for two.'

I placed his clawed hand onto my heart and held it there so he could feel the beat of life.



'Belle,' his voice was a soft whisper. 'Will you marry me?'

[RainBeau]

Eeee, so close!
It's a mark of a great story that it doesn't need any pictures to be amazing.

[Lilygirl]

I've been reading since the beginning, Figwit, but have been awed and moved to the point of being speechless and so have not commented. I smile with happiness and a shiver goes up my spine every time I see you have posted an update, and that's before I even read it!

You are a phenomenal writer, Figwit, I don't have the words to describe it adequately.

I am reading, every single word.

[Louise56]

With writing so good, pictures are not needed. I hope her love can save him.

[Figwit]

Thank you so much.  You are wonderful. 

'Yes.' I had breathed and then there was darkness.

Something had snapped, changed. The floor rocked beneath my feet and a thick swirling mist filled the room. Somewhere a long, mournful cry rent the air but then it faded to nothing.  The spell was broken.  I knew it in my heart.   

Oblivion then took me.



I awoke the next morning or 100 mornings hence. I opened my eyes slowly, a dull ache behind my eyes from sleeping so long perhaps, but my heart felt light.


I saw roses. Roses? I was back in my room in the castle in my bed. Had it all been a dream?



There was a light tapping at the door and he entered.



'Well?' He asked shyly. 'Do you like the new me?'



In wonder I reached out a hand to touch his face.

'You are beautiful,' I breathed.

It was so hard to believe this nervous, unsure, stranger was my cynical, grumpy, sardonic Beast. The eyes, though. The eyes were the same and the voice was his.  

This was the man I loved no matter how marvellous his transformation.

I moved into his arms, warm and strong and so comfortable.

'We will marry today,' He smiled. 'If I can find a Notary brave enough to answer my summons. Unless,' He added, ‘You would prefer to wait and have a big ceremony with your family and friends.’

For a few moments I considered this option.  It would be nice to show him off, my handsome 'monster'.  How my sisters would gape.  Ah dreams.  But there would be time for that later.  My Armand - for that is my Beast’s name - had been isolated from society for a long, long time and it would be unkind to expose him to many curious people too soon.  Today was for us.

We were married in the garden later that day. The sun shone on our exchange of vows and the heady perfume from the regenerated rose bush filled the air.



We will be happy, I know it, my love and I.




____________________

And this, my lovely readers is the end.  Of course they lived happily ever after.

Thank you to everyone who read my story and special thanks to the ones who posted such encouraging comments.  You are a great lot of people and I am so happy you enjoyed my take on this fairytale. 

[RainBeau]

Ah no, it's over! Well, good for you--better than dragging it out, I suppose. A fitting, lovely, and proper ending for a wonderful story. Thank you.

[Swirl-Girl]

Oh! Beautiful! I rather like your version of the story.
EDIT: Look what you made me do!

[Louise56]

Thank you for the lovely story! I love reading it. I hope we get another story from you.

[Figwit]

Thank you both.  I love those roses Swirl-Girl.  If I was still playing Sims I would be begging you for the pattern.

[quinti.sims]

With writing so good, pictures are not needed. I hope her love can save him.

Yes only words is needed 

[Trip]

I'm moving this story to the Graveyard due to inactivity. The author can revive it at any time by contacting a moderator.