All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be [form] that was broken,
[And winter again shall be spring.]

Prologue

There once was a fair prince living in a country far, far away. His beauty was outshone only by the kindness of his heart. When the prince was very young his mother died, and he lived alone with his father in their huge castle. As years passed the old king got lonely and eventually he re-married. The new queen already had a son and could not find place in her cold heart for another. She hated the beautiful prince whose beauty was a constant reminder of the foulness of her own son. However the king loved his son so much that the queen dared to do nothing while the gentle old man was still alive. Fortunately for her the king was killed in a hunting accident not long after their marriage and the prince was left completely at her mercy.

At first she was satisfied with just making his life a living hell. She ordered him to sleep in the kitchen with the servants and took away all his beautiful clothes. But this treatment did not diminish his beauty, instead it enhanced it in a way that the riches never had, and the queen's heart filled with the blackest hate. She searched far and wide for a witch to help her punish the boy as she thought he deserved and eventually she found one: an evil crone, living alone in a rotten old cottage surrounded by filth and strange creatures. She hated all things of beauty and eagerly admitted to help the queen.

Together with her son the queen brought the unsuspecting prince to the crone's cottage. If his stomach churned at the sight of the ugly crone or the foul smell of her surroundings his face showed nothing. Instead he smiled and politely shook her hand. The crone's inside filled with hate for his beauty but also with a sudden weakness for his kindness. She decided that she would, behind the queen's back, make a loophole in the spell to make it possible for the kind prince to break it. She poured a bubbling potion into a cup and gave it to the prince. He eyed the drink suspiciously but not wanting to offend her he emptied the cup in one large gulp. The crone sent the queen and her son away and led the now drowsy prince into her cottage. She sat him down on the bed and read an ancient spell over his unsuspecting head.

"For one make him who once was fair an ugly kind of foul For two make heart so fair, so fair behold it's luring gold For three make heart of love and blood for man of noble kind For four make love to be the key to break this vicious form Happen now as I have said, make fair to be of foul Keep heart of gold; seen through his eyes, to love a noble form Make love the key to break the spell, a love from man to man Let his youth forever last, until the spell is gone Happen now as I have said, let the spell begin Happen now as I have said, commence my evil work."

With an agonizing scream the prince fell off the bed as the vicious spell started working on his body. The crone watched in satisfaction as his beauty dissolved. The prince's spine twisted and turned to make him hunched and his face was contorted and pulled to give him the face of a monster. The spell's work slowly stopped and the prince shakily got to his feet. He locked eyes with the crone for a moment and she realized that there was no way to hide the beauty and pureness of those chocolate depths. Well maybe loneliness and pain would diminish them and besides who would care to look into the eyes of such a foul creature. She knew very well herself of the effort people made not to look into the eyes of someone ugly. The old woman took up a mirror and gave it to the prince. He stared at his reflection for quite some time and then looked at her with tears in his eyes.

"Why?" he asked; his voice was still the same, smooth, silvery and melodic.

"The queen asked me to." The crone felt sorry for the crying creature.

"Will I stay like this forever?"

"If you can get a man to love you for the gold of your heart the spell will break."

"A man?" The creature that was once prince looked alarmed. The crone allowed herself a devilish chuckle. Humans, so shallow, did not realize that the innermost desires of their heart were written clearly upon their face for those who knew how to read it.

"A man," the crone stated matter-of-factly.

"Any man?"

"One man."

"But how? When?"

"You will know who he is. Your heart will know."

The creature stood silent, hunched forward because of the new shape of his spine.

"Go now."

He turned and made way for the door, limping awkwardly unused as he was to his new body.

The creature that was once prince wandered wide and far. He tried to live among the people because at the beginning the will to please and be pleased was still in his heart. But everywhere he went he met nothing but anger and hate. People cannot love what they do not understand, and they could not see beyond his looks to the gold of his heart. Instead they hated him and hurt him until he hid from world in a secluded forest.

The story could have ended there, could have ended with a lonely hunchback living in a forest cottage far away from the nearest town. But it didn't end there; instead the end of one tale was the beginning of another. The tale of the golden man on his white steed that got lost in a faraway forest and was found by the purest of hearts...



Read the One of Thirteen of The Beauty and The Beast by Jeyhawk