Rating: T

Author's Note: Apologies for not updating my current works. I was unexpectedly offered a new job a little over a month ago. I love it, but it threw my predictable schedule into complete chaos. To top it off, I'm working my way through a respiratory cold/cough that just keeps lingering, making me exceptionally tired. Add in the holidays and I have not been able to find the time to concentrate on my ongoing plots. I did find a few bits that I thought you might enjoy.

This is a scene from an idea that I was calling "Beastly" as a take on my favorite fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. An AU where Cedric is not royal sorcerer, but rather a borderline antagonist to King Roland who lives in a solitary tower on the outskirts of Enchancia. When the kingdom falls prey to a drought and looming famine, the King begs the sorcerer's help, despite their dislike of each other. As payment, Cedric demands Roland's youngest daughter (who is 18 in this story) as payment. Really this is just to spite Roland, and only passingly motivated by desire for her.

Beastly

He was not a beast as claimed, though he was a bit of a bastard. He was cursed with nothing worse than bad luck and a dark disposition. Down in the village they whispered otherwise. Small town gossip abhorred a vacuum, and as he'd not so much as set foot in the village in many years, the wagging tongues of the fish mongers and the washer women and the housewives stood in the shadow of his tower and spun their speculative tales of his power and his plight.

A prince, they said, cursed by a witch to live his days in solitude. No, he was the witch, a powerful sorcerer who could kill them all with a thought and a word. A man, said some. A devil, said others. A beast, they all agreed, for he had no love for them and did them no favors, though the crops flagged these past several years and the people of Enchancia labored to make their farms and businesses thrive to no avail, as if under a curse of their own. In their hearts they nursed a seed of loathing, for he had so much power and they so little, and refused to think on how they'd done nothing to curry his favor, content to scurry beneath his mountainside home, never thinking to invite him into the bright circle of their kingdom.

This gloomy fall day they stood on the cold cobbled streets, clutching their shawls and coats closed against the icy fingers of wind that tried to worm inside and steal their warmth. As winter crept steadily onward, they grumbled speculations of another kind. Driven by a desperation born from killing frost catching half the harvest still on the vine, their listing stock who surely never last the long, hard winter. They wondered how they might repent, how to beg favor and deliverance from a man who had the power to save them, but no incentive to do so. What could they offer such a beastly man who had no mercy in him?

Magic hadn't caused their crops to fail, but it would take magic unimaginable to save the lives of the young and the sick who would surely perish before the winter was out. Only the elders remembered times as desperate as this. Even the strong, and healthy, and young would come out weakened and sick and who would work the new crops then? It could take years to recover.

So the people began to gather in clusters in the streets. They looked to the castle where their king sat, worried but warmed by his good firewood and his tribute payment of crops and goods to see his family through in comfort. They looked to the tower, as solitary and cold as a sickle of grey ice gutting from the mountainside. They looked to each other and began to wonder aloud what could be done, caught as they were between the two.

Enchancia used to be a kingdom of prosperity. King Roland I had brokered a peace with their last standing enemy, marrying his only daughter to their heir. The quarreling neighbors became peaceful allies and seventy years hence good King Roland's decedents kept the peace. Few alive could recall the drums of war. King Roland II held the throne, and while he'd inherited a thriving kingdom, his son looked to inherit a mess. But Roland II was not done ruling yet, and not ready to step aside. He looked down from his high windows over the little village that surrounded the southern foot hills of his lands, seeking a means to ease their suffering and ensure a brighter future. One that would turn the tide of the bad luck that had plagued his rule.

(A/N: I didn't have a transition here. Somehow Roland calls on the sorcerer to come talk to him. Cedric appears in the throne room in a swirl of smoke, unnerving Roland and reminding him that his castle is no security in keeping out a sorcerer. Still, Roland explains the situation and the state of the looming crisis, hoping Cedric will be moved to help.)

"I will help you," the sorcerer said slowly, letting their surprise settle and their hope to build. "On one condition."

Roland's jaw tightened. "You want payment? People's lives are at stake."

"It's not their lives I care about, only my own comfort." He seated himself upon the king's throne with complete indifference to the stir it caused. "Do you wish to hear my terms? Or am I wasting my time?"

The sorcerer lounged, propping his chin on one fist as he hooked a leg over the other arm rest, affecting an indolence that rankled Roland until he feared his teeth would crack from grinding them together. He hated the man with all his pride and power while he, Roland a proud and noble king, as made to beg for the lives of his people. "Go on," he growled through his clenched jaw.

"I want," the sorcerer enunciated slowly, enjoying the moment, "your daughter."

The queen gasped. The king's eyes flew to his family, anger erupting in his face, turning his cheeks ruddy and his eyes hard. "Princess Amber?" He gasped around his anger. "But she's already promised to—"

"Not that one." The sorcerer interrupted, impatiently waving their protests away like so many annoying flies. "The other one. Your youngest daughter."

"No!" Queen Miranda cried, speaking for the first time. She gathered both young women behind her like a mother mountain lion protecting her young. Unknown to her a pair of curious blue eyes peered over her shoulder.

Those eyes met those of the sorcerer squarely. Though wide and uncertain, her gaze held a resolve that sent an involuntary shiver down his spine, like a goose walking over his grave. He looked away, knitting his brows to scowl at the king. "The girl or the village," he said, his voice firm despite the momentary disruption of her accusing gaze. "It's your choice. I'll give you one day to decide. You know where to find me."

His voice thinned, spreading into an echo that bounded round the large, hollow room. A swirl of dark smoke ate away at the solidity of his image, thickening in thick curls. In a moment, he was gone, leaving nothing by a faint echo of his last words and the acrid aftertaste of ash.

The knock that came on his tower door the following morning was so polite and civilized that he knew at once in could be no castle guard or knight come to collect his head. They opened at a wave of his hand, admitting, not an army, but a solitary girl.

Woman, he corrected when she tipped her head at a stubborn angle, marching into his tower with the verve of a general taking an enemy camp.

She stopped a few feet from him, having to cant her head back to look him in the eye. There she waited, expectant. He glanced behind her where a solitary shaggy grey pony stood in the courtyard, docilely cropping the over grown grass.

"You came alone?" he asked, bemused into honest curiosity.

"I did," she said, staring resolutely, not at his face as he'd first thought, but in the vicinity of his throat and chin. As boldly as she'd met his eye the day before, he did not expect such meekness. It annoyed him unaccountably, and he realized that her refusal to look at him was not weakness, but a rebellion of her own devising. Little did she know how stubborn he could be. He glared silently down until she felt compelled to flicker her eyes up to his, only a second, before clarifying. "The king did not agree to your demands. He wanted to try and stretch the harvest through the winter, but I could not let the people starve for my sake. I snuck out early this morning and came on my own. If you will honor your words, then I will stay here as you requested."

He stared at her a moment longer, watching as she'd spoken to the air near his shoulder. With one finger he lifted her chin until she was forced to meet his eye. Hers were startlingly blue, wide and uncertain, but not afraid. Up close she was undeniably beautiful in an unassuming way. Her dress was fine in cut and quality, but practical in design.

"Don't you wish to know why I asked for you first?"

Some color drained from her cheeks, paling their blushing rose color. She licked her lips, a quick nervous flicker, but her eyes never wavered. "It does not matter if it will save so many lives."

"Quite the little altruist, aren't you," he murmured, surprised by the lack of sarcasm in his tone. Her brows twitched together, nonetheless, uncertain if he was mocking her. He couldn't resist sweeping the pad of his thumb over the lush pillow of her lower lip. She gasped, her composure finally succumbing to the nerves thrumming all through her taut posture. "You are to be my bride and as such the mother to my heirs. Do you agree to this?"

Why, he wondered, was he bothering to request her permission? She'd agreed by her mere presence. Agreed when she'd claimed his reasons didn't matter, only the lives of those peasants. She'd sealed her own fate. So why did he find he awaited her consent with held breath, an honest shiver of regret tensing in his stomach as the real possibility of her denial.

"If I said no," she spoke quietly and very deliberately. Her eyes held his steadily now, no flicker of maidenly shyness, weighing him. He found himself unaccountably hoping to measure up to her enigmatic standards. "would you let me leave?"

Any internal struggled did not show on his face. He glared down on her, hard and unfeeling. "Yes."

She appraised him a moment longer, before lowering her eyes. She swallowed, her throat moving beneath his fingertips where they still held her chin. "But you wouldn't help the people."

Anger, so quick and sharp it razed through his chest and out his mouth, hardening his voice to a growl. "And give me one reason why I should."

She merely shrugged, untouched by his anger. "I could give you hundreds, but if you cannot see a single one for yourself, then I feel there is no sense in trying to convince you. Besides," she stepped back, crossing her arms across her chest as if to ward off a sudden chill. His fingertips tingled with the loss of her skin. He dropped his arm to his side, rubbing them together where she could not see behind the folds of his robe. "I have to believed that you already know the right thing to do," she said. His mouth opened, but she kept speaking to forestall anything he might say. "Very well. You have my word. I will stay with here with you and do … as you ask."

(A/N: I don't have a transition for this part either. If this were a real story, I would include a good deal of detail on what Cedric does to "help" the villagers. Perhaps a bit about how he's slightly amused by Roland's grief and anger when he turns up to fix the situation, thus showing that Sofia has agreed to his deal. I would also go into detail about Sofia's POV in a new strange place, nervousness at what is expected of her but resolve to follow through on her word and whatnot.)

When he returned to his tower wishing for nothing more than a hot bath and his bed, he was quite surprised to find that same bed occupied. He'd forgotten about his "payment".

She stood before him in her shift, chin lifted in fragile dignity with her fists clenched at her sides. Had she begged him to reconsider, even asked for leniency with blushing maidenly shyness he might have been able to hate her. He might have taken her out of sheer spite. (Though if he were being honest with himself, something he rarely did, he could no more force himself upon a woman than he could sprout wings and fly). Not given to self-reflection, he said, "It is lucky for you that I have work to do. Your silly peasants are more trouble than I anticipated. I'll be in my workshop and I expect not to be disturbed."

He gazed down his long nose with the most imposing fashion he could create. Her only surprise that she was not to be thrown down upon the bed and ravaged shown in the slight parting of her lips and the factional relaxation of her shoulders.

He turned to go.

"Wait."

Her voice rang clear, but with a softness not usually found in a royal command.

He turned, his right brow raised in question and reprimand.

She seemed to struggle with what she wished to say, looking to the floor in uncertainty before raising her eyes to his in decision. "If I am to stay here. If I am truly to be your w-wife, then I wish to make one small request."

His arms folded over his chest as he turned to face her. "Very well. Make your request, but do not assume that it will be granted."

"This marriage is not of my choosing, but that doesn't mean that I don't wish for some small measure of comfort from it."

He braced himself, a sneer beginning to curl his top lip. As royalty, and a woman in general, of course she'd want some trinkets, or baubles, perhaps furnishings like she was surely accustomed to in the palace. Typical. Predictable, even.

"I would like," she said, "a kiss good-night."

It was an effort not to let his mouth gape stupidly. "A kiss?"

She nodded. "One kiss good-night. Every night. My mother and father used to say that no couple should ever go to sleep without giving each other a kiss good-night, even if they were angry with one another, as a token to show that they cared."

The words were on his lips almost before he could hold them in: What makes you think I care about you? But he didn't say them. Something in her simple request and quaint notions of affection made the cruel remark stick in his throat.

"A simple enough request to grant," he said, ignoring how his voice tightened in his dry throat. "Come then, Princess, and claim your kiss."

She eyed him with open skepticism. He did not soften his posture, looking for all the world like a marble statue than a man asking to be kissed. He watched her gather that seemingly bottomless resolve of hers and come forward. Her hips swayed gently beneath her shift, her unbound breasts peaking the thin material and he could almost see the dusky outline of her nipples beneath. But she came towards him not with the sensuous gait of a paramour, but the straight-backed determination of a warrior.

She stopped before him and he knew what she meant to do. Despite her fragile courage, she would take no more than a peck from his unmoving lips. He determined to let her, acting as if his resistance were some challenge, but when she lifted up on the tips of her toes to reach his immobile mouth something came over him instead. Her lips pressed to his in the most chaste agreement, but he found his arms loosening of their own will, a hand wrapping around the back of her neck to hold her to him.

She jerked back instinctively, but he held her firm, only to see if she would resist in earnest. She did not. Though her eyes widened, she leaned into him, melting the softness of her lips against his mouth. He slanted his head and pushed the warmth of his greedy tongue between those yielding lips and kissed her properly.

She made a sound like a kitten's mewl. Her hands rose to his chest to steady herself and he felt her breasts pressed against him. Despite his earlier objections, he suddenly wished nothing more than to press her back into the bed, to part her thighs and take her with no further niceties.

With such mortal temptations at his fingertips, he schooled his hands to no less principled parts than the nape of her neck and the small of her back. His tongue, though, took every liberty, sweeping into the recesses of her mouth, brushing against her own, coaxing another toe-curling moan from the back of her throat.

Oh yes, she played the innocent very well. Too well, perhaps.

A quickly as he'd brought her against him, he pushed her back. For a dazed moment her eyes remained shut, her lips still loosened in the attitude of a kiss before she blinked and realized that there would be no more. The look in her eyes shone with confused disappointment before solidifying into something more like bewildered self-recrimination.

"Good night, Princess," he said before turning to leave the room. He kept his head high and his shoulders back, refusing to let her see how badly she'd broken down his resistance with a single kiss.

Author's Note: I know, I know, I want to read this story too, but I can't say I want to write it. This idea might be folded into a future fic. I have two that closely resemble each other and are currently competing for the same basic plot. I'm not sure who will win out. One is called Heroes and Villains, dealing with the assigned roles of fairytale characters. The other is currently forming based off the myth of Eros and Psyche, inspired by a comment from Suiren Shinju and the book I'm currently reading called Soul in Darkness by Wendy Higgins.

But all that is based in a reality where I actually have time to write. I hope to complete the epilogue for Into the Darkness and at least two chapters of Metamorphosis before the end of the month.

Happy holidays everyone!