Hello everyone! So sorry for the long, long absence!

So, this is kind of a bonus chapter - one I wrote for the Once Upon a Beast Contest by @_Once_Upon.

Hope you like it - it's the Beast's backstory! Let me know what you think!

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The first few decades passed agonizingly.

First was the realization that things had indeed changed. That the statues in the courtyard were actual people, citizens of the kingdom now doomed to a horrifying death-like existence. That everyone – Mother, Father, and Eava – were gone. That the servants were now household objects, cursed to stay that way forever. That the mirrored walls of the palace were shattered, that the black roses were turned blood-red, that vines were wreathing the wall, and that the carvings were now hideous and grotesque. That I was now made of shadows and magyks and parts not my own – that I was a monster wreathed in black shadows with hounds of shadows as my minions. That it was I who was responsible for this – for all of this. And that nothing would ever, every change – for no one could break the curses, and no one would want to.

At the beginning, I did not even want to know about the curses, about how to break them. All I wanted was to forget. And yet I could not. I could not forget my hideous appearance – glowing red eyes, jagged scars on a feral face, black claws instead of fingers. I could not forget my thirst for the blood and raw flesh of animals. I could not forget the whispers – the whispers of the servants that kept me awake, their sadness and pity even worse than my reflection. And most of all, I could not forget the screaming, and the sobbing.

The screaming of the little girl whom I had turned away. The sobbing of the Rose Princess, her mind broken after the death of the Queen and the suicide of the King. The screaming of the kingdom's inhabitants as they had been turned into stone, and the screaming of the servants as they became objects of shadow and magyks. My own screams as I was turned into a gruesome creature, neither man nor beast. The screams that did not stop as that sorcière explained the curses – all of them, and how they worked, and how to break them. The screams that did not stop until my once velvet-sounding voice was gone.

It was torture, being trapped into a ruined castle surrounded by enchanted roses no person could pick, and shrouded by vines and shadows that grew more with the passing of every day, of every year. The palace, now fallen, caused the ruin of a kingdom once great, and every one who had not been present on that cursed festival forgot. They forgot about the royal family, about the castle, and the old ways. So much happened during those early times, traditions forgotten and lost, a kingdom broken and conquered and separated. Mother, and Father, and their ancestors – even Eava, would have howled at the injustice of the ruin of the Old France that had stood for millennia. If they had not been dead or gone. If it had not been for my tantrums and my actions and my words.

Once I realized that I would be this way forever, that this would be my existence until the end of times, the spirits started their haunting. After the first few days, I had smashed all the mirrors to dust, and torn all the portraits to shreds, but still the ghosts of the murderers and criminals trapped in the mirrored walls of the palace found ways to torture me. They used every shard, every speck of crushed mirror, every tile that was not yet covered in grime and blood, to show horrific visions, to manipulate the images of my mind, and to play out the day that changed everything.

Yet time passed, and the spirits became normal additions to a hellish existence, and I named my hounds of shadows that were tasked with carrying out my will and heeding my every order. I began to tolerate the presence of the servants, who despite their own personal troubles kept me company, made sure I hunted and slept and talked – even if it was just shouting at them to shut up. Out of all my hounds, I preferred Spectre, and sometimes mumbled to him as a lonely person might to a preferred pet. He kept me the most company, and rivaled my arrogant, haughty manner in the way he acted with all the others save me.

It was when a hundred years or so had passed that things began to change. The meanest, bitterest spirit, who I had long since realized was part of the curses put upon me and the castle, one day said the strangest thing.

"You who are of the shadows can also be of the mind and of the dreams," he said, as I considered taking a look at the one mirror I could never break, and avoided at all costs. White and ghostly and pale, dancing around the room on the shattered shards, he explained a bit more.

We had become mates, as the English said, united by the injustices wrought upon us. I had been responsible for the curse the White Enchantress had cast, for it was my selfishness that turned the girl away and resulted in her crashing the carriage carrying the King and Queen. But he had been wrongly accused, cursed to this castle for crimes he did not commit. Both he and I were trapped, forevermore, and we were filled with bitterness and vengeance and a dreary look on life. So sometimes, when he would learn something new, I allowed him to share it with me – not that Fantôme (as I called him) cared whether I was in the mood for him or not.

He told me of something I could do – infiltrate the dreams and thoughts of others in their sleeping states, as he could in those sleeping or awake. He showed me how. How to steal into a dream, how to create a dream, how to manipulate the thoughts of people. I was soon able to create a mirage when I slept, and I started to re-enact some of my memories from before. The way the training room looked when I fenced with lord's sons, the foils and real rapiers clashing and ringing, and the jubilant victory I felt whenever I bested them. The sweets that the cook used to make just for me, the latest fashionable clothes I demanded every year – and the special embroidered waistcoats worn by the heirs of the Royal Lines. The feel of riding across the castle grounds, and in the forest surrounding my home, and of the way my favorite horse looked whenever I came to ride him. And most importantly – the way I, Crown Prince Terrin, used to look. The way every one would compliment my features, the way the women looked at me and wanted me, the way I felt when I was the most handsome and distinguished and noble in the room.

But as time passed, my abilities to create these imaginings waned, as the curse progressed and more of my humanity – though all would agree I never had any to begin with – bled away. I could still do it with real persons – infiltrate their dreams, that is – but not with myself when I was alone. Though the kingdom of Laetitia and this castle had long since faded out of history, once in a while a traveler happened upon here. I let them come in, especially the tired, bedraggled ones, hiding myself away but instructing the servants to feed the travelers and ply them with riches that sat in unused rooms. They never saw me, but I never turned them away. I had learnt my lesson of not being selfish and unthinking and haughty all too vividly. Those times I was able to seek information from their dreams, and that is how I saw the changing world, and how I properly learnt English – for half of those who sought shelter in my prison did not come from France.

However, there was a downside to these rare visits, and the second time a traveler picked a rose I started to think about the curses once more, and how to break them. There were two curses in total – one concerning me and all those whom I had caused to transform, and one concerning Fantôme and his plight. Intertwined between those two curses were my legion of shadow hounds, the ability to manipulate thoughts and dreams, and the roses. And the mirrors, and one in particular, of course.

There was the black rose the little girl had sought shelter with, and it sat in my rooms, its petals turning red with the passing of time. When it had fully turned crimson, the Enchantress had said, and I had not found someone to love me as I am and to help me break the curses, I would be engulfed in the shadows that wreathed me, and I too would become a spirit forced to haunt the castle. It would take a thousand years for it to fully turn red, meaning a thousand years to break the curses (even though after fivehundred years, the rose would be almost all red). But there were other roses. The ones lining the grounds were enchanted too, and since it had been a rose and an arrogant prince that had caused the curses in the first place, there were consequences for touching them.

If a traveler were to pluck a rose, for whatever reason, he would either have to eternally serve in the castle, or he and his entire family would be slaughtered. It was a life for a rose, and whenever those who'd picked a crimson rose from the grounds refused eternal servitude to a shadow-wreathed monster (they always did, in fact) my hounds would be bound to hunt him and any blood-related family to pay the price.

It was a terrible part of the White Enchantress's plan – one I hated, but could do nothing about. No, I could do nothing until someone came along who could not only love a beast, but brave the Eternal Mirror – the one that never shattered, the one that was the conduit for the spirits' energy – and best the world of shadows and ghosts. One who would free the innocent, be worthy of the Enchantress's attention, and one who would fall in love with who I am inside, and not my terrible appearance. Which would not work in the first place, for it had been made clear to me I was not only a monster without, but within. So, someone who would never come, and who would never break the curse. It was impossible – made to never break. The Enchantress had chosen just the right torment.

As there was nothing I could do, life continued, time passed. The ruins crumbled more with every year, and the world continued to change and become increasingly terrible. I hunted and spoke with the spirits and the servants and the hounds, and was the invisible, generous host for all those who found their way through the Forest. I tried not to think about balls and pretty women and riding until it felt like I was flying, and fighting and royal duties and persons long lost.

About a hundred more years passed, and then some more, and I had long since lost hope of any kind of salvation. I existed because I had to, and because I could not die, and that was how things were.

Until la folle came, and changed everything. A crazy young woman dressed in servant's rags, who gave her life in exchange for a boy who had picked a rose, and who spoke her mind, made her intentions clear, investigated things she had no business investigating, and somehow changed everything.