She would watch them, sideways out of her cold clear eyes, the lovers walking with hands and gazes entwined, among rose-briars and thick verdant foliage of the gardens. These were her gardens, and they, the ardent young trespassers, were now and then made aware of her, when she allowed it to be. It was but a reminder, lest they forget, that this marvelous idyll, this wonder of a natural Eden, was but a small place within her abode, a place she chose to share. And the lovers, many of whom often came here at a whim, knew in the back of their minds that upon any random turn of the meandering path, beyond any thicket revealing a secret niche, they might come upon her, grimly horrendous and shadowy, the dark queen they all came to know as the Beast.
The gardens--lustrous eyelashes around a glittering eye--sprung forth in abundance to encompass the Palace of the queen. This queen, an oddity, was of such an acutely noble ancient lineage that due to an unpredictable genetic quirk she had been born a monster. She was, at the age of twenty-three, and at the time of her coronation, exactly six-and-a-half feet tall, hunchbacked, her muscular and fleshy hominid body covered head to toe by a thick growth of dark bristly hair--including the face--and her head was misshapen and oversized like a boulder. The head grew sable hair which fell in a fearful mane from the scalp to her waist. Her facial features were hardly humanoid, indistinguishable--indeed, no one ever ventured close enough to try--but her eyes, those were bright, coldly intelligent, human.
When she spoke, her voice also was frighteningly human, rich and deep and plush as ermine. It carried also tones of remarkable education--faultless really, except for the occasional moments when a hollow wheezing would overcome her--for the queen suffered from a chronic and inborn lung ailment.
The queen inherited her full rank at the moment of her father's death, then proceeded to institute major changes. The now-deceased king had been a grim shadowy man--although physically normal by all means, as human beings go. In his day, the kingdom lay under the miserly clutches of gloom and decay, under a strict control. With his passing, the gloom and decadence suddenly took a different form, emerging as creative energy. A new pulse-beat was given to the land by the beast-queen. But the control remained. For, she was strong, strong as a Minotaur, by the sheer force of her will contained in the horrendous body.
Brought up and educated as a normal girl-child of her position, the Beast with the given name Vinnaea (which no one cared to use behind her back), held a fine court in her opulent palace. She was a connoisseur of the Arts and Sciences, patron to those who excelled in such. And she was above all, a subtle lover of beauty.
And that, of all things--some speculated--was the reason for the open gardens and the opulence and the exquisite people surrounding her. They said, the queen wanted the harmony of line and sound and thought to envelop her completely. They said, she wanted to drown in it and lose her self, and cease being the Beast--for she knew very well what people thought of her.
When appearing to the court, the Beast wore voluminous robes to cover as much of her grotesque form as possible. And always, the grand chandeliers were raised, and the hall dimmed before she would make her presence.
The bright lights, it seemed, hurt her abnormally sensitive eyes.
In the rich thick darkness of the gardens, the queen would find peace more often than elsewhere. She spent her days here--when the sun burned overhead, she would hide in a grove of maples, or near the weeping willows by the brook, or would lose herself in the artificially sculpted thicket of the Maze. When it rained, she crouched, reading in one of her favorite grottoes, books of philosophy, or else, jotted down acutely beautiful thoughts in her leather-bound diary, with her clumsy black-maned hand.
At other times, when the sun spilled itself in an amber sunset, or clouds came to shadow the horizon, the Beast would watch those who strolled in her gardens.
They were beautiful, those young men and women, as perfectly formed to her as any amber sunset, and even more alive. The Beast loved to observe them strolling in couples, whispering to each other words of intimacy (which she would guiltily overhear, while a new feeling--one she could not verbalize to herself, but one that appeared persistently--would insinuate into her inhumanly innocent heart. It, this feeling, lingered there and occasionally made her soul-sick). But their presence here, no matter that it stirred alien longings in her, made her oddly content.
Until one day, a youth plucked a single bright crimson flower from her most treasured place, and thus there was to be no peace for the Beast.
"Oh, how pretty! How large that one is, I want that one!" cried Aysnera, pointing to the lush exotic flower whose name she did not know, growing larger than the rest on the branches of the tree.
"I'm not sure, lady," said Moere thoughtfully, "I don't know if it would be right to pick the flowers here."
"Why not?" the lady cried, in her petulant, lovely voice. "There are so many here, who would notice? Or care? Or are you afraid of her?"
Moere colored lightly. So easy it was to observe the changes on his fair light skin, fine and delicate as porcelain--each blush, each faint blooming of veins under the cheeks, left his face flaming as the dawn, and then, as quickly, pale again. Aysnera was not the only one charmed by his exquisite sensibilities, his curling honey-locks, and his gentle introspective eyes. In their circle of friends, he was affectionately teased with the nickname "Beauty," by both the ladies and the young men.
"Well, then," said lady Aysnera, "I will pluck it myself!" And she proceeded diligently to make the attempt, stretching up her bejeweled hands for some time, and finally gave up, saying: "This stupid bush! It's too tall for me! But oh, how nicely that bright red thing would sit in my hair. If only you were kind to me, Moere! You're tall enough."
The young man gave in, and plucked the blossom. He could not explain it to himself what made him uneasy about doing this--almost, a feeling of being observed.
And the next thing he knew, Aysnera was busy clutching her skirts to sink into a deep reverential curtsy, sudden alarm written on her face, and uttering "Your Majesty," while his own pulse first swooned, then also gained speed (half in fear, half in some other feeling he had no words for). Just before he too lowered himself into the proper courtly bow, his glance froze upon the great dark hunched form suddenly looming before them out of nowhere, and he had a glimpse of coldly burning human eyes. The blossom on its stem was still clutched in his trembling hand.
)
Take a classic tale and turn it on its head. What if the Beast were a monstrous woman, and Beauty a handsome young man?
