Title: The
Ice Prince or Such a Marvelous Rose
Author: Meiran Chang
( bonking_bishies @ swirve.com )
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: DorlianXSylvia,
1+R, 6+2, 3+4, 5+Dorothy, 6x9, 2xH
Warnings: shonen
ai, AU, fairy tale, angst, verrrrrrry mild self-insertion in, like, the
last sentence. I made Dorlian a total OOC wuss >_<. Also, I've played
fast and loose with family relationships and situations.
Comments: Ohhhhh
pretty please? --> bonking_bishies @ swirve.com
Archive: 6X2ML Archive
can have it. Otherwise,
please email me, I don't bite.
Disclaimers: I do
not own Gundam Wing or any of its characters, they belong to Bandai and Sunrise
and the American rights are owned by Cartoon Network. Please don't sue
me, I'll just cry a lot. Also, the original story of "Beauty and the Beast"
is by Mme Leprince de Beaumont and not mine either. I don't own anything
except... the original portions of this piece of fiction...whatever
they are.
Dedication: To the
6X2ML, because they're darlings all and the inspiration for this
fic.
The
Ice Prince
Chapter X
Duo found the Dining
Hall without too much trouble. As usual, the table had been mysteriously
laid out, and Duo sat down to enjoy the meal. About halfway through his
dinner, his sharp ears caught the sounds of a door opening somewhere and
the pad of soft footsteps.
That was Duo's only
warning. There was no thunder and lightning when the Beast appeared in
the doorway, looking in almost timidly. Duo couldn't help but feel cheated,
somehow. Where were the theatrics? Where was the roaring and posturing and
ritual declamation?
The Beast stood in
the doorway. Duo tried not to stare, and while he did his best to paste his
gaze to his plate, another thought struck him: where was the feeling of terror
that he very vividly recalled from his first encounter with the Beast?
For a creature like a Beast, the power to induce fear was a constant, a
power that had been amply demonstrated the first time he'd met him. So
why could Duo even think at all at this point? Shouldn't he be frozen with
fear by now? The Beast was being quiet. The Beast was looking at him! The
silence was incredibly unnerving.
"May I?" the Beast
finally asked, pointing with his chin towards the empty chair opposite Duo.
Wait. The Beast was
asking Duo if he could sit? This was the Beast's mansion, not Duo's.
Awfully polite monster.
"It's your home," Duo
finally replied, when the Beast didn't move but waited patiently. "But
sure. Go ahead."
"Actually, I came here
to talk about that." The Beast took his seat across the table from Duo,
and Duo looked at him.
Now that Duo thought
of it, the Beast wasn't really hideous. He was simply... non-human. It was
satisfying to realize at last why the Beast had been so startling at first:
because it was shocking to encounter something that was not quite animal
and not quite human, but a curious meld of both. The Beast was a panther
able to walk on two feet and speak as any normal human. He even possessed
the same catlike grace, the detached elegance and strange nobility. Or perhaps
it was just how faultlessly he moved. He wasted no energy on sloppy movements.
Every gesture was exact....
The Beast cleared his
throat. Duo started a bit, blinked, and realized that he had gotten lost
in his thoughts and extended a glance to a stare. He flushed involuntarily
as the Beast said, "I thought I would extend an invitation, as it were,
for you to ask any questions. I know you must be curious about quite a few
things." The Beast's casual tone gained a sardonic touch as he added, "I
realize that my offer sounds ridiculous, particularly coming from me, but
please, dismiss the incongruity."
Duo smiled brightly
at him. "Better to ask than to let my thoughts swim around in my head like
crazy goldfish. My imagination will be the death of me."
Unless you're going
to eat me, my strange Beastly fellow....
He pushed away his
half-finished plate of food and surveyed the Beast, who bore his regard calmly.
Then Duo decided to out with it and address the most pressing issue: "So,
are you going to eat me or not?"
His dinner companion
actually chuckled, a low, silvery sound, and glanced down at the table.
"Pure, cold realist, are you? No, I'm not going to eat you. You don't need
to fear any harm from me. "
"That's a relief."
Duo mimed wiping sweat from his brow and grinned. "Now I won't be scared
of you going bump in the night. But why did you tell my father that?"
"First of all, I merely
said that you would be dying in his place. Secondly, I don't like your
father. He stole from me," came the blasé reply. "I wasn't lying when I
told him I loved those roses. Why shouldn't he suffer as much as me?"
"Are you seriously
implying that a rose counts as much as a son?" Duo asked, raising an eyebrow.
The Beast shrugged.
"It might seem ridiculous to you, but I've been here for as long as you've
been alive and I became very attached to them. When you're alone for that
long, some deterioration in your psyche is inevitable. I realize it's...
irregular, but for me, yes, the roses count as much as children."
Duo frowned. "You could
have told my father that instead of scaring him so badly. My siblings were
in tears thinking that I'd be eaten. I felt like bawling myself. You really
weren't very kind."
"But I was just," the
Beast retorted. "It wasn't very kind of him to take my roses in the first
place. I had given him everything he could possibly need for the night,
and he had no reason to take anything from me that was not freely offered."
The Beast folded his satin-gloved hands. "Believe me, in my situation, your
temper would not be sweet at all, Beauty."
Duo nobly refrained
from groaning, but couldn't stop himself from making a face. "Please,"
he pleaded.
His companion looked
at him curiously. "You don't like that name?"
Duo shook his head
vehemently. "It brings back lousy memories."
The Beast looked questioning.
Duo sighed and elaborated. "I used to live in White Fang. The capital of
Oz." He watched his companion closely to see if he would recognize the name,
but the Beast's eyelids didn't even flicker, and Duo carried on. "Father
was really prominent, so lots of people paid attention to him and his children.
I was a typically cute kid, you know, all big-eyed and bumbling and insufferably
curious from what I hear, but Relena and Quatre -- my older siblings --
they were the ones getting most of the attention. Relena's been a genius
at persuading people to do things for her since she was, oh, three, and
Quatre's a genius, period.
"Then I started growing
up, puberty hit, I was fifteen, and all of a sudden, the city began to
notice me." He made a wincing kind of face. "White Fang and its legions
of poets decided that I was some legendary beauty. It was terrible. I couldn't
walk a foot away from my house without being attacked by bards or women,
and they either hated or adored me. It got to the point where I'd hide inside
the house all day or become a complete snob in public. Then some genius
actually started calling me" -- Duo reddened defensively -- " 'Beauty.' White
Fang suddenly developed echolalia. It was so stupid and embarrassing."
To his surprise, the
Beast didn't look at all bored. "Then what?" he prompted.
Duo shrugged. "Father
did something bloody stupid and lost all our money, so we had to move to
a farm on the border between Oz and Koelonye. I was happy there -- no poets,
and" -- here Duo grinned slyly -- "the neighbors had a very handsome
son."
The Beast looked at
him askance. "How -- fascinating."
Duo waved the look
aside. "It was just a crush. He's gorgeous, lots more than everybody says
I am. My -- my sister, Relena, she actually saw something in him. Heero's
never really said too much to me, so, I don't know."
"Was there anyone else?"
the Beast asked.
The Beast was taking
this new information in stride, Duo noted. So it had been a good idea to
test the waters. He nodded emphatically. "Oh, of course. My older brother
Quatre has dibs on Trowa Bloom, who's no slouch. Absolutely beautiful green
eyes, a really sweet smile, and he's so calm, I don't think anything can
shake him. I used to dream about covering him in egg yolk and salt in his
sleep just to see the look on his face when he woke up." He cackled. "It
would have been great. But sixteen's a bit too old to get away with the 'boys
will be boys' trick, at least in my father's eyes, so I never tried." His
lips quirked in a brief smile. "I still kinda want to... Anyway, I really only
paid attention to Heero and Trowa, even though there were lots of girls around."
Might as well drive the point home. "Lots."
He stopped for a moment
to drink some water, as his throat was getting dry.
"I enjoy hearing you
talk," the Beast remarked as Duo drank. "You have a wonderful voice."
Duo put the goblet
down and thanked him with a wink, then continued. "Okay, even though there
were so many girls, and a lot of them liked me, I found that I never thought
twice about them. Maybe it's just that the women back in White Fang traumatized
me, but I don't really think so. It doesn't matter why, anyway. I don't
have a problem with liking men. I don't think it's indecent... it's
just a little different. It's the same thing with Mage-craft. Heero has
the Mage-Gift, and he used to think he was cursed and forsaken because of
it. But mages can't help their gifts, right? I don't see why anyone would
hate mages, and I don't see why anyone would hate those who like their own
sex. At least Oz is a little more enlightened about that sort of thing than
some other countries."
The Beast nodded in
complete agreement and commented, "You have a wise philosophy for someone
so young; if more people adopted it, there would be less despair in the
world."
Duo could hear the
semicolon in the Beast's speech, which made him smile, but he didn't reply
to the Beast's curiously cocked head and merely said, "Yes, I agree. People
can be such idiots. Anyway, I still have a few more questions. This one's
kinda stupid, really -- "
"Duo, I can do without
the prologue."
"Right, right. Well,
I'm curious about that mirror in my room. What is it really? What does
it say? And why is it that half the clothing in my wardrobe there is for
women?"
"Ah." His companion
smirked a bit. "The women's clothing is there because I wasn't sure if
you were a boy or a girl. That braid of yours..."
Duo did an exaggerated
cringe. "Oh, ouch."
"Right," the Beast
said dryly. "To answer your other questions, the mirror is an enchanted mirror,
as you've obviously guessed, and I was the enchanter, as you probably surmised.
Being a Beast, I'm of an inherently magical nature, so I've been using
my Mage-Gift around the manor. You stumbled into the room with the pictures,
am I correct?"
Duo grinned. "Yeah.
Great work."
A ghost of a smile
touched the Beast's lips. "Thank you... I would like to tell you that I made
the mirror especially for you. It's keyed to your wishes, though I'm the
only one who can trifle with the set-spell. I spent a very long time on it
because magic drains me, since as a Beast, I can only use my personal energy.
A true human mage doesn't have those limitations."
"The mirror's wonderful,"
Duo said warmly. "Thanks for spending so much time on it. Really, it's
great. It's been very helpful."
His dinner companion
nodded, once. "Did you decipher the colors?"
The colors of the glitter
that sparkled crazily all over that mirror, Duo decided, was what the Beast
must have meant. "Just the pink," Duo answered. "When it's pink, it's as
if it's laughing or giggling."
"Right on the mark."
The Beast looked at him approvingly. "Well, it sparkles white when it's
exhausted, blue when it's being a stubborn idiot, purple when it feels mischievous,
and black when it feels morbid, and it uses the rest of the spectrum interchangeably
to set off the reflection or prove how cheerful it's feeling. The poor
thing's a bit shallow, but adorable. Puppyish, really." The Beast's lips
quirked in a small smile which revealed just the tip of short fangs. It
was almost cute, and his smile felt like a reward. It didn't seem as though
the Beast smiled much.
Duo smiled back and
resisted the urge to say "thank you." Instead, he asked, "Now, what about
those words on top?"
"'Your wish is my
command, for you are prince and master here,'" the Beast recited. "This
is unclear in what way?"
"Well, it just seems
awfully... trusting..." Duo trailed off and tried again. "It's... Do you really
mean it?"
"I don't lie, Duo."
The glacial blue of the Beast's eyes was suddenly intense. "I carved those
words with my own life-energy. I can assure you that they are neither idle
flattery nor a joke. You can ask anything you want of me, and if it's in
my power to give it to you, it's yours. You command here. I want you to
be as content as possible."
"Oh," was all Duo could
come up with in reply. "Thank you" hardly seemed sufficient to repay a
trust of this magnitude. He wanted to ask why, but something, some warning
and closed feeling he sensed from the Beast, stopped him.
"You must have more
questions." The Beast cocked his head to one side invitingly.
"Yes, I do!" Duo seized
gratefully upon the opening the Beast had provided and blurted out the
first question that came to mind. "Okay, why is it that you scared my father
half to death when you first met him, and you scared me half to
death when I first met you, but now I'm able to sit back with you and enjoy
this fascinating conversation?"
"I already told you,
I don't like your father. The fear... that is..." The Beast glanced down
at the dinner table again, took a handkerchief, and began to tie it in
knots. It was a surprisingly human gesture of nervousness. "It's a side
effect of being a Beast. 'Beast,' after all, is just a polite name for an
animal or a monster, and monsters are supposed to be frightening. I can
take advantage of that through a simple coercion spell which I can turn
it 'off' and 'on,' so to speak, at will. I like to think I'm not that frightening
on my own, but if I care to expend the energy, I can terrify a living being
until it's so witless it cannot move, cannot breathe, and drops dead of
the experience." Abruptly, the Beast nearly slapped the handkerchief back
on the table, as if annoyed that he had given in to his own restlessness.
"Your father had angered and hurt me, and I wanted him to feel pain. I
don't feel that way towards you, Duo, and I sincerely apologize for frightening
you. But you were in your father's company, and I had to keep up illusions."
Duo shook his head.
"No. You didn't. But we don't need to go back to the subject if it's making
you so nervous."
"I am not nervous
," protested the Beast.
"You can't tell me
that you weren't nervous when you came down here to meet me, at least," Duo
prodded.
"That was different,"
the Beast replied with dignity. "I'm not nervous now."
Duo grinned. "Sure."
The Beast looked mildly discomfited. Duo decided it was time to return
to the topic at hand, since he still had many questions left unasked, and
inquired, "How did you know what to put in my room? It's full of things
that interest me. You can't possibly have guessed it all."
"I'm glad you like
it," said the Beast, the slightest touch of timid relief in his voice. "I
spent a lot of time with it. I found out what you liked by asking your mirror.
It's a bit slow, so it didn't understand me right away, but as soon as it
figured things out, it showed me a series of things. First there was your
family." The Beast looked at him and, miracle of miracles, Duo could discern
guilt in the crystal blue of his eyes. "And I truly am sorry that I've taken
you from them, but there wasn't any other choice... Then there were songs.
Music. Instruments too, but particularly singing. The mirror showed me one
night when you were performing for your family -- I had to tweak it substantially
to get sound for even the one time, but when I did..." The Beast sighed.
"I have to admit, Duo. Your voice... words aren't enough. I hadn't heard
such a beautiful sound in some time. I was looking forward to meeting you
so that I could thank you for the experience."
"You're welcome. Hey,
if you really like, I can sing for you one of these days," Duo offered.
"This manor's very pretty and all, but if I were you, I'd be really bored."
"I would greatly enjoy
that. Thank you." The Beast smiled again, a shy, pleased smile, and Duo
warmed inside, glad to have made his new friend happy.
"So what else did you
see in the mirror?"
"Hmm. I saw books,
I think, and then I saw the farm, and then the mirror got stubborn and wouldn't
show me anything else. Tired, it said, but it was sparkling blue, not white.
I couldn't give you the farm in here -- well, I could, but it would be
a stupid waste of energy and illusions vanish if challenged -- however,
books I could certainly get. I didn't know exactly what books you liked,
the mirror was no longer cooperating and I was tired, so I simply put whatever
I was interested in on the bookshelves and hoped you would find something."
"I did. The books are
fascinating. Thanks for thinking of them."
The Beast shrugged.
"Don't worry about it. You are prince and master here; if you're going
to be trapped here, you might as well enjoy your stay."
Duo leaned forward
in his seat and looked at his companion earnestly. "There's something else
that's really been biting at me. Why me? Of all people in the world, why
did you have to pick me? And... you know, you could be using me to get at my
father. You said you didn't like him, and it would kill him if I died." He
tried not to think about that too closely. "But rather than beat me and throw
me in the dungeon or something, you're -- you're being kind. You've
gone through so much trouble without having to. You picked me, but why are
you making me comfortable? Why do you want me to be happy? If you were going
to spend all this energy on me rather than just having me as a snack... well,
why pick me at all?"
"That is... a very complicated
question." The Beast looked pensive for a moment. "I'm not sure how to
answer it, but I'll do my best. To your question of why I chose you: Well,
I didn't know you personally when I told your father that I required his
youngest child. I'd seen you, since I glance over the countryside often,
and heard you, because your voice is beautiful, but I didn't really know
you. For example, I had to do the finishing touches on your mirror, find
out what you liked, and furnish your room last night, which is why I'm a
bit tired... but that's nothing sleep won't cure. To return to the question..."
The Beast hesitated, then said, "All I can really tell you is that everything
happened in precisely the way it needed to happen and I took the first opportunity
I had. I was lucky, really, that your father stumbled on this manor. People
are supposed to find this place maybe once every century. But when your
father did what he did, it provided me with an opening to do what was necessary
for me to do."
Duo shook his head
ruefully. "Please, if you're not allowed to tell me, just forget it."
The Beast seemed uncomfortable.
"Please forgive me. I would be glad to tell you everything, but I really...
I can't. If I had had a choice in the matter, however, I would not have
taken you from your family, for your sake. I know that you love them." He
cleared his throat. "The answer to your question about making you comfortable
simplifies to something like this: I wasn't raised to be cruel. I know that
may seem hard to understand, given my behavior towards your father, but
on my terms, what I did to him was justice, not cruelty. He took
away something I dearly loved with little provocation. I did the same. My
roses died when they were taken from the earth, but I don't think you will,
so in the end, he doesn't even come out losing. Now, the reason I'm giving
you special attention, attention I wouldn't give just anyone..."
The Beast did a little
grin at him, short fangs showing. Duo hesitantly smiled back.
"Well, I like you,
Duo," said the Beast softly. "You're proud, willful, bright, brave, and fiercely
protective of what you love. It combines to make you a very beautiful person."
The grin grew a bit wider. "Character is wonderful and that you possess
in abundance, but I assure you, your big violet eyes and your lovely smile
don't hinder things in the slightest."
Duo blinked, but the
Beast wasn't done.
"Perhaps those poets
in White Fang whom you spoke so badly of didn't mean as badly as you think.
Perhaps they truly meant to flatter you, but for all their eloquence, didn't
approach you the right way. I can see this is embarrassing for you" --
Duo was steadily turning redder and flushed brilliantly at this reminder
of the fact -- "but I suggest you think over your attitude towards them.
In my time, I have seen many people paraded past me, so I find myself an
unwilling authority on the subject, and truly, compared to you, theirs
was a flimsy, transient comeliness. Your beauty is quite rare, Duo, and
poets are the type of people naturally drawn to it. They are trained to
recognize loveliness."
Duo was painfully bright
by now. The Beast, quite amused, waited until Duo had control over himself
again.
"Two last questions,"
said Duo, carefully gathering the remains of his dignity about him by skirting
the previous subject entirely. "Yesterday night, when I first arrived,
you scared me, a lot. I didn't get up from my chair to find a place to
rest because I was so frightened. Yet when I woke up this morning, I was
in a nice, comfortable bed in a tidy little room. I don't sleepwalk. How
did I get there?"
"I carried you," his
companion said frankly. Duo gave him a Look. The Beast grew defensive.
"What? You were frightened, you didn't want to be here, the place probably
held negative emotion for you. It would have been a sin to leave you huddled
on the carpet. Of course I carried you someplace safe and warm and tucked
you in. I'm a Beast, not a sadist."
"You're making me out
to be some kind of helpless little thing," said Duo grumpily.
"I will remind you
that you were under the effects of my fear coercion spell, which is nothing
to be trifled with. For all effects and purposes, you were a helpless little
thing last night."
Duo mentally told his
temper to go give itself an enema and said, "All right. The last thing
I'll ask tonight is, how is everything done in here? This manor is huge,
but everything is tidy. I found lunch and dinner already prepared in here,
and there was music playing at lunch. Tokimeite Harmony, I recognized it;
it's Quatre's and my favorite work. But I couldn't see anyone playing.
And the gardens -- you can't possibly tend that huge expanse all by yourself."
The Beast favored him
with a tiny, rather proud smile, but didn't answer him directly. Instead,
he muttered a rapid-fire phrase in a strange, sibilant language. Immediately,
two pairs of ghostly green hands appeared. He addressed them, again in
the weird language, and the hands took away Duo's plate and silverware.
They zoomed silently down the hall to a location only they knew.
Duo stared, dumbstruck.
His reaction won another little smile from the Beast, who simply folded
his gloved hands.