by Walleye
The fairy said to Johnathan. “She’s so glad because you remembered the promise you made to her.”
“What promise?” Johnathan asked in perplexity. An image rose up in his mind of a blond-haired mermaid holding her hands out. He moaned as he felt his headache growing worse as the secondary spell tried to make him forget.
At that moment Queenie got her long nose tangled in the chain around Maryellen’s neck and in jerking back she pulled the ring on the end of its chain out from under Maryellen’s blouse. It hung there, swaying back and forth showing the symbol of the royal house.
“That’s my ring!” Johnathan exclaimed in astonishment.
Maryellen smiled at him and let Queenie kiss her while she grabbed her slate and wrote. You gave it to me at the river.
Johnathan threw his hands to his head and screamed as the spell tried to shut the memories down while newly uncovered ones poured through him. He saw Maryellen as a beautiful woman with a fishtail gazing at him with love in her eyes while the magic of the river flowed around her.
“She’s a mermaid and she loves me!” He screamed. The Sidhe magic spell tried to crush the old memories but this time Johnathan fought back as he grabbed his head in his hands. “Get out! Get out of my head, you damn Sidhe witch!” He shouted.
For a moment the witch’s magic was controlling and then driven by his love for the mermaid the magic spell died and it dispersed in a shower of white sparks. The magic control faded away and his mind was finally free.
Johnathan dropped his hands and stared at the beautiful mute woman holding a wiggling Queenie in her arms while receiving dog kisses. He crawled across the floor on his knees and threw his arms around the two of them.
“I remember.” He cried. “I remember you. You are the mermaid I fell in love with down at the river.”
He hugged her and the dog Queenie who squirmed out from between them. He then held Maryellen out before him so he could stare into her beautiful eyes. “How did you become human and why are you now mute?”
“Blame the Sidhe.” The fairy snarled. “They didn’t want the spell broken so easily and so they made it impossible for her to speak and they wanted her to suffer too and so every step she takes is filled with pain.”
The Prince’s eyes glowed red as the Beast took control. “They are monsters. The Sidhe are true monsters, not in their looks but in their very souls which are rotten to the core. Someday I pray that there will be a reckoning for the evil that they have done to the two of us.”
“It may come.” The fairy told him. “But not in this tale as none of us here have the power to defeat them.”
The Prince tipped up Maryellen’s chin so he could gaze deeper into her eyes and saw the smile of adoration lighting up her face. “Please, leave us alone for a while. My love and I have to talk.”
The last thing their eyes told the fairy was that they were just going to talk. She almost laughed but kept it in when the Beast glared at her.
“Very well.” The fairy said as she followed the perplexed kennel keeper out the door. “But I’ll be close by if you need me.”
In the meantime Queenie hopped up on the bed and laid down on the bedspread, panting happily. There was a sparkle of fairy magic and the door gently closed.
The Prince said nothing to the fairy in reply. He pulled Maryellen close and kissed her deeply. It was their first kiss. In glad response she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back. His kiss even as a beast was so intense that it was arousing her and parts of her lower body which were different from her previous mermaid’s body were responding very strongly to him.
It didn’t matter to her that his body was that of a beast and she pushed her tongue into his mouth past his fangs and touched his tongue with hers. The tips gently danced around each other and Johnathan moaned.
He had made love many times with Princess Catalina when he was human and they were engaged to be married. It had been a beautiful thing to share joy with someone else who loved you just as much as you did her.
But then he’d been a man and now he was a beast. His senses as a beast were much more enhanced over those of a human. His sense of smell bombarded him with the scents of her body and the perfume of her breath. His touch was highly enhanced and now he could feel the texture of her skin as he gently stripped her gown from her shoulders.
Her skin felt marvelous to his touch. It was so soft and responsive to his touch. He could feel every movement of her muscles against his skin and how she responded to each stroke and touch.
Then there was her taste. It was so exquisite from the sweet flavors in her mouth to the salt tang of her skin. He could smell her natural scent rising from her skin and when he touched his tongue to her and stroked his tongue across her skin it was like an aphrodisiac as she gasped in response.
And her sounds? They were so enhanced by his hearing that he could hear her heartbeat speeding up as they kissed. He could her heavy breathing as well as own.
And when they came together it was the most exquisite feeling he’d ever experienced as all his senses reacted with bliss. It was so exquisite that he threw back his head and howled while her arms pulled him closer to her.
It took them a long time to come down afterwards and they laid together in each other’s arms just savoring their feelings for one another. After a while he asked softly. “So you were a mermaid?”
She ran her fingers through the soft blond hair on his chest. She smiled and nodded her agreement.
“And you fell in love with me down at the river?” Another smile and a nod before she lowered her head and kissed his chest.
“And the Sidhe witch made me forget you and cursed you?” She looked up and nodded before she leaned forward and ran her tongue over one of the nipples on his chest.
“Stop that.” He growled. “Or you’ll arouse the beast in me again.”
She looked at him and grinned, indicating that she liked it when he was acting like the beast that was his outer covering which hid the kind person deep inside him.
“Really. We have to stop.” He said as he rose up and gently pushed her back away from him so that he could look at her. Her response was a pout which almost undid him.
“Can you tell me anything to help me lift your curse?” He asked her earnestly wanting to free her.
She sighed and shook her head sadly as she sat back and leaned against the bed. She took her slate up and wrote. Curse forbids.
He sighed in his turn. “Just like my own curse forbids me from telling you how to free me from this form.”
He let a deep breath out. “I can only tell you one thing. Since you cannot speak out loud you cannot free me from this curse. So even though you love me, you can never save me from this horrible curse.”
She took her slate and wrote. Why curse horrible?
He stared at her in puzzlement that she couldn’t understand and then spread his arms. “Because it makes me look and act not like a human being.”
She wrote on her slate. As a mermaid was I a monster to you?
He considered this, remembering how she had looked when he’d played with her down in the river. “No, you weren’t. As a mermaid you were beautiful.”
She wrote again. To me as a beast u r beautiful.
He stared at her as it took him time to get his mind wrapped around the idea that she loved him in his shape as a beast. Could he accept himself as a beast forever and never be a human again? It would be very difficult to adjust as he had lived with hope for so long and he knew that his Mother would disinherit him if he chose to remain in this form.
“I have trained for most of my life to be the king.” He told her. “I cannot give up that dream easily and my Mother would never let me rule as the Beast.”
She nodded sadly, glanced down once at the slate and back up again. She wrote. Be true to yourself.
When she was growing up, her grandmother had always told her and her sisters this and then she’d explained that by this she had meant that they should understand ex
actly what they truly wanted and needed and to not try and meet others’ expectations just to please these others who might not have their best interests at heart and wanted something from them that they should not give.
“What does that mean?” He asked her.
She underlined the words. Be true to yourself.
“I don’t understand.” He complained. Since he wanted to be king wasn’t he being true to himself?
She sighed in frustration, scrubbed off the writing and wrote again with the chalk. She held up the slate. Follow your heart.
This was much clearer. “I, I, I can’t.” He protested.
She reached out a hand and gently stroked his cheek and the look in her eyes showed how much she cared about him and how much she understood his problem and that her heart had already made its decision.
She dropped her hand, got to her feet, pulling her dress up in one of her hands and pointing at the door with her other hand. She was essentially telling him that their intimate time together was over.
With a disgruntled sigh he got dressed. After he was done he paused at the door and looked back at her where she had just finished pulling her dress over her head. “Please. I need you to understand why we can’t ever be together. I absolutely have to be king.”
She looked sad and just held up the slate again. Follow your heart.
With a weary sigh unable to meet her eyes any longer as he felt he was breaking something he left her and went slowly down the hallway. Why couldn’t she see that he needed to be human so that he could be king? He would have to pay more attention to someone like Belle. By marrying her he could become all he was meant to be.
Maryellen felt tears welling up in her eyes and she slumped to her knees and put her face in her hands. She had lost him as he loved being human and ruling as king more than being with her. Queenie hopped down from the bed and put her nose under her arm and forced her way in close so that she could lick her face with her tongue.
Maryellen put her arms around the dog and hugged her close as tears kept pouring down her cheeks. Queenie thumped her tail and gave what comfort she could. Maryellen felt the Queen’s eminent arrival was a signal that everything was going to change and that her tale was coming to its conclusion.
That afternoon the scouts from the Queen’s party arrived at the drawbridge and once there the lead scout announced to Marshal Falk. “Her Majesty will be here very shortly.”
This set off frantic activity within the castle walls to put the last touches on their preparations for the royal visit. Within another hour three squads of soldiers arrived in the orange livery of the Royal House and their leader Captain Abraham immediately began making arrangements with Marshal Falk for the quartering of his men and women.
A huge cloud of dust on the horizon behind him announced the imminent arrival of the Royal retinue. Prince Johnathan straightened his blue coat out and stepped out in front of the soldiers, standing at attention. It was time to face the lioness.
A large gold-gilded coach drawn by four white horses with plumes of yellow feathers as headdresses pulled up at the end of the drawbridge. The coach turned so that its door was facing the entrance. Two trumpeters got down from their seats on the top of the coach and blew the royal salute just as perfectly as they had a hundred times before this.
As Prince Johnathan hurried forward to greet his Mother and Queen, a herald stepped forward, opened the door to the coach and proclaimed. “Her Royal Highness, Queen Eleanor Harkins.”
His Mother stood on the top step and took the hand her son held out to her in her own. “Welcome, my Queen, to the Summer Palace.” He proclaimed as he bowed over her perfectly manicured fingers with their shining rings.
His Mother nodded her head in acknowledgement. She was about forty and had flaming red hair. She was dressed in her summer gear which still consisted of several petticoats and skirts. Her face was beautiful but there was a hardness about it that had been there since her husband had died several years ago.
“I see you’re still sporting your unsuitable form.” She told him with a sniff. “One would think you would have had enough time to get rid of this ugly skin.” She flicked her folded fan against the cloth of his blue coat.
“It’s not by my choice alone that I’m wearing this so-called skin.” He growled.
She lifted a manicured eyebrow. “It isn’t? I heard differently.”
“You heard wrong.” He growled as he helped her dismount from the last step of the gilded coach.
“What I hear.” She retorted. “Is that you have four women to choose from and since one of them can’t speak she is ineligible to be your bride as she can never break the curse.”
“Sir Rathbone has a big mouth.” He snarled.
She gave him a stern look. “Sir Henry Rathbone was not my only source of information. I am not so much in my dotage that I would put all my eggs in one basket.”
This left him perplexed. Who else among his people here in the palace was in her pay? He would have sworn on a Bible that they were all his men and women, but apparently he was misinformed.
“You are as formidable as you ever were.” He snarled.
“Why thank you, Son. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in years.” She said this with a smile that never reached her deep green eyes.
As she walked with him with her hand on his arm she declared. “The remaining three women are all equally poorly suitable. I have had their claims to peerage reviewed before I came here and they are, for a lack of a word, poor.”
“They never claimed any rank in the peerage in my hearing.” He growled. “Except for their blabbermouth Father and he said they were distantly related to Snow White.”
She sniffed. “Very distantly indeed. At best they are third cousins through their mother’s side of the family and not their worthless father’s.” She took a deep breath. “However, as my Mother used to say. Beggars can’t be choosers. And so here we are reduced to choosing between beggars.”
“What do you mean?” He growled, knowing all too well what she meant.
“We will interview the three young Fontaine women together and we will choose your bride for you.” She told him haughtily. “Since you can’t seem to make up your mind and you are running out of time as you have less than one week before the curse becomes permanent.”
“How do you know that?” He growled. “I deliberately didn’t mention it.”
She raised a neatly trimmed eyebrow. “Why I asked the Magic Council of course.” At his look she continued. “Did you think that I’d leave something so important to faulty memory and sheer chance?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring a candidate with you who’s already a princess.” He growled. “To ensure that I was properly hooked. You already sent several candidates who failed quite miserably.”
“As I knew they would.” She sniffed. “I expected none of those high-bred, simpering idiots to succeed. All they were was something for you to focus your attention on so that you never forgot what the real prize was and so that the rival kingdoms would see that we had given their progeny a chance, an unrealistic one, but still a chance.”
“Why didn’t you bring the one you wanted?” He growled.
“Because there were none that I really wanted. None of those well-bred simpletons would do as they were all brainless fools.” She leaned over and whispered. “On the other hand one of these Fontaine girls will do quite satisfactorily. They are quite intelligent but inexperienced as rulers and will need your and my guidance for a couple of years to come. They will be quite easily molded by you and me.”
He growled. “You make it sound so cold and calculating. Don’t feelings matter anymore?”
“Feelings like love?” She waved a hand in dismissal. “Only in the final choice.”
“Were you Father’s final choice?” He snarled.
She froze and for a second he thought he saw pain in his Mother’s eyes and he wished he could take those hurting words back. She recov
ered and said coldly. “We are talking about your marriage and not mine.”
“Yes, Mother.” He said with a sigh.
“Believe me, Son. This is the best solution. One you’ll thank me for later.” She raised a gracious hand to wave at the cheering soldiers and he felt his heart sinking inside him.
The first that the three Fontaine sisters heard of this was when their Father came hustling into their room and proclaimed. “Wonderful news, my girls. The Prince is going to choose one of you to be his bride.”
Gwen looked up in surprise. “Father, have you been drinking again?”
“I don’t think he has.” Ella proclaimed. “His nose is still normal colored.”
“My nose doesn’t turn red when I drink.” He touched it cautiously with a finger. He looked up worriedly. “At least I don’t think it does.” He said hesitantly.
He shook his head as if he was clearing his brain of cobwebs before he continued. “I’ve just been commanded by order of the Queen to present the three of you for interviews with the Queen and the Prince. These interviews will decide which one of you he will pick as his wife.”
“Let me get this straight.” Belle demanded of her Father while her sisters Gwen and Ella watched them. “You’re telling us that we’re being commanded to turn up at this interview like we were slaves with no choice in the matter. I hope you told the Queen that we’re not slaves and we’ll decide whether we show up or not.”
He looked around worriedly at the three of them. “I told them that all three of you would be at the interviews starting at three this afternoon.” After taking in their shocked looks he said apologetically. “You don’t ignore a summons from a queen.” When they just scowled, he added. “Especially not from this one if you want to have a father with his head still attached.”
“In fact she hinted quite strongly that my tariff fees for next year’s trades could more than double if she’s displeased with me.” He added sadly.
“Father.” Said Ella. “We’ll consent to the interview but we still reserve the right to refuse the marriage offer.” Her two sisters nodded.
“Of course.” He replied. “That goes without saying that if you don’t want to marry him that you can refuse.” He drew himself up indignantly. “I would never force you into a marriage you don’t want.”