//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Beauty(s) and the beast // by 79snowbell //------------------------------// Once upon a time, there was a prince who was a charming young stallion, but he wasn't your average royal, for he would often make fun of some ponies and pull a lot of pranks on others. In other words, he was immature, childish, and chaotic. On his nineteenth birthday, he held an annual gala and invited royals all over the land to witness his coming of age. He was about to pull the first prank of the night until something caught his eye, two alicorns and a unicorn talking, but the one that interested him the most was the eldest alicorn with flowing pink hair and light violet eyes. When the two met eye to eye, they fell in love, and everything changed for the prince. The two spent a lot of time together, but when the princess had to leave, the prince would beg her to stay longer, and they eventually stay with the other until sunset or later. The eldest was off duty more often, so her sister had to run their kingdom. Many of their subjects always felt that the eldest has abandoned them when it was the youngest that was there, leading to the ponies changing their cerfew to sunset and sleeping through the youngest's beautiful night. Not only was the princess upset that her subjects slept through her night and ignoring her, but she was jealous of the love her sister had with the prince. The youngest's jealousy for her sister transformed her into a living nightmare. She immediately went after the lovers as a plot formed in her head. When she found the two, she rendered her sister into a powerless pony and blamed the prince for keeping her sister away from her duties as princess. The prince reacted in sadness and anger, causing to banish the sister of his lover! Before she was completely sealed in the moon, the young princess casted a curse on the prince, which turned him into a hideous creature of chaos! The former princess, frightened of the changed prince before her, ran away from him in fear and heartbreak, and the prince felt abandoned as he watched her run away. The princess searched for a way to turn her back into an alicorn and to break the curse on her lover. Just when she was about to give up, she ran into the king of the Crystal Empire who took her to his castle so that she would take a break from her long search. She told the king of how her sister appeared to her and the prince as a nightmare creature, then of how the prince banished her sister to the moon but ended up transformed into a beast. The king listened to every word she spoke and contemplated her tale with thoughts and finally decided to help the princess. During two months of looking through spell books, the former princess started to forget about her feelings to the prince and found herself falling for the king, their silent reading turning to small smiles to conversations. After another month of searching and bonding, the king found a spell that turn the princess back into her true form and would allow the princess to revert from an alicorn to an earth pony at will. The princess had forgotten about the cursed prince during the time she spent with the king, and the king had enjoyed spending time with the princess. They had spent so much time together that going their separate ways didn't feel like an option, so they decided to wed. Although their wedding was small and private, it was the most beautiful, and the only witnesses were the preacher and the king's niece. But a year later, the princess' younger sister returned, searching for her and the prince, while on the same day, the king and his new queen had two daughters: a pegasus and a unicorn. The young princess heard the news of the newly born princesses of the Crystal Empire and thought her eldest sister might be there as the queen of the empire. Sure enough, the king heard news of his queen's sister coming to the empire, so he sent his wife along with their two daughters and his niece to escape the Empire while he held off the nightmare princess with dark magic. The queen and princesses managed to escape safely, but the same could not be said for the king, for he did keep the nightmare distracted, but he was sadly defeated in the end and thrown into his own dungeon. The princess decided to find the prince and finish his punishment first, but by the time she reached his kingdom, she noticed that it was abandoned and falling apart. Assuming that the prince was dead, she decided to return to her kingdom, but found it abandoned as well, but she did find a familiar earth pony wander around the area. But when she was within range, the princess was shocked to see the pony transform into her sister and shot magic at her so that the princess' imprisonment would last longer. Instead of going back to the Crystal Empire, the queen settled in a peaceful cottage close to a small town to protect her daughters and niece. And she made sure that her children would be safe if their aunt were to return again and take one of them away... or both. And as for the prince? Well, he wasn't dead at all. He actually left his kingdom, allowing those who were still loyal and trustworthy to stay by his side. He discovered his former-lover's castle and decided to stay there since it was still in slightly good shape, but he knew he would have to make it look abandoned and haunted if a pony were to wander into the area. Aside from his servants, the cursed prince kept himself in isolation, never leaving the castle, and the dangers of the forest kept outsiders away. ...Until now.