As the wind howled outside, a prince sat in his chair in the dining hall awaiting his supper. But before the food could be brought out, a knock sounded from the front doors of the castle. "Lumière!" he roared, a gold colored earth pony with a candelabra for a cutiemark popping up beside him moments later.
"Yes, master?"
"See who is at the door, and unless they are royalty send them away."
"Right away, master."
The golden pony vanished before reappearing in front of the large wooden doors to the castle. With a sigh, he opened the door to reveal an older looking pony, presumably an earth pony, with a tattered navy cloak over her back and the hood pulled over her head. Lumière looked at her and quickly determined that she was not royal in any sense of the word. "I'm sorry, but you must leave." he said, turning to head back into the castle.
"I wish to speak with the prince, and only the prince." As the earth pony before her was about to protest, she cut him off. "I will not leave until I speak with him."
"Fine, wait right here." And with that, the golden pony vanished.
In the dining hall the prince was enjoying a fine meal when the golden pony returned. "Who was it?" he questioned, taking another bite from his lovely garden salad.
"I do not know, master, but she will not leave until she speaks with you."
The prince turned to look at the earth pony, anger evident in his eyes. "Did I not tell you they were to be sent away if not royalty?" he hissed.
"Yes, master, but she insisted."
With an inaudible sigh, the prince stood up from the table and slowly walked out of the dining hall. As he made his way to the front of the castle he was constantly mumbling about servants being unable to properly do their jobs. When he finally arrived at the doors, he opened them to reveal an older mare in a cloak. Her coat was a dusty brown with dried mud caked on in layers around her hooves. Her mane was knotted in such a mess that it was difficult to tell how long it truly was, though it was at least long enough not to be hidden by the hood, and it was a dirty blond with nearly as much mud caked into it as there was around her hooves. Her eyes were a pale green similar to that of pea soup, a most revolting color.
"What is it?" he grumbled, staring at the pony as if he wanted to burn her that instant.
"I wish to stay the night in exchange for a single rose." She pulled out a blood red rose with her teeth, placing it in one hoof as she continued. "It is so cold out, and a blizzard is on the horizon. It will reach me before I can make it to the village. Please, might I stay just one night?" she pleaded.
"No, you may not, you repulsive creature. Now leave."
"Do not be fooled by appearances, my prince. True beauty is not found on the outside, but within."
"Right. As if I would ever call you beautiful, you mule. Now go, before I have you forcibly removed."
Before the prince could call the guards, her cloak fell around her hooves. Her dusty coat slowly changed color until it was a brilliant sky blue, aided of course by her glowing horn. Her mane untangled itself and curled perfectly until it reached almost to the steps, a stunning waterfall of light pink falling around her shoulders. As her horn continued to glow, her appearance made one final change: her eyes. What was once a sickly, disgusting green became the color of amethysts, easily matching the color and shade of her magic.
As the prince stood silent for a moment, she grasped the rose in her magic and pulled it back towards her. "I'm sorry. Would you like to come in and stay a while? We have dinner laid out a-"
She cut the prince off by raising the hoof that had once held the rose now suspended in the purple glow. "My prince, my dear, sweet prince... No. You did not show me compassion and kindness. How can I ever love one like you?"
"But I didn-"
Again, he was cut off. Except this time, it was because he was trapped in a magical aura. It surrounded him and clamped his mouth shut as the unicorn performed a spell. "You will become the monster you are inside. This rose will bloom for many years to come. If by the time the last petal has fallen you have found love and are loved in return, the spell will be broken. If not, you will remain a hideous beast until the end of your days." And with that, a shimmering rose and a transformed prince fell to the ground as she teleported away into the cold night.
The next morning, the prince awoke to find an eerie silence over the entire castle. Last night was a blur after he had opened the door; he couldn't even remember who the visitor had been. As he stood, the silence only served to aid in his thought process as he struggled to figure out what had happened the night before. When he reached the mirror and saw a snow white dragon with pale yellow spines instead of the unicorn he was accustomed to seeing, it all came rushing back. "Lumière!"
It was taking the earth pony much, much longer to reach the prince than he had expected it to. When a golden candelabra appeared in the doorway with a simple 'Yes, master?' he knew why. The enchantment the unicorn had used had not only affected him, but the entire castle if Lumière was any indication. This could not be good. "What has happened, Lumière? Is everyone like this?"
"Yes, master. Each and every one of us has changed, though not as much as you."
The candelabra looked almost wary of him, and it didn't take him long to figure out why. Ponies hated dragons. These were not times when pony and dragon could live in peace, not that he believed there would ever be such a time. The task of finding love now seemed even greater than before. After all, who could love a beast?
Sunlight streamed through the window in the quiet bedroom, alighting an empty bed. The covers were tossed aside, cascading off the side of the bed opposite the window. A soft snoring could be heard from a basket not too far away from the blanket waterfall, no doubt belonging to a young drake that was 'employed' to the pony downstairs. The growing intensity of the light from the window caused him to turn onto his other side in his small basket, only to bolt awake when he realized what time it was. Mumbling, he rolled out of bed and stretched. He eyes were still half closed as he yawned, having just woken up.
"Spike, is that you?" came a voice from downstairs.
"Yeah, Twilight." replied Spike as he made his way down the stairs with another yawn.
When he reached the main floor of the library, he was greeted with surprising cleanliness. By now Twilight, who was emerging from a side room, would have already caused some measure of chaos for him to clean up. As he stood at the foot of the stairs, all he could do was stare with mouth agape at the sight before him. "Is something wrong, Spike?"
He shook his head and turned to Twilight. "I'm just not used to waking up to... this." he responded, gesturing with a claw to the tidy room laid out before him.
Twilight just simply smiled and laughed softly. "Oh, Spike."
Shaking her head, Twilight walked into the kitchen. The room was hidden behind what seemed to be a bookshelf, but was in reality a door painted to look like one in an attempt to hide it from anypony who didn't know somepony lived in the room above. In fact, despite Twilight being a princess, most ponies had yet to learn that she actually lived in the library, and not just metaphorically speaking. Seriously, every time somepony asked why she was always at the library now that she was a princess and she replied with 'I live here', they laughed.
As her stomach rumbled, her thoughts returned to why she had entered into the kitchen in the first place: breakfast. Her horn flared up with a raspberry aura and she gathered the ingredients for pancakes. Soon after she started the batter, Spike walked in. He seemed more awake now, and he had obviously gotten over the shock of seeing a neat library. "So, pancakes?" he asked as he plopped himself down at the table.
"Yep. So, what gems do you want in yours?"
"Any gem will do. I'm not really in the mood for thinking yet."
With a silent nod Twilight carefully poured two circles of batter into the waiting pan. She retrieved a mixture of emeralds and sapphires from the cupboard with her magic, crushing them and sprinkling them over the cooking disks. As the batter sizzled in the pan she pulled out two bottles of apple juice and set them on the table next to the plates and forks already sitting there.
"Twilight, are you alright?" Spike asked as she turned back to the stove, flipping the pancakes.
"Why would you ask something like that, Spike?"
"It's just a little weird to see you awake and a clean library. Usually it's one or the other."
"I was just reading one of my favorite stories, that's all. I guess I got lost in it and forgot to mess up the library for you to clean." Her horn began to glow softly as she silently plated the pancakes, replacing them with two more circles of batter.
"That's okay. I was actually thinking about going to see Rarity today. I know she has a big order to fill, and I thought maybe I could help her."
"Sounds good. Gives me the peace and quiet I need to focus."
Twilight flipped her own pancakes while she levitated Spike's over to him. Spike picked up his fork and knife while licking his lips, ready to dig in. First, though, he needed some syrup. "Uh, Twilight, what about the syrup?"
"Just a second Spike."
As Twilight retrieved the syrup from the fridge and delivered it to the waiting drake seated at the table, she also plated her two pancakes. Taking a seat at the table she turned off the stove and opened her apple juice. When Spike was finished drowning his pancakes in the sweet maple syrup, Twilight drizzled a fair amount onto her own pancakes and began to eat.
Breakfast went by somewhat quietly, the only sounds heard being the scraping of utensils against the plates and a hungry dragon's chewing. The silence was mainly due to Twilight being lost in thought, running over her daily schedule for that day and the rest of the week in her mind as she mindlessly devoured her breakfast. What finally broke her out of her silent reverie was biting down on an empty fork.
Looking down, Twilight noticed her plate only had some syrup left on it. Her assistant had also left, his syrup covered, gem-dusted plate still sitting at his seat instead of in the sink where it belonged. With a sigh, Twilight placed both plates in the sink and tossed Spike's empty bottle of apple juice into the recycling bin before grabbing her own half-full bottle and heading out of the kitchen into the side room she had been in before to continue her reading. It wouldn't hurt to just enjoy the fairytale while she had a small break this morning, right?
Discord watched as Twilight moved out of the kitchen, waiting for just the right moment. As she shut the door behind her after entering the side room, he moved unseen into said room from the main room. His movements were silent and he was as unnoticed as a shadow while he watched Twilight crack open a fairytale. One of my favorites. he thought, peeking at the title, Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast, a classic if ever there was one. A tale of a prince turned monster and a beautiful young girl finding true love in one another. Oh, how romantic! He sighed silently. If only that kind of thing happened in real life. he reminisced, staring into the navy blue cover of the book, the gold lettering of the title and author's name shining despite the somewhat dim light of the room.
"Now, where was I?" Twilight asked no one in particular. "Oh, right. 'Once upon a time...'"
Discord read over Twilight's shoulder, though he quite possibly knew this story from front to back and back to front. He could easily recite each word to perfection, though he had a tendency to vary certain details. One such detail was the creature the beast turned into. According to the story, it was a dragon, but he liked to think the prince would turn into a draconequus like himself.
Speaking of transformations, Twilight was just now reaching that part of the story. She was taking her time reading for once, turning the pages with her hooves instead of using magic. Perhaps, every once and a while, she just preferred to feel the slightly worn pages under her own hooves. Once she gets beyond the introduction, the fun begins. Discord thought, laughing silently.
