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Epilogue
The legend
Copyright © Jeffrey K. Bedrick 1996.
Used with permission.
I hadn't much time to savour my new happiness: Shuqra appeared without any warning and Beauty and I parted almost immediately, both blushing like children caught red-handed. My goddess smiled fondly and asked me:
"Art thou happy, child?"
I looked at Beauty and then answered fervently:
"Oh yes, Shuqra!"
It was so obviously sincere that Beauty blushed again, answering to my smile with one of her owns. We sat on the stairs, holding hands, ready to listen to Shuqra who had something to tell us. She looked at us quite lengthily before saying:
"I think we have won, now. But we never know..."
We both raised the eyebrows, quite surprised.
"I will explain you the whole story, because you don't know it in its entirety, even thee, dear child, who thinkst thou livedst it from the very beginning... The truth is that there isn't any fairy at all."
She gave us a moment for our exclamations of surprise.
"I repeat: there isn't any fairy at all. The one you called the fairy is not a fairy. It's a goddess, like me; her name is Oriande and she's the goddess of lies and deceptions."
"I noticed," I said wryly. "She deceived me during two hundreds years."
"She deceived thee even more than thou thinkst, child," sighed Shuqra. "Oriande is somehow my rival. She spends her time pretending that humans can't follow the path of wisdom, even if we show it to them. So she defied me, a long time ago, long before thou wast born. From time to time, she picks up one of my believers and tries to make him follow her path. I do my best so she has to renounce, but sometimes, I lose."
"I was thus even more a toy in her hands that I thought!" I exclaimed.
"Wait until you know the whole story... This time was the last time: I make her promise it in front of the Amber Eye and in front of the other gods. As it was the last time, she fought even harder than usual. I must confess I had doubts about my victory when I saw who she had chosen. Thou wast not the one to follow likely wisdom's path with thy obsession for roses."
"I changed a bit since then," I smiled.
Beauty smiled in return and laid her head on my shoulder, in a so trusting movement that I felt my throat tightening.
"Oriande wanted to force her... her pawn to marry a girl she had chosen just before, who had absolutely nothing special - nor interesting, by the way - and for the most stupid reason. She found one quite easily with thee, child, since thou wast obsessed with roses. The black rose would be used to lose thee. At first, I was afraid, and I couldn't intervene, for her game hadn't yet begun: thou wantedst so much this so rare rose! But then, thou wast not a fool enough for that: thou didst not want to marry someone you didst not love and so thou refusedst Rose Line."
"Deciding of my fate, condemning myself to two hundred years of solitude and bitterness."
"We can summarise it like that," admitted Shuqra. "But without that curse, thou wouldst never have met Beauty."
She smiled as I nodded.
"Yes, that was really worth two hundred years of pain and humiliations," I agreed.
"Then Oriande decided on the curse she would inflict to thee: it was the worse I had ever seen. She decided to condemn you to one hundred eighty years under a monstrous shape."
I looked at her with surprise.
"But, no, she..."
"But yes. She lied to thee. She never meant to free thee before that date. Katherine didn't become ill because of Oriande, but because of me. It's because of me thou dislikedst almost every girl, even if thou wouldst certainly not have chosen them anyway. I didn't want thee to desperate so early."
"Thou art responsible of Katherine's death?"
"Oh no! The second illness was not my doing. It was Oriande, enraged because of my intervention."
"Art thou telling me that I became a man again just because the hands of the clock were on the twelve?"
"Yes, exactly. Beauty confessed her love to thee at this very moment, but the real reason of your transformation was that the curse was at end."
"Why all that? What for?"
"The fairy wanted thee to be desperate just before the curse ended. Thy mind was so tangled with multiple feelings - relief, shame, love and such - that she had been able to play with it without a single problem..."
"Making me amnesiac."
"Making thee ready to accept thy marriage with Rose Line," agreed Shuqra. "But, once again, thou refusedst, moved by something thou wast unable to define, but that thou trustedst anyway."
"What is thy doing?"
"No, child, it was Beauty's. Thy love for her hadn't died with the curse. Thou still lovedst her and thy heart was totally unable to love someone else; that's why thou refusedst Rose Line."
"My little saviour..." I said to Beauty, smiling lovingly at her.
"Oriande saw how thou reactedst and the hate you conceivedst for the black rose tree. Thou hadst avoided her second trap so, resolved to win, she set up a new one: thinking thou wouldst destroy the black rose tree in your anger, she linked thy life with it. But then, thou wast already so taken with Beauty, that thou decidedst to keep the rose tree, so that thou wouldst be able to honour her love as she would have done. Once again enraged to see you escaping her third trap, she made thy flowers wither. Fortunately for thee, Beauty understood thy incoherent words in the forest and came here almost at once to save thee from death."
"What would my death have brought to her?"
"Victory, child. To win, I have to see the end of your story; but she would have won if thou hadst married Rose Line or if thou hadst died of sorrow, love and such."
"By the way, what will happen of Rose Line?" I asked.
"Doest thou want to punish her?"
"Not at all! She's not guilty. She just hadn't the right godmother."
"I will marry her to someone who won't ask too much of her."
"Someone looking for a gentle girl, waiting for him to say to her what to do and what to think?"
Shuqra smiled gently.
"Something like that, yes."
A heavy silence fell on the room.
"Didst thou really set up this story by thyself?" I asked then, worried.
She smiled gently.
"To be frank, I didn't set it up at all. I was as surprised as thee when I understood thou wast falling for Beauty. But then, I tried to help thee a bit, especially in the dreams Oriande sent you. And finally, you understood that you were made for each other."
"Wait a minute, o Shuqra," said Beauty, intervening for the first time in the conversation.
She disentangled her hand from mine and I began to worry at once. She half-closed her eyes, as if she was trying to find deep within the courage to say the words she was about to say.
"I can't marry him, so thou didst not win," she said flatly.
I jumped on my feet and, forgetting everything about her fears, I caught her by the shoulders.
"You don't want to marry me?" I asked imploringly.
"I would give my life to be your wife," she replied, looking at me with eyes full of love, "but I can't! I'm so... I'm from a low birth, I have no property, no dowry, nothing! Just myself... and that's not much..."
"That's the only thing I wish for," I assured her.
"I'm the scrap of the streets, my lord," she reminded me.
"I don't care!" I said fiercely. "I told you once that you could be an illegitimate child, I still wouldn't care!"
Shuqra shook the head, amused in spite of herself.
"Instead of quarrelling, why doest thou not tell Beauty the result of thy search about her family?"
I started. I had forgotten the discovery I had made during Beauty's absence. I turned to her and took her hands in mine.
"You remember Sirli?" I asked her.
"Yes, of course. She had such a beautiful name!"
"You are from her family," I announced her proudly. "You're not the scrap of the streets, you descend from one of the best families in town!"
Beauty looked at me, not believing me at first, but then, seeing me serious, she burst into tears. Quite discountenanced, I held her in my arms and, without caring for Shuqra's presence, I dried her tears with my kisses. She laughed between her tears and circled my neck with her arms, hiding her lovely head against my shoulder.
Shuqra smiled and faded away discreetly.
"I love you," I murmured into Beauty's ear. "I love you so..."
She raised her head and smiled. Then she disentangled herself from my arms and, though I hated that, I didn't move again, for I was afraid she would think I was trying to imprison her.
"By the way, what's your name?" she asked me gleefully.
I remained frozen. Raynal always called me 'old pal' and the other ones 'master'.
"Err... I'm afraid I don't remember it," I answered, very embarrassed.
She looked at me with incredulous eyes then started giggling.
"You know what, Mister What's-your-name?" she said, clinging to my neck. "I love you..."
It was almost unreal. Even if I had held her in my arms two minutes ago, to see her act like that of her own will and to hear her say such things made me wonder about my sanity.
"Can I... can I really take you in my arms? You won't vanish in thin air? It's not a dream, is it?" I asked hesitantly.
"No, you really can do it!" laughed Beauty. "For every drop of my blood, every fibre in me knows you'll keep me safe till the end of time."
"Oh yes!" I said fervently. "This I'll do, and gladly!"
"I was sure you'd have shared my point of view," she replied with a mischievous smirk.
"You Puck!" I whispered, bending down my head toward hers.
"Ooh! Aren't they just touching?" asked an acid voice.
We both started and my eyes flared with anger when I saw the fairy - I meant, Oriande - in front of us.
"You're not finished with me!" she warned me. "I've not said my last word!"
"My, my, aren't we just scathing today?" I said acidly. "You may be a goddess, you're not all-powerful!"
"Perhaps not, but I'm powerful enough to win!"
"No!" intervened Beauty. "You lost! He's alive, I love him, he loves me! Shuqra won!"
"But no, little one! You're still not married! And you will never be!"
She raised the hand and, when she lowered it, we heard a great crash and saw a flash of lightning. With a roar of agony, I fell on the ground, feeling my life fleeing away. Beauty shouted:
"No!"
And she ran to the glass cover for the rose, that the flash of lightning had just destroyed. The black rose lay in the middle of the glass pieces, scattered. I held the hand out, not toward the rose, but toward Beauty. She took it in hers, tears running freely from her eyes.
"Not twice!" she begged. "Not twice, please!"
"So you still don't want to die, dear child?" Oriande asked me ironically. "I'm really impressed! You should be dead by now. The destruction of the black rose should have killed you, since it's your last rose!"
"Help me, Beauty," I whispered. "Help me to stand up."
"You're too weak, my love..."
"Please... My pride lost me, I want it to save me at the end."
Painfully, choking back the roars of agony coming to my lips, I stood up, leaning quite heavily on Beauty's shoulder. I forced myself to face Oriande, my face probably deadly pale.
"It's not the last rose," I said with a low voice. "I'll show you it's not the last rose!"
I called upon my magic and, in my extended hand, my blue rose appeared. I gave it to Beauty and said:
"I created it for you. Oriande destroyed all my blue rose trees, except one, and this one gave me this rose for you. Take it, Beauty."
The eyes of Oriande flared with anger and, using her powers, she tried to destroy this rose as well. But my little Beauty knew how to use her powers too and I knew she had more powers than a mere green witch. Really angry now, she shouted a single word and the rose in her hands glowed a shining blue against which the magic of the goddess was surprisingly powerless.
Beauty smiled, a smile filled with pride. Oriande ground her teeth in anger and turned toward me.
"One last time, I ask you: will you marry Rose Line?"
"In your dreams!" I replied very impolitely.
"So be it! By twice, you told me you preferred to be a Beast with Beauty than a man without her. You're with her now, so you know what you will be!"
I felt Beauty panicking near me, but I faced Oriande calmly and even managed to smile.
"Will you ever learn? You transformed me for two hundred years and I didn't change my mind. Do you think I'll change it now? You don't know me if you think so!"
I saw at the goddess' face that she was ready to strike. I pushed Beauty away from me and stood by my own. The first spell of Oriande didn't hit me: I had replied by one of my owns. But I knew I was doomed to fail, for I was far too exhausted. Oriande had drained all my vital strength and I hadn't left enough to counter her. Beauty felt it and stepped forwards to help me, but I forbade her from doing so:
"No! Protect yourself and the rose, but this is my fight."
Then, I suddenly felt quite invigorated and Stoat's voice said softly in my head:
"Why didn't you call us, master? Good luck, little one, and remember: no foolishness, you hold our life in your hands."
Provided with the powers of my people, I felt quite stronger and the fight with Oriande was much more balanced. But then, the goddess was more used than me to those magical fights. My end was very near.
She caught me by surprise and I fell on my knees, hearing in my head the cry of dismay coming from my people. Under my very eyes, I saw my hands become again those powerful paws armed with shining claws. I felt my whole body transforming and I knew that, behind me, Beauty was weeping bitterly. I felt too the transformation of my people and, somehow, their relief for not being dead.
"There!" said Oriande with satisfaction. "Do you still want to marry him, girl?"
She was speaking to Beauty, who raised her face smeared with tears. I forced myself to stand up again, despite the pain. I didn't have to look down to know what I was become.
"Take your time to answer, Beauty," I said gently, my voice breaking. "You have the right to reconsider, since the situation changed..."
She looked at me in wild disbelief and come toward me, looking deeply hurt. She put her little hand on my furry arm and raised her head toward me.
"How can you think that of me? I would never ever leave you!"
She turned to Oriande and said proudly:
"Yes, of course, I still want to marry him, if he still wants me to."
"You know I do," I whispered into her ear, wrapping my arm around her shoulders.
She smiled to me and added on a defiant tone:
"The only way for you to win is to kill me or to kill him. Everything else you would do wouldn't give you the victory. But you don't have the right to kill him."
I understood almost too late what Beauty was meaning, but Oriande understood it faster. At the last moment, I moved in front of Beauty, closing my arms on her and the flash of lightning struck my back. Smiling one last time to Beauty, I slowly collapsed on the ground.
"No!" cried Beauty with the voice of someone who just lost everything she held dear. "No, you can't be dead! Oh, please, please... I tried so hard to save you from that fate... Don't abandon me now, please... I love you..."
I struggled to keep my eyes open and smiled dreamily.
"Two hundred years of suffering for a mere hour of total happiness... That's a bit high for a price to pay..." I murmured.
I saw Oriande move toward us, to finish me off or perhaps to kill Beauty, I didn't know. I tried to move, to protect Beauty with all my strength left, but it was too hard. Then, suddenly, Shuqra appeared between Oriande and us; her face was almost twisted with wrath.
"How dare you!" she exclaimed to Oriande. "You're exceeding your rights!"
"I didn't mean to strike him," replied Oriande, shrugging nonchalantly. "She was my target."
"You didn't have the right to strike her either!" retorted Shuqra, punctuating her sentence by a thunderclap. "You're defeated, Oriande! These two children defeated you!"
"Not yet! He will probably die, so I will win!"
"Not so," Shuqra contradicted her. "Since you exceeded your rights, I can call upon other gods and I call upon the god of medicine to heal him!"
A white glow surrounded me and I felt my strength coming back. Quite invigorated, I sat on the ground, my paw closely held in Beauty's hands. Oriande cried with rage, but Shuqra's power matched her own, so she couldn't hit us.
Shuqra and Oriande were still insulting each other and I was quite surprised to see my goddess, known for her patience and correction, be able to say such things. Then Beauty had an idea; she stood up, letting go of my paw, and approached Oriande, walking without fear through the flashes of lightning crossing my vaults from every direction. Once near Oriande, she said softly:
"Fairy of the roses, I have a gift for you."
A great silent fell on the vaults and the light in the room was once again the dim light from dawn coming through a little window. Shuqra stared wide-eyes to Beauty, trying to understand her idea and Oriande, frozen on the spot, was totally unable to utter a word.
Then Beauty held her my blue rose out; I felt my heart sinking in my chest. Giving that rose to Oriande was giving my life away, but then, my life was Beauty's, so she could do everything she wanted with it. To my great surprise, Oriande stepped back, clasping her hands in her back, as if she wanted to be sure she wouldn't touch the rose. Beauty stepped forward and, for each step backward from Oriande, my little Beauty made one forward, until Oriande had her shoulders against the wall.
Inexorably, Beauty continued to hold out her rose and Oriande looked around her with the look of a condemned deer.
"Shuqra..." she half-pleaded.
But my goddess turned the head away, losing interest in Oriande's fate. I was totally unable to look away: I wanted to know why Beauty was giving my life away like that and my heart was refusing to believe what my eyes saw. I had refused for so long to really trust somebody, to put my life and heart in someone else's hands, that I couldn't accept this betrayal, now that I had realised that I trusted her.
When the blue rose touched Oriande, the goddess cried out of pain and, on her perfect ivory skin, a black stain appeared, as if she had been burnt. The blue glow around the rose intensified and reached Oriande, surrounding her and her cries became worse. I wanted to cover my ears with my paws, but I was unable to move. I could only see, in the corner of the eye, that Shuqra had still her head turned away and the look on her face was very sad.
Deeply hurt by this strange glow created by Beauty, Oriande finally gave up the ground and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. The air smelled of burnt skin and I coughed once or twice. Beauty was immediately by my side, looking worried.
"Are you well, my love?"
I could see in her eyes that my heart had been right, that she had never meant to betray me. She knew a way to get rid of Oriande and she had used it.
"Why is she gone?" I said, my voice croaking strangely.
"The blue rose," explained Shuqra. "She hadn't any power against it. Perhaps thou doest not know it, child, but the blue rose is the rose of oblivion. By creating it, thou returnedst her doings against herself and, what's more, thou createdst this rose only by love for Beauty. Oriande is powerless against your love."
"Why was she so enraged to win?"
Shuqra shrugged.
"Had she won, it would have meant my disappearance. The stake she was aiming at was my death. If thou hadst yielded and married Rose Line - or died - I would have died too. Oriande hates me and she only seeks a way to get rid of me for eternity."
"But it's terrible!" exclaimed Beauty. "What would have done the world without thee?"
"Another god would have taken my place," shrugged Shuqra again. "So thou savedst my life, child. I would like to thank thee properly, but, alas! I can't undo what Oriande did. I can't make thee human again."
"If Beauty agrees to marry me even so, I don't care," I replied fiercely. "Since I love Beauty, I have only one aim in my life: to be with her, no matter what, no matter the shape I am under."
"The choice is thine, child," continued Shuqra, turning to Beauty. "Oriande is defeated now, so thou canst choose freely."
"Choose?" exclaimed Beauty. "What is there to choose? I already made my choice: I want to be with him till the end of my life. That's all I want, truly!"
"I was sure of thy choice, child."
I took Beauty in my arms, moved by her faith to me.
"Let's go upstairs," I said. "My poor people must be deploring to be under the curse once again. Canst thou not do something for them, Shuqra?" I pleaded. "They are only victims of their faith to me..."
"Perhaps, child, perhaps..."
I had felt right: Stoat was once again an arctic fox, Eponerius a centaur, and so on. Shuqra looked at them with quite an expert eye and said finally:
"Though I can't give back his real shape to your master, I'm able to give you back your shape, if you want it so."
None of my people spoke.
"Go on, my friends," I said to them. "I want you to be happy. Don't feel indebted to me. Ask without shame to be human again!"
"I don't want to be human again," said the low voice of Eponerius. "I quite like this shape and as a centaur, I'm strong enough to match your temper. That would be quite a security for Lady Beauty," he added with a smile, for he had seen that we were holding hands.
"I do want to be human again," whistled Weaverbird. "I'm of no use under this shape. Once I will be human again, I'll weaver for you the most beautiful wedding dress you have ever seen," he promised to Beauty.
Shuqra nodded and pronounced something under her breath. Weaverbird became human again under our very eyes, curtsied and ran to his weaving loom. We heard him sing just after, among the noises of the loom and we knew that he had already begun his work.
"Don't be ashamed," I coaxed them gently. "I won't have a grudge against you if you choose to be human again. That's something I would understand perfectly."
They all chose to be human again, except Eponerius. He shrugged and said:
"I'm half-human, I can still care for the horses and I can still play oboe, that's all that matters."
Having satisfied everyone, Shuqra left us and I announced proudly to my people that Beauty had accepted to marry me.
"Obviously," I added, laughing, "you knew it already! If not, Weaverbird would never have suggested what he suggested!"
"We are happy for you, master," Sevulf assured me "but who will accept to celebrate your marriage? Forgive me for what I will say, but you're nothing more than a wild beast and she's a vulnerable girl..."
"Chryraz's priest in the town will accept. His name is Fra Vestris and I'm quite sure he knew about my real identity from the very beginning."
"And who will give away the bride, since she's an orphan?" asked Maguy, always worried with details like that.
"I'm rich of friends," replied Beauty. "I think three of them would be happy to give me away: Jerry, Tiger and Jod, since my lord forgave him."
"Fiona, Gilla and Maguy, come with me," said firmly Stoat. "We have a wedding to organise. I sincerely regret that Geolf is not here anymore: he would have cooked you the most delectable wedding meal!"
"And Raynal," I said sadly. "Life without him won't be the same. But alas! They are both dead and I don't know how to bring them back to life."
"No need to," said a voice I knew only too well.
I turned on my heels so quickly that I almost fell: Raynal was here, on the threshold of the room, his left arm wrapped around the slim waist of a girl I didn't recognise - but I guessed it was Iris - and behind them was Geolf, both sad and happy, since the curse was over but he had lost Beauty.
"Raynal and Geolf! I can't believe my eyes! Are you here for good or am I dreaming once again?"
Raynal shook sadly the head.
"No, old pal, I'm afraid I will only revive your old wound. We are here only for your marriage and then, we will return to death's kingdom. That's a favour from Shuqra."
I sighed and nodded. Of course, Shuqra couldn't bring back them to life just because of me...
So Fra Vestris celebrated our marriage, not surprised for a bit by the strange look of the groom. Jod and Jerry were by Beauty's sides and Raynal was by mine. Tiger was in the back, looking at the ceremony with a light smile of his. Beauty was more than worth of her name, wearing the most beautiful wedding gown I had ever seen, as Weaverbird had promised us. Her red-russet hair was free on her back, with a single white rose in it. She had the gold chain around her neck with her rose pendant.
She smiled at me when I put clumsily the ring at her little finger and, as I bent down to kiss her, my people struck up the most beautiful weeding song I had ever heard. Maguy was at the organ, Sevulf at the violin, Stoat at the harp, Fiona and Gilla were playing flutes and for once, Eponerius' oboe wasn't weeping; above all, Weaverbird's voice was ringing loud and clear, singing beautifully, with all his heart, both his joy of seeing the marriage of his master and the joy of being able to sing again.
Then Jerry returned by Alara's side; we had celebrated their marriage just before our own. Alara looked happy and satisfied and if Jerry seemed to be happy too, there still was a glow of panic in the depths of his eyes. Jod, Tiger and Fra Vestris remained all the time together, as if they were supporting each other. As my ear was very sharp, now that I was back under my Beast's shape, I heard a bit of their conversation:
"What will we do now?" asked Fra Vestris to his two friends.
Jod shrugged, pushing back his hair far too long, since he probably hadn't cut them since the moment he had left the town.
"I don't know. I will return in the forest, that's sure. I'm now living like a wild beast, but I don't care."
It was true that he looked quite like a savage, with his hunting knifes at his belt or clenched in his fists.
"And you, Tiger?"
The foreign prince was still wearing his new strange outfits, that hid almost nothing of his body, but I had to recognise that it gave him a new dimension, as if he was suddenly more mature.
"Since I lost Beauty, I'll seek my fate somewhere else."
"But you knew she wasn't for you," remarked Fra Vestris.
"We all three knew she wasn't for one of us, but it didn't prevent us from hoping," replied Tiger, smiling a bit sadly. "Isn't it true, Donansian?"
"Yes, that's true," admitted the priest.
"What will you do?" asked Jod, obviously not willing to speak again of his failure in the fight for Beauty.
The priest shrugged.
"I'm a priest. I will do what I have always done. Like Tiger, I'll seek my fate elsewhere... alone."
"We all three are alone," said Tiger.
"Yes, but she is happy," retorted Jod. "And that made our suffering worth the pain. That's what I have wanted all my life: to see her happy and, after the incident with Alara's uncle, I wanted to see her eager to be in someone's arms. Now it happened, so I can go back to my place: in her past, in the shadows of my forest."
When Jod said those words, I was holding Beauty close to me and her head was leaning trustingly against my shoulder. I lost myself in her beautiful eyes which were looking at me with so much love and, when I looked again toward Fra Vestris, Tiger and Jod, they were gone. But I knew, without knowing how, that we were due to see us again.
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Text © Azrael 2000.
The legend. Copyright © Jeffrey K. Bedrick 1996. Used with permission.
Set Hour Time, from Moyra/Mystic PC.
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