Beauty and The Beast

I was off to work today at the castle. I would have never known that I would somehow become a part of the royal family on this day. The day started out normal. I always admired my little cottage before I headed off. I looked around my place, and I just adored it. From the small window above the kitchen sink, I even love the little squeak on the floorboard when I step in a certain spot by the bed. I didn’t have much but it was enough for me to get by and honestly, I didn’t want much. People may not think it’s much, but to me, it was my own little palace. I knew that from working at the palace that having a lot of things did not make you a good person.

After the king had died one of his two sons took over the throne. Ever since he had taken on the role of king everyone has been pushing for him to have an heir to the throne. Then disaster struck. Both the king and the brother had died, and all the advisers had pushed for the dead king’s uncle to have a child. Everyone calls him Uncle B, but Uncle B took an oath. He vowed he would never marry and never father any children. The kingdom was in distress. How was there supposed to be order if there was no one to succeed on the throne? As I walked through the servant quarters to give the morning tea to the royal family, I overheard a conversation between Uncle B and his stepmother.

“…. he promised to appear when I called his name.”

“He must come at once! It will save the kingdom, for I refuse to break my oath. A man with a broken oath is no man at all. I will gather the Queens.”

I had just finished placing the sandwiches down when Uncle B turned to me and asked me to fetch the young Queens. I hurried off at once and as I reached the door a man appeared out of thin air. I had not gotten a good look at him. Although I was shocked, I hurried to gather the Queens and bring them to the throne room.

“Madames, your presence has been requested in the throne room.”

The young Queens were very beautiful. They were always so eloquent and poised. They were sisters from another kingdom. There used to be three that were promised to one of the sons, but the third had already fallen in love with another and Uncle B let her return home. I followed behind the Queens to the throne room and placed myself in the corner. I was not to be seen or heard unless needed by the court.

I noticed that it was empty until Uncle B emerged from a secret chamber door. He went on to tell the young Queens that they will bare children to his brother in order for the kingdom to survive. It turns out the Queen before them had had a son.

The eldest Queen went to meet the man first. After some time, she came back, and she was very unhappy. She told her sister to make sure that her eyes were open, or she would conceive a blind child, and that the man was very unpleasant to look at, but it was important that she looked at him.

The younger sister then went to meet the man. I was very curious to see the man that the older Queen had claimed to be so unsightly. The young Queen returned and had a forlorn look on her face and told her sister that her child would be very pale and weak. She told her sister that the color drained from her face when she saw the man and for that, her son would be pale.

Uncle B was not happy with the women. He told them that the kingdom needed a King that was whole for the seat or the people would not accept him. That’s when he turned to me. I tried to sink away into the corner and make myself less seen. It was too late. He asked me to bare one of the princes of the kingdom.

I was very frightened to see this man the women spoke so horribly about. I stood outside the door to meet him and as I walked in… he was normal. He had a beard and you could tell he didn’t keep up with his appearance, but he was just a man with kind eyes and a cane. I could not fathom why the young Queens could not stand the sight of him. He told me that I would sire the wisest man in the kingdom. I had no qualms with that as long as they let me take him to my little cottage. I just wanted a healthy child.

Author’s Note: The original story is from the Mahabharata. The story is from the perspective of Vinita who was a servant that was chosen to have one of the sons. I was a little inspired by the Beauty and the Beast as the way the sisters described him and how they were immediately repulsed by him and it caused them a punishment that wasn’t just to them but the people around them as well. It is nothing like the story at all but that is where my thought process went and how it only took one woman to look past it all. I wasn’t particularly into this story but I thought it would be interesting to tell it from the servant point of view since I had watched the online version of the story. I challenged myself to make it into something that I would like to read and this turned out to be the longest story I have written. I tried to show the servant’s appreciation for the little things and not be stuck on materialistic things so that she had a sense of compassion and looking beyond the surface. This was to show how she looked past his physical appearance and even though she was not necessarily in the ideal situation she made the best of it and ultimately had the child with no problems.