Young Writers Society

Leo did his best to once again shoot a grateful look- to Janos, this time, and wobbled his way out to follow them.

"Thank you." He called again, just to make sure that that was being translated. It took him a good while to finally catch up with the two, but thankfully they were waiting out in the hall.

"Alright, then. To the library we go. Based on where we are in the timeline, Belle might be there too. But then again, I kind of doubt it. It seems things are just getting started. Yknow, because of the lack of the singing."

He took a deep breath and held it in, a bit embarrassed to find himself rambling again.

"Belle is the brave, independent sort, real booksy, fightin' the expectations of her gender and time with smarts and imagination. All that jazz. I looked up to her so much as a kid." Bleffles said, her voice taking on a dreamy quality near the end.

She was quickly brought back to reality by the look on Belle's face. He seemed resigned to his role, which Bleffles supposed was good, though his lack of enthusiasm did make her feel sorry that he was forced into this.

She didn't have too long to think about it before Gaston returned, and forbade the both of them from leaving the town. Bleffles shook her head.

"You're getting ahead of- well, I mean, story roles-wise, you're my boss, but... I'm the one who knows how this thing goes. Eh, I s'pose you don't actually have to listen to me. Just, we might run in circles a mite less if you do.

We have to let Belle go to the castle first, without us. His father's going to go missing, and he has to go there to find him, and save him from the Beast. You, the unwanted suitor, and I, your sidekick, don't become relevant again until he comes back to see his dad. Then we go storm the castle."

Oh. Gaston had said something about how she had to find the Beast because he was 'unprotected.' It seemed she was worried about him. Bleffles gave her a reassuring smile.

"Don't worry about the Beast. Spoilers, at worst, he might sing a song about how sad he is."

James looked between Gaston (she hadn't been given any other name) and Bleffles, taking in the information and listening carefully. He quickly took notes on his character: it was something he would be able to do easily. Belle didn't sound too far from himself. Though she was probably more heroic than he was. Of course, he didn't know how the story ended though... so there was still a lot he didn't know.

He looked over to the castle in the distance. "So I have to go there alone?" he asked.

"Do I have a horse or a carriage or anything? Or am I stuck going on foot?"

His main motivation behind asking was that he was considering how the hell he was going to make the trek in a dress - on horseback or on foot. He could feel that he had undergarments on but all of the extra fabric... gods. Dresses were just impractical.

"It'd also be helpful to know some of what's to come. If I'm going to be separated from you, some kind of summary of the plot would be invaluable. If we're expected to follow the general storyline I wouldn't want to deviate it and anger whatever powers that be that brought us here, or make it more difficult for everyone. Especially if I'm-" he looked down at his dress. He tossed the apron out in front of him. "-a main character."

"That is not the right story!" Auryon protested. "Jesus f***, what even was that?"

"Ze story!"

"That isn't the story!" Auryon snapped. "Good god. Give them the other version. The right one, this time."

"Zat is ze right vone! But if you mean ze French vone, zen it's like zat but he vas turned into a Beast because his fairy, ah, caretaker that his parents left him with after zey died tried to seduce him and he vas like 'uh, nein' and so she turned him into a beast."

"What?! No! No, no, no! Ugh! Okay, so it's actually like that, except, the Beast is a lion-dude and there's no like...weird bed stuff or fairy...seduction from...adoptive parents. Where did you even hear that? I mean, seriously, what the Hell?"

"Hey, it's not mein fault ze story goes like zat!"

"Anyways," Auryon continued, ignoring him, "the Beast is cursed with this form until he falls in love and whoever he falls in love with loves him back, for he was turned into the Beast as punishment for his selfishness. He's got this rose that Belle finds and he's got until the last petal falls off or the transformation will be permanent. So, the father comes, picks the rose, Beast gets pissed, ends up living with Belle, and the furniture - who's actually servants who got turned into furniture by the same curse that's on the beast - tries really hard to make her at home. Eventually, she and the Beast start getting friendly and she begins to realize he's not all that bad. She's really lonely, though, so he gives her a mirror that she can see her fam through.

"One day her father gets super sick and she begs the Beast to let her go back to him. She does, and long story short there ends up being this mob and her father's called crazy and the mob goes up to the castle to wreck the Beast's shit. The Beast fights Gaston - the jock who's after Beauty - and wins, but gets seriously hurt. Belle finds the Beast dying and kisses him and breaks the spell just before the last petal falls and happily ever after blah blah blah.

"Maurice is the father. Then the furniture is Lumière the candelabra, Cogsworth the clock, Mrs Potts the teapot/Chip the teacup's mother, Featherduster who was a maid, Sultan the dog who's now a footstool, the nameless wardrobe who was an opera singer. Monsieur D'arque is the asylum dude who Gaston ends up bribing to help him blackmail Belle into marrying him. There's also Lefou, the comic relief, and uh...oh, yeah, a coat rack who never gets a name. And Philippe the horse. That should be everyone."

Retell the story? No problem. Bleffles was ready.

"So Belle's got this dad, Maurice, and he goes missing, yeah? He goes travelling, and a snowstorm forces him to stop in that castle yonder. The Beast is the prince of this castle, and he was never taught to share as a kid, so he's like-" Bleffles put on a deeper voice for the male part- "oi, whatchu doin' trespassin' on my grounds, y'old coot, in the dungeon with you.' Then his horse runs back to the village, and Belle gets worried about that, and she's like 'take me to where you lost him, Phillipe.'

She rides the horse to the castle, finds her dad in the dungeon. He's sick. And she's like, 'nooo.'
Then when the Beast shows up she's like 'oi let him out, you dick' and he's like 'no, I was not parented very well, and there is no-one left in my life with the authority to do a thing about the ramifications of this mistake, thereby I believe that imprisonment is an acceptable measure to jump to here, and no-one will convince me otherwise. Piss off.'

And Belle's like 'noo, I love my father, take me instead.'
And the Beast is like 'I'm convinced. Get out, Maurice.'

Shoot. I left out an important bit. Um. An enchantress disguised as an old lady gave him a test of niceness when he was eleven or something, and he failed, so she was like 'I curse you, ya lil punk, and also your servants, screw them too. See this rose? Find someone to love, who loves you truly in return, before the last petal falls, or you a beast forever. Peace.'

And so the Beast is like 'sweet, all I have to do is give her a nice room, and be slightly polite sometimes, and she'll totally break the curse, right?'

Yeah, he a piece of work. But Belle's like 'goddammit, I ain't got the inclination to go along with you when you show me no respect, even if your teasets do sing.'

Oh, and he was like, 'go anywhere you want in the castle, but not the West Wing. Never the West Wing.'
She goes there, sees that wilting rose, and he gets all mad and she's like 'screw this joint' and runs off. She gets attacked by wolves, he saves her, and she slowly teaches him to mind his manners, and it turns out he can be pretty nice once he's taught dat respect.

And he gives her a library, and they dance, and she gets this gorgeous fancy yellow gown...

Anyway she gets sad for missing her dad, and Beast is just like 'go see him.' Even though he's literally dying. That's nice.

She reunites with her dad, and that's sweet. Then Gaston here is like 'oh hey Belle, yer dad's been raving about this Beast fella, and this here mob wants to put him in an insane asylum, bet I could convince them to calm down if you agree to marry me.' And she like 'no dude, let him go, the Beast is totes real' and she shows them in this magic mirror he gave her that I forgot to mention...um...

Gaston leads the village mob to storm the castle, we get our asses kicked by sentient furniture, Gaston and Beast have a final showdown on the castle roof.
Gaston falls to his death because he got distracted by his sexy reflection. Beast is all hurt. Then he's like 'welp, guess I'll die' and Belle- oh, she went back on the horse, I guess- she's like 'no, don't die, I love you' and boom, curse lifted, happy ever after. Compassion saves the day, respect yo gal if you wanna get some, brush your teeth.

More or less."

Oops. Bleffles had ran on a bit longer than she had meant to.

Nen carefully listened to the new explanation given of the events that were involved in the story he had somehow been brought into it, instinctively reaching for Aska when he heard the part about the people who were cursed into becoming furniture. Aska hadn't become furniture or kitchen utensils, but he had become a suit of armor - something that could serve as decoration, and something that was supposed to be inanimate.

He opened his mouth to come up with some sort of reply to the story, but hesitated when he heard noises coming from out in the hallway. It sounded like people talking, and something big moving. Now he finished reaching out and grabbed onto Aska, pulling his best friend close to his chest as he turned back to the door.

"I think there's more people here," Nen whispered. "What if it's the father, or the mob?"

"...It doesn't sound like a mob," Aska hesitantly commented. Nen looked down at the clock in his arms. That was...strange. The way his best friend had worded it made it sound like he had witnessed a mob before, but a mob had never once been to the castle. No large group of people ever had been, according to Aska.

"Maybe not the mob, then," Nen corrected. He got to his feet and looked down at the assortment of people on the bed. "I'm going to go check things out. I'll be right back."

His movements almost robotic, Nen approached the door. He carefully opened it. When no one immediately jumped at him, he slipped out in the hallway with Aska held tightly to his chest. In retrospect, he probably should have grabbed a weapon to defend himself and Aska with, but now he just had to face whoever was walking through the hallway.


Janos came to a sudden stop in the middle of the hallway. Levi, taken by surprise, bumped right into him - and had to remind himself that it was normal not to go through someone.

"I believe I found the beast," he said. He raised a hand up and pointed down the hallway as someone emerged from one of the rooms. All Levi could do was stare from behind Janos for the first minute that followed. He had to be write, seeing that the person looked just barely human, but the details were all wrong. He didn't look furry in the slightest - he looked like a humanoid dragon, if dragons even existed to begin with.

The dragon stared at them, and they stared at the dragon.

"Uh, hi," Levi managed to get out. He slipped out from behind Janos and took a tentative step forward.

"Hi," the Beast replied just as awkwardly. Levi suddenly noticed that he was holding something close to his chest - was that Cogsworth? But that didn't make much sense, either. The clock wasn't supposed to seem so scared; right now, he was clinging to the Beast's shirt. "Are you the mob?"

"M-Mobs are scarier," the clock whispered in a surprisingly young voice.

"No, we're-" Levi hesitated, understanding suddenly dawning on him. He turned to look at Janos. Janos, who was supposed to be Belle's father. He might have gone to the castle alone in the film, but they had just completed the start of the story.

"This is bad," Levi whispered. "He's supposed to lock you up."

Janos sharply turned his head and stared at him. "Why, exactly?"

"The Beast is supposed to capture Belle's father after he trespasses," he said. "The two of us just trespassed."

"Is there any other important information you happened to leave out?" Janos hissed, a hint of anger and annoyance in his voice.

"Hey, it's not my fault that you don't know anything about a classic Disney film! I don't even watch them that much, and I know the story of Beauty and the Beast." Levi crossed his arms and glared up at Janos, cursing the fact that he had only just begun to hit his growth spurt when he died. "

The Beast tentatively raised a hand. "We can hear you from over here," he said, giving a small wave. "You're not supposed to be like this either, are you?"

He gestured at the castle around them.

Levi looked between Janos and Leo, then turned back to the man and gave him a tentative nod. This man wasn't really the Beast, but something still felt off. Why would he look so different from the movie, when everything else seemed to make sense with the story so far? He glanced over at Janos. Janos didn't bear a striking resemblance to Belle's dad, but the clothing was nearly identical. The man - whoever he was - had similar clothing to the Beast, but was like a dragon.

Didn't that mean that he was looking at how the man usually appeared?

His eyes widened.

"I'm Nendros," the man introduced himself. Using the hand he had waved with, he pointed down at the clock in his arms. "This is Aska - he's my best friend."

"...Hi," Aska whispered, still clinging to Nendros.

"Janos Everheart," was the short reply. Janos pointed at Levi, who desperately wished Kevin was here to deal with the monumental realization he had come to. "This is Levi, and the wardrobe is Leo. I take it that there are more people like us here?"

Nendros nodded. "Yeah, back in the room I just left." He suddenly straightened a little, his tail resting on the floor as he asked with a hopeful tone, "Have you seen the woman who's supposed to be Belle yet? Since you're supposed to be her dad?"

Janos shook his head. "Levi and I left the town immediately after discovering that we were both in the same situation. I assume that Belle will come here when she realizes that this is meant to be a story." He studied him for a moment, then added, "Have you met her before?"

Nendros gave an earnest nod. Levi knew he should be scared, but the man looked incredibly happy at the thought of Belle. He grinned from one ear to the other - which was a little disturbing, given his sharp teeth - and his tail eagerly began to sway from one side to the other. "If I'm right, Belle's my girlfriend," he said. "I'm not as scared of what's supposed to happen in this story if I know she'll be here with me."


Her gaze dropped down to her outfit as Bleffles concluded the story. She was meant to be the villain. She couldn't help but find a bit of irony in that, given what she had done for years before she was reunited with Nen. Even more so, Nen had thought she was a threat to be avoided during those first few days. Part of her wondered if some sort of mistake had been made when the roles of the story were beginning to decided - she could see the similarities between her own life and this one - but she quickly pushed that part away.

It didn't matter if there was a story she was meant to follow. She had never followed the stories given to her, and she didn't intend to start doing so now. She rested her hand on the hilt of one of her hunting knives again, scanning the square for the horse she despised. She found it only a short distance away. Wasting no time, she marched over to the horse and reluctantly mounted it. It had been some time since she had to ride one, but it was the sort of thing one never forgot.

"I'm going to the castle," she announced to "Bell" and Bleffles. "I don't care about this story - I need to see the Beast." A hand went up and absentmindedly fingered the cross hanging around her neck - though she had no way of knowing, it was the one part of her outfit that didn't match the original.

Aegeas sat on the bed, trying to wrap his head around all the information that the others had flooded him with in the last few minutes. Apparently, he was reenacting some kind of story, and he was playing the role of someone who had been transformed by someone who had cursed the 'Beast.' Given his appearance and that he wasn't some kind of instrument or object, the dragon man was probably the beast.

So, somehow, Aegeas was in some kind of other world, was stuck as an inanimate object, and was waiting for the beast to find true love. Somehow.

Why couldn't he just enjoy his retirement in peace?

"What's even in this pot?" Kendrik whispered from next to Aegeas. "D'ya think there's tea in here? Blood? What d'ya think'd happen if I poured some on your candles?"

Aegeas smacked Kendrik with a candle. "How are you so calm about this?" Aegeas said. "Why aren't you freaking out?"

Steam hissed out of the pot. "Jaron ain't here," Kendrik said, "And this's all so nuts I gotta believe I'm either dreamin' or hallucinatin'. Maybe I'm p***ed and trying to deal with it however I can. Ya ever think of that?"

Aegeas hesitated - he definitely hadn't.

"Hey," Kendrik called out to the others. "Is the dragon man gonna come back? We've got stuff to talk about."

Leo stopped in his tracks when they came across the Beast, who introduced himself as Nendros. The draconian man seemed friendly enough, and he felt the tension that had built up at their run-in relax. He opened a drawer and waved it in a greeting, and wobbled forward a bit to close the large gap in the hall.

"That's really sweet." he commented, a smile in his voice. "I hope she gets here soon, then! And you won't have to worry, nothing super bad happens plot-wise, except for maybe the mob led by Gaston... and Maurice being locked up by the villagers."

He quieted a little and glanced at Janos, then started again, in a hurry to reassure him. "But! If all of us are just playing characters, and able to make our own decisions, there's a good chance that Gaston is like us too, and then maybe we can move the plot along without anyone getting hurt or being locked up."

James watched Gaston march off with a resigned sigh. Clearly, Gaston wasn't interested in helping them either, whether or not she planned on following the story or not. He was beginning to doubt the likelihood of his ability to stay married to the storyline as well when he learned that it was some... weird love story where Belle fell in love with the Beast keeping her trapped in the castle. If it was just acting, he supposed he could pull it off - but he desperately hoped that their feelings didn't have to be genuine. Whoever or whatever god or magical being set this up had to know well enough that they couldn't so easily mold their emotions to that of the storybook characters.

"If you're already headed that way-" even if she were to get sent back, "At least let us go with you. If we're deviating from the continuity of the original story the least we can do is be reasonable and find the other people who are in the same boat as us. Bleffles, of course, should come too."

"I am not worried about getting locked up," Janos assured Leo. They always doubted his ingenuity - surviving this long had taken a decent amount of intelligence, and he could easily turn a situation like that around.

He had intended to keep his gaze on Nendros and Leo, but his gaze once again traveled to Levi. Something about the boy struck him as odd. He couldn't quite put his finger on what. He reminded him almost of the other angels, with a personality that didn't suit the age he appeared to be. But no one stopped aging as the equivalent of a human teenager, and Levi didn't strike him as one of his kind.

Levi didn't look in his direction. He was alternating between looking at Nendros and Leo, even going as far as to look at the talking clock in lieu of looking at him. It was hypocritical of him to be wary of people with secrets, but he couldn't help but feel a sense of unease.

"We should probably head back to the others," Nendros suggested. "Aska and I keep having to duck out, and we've only just established that we're somehow in a story. There's still a lot we need to figure out."

Janos gave a small nod. "That would be wise," he agreed.

A glance over at Levi, and the seemingly human boy was giving a nod as well. As they approached the door to the room, he noticed Levi fiddling with his sleeves out of the corner of his eye, pulling them down to conceal something on his wrists.

The group entered the room.

"We found more people," Nendros announced. Janos turned to see an odd assortment of objects on the bed: two instruments, a teapot and a candelabra. Nendros looked over his shoulder. "I put everyone on there so we were all at a closer height and in one place."

He placed Aska down in a clear spot in the bed, and Janos stared when he saw how the clock - if this was even possible - somehow managed to look less tense. It wasn't by a lot, but it almost seemed like he was relieved to have been finally put down. But if he had sought Nendros' comfort earlier, why would he be happy to leave it?

It seemed like everyone here had their secrets.

"Levi's supposed to be a villager, Janos is supposed to be Belle's dad, and Leo's a wardrobe," Nendros clarified. He knelt beside the bed. After a moment passed, Levi joined him. Janos reluctantly did so as well, now eye level with the assortment of objects.


Az hesitated. The horse gave a quiet neigh as she studied both "Bell" and Bleffles, trying to determine if she could trust them or not. They didn't appear to have a problem with the idea of the story's Beast, but they also were convinced that this was nothing more than a story. Even if he was truly human, Nen looked like a monster. There was no denying that. If something seemed off about him, or Nen was just a little too comfortable with the more draconian features of his appearance, they would realize that this wasn't just a story for him.

She was the ones with the weapons right now. The other two both seemed unarmed. But fear prompted people to do incredible things, and both could feasibly take her knives or find something else to wield.

...But she knew she couldn't stop them from going to the castle, even if she wanted to.

"Fine," Az agreed. "You can come. I'll guess that Bleffles would have a horse of her own, so you can ride with me - even if Bell would have one, dresses are a hassle to be riding a horse in. You can put your legs off of the side and hold onto my shoulders, if that's more comfortable."

For illogical reasons, James suddenly felt the need to respond in character, which meant he couldn't look as disappointed and annoyed as he felt.

If he had a horse, it was probably at the castle if his "father" had gone that way. But if the person playing the role of father was anything like them, there were no guarantees.

In any case, it seemed he didn't really have many options. With a sigh, he released himself from his pride.

"I guess... you can keep calling me Belle, but my real name's James," he said as he approached the horse to mount up behind her. "And there's no way I'm riding with both legs to the side. Not... not to be indecent, but I've just never ridden horses that way, and I'm not about to start now."

Bleffles did not like the idea of splitting from the story so early, when they didn't know what the powers behind their assembly would do if they diverted too far.
But Az wouldn't listen, and it was all out of her control anyway. Bleffles nervously rubbed the back of her neck.

"Right, I'lluh... go find a horse. And see if Maurice has gone missing yet. I'll meet you both at the castle, if I don't catch up with you on the way.

You two, em...be careful, okay?" she said, looking at James in particular. He seemed like the more level-headed of the two.

"We will be," Az assured Bleffles, helping James mount the horse.

It wasn't the indecency that Az was worried about - the thought hadn't even crossed her mind. Unless James had worn dresses before (which she severely doubted, given his decision), he sorely underestimated how uncomfortable they could be. She had tried to ride horses while wearing dresses before, and those endeavors had failed horribly. Putting her legs to the side had been the only way to make the experience remotely comfortable.

"Hold on tight," she told James, then started to ride to the castle. She could only hope that no one had gotten there before her, and that Nen had found a good way to distract visitors or a decent place to hide.

"I dunno who any of those people are," Kendrik said, before pointing his spout at the dragon man. "Or what ya' even are. You some kind of dragon or something?"

"What I think Kendrik is trying to say," Aegeas said, glaring at the teapot, "Is that some introductions are in order. Who are all of you, and do any of you know how you ended up here?"

"I'm Prince Nendros Exel Xenon," Nen said. "But, er, Nendros and Nen work better. I'm technically human, but I was cursed by a dragon named Tieth to look like this. I don't' know how I ended up here, and I don't think my best friend does, either."

He pointed to Aska, who was keeping a good distance from the other people-turned-inanimate objects. He felt horrible about the situation - despite being a suit of armor normally, Aska must have been terrified. "He's my best friend. His name is Aska - the same dragon that cursed me cursed him to be a suit of armor."

"...I don't know how we got here, either..." Aska quietly said, a tremble to his voice.

"I'm Levi," the teenager spoke up. "I might know the story we're in, but I'm just as lost when it comes to how we got here."

"What are you?" Janos asked.

Levi faltered. "A human. Why?"

Janos shrugged. "You seem peculiar, Levi." He sat on the ground beside the bed, shifting from his kneeling position to a more comfortable one. "My name is Janos Everheart. I was the lead strategist in the war against the angels, though I suppose that means nothing to you if you did not already recognize my name."