#An Earnest Rose 🥀 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

missgryffin · 2 years

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So today I reached (and then surpassed) a follower milestone, and I am seriously blown away 💗 Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading and engaging with my stories. Thank you for sharing in your love for Jily with me. You guys are the best 🥹

I wanted to share something with you to celebrate, but I've been doing much more outlining than writing as of late, so I thought I'd pull back the curtain on one of the stories I'm working on right now—something that's flitted around in my head for ages and that I'm stoked to be finally writing in earnest:

As Old as Time

A Beauty and the Beast + Fairytale AU 🥀🏰🕯 (Or, what happens when you end up binging Disney movies and OUAT, which turns into googling why the Beast was a prince and not a king, and then before you know it you've been reading about Rumpelstiltskin for an hour.) The following things are known: i) Obviously Gaston = Gilderoy; ii) on that note, LeFou = Peter = LePou, which translates to head louse and is more than fitting for our brawny pig's sidekick (I dare you to go watch "Gaston" now with that in your head); iii) yes, Rumpel is Snape, and yes, his name must be edited to Rumpelsnapeskin; iv) no, Prince James cannot be an actual "beast," lest that somehow be construed as needing a bestiality tag on AO3 (*shudders*); and v) the plot of [redacted], in which [redacted] but [redacted], and then [redacted]. The following things are still unknown: i) whether this will remain a one shot or spiral even further out of control; ii) whether this will manage to be my first (only?) T-rated fic or inevitably turn steamy enough to warrant an M; and iii) whether this will be ready to post at some point "soon" or some other undetermined time "later." With all that in mind...

Prologue

Once upon a time, in the hidden heart of the realm of Gryffindor, a handsome young prince lived in a beautiful castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the spoiled prince was arrogant, selfish, and unkind. He taxed the village to fill his castle with the most beautiful objects, and his parties with the most beautiful people.

Then one night, while a bitter storm’s rain lashed at the windows and the arrogant prince danced obliviously with yet another beautiful woman, an unexpected intruder arrived at the castle.

The grand double doors burst open; the bitter storm’s gale snuffed out all of the candles with its icy breath; the music ceased; and everyone watched with bated breath as the prince approached the cloaked figure in the doorway.

The figure lowered his hood, revealing himself to be a slight man with a pointed, imp-like face and curtains of oily black hair that flapped forward as he bowed before the prince.

The imp-like man was there to collect on a deal. Not one that the prince had made, no—one that the prince’s father had made, decades before, when he feared the end of his line because his wife remained barren despite years of their efforts.

The deal was simple: a first-born son, in exchange for control of the son’s fate.

Desperate for his line to continue, even if it meant submitting to the wiles of the imp-like man, the prince’s father had accepted the bargain.

Upon learning of this, the prince was enraged, and he turned the imp-like man away, vowing never to let his life be controlled by such a snake. The imp-like man warned the prince that his father’s bargain could not be undone, though it could be supplanted by a bargain of his own.

But the prince was proud, and he refused to deal with someone he found so slimy and repulsive.

When he dismissed the intruder again, the imp-like man’s eyes turned pure black, and he snapped his fingers. At once, a red rose—as lush and beautiful as those in the rosebushes of the castle gardens—appeared in his hand. Holding the rose aloft, he cursed the prince as punishment, placing a powerful spell on the castle and all who lived there.

Days bled into years, and the prince and his servants were forgotten by the world, for the imp-like man had erased all memory of them from the minds of the people they loved. He had sentenced the prince to his fate after all: to be forever bound to his castle, immortalized in his body of twenty-five, yet alone and forgotten, forced to live knowing that his line and his very existence would disappear into oblivion exactly as his father had feared.

But all magic must have a loophole, and the prince’s was this: if he could learn to love another and earn their love in return by the time the last petal fell from the rose the imp-like man had enchanted, the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain in his forgotten castle, ageless yet alone, for all time.

As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope—for even if someone could learn to love a cursed man like him, an even more impossible element remained: who could ever find him?

Unknown to the prince and his forgotten castle, the surrounding realms were increasingly subsumed by the spiteful realm of Slytherin. Rumors of dark magic flitted about in whispers, for sorcery left as ugly a stain as blood. But no one dared speak aloud the name of the one who was said to have the wicked Queen’s ear, not even when her own mother and stepfather died in a mysterious accident, thereby allowing her to ascend the throne.

Each day of her reign, the vain, cruel Queen consulted her Magic Mirror: “Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall. Who is the fairest one of all?” And each day, the Mirror answered, “You are the fairest one of all,” until one day, the Mirror replied, “Beyond Hufflepuff’s valley, across Ravenclaw’s glen, near the heart of Gryffindor’s wild moor, dwells Snow White, fairest one of all.”

Fearing that her stepsister, the baby Princess Snow White, would not only someday surpass her in beauty but would also challenge the Queen’s connived claim to the throne, the Queen had gotten rid of her years before. But in a moment of weakness, unable to kill a young child with her own hand, the Queen had dressed the little Princess in rags and sent her afloat on the Winding River with an omen of death instead.

Enraged to learn her stepsister still lived, the Queen commanded her Huntsman to find the Princess—and bring back her heart.

❦

A Small Provincial Town

Sunshine spilled over the distant hills, golden and glowing as it reflected along the Winding River and woke the quiet little village nestled there beside the Forbidden Forest.

Why it was forbidden, Lily had no idea; it had simply been that way—dark, still, seemingly untouched—for as long as she could remember.

Of course, there were those who spoke of legends about dangerous packs of wolves prowling the Forest and eating any person who dared venture too deep into the wood, and maybe they were true; from the cottage she called home on the outskirts of town, near the Forest’s edge, Lily had often heard the distant, eerie howls of wolves at night.

But the Forest was also where she’d learned how to use her bow; where she gathered herbs and flowers that didn’t grow in their own garden; where she sometimes rode, careful not to venture beyond where the trees turned dense, and she could inhale the crisp, almost stinging scent of pine in her nose.

Something about the Forest called to her; it always had.

With a sigh and a shake of her head, Lily forced her gaze away from the beckoning trees and resumed her daily walk into the village.

🌲🏰🕯🥀

[cutting it off there before I copy/paste the whole damn file]

[stay tuned!]

#missgryffin writes #spoilers / sneak peek ahead!#very excited about what I'm working on at the moment #🥰#as old as time

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