The True Beauty and Beast

This would be my first Christmas alone… Away from my family… Well, not really “alone” per say. I have one person that I’m spending Christmas with this year, and I am very grateful for it. Hey, beats wrapping presents for yourself and pretend it’s a big “surprise” when you see them in your room the next morning as if Santa just threw them there in amateur wrapping then left. No, no, this was something special.
I had met a friend. His name was Valen. Valenar Bloodmane but he goes by Valen. Just like how my name’s Annastazija but because of my speech impediment I say Annaztasija so people get confused and just call me Anna. Anyway, getting off topic… this is a story about Valen and my EPIC ACTION ADVENTURE!... Okay, just for the girls… there’s a little… romance… involved.
The story begins a week from Christmas day…

No matter what world they went to, there would always be snow in the Winter… Just like heat in the Summer, blooming in the Spring, and colours in Autumn. Maybe next time they’ll go to a Summer World or something where there’s pools… lemonade. Ice cream. Hot guys shirtless are mowing the lawn early in the morning…
Instead of hot guys, ice cream, pools, and lemonade; there was snow. It was maybe a foot or two deep in Dwarf Woodlands. Valenar was able to find us a vacant cottage deep in the lands. Of course, it was full of décor, furniture, a few beds (maybe 7-8?), small kitchen, bathroom. Everything was so old fashioned! Like something out of a fairy tale in the medieval times or later! I was born in a modern city era in my world, and only found these kinds of worlds in the story books.
The cottage was a bit chilly but it was sure as heck warmer than outside. The beds were too small for Valen and too small for me! If you can believe that! So we slept in the backroom near the fireplace and lit the wood we could gather in the fireplace on fire. Valen curled on the warm carpet near the fire, and… being cold. Yes, COLD. I lied down next to him and snuggled against his body. I felt his arm fall over by body, his arm was HUGE! I could feel his breath brush against my hair, I took my beanie off when we got inside. His heart beat was loud against my back and soon I felt his heavy chin on top of my puffy hair. I felt like he was going to say something like along the lines of ‘Goodnight’ or ‘sweet dreams’ but after a minute all I could hear was his faint snoring.
“Hmph. Night, you big lug.” I said softly before the heat from him got to me, and I closed my eyes slowly. Opening them bit by bit. Until I fell asleep.

The rest wasn’t long. I awoke to hear faint gasping and chatter. When my eyes opened and everything focused, I looked to see seven short men with long beards looking down at us with such colourful expressions. I sat up quickly, Valen’s arm still slumped over me.
“Who are you?” One of them said, more afraid of the sleeping beast behind me than I.
“Are you guyz the ownerz of this place?” I asked, averting the question, not really knowing how to respond other than with ‘Oh! I’m Annaztasija! Thiz iz my friend/bodyguard/ride/hunter/warrior/mentor, Valen! We juzt ventured here becauze we didn’t want to freese to death!’ well… Maybe the last part would be good.
“Yes, we are,” A kinder elderly small man said, “We’re just wondering what you and your dog are doing here?”
“He’z not a dog!” I snapped, I realized that I kind of overacted a bit much but it was defending him. I always regretted calling him a dog until I learned how much it hurt him and made him feel so… less.
With my outburst, I don’t know I guess I’m loud or something, Valen opened up his eyes and saw the seven men. Naturally, he shot up quickly and looked at them. The men looked as though they soiled themselves right there! I swear! The men recoiled back before they started to fall over each other as they hurried to run out of the room. A letter falling from one of the men’s pockets before they disappeared out of the back room. Surely out of the house entirely.
“Wait!” I had called out to them as they ran but they were too terrified to listen to me, or didn’t want to. I sighed and leaned back on Valen’s chest when I knew they were all gone. “You know you’re not a dog, right?”
“Yeah?” He said, he didn’t hear what the earlier dwarf had said. I looked over at the enveloped letter that one of the men had dropped and picked it up. There was a royal symbol stamp that was on the seal of the card.
“Cool.” I said, I was about to open it but Valen took it away from me and held it over my head.
“You shouldn’t be going through others mail.” He said sternly, I got to my feet and snatched the paper away.
“Well, what if they were going to give it to uz? You never know, these worldz and how even mezzangerz find people in other worldz are weird.” I said, it was a lousy defense claim but still. I peeled the flap open and opened the envelope and pulled out a folded, old-style, piece of paper. Yknow, those pieces of paper that are a bit tiny and they have a light or darker dull yellow hue to them? Anyway, I pulled that kind of folded paper out of the envelope and opened it. The penmanship on the paper was in cursive, it was hard to read but I could make it out. It read:

Dear (name illegible),
Congratulations!
We, Belle and Beast of Beast’s Castle, are formally inviting you through invite to a royal Christmas Ball on December 25th of this year. We know that it is on Christmas Day but do not worry, your family is invited and there will be dancing, present openings, a feast, (it goes on and on) and eggnog! So we hope that you can make it with your family! Invite is not needed to get into the party!

Love,
Bell and Beast


It was strange how I couldn’t read the name the letter was addressed to but I could read everything else. I looked over at Valen and flicked the letter back and forth in my hand as I showed him it.
“What? What it say?” He asked, looking at me curiously.
“We’re invited to a party at Beazt’z Caztle, the ‘to’ part iz unreadable zo I guezz it’z ourz for the taking,” I said, “and there’z a prise in it for uz. Think of it like a new challenge. Inztead of uzing your fiztz, you uze your feet” I lied.
“That’s cool.” He said, sitting up and scratching behind his ear with his foot, so weird how he could do that with his thick and muscular legs. “Should we go?”
“Yeah!” I said, excitedly, “Maybe the prise’ll be something that can… help you find your way home.”
I had to stop myself and tell him what he really wanted… I couldn’t just tell him it was to find my brother since I haven’t told him my brother’s gone yet! Then it’d take the rest of the night to explain to him about my brother… or maybe not?  I mean, he’d understand without an explanation, right? Well, it’s almost been a year since I’ve known Valen, I shouldn’t really blurt out ‘Oh, yeah, to find my mizzing brother, oh have I not told you almozt 12 monthz ago my twin brother went mizzing and I’m zecretly uzing you to protect me and find him?’ Okay, maybe not like that but… the last part was true now… I’m not so sure about that plan anymore…
I shook my head and looked at him, his eyes were a bit narrow with his eyebrow raised. I wished I didn’t say that. I felt like I had said something really rude to him like a more polite ‘I want you gone!’. But instead, he smiled at me, and I smiled back although he couldn’t see it what with my full body suit coming up to over my nose along with my scarf wrapped around my mouth.
He stood up and stretched, he was so big like maybe 7 feet or above? I can’t tell, I’m like a midget. Hahah. It was still night, maybe around 5 AM? The sun was slowly coming up, plus we got to the cottage late, plus we had to get firewood, and plus our sleep was interrupted by 7 dwarfs… So… it was a pretty mathematical night.
“You can go back to zleep,” I told him, the sleep kind of hitting me again slowly, “We still got a few hours… “
“It’s daylight, so now’s the perfect time to head out,” Valen said, just grinding my gears, I wanted to tell him I wanted to sleep but that’s weak sauce material, “Besides, if we head out now then those small men can come back since I’m sure this is their home and I scared them out.”
“Unintentionally, though.”
“Perhaps.” He winked and I blushed.
“Let’z juzt go.” I said, not sure how I should have responded. He tilted his head at me and smiled before he took my hat off and ruffled my hair. I didn’t mind, he did that to me all the time now. Apparently, he thinks I’m cute. Me + Cute = No. I’m a rough tough cream puff! And that’s not cute!
Valen smiled at me before he opened the door and let more of the flowing snow it, but just a little bit of snow blew in.

We started to travel North towards where we could get to the other worlds, we would have to take a cheaper Gummi Ship than the ones we’ve been using. No, the ones we’ve been using weren’t for the rich to laze about but they were safer. The cheaper ones were more unstable, so we had to be careful and keep our guards up while traveling. Just in case. Though there’s really nothing much we could do if the ship broke while traveling, we’d just…. I don’t know, die? That made me shiver.
That’s when I felt my body being lifted up and hugged tightly by Valen. I didn’t say anything. I COULDN’T! He was too strong, pushed the wind right out of me.
“You okay?” He asked, “You shivered.”
He was in nothing… he was naked all except for his loincloth and he’s worried about me dying of coldness and I have about 3 layers of clothes on… I buried my face in his chest. I was so touched, I started to tear up but then my eyes burned because I think they were starting to freeze shut. Darn you, tears.
“You tired still?”
“Yeah… Well, no. The cold’z juzt making me tired…”
“Sleep.” He said. I closed by eyes, and that’s how fast I fell asleep.

When I awoke, I sat up quickly and shot my eyes open. They weren’t frozen shut anymore. In fact, we were in the port for the ship. “We’re leaving now?” I asked, and looked at Valen, he was still holding me. I was so warm.
“We’re already here. You were out the whole trip.” He said, looking down at me. My eyes were wide with surprise and he chuckled, “You are kind of cute when you sleep.”
“All you can zee iz juzt my eyez.” I said, though I blushed but maybe he couldn’t see it. Hopefully anyway. I don’t think he’ll let me live it down if he ACTUALLY SAW ME BLUSH. I don’t blush. No. The only time when my face gets red is when I’m mad, and there was no reason for me to be mad neither at the moment nor at him.
“That’s not true.” He said as I sat up, he ran his fingers through my hair before he ruffled my brunette choppy hair, “I took your hat off and played with your hair a bit. That was time consuming.”
“Oh.” I said, not really much I could say. The ship opened and we stepped out. I had a dress in my bag; I’d stop us a bit before we reach the castle so I can put it on.
“Okay, Valen,” I said as we started to leave the port, “Look there’z the caztle.” I pointed outward, in the distance through a valley of naked trees with snow sprinkled everywhere, there was a towering castle quite a ways away. Thankfully there was a cobblestone path that could lead us to it. That and the wooden signs with arrows that pointed which way to go for it. How did I know this before we started our travels? Because the guy who greeted us at the port told us. Duh. Like the Greeter at Wal-Mart? Anyway….
We took our hike through the forest down the cobblestone road. The travel took us two hours of walking, searching for food, and Heartless killing. There were more Heartless’s than I thought would be there. There were a bunch of Heartless’s that jumped us, there were like… 20 Heartless’s… Valen…. Slaughtered them all without even hesitating. The big strong lug. Heh.
As we started to approach the castle, I could see the gates in the distance. I stopped us from walking any further.
“Wait,” I said, and Valen stopped and looked back at me, “I have a drezz… I want to put it on for the ball.”
“Sure.” He said with a smirk on his face, “I’ll wait right here.”
“No peeking!”
“Heh. Okay,okay.” He said as IF WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO PEEK. What a perv! I walked off trail and hid behind a bunch of trees and quickly changed into my ballgown. It was all sorts of blue, had a piece that covered my mouth, and it was SPARKLY. If only mother could see this dress…. I did my hair quickly. Since I had short hair all I did was spit in my hand (before I put the gloves on) and spiked my hair in the back, and my Keyblade strapped to my back, better safe than sorry. I ran back up to the trail and puffed up my chest. “I’m ready.”
Valen looked back and I swear I could see his eyes sparkle. Which is kind of cute and creepy if you think about it. “Wow.” He said, walking over to me, he scooped me up Bridal style, and started to walk with me like this.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Carrying you,” He replied simply, “Can’t let you get your dress dirty. Even though it probably will.”
“What doez that mean?” I asked, looking up at him. Of course I thought it was a dirty remark and I think it still was.
“Because you’re not going to change quickly if we’re attacked by Heartless’s when we leave, are you?” He chuckled, “You not going to call a timeout to get changed for battle and expect those little black things to pause while you do so, right?”
“Of courze I did!” We laughed.
Finally we arrived at the gates of the castle, and he let me down. There was… something not right about this place… Something I didn’t feel comfortable with… But I figured it was just me being me.
“You ready?” He asked, and I nodded. He pushed the large gates open to the courtyard. Even though it was winter, and there was snow in the courtyard and Christmas ornaments and lights wrapped around everything. It seemed all so dull… In a way… And I saw no one there yet. What was going on?
I took a step forward before Valen put his hand in front of me to stop me. “Wait.” He said, “Something’s not right… Usually when we see the castle’s everything so… bright and lively. Not even the little light things seem bright… Let me check out the castle first.”
“I’m going with you.” I said.
“No.”
“Yez.”
“No. It might be dangerous. I’m not being paranoid… I can feel it. Let me see first then I’ll call you.”
I huffed and agreed. There was no use in arguing with him. Not any man. They were just stubborn babies. I watched him as he trotted through the icy cobblestone, his tail and feet leaving marks in the thin snow ridden path. The cobblestone had not a lot of snow on it but on the parts where there was grass was COVERED in snow. All thick whiteness that gave off a glow in the night that made it look like it was still daytime.
He was already at the French doors of the castle without anything suspicious happening. I wanted to yell to him and to follow him all together but I know he’d be upset if I did. I wasn’t supposed to disobey orders from my teacher. He’d be mad at that also the fact that I could have been hurt. The last time I was hurt, like blood and bruises hurt, he wanted to seriously maul and kill the sorry idiots who did it to me. His reaction was so scary and priceless. He looked back at me, and I waved at him to show I was okay. It was kind of hard to see me since my dress was sparkly and light blue like the snow. He nodded before he went into the castle.
I waited…
And waited….
Waited…
I waited for what seemed like an hour which in reality… it was… Maybe he was checking the WHOLE CASTLE? Maybe he got some punch to drink and it was spiked and he was drunk on the dance floor? Perhaps he’s just pulling a prank on me. What if he found a group of pretty girls with big boobs and just went off with them and forgot about me….?
I shook my head. He’d never do that. Right? I just had to keep faith in him. I walked down the path, I still wore my boots, the cobblestone the entire time was icy and slippery. No chance in hell was I going to wear sparkly slippers on ice. I’d be stuck in one spot until the ice melted over. When I got to the doors, I pushed them open with all my might. And there was it… nothing. It was dark inside with the bright fuchsia hue coming off the dark purple flames in the wall lanterns of the ballroom of the castle. There was the long feast table with no food, unlit and toppled over Christmas tree, ruined holiday décor, and no people around. Not even Valen…
“Valen!” I called, my voice echoed in the large room and down the narrow hallways in the distance. I repeated my call only to hear my own echo as a response. I walked a little further down the tiled room. I only started to hear something in the distance when I got near the hallway entrance on the other side of the large room. Down the hallway I could see light. I started to run towards it. I ran… I kept running. The hallway went on for miles it seemed like. When I got to the end it was like a flash and I was in a new room… Except… There were people. Against the walls and the others actually hanging from the ceiling. All frozen… as if they were petrified pieces of stone. That, however, did not get my attention first. What got my attention was Valen in the middle of the room. Uppercutting and slashing at armoured Heartless’s that came at him at all sides.

“Valen!” I called, he looked at me before a Heartless jumped onto his back. It was easy for him to reach back, grab the black creature, and throw it to the ground. It rendered to black mist from the heavy impact.
“Anna!” He called to me in his growling tone, “I told you to wait!”
“It waz freesing outzide!” I called back, “Bezidez, you’re not really handling yourzelf for long! What happened?”
“These Heartlesses took over!” He called back, taking a sword from the armoured Heartless and piercing it with the weapon, “Stay where you are!”
“No way!” I called. That’s when the ground started to shake. I looked down and saw the cracks starting to form on the ground that spread across the room, a fuchsia coloured glow started to shine through the crevasses. The earthquake started to get louder and shake more harshly until the cracks on the ground started to climb up the walls. The Heartless surrounding Valen soon vanished into black mist. When I saw this I started to run to him, and that’s when the ground started to pull apart.
“Valen!”
“Anna!”
The part of the flooring that supported me leaned back like the ground was falling apart. I jumped and Valen caught me at the last second and pulled me close into a hug. We watched as the flooring fell off and left us stranded on a section of floating earth while the room and statues of the innocent bystanders fell into what looked like a swirling infinite universe of stars and purple and blue Milky Ways.
“What’z happening?!” I cried, this has never happened before to us. THIS ENTIRE THING NEVER HAPPENED TO US BEFORE AT ALL.
“I don’t know. Just hold on! Don’t let go!” He said, he seemed confident in this, I hugged him tightly. I was so scared. Soon, my weight shifted as the floating floor that supported us fell straight down into darkness, I held my eyes shut the whole time and felt comfort in Valen’s big warm arms.

We continued to fall, soon we didn’t even feel the flooring under our feet. We landed hard against some kind of ground though. I landed on Valen’s chest as he held me tightly, making sure he landed first so I wouldn’t hit first. I opened my eyes and looked down at him.
“Valen?” I said softly and patted his cheek. He groaned softly and I felt relief. I looked at our surroundings, there was light, I could see things clearly but with a light bright electric purple hue to it. I looked on the ground and saw a pattered flooring similar to stained glass with different purple hues in the glass. I looked up around to see we were on a circular floating platform surrounded by darkness roofed by a dome with the same purple patterned stain glass. The ceiling of the dome being the lightest part of the purple. “What’z going on here?” I said, when I felt Valen move from underneath me I moved to the side to let him sit up. He sat up slowly and looked around.
“What the hell?” He said as he stood up slowly. We were in a large area but the statues were nowhere and nothing else, “Where are we?”
“I dunno…” I said, I looked ahead at the big space of platform in front of us as a black mist started to form and twist into a figure and then become solid. It was the biggest Heartless I’ve seen. It was more human than anything, and it was frightening looking. Before I could react, it made a screech and swiped down at me with its large fist. I closed my eyes and felt something swift, I opened my eyes to see myself getting pulled away from the attack, Valen had grabbed me and jumped me away from the Heartless.
“That’s a big opponent! More of a challenge.” Valen said, I couldn’t tell if he was excited or not. We landed on the ground after Valen’s mighty jump away from the Heartless, and he let go of me since I wanted down.
“Stay here.” He ordered me.
“No! I’m fighting with you!” I cried, pulling my Keyblade off of my back by the handle.
“It’s too dangerous!” he said angrily, he was only worried for me though, “You could get killed!”
“I don’t care!” I lied, I didn’t want to die, “I’m fighting with you! I want to become ztronger! Like you!”
The Heartless reached for us, when the hand got close, Valen jumped over the hand and started to claw at the arm and jumped off when the Heartless tried to strike with the other hand. I watched, I wasn’t the target at the moment, Valen was.
When he jumped off of the arm to dodge the attack, black puddles appeared on the floor only to form armoured Heartless’s that started to charge at Valen. “Valen!” I called, I swung my Keyblade towards them and a blast of dark energy shot through and hit one of the Heartless’s point blank. It dissolved in mid air.
“I’m fighting with you, damnit!” I called, “Even if I have to fight in a drezz!”