The Beast and Beauty

Chapter 6: Morningstar

Arabella

The beast was hard to think of as a beast while he stood before me, he was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him for too long, even the thick jagged scar that ran across the left side of his face somehow suited him.

I blamed his teasing and flirtations before bed for the reason why I had dreamt of him all night. I even slept in and didn’t wake until he spoke to me. “So why is your hair that unusual shade?”

I turned to glare at him, but my heart pounded in my chest instead, even dreams couldn’t justify his beauty. I reached up and touched my hair and answered, “it’s silly really, my natural shade is black, but as a child I was messing around in my stepmothers spell room, luckily I only spilled a potion to change the color of hair or skin, thankfully it landed on my hair and not my skin, or I’d be purple.” I giggled at the memory but stopped with the intense look he was giving me.

Of course, in his realm, he was a king and most certainly wouldn’t be used to people giggling or talking about such silly things. I cleared my throat awkwardly and asked, “would you like some breakfast?”

“Sure.”

I looked at him awkwardly for a few minutes, and he frowned back at me. “What?” He looked down at himself and his hands resting on the arms of my wheelchair, and then laughed. “Oh right! You need this, my apologies.” He stood up, and I put myself into the chair. “Shall we, my lady?” He didn’t wait for an answer and, taking a hold of my wheelchair, he led us out.

I made us up some fruit and porridge, the beast pulled a face at my porridge and put the bowl back down.

“What is your name?” I asked him.

When he didn’t answer right away, I added, “I can keep thinking of you as the beast, or Satan, or the devil. There are so many different names for you, I don’t know which one is correct.”

He was looking out of the window when he shrugged and casually answered, “Lucifer Morningstar.”

“Lucifer Morningstar, what a beautiful name.”

I’d heard of it, but I’d thought it was such a pretty name, it surely couldn’t be his correct name. He spun to face me, a flicker of surprise in his eyes at my words.

If he was going to say something, he didn’t get the chance because my stepmother came into the kitchen. She went over towards Lucifer and kissed his cheek, “hello again handsome.”

The revulsion on his face was so intense I was worried he might actually throw up. Maybe he was a personality kind of man because my stepmother was not ugly, she had long wavy black hair, olive skin and pale blue eyes, she had a lovely body too with curves in all the right places.

Perhaps she wasn’t quite sadistic or evil enough for Lucifer and that’s why he wasn’t interested, though I suppose he didn’t take too kindly to being trapped and kept as a prisoner either.

I looked at my stepmother and taking a deep breath, I asked her, “may you do a spell to undo what happened to my hair lady Zatana?”

She looked at me, I asked the same thing almost every day and every time she always refused. “I have no time for such silly requests, it’s just hair, it hardly matters.” I noticed she hated to talk to me for too long, and as always, she declared she would be spending time in her spell room and told Lucifer to tend to my needs and that she would come for him later to help her with some spells.

“You don’t like your hair?” Lucifer asked when she left.

“No, it’s not real and it’s not me. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, I suppose.” I looked down at the floor and could still feel his eyes on me. A minute or two passed, and sighing, he got up and stood in front of me. “If it bothers you that much I’ll fix it, although it’s been like this many years, so there may be some permanent damage done.”

I nodded and as he held his hands over my head he said, “in a way it is a part of you, something you did as a child while playing and having fun, a piece of your past.” He stepped back and said, “it’s done.”

I looked up at him in surprise, he hadn’t even needed to chant. I looked in the small hand mirror that was sitting on the side, my hair was black again, although there were still strands of pale lilac here and there.

“Thank you,” I said.

He snorted at that and replied, “why do you sound so shocked? You believe all the stories about me, do you?”

“I—” he cut me off with a wave of a hand and left the room. I didn’t know what to believe, but he certainly didn’t talk very gentlemanly, although fixing my hair was an oddly kind gesture for a beast, or as most would say, the devil himself.

I made my way back up to my room using the lift this time and got dressed. I eventually got out of my gown and pulled on a white dress a pale pink apron around my waist, I usually had to cook or make lunch while also running the bookstore, this dress and apron managed to look both pretty and causal and not so obvious that it was intended for kitchen use.

I undid my braid and brushed my hair to tidy it up before redoing the braid again. When I got to the bookstore, I was surprised to see Lucifer already inside. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

He looked up from the spell book section he had been looking through and answered, “Zatana told me to help you run your store, apparently she doesn’t trust me to be left alone.”

“You know her proper title is lady Zatana right?”

“She is no lady, so I shall call her Zatana.”

I didn’t try to say anything else to that because the hatred with which he said it scared me a little.

A customer came in and saw Lucifer and dropped her books on the floor. In my store, I had a section to borrow as well as buy. Lucifer looked irritated with her reaction and offered no help. I gave him an annoyed look and wheeled myself around to help her. “Good morning, are you returning these?”

“Um, uh, yes, yes please.” I took the books from her while she sorted herself, but I noticed she couldn’t keep her eyes off Lucifer, I wondered if this would help the sales of my bookstore or make it worse? She seemed to be transfixed with his beauty, but it also could have been fear if she knew who he was.