Chapter Text
Once upon a time, in the hidden heart of Japan, a handsome, young prince bestowed with the name Shoto at birth, resided in a beautiful palace. Although he was given everything his heart desired, the prince was coarse and cold hearted. While the prince wasn’t a tyrannical ruler, the young boy showed no sympathy towards those who were less fortunate than he was. He felt no need to waste his time with such unimportant things , as he would put it.
Then one bitter night, an unexpected visitor arrived at the grand front doors of his palace, seeking the prince’s aid.
“I beg, beautiful Prince, I’m in need of food and water.” The woman had bemoaned, hobbling on her knees in front of the boy, who merely gazed down at her with little interest.
As a gift, she offered the prince a single rose.
Repulsed and agitated, the young boy turned the woman away with a dismissive wave of his hand.
The woman, persistent in him accepting the rose, offered the flower to the boy once more, giving him warning with a haunting sentence he would never forget.
“Dismissing the problem will never make it go away, beautiful Prince.”
The boy, now furious, turned the woman away a second time. When he dismissed her again, the old woman’s outward appearance melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress.
The prince, once tall and proud, fell to his knees and bowed in apology, but it was too late. For she had seen that there was no love or beauty in his heart.
As punishment for his unkindness, she transformed the left side of his body into jagged stone. And placed a powerful spell on the palace and all who lived there.
As days bled into years, the young prince and his servants were long forgotten by the world, for the enchantress had erased all memory of them from the minds of the people they loved.
But the rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose which would bloom on his twenty first year. If the prince could learn to love another and earn their love in return by the time the last petal fell the spell would be broken.
If not, he would be doomed to adorn the razor sharp stone on the left side of his body for the rest of his days.
As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope.
For who could ever learn to love a monster?