The bard and the beast AU
Basically, it's "Beauty and the Beast," but Steve is a young prince left all alone in a big castle. He is 10 when someone knocks at the door.
It's a young woman who just escaped her husband with her two sons. One of them is his age, and the other one is even younger. She is begging for help, and he wants to help, but he’s also a little bit scared because they are strangers, and his old nanny told him to never open the door to strangers or to ask her before doing so.
The thing is, his nanny passed away months ago, and he’s been all alone ever since, not knowing what to do or if he could go outside to ask for help, waiting for his parents to come back. They won’t; they are in another castle, more exciting and beautiful than this one (this one is just here to keep the child that they don’t want far away).
So he opens the door a little bit for them to hear his response, that he is sorry, but he cannot open the door. He doesn’t know if he can; he doesn’t have the authorization.
The young woman, who happens to be a little bit of a witch, explodes with emotion. The man on the other side doesn’t listen to her plea. She is tired, panicking, and a little bit concussed when she cursed the person on the other side of the door. He told her that he cannot do anything for her, that this place is empty, and he can’t ask anyone. A place this big can’t be empty; that person must be lying.
The curse is cast, and it’s only when a child-like cry transforms into some kind of beastly whine that she comes back to her senses. The door is just a bit open, so she pushed it. She realized that the one that she just cursed was actually a child near the age of her oldest.
Curses are difficult things to undo, and she cannot do it herself, so she enters, searching for someone in the castle to help. She quickly realizes that he didn’t lie when he told her he was all alone here. The only thing that she found was on one of the beds, the corpse of an old woman, the nanny.
She stayed with the child that she cursed and her two boys, living inside the castle, doing her best to raise the three of them.
Steve doesn’t really understand what’s happening. He was a boy, and now he is a monster, but he is okay with that; he got a new mom, and he likes her very much because Miss Joyce is really nice.
One day, a young bard will come to the place and fall in love, giving him back his human appearance with a true love kiss.
Steve spent more time living as a beast than as a human, so this new body is quite weird and different to him, so he asks Joyce to transform him back. Eddie, who is a bit of a monster lover, is thrilled by the news.
She tries, but it doesn't work all the way. He is still human but can shift back when he wants.
My other Stranger Things AUs
