Damn that Disney anyway, cutting us out of the story! The liberties they took! Our father was no insane widowed inventor. He was a widowed merchant, and a very intelligent man. Nor was Belle some tall frumpy brunette or an only child. Rather she was the youngest of six and a short blue eyed blond with a little extra padding. Just like our poor dead mother.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though, aren't I?

My name is Millicent. I'm one of the two older sisters of Belle, also known as Beauty, from the story Beauty And The Beast.

Now that you've had the story ruined by Disney, let me tell you the real thing in brief.

Our family once was rich, until father lost one ship of goods in a storm, another to pirates, and one just seemed to vanish. Instantly we were broke. Our entire family had to move from our grand house in the city to a shack out in the country. Our three older brothers took to it like ducks to water. They loved farming and even fell for some country girls. My sister Sarah and I hated it. All that dirt, no parties, no suitors, no frilly dresses.

Belle didn't love it, but she didn't hate it either. She just worked hard the way she always did.

Well, there came a day when the ship supposed lost at sea came back. We dreamed about being able to return home. Father asked each of us girls what we wanted. Sarah and I asked for dresses.
Belle for a single rose, for there was no place to grow roses on our farm. We made fun of her, of course, but not in the cruel way the stories say, but in the way of sisters.

Father's creditors, however, descended upon the ship and took all the goods. Father headed back empty handed and ended up at the castle of the Beast, where he attempted to take a single rose and for that rose he would either have to give up his life or one of his daughters.

We were selfish little brats, my sister and I, but we loved our father, so we ranted at Belle until she decided to go.

The rest of the story you know. Eventually Belle fell in love with the Beast. Not before visiting us, however, and Sarah and I, jealous at her pretty dresses and gifts of jewels, kept her around so long the Beast almost died of love and grief. At their wedding the fairy that cursed the Prince in the first place turned Sarah and I into stone statues.

Do you have any idea what it's like to be a statue? It's bloody awful! Birds poop on you. Moss grows in places you wish it didn't and cause itches you can't scratch. Eventually you start to erode.

This is the way we've been now for about two, maybe three hundred years. I've lost count, not to mention three fingers and a toe. Sarah's lost an ear, part of her nose, and her upper lip.

We've watched the Prince and Belle's children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on grow up, marry, die. Conduct affairs under the stone folds of our skirts. Murder each other over said affairs. And eventually die out. So too, did our story. Except in fairy tale form.

Then Disney made that movie. I saw it through the window of what use to be the ball room.
Until some developer came and turned every pretty room into small apartments. Barely enough to live in. By now Sarah's eyes had grown over with moss. I recognized the tale, however. I told it to her. We both longed to scream with rage.

We were forgotten! Completely. All in the name of money! Of greed! Sarah and I filled with raging, stone-cold emotions. The stone began to flake away. For a moment we saw each other as we once were. Before the fairy and the stone. For a moment we repented our bratty ways.

And then, like the ill fated children of Lir, we aged rapidly. Until we died and crumbled to dust.
Our souls set free. To either sail on to the everlasting peace and joys of Heaven or to stay here on Earth and get our revenge on those that would have us forgotten.

Sarah and I chose revenge.

-The End-