ONCE UPON 24 TIMES... STORY IV

Story the Fourth

XIII Transformation (Death)

Beauty and the Beast

(Remus*Tonks; dedicated to Liza Pluijter Izquierdo *happy birthday, senpai!*)

After all, a rose by any other name would smell as sweetly.

After all, Cromwell wished to be portrayed warts and all.

A pretty face and shapely limbs don't count as much

as a rapier wit and a heart of gold,

whether it's a frog, a dragon, a bear-serker...

In my case, it was a werewolf. 

Pretty obvious from the get-go, 

after all, what should one Remus Lupin become when he came of age?

And then there was Yours Truly,

the half-blood, the outsider, the rebel,

who hated her given name and preferred being called

by her late father's surname,

the surname her maternal family, her father's in-laws, hated

due to a Black maiden's whim of marrying an inferior for love.

And of course they hated Mum and me as coldly,

as harshly.
A disowned widow and her blood-traitor child, burned off the family tree.

So we had always been Mrs. and Miss Tonks;

it was a protest.
But my hair has never been.
In fact, it already shifted colours in the cradle, Mum said.
A sign that I was meant for better things;
that peculiar, unusual, quirky girl
who lacked the discipline, but who had the pluck,
and the noble heart,
and the clever mind.
Even though she was louder than a storm
and often stomped the grass to shake the ground...
my feelings made my hair and features change, at first on whims,
then at will... the only thing I could control.
Never part of any crowd,
with her head up on some cloud...
and, behind that fair façade,
they were afraid I was odd...
a girl that's strange but special - strange and special...
And then there was the beast...
the one who cried for the moon,
threatened by shadows at night
and exposed to the full moon's light,
you wore down your welcome with random precision;
it had never been your fault, Remus,
and you still had to suffer all your life...
constantly drinking from your flask, a sip now, a sip more...
A lush and a bohemian at first sight,
deep within someone wilder,
as uncontrolled as me...
both a little scared,
neither one prepared
for what chance would have in store,
one day more...
another day, a common destiny...
both of us looked beyond appearances and prejudice,
and gave one another our hearts
without any fear,
even though I was expecting
and worried that the stigma would brand us three
in the cruel storm of war
(if it's a girl, Hope; if it's a boy, Edward)...
we parted with the dark warrioress on our heels,
hell-bent on spilling all our tainted blood...
they called you a craven for leaving me
while I was expecting and hunted down
--I understand your painful anxiety;
what if the child would pay
for our same innocent sins?--
You merely had time to cradle Teddy in your arms
ere you left for the war front,
leaving me to recover and care for the little one...
(a werewolf? a shapeshifter?)
Just as I now have left Teddy, Edward,
with his granny Andromeda...
keep him safe, Mum,
raise him right,
tell him his parents were outsiders, yet heroes...
for I'm going into the breach;
I last heard that Remus was struck down by that Russian,
that Dolokhov's Avada Kedavra hit him in the chest
and poor Remus fell backwards, with a peaceful smile,
my name dying through his pale, parted lips...
(My first name or surname?)
Both a little scared,
neither one prepared,
tale as old as time,
song as old as rhyme...
If there is an afterlife,
he needn't wait any longer!
I will give my all on the frontline
--life, limbs, blood, pluck--
and breathe my last by your side,
and we'll bask in the shadow of yesterday's triumph,
together for evermore.

ANNOTATIONS:

Tonks as Belle and a Werewolf beast; a premise that fits their character arcs like a glove. Bittersweet and strange tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme... 

Also, there is speculation over both Moony and the Beast-Prince as monstrous being metaphors for seropositive, so was it by utter chance that this bunny just popped up in me as soon as I realised the tale the roulette had picked?

Also, four for death. I'm not tetraphobic, but is it by chance that this should be the fourth day of the calendar?

A TALE OF THREE SIBLINGS (BLACK SISTERS)

Three pureblooded young siblings who, though all traveling the same path, choose to  lead their lives in different directions. The Peverell brothers? Yes, maybe, no. It’s the Black sisters.

First to choose is Bellatrix, the firstborn daughter. She, like Antioch, chooses the Elder Wand, the power, the fighting. She is the one who sits at her trial and thinks it a throne. She is the one who brags, who kills. She shares her name with the Amazon Star, sitting on the left shoulder of the great Orion. She is the duellist. She is the obvious one.

And then we have Andromeda, the second born daughter and turncoat. She, out of the three sisters, chooses love above family. She is the one with lost loved ones weighing her down, with Ted Tonks ghostly hand in hers, with her daughter’s pink hair in her eyes and her son-in-law’s shaky laugh echoing around her. She is the one who, more than anything, wants them back. She is not dead, not yet, but half her family is gone and the other half disowned her, so her heart is. She is Cadmus, the sibling who requested the Resurrection Stone. She is the one who desperately wants things back the way they were.

And last we have Narcissa, the youngest of three, in the style of Ignotus and his Invisibility Cloak. Like her Peverell counterpart, she is the exception of the three; out of the whole House of Black, she is the only one not named after a constellation or star. She is the one who guides her son in escaping his death sentence. She is the one who bends down, whispers to a living boy, and then looks the Dark Lord in the eye to say No, not this one. He’s dead. She is the one who knows how to fool death. She is the one who walks among the Death Eaters for years but never joins their ranks. She is the one who greets death like an old friend.

Together we have a tale: it is a story we have seen before. It is a tale of death, and love, and abandonment. It is not a happy story. It is not a redemption tale. But it is familiar. It is a Tale of Three Brothers, written again in the whip of Bellatrix’s curses and Andromeda’s tears and Narcissa’s refusal of death.

(Because the sisters can be the brothers, too.)

MY OTHELLO DREAMCAST

This is the dreamcast I would contrive to assemble for an Othello film:

• Othello: Nonso Anozie (Xaro Xhoan Daxos)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Desdemona: Alicia Vikander (Gerda, Caroline)

• Iago: Aidan Gillen (Littlefinger)
  
  
  
  
• Cassio: Richard Madden (Robb Stark)
  
  
• Emilia: Helena Bonham-Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange, Queen of Hearts, Madame Thénardier)
•  
  
  
  
  
• Roderigo: Eddie Redmayne (Marius, Einar)

• Bianca: Natalia Tena (Tonks, Osha)
  
• 
  
  
  

• Desdemona's lord father (what was his name?): Stellan Skarsgård
  
• Ludovico (the ambassador in the finale): Alexander Skarsgård

The plot would be based upon Verdi's version rather than Shakespeare's. But pushing in more of Bianca, who has no singing role in the Verdian opera. And adding Desdemona's dad in a few short flashbacks.
The costumes would be late seventeenth-century, and the action relocated to an outpost of a fictional realm.