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Lady Beauty is the wife of Beast and a resident of Fabletown.
History
Early Life
Sometime prior to meeting her husband, a creature known as a lamia was driven from her home after a man got her in the family way. The man's wife had some friends run Lamia out of town. They followed her to another world, where Lamia met a beautiful woman, who was the original Beauty. Lamia, having so recently been abused for beauty's sake, hated the woman on sight and killed her, because "everything beautiful leads to ruin in the end". Lamia then took the woman's form in order to adopt her peaceful and simple way of life. She kept the form so long that the woman's personality became her.
She eventually met Beast, and they fell deeply in love. Her love was enough to weaken his curse, so instead of always being a beastly creature, he would only become a beast when Beauty was upset with him; the more upset she was, the more Beast's curse reasserted itself.
Escape from the Homelands
When the Adversary’s forces reached their lands, Beauty and Beast joined the flood of refugees. They eventually ended up in the mundane world. Having lost or used most of their fortune in the journey, they were forced to take relatively low-paying jobs. Beauty worked in a bookshop, while her husband maintained the Fabletown buildings.[1]
Lamia Resurfaces
Every few decades, Beauty became her old self, Lamia, again. When this happened, Beast would try to catch her in time and lock her away. Sometimes she escaped, and embarked on a killing rampage, targeting rapists and men who abused women (going after innocents is "not her style"). Beast then assumed the identities of famous heroes of detective fiction (such as Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe) and had to stop her before the mundy authorities could catch her. Bigby Wolf has threatened Beast to deal with the matter permanently - even if it means killing Beast as well. Beauty never remembered the incidents afterward and Beast never told her the truth.
Rising up in Fabletown
Their fortunes improved centuries later when Prince Charming became Mayor. With neither Snow nor Bigby willing to work alongside Charming, he offered their jobs to Beauty and Beast. While initially overwhelmed by the responsibilities of her position, Beauty grew into the role.
Motherhood
She gives birth to a daughter following centuries of failure to have children. Her daughter, Bliss, is shown to have magical characteristics that are yet to be explored.
Beast is considering making a new home for himself, his wife and their daughter in Flycatcher's kingdom in the Homelands, because Beauty will be safer there, as the "mundy" police keeps getting better and better at investigating and collecting evidence, and will catch Beauty sooner or later. The story's ending suggests that Beauty may be turning into Lamia again sometime in the near future. In the Fairest graphic novel Fairest In All The Lands, Lamia is gone for good: Beauty becomes the victim of a serial killer, and even though Beauty is brought back to life, Lamia is not. Beast is ultimately killed by a feral, controlled resurrected Bigby Wolf. It remains to be seen if he will stay dead. In the final story, it reveals that years later, a grown up Bliss and Beauty have a business where they solve the problems of people (such as murders and kidnappings) using Bliss' beastly abilities.
Characteristics
Lamia's strength and claws.
The Beauty of Fabletown was in fact a lamia, a serpent-like demon originating from Greece. The Lamia acts as as dark seductress, who chose to hunt rapists and men who abused women (according to Beast going after innocents was usually "not her style"). When masquerading as Beauty, she maintains a strong, independent persona, and deeply loves her husband and daughter. Lamia has since been killed by Goldilocks and "Beauty" seems to no longer have any connection to her original self.
Powers and Abilities
- As Lamia, she had superior strength and was strong enough to overpower a large adult male.[2]
- Lamia possessed sharp claws that were strong enough to tear through human flesh.[2]
- Lamia could alter her form to some degree. She took over the original Beauty's form, and could fully or partially transform into a large, human-sized snake.[2]
- Like most other Fables, she is immortal, eternally young and very hard to kill; her level of immortality is seemingly dependent on how well known she is by the Mundies. Due to being a legendary Greek monster, Lamia may have already had some innate degree of longevity.
Weaknesses
- Lamis seems to suffer from a personality disorder, and thus after she took on the real Beauty's form she became immersed in her human lifestyle. It was not until she assumed her original persona that her powers as Lamia would resurface.
- According to Saint George, the Sword Ascalon could kill Lamia, as he used it to slay several dragons, the Chimera and the serpent Vritra.[2]
- It seems with Lamia's death at the hands of Goldilocks, "Beauty" has no inhuman attributes aside from her Fable immortality.