Chapter 1: That I Live and You are Gone

As he strolled hand in hand with Belle into the castle, the prince could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand. Looking up at a window, he saw it still appeared like a cloudy pre-dawn morning, with no sign of the sun peeping out through the clouds. Glancing at Belle, he could see that she too looked unsettled by the peculiar silence of the castle, save for the distant sounds of retreating villagers.

It's far too quiet, the prince could hear his own blood pumping in his body in this quietude. Eerie.

It was the kind of silence where you just knew something was not right. No distant melody of a harpsichord, no constant ticking of a clock, no nothing.

"Belle…" he began, his whisper trailing away at once–even that had sounded like a shout.

"I feel it too," she whispered in agreement.

Unbidden, snatches of reminders from past conversations of the servants with him came back.

"I grew two more feathers today…"

"I grow more metallic every day…"

"Garderobe is finding it harder to stay awake…"

His hand tightened on Belle's, feeling hers respond in kind.

"The servants."

He could not hear his servants–and yet shouldn't they have come to see what had happened to their prince? Judging by the retreating villagers, they had managed to stave off the siege on the castle. Did they not see what had happened? Would they not have heard the gunshots?

Perhaps they too escaped with the villagers. I wouldn't blame them either.

"No, they've been so loyal to you all these years." Belle assured him, quickening up her pace to keep up with him, "They loved you despite everything."

Had he really said that aloud?

"I don't think they would just disappear on you even now."

He stopped short inside the entrance to the same part of the palace where the Enchantress had bestowed the curse so many years ago, even upon the unwitting servants and other visitors of the castle, including Maestro Cadenza and his wife, Madame de Garderobe.

The Enchantress said nothing about the others, had she?

Didn't they deserve to come back too?

Certainly more deserving than I ever did.

He had to find out now. He had to look for them, wherever they were–praying fervently they weren't–had not become–they couldn't be inanimate.

I need to find them.

Letting go of Belle's hand, he pelted off at a mad run, Belle right behind him, bare feet slapping on polished marble and stone as they tore for the main entrance where the sounds and screams of villagers and servants in battle had rose to greet his ears not an hour before.

Maybe the Enchantress is still transforming them back to human.

He had to stay optimistic, had to stay hopeful, even in the face of this horrible oncoming trepidation. Behind him, he could hear Belle a couple paces behind him, almost as breathless from exertion and fear as he was.

The prince stumbled to a stop, just barely stopping himself from falling, when he tripped over an upside-down footstool on the outside landing leading out of the castle into the main courtyard. At the same moment, he heard a horrified cry from Belle.

"Madame de Garderobe!"

Whirling around to look behind him, he saw Belle had clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with horror as she stared at what had once been an animate wardrobe who pined for her harpsichord husband. He turned his head to spy a harpsichord behind him–Maestro Cadenza. The prince guessed at once that Madame de Garderobe had somehow managed to find a way all the way down here to join the battle, and now here she was, much too still, across from her also motionless husband.

Belle gasped again. "Adam look! It…there's more down there!"

A chill exploded through his whole body, heart thudding in his chest, stomach twisting with a mad lurch of nausea. He tried to control his voice, not let it shake, tried to be as calm as possible when he asked Belle what she saw behind him standing on the courtyard.

"Have a look for yourself."

The prince shook his head, "Tell me, so I might…prepare."

Belle first took a couple deep breaths, both her hands clasping his to her heart. Closing her eyes, she bowed her forehead on their hands before raising her head up again to look behind him.

"There is…" she faltered, "a teapot and cup on a tea tray."

The little boy never deserved such a fate, and nor did his mother.

"…a clock."

Cogsworth.

"…a cloak hanger, a candelabra, and feather duster."

Chapeau. Lumiere. Plumette.

It could only mean one thing: the last petal had fallen after all.

Too late for his servants' lives, for his…

Wait.

He watched as Belle bowed her head, tears dripping from her eyes.

"The last petal…" she rasped, "It had fallen."

Wait. Something doesn't seem right.

If he was no longer a beast, but human now, then the last petal couldn't have fallen. And yet…

Too late. It was too late. Maybe the petal had not fallen too soon for Belle to confess her love, but fell too soon to save his servants and the visiting opera singer and her husband, the Maestro Cadenza.

Steeling any pitiful scraps of will he had left in him, the prince inhaled a deep breath and slowly turned around to be confronted with what would appear to the unaware observer as a pile of rejected knick-knacks waiting to be taken to the nearest second-hand shop.

"Oh no…"

Holding on tight to Belle's hand, interlacing his fingers between hers, he slowly made his way down the remaining steps to the assortment of objects that once were his own servants.

The first thing–no, servant–he passed was the cloak hanger, Chapeau. He had now become just another ornate cloak hanger one might see in any wealthy Frenchman's home. Adam might not have been close to him, but it ripped at his heart all the same to see what had become of him. No one would know this cloak hanger, like the other now inanimate objects, had once been human.

Then–the tea tray, with Mrs Potts and her son–now looking for all the world like an ordinary teapot and cup. He couldn't look at them a second longer, heart aching as the agonising, all-too-familiar grief of the loss of his mother cut to his very soul. After the loss of his own mother in childhood, she had become the next closest thing to one.

This was at my own hand.

Past the tea tray and cloak, not more than a few feet away were Cogsworth, Lumiere, and Plumette lying not a metre away from the candelabra. Already, Belle was walking over to the feather duster that once had been Plumette, and had gently lifted her into her hands to lay it–no, not it, her–next to the candelabra.

Adam, sure his legs weren't going to hold him up much longer, quietly moved to kneel beside Belle, eyes roaming over the still clock, feather duster, and candelabra. He could only look a second at the feather duster, the lifeless red "eye" reminding him all too much that once this had been a servant too. A servant in love with another–Lumiere, now just an ornate golden candelabra with "arms" that twisted around the bases of the flameless candle holders. The candelabra looked now mostly a candelabra but for the face that, to anyone else would appear as an intricately skilled mark of craftsmanship, right down to the fine lines in the facial features. No one except the prince would ever have known that this was once a real, human face. It agonised him to see those features too still, too lifeless, as though he were looking at a dead man—and not just any stranger, but one whom had been a dear friend to him in childhood.

Lumiere was never supposed to be without life and energy.

"This was my doing," the prince mourned in a soft voice–he wasn't sure whom he was speaking to–the servants or to Belle? Perhaps both. "I failed to set you free."

Am I still as cruel as my father?

He certainly felt it to be so, unable to bear looking any longer at the inanimate objects before him, knowing this was another cruel display of the Enchantress's magic. Belle's hand slipped into his again, interlacing their fingers together. He held on, never wanting to let her go again, lest she too slipped away forever like the servants he had come to consider like a family.

He found himself wondering if it had been really worth this, turning human again, only to find his servants had not. Belle loved him as a human now, but she also had loved him while he was still a Beast. Yet, he would not hesitate to choose to become a Beast again with no chance of returning to being a human, if it meant his servants' lives could be restored. At least they would be free. They could escape this castle, escape the Beast, and live full lives in the village.

Now, sitting here next to Belle, her hand in his, he felt more helpless and alone–despite her very presence–than he ever had as a Beast the past many years.

"I would become a Beast again, Belle, if it meant they would be free as humans again."

Belle held on tighter, wordless, yet speaking many.