The Stranger and The Beast
Author's Note:
Gaston's name comes from an old french byname Gasti, which can read as stranger or guest.
A Disney interactive CD-ROM confirms the name of the beast is indeed Prince Adam. (By the power of Greyskull!)
Chapter 1
Gaston lay broken and dying. Pain shot through his chest with each labored breath. The taste of copper flooded his mouth as the heavy rain washed over him. Through the blurred vision from rain or tears, he wasn't sure, he could see Belle on the balcony he fell. Her face wore a satisfied look.
Did she really despise him that much? The stab through his heart as she turned away to cry over that deformed monster hurt more than the fall. All he could do was close his eyes and struggle to breathe. He was Gaston! He will fight for each breath until his body gave out. All he had left was his memories, and he will cherish them until he passes on from this world.
"Why don't you just give up?" Said a voice. It was sweet sounding. There was a comfort to it, like a mother's voice. "You've all but lost."
"I…" Gaston sputtered and coughed up a mouthful of blood. "I still breath."
"Barely…" Said the voice.
"I refused to…" Gaston whispered.
"Why?" the soothing voice inquired.
Gaston managed to move his head to the voice and open his eyes. A woman had crouched next to him. His mind understood what he saw, but not even the best poets and artists in the world could transcribe the wonder he was looking at.
"Are you an angel sent from heaven?" He whispered. His hands couldn't stop trembling. He was so cold. He knew his time was up.
"I am many things, but not that." The woman chuckled. She laid her hand across his forehead and asked again. "Why do you still fight?"
Gaston's mind raced. He wanted revenge! He wanted to kill the beast and save Belle from him! He wanted to be the hero from her stories! He wanted… none of that. There was a dawning truth at what he wanted.
"Regret," Gaston whispered. "I… have regrets."
"Indeed." The woman said. Gaston turned his head, wincing at the pain. He could feel the back of his skull was shattered and could feel the bones grinding against each other. His arms and legs were more than broken, along with his spine and most of his ribs. He knew there was no coming back from this.
"Would you die with regrets, or live with them?" The woman asked with a sly smile on her face.
The world blurred and darkened. The smell of the rain was gone, and his body felt light. His breathing slowed and his hands and feet numb. Gaston could just let go and have it be over. Embrace the reaper and move on from this world.
"Live…" Gaston whispered. "I… want to live."
Belle sat in her garden with her book. Her mind off in whatever world she was reading about when screams from the castle broke her train of thought.
"La Bette! Get back here!" Cogsworth stammered. "That is an heirloom passed down from generations!"
Belle looked up as her daughter shot past her in a paper pirate hat and wielding a cutlass. She took a few wide swings at imaginary pirate and dove into the hedge, hiding from the exasperated butler.
"Cogsworth… she is but a child, let her run and laugh and play!" Lumiere chuckled and draped his arm around his stout friend.
"A child need discipline… she's ten now, she should be in boarding school, learning how to behave like a lady."
"And how does one behave like a lady?" Belle said. She had managed to sneak up behind the head of the household staff during his tirade.
Cogsworth jumped out of his skin, Lumiere fell to the floor laughing at his reaction.
"I umm.. Yes… well, I do believe." Cogsworth stammered as he stood and dusted off his clothes. Belle stared at him, expecting an answer with a smirk.
"Cogsworth…" a strong voice said from behind. her "Gabrielle is tutored by the best minds of the land. Why would you wish harm upon her poor mother and father by wishing her sent away?"
"I umm.. Yes, sir, no I don't mean to make it sound that way, it's just…" Cogsworth fidgeted with his pocket watch. "Just how things are normally done."
"I doubt anything around here is normal," Lumiere said and poked Cogsworth in the ribs with his elbow. "Besides sir, I think the foul pirate is hiding in the bushes behind me."
A giggle erupted from the bush.
"Please be careful, Adam," Belle said and patted her husband on his shoulder. "She almost took your hand off last time.
"A kiss from a beautiful princess is more than enough to protect me from such vile villainy." Prince Adam said and swept Belle into his arms. His deep blue eyes almost took her breath away as their lips met.
"Ewww!" screamed the bush. A small child erupted from it and ran giggling into the hedge maze, slicing off the head of a shrub giraffe before disappearing around the first corner.
Prince Adam set Belle back on her feet and drew his sword. Calling out a battle cry, he pursued his daughter into the garden hedge maze.
"All I wanted to do was finish my book," Belle said with a smile. "I'll take my breakfast in the library then… the garden is overrun by pirates."
"Yes Ma'am," Lumiere and Cogsworth said in unison.
Belle paused before entering her castle. Her eyes drawn to the woods surrounding the castle.
"Is there a problem?" Cogsworth asked.
"No… Just thought I saw something," Belle said.
Has it been so long?
Gaston crouched over a deer he had hunted. With his index finger, he drew a line down the belly of his kill and sliced through its thick hide with his four-inch claws.
His memories of the time he was a man slowly fade away. He saw faces, but putting names to them are harder every day.
He looked down at the spilled innards and pondered why he did that. With a shrug, he scooped up what spilled out and proceeded to eat. Some of the things he did must have been back when he was like them… human.
Once his snack was done, he picked up the deer carcass and carried it back to his cave. His cave had strewn bones and rotting animals littering the ground. Nothing about his cave shown he used to be a man, except for a silver mirror that hangs on a wall with a black cloth draped over it.
Gaston finished eating and stumbled to the mirror. Tearing off the cloth he stared at his monstrous form. His misshapen body looked as if parts of him grew too fast, and other parts not as much, or at all. The Beast looked to be an animal, and fearsome, but he looked like a walking nightmare.
"Show me my regrets!" Gaston screamed.
The mirror's image faded, and Lefou appeared. He watched his life as a man and all the things he had done to his friend, the one man who knew him better than any other. He watched all the times he had dismissed him as a joke or stolen a woman he fancied because Gaston thought it would be amusing.
Gaston spent the rest of the night watching the mirror, the last image was a wilted rose's last petal falling to the ground. The same rose that sat under a glass dome, next to his mirror, that laid completely wilted.