This is my first fanfic on here so apologies for the lack of adventure in the first chapter and please be kind with reviews, I'm not sure if it's any good. Hope you like it.
Disclaimer-I do not own any of the characters from the film Beauty and the Beast, but Grace is my own creation.
Grace was awoken gently from her dream by her mother tapping lightly on her bedroom door. 'Come in', she said sleepily. Her mother, Belle, entered her room slowly, smiling at the daughter that meant so much to her.
'Good morning sweetheart', she said, hanging up the new party dress that the seamstress had just finished in her wardrobe and slowly opened Grace's big pink velvet curtains to let the beautiful French morning sunlight in. 'Did you have a good night's sleep?'
Grace slowly arose, sitting up on her three pink pillows and rubbing the sleep out of her big, baby blue eyes she had inherited from her father, Prince Adam. 'Yes thank you mother', she answered grinning, 'I had more dreams of adventure, of going out into the world and meeting new people!'
She shook her head in happiness and her long, brown and slightly unkempt hair which hung to her elbows puffed out in tangles from her sleep. Belle sat on Grace's bed next to her and began brushing her hair. As many servants as there were in the castle, Belle preferred to look after Grace herself to give her the mother's love that she herself had been denied as a child.
Even so, at that moment Mrs Potts scuttled busily in to tell Grace that her breakfast was on the table in the dining room. 'Make sure you hurry my child', said the old woman with a grin, 'you never know, the dog might eat it if you're not downstairs soon with telling all these adventure stories to your poor mother.' With a knowing smile, Mrs Potts excused herself and retired to the kitchen to clear up the cooking utensils used to prepare Grace's breakfast.
Grace looked around her beautiful pink room, with drapes from floor to ceiling either side of her window and a dresser covered in jewels with an ornate mirror fit for a princess. Her favourite thing was her wardrobe, an antique white wooden structure which was salient among all the pink in her room. Once Belle had finished combing Grace's hair, the young girl skipped happily over to her wardrobe to find something to wear for the day.
'Mother, should I wear the pink dress with the ribbons around the waist or the pink dress with the sequins on?' asked Grace, pulling each dress from the wardrobe and inspecting each varying degree of pink as she described the dress.
Belle patted her daughter on the head, smiling at her all too familiar enthusiasm and said 'now, remember you're most likely to be playing at some point this afternoon, so you want to wear a practical dress.' Belle pulled out Grace's most well worn pink dress which was very much like the blue dress she had loved and worn as a teenager a little older than Grace was now. 'How about this one?'
Grace smiled at her mother's choice of dress 'thank you mother, I do rather like this one' she smiled. She changed into her beloved dress and pink slippers and followed Belle noisily down the grand staircase into the dining hall downstairs; still recounting to her mother the dream of faraway places and people she hadn't yet met.
Grace hurriedly ate her breakfast, eager to get to the library to start her favourite morning activity – reading. She loved books of any kind, and found it funny that her mother had often been scorned and misunderstood when she was younger for loving books as much as Grace did now.
Finishing her fruit and bread, Grace thanked Mrs Potts for the food and ran up the staircase, challenging her mother to a race to the library. Belle smiled and called 'you run ahead and choose the book Grace, I'm right behind you'.
Once in the library, the excited young girl ran up the nearest ladder, reading out possible book titles to her mother who was calling safety warnings up to her from the centre of the beautiful tiled floor. 'How about 'Love at First Sight', or 'Jack and the Beanstalk' or 'Rapunzel' or…'
Belle smiled as her husband entered and read her thoughts 'maybe you should be reading something more educational, Grace' called Prince Adam with a warning smile on his face.
'Yes, darling', echoed Belle, 'why don't we read some more of your French Geography book?' and, when Grace had descended the ladder with a slight scowl at her father's love of education, Belle whispered in her daughter's ear 'afterwards you can go into the forest to explore if you want'. The smile magically returned to Grace's face as placed the heavy geography book on the old wooden table by the bay window of the vast library that her father had shown to her mother as a surprise 13 years ago.
Prince Adam left the room to ask Cogsworth to direct the cleaners to see to a broken suit of armour in the eastern hallway. Grace began to read from the big book to her mother, commenting with her on the descriptive geography and all the possible places to explore mentioned in it. Grace loved adventure as much as Belle had as a child, and she loved to wander in the forest surrounding her castle home with Belle, sometimes for hours on end, finding new areas of the forest and games to play there every day.
After reading five chapters of the complex book, Belle walked with Grace back to her room so that she could put on her cloak and outdoor shoes. They encountered Lumière, the former candlestick, in the corridor, where he embraced Belle with a hug and smiled when Belle told him of their plans for the afternoon.
'But Madame', he said in his thick French accent, 'you have spent all morning with mademoiselle Grace, let me take her for a walk in the woods. You should stay here in the castle and relax a little.'
After much persuasion from Lumière to be parted from her daughter for a few hours, Belle agreed to his idea and Lumière and Grace set off out of the heavy iron castle gates for the woods with the promise to Mrs Potts to be back in time for dinner.