A.N. Short, short, short! Just a drabble to encourage me to my first chapter fic in years! Pretty excited! If anyone would be willing to beta that would be awesome!
Memories
Belle knew who she was. A princess of a small village, daughter to her father and fiancée to one Gaston. The girl who had exchanged her freedom for the safety of her home and friends. She remembered her time spent in lavish ball gowns surrounded by nobles. She also remembers her time spent with the most fearsome creature in the land. The months spent cleaning the estate and keeping company with the loneliest man she had ever known, are clear in her mind.
Belle remembers kissing him, loving him, wanting to be with him forever only to be faced with rejection. Her memories play back the day she was thrown out into the cold to return back to her village. She remembers the long walk home, and being intercepted yet again by a large black carriage.
Belle's first interaction with the queen was one of comradeship, her second was one of fear. She remembers being pulled into the carriage and the long ride to that horrid castle. The hands dragging her down the dark staircase leading to the damp dungeons beneath the earth, are crisp images she tries to forget.
"You really ought to be more careful who you associate yourself with my dear," the wicked queen sneers her face only partly visible in the shadow of the doorway. "If it's any consolation, he does love you. Otherwise you'd be of no use to me."
This is the last memory Belle has of her life before she was subjected to darkness. Even when the room filled with gray fog and the world outside changed, her own cell doesn't. It remains dark and lonely and perhaps that is why the curse doesn't affect her memory. If all she has known before the change is darkness, then maybe the queen thought it useless to change her memories.
This was a mistake, because if there is one thing that Belle remembers the most, it's the queen's words affirming what she always known. He loved her, and true loves kiss could break any curse.