Inspired by my other story Twisted, a darker take on Disney's Peter Pan. I obviously own nothing in the Disney Franchise.


-.-.-.-

If you could only see the beast you've made of me

I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free

.

My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in

You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl

My fingers claw your skin, try to tear my way in

You are the moon that breaks the night...

.

—Howl

by Florence + The Machine

-.-.-.-

Ever since Belle was small, she was a very beautiful girl. With her thick auburn locks and a pair of gentle green eyes, she was so lovely that everyone else living in her town thought she just had to be different. Strange. Some of the other woman often gossiped about her and wondered if Belle was human at all. In fact, Belle had grown ever more beautiful throughout the following years that even her own father held a little fear towards her. His confidence weakened under the pressure of being in her graceful presence, feeling unworthy of it. Whenever he glanced into the mirror at his own round aging face—he secretly marveled at how someone like her could have come from him and his late wife, who also had been a caring spirit, but honestly not the most attractive woman on the outside either. By Belle's seventeenth winter, he started to wonder if was actually Belle's startling beauty that killed his wife on her delivery bed. Perhaps the sight of the babe had been too much for her heart.

But, shortly came that fated day when Belle had been forced to make a decision in front of a horrifying Beast who took her poor old father captive during his recent travels...and by sunset, she had become his eternal prisoner as her father rushed out of the Enchanted Castle to the safety of their greasy little cottage, forever too paranoid to utter a word about it again. He never dared to ask anyone in their town for help to rescue his daughter in turn.

However betrayed Belle felt in the first few months staying there, she still happened to bond with the Beast later on. There was not exactly any other option. He was the master and apparently was just as lonely as she.

And he was certainly affected by her blooming affections. Belle could see this, too, for he began to change.

Week by week, her hideous Beast slowly faded back into the handsome man called Prince Adam, whose face appeared in the tattered portraits mounted on various walls of his Enchanted Castle. His flesh was less hairy, more soft and pale to the touch. His eyes returned to their sea blue color, and his natural hair was red as embers, long and thick, which he often pulled back with black ribbons like most French Noblemen were supposed to do. Belle had once dreamed of marrying a distinguished man like him as a child while gazing at couples in love from the bookshop's window.

Although, in truth, Adam eventually came to a point where he just teetered between his humanity and the Curse, never quite moving forward anymore and not sinking back into the old ways either. He certainty looked like his old himself again, but remarkably enough, he could feel the Beast living inside him still. His condition vaguely reminded him of those rumors of Loupgaroux, mystical wolves who masked themselves by walking around in mortal skin for a time until the moon's power made them shift back into animal form.

Two full years in isolation thereafter had put a certain pressure on Belle's mind evidently as well, and on her soul. Her perception of things gradually began to sway. Her level of etiquette and ladylike perfection began to dim little by little. After all, who did she need to impress besides Adam? Within her imprisonment, she seemed to find a peculiar type of freedom. Pretty soon Belle wasn't caring to file her nails every night; instead she allowed them to grow sharp into delicate claws and her gaze grew a bit more savage than usual. On occasion, she even associated noises with her emotions in place of words: a snarl for rage, a soft purr for pleasure, a flash of her gnashing teeth when she felt threatened.

She then chose to wear skirts that were tearing at the hem upwards in odd angles, and preferred to have her hair to flow down freely, growing in a mane of wild curls. She stalked the halls from dawn until dusk barefoot and swiftly, like a ghost who proudly drowned in her secrets. Like a she-wolf in disguise.

The Prince began to worry for his companion's sanity since the magic cast upon his home appeared to be contagious in a way he didn't know it could be—but then again—one day, he realized that Belle was simply becoming the same as him.

Thus together, he and Belle dwelled side by side contently for the rest of their lives, overlooked and unbothered by outsiders. And they reveled in their double-natures, loving and mating with each other with a monstrous passion with clawed hands, fanged kisses, and with their hearts made of gold all alike.

Love was love. It's something that was a blessed Curse and it came in many forms.

For clearly, they both were as beautiful as they were beastly.