A Life For A Life
She freezes, unable to move, hand flung up before her face as a giant shadow looms a fleeting moment over the ravenous wolves. A roar, a wolf flies through the air, slams into a tree. A brown and red blur, flashes of ivory fangs, black claws—she can barely work out where the Beast begins and the wolves start. More roars shake nearby branches as the Beast rears, fighting off the wolves, trying to shake off one particularly determined creature hanging on to flesh and fur with all its might. Belle could run now, while the wolves were distracted, but she remains frozen on the ground, unable to take her eyes off the battle between Beast and beast. There is a sickening crunch when the wolf that had held on is thrown headlong into a tree trunk. It slumps to the ground, twitches once, and moves no more. Seeing their friend dead—if not close to it—the other wolves turn tail and lope into the dark woods.
Belle stands up, pressing numb hands into the snow, knees still knocking. Her heart pounds heavy and rapid in her chest, lungs still gulping for air. She watches as the Beast catches his breath, turning slowly to look back at Belle, his eyes as blue as the portrait's that hung in the West Wing. The fur of one arm is matted with blood that gushes from several gaping wounds. A drop of blood runs off his arm, drips off a claw. Belle's breath hitches as he locks eyes with her for a long second, before they roll up, eyelids closing, as he faints, passing out face-first into the snow. He does not move again.
She jumps as something warm nudges the small of her back. Whirling around, Belle is relieved to see it's just her horse, Phillipe, nudging her with his nose. Giving his nose a little rub with a hand, whispering assurances, Belle steals around to the saddle, hands ready to push her astride her steed. She hesitates, glances back at the Beast in the snow, then returns her attention back to her horse, her mind made up.
If there ever was a time to escape, the time was now.
Hauling herself into the saddle, Belle tugs on the reins and digs in her heels, desperate to leave the horrible old castle with its horrible old bad-tempered Beast behind, even if he had saved her life. Belle leans forward, wraps her arms around Phillipe's neck, shutting her eyes tight so there is nothing but the sound of her horse's galloping hooves on snow-covered earth. She sees nothing but black, but for the last fleeting image of the Beast imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. Again she sees the Beast fighting off the wolves, can almost hear his roaring as they tear into his flesh, leaving behind grim wounds on his left arm. But what she remembers, even as she holds on to her horse for dear life, are the eyes of the Beast, more human in that fleeting moment before he passed out, than Belle remembered them to be before. She opens her eyes, blinking rapidly a few times, and the image dissipates.
"Phillipe, slow down," Belle mumbles into the horse's mane before she realises she actually said it aloud, "walk, boy."
The horse obeys, although it is with great reluctance. Belle eases herself into a more upright position, not quite sitting, but not lying flat against Phillipe's neck, riding for her life. A frown of doubt tugs at her lips, draws her head round to look back at where she had come from. It is too dark to see, yet she knows the Beast lies passed out in the snow near the castle. Some part of her whispers she ought to go back, save the Beast who had saved her own life.
But he was mean-tempered and he was unkind, she argues against her own conscience, why should I help him?
Belle returns her concentration toward the direction her horse is taking her, and now brings an anxious Phillipe, who neighs with soft urging, to a halt, guiding him around on the spot until he faces the direction in which the unconscious Beast lay in the snow.
If it weren't for the Beast, I'd be dead, Belle reminds herself, it's because of him that I owe my life.
Belle exhales sharply, pinching the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut as she struggles with the complexity of her predicament.
Could I live with not helping one who had saved my life?
A life for a life—Belle couldn't remember where she had seen or heard that phrase before, but now it is more relevant than she is comfortable with facing at this moment. As unsettling as it is to accept, she knows that it is true.
I owe him my life.
It was true enough—Beast had—and still—frightened her, but now she recalled again how he had looked back at her for a brief few moments before fainting. There had been something…human…in his eyes. Instead of a primal rage like he had shown in the West Wing, she had seen something almost sad, almost human, in them. The blue eyes no longer burned with fury, but rather with something almost like…defeat, even though he had just saved Belle's life.
Why did he save my life?
"Why did he save my life?" Belle wonders aloud, her horse nickering softly in reply, "Why, Phillipe?"
The horse didn't have an answer. Belle takes a deep breath, knowing she has to do this. If she didn't repay the debt—a life for a life—her conscience would never let it go. She tightened her grip on Phillipe's reins, urging him forward into a trot.
"Sorry," she apologises, stroking the horse's mane with a hand, "I need to save the Beast—a life for a life. I know you don't like him much, but we need to do this. It's…"
It's the right thing to do.
"I owe my life—no, our lives, really, he saved you from the wolves too—to him. He might be mean, but he saved our lives." Belle takes a deep breath, urging her steed into a gallop. "Gallop on, Phillipe."
With one final flick of the reins, the horse gallops, Belle astride, returning to the unconscious Beast and the gloomy castle beyond. She prays that the Beast has not died of his wounds or of the cold—although surely his fur would keep the chill out—by the time she reaches him.
It's the right thing to do.
She knows the Beast would be still a few minutes' ride from here, but in the dark, sense of distance seems to fall away into the night, time disappearing into the bleak cloak of trees behind her. Every gallop is another second lost, a moment closer to the Beast's possible death, because she did not save him in time.
I must do this, she tells herself, and now she spots a familiar form lying in the snow up ahead, and slows her horse down a little, so she would not overtake the Beast. It's the least I can do after he saved me. And Phillipe.
When she draws up but a few feet away from the Beast in the snow, Belle dismounts and runs to him. A bloom of blood dyes the snow under his injured arm, and when she holds her breath, she can just hear the Beast's own shallow breaths.
He's still alive.
She hesitates, her hands hovering near his head, her conscience still stirring in her heart. Even in the dark, the Beast's sheer size strikes some trepidation into her soul. But she reminds herself again what he had just done—if it hadn't been for him, she—and her horse—would have been killed by the wolves.
You need to help him, she tells herself, even if he is coarse and unrefined.
"You saved my life," she whispers, her teeth chattering with the bitter cold—she didn't realise until now that she was practically freezing—, "I'm indebted to you."
Unlatching her cloak, Belle drapes it over the Beast's back, a rather redundant gesture, considering his own cloak and fur more than did the job of keeping him warm. Nonetheless, it was the smallest act of kindness she could think of right now, a gesture that cemented in her mind what she had to do. As she, with Phillipe's help, arranges the Beast on her horse's back, Belle's conscience quietens down, not nagging in the back of her head anymore. Belle is grateful when Phillipe allows her to guide him, with the unconscious Beast on his saddle, back toward the castle where she could clean up and dress the creature's wounds near a warm fireplace. As long as he was breathing, as long as his heart still beat in his chest, Belle had a chance to do the right thing.
Thanks for saving my life, she thought, but didn't say aloud—not yet, anyway—so it is only right that I should save yours in return…
It was a life saved for a life saved.