Realization crashed down upon Belle as she watched her father be borne away back to the village in an enchanted carriage that crawled like an insect out through the wrought iron gate. Her poor father, alone in that thing, freezing and ill, and she couldn't be there at their cozy house to take care of him, make sure he was warm with plenty of blankets while she tended to him and nursed him back to proper health. She could distinctly remember how cold his hands had been, and how sick he had sounded, coughing and his voice cracking as he called her name, pleading for her to not give herself up for him to that Beast.
What else could she have done? She couldn't have let that monster keep him here as prisoner in his state when he had only wanted shelter from the cold on his way to the Fair. How was that a crime? Weren't those with castles supposed to harbor hospitality? There was plenty of rooms and space in this castle. Surely it wouldn't have hurt to have let Maurice stay a night as he regained his strength. To punish him for something such as that was unfair, and vulgar.
Tears flooded her vision, and she could no longer bear to watch her father's convoy as it withdrew farther and farther away, leaving her behind. Belle buried her head in her arms, sobs breaking into her throat.
Soon, she felt the Beast's presence behind her, as quiet as his approach had been, like that of a feline's. She raised her head enough and controlled her own sobbing enough to say, "You didn't let me say 'goodbye'."
"What?" he growled harshly, but the confusion in his voice stemmed the cruelty intended.
Belle glanced up at him briefly, perplexed herself that he didn't understand. But he wouldn't understand, she thought bitterly, but the anger she tried to bring up only sank back into her, grief again taking its place as she said, "I'll never see him again, and I didn't even get to say 'goodbye'."
She hid her tear-stained face from him in her hands, sobs breaking out anew. And now I will spend my life... a prisoner. She began to imagine herself, cold and shivering, hungry and worn, within a cell full of rotten straw and completely surrounded by cold stone save for the thick, wooden door framed with iron with only a barred little gap in the wall as her window to the world that she was never going to roam or be able to enjoy again.
As she had been thinking, the Beast had remained silent, as if pondering on how to respond. All cruelty now vanished, he grumbled, "I'll… show you to your room."
Belle looked up in surprise, wiping a fallen tear from her cheek as she gazed at him, puzzled. "My room? But I thought…"
He faced her again from the doorway, irritated that he had not been followed, and replied, "So you want to stay in this dungeon?"
"No," was her immediate response.
He stepped forward. "Then follow." He reached his paw out to her, but she recoiled from it, staring at it in fear. The Beast retracted his paw, hiding it beneath his cloak, and then commanded angrily, "Follow me!"
Belle didn't argue, her throat having been closed in terror at the severity and ruthlessness of his voice. And she knew it was prudent to keep silent, for he might really lock her up here in this tower and all of what she had predicted of that fate would come true.
The Beast grabbed a brass candelabrum from a nook at the top of the winding staircase and descended the steps while Belle followed at a safe distance, wrapping her cloak tightly around her to comfort herself and fight off the chills of the tower.
The descent down from the tower felt like a descent into her own grave, with the Beast as a harbinger to the Devil himself, heralding her arrival. She immediately thought she didn't deserve this. She had always been respectful and kind, generous and modest, polite and obliging. Why was she being punished for being only the most behaved and loving daughter of a good man with a good heart, full of caring and understanding and bursting with creativity and inventiveness? Fine, she could be punished, for whatever it was that she did wrong. But why rebuke her father? He didn't deserve to be trapped in a castle and then thrown into an unassisted carriage, carried away to live out his days alone in their house, everything around him reminded him that there had been another inhabiting his home, that his own daughter was to live out the rest of her life trapped in a huge but barren castle with only a Beast for company, and he could never expect her to come home from the bookstore again.
Belle lingered behind the Beast through the vast, dark halls. The entire place had the feel of an abandoned cathedral, but very ominous and menacing. And unlike a cathedral, where statues of angels were present and meant to calm and soothe one's mind, there were statues of severe-looking griffins and of gargoyles with cruel faces and fangs that disturbed her and reminded her of the Beast escorting her to her new room. The candlelight that reflected up at them gave them shadows and made them look even harsher than before. She looked to the red carpeted floors instead, until the Beast spoke again.
"This is your home now," he growled calmly, turning his head to the side to look back at her as he walked. "You're free to go anywhere you like… except the West Wing."
Her curiosity overcame her quickly and she asked, "What's in the West-?"
"It's forbidden!" he interjected sternly, facing her entirely and making her come to a complete stop, and she stepped back in surprise, automatically raising an arm in defense. "You are not to set foot there. Do you understand?"
Reacting rather instinctively, she tried to persist, "But I-?"
He repeated with more fierceness, "Do you understand?"
"Yes!" she cried fearfully, on the verge of tears again. Why was he being so harsh with her?... And what could possibly be in the West Wing that was forbidden to her? What secrets could this Beast possibly keep?
The Beast finally stopped at a pair of double doors at the end of a hallway, and opened one of them, beckoning with his bright, crystalline blue, and strangely human eyes for her to go inside. Belle did and glanced around at the large space with a queen-sized four poster bed and a wardrobe.
"This is your room," the Beast said. "I hope you'll be comfortable here. If you need anything, my servants will attend you."
What servants? she wondered. When she was searching the halls earlier, she hadn't come across a soul.
"And one more thing," he added. "You will join me for dinner."
Belle scrunched up her face like a stubborn child that didn't want to do as asked. She didn't want to share a meal with him! She didn't want to sit across from him at a table as she was eating! She just wanted him to leave her alone and let her wallow in her misery. He better not expect me to come.
The Beast must have seen her shoulders tense, as her back was to him, and he snarled ferociously, "That is not a request!"
Belle's jaw dropped and she turned to face him, maybe to say he was being completely unfair and rude expecting that, in her state, after losing the only person she truly cared about, she would come out of this room and dine with him, or just a simple and final "No! I will not!" But he slammed the door in her face, and she beat her fist on it in desperation, tears again starting to overflow over her eyelids and burn her cheeks as they left a trail to pursue the earlier tears. She slid down the door to her knees, feeling hopeless and dejected.
After crying for what seemed like hours, Belle calmed down somewhat and managed to stand and walk slowly to the bed, feeling like chains on her ankles were dragging behind her. She sat gently onto the bed—her bed, now.
How could she think of these things as hers, this room as hers? How could she call this her home? Home was supposed to be a comfort, a shelter, a place where someone could always find happiness. This castle was the opposite. She remembered her father telling her that "home should be where the heart is," and Belle couldn't agree more at this point.
But, when she thought about it, her heart never really was in that small, dull, provincial town of Molyneaux. Her heart had been wandering free to faraway places filled with adventure and romance like those in her books. Her home was not Molyneaux, she realized, but in the perfect fantasy-filled place that she dreamed of. Where it was, she did not know, but she was certain it wasn't here in this dark, cold, and foreboding castle with a Beast as its lord.
When Belle had arrived at this castle, becoming a prisoner was the last thing she had expected. While she was galloping through the woods, all she could think about was her father and what might have become of him, fearing the worst. She could never have imagined in her wildest dreams that he had been captured by a Beast.
Belle reminisced the journey and the whole concept of rescuing her father, and it was actually like an adventure from one of her books. It definitely hadn't been what she had expected, for she had envisioned a more heroic and more planned out journey to that wonderful faraway place she dreamed of, but what adventure was planned? Those in her books had all been unexpected, and the hero had done everything on a whim… Well, that's what she had done.
Some adventure, she thought morosely, as she gazed out of the huge window from her bed, watching the snow fall gracefully down.
Not even the thought that this had been an adventure could cheer her, for everything she had lost came back to mind. The adventure landed her here, and put her father farther away from her than she had ever wanted to do when she had arrived here and found his hat by the front gate.
But she had a nagging feeling deep down that the adventure wasn't over, but had just begun. Whatever happened now, she hoped this adventure would end when she was free to leave this place. This castle of cold stone and that Beast within it wouldn't keep her in it forever. Eventually—hopefully, soon—Belle will return home to her father, and never take advantage of that dull provincial town again. Then all of this would forever be only a memory.
She lied down on the bed, using her arms as a pillow, and hid her face behind them, wanting all of this to vanish and be only a dream. Tears fought through her closed eyelids, as she dreaded the next time she would be forced to see the Beast that had ripped her whole life into shreds as if it never mattered.
A/N: All of this was inspired by the song "Is This Home?" and I've come to really understand it's meaning and how Belle must have felt before meeting the cast of lively servants. I tried to incorporate everything the song mentioned in this one-shot while adding a few more details that seemed necessary for this type of situation. I think it's accurate, being that Belle thinks she's never going to see her father again, and she believes she's alone with only a Beast for company with no knowledge that there are servants who have much more manners and a better understanding than their Master, or a library with hundreds of thousands of books. No to little hope was present in her at that time.
I hope this was a good representation of how she felt, and I would like to hear what you thought!
Farewell for now!
~ CarolNJoy