AN: So, it's been a year since I joined Wattpad so here's an anniversary fic! Hope everyone loves it!
==WSHP==
Adam hated his father.
He hated all father's, if he was going to be honest.
His father had been kind, once. He would let Adam ride on his back. He would play with him in the large gardens, under the roses his mother had planted. He would read books to Adam. His mother had laughed and loved, kissing both his father and himself with bright red lips and rosy cheeks.
When the world had color to it. Before Mamon took ill. Before Papa took him away from her.
Before he had to be strong, like his father.
Before being strong meant casting away those beneath him.
One night Adam had finally decided to take a bride. It seemed simple enough, gathering the beautiful daughters of the lord's around his castle and marry one of them. The most beautiful women in their corner of France, dressed up like dolls and painted to match.
Yet as Madame de Garderobe sang, as the song grew so loud his ears were ringing, he could barely tell them apart.
Even if the love of his life existed, she was not in this place.
Then the Enchantress came.
Then he changed.
His inner hatred and turmoil and guilt became his outer shell. Twisted horns burst out of his head, curling like that of a goats. He looked like a Beast.
The Enchantress had changed everyone in the palace as well, he would later learn. The people who had family outside the castle, family and loved ones, were wiped from their minds like a dream. He had been only thinking of his own appearance, what he was without his good looks and all of his brides had left.
The Enchantress had told him the way to break this curse. Get someone to love him? If she had waited five more minutes, he would've found a bride who would do so gladly! But to love them back? That was impossible. Love like that wasn't real. It was nothing but one of the stories his mamon had told him to make him sleep, and the boring books from the library! Adam never wanted love like that. His parents had made do, as did their parents before and all those in the royal line.
The first day of the Curse, he had barely noticed all the other people had changed too. He had heard Mrs Potts crying, screaming in sorrow with Chip at losing Mr Potts to the Enchantress' Curse. He heard echoes of Maestro Cadenza and Madame de Garderobe calling out for one another. He heard Plumette scream in pain, and smelt smoke, then endless apologies echoing for hours.
He was determined not to let the Enchantress beat him. He was a prince, he couldn't lose to a devilishly crafted spell.
His first try to break the Curse went horrible. He thought, foolishly, that if there was no rose, then no petals would fall and he'd have all the time he wanted. He had stomped on the thing, breaking off a part of the stem and tossing the rose aside.
That was when everyone learned the more the rose died, the less humanity there was in the house. Breaking off the stem, it had turned the half changed maids and servants into their full utensil selves. No voice to scream with, no eyes to implore with, no face to read. They were toys that could dance, not much more. The rest of the people, who had been in the palace since Adam's birth, complained that they felt themselves being pulled toward the knick-knack state. It was horrifying.
The castle itself paid for the price. Parts of the walls of his home broke away, as if becoming ancient in a matter of moments. Adam hadn't cared for it, only the pain he had caused those who had been true friends to him when he was a boy.
From then on, the rose was kept inside a glass case. Adam never wanted to hear those dismayed cries again.
Petals continued to fall. Some people were lost, and all of the others learned they'd eventually meet the same fate. Though Adam hadn't wanted anyone with him in this time, he wanted even less for the castle to be empty of their laughter.
Adam tried to find a bride, next. All of the brides had left after the Enchantress cursed him, going off to safety. They had all forgotten him. He decided to try going out after her. Isn't that what those silly princes did in his mother's stories?
Then he might the wolves.
Clearly, the Enchantress didn't want anyone to leave.
What was he to do? Was this mystery woman, who he must love and she return the affection, come to the palace? Who would be mad enough to endure this cold and the wolves to a castle that, as far as she knew, hadn't existed before?
It took Adam a long time to discover she'd never come.
He secluded himself deep inside the palace, claiming the whole west wing for his own. None of them were to come in without his say.
That was when he found the book. That stupid book. He never dared to use it. Where could he go? He had the devil's horns on his head. His body was covered head to toe in thick brown hair. What if people could see him? What place would accept him like this? Surely he would not find a way to break the Curse with that foolish book, so what was the point?
Years later, when the rose had only a few petals left, while they had been as frozen in time as the trees under snow, Adam met someone mad enough to brave the cold and wolves and strange castle.
The thief had almost gotten away, to make things worse. The thief would have been able to ride home, without learning the true horror of the Curse, until he stopped to take one of the roses on the grounds. The roses his mother had planted before she died, to leave a part of herself in the world that Adam would sooner die without.
The thief was disposed of quickly. The man was sickly, barley here for a day and already taken by a harsh cough and weak bones. It would be barely a week before he was gone from this world.
It came as a surprise to Adam when a second person came.
The young girl, with a spirit so fierce and eyes such a sharp brown-
No! He wouldn't. There was no chance of anything happening. She was merely a fluke, another selfish girl like those brides he danced with so long ago. She'd see her father dying, then go back on her merry way. Adam couldn't wait. It would be nice for the palace to be quiet again!
Except that wasn't what happened.
"Are you so cold hearted you won't let a daughter kiss her father goodbye?"
What Adam wouldn't have given to have done so with his mother. To have her kiss his cheek with her bright red lips, always leaving a red mark on her cheek that he'd always wipe away immediately after.
This pathetic whiny girl would get her one wish. Then he'd send her away. Yes, that's it. He wasn't giving in, no. He was a prince. He just didn't want to hear any more of her gripping. He told her that when the cell closed, they'd never be opened again.
He didn't know that she was giving her just what she wanted. She tricked her father into leaving the cell, locking it behind him.
"You took his place." Adam had stared at this woman in surprise. He'd never do so for his own father, nor would his father do it for him. If anything, his father would have beaten him with leather for such a heartfelt action.
She stared at him in confusion, like Adam was an idiot for not understanding why. "He's my father."
She spoke with such certainty. Her words echoed in his ears as he tossed the thief out. A part of Adam knew he man would never forgive himself for this. Adam hoped his died pissed in an alley.
If you asked, he'd say he was most certainly not thinking about the girl who had been close to his age when the Curse started, with beautiful brown hair and eyes, and how she could be his one last chance to break the Curse and save everyone in the palace. He wasn't.
Why would he? She was a peasant, he needed a princess. It was what his father had pounded into his head enough times. There was no hope. His would lose all of his friends, his castle would fall to ruin, and Adam would be left with no one but himself to blame.
Then he found out Lumiere had the brilliant idea to give the prisoner her own room!
Then Mrs Potts spoke, oh the ever infuriating Mrs Potts. "Oh you can't judge people by their father's, can you?"
Years ago, he'd have threatened to throw her at the wall for that. For her pieces to shatter and never be mended.
Today? Adam stormed away, after ordering the newest prisoner was to starve. He'd meant to destroy something in his room. To ruin the perfect image of his life as the enchantress had ruined the perfect image of him.
He ended up staring at the rose. With so few petals left.
A day later, when he found the prisoner in his standing by the rose, all he could see was when he had broken it. When the servants changed so much further into things, when they were lost to the Curse.
He had gone after her, obviously. Did she not know of the wolves?
It was a less brilliant idea when he fought off the pack of wolves created by the Enchantress.
When it was over, Adam was shocked to see the prisoner was helping him. The girl had done nothing but try to leave him for days. Now she was lifting him onto her horse, guiding him to his castle.
When they were back in the safety of his palace, they were surrounded by his friends. If Adam had the energy, he would've rolled his eyes at all the fuss they were making.
He ended up shouting at them for their slowness, because that left the prisoner to tend to his wounds. She was horrible. His wounds stung, and hurt worse than when he got them! She paid his enraged shouts no mind, as apparently that had gotten them into this mess and she strived to be superior to him.
It had taken them all ages to ask her name. It felt like ages, at least. Mrs Potts had mentioned that it would be the polite thing to do.
So, Adam had asked her, as she mended his bandages. "What is your name?"
He hissed when she pressed a cloth to his wound. It hurt less than it did last night. Was she being gentler with him? "Belle."
It was the only name that made sense. She was truly a beauty, in what Adam learned was both inside and out.
She cared for his servants, despite knowing them for a day. She cared for him more than he deserved.
So he tried to pay her in kind. It didn't take long for Adam to find her true love; books.
She'd read them all day. She read during their now shared dinners, during her walks out in the snow. Adam thinks she read in her sleep, with how fast she was going through the books.
One day, they sat out in his mother's rose garden. It was a stroke of luck that Belle found Adam reading Guinevere and Lancelot. Why, just an hour previous he had been reading about Camelot and this was just the next book to read. Nothing more than that, really. He wasn't looking for advice on how to woo a girl beyond giving her a library.
Yet they spoke so easily. Adam couldn't imagine anyone disliking Belle (his first week didn't count-he was rude to everyone) so much. Yes she was odd, but those differences made her...her. Adam felt Belle had brought laughter to the castle, in a good way.
He hopes that someday, should he be made prince again, that he find a way to make all those who wounded Belle in this way see how wrong they were. She would be his queen someday, a distant part of him dreams.
She felt trapped in this place? The only option he found necessary was running away!
Adam taught her how to use the book, then stopped to see where she would take them. It wasn't that often a woman took him on a date.
"Where have you brought us?"
"Paris." Was her stunned answer.
"Paris! I love Paris." He did. Paris! She had chosen Paris! Not very creative. They lived in France. She could have chosen Italy, or Spain. Anywhere else, really. "Where shall we go first? Notre Dame? No? Too touristy?"
Except she wasn't looking out the window. She was looking at the room, with a look of dismay on her face.
"This is the Paris of my childhood." She was singing. He was starting to fall in love with her voice. When she read, when she sang, all the time really. He'd never admit it to anyone, much less himself. "These were the borders of my life."
Adam wanted to laugh. This place, hold back Belle? This lively, spirited girl would not have lasted in this place. Even now, she seemed to glow with that warmth she had brought into his palace.
Yet, her eyes. He heard those eyes call to something deep inside him, from when he was a boy and mourning his mother. Before Father told him to stop crying, beat the lessons into his flesh. This place had been her home. This place was another step in her life, something that connected her to her father.
Adam saw a small child's cradle, now larger than a babe. She had to have been so young, how could she still remember such a drab place as this?
"In this crumbling, dusty attic where an artist loved his wife."
He could see it. Curse him all to the hells, but Adam could see it. He saw paintings on the walls of flowers, intertwining together all over to what had probably been lovely work years ago. Adam saw that old thief, so much younger with hair brown as Belle's and those silly round glasses.
He wondered what Belle's mother had been like. If her daughter was anything to go by, then she must have been beautiful.
"Easy to remember, harder to move on." She had the voice of an angel, more soothing than any song from Madame de Garderobe. Not that he'd tell Madame that. "Knowing the Paris of my childhood...is gone."
"What happened to your mother?" He had asked her. There was no bite in his words, no coldness that there had been in years gone by.
Belle stared at him, unknowing. She was always so smart, always with a retort to his harsh words. "I don't know. It was the one story Papa would never tell. I knew better than to ask."
That was a horrible fate. To not know what took your mother from you. To live days by not seeing her smile, and to not know why it wasn't there. Adam had always known a sickness had taken his mother. She had been frail in her last days, eyes glassy as if dead already and unable to lift her hand to his cheek to move his tears.
Belle had never known. She might never have known, if Adam hadn't opened his mouth.
"A doctor's mask." He hadn't realized he had spoken until he saw Belle's deep brown eyes staring pleadingly into his icy blues. "Plague." He informed her.
He had once relished in her tears. Now he never wanted to see them fall on her smooth cheek ever again.
He wished he had never told her what the mask meant. Yet, he knew he'd regret not telling her even more.
Belle knew now, at least.
How could he continue to call her father a thief after this? He had never been a thief. The old fool's only crime was taking care of his only child.
As Adam stared at the sobbing Belle, he wondered how he could ever have thought poorly of Maurice.
"I'm sorry I ever called your father a thief." I'm sorry I placed him with my father. The only thing he ever stole away was...you. Protecting you. Picking that flower for you.
Belle forgave him. What had he done to deserve her?
So, years later, when the curse was broken and he was Prince Adam again, he would remember their night in Paris with a fond and thankful smile.
==WSHP==
AN: Hope everyone loved it. I watched the movie three times (aiming for a fourth, TBH).