Belle left her home to live with a monster because she wanted to be brave, there were so few opportunities for women in her land to be brave, to leave their tiny towns and show the people in their town that they were more than just pretty decorations to make the homes of their fathers and husbands look nicer. They were more than just flowers to be taken care of while in bloom and promptly forgotten once they started to wilt. She wanted to prove to everyone that she was more than just an ornament to be taken down once she began to tarnish. That is why, when The Beast asked Belle to join him in his palace in return for her country's financial security, she said yes. She jumped at the chance to show that women could be brave and powerful if they were only given the chance. But at the moment, Belle was feeling anything but brave and powerful. She was feeling lost and scared. She had left the warmth and comfort of her home in an impetuous attempt to prove that she could take care of herself. She realized now that she couldn't, that she needed her husband and father to take care of her, after all, she had never known anything else. She had been pampered, coddled, and babied her whole life. She just hoped that it wasn't too late for her to learn how to take care of herself, because she was scared and alone in a place with no one to protect her except herself.
Rumplestiltskin watched the scared little girl in his carriage. Even though she was trying to hold herself together, her wide blue eyes gave her away. Her eyes were really quite remarkable, they were so intense, like the color his name had been when it first blazed on the dagger of the Dark One. Her eyes reminded him of power. Yes, she would be a nice little addition to his palace, not that it mattered, he only wanted to take her to his house as a way to take away what King Maurice loved most. Rumplestiltskin always loved to see how far he could make people go to get what they want, how much they would sacrifice to fulfill their desires. He especially loved it when he could get them to pawn off their loved ones in order to get what they wanted. He couldn't imagine why anyone would give up a person like Belle, but he supposed that that's what happened to people when they cared about other people. He was glad that he didn't have that problem, the thought of having feelings just seemed so... annoying, and from what he remembered about having feelings, not only were they annoying, they made life so much more complicated than it needed to be, they distracted you from what you needed to focus on, and, worst of all, feelings gave other people power over you, whether you realized it or not, and he vowed that no one would ever have power over him again.
When the carriage stopped, Belle took a few deep breaths to calm herself and walked out of the carriage with her head held high. Rumplestiltskin admired her fire and the lack of docility that would probably make her a terrible maid, also made him respect her. She followed Rumplestiltskin up to his door and watched him pull out a key and open the door.
"Don't you have some spell that would do that for you?" Belle asked.
"Not everything requires a spell, dearie." Rumplestiltskin replied in a much softer tone than Belle would have expected from a man who was in the business of granting people's wishes for a price that was much higher than what they were worth. Belle had to remind herself that he was a monster and that he would devour her if he sensed that she had smallest amount of vulnerability. After they walked inside, Belle took his coat and put it on the rack by the huge doors.
"So, what do you want me to do now? Cook? Clean?" Belle asked nervously, hoping that he wouldn't make her do anything too heinous on her first day.
"You don't have to do anything today, Dearie, I'll tell you what your duties are tomorrow." He led her up to her bedroom. She knew that it was late and that she should rest to prepare for whatever it was that he wanted her to do in the morning, but no matter how hard she tried to sleep, she just couldn't do it. Despite the downiness of her bed, she tossed and turned all night, her mind jumping with what living with a monster really meant. She knew that he could trick people into giving him almost anything, so she vowed that even if she had to stay with him her whole life, he wouldn't trick her into losing herself and giving up who she was.
"Why do you spin all day?" Belle asked him after couple of weeks watching him spin at his wheel day in and day out.
"It helps me forget." His voice had a quality that led Belle to believe that he was holding back a secret, some vulnerability that he couldn't even reveal to himself, much less another person.
"Forget what?" Belle pried.
"I guess it worked." Rumplestiltskin giggled in that unsettling way that he had. Despite his glib attitude, Belle got the feeling that his spinning wheel hadn't made him forget. Not completely. He covered all of the mirrors in his palace and kept out all of the sunlight-as if he couldn't bear to see what he had become. Belle realized that somewhere, deep inside the monster, was a man. She found evidence of this later in the day when he caught her after she fell off of a ladder while trying to pull down the heavy curtains and let some sunlight in. After he caught her, he held her in his arms for just a moment too long before brusquely setting her down. They didn't really talk for the next couple of days until he told her to go to the market for him. She knew what this really meant, that this was her chance for freedom. Despite the feelings that she had started to develop for him, Belle left for town with every intention of leaving for good. But after meeting the queen, Belle realized that she could reform him. She could set the man free from the monster with a kiss. She rushed back to the palace. She could tell that he was pleased to see her, even if he pretended not to be. She kissed him and immediately felt a change in him. His skin was becoming softer, less scaly, she could almost feel the monster's jaws open to let the man out. The kiss was so incredible that she could almost feel a change within herself as well. She felt a weight lifting off of her shoulders, like she had been chained, but was now being set free after years of captivity. Unfortunately, her newfound freedom would be short-lived and her figurative captivity was about to be replaced by literal captivity. Her first true love broke off the kiss and locked her away in a prison cell. No one could ever love me! She remembered him shouting at her after he angrily broke off their kiss. She cried when she thought about his emotional walls and self-loathing. Even though he didn't believe that anyone could love him, she had. No matter how damp, dark, and cold her prison was, it was nothing in comparison to the prison that he had built to lock up himself.