Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Beauty and the Beast and all it's affiliated characters. I just own my characters, or more appropriately, they own me.
This story just sort of wrote itself. I put it off for about three years and it finally just came to life without my being able to stop it. I told myself I would not write another Beauty and the Beast fanficion but this brain-child just wouldn't leave alone. I loved it and still love it now that it's written. I plan on submitting a chapter or two every week for a while. Depending on the audience reaction so reviews are MAJOR keys in keeping this puppy going. I have only recently seen the new Beauty and the Beast movie so there is much more 1991 Beauty and the Beast then 2017 Beauty and the Beast.
In this story:
-The Prince was still about eleven when the spell was cast
-He still struggled with reading. In my my mind the prince had dyslexia or something like it. That would explain his having trouble reading despite being tutored with the best scholars in France. It reconciled the two takes on the prince's character when the new movie came out.
-I made Lumiere the Butler and Cogsworth the Major Domo. It make more sense with a household that large in that time period.
-I used the name Adam, though I still don't entirely agree that it is his official name. They didn't even call him that in the new movie when they had the chance. But it suited him for this purpose and so it will work.
-Instead of making Adam a king I kept him a prince. In my mind he is the eldest son of the second son of the actual king of France. That puts him about sixth in line for the throne and able to move about a little more freely then history would have allowed in this particular story. I wanted to steer clear of the historical fanatics.
-Everything does start off kind of sad but keep with it. This baby has a GREAT ending!
-Please forgive all grammatical errors and spelling missteps. I edited until I just couldn't do it anymore and if I missed something it was not for lack of trying.
-Please leave reviews on what you liked and didn't like and why. It is only going to help me as a writer. I want to pull a Cassandra Clare and jump from fanfiction writer to MAJOR AWARD WINNING AUTHOR :)
-I have included a song lyric to every chapter. It will make for an awesome playlist and it usually goes with the chapter. Music basically propelled this novel into life.
"Stars" Grace Potter
I lit a fire with the love you left behind
And it burned wild and crept up the mountainside
I followed your ashes into outer space
I can't look out the window, I can't look at this place
All those times we looked up at the sky
Looking out so far, we felt like we could fly
And now I'm all alone in the dark of night
The moon is shining but I can't see the light
And I can't look at the stars
They make me wonder where you are
Stars, up on Heaven's boulevard
And if I know you at all,
I know you've gone too far
So I, I can't look at the stars
An earth-shattering howl split the skies, was taken up and then drown in the rage of the storm that whipped and blew the tangle of mere pathetic humans as they grasped against the ragged cliff face. Sheer terror played on their faces as they scrambled, scrapped, and pulled themselves to a safety that was not safe at all.
A woman trapped in the remnants of a carriage gripped a hand on the broken wheel and the other around her husband's forearm. Her long brunette locks were plastered against her pale head and a streak of blood ran down her cheek and off the tip of her chin. She tried to steady her feet as the carriage once again was hit with a gale of wind to knock her off balance and on instinct she released the hand that was holding the splintered wheel and placed it on her rounded stomach to protect her unborn child resting precariously inside her womb. Her husband's hands gripped her thin wrist with so much force she felt her bone threaten to break away and she cried out in pain as a the carriage rocked back and forth. Her husband's grip was slick with sweat and rain. Half his torso lay upon a vast precipice, the other dangling precariously off to keep his hold on the two things that mattered the most in his life. He felt the weight of three strong arms holding him to the ground as he attempted to scoot closer and closer off the vast cliff. The screams and cries of servants and royalty alike were scattered into the cacophony of sound and nearly drown out the calls of the two lovers who were barely holding onto one another.
"Please! Adam! Don't let go! Don't let go!"
"I won't! Hold on, Belle! I've got you. God, please hold on!"
If there was a God above, he pleaded, then he would be able to pull her up. She would get her footing and angels would reach down from heaven and lift her safely back into his arms. Suddenly a loud crack was heard. A servant girl, in an attempt to scale the cliff face to save her mistress made an erring step upon a jutted branch. With a shrill scream she waved her arms in the air for balance and began the slow decent to the bottom of the cliff. No one above her heard the mighty splash she made as she hit the blunt rocks below. Nor did they hear the whispered sigh as she was swept away in the current below.
If Belle had had a shred of energy left she would have said a prayer for her little maid's sweet soul. As it was, she let out a terrible sob and looked back into Adam's eyes. They were blue, her brain remarked. Blue like the deepest and richest ocean. They tossed and turned with fear and uncertainty as she continued to adjust his grip on her and pull himself free from his own servants, who pinned him so effectively to the ground. He clenched his teeth in sheer determination as he pulled and turned her arm to try and lift her off her feet and out of the carriage.
"Don't let go!"
At the very last the brightest of lightening ripped the sky in two. The Gods showing their disdain for the pitiful humans below, tore the great oak tree that rested upon the cliff point and in an instant the entire outcome of fate was changed. Without warning the tree shred itself in half and with a groaning creek it began to fall down the cliff wall. Someone screamed in terror and it wasn't for several moments that Belle realized it was her own voice she was hearing. Like devils of Hell, reaching out of the pit of damnation, one branch caught hold of the broken wheel still attached to the torn carriage and without preamble began to drag the carriage down to the bottom with it. For a small eternity Belle and Adam locked eyes and gazed at each other through the infinity, knowing the outcome and yet neither believing it. His mouth forming the words one more time, "Don't let go!" as her very being reached for him in longing. For his love, his devotion, for the life they would never have, for the child that would never be born. And then, just as suddenly her hand slipped through his without a sound as she was thrown to the opposite side of the carriage, the broken door flapping shut and locking itself and its precious occupants inside the way one would nail a coffin closed until the day of judgment would arrive to release them from their prison.
With an aching roar of pain and disbelief Adam rose from the ground, tossing his servants to the side like they were mere insects. With inhuman grace he made to lunge off the cliff and to his doom to join his wife as she would come crashing, first into the felled tree, and then into the river below. His bodyguards were anticipating this as if generals leading troops into battle. All leaped together to grasp the man that was their prince and held him securely around the middle. Adam would have torn them to shreds if he could but assume his other form so easily as they were holding him. He fought with the strength of a lion, unable to utter the coherent words, his body was screaming to them in protest. Words to release him, to let him save his wife. One man, Luis, knowing the will and stubbornness of his captive prince had to make a decision or all would be lost. With a raging roar and howl coming from Adam's torn lips, Luis swung a fisted glove backwards so that a gauntlet was exposed and with a resounding swish, brought his wrist across the back of Adam's tender human skull. The broken prince immediately slumped forward into darkness with the image of the most beautiful brown eyes gazing at him in despair.
Torn from his dream, Adam woke up with a startled cry of pain, still remembering the mighty blow he received to the back of his head as he fell forward into Luis's arms. Dripping with sweat he lifted himself from his bed and for the thousandth time in thirteen years he searched his room to realize with the deepest of disappointments that it was a dream, a reoccurring nightmare where he was forced to relive, again and again, the sad tragedy of his past
He raked his hand through his unruly golden and graying hair and squinted in the darkness to assess the hour. It seemed abnormally dark inside his room and it took several moments to realize that this was because the curtains had been drawn over the face of the windows and the doors leading to the balcony. He cursed the efficiency of his man-servant and gingerly stepped down the dais of his massive, yet cold, bed and picked his way over to the window. He felt jittery and exhausted and wished nothing more than to succumb to sleep once more. But the fear of finding himself once again screaming in terror and despair as he watched the love of a thousand lifetimes fall to her death along with their unborn child was enough to keep him wide awake.
He opened the curtains to the window alongside the the north wall of his stay rooms. The stars had faded into the distance but the night sky remained an inky black that was as dark as it was foreboding. Adam sighed deeply as only Adam could sigh and walked away from the window to his bureau where he retrieved a pair of drawers and trousers. He slipped these on in the dark and tied up the trews, all the while feeling his way through the drawer for a clean smelling shirt to wear. When this was done, he donned a pair of comfortable slippers and his dressing robe and made his way to the crack of light that was seeping in through the door frame. He carefully nudged it open and stepped out into the cool hallway that was only lit by a guttering candle near the lookout station. He quietly made his way down the hall to the corridor at the end of the West Wing. Slipping through and walking in a direction that he would have been able to find in his sleep he entered the kitchens without a sound and shut the passageway behind him. Once inside he calmly sat on the rickety bar stool at the cutting table to wait. It wouldn't' be long now.
And, sure enough, as the clock started to chime four in the morning a man of a rather wide girth came toddling into the kitchens. Harmon had been the royal chef for as long as Adam could remember and his schedule was so predicable that Adam was certain the man would continue to do the same routine day in and day out, long after the older man's body would cease to exist.
With a wan smile Adam looked up as Harmon spotted his master sitting on the bar stool.
"Well, aren't you a miserable sight, your Highness."
Adam chuckled to himself at the assessment. "Perhaps it is not me who is miserable but the hour on which you are viewing me."
Harmon laughed and wagged his finger at Adam, "Oh, no, this hour has been my secret lover for twenty years and she is still as beautiful as ever."
"I hate to break it to you, old friend, but that has not been a secret to anyone for twenty years."
"Well, there you have it."
There was a long pause as Harmon made a big show of starting the fires inside the wooden stoves. It wasn't more than a few minutes before the room was a much more pleasant temperature to Adam's liking.
"Will it be coffee or tea this morning, Your Grace."
"Both" Adam replying without looking away from the knots on the table.
"That bad this time, sire?"
"More or less the same as always."
"Ah, I see."
Harmon poured hot water into several large mugs. He brewed a strong kettle of coffee that snapped Adam's senses to life at the smell of it. When Harmon was satisfied with the strong mint tea he had thrown together he placed the mugs, a saucer of cream and a bowl of sugar in front of Adam and then continued his long process of making breakfast. He would not do it all himself but he didn't trust any of the other cooks and chefs to get the preparations correct, thus he was in the kitchens long before anyone else to prepare.
After several long draws of the coffee in its deep, rich form Adam felt himself perk up enough and then added some cream and sugar to both. He liked the sweet taste but knew that if he really wanted to come out of his daze he would need at least a few good mouthfuls of the bitter brew.
When it seemed that Harmon was at least initially satisfied with the preparations for the days early meal he finally sat himself down on the stool across from his prince and began to chop and peel vegetables the way a magician would mix and stir his potions.
"I don't suppose the return of your early morning visitations has anything to do with the upcoming Anniversary this week, does it?"
"I suppose I have been thinking about it more often then I would normally."
"How old would it be?"
Adam gave a sad little smile. They had this conversation every year, and yet, it never grew tired.
"Almost fourteen."
"Is it a girl or a boy this year?"
"I think another girl."
"It has been a girl for the last six years, your Highness."
"I guess perhaps with two girls already I wouldn't know how to raise a boy if I had wanted one."
"Poor little fellow! Father wanted to chop his member off before he fully grew one."
Adam laughed at the ribald humor and shook his head. "Oh, no, but he would have two sisters to compete with my affections and you know how easily they have me strangled in the palms of their delicate little hands."
"That is to say if you would have even had any girls at all. It is the mother's fault, after all."
"Ah, I'm not sure if I've ever believed that myth."
"That is science, your Highness. Always blame the mother" Harmon winked sardonically at Adam and continued to peel potatoes.
"I wonder if we would have come back here all these summers if they had lived. I dread it every year."
"La Chateau de la Rose has been in your family for generations. Being sixth in line for the throne has to hold some level of grandeur, Your Highness."
"And that is all it holds, Harmon. Horrible memories and the ghosts of a past I would sooner forget."
"Cannot forget the past, Your Highness. No matter where you go she is going to follow you until the end of your days. You cannot be party to a love story as epic as yours is and expect anything different."
"In my nightmares, I try to save her again and again. A different time in every dream. As if this time I will have succeeded and I will wake up to her in my bed. Until this time."
"What happened this time?"
"It was as if I was watching it from inside her eyes. I saw it all as it was and all I could see was this desperate foolish boy of a man who stupidly took his expecting wife out where he couldn't protect her and then I watched as he let her fall."
Adams voice had risen with emotion at his retelling of the nightmare and he clenched his fist without realizing that he was doing so.
"Now, now, son. Hush that talk. Do not let a nasty wisp of a nightmare cloud your memory. You did not let her fall and if I remember Belle the way she was, there was no stopping her from climbing into that carriage with you had she been hog-tied. Full to the brim or otherwise."
"Perhaps."
"Would you like more tea?"
"No, thank you. I think I am feeling much better now."
"I will send more up to the study after breakfast is served."
"Is this my dismissal, Harmon."
"It surly is. I have work to do, boy, without you crowding underfoot. I'm sure Cogsworth and Lumiere are dragging their sorry carcasses out of bed and you are welcome to bother them for a while."
Despite Adam being anything but a boy he smiled fondly at the old chef and took his leave of the kitchen without any chagrin at the audacity of being dismissed and then called a 'boy'.
