Disclaimer: I do not own Beauty and the Beast, the Disney version nor the original fairy tale.
He waited and waited and waited, but she never came back. No one had come to the castle since she had left and he waited.
His birthday had come and gone and the rose had finished its wilting, the last petal shriveled and dead as the stem continued its hover over the small table. The stem was no longer green, but brown and dead, only staying aloft as the last bit of life finished making its way out of the glass. The stem would probably meet the same fate as the petals and leaves by the next morning.
He would keep the rose, knowing that the magic of the glass over it would keep it from rotting any further and would certainly preserve what was left of the rose long after he had passed one. None of his servants had mentioned his birthday when it had come and gone and he certainly hadn't thought about it either. The main reason he hadn't thought about it was that he had honestly forgotten that such a day would come.
At first, he had thought about it. Had counted the days down to it since she had left, but after a while, when she hadn't returned and no one else had come. He had forgotten that life would continue when his life walked out his door and galloped away into the night.
Sometimes, when he was feeling even more depressed and cynical, he wondered if she had even kept the mirror or if she'd thrown it out at the first chance. Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that. He tried not to think like this often, it wouldn't do anyone any good.
He's so lonely these days. His servants are still there and they still speak to him, but he doesn't often respond. He used to speak to them, knowing that it would be just as good for them as it would for him. He would admit to himself that he owed them quite a bit for staying with him for so long. He doesn't count the time as cursed objects in that count. Rather, he remembers how horrible he was to them when they were all human. He wonders sometimes why they stayed with him then. Sure, he was a prince, rich and able to give stellar references if he felt like it, but he's sure that there were other places they could have found work that was just as good if not better. He knows that others did, after all, there used to be thousands of servants at his castle, not hundreds.
A part of him is glad that so many had left before that fateful night. Another part of him is still glad that he has others with him so that he's not completely lonely now that he's pulled his head out from somewhere very uncomfortable. Most of him is ashamed at what he has caused, ashamed that he turned his faithful servants into animated objects that could lose their lives if they are handled too roughly. Ashamed that he caused the illness of his beloved's father.
He's aware that it wasn't his decision for Belle's father to go searching for her in the dead of winter in his old age, but it is his fault that the old man was worried about his daughter in the first place.
In a way, he considers himself luckier than the old man for how his daughter treated him the last time they had seen one another face to face. She was far kinder to beast that had been more than wild and mad than the same beast had been to her and her father.
He had been able to say goodbye.
