Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Beauty and the Beast or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I haven't seen Beauty and the Beast in months, because my sister and I have been waiting for the perfect rainy day, (we're literally waiting for a rainy day) and this Thursday might bring us some showers. *Rubs hands together happily*

The rooster on the wooden gate by the animal pen straightened his red feathers and stood erect on the post. Cracking his neck, he inhaled deeply and crowed loudly. His crow echoed throughout the small farm all the way to Belle's window.

The teen smiled at the rooster's crowing and instantly sat up in bed, causing the pillows and blankets that she had been hiding under for the past eight hours to fall off of her and onto the floor. Belle yawned loudly and swung her bare feet onto the floor. The cold floorboards instantly caused her to give a little squeak, and her quick feet found her slippers and they quickly hid themselves in the warm leather.

Belle stretched her arms and looked around her bedroom. Grabbing her bathrobe that was on her bed post, she slipped it on and hummed to herself as she grabbed her hairbrush and ran it carefully through her brown hair. She was determined not to let Gaston annoy her today.

"Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!" Belle smiled. She grabbed a bit of ribbon and with skillful finger wrapped her hair into a ponytail. Patting the bow happily, she threw off her nightgown and buttoned up the white buttons of her favorite white blouse. Belle fumbled around with her blue jumper and when she finally straightened it out, she put on white stockings and her shoes.

Smiling confidently at herself in her mirror, she crossed the room to her window. She unlocked the window and shoved it up over her head. Belle stuck her head out to spy, the darkness of the night still covering the farm.

Belle stuck her head out and said brightly, "Well, I'd say it's kind of warm out." She stuck her hand out to make sure, and surely enough, she could feel the droplets of melting snow falling from the room. With a quick nod, she rubbed her hands together and said, "Hopefully, the roads won't be too bad."

She could hear the animals moaning and groaning, annoyed, at the red rooster, who Belle had unashamedly taught to wake her up at such an hour. Belle rolled her eyes at their moodiness and she closed the window with a bang.

Clutching her Grimms book, she ran lightly down the stairs and to the fire. Belle grabbed a match from the mantle and lit a candle, for it was dark downstairs, and searched for the poker. She found the metal thing and poked the smoldering embers from last night's fire and added a few logs. With one final stoke of the flames, she crossed the room and used the candle to light all the lights in the room.

Belle busily grabbed a basket from a shelf in the kitchen and filled it with bread, cheese and some apples and oranges. It was a bit early to eat anything and they would get something for lunch at Paris, so Belle packed all this for the road.

She warmed water for her father's tea and grabbed her feed basket and ran outside. It had gotten a bit warmer, to Belle's delight, and the sun was barely starting to peek over the horizon. Belle ran around the house to the animals and set to work. She fed and watered them all, collecting the two eggs and the bit of milk that the cows were still giving.

After she had taken all this inside, Belle put everything in its proper place and checked the clock over the mantle. Seeing how it was nearly six, Belle grabbed the small bag of francs that the bookkeeper had given her for the books yesterday (she wouldn't let Gaston have THAT to hold), and her hooded shawl. Carefully hiding her brunette hair under her hood, she opened the front door and peeked out.

She noticed a cart slowly creaking its way toward her home. The cart bounced and jumped on the bumpy and rocky road, causing Gaston, who was driving, to mutter annoyed curses to himself.

He drove up to the front door of her house, smacking the horse up the side of its head, and then acknowledged Belle with a suave smile as he stopped the horse.

"Morning, Belle. Ready to go?" he asked. His eyebrows went up and down in hope for her to blush at the sight, but instead she brightened and put on a cheery smile. "Of course, Gaston!"

"Well, let's get going then!" he said. Gaston patted a seat beside him. She placed her basket on the crook of her left arm that was also holding the book, and she offered him her right hand. Gaston looked at her curiously and Belle said, "Can you help me up, please?"

"Oh, yeah! Of course, Belle," Gaston answered suavely. He grabbed her small wrist and hoisted her up roughly. Belle gasped and tried to find her footing on the thin wood, but only succeeded in having Gaston give her a nudge on her back. She instantly stiffened and she quickly sat down and covered herself with her hood. Belle then exhaled, causing a lock of hair from her ponytail to fall into her face. When she gently pushed it back behind her eye, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Gaston was watching her.

Belle instantly seized and straightened up and asked hurriedly, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing," Gaston grinned creepily, "just watching you." The way he said 'you' made shivers crawl up and down Belle's spine. He may be the best and most popular hunter in her poor, provincial town, but to Belle, he was acting a bit weird.

Belle pushed back her hood to see better as Gaston led the horse and cart around a turn to go through town. It had gotten a bit brighter, so Belle was able to see the tired and yawning faces of the local town's people. The baker was carting a load of flour to his bakery and the blacksmith was busy increasing the heat in his forge with a poker. It was a Wednesday, market day, so all the farmers and their wives were gathering around the market area with their produce and such.

A few hundred feet from the entrance into town, Gaston flicked the reins even harder on the horse, causing it to start to gallop. Gaston was not about to miss this fine opportunity to appear before practically the entire town with the prettiest girl riding in his cart with him. This grand entrance would surely get their attention.

Belle was almost blown to the back of the cart. The only thing that was saving her was her firm grip on the side of the cart. Her ponytail's ribbon had fallen out, causing her hair to wave violently in the wind. She tried to hold her hair out of her face the best she could while she yelled at Gaston, "This is dangerous!"

"Yeah, but it's fun! Live a little!" the brute man laughed. Belle rolled her eyes at that.

Gaston was gritting his teeth into a fierce grin and Belle gave a slight scream when the horse pulled into the marketplace. Gaston tightened his hold on the worn reins and pulled sharply, causing the horse to try to plant his hooves against the ground. Belle closed her eyes and gulped.

The cart screeched to a squeaky halt and the horse let out a breath, panting violently. Belle fell back at the abrupt stop and hastened to assemble herself when she saw the crowd gathering.

A farmer with a straw hat and a piece of hay in his mouth approached Gaston and asked timidly, "Say, where are you going this early, Gaston?"

"Well, farmer man," Gaston puffed out his chest proudly as he reached out his arm and grabbed Belle's shoulder and held her against him as he continued, "Belle and I here are going to Paris for the Feast of Fools." Belle's face reddened deeply as she shoved off Gaston's arm. The whole crowd ohed and awed.

"Don't you know that those roads are muddy because of the melting snow?" the farmer asked Gaston. Gaston exhaled like a horse, making Belle shield herself from his stray spit, and he replied, "Some watery snow can't keep us away from the Feast of Fools!"

"Wait a minute, Gaston, we're going to Paris to—" Belle tried to interrupt when Gaston hastily put a hand over her mouth to hush her. Belle could barely make out a word he was saying because she was trying to shove off his hand. It smelled nasty from holding the horse's reins, and it was strong against her own lips. She screwed her face up into the best scowl she could make without her lips and tried to pry off his hand.

". . . and so we'll be back after dark, not that driving in the dark is a bad thing, right Belle?" Gaston smiled at her. He used his hand to make her nod, only adding more kindling to her internal fury.

"Well, have a safe trip, then," the farmer smiled.

"Will do!" Gaston yelled and he finally released his hand in order to grab both of the reins. Belle lost no time in shouting, "Gaston—!"

"Giddy-up!" Gaston shouted and the horse immediately started to gallop again. Belle stopped talking in order to pay attention to holding on for her life.

They were nearly a half mile out of the town when Gaston finally let his grip on the reins grow slack, and the horse panted heavily from his effort.

Belle had her arms folded and her usually level temper was growing shorter and shorter as she turned to Gaston and yelled, "Why did you do that? We're going to Paris to collect the books, not to go to that festival!"

"I should have you know that that is the biggest festival of the year in Paris, and we are going to it," Gaston told her.

"What? If that the only reason you wanted to escort me, you wanted to bring me to the festival?" Belle asked. loudly. Her brown eyes were flashing anger and she waved her hands around wildly.

"No!" Gaston quickly answered. He reached out his arm and wrapped it around Belle protectively as he said, "I came along to be with you!"

Belle gasped, a bit taken back by him, and shoved him off again, (would he stop TOUCHING me! she thought to herself) and yelled, "Me? You wanted to be with me? If you just wanted to be with me, why didn't you tell me instead of making me look bad in front of everyone?"

"I did not!" Gaston counteracted.

Belle knew that he did, of course. Whenever he was with a girl like that in front of people, he'd do all the talking. "You did too! Oh, Gaston," Belle wiped the hair out of her face and heaved a little sigh, "This is not going the way I thought it would."

"Alright, so we'll make the day better. We go get your stupid books and then we can enjoy the festival!"

Belle instantly straightened and retorted, "Those books are not stupid!"

"Oh, come on, Belle. Such a pretty lady such as yourself shouldn't read those books! They're stupid!"

"They are not stupid! They're full of wonderful stories with great detailing and beautiful morals-"

"Oh, come on, Belle. Get your head out of the clouds and start thinking of real stuff," Gaston said loudly. He made his eyebrows go back up and down and added, "Like marriage."

"Marriage?" Belle asked, surprised. She was getting a bit old, she knew, and Papa probably wanted her to get settled down soon, but why was she talking about this with Gaston...Belle instantly stiffened. Was he, implying marriage with her?

"Marriage? Gaston, why did you bring this up?"

"Oh, you know, people might think we're getting married," Gaston answered back casually.

Belle instantly reddened and asked, slightly horrified at the idea, "Why would they think that?"

"Oh, come on, Belle. We go through town, together, in a horse and cart," Gaston laughed. Belle looked at him, slightly perplexed. What the...? She was just going with Gaston to pick up books in Paris and now they were talking about getting married!

"Oh, don't look so shocked, Belle. We're the perfect couple!"

"Perfect couple!" Belle found her voice and her voice was annoyed and angry, "by making me look humiliated like that? Gaston!"

"Yes?"

"UGH! GASTON!" Belle yelled angrily. She wore a nasty snarl as she tugged her hood over head, covering the majority of her face. She folded her arms around her book protectively and wallowed in her anger. How dare, HOW DARE he think of that! Her, him! THE NERVE! She had thought he was just a man who liked flirting with women at first, but now, he was acting serious about this! Her, Belle, with him, Gaston! She was so angry at him she forgot about the books.

She was a person who didn't judge a book by its cover, that was why she decided to go with Gaston because he had SEEMED like a nice guy, but oh no, he was after her! And he didn't even like her enough to not humiliate her! Belle could officially put him down as a person she'd rather avoid.


The sun was nearly at the middle of the sky, making Belle think that it was around half past ten. They had eaten some of the food in silence (well, Gaston didn't. He spoke about nothing in particular and made spit cover everything around him while he ate), and the cold had been driven out, replaced with a slightly cool, almost warm wind. Belle carefully lowered her hood and felt the cool wind against her sweaty skin. She slipped off the whole shawl and re-tied the blue ribbon that she had retrieved from the back seat around her hair.

While she fixed her bow, she said to Gaston, "How much longer?"

"About five minutes," he said slowly. She rolled her eyes at his tone and replied, "Alright then." She tossed back her hair and straightened her skirt. Gaston slightly turned his head to catch a look at her and she slowly turned her head at him and asked slowly, "What?"

"You look nice. That's all."

His compliment caught Belle off surprise and despite herself, she blushed. "Thank you," she mumbled.

They traversed on to the bank of the Seine, allowing the horse, who Belle had secretly named LaRuce, to drink. Gaston jumped down from the cart and cupped his hands together and filled them with water. Once he had some, he splashed it around his face. Belle straightened up as he climbed back in, water dripping down from his face, and they proceeded to cross the bridge. Belle took in a deep breath and sighed. After a few hours, she had collected her thoughts and now she decided to ignore his romantic attempts and just to treat him as a friend. Hopefully, he'd get the message.

Gaston, though he was a reckless driver, was skillful in keeping the horse steady as they crossed the long bridge. Belle eagerly sat on the edge of her seat. Up ahead was the city of Paris, home to the collection of books she was to get and home to the bells of Notre Dame.

"Hey, Gaston, can we see the bells of Notre Dame?" Belle asked Gaston eagerly. She could hardly keep her excitement from exploding when he replied, "Sure." She was going to see the bells! She could hardly wait.

Off to watch The Little Mermaid. Please review!