I stayed at the back of the group as Sora and the others strutted into the room without a second thought. I took a deep breath, hopefully not going to regret walking into this.
"She even has accomplices." The cloaked man said snidely. With the snap of his fingers, he disappeared into inky blackness. I closed the door behind me and rejoined the group, who were now before the monster. I only could call him a monster because "friend" wasnt really on his resume with me. I couldn't let go of what happened when we first got here. At least not yet. He had to show me who he really was before I ever call a beast my friend.
"Hey Prince." Sora who looked as if he was ready to slap the thing on the shoulder. But his hand was withdrawn before a mighty roar echoed through the room. I jumped back. Knew it.
Sora pulled out his keyblade and the others got into a ready fighting stance. I joined, noticing the evil energy just radiating off the Beast. Battle ensued. It seemed like a disjointed effort of Cogsworth begging the Beast to compose himself, and Sora slapping him upside the head with his keyblade. I felt like all i was doing was poking him with my spear as the blackness crept up my weapon. I stopped to shake away the darkness. Why was this happening? The energy was just too great. He was a heartless for sure.
It took many wacks to the head to weaken the monster. And suddenly, the Beast collapsed to the floor. Sora, braver than I could ever be, I guess with the trust of his friend, got to the floor to check on him. I could see the blackness disappearing, and looked at the tip of my weapon. It was covered in a tangible dark...powder? Thats the only way i can describe it. I rubbed it off my spear, feeling a cold to the touch sensation left on my fingertips. Wiping them on my pants, I noticed that the Beast had regained conciousness.
"Cogsworth, what happened?" he growled in a tired voice.
Cogsworth seemed to dodge the subject, unsure of how to proceed.
"You threw your friends into the dungeon." I looked on at him, giving him my meanest look. He seemed back to whatever normal was for him.
"I did?" He looked to me, and then to Sora, who sheepishly nodded. The Beast closed his eyes and sighed.
"Who was that man you were talking to?" Sora got off his knee and looked to the group. A flash of realization hit him and he gasped out louder than an actor.
"Xaldin...that's his name." He clenched a tight fist. Did it hurt with those claws? "He used my anger to control. Took everything, my sadness, my pain, and turned it all to rage."
He couldn't tell what he was doing. My face softened.
"That must be why you threw everyone down there in that dungeon." Goofy laughed. "You wanted to make sure you didn't hurt them, right?"
The feeling of relief seemed to hit the Beast's face when he said that. He questioned if it was really protection. I get the feeling it wasn't, but I wasn't about to protest with a creature bigger than me. Especially a man who was only given this happening by pure chance. I started to think, maybe the truth wasn't so black and white. But I wasn't sure. I wasn't prepared to try to answer that myself. The only person who could do it would be the Beast. And I wasn't about to ask.
Maybe he was good inside?
"Belle can see the good in your heart." Cogsworth noted.
The Beast had a realization. He wasn't good to her right now. He hurt her and was a terrible man to her. And yet I could tell she still cared and was understanding and wanted to help him. She might not have said anything, but that didnt seem to matter.
"Why don't you go talk to her?" Sora nudged his arm a little. "No excuses! Let's go!"
XxxxxX
Walking down the hallways made the castle feel big again. I had always dreamed of being a princess when I was younger. My prince would be handsome and strong and ride a white horse and would rescue me from everything. A part of me laughed at how farfetched it was to be standing in the home of a real Prince and learning just what kind of stuff he went through. We talked on the way back.
"Can I..." I asked embarassingly. "Can I see your library when Belle and you have talked? Because she mentioned a library that I wouldn't mind seeing."
"Of course." He said with a...smile? I grinned. "Seems like you and Belle have a bit in common."
"Oh? How so?" I couldn't imagine myself being nearly as beautiful as her. I didn't know what else we had in common.
He put a hand to his chin. "Well you seem smarter than Sora."
The boy stopped in his tracks and made a dead turn in our direction. "I'll have you know..."
I chuckled. "I think he's kidding. Lighten up Sora."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" He echoed through the halls. I walked up to him and pinched his cheek. He made a groaning noise in responsde.
"Don't feel bad Sora, from what you told me, you never really went into high school, its ok if you're a little behind." I grinned.
Sora blushed. "Are you teasing me?"
"Maybe?" I pinched his cheek a little harder.
"That's what else you have in common with her!" Beast grinned a little at the two of us. Both of us stopped and I let go of him. "You give people a sense of security to be themselves around you."
Sora and I both looked at each other and then back to Beast. "What?"
Beast walked to a snickering Donald and Goofy. "If you don't see it now, you never will."
Sora and I looked at each other, and I think our faces went the same shade of scarlet. I hope that there wasn't a double meaning behind that. I don't know why I even got so embarassed. I'm glad Sora could be himself around me. Meant he was a real honest to goodness person that I could trust.
The two of us stayed in silence until we got up to Belle's room. Instead of knocking, Beast opened the doors and let us in. Belle was nowhere to be found. The Wardrobe from the West Wing was standing in the middle of the room.
"Oh Master!" She grinned in a chimie voice.
"Where is Belle?"
XxxxxX
Missing. She left. She was going after the man in the black cloak. Beast got super angry again.
"We'd better go find her." Sora placed a hand on his back and we all quickly exited the room. Immediately outside the door we were bombarded with heartless. So many were just appearing in the hallway. We bashed through them quickly, not even caring about the small fry. We had to find her quickly, who knows what trouble she could get herself into?
Finding our place back out at the stairway, Beast called her name.
"I'm warning you! You'll be sorry!" I could hear her muffled voice from...behind me?
Beast slammed open the big door that lead to a giant room. It had to be 300 feet tall with a giant chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. Cherubs were adorning the chandelier and the pillars in the room made me feel so tiny. We could see Belle running across the room and making her way to a balcony. Before we could even follow her, a GIANT, and I say that in all caps because this thing was about a quarter of the floor sized, heartless fell from the ceiling, surrounding the room in inky blackness that took my breath away. The room got very cold, and i could feel chills running up my spine. When i finally got a good look at it, it looked like a demon covered in thick chains. Everyone had assumed their ready stance, as did I, and we leapt into battle.
The monster was taking control of its surroundings to attack us. The Chandelier, the pillers, the windows, everything was hitting us with brute force. Of course, being someone who was having a difficult time blocking light and dark based magic attacks, I was a bit at a disadvantage. The attacks kept coming and I was already hurting. Donald kept casting curing magic on me, but I was winded. This was nothing like Shan Yu. This thing was a full blown magic attacker and it was killing me to hit it. I could barely get near the thing. I was just trying to destroy what I could while Sora hit it with brute force.
As we weakened it, we thought it was almost over. The thing was exhausted and nearly dying. We were almost done. That was a lie. It transformed. Transformed into a demonic looking dog/lion thing.I didnt know what exactly it was. But I was worn out already. Donald handed me a potion. I knocked it back and felt myself recharge for probably the 6th time this battle. I watched on as Sora seemed so good. But I was nearing my limit. I dropped to the floor and the thing was oncoming. All I could do was put out my spear and hope that an end would be quick, but the end didn't come, as Sora had grabbed me around the stomach and moved me as far away as he could.
I looked up at him, the tiredness in my eyes he could see. He knew I didn't come nearly as prepared for this battle as I should have. All those heartless, all the evil, while it made me stronger and better, it still wasn't helping me.
"You ok?" He asked as he placed me down.
I felt a wave of dizziness hit me, and within a moment of saying, "I don't know", I felt the unconciousness hit me and my head fell to the floor. I was gone.
XxxxxX
I felt the strong sent of a fruit tea hit my nose, which woke me up instantly. I panicked a moment and kicked my foot, knocking it into a hard lump. When I noticed the large lump was Sora's back, and his pained face was eying me, I held up my hands.
"I am SO sorry." I said in a panic.
He rubbed his back tenderly and took a hard breath out. "You're still breathing at least."
I looked around the room. I must have been in an empty chamber because I surely don't remember this room on the tour. "What happened?"
He stood up and handed me a cup, which had a very sweet smelling tea inside. "You passed out on the field."
I blushed. "Oh..."
"You did so much better than I expected though." He flashed me a grin and sat back on the bed again. "Really, I am very much impressed, and so were Donald and Goofy. That was a tough customer and you did very well against it."
"You are just trying not to embarass me, right?" I took a sip of the hot drink. A flavor of honey and ginger slid down my throat and made my back relax. "I took 10 rounds of healing and I wasn't even there for the final blow."
"Well...you kinda were." He laughed a little. "We got the killing blow as soon as you passed out. We didn't have to worry about your safety or anything. We got Beast to carry you to this room in the South Wing."
I opened my eyes a little to see if any damage was done to my body. There was none. Not much soreness either.
"There is a special potion in the tea so that it takes away all muscle pain. You'll be ready to go really soon." Sora's half-lidded eyes smiled at me. He looked exhausted too. Must have been resting while I was too.
"Thank you Sora." I put the finished cup on the bedside table, only to realize it had a little face just like Chip. It remained perfect while I drank. "Thank you little cup."
The eyes popped open and a grin came across it as it hopped off the table and out the door. Sora looked at me and suddenly the two of us started to laugh. The world was weird. With all its weird odds and ends, it was still a wonderful place and I was so glad to experience it.
A voice came from the doorway, that made the two of us turn our heads. "Oh, good, you're awake."
Belle peeked her head in. "Ready to go check out the library?"
Without a moment's thought of whether I would pass out or not, I hopped out of bed. "Ready as I'll ever be!"
"I like your enthusiasm." She grinned. I left Sora behind as I followed Bell down the long hallway. I looked behind to see he wasn't following. I guess books weren't really his thing. A large door stood in front of me when we reached the end of the hall.
"Is this...?" I pointed at the door. it was SO much taller than me. That could only be a good sign.
"The Beast told me this place was mine to have." She smiled proudly. "You are free to look around and take what you like, since we will definitely be seeing each other again."
The door swung open with a loud sound and I could smell the parchement from the entryway. I looked around, totally in awe of the place. There were at least 3 stairways to 3 stories of books. EVERYWHERE books. I was shocked. I had never even believed that libraries could get this big.
"Would you like to see some of my favorites?" She asked. I nodded, unsure of what to say. With that, we were off like a kid in the candy store.