Authors Note: In my version the castle was transported after the original spell to a surrounding landscape of farmland and villages, very close to Paris. I wanted there to be a completely separate place for the forest it was originally in and the place the castle was currently residing, so that it was far more dramatic. This is why Sophia can shimmy out of a crack in the wall and escape without falling to her doom. Also, there are some statement made in the narration that seem a little off, but I think you'll catch on. It's the same with Christian, only most of this chapter is from Sophia's vantage point. Most of the things aren't really true, but it's how she perceives them.
NEW AUTHORS NOTE: (January 23, 2010): Most of this is the same. A few sentences have been restructured but nothing too dramatic. The only part that I really worked on is a paragraph pretty close to the end where Sophia's reason behind her anger is laid out. It's the fifth from the bottom if you just wanted to read that. Sophia needed a broken heart so that it could be healed.
Chapter Ten: Running away
Not a soul in this castle could doubt that there was a very poor relationship between the King and his family. But the immense problems that had occurred between Christian and his daughter had come as something of a surprise to everyone. Sophia not least.
If you could pinpoint the heir of France it would be easy to say that she was an ordinary girl. She loved to talk, dance, and laugh. She loved reading more then anything which was something uncommon for a Princess but quite natural for any daughter of Belle to be interested in. In fact most of her wild notions had come from her books. She had come to a conclusion at a very early age that as far as adventure, romance, and happiness went it did not include Princess's. They were really very boring creatures. Fairy tales were the worst and she held them in very little regard. Princesses were so useless. And in every story she knew of (Snow White, Cinderella, Repunzel) parents seemed to hate their daughters.
It's not as if she relished in the idea that her father hated her, that her mother regarded her as nothing but leverage. But once she had heard that those sorts of things actually do happen in families and that it seemed to be much more common in royal families she finally started to see that hers wasn't much different from everything she had read about.
At that moment she hated her father more then anything. And she had never been angrier in her life. She wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt her, striking at him in every way she could. When she had finally come to the conclusion that she could never feel better doing anything so trivial she had already come up with another solution that was far more beneficial to her own cause.
When she reached her room the guards were already in place. She could almost believe that her father and his servants could read each other's minds. Fortunately though, he had posted the two most incompetent members of the guard he possessed. Their names were Armand and Lamont and she had known them for as long as she could remember. In her mind she reasoned that she couldn't understand how in the world Chip had come up with a couple of brothers as stupid as these two "fine gentlemen". But the thought of Chip caused a small pang to cut across her heart. She had been close to the boy even though Chip was eight years her elder. At that moment, she hated her father even more for allowing him to leave. Everyone that she cared about let her down! She was better off without them.
Sophia didn't even breathe as she passed the two guards, but went strait inside and closed the door. The real irony of all this was that there was a rose trellis outside her bedroom widow. Her room was not actually that far from the ground, only about two floors up. As silent as the grave she doused her lamps. She had once read in a book about a girl doing the exact same thing she was doing and so the ideas were easy to come by. She stuffed her bed up with pillows. After that she scattered her clothes about the room as she had done every night. Unfortunately she did not know how to take her corset off on her own. But she shrugged that worry off and replaced her clothes with her riding costume. She was going to steal the new filly from the stables because her own horse was still being shoed.
She schemed about sneaking into a farmer's home and stealing his clothing (and of course the clothes will somehow fit her perfectly). Then she would cut her hair short so that no one would recognize her (and somehow everyone that would meet her won't detect that this beautiful young boy just happens to have a perfect feminine shape and grace). Smiling at her own "flawless plan", Sophia-Belle opened the window and putting one leg over the side found her footing and began to climb down. She would be free as soon as she made it out of the rose garden, which was what she was descending right into. There was a small opening inside the gate and she knew that she could squeeze through without anyone noticing a thing.
Christian could be found in his room. Everyone in that castle knew that if they were to disturb him they might as well behead themselves. After undressing himself down to his breaches and his cotton shirt he pulled on his dressing robe and without even a thought for sleep he sat down at his study to work late into the night. He knew that Belle was currently crying herself to sleep only down the corridor. He knew that his daughter was currently locked up inside her room wishing him dead. But all these things couldn't matter anymore. He had to concentrate. He had to keep going because if he stopped, if he let himself feel what he knew was only waiting beyond the surface of his mind, he would never come back again. He must not think. He must work until he cannot see strait and then start over again the next day.
Checking to make sure that the door was locked, he went over to his desk and took out a small box that he kept hidden in the bottom drawer. Opening it with the greatest of care he pulled out a pair of spectacles and put them on before he sat down to his desk to work. The only soul in the world that knew about the spectacles was Cogsworth. And this was so only because Christian had needed him to procure them for him. He didn't want anyone to know that he was losing his eyesight this early in his life. Especially when he, at one point, had eyesight so keen he could see in the dark. Deep down he knew that someday he would have to succumb to the weakness his body was presenting, fearing that sooner or later he would most likely be totally blind.
Cursing his life in general. Secretly wishing somewhere in the darkest corner of his mind that he could go back to a lifetime ago when he was cursed and trapped but more happy then he could remember being for a long, long time.
Sophia was not exactly slight of build. That isn't to say she was large but she was rather curvy for her breed; much taller then most women of the court. Her neck was thick, but proportionate; her hands slim, but long, giving the air that they were almost too big. This made for a wonderful musician her parents had cultivated in her. She was beautiful, that's for sure, but a type of beauty that did not strike you dumb at first glance. Her beauty was earthy and powerful. With large breasts and hips, she had a perfect hourglass shape and when she stood you could almost imagine the queens that came before her.
So it really was a loud thump that resounded when she hit the ground outside her window and it was a sure lucky thing that no servants had been inside the servant quarters at that hour when the sound occurred or she really would have had to do some quick talking. She looked around suspiciously; knowing that at any moment guards would come spilling out of every door and window, swords and guns drawn to chase after her as she was fleeing for her life.
The rose garden that surrounded Rose castle was one of the largest gardens in France. Sophia never understood why, except for names sake, but roses really were the most obvious of plants in the entire garden area. And the more peculiar thing about them was that her father, the king himself, tended to almost three-fourths of the roses that grew here. More then once had she seen him fly into a rage when he had caught some poor misguided fool hacking into a rose bush or vine to make room for more of some other kind of bloom. She could remember waking up many a morning, seeing him out there with only a cotton shirt or sometimes no shirt at all (when the heat was too excruciating), delicately cutting and pruning his roses. It was odd and she never understood it.
She passed dozens of rows of roses. Thinking to herself of all the things she was going to be able to do when she was finally free. And just as she reached the gate where the small opening was still concealed neatly by a small bush, she paused. Looking around herself she knew that this certainly must be the last time she would ever see the castle. It almost made her dizzy to think of what she had been missing in life because of her father. What kind of a person she could be if she just hadn't been born a princess. She wanted to see things, she wanted to experience life and love…love that did not include a contract and a large pile of gold. Sophia felt her world consisted of nothing but the walls around this garden. The roses within it were a mark of the life she had lived. She was her fathers rose. A beautiful little flower, cut and molded, planted in the exact moment at the right time to fit how he wanted her and trapped by her own roots and lineage. She wanted a life that was hers and only hers. She wanted a father that loved her for just being her and did not hide the whole world from her including his own past for reasons she could not even begin to comprehend or forgive him for.
It had been twelve that Sophia had realized that her father no longer loved her mother. The wild rumors about illicit affairs and late night tavern drunkenness came much later. And if Sophia were being truly honest with herself she could locate directly the moment when she not only watched her world fall apart, but also felt a deep bitterness towards her father. Every year for her mothers birthday, for as long as Sophia could remember Christian had given Belle a book. Some ravishingly beautiful literary thing that he had located from a distant place in the world. One only a king could afford. With the book he would always attach a pink rose to the books ribbons and give it to Belle with sly kiss. They would usually celebrate and everything would be wonderful. When Sophia was eleven Belle had still been too sick to celebrate her birthday and so it wasn't until the year following that she noticed the change. He had come home from one of his journeys on the day of Belle's birthday and had ordered the feast as usual. Then when it had come time for the festivities everyone had waited for him until finally Cogsworth had come down to reveal that the king would not be joining them for the celebration. Sophia had watched as the Major-Domo handed Belle a very lovely new book that was totally void of it's pink rose. She had sat outside her mother's door that night listening to her cry herself to sleep as she would for hundreds of nights to come until Sophia no longer cared anymore. The tears were a regular part of her miserable life and it just couldn't matter. She had to move on from it somehow.
And now here, in this lovely garden she wondered what it was going to be like to live without the roses. Without really even thinking about it she looked to her left to see a brilliantly blooming pink rose. It was stunning in a group of roses that couldn't even compare. She hesitated for a moment, then leaning down she breathed in its summer fragrance with a longing on her face for all the things she wished for her own life.
Now you might think that magic is something we can feel, but not always. You might think that if you were to be physically transported miles away from the spot you were standing in without so much as a step, you would know that was what was happening to you, but not always. And just as Sophia-Belle was raising her head to look around her she suddenly found herself in a place she had not even slightly intended to be.
From the looks of it, it must have been a small cabin, though there was no bed, nor other rooms. The walls were lined with books of every dirty, dusty sort. The table was littered with all manner of peculiar objects and in the center was what Sophia could only guess as being a cauldron. A very small and shabby little thing and from the odors coming from it she was sure it was not being used to prepare soup.
With a small gasp she turned on her heels, preparing herself to run as fast as her long legs could carry her, only to behold a young man gazing intently at her from a corner near the door of the cabin.