Belle's POV

"Is that everything?" Papa asked as he heaved a trunk into the little remaining space in the wagon.

"I think so," Belle replied, leaning on the side of the wagon and trying not to look too exhausted. They had spent all morning loading their trunks and bags into the back of the wagon Papa bought with what money they had; Belle had done her best to help as much as she could, but she wasn't used to heaving such loads.

"Good. You want a last look around before we go?"

"Not really," Belle said honestly. The apartment they were leaving behind did not hold many fond memories for her and now that they were finally leaving, Belle found herself anxious to be off.

"All right then. I'd rather get going myself, truth be told" he said and closed up back of the wagon he had fixed so that it swung down on a hinge. Belle took a moment to pat the nose of the young horse Papa had bought along with the wagon. He seemed like a good strong horse, good enough to pull them and their belongings across the countryside. And what's more, he seemed very friendly which made Belle somehow more optimistic about the journey ahead of them.

"Are you ready, Philippe?" she asked the beautiful chestnut horse. He nudged her shoulder gently and Belle grinned. She gave the horse one last pat before climbing up to sit beside her father on top of the wagon. "Let's go, Papa," she said with a smile. He clicked the reins, sending Philippe into a merry trot as they made their way out of the city. They were heading more or less south, but aside from that Belle wasn't sure what Papa's intentions were. Even though Papa had tried to show her his plans for the journey on several maps, Belle couldn't make much sense of them. But then, Papa was never very good at explaining himself when he was excited.

For awhile Belle was content to sit quietly and watch the city pass by her. She had never left the city before and it was interesting to see how it faded from the busy streets of the city's center to the less populous outskirts. Before long, Paris was behind them and their journey was truly underway.

"So where are we going, Papa?" she asked once they passed the last of the city's outlying homes. She needed conversation to distract her from leaving what had been her home.

"I heard there's a job out in a village a couple of days from here. I was going to see what that would offer, and where that might lead," he replied. "We'll find somewhere to settle down in a few weeks at the most."

"Will we?" she asked hesitantly, suddenly worried they might be wandering about the country forever.

"Your birthday is in one month. I promise you we'll be settled by then," he said, making a point to look her in the eye when he spoke. Belle nodded, believing her father's word. He never lied to her before; sometimes he kept things from her until he was able to tell her, but he never lied. Still, a month was a long time to be sitting atop a wagon.


They traveled the rest of the day until the road they followed led into a small town. At least, it was small compared to the city of Paris. But it had an inn that wasn't too expensive and the inn had a bath, which was a great relief for Belle after a rather heartbreaking day spent on the dusty road. She and Papa rented a room from the kindly innkeeper and washed off the dirt of their travels. Belle was weary after the day of travel and climbed into the small bed quite early, but her father sat up at the tiny desk sketching on scraps of paper he had gotten from the innkeeper. She thought about telling him to get some sleep if they were to continue traveling the next day, but he was clearly enjoying having the freedom to return to his inventions. So Belle merely turned away from the candlelight and allowed the second tiny bed in the room to remain empty.

Belle woke without having the memory of falling asleep. Clearly traveling had tired her out more than she thought, but she was glad her first night in a strange bed was less jarring than she feared. Papa's bed was untouched; he had fallen asleep at the desk, the candle by his elbow melted down to a stub. Belle let him be, taking the time to herself to get ready for the day before going downstairs to see what she might get for their breakfast.

"What'll it be, mam'selle?" the innkeeper's tired-looking wife asked when Belle approached her.

"What can I get for this?" she asked, feeling a bit foolish and very embarrassed as she held out a small handful of coins she and Papa had purposefully set aside as part of their food savings. The woman looked at her with obvious pity and went into the kitchens. She came back a few minutes later with a couple of sausages and warm bread with honey on a tray for her. Belle took the tray but couldn't help the look of confusion she gave the innkeeper's wife.

"Young girl's must keep up their strength when they travel," was all she said before bustling off to tend to her other customers, leaving Belle standing with a tray worth much more than what she paid. She was tempted to go after the woman and insist she take the tray back, but the woman seemed to have disappeared and the smell of the sausages made her mouth water. So she decided to take the woman's kindness just this once and brought the tray up to the room.

She pushed the door to the room open while balancing the tray in one hand. As she stepped through the doorway, Papa crashed into her nearly knocking the food to the floor.

"Belle, there you are!" he exclaimed as Belle rebalanced the tray. "We'll need to get moving soon if we're to reach the next village by nightfall."

"Breakfast first," she insisted and put the tray on the nearest bed. Her father took one of the plates and ate as he continued to pack his sketches and clothes. He never made a comment of how the meal was disproportionate to the money they had left, which Belle was grateful for. Belle sat and ate more calmly, watching her father gather himself together in his own chaotic manner.

"Ready to go?" he asked as he swallowed the last piece of bread. "We've got a couple full days of travel before I get to that job."

"Ready," she said, though she was not looking forward to another day of sitting in the wagon. They packed the little they brought into the inn with them, went downstairs to pay the kindly innkeeper, and claimed their wagon and horse from the barn behind the inn.

"Hello, Philippe," Belle greeted their horse as they entered the barn. He was still shy around his new owners, but conceded to eat the handful of oats Belle offered him.

It took a few minutes for Papa to get the horse hitched up to the wagon but once the horse was set and their things were secured, it was time to once again climb atop the wagon and suffer the hard wood and old springs the seat was made up of. Belle wondered briefly if it might be more comfortable to recline in the back amongst their belongings, but one look at the trunks and boxes quickly determined that a bad idea. So Belle merely sat as comfortably as she could as the wagon rolled out of its shelter and onto the open road once more. If she had to endure another full month of the terribly uncomfortable wagon ride, she might go insane. She could only hope that Papa would find a permanent position more quickly than that. As it was, only a day and a half of this felt like an eternity.

For awhile she merely listened as her father chatted about the scenery around them. It was so vastly different than what Belle was used to in the city; it was beautiful, Belle could not deny that. In fact she rather enjoyed it, but as she listened to her father have his one-sided conversation she couldn't keep her mind from wandering back to Paris and the friend she left behind. No amount of beauty could make up for the fact that she was now friendless. She missed Gustave too, but she didn't know him as well for as long and it was hard to mourn for something she never truly had.

"You've been very quiet today," her father remarked as they resumed their journey after a short midday break to eat. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm fine, Papa," she insisted. "Just a little tired."

"Already? We've got a long way to go still."

"I know. I just need to get used to this, that's all."

"Well, I'll do my best to get us settled as soon as possible."

"I know, Papa," she said with the best, most hopeful smile she could muster.


Beast's POV

The Beast sat in his armchair by the fire, watching the flames as he did nearly every day now, even as the days grew warmer. Besides this room and the West Wing, he cared to go few other places. His servants had strict orders not to disturb him unless it was for his meals or some extraordinarily disastrous event, which left him in solitude most of the time.

He preferred it that way; to look upon his servants meant to be reminded of a curse he was not able to lift. Seeing them in their state reminded him of his own monstrous form. But when he sat very still in his armchair, disturbed by no one and paying attention to nothing but the flames in front of him, he was able to forget for a few moments what he was. It wasn't that he imagined himself human again; he felt too far gone from humanity to remember what it was like to be a man, but he could at least ignore his own existence for awhile.

Occasionally he would escape to the rooftops, and even more rarely would roam amongst the trees of the forest. He did this every so often not because he wished to resume his hunting, but to ward off any travelers that might be wandering the forest. If he kept them too frightened to travel the woods, he might be able to keep his sanctuary intact.

Of course, that meant that no one would come to break the curse, but there was really no hope of that anyway. Besides, any travelers he encountered were men. He hadn't seen a woman since the witless young girl traveling with her brothers. And unless the Enchantress had other incredibly mistaken plans for him, the men were of no use to him. It had occurred to him during his days spent silently brooding that it need not be a romantic sort of love that would break the curse; a simple friendship might do the trick, but how was he to befriend men who drew weapons on him the moment he came into view?

No, it was completely hopeless. All he wanted to was to live out his days in peace with as few things as possible to remind him what he was.


Belle's POV

It had taken three more days of travel before they reached the town where the promised job was. The second night after their stay at the first inn they found themselves too far from any town to find lodging, so they spent the night camped out beside the empty field the road ran through, lying on nothing but the blankets they had brought from the city. Belle did not relish the idea of sleeping on the ground; it was bad enough that she could no longer sleep in her own bed, but to sleep on the ground without mattress or ceiling sounded frankly very awful. But there was nothing to be done about it, so Belle merely set up the blankets for her and her father.

Once she lay back in her blankets though, she had a completely unobstructed view of the sky above her. A sky full of stars. She had never in her life seen so many stars, like a sparkling blanket gently enveloping the world; her breath caught in her throat and she felt her eyes widen in amazement. In the city, the candles and lanterns from the massive number of people strangled the light of the stars. During the past two nights spent outside the city, Belle had quite a number of other things on her mind than to admire the skies. But now she was enraptured in its beauty. Even the ground beneath her was more comfortable than she imagined it could be. Tucked in her pocket of warmth under the blankets, she was lulled to sleep by the drone of early-summer insects and comforted by the gentle glow of the stars above her.


"Did you sleep all right?" Papa asked as they made ready to go the next morning.

"Better than I have since we left the city," she said honestly. "I had no idea there were so many stars."

"They are beautiful, aren't they?" Papa said with a chuckle. "You'll be seeing a lot more of them now that we're out here. We'll reach the next town by tonight, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you slept out in inn's yard." Belle laughed in reply to his teasing and climbed up on the wagon beside him.

It took the entire day to get to the next town. It still amazed Belle that there could be such large stretches of land between people. Many times she felt like a child the way she gazed at her new surroundings, taking them in with wonder and amazement. Before the previous night, she had been worried about what she was leaving behind in the city, hardly coming out of her own thoughts to think about what was ahead. But taking the time to really look at the stars seemed to clear her head, allowing her to see her surroundings for the first time since she left the city.

"It's beautiful out here, isn't it?" she said conversationally as they rode through fields and farmland on their way to the next town.

"Yes, it is," her father replied and she noticed how strangely he was looking at her.

"I've been acting oddly on this trip so far, haven't I?" she asked.

"Well, I wouldn't say odd. Just not yourself," he amended. "Are you all right now?"

"I think so. I was just so focused on what was going wrong before: leaving Clarice and our home, saving money to stay in those inns and to eat, what might be ahead of us. I couldn't appreciate what was around me."

"I knew this was going to be a big change for us but you seemed so distant the past few days I wasn't sure what to do."

"I'm sorry, Papa," she said earnestly. She didn't want her father to have to worry about her on top of everything else.

"As long as you're all right now, no harm done," he said with a grin. "We'll reach the next town by tonight and I'll get my first day's real work, so we won't have to worry about money for a little while, either," he added. "I've got a good feeling that these people will know somewhere for us to live."

"I think so, too," she agreed, for once optimistic about the trip ahead of them.