Chapter 12: The Spell is Broken

Belle couldn't help but cringe as she chanced a glance down into the gloom where her husband had disappeared, plummeting to his death in the ravine below. Gaston had been a horrible, ugly man in the end, twisted and misguided by both jealousy and possessiveness. She could see that clearly now, and though she now felt a deep regret for ever agreeing to marry him in the first place, she also couldn't help but feel a pang – however small and dull – at how his death now left her widowed.

Turning back to her Beast, she gingerly helped him over the railing of the balcony. His muscular legs were shaking with the effort, and he swayed into her a little once he was safely over so that she had to catch him, hold him in her arms. Blood was dripping from a heavy gash in his tunic, and Belle held in a hiss through her clenched underbite. She recalled enough from her hunting tutorials with Gaston that a side stab wound like that is fatal to most creatures and a wellspring of anger at her deceased spouse bubbled up before quickly fading away when she heard the Beast groan.

A light rain had begun to fall around them, but the beautiful maiden hardly felt it. Tenderly, Belle cradled him in her arms, helping to lower him to the cobblestones as the Beast's legs finally gave out. She cradled his head the way she might her lover, easing it to the balcony last of all. Her big, brown eyes widened in deep concern and alarm when his handsome crown almost immediately lolled to the side.

The rise and fall of the Beast's chest was strained, his breathing labored. He managed to tilt his face to look up at her, and Belle smiled weakly at him, cupping his mane.

"Belle…." he gasped. Beast actually beamed at her adoringly, the sparkling smile that showed off his handsome fangs and which Belle had always secretly loved. "You…. you came back…."

"Of course I came back," she crooned breathlessly. "I couldn't let them…" Her voice caught and she bent over him to hug him around the neck. "Oh, this is all my fault! If only I'd gotten here sooner…"

"Maybe….. it's…. it's better this way…" The Beast's voice was raspy and tight with the effort to even get the words out and Belle shushed him.

"Don't talk like that," she chided softly. "You'll be all right…" She smiled weakly, lovingly, straightening the golden brooch that fastened the corners of his fine cape. She reached to gently cup his face, turn it back to hers. "We're together now; everything's going to be fine, you'll see…"

The Beast was reaching a massive paw up to caress Belle's face, brushing her flowing, chestnut bangs out of her eyes. Belle gripped it like a lifeline, the tears threatening to well up.

"At least…. I got to see you…. one last time."

Closing her eyes, Belle leaned into the warmth of his paw – so large and once strong, it dwarfed her entire cheek. Suddenly, she felt is slacken, fall away, and she opened her eyes in terror.

To her horror, the Beast's lively blue eyes rolled into the back of his head and he sagged to the stone and lay still. Belle drew both hands to her mouth to hold in a gasp, frantically shaking her head in disbelief.

"No…. No!" she cried, reaching for him. "Please…. please… please…. Please, don't leave me!" A sob escaped her and bending prostrate over his expansive, muscular chest, she buried her face in his soft fur, her fingers clutching at his tunic. Nuzzling her head against the chest of her Beast, as a tear blazed a path down her cheek to mix with the soft rain, Belle finally whispered aloud the words that she had carried for some time in her heart, but had been too afraid to confess out of fear and also some now largely pointless sense of faithfulness to the cruel man she had married:

"I love you."

Unbeknownst to her, a moment after she breathed those three little words, the last petal on the Enchanted Rose withered and died, its light fading as it fell to the tabletop beneath the glass dome. Watching their hopes die with it, Cogsworth, Lumiere and Mrs. Potts hung their heads in dejection.

The rain had eased into a light drizzle now, but Belle did not move from where she was strewn across her Beast, still sobbing. She didn't want to leave his side, for to do so would be a tacit admission that he was dead, that she would never again see his expressive blue eyes light up when they shared books together. They would never again waltz in each other's arms in the ballroom.

She didn't register it at first, but she thought she heard what sounded like a tinkling of bells. A fallstreak of light got past her closed eyelids. At first, Belle thought it might be morning glow, the sunrise, except she and her Beast were facing West, not East. She continued to weep, as all the while, comets of sparkling light fell to the balcony along with the rain, slowly at first, and then in a persistent torrent. Fragments of sparkling light from the comets, falling stars, gathered on the wet cobblestones, and the shimmer grew so bright that Belle finally lifted her head from the Beast's chest, blinking. Her brown eyes went huge when she realized what was happening. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew about her and her lover, strong enough that she felt her precious Beast's body shift underneath her. The Beast's chest pressed up against her arms, and Belle's full lips barely formed a single, dazed, silent word – 'What?' – before he sprung into the air, lifted off the ground like a flower petal into the wind.

A stunned Belle shrank back in fear and amazement, clutching her cloak tighter around herself against the chilly wind. Gusts of wind blew her hair back and the young woman's pretty, full lips fell agape. She was overwhelmingly confused by what was happening, but she could not bear to look away from her true love as he drifted away from her. Shock prevented her from forming her confusion into intelligible thoughts.

A warm updraft of air, steam, wafted up from the falling stars so that the Beast's body seemed to bathe in it. The tendrils of his cloak strained for the heavens first, dragging his large form up, up, up, so that Belle feared the Beast might be hung from it. Suddenly, his body twisted, so that his cloak swaddled him in a kind of cocoon. Belle stood, backing away further, her head and her heart spinning. What's happening to him? she wondered dazedly, fearing for him. It was all she could manage to think. Oh, have mercy, Saints preserve us, what's happening to him?

The Beast suddenly squirmed against the confines of his cloak, and a massive paw finally sprang out, reaching towards the light. As Belle watched in astonishment, the fur on his paw – the same paw that used to caress her and make her shiver – melted away, to be replaced by smooth, human flesh. A flash of light emanated from the Beast's fingertips, and Belle staggered back a step as the wind howled, brushing her brown bangs out of her face and letting the strands fly behind her like a banner, so that she didn't miss one, dizzying second. The Beast's forepaws, clawed, now strained towards the ground, fully extending. Here, too, the fur melted away, the fine claws retracted, to reveal human flesh and a flash of light burst from his toes.

The Beast now began to spin faster within his cloak, his handsome chest puffed out and bulging under his white tunic. Belle had always admired the Beast's expansive chest and thought it quite handsome, and she had grown accustomed to his face so as to find it quite dashing and attractive. That same dashing face now had a gust of wind ripple through it, the breeze tickling the fur of his fine mane. And as Belle watched in disbelief, the fur faded away, his horns shrank back into his head and a final, truly blinding flash of light erupted. It was so bright that Belle could not get a good look at this stranger who had suddenly replaced her Beast, beyond knowing that he appeared to be… a man…

Stunned, Belle watched as the man was slowly lowered back to Earth, his body cradled in the clock, which now acted like a parachute to return him safely to the cobblestones. A mixture of rain and falling comets was falling in a downpour now, steam still billowing up and shielding the Beast's new lithe form in a haze that matched Belle's spinning mind. Through the fog, Belle could see her Beast lay still and sprawled, and she cautiously moved forward, reaching out a shaking hand to touch him….

The remnants of steam were suddenly absorbed into the Beast's body, and she saw his body shudder and stir as he breathed. Took his first breath of new life. Belle sprang back, stumbling up against the balcony railing. She watched, gobsmacked and a little scared as the mysterious stranger stood on shaky, spindly, gangly legs, his back to her. Staring at his smooth hands, he at last turned to face her.

Dazed, Belle had both hands to her mouth, her eyebrows knit together in confusion. Lowering her hands from where she had been holding in a gasp, her brown eyes bulged with a joy she could not name, hardly daring to hope. She recalled the theory that the Beast had once been human, but it would have taken great magic to return him to his true form. Was this man indeed her Beast?

"Belle…" the man breathed. "It's me." And he stepped into the light, taking her hand with a beaming smile as Belle inched closer. Belle flinched away from his touch, though not far enough to pull free from it.

Blinking, Belle tilted her head skeptically, her full lips pursed in a bemused frown as she took him in. She reached up a hand, held back in fear, then ran her fingers through the strands of auburn hair that tumbled down well past his shoulders. The man stayed still and patient, smiling easily and with something that could only be love. Drinking his face in, Belle had to admit: the man that stood before her now and claimed to be her Beast was very handsome. Much more handsome than her husband had been, and Belle would concede that, for all his interior ugliness that had eventually come out, Gaston had been a fine-looking man in face. But this man… God, he was handsome. Sculpted-from-stone beauty. A strong, sharp, chiseled jawline. A muscular chest, though not as full as her Beast's had been – this man was still wearing the Beast's clothes, but they were torn all asunder, and the white tunic hung gangly on his frame. Still doubtful, turning her head, Belle raised her eyes to look deep into the strangely familiar, deep blue eyes of the man.

Belle suddenly was reminded of the portrait she had studied in the West Wing, of the handsome youth. It had been torn, but not enough for her to not take in that man's striking features. The blue eyes…

And then it all clicked. This man's eyes were the same, beautiful blue that her Beast's had been, their warmth and depth exactly the same. Those beautiful eyes gazed at her with such emotions that Belle had only known but once.

Belle's brown eyes expanded with delight, euphoria breaking like the dawn across her gorgeous face.

"It is you!" she cried joyfully, reaching out to softly cup his cheek. The… Prince beamed, lifting up a large hand to tenderly brush the long hair out of Belle's face, tucking it back behind her ear. Belle leaned into his touch, smiling, blushing, her delicate fingers drifting down to brush his firm and noble chin. Gazing into each other's eyes, Belle felt her hands fall to press into the hard planes of the Prince's chest, while his large palms cradled her face, tilting it deliberately up. Belle watched as the Prince slowly lowered his face down and close to hers, and though her heart beat wildly, she lifted her face towards his, almost in a challenge. She knew what was about to happen – Gaston, her husband, had kissed her plenty of times before. Belle felt her eyelids flutter, grow heavy with want. Whatever happened next, whatever was to come, she knew that this was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, the man she should have been with all along.

The couple held back for a moment before surrendering, and the Prince's lips sealed over Belle's in a passionate kiss. It was a kiss that nothing – not even all the kisses she had shared with Gaston – could have prepared Belle for, and the moment his lips pressed against hers, she gasped in delight. A happy moan escaped her, her mouth parting, petaling open like a flower – the Enchanted Rose, perhaps – bursting into full bloom, and she felt the Prince's tongue greet and coil around her own eagerly.

A gust of wind suddenly picked up and swirled around the couple, bringing with it a tornado of blue, magical light. Reaching her arms up, Belle looped them around her Prince's neck as they embraced, deepening the magical kiss. She felt his strong arms steal about her slim waist, sweeping up her lower back, and he turned her, tugging her closer so that her body and chest pressed tightly against his. Belle's one palm clutched at the white fabric of the Prince's tunic across his massive shoulders, while her other hand buried itself into his red hair, her dainty fingers weaving into the strands, and she pulled, tugging him closer with a deep, guttural groan. "Mmmmmhmmmmm….."

This kiss was like all the fairytale kisses she had read about as a little girl. A kiss that was now quite literally making her long and flowing brown hair stand on end, just as the gust of wind was lifting the Prince's red locks up as well. All the beautiful young woman could think was, I love you….

And as Belle and her Prince embraced and kissed, there was a piercing SHRIEK as an azure firework shot up from where the couple clutched at each other and exploded in the fading nighttime sky above the castle.

Belle had told the Beast that she loved him, which meant that the evil spell that had been cast on him – and all of the household staff – was broken! True love had broken the spell, and the Beast had transformed back into a handsome Prince.

Dawn broke across the horizon, and its light seemed to shimmer as the dark and ugly exterior of the castle melted away, to be replaced by shining, blinding white marble. A grotesque gargoyle statue metamorphosed into a beautiful angel.

There was a small smack as Belle's lips disengaged from those of her lover, the couple breaking the kiss at last. Coming to rest in her Prince's arms, Belle spun around at the sound of victory as the thrilled servants cheered. Lumiere, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts all dashed forward, blue light sparkling about them until they became human again.

"Lumiere…. Cogsworth! Oh…. Mrs. Potts! Look at us!" the Prince cheered.

"Mama! Mama!" Chip came bounding in on Sultan, the light enveloping them so that Sultan became a scruffy looking dog, and Chip a bucktoothed little boy.

Mrs. Potts chortled. "Oh, my goodness…"

"It is a miracle!" Lumiere whooped.

The Prince picked up a giggling Belle and swirled her around…

… and when he set her down, it seemed, they were back in the ballroom, Belle in her lovely, golden dress and the Prince in a form-fitting blue waistcoat. Her arms draped lazily about his neck, an overcome Belle cupped his face in her hands and dragged his face down to hers, clutching his back and holding him close as she kissed him deeply. Cradling her head in his palm, the Prince kissed her back, their liplocked, private moment alone brief and chaste, before the couple dreamily broke apart and began to dance a light waltz.

As she nestled into her lover's arms, Belle knew she and her Prince would live happily ever after.