CHAPTER 20

BELLE was hit with an overwhelming sense of guilt coupled with dizzying vertigo the moment she staggered upright to her feet; the Beast-Prince's magical book having sent her back. She stood rooted to the spot, her mind feeling like it was reeling, considering what she'd learnt of the Prince from that brief memoir the book had shown her in painstaking detail, though it was faux, some of it, considering she had been allowed to interact with him.

Every new piece that added to the complete story of her complex and insufferable master of the castle made her brows furrow in confusion even more, Belle thought. How was that possible? How could a man—creature, whatever he was these days—become even more of an enigma shrouded in mystery as it was? Belle pondered this.

The Beast seemed to know some…magic secret, perhaps, because every time she laid eyes on him, it felt as though she would be more than content to spend hours just staring at him, eyes boring a hole right through her him, while her mind tried to piece together how his mind worked.

She thought she could think over this until her brain hurt and her face had gone blue, she'd never know.

"Not unless I ask him…" Belle whispered, suddenly sounding horrified by the boldness of her own suggestion.

She did her best to tuck her hair back into place, as she placed the last pieces of her loose dark hair back into place, her eye caught sight of movement out on the grounds. She knew that silhouette, of course she knew it.

His. The Beast, the Prince, her master. Those twisting, winding horns atop his head were unmistakable.

A pang of pity and sympathy ran through her as she strode to the windowsill in two quick strides and watched.

Now that she knew what made him, well, him, it was hard to stay so furious with him. Even after her assault. She let out a haggard sigh and lifted her hand to her cheek and let the pads of her shaking fingertips ghost over the scar.

She let out a hiss. Still tender and sore to the touch. Belle wondered fearfully if it would ever fully be mended.

A thought crossed her mind as she watched the Prince in his cursed form aimlessly wander the grounds.

What if she went to him, and tried to apologize?

Just the idea alone caused her breaths to catch in her throat as she continued to watch the Beast pace an agitated line back and forth on the grounds, near the gates where she'd been attacked. She wondered what was ruminating in his mind.

Her master must have sensed that someone was watching him, because he turned around, looking for the source of this eerie sensation, until his gaze traveled upward, and he saw her.

For a moment, their eyes locked and neither one moved, and then, he ducked his head, as if in submission to her. This caused the furrow between Belle's brows to deepen.

She did not want the Beast putting her on a pedestal. Not over…that. She stiffened and swallowed down past a lump. Now that she knew the truth. If anything, it only gave her more cause to pity the creature.

She repeated the gesture and immediately backed away from the window, feeling as though she had accidentally intruded upon a private moment she was not meant to witness. Even still, she felt the Beast's eyes on her until she disappeared back within the safety of her room. Belle stood numbly staring into the roaring flames of the hearth in her personal quarters for quite some time.

The searing heat from the flames which sent warmth and light flooding to all corners and crevices of her small but modest room caused her cheeks to flush and almost made her sweat.

However, for reasons the painter and inventor's daughter could not yet explain, Belle felt suddenly cold and alone.

She could already feel the fatigue and exhaustion setting in, her eyelids beginning to droop. Her mind went unbidden to her conversation with the Beast-Prince from earlier, thinking how curt she'd been, though at the time, her aggression seemed warranted.

Now, however, she wasn't so sure, and it left poor Belle feeling an utterly amazing sense of horrible conflict. Her mind felt like it was being pulled in opposite directions by a pair of horses, one going this way in that a part of her wanted the Prince to suffer to for what he'd done, and the other wanted to take away his hurt, his pain, to give him that missing piece of affection that he sought.

It was wrong, to feel this way, she was sure of it. He had her stomach twisting in sickening knots, wishing she could escape this place and go back home to her father. Each time he opened his mouth to speak to her, it became apparent to Belle that feeling any sort of affection or any other emotion other than pure unbridled bitterness and a deeply rooted anger towards his past upbringing was foreign to him.

She knew she was not about to be his little 'muse' in learning whether or not he could cope with these feelings that he must obviously be feeling. They were vexing him; she'd been able to tell by the look in his eyes.

Again, the sting of tears overtook her, and she dug her teeth into her bottom lip to furiously blink them back, refusing to let them fall as she stared deep into the fire.

There was a nagging voice in the back of her mind telling her to seek out the master of the castle and apologize. That her reaction towards his attempts to help her understand was ill timed and she had reacted poorly.

The walls that now separated her from him might as well have been a hundred miles thick and impenetrable.

Belle walked slowly towards the door and leant against the plaster, resting her hand softly on top of the ancient woodwork, her body hoping to sense his presence on the other side, that she would have an excuse to see him.

Hearing nothing but silence as she pressed her ear and cheek against the door, careful not to let it touch her scar, she suddenly felt nothing but foolish, Belle chastised herself, as heat crept to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the heat emanating from the fireplace in the room.

As tears began to fall, she now understood the depths of emotion that he had worked so hard to repress, to avoid feeling the pain inflicted upon him by that of his father.

Belle felt a surge of anger towards the late Duke for the atrocity she had witnessed, wondering if, in his youth, the Prince had done worse, and almost grew ill at the thought, not wishing to think of it, as bile rose in her throat.

Belle's dark eyes widened as she realized what she could no longer deny: that she was willing to help him, to try to look beneath the curse and try to see the Prince he could be, providing he had a firm hand to guide him, to set him straight. Her mind was working on overtime right now.

Belle suddenly felt as though she were going to crawl right out of her skin. The walls of her close quarters seemed as though they were closing in around her, rendering her feeling smothered, breathless, and claustrophobic, even.

She needed fresh air to help her think. Belle quickly slid on her boots, still wearing the gown from earlier, and hurled open the door and stepped out into the frozen frigid cold of the desolate, dank hall.

The cold of the hallway hit Belle's face and pinked her cheeks that were already flushed from thoughts of the Prince, stealing the very breath away from her burning lungs, but Belle could not manage to pretend to care now.

The chilly sensation invigorated her body, and cleared her mind, at least a little bit. Drawing the creaky door to her quarters closed behind her, Belle turned on her heels and tried to take a step in the opposite direction, towards the West Wing, where the Beast forbade her to go.

Something of the Wing was pulling her towards it, though whether it was her own natural curiosity that would not be satiated until she had a look, or some other means of Dark Magic, set upon her by this witch's curse, perhaps, she did not know.

What Belle did know, however, was that she was eager to go anywhere, to be anywhere else but in her stifling and overheated room while she was like this. Her progress, however, was almost instantly stopped.

Belle let out a startled yelp as she barreled over something hard and small, glancing down and barely stifled a shriek of surprise, having almost barreled over Monsieur's Lumiere and Cogsworth who'd come to see her.

"My lady! I would kindly ask that you take better care of where you walk!" wheezed the startled little clock, the hands on his face spinning wildly as his legs and arms thrashed while the candelabra struggled to upright him.

Belle's cheeks flamed bright red in hot embarrassment and shame as she knelt into a crouch and scooped up the little clock, much to his embarrassment, as the Head of the Household angrily swatted the top of her hand, demanding to be put down, right this very instant.

"Oh, no, I—I'm so sorry, monsieur, I—I must have squashed you! I'm so sorry, Monsieur Cogsworth! Here, let me help you!" she apologized, a pained look coming over her features. Belle did not even occur to put him down as she straightened her gait and began to walk down the hall, much to Lumiere's amusement that she was holding his colleague close to her chest like she would a book, ignoring Cogsworth's flustered expression and bewilderment.

She looked it, and she meant it, her apology, just now.

It then occurred to Belle that she owed apologies to them both, and to Mrs. Potts, whenever she saw the little teapot next, likely not till the morrow over breakfast. It wasn't just the master she'd treated poorly.

Belle let out a tired but apologetic sigh. "I'm sorry, monsieur's, and to Mrs. Potts too, if you should see her. I did not mean my words. I wish that I could take them back, sir."

Lumiere hobbled along, until Belle had the good sense to scoop him up in her other arm too and walk at a leisurely pace down the hallway, chuckling at the inventor's daughter's look of unbridled shame and awe.

"For what, Ma Cherie? There's nothing to apologize for. T'is the young master who has wronged you, my lady."

"B—But I…I had no idea…" Belle whispered, her breaths catching in her throat as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Her cheeks suddenly felt clammy and hot. She staggered, and paused in the middle of the hall, thinking it best to put the two servants down now, lest she fainted from exhaustion and managed to drop them both.

"Are you ill, mademoiselle?" Cogsworth asked, raising his painted eyebrows as far as they could go.

"N-no," Belle stammered, frowning as she slowly ducked her head and turned away from the two Heads.

She was hardly aware of Lumiere hobbling towards her as best as he could, given that he was a candelabra now, and paused until he rested by the edge of her boot, craning his neck upward to peer into her face with a guarded look.

Lumiere's face registered his shock and surprise as one of his arms shot out to steady the young woman's gait.

Had Belle not thought to shoot out an arm and use the cold stone wall as a support brace, she would have fallen. She'd been shocked to run into his two servants out in the hallways at this hour, but not entirely displeased, no.

"Can't sleep?" Lumiere smiled up at her sympathetically. Belle's eyes widened as she blinked in awe. She managed to catch herself and leant against the wall for support, breathing slowly to regulate her breaths.

"What?" She questioned. "Umm. No." She cursed herself. Belle meant that her lack of sleep had not been her initial reason for leaving her chamber during the witching hour, but neither did she protest at her fellow servant's misunderstanding.

She was not in the mood for questions, nor in the right mindset right now to be able to answer any.

Perhaps it gave her a more plausible excuse to be out here this late at night. Coming back to herself and thinking quickly to provide an adequate response, she smiled down softly at the candelabra and the little grandfather clock, hoping to supplicate the servants some into leaving her be.

Cogsworth seemed to pick up on her hesitation.

"Perhaps you could use a nice spot of tea? Shall I ask Mrs. Potts to prepare you a cup, my lady?" he asked softly.

Belle nodded and fluttered her lashes nervously, shyly. "That—that would be lovely, sir, thank you," she murmured, remembering her courtesies as she watched the little clock begin to totter off down the hallway, but not before gathering her skirt of her dress and giving a curtsy.

She chuckled as she swore Cogsworth bristled, the hands of his face as a turned clock turning counterclockwise as he huffed in annoyance at the gesture.

"Please, my dear, save the formalities for the master. The three of us now, we may not look it, but we are equals."

Belle nodded by way of eager response as Cogsworth tottered off down the hall in search of his colleague and that promised cup of tea for the lady of the castle, leaving Belle alone with Lumiere in an awkward silence a moment.

It was the candelabra who first broke the tense silence that lingered thick in the air between them, all the while Belle had been racking her brain for something to say. When he spoke, Lumiere's voice was solemn, serious.

"He showed it to you, mademoiselle, didn't he? The book. I only ask this of you because you wear a sad look in your eyes. I can only surmise he showed you his father."

The way he'd phrased it to Belle just now wasn't a query, but more of a matter-of-fact statement as Lumiere stared at her.

Belle blanched and immediately looked down at him. She nodded as she tried to find the right words.

"I am beginning to understand now, monsieur, I think. There is…" Belle hesitated, chewing on her lip, before finally deciding to take a chance and throw caution to the wind and speak her piece, whether it got her into trouble or not, she would deal with that later. "There is no further need of the Prince to redeem himself in my eyes, Monsieur Lumiere. It is enough that I know what made him, well…him." Her words were cold, and her tone frosty and listless. "If I'd known earlier then maybe I could have…"

Lumiere waited patiently, but there was nothing more that left the young woman's lips but a frustrated sigh.

"What of the master, pretty belle?" the candelabra asked, and watched the pretty brunette consider his words. Lumiere could sense the dozen or so answers crisscrossing over her mind but had the modesty to keep it to himself. And it was with that that she said, "It's for me to decide that now, I think. It's why he's keeping me here, sir."

Once more, an uncomfortable silence passed over them both. Belle repressed another sigh, her feet almost twitching within her boots as her legs itched to move of their own accord to investigate the forbidden wonders of the West Wing, but somehow, she stayed rooted to the spot.

She couldn't very well go explore the corridor of the castle whilst under the supervision of the Beast's servants.

"Monsieur—" Belle's nervous voice cut through after a lengthy span of time of nothing but muteness between herself and the candelabra. "Do women like his violence?"

"Just Lumiere, ma Cherie, please," pleaded Lumiere.

"Lumiere, then," Belle attempted to correct herself. She posed the question to him again. "Do they enjoy it, sir?"

Lumiere gave a visible start at the young mademoiselle's inquisitive question, thinking that no one has ever dared to ask him such a personal question before.

He gave it a thought. "I suppose you talk about?"

"His violence, Lumiere," Belle pressed on, her tone blunt but steady as she fixed him with a pointed look. "Has there ever been someone in his life that he's cared for? Was there ever a girl in his life that the Prince has ever loved?"

Lumiere's lips pursed. To have the master's object of his attentions spur this subject made things dreadfully awkward. He cleared his throat and fidgeted with his flames that emanated from the palms of his arms now.

But Belle did not let him formulate a response.

"That was it, wasn't it? The night he made me his, the night that his guard attacked me, gave me this," she breathed deeply as she gestured towards her pink scar on her face with a trembling finger as she took in a breath. "He tried to keep me prisoner because he couldn't calm himself. Here's a fact of your master, Lumiere: The Prince hides behind his vileness as if it were a stone castle wall."

"Vileness is every Barreau's armor," Lumiere heard himself automatically parrot back by way of response as Belle frowned, echoing the words the Master said to him often.

She finally looked down at him, face placid and serious, her eyes austere and her lips unsmiling, frowning.

Her every word unhinged the little candelabra further, both frightening Lumiere and enthralling him, thinking the Prince was right to have kept this woman here.

Belle had the power to unhinge him with just a singe look or one uttered phrase of overwhelming empathy.

"But he needs my help to break this…curse, somehow. I am his hearth keep. I am perhaps the one servant save for the three of you who should be closest to him, is that not right? If that's the case, he can take off that armor and break that castle wall that he's built around himself, sir."

Lumiere was left speechless to stare after the beautiful brunette as the Prince's hearth keep turned on her heels after muttering a hastily uttered, "Goodnight," to him and did not even bother to wait for Monsieur Cogsworth, who was shuffling down the hallway in the opposite direction, doing his best not to spill the teacup. Belle rounded the corner, her silhouette long faded from view by the time Cogsworth tottered up to Lumiere, an equal expression of anger paired with dismay on his face.

"Oh, dear!" he huffed, sounding thoroughly vexed as he stomped his little wooden foot in agitation. "Now it's going to get cold. Mrs. Potts will have woken up from her sleep and brewed it for nothing. That girl, aye, she'll be the death of us all, Lumiere, the lass is like trying to hold water in your cupped hands! Why can't she be bothered to stay still for fiveminutes?!" Cogsworth muttered a few choice words under his breath and rounded on his colleague in his growing ire. "You let her just wander off…? What if she…?" he trailed off as he turned his gaze back towards the hall she'd went down, a worried expression plastered all over his features.

Lumiere gave Cogsworth a wide-eyed stare. "You don't think this will work, Cogs?" he questioned in anger.

Cogsworth gave Lumiere his most innocent, 'Leave Me Out of This,' gaze but it was already too late for that.

"It has to," he huffed. "The lady is our best hope. Perhaps…perhaps all they need is time alone together."

"Well, one thing's for sure, Cogs. I certainly hope you're right on this." A playful smirk rested on his features as he looked at the time displayed on Cogsworth's face. "My friend, you happen to be right on this, for once. A broken clock is only right two times a day, which in your case, your lucky your face reflects the current hour, or I'd say you were wrong," he smirked, ignoring Cogsworth's flustered expression as Lumiere turned to look back down the hallway that Belle had disappeared to, to the West Wing.

Lumiere entertained the notion of telling the clock but knew his friend would work himself up into a tizzy, and decided that ignorance was bliss, in this regard. Lumiere sighed deeply and shook his head, clamping his arm on Cogsworth's shoulder and steering him in the opposite direction, towards the East Wing and away from the West, deciding to let the events play out as they ought. He smirked as Cogsworth squeaked in protest as a goodly amount of tea sloshed onto the carpeted floor, but Lumiere could not be bothered at this time to clean it up.

"I think, my old friend, that over the next few weeks, time will tell, and you're going to tell us, since you're a clock," he weakly joked, "if those two are going to be madly in love with one another, or Master will have killed her."

BELLE could not believe she was even entertaining the thought of seeking her master out and apologizing to him. She paused in the corridor for what felt like the tenth time. "No, I—I couldn't…" She put her hand over her mouth as she tried to silence her thoughts. "I could though, but… what would I say?" She breathed, beginning to pace a small line back and forth on the carpeted aisle, now in relatively close proximity towards her master's personal quarters.

Belle always had a habit of pacing whenever nervous or thinking about something. Her pacing was not fast and frantic, but rather a leisurely slow strolling. "For God's sake, I shouldn't want to do this! He should apologize!" she breathed, throwing her arms up in the air and out, gesturing towards no one in particular right now.

She let out a heavy sigh as she stopped dead in her tracks, shifting her weight to rest favorably on her left leg. She crossed her arms below her thundering heart. She could not believe she was even entertaining the idea.

Belle clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes glancing over towards a lifeless statue of a gargoyle.

"What do you think…?" The only response she received from the statue with the glistening ruby red eyes was a blank stare. Belle huffed in growing annoyance and continued slowly approaching the prince's private room. "I can't believe I'm doing this…" she whispered, her thundering heart pounded in her chest, her breaths hitching in her throat as excitement coursed through her.

The door. She was now right in front of the door. Was it too late for her to turn back? Unfortunately, no, it wasn't.

For a moment, her wide, almond-shaped eyes gaped at the closed door as though she'd never seen anything quite like it, though she was being utterly ridiculous, she tried to tell herself.

The door to the West Wing was like any other door thus far in the Prince's estate, like its twins, yes.

Except… Somehow, the door to the West Wing seemed larger, darker, thrown deeper into shadow, as there were no lighted torches in their sconces on either side of the door to provide warmth. It was almost as if her master feared that the light would expose some weakness in the door that he thought that the darkness could obscure.

Whatever the reason, standing before it now, Belle suddenly felt very small, and very angry, for some reason.

Who was her master, to think that he deserved extra protection and to frighten his guests before they met him? Belle bit her lip, swallowed her pride, and took a few timid steps forward, wondering if the Beast was within it. She could not help but wonder, now that the book the Beast had given her, had shown her that one small snippet into the Prince's past, what else, if anything at all, it would show her, and if there was some aspect of this witch's curse now that was assessing why she was out here.

Belle swallowed a lump in her throat, knowing she couldn't stand out here forever. Cogsworth and Lumiere were sure to come looking for her, she rationalized.

It wasn't going to do to get caught lurking about in a place where she was already expressly forbidden to venture.

But…but…oh, gods, it was like some unseen force, powerful, that was pulling at her, nagging at her very soul.

The overwhelmed young woman mumbled a quickly recited half-hearted prayer under her breath before closing off the gap of space between herself and the door.

She stopped in hesitation. Her unblinking eyes gazed down at the brass golden handle she knew she needed to grab. Her hand seemed to have a mind of its own, no longer taking directions from her mind, which was by this point practically begging and screaming at her to turn around, as it rose to the door. Slender fingers curled around the knob.

"Ugh. I really am a stupid woman," Belle whispered, speaking only above a faint whisper in the hopes that no one who would happen to be lurking about at this hour heard her. With a firm twist and a push, the massive door creaked open, causing her to flinch. She froze, lingering.

Great. There was no way he didn't hear that.

Belle steeled herself, a muscle in her jaw twitching that sent a spasm of pain through the damaged nerves in her cheek.

She breathed slowly and deeply, waiting for it to pass, and peeked open one eyelid when the deafening sound of silence met her ears. The Beast wasn't within.

Through the cracked door, delicate dark brown eyes peered into the darkness. Belle breathed out a heavy, scattered sigh as she slipped through the door and vanished into the darkness of the West Wing, gingerly closing the door shut behind her as carefully as she could.

Her eyes blinked, becoming momentarily adjusted to the inky black darkness that pooled around her just then.

It felt as though it sought to permeate her skin. Belle rapidly blinked her lids, once, twice, thrice, until her vision had fully adjusted to the darkness of the room and she stepped away from the door in order to look around.

Suddenly, something to her immediate left shifted in the shadows, causing Belle to whirl on her heels and clamp her hands over her mouth to tamper her startled scream.

The figure was not that of the Beast's, she could tell. No horns. But instead, the figure was cloaked and shrouded in shadow, coming towards Belle with a hunched posture.

An intruder? A vagabond, having somehow managed to sneak their way into the castle having gone undetected?

Before she could even think about opening her mouth and screaming for help, for someone—anyone—even the master—to come, the voice rent through the air, penetrating the silence that lingered in between them both.

"Belle, it's good to see you, child," called a familiar voice that she had not heard within the last few weeks but would know anywhere. Belle breathed a sigh of relief as she lowered her hands from her mouth and turned on her heels to look at the figure.

Belle turned with a start, her eyes widening and her face stripping off colors as the figure straightened their gait, suddenly becoming much taller, and lowered the hood of their tattered robes, tucking a wisp of hair into her headscarf.

Belle blinked owlishly in shock and surprise to find herself staring into the face of someone she'd previously believed to be dead, arrested by the Prince's men, though it occurred to her she'd not seen it happen, had not seen the Prince's men lead her away.

Belle stood numbly there rooted to her spot, staring face-to-face with none other than the beggar, Agathe.