Author's note:  Continuing from the last segment, the Beast narrates the events in a terrible scene in which he confronts the darker side of himself…with Arielle as a witness!  (This chapter is one of the first in which you see the reason for this fic's PG rating; it holds some extreme angst and a bit of mild violence and blood, but I promise that it isn't that bad.  Nothing that anybody who's ever read the old versions of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales couldn't stomach.  But just FYI.)

Disclaimer/claimer:  I bow to the great romantic genius and talent of Mme. Marie le Prince de Beaumont, the lovely lady who first gave this most beautiful of fairy tales to the world in its original French, and to Mme. Gabrielle de Villeneuve, who was responsible for the lengthier version of this story.  However, some of these characters, their adventures, and the places in which they come to pass, are the prducts of my own unleashed imagination.  I seek merely to entertain.

(Beast's point of view, continued)

That evening, I skipped dinner and went instead into the library that was nearest to the wing of the castle where my rooms where, hoping that perhaps some intense reading would take my mind off of my current predicament.  I selected several thick volumes of such an in-depth nature that I would have to concentrate very hard on them in order to understand what they were saying.  I banished the Sprytes from the room, telling them not to disturb me for any reason, and began to read, glowering at the small print on the pages in front of me. 

But reading faded into a haze and I was restless and sullen only ten minutes later.  I slammed the book shut and threw it down roughly.

The echo that it made upon landing on the floor seemed to grow louder – deeper.

But it wasn't an echo.

It was another sound entirely.

A door had just been closed.

I vaulted out of my seat and made a dash for the nearest staircase, which led up to the second floor of the library.  Only after I had made it into the shadows provided by a set of shelves did I turn to look down into the main chamber. 

Beauty was there, but she hadn't noticed that I was there.  Good.  There was no way that I could see her tonight.  No way in any world.  I then retreated into the deeper recesses of the library, hoping that she would stay on the first floor so that we wouldn't run the risk of meeting up. 

A long while later, I decided that it was time that I returned to my chambers and went towards the main entrance to the library, hoping that Beauty had left.  But she was still there.  I found myself interested in watching her, and my concentration took my mind off of its current thoughts.  She stood up from her chair, looking as if she was about to walk across the room to replace the book on its shelf, and I caught sight of a bit of a mischievous look on her face.  Then she levitated the book through the air and used her powers to return it to its original place. 

I stifled a bit of a wry laugh.  She had become quite an adept enchantress even in only those five months and I was quite impressed with this new side to her. 

And, quite obviously, so was she.

She turned again towards the doors, but paused, her gaze seeming to fall on something that was on the table in front of her.  She reached down and quickly – as if she didn't want anyone to know what she was about – moved one of the ruby pieces on the chessboard that was there.  Then, she moved away from the table and disappeared into the further recesses of the library.

Play a game, shall we?

I waited another moment, making certain that she wasn't going to come back and surprise me, and then I ran down the steps and across the floor to the table with the chess board.  It was quite an interesting piece: even I had to admit that.  Its black and white spaces were made of black opal and ivory, and its playing pieces had been carved out of ruby and crystal.  Beauty had moved a ruby pawn. 

My bad mood, worries, and fears flying from my mind, I hastily made a move of my own and ran to hide in the shadows of the room beyond.  A few moments later, Beauty returned and, to my immense but somehow strange delight, she noticed the change on the chessboard.  She made yet another move and when she was gone, I did the same.  Soon we had a full-blown game in progress.

The excitement and interest of the situation was overcoming me, and it was too much.  It was pure fun to play with a creature like one's cat or dog, which was small and tamed and quite harmless, but to stir up a dragon was an entirely different matter.  The pounding of my heart and the whirling of my mind tore the last vestiges of sense and control from me…and when she ran away from the table once more, I could resist no longer. 

With a growl, I lunged out from my hiding place and raced after her.  I cornered her at the end of a row of shelves, and she turned towards me, obviously not quite realizing what was going on. 

But I was beyond thought then. 

Snarling, I grabbed both of her hands at the wrists and pinned them against the book shelf that I had trapped her in front of, and a lust for blood and the freedom of being a total animal came over me as I took in her flawless, silky white skin and her pure, defenseless form.  With one flick of my claws, I could lacerate her veins.  She would feel no pain.  I could bite her, and it would all be over in a split second's time.  Guilty pleasure, but oh, she was perfect – perfect and beautiful and right in front of me, and all I had to do was give in—

"Oh fates – NO!"

I stopped myself, horrified, and wrenched away, releasing her.  Then I backed off a step, staggering drunkenly, and held out my paws towards her, not knowing whether the gesture was one of attempting to beg for pardon, or of telling her that I wasn't this creature: this thing, that I meant no harm to her, or of shielding myself from her dazzling brilliance.  She was staring at me, leaning against the shelf, her eyes wide and her face completely bereft of all emotions except for two.

Terror and disbelief.

"Beauty, I…"

But I couldn't say any more.  What was there to say?  She knew now.  She knew that I was a beast, a monster, at heart, and that there was no way that she could ever trust me to be anything else.  She knew, and I wished that I were dead.

"Beast—" she began, and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that she had stretched out a hand towards me, but I wouldn't listen, I wouldn't look.

I whirled, turning my back on her, and bolted from the library. 

I didn't stop running until I had reached my bedchamber – and then I let the full power of my fury out into the air, ceasing to hold back.  The sound of my enraged, heartbroken scream, changed into an unearthly, ragged roar by my curse, slammed into the walls and made every surface about me, the air, and the walls themselves vibrate.  I could have killed her – her! – in one thoughtless, animal moment.  I could have lost my soul! 

Or had I already lost it?  

"Why am I cursed like this?" I screamed to the silent, dead night air. "Why did he have to do this to me?  I'm locked in the body of a monster and with every passing moment I feel more and more as if I'm losing my entire blasted mind to its freakish will!  I mean, for the Powers' sake, what kind of father was he?  What kind of animal am I?  Why did this happen to me?"

And the more that I thought about it, about what I was, the more unfair it seemed that I had to have been the one to undergo the curse, and all of its pain…while my father, the true wrongdoer, had escaped from the justice that he deserved!  I hadn't escaped – I had fled, and it was all because I had been changed into a monster as punishment for a crime that I didn't commit!

The Sprytes had left the room and I was alone, but I didn't notice.

I was surging with rage.

Oh, that night – that horrible night!  Everything that I had known, everyone whom I had loved, everything that had been mine: it was all taken away from me that night.  I remembered lying helpless on the floor, looking up into the gloating, black-and-gold eyes of the wielder of magic who had come to apprehend the thief who had stolen the Book of Hours.  I remembered the terror that I had felt as those eyes had pierced into me – looking at me as if he knew, he knew, that I was not the one.

The pain.

Great howling incredible dire mind-breaking agony.

Shape-altering enchantments were one of the most forbidden spells to cast in the White Realm.  There was scarcely a wizard, sorcerer, enchanter, or enchantress who was foolhardy enough to spring one such enchantment into being. 

But Saruptal was an exception, and therefore, the change that had been wrought in me was an exception.

I recalled, as I glared, chest heaving and hands clenched, into the glowing flames in the fireplace before me, the agony that I had gone through. 

I remembered each detail with perfect clarity: there had been a searing-hot, incredible pain in my insides, as if someone had taken an iron poker, fresh from a furnace, and stabbed it into me.  Then my bones, my muscles and joints had felt as if they were twisting and breaking, reforming themselves into something completely new. 

I remembered screaming – screaming bloody murder and worse. 

Screaming, screaming, screaming.

Then the scales, the thick, rough, reptile-like scales, had appeared, along with a new face, new hands and feet.  New eyes. 

Claws and fangs.

And then I was a beast.

I stumbled out of my room, wanting to leave it, although I didn't know where I was going, and as I passed through countless numbers of rooms, corridors, and other places in the castle, everything blurred before my eyes so that I couldn't tell where I was. 

All I could think of was three words. 

You're a beast. 

Over and over again.

Suddenly, there were two huge doors looming up before me, seeming to look down on me and reproach me for being a miserable, soulless animal.  I blasted them open with a ground-shaking roar and a wildly aimed shot of magic, and then stepped into the gigantic room beyond, which echoed with the sounds of my own harsh, labored breathing.  It was here, in this place, that all of my deepest hate had been concentrated.

The room of mirrors.

Dozens of mirrors lined the walls from floor to ceiling, each glimmering with a terrible, condemning coldness that looked upon me and said, You're a beast.  What are you doing here?  You don't belong here. 

Beast. 

You were not meant to be. 

Beast. 

And my own reflection, that of the body that I had learned so well, in the course of three centuries, to despise, looked out at me: taunting me, staring at me, reminding me of everything.  There was no escape from this.  I was surrounded. 

I felt faint. 

My head began to whirl and the breath in my chest was rattling like a loose windowpane during a violent storm.  I wasn't even sure if I was still standing up.  Then I received the sense that something, something other than my own reflection, was watching me from behind.  I turned.  I saw a different type of mirror before me now.  The other mirrors were normal mirrors.  They showed strictly what looked into them, reflections and nothing more.  But this mirror was different. 

It was a mirror of truth, and it showed not what objects were on the outside, but what they truly were on the inside. 

And there I was – not as the Beast, but as myself. 

Wide, haunted eyes, which I knew were blue, looked out from a pale face with high features, all but hidden by a haze of thick, unruly hair that I remembered to be a colour somewhere between a warm brown and a golden blond. 

My real self reached out a hand towards me, as I found that I was doing the same, and I wondered…how did I ever become like this?

Because someone made you this way.

Because no one cares.

Because you are cursed.           

I stepped back, pulling my hand away, and then I said to the mirror in which truth was shown, "This isn't you anymore – I am, and

I always will be!"

Then everything faded into a whirlwind of blackness, and I heard the sound of shattering glass, and felt as if the world was being cut off from me.

*                       *                       *

A dim glow ebbed into the blackness, slowly banishing it, and I felt that I was coming back to myself – to sanity.  I felt curiously calm…but was that because I was still almost completely unconscious, or had something happened? 

I let my eyes flicker open, focusing on my surroundings.  I was still in the hall of mirrors.  What had happened?  I really couldn't remember anything from the moments before.  Suddenly, the floor's surface shifted – gently, cautiously, and slowly – and I felt my heart stop within my chest.  I stiffened, and a pale, beautiful face, framed by streams of silky, pale hair, materialized into the light above me, its pair of brilliant eyes gazing into mine.

"Are you all right?"

Beauty. 

She was here, wherever 'here' was, and I could hardly believe it.  The fact that she had been able to withstand the shock of seeing me as I now was had been the cause of much wonder on my part over the past months that she had been here, and the fact that she was faery, and had learned whatever I had taught her, and a host of other things were no less startling.  But this?  I had done my best to hide my monstrous side from her, and now she had seen it…and she was here?  With me?

I fought a dizzy wave, closing my eyes momentarily, and when I looked on her again, I discovered that my vision was a bit less blurry.  I sat up, carefully, minding my faintness, and took in our surroundings. 

The room was utterly still, like the chamber of a dying soul.  Each and every one of the mirrors that lined the walls…each and every one of those mirrors was broken: shattered into a million sharp, glassy pieces that gleamed on the floor around us.  It was as if we were sitting in the middle of a ring…and my head had been in her lap only moments before… 

I shook my head, clearing this dizzying thought – which threatened to overcome me with a sweet, warm, and terribly desirable feeling, taking me away from the moment – out of my mind.  Far, far above us, through the domed glass roof, the moon was gleaming brightly.  Beauty was wearing a lacy white nightgown and a wrap of sorts.  It was late at night. 

I looked at her. 

"How did you…"

She gestured down at my left paw, which was lying somewhat limp and numb at my side.  Her long, glorious hair fell over one delicate shoulder as she moved.

"The Sprytes came rushing to my room and told me…you had hurt yourself."

Of course, she wasn't telling me the complete truth.  I guessed what had really brought her to my side – she had heard the whole

scene, which wasn't an incredible surprise, as my rage had probably made quite a bit of noise. 

I averted my eyes from her, shamed, and glanced at my arm, seeing that the flesh from the palm up to the elbow was quite liberally shredded.  I had broken the mirrors, all of them, along with the mirror of truth, and then she had found me.  I glanced at the floor beneath the place where the mirror of truth had once been.  Pieces of glass still remained, but there was no trace of blood.  My blood, the punishment I had subjected myself to in my fury. 

Forcing the memory out of my mind, I tried moving my fingers, lifting my hand, but instant twinges of indignant pain flared into being, shooting up my arm violently, and I winced.  Beauty leaned forward, sitting closer to me, and before I had the chance to pull away, she had taken my mangled paw in her own gentle hands and had reached for a roll of gauze that was sitting beside her.  I stared at her, wondering. 

How could she give her understanding to this? 

I could have killed her, and yet she bore me no resentment, or even fear!  After all that I had done to her, she treated me as if I was merely any other person that she might have encountered in her own world. 

What kind of cruelties had she known, then…

"I took out most of the glass when you weren't awake," she explained, beginning to wrap the gauze around my paw, her fingers moving deftly and gently, never once causing the pain to intensify. "If you keep a bandage on for another day or so and try not to move your hand," She said 'hand', not 'paw'! "It should be well fairly soon."

She sat back after tucking in the loose end of the gauze so that it would remain where she had placed it, and our eyes strayed to one another's faces. 

I felt incredible remorse. 

She had never carried any bitterness or malice towards me, even though I had taken her away from her family and her world, and had refused to become her friend, and had shown myself to be unbearably prideful and rude, and had revealed the beast that lay within me.  She had understood, and I had never even tried.

I moaned, grief overwhelming me once more, and finally pulled away from her, getting to my feet and pausing for a moment as I tried to steady myself, like a sailor does when he first experiences the rolling motion of a ship at sea.  Then I turned and crossed the room as quickly as possible, wanting desperately to distance myself from her so that she would not see my shame – my guilt. 

This was how my life was to be, forever.  This was my destiny, my inescapable fate.  This was how I was meant to live.

I stopped at the doors that led out of the room of mirrors and onto the terrace that looked out over the gardens.  The moonlight caused the snow-covered bushes and lawns and pathways to sparkle brightly, but their optimistic whiteness did nothing to lift my gray mood.  I was rapidly slipping into a deep depression.

And I knew that once I had done that, I would not emerge for a long time afterwards.

I folded my arms across my chest and stared blankly out at the gardens.

So this is the way it is to be…so be it.

Then, a small, gentle little hand slipped onto my elbow, coming to rest in the crook of my arm, and a delicate forearm wound itself around mine.  I was genuinely shocked that she would initiate such contact, notwithstanding the fact that she had been holding me only moments before.  I had been unconscious then, but now I certainly wasn't!  I turned towards her, my surprise and hesitance clearly showing in my eyes. 

She looked up at me, her eyes meeting mine and sinking deep within them.  I couldn't remove my gaze from hers.  It was impossible – it felt like being submersed in a warm, velvety pool of clear water, and looking up at the scenery above: the sunlight shining in rippling waves down upon me, a forest's graceful, lithesome tree boughs of evergreen showing here and there.  It was wonderful.

And suddenly I realized the truth for the first time.  I knew.

If she could learn to see beyond my outward appearance, then I could certainly dispense with my pride.  If she could be so entirely trusting, I could do the same – no matter what scars of past bitterness and anger I still carried.  She could teach me so many things.  Somehow I knew it.

"Beauty…" I whispered, turning towards her, holding my free hand out, stretching it towards her in a gesture of pleading. "I'm sorry."

She reached forward, letting her hand come into brushing distance of my cheek, and then let it fall…coming to rest within my hand.  Our fingertips intwined and that same wonderful warm, blissful feeling rushed through me again, exhilarating and entirely, unimaginably beautiful.  Her lips curved into a sweet, tender smile, warming her eyes.  I thought of a rose when I saw her face, and I knew that, from now on, when I saw such a flower, I would think of her at that incredible moment. 

"Oh, my poor Beast," she whispered. "Don't be sorry.  Be my friend."

Oh Beauty.       

"I will."

*                       *                       *                       *                       *                       *

"I shall always esteem you as a friend…"

Author's note:  See – I told you he wasn't such a bad guy.  Love (and life) never ceases to surprise us…and it shouldn't.  Until the next update then, my friends…  @à---