Author's note:  Here's a chapter for all of you who have been wondering about the Beast and his background, and also for those of you who have been wanting to see a bit of romance.  Things are abruptly going to get very interesting in the next few chapters or so…

Disclaimer/claimer:  Same as usual, I'm just a fan who doesn't own fairy tales but likes to write about them in my spare time, which I've had a lot of recently (and this is the only explanation for so many updates…)

Beast:

Forgetting was never an Option

When I reached my room, I knew that I would be in for some explanations.  I stepped inside, gently closing the door behind myself, and turned towards the center of the chamber.  All inside was lit by the bright glow of a large fire roaring in the fireplace.  Griffith sat, comfortably perched – although I don't know how geese can sit in velvet wingback chairs with very much ease – in one of the two armchairs beside the fireplace, and he looked skeptical, even a bit smug, as he eyed me whilst I approached the chairs. 

"Well well well," he commented, and I was sure of the smugness in his demeanor then, "Where exactly have you been keeping yourself, Master Orlando?"

That was the first time that anyone had used my true name in years.

Orlando.

"First off, you nosey, low-down, fastidious, gossip-spreading barnyard fowl," I retorted, not bothering to keep the growl out of my tone, "I would remind you that what I do in my own castle is hardly your business.  And secondly, do not use that name here.  I am the Beast, and since it is likely that I shall remain so, I don't want anyone else around this place getting to know otherwise."

I sat back in my chair, shooting him a long, steady, and very superior look, and I saw his eyes snap a bit as his gray feathers ruffled with irritation.  For you see, dear reader of mine, whomever you may be, Griffith was not truly a goose, but a nobleman from the faery court of the White Realm, whom I had known for sometime in the past.  How he had come to be a goose, and how he had been able to recognize me in my new form, and even how I had been able to recognize him, I had no idea.  I think it must have had to do with his voice.  Beyond that, however…

"Well, you'd think that I'd be owed an explanation for where you ran off to this evening, seeing as how I've been your friend and faithful guardian for the past three hundred and twenty-three odd years," he replied, seeming miffed.

I chuckled grimly, low in my throat.

"Very odd years indeed." I said. "But I must admit that you do have a point, Griff.  I went to see to Beauty – she had a nightmare, and nightmares are generally not things to be trifled with in a place like this." I waved a hand, airily, at our surroundings. "We wound up talking for a long time after that and then she wanted me to stay with her until she fell asleep, and…"

"And…?" Griffith prodded.

"And nothing." I finished, pointedly.

He closed his eyes and then opened them again.

"Well then…" he said. "Whatever makes your day.  How did she get here anyway, and if you're obviously getting to be so friendly with her, why don't you just come out and tell me that you're in love with her?"

In love with her?  Me?  With Beauty?  Ha!  Something like that could never be possible.  Being a friend to her was hard enough.  Thinking of the difference between us – the fact that she was a beauty and I was a beast – was enough to annoy me to perfection.  And Griffith just had to bring that up.

"Look you," I sat forward in my chair, becoming irritated in my own turn at his attitude, "You're not helping with anything here.  I didn't necessarily need someone from my past turning up right at this point in my life – or at all, for that matter, and this business of having you here is going to turn out to be fairly blasted inconvenient for all of us, especially me."

I narrowed my eyes and then told him, "It's a long story.  Her father…owed me payment for something, and so I told him to have his daughter, Beauty, come to live at my castle with me.  She's half-faery and I've been teaching her the art of magic and enchantment, and I hope that's a good enough explanation for you.  And besides, how did you get to be a goose in the first place, and why were you up on that cloud in that great oaf's house?"

"The same way as you came here," was his answer.

"Explain."

He sighed and rolled his eyes, as if the story was almost too obnoxious and long to bother with telling.  But I wasn't about to let him off.

"All right then.  When that creepy old wizard – Saroush, Sarahall, Standahar…"

"Saruptal." I supplied.  I folded my hands, weaving the fingers together, and felt an animal sense of resentment and anger riffle through me upon saying the name of my worst enemy.  Griffith nodded, recognizing the name.

"Saruptal – yes.  When he came back from chasing after the thief who stole the Book of Hours that night, I was at the palace and I overheard some of what he told the Lord and Lady.  He described the thief to them, and it was obvious that it was you that he had caught, but then he told them that the Book was gone.  He had taken care of the thief, but the Book had disappeared.  Anyway, I knew that you couldn't have done such a thing, and so I checked up on the old boy and found some very odd things – like secret, underhanded studies, esoteric manuscripts, and the general evidences of a White Realm wizard gone bad." He bowed his head. "I got caught."

"Bling bang, ah-la-magnificent, you've shape-shifted."

He nodded.

"Yes, something like that.  And then when I was out looking practically all over the entire Known World for you, Ingor happened by and the rest is obvious from there."

Suddenly I thought of something that I had heard in the story, and sat forward, my hands moving to grip the arms of my chair tensely, my ears pricking up.

"Wait – the Book disappeared?"

Another nod.

"And…"

"It hasn't been seen since."

Oh, this was too much.

I stood and crossed the room, beginning to pace.  Thoughts were flooding into my head: thoughts that were suddenly making things much clearer.  So my dream was true – Saruptal had turned evil, and he was plotting against the White Realm and all of its inhabitants.  And he had the Book of Hours.

Then I remembered Griffith.  I cast a glance at him over my shoulder, wary of what I let him see in my reaction to his words.  If he knew that I was planning something impetuous, which he would consider reckless, he would never let me go through with my scheme.  That was just how the goose, or Griffith, inherently was – he was the best of friends and a very good companion, which meant that he was hardly going to let me simply throw myself into something that could easily get myself, if not the both of us, killed in a rather messy way.

Those qualities were almost faults, given our current situation.

I decided to take another course.

"So…Griff…" I said, in a musing tone. "How is your spell undone?"

He rolled his eyes again and shrugged his wings in a vague semblance of what would have been a helpless, exasperated gesture.

"Only by Saruptal's death.  Guess what the odds are of that happening."

There was some logic in that.

"Griff."

He looked at me.

"I can get us both out of this if I got the chance."

With a flurry of beating wings and quite a good deal of squawking, the goose flew up out of the chair and was shrieking at me, "You've gone mad!  You really have!  I mean, I always knew that you were just slightly off before, but now this?  You're mad!  Mad, mad, mad, mad, MAD!"

I sat back to watch the show and wait until he calmed himself.

"I can't say I'm sure about you, Griff, but I am seriously sick and tired of this body.  I'd much rather have my own again – much rather."

"Who wouldn't, when he was faced with a situation like the one we're both in now?" Griffith retorted. "But what you're proposing – or what I think you're proposing, rather – is simply insanity.  We've already seen what this crazy wizard can do, and I really would rather not wind up in the body of some even lower form of life than a 'barnyard fowl', as you so poetically termed me before.  I tried finding the Book.  It's not in the White Realm anywhere, which means that he's got it somewhere—"

"For us to find if we could figure out where to look."

"And supposing we did, what then?  He'd catch us, and then everything would be ten times worse for us."

"I think I've already hit rock bottom." I remarked, coolly.

"So you're prepared to go out and find him and try to take the Book back, which would – I must say – win back your innocence in the whole matter…but at the possible cost of running into that braincase and whatever he's got planned for you?"

"Oh, well…he's already looking for me." I revealed, calmly. "He's turned against the White Realm, which is something that we both know, and he has the Book, and the only person who knows about that, or the only two people now, I suppose, are the both of us.  He will most definitely be looking for us."

"And that's why you want to go out and find him?"

I shrugged again.

"If it's the only way."

Then, I stood and walked over to the window.  The gardens, bathed in the glow of the moon's light, stretched out before me in every which direction, seeming to go on for an endless eternity.  I whirled around then to face my old friend again.

"I want my life back."

Griffith returned my gaze, steadily, for a long moment, and I realized that there was a sort of knowing gleam in his eyes.  Oh fates.

"Well then…let's say, hypothetically, that this plan of yours to find where our old friend is and somehow retrieve the Book could actually work – and I'll help you.  If…"

"If what?" I growled.  I didn't like where this was heading.

"Are you in love with her?"

I hadn't been prepared for this. 

Taken aback, I sputtered, "In love – with whom?  Her?"

I shook my head, vehemently, even though I somehow knew, in the back of my mind, that it wouldn't convince Griffith.

"No.  No no no no no.  I…she…well – it's…just not like that between us.  I mean…look at me, Griff.  I'm not exactly the old charmer that I used to be.  I've had some changes in myself, and more than on the outside.  I'm half-dragon and half-man now, and sometimes having the body of an animal gives me the mind of one as well.  And…she hardly knows me.  She came here only a few months ago and although she's proved to me that she doesn't see me as some sort of warped monster and that she doesn't fear me, and although everything seems much better now than it was before…"

I shook my head, turning away from him, and stared mournfully out the window at the gardens.  The perpetual veneer of snow and ice shone back at me, stark and cold and white: unforgiving and yet terribly beautiful. 

"It just can't be like that between us."

Griffith was silent, and that silence prodded me to go on.

"The fact is…I don't know if I'm in love with her.  She is the most incredible creature that I've ever met – she's kind, and gracious, and sweet-tempered, caring and devoted and understanding as no woman has been to me before.  And that's not even a beginning to it.  She has so many amazing qualities…and she's beautiful.  Fates, Griff, she is so beautiful!  I want to fall down on my face and worship her like a goddess every time that I see her.  Everything about her…mesmerizes me."

"And you think that you're not in love with her?"

"Blast it all, Griffith!"

I whirled around from the window.

"I've never been in love before – I don't know what it feels like, so how would I be able to tell?  I've heard it said over and over before that love is something that you simply know, whether you've read its definition in a dictionary or whatnot or experienced, but I don't know."

"Then find out.  You two are alone here in this castle, and you certainly need a woman like her – she is a princess, from what you tell me."

"A princess.  A true princess: a princess at heart."

I murmured the words to the windowpanes, staring out ahead of myself with a suddenly very bleak but thoughtful gaze.  What Griffith said was true.

Something had arisen in my heart that night, when I had looked upon Beauty as we talked.  I had felt the same feeling on another morning – a much more fateful morning – when her father had first said her name to me: Arielle Honorine Bellissima Rose.  I had felt it when I had first seen her.  I was beginning to feel it more and more often, pulsating in my heart more furiously with each second that passed me by.  But was it love?

I didn't know.

"What do you propose?" I whispered, caught up in my thoughts.

Griffith's eyes were squarely on me, I sensed.

"Invite her to have dinner with you one night – in the grandest dining room that you've got here in this immense cavern of a castle that you call home, and have her wear some gown that will absolutely floor you at first sight, and then show her just how charming you can be in the ballroom.  Sweep her off her feet, dance with her."

I could already picture the scenario, and the idealistic, perfect romance of it all was overwhelming.  But Griffith was being ridiculous.  Beauty would never fall in love with me.  She had already stated quite clearly that I was her best friend in the world…did I want to change that?  Could such a thing actually happen?

Was I in love with her?

"Griffith, now you are the one who is mad.  Love is something that I will not demand of Beauty, and you must not expect it of me either.  I will do this only to be kind to her – for I think that she would enjoy a night of dancing and grandeur," Oh, would she!  It almost stopped my heartbeat when I imagined her in a swirling ball gown that shimmered like the mist on the sea.  "And because you won't help me otherwise if I don't go through with your insane plan."

But she is not in love with me, and I will just have to learn to accept that.

Or could I?

*                       *                       *

So, in order to appease Griffith and attempt to give Beauty something that she would find pleasure in, I rallied all of my strengths of will and made my way to her rooms, several days later.  I knocked on the door, hesitantly.  It was early in the afternoon, just after midday, and I knew that it was normally Beauty's custom to return to her room and change her gown, and then remain there for some time to herself. 

The door opened and I felt a thrill of nervousness run up my back.  I could hardly keep myself from standing there and gaping at her, stammering because I was too flummoxed by her loveliness to say anything coherent or even behave normally.

"Good afternoon, Beast," she said, and her smile was so sweet and so genuine and so totally disarming that I felt all of my apprehension ease away.

"Good afternoon, Beauty." I replied, saying the greeting gravely. "I have come, milady," I continued, with a purposefully gallant and courtly flourish of my arm and a deep bow, "To invite you to a masque ball, to be held in the grand ballroom of this castle on this very night.  As there is only your acceptance or refusal to be had, I hazarded the journey here to learn of it from you."

Her smile became a sparkling grin and she stood back, swinging the door open wide.  "Please, do come in, milord," she said. "Since you have been so courageous as to come all of this way to seek a yea or nay from my lips, I will also oblige you." She gestured for me to enter, and – after a moment's hesitation – I did so.

We walked into the main chamber of her rooms, which stood before her bedroom and dressing room and other quarters, and I turned to face her, smiling apologetically. 

"Actually, this was all Griff's idea," I confessed, feeling embarrassed. "He told me that I ought to ask you if you would like to spend an evening of dancing and entertainment in the ballroom…I simply carried out the action of asking you."

To my amazement, she didn't become angry or whirl around and stomp out of the room – which would have been the reaction of many other ladies that I had known.

She laughed: lightly, gaily.

"He's trying to play matchmaker now, is he?"

I started, taken off guard.  She knew!

"Well, y-es." I stammered. "How did you—"

"Because the Sprytes have been doing the exact same thing to me!  Oh Beast," she said; suddenly, she was stepping forward, towards me, and then her arms had gone around my neck and she was gazing, merrily, up into my eyes. "I am so sorry that they've put you – us – though this.  Don't tell me that he's been after you to dress up and treat me like some china doll for the last week and a half as well?"

I blinked.  Would she ever cease to amaze me?

"Actually…yes, he has."

She then released me and walked back across the room, her ample, flowing skirts trailing after her, whispering about her slim, lithe figure, leaving me to stare, like a love-starved schoolboy, after her retreating back.

"Your Sprytes have been…er…dropping hints then, I take it?"

She nodded, eyes intent on a book or something that was on top of the table that sat beside the chair that she stood just a little ways from.

"More like shoveling them out and pitching them onto me, I should think."

I raised my hands to my head and dragged them through my mane, feeling exasperated and, more importantly, completely helpless to keep anyone – including Griffith and the Sprytes, who had somehow also gotten in on the matchmaking action – from either driving me and Beauty straight into one another's arms, or running in opposite directions, shrieking about the incredible difficulties of life.

"Arrrrrgh.  Of the most impossible things, why—"

It was humiliating, above everything else.  They were all trying to make – to force – Beauty and me to fall in love with one another.  I didn't know how she felt about the whole situation, but I did know that we were both being pushed and pulled into this, and…I was beginning to surrender, at the end of it all.

"Beauty."

She looked up at me, and our eyes met, steady and careful, from across the room.

"If Griff and the Sprytes are making you feel uncomfortable with all of their scheming, simply say the word.  I don't necessarily need to have a myriad of servants around to take care of the castle – I can do that easily myself.  And Griff…well, he's just another old friend of sorts, although I don't know how I ever picked him up."

Don't lie! I reminded myself, sternly.

"And…I couldn't bear the thought of your being unhappy, Beauty." I looked her straight in the eyes, earnestly and searchingly.  "If I could do anything to make your life here less like an imprisonment and more like a home…"

"This is my home, Beast!" she said, warmly, "And you are my dearest friend.  No matter what Griffith and the Sprytes try to do, nothing will ever change that.  I am happier here, with you, than I could have ever hoped to be.  And for that, I thank you."

And then, wonders, she stepped close to me, went up on her tiptoes, and kissed me gently on the cheek.  I stared at her, amazed.

"Now, we have a ball to prepare ourselves for tonight, milord," she said, cocking her head and smiling playfully. "I will see you in the ballroom at dinner."

"I will count the hours, milady."

I made my exit and stood outside of the doorway, bowing to her as I said those words, and then she smiled at me one last time, and closed the door.  And then I walked away, down the long marble corridor, feeling not just slightly dizzy with pleasure.

*                       *                       *

Readying the ballroom for an actual event was another type of experience entirely.  The Sprytes were generally quite adept at choosing and arranging whatever decorations that they were called upon to do, but tonight I wanted something immensely special – something that would make Beauty stare at her surroundings and remember them forever afterwards.  Griffith was my companion during the preparations for the night, but I had to say that he wasn't very much of help at all.

"No!  No no no NO!  Please, don't let's all be idiots at once!"

I railed this at a trio of the floating orbs of shape-shifting light as they failed for the fifth time in a row to properly hang a bower of shimmering, opal-like fabric and dark red roses, so dark that they were nearly black – or at least those were the colours that I had told them to use – from the towering marble pillars that surrounded the ballroom.

"No!  You've got to angle it first and then attach it – moving it after you've got it up will send it crashing down on top of our heads and I am not in the blasted mood for that!  Now, take it down and try putting it up again or I'll call in some more of your comrades to see if they can carry out instructions properly!"

I turned away, greatly annoyed by everything in general, and then one of the Sprytes snickered, impishly, behind my back to one of its companions, "Powers – stress and love are a deadly combination!"

"That's it!" I roared, rounding on them and stalking towards the pillar. "Out, all of you – out and go spend your mischief elsewhere or I won't be the master of magic and enchantment anymore but the master of a thousand heaps of stinking, lifeless Sprytes who tried my patience just one too many times!"

I almost literally chased them out the door and then turned to Griffith, eyes narrowed and muscles tensed.

"This is all your fault, you know." I reprimanded him. "My life is an absolute mess, and I've just yelled at some of my best servants for the first time in my life, and it's all because you insisted on carrying through with your stupid little plot!"

"Well, you could try de-stressing for once," he commented, preening at his smoky-gray feathers calmly. "Have you ever tried lemongrass and chamomile tea?  It does wonders for an aggravated mind – and lavender sachets in one's pillow can also help, although I always found the scent a bit too strong, personally…"

"Oh Griff, will you just shut up?"

I threw my hands up in the air, at a loss of how to deal with both a cocky bunch of Geckos and a know-it-all goose that was really a faery lord under a spell.

"Look now, I need some sort of help.  I still have to make sure that they have her favorite dessert done properly," which was, I had learned, blackberry torte, "And I also need to…well, somehow make myself look better than this!" I picked at my current shirt and tunic, which were a dull, smooth gray. "Can you leave aside gloating at me for five seconds and do something to make some of this better?"

"Certainly," he answered, leaving his place on the floor beside me to fly up and perch on one of the banisters of the balcony that overlooked the immense ballroom. "By all means – go and ready yourself for the evening's festivities.  I will make sure that your lady love is entirely awed by this masque spectacle."

I looked up at him, eyeing him carefully.

"Just be sure that it is to her liking, and not flamboyant like you."

Then I turned and left the room, murmuring to myself as I went out, "And the entire worst part of it is, the planned result of this scheme of yours is beginning to seem like it has been present all along…at least on my side of things."

I wasn't certain of it yet, but something had changed…

*                       *                       *