Title: Unworthy

Author: Rissa85-Stargazing85

Rating: PG13 to R

Genre: Angst, Drama, Romance

Part: Part One (Habitual Arrogance)

Disclaimer: I do not own any Disney characters. Just doing this outta fun, folks. Don't sue me, I have no money. =(

Author's Note: I usually include a prologue and it's always a treat to start on the real story. You have to admit, it's easier to understand a story once a background has been set.

The town was bustling as usual, as Belle entered it, holding her cherished and withered maroon book and a basket of eggs in the other. She paused as a wheelbarrow, overstuffed with fresh bread scooted pass her at an agonizing and pain-staking pace so that the bread may not fall over. Various shops were filled with loud voices attempting to bargain with the seller, shrill muffled voices being heard amongst the loud and low murmur of the animated rest.

Children were running around, much to the heedlessness of their parents, chasing after each other and yelling loudly in their not-yet-matured voices. Some were dressed as miniature commoners, others were dressed as miniature merchants and seamstresses, all were dressed as if they were minute duplications of what ever occupation their parents had obtained.

The only store that was not open, as Belle could guess correctly, was the Taverne Rose. The local pub owned and run by the same crude man, wanting to make a profit and excelling excellently at it by offering entertainment and brandy and gin. It was the upper-class and middle-class tavern where most of the town's more wealthy patrons attended in the evening hours, and would remain open until the faint traces of light from sunrise would eek through the door cracks.

The cobblestone streets, a golden bronze in some wealthy districts of residence and of business and a gray in the lesser wealthy districts of residence, led the way for various horse drawn carriages and the affluent who took advantage of the fair and sunny weather to let down the tops as the ladies worse colorful and ostentatious bonnets, a few even adorned with dyed feathers.

Belle remembered as little girl she had interacted with other children, and she could always remember hearing other little girls her age claim that they would give anything and everything to be a wealthy lady when they grow up with beautiful gowns and expensive jewelry and status. Anomalous she was to them then, that she a humble inventor's daughter who held a farm as a stable source of income, should not want to be anything less than a 'fancy lady'.

She heard a loud and forceful voice, suave with calculated sophistication and feigned courtesy. It was undeniably male and rich deserving attention and seeking nothing less than that which was undivided. She knew the voice well.

He had always wanted to be a suitor to her, descending from a family of wealthy merchants. The family Champney, a powerful family living up to its name and possessing quite a few merchant fleets. Most of the men were hunters, and he was no different. In fact, he had been claimed by many provinces as the 'best hunter' they had ever seen and knew in a long while. And while it was true, he could drill bullets through the eye of a rabbit from near 50 yards, he was intolerable.

He was inarguably one of the most arrogant and patronizing individuals that she had possibly ever came in contact with. His mind was set high, and humble was a state that was truly foreign to him. Being a revered hunter, in a comfortable social state, and possessing mind-boggling looks that made a majority of the large town's ladies swoon when he spoke to them in what she deemed, false courtesy, his arrogance had surmounted him.

While thinking these thoughts, she absent-mindedly began humming the rhyme children near-by happened to be singing before she heard the loud voice clear and cut. Assaulting her ears, and causing her humming to stop abruptly, her thoughts broken up immediately by him.

"You must forgive me, Belle. I have not spoken to you since last I had departed on a hunting expedition last week. Which I might say is a success, I managed to unsettle another deer head to place on my mantle. The best hunting bachelor in France." He ended suavely, stating the last line not was it was, an opinion, but to as what he saw it, a simple and assured fact.

She looked at him, with his dark hair completed with a slight black curl toward the ends, and his thick and masculine dark eyebrows. His white teeth gleamed as he spoke and he kept himself clean-shaven, probably so that his stunning smile was not lost on the onlooker he happened to be talking to. The cleft in his chin, sometimes for some as a deformity was a positive in his appearance and his large and muscular build would be enough for any woman to feel secure in his presence.

She did not feel what other women should feel. She had always known that, even as a little girl her thoughts had been different from others her age. One, she was taught to read, which was uncommon for a humble inventor- farmer-merchant daughter. Two, she had politely remained ambiguous when Monsieur Champney obviously was zealous on courting her. Familiar with his self-centered nature, she was sure that her mind was not what he saw in her. He was overbearingly chauvinistic, which most males were and most females supported them relentlessly; senselessly loving the chains that were bound to them.

To her, reading was 'right' for a woman. It taught her to thwart the roles that males had confined her into by being illiterate, and it opened her mind to dreams and lands and possibilities she would have otherwise been deprived and starved of, if she had not learned the power of words.

She kept quiet as he questioned her on her whereabouts, she told him the truth, she would be going to the Marqueur Frais to sell her eggs as usual and then would head to the bookstore, this comment produced it's usual effect of the peculiar impatient gaze that would cross he handsome features and she prepared to hear his usual soft reasoning, which she considered as a lecture.

"I blame those awful authors in Paris for fostering such radical ideas of the masses to read. Think! The poor to read, and women to read! You know, Belle, I see you as somewhat liberal. You are in fact, one of the only middle-class ladies I know that were never taught the pastimes of sewing and keeping company with other ladies. But I am sure, it was a part on your father, your mother passed early and so you were not taught most feminine tasks. But when you become my wife, darling, perhaps..."

She laughed quietly to herself, which he thought she was enthralled by his clear message. In fact, she was laughing at his suggestion of her becoming his wife, rather his mistress. Marriage was to be mutual, and with one so self-obsessed, love would never be feasible in such a partnership.

She understood his words and while he was silent for a moment, she spoke evenly with an abundance of patience. "My father has raised me well. You misunderstand him." His usual absent-minded attention was focused on her as she spoke.

"Oh, I know he has, Mademoiselle Laroque," he dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand, and put his muscular arm around her shoulder lightly. "I supposed that such an striking and likely-looking female such as yourself would be wed one day and how awful would it be to any conforming and respectable male, such as myself though I forgot the attractive ingredient, that his beloved dearest should not have all the lady-like tendencies."

"Marriage is not a priority for me at the moment." She replied, switching her book to her other hand, half-listening. Her lucid attitude should be clear-cut and defined to him, but his egotism allowed nothing more but acceptance.

"But you are beautiful and at the age to marry. Some of your childhood companions, Faye, has been married for almost two years with a small child who will be a man like me some day..."

"It would be trivial for me to follow Faye, because of what she has done. Conformists have little time for life, as they are always following what others have done." She finished, explaining herself fully.

"You are independent, I like that. And quick-minded. It suits you," he glanced down at her, from looking around, obviously seeing everyone glancing up briefly to see them walking closely to each other and they made for an extraordinary pair. They were both terrifyingly appealing complete with confidence and strong minds. Popular shopkeepers shouted a 'Bonjour' to him, who waved as if he were the head of France, and not King Louis 15th in the royal palace at Versailles.

The weight of his shoulder was becoming heavy and she almost asked him to remove it, but was relieved when he removed his arm himself and placed the basket in the front of the Marqueur Frais, speaking condescendingly to the shop owner of himself, as he was always his best topic to talk about, he knew nothing else that fascinated his imagination and wit as better than himself.

A few large coins were placed in her basket, but more had been placed in her basket. Noticing, Belle was ready to speak out, but her arrogant partner voiced that it was a humble donation. She nodded, her family was not poor but they were far from being affluent. She had objects that most girls in her position did not, three beautiful ballroom gowns and a beautiful bonnet, all had been given by a kind seamstresses who had always been barren and was widowed. She also read occasionally, and was lavish on Belle when she took her clothing articles to her shop.

Stopping at the bookstore, she watched him leave abruptly. Perhaps he had an reaction to such places, in that case may he have a reaction to her also. At this point, being blessed with a great amount of endurance was a positive, from what she had heard and knew both of her parents had moderate levels of patience and so had she.

The bookkeeper was pleasant enough to her, noting a few books new, having been brought in since he seen her last, a few days before. She was in regular attendance twice a week in the mid to late mornings to switch books and borrow more to satisfy her literary curiosity.

She chose one fantasy bounded in hard and dark leather and one other fantasy bounded in dark red felt, a classic and her favorite. She read it every few months because it entranced her mind. An adventurous girl unsuspectingly meeting a Prince later in the literary work which she was always wanted to be. How dull her life paled in comparison to such adventurous works conjured in imaginative minds.

She left the shop languidly, and opened a page, planning to read on her way back to her cottage. The bustle of the town around her withered away until she was quite clear she had become unconscious save for the book that fed her mind. She no longer heard the carriages, the shrill voices, nor the faint music of peddlers playing in the square for a few coins to sustain the lowly existence.

Hearing the voices become louder, she pulled herself from her book, and turned around hearing nothing but the regular bustle, strangely she returned back to her book before hearing the loud voice of arrogance. He had obviously came back, probably to escort her home and say a sophisticated greeting to her father, who doted that he was a charming young man that Belle should keep company with.

His conversation was dull enough but now she noticed that he obtained his unattractive, slightly overweight and mindless lackey to accompany him. LeFou. He was the son of an affluent merchant who chose to do nothing less than follow Gaston, his main influence and a poor role model, in her opinion.

His conversation led to her father, as she grew impatient and evenly voiced that her father was in need of her help presently. The two laughed boisterously and began to speak with crude jokes and impolite jests, she impatiently chastised them. To which Gaston chastised his partner. Having to defend her father was something she honored, and could never comprehend why people did not understand him as she did.

A loud clank followed by a boom and a thick cloud of black smoke seized her attention, and she turned to see the cloud being released from her own humble cottage. Turning her attention from the two jesters to her home, she fled them immediately, leaving Gaston and his silly friend to laugh after her.