#2 of my one-shots.
I do not own Beauty and the Beast, just the story idea.
Updated 5/18/2021: to revise some of the Beast's back story to coincide with where I decided to take this. When I first started, I didn't know how many of these I was going to write or that it would go beyond the breaking of the curse.
Thanks for reading! And Please Review!
One Step Forward
The wind and rain beat against the closed glass doors of the balcony in the Beast's chambers in the West Wing. Quiet, apart from the rapid taps of water that struck the glass before sliding down to the stone floor below, Beast lay in bed, unable to sleep. Usually the calming sound of the rain soothed him into slumber better than any lullaby could, but not tonight. Tonight, his mind swirled with thoughts of her.
It had been several weeks since he'd been graced with the radiant glow of her smile as she first opened those striking hazel eyes to the wonders of the castle library. When Lumière first suggested it as a suitable way of thanking the girl for not only returning his injured body to the castle after the fight with the wolves, but then tending to his wounds for a week, he'd been more than a little skeptical. What young lady would want to spend time in that cavernous, dusty library filled with boring, droll books?
Sure he'd overheard her telling the servants about wonderful adventures she'd taken, knowing they weren't based on any actual traveling she'd done. He figured she was just a skilled storyteller. Now he knew she had been recounting books she loved. He felt foolish for believing the fanciful musings had sprung from her own overactive imagination, although he was confident she had at least a few original tales to spin if given the chance.
No, tonight he was captivated by her latest obsession, teaching him how to read again. It wasn't as though he'd never been taught. In fact, he'd had a near army of tutors who drilled all manner of knowledge and skills into him when he was a child and into adolescence. He just didn't remember it. Books were delicate things and didn't belong in massive paws with razor-sharp claws. Besides, the only books he remembered were full of dead kings and long past wars, or confusing prose that never made sense in his action craved mind.
As soon as a tutor made any indication that a lesson was finished, he would run out of the castle to explore the forest, or swim in the lake, or ride his horse. It was an endless source of frustration and agitation to his uncle, who was hellbent on conforming his wild nephew into the very model of grace, elegance, and royalty. A task his father's younger brother gave up on rather quickly, assigning the servants to manage him only two years after his parents died. Not that he blamed him. He'd driven away several tutors with his pranks and uncooperative behavior. The freedom to climb, run, swim, and flex his muscles anytime he chose, with no tsking taskmaster to reign him in, or a vicious lecture from his uncle on proper princely etiquette, was the one thing he'd actually enjoyed when first becoming the Beast.
She'd shown him that books could be so much more than a leather bound cage that kept him from more enjoyable pursuits. They could be filled with adventure, mystery, action, and even romance. They could be an escape from a dull or depressing life. He wished he'd know that in the years prior. It might have made his endless torture of being captive in his own castle bearable. But he knew it now, and every day she spent time with him, dusting off the cobwebs of his mind, cajoling memories and information lose. He felt closer to the man he was supposed to become.
Staring up at the canopy above, he spread his arms and legs out, imagining he was Gulliver shipwrecked on an island, splayed out on the beach, tied down and being crawled upon by miniature humans. He laughed at his own cleverness as his mind allowed him to feel the light footsteps traversing his arms and chest when out of the darkness he heard an ear-piercing scream.
He bolted upright, his ears now keenly focused on the surrounding silence, unsure if the sound was part of his elaborate fancy or if it actually tore through the castle.
A second scream dispelled any notion he was imagining it, and he raced out of the West Wing, flying faster than he'd ever run before, leaving deep claw marks in the carpets as he galloped towards her door at the end of the East Wing. He skidded twice across marble surfaces where the carpets stopped and started again, once crashing into a credenza, toppling over a candelabra and a vase that luckily were just simple objects and not slumbering servants. Blood pounded in his ears as his heart raced with adrenaline. A third scream, this one less shrill and more muted, poured out of the crack in the door to her room.
Without a thought to propriety or pause for politeness, he flung open the door, and it crashed against the wall. Stepping into the room, his face was contorted in worry. Panting from the unexpected exertion, deep blue eyes searched the room for Belle. She wasn't on the windowsill where she spent hours reading, and the bed was empty. Finally he turned around to find her crouched on top of the dresser with a white nightgown tucked under her feet, unruly chestnut hair flowing freely over her shoulders and down her back. Her hazel eyes swept up from the floor where he stood and locked with his before brightening, and a smile that stole his breath splayed across her stunning face.
Leaping from the dresser, she sprang into his arms, and he reflexively caught her. She clung to him, burying her face into the crook of his neck. The feel of her breath against the fur of his neck and shoulder sent a jolt down his spine. He stood frozen, holding her, shocked at the sequence of events and completely baffled.
"Oh, thank you!" she muttered against him, barely audible. "You're my hero," she added, much clearer as she withdrew her face. Looking up at him, she flushed, realizing her current position, but made no motion to remove herself.
"Are you alright?" His voice trembled in a deep baritone that reverberated in his chest.
The blush deepened while her lips quirked up to one side, embarrassment clearly displayed on her face. "I am now." Still, her arms held him tightly enough that if he let go, she wouldn't have fallen.
"I hope I didn't wake you," she squeaked out, and a cough cleared her throat.
"Not at all." His brow was still knit tightly in confusion, and he was becoming more and more aware every second he continued holding her of each square inch where her body was in contact with his. It was unnerving. Applying great effort to focus on solving the mystery of what brought him there in the first place, he asked, "But what's wrong? What happened?"
"It was… um…" she stammered before burying her face once more into his neck, humiliation blooming in red splotches all over her face.
"Belle?"
With an embarrassed sigh, she lifted her head and looked him in the eyes, confessing, "It was a spider. You crushed it when you walked in."
It took everything he had not to burst out laughing. This strong, independent, fearless girl that, when he'd shouted at her, shouted right back, was afraid of spiders?
His chest rumbled, as humor light his amazing blue eyes, and he bit down on his lip, trying to contain the chuckle that threatened to spill over. Finally loosening her grip on his neck, he gently placed her on the floor. But she didn't step back. In fact, she leaned into him as her own laughter at the situation overtook her, and he felt her body shaking against his. Wrapping his arms around her in a warm embrace, he released a snort that tumbled into a chuckle and the two stood there, laughing in one another's arms. He didn't know how long they stood there, or when things had changed between them to allow this kind of casual embrace, but he felt it was a big step in the right direction. Hope was no longer this flitting butterfly that breezed in and out of his life. It was a seed that she'd planted and continued to water with each interaction. Maybe thinking she could love him wasn't such a farfetched notion after all.
