Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Disney owns many aspects of this story, blah, blah, blah… You get the idea.

The Next Morning

It was just barely dawn when the onii search party from the oshiro finally found the sleeping pair in the forest. Dai told Belle later that their rescuers had feared that both she and their master were dead when they saw all the blood, but when Belle roused at the sound of their voices they were reassured. Several of them returned to the oshiro for assistance and a cart, and with Belle's help they managed to convey their unconscious master home. Belle followed behind the cart, her mind fixed on plans to somehow make the onii understand which herbs she would need.

With the assistance of Dai and Mitsuko she managed to procure the herbs and a teapot of water. The Beast was situated on a ring of cushions around the central fire of one of the smaller rooms. Belle smiled when she saw that he reached all the way around the firepit with only one floor cushion to spare between his snout and the flame-shaped tip of his tail. It was on this cushion that she was kneeling, carefully dropping herbs into the teapot, when his eyes fluttered briefly.

"O'kasan?" he murmured in his growling voice, so low that Belle almost mistook the word for a moan.

She looked at Mitsuko, who was standing in the doorway awaiting any orders she might give. "Mitsuko-san, what does o'kasan mean in your language?"

The onii's face twisted oddly, her expression impossible to read in her grotesque face. "Means 'mother', Beru-san. Why ask?"

"Never mind." Belle turned back to the Beast, studying his inert, reptilian face. Something in her softened ever so slightly towards him, to hear him mention a mother. It was so…human. Shaking her head to clear it for the task at hand, Belle forced herself to look away and back towards the steaming tea kettle.

The herbs were nearly ready by the time the Beast's fire-colored eyes opened again. This time the glassy haze lifted slightly from them and he focused on her face.

"What…happened? Where…am…I?" he gasped out weakly.

"We are back at your oshiro. You managed to catch the sharp end of a knife during your daring rescue. You've been unconscious since yesterday afternoon," Belle informed him briskly, wringing out a soft towel wet with her herbal steep.

"And how—ehhhhhh!" The Beast had shifted slightly on his curved bedding and discovered the pain in his shoulder.

"Don't move! That will make it worse." Belle said quickly. "Here, let me put this on your wound."

Unlike Koru, the Beast did not willingly submit to her care. "It hurts. Don't touch it," he warned her, a hint of a snarl in his voice.

It was all Belle could do not to roll her eyes heavenward. "Of course it hurts. That's what this is for." She indicated her soaked towel. "It will make it feel better, I promise. My mother taught me about herbs for wounds."

"I would prefer you did not, if it's all the same to you. I have been cut before. It will heal on its own." Using the claws in his good limbs, the Beast dragged himself away from her.

Belle easily followed him. "Don't be ridiculous. This will make it heal faster." She had him backed into a corner. Kneeling swiftly, she reached past his bared jaws and placed her compress firmly on his shoulder.

The ensuing roar and blast of fire forced her to scramble backwards and singed her skirt anew. Brushing ashes off her lap, Belle sat up, eyes sparkling angrily. "Touchy! I was only trying to help!"

"I told you not to!"

"Very well!" Belle spun on her knees and stood to stalk out of the room. "Suffer longer and risk wound-rot, then! I wash my hands of you!"

She was at the open sliding panel when a sulky voice came from behind her. "Wait."

Belle turned back. The Beast had leaned forward, as well as he was able. His fiery eyes searched hers. "My…my apologies." He sounded truly sincere, and so pathetic that Belle started back towards him without a thought. "I…I have a temper," he growled, settling back to the floor.

"Then you should learn to control it better." She bent over the kettle and wet a new rag.

"As you have?"

Belle glanced at him, startled. Was the light in his eyes…brighter? Just the slightest bit? Had he just made a—a joke?

"Very well, I have my flaws," she admitted with a gusty sigh. "I suppose it's easier to see someone else's faults and try to correct them than your own. At least I acknowledge that I have them."

"I suppose." His gravelly voice sounded thoughtful. Belle knelt beside him, her nerves still slightly on edge with the memory of her previous try. This time, he fought to keep still as she swabbed at the knife's slash.

"There now," she said, sitting back when she had finished binding the wound up again with clean cotton bandages provided by the servants. "That wasn't so terrible, was it?"

"Thank you." His voice was low.

Belle looked at him in surprise. "I should be thanking you. No, closer to groveling. You saved my life, back there in the clearing. I thought I was going to die a slow, painful death at the hands of a very angry group of gaijin-haters."

He studied her carefully. "Please, do not grovel. Neither of us would find it at all enjoyable. And as to debts, we owe one another nothing."

"What? Why not?"

"You could have left me to die there in the forest," he pointed out, "Instead, you bound my wounds and stayed beside me all night until my servants arrived. And just now, you used your herbs to help me. You did not have to do any of those things. It was an unexpected courtesy for one such as I."

Belle found herself blushing. "I…"

"So let us speak no more of debts, or what is past. Shall we agree to a fresh beginning?"

"Very well." Belle nodded, but then thought of something. "I don't even know your name. What should I call you?"

He looked at the ceiling thoughtfully, and a little sadly, it seemed to Belle. "You may simply call me the Beast, if you wish," he said at last. Then he turned and studied her. "I must apologize, but I also do not recall your name."

"We were never…properly introduced. My name is Belle."

"Beru-san." His head tilted quizzically at her reaction to this. "I see that you do not enjoy being called that."

Belle blinked, startled at his perception of human facial expression. "You're right. It reminds me of…" She saw again Getsuru's arrogant grin before her eyes as he tried to drag her out of the Dutch quarter. "…someone I'd prefer to forget," she finished slowly.

"I see. Does your name mean anything, in your home language? I have never heard another like it."

"My parents are…were…both French." She stuttered slightly at the thought of them. She swallowed hard past the lump in her throat, and continued, "They named me Belle. Beautiful, is what it means."

"Fitting." Belle blushed again, twisting her skirt in her hands a bit as his fire-colored eyes bored into her. "I believe I will call you Kirei-san," he pronounced at last, "It also means beautiful, in the language of the Land of the Sun."

"Land of the Sun?"

"That is what we call our country of Nippon, for we believe that our Emperor is a descendant of the Sun Goddess," he explained.

"Oh." Belle thought about this. "There's so much I don't know, about your language and your country. I came here hoping to see exotic things, learn a new tongue, but the Dutch quarter is so…so Western. It was as if we were living in a tiny European town all over again, except a thousand times worse because we could never leave. We were never permitted to see the rest of the country for fear we would taint it with our 'barbarian' ways."

He shifted slightly. "Then perhaps…we can undertake to learn from one another. For I have long been fascinated with the world of the Westernmen. Their ideas, their teachings. Their way of life. If it is agreeable to you, I will teach you the Nipponese ways and language if you will promise to reciprocate with your own Western ways. Have we a bargain?"

"Oh, yes! Thank you!" Belle could not help smiling, the first time she had ever done so in his presence. But his eyes had already drifted peacefully closed.