The question somewhat startled me, not that it upset me, simply that it was unexpected considering my current audience. I frowned, looking towards my book as I let my finger slide from its place, I'd find it tomorrow. "It was…complicated," the word didn't particularly fit the situation, but it was the best that I could come up with. It was the least painful. And yet that didn't seem to satisfy her – though, a response like that wouldn't have satisfied me either.

"How so? I'm sure your village is not scarce of spouses," the word sent a shiver down my spine as I looked towards her. Maybe that was how she was raised; become Queen, find a spouse, bare children, and die. But that had never been able to sit well with me as I shook my head gently.

"That is not the issue…" I paused again, looking up as I watched Beast open her mouth to ask another question; this time I beat her to the answer. "I…I have been proposed to before, several times. A young man in my village, Gaston, seemed to find a particular interest in me." I continued from there to explain the man's "personality" – the word was a bit too kind to what he possessed. The majority of the time the man stood there flexing his muscles and thrusting his hips in my general direction. Whenever I tried to bury my nose deeper into a book in hopes of hiding, her would be standing there, tight pants and all.

Gaston was a hansom man in certain ways. His smile was charming and his hair was lush, but there were certain disconnects for me. His lack of intelligence was one and his immense disregard to my own independence. He would harp on the uselessness of my books on how I should be like the other women, prim, proper, and bored to tears. As if the only sort of entertainment I was to find would be swooning over him as my husband.

All of it rotted me to my core and when he asked me to marry him the first time I had to admit I was shocked, figuring I had made my disgust quite obvious. But that didn't seem to be the case. So I rejected him, only for Gaston to make a remark about how all women played hard to get…and thus he continued. It almost seemed daily that he would appear on my door step to give his heart out to me and every day I would thank him for his flattery before hiding away in my home.

Eventually, though, it all became too much for me and one day he pushed me to my limit. "Come now, Belle. How many more times must I ask you before you agree?" He hummed, resting against the doorframe just enough to block me from getting to my door handle.

"Gaston, I must admit that your charm has run its course. I appreciated the flattery before but you now must understand that I am not interested," I reached for the handle but he shifted his hips to obscure it more as he laughed.

"Not interested? That's hardly possible. Every woman in this town wishes for me to be hers…and you just happen to be the one not interested?"

"I assure you it's nothing personal," I pushed forward and grabbed for the door with a hard look on my face. "I'm not interested in any of the men in this village." The remark wasn't meant as anything more than a general statement, but Gaston was quick to take it in a different form. He frowned and I felt my stomach turn as he began to pluck at my words, scoffing and chuckling, as his mind seemed to wrap around a dastardly plan. And it was a plan that didn't take long to set in place.

"My family had never had the best of reputations," I explained to Beast, sipping at my tea as I spoke. "My father is an inventor, quite a fantastic one, but a little too forward for the times. Therefore a lot of people saw him as somewhat…crazy."

"What about your mother?" Beast asked, sitting up in her seat, as I got farther along in my own personal story.

"She died giving birth to me. Nothing I've particularly felt sad for. Certainly there were times I wondered what she would have been like, but my father does speak much of her and I've learned not to ask." I was casual about the topic for the simple reason that I never knew her. She was just a woman, apparently similar in appearance to myself, which my father had loved deeply. But that was all I really knew and cared to know.

"But," I huffed, "that small quarrel caused for quite the ruckus and spreading of rumors. It hardly took two days before the news of my 'coming out' reached all of the villagers' ears. I was horrified at first…but…found myself enjoying the peace it gave me. People would avoid me and it gave me more time to my reading." Part of that was a lie, especially with Gaston and his interchanging women. They would take any opportunity they could to upset me. But if anything good came out of this prison, it was that I no longer had to settle for that.

"Thus…complicated," I ended with a weak smile, finishing off my coffee as I gave a small yawn. Beast seemed to give a sympathetic smile as she stood form her seat.

"I do hope you find better than what you were given," she remarked, surprising me some as I watched her seemingly contemplate adding something. But instead she gave her goodbyes and headed out the door, leaving me to my room.

Most nights, when Beast left, I found myself slightly relieved and exhausted from having to keep company for so long. But after bringing up the memories I realized I wished she hadn't left, mostly because I hadn't come to the official ending of my story. The fact was…Gaston had assumed correctly.