IT seemed to take the Prince and Belle an eternity to reach the edge of Belle's village, and by the time they made it, the moon was high in the sky. The Prince knew it would be easy enough to sneak into her village, especially under the cover of darkness.
He would move swiftly and quietly, though he had not the faintest idea where to begin looking for the witch.
He spared an uneasy glance at the monstrous she-wolf in front of him, his gaze momentarily transfixed by her pretty dark hair as she looked with no small amount of trepidation towards her village.
The fear in the Beast's eyes was obvious. He resisted his urge to roar like an enraged dragon and spoke to her, hoping to pull the cursed girl out of her stupor.
"Your devil of a witch, girl, she is where? Where can I find her?" Prince Adam grunted, feeling nearly sick with anger when he saw Belle's lips curl up into a funny little smile as she looked away and her dark eyes made a quick scan of her village. It took her a few minutes of searching, but finally, the girl raised a delicate furry paw and pointed.
He followed where the girl's gaze was looking and his blood boiled and vindication and anger surged through his limbs as he spotted the same beggar woman who had come to his castle. The hag was now sitting on the steps of a building that seemed to be their chapel, small and tumbledown shack though the building was.
He jolted forward the moment Belle's legs began to instinctively move towards the familiar sight of her village, a wolfish sort of whine leaving her throat that stuffed the chills down the Prince's throat.
He did not like hearing this noise. It unnerved him. The Prince, perhaps rougher than he would have liked, wound an arm around her forearm and pressed her back and back and back until he had her pinned against a tree.
"Stay," Prince Adam hissed at the Changeling wretch through gritted teeth, trying to keep his voice from drawing any unwanted attention. "You're going to wait here until I've spoken with your sorceress. The last thing you bloody need is for the people to see you…like that, they would burn you at the stake, girl," he grunted, the edges of his mouth turning down in a frown as he looked at her monstrous visage. He did not even pretend to care as he caught sight of the hurt brimming to life in the she-wolf's eyes or showed caring at hearing her sniffle a little.
Belle, with painstaking slowness, as though she were processing the Prince's demand, slowly turned her head toward Adam and glowered. The Prince grimaced. The fearsome look coming from this she-wolf should have been intimidating but Adam was not about to be phased by the prickly girl's sudden beastly aggression.
Her dark eyes suddenly flickered with some emotion the Prince could not quite place.
Concern for any family she might have within. Fear that a villager wandering aimlessly through the woods would discover her here in her hiding place. Anger that he was leaving her. Whatever it was, he did not have time to ponder it as Belle's angry voice cut through the air, pulling the Prince out of his mind's thoughts.
"I can't just stay back and do nothing!" Belle growled lightly, her voice beginning to tremble with emotion, but Adam wasn't sure.
He watched as the girl dug her long fingernails into the skin of her palms. He was sure she was hurting herself, but he said nothing.
"Just what?" The Prince barked at the prickly Beast in a hushed voice, his voice sharp but earnest. "Waltz into your village with your head held high like you own the place? Then what? As I've said, you'd be caught and burned at the stake. It is the worst possible punishment for those who had been touched by magic, one that no magic can fix."
His last words left his mouth barely above a whisper, the Prince's voice so quiet that at first, Belle wasn't even sure she had heard him correctly. She assumed her misinterpretation of his words to be an observation of poor hearing on her part. She blinked at him and realized that he was right, as much as she did not want to admit it.
Numbly, Belle lowered her head and nodded at the Prince in utter defeat, and stepped back, motioning for him to go.
"Do not leave this very spot, no matter what happens, do you understand?" the Prince commanded in a gruff voice, praying that the pigheaded and stubborn girl would listen to him.
Belle's eyes widened at the Prince's unexpected solemn gaze. The man's wintry blue eyes were ice cold as he pinned her with a look of daggers, his lips pursed in disapproval as he waited for her promise. She almost wanted to shirk away from the hard gaze the Prince of these lands was now piercing her with. But she could not.
She found herself marveling at how bright the man's blue eyes were, and nodded.
"I-I promise, Your Highness, I will not leave, I give you my word that I will not, I swear it, sir," she shyly whispered, her voice small and meek, though Adam could tell she spoke with great reluctance and perhaps even pain.
The Prince gave a curt nod in return. The she-wolf had given her word, now was the time to see if she would honor her promise and if her word was as good as her bond.
He tiredly closed his eyes for a moment, exhaled a shaky breath, and then turned on his heels and walked away from the cursed Changeling girl who was leaving quite an impression on him and one he was not sure he liked.
The Prince took one last look at the she-wolf before parading his back to her and heading towards her village, eager to speak to the village witch and rectify his grave mistake. He could have sworn she looked right back at him.
The Prince tried to move as swiftly and quietly as he could, trying to shake from his mind the way the she-wolf's eyes had lit up when he had shrugged out of his cloak and given it to her in hopes it would stop her shivering.
The edges of the man's mouth pinched and turned down into a frown as he approached the stone steps of the village's small chapel that was odd and in ill repair.
As the beggar woman looked up upon hearing the Prince's footsteps stalk angrily towards her, he was surprised to see that she was much younger than he had first assumed her to be.
A few tendrils of her hair were peeking out from underneath her headscarf, and they were not gray and dead and wispy-looking as he'd expected, but a beautiful golden color, vibrant and full of life.
She did not look a day over forty, seeing her this close as he came to a halt a few feet in front of her and glowered at the disgusting witch.
"Your Highness. I wondered when I would see you again, though I must confess, I did not expect to see you so soon. To what do I owe the pleasure?" the woman spoke. Her name was Agathe, he tried to recall, hearing the she-wolf speak of her and prattle on about her friendship with this hag throughout the duration of their walk here.
The witch's voice was flat, too monotone to be a true greeting, and her expression to see him standing in front of her was clearly unimpressed. It was obvious that she had been expecting him and this Agathe was not pleased.
"You can spare me the formalities, witch, I can smell a fraud a mile away. You should know why I've returned. Fix the girl, the one you cursed," the Prince sneered, feeling the edges of his lip curling upwards as he looked down his nose at the woman seated on the steps.
The Prince could not help but to crinkle his nose in disgust as he looked at her tattered garb, her patchworked skirt.
To his horror and rage, she shook her head no, a curl of hair falling in front of her face that she had to pause to tuck back into her scarf. She lifted her gaze to his, her expression suddenly all suspicion as she glared.
"I am afraid it is not quite as simple as that. Magic, especially ancient magic, has its limitations and I cannot undo what has been set up on that poor young woman whom you harbored ill intentions towards. I saw your heart, Prince Adam. It is vile and cruel. I could not very well let you take advantage of that girl's beauty, not when it was within my power to help her. She asked that I take away her beauty, that I help her, and I've done as she asked. To 'fix her' as you so eloquently put it, will require effort on both of your parts, Highness, not just yours," Agathe advised.
The Prince felt what little color was left in his face drain as his mind felt like it was reeling as he struggled to process the witch's unexpected news. He angrily clenched his jaw and dug his teeth into the wall of his mouth.
I'll kill her myself for this. I'll order every last one of her kind hunted down and killed, with God as my witness.
The Prince almost swallowed his tongue as he curled his gloved hands into fists, a few hot tears escaping his eyes. His mind blazed with every foul curse imaginable as he cursed the witch in front of him into oblivion as she stared up at him with a strangely triumphant smile on her face that he wanted to wipe off her.
His throat hollowed and threatened to release a frustrated sob, but he'd not let it.
He knew he would die before he would ever hear himself whimper and then beg. He willed his temper to cool before speaking, hesitantly lifting his gaze, and locking eyes with her.
"How?" he growled, with emphasis on the question, knowing he did not need to elaborate further.
He briefly tore his gaze away from the witch and thought of how everything within the girl's wretched tumbledown hovel that could barely call itself a village was laced with the biting feeling of cold. The bitter air seemed to cling to him, and his clothing felt heavy, leaving his body feeling strangely fatigued and weak.
He took a heavy hand and drug it down his face as he tried to rid himself of his anxiousness as his gaze landed upon the prickly she-wolf's unusual silhouette, barely hidden by the trees.
The darkness of night made the shadow cast by Belle's monstrous body made the prickly farm girl look even more monstrous and frightening than she was.
The Prince stared at her silhouette for a moment before he was pulled back to himself by the sound of Agathe's voice.
"Love and blood, Your Highness, is how Belle's curse is to be lifted," Agathe muttered, lowering her voice an octave at the sound of approaching footsteps, and the Prince was left unable to ask the witch what she meant by that.
The Prince turned to see an old man, short and stout and red in the face, barreling towards them with clumsy steps and a strange, odd limping gait, as though he suffered from an old wound. The Prince tilted his head in curiosity.
"…Here you are, Agathe, my old friend, f-forgive me, b-but I need your help. Belle is missing, I—I have looked everywhere and cannot find her, I thought maybe she would be with you, I know the two of you talk sometimes," the old man wheezed, clutching at a stitch in his side and heaving to catch his breath.
The man sounded close to tears and on the brink of hyperventilation as he lifted his cracked and red-rimmed eyes, pleading with the witch with just a single look to help him search for his girl.
The Prince, if it was at all possible, looked even more distraught and enraged than before as he flicked his seething gaze toward Agathe. The witch, however, merely shot him something of a challenging look as she eyed him carefully, her catlike green eyes narrowed in suspicion, her lips pursed into a thin line of disapproval.
The land's Prince was behaving suddenly skittishly, rubbing the back of his neck, and averting both of their gazes.
Agathe allowed herself a moment more to study the Prince's features before turning to look towards Maurice, eager to ease the distraught father's worry, while at the same time, not wanting to give away her role in Belle's curse.
The matter of lifting the enchantment set upon the inventor's daughter would be up to them and them alone. She could not and would not interfere, and she decided then and there that the truth was best kept from Maurice.
He fretted enough over Belle as it had ever since his beloved wife had passed away, having caught a fever due to a devastating plague that swept through the realm when Belle was only three.
She herself had lost her own husband to the sickness, and despite her best efforts to cure her love of his illness, she had not succeeded. Maurice and Belle, as she had grown, were one of the few people in their entire village who ever had a kind word or a small gift of appreciation for her.
It was this thought that compelled her to take pity on Maurice and spare him the truth of what had become of his girl. Agathe's kind green eyes swept over Maurice's stricken face.
"Have you talked to her?" Maurice begged, not even seeming to take notice of the presumably young man standing in such close proximity to Agathe, having eyes only for her.
"I have, Maurice, my friend," Agathe spoke in what she hoped was a soothing voice as she flicked her gaze toward the arrogant Prince.
The Prince looked up from his sullen and trance-like state, and the man's blue eyes were…dare she go as far as to say, bright. It was most peculiar for the boy.
Nevertheless, Agathe pressed on and continued, eager to supplicate and set poor Maurice at ease.
"She has taken work in the Prince's castle. She did not want to trouble you with her decision, and so she thought leaving before you woke would be best. She knew you would oppose her decision and she wants only to do what she can to help you, Maurice. You should be proud of Belle, she is just like her mother. As for the Prince, you may ask him yourself," Agathe muttered.
The witch made a visible show of bringing her knees close to her chest and resting her head in her hands as Maurice slowly began to take notice of the handsome man to his left.
Maurice's eyes widened in shock and awe, shame speckling on his cheeks as he looked upon the Prince of the realm, whom he curiously eyed. The young man standing in front of him could not be older than twenty-one summers, by his estimation, yet he held himself with the adapted confidence of someone ten years older.
Maurice met the Prince's face with critical interest, his mouth slightly slack in surprise as he struggled to process the news that Belle had left. It was not like his daughter at all, for her to leave without even consulting him, he hoped nothing had happened to her to force her hand.
He'd heard stories of this young Prince, how he was reviled by his lord father, the late Duke, and conspired to try to poison the Duke. Upon his death, he was said to have fled into the woods without a single care in the world and had not even attended his father's funeral. He was rumored not to be a kind man, selfish and vain.
The Duke's son was a boy of many stories, just as Gaston was, but Maurice considered himself above stooping to the tales the other villagers told in the tavern over a hot meal and a pint of ale to anyone who cared for gossip.
"Your Highness, forgive me, but is this true? You have spoken to her?" Maurice asked hopefully, running a hand through his hair as his white hair and closely cropped beard framed his circled and sunken dark brown eyes.
He was sure he had a few more lines on his forehead that had not been there this morning until he had discovered Belle, not in their home where he'd fully expected to see her, likely lounging in her favorite chair by the fire with a book or busy in the kitchen preparing fried bread for breakfast.
Discovering Belle missing had been perhaps the only time in his life that Maurice had known true fear.
It was a terrible feeling, rendering him almost blinded by the emotion as he frantically searched his home and the streets for his only child and asked if anyone had seen her. They hadn't, and though Maurice knew the other villagers' opinions of him and his daughter were less than favorable, there had been no lie in their eyes when asked.
Maurice knew his sweet daughter had been trying to spend as much time with him as possible before he would take their family's horse Phillippe to the Harvest Festival this year and attempt to peddle his wares and earn a small fortune. It was his hope that by attending the fair, though he'd not won in years past, this time would be different.
Perhaps their luck would change. Perhaps he would meet a wealthy investor who would be willing to take a chance on one of his modern inventions.
He was set to leave tomorrow morning first thing, but until he was reassured of Belle's safety and comfort, he could not allow himself to leave the village.
Maurice desperately looked pleadingly toward the Prince and awaited the man's reply. He had been worried about the notion of Belle being left alone in their home for over four days with no one but the chickens for company. But if Agathe's news was true if Belle had taken work at the castle then perhaps...he need not worry so much for his girl.
Perhaps it would not be so lonely for her there. A part of Maurice found himself hoping that Belle might meet another young woman close to her age, a lady friend, someone she could confide in and form a friendship with.
He had seen her a small handful of times with Monsieur Levi's daughter, the owner, and proprietor of the only sole bookshop and library in their small village. She was close to Belle's age.
The girl's name was Anne, Maurice recalled, and Belle seemed to have taken a shine to her, though Belle had never invited her over for reasons that were unclear. Maurice was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the Prince's voice, which sounded strangely condescending and hoarse for reasons the baffled inventor did not quite understand.
"She is. She is…well, and being looked after by my servants, monsieur, you…need not worry for your pretty belle."
The Prince's lips were formed into a rigid smile, but it was obvious to Maurice, the man's smile was strained, and a shadow flitted across the man's sharp and angular features, as though the man were hiding something.
Indeed, he seemed eager to return to his shining castle, judging by the way the boy was practically shifting his weight from one foot to the next and avoiding eye contact. Maurice exchanged a look with Agathe.
Maurice saw how Agathe's gaze remained fixed on the Prince's eyes and seemed stuck there.
He couldn't blame her. Even in simple traveling clothes and his brown suede boots that were muddy from trekking through the woods but still seemed high quality, the man was an enchanting sight.
He was sure that if Belle were here by his side, she too would look.
Though it was no small secret that Monsieur Gaston, the town's local hero, and most handsome and eligible bachelor, had his sight set on Belle.
But whenever he prodded, Belle would become tight-lipped and refuse to speak of the man's apparent affection towards her.
Whether or not something was brewing between them, now he suspected he would not know, considering she had taken up work in the Prince's castle.
Humbled by the Prince's apparent kindness, Maurice lowered his head in gratitude.
"I thank you then, for accepting my daughter into your home. She is quite lonely sometimes," Maurice sadly confessed. "I hope to be able to write to her, at least, if not perhaps visit?"
The Prince's mouth parted as if to speak to the man, however, no sounds came forth except a few strangled attempts at speech as the words were caught in his throat. He was being far too careless in the way he was dealing with the girl's nosy father. He had to wax and seal off in his mind the notion the old mental bit was getting into his mind to come and visit his daughter. He could not risk anyone, not even the girl's father, seeing her as she was.
"I'm terribly sorry, monsieur, but I do not allow just anyone to come and explore my home," the Prince said with an angry snap. Maurice looked up in surprise, afraid he had offended, though before the inventor could try to supplicate him some, he continued. "But you can, however, write to your daughter as often as you would like, I will not put a limitation on any correspondence," he muttered as he straightened his gait and was unable to look at the man.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the old man was flushing as well, but the Prince did not care.
"I will see to it she will expect your letter, monsieur, but for the moment, if you could please excuse me, I must be getting back," the Prince growled with a small nod, his tongue feeling like heavy clay in his mouth.
He did not dare let himself look, but Prince Adam could feel it burning. He felt the burn of the Enchantress's gaze threatening to burn a hole through the back of his skull as he paraded his back to the farm girl's father and the witch who had hexed his prize. The old man's parting words nearly made the Prince pause as he turned away.
"Thank you again, so much, sir. I will send a letter to my girl soon. Thank you again, I cannot say it enough. For my daughter," Maurice humbly told him.
Adam froze, momentarily taken aback by his words. He was sure that no one in his life after his parents' deaths had thanked him. He was almost uncertain how to accept such gratitude from the old man.
The Prince offered a grunt by way of response and did not bother to look back behind him.
It unnerved him that he still felt the witch's eyes on him as he quickly made his way toward the woods.
Prince Adam hoped the other villagers from the comforts of their own homes did not peer out their windows and see the elusive Prince of the realm stalking his way down their very streets.
His boots thudded against the cobblestones and then snapped against the twigs when he reached the edge of the Wolves' Woods, but the sound was drowned out by the sound of his pounding heart.
There was no telling how he and the girl were meant to break the curse, what on earth had the witch meant by "Love and Blood?" His mouth went dry at just the notion, and he licked his lips.
Suddenly, he could not get back to the prickly she-wolf soon enough.
He wanted nothing more than to retreat within the safety of the West Wing and take the rest of the night to think. Prince Adam approached the forest clearing where he had left the Beast and felt his face freeze and his anger swell.
He stomped to the center of the clearing to see how it was possible for any signs of a disturbance, but there were none. Adam cursed himself for not being more careful with the girl.
Prince Adam waited a moment to compose himself and will his temper to cool before he began his search.
He did not know how it was possible, but his prickly she-wolf, Belle, was gone.