AN: Beast or Prince? Being a Beast doesn't stop his being a Prince. To emphasize what he is despite appearances, I'm using his title in this one. Yet, I'm also going by the Disney rules of royal titles, which pretty much means no rules.

"Get out!" roared the Prince. His massive, hairy fist stung from the blow he gave when he smashed the wooden table.

"Please, stop!" panted Belle, backing away from him and flattening herself against the ruins of a pink cabinet.

"Get out!" repeated the Prince, bellowing the ferocious command right in her face. He raised his fist again.

The girl turned and fled in an instant. The monstrous fist came down directly behind her, obliterating the cabinet. In a continuation of this gesture he took out a matching dresser, reducing it to memory with one strike.

"GET OUT!" The Prince shrieked at her with every fiber of his beastly form, shredding his monstrous vocal chords in the effort.

At last she had heard him. She was gone. The West Wing was again silent but for the echo of his final roar.

How could she? The one thing he had told her not to do — and immediately it was what she had done! On the very first night she was here! And then she'd nearly damaged the rose — God help them all if she disturbed the petals, cutting their brief time even shorter. He buried his face in his claws. This was all too much.

His beastly growl constricted within his throat and became a bitter sob. How could it have come to this? Only a few days to his twenty-first birthday, all hope seeming lost, a girl had actually arrived — and she behaved like this! This was all surely some new ruse by the Enchantress to torment him, to get his hopes up just so she could mock his pain all the harder. He could never fall in love with someone like her, no matter how beautiful she was — not when she clearly was out to hurt him. Perhaps it even was that horrid Enchantress in yet another disguise, toying with him once again, just trying to make his final days that much more excruciating…

Parbleu, he was not about to spend yet another hopeless night sobbing his eyes out alone in his room. This was not like every other day. He was going to do — anything else! Jump from the balcony if need be!

Wrapping his tattered cape around himself he stepped from the bedroom outside into the moonlight, where he had been prior to the terrible feminine intrusion. A few minutes beforehand he'd been contemplating how he could impress that girl, how to talk to her, how to love her; but now he couldn't imagine himself ever speaking to her again. The nerve of her! Coming into his bedroom uninvited — what if she had barged in and found him doing something personal? What if he hadn't found her in time, and she'd torn the rose apart? The Prince could almost feel his fangs chattering as he shivered in terror.

Snowflakes fell upon the glittering marble balcony. The weather dampened the sounds of the world, bringing everything to an eery silence. Only a bit of wind nipped at his ears.

But a sudden clamor erupted from the shadows within the West Wing. The Prince's pulse quickened, and his instincts went on high alert.

"Who dares?!" he snarled, leaping back to his feet and into the chamber. He guessed it was the girl, defying him yet again with her cruel intrusions.

Instead, it was the voice of Cogsworth the steward who answered back, and with more than his usual urgency. "Sire!" he wailed. "The girl — the girl —"

"Yes, she was in here!" snarled the Prince. "See that she never makes that mistake again!"

He was about to boot Cogsworth out the door and barricade it so folks would stop bothering him at last, and leave him to — to — hell with it, he was going to start crying again, soon as he was all alone. It had been a hard day. Yet when he approached the mantleclock, fast behind him came hopping the candelabrum, and also the teapot, both breathless.

"Monsieur," cried Lumiere, his tone no less urgent than that of his comrade. "She has taken her horse and fled!"

The Prince felt his heart drop. "What?" he asked, his tone gentle. He was genuinely surprised by this information.

"Your tantrum frightened her," said a trembling Mrs. Potts, bouncing forward with a worried frown. "If you hurry down now, you might be able to stop her."

The Prince considered this for a moment. Stop her? "Bah!" he grumbled, and turned on his paw. He stormed away from the door, back toward his balcony. This was actually a good thing. "She's already broken her promise to stay here forever — and her promise not to come into the West Wing! How could I trust her? I say good riddance."

The servants were stunned. Good riddance?

"But, sire," pleaded Cogsworth, "you know your birthday is only a few days off. What are the odds that another woman will show up here before then?"

"Same as the odds I could fall in love with that one," grumbled the Prince, his arms crossed under his cape.

"So you're just giving up?" Mrs. Potts. "On all of us?"

The Prince said nothing. They could surmise his answer.

"You come this close," said Lumiere, agog, "and you will just give up?"

The Prince gnashed his teeth, a fierce growl rising from his guts. "The requirement is that I have to fall in love! How can I fall in love with that?"

"How can you know if you won't even try?" pleaded Mrs. Potts.

"She's absolutely disrespectful," snarled the Prince, approaching the little table where his glowing rose floated beneath its bell jar. He rested his weight upon his forepaws as he gazed at it, wilting more and more with every instant. "And she's dishonest. It doesn't matter how beautiful her face is, when it's just a mask for treachery."

The servants looked at one another, helpless. Their best chance to become human again was riding deeper and deeper into the snow with each moment that passed.

Then Lumiere got an idea. "But, master, surely you don't wish any harm upon her?"

"As long as I don't have to see her, I don't care what happens to her," growled the Prince, his eyes still fastened upon the rose.

"Well," said Lumiere, striving not to let his motives appear too obvious, "In the dead of night, with the roads buried in snow… how far can she get? Oh, I'm sure it will only be a mile or two before the horse unknowingly steps into some ravine and they both fall. A terrible fate to freeze to death with a broken leg, oui, monsieur. Ah, but what more can she expect for disobeying a great Prince?"

The Prince felt uneasy, playing out the sorry vision in his head: Belle, injured, frightened, huddling for warmth against her crippled horse as the falling snow slowly covered their shivering bodies…

"Oh, goodness," added Mrs. Potts, perceiving the ruse and playing along. "It takes hours to freeze to death, they say. Poor dear. I'm sure she would prefer to apologize — but it's too late for apologies. What's done is done. You know that condition all too well…"

The Prince winced, recalling ten years prior when he had insulted the Enchantress. She had revealed herself almost instantly afterwards, and he had tried to apologize, but…

A long growl rose from his body, terminating in a furious scream. "Alright," he snapped, pain and frustration in his voice. "I'll get her! We'll throw her out again in the morning!" The Prince tossed up his claws in frustration as he bounded for the door.

When he was out of sight, the servants smiled with relief.

The Prince leapt down the stairs to the ground floor, not so much anxious to find the girl as anxious to have this ridiculous errand done with. He came through the entryway and out into the blasting chill of the wind. He was poorly dressed for this, but there was no time to change his outfit. At least the snowfall seemed to be dying down.

Crossing the yard towards the gate, he could see the fresh hoofprints of Philippe, marking the trail of the horse's gallop. He must move quickly if he was to follow them, for the harsh wind and continual dusting of the snow would soon obscure the marks.

With a growl of irritation, the Prince forced himself to pick up his pace, running out on all fours into the darkened woods over freezing snow. There was only moonlight to see by, and with the cloudy sky there wasn't even much of that to be found. Luckily the girl's horse was pretty big, and left sizeable hoofprints. Still, as he followed, he thought he was beginning to see some texture around the prints, like some smaller creatures had passed across the same route. Smaller like maybe… deer? Except deer didn't normally give chase to humans…

The Prince felt his heart drop. Angry as he was about the girl's intrusion and subsequent fleeing of his castle, she didn't deserve anything so bad as to be eaten alive by wolves. He quickened his pace and was rewarded by the ground cracking up beneath him. It gave way, and in a flash it sunk him into a frozen river. He howled in agony — water as cold as that was paralyzing. He had to keep on or now he'd be the one to freeze.

When a freshly drowned wolf brushed up against him in the mire, he felt no more need to doubt what was chasing her.

He emerged from the water with barely time to shake himself off. His cape was heavy with liquid and his fur was forming ice crystals. But the snow had stopped, and with the air unmuffled he could now hear a ruckus a short distance up the hill ahead. It sounded worryingly like wolves, feasting on something.

The deep shock of the chill had not done well for him. His view of the landscape was beginning to shimmer and scintillate as his frozen body alerted him that he should stop whatever he was doing and focus instead on getting warm. But there was no time — he needed to press on.

He could just make out her human figure as a wolf leapt up and seized her by the cloak, pulling her down into the snow.

The Prince leapt, and he really had no clear idea of what he was to do next.

A wolf, its jaws open in readiness for a bite, was pouncing upon Belle. The Prince extended his paw and caught it in midair. He lifted the wild animal, held it to his face, and roared at it. Then he tossed it away and made a dive for Belle, desperate to protect her.

There were about seven more wolves surrounding them, and somehow they didn't seem intimidated.

The Prince lunged forward, his bellow a primal echo through the night. But this was an unsettling turn for him, a bizarre experience that clashed with his noble demeanor. He possessed the physique of a beast, maybe even the temper; yet his instincts were far from those of a natural fighter. In a matter of moments, it became glaringly evident that he was horribly out of his element. He managed to swat away one wolf while the other six swarmed him like he was a buffet table. They began to bite and tear at him while he roared and flailed in mad anguish. About all he could do was bat them off of him, and they seemed to take a fresh chunk of his flesh along each time he did so.

At last, after a minute of skirmish, he succeeded in bashing one of the wolves to its death against a tree. Perhaps it was the alpha, for almost instantly when done, the remainder of the pack retreated into the woods of their own accord. Perhaps they'd simply bitten off enough chunks of him to feel sated, he thought gloomily. The fact that he had gone numb from the cold was the only reason he wasn't in greater anguish from the attack; but he could see blood gushing up through his fur, even in the bad light.

And that was the last thing he could remember seeing, before it all fizzled out.

…

When the Prince awoke, he was draped over the back of the horse. He was almost as large as it was, but somehow it managed to pull him along, carrying him through the winter forest. Beside him was Belle, guiding these two massive creatures through the blinding blizzard which appeared to have started up again.

Somehow his "rescue" had gone so badly that she had actually ended up having to save him.

Fine job it would be for her to take him seriously after that. He groaned aloud, defeated; but he was too weak to move.

"It's alright," her voice chimed soothingly. "I'm taking you back to the castle. We just need to get you bandaged up."

The Prince groaned again. Yes, he could scarcely wait for the abject humiliation of being dumped off on his own doorstep before she'd continue her escape into the night.

Yet when they arrived at the castle, he was astonished to see that she helped him down from the horse, and actually intended to offer her tiny little self as a brace to assist him to the door. He had too much pride to accept the offer; he was able to walk to the door all by himself, thank you, and promptly faint again there.

Once the servants had dragged him inside and thawed out his fur, he began to feel much better. It was the chill that had done him the most harm; the injuries were bad, but not life-threatening by themselves.

For some reason the girl insisted on personally tending to his wounds — little did he suspect that the servants had suavely manipulated her into this. The Prince was suspicious about her motives, especially when she resorted to a cleansing tactic that made everything hurt far worse than if it had just been left alone. He roared in agony, and he was sure that she was doing this deliberately to punish him.

And yet, as the pair of them argued back and forth about just whose fault this whole situation was and which one was in the wrong, it gradually became apparent to the Prince that Belle didn't intend to hurt him.

The discovery disarmed him; and in that moment of dropped defense, he became vulnerable.

Those ferocious bonds formed in the name of love — those were what made it possible for someone to really hurt you. Lacking love, he was safe from that. Perhaps that had been the Enchantress's plan all along — to make him suffer, through the pain of caring.

Yes, though Belle had no ill intentions towards him now, she would cause him so much pain in the future to come.

The Enchantress was indeed vindictive.

END.