Rose of the Moon

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Act 4

She was walking down a long road lined with ginkgo trees. Their yellow petals were so lovely. Birds sang their song as she walked along. It was so peaceful.

"Hey there sweet stuff." came a sleazy voice from behind her.

She turned around. Two scruffy men were standing there holding knives.

"You shouldn't be wandering out here all alone. It could be dangerous." One told her as they moved in.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"You're trespassing on our turf little girl." One replied.

"Yeah," Two added. "You need to pay a toll to get through here." Two reached for her blue pleated skirt. "AHHH!" he screamed as someone grabbed his arm and twisted it back and up against his shoulder blade.

She took the opportunity to move away from the sleazeballs and eye the newcomer. He was a tall very handsome man with shoulder-length silver hair. His blizzard blue eyes was glaring at the other creep.

"Aren't you a little old to be picking on innocent young girls?" the man asked, twisting the other's arm harder.

One lunged forward with his knife. "Who's gonna stop us?"

Her rescuer picked up his captive and threw him at his attacker. "I am! Now get out of here before I beat your asses into the ground."

The two cowards knew when they were bested and ran away in terror. Her rescuer came over to her.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded. "Yes, thank you for saving me." What was this feeling pooling inside of her. It didn't feel like a crush at all. This was a different feeling. "I thought I was a goner."

The man smiled gently at her. "Well those jerks won't bother you anymore. I promise." He took her hand and kissed it softly. "I won't let anyone hurt you, my princess." With that he faded away and darkness settled around her.

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Belle opened her eyes and felt wetness on her side. It felt like someone was splashing her. She looked up and groaned inwardly.

"Gaston, stop that." she glared at him.

He smirked. "I had to do something to get your attention. Who falls asleep at a fountain?"

"It's none of your business where I sleep. One doesn't have to always pay all their attention to you." she fired back. She stood up with her new book and began to stomp away.

"Hold on." he grabbed her shoulder.
Without warning she latched onto his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder and planted him flat onto his back. Belle panted as she realized what she'd done. How had she done it? Did she know she could do that? She couldn't answer those questions. She had only acted on instinct, on the feelings of danger she had felt in her dream. She hadn't managed to shake them yet.

Gaston stared up at her in shock. This had never happened before. A girl had flattened him. He looked around slowly. As he feared, everyone was staring at them. He stood up quickly and stepped closer to her.

Belle backed slowly away, looking around her. She had done it now. She'd never be able to fit in. Despite what she told herself, she did want to fit in. Tears pooled in her eyes and she fled past him, running as fast her legs could carry her.

Gaston watched her retreating form, at a loss for what to do. His gut told him that she hadn't meant to do what she'd done. There was certainly something strange about her. Strange, and yet, alluring at the same time.

"Whoa Gaston, that Belle just flattened you. How did she do that?" LeFou asked.

Gaston nodded. "Well, I wouldn't want to marry a girl who couldn't defend herself when she needed to, would I? I can't be there to protect her all the time. What if someone tried to hurt her while I was out hunting or something?" he reasoned. "All girls should know a little about protecting themselves at the very least just in case they're alone when they're in trouble. Besides, I let her flip me. Yeah, that's it, I let her flip me. I better go after her and make sure she didn't hurt herself." he looked at his feet and picked something up. "And she forgot her book." Before anyone else could say anything, he jogged off after her. That was embarrassing, but hopefully he had defused the situation.

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At the cottage, Maurice was preparing his cart and Philippe for what appeared to be a long trip. An interesting contraption sat upon the cart.

Belle had managed to calm down before she approached her father. She didn't want him to know what had happened in the town. She just wanted to forget it ever happened. "Papa,"

Maurice welcomed his daughter home with a smile. "Belle, did you have a good time in town?"

"Are you on your way to the fair already?" she replied, really not wanting to discuss town at the moment.

"Yep. I finally got this boneheaded contraption working. I'm positive it'll at least attract some interested people. The fair's tomorrow so I have to get going if I'm going to get there in time."

"Be careful then Papa." Belle hugged him. "Good luck."

Maurice mounted Philippe and pushed gently but firmly into the horse's sides. "Bye Belle, take care while I'm gone."

Belle watched as her father left. She went to get her book from her basket and realized with horror that it wasn't there. "Oh no, I must have dropped it." She'd have to retrace her steps and find it. Tony and his father had meant that book to be especially for her, she knew it in her heart. She had to find it.

"You mean this?" Gaston's voice startled her.

She leaped and turned around. "What is it with you and giving me heart attacks?"

"Heart attacks?" What was a heart attack, he wondered. "You dropped your book and I wanted to bring it back to you."

Belle took a deep breath and saw he was holding her book out to her. She took it. "Thank you…" Why would he do something so nice for her? She didn't think he really noticed anyone besides himself, only did things that served himself in one way or another. But she didn't really know him very well, she realized, so how did she know all that.

"How can you read that anyway? Those aren't letters I've ever seen before." Gaston asked. "And it doesn't even have pictures."

Belle put the book in her basket. "I can't really explain, but I can read Japanese characters. That's what these are. Kanji to be exact. I just know how to read them. Thank you for bringing it back to me. That was very nice of you. And….I'm sorry for what happened in town, you just scared me and I reacted. I don't even know how I did it."

"Don't worry about it Belle." Okay, where did that come from? He hadn't meant to say that, but he just felt like he had to forgive her. After all, he was about to propose to her, better to let sleeping dogs lie. "I actually was very impressed. It just makes you all the more attractive. After all, a girl should know how to protect herself in case she gets in trouble while her husband isn't there to do it. I'm glad to know you'll be safe while I'm off doing whatever I need to be doing to feed and shelter us."

Belle cocked an eyebrow. "Wait a minute, us? What are you talking about?"

"Belle, you're the most beautiful girl in town, and apparently the strongest girl in town. And now you're the luckiest. All the girls want me, but I don't want anyone else but you. I want you to be my wife." he advanced.

She backed away slowly. "Gaston…I'm speechless. I really don't know what to say."

"Say yes." he urged her. Say yes and end these confusing dreams, he begged mentally.

Belle laughed nervously, "Gaston, that's a very flattering offer but….I just can't marry you. I'm sorry."

Gaston frowned. "Why not?"

"I just can't. You see, there's another man. Someone I love more than anything else in this world." she recalled her dreams. That silver-haired man had been in many of the ones that weren't centered in the future world.

"Who?" he demanded. "Who could be better than me?"

"We've only really met once before." she seemed to forget Gaston was even there, staring off into nothing, her mind carrying her far away. "At the tree-lined street with young spring leaves. When I first saw that person something rang within my heart. Without thinking or moving, I watched him leave. During the summer that glowed with gold he showed off his perfect somersault for me at the tree-lined street of memories. We gazed at each other as the autumn days drifted by. My first love."

As she spoke wistfully of this first love, Gaston listened. He didn't know why he wasn't saying anything. He was flabbergasted. No one had ever told him no before. It just didn't happen. She should be throwing herself at him and practically begging him to take her to the chapel immediately. That's how girls are supposed to be around him. But as she'd shown him earlier, she wasn't exactly like other girls.

Slowly an image superimposed itself over her. A goddess with long golden hair with a red bow upon it. A yellow silk dress flowed out from her and he realized. This wasn't the princess from his dream. He was following the wrong lead. He was just now starting to accept that maybe these dreams weren't just dreams. The book he'd given back to her seemed to clinch it. He had looked through the book on the way to her home, curious as to what it was, since the writing was so strange. And that moon symbol. The same symbol he'd seen on the forehead of the princess in his dream. He didn't say anything, but somehow he too could read what it said, and normally he couldn't read at all. He couldn't tell her, he couldn't tell anyone. Belle wasn't his princess, but somehow, she was connected to his dreams. He was going to have take time and search a little more for the answers.

"So you see Gaston. I just can't marry you, I've already promised myself to someone else." she broke him out of his thoughts. The image of the goddess faded, leaving only Belle.

He frowned but said nothing and left a bewildered Belle. He didn't care that she had rejected him, he couldn't marry someone who wasn't his princess. His princess had blonde hair, but it was in these cute little buns on top of her head. And her gown was silver, as he remembered from his dreams. It wasn't Belle.

AN: Okay, I know that seemed a bit rushed and Gaston is DEFINITELY OOC, letting Belle go and all that, but I can't have him putting Maurice in the asylum. He's a good guy in this. And my version of Belle didn't play the coy "hard to get" game that the original Belle did. These dreams are really altering their perceptions, things are different. Wait til you meet who I've chosen to be Sailor Moon. Belle was also a lot more awake, and really starting to think that maybe she had misjudged Gaston, and sometimes, you find it's so easy to say something to someone.