#batbfics

[twinkleem]

I am looking for lumiere/cogsworth, lumiere/plumette, and lumiere/cogsworth/plumette fics

let me know 😊

can be ao3 fics or tumblr fics

[batbobsession]

What if chapeau taught Adam to play violin?

OMG I actually had a headcanon that Adam was just bad at playing the violin, explored a little in this fic. This'll be really cute.

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Shifting

"Non--non, your highness, please, you hold it with your chin."

"I can't." Adam struggles to keep his frustration at bay. "I can hold it with my hands just fine."

"Oui, that is how we teach children," the tutor sighs. "They have no strength to hold something with anything but their hands. You, however, are no mere child--you have the strength to prove it."

But what difference does it make? he thinks mutinously. I held it that way during my last performance, and no one could tell the difference! It hurts when I try anyway.

Out loud, he only asks "But why is that important? I still don't understand."

The tutor's nearing his limit, Adam can tell. But he only shakes his head, the curls on his wig sagging over his forehead. "If you were to shift positions, or something shakes your concentration--"

Now Adam wants to throw the thing at the tutor's face. What sort of game is he playing, throwing out vague answers like that? Shifting positions sounds like something an idiot would do--who'd adjust his stance in the middle of a performance? Not Adam, he wouldn't. Unless something did shake his concentration, he supposes, but that wouldn't be his fault, it would be some ignoramus in the audience--

"Deep breaths, my dear, deep breaths."

His mother's voice drifts across Adam's mind like smoke, extinguishing his initial vitriol. It was true that he got riled up over certain things, especially things he didn't understand. They scared him.

But he never wanted to learn the violin! He can play fortepiano just fine, but his father insisted that an extra instrument would show how intelligent Adam was. He sent Cogsworth off to discuss it with his mother, and she eventually agreed. It still isn't fair; he is much more comfortable with the fortepiano. It's so much easier to see where the notes will spring. He overheard other nobles talking at a ball once about a marvel in Italy: a man who can place his hands on a harpsichord and play something off the top of his head. That's something Adam can understand--no way is he skilled enough, but it's easier to draw music from both hands in unison. And here, Adam wants his hands to do the same thing still. But that isn't how it works.

Deep breaths.

Just this lesson. He mustn't make a fuss, he must get through this lesson. His mother is waiting in the next room, and his father would hear of it sooner rather than later if he complained.

Not that Adam minds, but his father is not one for testing. Though it has been a while, Adam could recall his father's deep voice around him, something so strict that it leeched color from the sun.

Deep breaths.

It works, and Adam nods solemnly at his tutor, who looks less than the sum of his parts at this point. But he gestures again, and the prince raises his violin to his shoulder, resting his chin against the edge.

I won't hold it there, he rebels silently. Shifting my feet. Of all the stupid excuses.

The time slows to a crawl, with the tutor correcting Adam every other row: your fingers are too sticky, your vibrato isn't clean enough, the chin, my prince, hold it fast--

Then the clock strikes four, Adam's shoulders sag in relief, and the tutor is barely able to assign work to practice before he heads for the door, footsteps echoing across the stone.

No faith in me, Adam sulks. That much is obvious.

The door swings closed, but not before Adam hears the tutor's sharp "Non merci!" and a clatter of china.

What was that?

The young prince approaches the door to see one of the footmen at the door, clad in black, holding a tea set that is definitely the source of the clatter. Some sugar had spilled, but everything else looked intact. The tutor bumped into him, it seemed, and did not apologize.

Rude, his mother would say. She'd seek to make things right.

"I would like some tea," Adam says shortly. "Thank you for offering."

The footman nods and hands Adam a cup on a saucer, which he takes with a nod in return.

"I'm sorry he did that. I'm kind of hopeless at this." The words slip out before he can reel them in. His father never liked him admitting weakness, even in front of their staff.

But the footman only offers him what sugar is left in the bowl, and Adam accepts a heaping spoonful.

"Thank you," Adam murmurs, and the footman merely smiles, bows, and turns to leave.

But it's in those few seconds that the prince realizes he's seen this particular servant before. Black waistcoat, usually seen attending to Cogsworth, or sending messages to Mrs. Potts. Helping Lumiere with dinner service if they were short-handed, providing fresh sheets to the maids. Never spoke. Chapeau--that was his name. Adam didn't see him as much as the others--newer, most likely.

He's quick, too; gone in seconds. Adam sips his tea and heads towards the dining room.

 ◦🝰◦🝰◦🝰◦

A violin wakes Adam that night.

He blinks away the dream of a midnight ball, surprised when the music doesn't fade with the images. Moonlight streams through his open window, and his empty room shines with it, silver and gold designs gleaming white with the moon's eerie, ethereal light.

But the violin doesn't stop. It's a slow, melancholy tune that climbs and descends like a stream over stones. Adam almost wonders if he's woken to glimpse a faerie dance of sorts, so taken is he by the magic of the moonlight. Slowly, he rises from his bed to fetch his robe and slippers.

Chapeau stands, illuminated by a window in the hallway, and Adam nearly mistakes him for a ghost; he blends in so with the blues and greys of the night-lit castle.

Under his chin is the source of the music: a rich, brown-colored violin several sizes larger than his own, and a bow that moves along the strings with such care that Adam barely notices when he pulls it up and down.

Adam opens his mouth to say a number of things, from "why are you here" to "you scared me half to death" but whatever it is dies the moment Chapeau meets eyes with him. Instead, the footman dips his head and turns to walk away. Adam follows.

Chapeau leads him through various hallways, portraits shadowed and faceless in the night, and when the castle opens up, the violin fills the space. Several times Adam wants to ask where they're going, but he can't move his mouth; so transfixed is he.

As a prince, he was never instructed to watch after his staff--in fact, it was the other way around--but Adam watches as a moth does to flame. Chapeau's fingers climb up and down the neck of the instrument effortlessly, and there are moments when his hand shakes without troubling the instrument at all.

The violin doesn't shake, but the note does. How is that possible?

Chapeau plays one final note before gently lifting his bow from the string, and though the sound fades away to nothing, Adam can swear he still hears it ringing.

And it's as if a spell has been broken; Adam blinks and takes a few breaths before realizing they've traveled to the music room.

"H...how did you...?" There is nothing to interrupt, but Adam can still only manage a breathy whisper.

Chapeau says nothing, only waits for Adam to finish, letting both hands fall to his sides.

"The way you...the way you climbed up the strings like that," he stutters. "What is that?"

The footman smiles. "Shifting."

Something inside Adam deflates; his shoulders slump as he lets out the breath he doesn't realize he was holding. "Oh..."

Following that comes the overwhelming urge to bury his head in his hands, but Chapeau's gesturing to the prince's own little case with his bow. Adam's eyes widen.

"No--no, I can't, I--"

But something in Chapeau's stance makes Adam unclasp the case anyway, and it takes him a few moments to figure out what it is: the violin hasn't fallen from his shoulder.

"How are you doing that?"

The footman laughs and removes the instrument, before putting it back. Adam notices it this time: with a slight head tilt, Chapeau's using his jaw to hold the violin there. Adam hastens to mimic him, bringing his own violin to his shoulder.

Oh, thank God, it's much more comfortable. Adam still has to tense his shoulder a little, but once he hesitantly lets his hand fall, the violin stays where it is.

Chapeau moves to him, taking his hand and placing it on the violin's neck. He guides the prince's hands forward, and then back, and Adam practices the action a few times before he nods.

Bow in hand, Chapeau plays a quick scale, shifting to complete it on only two strings instead of three. Adam tries to mimic him.

They converse like that for a while, letting the music breathe, until Adam realizes he's gotten the hang of shifting. Then Chapeau adds that shaking into each note--"Vibrato," he defines it--and encourages him to use his forearm, not just his wrist. This clicks immediately, and they can both tell.

They incorporate it into the scales, and when Adam struggles with the bow movements, Chapeau sits him in front of his fortepiano and encourages him to play with his left hand only. Soon after, the prince can mime the bow movements by himself.

Back to the violin, and it works. Adam moves the bow in time with his fingers, following the sheet music, and the piece that the tutor bade he practice starts to sound like something.

Adam's just working around the chords near the end before Chapeau pulls out a pocket-watch to check the time, and from his expression, Adam knows he's been awake too long. Chapeau ushers him to put his violin away, and Adam obliges, but...

"But could you play the piece for me?" he asks. "Just so I know how it's supposed to sound."

Chapeau looks the sheet music over once before adjusting the stand to fit his height.

Though the sheet music says to start loud, Chapeau plays the first few notes in a hushed quiet, building slowly to the appropriate dynamic with light, flighty bow movements.

Adam closes his eyes this time, trying to remember different finger placements for the chords, the one time he'd shift placements, the switch in key. But it's hard, so hard not to drift back to that strange, ethereal world, only accessible though a violin in the small hours after midnight.

He must notice, because the music slows into silence against the written instructions, and he guides Adam back to his bedroom, tucks him in, and disappears. The moon's moved past the windows now, nestling behind wisps of leftover cloud. Nothing else in the sky.

The spell's broken now, Adam thinks. His final conscious thought before dawn.

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Tagging people who I think might appreciate this (it's also been a while and I don't know if any of you guys are still active but still):

@lumiereswig @im-too-obssesed @forr-everrmorre @naturepointstheway @tinydooms @ginnyweatherby @sweetfayetanner @fadedelegance @trenzaloures @prince-adams-japris @morgaine2005 @greensearcher @emeraldcitynative

[batbobsession]

Belle almost catches him, once. 

It’s his sudden movement that wakes her, but, caught in that beautiful haze between the dream and the wake, she does not notice the panic in his frame, nor the desperation in his eyes. 

To her credit, only a terrible dose of adrenaline could cause an instantaneous leap from dream to reality, and yet she only clearly sees him when his ramrod-straight back slumps forward, his arm lowers, and his harrowed whisper “–ia…” dies on his lips.

Unknowing and innocent, she misses a field of roses in Maurice’s eyes, the figure of his beloved wife retreating even as he frantically calls for her, over and over, until his final scream fades to a whisper and his vision melts into the ceiling above. 

Still, she reaches him. 

“Did you have a nightmare, Papa?”

She is not so young that she cannot understand distress. Her hands touch his, still twitching toward a field now growing murky and dark in his memory. Then they start to shake. 

No, he begs silently, No, she was so clear a few seconds ago. Don’t take her. Don’t let her fade, God, please, she’s my angel, my love–

“Quickly, before it takes her too...”

'Takes her'? Oh--

“Belle?”

“I’m right here.”

“Ah, that's good.” Maurice tries for a smile, and hopes the moonlight does not betray him. “I was afraid I had lost you.”

“That’s not true.”

Is it not? His gaze shoots to her, fear turning outwards, if only for a moment. Belle has such a sharp mind, after all. What has she caught that he has forgotten to conceal?

“I’m right here,” she emphasizes. “I’ve been next to you the whole time. How could you lose me?”

“That’s true,” he agrees. “But bad dreams make you believe irrational things. Do you know what irrational means?”

“It means ‘not rational,’ obviously.”

“Petit génie,” he praises her.

“Besides, you were reaching the wrong way,” she continues. “If you wanted to find me, you would have reached to your right. I’m not over there.” 

She points to the wall, and Maurice closes his eyes again, willing Maria to the forefront of his mind, standing in the roses, pink dress waving in the wind, ribbons in her hair, a smile greater than sunshine. 

What color were the roses, again? Red? Purple? Brown?–no, why do dreams fade so fast, what wicked spell is this–

“Are you cold? You’re trembling.”

“N-non,” he assured her. “My heart is plenty warm when you’re nearby.”

“If those nightmares scare you again, I’ll protect you,” Belle promises.

“Oh?” He smiles. “And what if the nightmare comes with a cage, drawn by four black horses?”

“Who’s steering the horses?” Belle asks.

“Ah–” Maurice raises his shoulders and hunches his head. “A haggard man–he comes in the night to take the fearful away–”

“Then I’ll send him away,” Belle states. “I’ll find him in your dream and scold him, and make him go away.”

“Alright, well, what if it’s a beast instead–” Maurice raises his hands over his head, a play at intimidation. “A monstrous creature with fangs and claws–they don’t respond too well to words, now–”

“I’ll scare it,” Belle answers. “I’m not afraid of animals. I’ll just wave my arms and make a lot of noise, and the beast will be scared of me and leave you alone.”

“Oh, but…” Maurice hesitates, for a small moment, as the figure in his mind’s eye fades, darker still. “But there is still a nightmare worse, far worse than a monster.”

“What is it?” Belle’s little hands curl into fists. “I’ll get rid of it.”

“This one doesn’t play fair.” Maurice fights to keep his voice steady. “It shows you something to make you happy, and then it will make you sad. So sad you wake up crying.” 

Belle is quiet then, and looks out the window, at the streets outside the inn. Maurice quickly checks his cheeks for stray tears, finds none, maintains the facade.

“Then I’ll wake you up,” she finally says, “before it gets that far.”

Maurice sinks back into the pillows. “You’d have to keep a close eye on me, mon chevalier intrépide.”

“That’ll be easy.” Belle snuggles closer to him. “I’m never far from you.”

“I feel safer already.”

But as he closes his eyes, he cannot see the field anymore; only the windmill, the rose-shaped rattle, his wife’s plague-stricken face, beaming, tears in her eyes, as the door swings shut.

“Quickly, before it takes her too.” ——— Protect her, Maurice. 

That was her final wish.

But how can I, Maurice’s breath hitches, when she’s as fearless as you?

Belle sleeps, then, hugging Maurice’s arm like she would a beloved toy. He lies awake, promising himself–no, not just himself, the field, the memory, her–that if he cannot protect their daughter, he will provide. He will follow her anywhere, bolster her mind and encourage her creativity. Be both father and mother. Never a lonesome thought will pass through her, not on his watch.

His world may have gone dark, but now it is lit from within. So long as she is happy, the light won’t go out. It can’t.

He stays awake for half an hour more, riddled with thoughts of his wife, chasing her to the ends of the earth, but as he sinks into unconsciousness he dreams of the days ahead. They’d make the trek across the mountains soon. Surely there would be all kinds of creatures, some small and cheerful, some curious and wise, and some that stalked, with their sharp teeth and claws–

“Hush,” Belle mutters, sound asleep. “Leave him alone.”

And she cleanses his mind, true to her word.

i started thinking about how, for years, i think maurice would have dreams that his wife, maria, was alive again. because he never actually saw her die, even though the plague doctors did get word to him when she did pass, and later he saw her name on the lists of the dead, he never witnessed her dying and i think that would cause his mind to spiral. even during the day in his sadness, he’d convince himself that she was still alive in paris. that she had miraculously recovered and was searching for him and belle, sad and wondering why they had abandoned her. but his dreams at night were so much worse.

they were always the same. he’d be standing in an empty field, and suddenly she’d appear before him. he’d be so happy to see her, so filled with peace. she wouldn’t say anything but she would kiss him, and he’d lean into it and kiss her back and it would be this sparkling euphoric feeling. when the kiss ended and he opened his eyes, she wouldn’t be there. he’d look around frantically, “maria? maria??” eventually, he would see her, SO far away, so small in the distance. she’d be waving to him, he could barely make out her figure, her hair flowing in the wind. he’d call to “maria!! wait! i have to—” he looks down at his feet and sees suitcases and boxes and baskets of things. “i have to get our things!! please, wait maria! wait!” and he starts trying to pick everything up, but things keep falling out of his arms and he just can’t manage to carry it all at once, he can’t even move his feet, it’s like they’re cemented to the ground. and he keeps looking back and seeing her getting smaller and smaller, he keeps trying to pick everything up so he can join her, “maria!! please wait!!” and he wakes up in a panic every time.

[lovefool-mp3]

l’espace d’un matin; a beauty and the beast fic

about: part retelling and part new, in which belle and the beast are very much the same, except that they are girls. pg. 6.5k.

warnings: some implied homophobia, violence, and other themes carried over from source material.

notes: totally messes with canon for my own enjoyment. contains footnotes because i’m gay and pretentious. about as embarrassing as it sounds. also available on ao3.

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.[1] 

The day is ordinary. You are without your father, trying to work, and Gaston insists that you marry him.

You could never do it, you know, even if Papa doesn’t mind the idea. But you--you’d sooner marry the baker’s daughter than eat a single meal with him. (Of course, you could never marry her either, but the thought, though she’s only ever listened wide-eyed to your talk of far-off places, feels somehow more right.)

You fumble with the doorknob and an excuse, and find a grip on both at once, though it hardly matters. He falls through the door too quickly to hear you.

When you feel certain he is gone, you step outside (for what else is there, in this town?) and settle into the grass.

Alone, Philippe appears, still carrying your father’s invention. You unhitch it, search for some trace of Papa, but find nothing else. You know, then, that you must look for him, and mount Philippe with a certainty you’ve never dreamed of having. It is lost in the fog more easily than the moon and returns alongside it, illuminating the castle and steadying your breath.

In the newfound light, you catch sight of your father’s hat, just inside the grounds. Gently, you push on the gate, and it seems to throw itself open with a force your touch could not explain. The door is less inviting. As you open it, its groans echo through the vast space, sounding almost like a voice (maybe more). You move up the grandest staircase and down the never-ending hallway, searching for someone, until a quiet creaking greets you.

Surely, then, this is someone. You walk through the now-open door and ascend the staircase behind it. No person seems to have come before, but a strange green light reveals a row of cells. There--alone in the nearest one, Papa! You rush to him, grab his trembling hands, and speak. From the emptiness, a shadow catches your eye, and a woman calls out, her voice deep and distorted. (Is it by anger or the tower walls? Some impossible instinct tells you it is neither.) His voice clear but unsteady, your father begs you to run.

Instead, you bargain with her, faceless, exchanging eternities. She sounds no older than you when her voice goes below a roar. Just beneath your horror, you feel something like curiosity. With newfound bravery, you command her to step into the light of a lone window above. The stranger complies.

“You’ve come to gawk as well?” she asks, and you can hardly blame her; before you stands something huge and horrible. You want badly to call her someone, but your mind slips to monster with unsettling ease.

“No,” you say, more certain than you dared hope. “You know why I’ve come.”

“You’d stay for him?” she asks. You find the courage to meet her eyes, bright blue, the most human thing about her. They look as frightened as you feel.

Papa pleads with you not to, and, for a moment, everything is silent.

“You have my word.”

The Beast drags him from the castle, words unfinished.

You know what he would say, that he knows what you would say, but none of this matters. The Beast returns offering you a room, as though a mattress excuses her cruelty.

You accept it anyway. You accept the room, a lifetime as her prisoner, and even the magic. You can’t accept not knowing the secrets of the West Wing.

You tiptoe up the staircase that leads to it that night, wine from a dinner eaten half-alone still warming your throat. You feel already more at home than you expected. When a rush of inexplicable cold air hits you, you lean into it, drawn to its source. Your eyes fall on a painting. Like everything here, it's been damaged, so that the woman’s face is entirely obscured. Cautiously, you join the torn canvas together, but a brilliant pink glow pulls you away before you can study her.

Its origin is a rose, too small for something so bright, contained in a bell jar. Lifting the jar, you reach your hand out to it. Without warning, the Beast’s enormous shadow creeps over you, and she rushes to cover the rose once more. She growls, startling you further, but you’ve taught yourself already to look at her eyes: anxious, guarded. (And, yes, still human, as the rest of her face becomes as warped as the girl’s.)

You apologize a thousand times, suddenly aware of how like death the cold air smells, and her voice gets louder, less like your own.

“Do you realize what you could have done?” she demands. You don't. Unanswered, she throws the one undamaged piece of furniture to the wall.

By the time she orders you to leave, you’re halfway down the stairs. Even then, you can hear her destroying the room.

You feel like someone else on your way from the castle, and Philippe must know it. Past the gates, into the forest, he goes forward uncertainly, then halts. Wolves encircle you, hungry, with eyes unlike the Beast’s, glinting empty yellow in the unnatural light of the snow. Desperately, you fight them off, until one is torn away by some figure in a maroon cloak.

The Beast and her sickening strength, your savior, her blood staining the snow but the wolves all gone.

(She would never find you if you left.)

Your mouth forms the shape of the name she lacks. It settles on something else, unsatisfied. You say, “Can I help?”

The Beast groans. Her permission? You can’t quite tell. You drape your cloak over her and offer a hand. Clumsily, she takes it. You both know that you cannot support her, and she anchors herself to a tree until you guide Philippe to her.

(There is a moment, with the Beast so quiet on Philippe’s back, that you think she might be dead. You feel nothing resembling relief.)

In the castle, she refuses to let you clean her wounds, lets out a roar that would have shaken you hours ago. Now, as everyone else jumps away from her, you lean forward.

“It won’t hurt as much if you stay still,” you tell her.

The Beast frowns, responds seconds too late to seem quick. A strange tenderness lies in your argument, one you’ve never known before. In a half-second of silence, you find that your faces are impossibly close.

(You remember scraped knees that girls were never supposed to have, feeling afraid that they’d never stop bleeding.) “Hold still,” you tell her, and you press the rag against her arm. “It could sting.”

She grimaces, but keeps her body still.

“Thank you,” you say, once you’re sure that she’ll listen, “for saving my life.”

Something about her softens, though she won’t look at you. “You’re welcome.”

The bandage is still wrapped around her arm when you ask for her name.

She looks at you, puzzled. "My name?"

You nod, and she drops her eyes to the book Cogsworth brought to you.

"I'm the Beast," she says. "That's all."

"You must have a name." A pause before she nods, just once, slow. Her voice is coarse and quiet when she says it: "Iphigénie[2]."

"Iphigénie?" You extend your hand to her. "Belle."

Gently, she takes your hand in her paw. "Belle," she says. It’s the first time you’ve heard her use your name, though she’s known it from the first night. "It's, um, lovely to meet you."

You draw your hand back toward the book, and, for a moment, an expression you can't recognize crosses her face. Just before it fades, you realize that it was a smile. You take her paw once more in your hand and guide it to the page before you. "Was this where we left off?” you ask her.

You don’t think she looks at the page, but she nods all the same.

In spite of yourself, you smile. "'No more be grieved at that which thou hast done[3]…'"

Seventeen hours later, Iphigénie takes your hands and asks you to close your eyes. Her low, nervous voice echoes more than usual, wherever she’s taking you, and she lets go of your hands suddenly. A second later, the room fills with a light that goes pink behind your eyelids.

“All right,” she says, and you feel her return to your side. “Open your eyes.”

You do. Books stretch to the ceiling in impossible numbers, and in a room so filled with them, you can hardly find the words to thank her.

“It’s yours,” she tells you, arms spread wide. Then, hastily, she adds, “If you like it, I mean.”

“Oh! Iphigénie--” (Some new emotion flickers in her eyes when you say her name.) “Thank you so much!"

You spend two weeks making a book for her in return. It's about love in unlikely places, about hope, and it barely resembles the stories you've spent your whole life loving. Strangely, it comforts you anyway.

(You hope that it comforts her too; so much as mentioning Christmas seems to upset her lately.)

And after trying all through dinner to speak, she invites you to the West Wing on Christmas Eve. An olive branch, an apology, or something. But you catch her with her paw hovering over the rose.

"Iphigénie?"

"Belle!" She jerks her paw back from the rose, covering it with the bell jar. (What was it she said, that could happen if you touched it? You had run too fast to hear.) "I wasn't expecting you!"

Tentatively, you smile. "You invited me," you tell her.

If Iphigénie had cheeks like yours, she would blush. Instead, she fumbles with her words and averts her gaze. "Oh, um, of course, I just--"

"I can go, if you'd like."

"No," she says. "You can stay."

Iphigénie gestures toward a single chair, half-covered by a tattered sheet. You take it, and she sits on the floor beside you. Even slouching, her horns are as high as your shoulders.

Silence. You say, "The painting is gone."

"Painting?" she asks, like she’s not sure what you mean. Still, her eyes linger on the place where it hung.

"You must remember it,” you say. “A girl with red hair. Was it yours?"

You've surprised her. "Oh," she says, "um, yes--I mean, no, it was--"

"I didn't mean--" (You didn’t mean, Was it you? because it couldn’t possibly be her, no matter how much her eyes make you wonder.)

"I know what you meant."

Again, silence. You say, "Merry Christmas."

"Is it?" she asks.

"It's Christmas Eve," you tell her.

“I know that,” she says. "I mean, you think it's merry?"

"I'm trying to."

“Oh,” she says, and a temporary kindness rests in her voice. For a moment, the two of you are quiet, and you watch the rose from the corner of your eye. A single petal falls, and new thorns grow from Iphigénie’s throat when she speaks. “You shouldn't bother,” she says, and it isn’t cruel anymore, just helpless.

You cannot bear to face another unhappy silence. You say, “I made you a present.”

“You did?” she asks. (Does some softness sneak back into her voice? Certainly it does to her eyes.)

“Of course.”

Iphigénie looks back to the rose, then drops her eyes. (You wonder unwillingly whether every beautiful thing fills her with shame. If you do.) She says, “I don’t have anything for you.”

“You have the library,” you say. Unthinkingly, you place your hand on her arm.

“Oh.” Your gesture has surprised you both, and Iphigénie is momentarily without reply. At last, she says, “That’s different. I’ll have something.” On Christmas day, she has firewood and a promise of something better. You give her the present anyway, and she unwraps it so gently it could be glass. Seeing what it is, her touch grows softer. (“Muthoplokon,” she murmurs, and you remember the word. Stolen, you know, from a book found accidentally in the hour just before dinner two nights ago. Does she remember what came before?)[4]

“Thank you!” she says, and she reaches her arms out to you for a fraction of a second before drawing them back to herself, book still in hand.

She’s still reading it three days later. (Silently, that is, and it hits you suddenly that she might not understand it the way you'd hoped she would.)

You say, "I don't mean to forgive you."

She looks up, asks, tender-voiced, "What do you mean?"

You watch her eyes, unsure of whether you should have stayed quiet. Somehow, you no longer feel afraid of her. You say, "You're still keeping me prisoner here."

“Oh.”

"I can care for you.” You haven’t said it before, and she breathes another oh, quieter, when you do. (You wonder, had she heard it before?) Her blue eyes study your face, and you take a breath. "But I can't forgive you for that."

"You gave your word," she says. For a moment, you have yourself convinced that you hear guilt in her voice.

You say, "I know."

Her mouth opens, and you brace yourself for the apology she could never mean. But she is too unlike anyone else for you to be right. She says instead, “Thank you, again, for the book.”

Iphigénie doesn’t talk much about it, once she’s done, but you’re in the room with her when she finishes it, and her eyes search your face for an eternity. At last, she says your name, a question: “Belle?”

(Do you ask her whether she liked it? Startled, you realize how much you want her to.) At last, you hum something back, a question.

“I was-- Would you--? Would you want to go to the library?”

You laugh, ask whether your book was so terrible that she wants to forget it.

“No!” Iphigénie’s voice shakes the cups of tea you’ve emptied, and her eyes go wide. She lowers her voice, and you want to come closer, to hear her, but know that she would move away. “I mean, no. It was--wonderful, and I just-- I thought, maybe, since you wrote it, you might have read this book that I have, in the library.”

“Oh?”

She nods. “I haven’t read it, but Lumière-- I mean, I thought you could… read it with me?”

So, you sit together at the table by the window, Romeo and Juliet between you, Iphigénie afraid to meet your eyes, until you hear her laugh, something quiet and short, and you look to her unthinkingly. Before she can apologize, you laugh, too. Hers grows into something warm and deep, and your own into an unstoppable thing unexplained by Shakespeare. Without warning, a roar breaks into Iphigénie’s laugh. She flinches, looks to see whether you do the same, and furrows her brow when you don’t.

No, you read the rest of the scene with unconcealed affection. Slowly, Iphigénie’s head sinks into her arms.

And you’re there, in the library, when you think of an answer to her Christmas Day question. "I know what you can give me," you tell her. She looks up from the poem she’s been reading. (François de Malherbe[5]. Has anyone ever read of death with such fondness? Iphigénie is smiling even before her eyes meet yours.) "You do?"

You nod. "I heard you had a ballroom," you say, "on my first night here."

“It’s nothing special,” she says, though you’re certain that it is. “It's--I haven't used it for years, but you--” Iphigénie’s voice seems unable to support such excitement, and she takes a moment before she continues. “You'd like a ball?"

The answer, of course, is yes, but you realize too late how much you’re asking. You say, "If you would."

“I would,” she says, and you see her smile without ever questioning what it is.

She talks anxiously with Cogsworth the moment the door shuts behind you. (Possibly, you were mistaken. You had never asked if she’d want to dance with a girl. With you.)

When you finally ask, she swears that she would, but her breath shakes (your name, whispered) when she sees you on that staircase, her huge arm unsteady when you reach for it, blue-sleeved.

You walk toward the dining room you haven’t used since your first night, with the table so long you could never quite imagine an end to it, except that it is where Iphigénie sits now. Miles away from you, she takes a spoonful--a spoonful!--of soup, and you ask her to dance.

She takes your outstretched arm and follows you to the ballroom, sparkling and warm and--you’re certain she must know it--a kind of romantic you’ve only ever read about. Uncertainly, she takes your right hand, and you pull her arm around your waist. Then, with some sweeping motion you are dancing together, and it’s a feeling unlike anything you’ve imagined. You rest your head against her chest, feel her heartbeat and something waiting to be said, the way her whole body moves with her smile.

And she leads you, when the music slows, to the balcony shared with the West Wing. Is this when she will say it, the thing that has been waiting? She moves suddenly closer to you, says your name, and you look up, smiling.

Gently, Iphigénie asks, “Are you happy here with me?”

Something you were not expecting. You say, “Yes.” (You can hardly remember being so happy, even with--)

“What is it?”

You tell her, the thought that filled you with guilt the moment you had it. Just one more time, you would like to see your father. And Iphigénie says that you can. You follow her into the West Wing, both your hands in her paws, as if you’re still dancing. From just beside the two-petaled rose, Iphigénie places a silver mirror in your hands and tells you it can show you anything.

Hesitantly, you ask to see him, and, in a burst of green light, your father appears, stumbling and sick. Iphigénie’s paw curls around the top of the bell jar, and she turns away from you. Quietly she says, “You must go to him.”

“Iphigénie?” you ask, for she could not possibly mean what you think she does. “What did you say?”

“I release you,” she says, and there is no uncertainty in it. She reaches for you for the last time, reaches for you knowing that it is. Just before her paw can touch your face, she pulls it away. Time forces you to find a goodbye. From the part of yourself still dancing with her, you settle on one, even manage to laugh. “‘Oh how badly things have turned out for us,’” you say, knowing that she will know[6], and you thank her.

Iphigénie laughs the same way you do (but deeper, less shaky), and says, “‘Go and remember me,’” with the mirror pressed into your hands.

You do not see her after taking off your gown; you have said all that you can bear to.

The woods seem smaller, now, and you find your father more easily than you dared hope, just off the path Philippe took you on. Disoriented, he does not question your presence until you are already safely inside. Regardless, you are without explanation. What was it, that could have told her to let you go? You say all you know: that she’s changed somehow, and that you have too, and--

Chip falls out onto the mirror, and a pounding at the door drowns out his voice. When you open the door, a sallow-faced man greets you with a grin, then steps aside. Behind him, the asylum’s carriage waits, and for a moment, you feel certain that it is for you. But your father is swept away still begging for someone to recognize the thing that only you know: The Beast is real.

Gaston knows that he can fix this, and you know that he can too, but you know also what he wants. (Why had a lifetime with the Beast seemed so much easier, before you even knew her name?) Horrified, confused, you run back to the house. There, the mirror glints, your only proof that she exists.

You weave through the crowd, finding the one space you can be seen, in the center of it all. The eye of the storm. You shout at them all to listen, and every face turns to you.

With their attention, you command her image to the mirror, and it comes forth in a flash of green. Iphigénie’s roar pierces the crowd, shaking the handle of the mirror. You rush forward to answer the question they have already decided: “Is it dangerous?”

(It. How long has it been since she became Iphigénie?) You insist that she’s safe, that she’s kinder than she looks, kinder than anyone, but Gaston’s voice cuts through it all.

And so it does when you hear it again, following the mob he’s gathered. The mob that wants to kill her. They’re gone, when you finally catch up, but his words (Is it love that you hear him say, utterly repulsed?) move your eyes to the roof of the castle. Gaston hovers over Iphigénie, ready to strike, and you scream for him to stop. Your words do nothing to him; he swings for Iphigénie, barely missing her as she stands. You race to the balcony outside the West Wing, then see her, still on the roof, Gaston thrown aside. You call for her, and she turns, surprised by the sound of her own name.

“Belle!” Iphigénie is beaming, for that minute, as she scales the roof, up to the balcony where you stand. She reaches for your hand, and you feel certain in some happy ending waiting for you.

Then, it’s Gaston, driving a knife into her side, so that she nearly topples over. Miraculously, you pull Iphigénie onto the balcony, and she lies down.

“You came back,” she murmurs, and you realize suddenly what she must have thought.

“Of course! I couldn’t--” (Couldn't leave her, you mean, and your heart pounds. Increasingly, you suspect she will leave you, and soon.)

Iphigénie reaches for your face, paw stumbling like your words. Somehow, it feels comforting, though you're certain that nothing good is coming. Her expression is quickly fading, and you remember the thousand terrible things you once thought of her.

She searches for something to say (wanting more to console you than survive), fumbles with the Malherbe she’d been reading, and settles on the worst thing: “It’s better,” she says, “like this,” and her paw drops from your face.

She is far closer to death than she ever was in the woods. You look again to her, and her head falls backward. What can you say to her now? You promise her a forever unlike the first, together, collapse onto her chest, plead for something you can’t place. “I love you,” you tell her at last. For a moment, you think you feel her breathe, and a light catches your eye.

You move backward, giving her space. Iphigénie's body, obscured by light and cloth, rises, her paws becoming feet, and is drawn slowly to the ground. A human rises in her place, studies herself, then turns, facing you.

"Belle," she says. Her voice is familiar, but eerily smooth. "It's me."

You reach out to find something about her you can recognize, the way her hair curled just barely at the ends, or the way her whole face would change with one touch or-- Her eyes! You hadn’t thought to find them in such a new face, but the woman has Iphigénie’s eyes. Anxious. Hopeful. The brightest blue.

"It is you!"

She laughs, brings a hesitant hand to the side of your face.

For years, you've thought about true love's kiss. You didn't think it would feel so strange. You knew about the magic, of course. That you would be enveloped by a ribbon of light, that your hair would flow like water behind you, and you would open your eyes to a world forever changed. Secretly, even, you knew that it could only be a girl.

The only thing you didn't know, really, is this intangible, unnameable thing. It flickers from the point where your fingertips meet her face, some mesmerizing, dancing thing. And you think she feels it too.

She's beautiful, anyway, Iphigénie. You know that it shouldn't matter, that you loved her before knowing that she could ever look like this, but she is, red-haired and broad-shouldered, with those unmistakable eyes, and when you stop kissing her, you find yourself unable to look away.

She says, "You're staring."

You turn to face the rest of the castle, vines growing rapidly before your eyes. "It's remarkable," you say. "I didn't think anything could grow here."

Iphigénie makes a warm, humming sound from the back of her throat.

You look to her once more, unable to stop yourself. You say, "You're very beautiful," because you know she must wonder, with you staring.

She laughs. "I suppose."

"Have you seen--?"

"My face?" she asks. Her voice is rougher now, and an uneasy finger runs along her lips. "It's been years."

"I can't imagine."

"Of course not," she says. "You've always been beautiful."

For the first time, the word doesn’t feel like a counterweight to the rest of you. You drop your voice to imitate hers. "I suppose," you say.

Again, she laughs, and her eyes dart suddenly elsewhere. You follow them. There are people racing toward you, you realize, and Iphigénie must know them, because she throws her arms around them easily when they arrive. There's something about them that you recognize, and you slowly work them out, Lumière and Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts.

(All of them say that this is a miracle.)

Lumière thanks you even, for reasons you don’t know. It isn’t the time to ask. Iphigénie lifts you just barely from the ground, laughing.

She's clumsier, somehow, as a human, like she's forgotten how to move, collapsing into to you maybe three times as you’re dancing together. Her eyes always go wide when she does it, still afraid of hurting you. Every time, you promise her she won’t.

If Papa knows about the two of you (you suspect that he does), he doesn't say anything. Instead, he tinkers with Cogsworth's pocket watch, perplexed more by this than your strange romance. Its hands continue to move with his human face rather than the passing of time, some magic that hasn't faded quite yet. "Positively wonderful," he murmurs, and Cogsworth eyes him with suspicion.

Watching them, you feel Iphigénie’s arm draw you closer, her hand hold yours more tightly. (No racing heart, no lost breath, but a quiet pride, warm and secret and slow.) You realize how careful she was, before, that her paw only ever grazed your back uncertainly. You almost mention it to her, but you see her embarrassment and decide against it.

Really, you don't say much of anything in the ballroom. You have questions, thousands of them, and you’re sure that she does, too, but neither of you dares speak them. For once, you’re content to wait for the answers.

She only tells you about the curse after everyone is done celebrating, on a balcony unlike the balcony that existed in that same place hours ago. As she's searching your face with those same blue eyes, you laugh, or do something like it. You say, "I figured there was something."

"Oh?" she asks. You watch her fingers trace her cheek. She's smirking, you think, but her hand covers too much of her face to be sure. "You've never met a beast before?"

"Just Gaston." The strength of his name surprises you, the way it thuds in your chest. The enchantment removed his body, somehow, but not your memory of it.

Iphigénie drops her hand to the edge of the balcony and presses her lips together, a sad almost-smile.

"I'm sorry," you say. "I didn't think--"

"I know," she says, and her hand is as close to yours as it can be without touching. You close the gap, feel her flinch at your touch. Slowly, she laces your fingers together. “I never thought you--”

(She wants to say, I never thought you could be like me, but is afraid of offending you. At least, you want to say this, but are afraid of offending her.)

You ask her to continue, and she does. It ends the way you thought it would.

Still, you say, “You didn’t?”

Iphigénie shakes her head. “You were too...” She searches for the right word. You know that it will be beautiful, because the word is always beautiful, except that it isn’t this time. Iphigénie says, “Kind.”

“Too kind?” you ask. It hadn’t occurred to you.

“Look at me,” she says, then realizes that this is no longer enough. She isn’t the Beast anymore, just a girl, twenty-one and almost ordinary. She runs a hand through her hair, uncertain of how to go on. She settles on this: “Who I was before. I was terrible.”

She was, but you can’t place the relationship between the two.

Iphigénie watches you, unsure of how to continue, then says, “‘Marry, that “marry” is the very theme I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet--’”

You know immediately what she means but wish still for new words from the book you’ve read together twice. They never come. You say, “‘How stands your disposition to be married?’”

Iphigénie laughs the way she would in the early days, short and scared. “‘It is an honor that I dream not of.’”

(Does she know how much you’ve done to avoid it yourself? You feel afraid of telling her.)

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice shaky, meaning it, now, in the way you thought she never could.

You force back the absolution your mouth begs to grant her; Iphigénie does not want it. You hesitate, then say, “Thank you.”

On the second night, she invites you to the West Wing. Her hand--so strangely calloused--grips yours, and she leads you there, nervous laughter echoing up the staircase.

Then, opened doors, her shaky breath, the West Wing revealed. Iphigénie steps aside. The room is transformed, healed, and without the luminous siren song of the enchanted rose. Even with unbroken furniture easily doubled, an emptiness hangs in the air. You reach for Iphigénie’s hand, guiding her forward to the painting that rests half-hidden on the floor, no longer torn. You bend down to reveal it, and her fingers curl in, some reflex to pull you away. Releasing her hand, you turn the portrait to face you.

Instinctively, you reach out to touch the girl’s face, for it is Iphigénie’s strong jaw, her aquiline nose, her red hair, but it isn’t her. Her eyes are still blue, even, exactly the same, but hold the same frightened anger you remember from those weeks when she was a monster unnamed. It seems to transform everything about her.

When you look back to Iphigénie, she can’t meet your eyes. You touch her real face, this time, and you recognize the gentle uncertainty in it.

“Thank you,” you whisper, and she nods, stepping backward. (“You can go anywhere you wish,” you remember her saying, and realize that this is what she means now, no exceptions.)

You walk forward, past Iphigénie, past the empty pedestal where the rose should be. Her bed is the only imperfect thing, unmade, with wrinkled sheets. (Had she slept as uneasily as you, last night?) You sit on the edge, and she joins you, cheeks pink.

“How are you doing?” she asks. It’s the third time since this morning, and your answer is unchanged.

“I’m overwhelmed,” you tell her. “How are you?”

She thinks for a while, quiet. You’ve asked her as many time as she’s asked you, and her answer has yet to be the same. In this moment, she says, “Relieved.”

It’s your favorite word yet.

For an eternity, you sit together, and Iphigénie weaves your fingers together. She’s held your hands so many times, even after two days, that it has already lost the clumsiness that lingers in her walk, the hesitance in her kiss. If her instinct, before, was to hurt, it certainly now is to love.

(Your father does not know how you broke the spell.)

Iphigénie knows when you are thinking about this, says the one thing you are hoping she won’t: “I know how important he is to you.”

Of course, this isn’t what you expect. But she means the thing you can’t bear to think, at least: that she had known yesterday that you did not love her. That she could go back to knowing it, if it would help.

You refuse, but still, you do not tell your father anything more than you are certain he knows. You alternate meals with them, Iphigénie unwilling to face his questions and Papa unwilling to face her old self.

And it is at dinner with Iphigénie when, absentmindedly, you ask, “What’s it like to be a princess?”

Immediately, because she knows what you mean (that you could be one, too, someday, in secret), she blushes. "You don't have to stay.”

You know this; the conversation happened days ago. You and your father were welcome in the castle as long as you wished. Iphigénie’s only condition was that the choice could not be hers.

For the first time, you say, "Neither do you."

She laughs, still-sharp canines glinting. "You're right.”

Of course, only she could go utterly unrecognized into your village, though they’d find her stranger than you, with her distaste for dresses and small talk. You're both free, in theory, but remain bound by your peculiarity.

Iphigénie reaches a hand to your hair, pushes it away from your face. "What are you thinking about?" she asks.

Half-honestly, you say, "We should go somewhere."

"Where?"

(There are places, surely, where you can exist as you are, places outside of the castle’s deferential embrace.)

“I don’t know,” you confess.

Iphigénie pauses. Then, "We could go to the sea."

"The sea?" (The asylum is by the sea, you know, but keep yourself from saying this.)

"Or your village," she says. "They must miss you."

You laugh. "They miss someone to talk about."

"They remember you, then," she says, and her voice sounds different than you've grown used to in these weeks. Harsher, maybe. You thought it was a gift, to be forgotten. (“I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it.) Now, you wonder whether you broke the whole curse after all.

Still, when the last, late spring snow falls, Iphigénie bolts from the castle and falls back into the thin snow. She spreads out her limbs and pulls them to her body, leaping up seconds later. Jubilant, she calls your name.

Where she’d lain, a snow angel, scarcely different from the one you’d made beside her months ago. (How frightened of yourselves you both were, those afternoons.) Iphigénie crouches down toward it, not quite believing her new shape. With her long hair still covering her face, you throw a snowball at her already-wet back. She jolts, then looks to where you stand, laughing. She gathers the remaining snow in her palms and throws the snowball toward you.

Easily, you dodge it. “You need to strategize,” you tell her, and she shrugs, settling back into the snow.

You walk to the tree beside her, leaning against it, and she looks up at you. Fully stretched out, her head is barely as high as your hips. Iphigénie pushes her hair behind her ears and says, “Thank you.”

You don't miss the Beast the way you thought you would in the beginning. You watch her spread out on wet grass unashamed of her imprint on it, see her relief when her laugh never turns to a roar. She's comfortable in a way you can hardly recognize, and you're glad for it.

A Wednesday afternoon (the fifth one, maybe, just after the snow melts), she turns the pages of a new old book easily, fingers without claws, and looks to you with eager eyes. “Have you read this?” she asks.

You settle in beside her, watch the sunlight catch the fine hairs of her arms, the deep, whitish scars that healed far better than you could ever have expected. “What is it?” you ask her.

“Marlowe.” She nudges the book nearer to you. Where both deliberate, the love is slight: who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

Hero and Leander, the favorite of your nineteen-year-old self. “Incomplete?” you ask.

Her cheeks, freckled suddenly by long days in the sun, go pink. Her confession comes out quiet: “I don’t know.”

“Would you read it to me?”

Already, she stumbles, still embarrassed. “I’m--I’m not very good.”

But you like the sound of her voice, and you tell her so.

Iphigénie laughs. “All right,” she says, and her hand strays naturally to yours. “‘It lies not in our power to love or hate…’”

It’s the incomplete version, the original, and you’re done before the night forces you inside. When it finally does, you spend hours arguing amicably over lines of general insignificance.

On her third cup of tea, she asks how you could read something you hate so much.

“But I don’t hate it!” you tell her. “It’s wonderful. I just--stop laughing!”

She covers her mouth, but her eyes are still gleaming.

“I think it’s good to be critical, is all.”

She hums. “I was going to find something else, tomorrow, if there’s anything you’ve been wanting to criticize.”

“Surprise me.”

She wakes you the next morning with a knock on your door and a book you’ve never heard of. Desperate for resolution, you tell her that you’re going home.

You don't go with her. Even Papa stays in the castle. It's too soon for him to go back, and you understand why. None of Iphigénie's newfound certainty has spread to you, and you can't help but feel anxious when every other word you hear is your own name.

The bookstore is the only place you don't mind it. You've taken books from the castle as repayment, and they're very nearly refused until you describe their contents, unlike anything either of you has ever read. He insists that he'll return them one day and accepts them with gleaming eyes.

This is the last person from the village you speak to. You're back with Philippe before dark.

Iphigénie greets you with an embrace tighter than you would have thought possible weeks ago. "How was it?" she asks.

You hum, searching for the right word. Finally, you say, “Unchanged.”

“That’s--?” (She wants something simple. Comforting or stifling or sad, but it’s all of these and none of them.)

“I thought it could be different,” you say. “Without--everything.”

She’s walking toward Papa’s room, you realize. They must have talked, finally, over lunch, maybe, and you feel a strange relief in the sudden change. She knocks.

“Iphigénie!” he says. “Come in!”

You look to her, confused. Iphigénie shrugs, like this is nothing, and pushes the door open. On the other side, your father is healthier even than this morning, delighted by your return.

Somehow, he maintains Iphigénie’s optimism. (Were you not hurt the least, by your village? Had you invented your neighbors’ attack like the peephole beside your door, an experiment in imagination that only complicated your everyday life?)

You can’t bring yourself to crush a second person’s hopes. You say, “It was better toward the end,” which isn’t a lie, and Papa knows better than to ask anything more than if he could join you for dinner.

The day is ordinary. You are with everyone you love, eating together, and Iphigénie confesses that she understands how you feel about Marlowe.

(That sometimes, she means, the most beautiful things can escape their fate.)

Footnotes

1 Fragment 50, Sappho. [return to text]

2 From Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who in some versions is saved from sacrifice when Artemis puts a deer or calf in her place. [return to text]

3 Sonnet 35, Shakespeare. [return to text]

4 Fragment 188, Sappho. “Weaver of stories,” referring to Eros, ascribed to her by Maximus of Tyre. Left untranslated here because there are many other beautiful translations, including Anne Carson’s “mythweaver,” and I encourage you to seek out your own. [return to text]

5 Consolation à M. Du Périer. Fourth stanza is of particular note. [return to text]

6 Fragment 94, Sappho. [return to text]

[starcrossedjedis]

“I'd be careful with that one. He goes to the community center for anger management.” Belle almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of Babette's voice. How long had her colleague been standing behind her like that? “I don't know what you're talking about”, she gave back, doing her best impression of someone not being caught in the middle of a good swooning. “How do you know that anyways? Aren't those meetings supposed to be anonymous?” “Sometimes I take our leftover pastries from the day before to the community center in the mornings. They have a schedule hanging by the entrance. 'Tuesday, 4am: Group Meeting, Anger Management'.” Babette sounded like a proud Sherlock Holmes laying out a particularly tricky case for her. “That – and when he came in here for the first time, I accidentally poured him a pot of decaf and he made me cry.”

Sara’s Adventures in Fanfic or “Death of a Bachelor - A Snippet”

[batbobsession]

What the--what is thi--what

I...I cannot comprehend the fact that I might have missed this amazing piece, so it must be new...

Friend....this is...seriously incredible and the dreaming without dreaming was the best freaking part--an inspiration--I--wow, I’ve missed this

Hope has never been so hard. he’s going to scream if he looks down and sees more fire, kick if he tries to dance and can only stump his heavy stand against the floor. And to sleep! To sleep would be best of all—to drift off, to dream again; to dream in rich reds and yellows and oranges, not the dull gray of this quiet palace. Lumiere stomps off, his flames sputtering, the silent palace left ever so far behind.

He stomps off to the South Wing; his special refuge from days gone by, days when the sun would stream in and the lilies would bow their heads to him. No sun now, no lilies either; he imagines them into being, fills the suite with sound and scent and color, throws open the doors for invisible courtiers and invisible pasts. Fire dims, memory alights. Is that Plumette just there, walking near the window, her brown hands tracing the golden curlicues of the walls, her white skirt swishing just behind? Does Cadenza play, one long descending melody, and does his wife stand by his side? Cogsworth turns, walks, sighs;—a human sigh, drifting through his chest, and Lumiere remembers again the feel of that hand, resting here in his, the way the round moons of Cogsworth’s nails looked against the the heartline of his own hand.

He hops up to a tabletop, candles flickering, eyes shut; dreaming of dreaming, dreaming of sunny days and star-shocked nights and the sleep he would have had if he could sleep at all. He dreams of Plumette’s dreams, of her stirring beside him, of his arm draped over her back, of her hand resting just beneath his lips. He dreams that he can dream again. He shuts his eyes tight, and conjures in the dreaming world. Here there are dancers, here there is light, here there is—

Claws strike the ceiling. The Beast is on the prowl on the floor above, snarling, snapping, seizing. Lumiere sighs and draws his flames lower again: dreams back the story of the days gone past. He shuts out the memory of the curse, the enchantress, of the clock ticking out in the hall. He draws up himself. A golden man, a golden memory.

He can’t quite see his face. He knows it was beautiful; he knows it made Plumette smile, Cogsworth sigh, Chip grin, Mrs. Potts groan. Yet when he tries to remember it, all he sees is the peacocking gold coat in front of the mirror. He sees the flicker of the candelabra light blocking out his own face. He sees gold and gold and gold, and not his own eyes.

Again the sound of paws, of claws, and now the ticking clock is louder. He shuts it out again, tries to draw back the past. He remembers balls, he remembers dancing, he remembers the beauty—

And he remembers a witch’s hand, a witch’s rose, a master falling to the floor in agony. He remembers Plumette twisting up tight. He remembers his own face snapping up in gold. He remembers the hot, hot pain in his hands, those white hands that had danced with his lover and snapped at his friends and drawn every story to life. He remembers being a candelabra. He remembers that he cannot feel.

For a moment, his lights go out. The room is gray and empty. Candelabras don’t remember. The roses outside bow down under a bitter wind.

And then, he sees something golden—a glow, a flicker—but it’s not his own fire he sees, it’s Cogsworth’s, reflecting his own face in the round glass of his. He’s hammering at his side, bashed in on the daydream, woken him up with an extraordinary reality. “Wake up, wake up, you old fool,” he murmurs. “There’s someone at the door.”

The sun, the lilies, the golden memories vanish. It’s just a clock and a candelabra on the tabletop. And the candelabra is grinning.

“Someone?”

“An old man.”

“A guest.”

Cogsworth lights him up again. Lumiere’s never had such hope in his life.

[batbobsession]

“What does it mean to be a father?”

Maurice will never know how he got to be in such a position as this, and he certainly wishes for a handkerchief—or something to wipe his paint-stained hands with—to be nearby.  He’s sitting next to the most powerful man in the land, after all, though at the moment, his looks did not match his title.

The regent—or is he the king? Maurice wonders—is dressed in a simple coat and trousers, both of which are an earthy brown. The absence of the wig reveals natural greying hair, and without any bracelets or jewels he looks quite…normal. Nothing at all like the paintings in the West Wing.

Even more of an interest, he muses, is the look in the man’s eyes.  They are a hard, rather miserable gray, a shade Maurice would only use when painting a thunderstorm or a cloudy night.  But his expression does not match such a sad color.  The man’s hands are folded politely in his lap, and on his face, there is a genuine look of interest.

He somehow looks skeptical even without the skepticism, Maurice thinks, and tries to compose himself before speaking.

“Forgive me, Sire, I believe I misheard you.”

“Please don’t,” the man replied, and for a second Maurice’s thoughts flew to the etiquette lists Cogsworth had so graciously made for him, wondering if he had said the wrong thing.

“I have been neglecting my duties for years now,” he continued.  “I am no more a royal than you are.”

Oh. Maurice opens his mouth, compelled to reassure him that it isn’t his fault, that magic is a fickle thing, but something stops him.  There’s a flicker in that gaze, hinting that he meant more than what was said.

The old artist did not know much about Adam’s father, only that he was absent the night the curse was cast, meaning he had forgotten about the inhabitants of the castle just like everyone in Villeneuve.  Maurice had arrived with Monsieur D’Arque, just as the sun rose above the highest turrets and towers.  In his search to locate his daughter, he had noticed this same man, haggard yet joyful in the presence of his son.  He had no idea he was staring at the true master of the castle until Lumiére—the candlestick, he still couldn’t believe that—had addressed him as such.

“Well, I…I wish I had an answer that would suffice, Monsieur,” Maurice finally says. “To tell the truth, I’m not much of an expert on the matter.”

“And yet your daughter is one of the most remarkable women I have ever had the pleasure of meeting,” the king replies. “Most of the princesses I would have picked for my son would only have their titles going for them.  Shallow, easily influenced, lured here under the prospect of an alliance.  Your daughter is—”

“Perfect.” The word is out of Maurice’s mouth before he can think of what to say.  He stares hard at his hands.  One has a rather large smudge of yellow on it.

“Certainly,” the king admits.  “I’ve not found fault with her yet, and I usually have a knack for that sort of thing.  Strange how things dissipate over time.”

Maurice blinked, again struggling to speak properly, but now there was something like a cloud over them, and he wondered if the other man knew about the curse at all.

“Your—Monsieur,” Maurice begins again, “I—”

“Maurice, isn’t it?” he interrupts.

“Oui, Monsieur.”

“I am asking this genuinely, as someone who has no experience in the matter.”  He is silent for a moment, and stares out the window.  “It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen my son, and I’m sure his memories of me are…few and far between.”

Maurice notices it then. There is something keeping this man back. The way he speaks of the prince is not as a son, but as an unapproachable. Something that he is hesitant to think of.  

Is this man really Adam’s father?

“You believe that you cannot father the prince because of your absence? Is there something you’re afraid of?”

Sacre…the yellow smear now seems alarmingly bright. Since when did such a color exist?

He had thought that his initial fear of speaking to a royal was enough to stay his tongue, but…

It’s almost as if he has not spoken at all. The king retreats into himself, eyes glazing over, head inclined, on the verge of remembering, but not quite there.

“I don’t know.  I’ve forgotten how.  But I’d like to try again.”

Maurice blinks, and the cloud dissipates.  This is something that the curse had very little to do with.  Something that could have very easily been Adam’s childhood, or lack thereof.  He had never let the lives of the noblemen grace his thoughts, but now he imagines that because of their upbringings and various duties to attend to, they never had time to enjoy.  

The man sitting across from him probably has no idea what rain smells like.

Maurice folds his hands and smiles.  

“The reason I happened upon this castle was because I was attacked by wolves, and I was seeking shelter from an oncoming storm. I let myself in, as the lamps were lit, but no one was inside.”

Maurice pauses, but there was no sign of anger from the other man, so he kept going.

“After I left, I noticed that the garden—your garden, I suppose—was filled to the brim with roses.  They were white, absolutely pristine despite the snow. Though I was in quite a state of distress when I left, I remembered the last thing my daughter asked of me was that I bring her back a rose.”  Maurice chuckles.  “In hindsight, that action could have cost me my life, but I still would have done it, thinking back on it now.”

“Pardon me,” the other man interrupts, “it could have cost you your life?”

“Ah—” Maurice halts, staring. He quickly shifts his attention to a paintbrush he left by the window. Perhaps this man does not know the entirety of it. Surely, he could explain, but this man is still a stranger. And Adam’s father. It’s not his place to tell. “In a way, yes. But there’s no need for concern. If there had been a threat before, it has long passed.”

In the window, Maurice can see the young boy, Christopher, and his mother, playing outside.  Maurice cannot see them smiling, but he can tell just by looking.

I suppose I have a knack for those kinds of things.

“I’m a lucky man,” he admits.  “I was able to use my passion to create a living for us. But I would burn every canvas if it led to her happiness.  I would give up anything and everything for the sake of my little girl.”

The king is quiet, and for a moment Maurice thinks he got through to him.  Then he said “And your wife? Where is she in this wonderful family?”

It is Maurice’s turn to be quiet.  He closes his eyes and her face swims before his, smiling and proud, tears in her eyes. He is able to smile back, and he thanks God for it.

“Her mother died of plague a few months after she was born.”

There is nothing from the king.  In the silence, Maurice turns his hands over in his lap, wondering if he should say more.  Instead, he glances up, and the king’s expression is one of a man trapped. He stares at Maurice with such sympathetic agony that Maurice wonders how long he should hold his gaze.

He’s caught in something, Maurice thinks, but does not look away.

In this moment, the answer forms.

“Sir, if I may,” he begins, “I think the answer you are searching for is just to be there.”

The other man snaps out of his reverie.  “I beg your pardon?”

“Be there.  Smile when Adam notices you watching him.  Answer any question he asks as honestly and as truthfully as you can. Support him in everything he does, even if you don’t like it.”

“But that seems too simple.”

“It’s the hardest thing in the world,” Maurice replies.  He goes to gesture to his studio—before cringing inwardly at how haphazard and disorganized it is.  “When I was a young man, I lived in Montmarte, in an old repurposed windmill that my wife was able to earn. When Belle was born, I—I wanted everything to be flawless. I felt like she would never experience any of life’s troubles, not as long as I was around. I never wanted her to stop smiling. Of course, life will never work out the way you want it to.”

The king nods. “I’ve no right to call my life treacherous. But wandering these halls again, it’s so different. Familiar.” He raises an eyebrow as his gaze travels upwards towards the chandelier. “But lost.”

“To be lost is to be blind to everything around you,” Maurice replies.  “In a way, I was cursed to be perceptive in everything I did. I saw everything in painstaking detail. So much so that the only way to be rid of it was to paint it.

“But in recent years,” he continues, “I’ve begun to forget small things. How many gears fit into a music box.  How many folds to draw in a frilly dress. And almost as if to correct my memory, my daughter will round the corner with the correct gear in her hand or twirl for me until I remember.”

The man tilts his head, but Maurice can tell that he’s getting it.

Good, he thinks inwardly, I fear I’ve started to ramble.

“Though our relationship needed no improvements before, I’m grateful for my weakening senses,” he finishes, “because now I am constantly reminded of how much she means to me.”

“You’ve made no mistakes, sir, it seems,” is the response. Maurice laughs.

“Oh, don’t say that; I’ve made plenty of mistakes. There was a time, after her mother died, when I refused to acknowledge it.” This sparks something in the king’s dark eyes, and Maurice pushes on, refusing to let him think of it. “It wasn’t until Belle decided to find her mother on her own that I knew I couldn’t hide from it any longer. And there have been moments like that as long as I’ve lived.”

“Sometimes those moments seem to last forever.”

Maurice grins then, at what the king probably thought was a morbid statement. But that is what makes life beautiful.

“You, sir, are not blind, so you are not lost,” he decides. “In fact, the very action of asking me for advice shows that you see your son, and you see the bond that you want with him. But pay no attention to my story; I’m a humble painter with no knowledge of the world inside these exquisite walls.”

He gestures to a painting in the far corner of his studio. His daughter stands there, mid-twirl, the sun on her smiling face and a few rose petals drifting in her wake. Her joy is his now, and he will experience it every time he looks at her.

“Maurice, I possess none of the detail-oriented capabilities of an artist like yourself—”

“No,” Maurice interrupts, and this time he’s not afraid. “It’s just smudges on a canvas. I don’t see every detail anymore. But I see the emotion, and that’s far more important than any scrutinizing on my part.”

Maurice leans forward, smiling. “Be there. And if you truly want it, the rest will come.”

The man nods then, and Maurice can see that his words have somewhat fallen through the other’s sadness. “Imagine finding such a profound man in a village somewhere. I’m very lucky, aren’t I.”

“I’m an old fool,” Maurice assures him. “The villagers used to call me crazy.”

“I imagine they stopped when you moved in,” the king murmured.

“No,” Maurice shakes his head, “they stopped when your son greeted them.”

The man’s lips part in surprise, and for a split-second Maurice can see a smile on his face. “I suppose that’s very like him.”

Then the moment melts away, the two rise, and he offers his hand. Maurice freezes. He’s not wearing gloves. The handkerchief is once again at the forefront of his mind. But he’s also not one to leave a hand unshaken, so he takes it.

“Merci. I would like to visit with you again, if my presence was not a bother to you.”

“O-of course,” Maurice responds. “But please, a word of warning. My study…is not a sight for sore eyes at the moment.”

“A pleasure to meet you, sir,” is his reply, and he’s gone. Maurice can hear a second set of footsteps tailing him, and he wonders if the attendant heard the conversation or not.

But instead, he sits back down and stares out the window. Chapeau and Lumiére have joined the Potts in the courtyard now. The roses are in full bloom. It’s a lovely picture. He’ll have to remember it for when he buys a bigger canvas.

He raises his paintbrush. The smear of yellow is gone. He can feel tears coming.

“Be there,” he murmurs, and adds a stroke of carnation pink. “And the rest will come.”

He glances at one of the roses outside. Have I done enough, mon ange?

-

Tagging those I think might enjoy this: @lumiereswig @tinydooms @naturepointstheway @im-too-obssesed @morgaine2005 @forr-everrmorre @greensearcher @firstherofirstlove @ginnyweatherby @sweetfayetanner 

[batbobsession]

Please expand on the younger Garderenza prequel story from your last fic!! I love it so much!! Please write more of that! (If you have time of course)

I’ve been meaning to do this anyway.  Developing their probably forever-someodd-year-old romance is a joy and a pleasure.

Tagging some people who I think might enjoy this: @lumiereswig @naturepointstheway @ginnyweatherby @tinydooms @sweetfayetanner 

-=-=-=-=-=-

A Rare Gift Indeed

“Il mio lungo dolore cadrà, vinto da te…”

Allegra beams as the curtains close on the first act.  Even as the actors flit about, preparing the next scene, she can still smell the spray of the sea and the olives in the air.  She has never been to Ancient Greece, but the stage is her world, and nowhere is out of reach.

“Well done.”  A stagehand lays a hand on her shoulder and ushers her back toward the wings.  “Now, make sure that the costume is wrapped.”

She pouts a little as her daydream wisps away but obediently trudges toward the curtains. She should be grateful, after all. Although she is not one of the main acts this time, she has become part of the chorus.  Perhaps the conductor thought to give her a chance, perhaps she was merely lucky.  Either way, her dream is closer now than it ever had been.

Allegra stops.  Her eyes shoot toward the edge of the stage. She had heard something in the midst of the orchestra, a whimsical trill of strings, a familiar feeling.  She saunters toward the curtain.

“What are you doing?” snaps the stagehand.  “The curtain is to remain closed during the intermission.”

“I know,” says Allegra, rolling her eyes.  “But I heard something.”

“Just the orchestra finishing.  Come, now.”

“You didn’t hear the strings?” Allegra asks.  “They sounded beautiful.”

“…Ah.” The grip on Allegra’s shoulder lessens.  “The harpsichord.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” she replies.  “It wasn’t part of the musical score—”

“Well, do you not expect an improvement from a prodigy?” The stagehand’s voice has changed now, from strictness into something like respect.  “He’s performed with us before, and we’re honored to have him back in the orchestra, though it doesn’t suit his style.”

Wait… Allegra grasps the curtain and shifts it to one side, creating an opening no sider than a sliver, and gasps in recognition.  There, seated just in her line of sight, was the same boy she met months ago.  He is still dressed in concert black, with a bow to hold back his brown hair.  One hand dances around the keys while the other flips through the scorebook.

But that is all she is able to see before the stagehand firmly pulls her back.

“A prodigy?” she asks. “I just thought he was skilled.”

“Away with you, now,” he frets; he isn’t listening.  “Only ten minutes ‘til curtain, and you must be in your place before then.”

Allegra scoffs, but he’s right.  The stage is calling her once again.

-=-=-=-=-=-

The curtains close a second time, and conversations fill the air as the audience filters out, one by one.  It’s only the beginning of summer, but the nights are still chilly enough for a third of the ladies to wear a shawl, Allegra included.  After all, organizing the costumes isn’t hard and only takes fifteen minutes if you’ve done it a million times before.

She usually uses the backstage exit, but this time she descends through the winding staircase and into the orchestra.  All around her, musicians are putting away their instruments and discussing tone, pitch, and slight errors that they managed to cover up.  

The boy is the farthest away, cleaning off the keys of his instrument with a black cloth.  The scorebook lies on the bench next to him and his eyes are dark and focused.  

She would have been nervous to approach him if he was a stranger, she admits.  But she remembers him.  Will he remember her?

“Me scusi…”

“Si?” He acknowledges but does not look up.

“I don’t know if you remember me.  We met a few months ago, at the performance of “L'incoronazione di Poppea.”

Now he looks up. Something within his gaze lights up in recognition.  “How are you?”

“Well enough,” Allegra responds.  “And you?”

He tilts his head, half a shrug.  “Not much to say.”

Allegra glances at the audience.  “They’ll be gone in ten minutes at most.  It’s getting colder.  At this hour, people are anxious to get home.”

His head tilts in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll wait,” Allegra says matter-of-factly.  “After all, you never told me you were a prodigy.”

“Prodigy?” A corner of his mouth tilts upward.  “Who told you that?”

Allegra looks back to the stage.  The curtains are closed, cutting her off from the organized chaos of an opera’s aftermath. “Just a stagehand.”

“If that’s what my family is telling people, then I suppose it must be true.”

He says that, but Allegra notices his averted eyes, his still hands.  She leans forward, placing a hand on the harpsichord for balance.  He catches the movement immediately, and for a second, she thinks he might react, but he says nothing.

“Ten minutes,” she repeats. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll wait.”

-=-=-=-=-=-

She meets him when most of the candles have been snuffed out; all of the important faces have gone home. He hasn’t moved from the bench, but the arpeggios he practices still hang in the air around him.  He stops when he sees her.

“Signora.”

She smiles.  “Signor Genio.”

He scoffs.  “I’m not, really.”

“Then why do people talk about you like you are?” Of course, she only has the word of one person, but from the sound of it, people must know who he is.  “I remember when you played for me. It was improvised and it was beautiful.”

He bows his head.  “Well. As a fellow musician, perhaps you would understand it.  I may perform well enough, and people enjoy me, but no matter what I play, I feel like there’s something missing.”

Allegra notices his eyes again; they’re staring at the keys.  “Is this the first time you’ve told someone that?”

“You are perceptive.”

“Why tell me of all people?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, why wouldn’t you tell someone else?  I bet you speak with tons of other instrumentalists.”

“I…. it’s different. Most instrumentalists would converse with each other, but they live elsewhere and are far older.  I told you I’m self-taught, so I don’t converse with others as much as I probably should.”

Allegra shrugs.  “I think I understand. About how something might be missing.  A lonely feeling.  Sometimes the stage does feel empty, but the other feelings are overpowering.  I keep coming back because it’s what makes me smile.”

He shakes his head.  “You do understand…you do and you don’t.”

“Every person is different,” she replies.  “The same feeling can be felt in so many ways because there are so many different people in the world.  I know there are people that come here to see a drama, but they leave thinking it was dramatic, or sad, or lonely.  It’s all the same emotion; people just experience it in various ways.”

“That’s…unexpectedly wise.” He nods.  “Perhaps you’re right.”

“Unexpected?” Allegra blinks, confused.  “Why?”

His eyes go wide.  “Well, ah…I’m surprised, is all.  You sing and dance on a stage; you are not in and among the people.”

“Neither are you,” she retorts.  “Aren’t you a soloist most of the time?”

“That’s—” He stops, probably not expecting that answer.  “That’s not what I mean.  Most of the performers I’ve seen only come for themselves.”

“Well… the stage is my home, but it’s my home because I climbed onto it myself. I used to be in the audience; I would sneak in here sometimes when I was little and watch the performances.  I understand the emotions the audiences go through more than anything, because I experience them myself.  Even when I’m performing, I’m one of them.  The story makes me laugh and cry, so I show them that I know and understand.”

His eyebrows crease and his expression is one Allegra cannot read. “That is a rare gift indeed.”

Allegra’s eyes leave his and travel upward. There is still one chandelier lit; someone has noticed that the hall is not yet empty and is waiting for them to leave. But still, the Ducal’s golden brilliance never fails to mesmerize her.  The epitome of luxury.

“I don’t have much.  I’m paid to help the seamstresses here, and that’s all.  Sometimes the directors hear what I can do, and they ask me to sing or play small roles.  Every time I’m drawn out of the people to stand on a stage and play my role, I am in luxury.  It doesn’t matter what I’m doing.”  She points to the stage.  Just a few days ago, a woman sang a solo there. Every night since, she has run the words over in her head, anxious to memorize it.  “I live there.  That’s the only place I can be alive.”

Nothing in his expression changes.  He still sits, one hand on his chin and the other on the keys.  She could have said nothing at all.

Allegra lets her eyes fall back to the floor.  What is she doing?  She knew the seamstress would slap her on the wrist for saying such things.  She didn’t know him.  One compliment from him might be all she’ll ever get.

“Sing.”

Her head snaps up.  “What?”

“You said you live there.” He points to the stage.  “Go, and sing.”

“I…” Try as she might, she cannot ignore the thrill of his request.  Before she can answer, she’s already climbing the steps.  If she stands at the edge, she can see him.  One musician amongst the empty chairs and ghosts of the orchestra. “Sing what?”

“Anything.”  His tone is encouraging, but his hands rest in his lap.  For once, he’s taken his attention off of his music.  He’s focused on her.

And her hands are suddenly far too clammy than before.  What to sing?  He’s probably been to countless operas, seen thousands of performances.  And here she is, a sewing girl in an apron.  What could she sing to impress him?

He said anything.  Sing anything.

A chorus of notes rise to her lips, but she surprises herself; this song is not from an opera or performance she had heard before.  This is a lullaby, something her mother used to sing to her when she was cold and afraid.  Perhaps her mother is here now, taking Allegra’s clammy hands in her cool, strong ones, and singing.

“Ninna nanna, ninna oh

Questo bimbo a chi lo do?

Se lo do alla befana

Se lo tiene una settimana

Se lo do al lupo nero

Se lo tiene un anno intero

Se lo do a lupo bianco

Se lo tiene tanto tanto

Ninna oh ninna oh

A nessuno lo daro'…”

The silence seems to swallow up the last note, so she stands there, waiting for any sign from the boy at the harpsichord.  For about a minute, there is nothing.  She looks at him, and throughout the entire performance, his expression has not changed.  He might have turned to stone.

She opens her mouth to retort, but the sound of a strong E cuts her off.  He holds the key, just to make sure she is listening, and then starts into an arpeggio of notes.

A tear slips from her cheek.  Surely, he had been holding back when he played for her the first time!  This—this music had such emotion behind it!  The notes were quick and riveting, just as he had already done, but there was movement, a person, behind the keys this time, and—oh!  The notes of her lullaby slip through here and there.  He has taken her performance and made it into something beyond what it was. A few simple minutes transformed into something being truly born, breath being drawn for the first time.  

A harpsichord is made of wood and metal strings.  But as he plays, it is a living thing, and they are having a conversation about her performance.

But then his hands are in the air and the harpsichord is silent.  His eyes are closed and his face is alight with quite possibly the biggest—and the only—smile she has ever seen from him.  His eyes rise to meet hers, and blink, startled. She must be a sobbing mess after what she’s just heard; she had no idea there could be any instrument held in higher regard than the voice itself.

“Signora?”  The smile is still frozen on his face, but his eyes betray his concern.

“Allegra,” she corrects.  Her voice cracks.

“Allegra,” he repeats, and she feels something glow inside her.  “All you alright?”

She shakes her head and furiously wipes her cheeks.  “That’s not fair.”

“Not fair?”

“No!  You were holding back the last time you played for me, and I wasn’t!  That’s not fair!”

He blinks.  “Holding…back?”

“What are you, an echo? Si, holding back!  This was…this was way more beautiful than what you played for me before!”

“It was?” His eyes flicker back and forth, glancing at memories before he settles on realization.  He shakes his head, and the look he gives her then makes her heart leap.  “It was.  If only there were people to see it.”

“I saw it.” Allegra straightens.  “More importantly, I heard it.  I’ve never heard anything like that in my entire life.  Maybe you are a genius.”

That stops him for a full five seconds.  He looks down, at the keys, then at his own hands, then back up at her. “You say that?”

“I do.  Completely.”

He covers the keys and stands up.  “I am performing here in one month’s time.  There will be a recital on this stage featuring many different kinds of musicians.  Even singers.”

Allegra knew what he was talking about; the masters of the Ducal had been particularly twitchy regarding it.  Apparently, a very famous violist from France was visiting, as was a flutist from China.

“Yes,” she confirms.  “I’ll probably assist backstage.”

“The last act will be a harpsichordist.  Not me, of course, I am not experienced enough.  Even so, there will be an empty instrument sitting on this stage well after the curtain closes.”

Her lips part in surprise; she can guess where this conversation is going. “I’ll stay behind to clean it,” she offers.  “If you’d like.”

“I would.”  He looks her straight in the eyes, and she can still see a flash of ecstasy from before. Whatever happened to him when he played for her, it wasn’t something that happened often.  “Have your songs ready, belladonna.  We’ll do this again.”

Heat rushes to her cheeks as whatever she was going to say sticks in her throat.  Belladonna?  Her?

She tries to say something, but he is already walking toward the exit.  Is it her imagination, or does he have a spring in his step?  “Wait! I told you my name, what am I supposed to call you? Maestro?”

That stops him, if only for a moment.  She can hear the smile in his voice as he says “I suppose that works.” Then the door moves and he’s gone.

-=-=-=-=-=-

He closes his eyes and for an instant, he can feel her.  She stands there, grinning, as the stagehands extinguish the final chandelier.  She can’t even see the hands in front of her, but she glows.

The carriage ride back is a blur, an hour, a day.  He doesn’t care.  He has so much to practice.  So much to think about.

Once he had discovered his talents, his parents had told him something about performing: when he’s on a stage, all that matters is himself and the instrument.  There is a barrier that forms around the two of them for every performance. No one else matters.  Nothing else matters.

Looking back on it, they had probably only said that to save him from the wills of stage fright, but it was a message that he held closer to his heart than any other lesson, even in his daily life.  Until today.

This girl…he has only met her twice and yet his conscience is screaming at him that his previous beliefs are wrong.  Even when he plays with orchestras, even when he accompanies the occasional family friend, he is always put on another pedestal, his name always mentioned with a more lavish script, an emphasis.  He was made to stand alone when the audience cheered. When his hands touched the keys, the world was wiped away.  The barrier held strong.  It reminded him he was better.

It had taken him every ounce of self-control not to play with her when she sang.

It’s such a simple tune, one he has heard a thousand times himself, and yet. Somehow, she’s made it unique. Ethereal.  

The only reason he had left in the first place was that he knew there were people waiting for him.  He could have stayed and played with her for hours.  He wanted his harpsichord to sing with her.  What a breathtaking realization it is.

The harpsichord is not a stand-alone instrument, nor is he a stand-alone musician. Not anymore.

The barrier is cracking.  Light is coming in.

A month is so far away.  He needs to hear her again.

[batbobsession]

The Innocence of Youth

Belle is the wind that teases a wagon’s wheels. She laughs when she runs, untethered from what was behind her and what is in front of her.  She’s the daughter of a traveler, so the wheels have always been next to her, guiding her to where she was to go next.  Even as they trip and shudder over rocks in the road or mud in the dirt, she laughs and pries them loose.  She’s fearless and free and runs alongside the wagon while her father watches the road. Gazing through the spokes at the greenery ahead.  Daring the grass to try slowing her down.

Adam is the flower that blooms in the winter. All the world seems white when he’s happy.  Every day is like another blanket of snow on the ground: fresh and clean and waiting to be explored.  The world he lives in is cold and unrelenting around him, but he has his mother as the sun, and his father to keep his roots from dying.  Everyone loves the happiness that he carries with him, close to his heart.  It’s true that, while he is the only flower that dares to peek above the white, he makes sure he has seen enough of the view to share it with everyone else.

Lumiere is the spirit that haunts the nighttime streets. He’s small, but people still glimpse his kind and eager smile as he flits from cobblestone to cobblestone.  Some vagrants whisper to themselves that they’ve seen a wil’o the wisp, a faerie, moving in the night and rousing people’s spirits.  It’s the candle-maker’s son, the smarter ones would say.  Hardly ever leaves his house in the day, but at night he’s alight with something warm and bright.  They don’t know about the night terrors he suffers, but then again, neither does he.  He just knows that the emotion he feels at night in bed is called fear; there are easy ways to vanquish it.  So he searches the moonlit streets of Paris for things that call smiles to the broken people’s faces.

Plumette is the smallest bird in the nest. She’s waited on day and night by her servants.  Her parents smile when the maids weave flowers into her hair and rouge on her lips.  She follows every movement, every direction, and memorizes it.  At night she stands on her windowsill in a flowing nightgown, arms spread wide, wishing she could fly away.  But she steps back onto her bed every time, thinking she cannot possibly let go of everything she has to take to the sky—though it beckons.  She does not know that the time will come sooner than she wishes.  So she smiles at the sun and waves at her friends in their pretty pastel gowns.  It’s tea time, and then embroidery, and so on.  Picturesque and perfect, forever and ever.

Cuisinier is the old soul that feels what he tastes. He’s scolded day in and day out about eating more than usual.  His schoolteachers tut and shake their heads at him, but his mother always makes an extra helping of minestrone soup.  She finishes before him, but she smiles as she watches him take another spoonful and mull it over.  Her cooking is the best thing to ever happen to the boy, and he must know the secret behind why the different flavors mingle in harmony with one another so well.  It spills into his sight, the color of flavor. He has to see the perfect picture, and that’s why his mother laughs when he goes to the cupboard to add an extra sprinkling of rosemary to the broth.

Chapeau is the echo that travels. Attention is drawn from him and toward his sisters with their frills and showy smiles.  He doesn’t mind; in fact, he encourages it by giving them new hats to show off in front of their mother’s store.  The villagers find him hovering over the altar in the chapel, methodically wiping the dust from the tomes of Scripture.  He smiles then, and leads them to a pew for the evening services.  And early in the morning, before the sun has fully shown herself, they can hear his violin echoing off the walls of the church.  Coaxing the day to life.

Beatrice is the kindness in a storm. She runs in the rain, caring not for her dress, which is spattered with mud.  Lightning flashes and thunder roars, but she laughs at it and continues.  Nothing scares her.  She can be as quick as lightning and as loud as thunder if she wishes.  After running through the London streets, she sees a small dog, its fur bedraggled and soaking, and she wraps it in her petticoat.  It sleeps in her backyard that night, and she turns up her nose at the boys that tease her the next day.

Henry is the order in a house that shakes. His father is a well-known clockmaker, but his fingers tremble too much now.  He’s watched him fit the gears together and craft beautiful, calming machines that called out to the shop every hour.  He knows how every clock works, and shudders when he can hear the calls cut short, the ticking off its rhythm, the ever so slight scratching that results from two cogs that don’t quite fit.  His father has unknowingly made him his protege.  So whenever his father is out buying new parts, Henry takes the clocks apart.  He carefully adjusts the cogs and sprockets, fits the music boxes into place, and tucks the contraption back into its spot in the shop.  If his father notices how differently the clocks talk to each other now, he doesn’t mention it.

Garderobe is the final note in a song. As much as she loves the beginning of a story, the ending is just as thrilling, because there is always a finale.  In the finale, she can add her own harmonies to the main actors’ voices without being noticed.  The directors will always note how perfect those particular performances are and praises the cast, skipping over the thin girl that smiles to herself in pride. She is the unspoken reason, and soon she will rise to the top.  One of these days, the people in charge will smile at her and hold up one of the lead role’s frilly costumes.  She can’t wait.  

Cadenza is the golden key to a perfect machine. When he is ten, his harpsichords are made for him.  He is groomed for success at eleven, a wunderkind in the world of symphonies.  People from all over Europe and Asia gather to hear him play, and some want to stay forever.  The sounds he makes cannot be called something as commonplace as “music.”  It has exceeded the word.  His mind is a secret garden of notes, and each bouquet he picks is different, unique, and beautiful.  He plays what has already been written, what he writes himself, and small fancies in between practices.  He does not tell anyone, but he can’t shake the feeling that there’s something missing.  He’s a genius, and a young child, he tells himself.  He shouldn’t worry.  He tries smiling at his audience.

Maurice is the color on an empty canvas. He can see brightness where no one else can.  He can see dancing rays that are a different shade than the ones caught in the sun.  At the maypole, he watches the sheen of the ribbons and the swish of the wind against the flowers.  He wants to capture it.  He wants to hold it in his hands.  When he stares at the mediocre painting of his parents’ wedding, he knows he can do better.  He paints all day and night, and then all over again.  His mother says an angel has touched her wedding, and he beams from the warmth of her embrace, his smooth hands stained with blue and white and green.

How sweet is the innocence of youth?  The voices so clear and mild, not yet ready to shoulder their hardships, too free to realize what nature will do.  Let all the children of the world raise their arms and shout

with fragile, pure, clear, and unbound voices.

[batbobsession]

An oldie, but one heck of a goodie.

Up in Smoke - Oneshot

When Pere Robert returns from the servants’ quarters, they all rise to their feet. They all want answers, but judging by the grim look that hasn’t left the pastor’s face, they aren’t good ones.

It had started just last night, not even a day ago.  One moment, Mrs. Potts had left Lumiere and Plumette in their quarters to serve the master his afternoon tea, and when she had come back, Plumette was on the floor, pale and shaking, with Lumiere kneeling over her, anxious, near panicking when she didn’t respond.  Mrs. Potts had immediately sent for help—she kept her head, thank heaven, Adam thinks—and by the time Pere Robert had arrived, Lumiere was barely conscious and looking just as bad, if not worse.  Still desperately trying to find out what was wrong with Plumette.

Pere Robert had ordered them all out.  Every resident of the castle had to get as far away from the servants’ quarters as possible.  

“Whatever illness they’ve contracted is contagious,” he had said.  “They need to be quarantined immediately.”  And then he had drawn a doctor’s mask from his bag.  

“Well?” asks Cogsworth gruffly.  “How long will it take?”

Pere Robert just looks at him.  His dark eyes hold something that almost looks like grief.  He shakes his head.

And Belle hides hers, unshed tears in her eyes.  Cogsworth stands there, still waiting for a positive answer.  Chapeau and Mrs. Potts look like they have just been struck over their heads.  But Adam strides forward, coming so close to the priest that he has to put up a hand to prevent the prince from touching him (“I might have it too now, you can never tell,” he says calmly, despite his demeanor).

“Is there nothing we can do to help?” Adam asked, his voice low and full of emotion.

Pere Robert’s only answer to that was “Pray.”  And then he left.  And here they sat, in the gardens, trying to accept that there was nothing that could be done.

Cogsworth remembers when Plumette barely knew the layout of the castle.  She had only been there a couple weeks, yet she was quick and efficient with her job, and as she became familiar with the staff and the queen, her confidence became the most notable thing about her.  And how she would smile when he complimented her work!  She may not know it, but he is proud of her.  He loves her as he would a daughter.  And Lumiere…he will never say this out loud to him, but Cogsworth respects him.  When Lumiere first came to the castle, he was nothing short of the best footman they had ever hired.  As time wore on, yes, he became a little too confident for Cogsworth’s liking.  And yet. He would often catch Lumiere lounging around, but the tables would be set, the menu prepared, and Cuisinier hard at work making a meal that Cogsworth didn’t even have to give orders for.  It is an honor to serve beside him.  He has said it once before; he is fully prepared to say it again.

Chapeau and Plumette had arrived at the castle around the same time, one a few days apart from the other.  They learned the ways of service together, even helped each other out where they needed it.  Within a few days they had become friends, and when Lumiere came along, Chapeau had never seen Plumette happier.  Lumiere’s optimism quickly became contagious; there would be secret gatherings at night, parties with food and drinks, smiles and laughter after a long day’s work.  It was during those moments that Lumiere suggested he play his violin for everyone—“What’s a party without music, mon ami?”—and his talents quickly became a staple at those gatherings.  Lumiere fit in with them so well that it felt like he had always been there.  To imagine his life without them is near impossible.  It’s because of them that he feels like a part of a second family.

Mrs. Potts feels as if she is losing two of her children.  Before Chip was born, she cared for Plumette like she would a daughter, and Lumiere was Plumette’s perfect match, she had seen it before they did.  She made sure to be there when they were having trouble, and they listened to her.  During the curse, it was her mission to make sure that everyone had faith and kept their hopes up.  No matter who they were, Mrs. Potts did that for everyone in the castle, not just Chip, but there were days when she found that she was feeling pessimistic, longing for her days in the sun.  The two of them went out of their way to cheer her up on more than one occasion.  And now…it was too soon. It was just too soon.

They all look up at the same time, share the same determined glance with one another, rise to their feet.  They have all escaped death once before.  If medicine won’t work, then magic will.  It’s time to make a visit.

Belle stands up as well; she has no doubt been affected by them too.  It was Lumiere who first made her feel welcome in the castle, helped her adjust to the strange ways of the curse.  She and Plumette became fast friends; they had conversations in the East Wing about all sorts of things, and when the curse was broken, Plumette taught her about makeup and dresses.  They were her family just as much as they were family to the other staff members.  Without a word they depart from the gardens, leaving Adam alone.

Adam couldn’t remember a time without Lumiere and Plumette in his life.  Even in his earliest memories, their presence is front and center.

Lumiere would put little shows on for him when no one was looking.  Whether it was with books or shadows on the wall, he always enjoyed the stories that the man made up for him.  And Plumette always made sure that the library was spotless so he and his mother could spend time away from his father’s watchful eye.  He was even more grateful for them during the curse.  Lumiere always kept a steady flame, spoke words that were not full of resentment towards him, but positive encouragement.

And Plumette was never afraid to give him advice about Belle, when he was willing to listen.  

They are two of the best servants—and friends—that he could ever want, or need. Without them, the curse would still control the castle. He and Belle wouldn’t be married now.  He would be alone.  

It’s hours before they come back, but they come back with excited murmurings and hopeful voices.  Agathe’s given them some kind of root; they claim it’s from a plant that grew when a drop of sunlight fell to the earth.

They waste no time after that.  Mrs. Potts mixes the root into a drink, and sends Chapeau to the servants’ quarters with it.  He comes back after a few minutes, and they ask him how the two are faring.

He says nothing, but it’s written clearly on his face: not well.

Not one person in the castle sleeps that night.

The next morning, everyone is up before sunrise.  Against Pere Robert’s orders, they all head down to the servants’ quarters, their hearts pounding anxiously.  But only Adam has the courage to actually open the door. All of the candles have gone out and the room is quiet—a bit too quiet for his liking.  Adam takes the candelabra that Chapeau offers and steps inside, tentatively.  

“Lumiere? Plumette?” he calls softly.

No answer.  He raises the light higher and sees two figures on the bed, still, unmoving.  He comes closer, horrible thoughts running through his mind, but he relaxes when he sees the slight moving of their shoulders.  Not dead, just asleep.  Not dead.

He sighs, calmer now, and turns around to give them more time to rest.  He is almost to the door before he hears a slight rustling, and turns back around. They’re waking up.

“Oh my god…” Adam rushes to Lumiere’s side, and hears the others follow after him. “Are you alright?  How do you feel?”

“You look pale, maitre,” he says weakly, his old smile back on his face.  “I fear you may be coming down with something.”

Mrs. Potts bursts into tears.  Cogsworth leans against the wall, his hand grasping at his cane.  Chapeau smiles and Belle laughs, and Adam nearly faints from the relief of it all.  

prompt from @lumiereswig

[batbobsession]

oh my god i loved your new fic!! it’s so interesting to seem them younger. please do more like this!

Thank you so much!  And honestly, I have headcanons about all of the staff as kids that I sort of teased here.  I have a solid backstory for the Italians and the English ones, and I wonder whether I should release a bunch of mini-fics or just one long headcanon list.  Regardless, I'll tell you a few of them (the ones mentioned in "The Innocence of Youth", anyway).

Belle's childhood was full of moving from house to house.  Maurice and Belle went to at least five villages before settling on Villeneuve, with all their belongings in a gigantic cart drawn by Phillipe.

I did drop the headcanon that young Lumiere is a Parisian urban legend about a year ago, but I thought I'd bring it back.

The headcanon that Plumette used to be noble until her parents died in the same plague that killed Belle's mom is not mine--it belongs to @lumiereswig, but it fits so well that I had to expand on it.

Cuisinier is a synesthete.  For those of you that don't know, that's a condition that blurs two or more of the senses together.  For him, he sees colors and shapes depending on what he tastes.  I think it fits, and it also develops his palette in a way that the others just can't comprehend.

It's been in my mind since a few months after the film's release that Chapeau was an altar boy when he was younger.  It would explain a few subtle things that I noticed near the end of the film.  Plus violin sounds + inside of a church = amazing acoustics no matter where you are.

I imagine that Beatrice was the kind of girl that came home with dirt on her face and bloody knuckles because she just beat up a bully or two in her Sunday best.  Also the kind that would dance barefoot in the British rain.

Cogsworth's childhood was a lot like Belle's in that he was ingenious and inventive and helped out his father just like she did.  Except he never got any new ideas; he only knew how to make other ideas better.

Garderobe's childhood was one I touched on in "Opera", but I can still say that she wasn't the richest of children and worked her way up the opera ladder until she became the star of every performance.  Explains why she's such a good seamstress.

As for Cadenza, I love the idea of him being rather cold and pragmatic in his youth because of how he was raised.  It makes his switch to the soulful and eccentric man we see all the more interesting.  

Maurice grew up in a pastoral village, so a lot of his first paintings were full of pastel and natural colors.

I was thinking about expanding on these--especially Garderenza’s story. I’ll try to fit in a few fics every now and then.  Tell me what you want to hear and who you want to hear from!

[batbobsession]

“Grateful?”

"Yes," Mrs. Potts urges.  The seven of them gaze out at the frozen garden.  The kitchen's windowsill is now big enough to accommodate the entire heads of staff.  We can all stare at the snow together, she thinks, but she keeps it to herself.   "All we've been doing is moping around, halfheartedly trying to keep the mothballs out of the carpets.  It's only been a few months, and a suitable young woman will be around before you know it."

"Oh, of course." One of Cogsworth's gears grates against another.  Beside him, Chip winces.  "One of the countless ladies we've sent letters of courtship to will forget the..." His voice lowers considerably.  "The monster that they've witnessed inside this castle.  They'll forget and come back, struck by Cupid's arrow.  The horns won't matter, and neither will the fangs." 

"Now, now, old friend, don't speak like that."  Lumière lifts an arm to pat the majordomo on the shoulder, then lowers it, thinking better of the consequences.  "We have time."

"Do we?" 

Mrs. Potts had never seen a clock so uptight.  Then again, she had never seen a clock move, or speak, or keep its hands in the shape of a moustache. 

"That charlatan didn't bother to give us a time limit, only that when the last petal falls the spell will never be broken."

"The petals haven't fallen yet." Mrs. Potts cuts in, effectively bringing the conversation back to her.  She gazes at all of them, and Lord, she has never seen them looking so forlorn.  Some of them avert their eyes, and the ones that do look to her have a glazed emptiness in them; something is dead, or already dying, yet they have so much time left.  How can only a few months make Lumière's voice so soft, Plumette's face so withered?  Her darling Chip looks at her, and she can tell that he wants her to hold him, but she can't even do that.

No.  This could be exactly what that witch wants.  If her spirits weren't up, then neither would Chip's, and neither would any of the others'.  Her job in life has always been to keep up morale.  She won't let them fall into despair.  She won't.

"That's enough," she continues.  "Now, I want you to each name one thing you're grateful for." 

Silence.

"Go on, now, I'm not going to wait."  Firm, but kind.  This is a kindness.

"Well...the bridge looks pretty."

Mrs. Potts smiles at her son, who's avoiding her gaze now with a slight movement that could have been a shrug, sliding his hands into his pockets. 

"Yes, well done," she praises, and they all look out at the bridge across the lake.  The snow sparkles in the fresh sunlight; though the icicles don't melt, they twinkle and reflect the frozen water below.

"I'm still able to cook to my heart's content," boomed a voice from the far wall.  "Can't taste any of it, but the master finishes every crumb and that's enough."

"And isn't that the best?" she responds.  "Getting to do what you love despite the obstacles?"  I'm sure that, were the musicians here, they would feel the same.  

Another sentiment with sad thoughts attached, so she does not say it.

"I think I would already be dead without you by my side, cherie," Lumière says and wraps an arm around Plumette.  She rests a wing where his elbow would be, and Mrs. Potts glimpses a hint of a smile.

"I feel the same," Plumette whispers. "I would be lost without you, mon coeur." 

"Ah, young love." Cuisinier sighs, and Lumière's answering smile, though tired, could have lit up the room.  

Yes, she thinks, progress.

A few chords are plucked somewhere above her, and she looks up to see Chapeau hovering close by.

"I haven't forgotten about you, love," Mrs. Potts exclaims.  "Go on, what are you grateful for?"

The design at the top smiled and gestured with one of his hands, sweeping across the stove, the windowsill, and everyone on it.

"Me too."  She grins.  "I'm grateful we're together."

Chapeau always did have a way with words--now they were all naming things left and right.

"I can reach the higher parts of the ceiling without a ladder."

"We'll have the kitchen all to ourselves..."

"And the library--master never goes in there anymore..."

"We can play outside--"

"--climb the tallest tower--"

"--arrange our own midseason balls--"

"I can visit all the secret passageways!"

"Chip!"

The only one who hasn't said anything is Cogsworth, who twitches every time a new suggestion was thrown out.  However, the maitre d' has always been quick to notice trouble in any situation.

"Mon ami, don't ruin the excitement," Lumière encourages.  "There has to be something."

"Yeah, don't be boring," Chip adds.  Plumette stifles a giggle.

"Oh, all right, then!" Cogsworth's so irritated, and Mrs. Potts can't help but smile.  "I'm grateful that we can still maintain a sense of order despite being crippled like this, and that you--"  He jabs a hand at Lumière. "--aren't as loud as you used to be!"

At this, Lumière's candlelight triples in size.  There is an uproar of laughter from him; the sound echoes off the topmost parts of the ceiling.

Then they're all laughing.  Plumette dances in the air, Cuisinier bangs his pots and pans together, Chapeau hides his face, and Mrs. Potts thinks tears might spill from her eyes.  Cogsworth stamps his foot, and the gears grate again.

"Oh, very funny!  You lot are all so...so...!"

But whatever he is about to say dies before it can be said; despite his demeanor, he is grateful--above all--to see them in such high spirits again.

----

Far up, high in the West Wing, Adam rests on his bed, curled up under the covers.  In his dreams, he's a little boy again, having dinner with his mother.  She laughs her golden laugh, and he remembers how good the food was.

He's grateful, he thinks.  He's grateful that he remembers her so clearly.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

[starcrossedjedis]

Because notes wanna be made and shit's already packed

⋅ barista Belle ⋅ possible last name Hart (I'm open for ideas tho^^) ⋅ "Nice Guy TM" Gaston ⋅ "Adam going after Belle after driving her out of the house / Belle taking care of an injured Adam" will be a thing, but in an attempt to de-trope it a little will be split into two different occasions, one of them instead tying into the "Adam feels like doing sth nice for Belle" bit ⋅ early first Adam/Gaston confrontation ⋅ coffeehouse / secondhand bookshop owned by Mrs. Potts ⋅ retired librarian Henri Cogsworth going nuts co-managing the shop with hipster-y Louis Meyr ⋅ co-barista Ariel (open Disney AU!verse?) ⋅ awkward "I walked into the bathroom and saw you naked and now I can't stop thinking of your junk" ⋅ sexy times will be had ⋅ but it will further complicate things and not mark the "Happy Ever After" ⋅ "What do you say we run away?" will turn into "We could just stay here..." but my feels are the same

[starcrossedjedis]

So... This is happening. Using an unnecessarily stylish document. 🔜💻📓💭❣️