Chapter Text
It had been several days since the Beast had been shot, and he was now up and about again for small amounts of time. As far as gunshot wounds went, he supposed it had not been all that bad. No vital organs had been hit, the wound had not become infected. It bothered him to know that there was still a piece of lead lodged in his flesh somewhere, though, and walking was still an ordeal. But he had at least been able to begin hunting again, however wary he was of returning to the forest.
The entire castle had been on edge waiting for Narcisse to reappear, possibly even with the duke. As it was, the highest staff saw three possible outcomes to the duke’s discovery of the curse: he would not believe that the cursed animal and objects in front of him were his own son and staff and would turf them out of the castle or possibly destroy them; he would believe in the curse and would still evict or destroy them; or, and this was the best case scenario, he would believe in the curse, would abruptly disown his son, forget about that particular piece of estate, lie to the world of his son’s fate, and abandon them all to their eventual deaths. No one, least of all the master of the castle, harbored any hope that the duke would come to their aid or provide any assistance whatsoever.
When the day finally did come that the monotony of the curse was broken by this unwelcome but expected call, the Beast was curled up in the drawing room in front of a roaring fire that his maîtr d’ had lit, his tail wrapped in a comforting manner around him. His ears perked at a whinny outside before he remembered that the horses were still in the stables. He had found out a week after the laying of the curse that it was only the living things inside the house that had been cursed, and that the fortunate horses were still just that. He had found this out upon visiting them, whereupon they had taken quite a fright to his new form and created such a huge ruckus that he had abruptly walked away, not bearing the sight of their fear. He felt guilty that he had not thought of them in so long--obviously they had not run out of hay and the servants were still making sure that they were fed. The Beast wondered what they would do when the hay finally did run out.
It wasn’t until Cogsworth stumbled into the room frantically, followed by Lumière, Plumette, and Mrs. Potts, that the Beast realized he had been absent-mindedly licking his wound. He stopped immediately, abashed and disgusted.
“What the devil is it, Cogsworth?” he barked, trying to regain some modicum of dignity.
“Sir, it’s le comte Edgar-Narcisse out in the courtyard--and he’s brought the Duke!”
The Beast bolted upright so quickly he nearly tripped over his tail.
“Hide, all of you! I’ll deal with this,” he growled. “No need to introduce them to more than one impossibility at a time.”
The staff looked at each other with dubious expressions that betrayed their lack of trust for him to handle any situation properly, and the Beast growled quietly in annoyance. The staff seemed to decide as one to surrender to his judgement, as they immediately turned and headed back out through the door through which they had come.
The Beast straightened as much as he could with a back made for walking on all fours and made his way towards the grand front doors. Unbidden, the memory of doing the same for that witch all those months ago rose to the front of his mind, and his heart began to race as he reached for the door.
His hand--his paw--was but a few inches from the ornate handles when it clenched into a fist. No. He could not do this. He could not open the door and face his father like this. If his father would see him, he would have to come to him.
Instead, he limped back over to the fire and stood turned towards it, but with an eye on the door.
He didn’t have to wait very long before an insistent knocking broke the tense silence. The Beast winced as the muffled shouts of the Duke eventually rang through the doors. “What is the meaning of this? No servants to tend to our horses, we’ve been standing out here for ages! We know something is amiss here, now open the damn door!”
The Beast suppressed an eye roll as he waited for his father to realize that no one was going to open the doors. There was a muttering of voices outside before finally the knob turned. He steeled himself and turned around.
The steely grey eyes of his father met his own. For a moment they were steeped in confusion, before the duke raised his walking stick in a threatening gesture and pointed it at his son. “What the hell…” he spluttered as Narcisse shouted in shock. The duke backed away, still wielding the cane.
The Beast raised a massive paw to halt his father’s speech. “It’s me, your Highness. It’s your son.”
“It talks!” the duke shouted.
“Of course I talk, you bloody fool, it’s me! Adam-François!” The whole scene would have been hilarious if it were almost any other situation. It . The Beast scowled and suppressed a growl.
The duke’s eyes somehow widened and narrowed at the same time in his disbelief. “You...you...what are you?”
The Beast sighed in exasperation and said, slowly and with emphasis, “I. Am. Your. Son. Paul-Pierre Adam-François de Beaumont.”
The Duke swore in more colorful language than Adam had ever heard him use, expressing his disbelief in several different languages before Adam interrupted him.
“A curse was laid on this castle over…” the Beast quickly tallied in his head, “...five months ago. A faery woman visited me during a summer ball and…” the Beast gestured helplessly at himself, unsure how to put his predicament into words.
“You expect me to believe that?! To believe in--in faeries and, and curses?”
“Well you don’t really have a choice, do you? Exactly how else do you explain what you see?”
At that moment, the count stepped past his father in a bold move and came right up to the Beast, studying him from horns to tail tip. The Beast shrunk back, feeling like a creature at a zoological garden. He supposed that wasn’t that far off, really.
“You’re what I saw in the forest, weren’t you?” Narcisse said slowly, eventually looking into his eyes.
The Beast lowered those eyes to stare at his large hind paws, unable to meet his brother’s gaze. Slowly, he raised his arm and exposed his side to Narcisse, displaying the still healing wound.
“So I did hit the mark,” Narcisse commented idly, and suddenly the Beast wanted to growl, to roar at his brother’s callousness. He spoke of the shot as if he had just downed a hunting prize, not even bothering to do so while the target in question was out of earshot, as if he was subhuman. He felt a tingling run down his spine, and realized with disgust that his hackles were raised.
“Yes, you did, Narcisse. And it hurt like the devil. Well done. Remember when I taught you to hunt as a lad? Well, it makes me proud to say you’ve finally beat me at my own game,” the Beast spat, turning away bitterly.
Narcisse backed away and turned to their father. “It’s him, Father. It’s Adam-François.” To the Beast’s surprise, the count sounded slightly shaken.
There was a silence that seemed to stretch on forever. Finally, the duke broke it. “How did this happen?” he said, utter disbelief lacing his voice. The Beast had never heard his father sound so unsure, and it disturbed him in a way he could not explain.
He found that he could not bring himself readily to explain the circumstances around the curse. He had been cursed for turning away an old woman from his grounds. But no, that had not really been it, had it? But how could he admit to his father that this, the ruin of his life, this shameful creature that he was now, was all due to his own arrogance and vanity? He remained facing away from them as he spoke, haltingly. “An enchantress appeared to me last summer during a ball, disguised. She tested me,” he said, for he realized now that that had been what it was, simply a test, she had already known his nature. “She had begged for shelter for one night, and I turned her away. I…” He had mocked her. Surrounded by sycophantic beauty, he had mocked her openly, had humiliated her. “When she revealed herself, she cursed me for my...for the way in which I lived my life. In her words, she “allowed the flesh to reveal what dwelt inside.”
When no one spoke, the Beast continued. “As I’m sure you’ve noted, the entire castle is cursed. She cursed the staff as well...that is why they do not reveal themselves.”
“Are they animals, too?” Narcisse asked, somewhat impertinently in the Beast’s opinion.
“No!” the Beast countered immediately, chagrined at the use of the term. “No, they are not ‘animals’. Would that they were,” he muttered. “It would be better, all things considered.”
The duke drew himself up. “Although I am not admitting belief to this outrageous tale, if you have been cursed, there must be some way to break it.”
The Beast gave a mirthless bark of laughter at this. “There is indeed a way to break it. There are stipulations to the curse.”
“Well?”
He shook his head. “They are a joke. The curse is unbreakable. There is no way in Heaven or on Earth that I will be able to meet her requirements.”
“Don’t avoid the question, boy! What are the requirements?”
He growled and muttered, “I have to learn to love, and to earn someone’s love in return.”
“Speak up, boy.”
A roar split the air as the Beast turned around. “I have to learn to love and to earn someone’s love in return!”
The duke stumbled back with uncharacteristic indignity in the face of his son’s outburst. Narcisse’s face fell. The Beast smirked sourly.
“So you see, there is no breaking the curse.”
The duke studied his son’s face for a long time before speaking. His tone was purposeful as he said, “I always knew you would fail in some spectacular way, boy. Never could I have imagined this, but I have always known. You are a disgrace,” he spat. “And you are no son of mine.”
Backing away, the duke brandished his cane at the Beast. “You can keep this estate, seeing as you’ve rendered it completely useless. No one will know the truth of what you have done to yourself. Not at court, anyways. You have taken a serious illness and are unable to travel.” The duke scoffed, saying, “I might as well tell them you are dead. You are right, you are never going to lift this curse.”
The Beast shrunk back involuntarily at this. Even as a seven-foot tall, fanged monster he could not help but cower in the presence of this man who even now held his very life in his hands.
“Come, Narcisse,” the duke beckoned to his son. “Let us leave this godforsaken place.”
The Beast’s eyes snapped up at this. He had to do something. He knew the disdain with which his father had always held him, but even he could not be so cruel as to simply leave him here without any shred of hope. “No, Father, please--”
“Don’t you call me that, beast!” the duke shouted. “This...this creature before me is not my heir.” He paused to swipe back a lock of wig that had fallen into his face during his outburst. “You have damned yourself, animal.”
“But, Father, the servants…!”
“Yes, you have damned them, too,” the duke said. “Narcisse, come.”
Narcisse looked from his father to the Beast and back to his father again, concern in his eyes. “Father, we can’t just leave--”
“Excuse me, young man?”
“We…” the count’s glance darted around again. “We...can’t just leave, there are family heirlooms and various other valuables in the house. If you are going to abandon it completely, we must at least take that into account.” He didn’t meet his brother’s eyes as he said this, and the Beast found himself sympathizing. He tried to convey through his expression that he understood, that one didn’t just argue with their father, but he wasn’t sure he got his point across through all of the fur.
But the duke surveyed his younger son as though he knew exactly what the boy had been about to say. He scoffed in disgust and said, “You will touch nothing in this wretched place, Edgar-Narcisse. Come, before the coachman begins to suspect something.”
Looking defeated, Narcisse followed his father out the front doors as if tied to the man by an invisible lead. His eyes flicked to the monster behind him briefly before the door closed and the Beast was left in silence once again.
The silence did not last long before Lumière traipsed back into the room with the other servants on his brass heels. “Well, Master, that did not go so badly, did it?”
The Beast tossed his maître d’ a glare that caused even that ever-optimistic man to falter for a moment. He caught Mrs Pott’s expression of sympathy as he did so, raising his ire even more. With a growl, the Beast turned away and stalked through the front doors through which his father and brother had just left. The back of the coach was just disappearing as he stepped into the snow.
He stood there for several minutes, staring into the storm, gazing at the spot from which his father’s coach had disappeared. Then suddenly, without warning after the silence, he turned his face to the sky and roared so thunderously that the enormous front bay windows trembled in their frames. It ripped through his altered throat in a way that still shocked him, so animalistic and raw. He wondered if he would ever become use to it.
You are right, you are never going to lift this curse.
He suddenly envisioned the snowy courtyard before him, not as a courtyard, but as the empty years that undoubtedly stretched before him. He was trapped here. He was to be forever a prisoner on his own opulent grounds, diminished to a drooling, snarling creature. Today his link to the outside world, the world where even the meanest commoner was free, had been severed.
His servants. His staff were the only company he would have for the rest of his life.
Yes, you have damned them, too .
And in time they would perish, no, they would not perish, they would be trapped in their own horrid, inanimate forms. And he would be left with no one and nothing but guilt to accompany him throughout the long, long years.
Trudging through the snow towards the stables, his father’s admonitions continued to ring through his head, just as they had always done. You have damned yourself, animal .
Animal .
As he neared the stables, the horses began to whinny in fear, catching the scent of his fur and musk. He pushed through the doors with a bang, and the din became almost intolerable. He looked towards his favorite mare, Dignité. How many times they had gone out riding together. She was magnificent, especially during the hunt, the sun filtering through the leaves and glinting off of her warm brown coat.
The Beast closed his eyes against the traumatic memory of the last hunt to which he had been witness.
He raised a paw to pet the mare, and noted with a muted but deep sadness how the color of his own fur greatly reflected hers.
Before he could even reach her flank, she whinnied in terror, and the Beast drew his paw back.
This creature before me is not my heir .
The Beast wanted to wail for shame. What had he been about to do? Pet another animal as if it was his? Run his fingers over her fur? As if he himself was not even more of a beast than she was?
He was not a prince anymore. He was not the son of a duke, he was heir to no titles. He was lower than the commoners who lived on his land and had paid taxes to him. And in his heart he knew that he was lower than even the servants who had been cursed along with him, for it was he who had spelled out their fate. He was to become a beast in mind and body; he wondered how long it would before the very staff that served him would have to care for and keep him as they cared for and kept these horses--or would they even live to see when that day came? A prince owned and kept magnificent beasts such as the mare before him, a wild animal did not.
Without further thought, he slashed through the tether binding the mare to her stall with one of his roughened claws, and continued to do the same with the rest of the horses. This would have to have been done at one point anyways--they would run out of hay someday, and the endless snow had killed any grass the horses might find on their own.
Every horse bolted as soon as they were freed--every horse, that was, except for dear Dignité. She paused before leaving the stables, looking confusedly back at the Beast, and for a moment he fancied she might have a suspicion, a hint, that he had been her rider for the majority of her life.
Of course, that was ridiculous. “Go, get out of here!” the Beast roared, turning back towards the stables sullenly as the mare took heed and galloped away.
The Beast reentered the stables and looked around at the now empty stalls, shaking his head. All a waste. The expensive education he had received as a young man, all of the languages he had learned, the classics he’d read, his skill with the rapier and musket--all a goddamn waste.
Dreading returning to the castle where his staff would immediately want to review the situation regarding the duke, where they would refer to him as “Master” and play pretend that he was a man and a prince at that and not an animal, the Beast curled up on the dusty ground of the stable. He knew he was being maudlin. Even he had to admit that. He didn’t really care.
Outside, the wind and wolves howled as if in harmony.