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Three months had passed since the curse set in, and the beast that had once been Prince Paul-Pierre Adam-François de Beaumont was still learning the full meaning of the curse that shrouded him. There was a mirror, of course. As if he had not owned enough mirrors as a man. This mirror, however, was no ordinary mirror, no. It showed him whatever he wanted to see, which was now often those very things he couldn’t have. He had asked to see Versailles, and he had seen it—but he couldn’t go to it, not in this form. He found himself wondering whether he would be missed. Would the Countess de Damas remember touring Paris with him by day and their subsequent nightly adventures? Would Princess Elisabeth de Lorraine seek him out? As he took stock of his experiences in French court he realized just how many beautiful noblewomen he had sampled over the years. A few months ago that knowledge would have filled him with pride. Now, the thought of it made him sick with disgust at his own twisted body. Oh how horrified those women would be if they could see what had become of the body they had so willingly given themselves up to before, what revulsion they would feel. That mirror was the only mirror in the castle that hadn’t been smashed within the first few months, but not for lack of trying.
There was an Atlas, too, that taunted him in much the same way. Where one might find an introduction to a work, though, there was a succinct explanation of the terms of the curse. Adam had been horrified to find that his mind as well as his body would become more beastly as the petals fell. And the servants—the servants, oh, when the last petal fell, their souls would vanish forever.
Adam had no idea how long it would take for the petals to fall, a fact that haunted him daily. They seemed to fall at no particular rate. Weeks had stretched by without one falling, and then, to Adam’s horror, two had fallen in one day. Would the rose last a year? Ten years? Mon dieu, Adam almost hoped that the former was true. He could not imagine being cognizant for ten years in this form. And then he would think of the servants, and he would despair at the terms for breaking the curse, for who could love him now when no one had even loved him as a man?
The days stretched by into nothingness, with not even the changing of the seasons to mark their passage. Adam woke in the morning, scrounged in the kitchens for meals, paced his chambers and slept most of the day. He had not the heart to wake to the world in which he now found himself. He didn’t talk to the servants. He imagined that they hated him, hated him for what he had done to them, and so he hid from them. Besides, one did not use one’s servants as one’s confidantes.
It had been three months, and Adam once again found himself searching for food in the castle’s pantries. He hadn’t had a cooked meal in all that time, as the servants were still adjusting and Adam was far too humiliated to order them around as if he was still the lord of the manor. Besides, he imagined that they couldn’t eat, and he found himself surprisingly unwilling to present those needs to them when they had been robbed of that ability.
His heart fell upon entering the pantries this time. It was nearly empty—at least of those things that he could eat in this form. All manner of bread and cheese was almost gone, and the meat—had he really managed to eat all of it? He had found that he was constantly hungry in this form; it was so large, so muscular, that he had to eat perhaps four times his usual fare. He sat heavily on a stool in the kitchen to contemplate the situation. His wolfish hind legs folded awkwardly against the seat, and, with a growl of annoyance, he yanked his tail from under him. Finally, he accepted that this body was simply not made for sitting on stools and he fell heavily to the floor on his haunches, his tail curling around him. He doubted he would ever grow accustomed to controlling the new muscles the tail had bestowed upon him.
It was in this position that he was found, several minutes later, by Lumière and Mrs. Potts. Their low voices stopped when they came across Adam.
“Is everything quite alright?” Mrs. Potts’s voice issued from the porcelain kettle on the tea cart.
Adam wanted to snap that no, everything was not alright, obviously it wasn’t and would never be again, but instead he heaved a sigh and said with a twinge of embarrassment, “The food is running low.” He turned his face away from them.
There was a silence. Everyone knew that buying food from the nearest village was out of the question. Finally Lumière offered, “Perhaps you could take the musket out? There is still plenty of game in the forest, and you were always a good shot.”
Adam nodded, not bothering to point out that they were eventually going to run out of gunpowder and shot. A thought occurred to him, and he slowly said, “I—I wouldn’t know what to do with it once I caught it.”
“We’ll take care of that for you,” Mrs. Potts said softly.
Adam glanced at his former nursemaid for a moment and then looked away again. Her words and tone had caught him off guard. If he were in her position, he knew he would not be as soft.
Pulling himself awkwardly to hind legs, he nodded. Gruffly, he said, “I’ll…I’ll go do that, then.”
^ ^
An hour later saw him standing adrift in the cold and snow just outside of the forest bordering the castle grounds in nothing but a pair of breeches and a linen shirt, holding his finest musket. He had decided to forego a cloak of any sort—it would only hinder him, and, besides, he didn’t fancy the idea of wearing a fur coat over his own fur coat. The breeches and shirt had taken an embarrassingly long time to find during those first few days. All of his splendid suits and coats were now perhaps three times too small for his bulky presence. Eventually, it had occurred to Lumière that the chef’s clothes might fit him. Seeing as the chef-turned-stove had been rendered incapable of wearing anything (which, of course, nobody had mentioned outright during the conversation), the idea was as good as any. And so the commoner’s clothes had been brought up to the former prince. There had been several awkward and awful moments during which the footman, now hat stand, had measured the length from waist to tail among other things so that holes could be cut for the tail in each of the three pairs of breeches that had been found. Getting the shirts on had been difficult as well—his stubby forepaws were not made for buttoning buttons and the massive horns that weighed down his head were at just enough of an angle that it was very tedious to pull the shirt over them. But Adam refused to let that witch take this from him, at least. He would wear a shirt like a goddamn man.
As he stared out into the forest, memories of past hunts marched past his mind, taunting him. He had hunted often as a young man, of course. And grand hunts they were. Just him and his posse of noblemen, each with their attendant. He could still hear the baying of the pedigreed bloodhounds and feel the ripple of the muscles of his fine stallion beneath him. He had been quite a shot, a fact that used to impress the young ladies of Versailles to no end. Sometimes their catch had ended up on the table, but often it had not…his friend the Duke D’Harcourt had an antlered taste in home décor, and many deer and several bears had ended up with their heads on his walls or their pelts across his floors with nary a thought given to the waste that could have been put towards food. It was only now, with his belly rumbling at the thought of having to take down his own food before it could be filled, did Adam recognize how terrible that waste had been.
Thinking of this, he brought up a paw to run the length of his own horns, and he had a brief mental glimpse of his horns on some nobleman’s wall, his pelt lying across some tavern floor. He leaned against a tree and shook the disturbing image from his mind.
Heaving a sigh, he made his way into the forest.
How different this exercise was when it was a necessity instead of sport. It took an hour before Adam found anything at all, and, although he hated to admit it, he was sure it would have taken even longer had his sense of smell in this form been heightened. By the time he had managed to track down a deer he was frustrated and desperate to down the animal. Long before the deer actually entered his field of vision, he knelt down and began loading his musket as quietly as he could.
It didn’t take long for Adam to become frightfully frustrated with the process. Loading a musket was tedious enough under normal circumstances, but now, with his stubby, stiff forepaws, it was downright impossible. His fingers slipped once or twice before he could even pull back the firing striker, and gunpowder flew everywhere as Adam attempted to pour it into the small opening. Pouring the powder into the end of the musket proved equally challenging, and fitting the ball and ramrod into the musket took at least five minutes altogether. Hunger and frustration twisted Adam’s guts as he finally made his way in the direction of the scent of the deer.
When he finally came upon the golden doe, he dipped carefully to the ground, resting on his haunches and propping the musket on a fallen log. Sighting along the barrel of the musket, he carefully laid a claw against the trigger. He pulled.
His balance was all off, and the kick from the musket sent him back on legs to which he was still unaccustomed. His paw fell off of the trigger and the musket fell to the ground. By the time he managed to lift himself back onto his hind legs, the deer was long gone. Adam kicked the ground, vexed beyond belief. That would have been a perfect shot! He had lost a full doe!
After several more hours, he had seen one hare, which was frightened off by the scent of his fur. As the sun was setting, he finally decided that he was only wasting precious energy at this point. Looking up at the sky, he gave a roar of frustration, and was startled by the strength and animalism of his own voice.
His surprise lasted only a moment before he realized that he was not the only creature that had been startled. A pack of pigeons took to the air in fright, and, in desperation, Adam swung his musket over his shoulder and took aim.
Adam watched with satisfaction bordering on glee as one of the birds fell from the sky. He rushed over to where it had fallen. Picking the small catch up and throwing it in his pack, he began trotting back to the castle on all fours, his tail flicking back and forth as he went.
^ ^
Lumière and Mrs. Potts gazed up at him with veiled concern when he threw the pigeon at their feet. So relieved had Adam been to catch something that he hadn’t taken into account how meager this meal really was. A pigeon had not enough meat for a man, much less for the gluttonous creature he had become. As he looked at his servants…faces, humiliation began to take the place of his elation. Looking to the side, he grumbled, “What should I do with it?”
Mrs. Potts broke the silence. “Put it on the cart and I’ll get Cuisinier to deal with it, dearie.”
Adam flushed at the term of endearment and placed the bird on the tea cart. As soon as it had rolled out of sight, Lumière turned to him and said, gently, “Is anything amiss, Master?”
“No,” Adam snapped. “Whatever makes you think that?”
“It is just that I have seen you return from a hunting trip with much more difficult prey in a much shorter space of time, even on your own.”
Adam growled in frustration and looked away, muttering, “If you must know, it was rather difficult. It seems that these…these…” He lifted his paws to look at them in disdain and looked back at Lumière. “These were not made for holding muskets. Damn it, I don’t think this body was even meant to stand on two legs.”
The candelabra sighed. “You’re probably right about that.” Then an odd expression passed over his metallic face. “However, that does not mean that body was not made for hunting.”
Adam looked up at him abruptly. “Are you implying…have you gone mad?”
Lumière shrugged. “Something has to be done about this, Master.”
“One unlucky day on the hunt and you suggest that I…that I kill like a wild animal?”
“Master, you cannot deny—“
“NO! THERE YOU ARE WRONG! I CAN DENY THIS FOR AS LONG AS I NEED TO!”
Adam breathed harshly with the exertion of his outburst, his anger fading from him as he looked at his maître d’s morose expression. Finally, Lumière turned and made his way out of the foyer, looking back at the entrance. “We cannot break this curse without you, master. You need to take care of yourself.”
Adam pondered his maître d’s words that evening over one of the most unfulfilling meals he had ever had.
^ ^
The next few hunting trips proved just as futile, if not more so. By the end of the week, Adam was growing truly frightened. He, a former prince who had never known the meaning of hunger before, was now kept up at night by the pangs of starvation and woke every morning to the fact that his survival was now entirely dependent on his ability to bring down his own game.
The chill of the crisp winter’s day awoke Adam upon this particular morning, and, as the conditions of his and his servants’ existence came flooding back to him, he groaned and covered his broad face with a large paw. He wondered dully at what point he would finally not be surprised by waking in this body, or if that time would come at all. The shock and the depression that followed was a daily exhaustion, but becoming accustomed to it—that would be even worse. Why, it would be no better than giving up.
It struck Adam that it was rather late in the morning and yet none of the servants had accosted him in an attempt to force him to take care of the situation. Adam sighed—as if the horror of his situation was not enough, the Enchantress had seen fit to lay the fortunes of the servants at his feet and make him responsible for their return to humanity as well as his, a fact that the servants never ceased in reminding him. The nerve of Lumière after that first hunt—what, did he think he was unaware? Did he think he did not feel the sting of guilt whenever he looked at him?
Relieved as Adam was to not have his altered maître d’ hopping into his chambers in the early hours to proffer him out the door (all semblance of proper behavior towards the master of the house seemed to have disappeared with the Enchantress), he was nevertheless concerned. Why was the castle so quiet? Adam began to push himself to his feet to dress himself and go find the servants when he stopped abruptly and glanced at the enchanted mirror next to the glass vase that held the flower that was the hourglass for his redemption.
Adam shook his head. How low, to spy on one’s servants.
But he knew—he knew they had concerns, concerns deeper than the ones he had heard so far. Concerns deeper than they would ever admit to him.
Taking a deep breath, Adam grabbed the mirror off of the dais. Speaking rapidly so that he would have to gaze upon that twisted face for as short a time as possible, he said, “Show me the servants.”
Of course it didn’t show him all of the servants, but somehow the mirror seemed capable of guessing through his imprecise request to grasp who he really wanted to see. The mirror cleared to reveal an assortment of household objects gathered on the rough wooden table in the kitchens, and Adam recognized his majordomo, maître d’, Mrs. Potts and her child, and Lumière’s lover, that one maid, oh what was her name…? It became clear after listening to only a few lines of their conversation that they were indeed speaking of him.
“I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to do,” Cogsworth grumbled. “It’s obvious he can’t feed himself in this manner, not unless he takes up Lumière’s suggestion.”
Lumière shifted uncomfortably. “I understand why he’s hesitant.” He paused, looking around at his fellows. “Well, wouldn’t you be? If what that terrible book says is true, he is going to more…more like a beast as we become more and more like the objects we are. In body and soul. I would want to put that off for as long as possible, no?”
“Yes, but he’s got to understand that his well-being isn’t the only one at stake anymore! His stubbornness could cost us all our lives! I can’t imagine he could be so selfish as to not take that into account!” Cogsworth snapped in response.
“You can’t imagine?” Lumière’s woman whispered under her breath almost inaudibly. Adam’s instinctual response would have been one of offense, but his anger ebbed away as he realized she had a point.
The statement, however, prompted Mrs. Potts to join the conversation for the first time. “Oh, I think there might be a misunderstanding there.”
“Oh? And how else might we interpret his fighting us every step of the way as we attempt to keep him alive so there is at least some hope of raising the curse?”
“Madamoiselle Plumette, and how exactly would you react if you felt that burden upon yourself, as well as the responsibility for the whole situation?”
“I think you give the nobility far too much credit. You remember what his father did,” Plumette said, her voice warbling slightly on the last note. Lumière shot to her side straight away, wrapping a candle awkwardly around the feather duster in an attempt to comfort her. Adam felt bile rise in his throat—of course he had had his own dalliances with some of the household maids, but he had never, to his knowledge, taken a woman by force. He knew his father had done so—not that anyone had ever told him. It didn’t make it any easier to hear someone say it out loud. But no matter the example that had been set, the knowledge of what his mother’s reaction would have been to that practice held him back from crossing that line at least.
The tenseness of Plumette’s admission filled the room, and it was a while before anyone spoke again.
When Cogsworth did speak, it was quietly and gravely. “His mind will become more like a beast whether he likes it or not, and allowing himself to starve out of pride will not stop that. He’s got to realize he’s not a prince anymore. He will have to adjust.”
Adam slammed the mirror down on the dais and turned away, shaking with fury. How dare they! How dare they speak of him in such a manner! As if he didn’t know what he was, what he had become. Of course he knew he would not be able to continue with his previous life of luxury, the last few months had made that horrifically obvious. Couldn’t they see he was trying?
Now filled with the angry desire to prove his servants wrong, he began to clumsily dress himself. His eyes stung with anger and self-disgust as he threaded his tail through his breeches. He began to grapple with the shirt, but then changed his mind. An animal wearing clothes. This was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. They thought he needed to adapt? Fine. He tossed the shirt aside and stalked out of the room.
He passed the foursome of servants as he was making his way through the foyer and shot them a deadly glare. Of course they couldn’t know that he had witnessed their conversation, but he was satisfied to see them taken aback nevertheless. He slammed the front doors behind him, musket and pack in tow.
His breath came fast and furious, creating fogged plumes in the biting air. He would not. He would not kill like an animal. What the devil were they thinking? They couldn’t possibly expect that of him! Had they so quickly forgotten that he was really a man?
And yet they still called him Master. Adam for the life of him could not figure as to why they would do this. It was painfully obvious that all semblance of social class in the castle had fallen apart. The only reason his common servants stayed by his side was because they were forced to. The only reason they cared for his needs at all was because their survival was ultimately tied to his. And yet they called him Master. A few months ago, the former prince would have seen a servant calling him by his given name as the height of disrespect. Now he found himself wishing someone would use it. It was not as if he could call himself Master, and that left him with nothing to call himself at all—save the beast that he now was.
And it was with that thought that Adam realized how truly alone he was. He was in a house filled with servants—but they were servants. They weren’t his friends. And they most definitely weren’t people to which he could turn. They saw him as their overlord and worse—their captor. It was his fault they were here. Their lives had been tied together by circumstance, and it was circumstance that kept them at his side. It was circumstance that made them responsible for each other.
A scent caught his attention. The smell of fresh meat still encased in living flesh. Adam’s mouth watered, and he was immediately disgusted at the reaction. Growling at himself, he loaded the musket tediously and took off in pursuit of the animal.
And there she was. The golden doe, the doe from a week ago, the doe that had eluded his grasp. Adam’s heart quickened. This time, he would succeed. This time, she would be his.
He leveled the musket and placed a trembling claw on the trigger. Steady now. He lined up the barrel. He breathed in. As he breathed out, he pulled the trigger.
A crack resounded through the forest, and the caws of fleeing birds filled the air. After a pause, Adam looked up, sure he had made the shot.
The doe was fleeing. Adam gave a roar of frustration. Dropping his musket, he dropped to all fours and charged after the doe.
As his body relaxed into the frighteningly comfortable position, the conversation of the servants passed through Adam’s mind in fleeting images. They thought he was the monster that his father was? Fine. He would be a monster. He would accept it. This was what he was now, he knew that. He knew it in his bones, in his blood.
He quickly gained on the doe, all hope of stealth and surprise gone as he crashed through the forest. His claws itched with anticipation. He was almost there. Almost…
He bunched the muscles of his powerful hindquarters and leapt, bringing the golden creature to the ground.
Claws raked through flesh. His claws. His. He could feel the warmth of blood beneath him and his heart sang with delight even as his mind pulled back in horror. The beautiful creature writhed beneath him, bleating in distress and agony. Adam was out of his own mind. Oh, mon dieu, he was gone. Without thinking, Adam dipped his head and delivered the killing blow with crooked fangs that tore through flesh that felt like paper.
When the Beast finally raised his head, the stickiness of the deer smeared his face and teeth. He could still feel the blood rushing in his ears as he stared with widening horror at the scene before him. He had done this. His claws, his teeth…and it had felt right. Good God, it had felt natural. The Beast’s lip trembled as he looked at the destruction he had wrought, the glistening marks along the deer’s side, the ravaged neck…
The Beast licked his teeth slowly and felt the sticky film there. The taste made his mouth water, a reaction that caused him to curl his lip in self-disgust. The pressure built up behind his eyes, and before he knew it, the tears were falling freely. He backed away from the doe and fell to the ground, weeping.
When the tears finally subsided, the Beast raised himself slowly to his feet. He took tentative steps towards the doe and picked it up as though it weighed no more than a child. Dragging the creature behind him, he made his way back to the castle with heavy steps. He did not even glance at the discarded musket as he passed it.
Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Lumière, and Plumette were still in the foyer when the Beast returned, his kill following him. The servants seemed to have created their own little sitting room on the second floor overlooking the entrance, and, from the sound of it, were now engaged in a game of chess.
The Beast rolled his eyes and stomped into the room, trailing melting snow and blood behind him. He could feel the gazes of the servants all shift to him simultaneously, and he bristled with anger and shame. He met their stares defiantly, though. Weren’t they the ones who had encouraged him to sink this low? “Well?” he growled, and they all immediately looked away as one.
All, that was, except for Mrs. Potts. “Would you like to take that down to the kitchens? I’ll have it prepared and set out for you in a few hours.”
The Beast furrowed his brow and looked between the servants who just two hours ago had been discussing the state of his mind so callously and probably had been up until the moment he walked in. The servants whose lives had been destroyed as a side effect of a curse that had been meant primarily as a lesson to him. They were right, he realized. Eventually, he would be a Beast in both body and soul. The sooner he got used to that, the better. He shook his head. “No.”
Lumière furrowed his brass brow. “Then how do you intend—“
“I killed this, you fool! With my bare hands! With claw and fang! Do you think I’m going to come back and sit down at table as if nothing happened?” He panted angrily as he looked around at his servants. “I will be in the West Wing and I will wish to be left alone.” With that, he made his way up the stairs and past the staff, a crimson trail of blood in his wake. He could feel the stares of shock, disgust and concern trained on him as he climbed to his chambers. He tried to convince himself he didn’t care.
Slamming the door to his chambers behind him, he pawed his way towards the rose and threw the doe down at the base of the dais. “Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?” he shrieked at the rose, imagining, hoping that the Enchantress could hear him. He sank to the floor and eyed the bloody carcass in front of him. He almost willed his gorge to rise at the sight, but it didn’t. Instead, his stomach gave one of the most persistent growls it had done yet.
The Beast growled back at it. You might as well accept it sooner or later , he reprimanded himself, and took a deep breath before lowering his head to the carcass and digging his jagged teeth deep into the hide of the deer.
What the Beast expected was to gag on the foul taste of raw meat. What the Beast expected was to spit out the dripping mess onto the floor, flee the room, and beg Mrs. Potts to reinstate her earlier offer. What actually happened, though, was far more terrible than anything the Beast could have imagined.
It felt right.
The fur, the skin, the blood—it slipped down his throat without a hitch, and his hunger-panged body immediately clamored for more. The Beast quickly settled into the act, not even wincing at the sound as he tore a hock from the rest of the carcass. As he ate, he thought of the countless meals he had partaken of in the dining hall below, the five course suppers, the dainty bowls of cheeses and fruits, the fine wines, each course with a different set of cutlery. How horrified he would have been just a few months ago if he had ever known that this meal was in his future.
How horrified he was now.
Suddenly disgusted, he pushed the doe away from him. What was he thinking? Had he so quickly succumbed to the curse that he would sink to this as soon as times became somewhat trying?
As he eyed the doe, he realized that the meat would not keep forever. He did not want a scrap of this hard-won--both physically and emotionally-- game to go to waste. And he certainly did not want to go out tomorrow and go through this whole ordeal again.
Faced with this conundrum, the Beast turned distastefully to pondering what wild predators did in this situation. There was, after all, no way to keep meat in the wild. Wolves, of course, wolfed their meals down, eating enough for a week in one sitting and fasting for a time after. Could he do that? Was his body now capable of that? The Beast surmised that it must be, as everything else about his appetite had changed along with his appearance. And so he set about to what was now becoming a sordid task rather than the relief it had been initially.
After eating far more than his fill, cleaning the bones of their flesh and leaving only what he still deemed inedible even in his altered state, the Beast left his chambers in search of water. Feeling heavy and fatigued, he turned away from the remains, having not the heart to deal with them after everything that happened today. He certainly lacked the fortitude to carry the proof of his animalism back past his servants.
Even without that proof, running into them on his way to the kitchens was difficult nevertheless. His response to their concerned gazes was a roar that shook the walls. For once, the Beast was thankful for the fur that covered his face, as it hid the humiliation apparent in the furious blush of his cheeks.
Upon reaching the water basin, the Beast splashed his face with the cool liquid and watched with disgust as it turned red. He drank desperately to rid the awful taste of death in his mouth.
Looking at his twisted visage in the dark glass that the servants had used to use as a mirror, he bowed his head in silent grief at what he had become.