La Bella y la Bestia

The Attack

"Now if you look at the artwork along the palace's walls, they were created in the early Renaissance and Baroque period, along with influences from the Roman Empire in the style of the columns and linings," Arthur commented as they walked down a luxurious hallway with ruby rug under their feet and white and green wallpaper with carnation and daisy decorations in the wallpapers.

"Wow, Arthur! This castle is truly amazing!" Isabella cried, as he started talking about saving the castle from disaster. Isabella quietly listened until they came across a foreboding staircase that was guarded by stone gargoyles on the railing. "Arthur?" Isabella asked, her curiosity peaked. "What's up there?" she said pointing towards the stairs.

"The South Wing?" Arthur fearfully asked. "Nothing! Absolutely nothing at all," Arthur quickly said.

"Storage space!" Francis added.

"So that's the mysterious, forbidden South Wing," Isabella said, determined to see what made it so forbidden.

She started to walk towards the wing when an invisible hand clasped around her tanned wrist. "There is nothing up there," Francis insisted.

"Then it wouldn't be forbidden if there was nothing up there," Isabella said back, as she took her hand out of the French spirit's hold.

"The library!" Arthur quickly said to take Isabella's curiosity off the South Wing, and for a moment it worked.

Isabella turned to where she thought Arthur was standing. "You have a library?" She sort of had assumed they had a library. Castles usually had libraries, right?

"Oui! A library filled with books," Francis agreed.

"Mountains of books!" Arthur continued. "So please follow us to the library." With that they started heading down the hallway crying out about how many books were in the castle's library, but Isabella didn't follow. Her interest in the South Wing was too great, that even the thought of an actual library didn't deter her from finding out about the mysterious wing. She would just take a quick peek and leave; no one would've ever have known she was there in the first place. With this thought, she darted up the steps. 

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The South Wing was broken and falling apart( even more than the rest of the castle), the stone statues were broken or thrown, and the darkness and chill that surrounded the area shivered Isabella to the bone but her curiosity was too strong and she continued to a beautiful decorated wooden door and carefully opened it to reveal a ruined but huge bedroom.

Quietly taking a couple of steps inside, Isabella looked around to see the room had destroyed mirrors, a ruby and white canopy bed against a wall, many furniture strewn around it what appeared to have been angered fit, and ironically very cared for books and a telescope that were neatly placed in a small study area. She took another step inside, careful to keep her footsteps as quiet as she could, and looked up to see a painting with many scratches and slashes in its paper but she could still make out the people in the picture. The oldest man had curly hair with a light stubbly with medals decorating gold and red army uniform, next was a young man with auburn hair and amber eyes wearing a red and green vest with a black coat and shoes, on his right was a beautiful young woman with deep brown curls that were tied back with a red ribbon and had eyes the color of chocolate and on her body she wore a beautiful white and emerald off-the-shoulder gown that reached the floor, in the woman's arms was little baby in a blue an white gown and bonnet who had inherited his father's auburn hair but had green eyes. In between the two were three children, the eldest was a sleepy and bored looking girl with dark brown hair that was tied in a blue ribbon and emerald eyes and wore a long, light blue gown with a dark blue jacket that came down to her knees, the youngest looking boy next to her wore a huge smile with auburn hair and curl near his shoulder  and wore a green dress and handkerchief on his head, and finally the boy in the middle was a little boy with a small smile on his face with a slight blush on his cheeks who had dark brown hair and a curl opposite to the green-dressed boy and wore a  little black suit with a red vest. Stranger enough, the two men and the boy in red all had deep slashes and claw marks on their faces with the boy having the most out of all of them.