High Pedestals

Growing Twisted

It was when I was a boy, around 13. The war was imminent at that point, soldiers had been training and preparing daily. My father was in charge, ready to send these men out any day. Because he was the king, he didn't plan on fighting in the war himself, that's when he elected a captain. Strong, brave, a leader like no other. His name was Gaston. He was 17, young for a captain, but he had the mind for it. It wasn't a surprise to anyone that father gave him the role, everyone knew Gaston was father's favorite.

Gaston was the son of a farmer. His parents weren't together long, as his father was a drunk. Apparently he didn't do anything but drink- or so his mother told us when we wondered where his father was. "Out in some field drinking, I'm sure," she'd say. "Now run along." Gaston's mother took him from the farm, she found work here in the castle as a maid. I was only a year old when they arrived, so they've always been in my memory. There weren't too many children in the castle when I was growing up. Lumiére was here, only a few years older than me but was already working as a serving boy by the age of 10. Gaston and I, even though he, too, was a few years older than me, became friends. My father took Gaston under his wing, made him his own practically. Once my mother died I... leaned on Gaston more than ever. We'd become inseparable for those years of adolescence. All the while my father teachings us how to grow arrogant, self-absorbed, and... without a care for anyone but ourselves. We became... horrible people. I look at myself with this curse on me, I understand now. Vanity was all that ever mattered. Who'd need anything more than countless servants able to give you what you wanted at a moment's request? Anything to make us look better.

When Gaston left for the war I grew in my aloneness, growing in my father's twisted virtues. I became more powerful as the years went on, my father died and I achieved all the wealth I could've dreamed of. Still a prince though, because I wasn't married. I began my search for a queen, someone to... have on my arm, and raise my children... I don't think these things anymore, you must know that, Belle. I've changed, I've learned my ways were wrong. I am still... learning these things. Gaston, apparently, is still stuck in his ways.

At the war's end, Gaston returned to the castle in triumph. He soon realized there weren't enough people to congratulate him, and he went to his hometown of Villeneuve to parade the streets and show off his valiant bravery. He never came back to the castle. I didn't ever learn why, but I assumed he enjoyed the attention of the people who were smaller in his eyes. Life went on, we grew apart, still trapped on our high pedestals.