Twisted Fairy Tales - Beauty and the Beast

Chapter 2: The Master's New Prisoner

Belle woke up early the next morning after a restless night of sleep only to hear Felipe, their family horse, galloping in the fields at the back of the house. She had another nightmare about Gaston, the village's local hero and resident sexist, dimwit. The dream wasn't anything of fantasy or goodwill, but of what had occurred the previous day without her father's knowledge. Gaston had been trying for months to court Belle, but she knew it was only because of his own vanity that he wanted her. Belle wanted a man to love her, not just want her as a prize and unfortunately for her the only man who wanted her was Gaston for everyone else just thought of her as the crackpot's daughter and feared what would happen if they married her. As for Gaston, he just wanted someone to be his maid by day and trophy by night while he sat in the bar and boasted over how many sons he would surely have one day.

Gaston had come up to her yesterday, dressed in his finest. He had pulled her along saying he just wanted to talk to her, but soon enough they arrived at the village Church and all of the villagers were there, ready to witness the marriage of their hero and local heartthrob. She cleverly side stepped Gaston when he tried to trap her small waist in his arms and he fell in the mud left over from the rain the night before. She ran away from there as swift as she was able and back out into the yard in time for her father to have finished his invention, choosing to not tell him of what had just transpired. When he failed she made sure that she supported him as nobody else would and get the invention working again before helping him get off and onto the road to the science fair a couple towns away. He had put his machine into a cart and attached the cart to their family's trusted horse, Felipe, and left on a three day journey. So when Belle woke up and heard the commotion she knew she had to run as fast as she could to Felipe to try and calm him down.

She brought him over to a nearby tree and detached her father's now battered invention from behind him and gave him an apple from the rucksack of supplies her father had left in the cart. She tied him to one of the sturdier branches so he wouldn't run about scared again before running back inside the house for her winter cloak along with a basket of apples, bread and cheese for however long she would be gone, her father's ruck sack having only been filled with snacks as he was supposed to make it to the town shortly after nightfall and would get food at the local inn or tavern instead. She also grabbed her favorite book, the one she had received from the book keeper the previous morning, to read along the way while Felipe did all of the navigating to her Father. She locked up the house and slipped the simple key into her pocket, knowing her father had the only other copy she felt safer leaving the house behind. She jumped on Felipe's back and coaxed him into showing her where her father went by cooing sweet nothings into his ear and petting his soft mane.

They traveled through the forest slowly as Felipe remembered his earlier path. When they were about to enter a thicker part of the forest Belle fed him an apple as encouragement for whatever lay ahead. They pushed through the brambles and came to a small ledge. Belle had Felipe stop for a moment as out in the distance on this very clear day she could see some sort of structure in the distance probably about a mile from their location. In the dark you wouldn't be able to see it from here. But Belle was betting that she would find her father all nice and cozy inside the place that lay just beyond the dense stretch of trees.

She had Felipe turn around to the edge of the small clearing and run toward the edge of the cliff and jump off to reach the bottom quickly. Felipe whinnied in excitement as he always loved to jump off of things and he knew Belle felt the same way as the wind slapped her face giving her a taste of freedom. He would follow her around while she sang to herself about wanting to be free like a bird. The wind always excited them both. Felipe ran for her as she giggled away on his back. She took her hands off his reigns and extended them to the heavens as she tried to catch the wind brushing past her fingers. She grabbed the reigns again shortly as she knew she needed to focus on finding her father more.