Unconditional
Fandom: Disney's Beauty and the Beast
Pairing: Belle/Beast
Rating: PG
Length: ~1900 words
Warnings: Lesbians, cross-dressing, non-canon Disney interpretation. If any of these offend, please click the blue arrow.
Summary: The person that was cursed to become a beast was no prince at all.
"I love you." She'd said it because she meant it. There were no bells and whistles, no blinding epiphany; it was just there. It was there coupled with the horrible knowledge that not all fairy tales got to try at the happily ever after.
The effervescent sheen of light settled around Beast, enveloped him, and drew him up. Belle watched, aching with grief, fear, and hope. She watched as that great, hairy gruff exterior of Beast—the beast—slipped away, as clawed paws became delicate, graceful feet and slender-fingered hands, as the mane of dark fur shimmered into golden silk. But she could not see the face.
The figure lay on his side with slender back to Belle, and she felt a fresh wave of fear that the wound had not been closed. Oh, and then the body moved, shifted up to a recline, moved into a graceful, feline stand. But as the figure straightened, Belle knew that something was wrong. The figure itself had an odd silhouette, cast alien by Belle's inability to cope with it.
The figure turned suddenly, hands held up for inspection. "Belle!" it gasped. The voice was of a soft, light timbre. The smile on that alien face fell away and was replaced by a shift of discomfit, then grief.
Belle turned her eyes to the figure's own. She placed her fingertips against the high cheekbone, brushed back silken golden hair, and studied those striking blue eyes. It was her Beast.
"It is you," she murmured, and Beast turned away, face cast in guilt, expecting rebuff.
Belle paused and stepped back. Only a few times when Beast was a malicious captor in her mind had she considered what he might look like as a human. She thought ugly, short, stout all for her own satisfaction. However, as she began to know and even love him, his physical self was of no matter. She simply loved him. Only the memory of that mutilated portrait had sparked her interest, but she had never gotten enough of a look to form an idea of a face. This change was so unexpected she could hardly make sense of it.
Belle stepped back and just looked, trying to bring the entire human body into a focus that made sense. The feet were lovely, elegant, with long slender toes and a thin ankle. The calves were well defined, the thighs lovely and long. The hips were sloped—not so wide as Belle's, certainly—and the waist trim. The breasts—yes, they were breasts—not as large as Belle's but noticeably there. They were now not so alien given Belle was expecting them. Beast's shoulders were broader than her own, her hands larger with longer fingers, though as elegant as the toes. Beast's neck was beautifully muscled, and that face was lovely, androgynous even, yet combined with the body, feminine.
"Oh, my god," Belle whispered.
Beast flinched away. Her shoulders rounded down with her bowed head as she turned away from Belle. It was such a familiar posture that it dumbfounded Belle.
"You...may leave whenever you please," Beast murmured. The notes were soft compared to the deep rumbles of her early tones. "I... I am sorry, Belle." She turned and disappeared into the darkness of the West Wing.
"I don't understand." Belle turned to Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, and Cogsworth, too shocked by her first realization to take note that they were now human as well. "You all called Beast 'Master' and 'he'."
Mrs. Potts took her arm gently. She, like Beast, had a striking familiar countenance. "Why don't we sit and talk dearie? Please at least stay the night."
They walked in silence down to Belle's room—where there was a very human handmaid laying out bedclothes from a strangely inanimate armoire.
"Oh, dear!" The woman caught her and kissed her cheeks. "Thank you, thank you."
"Off with you," Mrs. Potts snapped rather unduly, and the once-upon-a-time armoire fled a hasty retreat, sensing the dark mood of within the room. Belle settled on her bed and stared at the wooden armoire. "I don't understand. Why has everyone thanked me?"
"You broke the curse on this castle," Mrs. Potts said gently. "You fell in love with the mast—mistress."
"I..." Belle turned to Mrs. Potts blindly. "Why would someone do that to Beast?"
"Well, the mistress will liable never turn away another traveler," Mrs. Potts mused. "He—that is, she has never spoken in detail about the event."
"Turning away a traveler? That's why someone put a curse on her?"
The other woman let out a sigh. "I've hardly thought of the reason, so caught up in fixing the problem. But I suppose there was a moral, and by a beautiful sorceress. I think there's precious little difference between a sorceress and a witch, aside from the looks."
A pressing concern made itself known to Belle. She stared at Mrs. Potts and asked tremulously, "What is Beast's name?"
"I think, dearie, you should ask her that yourself."
"Can I see her?"
There was only a smile on that seamed face. Mrs. Potts got to her feet, grunting as her joints popped, and held out a hand to Belle. "Come."
"Leave me."
Belle took a half-step into the darkened room in the West Wing and declared, "It's me."
Beast lurched to her feet and took a step back. Belle realized that Beast was only half a head taller than she and was overwhelmed by these physical differences she catalogued now, along with the so familiar gestures and expressions she read in the new body. Beast's jaw worked, and she sputtered out, "Why are you still here!"
"I have no reason to leave."
Beast whirled; the flash of a frustrated anger in her eyes was familiar, as was the shoulder down-turned as if to ward off a strike. "You have no reason to stay!"
"I think I do."
Beast paced, brooding, and did not offer a retort. Belle approached cautiously, coming to stand by the four-poster bed in the center of the room. As Beast paced by once more, Belle placed a firm hand on her forearm, which tensed under her touch. Beast stopped moving her feet and stood as if bidden motionless. The skin under Belle's hand was surprisingly warm and soft, the flesh strong and firm—though it felt delicate compared to the mass of muscle and bone that had been there. Belle was surprised to at the familiar feel of freshly healed scars under her fingertips. "What is your name?"
Beast looked up and met her eyes, startled. There was a strange moment of connection. "Simone."
"Simone," Belle repeated. She was rewarded not with a smile but a thick swallow and the sheen of tears in Beast's eyes. "Am I welcome here?" Belle asked softly.
A muscle twitched in Beast's—Simone's jaw. Her expression shifted to pleading adamancy. "Yes. Always. Anything you want is yours."
"Then tell me how this curse came to be."
Simone's nostrils flared, and she jerked away to pace into the corner of the curtained room. "Anything but that," she said roughly.
"Are you backing from your word?"
An unhappy curve marked Simone's shoulders, and she sank to an animal crouch against her draperies. She was silent for a long time. Finally she began to speak, her voice soft. "My mother died at my birth. My father knew no other way to raise me than how he had been raised. I learned to hunt and ride and manage the estate. When he passed, I assumed the position of Lord of this castle and the lands surrounding it. I did men's duties, had a man's responsibility."
Belle approached and settled next to Simone, pressing a hand to those bowed shoulders. Simone snorted and jerked her head away, still so bestial.
"Then one night, an old woman knocked at our doors. She asked to be given shelter. It was clear to me that she had some form of skin plague. I would not endanger my estate by allowing her in. I promised to provide clothing, food, water, and a stable at the edge of the property for shelter. She continued demanding a place on our hearth, for the price of a rose. As if I cared about the price." She snorted again.
"When I'd convinced her I wouldn't change my mind, the woman turned into an enchantress, young and beautiful. She told me." Simone paused. "She told me that I was unnatural, and that my sins and my selfishness would damn me forever. Because I lived as a man, dressed as a man, she would give me a form no man would ever love. The only way to break the curse was to find someone to love me. And for me to…" She put her hand over her face and her voice was thick with tears. "For me to love that person back. On the eve of my twenty-first birthday, if the enchantment was not broken, I would remain a beast for the rest of my life. I am twenty-one years today."
Simone loved her. Loved her back as much as Belle loved Simone. Lightness settled in her, and Belle knew exactly what she would do. First of which was to respond to this terrible story.
Simone continued quietly. "I was very angry for a long time. I knew I would never find anyone to love me. In my…selfish fits, I demanded all servants refer to me as a man. After all, who could tell the difference?"
"That woman, that witch, damned you to this because you wore trousers?" Belle asked incredulously. Perhaps it was not the right tone to take towards this sad, unjust tale, but Simone let out a bark of laughter. "Well put, Belle." She turned her head and looked at Belle. "Yet that is how I am, and after this, I doubt I shall change. As you asked, you are welcome, but I am a woman. Remember that, and remember I am the same hard-headed, hot-tempered person as I was as a beast."
"It is what makes you you. And you aren't the only one among us who has a hot-temper." Belle slid a hand over her shoulder, pleased by the comparative smallness of Simone's body. "My feelings have not changed. I do love you. And if your countenance before made no difference in that sentiment, I doubt your gender now will."
Simone gave a bitter laugh. "That cannot be true. How could my luck change so dramatically that I manage to find the one woman on this entire continent who would continue to love me after learning that I am a woman?"
Belle smirked softly. "I think your luck was greater to find me in the first place." She eased closer and thought of her dreams of kisses and romance. A woman had lips as well as a man. She tilted her head and laid her lips gently on Simone's. Simone gasped, twisted, and caught her around the waist passionately, deepening the kiss to something more, something she had always dreamed of.
"Surely you can't be thinking to stay with me!" Simone gasped as they parted.
Belle felt heavy-limbed and feverish. "Kiss me again and I shall never think again."
Simone's lips turned into a soft, true smile. "Somehow I doubt that."
"But not me?"
"I would never doubt you."
-end-