Beauty and the Beast

Tending to Wounds

The castle's main hall had never seen quite this particular scene: Belle seated across from the Beast at a small table near the fire, a bowl of warm water between them, a cloth in her hand, and the Beast trying very hard not to growl every time she touched his wounds.

"Hold still," Belle said for the third time.

"It stings," the Beast muttered, pulling back.

"Of course it stings. You were bitten by wolves. Now hold. Still."

There was a long pause. The fire crackled. The Beast held still, and Belle cleaned the deep scratches on his arms with careful, steady hands. She had done this before — treated her father's workshop injuries, the cuts and burns of a man who worked with his hands. She had learned to be thorough and unafraid. The Beast was large, and his wounds were worse than her father's had ever been, but the method was the same: clean, cover, patience.

What surprised her was the conversation that grew out of it. It started as complaints — his about the pain, hers about his stubbornness — and then somehow became something else. He asked, quite suddenly, why she had come back into the forest instead of returning to the village.

"My father is not well enough to survive a dungeon," she said simply.

"I would not have harmed him."

"You terrified him."

"I—" He stopped. "Yes. I did." He looked at his bandaged hand. "I am sorry."

Belle paused in her work and looked at him. Not at the tusks or the claws or the shaggy mane — at his eyes. She had not looked at his eyes before. They were golden and sad and very, very old with pain.

"Thank you," she said. "For coming after me tonight."

He said nothing. But something in his posture softened, like a fist slowly unclenching. And Belle, for the first time since arriving at the castle, did not feel like a prisoner.