So, since I was completely awful about updating this past week, I had to make it up somehow. I felt really awful even though I probably shouldn't, but that just shows how much I care about my books and how you guys are enjoying them!!! So enjoy.....AN EARLY UPDATED CHAPTER!!!!! :D

Aquitaine, France, La forêt de Coeur noir et vert de la Terre: Le Château de la bête.

January 23rd, 1896

"Where are we going Belle?" Griffith asked her, slightly unnerved at running through the hallways of the castle while being dragged by a woman, at least one who was willing to touch his bare paw.

"Oh will you just be quiet for once?" Griffith raised his eyebrows at her, not knowing what to do with her new talk back attitude; he almost missed her shy timidity and her need to be proper in her actions and mannerisms at all times. The halls around them looked familiar, but Griffith hadn't been out of the west wing for so long that he no longer remembered what was down the other hallways let alone behind the doors. The confusion left him at a loss for where the female was leading him.

"I will when you tell me where we are going." He said in a sing song voice back to her, loving how she threw him a heated glare for his un-requested sass.

"Oh you be quiet!" the features of her face drew closer together in her annoyance be she couldn't help the feeling of warmth spreading all over her from the waist up and down to the tips of her hands. She suddenly became anxious at the fact that Griffith could probably feel her heat through their conjoined hands when they became ice cold. "We are almost there anyway, so be patient."

They turned one more corner and he realized they had gone the back way to the library. She had gone to the back door so as to confuse him on their location, the sneaky wench. Belle smiled and turned her back to the doors and pushed them in showing off a room bathed in sunlight by the now opened curtains. Griffith remembered the room as it once was as he stepped into it. He remembered that shortly after the curse he had rooms closed in fear of destroying everything inside when he got mad. He made the servants nail curtains to the wall and close the doors so that the light wouldn't fade or damage the items inside and since his hands were to large to handle the small keys and the doors too thick to break down, he couldn't get inside. Seeing the way the room looked now he was glad he had given it to Belle, the smile on her face was reward enough as she ran to a nearby fireplace that had a set of furniture with two over stuffed armchairs in front of it. She had managed to get a nearby window open so that the fresh winter air could fill the stuffy room. The raging fire was a comfort to him as he sat down in the chair on the left as she danced around a nearby bookcase.

"I wanted to repay you for our lovely session outside a month ago. I realized last week that I hadn't done anything to reciprocate your kind gesture and I thought with the blizzard going on that this would be a perfect way to relax. Luckily that window over looks a narrow walkway so the snow isn't getting inside!" she ran back to the chairs with a book in hand.

"What do you have there, Dear Belle?"he said as she sat down in the chair on the right, dusting off an older volume.

"A favorite of mine, to be honest, that was written just over three hundred years ago by a very talented poet and author; William Shakespeare." She clutched the book to her chest as if she wished to absorb the very words into her skin. It was a movement that he felt she had performed many times before and he viewed it as if it was a performance about life and love in one of the very best opera houses he had once visited before his transformation.

"I can see that, what pray tell is it called?"

"Romeo and Juliet, would you like to read it or just talk?" she asked, hoping he would choose the former.

"I don't think I've heard it, how about you read it." He replied only to receive the book in his lap. He looked from it to her confused at the notion. "You want me to read it?"

"Yes! I have read many a book to you during the past month and I would love to hear one of my favorites read to me for a change." Her smile was so addicting that he hadn't the heart to say no, his only wish now was that his ability to read was still there even though he hadn't in years. With the lack of signs around the palace, him not venturing far enough into the forest to find any, the library locked up and no royal papers to sign, Griffith had no need to read since the curse. Never the less he opened the old book to the opening page.

"To-woe houses, both aye-lick in dig-nay-tie, in fair Ver-on-a where we lay our skein."

"Oh Griffith!" Belle interrupted, appalled at the horrible pronunciation. "Two, alike, dignity, Verona, and scene are the proper words."

In his anger he chucked the book onto the floor at her feet, he hated having messed up and how she told him of like a mere child who wouldn't stop playing with his toys when he was told to clean up. "Then you read it, who needs to read anyhow?"

"I'm sorry, Griffith, that was of course very rude of me. My only excuse is that I was shocked that a gentleman such as you didn't know how. Please forgive me, friend." She picked the book up off the floor and went to sit next to his side on the arm rest, handing him back the book to the opening page.

"It's not like I never learned, I just forgot." She looked at him and seemed to understand.

"Then let's do this together, as a refresher course for you, I shall start and help you with any words you may not know anymore. We can alternate sentences for now and then switch to alternating between character's lines and the narration." She cleared her throat and began to read. "Two houses, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene."

He warily began the next line. "From an-shy-ant."

"Ancient."

"From ancient grudge break to new mutt-tiny."

"Mutiny, you are doing good so far!" she praised before beginning the next set, unaware to the idle stares from the upper level of the library. "Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean."

"A pair of star cross'd lovers take their life. Now that one wasn't too difficult, Belle!" he relaxed into the chair and without thought slipped his arm behind her form as she leaned closer to his shoulder so as to take the pressure off of her wrists.

"See I knew this would be easy once you started to get the hang of it. Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows."

"Now that's a lovely sight, wouldn't you say Lumiere?" Mrs. Potts said from the overhang as they looked down on the pair, still reading aloud.

"I dare say we shall be human again in no time!" he laughed, almost to loudly for the other participants liking.

"Be quiet Lumeire, we do not need the courting to be delayed any longer then it has been, or are you forgetting that we are on borrowed time?" Cogsworth said, starting the weight inside his chest so that his clock worked again and then fixed the hands on his face to now display the proper time. There was, after all, nothing more important then being on time to everything.

"How can I when we've got you for the alarm clock that won't shut up." The two men glared at each other for a moment before Mrs. Potts hopped between the two of them.

"Alright, that's enough, we don't need the negativity from either of you. Now knock it off or its back to the shelf for you." And with a harrumph from each, it was done.

"The which, if you with patient ears attend." Belle continued, the both of them now sitting on the rug and leaning against the chair the beast had occupied so as to make it easier for both.

"What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend." Griffith finished the opening with glee in his voice. Belle couldn't be any prouder. It would take them a while to finish the book, but it would be fun none the less.

"Isn't it easier once you get started? I'm so glad we decided to do this!" she cheerily flipped to the next page and began reading animatedly. Griffith never heard what she said next as he was to enthralled in watching her, but knew it was his time to read once she stopped and he was forced to look away again.

"No, for then we should be coal-ears." He thought he sounded it out well, but he was wrong again, he was never more happy to be corrected.

"Colliers. I mean, an we be in choler we'll draw." They continued to recite the word's back and forth to each other under the watchful eye of the audience upstairs.

"Oh are they not a beautiful couple! We should have a painting made for zem!" Lumiere's on again, off again, girlfriend said in her very thick accent; she was a maid turned feather duster who went by the name Babbette even though most assumed it wasn't her real name.

"Ah, my darling, don't you look magnifique!" Lumiere started to say, sidling up to her in an attempt to lay a kiss on her cheek.

"Don't you come any closer! Don't tink I don't know about you and Giselle in de coat room yesterday evening!" she cried. "I tink we should break up. I am done with your idiotic idea of courtship."

"Ah, but mademoiselle! How can there ever be any, but you! And weren't you carrying on with George the day before?"

"Only because you had carried on with Fifi the week before."

"Fifi! She came on to me, I will have you know."

"Oh she did!" the feather duster had a sudden change in mood and not a moment to soon. If their fight had gotten any louder they would have interrupted Romeo and Juliette's first meeting! Lord knows that none of them wished to be discovered sitting there watching the pair. "Oh how rude of her, I am sorry my pet can you ever forgive me?"

"If only you forgive me first."

"No, forgive me." The two had gone back to their flirting ways and it seemed all was right with the world once more. No sooner had they made up then did they leave in a mock game of chase to the nearest closet they could find to kiss each other senseless.

"I thought those two would never leave." Mrs. Potts said in a huff.

"Well they were right on schedule for their 423rd break up of the year."

"That many already? What was the record so far?"

"Thirty six in one afternoon! Those two will never stop, I daresay I would not like to see the havoc they'd wreck upon this castle if they ever get married." Cogsworth said, now polishing the little pocket watch he always kept inside his clock chamber.

"I do say though, there were many more before the young miss came, now with her around we have more to do and therefore less time on our hands. Maybe the girl coming around will be good for them, they won't have those pitiful squabbles for the fun of it anymore." She chided, looking once more upon the pair who still sat reading, the girls head now resting upon the Master's shoulder as she had started to become drowsy.

"That is true, Madam, that is true." Cogsworth also looked on, hoping that soon they would have a lot more to do, and hopefully in the distant future he would once again have a child to sit upon his knee and mention his portly belly before chasing them back to their parents; the Masters.

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took." Belle spoke between a yawn the lines that belonged to Juliet.

"Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd! Give me my sin again." Griffith turned the page and waited a moment longer then he probably should have for the next line. He knew he should let her sleep, but he wanted to drink in her words and more of the story before he did. He promised that at the end of the next scene he would carry her upstairs himself.

"You kiss by the book."

"Madam, your mother craves a word with you." Beast said, now reading the part of the nurse.

"What is her mother?" Belle responded, now reading for Romeo.

"Marry, bachelor, her mother is the lady of this house. And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous: I nurs'd her daughter that you talk'd withal; I tell you, he that can lay hold of her shall have the chinks." He tried reading in a womanly tone to get a laugh out of her and got a small, sleepy, humph in return.

"Is she a Capulet? O dear account! My life is my foe's debt." She slurred her words in a sleepy manner before she was out like a light, fast asleep against his shoulder. He gently placed a ribbon into the page and left it on the chair behind him before lifting her from the floor and carrying her to her room. Before he left the library however he turned to the balcony audience and nodded for them to leave with a chuckle. He loved being able to frighten his servants at his knowledge; it also didn't hurt that as a beast his senses were always on overload so he could tell when somebody watched him or when they tried to keep their voices down over twenty feet away from him. Lumiere and Babbette were most definitely entertaining to listening to today, although, not nearly as much as reading with Belle had been; and he couldn't wait to do it again, so he could be able to finish the story, soon.