𝐂𝐎𝐆𝐒𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐊𝐄𝐃 and talked and talked and talked and talked. Celine was starting to regret asking for the tour since they had practically stopped and analyzed every grain in the floor. Don't misunderstand, she loved the artistic side of architecture. However, the secret of the West Wing was eating her alive. She'd hoped that she would've been introduced to the forbidden wing at this point, but instead they had turned down another endless hallway.

"As you can see, the pseudo facade was stripped away to reveal a minimalist rococo design. Note the unusual inverted vaulted ceilings. This is yet another example of the neo-classic baroque period, and as I always say, if it's not baroque, don't fix it!" Cogsworth wiped a tear from his eye as he laughed at his own joke.

Celine pursed her lips in thought. The helmets of the suits of armor lined up against the wall followed her as she was led forward.

"So, how long has the castle been enchanted?" she asked.

Cogsworth stopped with a worried expression on his face and Lumiere ran into him just as startled. Cogsworth stuttered and stumbled over his words.

"Enchanted? Who said anything about the castle being enchanted?" Celine raised an eyebrow as she glanced over at the suits of armor; however, Cogsworth had gone on to accuse Lumiere, "It was you, wasn't it!"

"I figured it out myself," Celine corrected him. The two immediately stopped fighting as Celine added,"It's the only reasonable explanation anyway."

"Reasonable?" Cogsworth released a nervous laugh as he stepped away from Lumiere, dusting himself off. "I don't see much reason in a magical explanation."

Celine scoffed. "You're a talking clock, how could it not be magical?"

Cogsworth frowned at the reminder but cleared his throat and tried to return to the tour. "Yes, well... where was I?"

"Baroque?" Lumiere reminded him.

"Ah yes," Cogsworth opened his mouth to continue, but noticed the helmets of armor following Celine as she continued down the hall. "As you were!"

Their heads snapped forward to attention. Satisfied with his work, Cogsworth dusted off his hands and continued his lecture. It took him a moment to realize that the others had continued on without him. "Now, if I may draw your attention to the flying buttresses above the—uh, mademoiselle?"

Noticing the grand staircase at the end of the hall, Celine had gone on ahead. She'd started to ascend the stairs when Lumiere and Cogsworth tried to block her path.

"What's up there?" she asked curiously.

"Where? There? Oh, nothing. Absolutely nothing of interest at all in the West Wing," Cogsworth answered, "Dusty, dull, very boring."

Lumiere shook his head, disagreeing, but quickly changed his mind as Cogsworth nudged him. However, they failed to still her curiosity.

"Ah, so that's the West Wing."

Lumiere knocked Cogsworth on the shoulder and chastised him. "Nice going!"

"I wonder what he's hiding up there," Celine muttered under her breath.

"Hiding?" Lumiere nervously asked but quickly added, "The master is hiding nothing!"

Celine stepped over the two and continued up the stairs. "If that were true, then it wouldn't be forbidden."

Cogsworth and Lumiere rushed ahead of her once more. The clock quickly offered other suggestions, "Perhaps mademoiselle would like to see something else. We have exquisite tapestries dating all the way back to—"

Celine paused briefly before shaking her head and stepping over them again. "Maybe later."

Lumiere jumped in with his own suggestions. "Uh, the—the gardens or—or the—the atelier, perhaps?"

Celine froze and eagerly turned to face them. "You have an atelier?"

Cogsworth sighed with relief that they'd found something that piqued her interest and quickly nodded his head. "Oh yes! Indeed!"

"With paints!" Lumiere jumped in.

"Scads of paint!" Cogsworth exaggerated. However it almost became a competition between the two as they eagerly moved away from the staircase.

"Oceans of paint!"

"Forests of brushes!"

"Cascades!"

"Cloudbursts!"

"Swamps of supplies!"

"More paints than you'll ever be able to use in a lifetime!" Cogsworth exclaimed. "Paints of every hue ever seen, and the kinds used by every artist who ever set a brush to canvas!"

The clock and the candelabra linked arms and practically skipped down the hall. Celine took a step to follow them, but something called her away. She couldn't explain it, but she was drawn to whatever was hidden at the end of the staircase.

She checked her shoulder. Seeing that the coast was clear, she slowly ascended the stairwell and made her way into the room at the end of the hall.

Within two seconds of stepping foot in the dark room, she tripped over a broken chair and fell to the ground. She winced both in pain but also the loud sound that ricocheted around the room.

She rose to her feet and dusted herself off while her eyes adjusted. Once she could see, she looked around the decrepit room filled with broken furniture and tattered rags.

She felt her heart clench at the sight of the torn painting hung on the wall. She understood the pain of having her own work destroyed enough to know that if the original artist of the painting ever saw their work, they might actually have a heart attack.

Now curious by the artwork, she lifted one of the tattered edges to make the paintings whole. She swore she recognized the attractive features of the man that now stared back at her, but maybe it was just her eyes playing tricks on her. It was the sapphire eyes that seemed to follow her everywhere that she found the most alarming.

She took a step back and almost tripped over the same piece of broken furniture. She regained her footing and caught her breath before the alluring call returned. She slowly turned her head and now faced the soft pink, glowing rose protected by a glass encasement on a table in the center of the room.

It was like she was caught in a trance as she moved closer and set aside the glass case that prevented her from reaching out to touch the rose. The closer she got to the flower, the closer she got to answers of questions she didn't even realize she had.

She reached her small, delicate hand closer, desiring to touch just a single petal. She could feel a memory that had been locked away out of her reach surfacing from the back of her mind. However, before she could lay a single finger on the flower, a large shadow fell over her.

The beast who had been looking out from his balcony the entire time finally noticed her and lunged to protect the only thing that could undo his curse. He protectively slammed the glass cover back over the rose and clutched it to his chest as if it were his most prized possession.

Celine snapped out of her trance and shook her head. The sudden motion startled her and she took a step back to clear her head. The beast didn't allow her any time to process the consequence of what could have happened.

He snarled and growled. "Why did you come here?"

"I'm—I'm sorry," Celine apologized and stumbled as she took a step backward.

"I warned you never to come here!" the beast snapped.

"I didn't mean any harm," Celine tried to explain, "I was drawn here—"

Her explanation only made the beast angrier. He fully embraced his animalistic traits as he thrashed and tossed the already broken furniture around the room. "Do you realize what you could have done?"

Celine took another step back, fear beginning to show. "Please... stop."

The beast turned and snapped, "Get out."

"Let me explain—"

The beast roared and threw a piece of furniture against the wall beside her. "Get out!"

Celine fled. She'd forgotten that the beast was indeed an animal and had the same capacity to harm her as another other wild creature. Her feet carried her toward the stairs quicker than her mind could process. She mistepped and consequently fell down the flight of stairs.

Although bruised and battered, she ignored the pain and grabbed her cloak. She quickly wrapped it around herself then sprinted past an extremely confused Cogsworth and Lumiere.

"Wh-where are you going?" Lumiere asked, panicked.

"Storm or no storm, I can't stay here another minute!" Celine exclaimed and pulled on the handle of the front door.

"Oh no, wait, please! Please wait!" Cogsworth called after her but the door was slammed in his face.

Celine pushed forward through the snow and wind that whipped her cloak and hair around in a frenzy. It was practically impossible to move forward. She'd almost given up when she heard a whiny to her left.

Relief flooded her face at the sight of Phillipe. It seemed that in the beast's haste to send Belle back to the village, he'd forgotten about her horse. Celine rushed to the horse's side and gently grabbed his muzzle to calm him.

"Easy, Phillipe," Celine shouted to be heard over the storm. "Easy."

Phillipe whinnied and fought Celine for a moment before calming down long enough for her to mount. She stroked her hand along his neck.

"Let's get you home to Belle," Celine instructed as she directed the horse using his reins. She then whispered, "I'm coming, Maman."

She began riding through the forest, but Phillipe halted within a small clearing. Celine looked around in confusion, but she understood the second that the blood in her veins turned to ice. Howling could be heard around them. Even though she couldn't see through the storm, Celine knew they were surrounded by the pack of wolves.

Celine gave a short quick tug on the reins and Phillipe was off again. The escape was short lived as the storm cleared just long enough for Phillipe to be spooked. He stopped in his tracks and Celine was flung from his back. Although the horse remained on solid ground, Celine was thrown out onto the frozen lake.

She slid across the slick surface before stopping in the center of the lake. The eye of the storm passed and she was devoured by the flurry once more. She could hear the low growls from the pack as they surrounded her, but none of her other senses were strong enough to do anything about it.

She could've tried to run, but her mind had already accepted her fate. As if to make matters worse, the ice beneath her feet had begun to crack.

The first wolf jumped at her. She was a bit late when ducking so the creature caught hold of her cloak and tried to wrestle it from her body. A second pounced and she was knocked to the ground. It snarled in her face, but she fell through the ice before the wolf could tear out her throat.

The first wolf had remained attached to her cloak, tangling itself in the folds of fabric in a way that was impossible to escape. As she tried to swim toward the surface, the weight of the wolf trapped in her cloak weighed her down and she began to drown.

Her chest began to burn and she found it hard to keep her eyes open. She desperately desired to succumb to the cold even though every rational thought in her head told her to fight.

Panic overwhelmed her need for survival. Just as she was about to black out, a large hand reached out to her. Its claws dug into the fabric of her dress and dragged her out of the water. She coughed and sputtered as the cold air filled her lungs and tried to suffocate her on dry land.

Her savior bounded across the slick surface of the lake with her in his arms. He set her down in the snow then turned to face the wolves that had followed. Celine shivered as she started to lose feeling in her fingers and toes, but was cognizant enough to realize that it had been the beast who saved her life. He must have followed her when he realized that she'd run out into the storm.

One of the wolves lunged, but was caught in mid-air and tossed aside. The others learned from the first's mistake and attacked in a group. She struggled to keep track of which side was winning as the cold begged her to just close her eyes and sleep.

The wolves tore at the beast, cutting his flesh with their claws and fangs; however, the beast held his ground. The fight only stopped once one of the wolves was tossed up against a tree with such force that it was instantly killed. Realizing that they were slowly losing numbers, the wolves retreated back into the forest.

It was difficult, but Celine finally managed to pull herself up to her feet. She clutched whatever remained of her soaked, tattered cloak and pulled it tighter around herself even though it was ineffective.

The beast slowly turned to look at her, his hot breath forming a cloud of mist in the air. She took a step closer, but stopped as she met his sapphire eyes. She was immediately torn away from reality to the memory of the eyes from her dream. It was unmistakable that they were one and the same. The eyes of her savior—the eyes that her mother had always said belonged to her Prince Charmant—were the same sapphire eyes belonging to the beast.

The beast looked at her despairingly as if struck by a revelation of his own before his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed.

Phillipe whinnied as he joined her in the clearing. Celine sighed with relief that the horse was alright. Her quivering hands reached out to take the reins, but she hesitated and cast a glance over her shoulder at the beast lying unconscious in the snow.

She sighed realizing that she couldn't just leave him there to die after he'd nearly sacrificed himself to save her life. It was difficult, but she mustered up enough strength to pull the beast onto the back of Phillipe then guided the horse back toward the castle. It looked as if she might be extending her stay after all.