Beauty and the Beast vignette · 6:40am Jan 3rd, 2023
The dining room was eerily quiet. Belle had never seen it so lifeless. She stopped at the door, feeling as if she had trespassed on some sanctity that the castle had still kept hidden from her. She had thought she had come to know it so well, and yet...
But the candles were all lit, and at least an hour's worth of wax had dribbled to the stubs. That was part of what made it feel so sanctified, she thought. There was a solemnity, almost a cathedral quality to it.
"Please, sit."
Belle jumped. How the Beast could be so huge, oafish and clumsy one minute, and a perfect silent predator the next - She rounded on him, but before she could get the first word out, she cupped her hands to her mouth and tried to muffle her giggle. The Beast mistook it as covering a scream.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you." But how could he, in his too-tight red vest, and his little pill-box hat. The castle servants had given up on finding pants that fit him, and clearly should have given up sooner on the rest of the attire. "I would have thought you would have heard me come in."
"How could I? I was so curious about..." she looked around the room. "This. What is this?"
"It's dinner, I hope." That little boyish swagger he had when he was trying to impress her that made him seem half his size. "By me. Just me, tonight."
"How do you mean?" Belle asked. "Have you had a disagreement with Mrs Potts?"
"Quite the opposite, actually." The best tried to stand up straighter, prouder, and popped one of the buttons on his red waistcoat, the button soaring across the dining hall and skimming across the stone tiles like a skipping stone. The sound of its echo growing more and more distant lasted some seconds. The Beast winced with each one. He slumped again, and rubbed the back of his head. "The servants, they do so much. And I am grateful. But I wanted to..." he fumbled for words, "Show you? Maybe. Yes, show you that I am of taking care of myself as well. Without their help."
"Your hands," Belle realized, reaching for them. He flinched to pull them away, but it was long past time she would tolerate such things. "These burns. You lit all these candles? With matches?" She noticed the splinters, as well, inspecting closer.
"I had some trouble." He admitted. "I had not realized matchsticks were so... small."
Belle lifted the tablecloth and peaked under it. A pile of of shredded matchbook cases and snapped matches. A slight scorchmark. At least he had figured it out in the end, with those claws. She let the tablecloth fall and looked to the Beast and said nothing, to let him see that she would say nothing of it. In the background, she heard a snicker, but she couldn't see where it came from by the time she turned her head. The room was still. "You made dinner?"
The Beast lit up, and hop-stepped to her side. "Yes! I shall get it immediately." He clicked his lupine heels together - such an odd shape, when the heels meet at where you would expect a knee, fascinating to watch - and darted towards the kitchen, making sure to keep one arm locked behind his back. Lumiere had been in on this, then.
The Beast wheeled the silver meal tray out. No plates lept from the cart, no glasses poured water when she wasn't looking. The Beast took several plates from the tray and put them in front of her.
"These look... interesting." Belle tried to force optimism out. He had made such an effort, after all, clearly.
His face fell. He drooped, all of him. It looked quite ridiculous. "You don't like it?"
"I didn't say that. I haven't tasted any of it, now, have I?" She said this to convince herself as much as him, and it seemed to work. She poured herself a ladle of soup, though it didn't seem to co-operate with pouring. She stuck her fork in the ladle instead, and cut the soup with a knife and fork, chewing it thoughtfully. "This stew certainly is... hearty." She offered.
"Why is it like that?" The Beast stared, reaching for his own ladle. "Only minutes ago..."
"You left too many bones in, for too long." Belle poked the 'broth', and watched it wobble. "The gelatin has set. Aspic is actually quite a delicacy, you know. My commendations to the chef."
The Beast's smile could have lit up the room better than all the candles he'd lit.
This time she heard it. "A most impressive recovery from the lady, methinks." A whisper from a clock, so quiet she only heard it because she thought to listen for it.
"Cogsworth?" She asked. The room was still before, but it seemed to go even stiller. Belle took a look at the plates again, the candles, the cutlery. "These aren't normal plates, are they?"
"Normal? How do you mean?" The Beast was sweating.
Belle picked her plate off the table and looked underneath it. It shivered. "You're all just playing dead, aren't you?"
It was a curious thing indeed, when the fixtures of the room took on a guilty affect. Like they seemed to cringe away from her eye while doing their best to keep completely still.
One of the candles looked up with a wry grimace. "Madamemoiselle, though we have been found out, might I have a word?"
Belle raised an eyebrow. "You may."
"This is all in good faith. It is as the master said. It is just, we encountered one teeny, tiny, little problem in the planning of this."
"How tiny, Lumierre?"
"The Master, how do we say..." Lumierre looked to Cogsworth, doing his best imitation of a regular clock. "Swine." The candleabra hissed at it. Then, to Belle. "We have never had to work with *mundane* tableservice before. The castle has had no need of it, until tonight. So we have simply... improvised. Oui?"
Belle looked around the room again. All the candlesticks, all the chairs. "You're all in on this, then? Helping him show off how much he doesn't need you, all playing your part?"
The room itself seemed to droop. The Beast looked ready to run like a gazelle. She giggled.
"You're all very kind. This was a lovely gesture. Did you go to the trouble of preparing all three courses."
Again, that dopey grin. The Beast went to the tray again, and again that one arm kept pinned behind his back. "Ah, of course. There is the fish course. The salad. And of course, the roast-"
"Madam, if I might be so bold, since the jig is, as they say, up?" Lumiere cut in.
"Yes?"
"I would suggest the Master skip to dessert."
"Right." The Beast hunched a little more. "Dessert."
"The fruit bowl, I believe, Master."
"Just the fruit bowl?"
"That would be perfect," Belle agreed, to Lumiere's relief and the Beast's confusion. "The soup was very filling. I'm not sure I could eat much more than that."
That, at least, was perfect. Fresh forest fruits the Beast had gathered himself. Lumiere wiped a bead of wax dribbling down his forehead and sighed in relief, and the serving cart discretely closed the door before Belle could continue to try to work out which was supposed to be the salad, and which the fish...
There was something so charming to that. It would be one thing if he had shown off by doing something he was good at, and the Beast was good at the most surprising things. It was another to try at something he was so clearly awful at. He had clearly tried very, very hard indeed.
She'd have to sympathize with the kitchen about this, after. It must have been distraught.
"Numbers, you've been awake two days, why are you posting stream of thought Beauty and the Beast fanfiction instead of going to bed?"
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Took me a while in to realise this was specifically of the Disney animated version. Dunno why I had my doubts. Sure, what other version is one likely to do fanfic of?
But hey, I liked it. Beast is so soulful and trying his best, and the castle staff always mean their best too. You can always count on Cogsworth’s stuffy persona to lighten or deflate a tense mood, among other things.
Oh, this is delightful. Excellent character dynamic, use of the setting, to say nothing of the imagery. I can practically hear the schloooorp as Belle frees the ladle from the soup.
I thought the image was going to be this:
media.tenor.com/Y2tUqJ1eAdEAAAAC/11because-l%27ve-lost-control-of-my-life.-poster.gif
(Note: it took me entirely too long to embed this properly because a feature of the hosting site was trying to be helpful and failing spectacularly)
I have a huge soft spot for well written Disney fanfic.