Twisted Fairy Tales - Beauty and the Beast

Chapter 7: Of Romeo and Juliet

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.