the Beauty & the Beast

Beauty Awakens

Days turned into weeks, and the weeks passed into months.

Over time, Belle took to exploring other parts of the manor. And it was to her delight that she came to discover that wherever she might explore and show interest, upon her return to that particular place, she would find it restored in full. She enjoyed this little game, most especially after she'd discovered the master bedroom and en suite bath.

It proved so easy for her to lose herself in the space that–to her–became almost sacred. A tub where the waters never cooled, and the bubbles never lost their fluff. It was even large and deep enough for her to lay on her back and float. It made for the perfect end to every long and stressful day, along with the perk of discovering what new bath oils had been set out for her to use. The only other discovery that had come close to the master bath's discovery had been the library, from which she would regularly choose a book to accompany her to the tub.

Of course, not everything was sunshine and roses.

Along with every winter came all her old, familiar sorrows. With the blizzards, Belle found herself without any exterior outlet for her frustrations. No gardening meant no exhaustion. No exhaustion meant restless nights with vivid nightmares. And vivid nightmares meant crying off and on throughout the night.

There were days when Belle would do nothing but pace and scream, her mourning echoing through the halls. And the deeper she fell into her mental darkness, the more the manor seemed to reflect her sorrow and pain. The roses on the wallpaper wilted, and the floors lost their luster. And the longer she carried on, the more it took its toll, bringing the walls to crack and banisters to splinter.

It was late one night, after one of her roaming episodes, that Belle awoke before a low fire in the fireplace, and to a sound that she couldn't quite recognize. It was like a soft tapping, tapping in an uneven rhythm.

Groggy and body-weary, Belle pulled herself to her feet and stepped out from the living room, following the sound to the best of her hearing.

Having climbed the west staircase, she was surprised to find the oversized raven she called Yeux perched at the end of the hall, pecking at the bottom of the empty wall.

"What are you doing?" she asked, exasperated.

Yeux cawed as he started to hop towards her, only to give a grand flap of his massive wings before he turned and hopped his way back to the wall to resume his tapping.

Sighing, she followed after him.

Though she'd wandered this hall before, she hadn't really explored it. It was a curious space, one that, every time she'd started down it, she found that her thoughts would grow muddled and fuzzy. And, within moments, she would find herself turned around and forgetting why she'd started down the hall in the first place.

However, this time her mind remained clear, and as she followed the raven to the hall's end, she found her senses captured by the scent of old paper and something else.

Yeux continued his pecking at a specific point on the wall along the floorboard.

Taking to her knee, Belle frowned as she ran her fingers blindly along the wood in the dark. "What is it, Yeux? What have you brought me to?"

Yeux cawed again, so loud that it made Belle jump.

She scowled at him before returning her attention to the wall. Careful fingers smoothed along the baseboard until she felt a dent in the molding. A divot in which a piece of the structure could be pressed in like a button.

She pressed it.

The wall before her shifted and shook, and Belle took a few steps back just in time to see a part of the wall inch back into itself before shakily sliding away.