The Way of the Lost

Tale as old as Time

Some people would be giving her grief right now if they found the future queen hiding from her fiance, but she needed to, she needed the space to just take a moment and breathe. It had only been five years since she'd met the beast, since the curse had been broken and they'd been together, but in those five years so much had changed.

It was slow at first, but then gradually she was introduced into the more grandeur life and expected to live in it as if that was where she had always belonged, but Belle was still Villeneuve's crazy inventor's daughter who wanted nothing more right now than to curl up out of sight with a good book. She may have even been successful too, if not for the slight high pitched barking that came with the bloodhound nose.

"Shh! Sultan, quiet!" Belle scolds gently and waves a dismissive hand as the shaggy dog came bouncing around the corner. Tawny socked front paws were on her shoulders, knocking away her book in the process, and an overly salivated tongue was lapping up her face before she had the chance prepare. "Sultan, Sultan stop!" she cries, pushing at the off-white chest. She couldn't help the giggle that bubbled up and tumbled past light pink lips as the assault continued, she was utterly powerless against the dog's affections.

"Sultan, heel boy!" The rasping husky voice commanded the dog's attention effectively, pulling him away from Belle to the owner's side, giving her a clear view of the stout chubby man that was getting on in years. He had a cane in one hand that offered him support, and in the other he held a bright red rose that had barely begun it's bloom.

"Papa!" Belle exclaimed, abandoning the little nook at the windowsill she had settled on, to launch herself at the elderly man. She felt him stumble subtly under her sudden attachment, and she loosened her arms around his neck though didn't let go to help stable them both. The copper brown haired woman nestled her face into her father's neck, the smell of his old leather bag strap and the ocean assaulted her senses, while that bushy mustache gave her soft cheek a tickle as it brushed by making her nestle deeper to try and escape it. "When did you return? What did you see? Did you find anything new?" Belle had asked, as he gave her an awkward pat on the back, and she realized it was because he was trying not to prick her with the rose as well as trying to keep them both upright.

She didn't want to let him go, but the sight of him still in his traveling garb told her he hadn't had a moment of rest yet, he must have came in search of her first hand. And recruited Sultan along the way. Her arms unraveled from the man and she took the rose carefully, along with his tattered floppy felt hat then moved to the side opposite the cane where she offered her arm out. He had a good natured smile on his lips that made the corner of his emerald eyes crinkle at the sides, and nearly disappear underneath his bushy graying brows, "As curious as ever. That's my girl." Maurice praises softly, slipping his arm through hers and giving a pat to the connected hand briefly.

She was more than glad he hadn't made a fuss, that he'd allowed her to help him even though the distance over to the little nook was hardly a walk, to him it may have seemed a journey. The man was slow moving and even slower when he turned and lowered himself down onto the bench. So slow in fact, she worried he was going to get stuck mid squat, but he'd thudded right down.

Maurice adjusted himself accordingly, shifting the bag comfortably beside him and his cane off resting against the wall so he could offer both hands to his daughter that were taken without hesitation, "Now, tell me dear. What seems to be bothering you?"

The brunette looked down at the squat man as though he'd grown two heads, but she shouldn't have been so surprised, he always knew her so well. Well enough that he could see things in her that even she couldn't sometimes, "Oh, Papa. . ." However this feeling that washed over her as she was on the verge, searching for what to say, it was a clawing feeling in the pit of her stomach. One that the girl tried to push away, to push down , but it held such an overwhelming draining and negative impact she suddenly didn't want to speak. She knew she couldn't just brush it aside either, play it off, she's learned that never works. Not with her father.