Rewatching the ‘17 BATB and just realized - isn’t it a little weird that Belle asks for a rose from the market each year instead of like...another book? Girl’s only got like 6 to choose from as it is. (I see the sentimental value in the flower, but let’s be real.) So instead of taking a rose from the prince’s garden we’ll say Maurice, in one way or another, winds up in the castle library scrambling to pick her out a book before heading home. Poor man hasn’t a clue where anything is, or which to choose for that matter.
Enter Beast. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” he roars.
Maurice of course pales, now in the Beast’s clutches, several volumes slipping from his arms. “I-I…I was lost in the woods!” he stammers.
“More like lost in the periodicals,” the master huffs, dropping the man to the floor and turning to face the unshelved piles of books behind him. “What a mess.”
“Ridiculous,” the Beast grumbles, scooping up an armful of texts and carefully placing them back where they belong. For unlike in our original scenario, the prince is so distraught at the state of his library he can barely acknowledge the intruder’s presence until all is set right.
“I didn’t…I didn’t realize anyone still read them…” Maurice tries to explain, wringing his hands together and wondering how very awful it will feel to be eaten alive. “My daughter…she loves to read. But we barely have a dozen volumes, and I promised her another from the market, but…” He trails off, squeezing his eyes shut and awaiting his fate.
“Hmm,” the Beast says indifferently, sliding another history into its proper slot. Peasants.
“To read is the most wonderful gift, my love.”
The master takes pause, a distant memory flooding his thoughts. A memory of a mother with golden hair reading to him by candlelight. He sighs.
“What sorts of books does she like, then?” he asks in defeat, setting the rest aside and plodding towards the eastern balcony.
“O-oh, well…” Maurice straightens himself somewhat, for it seems the monster had abandoned any ideas of eating him for the moment. He follows with trepidation, watching in some perplexity as the great Beast turns to examine a nearby title. Maurice wrinkles his brow in thought. “What was that last one Belle spoke of? Somewhere in Italy. A Romeo and…and a Julia, perhaps?”
The Beast freezes, then looks back at him sharply. “Oh, no. No. We cannot have that.”
Soon enough, Maurice is sent off with a dozen new volumes and strict chastisement to pay greater heed to the utter rubbish with which he’s allowed his daughter to fill her head.
Of course when Belle gets word of a library in the woods she will not rest until she’s seen it with her own eyes. “I must return his books, Papa,” she says, though both know she has no intention of returning them without retrieving more.
Thus, Belle and Maurice return. Perhaps one visit becomes many, or perhaps just one very extended stay. Either way, Belle and our prince meet, fight over Shakespeare…fall in love, break the spell. Boom.
[I’m all about the headcanons that remove the prisoner/captor dynamic so yeah, there we go. Plus this just made me chuckle. Also sorry if my 2017 Adam is way ooc, I’ve never written him before.]