Belle: Oh I’m a homebody, always have been. Nothing beats curling up with a good book or sitting at my easel. Everything I need is at home, I have no reason to leave and so I don’t feel the urge to do so. Home is convenient and comfortable.
Author: Feeling a little defensive there Belle? You are quite correct there is nothing wrong with being a homebody. It only starts to become a problem if you want to leave and you can’t.
Belle: I don’t know what you are talking about. It’s my choice to stay at home. Leaving is just more trouble than it’s worth.
(A/N: It’s a bit of both. There are underlying issues which have exacerbated the situation. It’s wrapped up in the accident, her grief and her guilt over her mother, the depression and the anxiety. Belle might tell herself that it’s her choice, and she might even believe it but she’s letting her fear control her. There isn’t anything wrong with Belle staying at home if that is her choice, so long as she could go out if she wanted to do so. Right now, that isn’t the case.)
Thanks for the prompt as well by the way 🙂 I’m going to tie that in with another idea I had.
Gold coughs rather embarrassed. I’m afraid unless you want me to paint a lovely illustration of stick figures, I’d be a real disappointment. I have no artistic skill in the slightest.
However, my neighbor, Belle French, is an incredible artist. I might not be able to paint myself, but I would be more than happy to assist her any way I could, or even just watch her paint. She is quite lovely.
Ah ok phew – panic over. I had thought you meant some sort of background angst that I hadn’t seen which would split Belle and Gold up. This is all fine, it’s stuff they can deal with together and I have plans for all of this 🙂
I mean yeah they will fight but it’ll just be temporary, like in chapter one. I’m not very good at writing people apart for a long time, I just want to bang their heads together and order them to talk. Thank you!
Synopsis: Belle French lives alone and she likes it that way. She’s lived alone ever since the terrible car accident which killed her mother and claimed her eyesight. Belle spends her days painting, in complete solitude, until one day she wakes up and hears movement outside. Somebody has moved into the cottage next door. She had grown comfortable in her solitary existence until Mr Gold crashes into her life. Now her future is uncertain, like a blank canvas, waiting for her to apply the paint and decide what kind of story she is creating.
Note: I wrote a ficlet for this inspiration picture and it seemed to strike a chord. I was asked what happened next so I decided to turn it into a real fic. Well it’s turned into something rather longer than I intended. This first chapter goes no further than the ficlet but it’s been significantly expanded as well as cleaned up.
I seem to have accidentally created a new WIP – oops. Anyway, I have a set posting day every week for my main WIP. I’m not going to do that for this because there are only so many hours in the week. However, I will do what happened next as soon as possible.
“There is
something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that
is so simple and breathtakingly pure. It’s the paint that changes its meaning
and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same, but in the
end they are all uniquely different.” – Piper Payne.
Oh my god, this was so WONDERFUL – I’m crying! Thank you!
I love how Belle isn’t perfect, that she’s bitter (understandably so) and taking it out on Gold……….I love that she’s guilt-ridden and broken. I love that Gold is irritated, but intrigued………… I sense an epic Rumbelle romance!
Wow thank you! 🙂 Yeah I hope I can do it justice.
Just as a sidenote. If you or anyone else has any prompts for this verse, they will be very gratefully received. A prompt is what started this fic, it only seems fitting that prompts help finish it.
EEEEEEEEEEEE I LOVE IT!! Thanks so much for tagging me!!
Yay! I’m so happy you love it. I’m always a bit nervous tagging people so I’m glad you didn’t mind 🙂
I’m hoping I’ll be able to do chapter two for next Friday but next week is shaping up quite busy, it might have to get pushed to the following week. To be honest I still haven’t worked out what is happening in the next chapter, I have a few images in my mind but if anyone has any prompts, I wouldn’t say no 🙂 Anyway, I will do my best.
Don’t worry about writing chapter 2 – whenever you get to it is just fine with us !
This isn’t really a prompt, but I was thinking that down the line Rumple might want to introduce Belle to sculpting – not as a replacement for painting, just as something different. I think he’d believe she’d be good at it because she could work with her hands and feel the material (later on, I foresee sexy, Ghost-like times)….
Also, maybe Gold might bring one of his art-loving clients to see Belle’s work – with her permission, of course. The client would love her work and he’d suggest a showing …..
Thoughts?
I love both of those! They are good prompts. I will definitely use them, not in the next chapter, they have a way to go first but later on.
This verse is totally outside of my comfort zone. I’ve never written anything like it before, so the prompts are very helpful to me because it’s like points on a map. I can draw a line from A to B, but if I don’t know where B is, then it’s hard to get anywhere from A. Not sure if that makes sense.
