Work Text:
Glorious Tales
Louis was in the library again. To be more specific, he was hiding in the library. To be even more specific, he was hiding in the small alcove beside the westernmost window, resting a book the size of his forearm on his knees - particularly knobbly knees for a nine-year-old boy. Elsewhere in the castle, Cogsworth's familiar voice shrieked out instructions, while the clanking of silverware and dishes announced that he was overseeing the place settings for tomorrow's Christmas banquet. If Louis had been listening, he would have been able to hear his sister running around outside with Chip, the valet, both of them engaged in a vicious snowball fight. If he had been paying close attention, he might have been able to hear his father's heavy footsteps as he paced in his study beneath the library. But instead of focusing on any of those things, Louis was lost in the world of paper and ink in front of him.
It was rather a new thing for Louis, reading. He loved stories - especially the ones Mama used to tell him and Clarisse at bedtime. He loved to make them up as well; he could remember sitting his toys down for hours at a time when he was a child, telling them fantastical tales of his own invention (and if they bore more than a passing resemblance to Mama's stories, the toys were tactful enough not to mention it). Unlike his sister, Louis wasn't interested in acting out daring sword fights or dragon-slaying. However, despite his active imagination, it had all started to fall apart when he started learning to read.
At first, his mother had just thought it was taking him longer than usual to learn. They had taken their time with the alphabet, Mama hand writing letters and phrases out in large print. However, no matter how much time they took, or how painstakingly they worked, Louis just couldn't grasp the written word. He had cried about it a lot back then, mostly out of frustration. He cried the most the day Mama gave up trying to teach him as intensively as she had before. He knew it meant failure.
Oddly enough, it wasn't Mama, but Papa who had helped Louis feel better. He had run into the gardens, to the little pond where Mama and Papa sometimes skated in wintertime. It was bright summer at the moment, and a cooling breeze left little ripples on the surface of the pond. Louis had sat there, staring at the water and silently crying, before suddenly becoming aware that someone was watching him. He spun around to see Papa standing a few feet behind him.
"Room for me?" Papa had asked.
Louis nodded, and let Papa sit down beside him. The two of them stared out at the water for a while, the silence between them a comfortable one.
"You know," Papa said eventually, "I couldn't read properly until I was almost twenty-one."
Louise had stared, his jaw involuntarily dropping. "Twenty one?" he asked. "That's - that's a grown up age! How -?"
"You remember how we told you about the curse?" Papa asked, a certain sadness in his eyes. It always appeared whenever he talked about that time, even after over ten years.
Louis nodded. It had taken him longer to believe in it than Clarisse - he might enjoy stories, but something in him had balked at the thought of magic and curses actually existing. The fact that everybody in the castle supported the story, however, had eventually convinced him.
"Well, at the time, I was a little boy - about the same age as Clarisse is now, actually," Papa continued. "I wasn't as well-behaved as the two of you are -"
"But Clarisse yelled at the music teacher this morning," Louis had interrupted. It was the reason he was outside alone that day - his sister was confined to the castle as punishment for her outburst. At a small frown from Papa, Louis clammed up. His father hated being interrupted in the middle of a story.
"Still," Papa continued, his face back to normal, "I was very ill-mannered. That included neglecting my studies. Until your Mama came to the castle, I hadn't so much as touched a book in ten years."
"Really?" Louis gasped. "But - but didn't you miss the stories?"
To his surprise, Papa had laughed. "You're Belle's son, alright," he muttered, pulling Louis in for a cuddle. "Mama probably couldn't go ten days without touching a book," he said at his normal volume. "And I think you're the same. Don't worry if it takes you a while, little treasure. We'll still be here to tell you stories."
Louis had believed Papa that day. And in the following January, after his first ice-skating lesson, he had been excited at the though of telling stories to a little brother or sister. But then Mama had gotten sick, and the little sibling had stopped being a possibility, and his parents had stopped telling stories to him and Clarisse.
For the next three years, Louis had struggled gamely with his reading, although everything was much harder when it was just a tutor helping him, and not Mama. It wasn't something he could help - it was as if whenever he tried to focus on a word, the letters all jumped around, until he only had a faint idea of what it was meant to say. It was much worse when the words were small, which they almost always were. Louis had eventually given up all hope of being able to read out of a book.
And then he had found "King Arthur'.
It really was a lucky find. Louis had been crawling on the floor, looking at the bottom-shelf books everyone forgot about, when he saw the title. He remembered the name distantly from Mama's bedtime stories, and he had opened the book carefully. The words were large, and quite simple, aside from the odd long one that still jumbled up the letters. And to Louis' joy, there were plenty of pictures, too. If he was having trouble understanding what was on the page, there was often a corresponding illustration to give him a clue. For the first time in over three years, Louis was having fun reading.
Now, he closed the book over and lugged it out of the alcove. Holding the heavy cargo with both arms, he trotted off to the music room, where he knew Mama usually spent the last few hours of Christmas Eve. The idea had come to Louis as soon as he successfully finished the first chapter. As well as his usual gifts, he knew exactly what to give Mama this year. He knew he was near the music room when he could hear Mama's singing voice, clear as a bell.
"If I were a wise man, I would do my part," she sang, the gentle sound of the harpsichord accompanying her. Louis pushed the door open quietly, not wanting to disturb her.
"But what can I give Him, Give my heart," she finished, smiling to herself as if recalling a far-off memory.
"Mama?"
"Hello, Louis!" Mama turned and smiled at him, tucking a strand of hair away from her face. She gave a strange look at the book. "What's that you've got there?" she asked.
"A present," Louis said. "Stay there, please." He plonked himself down beside her, pushing his own dark brown hair over his shoulder. Carefully, he opened his book to the first page.
"Chapter One," he read aloud slowly. "Once upon a time, in a f-f-fan-fantasical kingdom, known for myth and legend, lived a king."
Louis kept reading until he reached the end of the chapter, when he looked up at Mama. She was smiling down at him, looking as proud as she had the first time he had managed to stay on a horse while it was trotting, without falling off.
"Merry Christmas, Mama," he said, kneeling up to kiss her cheek.
"Thank you, Louis," she said. "Do you want me to see if we can get other books like that - with big text and plenty of pictures."
"Yes please," he said. "I don't know how people can read without pictures. How do they know what's happening if the words are too tricky?"
"Practice," Mama said. "Besides, pictures help fuel your imagination."
"Too right," Louis smiled. "Could we try and get Robinson Crusoe? I really want to read it again!"
Re-united once more by their love of stories, both mother and son kept reading 'King Arthur', well into Christmas night. And the next day, Louis believed for another year in the miracle of St. Nicholas - for there, wrapped up beneath the tree, from his parents, was a large-printed, illustrated copy of 'Robinson Crusoe'.