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The first time he truly noticed Belle's inner beauty was after he had presented her with the library to call her very own. Of course, in the moment, her eyes radiated with unadulterated joy and anticipation at the prospect of reading and owning so many books, which caused a warm sensation to rise up in his chest.
But then, some hours later, he found her sitting in one of the window seats, her nose buried in a book. She had a sort of soothing glow surrounding her, so content and mesmerized by the contents within her chosen story. He felt his heart skip a beat as he watched her giggle and sigh and whisper "No!" and "Oh, thank heavens!" as she read on and on.
Her quiet yet overwhelming adoration for stories won him over instantly. He remembered, somewhere in a distant, blurry past, when he also eagerly devoured grandiose stories of knights slaying dragons, princesses in towers, and of temperamental gods who rained down chaos and storms against heretics who dared to insult them.
He now would leave old favorites out in the open whenever Belle visited her library, and watch her from the shadows, as she curiously picked them up and curled up in her favorite reading place. He would wait a little while, then call forth Mrs. Potts with her tray of tea things, and enter after her so he could casually ask Belle how she was getting on with her reading.
Those moments were his favorite, because her face lighting up was always priceless.
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It was rather alarming how suddenly Belle's views on the Beast were changing. First, he was a rude, almost cruel creature with a temper as monstrous as his appearance. But now, he was a sweet, almost kind person, yes, a person, seemingly trapped in a vicious cloak of fur and teeth.
Whether he was a person cursed to be a Beast or a Beast given the gift of intelligence, she couldn't be sure, but he was becoming less and less of a "Beast" and more and more of a "man."
Once, she dared to ask if he had a name. He brushed it off, saying something like, "any name I've had is lost, because I don't deserve it." Her throat tightened at the heartache in his voice, but she decided not to push it, giving him the option to tell her whenever he feels ready.
Outside of her curiosity of the Beast's true identity, and rapidly growing change in character, Belle truly fell in love with the library he generously gave her, and also was rather fond of the times he shyly joined her in reading stories together.
Growing up in the little town with her father, Belle had plenty of fairytales and Shakespearean plays to read, but here in the Beast's castle, the world of mythology opened for her.
One morning, she entered her library, ready to settle back into Grimm's fairy tales, only to be greatly surprised to find a great volume of Greek myths left out on her favorite reading seat.
She looked around, and spotted the Beast's tail sticking out from the doorway. She smiled indulgently, and curled up to read.
She was lost in a world of gods, giants, Titans, and cyclopes before Mrs. Potts came inside, bustling about how a "spot of tea" was best enjoyed while reading, and then, he entered as well.
He shuffled his large feet before sheepishly asking if she enjoyed her reading. She smiled even wider, and offered him a place on the window seat so they could read together.
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Once upon a time, he would have believed that only pretty princesses deserved to be loved. He would have sooner found himself arm-in-arm with an airheaded beauty than try to speak to her on his level. Thus, when he was enchanted as a Beast all those years ago, he lost all hope, because airheaded princesses could only be happy with handsome princes.
Belle changed that.
Not only was she an ordinary commoner, and very pretty at that, but she had brains and personality to boot. When he first laid eyes on her, he felt angry, furious even, that such a natural beauty would come across his castle but also very clearly be a peasant. Not only was his ideal "pretty princess" lost on her, but the concept of being loved by her seemed all the further away. His time spent with her soon dismantled any misconceptions he had of her, women in general, and his old "ideal."
Though Belle certainly wasn't very receptive to his "advances" at first, he knew in his heart that he did not make things easier by behaving rudely and tactlessly. After saving her from the wolves, and in turn, being saved from freezing to death, he slowed down and began observing her more.
And, with her love for books, her kind nature, and her patience with his slow breaking of old habits, she transformed from a common pretty girl to the most beautiful woman in the world. If Aphrodite was supposed to represent beauty in women, he would point to Belle to be that archetype.
But it wasn't until the night he had asked for a formal, romantic dinner when he realized that "beauty" didn't do her justice.
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The Wardrobe Lady had outdone herself, even Belle couldn't deny it. Though she had produced several lovely dresses for her to wear, tonight was different.
She had never seen dresses like this in fairytale illustrations! Layers and layers of golden fabric, that twirled gorgeously at every turn, and made her feel like a real-life princess.
Tonight, in the company of a kind Beast, she would be living in a fantasy.
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Ethereal.
That's what she was.
A celestial maiden trapped in a body of flesh.
But she was also more than that. She was intelligent, kind, fiery, and curious. She gave him a reason to learn to be kind in turn, to understand others, to appreciate life outside his curse.
And when they finished eating dinner and she pulled him into the ballroom, his heart pounding in his ears, and when he pulled her close by the waist, and looked into her smiling face, and when they began to dance....
He knew he was madly in love with this goddess.