All familiar quotes and character names from the Walt Disney movie are credited to [Chapman, Brenda. Movie Script for Beauty and the Beast. Burbank: Walt Disney Pictures, 1991. Print.]

Anything not recognizable as having come from the movie is the original work of the author.

"Naveen?"

The young man rushed up to the cell. "Father? What is this?"

"How did you find me?" Maurice asked, but began to cough and shiver, cutting off his words.

"Your hands are like ice," said Naveen, grasping at his father through the bars. "We have to get you out of here!"

"Naveen, leave this place," Maurice interrupted his son as soon as he got his breath back.

"First, you tell me who's done this to you!" Naveen pulled a blade from his belt and held it purposefully.

"No time to explain. You must go now!"

"I won't leave you!" Naveen began to pull at the bars, looking for some way for his father to get past them. Suddenly, points like daggers dug into his flesh as something grabbed his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" a voice demanded.

Naveen whipped around, brandishing his blade. He heard cloth tear and the razer edge skidded uselessly on something that sounded like the scrape of steel on rough stone. Whatever had grabbed him lurched back into the shadows.

"Run Naveen!" urged his father, clasping fearfully at his son's jerkin. The skulking creature circumnavigated the dark circle beyond the light to bar his exit down the tower stairs.

"Who's there? Who are you!" Naveen demanded of the thing, ignoring his father's senseless pleas to flee.

"The master of this castle," said a voice that sounded like the slither of scales over sand.

"I've come for my father," Naveen stated since the thing had asked. "You will let him out!"

A hissing whisper of laughter was the only response.

"He's just a sick old man! Why do you have him locked up here?"

"Trespassing," the thing said in something more akin to a hiss than a human voice. "He is my prisoner and there is nothing you can do."

Naveen thought to argue with the creature, threaten it, but he was distracted from any response by Maurice's deep, wet coughing. He crouched by the bars and reached through to help his father sit upright so that he could breath easier. Looking into the dear, weathered face, he made his mind up instantly.

"Take me instead."

"You!" the creature scoffed. But then, as if fully realizing the implication of what Naveen had just said, asked in a stranger voice still: "You would take his place?"

"No, no!" his father pleaded, clinging to him.

"If I did," Naveen said, gently untwining Maurice's clutching fingers and standing. "If I did, would you let him go?"

"Yes!" the thing suddenly moved closer, though still clung to the shadows. "But you must promise to stay here forever!"

It sounded ludicrous, like the demands of a child. What was this creature and what twisted sentiments did it's motives spring from?

"Let me see you." Naveen made a demand of his own. "Come into the light!"

Hesitating, reluctant, like a guilty child promised no remonstrations, the creature slid into the pool of brilliance shining in through the skylight. Many of it's features were still hidden in the folds and hood of a shabby, motheaten cloak, but it couldn't hide the claws, the reptilian hands and feet, the scaled face set with the slit nose of a snake and the protruding canines of a lizard. Jagged horns on its head held the hood in place and left the face in perpetual shadow. Only in its eyes was there something even resembling the human, and they were wary, filled with anger and scorn. At first, it hunched like a beaten thing, but then, seeming to realize the need for a display, it drew itself up to stand straight and was able to look at him on the same level.

Naveen involuntarily took a surprised step back and the creature sneered in derision.

"No Naveen, I won't let you do this!" his father pleaded.

At his father's words, the young man regained his composure. He stepped into the light to stand face to face with the beast and said simply: "You have my word."

"Done!" It snapped, darting from the light like a nocturnal thing.

The lock on Maurice's cell door scraped and the bars fell open. The man rushed over to his son.

"No Naveen, listen to me, I'm old, I've lived my life…" The creature cut him off. It snatched him and half-carried, half-dragged the old man down the stairs to a strange conveyance waiting by the door. "Please," he begged of his captor, "Spare my son."

The thing thrust him into the vehicle. "He is no longer your concern," it growled. "Take him far away." At these words, Maurice was borne off by what, he could not say.