The Stuff Heroes Are Made Of
a Disney's Beauty and and Beast Fanfic
by
C. "Sparky" Read

Chapter One

A/N: Yeah so I just thought I'd prove I was really writing this by letting y'all see the beginning. :o) I'll work on it when I can; we'll see how it goes. - Sparky

"Magnificent. Just magnificent. Isn't she magnificent, son?"

Ignatius LeFou – known simply as "LeFou" around town - frowned doubtfully at the young black mare tearing around the paddock like a thing possessed. "I guess so, Pop," he replied guardedly.

The large man chuckled wholeheartedly and slapped his much shorter teenaged son on the back, causing the other to grab desperately at the paddock fence to keep on his feet. "You guess so?" he boomed, hooking his thumbs into his vest and rocking on his heels. "Son, that there is the finest of that old grey stallion's blood – concentrated­, you could say."

"What's her name?"

Harbin LeFou beamed. "I was thinking on that on the ride home," he said. "I decided on Stella." Getting a faraway look in his eyes, he spread his hands heavenwards. "Stella – as deep and mysterious as the night sky."

At that moment the mare charged straight for her two "admirers," rearing up at the last moment before hitting the fence and screaming in unbridled fury. Father and son collapsed backwards simultanteously to avoid the sharp flailing forehooves.

LeFou sat up first. "I have a better name for her, Pop," he spoke. "'Upholstery'."

Harbin took his time rolling to his feet. "Now, son," he chided, "you simply must learn to be more patient. This horse can be broken with a little persistance."

LeFou got up and started back towards the house. "Well, have fun, Pop," he called over his shoulder. But Harbin stepped around him, blocking his escape route.

"Son," said Harbin, one eyebrow raised. "I didn't mean I was going to be the one to break her."

The tone was so suggestive that not even LeFou, who wasn't known about town for his deductive abilities, could miss its meaning. "Pop!" he howled in sudden realisation. "That horse'll eat me! I don't need that crazy animal, why can't I just ride Omri?"

Omri was Harbin's stately charcoal-grey stallion. Once a show horse, now a stud, he had been given to Harbin several years before as payment for several kegs of Harbin's finest hand-crafted ales. Harbin had an unfortunate habit of accepting items rather than money for his transactions – "unfortunately" because the LeFous weren't exactly well-off, despite popular opinion around town. And to be frank, young Ignatius was less-than-pleased about his father's latest decision to accept one of Omri's offspring rather than money, when so many repairs needed doing around the house. Truth was, ever since Maeva, the matriarch of the LeFou family, had passed on roughly two years before, very little domestic work ever got done. Maeva seemed to have been the only LeFou intellectually coordinated enough to schedule things. Her daughter Moira, nine years LeFou's elder, was clever enough but lacked certain organisational skills essential to maintaining such a large home - not to mention Harbin, who was rather high-maintenece himself.

"Son," Harbin repeated, looming ever so slightly over the boy. Even LeFou was capable of catching the drift.

"Yes sir," replied LeFou dutifully. Truth was, he worshipped the ground Ol' Harbin walked on and would likely as not try to build a ladder tall enough to reach the moon if his father bade him so. "But can I spend one more night on this Earth with my loving family first?"

Harbin chuckled and whalloped his boy on the back again. "Yes son, you can start on her in the morning," he replied good-naturedly. LeFou might not have been tall, he might not have been strong, he might not have been much of a shot or all that skillful in the saddle, but Harbin would have done anything for him, even grant him one day reprive from a chore. "Now," he went on as LeFou scrambled to his feet and brushed dirt off of his clothes, "let's get on inside and see what that sister of yours has fixed us for supper - if she's managed to keep her mind off her her beau long enough to remember what a spoon looks like."

LeFou, with an uncharacteristic burst of wit, couldn't resist: "Oddly enough, a lot like Piers," illiciting a fresh wave of laughter from his father.

Moira was presently engaged to be married to a nice enough fellow from the neighboring city of Aglionby, and frankly she was all a-flutter,though the local women could see nothing to be all a-flutter about. Piers Ingham was tall and lanky and had a rather large head, so LeFou's observation was remarkably astute. He was an accountant, a profession viewed as completely absurd by most of the population of the tiny village of Molyneaux; however it was clear that he was financially stable and would provide Moira a position as a city wife which many of the young Molyneaux ladies rather envied. Piers had met Moira when she had accompanied her father to Aglionby fully four years previous and he had been courting her ever since. Harbin and LeFou ribbed him but both were pleased at Moira's decision to marry Piers, once the timid man had finally proposed. Neither father nor son could wait for the wedding, and both were eager to assimilate Piers into the family.

But as Harbin and LeFou headed for the house old Nicodeus, the butcher, hurried up and laid a hand on Harbin's beefy arm. "Harbin," gasped the butcher, out of breath from running clear across town. "It - it's...Melly..." Imelda was Nicodeus' prize-winning goat (well, she had taken a prize at the fair in Bathurst last year, and the butcher was darn proud of it. The goat was famous all over Molyneaux).

"Easy now," soothed Harbin, leading Nicodeus towards a low fence so he could have a seat. But the butcher didn't want to sit.

"Harbin," exclaimed Nicodeous, grasping the brewer by both arms now, his eyes lowered. "Melly...she's dead..."

"What?" both Harbin and LeFou blurted in unison. "What happened to her?" LeFou gasped.

Nicodeus looked up and his gaze hardened. "It was that bear," he went on gruffly. "I saw it this time. That bear took my Melly."

Everyone in Molyneaux knew about The Bear. A massive bear lived in the woods surrounding the town, enough hunters had seen it outright to verify that it was real, and that it was huge. As there was no reason to bother it, the village hunters didn't disturb it. The meat was not needed, nor was the hide; Harbin, who was accepted to be the best shot in town, saw no need to molest the animal and therefore no one did.

But last winter random livestock started disappearing. A chicken here or there wasn't too much to worry about, even in a tiny village; but sheep were valuable, needed for food, for wool, and for milk. The only possible solution to the mystery seemed to be The Bear, as wolves never came so close to the village - although no one had actually witnessed any of the abductions, which generally took place at night.

"Calm down," Harbin was saying. "What did you see?"

Nicodeus' brows shot up as he recalled the scene. "I was out watering the chickens," he recounted, "when something moved in the trees." The butcher lived on the very edge of the village, within a stone's throw of the woods. "Something big. I saw a big shape! It was upright when I looked at it and then it dropped down, on all fours. I know it was that bear - nothing else could be big enough. It was enormous! I ran inside to get my gun and when I came back out...Melly was screaming...I saw its fur, shaggy brown fur as it loped back off into the trees with my Melly..."

"There, now," Harbin consoled the grieving man. "You couldn't have stopped that beast."

"I'm real sorry about Melly," LeFou piped up. "She was a real nice goat." He turned to Harbin. "Pop, what will we do?" He said "we" because he naturally assumed that his father, taken for the best hunter in the village, would be handed the task of ridding Molyneaux of such a dangerous animal; and he, being Harbin's son, would be expected to help.

He was rather hoping he wouldn't have to help.

Harbin stood up straight and rubbed his chin and looked off into the distance for a while. Finally he nodded, as if agreeing with himself.

"I'll go after it," he said, "before daybreak. Nicodeus, please tell the village men to come by the taproom after supper. I need volunteers."

The butcher, taking his duty very seriously, solemnly agreed to do so and left. When Harbin gave an order, it was obeyed.

"Pop...What about...what about me?"

Harbin looked sternly at his son. "No, Ignatius," he replied. "This is a job for men."

LeFou didn't know if he should be relieved or injured by that statement, so he said nothing, and followed his father inside.