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Belle probably wouldn't have gone into the forest looking for her father if it weren't for the fact that, were he home, she'd never be allowed.
She understands his concerns. Really she does. If it weren't for the fact that he's the local lawman, she wouldn't even be allowed out into town on her own. She's beautiful (as no one can shut up about for thirty seconds at a stretch; is it any wonder she prefers books?) and while he can protect her in their tiny town, the Witchwood is another matter. People get lost there - sometimes the Wood spits out men and women and children from other villages entirely, near theirs instead, and they have to be given maps and sent the long way around to get home - and anything could happen and he has no jurisdiction over crimes committed there.
But the woods are beautiful, and she's going to bring a blank book to draw a map in, and her father has been missing for four days and even if Belle's only concern were her safety she'd need to find him. Because orphaned seventeen-year-old girls tend to find it in their own best interest to get married, and if she wanted to get married, it would not be to anyone in the village.
He chased in a highwayman (whose crime was not committed in the forest, so all is in its proper order).
The highwayman came out.
Charlie did not.
Charlie, apparently, has gotten lost.
And Belle is going to go in and get him.
---
Her map is wrong.
No - no, she was very careful. She knows people get lost here; she knows the woods are twisty, suspects the landmarks must include duplicates. She brought bits of ribbon to mark her way. She's been changing colors as she gets deeper into the forest, and she's been traveling for almost a day now, and that ribbon right there was tied in the first hour. She's not that turned around; it's broad daylight and she's been tracking the sun. Not even magic, if magic existed, would be able to move the sun.
That leaves her, and the tree. She has been picked up and put back where she started or she has been followed by this tree. Or the ribbon, perhaps, if it's magically untied itself and made exactly the same knot around a different branch. ...No, there is the bit of blood from where she tripped and scraped her hand against the bark of that tree, and blood and ribbon both following her is more of a stretch than her having been transported or the tree having walked on its very roots to heel like a dog.
Damnation.
Well. Most people who wander into the Witchwood are eventually heard from again. But it's getting dark, and she trips more than enough in daylight; she underestimated the treachery of the ground deep in among the trees.
She goes on. She keeps making her map - it's still possible it will be useful for something, and she has precious little else to do while she walks alone through the dimming woods - keeping an eye out for a place to sleep.
She finds one.
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beheld_beauty
beheld_beauty
"Four styles of entering the mindscape-or-dreamworld," says Belle. "It doesn't give instructions, just talks about how there's the ones who breathe their way there and the ones who follow their heartbeats and the ones who 'make as though to sleep' and the ones who can do it just by wanting. I'm not sure if these are things people are just stuck with based on who they are, or if you can pick one."
beheld_beauty
"Maybe. Did the language in the book you were looking at suggest that entering the dreamworld was inherently dangerous? There are lots of little warning flags all through these books."
beheld_beauty
"Were there a lot of them? Were they clustered or sprinkled through the prose?"
beheld_beauty
"And they don't obviously break down into meaningful parts or anything?"
deslandes
"One I think is another name for the Dream-world, or a description of it. The rest, I'm not sure."
beheld_beauty
"Hmmm."
She peers at the four methods of mindscape visitation again, reads on until the topic changes, rereads that section, and says, "Well, if wanting a better look at my mind could hurt me, I'd be dead already. I really doubt that wanting it with my eyes closed is going to do me any harm."
She moves to a more comfortable chair, finds a pose she won't feel inclined to move from, and shuts her eyes.
She peers at the four methods of mindscape visitation again, reads on until the topic changes, rereads that section, and says, "Well, if wanting a better look at my mind could hurt me, I'd be dead already. I really doubt that wanting it with my eyes closed is going to do me any harm."
She moves to a more comfortable chair, finds a pose she won't feel inclined to move from, and shuts her eyes.
beheld_beauty
While it is true that Belle makes a habit of wanting a better look at her mind, it's also true that she usually does something else about it - with paper, typically - rather than just indulging sustained wanting.
The sustained wanting isn't particularly special.
To start.
And then she gets inklings of something, like the images that appear behind one's eyelids if one presses on them, but more - familiar.
And then it's harder to feel the chair under her.
And then she can't hear the Beast's breathing, or birdsong outside, or anything but her own heartbeat in her ears and her own breath through her throat.
And finally, as she wants her way forward through all this -
another place fades in, just as slowly as the real place faded out.
She floats, in the center of a sphere of rose-vines, if roses grew on prickly vines. The prickles all face out and the flowers all face in. And the roses are every color, and every petal is patterned intricately.
"Whoa," she says, but the instant she speaks the rosevine sphere is gone and the world is back, with no slow fade-out or fade-in, and she finds her eyes open without meaning to open them.
The sustained wanting isn't particularly special.
To start.
And then she gets inklings of something, like the images that appear behind one's eyelids if one presses on them, but more - familiar.
And then it's harder to feel the chair under her.
And then she can't hear the Beast's breathing, or birdsong outside, or anything but her own heartbeat in her ears and her own breath through her throat.
And finally, as she wants her way forward through all this -
another place fades in, just as slowly as the real place faded out.
She floats, in the center of a sphere of rose-vines, if roses grew on prickly vines. The prickles all face out and the flowers all face in. And the roses are every color, and every petal is patterned intricately.
"Whoa," she says, but the instant she speaks the rosevine sphere is gone and the world is back, with no slow fade-out or fade-in, and she finds her eyes open without meaning to open them.
beheld_beauty
"I got someplace, all right," Belle reports. "It was like a sphere of vines with multicolored roses on the inside - pointing at me, I was in the middle - and thorns pointing out. Apparently I lose it if I talk."
beheld_beauty
"Good for me. Belle the Enchantress has a nice ring to it. And, more importantly, could make the forest stop moving." Pause. "I'm going to try that again, see what I can see."
beheld_beauty
"Have fun," says Belle, and she relaxes into another meditation.
She's at it for much longer this time.
The rosepetals have patterns on them that seem to nest infinitely, fractally - and she can see them just as clearly as she needs to, each level of detail flooding into focus as soon as she needs it. The roses themselves open and close in response to what she's thinking about.
It is really fascinating. She's not sure what tidying she's supposed to do - there's nothing here but metaphorical thought-plants, all quite nicely arranged - but she sticks around for a few hours, anyway, re-meditating her way in when she accidentally moves or makes a sound and calls her mind back into the real world.
She's at it for much longer this time.
The rosepetals have patterns on them that seem to nest infinitely, fractally - and she can see them just as clearly as she needs to, each level of detail flooding into focus as soon as she needs it. The roses themselves open and close in response to what she's thinking about.
It is really fascinating. She's not sure what tidying she's supposed to do - there's nothing here but metaphorical thought-plants, all quite nicely arranged - but she sticks around for a few hours, anyway, re-meditating her way in when she accidentally moves or makes a sound and calls her mind back into the real world.
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