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Belle studies magic.
It's tricky. Getting into and out of her rose-sphere is routine after a few days, but she still hasn't uncovered an explanation of how channeling works, though she's been informed that there are three options for how to do it (by herself, through a willing helper, or through an unwilling helper). Unlike the fourfold options for reaching the Dreamworld, this does not tell her how to begin fumbling towards a practical understanding, even though she can rule out the last one just on the basis of its description.
Beast can only do so a tiny bit of reading per day, and her pile of books that she can read shrinks much faster than his. She combs the library for multilingual dictionaries, so she can pick her way through the titles of the foreign-language books and at least prioritize them before handing them over.
Finally something in an obscure language that even Beast can barely read - Belle has to look up a lot of words - explains the channeling in a way she can understand.
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beheld_beauty
deslandes
"I hadn't heard a voice not my own in a century and a half when you came," he says. "I haven't touched another person in just as long." With a twist of a smile on his surprisingly expressive face, "Wrestling rosebushes just isn't the same."
beheld_beauty
Belle looks up.
She tilts her head.
She reaches out and settles one hand on top of his paw, well away from the claws, and goes back to reading, turning the pages with her other hand.
She tilts her head.
She reaches out and settles one hand on top of his paw, well away from the claws, and goes back to reading, turning the pages with her other hand.
beheld_beauty
Ooh, soft. Her thumb makes short absent stroking motions with the grain of the fur.
beheld_beauty
She reads on, one handed.
"Better?" she asks after a few minutes.
"Better?" she asks after a few minutes.
beheld_beauty
"It's nothing," she says.
She leaves her hand where it is, until she gives up on finding a message spell and requires both hands to gesture appropriate levels of frustration. "Do enchanters never want to communicate with anyone who isn't in the room with them?" she exclaims.
She leaves her hand where it is, until she gives up on finding a message spell and requires both hands to gesture appropriate levels of frustration. "Do enchanters never want to communicate with anyone who isn't in the room with them?" she exclaims.
beheld_beauty
"Well. At least I know Charlie got out of the woods okay."
She resumes her more general studies.
After a silence, she starts singing to herself softly.
She resumes her more general studies.
After a silence, she starts singing to herself softly.
beheld_beauty
"Charlie?" she asks, stopping and looking up. "I - mm, not exactly. I love him and I want him to be happy and he's clearly not and if I were there he would be, so in the sense that I want to go back to him, I do, but if he'd died when I was six along with my mother, or if for some reason he didn't care about me, I'd be all right without him. I wouldn't choose those situations, but I'd get along fine. Having people around has never seemed terribly important to me. I might change my tune if I were alone for a hundred years, but on an ordinary day it's like - having dessert. A perfectly nice thing I'd like to do routinely that I could adjust to think nothing of if it became impossible."
beheld_beauty
"I do need things to do to be happy. If I'd been cursed like you my complaint wouldn't be that I was by myself, it'd be that I couldn't read the books."
deslandes
The Beast laughs.
"All this time," he admits, "I've wanted to learn to cook—" He spreads his hands. That is clearly not happening.
"All this time," he admits, "I've wanted to learn to cook—" He spreads his hands. That is clearly not happening.
beheld_beauty
"I did that too. Trying to figure out where the produce and meat came from. Never figured it out, they always seem to be there already from someplace I wasn't watching."
deslandes
"A few years ago a deer wandered into the garden," he recalls. "I killed it. Venison for dinner. But the rest of the time, it has to get the meat from somewhere else. Maybe the forest feeds it somehow."
beheld_beauty
"It gave me roast duck once. I haven't seen or heard any wild ducks in the area. Are the fruits and vegetables discernably seasonal? The garden doesn't have a proper vegetable plot - it's got herbs, but not ones that look tended."
beheld_beauty
"Magic. She went to an awful lot of discomfort and trouble just to punish you," Belle says, shaking her head.
beheld_beauty
"I really hate to be so mistrustful, but I can't make sense of her motives at all and it's bothering me - are you sure that in a hundred years you haven't forgotten some other detail?"
deslandes
"I don't know," he says, "but I don't think so. I was running - I ran into an old woman, knocked her down - she looked so angry, lying in the dust - I laughed - she got up and started shouting. I don't remember everything she said. Some of it made me think she knew my father... and of course," he gestures around them, "there's the fact that she knew to take me home."