"I... have no idea," he admits.

"None at all? You haven't been dreaming of it all these years - 'if the curse ever gets broken I'm going to go and...?'"

"Because no one ever came until me?"

He nods.

"I would probably have thought about it anyway. Just in case. To have something to do, if nothing else."

"I would never want to spend my days dreaming about a freedom I don't think I'll ever have."

"I've been here for weeks now, though."

He shrugs, curling up more comfortably at her feet. "I guess I'm not entirely ready to believe in you yet."

"I'm strictly nonfictional," she assures him. Pet pet.

"I believe you're there," he says, purring demonstratively. "That much is inarguable. But that you might free me... harder to let myself believe."

"I have no reason not to disenchant you if I can. The other avenue is trickier. Not impossible, as far as I know."

"So it is not certain you can do either one in time," he says, "and I would rather not become comfortable with hope until I know."

"...Even if the curse becomes permanent, that just means there are ongoing effects that aren't directly disenchantable. Maybe I should keep some of the magic books and the dictionaries for the foreign languages under a shelter of some kind, out in the forest, so I can take them with me and keep studying if we hit the time limit and it sends me away, and then maybe I could do something. I'm not at all optimistic - but it might be that if I learned enough, I could - I don't know. The thing that seems most likely that I could one day be able to do in spite of all the supposed obstacles is kill you. I don't even know if I could do that. I don't know if you'd want me to."

"...I'd want you to," he says softly.

"If the time limit comes due," Belle says, "and we're still stuck here then, I'll leave with all the books I can carry and drag, and I will work on it, and I'll try to anti-curse you where I couldn't un-curse you, and if that doesn't work I'll see if I can get you out of here - the other way. But let's hope it doesn't come to that."

"We can hope," he agrees.

"Sadistic nut of a witch," mutters Belle, "who would take all this power to change the world and do nothing productive, not even pointless harmless whimsy, but - disproportionate absurd cruelty, out of all scale - when did that start to seem to her like a worthwhile use of pain and power -"

"Don't ask me," snorts the Beast.

"I have no one else to ask," Belle points out.

"Then you will never know the answer."

"Unless there is some more advanced version of that past-viewing spell. Or I learn to invent my own."

"Until then," he agrees with a laugh.

"I should study," she sighs, looking down at him where he's sprawled before her, "I don't want to have to work out how to kill you if all else fails."

"Go study, then."