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Jane's out again.
But at least this time Rose fetched Renée up from Downside first. Renée's been reacquainting herself with life; Charlie has been catching her up. Belle was a small child when her mother died, and her mother has spoken with her a little, but mostly wants to catch up on the past decades from Charlie, who is more or less as she left him.
Today Renée is ready, she says, to meet her son-in-law and grandchildren.
They walk, because why not. Céleste is obliged to leave Rainier at home; creatures more mythical than grandchildren are not for today's revelations for Renée. Renée is living with Charlie, of course, in his cottage that he has allowed Belle to renovate but not expand.
Belle knocks on the door. Charlie opens it, and holds out his arms to solicit hugs from granddaughters. Céleste provides gladly.
beheld_beauty
beheld_beauty
Whether they succeed on the first try or the thirty-first is anyone's guess. Belle does not check by magic until other symptoms have appeared.
She proceeds through being a pregnant enchantress, and then there is a little Hyacinthe Avril Cygne.
She proceeds through being a pregnant enchantress, and then there is a little Hyacinthe Avril Cygne.
carillons
She is little! And quiet and calm and thoughtful, for the most part, even as a baby. She gets even quieter and thoughtfuller as she grows up.
carillons
"Then I should not have one as a pet," says Hyacinthe. "Unless it was a magic uneatable mouse."
campanas
"I can train him not to eat your mouse, if you get a mouse. You could get a mouse with wings!" suggests Céleste.
carillons
"What would a mouse do with wings?" wonders Hyacinthe. "I think they might get in the way of its mousiness."
campanas
"It would fly with them! There are alts of us who have wings," says Céleste. "They fly with them. They have them because their alt of Maman has wings."
carillons
"What if the mouse did not like its wings? Then it would not be cute," she says. "It would be sad."
campanas
"Why wouldn't it like them? Maman could make a pet mouse with wings from scratch like Rainier, she wouldn't have to give them to a mouse that didn't want them."
campanas
"Okay," says Céleste, and she launches herself out of a pretty stained-glass window that opens at her approach, falls until the last minute, and then zooms off into the sky.
carillons
Hyacinthe watches her go, with a little smile.
And then she returns to thinking about mice.
They are fuzzy, and small.
And then she returns to thinking about mice.
They are fuzzy, and small.
carillons
"Do you think a mouse with wings would be happy? I think they might get in the way," she says.