ma fille

[beheld_beauty]

Belle has just laid a grand enchantment over the city of Changsha in Cathay, and returned home to attend to her husband in the wake of this activity, and now she is telling the kitchen to fix her some lunch.

Comments

[mindfields]

"I will," she laughs.

[beheld_beauty]

"Where are you going to start?"

[mindfields]

"I have no idea!" says Dominique.

[beheld_beauty]

"Well," laughs Belle, "when you have acquired an idea I will be most interested to hear it."

[mindfields]

She giggles.

"I want to go tell Papa," she declares. "Is he resting?"

[beheld_beauty]

"He is resting, yes."

(Dominique's papa spends rather a lot of time resting.)

"But he may be up and about within the hour."

[mindfields]

She giggles again.

"All right. I love you, Maman."

[beheld_beauty]

"I love you too, my Dominique."

[mindfields]

Dominique makes a face of mixed feelings.

[beheld_beauty]

"What is it?"

[mindfields]

"I don't know," she says, although evidently she does.

[beheld_beauty]

"Neither do I," remarks Belle.

[mindfields]

"Well - I just - I don't think I like my name very much," she confesses.

[beheld_beauty]

"Don't you? I'm sorry," says Belle.

[mindfields]

"I like my middle name much better."

[beheld_beauty]

"You can of course go by Yseult if you prefer."

[mindfields]

"I'm sorry," she says.

[beheld_beauty]

"There is no need. Both of your names were chosen because we liked them - and for that matter if you wanted to go by something else entirely, you would hardly be the first in the family to do so."

[mindfields]

She giggles softly.

[beheld_beauty]

"I wonder if Angela and Micaiah should expect Damaris to do something similar. I don't believe she has a middle name."

[mindfields]

Dominique—Yseult shrugs. "I don't know," she says. "I wouldn't think so. I don't have... complicated reasons for disliking my name, that might come out the same way if I had a different one. And I like Yseult just fine. If you'd named me Yseult Dominique, you'd never have heard a word about it."

[beheld_beauty]

"What if we'd named you Damaris?"

[mindfields]

She laughs. "Then I would change it, because I have an alt with that name!"

[beheld_beauty]

Rose chuckles. "You wouldn't only pick a nickname as Bells do?"

[mindfields]

"Bells are Bells," says Yseult. "I am me."