mon père

[beheld_beauty]

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.

Comments

[deslandes]

For the rest of the day, there are no more strange noises from the rest of the castle.

[beheld_beauty]

She waits.

She finishes the notebook she brought with her and starts on the second one. (She is getting sick of the songs she knows. She tries her hand at making up her own. She's not very good at it, but it passes the time when she's out of escape-related creative juice and needs to think about something else.)

[deslandes]

A few days later, her breakfast tray comes in laden with an unusual burden: a bunch of roses.

On close inspection, they look like they were not cut but ripped from their bushes; there is even blood on a few of the thorns, and oddly enough, golden-brown hairs stuck here and there.

The bouquet is tied up clumsily with a wrinkled blue ribbon, and there is a folded bit of paper stuck between the ribbon and the flowers.

[beheld_beauty]

...Oooookay.

She picks up and inspects the paper.

[deslandes]

It says, in terrible handwriting, letters more cut and stabbed into the paper than merely written, ink blotches everywhere: sOrRY for tHE roARING

[beheld_beauty]

Wow.

Okay.

There is some manner of person here. Something that, unlike the furniture, can use language on his or her own.

Belle sets the roses aside and nibbles distractedly on her breakfast, contemplating the note.

After she's done eating, she says, "Just a minute," to her tray, and tears a page from her notebook and writes:

Who are you? Why does this castle keep me from leaving?

And she folds this note neatly and puts it among her dishes and says, "Please bring that note to whoever wrote it."

[deslandes]

The tray hops in place once, then leaves.

An hour later, it comes back with a reply, written on her note: someone has drawn a straggling line down from Why does this castle keep me from leaving? to the words, DON'T KNow

Her other question is ignored.

[beheld_beauty]

Hm.

Well, if he or she isn't going to explain who he or she is, that's frustrating, but at least she has someone to talk to. Was it you who was roaring? I thought it was some kind of animal. Is it safe to leave the room? she writes back, and sends the tray away with a pat.

[deslandes]

This reply is somewhat faster.

Three separate lines, one from each sentence, down to the single word YES.

[beheld_beauty]

...Okay, if it's an animal, it's a writing animal.

She wonders if it talks aloud. In case it doesn't, she brings her notebook and her pencils.

And she steps out of her room.

[deslandes]

The locked door is open. The side of it that usually faces Belle's part of the castle has suffered some superficial damage.

On the other side, there is a well-lit hallway.

[beheld_beauty]

Belle follows the lights, ears attentive.

[deslandes]

There's that breathing sound again, coming from a half-open door up ahead.

The door belongs to a library.

Amid ranks of tall shelves holding several fortunes' worth of books, there is a table; lounging in an enormous chair at the table, there is a... beast.

Its clawed, furred hands have visible fingers and thumbs; its arms and shoulders are human in structure, though likewise furred. Its head resembles some kind of cat, with a long luxurious mane several shades darker than its golden brown fur. The fur is patterned haphazardly, spots here and stripes there, neither symmetrical nor obviously reminiscent of a particular species.

It does not wear clothes - but then, with that thick coat of fur, clothes would be both redundant and uncomfortable.

It watches her steadily when she comes into view.

[beheld_beauty]

"...Hello."

She swallows.

"I'm Belle."

[deslandes]

"Hello, Belle." says the beast. The movement of speech reveals impressive fangs in its black-lipped mouth, but it makes no actual threatening move. And it speaks much more clearly, and with more obvious ease, than it writes.

[beheld_beauty]

"...Er, so, have you been here the entire time I have?"

[deslandes]

"I have been here," it says, with amusement clear in its voice, "for a hundred years and more."

[beheld_beauty]

"Wow, I didn't know anyone could live that long," she says with immediate interest, "how do you do it - are there more of you around? What are you? What's your name?"

[deslandes]

It laughs, showing teeth.

"I did not do any of this," it says, with a gesture to its furred body and the castle that surrounds them. "It was done to me. My name was among the things taken, and it is one I do not miss."

[beheld_beauty]

"Oh. Oh dear. So - what do I call you, then? And who did all this? What do they want?"

[deslandes]

"I don't even know if she is still alive. Call me what you like. 'Beast', if you can think of nothing better."

[beheld_beauty]

"I - okay, if you like," says Belle. She's not sure why anyone would want to be named Beast, but she's not going to argue the point. "Why did she do all this?"

[deslandes]

"I often wonder," he says, shaking his head. "She told me I made her angry, but it's a long way to go to punish a boy for running into an old woman in the street and laughing when she falls down."

[beheld_beauty]

"...You mean to tell me that not only there are people in the world who can make magic, cooperative castles and entire forests' worth of responsive direction away or towards same, but there are people in the world who will do that over trivial things like that? If that's the case how did I get to be seventeen without knowing magic was real?"

[deslandes]

"She was the first witch I ever met," he says. "Also the last. And I don't think she told me the whole of the story."

He smiles slightly, revealing a glint of fang.

"I was seventeen, too, come to think."