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

[beheld_beauty]

This book contains many interesting possibilities for starting out with practical magic, but it refers to the steps of each charm in rather opaque terms that Belle doesn't understand. And the helpful notes that are not part of the numbered steps are even more bewildering. "This is a simple spell, but even so, if you have not ordered your mindscape in the last week, it is advised that you tidy it to avoid backlash from distraction"? "This charm is particularly susceptible to the hazards typically associated with an unwilling channel"?

"I don't suppose," says Belle to Beast, "that you know anything about magic yourself? I think these books all assume I have a teacher. There's not a beginner's guide anywhere. Even this one thinks I know what a mindscape and a channel are, and how to tidy the one and fret appropriately about the willingness of the other."

[deslandes]

He shrugs expressively.

"I've only ever seen one spell cast, and I wasn't thinking about her technique at the time. Mostly I remember... screams of rage. Hers, not mine. Mine came later."

[beheld_beauty]

Belle winces expressively. "Well. Perhaps I can piece it together. It might take me a long time, though."

She switches from reading to skimming, writing a list in her notebook of terms she expects to be important and questions she needs answered.

[deslandes]

"We don't have forever," he says reluctantly. "Even if the curse somehow makes you immortal too. I have... a few more years, I think. Maybe as much as ten. And then it all becomes permanent. I don't know what the spell will do with you, then. Keep you here, send you away - it could be either one."

[beheld_beauty]

Belle blinks.

She skims faster. She sacrifices a little handwriting neatness.

[deslandes]

He just watches her.

There's not much else he can do.

[beheld_beauty]

"You can make some progress with small writing, can't you?" Belle says. "You read what I wrote, I didn't know you had vision issues when I wrote it."

[deslandes]

"Some," he says. "It hurts to do too much of it."

[beheld_beauty]

Belle pulls out a thin volume in one of the languages she doesn't know and opens it to what looks like it's plausibly an introduction for him. "Stop when your eyes are tired, but I have no idea how long it normally takes to learn to do serious magic, let alone how long it will take working out of books I mostly can't read. If nothing else, we can narrow down which languages I need to learn to adequately read aloud for translations in case nothing in the vernacular has anything to let me make headway."

[deslandes]

He can hold the book open, if he's careful with his claws. Safely turning pages is quite beyond him. But he doesn't need any pages turned on this one before he says dismissively, "Recipes for fake love potions."

[beheld_beauty]

She replaces it with another and returns to her own task.

[deslandes]

"This one's about something called a Dream-world," he says after a moment. "Do you think a mindscape is the same thing? It also talks about keeping them tidy."

[beheld_beauty]

"That sounds promising," says Belle, looking up. She's finished her scan of the Hedge-witch book and has moved onto The Discerning Enchanter's Toolkit, which is almost as unhelpful. "What does it say about it?"

[deslandes]

"There are a few words I don't know," he says, "but the parts I can read say that an enchanter must keep the Dream-world in good order to cast spells safely, and this book is about how to do that."

[beheld_beauty]

"Okay. I would like to cast spells safely, so this seems worth focusing on." She scoots over and turns the page. "How is it that I do that?"

[deslandes]

While she has the book, he rubs the back of one hand across his eyes.

"'The Enchanter closes his eyes,'" he translates, "'and ceases all movement, and thinks only of the Dream-world - the place inside the mind,' I don't know this word, something about magic, and then, 'If he is a true Enchanter he will leave the world of the body and travel in his mind to the Dream-world.' I wonder how you get back."

[beheld_beauty]

"...Do your eyes hurt?" Belle asks. "I can still make progress, albeit out of order, and you can come back to this later."

[deslandes]

He nods.

[beheld_beauty]

She returns to the Toolkit, skimming and taking notes. Conveniently, it mentions four different styles of entering one's mindscape, twelve chapters in - it doesn't outright instruct the reader on any, but it draws contrasts between the four. Belle pauses there, contemplating.

[deslandes]

"Find something?"

[beheld_beauty]

"Four styles of entering the mindscape-or-dreamworld," says Belle. "It doesn't give instructions, just talks about how there's the ones who breathe their way there and the ones who follow their heartbeats and the ones who 'make as though to sleep' and the ones who can do it just by wanting. I'm not sure if these are things people are just stuck with based on who they are, or if you can pick one."

[deslandes]

"Do you want to try one?"

[beheld_beauty]

"Maybe. Did the language in the book you were looking at suggest that entering the dreamworld was inherently dangerous? There are lots of little warning flags all through these books."

[deslandes]

"No..." he says. "Unless that's what the words I didn't know were about."

[beheld_beauty]

"Were there a lot of them? Were they clustered or sprinkled through the prose?"