mes études

[beheld_beauty]

Belle studies magic.

It's tricky. Getting into and out of her rose-sphere is routine after a few days, but she still hasn't uncovered an explanation of how channeling works, though she's been informed that there are three options for how to do it (by herself, through a willing helper, or through an unwilling helper). Unlike the fourfold options for reaching the Dreamworld, this does not tell her how to begin fumbling towards a practical understanding, even though she can rule out the last one just on the basis of its description.

Beast can only do so a tiny bit of reading per day, and her pile of books that she can read shrinks much faster than his. She combs the library for multilingual dictionaries, so she can pick her way through the titles of the foreign-language books and at least prioritize them before handing them over.

Finally something in an obscure language that even Beast can barely read - Belle has to look up a lot of words - explains the channeling in a way she can understand.

Comments

[deslandes]

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Not nervous, no."

[beheld_beauty]

"What, then? If you're having," she gestures, "extraneous emotions it's not impossible they could throw off a spell..."

[deslandes]

He rumbles thoughtfully for a moment, then says, "Restless."

[beheld_beauty]

"Why's that?" No message-sending spells in this book; she grabs the next likeliest.

[deslandes]

Snort. "Oh, I'm always restless."

[beheld_beauty]

"Mmm." She only needs about a third of her brain to scan indices for message spells. "What bothered you about being alone, anyway?"

[deslandes]

"I hadn't heard a voice not my own in a century and a half when you came," he says. "I haven't touched another person in just as long." With a twist of a smile on his surprisingly expressive face, "Wrestling rosebushes just isn't the same."

[beheld_beauty]

Belle looks up.

She tilts her head.

She reaches out and settles one hand on top of his paw, well away from the claws, and goes back to reading, turning the pages with her other hand.

[deslandes]

His fur is very soft and fluffy.

He slumps in his chair and purrs.

[beheld_beauty]

Ooh, soft. Her thumb makes short absent stroking motions with the grain of the fur.

[deslandes]

The Beast purrs some more.

[beheld_beauty]

She reads on, one handed.

"Better?" she asks after a few minutes.

[deslandes]

"Much," he sighs. "Thank you."

[beheld_beauty]

"It's nothing," she says.

She leaves her hand where it is, until she gives up on finding a message spell and requires both hands to gesture appropriate levels of frustration. "Do enchanters never want to communicate with anyone who isn't in the room with them?" she exclaims.

[deslandes]

"Maybe not," shrugs the Beast.

[beheld_beauty]

"Well. At least I know Charlie got out of the woods okay."

She resumes her more general studies.

After a silence, she starts singing to herself softly.

[deslandes]

"Do you miss him?" he wonders.

[beheld_beauty]

"Charlie?" she asks, stopping and looking up. "I - mm, not exactly. I love him and I want him to be happy and he's clearly not and if I were there he would be, so in the sense that I want to go back to him, I do, but if he'd died when I was six along with my mother, or if for some reason he didn't care about me, I'd be all right without him. I wouldn't choose those situations, but I'd get along fine. Having people around has never seemed terribly important to me. I might change my tune if I were alone for a hundred years, but on an ordinary day it's like - having dessert. A perfectly nice thing I'd like to do routinely that I could adjust to think nothing of if it became impossible."

[deslandes]

He nods thoughtfully.

[beheld_beauty]

"I do need things to do to be happy. If I'd been cursed like you my complaint wouldn't be that I was by myself, it'd be that I couldn't read the books."

[deslandes]

The Beast laughs.

"All this time," he admits, "I've wanted to learn to cook—" He spreads his hands. That is clearly not happening.

[beheld_beauty]

"I'd teach you, but," she nods.

[deslandes]

"I watch the kitchen sometimes."

[beheld_beauty]

"I did that too. Trying to figure out where the produce and meat came from. Never figured it out, they always seem to be there already from someplace I wasn't watching."

[deslandes]

"A few years ago a deer wandered into the garden," he recalls. "I killed it. Venison for dinner. But the rest of the time, it has to get the meat from somewhere else. Maybe the forest feeds it somehow."