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]

It shifts slightly.

[beheld_beauty]

It doesn't, she thinks, have to be open far, but it does need to be open -

Push -

[deslandes]

The door swings open, inviting her in.

[beheld_beauty]

She doesn't need to go in. But this is where her spell will go.

She forms the intentions and the will behind Looking Upon The Past, and - sends it, thisaway.

[deslandes]

The power of Will... sparkles. Every shade of grey from black to white, glinting and swirling together in thousands of tiny motes that together make up a fluid similar to the Heart-power she used earlier.

It flows in the door, and away out of sight... and cascades out of a tower window a moment later, spilling around the covering vines.

The spell shows her the Beast as he was, as a human. Tall, handsome, just about her age, with curly brown hair almost the same colour as his mane.

He used to be a very happy person.

[beheld_beauty]

Belle commits that face, that smile, to memory, and she opens her eyes.

"I wish I could draw," she says.

[deslandes]

"Was I pretty?" he asks with a snort.

[beheld_beauty]

"You laugh, but you were. And tall, and curly brown hair this long -" she gestures - "and smiling. You looked happy."

[deslandes]

"I'm tall now," he observes. This is very true.

[beheld_beauty]

"Yes, but you were then, too."

[deslandes]

"I wasn't this tall then," he says, but now he is definitely being silly.

[beheld_beauty]

"Well, you were only about my age, perhaps some of this is natural growth you had left in you," she suggests. "No, I think you'd be this tall now regardless of your previous height."

[deslandes]

"Sometimes my ears touch the frame when I walk through a door," he snorts.

[beheld_beauty]

She giggles.

[deslandes]

"At least I'm not - quite - tall enough to hit my head."

[beheld_beauty]

"Perhaps it would be more convenient if she'd turned you beastly enough to find walking on all fours more comfortable."

[deslandes]

"I can do that just as easily," he shrugs. "But I like standing up."

[beheld_beauty]

"Why's that?"

[deslandes]

"I don't know, I just do."

[beheld_beauty]

"Fair enough. Is it going to be hard, when I've disenchanted the castle, to get used to being - nonbeastly again?"

[deslandes]

He shrugs expressively. "How would I know? I've never done it before."

[beheld_beauty]

"You've been human before," she points out. "...I do hope the end result doesn't involve, say, you crumbling to dust on account of being a hundred and seventeen and no longer affected by the curse?"

[deslandes]

"If it did," he says, "I'd still like that better than the other option. But I don't think it will."

[beheld_beauty]

She pats his paw again.

[deslandes]

He purrs contentedly.