beheld_beauty | mes études

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

beheld_beauty

"I didn't ask them," says Belle, "but then, if I'd stumbled out of the wood instead of getting stuck here, and someone from Dulac or wherever I wandered to asked me 'are you by chance the type to fall in love with an enormous lion-man', I would have believed myself to be conversing with the village idiot."

From:

deslandes

He laughs.

From:

beheld_beauty

Belle giggles a little ruefully.

...And then she looks up that seeing-things-as-their-true-form spell, the one she originally set aside in favor of seeing-the-past.

Maybe there is a way to just leave it on.

Edited Date: 2013-03-13 05:13 pm (UTC)

From:

deslandes

As a matter of fact, there... isn't, quite.

But there's a cross-reference to another spell, and that one lets the caster choose a kind of spell-sight to keep ready at all times, to be triggered merely by applying one's Will in the appropriate direction, without the pain or fuss of a full recasting.

It takes significantly more power than any of the cross-referenced vision spells, including 'To See True Form or Nature', and then of course needs the power requirements of the encapsulated spell on top of its own. The complexity of casting is likewise a significant step up.

Edited Date: 2013-03-13 05:23 pm (UTC)

From:

beheld_beauty

Belle looks at this spell.

And she looks at her disenchantment curriculum.

It will take her a few days to learn the spellsight permanence.

It will take her - longer - to learn the disenchantment. Longer to do it without tearing herself apart even if Beast lets her channel the whole thing through him.

She frowns at her curriculum and starts jotting down optimistic periods of time it might take to learn each substep.

She adds up the column of figures.

It's as optimistic as she can possibly be, in reality she'd probably have to detour to pick up something she forgot to include, and she could still get herself killed.

"We could," she says, "I suppose, always try doing it her way."

From:

deslandes

"Are you the type to fall in love with an enormous lion-man?"

From:

beheld_beauty

"I'm the type to spend a week on learning to apply this sort of spell-sight," she says, tapping the book, "if that's the best thing to do. I really don't know about the lion-man part, but I don't think so."

From:

deslandes

"I would not find it very hard to love you," says the Beast.

From:

beheld_beauty

"I have never been in love before. I don't know if it's difficult, but it might easily take less than a year and a half."

From:

deslandes

"It's always taken me much less than that."

From:

beheld_beauty

"Do tell. I need all the information I can get."

From:

deslandes

"Oh, before - this," he says, "I used to fall in love at a glance or a word. It all seems very far away now. But it felt... beautiful, at the time."

From:

beheld_beauty

"If I were the type to do that I suspect I'd know it by now." She turns a page in her notebook and begins laying out all the steps for permanent truesight. "I have already glanced at you and spoken, so perhaps I'm not so easy to love as you suggest. Or you've lost that particular facility."

From:

deslandes

"Not always the first glance or word," he corrects. "Just the right one."

From:

beheld_beauty

"What makes it the right one?" (Note, note, note. He did have a very lovely smile, but while that would certainly help, she can't imagine falling quite in love simply by having it turned on her.)

From:

deslandes

"It's the right one when I fall in love with it," he says, tautologically.

From:

beheld_beauty

"Yes, I mean, did this happen according to any special pattern?"

From:

deslandes

He shrugs helplessly.

From:

beheld_beauty

"If you don't know, you don't know," she says.

Note note note.

"What's being in love like?"

From:

deslandes

"Sad," he says. "But in a good way. And it must be less sad, if the person you love also loves you."

From:

beheld_beauty

"- How could something be sad in a good way?"

From:

deslandes

He struggles to describe it.

"Even if I never see them again - and I mostly didn't - and even if they're all dead now, which they must be, they lived once and I saw them once and loved them once and it was beautiful while it lasted."