mon ami

[beheld_beauty]

Not much happens at the castle. It's the two of them and the magic. She studies. He wanders around. He's not very careful about standing behind things - he does when he remembers and there is something nearby, but it's plain that nothing about being visible in the less-than-fluffy nude bothers Beast except on her behalf.

Finally she excises an hour of study time to spend on being able to look at him without intervening furniture or flinching. She finds it's possible to do this in her mindscape, without having to use a notebook. She can zoom in deep into a rose petal, find a level of detail beyond which there are no patterns, and write, directly there. This isn't an ideal memory aid - if she looks later the words aren't exactly the same - but it's much faster for sheer processing, and the chosen modifications morph into the structure of the rose without special effort as soon as she's sure she wants them.

She behaves with more equanimity about his nudity after that. "You can stop trying to remember to hide behind things," she tells him.

Comments

[deslandes]

"Thank you," he says, smiling. "I was terrible at it."

[beheld_beauty]

"Yes," she says dryly. "I noticed."

[deslandes]

He laughs.

"I'm sorry," he says ruefully.

[beheld_beauty]

She shakes her head. "It's all right. It doesn't bother you, and I've fixed it so it doesn't bother me either."

[deslandes]

"Good," he says.

And he curls up on the floor by her chair and leans his head on her knee.

[beheld_beauty]

Scritch, scritch.

[deslandes]

Purr!



Time passes. Belle continues her magical studies. The Beast continues to read when he can and snuggle when he can't.

A few days after Belle makes herself comfortable with his true form, a storm blows up and soaks the gardens with driving rain. The Beast, of course, dashes out almost immediately to play in it.

In less than an hour, he's back inside, soaking wet and slightly muddy, with twigs and brambles tangled in his mane. If she looks, she will find him on the kitchen floor, trying and failing to brush out his fur and laughing all the while.

[beheld_beauty]

"Well," says Belle. "You're a mess."

[deslandes]

"That I am," he agrees. "Do I smell dreadful?"

(He doesn't - mostly he smells like rained-on roses.)

[beheld_beauty]

"No, just like rain. A little floral, maybe. Mostly rain."

[deslandes]

He laughs, and twists to try to get the brush into a tangle of fur on his back. Despite catlike flexibility, it's not quite working.

[beheld_beauty]

Belle holds out her hand for the brush. "Does the castle not help with this?" she asks.

[deslandes]

He gratefully untwists and relinquishes the brush to her, shaking his head.

"I always get it right in the end, but it sometimes takes a few days." With a flash of a grin, "Worth it anyway. I love the rain."

[beheld_beauty]

"I've never been particularly fond of it, myself." Brush, brush. She's gentle with the tangles. "What do you like about it?"

[deslandes]

The Beast purrs softly.

"Storms like this one... they're big and powerful, but they don't think, they just are. I like that. I think it's beautiful." Smiling, "It's fun to get all messy, too, even if I pay for it afterward."

[beheld_beauty]

"You find a lot of curious things beautiful."

[deslandes]

"What do you mean?"

[beheld_beauty]

"Oh, unthinking masses of power, and falling in love with people you never saw again, and the like. It's perplexing."

[deslandes]

"What's perplexing about it?" he wonders.

[beheld_beauty]

"It's just nothing like my aesthetic, or that of anyone I've met before."

[deslandes]

"Well, of course not."

[beheld_beauty]

"Why 'of course'?" (Comb comb comb.)

[deslandes]

(Purr purr purr.)

"Becaaaaaause," he says lazily, "I'm not any of those people."

[beheld_beauty]

"Yes, but many of them are more similar to each other than you are to any of them, why should you be so far off?"

[deslandes]

"I don't know why," he says. "I just know it's been that way all my life."