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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.
beheld_beauty
deslandes
"I don't love you because you're pretty," he says. "You are, and I love it, but that's not what made the difference. I love you because you're—beautiful. Like thunderstorms."
beheld_beauty
"I'm like thunderstorms?" Belle asks. "I didn't understand this the first time you mentioned it, and still don't, I'm sorry."
deslandes
"I mean..."
He trails off, thinks, then starts again.
"What's most beautiful about you is your nature - what you are, what you do. How you think, how you speak, what you say. Thunderstorms are beautiful for the same reasons—not the same things, not the same qualities, but the same... parts of them. Their essence and how they express it in the world."
He trails off, thinks, then starts again.
"What's most beautiful about you is your nature - what you are, what you do. How you think, how you speak, what you say. Thunderstorms are beautiful for the same reasons—not the same things, not the same qualities, but the same... parts of them. Their essence and how they express it in the world."
beheld_beauty
"Is there," Belle says, "anything much to anyone that is not their essence and how they express it in the world?"
deslandes
He laughs, too.
"I'm sorry. But it's true. I love you because you are the person that you are and you act the way you do."
"I'm sorry. But it's true. I love you because you are the person that you are and you act the way you do."
beheld_beauty
She can still make studying progress like this.
It's just a little slower.
She has to keep pausing to see if he's still doing it and then manage squidgy feelings.
It's just a little slower.
She has to keep pausing to see if he's still doing it and then manage squidgy feelings.