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

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

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."

Scritch, scritch.

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

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

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.

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

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

"You find a lot of curious things beautiful."

"What do you mean?"

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

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

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

"Well, of course not."

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

"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?"

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

"Ah, so you've always been an oddity."

"Since long before I was seven feet tall and covered in fur."

"It was reason enough."

"Should I be fearing for my life, should I wake up in a bad mood one day?"

"Never. Not even if I could."

"Then you have nothing to fear from me," he says.

"Is that where the scars came from? I had been wondering if your habit of wrestling rosebushes was a very old one."

"I don't remember all of them," he says. "I think there were more - from other places, later. But most of them, yes."

"From where else?"

"I don't remember them all," he reiterates.

"Them all, but - never mind."

"Thank you for that, too," he says, and turns, and nuzzles his catlike nose against her hand.

"That looks really strange if I focus on your trueshape," observes Belle.

He laughs.

"In fact, a fair fraction of what you do is strange when I focus on your trueshape. Did you always act like a giant cat? Did the behaviors come with the curse? Did you pick them up as you got accustomed to the form?"

"A little of this, a little of that, a little of the other, I think."

"Hmm." Scritch scritch.

"I am slowly becoming used to the fact that I see both forms but I only get fur if I actually put a hand out."

The Beast laughs and purrs at the same time, an interesting if inelegant combination.

"What do you want to do when we break the curse? One way or the other?"

"I... have no idea," he admits.

"None at all? You haven't been dreaming of it all these years - 'if the curse ever gets broken I'm going to go and...?'"

"Because no one ever came until me?"

He nods.

"I would probably have thought about it anyway. Just in case. To have something to do, if nothing else."

"I would never want to spend my days dreaming about a freedom I don't think I'll ever have."

"I've been here for weeks now, though."

He shrugs, curling up more comfortably at her feet. "I guess I'm not entirely ready to believe in you yet."

"I'm strictly nonfictional," she assures him. Pet pet.

"I believe you're there," he says, purring demonstratively. "That much is inarguable. But that you might free me... harder to let myself believe."

"I have no reason not to disenchant you if I can. The other avenue is trickier. Not impossible, as far as I know."

"So it is not certain you can do either one in time," he says, "and I would rather not become comfortable with hope until I know."

"...Even if the curse becomes permanent, that just means there are ongoing effects that aren't directly disenchantable. Maybe I should keep some of the magic books and the dictionaries for the foreign languages under a shelter of some kind, out in the forest, so I can take them with me and keep studying if we hit the time limit and it sends me away, and then maybe I could do something. I'm not at all optimistic - but it might be that if I learned enough, I could - I don't know. The thing that seems most likely that I could one day be able to do in spite of all the supposed obstacles is kill you. I don't even know if I could do that. I don't know if you'd want me to."

"...I'd want you to," he says softly.

"If the time limit comes due," Belle says, "and we're still stuck here then, I'll leave with all the books I can carry and drag, and I will work on it, and I'll try to anti-curse you where I couldn't un-curse you, and if that doesn't work I'll see if I can get you out of here - the other way. But let's hope it doesn't come to that."

"We can hope," he agrees.

"Sadistic nut of a witch," mutters Belle, "who would take all this power to change the world and do nothing productive, not even pointless harmless whimsy, but - disproportionate absurd cruelty, out of all scale - when did that start to seem to her like a worthwhile use of pain and power -"

"Don't ask me," snorts the Beast.

"I have no one else to ask," Belle points out.

"Then you will never know the answer."

"Unless there is some more advanced version of that past-viewing spell. Or I learn to invent my own."

"Until then," he agrees with a laugh.

"I should study," she sighs, looking down at him where he's sprawled before her, "I don't want to have to work out how to kill you if all else fails."

"Go study, then."

The Beast wanders in about an hour later, preceded by the lunch tray, and flomps into his chair as the tray sidles up to Belle.

"Were you going to tell me at some point that you fell in love with me?" Belle inquires.

"The curse noticed. It doesn't help, unfortunately, not by itself."

"Well, it means that now everything really is up to you."

"Assuming you're relatively constant about it, anyway. It is necessary for both halves to be at the same time."

"I will not," he says with absolute conviction, "stop loving you."

"How do you know?" Belle asks curiously.

"Well, I would have a good idea, in my case, but I make a particular study of my own mind, and I still wouldn't be as confident as that. So I want to know why you think so."

"I think so because it's true."

Belle sighs in exasperation and gives up.

"So," she says, "at least not within the time limit, then."

"Yes."

"All right." She sighs. "I really don't know how to fall in love with someone. There are not - instructions, anywhere."

"What do you think of me?"

"You're my friend," she offers after a moment. "You - you've been treated with appalling unfairness, and there's a sort of openness to you that I half-admire, and you have quite a smile. If unbeknownst to me that added up to love on my part I believe the curse would have noticed, though."

"Half-admire?" he asks, laughing. "What of the other half?"

"Well," Belle says. "When I fully admire something like that, I copy it for myself. I'm disinclined to do that. It wouldn't suit me. But it seems to work for you."

"I admire lots of things I don't want to be," he shrugs.

"You?"

She laughs. "I meant more specifically. Qualities, not entire people."

He shrugs again. "I don't know, then."

"So you just sort of admire me as a vague entire thing with no characteristics?" she inquires archly.

"No," he says. "You have characteristics - I don't know which ones I like so much, that's the trouble."

"Ah," Belle laughs. "That sounds frustrating."

"It would frustrate you."

"Yes. It would. It doesn't you?"

"I don't frustrate easily," he says cheerfully.

"Are you even curious about it?"

He shrugs. "A little."

"Well, I am," says Belle. "I've - a handful of people have claimed to be in love with me before. But these were always people who'd barely spoken to me. Who thought I was pretty and knew nothing more about me than than that. If that was any kind of love I don't think it was a worthwhile sort. But if my merely looking as I do sufficed for you - for the curse - then I'd have seen it the first time I looked at the fondement, I think."

"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."

"I'm like thunderstorms?" Belle asks. "I didn't understand this the first time you mentioned it, and still don't, I'm sorry."

"Is there," Belle says, "anything much to anyone that is not their essence and how they express it in the world?"

"I suppose not," he says.

"So that doesn't really answer my curiosity, but I suppose you tried," she laughs.

"You," the Beast observes, "are blushing."

Belle touches her cheeks. "...Maybe."

"You are! I love it," he declares. "I love you blushing."

"Well," she giggles. "That's specific, at least."

He grins.

"Any other specificities spring to mind?"

"I'll tell you when I think of them," he assures her.

Gazing adoringly at her.

...Well, that's distracting.

Ah, but is it productive?

Maaaaaybe.

Well, he is going to keep doing it until she tells him to stop.

Are not squidgy feelings the point?

Th-they're one of multiple possible points!

They're such a nice point, though. All squidgy and everything.

Well technically they are not pointy feelings. They're all soft. They are pillowesque.

Maaaaybe.

Cuddly is good.

Belle comes to the end of her chapter. She puts her pencil down. She scoots back her armchair and holds out her arms in his direction.

Snuggle.

"I love your snuggles," he confides.

Belle giggles. "You're quite snuggleable yourself."

"I am! I am fluffy," he says happily.

"Hm, I bet you'd still be pretty snuggly just by dint of personality even if you were disenchanted."

"You know," he says consideringly, "I do believe you're right."

"No firsthand experience to make this a certainty? I'm surprised."

"Well, some."

"All too long ago to remember clearly?" suggests Belle. Scritch scritch scritch.

He nods his fluffy head.

"Le pauvre." Scritch scritch scritch.

He purrrrrrrrrrrrrrs.

"I do like you," she murmurs.

"I'm glad."

"I know what it's like for me to be in love," says the Beast. "I don't think I know what it's like for you."

Pet pet. "It might help if you told me more about what it's like for you anyway."

"It's nice," he says. "It's a good feeling."

"Is that all you can tell me?"

"What isn't it like?" she suggests lightly.

He laughs.

"Maybe I should study the Heart spells," laughs Belle, "if you can't tell me - see how the spell's defining it. It must have a definition."

"Maybe," he says agreeably.

Studying detour. It must explain all those colors somewhere.

All right... she remembers checking the fondement to see if romantic love in particular was required, and she remembers that it was but what else is in her notes...

While she looks it up, the Beast curls up on the floor and snuggles against her legs.

Her notes are inconclusive on the question she's curious about. Drat. It does have to be romantic; it doesn't have an exhaustive description embedded in the spell of what that is.

Scritch scritch. "Well, that's a dead end," she says.

"What is?"

"Working from the spell's definition of love. It's not embedded in the spell itself enough for it to look at. Apparently on some level I'm in love when I decide I'm in love. But there will be no use attempting to fool myself, or the curse."

"Tricky," he murmurs.

"Very," she sighs. Pet pet.

Purr purr snuggle purr.