"I had the strangest dream," he yawns as he wanders into the library.

"Oh? What was it about?"

"You were there," he says, "but you weren't yourself, you were someone named Isabella with huge feathery wings like a bird's. They were very pretty. And you had a husband who they said looked just like me. And I talked to the person who wasn't exactly you about you and the spell, and she said you might be afraid I'd be angry with you if you tried to help me and failed, but I told her I wouldn't, and then she turned me human and I borrowed her husband."

"I tried to ask her what it was like to be in love," he adds, "so I could tell you, but she kept saying you wouldn't have any trouble."

"There's no good reason to expect your dreams to produce useful advice anyway," Belle points out.

"It wasn't a very dreamy dream."

"No? What do you mean?"

"I just mean it wasn't like my dreams usually are."

"What are they usually like, then?" Pause. "And what do you mean, you borrowed her husband?"

"I mean I borrowed him," says the Beast. "That's what she called it."

"Even if we rely on your dreams to produce an accurate-apart-from-the-marital-status-and-the-wings copy of me, I do not know what that means," says Belle.

"What uses do you imagine a husband has?" he inquires.

"That's enough to tell me you didn't."

"All right then. So you dreamed up an angel-me who was married to a you and then you borrowed him. I can only imagine what the traveling phrenologists would say that means about your psyche."

"Well, of course I did. He was very handsome. And I haven't done any of that in a hundred years. I wasn't going to waste the chance once I was out of my fur."

"And her husband was perfectly all right with being loaned out, I suppose?"

"Of course he was. He was a lot like me."

"This is not something I knew about you," Belle points out mildly.

"Yes," he recalls, "the other you said you should know. I don't see what difference it makes when we're the only two people we can reach, but I don't have a problem with telling you, either."

"If I learn enough magic or figure out how to fall in love with you, you'll be able to encounter more people," Belle points out.

He shrugs. "Well, does it matter to you if I borrow dream-people's husbands?"

"In dreams? No, dream about whatever you like. In fact even awake I have no particular claim on you, now, have I?"

"Well, if it made you stop wanting to fall in love with me, I'd want to know."

"Then do."

"Your clever notions for avoiding the social consequences being...?"

"Don't get caught. Or don't stay somewhere long enough for anyone to care."

"I am not sure I share your confidence in the reliability of those methods."

"Well, what consequences are you afraid of?"

She closes her eyes again. "I don't like how this works, but it's been made clear to me that pretty girls are supposed to 'buy' themselves security and faithfulness and matrimony with the purchase price of their beauty and constancy and initial virginity. If I 'buy' less than that or 'spend' more than that - if I deviate from this pattern in any way other than perhaps growing into a lone spinster-scholar - then I stand a reasonable chance of being treated like a pariah. Certainly this could be alleviated with frequent travel, if I liked the idea of frequent travel. Certainly I could simply say that most of the people who'd treat me that way don't matter to me - but I've never had cause to test the borders of my father's affection, now, have I? And he matters. Certainly if you were not caught, no one could laugh at me - except anyone party to the borrowing arrangement, who'd have their reasons for silence likewise. If you could be sure you would not be caught. But I cannot imagine that things have gotten worse in this dimension in the past century. Perhaps you've only forgotten; perhaps the rules are simply different for men by enough that you never learned the counterpart framework."

"It is different for men, but no one much likes a poor boy-whore with no home and no money, either."

"So that is what concerns me."

"How?"

"I could start by not fucking anyone you've met," he suggests.

"That doesn't prevent them from meeting me later," Belle points out.

"If they have no idea who you are, and don't live close by, what difference does that make?"

"People talk to each other. People travel, sometimes. If someone you - visit - far away comes to where we wind up living, wherever that is, and they see us together?"

"You're right," he says dryly, "of course they'll recognize me and run up to us shouting about what a whore I am."

"Just because I don't understand what possesses people to do certain things doesn't mean that those things are unheard of," Belle sighs.

"Anyway, this is all very much beside the point. Because all that only applies if we're married, and I don't believe we are, or will be in the next year and a half."

"We aren't," Belle agrees. "If I fell in love with you I wouldn't be about to marry anyone else, though, and spinster-scholarhood would hold rather less appeal."

"But you'll probably be a powerful enchantress, too," he muses. "And maybe the rules are different for those. Or maybe you can cheat with magic."

"Maybe. I've been focused so intently on disenchantments I hardly know what else I might be able to do one day."

"We have time to figure it out. I won't go sleeping around the country until we're sure it won't come back to bite you."

"All right. Thank you."

He just grins.

"What do you usually dream about, if it's not that?" Belle asks idly, after a few moments more of page-turning and note-taking.

"...I don't know," he says. "Other things. After all the time I've been here... there's a sense of this place in everything, you see. And there was nothing like this castle in that dream at all."

"I dream about places I've never been all the time," murmurs Belle. "It must have gotten very tiresome not to be able to escape the castle even sleeping."

"I hardly remember what it was like to dream of anything else."

"Well," says Belle, "now you have. I wonder if it will happen again."

"I'd like that."

Belle reads on for many hours. And finally she says, "I need some air. Want to come with me for a walk and see how far the forest will let us get?"

He perks up. "Yes!"

"It's never let me get even this far before," he says. "That was why I broke the gate."

"It'll turn us around inside of a few minutes, maybe sooner, but I can usually get that far," Belle says.

"I love you," says the Beast.

Belle laughs. "This is an odd time to mention it, why just then?"

"It's not odd at all, why is it odd?"

"It's not - topical. Is it?"

"The castle lets you out. The castle let me out, with you."

"...And?"

"...And I love you."

"I don't see how the things are related," laughs Belle.

"Well, I don't know how to explain," snorts the Beast.

"Fire," says the Beast.

"Yes - has this happened before - is the castle safe? -"

He growls.

"Maybe if you tossed me over them - I might break something but I might not -"

She holds on and scrunches her eyes shut.

The Beast takes the distance to the castle door in a series of jarring leaps.

"I'm okay," she murmurs. "Just - just a few scratches."

"The same," he says, turning his head to nuzzle her hand where it is still clenched in his fur.

She holds tight. "Thank you," she murmurs.

"Ee! What was that for?" laughs Belle.

"To make you laugh," he says triumphantly.

"Well, you succeeded there, I suppose," giggles Belle.

"I love you," he says happily, and starts to purr.

She scratches behind his ears.

He purrs louder.

"We should probably clean these cuts - or I should look up a healing spell," Belle murmurs after a moment. "At least mine - I don't know exactly how thoroughly the curse protects you from injury."

"The curse will not let me come to harm and stay there. I will be fine."

"Mm. I should at least rinse my cuts." She slides off his back with care.

He turns around and hugs her carefully.

And the Beast sits on the floor and puts his head in her lap.

And he gets petted for his trouble.

Purrrr.

"No, I don't believe it will," he agrees.

"I don't particularly mind being indoors - I like to go out now and again but it won't be a terrible hardship. But would you rather be able to step out without coughing? I can look up a spell - it's just a detour from learning disenchantment, is all."

"Look up a spell," he says.

"All right," says the Beast.

"You're sure? It won't just be one burst, at this level - you could be in pain for hours, maybe days."

He nods, and smiles.

He flops his head into her lap again and purrs.

Pet, pet. "It can't feel to you the way pain feels to me," she murmurs. "I can't imagine what else it could be like, though."

"Why can't it?"

"It's inherently unlikeable, for me."

"But it could feel the same, and I could feel differently about it," he says.

"...Maybe. I suppose I'd have to be able to read your mind to know for sure," she shrugs.

"Can magic do that?"

"Maybe. Do you want me to look for that, too?" laughs Belle.

"I'd like it," he says.

"You have very odd tastes," she says, and she starts looking, taking notes for a meta-index as she goes.

He laughs.

"Hello, Chelise."

"I guess Belle has a lot of studying to do! Let's go talk somewhere we won't bother her and get to know each other!" says Chelise.

"I've lived here a long time," he says, "but I don't think it's ever been mine. Why don't I show you the empty rooms, and you can choose one?"

"That sounds good to me!" says Chelise.

So he shows her the empty rooms.

...The Beast is amused.

Chelise sits down on her newly chosen bed. "You look soft," she says speculatively.

He laughs, and sprawls on the floor with his head in her lap.

He gets petted very enthusiastically, and Chelise laughs.

"Aww, you're adorable. How long has Belle been here? Did she just go straight to the magic books? That's not very flattering."

"She wants to be in love with me but she does not know how," he says. "So, magic."

"Is there a way to magic people in love with other people?" says Chelise with fascination.

"No," he snorts. "And people have died trying, if you believe the books."

"Well, I can see why, that would be fascinating," says Chelise.

He shakes his head, growling under his breath.

"What? It would solve the problem here, wouldn't it? And then marriages would never fail and friends would never have to fall out and everyone could love everyone else, I think that would be a much happier world."

"Do you love everyone you've ever met?" he asks, still growling a little.

"I try! I'm very friendly."

"I can tell," he snorts.

"Aww, I'm sorry if I upset you. It's not possible after all anyway, right? So it doesn't matter." Pet pet pet scritch scritch hopeful smile.

He rolls his eyes and lays his head in her lap again.

"How long've you been stuck here? Are me and Belle the only people who've found you? You must've been so lonesome."

"I was," he says. "For a hundred and fifty years."

"Oh, oh you poor thing," and he gets a hug.

Pet pet pet. "What do you want to do when you get out?"

"I don't know," he says. "Leave this forest, I think, for a while. Beyond that..." He shrugs.

"If it's me - and really I don't think she looks as interested as you said, diving straight for the books when there was a lonely person who needed affection, but maybe I'm wrong, so if - if it's me I could introduce you to all my friends - does the cat thing go away when the curse breaks? It must, mustn't it. That's almost a pity with you so soft." She idly rubs his belly like he really is just a giant cat.

"Oh, there are a lot of them - I was in the forest with some of my oldest friends visiting from Albion, I lived there until I was twelve and they aren't so far away that I can never see them. I'm the only bilingual one in the party, I hope they aren't unable to find any help, I hope they aren't lost for too long," she says. "But I make friends with everyone I can, so the only thing they've all got in common is that they're willing to make friends."

"Why did you leave, when you were twelve?"

"For Father's work," says Chelise. "He does -" She waves vaguely. "Something to do with ships, and needed to live here. Well, not here, but in Lutetia."

"And so what brought you and your friends into the Witchwood?"

"Well, my brother moved to L'arbe, and when my friends came to visit some of them wanted to see him too, so we all went, and L'arbe is just on the edge of the wood, and - and I don't live around here, I didn't know it would catch fire or that it would turn us around so, we thought we might find berries or something, my brother didn't warn us," sighs Chelise.

"It does not usually catch fire," offers the Beast.

"I hope my friends are okay," sighs Chelise.

"Why does the curse turn most everyone away from the castle so that you were alone for so long? Wouldn't it be easier to find someone to fall in love with if there were many choices?" asks Chelise.

"I don't think many people could fall in love with me at all," he says. "I think the curse only shows me those who can."

"Oh! Well, then you should be in a good mood, because there's hope," says Chelise merrily. Pet pet pet pet pet.

He snorts derisively.

"What?" asks Chelise. "I don't think you'd be so hard to love. I don't think I am. I don't know about Belle."

"Never mind," he sighs.

"Oh, won't you tell me? I suppose you needn't."

"It seems to me," he says, "that after a hundred and fifty years of this, I can be in whatever mood I please."

"Of course you can," says Chelise. "I didn't mean that you had to - I'm sorry, my Callian isn't perfect even now, some of my little siblings speak it like natives but I was already twelve when we moved."

He snorts again, but snuggles his head into her lap.

Pet pet pet pet. They can agree on pettings, can't they? Chelise wants to get along, look how hopeful she is.

They can agree on pettings! The Beast is still soft and fluffy and pettable, and he likes the way her hands feel in his fur.

"Do you have a better idea?"

"I - just doubt that's your name? It doesn't seem very polite of her to call you that, does it?"

"I told her to," he says. "You don't like her very much, do you."

"I hardly know her - and I like most everyone! I don't think she likes me," says Chelise sadly.

"What gave you that impression?"

"Oh, mostly how she looked at me when she talked to me in the front hall," says Chelise.

"I'll ask her," says the Beast.

"Do you think she'd know? Or tell you?" asks Chelise dubiously.

He laughs. "Of course she will."

"What do you mean of course? Sometimes people don't know. I can usually tell who likes who else, but everyone else winds up asking me."

"Belle knows her own mind."

"Isn't that usually a euphemism for stubborn?"

"Well, that's as may be," he laughs. "But I meant she understands it."

"Maybe," says Chelise dubiously. "I suppose if she says she likes me then whether she really does or not that means she's willing to try."

"Why do you doubt her so?" he asks dryly.

"I'm good at telling when people like me. Or each other. I think that's part of why I care so much about it."

"Well," he says, "I'll ask her, and then we'll know."

"If you say so." Pet pet pet pet.

Snuggle purr snuggle!