no subject

[mlle_belle]

"Please, Belle, I want to come and see!"

This was one of the most difficult partings she had yet had to make, but as Belle stood on one side of the Nexus, trying to dissuade a chipped teacup from following her into the hotel, she thought that this was never something she had ever imagined happening, not even when she cast herself in her own little stories in her head. "Chip, I'm sorry, but I don't know that you can even follow me in here," she says as kindly as she can manage.

Beyond that, she'd not sure she wants to bring all the beings in the castle into the Nexus. True, most people here didn't seem like they'd mind, but a talking armoire? It definitely wasn't the kind of hotel furniture people expected, even with mad shifting doors and outer space.

"Can't I come in for a little while and meet people?" Chip asks plaintively. "I don't like it when you're not around."

Belle smiles softly as she kneels down, her dress covering her as she scoots closer to the divide so that she's half in one world and half in the other, allowing Chip to hop into the palm of her hands. She knows that he wants her to come back to the castle, but things are so different and difficult now. She thinks that maybe she could still break the curse, but she doesn't know that she'd stay and given the choice of breaking the Beast's heart and putting off the decision, she's chosen the latter because she's happy with her life.

She thinks that it makes her a coward and she's ashamed for that, too. It's even more reason to continue hiding.

Belle's so lost in her thoughts that she doesn't even notice Chip jumping in her palms, trying to get someone's attention who's passing down the hall behind her. "Hi there!" Chip cries, bubbly and delighted. "Are you from here?"

I took my love, took it down.

[digyourman]

The twilight was painted in soft strokes across a tumble of low-slung clouds, pinks and purples distilled from the glitter of the infinite sky to spill over neatly-clipped lawns and gently burbling fountains. Perched upon one of the retaining walls in the English garden, Larry was bent over a guitar propped up by one braced knee, evening shadows chasing across his face as he strummed out a familiar melody with calloused fingers.

A year he'd been in this place; a year of quiet living and silently-borne restitution, a year that felt simultaneously endless and a blink, a year that had fostered introspection and little else. Good things still left him skittish, afraid of what followed, and despite it all the very nature of that feeling seemed another failure.

Frannie had been gone a month, and he still wasn't certain why he hadn't seen it coming.

The back edge of the guitar rested against his chest, each note humming through the thin cotton of his t-shirt and under his skin. He needed a haircut, dark curls sliding across his downturned eyes as began to softly sing.

Even children get older, and I'm getting older, too.