((I'm SO sorry for you having to wait so long! It won't happen again!!))

Color ran deeply through her cheeks and down her throat. "No, no," she quickly assured Megan. "No, he's not my.... No, I don't have anyone like that. He didn't bite me, and he didn't... He'd say he didn't hurt me, but what he did do terrified me for weeks. He took my control. He made me say things, things I never would have said if he hadn't forced it out of me. I'm glad all he did was take your sweater, Pixie. I would have to be very angry with him if he'd done the same thing to you that he did to me. But never look into his eyes, promise me. Promise me."

Megan was too kind and too carefree to be weighted by something like what Eric could do. To Beauty, one of the worst things in the world was to be controlled by something or someone other than herself. She obeyed authority -- her father, her country's laws -- but to have her ability to choose for herself removed... She couldn't abide it. It was the chief reason why it'd been so hard for her in the City (until she met Thomas) -- it'd taken her forcibly from her own home. It'd told her how to live, how to eat, how to dress... And when Eric had done what he'd done, he'd turned himself into a monster in her eyes. Only his later promises had redeemed him. Eric, she decided, wasn't allowed to harm her new friend. She'd have words with him later.

"A makeover?" she asked hesitantly. It'd not been the first time she'd heard the word (or rather, encountered it -- there'd been a very strange and modern book she'd read that mentioned a 'makeover' -- but she wasn't wholly certain what it was, precisely. "I think that'd be all right," she said carefully. "I... I'd really like to look... ah... less... 18th century. Do you think you could help with that?"

Something told Beauty that Pixie knew all about how to achieve this particular goal. She smiled, despite her nervousness.