InsaneJournal

Who: Rose & Henry
What: A nice formal dinner.
Where: The Beast's Castle
When: Recently.
Warnings/Rating: Probably at least PG13, with some nice heavy duty flirting.
Note: Part I

As a summer evening in the Valley purpled in glorious sprays of gold, the Beast’s castle was alight in the steady, strange glow of civilization.

The candles were not cheap, and many were the product of not only hours but days of effort, procuring the tallow and dipping the wicks in hot, foul-smelling vats. There had not been hunting for weeks as the Beast’s curse ran awry, but the summer was rich and the forest seemed to be recovering, providing small game and supplies for small luxuries like candles and soap. As impossible as it was, the Beast could look out the smallest window of his mother’s room, of the high-ceilinged stone chamber still redolent of the princess and her roses, and see green coming through the dark canopy of the woods, and sprays of purple blossoms had found purchase on the heretofore bald slopes of the hills behind the castle. The invisible servants seemed as confused by their prince’s change in circumstance as he was, and though they still drew back from the painful cries of each change, his amazement whenever the change happened to render him human seemed to be infectious.

The Beast was still a fickle master and a dangerous companion, for he did not seem able to keep the same shape for more than a few hours at a time, and unlike years past, he showed no sign of human conscience or awareness in his more bestial forms. On one morning he found himself in the rafters of the great hall after a prolonged time as some type of bird; another day dawned in the dark of a ruined kitchen amongst the debris of an angry boar’s attempts at escape. Perhaps one day he would never come to himself again, or perhaps one day his human form would remain. Each witching hour brought new hope that maybe this day was the last day of chaos, of unpredictable being. He did not know why the curse had become unstable, but he chose to believe, in the darkest, quietest places of his heart, that perhaps somewhere in the world, the Witch was dying.

It was not safe to leave the castle, as the intervening hours of change became shorter, his grasp on consciousness weaker. Yet the thought of Rose so near, yet so willing to see him, left the Beast quite unable to resist the opportunity provided by the solemn voice of the magic book. She would come.

Rose had lost count of how many days it had been since she'd seen Henry. Henry, now, because he wasn't the Beast in her mind any longer. She didn't know when that had changed, but it had. Months apart, perhaps, and the changing of the season from winter to a bright summer. The last time she'd seen him had been in a dream, and she wasn't sure she counted that as actually seeing him. Dreaming wasn't wakefulness, with its more transparent walls and lowered sense of measured words. Though she'd never been one to measure words, and she wasn't likely to start now, even when her secrets had been spread out before her like one of Briar's feasts. She was still herself, and she thought there was little hope of changing a thing a thousand years into its existence. She and Snow, both, perhaps they were too old for anything but what they had. The thought depressed her, and she shrugged it off like the thin white fabric she'd wrapped around herself for the long, hot bath in front of the hearth.

Snow had, as promised, helped her to acquire a dress for the occasion. Long and slim, taupe and with a hem that touched the floor, Rose looked at herself in the looking glass and frowned. It wasn't that she didn't think she looked pretty. She'd never been as beautiful as Snow, always the ugly duckling in red, but she'd always had enough coquetterie to make up for nature's shortcomings in her appearance. No, it wasn't the quality of the dress, nor was it how she looked in it, nor was it the way the smooth twist of copper hair accentuated her cheekbones. It just wasn't her. She rifled through her trunk and pulled out older things. Things suitable for the old whimsy of the world that she'd lived in for more years than she could remember, but that frill and formality wasn't who she was, either. Not anymore, and maybe she'd never been the girl that had gone to live with a merchant. She'd been told once that she'd tried to steal another tale for her own. There was truth in that. The girl who had gone to live with the kindly man and his daughters wasn't truly who she was. No one who looked into her soul would ever call her Belle.

And so it was, that she decided on something she'd purchased in Fabletown. Red, formal, and with a hem that dragged beneath the golden heels on her feet, she tugged her hair loose and let it cascade in flame and triumph, and she pulled the long, butter-colored cloak from her trunk. The cloak bore red roses on the hem and on the edges of the sleeve, and she'd stolen it from one of Henry's chests once. She tugged the cloak's hood over her hair, and another glance in the looking glass left her feeling more herself. She walked through the door to the hotel, confident her new "companion" would walk her back in with the key that belonged to Henry, and that opened upon his door instead of hers.

It was strange for Rose, being back in the place she'd so wanted to make a home. The thought brought back the persistent pang of longing that she'd had since the hotel's feast. But the heavy double doors opened, and there was no longer time for melancholic musings. She stepped inside, thanking the invisible hands that had pulled the door open for her, and she decided to wait, for once, before storming in like a whirlwind and thunder.

The Beast, to the contrary, did not think of himself by his original name very often, a vestige of identity that brought back a chorus of soft maternal whispers, a fraternal exclamation, and despairing battlefield cries. Henry, Henry, Henry! There were so many years between one thought and the next, repeated periodic losses of anything so presumptive as identity, and countless fresh lives lost and gained, that he must be a Beast, on most days, even to stay sane. Henry could not live for so long with only vengeance instead of hope, and even finding himself on two legs once more was such an overwhelming experience that only the recurrence of the state over several weeks at all allowed adjustment. Even he must admit, while adjusting to the vastly improved eyesight but terrible sense of smell, that while in the body he was born into, he must be Henry, despite the echoes from the past.

He was Henry now, and nervous with it, the sweat from the last transformation still chilling the back of his neck. This time, he had been something small and frightened, probably a rabbit or stoat, and while he couldn’t remember what he’d done or where, the constant terror of the tiny creature left some invisible marks on his mind that were only just now beginning to fade. The candlelight was now kind and warm, and in the shadow of the great hall, he leaned against one of the old familiar stone columns for support, pressing his hand where so many of his ancestors had before him.

He was late in remembering Rose’s arrival, though over the last week he had done much to plan for it when he had the mind and hands ready. It was more difficult for him to obtain suitable clothing, possessed of a castle where none had dwelt for decades, and all that remained was clothing stored in magical vessels (like his mother’s trunk) or attire made to withstand the years (like his father’s armor). He had scrounged something that was therefore a mix, a very plain, even faded red cotton shirt the color of new rust, breeches that that boasted some sort of enchantment to keep them extremely blue, and a tooled leather vest that, upon extremely close inspection, depicted devils frolicking in new forest leaves. One of the servants had done some needlework with gold thread on the shirt, which was the only thing that kept it from the rag bin. It was too loose on him, but at least it was comfortable.

Straightening into a longer stride that was still nothing like the confident movement of a man from long ago, he stepped out of the shadows beside the entrance hall as the door slowly creaked closed. He said, “Rose,” before he saw her fully, and stopped abruptly, forgetting about his wild hazel-eyed form for several seconds as he took in the woman and her finery. He forgot whatever it was he’d been about to say and just stared at her, mouth slightly ajar.

She hadn't expected him to be dressed in mundane clothing. She'd embraced the offerings of the mundane world, after a period of resistance, but she'd know better than to expect the same from him. But it wasn't the breeches and the oddly patterned vest that left her staring at him, mouth slightly ajar and surprise in the dark gold of her eyes.

She'd never seen him as a man without it being some trick of the hotel. A dream, a transference, some magic intended to make them all bond over tragedies and heartache. But this was no dream, and they weren't temporarily in the mundane world. She looked around the entrance hall, as if the space could somehow explain why he was standing there on two feet, instead of leaning forward on four. But nothing answered her questioning glances, of course, and her gaze settled on him again.

She was supremely aware of the fact that he'd gotten angry enough to storm out on her in a dream, part of her wanted to do the unthinkable - just stand there and say nothing, so that she couldn't make it all go wrong. But silence was Snow's court, not hers. She'd always jabbered on and opined as a child. Her mother had thought it entertaining, and she'd never curbed her red-haired daughter's tongue. The lesson had never been learned, and Rose was sweet vinegar to this day, as likely to seduce as to sting.

She stepped forward, the hood of her cloak falling as she moved, copper tumbling over butter and roses. She didn't stop until she was directly in front of him, the awe in her strange eyes something that was impossible to hide. The entryway smelled of sharp green things, though none had broken through the floorboards to greet her yet, and she settled her hands on her hips and looked up, up at him. "You could've told me."

Even with the few seconds he had in the shadows before she saw him fully, she recovered before he did. It was her movement, the hiss of cloth moving over the gleaming chaos of her hair, that shook him out of the temporary haze, and he remembered something like manners just in time to actually hear what she said. Even so, he was late in replying, forgetting to blink as he took her in, wondering at her appearance and the shape of her body in the red drip of fabric. It was, for a few seconds, as if he didn’t know her at all, as if she was some apparition, a form that was the embodiment of loveliness alone. He thought this was because there was nothing here to him but her, and he was just a man and nothing else in the same moment.

After too long a pause, he remembered to look abashed. He shifted on his feet, pulling his weight forward over his hips, then his toes, and the falling into movement so he could sweep in a slightly circular fashion around her. If he’d had a tail he would have twitched it, but he hadn’t, and he forgot the impulse a second later. Henry stretched out one hand and picked up the tips of her fingers. (He had to slip one hand under her wrist first, because she was being matronly at him.) “It comes and goes. I could not guarantee it would be so.” He tipped his rough chin down to look into her face, searching. “Do you like it?” It was an honest question, though he didn’t like sounding nervous. “I know how you feel about men.” Both eyebrows sketched upward, inquiring, and if he acquired the faint look of a hopeful puppy, well, he could blame it on former shapes.

She didn't mind the forgetfulness in talking. In the world they called home, beauty was Snow, beauty was pallor and lips like roses. Beauty was, and had always been, someone who looked elegant upon a dais in a throne room. Princes married for beauty, and even the villagers prized the same traits in a woman. Rose had always been too copper and flame, too coarse to be considered beautiful, but he didn't look at her as if he was comparing her to the fairest one of all, and she didn't mind that he forgot to speak.

When his fingers closed on her wrist, she yanked just slightly, testing the tension in the grip without trying to pull her hand free. She was already coming up with a response for his question when he admitted to knowing how she felt about men, and that made her tip her head to the side, curiosity and contemplation in her amber gaze. He wasn't wrong, of course. She'd railed at him about the males of the world often enough for both of them to know there was truth in what he said, but he'd never actually acknowledged it like that. His acknowledgement, unexpected as it was, left her momentarily speechless.

"I didn't like the men in Snow's court," she admitted, because he'd mentioned it, and now she felt she needed to somehow explain. Before, she'd bitten and snapped, but she didn't want to just then, and Rose was nothing if not fickle about the things she said and did. When angry, she bit. When appeased, she could be as sweet as a thornless flower. Though, admittedly, the latter did not happen often. "They pretended to love their wives, but they betrayed all of them with smiles on their faces." She gave him a little nod, something acquiescing. "Perhaps not all men are like that." For Rose, that was almost a declaration of trust, and Rose never trusted anyone at all.

Her smile turned coquettish. "I like it very much," she admitted. "Are you going to take my cloak?"

Henry tilted his head in a faintly birdlike gesture of mixed wonder and amusement. “Perhaps.”

At first his grip tightened when she attempted to pull away from him, but he closed his eyes rapidly over the steady, leafy gaze, and his grip became a suggestion. He stepped back from her, going against countless decades of habit and a natural desire to cling to her now that she was so close. He drew his feet together and bowed over her hand, comportment training from oh, so very long ago conflicting with an animal’s need to protect his neck. He prevented himself from actually setting lips to skin, but his warm breath tickled over her knuckles, a small reminder of the Beast’s heavy, foul breath. He stood up immediately after and reminded himself to be a damned gentleman. It was extremely difficult, ten times more difficult than it had been to force his old form to sheathe his claws when he was angry.

Henry nervously touched his tongue to his upper lip and then looked away from her toward the interior of the castle, which was glowing very dimly with the assistance of the candles within. Carefully, he drew her hand to one side and then let it go, a gesture of consideration and thoughtless care that was more implication of his gentle birth than anything else he had yet done. He stepped past her (the clothes smelled of old leather and a faintly floral household magic) and slid his hands over her shoulders to take the cloak from her shoulders. He didn’t have to see the embroidery to know where she had found it. “It suits you,” he said, quietly, taking in a breath of her hair.

Rose's amber eyes lit up with playful annoyance at his perhaps, and she stared at the tightening grip once the pressure there changed. She still didn't try to pull away from it, and she wondered if she imagined that thing that resembled suggestion in the pressure. She was accustomed to courtiers who were bold, and she was accustomed to villagers who were not. This lived somewhere in the middle, and the confusion on her features when she looked from his fingers to his face was youth. Living a thousand years made no difference if they were stagnant, the same, never changing, the perpetual teenager, with all of a teenager's insecurities and maelstrom emotions.

Her eyes went saucer-wide when he leaned over her hand, and her knuckles twitched the slightest bit. "I'm not a princess anymore," she told him, but her voice was soft and approving, and it was easy to understand how she'd been swayed by the men at Snow's court. Strength, yes, but it didn't take much more than a handsome smile to melt it away.

She followed his gaze toward the castle's interior, and her expression turned undeniably fond. She'd left because he cast her out, and she'd stayed away because he hadn't invited her back. There was posturing about independence and spinsterhood, about the prestige of being a woman living by her own means, but that was all pretense. She'd always loved this castle, falling apart and ruined as it was, and she'd never truly wanted to leave. She'd gotten caught in a lie; it hadn't actually been a choice.

She looked over her shoulder when he took the cloak, and she gave him a smile that didn't hesitate long enough to hide its pleasure. "I like roses," she told him, though the statement wasn't actually necessary. She reached back a hand and touched the back of his fingers as he pulled the cloak away. She swayed slightly, back toward him, and her hair smelled of green, of roses, of lemons and apples rinds, of sharp and bitter magic.

“Princess, merchant’s daughter, witch of the woods,” he said, still in a hushed tone but with a playful inflection that was a faint tease, and in a busy court humming with gossip the tone would have been used to murmur things not fit for public conversation. Here there was none to hear, and yet he still only spoke of truths. “You are many things, I think.” He pulled the cloak from her shoulders, and he thought it better at the time to keep his mouth closed to prevent any of his thoughts from finding free air. There was a pause as the fabric came free and he stepped back and the extent of the shimmering red and length of pale neck presented itself. With extensive care, he folded his mother’s cloak.

“My mother liked roses also,” he said, though that statement was not particularly necessary either. The cloak was tugged out of his careful grasp and floated away into the shadows, borne by invisible hands. He nearly did not notice, attention entirely on the woman standing so close. She no longer seemed so small, her hair no longer so peculiar, the fiery color and contrasting milk skin not so fragile. How ironic that once human himself he thought others to be so much more capable, when it was he who was the weaker.

He stepped forward to meet her, and was unable to prevent polite fingers from touching the small of her back as he guided her in a slight reversal and drew her hand under his arm. He hoped that she did not notice the sweat against his hairline at the top of his forehead and the back of his neck. For whatever reason, he was nervous, and he felt somehow that he must be walking a spider’s line to prevent her from exploding in a rush of hot air and anger. He felt this time if she left, she would not be returning. His hand pressing her fingers against his forearm tightened as he moved toward the great hall. “It has been very quiet without your presence,” he said, looking sideways at her as the growing candlelight turned the fringe of his hair gold and his eyes aged into spring from fall.

"But not a princess," she said of his assurance that she was many things. "Not since Snow stopped being married to a prince." She began to say that a princess by marriage was only a princess so long as she was wanted, but she pressed her lips together and swallowed the words back. She knew that her very vocal opinion on men had been the beginning of the catastrophe that had come when he'd visited her in the dream, and she didn't want to do it all over again. She wasn't ashamed of her convictions, and she very much believed them to be true, but he'd always been kind to her as the Beast, and perhaps he didn't deserve the bitter side of her tongue. It was a strange thing to think about someone who'd kept her prisoner, but things weren't always straightforward in their world. Princes weren't always charming, and Beasts weren't always beastly. She smiled. "Not a merchant's daughter either, if we're being literal."

He didn't talk about his family often, and she turned her head to look at him more fully when he mentioned his mother. She was close, but she had to look up to see him right. She was a small thing, short of stature and brash in a million ways that made up for it. She would ask him more about his family over dinner, she decided, and she only hoped that didn't cause an argument. She knew the Beast rarely lost his temper with her, but she wasn't sure about the man. He seemed easy to poke in just the wrong spot, without her even meaning to.

She didn't notice the sweat. She only noticed the touch of his fingers. It was a funny thing how one little touch could suddenly become everything, and she forgot to breathe as he drew her hand under his arm. But courtly manners had been carefully studied and learned that summer before she moved to Snow's court, and she held on with the appropriate polite lightness. It wasn't her at all, that careful and courtly grip, but the smile she gave him when she looked up at him was entirely her. She pressed too closely to his side to be proper, and her smile widened. "I miss it," she admitted. It didn't feel like swallowing her pride, not when he was being so kind. "I have a Wolf now, but he doesn't talk very much." The not like you went unsaid, because he'd always been willing to humor her in conversation, regardless of his form.

Henry was well aware of the insidious nature of court politics, but he had never looked at princess-ship as being quite so temporary. His parents would never have stood for a separation of any kind; a marriage was a political prospect and therefore permanent. Even if he had, by some insane twist of fate, married a commoner, the marriage would seal the bond. There was no going back. When considering such a situation in his youth, he had thought only of himself, of how horrible it would be to be stuck with one person forever. He had not thought of the shadowy lady’s family, nor of her prospects should he lose interest. He turned his head and looked at her keenly, not smiling, looking at her as if he had not seen her before.

He, too, decided to ask her more of her past as soon as they sat down.

The press of her body to his thrilled him rather than put him off; once he stepped on the edge of her dress and nearly tripped over himself trying to keep from doing it once more. He did not let go. As they progressed through the front hall and thence through the massive wooden doors beyond, he wrapped his arm around her hand a little further until there were nearly one under the cavernous stone edifice.

As she continued to speak, Henry discovered he could still feel jealousy as a man. It was not so... consuming, and it did not immediately make him want to destroy something with quite so much fervor; but all the same, he did feel anger, and for a moment it blinded him to any other thoughts before he managed actual conversation. “He? Like a dog?” There was some dislike for the idea, but no outright irritation. Wolves did not usually travel on their own. He was trying to imagine it.

The Great Hall opened in front of them. There was very little furniture left, but still the stone alcoves retained their iron sconces, and the invisibles had lodged a candle wherever they might find a place to catch the wax. A long table had been set upon the dais, undoubtedly the High Table when Court had been in session long ago. The table was ancient, constructed of solid golden wood in three pieces, and it had obviously been stored somewhere and too large to be troubled with in the intervening years. The Hall was capable of hosting several more tables of that size, the kind set out for feasts that hosted at least a hundred at a time; but now the Hall was quiet yellow light and the smell of white wax and wet stone. He assisted her up the dais (though she did not need it) and escorted her to a chair at the end of the table.

The expensive cutlery was long missing, but the servants had polished the fitted wood bowls and dishes as best they could before setting out the waiting first course. There was no wine to be had, but a juice pressed from blackberries was pouring itself from a container lately retrieved from the cool basements. He looked out over the table at the first course as he held her chair. Bitter greens, carrots carved into curls, vinegar sauce, and fragrant crusts of bread brushed with herbed butter. A tureen of some sort of turnip soup was gently steaming midway down the table toward his chair, perhaps fifteen feet away. “I hope you are hungry.”

"He's a man," she said of her Wolf. "Young, I think, though, it's hard to tell with us. But he acts very young. He was an actual wolf once, and Faust feels he should be given a proper name, but I haven't thought of one yet," she admitted of the blond youth that had tried to eat her in the woods. "He seems content enough to sleep in front of the hearth and eat everything I don't lock away." She refrained from saying that she'd found him covered in blood, and that she was rather certain her little wolf had been eating people before his partially-successful domestication.

When the doors opened onto the great hall, she was reluctant to move away from him. She knew the rules of court politics well enough to know that being touched while being led somewhere was perfectly acceptable. She knew that being touched when it was no longer necessary was indicative of something altogether different. But then, she'd also danced on Snow's tables during feasts, copper hair flying and no concern for the guests or her sister. No, she didn't want to let his arm go just yet, and so she didn't. She leaned further against his side as she looked over the room, the transformation. In all her time in the castle, she'd never seen a meal laid out like this. Her meals had been quiet things, below, in the kitchen, sometimes in her room or one of the old sitting rooms. But nothing like this.

"It's beautiful," she said as he moved again. He was right that she didn't need help onto the dais, but she didn't stubbornly insist that she could do it alone. Instead, she lingered after the very first step, a tug on his arm to still him before continuing on. Hers had never been a life for a dais, and it reminded her of her nightmare and Pitch for a moment. She looked out from the new height, and she wondered that one step should make so much of a difference.

She was settled into her chair a moment later, and she looked down at the clean bowls before reaching for the juice and taking a sip. She'd practiced to be a princess, had Lady Rose. Once, when she and Snow had both been betrothed to princes, she'd practiced. She lifted the dark red juice to her lips with the perfect care of a lady, but when she licked the lingering blackberry tint off her lips and smiled at him, it was all wild woods and uncontrolled blooms. "I'm always hungry," she told him truthfully; witching took a lot out of her.

She tore a piece of bread off, and she held it out to him. "Tell me when this started?" she asked, as the soup tureen poured. She motioned to him, an indication that she wanted to know more about the changing nature of the curse, whether he wanted to tell her or not.

Henry discovered his jealousy had a veneer of calculating assessment to it. The jealousy he had felt in his ugliest form had been without target, and had very little to do with Rose herself, and more the idea that she belonged, unquestionably, to him, and therefore could not belong to anyone or anything else. Now, Henry could put his hands on the back of her chair and clearly think to himself that if Faust’s intentions were pure, he was a holy prophet. He could also let his lip curl at the idea of a wolf becoming a man, as he now had a man’s general distrust of wolves to begin with. Henry had never been a shepherd, but he had been a woodsman in one of his many lives, and an indigent traveler before that; such men did not trust the hungry shaggy dogs that sang songs of prey in the night. Fortunately he waited until Rose was occupied in sitting before he did his sneering.

He was not for a moment concerned about Rose or Rose’s safety. Rose was a witch, and while he wanted her safe, at the moment his conscious mind could come up with no reason why she should be in danger. The Beast might have taken an entirely different view.

A moment later he left her chair-side with some reluctance. It had been a very, very long time since he’d eaten a meal at court (one like this, one formal) and he suddenly found the excessively long table a burden. He sat where he was expected to sit, however, at what must be considered the head of the table, and looked past a spill of dark juice as it was poured by an invisible hand into a cup at his elbow. “It must be these two months at least; I had not been paying attention to the moons as I should.” The basket of bread was scooted along from Rose’s side after her offering indicated her desire. “I was angry at first, and then,” (here he cleared his throat) “worried. But now, though it is... very dangerous, and troublesome, I like it better that I may be in my own form for some hours at a time, at least.” A small cloud of steam from a ladle of soup interrupted this speech.

She had grown accustomed to the intricacies of court seating in her time with Snow. She'd never needed to converse with someone at the head of the table, and she'd never sat along a side, close to whoever sat at the head of the table, but she'd had to deal with rank and seating order. At first, she'd found herself sandwiched between boring Dukes and boring Counts. Later, when she'd disgraced everyone present by seducing every last husband in the room, she was relegated to the end of the table with the doddering dowagers, where she could do no harm. This was not so nearly as bad as that. He wasn't close enough for her to reach out and touch, but she wasn't sure enough in his presence to want to try. And had she been sure enough, a table wouldn't have been enough to keep her from having her way.

"Two months is a long time. Why didn't you say something sooner," she asked, tearing off a bit of bread and dipping it into the steaming soup that lined the bottom of her wooden bowl. She took a bite of the soaked bread, and she closed her eyes with pleasure at the earthen spice taste of the soup, the perfect crustiness of the bread. Dinner in a cottage was nothing like this, and she was generally at the culinary whims of whatever the villagers traded her for her work.

She stopped just short of licking her fingers, and she looked at him with amber eyes gone serious and concerned. "Why is it worrisome?" she asked. His anger, that she could understand. He was a man that liked being in control, even more so as a beast than a man, and this seemed to be nothing controlled at all. But she couldn't immediately see the danger in it. She saw only positive things. Before, he had always been a beast. Now, he was sometimes a man. How was that not an improvement.

She scooted her chair closer to the end of the table in defiance of protocol. "What aren't I understanding?" she asked, reaching out a hand to close fingers over his.

Henry dipped his spoon into the soup, slightly disappointed at how little soup he actually received from the tiny dish on the handle. It was easier to drink from the bowl, but he avoided such an obvious faux pas and instead dunked a chunk of crusty bread into the steaming mass. It smelled good, but his stomach was still twisting from his previous transformation. He had a few bites of lettuce and avoided the vinegar.

“I did not want to trouble you.” Henry was infinitely more expressive than his other forms. Every expression seemed to make his features the more mobile, spare thoughts putting up mirror images on his face, painted on the rough chapped skin and contrasting delicate fringe of his lashes. He smiled at her with obvious relief as she took the burden of manners and dragged her chair closer, and with far more ease, he put four fingers underneath his own seat and literally scraped it two feet closer to where she sat at the end. He took her hand, fingers slightly flushed with the heat of the soup spoon.

The invisibles were so scandalized that for a brief moment all the dishes stopped moving, hovering in the air, before immediate bustle overcompensated. Both glasses were refreshed, and more dishes accelerated out of the kitchen in nervous anticipation of overhearing the conversation--and actually serving food, of course. One of them took away his soup bowl and the second course, chopped apples dusted with honey bread baked thin, was set forth.

Henry shifted nervously in his seat. “These many transformations, they are unpleasant. I do not know when they might occur.” He was getting around to the really bad news, it was obvious. He toyed with the top of his cup, tipping it back and forth on the wood tabletop. The dish of apples nudged pointedly into his elbow. He stopped fidgeting immediately.

She didn't expect beastly behavior from the man sharing the table with her. She didn't realize that parts of the Beast still lingered in Henry, just as she'd come to believe that none of Henry lingered in the Beast. She expected him to know table manners as well as anyone at Snow's court had, because she knew he'd been born to this. He wasn't like her, born in a cottage in the woods and made into a false lady. She would always prefer her fingers to utensils, and she would always prefer being shoeless in the fields, and she would always long to dance on the tables. She was wild, and she'd always been wild. She could play at this, at formal dinners and a red dress that bore no grass stains, but it was very much play. It was a little girl playing dress-up. It was an elaborate play for her enjoyment alone, in which she was the central figure.

She smiled brazenly when he scooted his chair closer, and a gently-reared lady wouldn't have shown that kind of copper-bright pleasure at his discounting of manners. She broke off another piece of bread, and she dipped it into the soup, and she gave him a questioning look as the enchanted objects (she still thought them thus) quickened. "Did we do something shocking?" she asked, giving him a smile that said she knew perfectly well that they had. She plucked a slice of apple up with her fingers, the bread's sticky honey dripping thickly along the inside of her wrist, and she held the slice out to him.

Her attention turned more serious. "Unpleasant because you don't know when they'll happen, or unpleasant for another reason?" she asked, ignoring his statement about troubling her, because it wasn't actually worthy of a response. She watched the cup tip, and then she looked back up at him, amber and intensity. "Out with it, Henry," she insistent, no longer even the pretense of the lady in the witch.

Henry gave the proffered apple slice a dark look that yet managed appreciation at the same time. His eyes moved to her face and back, and then he put out three fingers and plucked the apple from her hand, sticky honey turning into strange things in his mind. The dark look he wore became transparent, until he pulled away, bringing back a short rush of wax-scented air. He popped the apple in his mouth and resumed the appearance of normality.

“Quite,” he responded, smiling vaguely when she asked if they’d done anything shocking and gave him a smile that he immediately recognized as conspiratorial. It occurred to him that he’d never taken a great note of Rose’s expressions, relying more on her body language and (when he dwelled on it further) the appearance of teeth or smell of fear. He didn’t like realizing how much his shape influenced him in this regard, and his smile suddenly melted away, to be replaced once more by the serious, contemplative look edged with nervousness.

Henry licked the honey off his fingers. “The change is unpredictable.” He debated admitting it was bone-searingly painful, and decided on, “It hurts.” Then moving rapidly on, he said, most bleakly of all, “And I am not myself in these other shapes. I don’t remember what I do.”

Rose distrusted men. She'd been with more of them than she could count, and certainly more than she could remember, but she could never recall being with one she desired. That dark look he gave her made her wonder, for the first time since she'd been planning her own wedding to a prince, what it would be like to lie with someone she desired. She stared at his lips as the apple, sticky and sweet, disappeared between them, and she had to remember to laugh at his conspiratorial grin and that quite. She was distraction, fingers pressing against the tabletop and something like realization that he was much, much safer when he was a beast. She cared about the Beast, but it wasn't this, and she watched him licking the honey off his fingers with pupils gone wide and black.

She cleared her throat when he said the change was unpredictable. "Unpredictable how? How often?" she asked, and a frown immediately marred her features when he said it hurt, and that he didn't have recollection of what happened during the changes. "How often?" she repeated, but more insistently this time, and the food was forgotten in favor of this discussion. "Why don't you recall what you do? You've never had trouble recalling events when you were the Beast," she said, as if the Beast was an entirely separate entity - and, maybe, he was in some respect. But she didn't understand yet that he was turning into other things. She looked around the hall, and it was the type of looking that came with awareness. It was dangerous for him here, alone, if he couldn't recall things.

Henry had bedded his share of women during his travels before the united death of his family and the prolonged lethal struggle of his people, most of them ripe as plums and warm as new milk, but he could not remember the name of even one. The careless wanderings of a prince disguised as a musician now faded into his memory as an adult forgets his childhood games, worth of recall only for the emotions evoked. His experience was further confused by a prolonged existence of decades, if not centuries, as a monster that rarely felt anything but anger.

His temporary existence as a man included only a few hours’ scattered experience, and he was not accustomed to being with another person in the least. His manners were remembered from a youth long past, and now he looked at the part of her lips and the sweet drift of her breath, wondering if such things meant what he thought they did. His nostrils flared, an automatic attempt to confirm his theory, but of course they provided nothing but the floral green of her perfume and the hearty scents of the laden table.

Equilibrium askew, he resettled himself on the chair and his hand flexed around hers. “I am not sure. I cannot remember, and there is none to tell me. A few hours per form, perhaps, though I think maybe it can be far longer before I am myself again.” His hazel eyes settled on hers as she spoke oddly of the Beast, as if he was not present in the room. He tipped his head, looking troubled by her concept of his existence. “When... when I was the Beast,” he repeated, as if he did not know that she meant what she said and wished to confirm.

She listened to his explanation, ignoring the way the flex of his hand made her think of the fact that he had hands now. She frowned when he admitted to not remembering how often or how long the changes came, and she made a small, determined noise. "I'm staying. I'll bring Wolf. He can tell time whenever I'm not here. I'll even bring Red, if we need, though she's as mad as a storm in summer." She was not asking permission, and she didn't think to ask for permission. It was not her castle, and it had never been her castle, but all that ceased to matter when he shifted in his chair like this was much worse than he was willing to tell her. Fine, she would come, and she would find out for herself how often and how bad it was.

When he tipped his head in confusion, she unwittingly mirrored the action. She didn't immediately understand what she'd said to give him pause, and she frowned again. "You're human now," she explained, and wasn't that obvious? "You're always Henry, but you're very different like this," she explained. "You're harder to manage," she added, the playful smile on her lips marking it as teasing, though, in some regards, it was a very true statement. He was simple as the Beast. As a man, well, her experience with men only canted in one direction, and she had an inkling that he would react to that very poorly indeed.

She plucked up another flaky bit of apple, and she held it out to him. She considered making him jealous, considered trying to see if he roared like this, as he did when he wasn't like this at all. She could tell of Draco, of Faust, of the Wolf. All of the stories would be embellishments, but she could spin a very good tale; all women could. But she decided against it. She liked his smile, and she wanted to see it again. "Did you go to the feast the inn provided?" she asked of the hotel's party.

His expression blanched at her suggestion of additional guests. It wasn’t entirely fear, though he was worried and continued to be so, and the pall of the situation cast a faint shadow over his brow and deepened the lines on his brow. The Beast would have been angry at her and shown little else except a jealous regard for his own territory, but as a man, Henry’s feelings were more complex. “It... would be good to have you here again,” he replied, cautiously, “and you should have some ability besides your own to protect you in case I become something dangerous.” A wolf of moderate size, given that he kept some of his wits about him, would likely be enough to drive off virtually anything Henry could think of, provided it was nothing starving for meat.

The situation grew ever more dark and unpredictable, and in that thunderstorm, he could only react as he felt. He took a breath. “But I... don’t like the idea of a stranger being witness to this. It is...” His eyes roved, and he searched for some way to explain it. “I am vulnerable,” he said, instead of trying to finish the sentence. “It is painful. I do not like the idea of someone watching.”

Temporarily, he forgot that there were so many invisibles watching, and forgot they might be disapproving in their own antique way. He grasped the back of her wrist as it held the spice-flecked apple and turned her to face his chair even as he turned a knee in her direction, bending his shoulders as if to tell her a secret. He stared into her eyes, unsmiling. “You know I will eat out of your hand without such a demonstration.” He bent his head still further, and took the apple, crust, and crumbs out of her fingers with his mouth. His tongue flicked up the pad of her thumb. He sucked her first finger clean and straightened in his chair again.

Nothing in the room dared move.

He chewed and swallowed. “I went to no feast,” he said, frowning as he gently pushed his plate away from him.

"I can protect myself," she assured him, and it wasn't a falsehood. Her spellwork was not as good as Faust's, but her control of nature had improved. "I could, if I wanted, have a vine through a window and around your throat, before you could kill me. I've been practicing, since the dream with Pitch." She looked down, and she tapped one dainty foot against the floor beneath her feet, testing. "Or through the ground, if there's enough potential for life there." Wolf had tried to eat her in the woods, and he'd learned just how futile such an attempt was; she didn't fear anything Henry could do.

She understood his desire not to be observed, though, and she gave it a moment's thought. "Wolf can stay at the farmhouse. It's still a mess, but it's good enough for him. Or he can stay in your stables. He's a blond man; he won't eat the horses," she said, her grin playful. "And I'm not a stranger," she insisted, before he could argue that she was, and there was the distinct impression that she would have settled her hands on her hips then, had she not been seated.

She never thought of anyone watching them. She didn't perceive any real sentience in the magic objects, and she had no understanding that they were held by human fingers. She stared down at his fingers on her wrists, her lips slightly parted and the contact making her breath come in tiny, foggy huffs. She thought, for the briefest instant, that she was out of practice when it came to playing this game. She thought, too, that he probably had a very great deal of experience with it. Her experience was all wound around ruining Snow's world, and it was very different indeed when she actually felt something. She held her breath when his tongue flicked along her thumb, and her eyes went wide when he sucked her finger.

She didn't dare move.

"You didn't miss anything," she said of the feast, her voice decidedly dreamy, decidedly young. And then she remembered that she was no vestal virgin. Carefully - and with more uncertainty than she would have wanted to own to - she stood, as he pushed his plate away. It was only two small steps to sit herself upon his lap, but it was a daring set of steps, and she perched as if she would flee if the slightest bit of breeze ruffled her copper hair.