Who: Belle and Nina Pickering (!dice) What: Belle tries to pick herself up with some cooking When: Sunday morning Where: Back kitchen Rating/warnings: None expected Status: Closed/ongoing
Belle knew he wouldn't like her moping. She didn't like her moping. But it was hard not to feel a little bitter and upset about the whole thing. Just when she'd finally gotten used to having him here, when it seemed like maybe he was happy and understood how much she wanted him, he was gone.
She had a roommate, now, and that should have helped. It might have, if she could've handled staying in the room for very long. But it was still too small at night, without his familiar laugh and smell and arms there to magic away the shades that kept sneaking into her mind. So she'd gone back to spending most her nights in the library, curled up in a chair until morning. Really, the only small blessing in it all was that the Queen had so far left in her alone.
Belle hardly expected that to last, though. She was sure that sooner or later, someone from their home would go poking at her wounds. So she had to make herself strong again--for herself, now, and not him. Which was why she'd decided today she wouldn't hide in books. She needed to challenge herself, somehow--remind herself that she could and would be perfectly all right without him.
So it was that, a little bit tired and bedraggled, she was in the kitchen with a book on the counter and a studious frown on her face. Until now, she'd stuck to very simple things--tea, toast, eggs--because the contraptions in the kitchen still befuddled her a bit. But now, she was trying to tackle some of them. At the moment, she was holding open a cookbook while she stood in front of the pantry, biting her lip as she wondered what was least likely to end in the sorts of disasters she remembered from the days she'd cooked in his castle. At least then, he'd been there to tease her--the only person besides her family who could. Now...now Belle wasn't sure she could handle anyone seeing her make a fool of herself.