There was precious little for Beauty to do when she had a day off from work. Typically, she wandered back to the bookshop, camped in one of the comfortable chairs in the back of the store, and started in on the most recent arrivals. In fact, there was rarely a day when she wasn't at the bookshop, working or no. But today was especially bright and sunshiny when she stepped onto her cottage porch. It was the dead of winter, and she'd missed the warmth of spring. Did the City know how much she'd been hating the cold? She was trying very hard not to think nice things about this place, but more and more she was finding that Errol's seduction by the place where they lived was not as wretchedly unfounded as she'd thought. More and more, it was difficult to keep hating the City.
There was really only one thing to do on such an unseasonably warm day as today: she must spend it outside. Beauty was lounging in a spot of sun that just happened to cast itself right over her chai, when her attention was drawn to the clearing far across the park. Tables. A banner. She was sure it hadn't been there before!
She was the first to arrive, the first to walk under the banner, and the first to sit at one of the tables. Many of the items of food were unfamiliar to her -- and then she saw a croissant and realized that she was famished!
Alone or not, Beauty saw no sense in letting an innocent croissant go to waste. She delicately set it on the plate that arranged itself in front of her, then started gently prising the thing apart. Steaming hot bits of meat were stewing in a bowl close to her, and she forked some of it into the pastry. It looked fantastic.
And, a second later, she discovered that it tasted fantastic, too.