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Beatrice looked through her closet again, staring at the various clothes she had collected. As the Golden Witch, she was able to manifest whatever outfit she could imagine, but she preferred to have clothing physically present for her to choose from when it came to dressing up. She didn’t have anything in particular planned for the evening, but she was still debating a change of clothes regardless - changing her appearance was a good way to bring about a change of pace. For a witch like herself, it was an easy way to combat boredom and prevent such poison from harming a single hair on her head.
Even so, she couldn’t settle on anything that satisfied her. Not even the Devilish Pretty dress she’d purchased on a shopping trip in Hell with Gaap would suffice, it seemed. And yet, the desire to change her appearance hadn’t been quelled by the lack of options, but instead only grew. It was… disquieting. She had become used to not disliking her reflection, or questioning if it was ‘right’. Her reflection had been her, and it had made her happy.
She was still scowling and ruminating on how to solve the conundrum before her when Battler stepped into the bedroom they shared. She didn’t turn to greet him, absorbed in thought, though she did mentally note his presence.
“What’re you thinking about?” Battler asked. He closed the door behind him and walked over to her. Soon enough, he was also eying her closet. Between her current state of dress - a short white slip, rather than proper clothes - and her thoughtful, moody expression, it should have been obvious.
…Then again, if it was as simple as wondering about what to change into, she would have been at his side ages ago. They hadn’t been conversing, but they had been quietly existing together, both of them absorbed in their own pursuits. While Battler had been reading a book about chess - idiot that he was, he still lost against her almost every time - Beatrice had been rereading a mystery she had enjoyed before. She had excused herself, but it had been a long period of time, enough that Battler had come looking for her.
Beatrice let out a long sigh. “Nothing here seems fit for me today.” She gestured towards the contents of her closet.
Battler looked it over. “Really? But there’s a lot in here you haven’t worn in a while, or that’s new…” His eyes drifted over her new Devilish Pretty dress.
Beatrice took it from the closet, noting how the fabric fluttered. It was a beautiful dress, with tulle and pearls. The fabric was a dusty rose pink, a softer and less daring color than she usually preferred, but Gaap had insisted on it, considering how lovely Beatrice had looked when she had tried it on. Personally, Beatrice thought it was because Gaap had wanted to twin with her: she had bought a dress in the same style, albeit in a muted blue.
“I’m surprised you noticed, Battler,” she teased.
Battler let out an awkward laugh and scratched the back of his neck, his cheeks darkening with his blush. “I notice what you wear,” he muttered. “Like, you mostly started out with really bold colors, but you’ve mixed in some stuff that’s more muted recently. And you usually prefer stuff with only a ribbon at the neck, and not stuff with ribbons and bows all over like Gaap seems to. And, you like fitted sleeves with minimal frills, or those super frilly ones with the wide openings at the end…” He trailed off, his face turning red like his hair.
Rather than wanting to tease him more, she could only stare at him in shock. The Battler she had first met, youthful and ignorant and caught up in his own perceptions and how things ‘should’ be, wouldn’t have noticed such things about her. Or, maybe, he would have - he had noticed so many things about his own family, after all - but he just wouldn’t have noticed it about her. She had been the wicked witch he needed to slay, and not the divine lady he wished to reach, to understand, to hold in his arms and to love.
“Ah… Really?” Beatrice found herself asking, her proud voice rendered quiet, meek.
Battler nodded. “Yeah.” He didn’t meet her eyes for a moment, and then gave her a bright smile, cocky and assured as he could only be when he was trying to put on the illusion of such confidence - in short, a pleasant conjuration from the sorcerer, to give them both strength. “I try to notice these things, y’know?”
Beatrice swallowed any haughty, hasty response. “Do you have any suggestions for what I should wear, then?” She held out the dress as she tried to compose herself, eventually settling on a bright smile.
She was still adjusting to how much attention Battler lavished her with, how much consideration he gave even small details. It was hit or miss - sometimes he still didn’t notice even the obvious - but his heart was always there, reaching out for hers. That held more wonder for her than any amount of perfect comprehension, of inhuman majesty. The Battler she knew was flawed, but in the flaws he was Battler, the man she loved.
Battler took the dress from her, his eyes on the swishing fabric, and then he turned to her closet. “Hm…” His gaze drifted across the closet’s contents.
It was a mixture of this and that, elegant blouses with lace trims mixed with opulent dresses and skirts that sat just above Beatrice’s knees. It was a closet that could have belonged to either a witch or a princess. Of course, the dress from the portrait was present, as was the outfit she had worn as the ‘19th’ person on Rokkenjima. Battler picked out the blazer from that outfit with a thoughtful expression.
“You know, Beato… You don’t really wear clothes like this, huh?” Battler mused. “Like…” He spent a moment thinking, trying to put it into words. “Clothes that aren’t as pretty and feminine, I guess?”
Beatrice blinked. Battler’s observation was correct - besides that blazer, and one or two white button-up shirts, everything was pretty or elegant in a feminine way. Nothing in her closet was more neutral.
“Hm… Then, are you saying that I should try a different style entirely, Battler?” she cocked her head slightly, pondering.
“If you’re stuck, maybe.” Battler shrugged, and if he’d had a hand free, he would have probably been awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “A change of pace can help with that kind of thing.”
“I suppose…” Beatrice let out a sigh, then perked up. “Should I try wearing something from your closet, then?”
It was Battler’s turn to blink in surprise. “I’m not sure it’d fit…”
She snorted and poked his cheek. “Then change it with magic, obviously.”
Battler’s cheeks turned pink, and he glanced away. “Mm, yeah… I didn’t think of that.”
“Oh, if I’m borrowing from your closet, do you want to borrow from mine?” Beatrice suggested, smirking. She expected him to splutter and stutter out a ‘no’.
She had always thought of herself as more mutable than him: she had been part of the same existence as Shannon and Kanon, once, genders and identities flowing together, distinct and yet one. Perhaps at the beginning, uncertain and attempting to affirm her selfhood and separation and power as the Golden Witch, she had been more rigid about how she presented herself. However, she didn’t feel such pressures any longer. No matter what she looked like, she was, undoubtedly, Beatrice.
However, Battler had never been as mutable as her. He had originally been human, not witch or furniture: a being of flesh and blood, assigned the role of ‘human man’, and that was that. He had become a fantasy creation like herself, evolving from piece to player to witch, but he had never expressed that same sort of quality of transformation.
“Ah… I guess I can try?” Battler’s face was red, but he… wasn't a stuttering mess. He laughed nervously. “If it looks bad, I can take it off without anyone seeing it though, right…?”
She scowled. “It won't,” she insisted with a huff. Her husband needed to have more faith in her styling abilities. “Hand my clothes over.” She made a grabbing motion, and her request was quickly obeyed. “Good. Now, you can fetch me new garments from your closet, Battler.”
He quickly rushed off to do so, probably so he could try to avoid showing her an even more flustered and shameful face. Beatrice, meanwhile, was left thinking. Perhaps her understanding of Battler had been incomplete…? She'd thought she had understood him completely by now, and yet there was still more to discover… Both about him, and perhaps about herself. People were unlike books in that new lines were forever being written, so that there was forever more to read. There was no way to bring such a book to a close except by destroying it.
When they exchanged their picks, Battler drifted to the other side of the bed, carefully undressing so that he could put on what she'd picked out. Beatrice simply used magic to take off what she didn't need, and then began dressing. She had wondered if he would pick out something more formal or more casual. She hadn't worn a suit before, but since Battler had chosen one for her, she was happy to try it.
Of course, she had to modify the size quite a bit with magic, but in the end the suit fit well. The top and pants were a dark purple, with the One-Winged Eagle embroidered on the right side. Beneath the outerwear was a navy shirt and a red tie. She had worn a tie before, but not so formally. It took her a few tries to properly knot the tie.
She glanced over to Battler: she had picked out the unworn Devilish Pretty dress, as well as a pair of white heels. She had chosen heels that were relatively low: she had some concept of mercy. Compared to the black dress shoes she had been given, the heels were a tad less subdued, and likely much less comfortable.
On Battler, the dress matched well with the red of his hair, and the heels, however low they were, increased his already ridiculous height. He was awkwardly trying to take a few steps in them; Beatrice resisted the urge to laugh. He was trying his best - it would only be cruel to mock him. And, besides… he looked lovely. Just as she had expected he would.
“Would you rather wear flats, Battler?” Beatrice asked.
Battler froze and slowly turned to face her. “Um…” He bit his lip. “Yeah. Is it fine if I just magic these…?”
…Sometimes she wondered how she had fallen in love with a man crude enough to use the phrase ‘magic these’ instead of something more elegant and refined, suitable for a powerful sorcerer who could summon the demons of hell with a simple wave of his hand. And then she remembered that she found his crudeness charming, and fell in love with it all over again. He knew the meaning of words, and could speak just as eloquently as her, if he put his mind to it, but instead he spoke simply, putting his heart on his sleeve. Though he wasn’t entirely open, there had always been a pure honesty to him that she had envied.
“Go ahead.” She walked over to the full-length mirror by the closet, inspecting how she looked as she waited for Battler to make his adjustments.
She hadn’t thought of what to expect herself to look like, but… the reflected Beatrice was handsome in a way she normally… wasn’t. The suit was less risque than many of her outfits, and though she was still undeniably feminine, there was an almost-androgyny of it, one that intrigued her. Her elegant dress, her long blonde hair, her blue eyes, the shape of her body - all of it had been to fulfill Battler’s wishes, to catch his eye. She had taken on such a form solely to entice him: out of love for another, rather than herself.
She fidgeted a bit with the tie. The suit didn’t feel out of place on her - on the contrary, it felt as though a long-neglected part of herself had risen to the surface. She was all the parts of herself that had been crafted specifically to appeal to Battler, and yet she was more than that as well. Though… since the suit had been cut for a man, even with using magic to adjust the size, it didn’t fit quite as well as it should. She scowled, thinking over how to fix it. She could simply adjust the suit further, or… She placed a hand on her chest. Even this… was not merely her own conception of herself as a powerful and sensuous witch, but also something she had taken upon herself to meet expectations.
A long time ago, there had been a lonely child who had wanted to become an adult. They had been told that adulthood came with certain markers: they had looked over the diagrams, comparing them to their reflection in the mirror, and they had always differed. They had never matched perfectly as they should have. And so, the witch that lonely child had created was a witch who matched that diagram, who matched the lovely faces in erotic media, who was precisely what they had been expected to be - and thus wanted to be - and yet had not been. That was how Beatrice had been born: desire induced by pressure to conform for the sake of fitting in, being accepted, being loved.
If things had been different… if they had been created in a world without such expectations… Beatrice let her hand fall to the side, considering her altered reflection. A smaller chest that was barely noticeable in the suit. Short hair that fell above her ears. It was still her in the mirror… a glimpse of, perhaps, what she might have been, had she originated from a different Fragment. A self she had never even thought to look for. Looking like this had been Kanon’s job, once: the desire to be what they had never been allowed to be put into one young boy who held so many filthy, taboo emotions. And yet, now that they had all separated, Beatrice found that that desire had not left her.
“You look great, Beato,” Battler offered. He sounded… awed.
She smirked and turned to face him. “As do you.”
Unlike her, he hadn’t changed his physical appearance, but had instead altered the dress to properly fit his form. The pink, fluttering fabric against tanned, muscular flesh was pleasing to the eye. There were still traces of a blush on his cheeks, but it seemed to be fading now. The heels had been transformed into flats with straps, decorated with pearls and a pink bow - he had taken that initiative on his own.
“You can always…” Battler cleared his throat. “You can look however you wanna, Beato. You’re always my beloved witch, okay?”
Beatrice took this chance while Battler was off-guard to peck him on the lips. “I know. The same is true for you, my dear sorcerer.”
“Mm… Should we go to dinner?” Battler was about to hold out his arm for her, but Beatrice held out hers first, which he took. “Haha, I see how it is…”
“You do, hm?” Beatrice cackled. “Let us be off, then.”
The couple that walked out the door had hearts that had grown far beyond the roles they had once been assigned. No matter how they played with their reflections in the mirror, they remained unchanged: eternally in love within the universe they had created.