aggiemelwyn

[aggiemelwyn]

Market days were different here, louder than a hushed whisper of gathering around Bridgeford - always with the sense that somethng was coming with suspicion - and nothing like that of Esselsea when boats would dock for the stretch of time if she remembered correctly from all those years ago. Aggie did not mind commotion, part of her felt joy in the chaos. But for what occurred just now, she was at a loss since she'd been doing nothing more than looking over a silver handed rake. "Maybe bartering gone wrong." Was all she offered, still mistrustful of her place in what felt like a big city.

Gerry could feel the January air against his skin as he road up towards the marketplace, his blue eyes scanning the area with great care. He was a quick-witted man and always thinking about his next move, he liked to take in his surroundings. He noticed the gathering as he reached the centre of the markets. Had something happened? “Hello there, could I have a moment of your time?” he said to a nearby person as he dismounted down from his horse. “Do you know what’s going on here?” he asked, nodding to the situation in the market. Since recent events, he spent a lot of the day riding, moving from place to place. He helped where he could and night was creeping in. It was getting colder outside. “Maybe I can help.”

[aggiemelwyn]

"Thank you." Efficient words left Aggie's mouth, as efficient as her hands dug into the dirt, disrupting the first of the crumbling stone where the vine drank from whatever moisture it held all these years. With any luck, she'd have stopped the destruction of the vegetable garden that sat on the other side of the short wall. "Reading about vines?" She hadn't fully looked up yet, gentle blade sifting through where the bulb had originally sat.

Dorothea was often happy in her own company, maybe it was why she read so much. Her escape. If she could find a moment without a guard, lady or her father, she would gladly go for a walk alone. The January air was cool but it felt fresh against her skin and she had found herself wandering amongst the greenery and smiled as she approached the other. “I was just looking,” she replied. “I had been reading about such things. I was curious but I am not brave enough to touch,” she said. “But yes.” She moved back her shoe, looking from a distance. 

[aggiemelwyn]

With breath through her nose, Aggie looked up from her place, knelt down by where her fingers felt for the root of the plant. "Sure, you could. Do you like this wall here?" More daring in tone than she intended, as gloved hand smacked to the stone of the wall, already crumbly with age. "Nice place to sit and all, until a vine turns to two, three, more maybe and suck out all the moisture. Then you and the wall will be quite close you see, since it will tumble over. Maybe right on you. So, yes," Her blunt blade reached the root of the plant, "I need to get it from the very bottom"

Nicholas stopped, his foot in the air as he was about to stamp the vine down. He wasn’t one for botany and had little interest in plants unless they were the kind he could eat. In another life, he had been a farmer. He moved his foot to the left. “You need a vine?” he asked, flipping a dagger in his hand. “Can’t you just… cut it back and we can be done here?”  

[aggiemelwyn]

That was an oddly long speech, but Aggie's limited experience with nobility, guardians, or anyone of that sort was pretty limited. Yet, it seemed to match what experience she did have. Still, her lips stayed tight until the speech was over. "The window pots, miss." Her eyes glanced down towards the basket of tools in her hands, held above her knee where thin skirts were already blemished with a rich color of dirt from kneeling in the gardens outside. She wasn't summoned to the palace often and found it unnecessarily tedious given the size of the grounds. Private clients at least listened on how to best care for their plants. But the word around was that Aggie Melwyn had a special 'touch' and who was she to deny the extra coin. "Seems they need some extra doing."

“The guardians have always kept their doors open to those in need”, her voice rand between the stones of the hall, speaking a simple half-truth. The guardians kept their doors open to those loyal to the king, willing to serve him. “But in the last days we have been forced to draw our attention elsewhere. So I fear that I will not have time for you, unless you bring news that are of use to me.” She turned away from the fireplace to face the visitor. “So what brings you to the palace today?”

[aggiemelwyn]

"Believe me, those vines are more likely to cut your boot than you are to crush it." Gloved hands pushed back on the prickly green rope that grew against the limestone. It would stuck the whole thing dry if she did not cut it from the root and seal the cracks. Aggie wondered if she'd need to make more wax as she pulled the blunt blade from her pocket, feeling towards the root. "Could you please move your boot away regardless." She did want the vine, of course, there would be use for it as long as the root came out gently with it. She could have coaxed it out more...organically by her own means, has someone else not been present. The plant was rough, rigid, and desperate to seek water where it could, if only she could have told it the garden was on the other side of the wall.

[aggiemelwyn]

Aggie Melwyn of Esselsea, by way of Bridgeford

full name: Aggie Melwyn age: 24 gender: cis female pronouns: She/her occupation or position: gardener (with wisewoman/witch background) birthplace: Esselsea by way of a Bridgeford family

Her mother was one of three sisters born in Bridgeford, children of a woodworker and wisewoman. Her father was born of no consequence, but learned his trade as an apprentice and eventually married one of the three daughters, Maren, in the woodworkers family.

Quick to be married and quick to be pregnant, quick to leave their rainy homeland for somewhere quiet by the sea, that was the story Aggie was brought up believing when she still had her parents.

She was Aggie, just Aggie. Not Agatha, Agnes, or Agnella. It was noted on the sea-salt stained record of her birth, the first Melwyn born in Esselsea. Water called to her more than anything. Maybe it was the ebb and flow between peace and violence as water hit the banks, and she liked the way the drops would blend in her hand or follow the command of her steps in damp earth.

Maren Melwyn watched. She saw there was something natural in her child's workings. There were even a few times where she saw a branch or two from the brush reach out and snag gently at the tips of Aggie's skirts.

So her mother did give her the family book with tips, tricks, tonics, and more to see where her child best excelled. It was rather a shock to see that their traditions and rules seemed to invoke something...less controlled under Aggie's whispered words.

"Practice" Maren said softly to her daughter.

This wasn't as intuitive as bending branches or commanding a few drops of water, Aggie felt her energy deplete pretty quickly and gave up on her family's tradition as her mother had taught.

There was no disappointment, maybe some relief instead to think her daughter would do better than selling cure-alls and wish-sticks. It was true, there was something stately in Aggie who wore her hair pulled back tight and interacted well with the few nobility that passed through their town every so often. Maybe she'd be a governess, live in a city.

It was a pleasant thought that Maren kept with her even as illness took over. She'd stayed too long in wet clothes and withered wistfully with her husband and child near her bedside.

Aggie tried the family book often during that time, looking for something that would pull the cold from her mother, fill her with warmth. But things sizzled, burned the edges of her robe, turned off shades until there wasn't any time left.

On their last day in Esselsea, Aggie held her family book over the flame swearing off the attempts for now. Her father felt it best too, there was no need to share Aggie's knowledge of the practice as they headed back to Bridgeford when she was sixteen to be with whatever family still remained.

It was there that Aggie learned just a little more about Maren's life before leaving. Of the sisters, only one remained, Mavis, the oldest of all. Aggie stayed in Mavis' home while her father returned to the woodworking trade and watched silently as Mavis had apparently continued on with her own version of the family book.

This book was different, less instruction and steps scribbled into tight lines on parchment. This was ideas and feelings, greenery and gold seemed to sprout from its edges if you looked at it too long.

Mavis caught on. "Your mother," she said "was a more by the book woman than myself or our sister." And that is when Mavis gave the story of the sister who entered the witchwood to Aggie.

She never spoke her name, as if its weight was to heavy to say. It was when her mother was newly pregnant with Aggie, that the third sister's impulsiveness drew her out. The loss was too much for Maren who took her husband and child away.

That's where Mavis left the story , perhaps fearing she'd told too much to someone too young. For the next few years of Aggie's life, she did no more than teach the girl her own brand of wise-workings. It seemed Aggie did excel in the very least, where plants were involved.

Tightly bound hair loosened, feeling most herself at dusk or dawn with dew drops touching her fingertips in the garden. It drew her when everything else said be confined. It drew her out so much that she often found herself walking east, far off her family's land where suddenly her breath would catch and she'd realize where she was going. Maybe it was fascination, or something else but Aggie couldn't cause more pain because she lacked control.

When she told her father and Mavis, it was decided they'd need to leave Bridgeford again. Her father would return to the property in Esselsea while arrangements were made for Aggie to take a job as a gardener in Fiellew.

She arrived, hair again bound tight. It was close enough to her mother's wishes for her. But Mavis had left something in the bottom of Aggie's satchel. Her own book, with the workings she's established best. Far away from Bridgeford, some magic here or there to help with her gardening work would really cause no harm.

Aggie used it sparingly, a little worried that something wild still might call her as things in the kingdom turned dark with the dissapearance of the King.

She kept her head down and the book tucked beneath her pillow. Only to find, what was intuitive to her now was not something she could place in ink to a page.

[aggiemelwyn]

baby, baby girl.

[aggiemelwyn]

ELLA HUNT FOR WONDERLAND

[aggiemelwyn]

Ella Hunt as Sue Gilbert in   DICKINSON | 3.09