#I love this list so much! flowers and fables are such a perfect match for me^^

[northssketchbook]

Flora in Fabula (OCtober list by the wonderful @fdevitart) 

1. Hero - Cichorium Intybus

[dashedwithromance]

what am i supposed to do (when there’s no you?)

kotc comes out next week!! i can’t believe it’s nearly here, and we get to see wrath and emilia again!! i haven’t written anything other than star wars for a while, but i hope this is okay. love you all xx

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Her reflection stared back at her, haunting eyes locked on with a frightened gaze. The mirror, her enemy. Strangely enough, not even the demon princes that stalked the wicked kingdom she found herself ruler of scared her quite as much as the mirror in her bathing chamber. Or the hand-held in the drawer of her bedside table. Or the impressive, gold-gilded monstrosity on her vanity.

She couldn’t bear to look at any of them.

Queen of Hell, and terrified of reflecting glass.

Her reflection haunted her more than any ghost, the flash of dark curls paired with a laugh she heard every day and would never hear again. The quirk of a smile that ached desperately, painted on her face like a mockery of the joy it once embodied.

Appearances were everything in the kingdom of the Wicked, but she couldn’t stand to see her own. It was a weakness she kept close to her heart, trapped inside with the abhorrent overflow of memories she treasured and banished with equal fervour.

Emilia stifled a groan and clenched her hands into fists. Her nails dug into her palms with a biting fury. She’d locked herself inside the first room she’d found, having sprinted from the main hall before she could realise how stupid her plan was. ‘Plan’ was a generous name, considering it consisted of one part panicked feeling, one part grief, and one very violent part of her that was growing scarily close to ‘accidentally’ committing mariticide.

It was the cherries that had set her off. They weren’t even real – fresh fruit was not a luxury one could indulge in Hell, nor would she have wanted to. She remembered stories of fallen maidens taking one bite of fruit from the hand of a prince and being confined to the underworld forever. Despite being queen, it was not a chance she was willing to take.

The cherries in question were metallic, made of gold and silver entwined around a candelabra. They seemed to glow in the low light, taunting her, reminding her of summers spent laughing with her twin, cherry-stained hands and salt-crusted hair. She’d taken one look at them, remembered what day it was, and burst from the room like a frightened bird. Not her best look, if she were truthful.

Memories weighed down on her chest like the pressing stones of witch trials past. More weight, she wanted to say. Take it off, let me breathe, she wanted to cry. Nothing helped.

Grief ebbed and flowed, but today it swelled like a rising tide. Suffocating her, pushing her under, dragging her down by the neck and laughing as she gasped and spluttered.

They’d never spent a birthday apart. It was unthinkable – it was always their birthday, their celebration, their matching celebration dresses. They’d grown out of matching outfits when they’d reached twelve, but the shared celebration never died.

Until Vittoria did.

Emilia closed her eyes, and the memories took firm hold.

Cherry stains dripped down their chins and fingers, sticky and sweet and full of the taste of home. Every summer they would eat themselves silly with the deep red stone fruit, egging each other on until the nearest adult intervened. For their seventh birthday, Emilia had dropped a bleeding cherry on Vittoria’s pretty dress, and her twin had mushed a handful against the fabric of her matching skirt. Emilia had shrieked, and Vittoria had laughed until her sister followed suit with a smile she couldn’t contain.  

A shriek of laughter pierced the late summer calm, its twin following half a second later. Two girls ran towards the sea, one leading the other by the hand. The bolder twin threw herself into the water with a wild grin and gestured for her sister to follow. Another half-second wait and the dark-haired girl flung herself into the sea with a peal of laughter.

That was the way things always were with her and Vittoria. Never apart for too long, until the cruel hand of death swooped in and plucked her sister from her grasp.

Something twinged in her chest. As if a part of her was missing, had been since the day she’d found her sister’s ruined body. Her first reaction, to everything really, had been anger – wrath, she thought with a stain of painful irony – but when the anger ebbed away, she was left with ocean darkened with the taint of things that would never be. She would never see her sister again, never spend hours together in the kitchen, laughing and teasing each other over the boys in the village. No one would ever understand her the way Vittoria did, no matter if she lived forever.

The curse of her grief was that she could never forget her sister’s face. She would know exactly how her sister would age, would know exactly when grey would frame her face, when laugh lines would appear. Mirrors were a cruel taunt; a living eulogy.

Looking up from the floor, staring past the haze of panic, she locked eyes with her twin. Her own wretched gaze stared back at her, tears welling in Vittoria’s eyes.

She looked away. She could bear it no longer.

The room she found herself in was ornately decorated; black silk with gilded gold, a serpent motif around the bed frame. The room felt familiar, and she desperately hoped she was wrong.

Snatching the luxuriously soft blanket from a nearby chair, she covered the mirror that sat on the vanity. The room, somehow, felt colder. Emptier.

Then, like a curse on her name, footsteps echoed from the hallway outside and stopped right before the door.

Drawing herself up, forcing all mention of weakness to leave her frame, she glared at the figure who strode right in.

Prince Wrath stood in the doorway, the gold detailing of his suit winking in the dim light. Emilia eyed up the ornamental vase on the table beside her and strongly considered throwing it at his head. For a moment, the world was consumed by silence.

Then, the smug bastard opened his mouth and broke it.

“Running away from your own party?”

She was going to throw the fucking vase right over his stupid face. He could tell every violent thought that raced through her mind – she just knew he could, the way his perfect lips quirked up ever so infuriatingly to one side – until he stopped. Looked at her. Looked to the mirror on his vanity, covered up by a stolen blanket. Looked back.

The smug look disappeared.

The room became ice. She felt naked standing there, his gaze seeing into the very marrow of her bones. Just when the tension became unbearable, she spun around, unable to look at him any longer. She couldn’t look at him any more than she could look at her own wretched reflection. Hellfire licked at her eyelids, stinging and hot.

What did he see when he looked at her, in that moment? She hoped it was queen-like, the picture of savage grace and hellish composure. It wasn’t.

“Emilia...” For the first time in, well, ever, Wrath struggled for words.

“Emilia, I’m sorry.”

The shock of his apology had her whirling around. His golden eyes held more sympathy than any demon should ever have known. Of all the demons in Hell to realise what today meant, of course, it would be Wrath. Insufferable, infuriating, ineffable Wrath, possibly the only person in the underground kingdom who understood her. Not like Vittoria did – no one would ever come close – but like a river understood the rushing tide.

He was a mystery, but also the only thing she knew. Wrapped up in a cloud of perfumed falsities, but the only one who told her the truth.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Could he hear it?

“I have never lost a brother, not like that. Nor am I as close to mine as you were to your sister.” The words were stilted, heavy and awkward. Wrath was not a man of words, but his tone was gentle. But, she noted with no small portion of surprise, the speech was genuine. She thought perhaps she was going mad.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a twin,” He paused, considering, “I’m sorry, for your loss.”

Another pause.

“And I’m sorry for the role my family – the role I – have played in your grief.”

Somewhere in his speech, she’d closed her eyes. She didn’t want him to see the tears, but he knew that. The heaviness of her chest was still present, but it was bearable, somehow.

She nodded, swallowing the cry that threatened to burst forward.

“Thank you,” She whispered, so quiet she wondered if he’d even heard.

The air between them was taut, stretched and thin. The strength she’d hid behind all day had fled long ago, and she felt so exhausted she might collapse. She didn’t think to consider the implications by sitting down on his stupidly large bed, only that her chest hurt and for just a moment, she wanted a friend.

Hesitantly – if a demon prince could hesitate – Wrath sat next to her on the bed. The sight is so comical she nearly laughed – Wrath, the brother of her husband, prince of the most dangerous sin, her friend, her enemy – perched on the side of his bed with an air of respectability she didn’t think he even possessed. Stranger things had happened, she supposed.

It was like a fable; demon and witch, sat side by side in silence. For hours, they barely spoke. The words didn’t matter – Wrath was terrible with them, and the ones she wanted got stuck in her throat. Neither of them noticed when midnight passed, and the worst day of the year was over.

Perhaps one day, she’d tell him stories of Vittoria. Tell him stories of cherries and salt air and limitless laughter, so he would know her as the bright, brilliant girl she was, and not the martyred corpse she’d become.

The next day, all the mirrors in her chambers were covered. There was no note, but there was a familiar vase full of orange blossom flowers on her bedside table.

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[analeoftwocities]

Book Read: Circe by Madeline Miller 

Beer Paired: Brasserie Dieu du Ciel Peche Mortel 

What We Love About The Book 

Confession: I am not the biggest fan of Greek Mythology. I’ve read very little, and as far as myths and fables go, I have always aired on the side of fairytales or other mythologies. Growing up, Greek mythology especially, felt so distant and untouchable; it is just not relatable. However, Madeline Miller’s newest novel Circe, changed all that.

This book started popping up all over social media a few months ago. It was on every Instagram account, every other book blog, and on top of every bestseller list. I’ll admit, the simple metallic cover, stylized like ancient Greek art, caught me, but so did the rave reviews it was getting. Not to mention a trip last year to many of the Greek islands peaked my interest more than I expected.

Fast-forward to me reading it so quickly, I instantly had to read it again, to better soak in the details and to completely appreciate its genius. This book is everything. It has everything. It is the Odyssey for a new world, a new generation. Miller takes a story everyone knows, a character we have only heard about as a catalyst for others, and turns it upside down. She creates a lifetime, millennia long, for this famous witch and gives her layers of complicated history. Shunned and lonely, powerful and naïve, we fall in love with a goddess that understands all the complexities of humanity and cannot grasp the fate of the gods. She is deep and relatable, real and so heartbreakingly understandable.

Ron Charles, in his review of Circe for The Washington Post accurately jokes that, “the archaeological evidence is sketchy, but the first pussy hat was probably knitted by Circe.” But, it’s not a joke. She empowers the idea that women can’t be silenced.Circe throws up her hair in braids, works to find her power, and when threatened by men, turns them into pigs. Miller has taken the misogynistic Odyssey passed, down through the ages, and rewritten it, as an intricate, sophisticated story that goes beyond its’ original bounds.

Miller’s ability and style only give power to this. Her absolute mastery language and poetry give life to these characters, and credit to her retelling. Chapter after chapter, line after line, I was dazzled with her beautiful prose. But beyond her words, her comprehension of the human spirit is harrowing. Her awareness and descriptions of loneliness, the need to fit in, love, the unbreakable spirit, and the sheer power of being oneself, are remarkable.

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as the stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”

“I looked at her, as vivid in my doorway as the moon in autumn sky. Her eyes held mine, gray and steady. It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.”

These are just a few of the endless passages that stayed with me.   Miller’s brilliant novel is beyond anything I have ever read. It is a comment on the human condition. A tale for our time, set in an ancient one. Everyone will be able to see themselves in Circe, in Daedalus, in Telegonus, in Odysseus, in Penelope, and in each character, with all their imperfections. Let it be a call to us all, we are not alone. To have flaws is to be human. To have understanding and compassion, anger and loneliness, are all side effects of this human condition that resides within each of us. Let us learn from Circe’s evaluation of humanity, and her willingness to understand and grow in that face of it.

“…It will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are the words you might speak to a child… He does not mean it does not hurt. He does not mean we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”

What We Love About the Beer 

Confession: I love Greek Mythology. Ever since my 6th grade learning unit on Greek Mythology, I have been hooked. Unlike Alexandra, the contents of this book drew me in, and I knew that we had to find a perfect match. For the book Circe, by Madeline Miller, we chose Peche Mortel from Brasserie Dieu du Ciel! Peche Mortel translates to “mortal sin”, and in the book Circe dreams of being mortal. She understands the delicate and often misunderstood differences between gods and mortals, and although she doesn’t experience it, seems to deeply understand mortality and all the good and bad it holds. Brasserie Dieu du Ciel translates to “brewery of the god of the sky”. I mean, are you kidding me? This beer truly couldn’t be anymore fitting for this book, and we picked it without translating either the name or the brewery! Let’s call that divine intervention. It’s a dark imperial stout brewed with espresso coffee, and if you know anything about Alexandra and I, you know we love coffee, especially of the espresso variety.

This beer gets better with age, much like Circe in the book, who truly comes into her own. As the book goes on, as she becomes a robust and complex character, and manifests both the rich and bitter colors that infuse this beer. Circe and Peche Mortel are both intense and dark. They are full of persistent flavors and long, lingering excitement. Seriously, both are so good. We got this beer from our local beer store, Astoria Bier & Cheese, which is located in, you guessed it, Astoria. Astoria is a heavily Greek influenced neighborhood of Queens. So, while we read this book and drank this beer, we were also able to tap into the endless Greek culture that surrounds us – a small dose of those faraway, mythic Greek islands. And, boy, did that feel right!

We hope you’ll check out this amazing book. It is truly a re-envisioning of the classic Greek epic, for today’s world. A dose of reality hidden in the mythical, that not only understands humanity and its faults, but allows us, through Circe, to work through them. So, grab a Peche Mortel and see for you self!

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                                                  CHEERS, ALEXANDRA & CHRIS